SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello. Hi Charles.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Yo.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Good to uh good to have you here. Um, welcome to the Future Ventures podcast, Scaling with Clarity. Today we have a friend of the pod, Charles Cormy. He's a serial entrepreneur, many times founder, um, ultra athlete, and and a dynamo when it comes to goal to market and raising capital. So super excited to have you on and talk about um your story, kind of like where you're coming from. How do you view the industry? Because one of the provocative statements that you have is that raising capital is not about relationship anymore, it's about how many shots and goals can you have.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yes, um, yes, it's a it's a somewhat accurate statement because there's still a part of it that is relational, right? And even in go-to-market or uh when AGI hits, you're still gonna need relations, right? Like that's actually gonna be a moat um to double down on these human uh relationships. I'm saying it's more about systems, right? And uh creating systems that will constantly yield data and potential uh capital, right? Like um, my full life is based on systems and and why systems because it's energy efficient, right? Like my first principle is energy efficiency. Um, why? Because it's that's how you survive, it's not by making wrong moves that yield very little, right? And us humans were still surviving uh less than uh millennials before, but still in the business sense of things, we're in a very competitive market. So your goal is to make a move um that will yield as much possible in um in return of the lowest energy expenditures, and these are called systems, right? So cold email I found was incredibly effective at raising capital at scale. You just click a button, you add contacts, and then you have leads and interest in what you do. Of course, if you have a list of potential uh contacts and relationships of yours, you can also reach uh them via cold email. But the thing is, like Max, you've been in business for like many decades now. Most people don't have a network, right? Like even myself, um, guy that's pretty ambitious, pretty smart, never really had uh a large network of people. So I feel it's that's like a luxury, right? And most people didn't even have mentors. I had the luxury to have a mentor back then. So the goal is to create a system called email, right? That will yield uh a greater network and potential capital. So the greater network part of it can be a podcast, right? Like right now we're on a podcast. Uh, and for raising capital, it's like, hey, I found uh that you could be a potential great investor for me. Uh, here's my deck, right? Um, and yeah, that's uh that I found has been incredibly uh efficient. It is complex, nothing's easy in this life, but this is the most easy out of all the hard moves uh possible to raise capital fast. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Oh, I mean, I I couldn't agree more. A lot of people um have this preconceived notion that like just because they have a great idea, people should fund them. And I'm like, no, that doesn't work like that. And so uh what we are finding across in in the work that we do on the capital advisory site is like number one, it's uh having clarity around the valuation, having an honest valuation. Number two, having documentation source equity story that actually grabs attention. And number three, to your point, um having a system that takes as many shots on go as possible because um investors get bombarded, and a lot of people um just think that it's easy. That you get a list, you bloat it in Apollo, and blitz it out, and that should get you like meetings, and it doesn't work like that at all. At least I haven't found it to be the case. It's uh it's it's a lot of hard work. You like it's like everything. Like a lot of people would say, Well, um, I can just use ChatGPD for it or Claude. I'm like, Yeah, go for it, like go for it. Uh, yes, it can do a lot of amazing things, but at the end of the day, the mastery is in the hands of the person that knows how to use the tool.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, it's a lot of intellectual work, right? Like uh thinking, and that that's why you know top human minds won't disappear even when AGI hits. Yeah, um, we have very nice computers up there, you know, like brainware is liquid where and we tend to have insights out of nowhere, right? Like um, you're on this walk, you're on this run, and oh uh, I need to do this. That's clarity. Clarity uh is biochemical, you know. Like my first lens are energy efficiency, but my second lens, I would say from first principles is biochemistry, right? Uh, insights are biochemical, right? Like dopamine, serotonin, less cortisol. Um, and that requires lots of systems, right? Like a run is is one, a sauna is another to get like these insights as per what may work, right? Like these insights look like they come from nowhere, but there's also actual systems behind that. And investor fit is incredibly complex. It requires you to put yourself as a founder in their shoes and see like what's their thesis, how you can be useful, right? It's more than a check being cut most of the time. There's extra value and extra reason why they invest. Sometimes it might be a hard-centered one, right? If it's you know it, like uh you and I we work on uh biotech lines, health tech lines. Well, sometimes invest invest because a close one died of cancer, right? Like and stuff like that. So for sure, this kind of stuff, this kind of genius is is where uh you need to put your founder brain at work and then try to find it. And how do you get all these data pieces? Well, it's by sending emails, getting feedback from these emails, but also getting people on a podcast, asking them questions, and from all this data, try to crunch it in a better way, compress that information to eventually have insights which you can act in. And again, the cycle never stops, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Well, I mean, I think that the cycle is probably the most important element in terms of building a system that continuously enriches so every conversation leads to another conversation, every piece of data gets appended to the overall body of knowledge, and just like the more conversations, the more outreach you have, the more precise you become.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And so, what other so obviously, you're a big proponent of of code email outreach. Like, what other hacks can scale a founders employ in terms of growing and scaling their companies? I mean, from my perspective, it's always, always like a lot of people fall in love with the idea that like they're gonna go and raise capital. And to me, it's it's it's it is an event, it's not the event. I would rather have a founder that has uh uh uh signed like a massive contract and now they double their revenue, they went from five to ten million dollars, or or they have a massive pipeline that just like full, full, full to the brim in terms of opportunities that they're qualifying. Um, what what when you're thinking about your ecosystem of systems, what what are the tools in your system that that drive that revenue?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah, the thing is, and as you know, right, like it's all about a business being investable. If we start from like first principle, you can't put like lipstick on a pig, right? Yeah, uh, you need to have traction, you need to have revenue, you need to have numbers. That's why if or clients cannot raise with their service at Raz Rocket, then we can just uh have them try uh GTM, right? From GTM Ventures and help them get revenue, get leads, get product market fit before you raise. So as you know, again, you we're not in the same market as we were like two, three years ago, right? When you could like raise on pure hype. Oh shit, AI is gonna be gigantic, and it AI is gigantic, but it's not because AI is gonna change a bunch of things that your specific startup idea is gonna pan out, it operates in another system, which is the market. The market's incredibly complex, subways super hard to predict if something's gonna pan out or not. So, yeah, revenue, top founders, right? Like product market founder fit. Um, I think is essential. Where I see that most uh fuck up, I guess, like a uh specific insight would be like pitch deck. Uh you okay second me on that. Like, there's so many boring pitch decks out there with no data that um give zero reason to the investor to actually invest, right? So I think one of the first lines of defense as uh guys that help in fundraising is like looking at that deck and giving them feedback. Um, another one, shout out to my show that I launched that you're gonna be a judge on, Max. It's a spark tank, sparktankshow.com. Uh, it's a great way to get feedback very quickly from a bunch of top VCs, right? So I think it's like getting this data in because, like you said, a lot of people dream about fundraising, but fundraising is not even a victory. I mean, it is, but it's like you need to run a profitable business at the end of the day. These are the the first principles, right? And I agree. A lot of founders they just live on vibes, you know, and fabulation, just yeah, I'm important. Look at my background and um how much money you raise conditions, right? Like that doesn't scale. Like, if I'm an investor, if I'm gonna invest in you, I need fucking numbers, else, you know, it's just gonna skip and on to the next one because these guys they get like 100 pitches a day.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Oh, I agree, I agree. And and for me, this is this is key. Um, I think that the the story the story can be very, very sexy and very attractive if you have an investable company, and so a lot of people focus on getting a pretty pitch deck, but pretty pitch deck doesn't mean an investable company. To me, it's like if you start with a financial model and you essentially you your message just translates to the to the deck. And so if you have something that's really compelling that that demonstrate to the investor that they can have a significant upside with controlled or manageable risk profile, you're more than likely to get money. But if you have a story that just built on hype without any kind of indication where the revenue is gonna come, how soon the revenue is gonna come, it's uh, or how big the opportunity is, it's unlikely that you're gonna get money.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

There you go. The podcast, Max. Uh, what do you think about it? The podcast angle.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I absolutely love it. Um, for me, it's been phenomenal. We launched the podcast a little over a week ago. We've done three interviews all over the world, uh, Denmark, um, the US. Um, and the third one was here in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

We have a legend funnel though.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Oh, it it it oh, it's been it's been good. Uh, we haven't this hasn't really converted yet to for us in terms of opportunities, but we're really early, right? Like we've been uh about a week in a saddle. Um massive credibility signal because now we're talking to our friends who are investors, and so that's it's sending signal to the market. Um, founders are coming on. I just I find that it's opening up opportunity. If if there's uh more of a lagging indicator, now I see the number of LinkedIn invites that they're coming in in my inbox, and I'm like, if if nothing else, there's more people outreaching, like people even sending uh inquiries through our web form. So I think it's common. Uh, but but to your point, Charles, people expect instant results. Um, it just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Um, one of the things why do they get in the game though? If they expect instant results, I know, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

One one stat that's uh that that that they came across that absolutely shocked me is that most podcasts die after seven episodes, and so I actually had two investors reach out and say, um, our policy internal policies, we don't come on a podcast until we have at least six episodes. I'm like six episodes. So this is kind of what prompted me to uh to look into the status to why six.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, the the thing is from the investor perspective, even that is second-level thinking. Because even if the podcast doesn't last, what do we care? The podcast is there on the internet and forever searchable. So, why would they refuse a podcast? So that's like typical low-level thinking that we sometimes see it in VCs, right? It's like, oh, your thought didn't reach the the full bottom there. You just go with like first order consequences and you don't think deeper. Um, because for example, the yeah, the podcast, for example, as you know, I have a podcast, uh network of podcasters that interview founders. Yeah, and every time we interview a founder more than three times, which we do because there's more than 10. Uh, when people are gonna Google your name, it's gonna be the podcast that's gonna pop. That's huge, you know, for credibility and NPR, like you said. Um, most podcasts they die out, it's easy, it's like human nature, right? Like uh, these people aren't made for that shit, and yeah, they just think very shallowly. It's like, oh, podcasts, I'm gonna be the next Joe Rogan, you know. Probably not. Um, and actually, you don't do a podcast to get views and to get famous, you do it to interview people to get data, and eventually to pitch and sell them. Like that's that's what people miss, you know. Like it's typical human thinking that uh don't spend a lot of time developing these brain cells. Um what we do at PodPyre, for example, is uh is one lead gen, but another one aspect that we're doing for RasRock is like to raise capital, right? So you interview a VC that normally would give you zero minutes of their time that is a good fit to invest in your company, right? And you give them the podcast excuse to see them. So normally they wouldn't like give any fucks about you or your company, even if they see your decks. So I think that's that's kind of genius. And I think that generally, as a founder, one, if you get in the game, it's to stay in it, right? It's not something you're gonna try because your cousin did it and he looks so cool, right? In his uh red Lambo that he rented on uh on Instagram, yeah. And two, entrepreneurship is the best intellectual game, right? So me, I've always been a nerd, I've always been an intellectual, and my outlet is entrepreneurship, it's uh something I can use to test out ideas and to grow my brain and to grow my philosophies and to understand the world better, right? So if you get in the in the game, one it's to stay, and two think deeper, right? Like it no one common ever succeeded at business. Like you need to be a freak, you need to go where no one actually went, you know, and that's that's some quick advice there.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

If people need it or want it, I mean the key for me is like uh people have to have that systems thinking, people have to have the first principles thinking, people have to think about how do I lay the foundation, what are the paving stones that they need to put in place. I mean, you and I have firm believers on the podcast as a mechanism to to you know feed our intellectual curiosities, the lead generation, is a relationship warmer, all of this. But a lot of people are thinking more like, well, more transactional deal-based, like, okay, I do this, I expect a deal. And to me, it it may come, it this may be serendipitous, and it you may uh come across that the first time you're talking to somebody, this can convert into a deal, but for the most part, you dare to build reputation, to build uh a lead funnel, to build an engine that supports the things that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, I think uh even if there's no direct transaction anytime soon, the data that you get from it, if you put it to action, you can get money out of it. That's a big thing that a lot of of people miss, right? And yeah, for you and I, like nerds like us, yeah, books, okay. Books, we've read all of these fucking books. Yeah, GPT is nice as well, but if you talk to elite one percent humans, which are not gonna disappear even with AGI, I think that's where the the top insights uh are manifested, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, so Charles, what are some of the ways that founders get in their way in terms of like they're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, like you know, like where they're not focusing on the big opportunities that exist, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Well, it's a bit interesting, right? Because I can try to think from my end and I can try to think from my clients' perspective. And yes, my clients uh and I think a lot alike. I think one, you don't need to be raising, right? Like uh raising is not a prerequisite, like go to market should be the priority, and I think nowadays, yeah, like people think wrongly. Let's take that angle, right? Like, I I think one of my main things nowadays is uh AGI and the fact that it will happen um a hundred percent. I I think people underestimate uh AGI, do not understand AI enough, and that's a fundamental sin to not be studying it because it won't happen and it will change pretty much everything, right? It's like a one-sided type of door. So I think it's like deeper than using AI, but like studying AI and asking questions and trying to make sense of this future, which is ultimately what us humans were the best at, right? Like making predictions. AI is still not super good about it, but at least using AI as a tool to map out what the future could look like. Because in my own research and opinion, um, AGI is probably gonna happen the next couple of years and it's gonna slash most of jobs, it's also gonna slash most of businesses, right? Because most businesses are rapper. So, where does that leave you, right? Like, do you have the skills to survive AGI? I know this is not like super short-term actionable, but I think it's a fundamental breaking point and bottleneck because we're gonna get there, right? So, I would urge people to to study a bit more and and try to make predictions, especially in your industry of how AI AGI is gonna happen and influence pretty much everything because we're about to hit the agentic age right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Um, we have already hit it.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Like, I mean, everything I mean, yeah, yeah, but it's not fully like spread and redistributed, right? We have cloud co-worked, uh, we have cloud uh code and so forth, but it's not like agents are fucking running businesses or your businesses are mine, right? Maybe they're running five, ten percent of it, like most of it is still uh human work, right? So, and yeah, obviously there's a compounding effect in studying AI and trying these agentic tools, right? It's gonna add value to your business. So, yeah, but I I would fundamentally urge people to study that because I I quizzed over like a thousand or uh two thousand entrepreneurslash founders about AGI. Most are still dismissing it, right? And I only one percent, yes, only one percent uh have accurate views. I had one of these guys, you're probably one of these guys, Max, but I have a I had a guy that filled out my podcast response this week, and I was like, Yeah, this guy, this guy gets it, he gets what will happen. Um, and yeah, most don't.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

I mean, it was 1989 when I took my first coding class, and at that time the the the the the the prof that they had. Um, I was I was just finishing uh middle school. Um she was working on machine learning and AI back in then, 1989. And so I mean if you look at kind of like what what has happened since uh I have an orchestrator in my company, we have a series of agents, they're executing tasks, some tasks just on a loop. Like, there's no reason why you can't do this. And I mean, AI is moving at such a pace that we're not even talking years, we're not even talking months, we're talking about weeks in some cases, it's days between like cloud dropping a new release in terms of what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, it's insane. Um, I'm just eager to see like all of these technology come to fruition, right? And just see like um, yeah, agents running my business, right? Like running like almost uh all functions. But I with some research that I did, like GTM is gonna be one of the first things that's gonna be replaced. Us humans, we're gonna be the bottleneck, right? Of these businesses, so we're gonna be closers of sales, we're gonna be closers of capital, right? Accepting checks, we're gonna define our values, right? And we're gonna orchestrate a bunch of agents and systems. I think people optimizing for that and not manual fucking things is like probably 95 of what we do, right? Uh are gonna survive. And yeah, if you observe, try to observe yourself as a founder. Like, uh, I think self-consciousness is a rare trait. Try to observe yourself, what you do, how you think, and ask yourself the question could an agent do that? Yeah, and then you'll find out that 95% of the time the answer is yes. Um, and then you need to reinvent yourself, right? Like being uncomfortable, and that's painful, right? Like grit and and like new thoughts and new zones that you haven't explored before. So, yeah, mental resilience and for. to choose something I'm gigantic on.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

100%. 100% people have to be a high agency. And and the key principle that I give um to other other founders or other people that I talk to is if it can be done on the computer, it can be done with technology. So like the human is incidental incidental in that case. So it's like find the things that require some of this like grain matter that's uh that's irreplaceable by by a machine at least not for the moment.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Anyways uh Charles you've been phenomenally uh insightful uh wanted to thank you I know they have to run to another meeting um if people want to follow you if people want to get in touch with you what's the best way CharlesCourmique uh.com and I also have uh razrocket.com with two a's that's where I help founders raise capital thanks max uh honored to uh to restart the machine here you and I uh I foresee great stuff for both of us amazing amazing thanks Charles good to have you in the pot cheers