Robert Herjavec

It was our first experience actually thinking about raising capital because we had bootstrapped it from the very beginning.

We ended up turning down an offer from Robert Herjavec, which when I did the math, it would be worth 100x what he had offered to invest at the time.

In hindsight, had we known he was going to be a celebrity, maybe we would have...

Been more apt to accept it because it would have been perhaps helpful for us making introductions or I don't know, you know, but, you know, it's hard to second guess those types of decisions.

We weren't allowed to use a lot of technology.

And so, you know, I put together an event, spoke on stage, put together an entrepreneurs conference actually in Toronto, spoke on stage with a gentleman, Robert Herjavec at the time, and was recruited away to the tech industry.

Someone came in and had a conversation with me and said, hey, we're building this platform and we'd love to have you help us with growth.

And so I decided to leave the insurance industry, leave that business and go into the tech industry.

And he was starting another company.

He was founding a financial distribution company or an IMO in the U.S. And I find that we reconnected, ended up going and meeting with him at his home in Alpharetta.

And we just sat down and I told him what was happening with AI, what was going to happen in terms of, well, I said, if you're going to do this again, and this is a gentleman who had 30 years of experience in this industry and earned about $100 million through that insurance model.

And I said, if you're going to do this again and build another company and make it bigger and better than ever before, you're going to need to do it with AI.

uh i do blame griffin newman i think he uh he's not welcome on the show anymore But we were never so starstruck as getting to see some of the sharks in person.

Not Barbara, but Laurie and Robert Herjavec.

Robert

was so beautiful in person.

Uh, they brought birthday energy.

It was Robert Herjavec's birthday, so we celebrated that, and they dropped a lot of knowledge and wisdom on us from their years evaluating businesses at Shark Tank.

Wow.

[laughs]

Um, happy birthday to Deshaun Watson.

Uh, happy birthday to Robert Herjavec from Shar- Shark Tank.

Happy birthday to Stephen Bishop.

Barely t- very talented dude.

And happy birthday to you if you're celebrating today.

Andrew Lincoln, also Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec, and Pope Leo celebrating his birthday today.

I love this quote from Pope Leo.

We end every show with a quote and a kiss.