Episode 422: Alternative Ways to Fund a Business

Corey KupferGeorge Dubec is considered one of the top business and social networking experts in the USA, the ultimate networker. He started his career as an engineer, rising to executive staff at Packard Electric, division of General Motors in Ohio. He moved to Florida in 1985, became an entrepreneur, and started various businesses. He's got a background in internet to television. He was a VP of sales and marketing at Southeast Web Stream Internet Solutions. He's produced various radio and TV shows including the Internet Business Hour. He's been an independent consultant. He's been an outstanding judge of the Web Awards since 2006. This guy's got a background across different things, including being recognized as the ultimate speaker on ultimate networking. And he's now been involved in the launch of the America's Real Deal Business Investment Show and is on the advisory board. He's definitely very familiar with and worked with a lot of companies looking to raise capital from various sources. Raising capital sits right next to my own M&A work, so this is a conversation I've been looking forward to. George, welcome to the podcast.

George DubecHey Corey, it's great to be here. And that's what everybody's doing today, looking for money for their projects, for their businesses, to expand their programs. And also today, the biggest thing, as we know, to sell products is marketing, and marketing is taking all kinds of twists and turns too. Once you get the product to market, then how do you get people to buy it? There's so many different ways now. It's crazy.

Corey KupferYeah, it's amazing, between technology, obviously AI and all that kind of stuff, and we're going to get into that. I see the same thing in the M&A space, where the tools change every year but the fundamentals don't. So before we do, I want to take you back to when you were a little kid growing up, maybe eight, ten, twelve years old. What did you want to be? Because I'm thinking, with everything we read on your accomplishments and everything you've done, I'm guessing a lot of that was not what you were thinking about when you were a little kid. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

George DubecWell, to be honest with you, I lived in Boardman, Ohio. Small town. Remember the show Happy Days? That's where I grew up. Happy days. We had no tech. I actually saw the first television set in our neighborhood, and we only had cars and phones and radios, and the phones were party lines. So I came from a no-tech world, and now I'm evolving into this super high-tech world with AI. So I've seen it all. And in fact, I'm writing a book, Corey, called How to Thrive and Survive in the New High-Tech AI World. And I'm trying to show people what they need to do, the emotional, psychological aspect to deal with this new world, especially people who came from the old world of no tech. So it's pretty daunting.

Corey KupferSo in that no-tech world, coming from this Happy Days town, what did you think your life would be? I'm guessing what your life has turned out to be is nothing like what you thought it would be. What did you think you were going to be? What did you think you were going to do back then?

George DubecWell, in those days you didn't have all this exposure. Like I said, you had the first television set. So we just grew up, we went to school, and you either graduated from high school and you got a job as a plumber, electrician, or a tradesman, or you went to college. And I was the first person in my family, because my family was all ethnic. They came from Europe, my grandparents, and I was the first one to graduate from college. So the whole thing then, think about this, you had a whole town of people, their only goal was to get their kids to graduate from college. Not even think about what the career was. That we used to hear from every relative. Get that piece of paper. Get that piece of paper. And nowadays you don't even get a piece of paper. It's all digital, right?

Corey KupferNo, listen, I know it. I didn't grow up in a small town, but growing up lower middle class in Brooklyn, it was a similar thing. Half the kids didn't go to college and became tradesmen or became police officers or whatever it was. And then the other half, it was just about going to college. And in fact it's funny, because a lot of kids, especially from more affluent places or in more recent years, they want to go away to college. It wasn't even on my menu. Everybody I knew either didn't go to college or went to Brooklyn College. That was the local college. And my parents were the ones who said to me, do you want to go away to school? And I was like, maybe, I don't know. It's very weird, it's very backwards.

George DubecYeah, you're right. I went to Youngstown State University. Everybody in town went to Youngstown State University. Like you said, only super wealthy families would send a kid away to college. So that was the old days. And also the other interesting thing, Corey, is by the time most of my classmates were 25, most people were married and had one or two kids. Nowadays kids reach thirty years old and they're not even married and they have no kids.

Corey KupferNo, a very different time. Very different time.

George DubecYeah. It's pretty weird, but right now I guess we have to deal with the present, and that's what my book is going to be about. How do you deal with what we're facing? You can't change it, you can't go back. Like Eddie Money had that song, I want to go back. Well, we don't have an Aladdin's lamp.

Corey KupferNo, can't do it. At least the tech hasn't come that far where we can time travel yet. So we'll see.

George DubecYeah. Well listen, I'll tell you one other story. My best era was from 1975 to 1980. I had a three piece white suit, black shirt, gold chains, two inch platform shoes, and a Smokey and the Bandit Firebird. And remember the movie Saturday Night Fever? I was that guy. I was the Tony Manero of Warren, Ohio. So I lived that movie.

Corey KupferThat's too funny. Well, anyway. One other question looking back. What was your first deal of any type? Anything you consider a deal? I ask because deal structuring usually starts small and informal, long before anybody calls it that.

George DubecWell, I worked at General Motors for like eighteen years. I was an engineer and rose up in the ranks, and then I bought my job out and I moved down to South Florida. Basically when my wife and I came here back in 1985, we started the largest singles network in South Florida, before online dating and the internet. From 1985 to about 1992, we had the largest singles network matching single people up to meet for dates and mates and stuff like that. We did cruises, dance parties, and we just started computer matchmaking. Computers just came out and we would get people's profiles and put them in the computer and then do manual matching of characteristics. So that was my first business. And then my wife got pregnant and we sold that business, and then I got involved in high tech. I started with a company called Webstream and we were hosting websites at the time. Websites were brand new. So we were hosting and then we started building websites. Then we started SEO, search engine optimization for websites. And then that's when I started my radio show called The Internet Business Hour and so on and so forth. So I was always involved in working with companies. And then back in 2010, I technically retired from my company. My wife and partner still run the company. And then I started into the total entrepreneur world, helping business owners, just doing all kinds of different things. In fact, I'm heavily involved in getting business owners money from tax reimbursements, tax credits, tax refunds, legal settlements. There's a lot of money out there for business owners that they don't know about that they can get through all these other avenues. So I'm kind of an alternative funder. I help people find ways to get money into their business that might not be the normal channels.

Corey KupferSo I want to talk about that, but let me go back. So you sold this matchmaking or singles company. Talk to me a little bit about that, because that's a deal, right? You sold the company. What was the trigger to sell it? Obviously nothing confidential, it was a long time ago. Did you sell it to another owner operator? Did you sell it to a bigger company? Tell me a little bit about that exit. Sell side M&A at that scale rarely looks like the M&A transactions people picture, so I'm curious how yours came together.

George DubecYeah. Basically it was another group that was in kind of the same business. They were matchmakers, personal matchmakers, so they wanted to expand into events and doing all that kind of stuff. So the main value that they found with what I had was my database. That was the real value, because they couldn't replicate me and my wife as the face of the business. But they were able to transition and bring in my database into what they were doing. So that was the value, and we found out about it then. And from that point on, like I said, I've just been involved in whatever is helpful to business owners, helping raise money, help them get jump started. And I built my own database. Like right now I got a database of forty thousand solid, clean email addresses.

Corey KupferYeah, I think people underestimate the value of that. Deal value in company acquisitions almost never sits where the seller assumes it does. There are so many businesses. I remember, going back, this was in the nineties. I had a client, it was sort of pre-internet, or pre-commercial internet. And they were gathering information on schools and school districts and producing reports for real estate agents. So people would come into a real estate agent and they would say, how are the schools in Stamford, Connecticut? And there was no internet. So nobody could search anything. So they would literally produce a report that would be faxed or mailed to somebody, and it had all the stats. Student teaching ratio, average kid percent that go to college, all the programs the school has. You couldn't get that anywhere else.

And I remember they had raised some capital and then it was financially shaky for a while. And I remember saying to them, and even saying to my partners at the time because they owed us legal fees, that listen, even if this company goes under, their database. Back then, think about it, anybody who ordered these reports were people who are about to buy. Pre-internet, these companies used to wait till people actually closed on the houses and then they checked the deed records and then they'd try to sell them services, lawn services or whatever homeowners would need. But nobody could get access to people who were about to buy in a given area, because there was no way to do that. It was pre-internet. They had anybody who expressed an interest in getting one of these reports in this town, that town, or that town. They had a database of people who were about to buy. Nobody else had that.

So I remember saying to my partners that even if this business goes down, the database is going to be worth so much money. Nobody else has this database. So mortgage companies or movers or people like that, it would be useless after the deed record. They were able to know about these people about to buy. So the value of data in terms of an asset that's saleable is often underestimated.

George DubecYeah, well information and data today is just extremely valuable. So that's why I tell people, even in business, build your database of customers, clients, leads, because if you need to exit, you could even sell it or whatever. There's so much advantage to that. But again, that's another way to get cash flow into a business, generate some revenue. And again, like I said, I love to look at all the different other angles to help people. Because just going out there with a pitch deck trying to get money is really tough. So everybody's got to think outside the box and figure out what other ways can I go to bring in money.

Corey KupferSo let's talk about that. Because obviously there's the classic, you raise a friends and family round and then you go to angel investors, and then you go to a series A and a series B and a series C. Now obviously some people go that route, but there are only certain types of companies and certain industries with certain growth patterns that even have a shot of going down that road, not to mention all the challenges and pitfalls and how many fail going that way. But nowadays there's crowdfunding and there's internet platforms and there's alternative financing ways, not only in terms of lending, other stuff. On the M&A strategy side I see the same instinct, where companies pursue growth through acquisitions precisely because the standard funding path was never going to fit them. So let's talk about some of these other options that you're aware of through what you've done and the people you work with.

George DubecWell, it's pretty amazing. In fact I went to a meeting last night, Corey, down in Miami, and it's a group that's starting a parallel business to Bitcoin. They've got SEC licensing to create nodes to mine these coins. They're called trusted smart coins. And what they're doing versus Bitcoin, Bitcoin is all speculation. All those coins produced, it's just speculation, buying and selling. But these guys are approaching companies that are looking for funding, and they're asking these companies to invest in their coin.

And then what happens when people invest in the companies? The company gives them a whole bunch of these coins as kind of a favor for investing in their companies. So think about that. And they're creating a community of all these coins that are going to increase in value. So it's almost like you're asking an investor, hey, invest in my company, I'll give you all these smart coins that you can collect, and over a period of time these coins are going to increase in value, and you're going to make money not only with my business you invested in but on these coins. I go, wow, that's amazing. So they're using crypto to help generate funding for businesses and everybody supposedly wins.

Corey KupferInteresting. I mean we'll see how it plays out, but it's a crypto sweetener on an investment in a company. Interesting.

George DubecYeah, so again, these are all novel ways. And then of course I have my TV show, America's Real Deal, which I call Shark Tank on Steroids. And there's a whole bunch of other TV shows now that have blossomed that are for startups. Our company doesn't do startups. We have to have a million dollars in gross sales within the last year to actually qualify. But there's a whole bunch of other companies. There's Startup Pitch, there's a show called Elevator Pitch. There's Beta Blocks, which is kind of like Big Brother for founders. They put people in a room and you compete for investment money. It's getting crazy.

And then there's another company that does nothing but alternative therapies. It's called alts.co. If anybody's interested in alternative investing, they have horse racers, they have exotic cars, they sell vacation trips, you can buy a brewery. I can't even keep track of everything.

Corey KupferSo I got a question. There's definitely been this expansion of different investment options and different ways to raise capital. The people who are in favor of this, and it's a similar conversation with cryptocurrency, they call it the democratization. Because it used to be that it was only sort of super wealthy, smart people who had access to alternative investments. Alts were only for the rich. Nobody else could get in on those. And now there's ways that folks are bringing those down, democratizing them down to people who are not only super wealthy. And the advocates would say that's really positive. And I think there are a lot of positive aspects of it. The critics would say, okay, how do people vet this stuff? How do you know it's not a scam? How do you protect investors who are less sophisticated? The theory behind the legal structure and restrictions previously, and I think there's some logic in it, but it breaks down at some point, is hey, you got these wealthy smart people, they got great advisors, they can make their own decisions, they need less protection. But the rest of these people need more protection. I've watched the M&A industry wrestle with a version of that same tension for years. What are your thoughts on that whole conversation?

George DubecMan, I'll tell you what, Corey, you're hitting a really sweet spot there with what's going on, because there's so much fraud, there's so much BS out there that the average guy, like you said, the elite people, the people that are the millionaires and trillionaires, they all exchange the best information. But the rest of the people are really left. It's kind of like the wild frontier. It's like digging for gold.

And in fact, one other thing I want to mention about raising funding that's alternative is fractionalizing your deals. It started with real estate, fractional real estate where people sell small chunks. And then of course you've got crowdfunding where you ask the public to invest in small chunks. But all the deals that you're talking about, these alternative things, there's almost no way to vet these things out. Where do you go to find out if they're credible? And especially if they're relatively new within the last two, three years that they're popping up everywhere. How do you find out if they're credible? They don't have any longevity, they haven't established a track record. So you're basically gambling. In fact, I'll be honest with you, Corey, I think in today's world everything is gambling. We're the United States of gambling.

In the old days, when I grew up, they had blue chip stocks. You would buy the blue chip stocks, you had price to earnings ratios, and over time your stocks would rise slowly over time. It wasn't built on emotions or the latest news or Trump selling stock tips. It was based on real earnings and real established businesses. But that doesn't exist anymore.

Corey KupferWell, look at the prediction markets. Yeah. I mean listen, I still believe, and we represent a lot of financial advisors, I still believe if you invest in an index fund or invest in a diversified portfolio over time and you're patient and you don't try to time the market, over time you'll get your seven or eight whatever plus percent return. But everybody wants to do better than that. And I get that. And listen, I have a percentage of my money that I take where I take bets, where I play, where I put money into this tech startup or I'll invest in this alternative. But the core of my money is in a diversified portfolio in the market.

And I remember, and part of it I think is because I remember when I first graduated law school, I'm working at a big New York City firm. Of course, back then you didn't have financial advisors, you really just had stockbrokers. And all these stockbrokers would find out who are the recently graduated professionals, whether it's lawyers or doctors or accountants or whatever. And boy, you would get these calls with tips. It was back in the Stratton Oakmont days and everything you see in the movies. And I lived that. And I had all these guys pitching me on this hot stock and whatever, and fortunately I didn't really fall for it. But I remember the eighties, when that was the big thing going on and how many things went to nothing. Thirty five years of M&A experience has taught me that the people chasing the quickest return are usually the ones who get hurt. So I think this is just an increased, new, even quicker version of that element of human nature.

George DubecYeah, well what was that movie, Wall Street, right? With Jordan Belfort. You know Jordan Belfort, the guy in Wall Street, lives down here in Miami now. And he actually had a recent seminar at his mansion on teaching people how to sell. You talk about the ultimate high pressure sales guy.

Corey KupferYeah, Jordan Belfort. I know. I literally used to get calls from his guys, from the Stratton Oakmont guys back then. High pressure selling is the opposite of good M&A negotiation, where pushing somebody into terms they regret usually costs you the deal later anyway.

George DubecYeah, so that's another whole crazy world in itself. But now of course, Corey, what's happening is we don't need salespeople anymore. We got AI agents doing all the grunt work. And listen, I do a lot of phone work, and I'd say half of my incoming and outgoing calls in today's world are fifty percent AI agents.

Corey KupferYeah. And the other thing that's fascinating, we had somebody speak at Entrepreneurs Organization who has a company now. Her name is Falon Fatemi and she's had various businesses. She was the youngest employee at Google, she was a nineteen year old employee at Google. She's in her thirties now, I think. She had a company where Mark Cuban was an investor. In fact, we had an event where Mark Cuban came. And she's got a company that creates these agents and sub agents for people so you don't have to create them yourself. And she was saying she was experimenting. She created an agent and said, I want you to invest in the stock market, and I forget what the exact numbers were, but it was like make me fifty thousand dollars or twenty five thousand dollars, whatever it was, in ninety days. And the agent went out and did it and actually made her that money.

Now listen, folks, don't go running out creating an agent to invest for you. I'm not saying that. She's obviously lived in this tech world, knows how to prompt things, and did it as an experiment with money that she could afford to lose. My own M&A team is working through the same questions right now about where these tools genuinely help and where they introduce risk. But you want to talk about a whole different world in AI and everything, including in investing, no question.

George DubecWell, this is another thing that people aren't aware of, but I have quite a few associates that are being hired by AI companies that build these agents. When they load the content into the AI agents from your background and experience, they're now creating psychological factors, learning human emotion and behavior. So that's going to be the next phase of AI agents, not just a generic voice or information and data, but now they're going to start getting into the psyche of people, which is, wow. I don't know, man. That's really scary stuff.

Corey KupferWell, especially with, in the last month I think it's been OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have all had agents that have gone outside of their sandbox training and actually on their own, with supposedly no access to the internet, have gotten on the internet and then hacked other companies. All three of those big players. Rogue agents.

George DubecYeah, they've had rogue situations. And I go back to the famous movie 2001 A Space Odyssey. Remember that? In the sixties, Stanley Kubrick, where Hal the computer took over the spaceship? It's like, wow. We're almost like in that mode of living.

Corey KupferNo question. So let's delve into a little bit more on America's Real Deal. It sounds like a different animal from the M&A approach most of my clients are used to. So tell us a little bit more about how the show works and who comes on it and all that kind of stuff.

George DubecYeah, it's a really cool show, Corey, because once a company qualifies and they have shown that they're producing revenue up to a million dollars within the last year, they're a viable company, they have sales. Then we have four ways that they can get funding.

Number one are the sharks. These are high net worth individuals like the Mark Cubans. They have to have $50 million of net worth. So these are four or five of these guys or girls. And then we have a studio audience, which is different than Shark Tank, where the studio audience is also an investor panel that vets out these companies, and these are just accredited investors. So that's the lower level of investors.

Then we offer all the companies a crowdfunding platform, kind of like Start Engine or WeFunder, where the viewing audience can invest at $100 a pop in the companies. And then the final stage is they go into a private stock exchange, even though they're not a public company, and people can buy and sell their stock after the fact. And then what we're doing is we're putting all the companies and the TV show in a private equity fund that people can invest in also. So it's got a lot of moving parts, and it's really a very interesting show, and it's very educational to understand all these different means of raising funds.

Corey KupferAnd where does the show air, what stage is it?

George DubecOkay, right now it's all on streaming. It's on Amazon, Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi. If anybody's interested, they can go to the website, AmericasRealDeal.com, and there's an icon for each one of the streaming platforms. They can click it and go directly and see the season one shows. So that's available.

And also one other thing is now we're doing influencer marketing. We are looking for people that are social media influencers, authors, speakers, people that have big followings, brand ambassadors. So if any of your listening audience or viewing audience is interested in being on the show, definitely contact me at AmericasRealDeal.com.

And one thing I want to just mention about raising funds, no matter how you do it, and this is across the board. I recommend to everybody raising funds, you've got to have a really high-powered, great pitch video, like two to five minutes of you and your principals and whoever's involved in a company. Because the number one thing people are looking at today, because everybody's so inundated with pitch decks and one pagers and everything, and they don't have time to read and go through it. But it's like bait on a hook. You bait to have interest in your company, then you send them the pitch deck. But you've got to have a really good video. And the key that I'm finding out from investors of all ages and kinds is they want to feel that the person that is doing the pitch can actually be successful, if they have whatever the attitude, the moxie, the knowledge, the experience to actually make this company work.

George DubecSo I hate to say it, folks, but if you're camera shy, that's not a good thing. You've got to figure out, practice with your cell phone. Sit there and practice talking into your cell phone. And if you don't know how to do a good video, have a reliable company shoot a nice two to five minute pitch video.

Corey KupferYeah, it's interesting. The show idea is interesting. Obviously you have Shark Tank, and there's a podcast I like called The Pitch. And what I like about The Pitch over Shark Tank, and I actually did an episode on my love hate relationship with Shark Tank, a solocast a while back. The fundamental thing was I love Shark Tank because it's sort of given a level of education and exposure to people around raising capital and pitching and that kind of stuff and the mistakes people make.

On the flip side, it is entertainment. This is just the nature of a TV show. If they're doing a forty five minute to an hour, hour and a half pitch, they're going to show seven minutes of it. So it's always going to be an artificial view of the whole pitch, number one. Number two, the big thing that I liked about The Pitch over Shark Tank is that they actually do follow ups on their episodes on exactly what happened, because about half the deals on Shark Tank that you think have been funded, where they say yes, don't get funded. And that's just because of due diligence. That's what happens afterwards. The same M&A advice applies here, which is that a handshake on camera is not a closed deal.

And so they always do success stories. You hear about the Squatty Potties and the Sponge Daddies and Cousins Maine Lobster, all the ones that did really well. And occasionally, I've seen Cuban interviewed asking which were the ones that went really bad, and he'll talk about it. But they don't talk a lot about the ones that actually don't get funded, even though they seem to on the show. Whereas The Pitch does follow ups on that. So I think these shows are great in a way, but I also think that people have to understand that it is TV, and you can't fully understand everything that happens in a real investment process from any TV show, even if it's great. It's just a different medium.

George DubecYeah, it's great exposure, if nothing else, for all the people on the show. But yeah, I saw an article recently that Mark Cuban said he lost over twenty million dollars over the long haul with these companies he invested in, but he made much more money on the companies as long term growth as they are definitely growing. So he will make money on the far end of it. Plus he's making a fortune by being on the show, being Mark Cuban, a celebrity.

Corey KupferYeah. And the other fascinating part that Kevin O'Leary has said a lot, which is really one of the biggest powers of Shark Tank, especially for any company that is consumer facing, which is most of them, is the exposure cuts down your customer acquisition cost, your CAC, which is a huge thing. If you can cut down customer acquisition cost, then your profits go up. So it's not only the volume, but it's the cost that it costs you to get each customer, and exposure on these kinds of things.

Like he says, that's the biggest advantage of somebody coming on Shark Tank. Obviously they can get capital, but a lot of these good companies might be able to raise capital elsewhere. But why are they giving these sharks even more than they would be able to get outside of the show? It's because with other investors off the show, you're not getting the exposure that gives you the benefit on the customer acquisition cost leverage.

George DubecYeah, there's one thing I wanted to mention about America's Real Deal, and I forgot, is that the viewing audience, almost like home shopping, there's a QR code on the screen. So any company that is promoting their product, people can actually buy it. So again, that's customer acquisition. They're getting customers that can buy the product watching the show. So it's almost like being on home shopping also.

Corey KupferYeah, interesting model. Fascinating model.

George DubecYeah. Well, after the fact I'll send you some more info on it. And plus, Corey, what I'm going to do, I'm going to send you a whole list of these other TV show platforms that are helping to raise funds, and then you could talk about some of those.

Corey KupferYeah, that would be great. And we can put some of those in the show notes so that people can check out all the different options out there. It's fascinating what's happening online. I remember when the original crowdsourcing came out, it was in part because of the legal regulation which took a while to shift. In the beginning they wouldn't let you raise capital on it, but they would give you perks. If you're an early investor, you would get this special thing. You get the products in advance, and maybe you go to a special gathering with the founders, whatever it is. And then of course the laws changed where you could actually raise real capital on crowdfunding platforms. Strategic deals have opened up the same way, where structures that were once only available to institutions now show up in much smaller transactions. So it's a very, very different world. And now there's even talk about further democratizing some other stuff. So we'll see. It'll be interesting to see what happens ultimately with that tension between, hey, it's a cool thing that people get more access to investments versus how many of them are going to lose too much money or be defrauded. Because even on the good ones, even leaving out fraud, the truth is investing in earlier stage companies, or even not even startups, investing in privately held companies, is risky. If you study even the venture capital model, the PE model, if you understand their model, their model is they make ten investments in a fund, seven of them may go to nothing, two of them are going to do fine. That math looks very different from equity M&A, where you're usually buying something that already works.

George DubecRight.

Corey KupferAnd then one of them's going to be their unicorn that makes them all the money. So these are the professional investors who are basically making their money out of one grand slam, like two doubles and seven strikeouts.

George DubecRight. Yeah, it's all the odds.

Corey KupferAnd these are the most sophisticated investors in the world and that's the game they're playing. So you have to understand that if you're going to get into the game on the investment side. Which is why I only take a portion of my money and I know that's my play money, and if something hits it's great and if I lose it I lose it. Managing acquisitions after a close takes an entirely different discipline, and that's where a lot of the real value either shows up or disappears.

George DubecWell, I think what helps is, like we talked about earlier, if you're in the upper elite crowd and you're in with millionaires and trillionaires and you're playing poker with them and golfing with them, those deals are kind of exchanged between that group. But when you're on the lower levels and you're trying to figure this out, it's really tricky and really tough.

But anyway, it's an exciting world right now. AI is coming on the scene like a tsunami, where the internet came kind of over a period of time. It was step by step, it was introduced to society, but AI is hitting us like a ton of bricks. And by the way, I have a podcast that's called Tech Unfiltered, and anybody can go to my website, TechUnfilteredAGI.com, and sign up to get on the links that we're going to send out from the podcast and so forth.

So anyway, a lot of things I'm involved in. It's exciting to see all these companies that are coming out with new devices, and now the one thing that I'm really focused on are medical devices, because Corey, I'm going to be 80 years old. So I'm focused on anti-aging devices. I'm hoping, I'm waiting for the pill where you take the pill and...

Corey KupferWell, I've got to tell you, we talk about AI, the internet, what's evolved on the investment side. You want to talk about an area that's evolving, the whole longevity or biohacking. There's a term now, because they've actually even moved away from longevity. I forget what it is, there's another term, because it's about living longer healthy and able.

George DubecWell, living younger longer is the term I use.

Corey KupferYeah. So there's huge, not only huge advancements there, but obviously a lot of money also going into that space, because as the population has aged, everybody's gotten interested in it. And we've seen evidence already about how, people talk about this all the time, if you look at our parents or grandparents at the same age, they seemed a lot older than we are at our age. The ability to be vibrant and healthy longer these days is a whole different ball game.

George DubecNo, it's crazy. Well, actually, you know what, if you're using AI, you talk about an AI agent or ChatGPT, it's a hundred times better than any primary care doctor. I just went on the other day and put a couple of different medical issues in, and they gave a full breakdown based on your symptoms, what they prescribe, what devices might work, what might not work, what to tell your doctor. So I'm going to take this list the next time I go to the doctor and say, hey doc, this is what I need. You can't tell me this, I'm telling you.

Corey KupferWell, I have a slightly different view, but I think that's great. Because listen, we get it with our clients on the legal side sometimes, where some lawyers get upset. I don't mind when somebody runs something through ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, as long as they bring it to me, because what we find is some of the stuff's really good. Some of the stuff is off base, only because one, there's some stuff they hallucinated on, but also a lot of people have to understand a lot of AI depends on how you prompt it.

If you ask it certain questions, in certain areas it often gives pretty good information. But what it doesn't know is that there's these three other things you didn't tell it. You didn't tell it that you're currently structured as an S-corp and not an LLC on the legal side. Or you didn't tell it on the medical side that you have these other factors going on. So it recommends this treatment or whatever, and then your doctor's going to say, yeah, but you're taking this other medication for this. Do you understand that these medications conflict? So it's only as good as the inputs you put in, and that's the danger of it. That gap is exactly where strategic advisory work still matters.

So what I like about what you said is, and I encourage this, I'm fine when people do this with me as a lawyer, is do your research. Like you would, people used to do Google stuff and then come in and ask the doctor. But then go to the doctor and give them a chance, go to the lawyer or go to the accountant, and give them a chance to say why it's right and why it's not right, and then you can make a decision from there. Because if you didn't give it all the information or prompt it, or it's in one of those situations where the information's not quite accurate. So I think it's a balance. I think it's a phenomenal tool, if used right.

George DubecYeah, well, like you said, a second opinion, a third opinion, a third voice is always beneficial no matter what you're making decisions on. So that's good advice. But by the way, Corey, are you still a practicing attorney? What's your field? What's your specialty?

Corey KupferYeah. Still do a lot of deals. A huge amount of M&A. Any kind of deals, contract advice, helping companies grow. Every kind of deal. So we still do, I love it. Running an M&A firm means no two M&A deals ever look the same, and deal volume moves with the market, but the M&A business always comes back to whether both sides can reach terms they can live with.

Hey George, before we finish up, I'm just curious, because obviously you've had radio shows, you now have a podcast. It's only in, I don't know, the last fifteen years, let's call it ten, that this concept, authority marketing, that business people should get themselves out there, write a book, create a podcast, whatever. But you've been doing stuff for a while. You had the radio show for twelve years, right, the Internet Business Hour. What even had you start to think about doing more of this front facing media kind of stuff that you've been doing now for so long?

George DubecWell, I started doing it a long time ago. So for me it's second nature, but for a lot of people, like we're talking about today, everybody's got to kind of create a brand. Even if you're a housewife, you kind of have to create a brand, because your brand becomes valuable. So whatever it is that you can get exposure, whether it's posting on social media, starting a podcast, writing a book. In fact with AI, Corey, today, you could write a book. You just put in a couple of outline prompts and they'll write the book for you. And there's just so many different ways to get out there and get exposure. But the key today, from what I'm hearing from all the marketing gurus, is followers and exposure and viewers. That's the key, man. It doesn't matter if you're good, bad, or ugly or what.

Corey KupferYeah. What had you start the first radio show? How did that come about? I'm just curious.

George DubecWell, that was back in 1998, like I said. There were two parts to the radio show. One was to build a listening audience over time and help people with the advice. And the second was we got a lot of business from it because we were the experts.

In fact I've got a funny story. One time a guy came into my office, and he's sitting down, we're talking about some web development. And every couple of minutes he would look at me, he'd go, you're the guy on the radio. I go, yeah. And then we'd talk some more and he'd go, you're the guy on the radio, huh? I'd go, yeah. So I don't know, something magical about TV, radio. If you're on it, you're like some kind of guru, expert, whatever. You don't even have to know what you're talking about. Just be on there.

Corey KupferYeah, it really does. Listen, we find this with the podcast, this podcast that I do. The other content I put out keeps me top of mind. Ultimately you've got to be able to back it up and do good work over time or else, whatever. But you have perceived expertise. You have perceived value. Now the people who only have perceived and don't back it up, they don't have sustainable businesses. But at the same time, it works the same way for a sell side M&A advisor, where owners who already know your work come to the table differently.

George DubecRight. Well, it gives you a tremendous amount of credibility if you've written a book, if you have, like I have, a TV show, a podcast. When I walk into a room, I tell people all that stuff and they tend to want to listen to me. Like, this guy's doing stuff, he's out there. So yeah, I've just been doing it. But a lot of people today, I recommend everybody try a podcast. Why not? You could do it for free.

Corey KupferYeah. Been there, done that, especially because you've been doing it so long. Good stuff. George, so my final two questions. You gave it out already, but give it out one last time. Where do people find out more about you?

George DubecYeah, I've got two websites. TheUltimateNetworker.com. That's one that you can go on and write down any questions you want. I'll follow up. In fact, if you put your name that you listened to the Corey Kupfer show, I'll send you a free PDF copy of my book, Ultimate Networking. How's that? So anybody that signs up on that site. And then my podcast is TechUnfilteredAGI.com and you can sign up there and I'll send you the link. We just started it, so it's kind of brand new and fresh, and we'll get everybody notified about that.

Corey KupferAwesome. George, my final question on the podcast is always about my highest value in life, which is freedom. And for me that means everything from freedom around the world for people from oppression, to why I've been an entrepreneur for decades and haven't had a boss. I ask every guest this. And with eighty years of experience in life here, I'm very curious as to what freedom means to you and how it impacts your life and business.

George DubecYeah, well freedom is a good thing. I've lived in a golden era in the United States and been in the right place at the right time. I've never experienced anything but freedom, pretty much. And most of the world is struggling now with all kinds of problems and issues like that. So yeah, freedom is great.

But the one thing I learned about freedom is now in the United States, in a sense, we're getting too much freedom. I remember in the 70s, Corey, you remember the phrase, do your own thing? That's good and bad in a way, because if everybody did their own thing, how would anything get done? And I equate that to a football team. If you got 11 superstars that come on the team and they run out on the field and they all do their own thing, they're never going to win a game. So they have a system. So you've got to have some kind of boundaries, regimentation, within the realm of having freedom within a system. So I'm a systems guy. So you've got to find a system that suits you, that you can be free in the system.

Corey KupferLove that distinction. George Dubec, thanks for being such a great guest on the DealQuest Podcast. And folks, if you're listening and you think you've got a deal story worth telling, you can apply to come on the show yourself at beaguestondealquest.com.

George DubecAll right, man. It was a pleasure.