447 Chris Van Dusen

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] What if the key to scaling a company isn't just capital, but someone who's done it all from the front lines to the boardroom. Meet Chris Van Dusen, a former athlete, turned serial founder, who pivoted into private equity with a storyteller's grit and an operator's mindset and. Today as senior partner at Solyco Capital, Chris doesn't just invest, he gets hands on.

He's built and exited multiple companies across industries such as CBD, liquor, Consultancy, launched a marketing agency and scaled Balanced Health Botanicals to a $75 million sale. At Solyco, Chris is known for taking the operator approach to venture, embedding experienced leaders into portfolio companies, helping them scale like fractional C-Suite executives.

It's a model he's lived from co-founding Surf City Still Works to growing Parcon media and orchestrating three exits. He lives by a blue belt mindset, more Brazilian jitsu than boardroom, embracing friction [00:01:00] resilience and breakthrough under pressure.

This is a conversation about building businesses from grit, turning diSolycomfort into strategic advantage, and why growth succeeds when backed by real world execution, not just capital.

And before we hop into the podcast, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. We have William, a graduate of Deep Both Mastery, and he says, I didn't have the time for Deep Both Mastery, but I made the time and I'm glad I did.

What I learned goes far beyond any other executive program or coach I've ever experienced. Or how about Bruce? Bruce says, before Deep Wealth Mastery, the challenge I had with most business programs, coaches, or blogs was that they were one dimensional. Through Deep Wealth Mastery, I'm part of a richer community of other successful business owners.

The idea shared forever changed the trajectory of the business and best of all, the experience was fun. And we'll round things out with Stacey. 

Stacey said, I wish I had access to the Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event, as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery [00:02:00] exceeded my expectations in terms of content and quality.

And you know what, my Deep Wealth Nation, why they're saying this is because Deep Wealth Mastery, it's the only system based on a nine figure deal. That was my deal. And as you know, I said no to a seven figure offer, and I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery that helped myself and my business partners, welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure exit.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, if that's two years away or 20 years away, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C E S, at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as Scale for Ultimate Sale. That's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders just like you who are looking to create market disruptions.

And they want to lock in their financial freedom and have success and fulfillment. 

That's the 90 day Deep [00:03:00] Wealth Mastery Program. It has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Send an email to success at deepwealth. com.

Welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, Deep Wealth Nation. We have an incredible guest in the House of Deep Wealth. You heard the official introduction. He's been there. He's done that.

We're gonna answer all those questions that you have of, Hey, how do I create value for my company, for my stakeholders, for the community? How do I get that deal of a lifetime? How do I grow my. Profits, what should I do? What should I not do? And a whole lot more. So Chris, no pressure for you on any of that.

Welcome to the default podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. There's always a story behind the story, what got you from where you were to where you are today?

Chris Van Dusen: First of all, thanks for having me. Huge fan listening to your podcast a bunch of times. It's an honor to be on. Where do I want to begin this journey? I will tell you it's been the non-linear is probably the best way I wanna say it. To go back quickly, grew up on the east coast, played baseball, fairly high level thought I was gonna do that.

And then sophomore year in college needed [00:04:00] Tommy John's surgery. So I decided to hang it up instead of, trying to come back, fight for playing time. So that changed trajectory. Started the career in sales, went into finance as a wholesaler. Great experiences. Had the opportunity to come to California in oh nine.

Did 75 days later, the the company I came out for went well, let's just say they restructured and they restructured a lot of us out. Let's be kind there. I made it my job, a to find a job. In 2010, real estate investment banking wasn't the hotbed of new hires, coming out of the real estate crisis.

So I call myself this accidental or forced entrepreneur. It wasn't what I set out to do. I didn't have some grandiose idea of how I'm gonna change the world, but I figured out. A way to start a business that I could get revenue that could support me and slowly started building well, I met my wife. We started our first company four months into dating and never kind of looked back.

We started a few different marketing firms, a media company that media company was doing [00:05:00] conversion rate optimization and high intent media buying. For those that don't know what that is, Everyone focuses on digital ads on what we call the rod and real, right? The ads we focused on the net.

'cause it doesn't matter how many fish you catch, if it's going out the bottom of the net, it doesn't matter. And back in 2015, this wasn't something that everyone was doing. No one really was focused there as heavy as they are today. And now it's kind of standard practice. I grew that agency over a few years, and I met these five guys who wanted to start a CBD company.

I said C, B, D, like this is the end of 16. I don't know what CBD is. Right? Fast forward, we ended up creating the second largest CBD brand in the world behind Charlotte's Web. And sold it in August of 2021 to a publicly traded company. So nice. Eight figure Exit. It was wonderful for the six of us but it taught me two huge lessons.

One parabolic growth is an unbelievable feeling that you think you want right until you try to grab. Those coattails and ride them [00:06:00] up the hill, it's about as painful getting dragged up the hill as it is getting dragged down the hill When something like COVID happens and you realize what true discretionary spend means around a product, that the per dose amount compared to their competitors call it Advil, Tylenol, sleep aids different and so high compression in that business.

But we're still able to sell it, which was great. That was really this period of 2017 to August of 21. At that same time, my wife and I co-founded a liquor distillery here in Huntington Beach with another couple and sold it in 21. I. And then we sold a beauty care brand in 19 that we had created in 2017.

And so all that to say I'd grown this reputation on being able to scale companies fairly quickly. I was always in the chief revenue officer seat, right? That finance, business development marketing lens where I'd kind of spent my career. And in 2017, I also met this gentleman by the name of John Garcia, who founded a new firm called Lyco Capital, [00:07:00] and I loved what they were doing.

They ended up investing in one of my deals. We met in this group called Alder, all around generational leadership. How to live your legacy today, not wait until you're. You know, Old and can't do much other than write a check. And loved what he was building. Had the opportunity to join them as a senior equity partner, January of 22.

And so I've been at Solyco ever since. The quick on Solyco is we do things very differently. What we like to say is we're a private investment company. Now, the minute I say that, people go, what is that? 'cause usually they're these great words that anchor what people do, venture capitalists.

Private equity, right? Money manager, whatever it is. We do strategies in many different parts of private capital. So we work with high net worth, ultra net worth family office. We do a venture strategy, we have a P strategy, we do real estate development. We have private credit, we actually have an RA attached, and we're really there to facilitate alpha for our investors against multiple strategies.

And so what I loved about the firm is there's a, 11 of us senior [00:08:00] partners and we have about 40 on staff that run the management consulting firm and are really driving growth. In our portfolio companies during this formidable time venture, if you will. you know, Certainly as you get into the later stage opportunities that becomes a little less imp not important, however, but a little less where we need to be in.

But taking that approach in venture is what really has set us apart and we've had tremendous growth over the last few years that I've been at the firm.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, that's one way to put that. That's understatement of probably the century in terms of what you guys are doing. But before we go there, and we are gonna go there, let's go back for just a moment because back in the day, college baseball, you had your mind set on that. And so from the arena of sports to the arena of business, you had some disappointing news.

It wasn't what you were planning, it certainly wasn't what you were expecting. How did that experience, did that in any way, shape how you took on business after the fact, after you went through that, or was it Yeah, I've been there, done that, and that was about it.

Chris Van Dusen: 100% shaped so. The [00:09:00] entrepreneurial journey. Let's take a step back. Disappointment is inevitable. So let's just start there. Was I disappointed I couldn't play baseball? Yes. Was I disappointed? I relocated my entire life to California and now didn't have. You know that the heroin drip of employment Yes.

Did things work out? Yes. And so there's this level of. Understanding that just because there's a no, just because you've hit adversity doesn't mean you take your ball and go home. That just means we've gotta find a new way and a new path forward. And so for me, when I look back, there's these words that I talk about a lot, which is, grit and resilience.

And I'm sure you've had other guests on the podcast that talk about that, right? It's this unwavering belief. And movement forward to your goal. And I like personally investing in founders who are on their second or third go, right? They've already done something. 'cause they understand that journey.

The idea of finding a J curve that you just magically [00:10:00] ride up into the right. Is a pipe dream. It happens, but it's the anomaly. You are going to feel like you're out of business one day and you are on cloud nine the next, and the next day you're out of business again. And that is the journey. And if you don't have that resilience and unwavering belief to get up every day and just keep pushing towards that goal, then.

It's tough. It's a tough journey, to kind of bow, put a bow in your question. One thing that's great about athletics, whether or not you do it as a kid, or you're fortunate enough to do it as you get older, is the fact that you don't win every game. The fact that I was a pitcher in college, right?

I was a left-handed pitcher. You don't throw every ball a strike, right? You don't strike out everybody. You are constantly having micro. Disappointment sessions, right? Like little areas of being disappointed. And you have to understand what it means to overcome that, and that's what builds resilience. And so I won't get into parenting discussions.

I have a 10-year-old, but we try to instill these type of lessons, right? Disappointment is good, right? Feel it. it. Move on.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some [00:11:00] great life lessons there. And so let me ask you this then, and back in the day, you look at yourself and you call yourself an accidental entrepreneur and with your story and how you came to business, I get that. But for the benefit of the deep default nation and accidental entrepreneur, I'm using that in some air quotes here. So how did the, again, that disappointment that let down from the college baseball to moving all the way to California, hey, not happening. Pack up your bags. Go figure it out somewhere else. With that restructuring that was going on, what were some lessons learned that you can share for the Deep Wealth nation?

Because you're absolutely right Chris, as entrepreneurs. Wow. Disappointment, failure. It's probably the best teacher, but man, oh man. Is it hard to take it when it comes down the pipeline? So what can you share with us about that?

Chris Van Dusen: Yeah. I remember sitting there in that meeting when they did the restructure and going what am I gonna do? And I heard this quote many years later, actually about, a year ago, and it's kind of perfectly [00:12:00] describes what should be done in these situations. And it's from actually an old Indian chief Wilma Mankiller, I think is her name.

I've gotta check that. But it's around the difference between a buffalo and a cow. I don't know if you've heard this story before, but Buffaloes and cows, if you look at them, they look very different. One is rugged, one is rough, one beat up, and the other is, I just say more taken care of. Aesthetically, probably more pleasing, if you will being the cow, right? A little softer, a little easier on the eyes. My point is to say. They come from the same kind of evolutionary track, and if you ever watch them, they're very different creatures. When a storm rolls in, a buffalo turns towards the storm and runs at it, a cow turns away from the storm and runs away.

And what's interesting about that is one is rough and has all the battle scars to prove, but spends less time in the storm than the one constantly running away as the storm is following them everywhere they go. [00:13:00] And so the lesson there, and it's a lesson that inherently I was doing but didn't have these, you know, I'd say more eloquent words in the story, in the quote is.

I ran into the storm. I said, well, no one's going to cry for me. I'll be another statistic of an unemployed person, or I can turn in and go figure it out. And that's exactly what I did. My first actual, after this, I remember I was a wholesaler selling, debt and equity funds and mezzanine or, growth income funds and mezzanine funds.

And then I was selling knees and hips for an orthopedic surgeon, distributor. Meaning I found that because I made it my job to find a job, there was no crying, there was no, oh, wo is me. It was, here's how much money I have. Here's my burn rate personally. Here's how long I can last before I've in deep stuff.

And so I'm gonna make it my job to find a job. And as I was doing that is when I had the idea to start that first company. And so I took a huge leap and. Certainly paid off. [00:14:00] But that was really a forcing function for what happened the rest of my career. And now everything I've done is either way you learn.

I hate to use that soundbite, but it's true. So I have a ton of losses. The few successes we went on the top of the podcast or great, but we probably filled two more podcasts with all the failures I've had right along the way. But that's part of it. And what's funny is all those failures I use is either lessons or things not to repeat.

As I move on in my career, I.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Chris, as I often say on the podcast, if I had a dollar, maybe even 50 cents, I don't even need the dollar. If I had 50 cents for every mistake I made, I would not have needed my nine-figure Exit deal. I would've been way ahead of the game. So right there with you on that. Now, I know at Solyco you take an operator approach and your whole ethos, your operating system of how you approach this is very different than most traditional private equity models.

So for the benefit of default nation, can you share why you're doing what you're doing and what I think is the benefit of that and how it is different [00:15:00] though than a traditional private equity model.

Chris Van Dusen: Sure. So let's kind of, let's take the traditional private equity model Jeffrey, me and you decide, hey, we have some expertise in consumer goods, or we have some expertise in business to business, you know, SaaS products in FinTech, I. We're gonna go create a fund and that fund, let's call it a quarter billion dollars, we'll have a mandate around certain things and those certain strategies would be around our expertise.

We're gonna go raise 250 million. We're gonna sit on that capital the next, now for the next 12, 18 months, we're gonna identify in that window. Companies that fit that model. And we're gonna make investments, and we're gonna play portfolio theory. We're gonna say that if we made 10 investments right, one is gonna return a hundred percent of the money, we raised 250 million.

We know that four or five are probably gonna go to zero, and the other four to five are gonna sit there and be a single, double, triple. Use my baseball analogy through line, right? And it's gonna return an IRR, an internal rate of return for the fund, and if it's good enough. [00:16:00] Then our investors will be very happy and we are gonna go raise another fund and another fund, and we're gonna charge 2% on all the money we have under management and we're gonna get a piece of the carry on the end.

But to do that, me and you are the only gps. Maybe we have an assistant, maybe we have a few analysts to help us out. But our overhead is very low because we only have 2% of whatever money we've raised to pay all the bills of the firm and the fundraising costs and all of that. That benefits investors.

That benefits us, but for founders, it benefits them with cash. But what you realize is not everyone is a second, third, or fourth time founder, therefore, this is their first go. They need mentorship more than a quarterly board meeting. And so as you realize that what we started putting together was, yes, we'll give you capital and if you need it.

We can also provide teams on secondment, right? Second job, they're our internal team to go help you with strategy, [00:17:00] operations, finance, business development, marketing, whatever the core competency is. 'cause if you're in a seed to even sometimes be round, they don't have fully developed. Executive teams, they don't have fully developed VP level teams, right?

They might even have a finance department that can do all the things they need done to keep their company going, and so we'll go in there and help drive that value for them during these times. And because you were, we're your capitalization partner already, we're gonna be able to see over the horizon on what you need coming up and help you manage that more effectively.

It makes us, honestly, a better fiduciary of investor capital on one side. And secondarily helps the entrepreneurs understand what bets and when they should take with full support of their capitalization partner.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so I read between the lines and Chris, please stop me and correct me at any time. What I'm hearing you say is that, Hey, with traditional private equity, nothing against that, but as the founder, I'm giving up the most valuable asset I have that's [00:18:00] ownership in my company. And yeah, sure I can get a bunch of zeros in the bank account and I'm gonna be writing the checks, but if I don't have that experience.

I'm gonna be making the mistakes, probably gonna be going for a series B, C, D. Maybe I don't even make it that far. Maybe I just burned through the money and the private equity company says, oh, so sad, so bad. See you Jeffrey. We gave it a try, and the company goes down the tubes as opposed to, you're coming in.

Okay, Jeffrey, look, here's the zeros in the bank, but. We have veterans, we have seasoned entrepreneurs. They've been there, they've been where you are. They've made the mistakes so you don't have to make those mistakes. They've done the heavy lifting. Let's get you through this in a successful, less speed bump kind of way, how am I doing with that?

With

your 

Chris Van Dusen: That is exactly right. That is exactly right. And so In our mind, not only mentorship value, but certainly operational value. And I think back to the companies that I was a co-founder in, I would've loved to have someone like you, [00:19:00] Jeffrey, right? Sitting there saying yeah.

I got it I've invested in your success in this companies, and I have. Both an altruistic reason. 'cause I wanna see you be successful, Chris, but also I'd like to see a return on my capital and I'm going to bring my network, my resources and my expertise to bear to help you with that.

And that is a powerful thing. And so you take our team that is quite large and has this wide experience, right? A book of experience. And we're able to go into to many different verticals. With firsthand knowledge on how to scale, where there's partnerships and the type of things to look at, and that's extremely important, especially on an early stage company.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Chris, if I'm not mistaken, you call that smart capital. Versus just capital in particular. So when it comes to structuring smart capital, how would you structure the smart capital compared to the private equity, particularly around founder relationships and having the incentives aligned? Because let's be open and honest about this and no slight against private [00:20:00] equity.

Oftentimes the incentives aren't in alignment. Private equity, they're getting a big kickback on, maybe kickback's not the right word, but they're getting a big bump. They're charging interest, they're charging fees, and wow, it puts a lot of financial pressure on the startup who's taking that kind of funding.

So with a Smart capital, what does that look like? How's that different? What would you want the Deep Health Nation to know?

Chris Van Dusen: We like to say it's the truth. Our home office is out of Birmingham. Michigan, the hotbed Adventure, right about an hour north of Detroit. We have an office in Dallas, Miami, Louisville I'm out in California. We've just opened an office in London. So we have presence other places, but our true home office is there.

And I think if you think back stereotypically at Midwest values, right? That's really how our firm is built. So when you say, how do we structure this very fairly, we want to make sure that. Our founders are incentivized to keep growing the company, right? Because if you tear everything away from them, that incentive starts to go down.

We also would be extremely fair to our investors, [00:21:00] and if you look at how we structure our deals, they're not a two and 20. We're gonna take a higher carry. We're gonna sit shoulder to shoulder, we're gonna put our money where our mouth is and then we're traditionally gonna charge a very small fixed management fee upfront.

Not the 2% every year, right? And so that allows us to have our team and not to double dip, have our team go in and drive value and charge our portfolio companies less than market for all of those resources. So instead of having to go interview multiple chief strategy officers or CFOs, you have one who's doing this, whose interests are aligned to the success of your company while you are finding the right one.

'cause the biggest thing that most. Teams, first time teams don't realize is, and I'll use myself as an example, when we grew the CBD company, I was the first chief marketing officer for the company and partner, and then transitioned into the chief revenue officer the CMOI was in the first two and a half, three years of the company, was very different than the chief marketing officer needed [00:22:00] in the last year and a half.

And then post acquisition by a publicly traded company. I had to say I'm polished, but the type of polish making PowerPoint presentations every week about new initiatives versus let's go fail fast, try things scale. I. Is very different. We call 'em leaders versus managers. And in different waves of your business, you need different types of executives.

Ones that are leading and ones that are managing for consistent growth. And I'm not necessarily always a consistent growth. That's why I like growing things fast. And getting them where they need to go. Ergo the exits I've had. And so when you're looking to hire, especially in that CAB range, you're saying, I need a certain hire now.

But the business may transition dramatically in a 24 to 36 month period where that same person isn't what you need. Do you let 'em go? Do you transition 'em out? Do you demote 'em and bring in a new it becomes a tough thing. So there's this. We need to build the right team, and [00:23:00] we can help you in this, these positions, find where you're going so that you can hire for.

Where you're going, leading the receiver, not hiring, just to fill a gap today. And that's the other thing, and close on this part is I made the mistake too many times of throwing an FTe, a full-time employee at a problem. Typically, you don't need to throw FTEs at problems. You need to rework your systems and your processes to be more efficient.

And that usually gets found. As you're growing, 'cause you're trying to figure out how to scale something fast and you are doing whatever it takes to do and you just throw bodies to keep hoping you can keep up with growth and realize that if we had just reworked our processes on how we approach these problems, we would need as many humans as we do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's interesting. So Chris, from your experience, from your exits, from the companies, the industries that you've been in to now, the founders that you're working with, the startups that you're helping, I. What I'm curious about, because as entrepreneurs we have certain traits [00:24:00] that I'm gonna stereotype generally go from one entrepreneur to the next, regardless of culture, background, anything like that.

But what's interesting about you is some of your background, and I know with your Brazilian Jiujitsu training. A big part of what you've done, I wanna say influenced your mindset and how you view the world. And so if we go from, again, I'm going back to the sports arena here with Brazilian Juujitsu.

How did that experience and what you've learned there, what did you bring with you into business, both for your companies and now the companies that you're helping?

Chris Van Dusen: It is in my mind, one of the most difficult things you can do is train and achieve a level of proficiency. You can't ever be an expert in it, but a level of proficiency in Brazilian jiujitsu, it is no different than how hard it is to gain a level of proficiency at being an entrepreneur.

So let me unpack that for a minute.

Let's go [00:25:00] through the value proposition of Brazilian jiujitsu. I had a buddy call me one day and say, we should go train. This is back in 2016. I said, absolutely not. I wrestled in high school. I do not wanna spend any time on a mat. This sounds awful. I showed up 'cause reasons. I don't know. he was a good friend.

I showed up and that first day. 150 pound purple belt woman submitted me about 90 seconds. I'm 6 2 2 65 2 70 at the time, and I said, I don't know what this magic is, but at my size, if I can do this right, this would be amazing. And I just fell in love with what it was. But lemme go back to the value proposition, which is white belt.

You survive blue belt, you defend. Purple butt, you start to learn to attack brown butt, you have a game. And the only difference between a brown and black belt is how much time you spend on the mat. And we talk about that in our family as mat time. Now that's big generalists, general conversation, but it's just a way to kind of frame your journey.

So on average, it takes 10 years to get a black belt. And there are five belts, which means on average it takes about two years [00:26:00] in each belt level, which means for your white belt time for two years, you're gonna show up three to four days a week for an hour and a half, and you're gonna pay good money per month for this.

And you are going to get destroyed. You're gonna feel like you're at the bottom of the ocean and you can't move and you can't do anything, and you don't understand what's happening and you've gotta get up. Go home. Look at your husband or wife, look in the mirror and say, that was something, and then get up the next day and do it again.

Sounds familiar. When we look at the entrepreneurial journey.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, that is the entrepreneurial journey. Absolutely.

Chris Van Dusen: So some days you're the hammer, and some days you're the nail. And I was fortunate last year to get my black belt. I've been doing it for nine years and for me it changed my outlook on everything. And I make the joke, I train traditionally in the morning, and so after spending an hour and a half in the morning having another human try to fold you into a pretzel and cause physical pain, the rest of the day's decisions become just a smidge easier.

And so [00:27:00] for me, it's this release valve in the morning and everything else just finds its way into calm and. Whether or not it's societally or whether or not it's, because we're entrepreneurs, we're all wound a little tight. And so it allows this release, this thing of, I'll call it flow 'cause it's about the only thing I find in my life where I'm not thinking about business, I'm not thinking about the problems in life, and I can just let that go for an hour and a half because I have no choice.

Someone is literally looking eye to eye with me, ready to do something bad intent. And so it's just an amazing sport to do. Highly recommend and. It gets you in amazing physical shape. It will change your body. And why that's important is this isn't necessarily a health podcast but like we said, we can open it up to different topics.

Change your body, change your mind, right? You hear usually the different, but physical activity releases so many amazing things. That sharpen your mind, sharpen how you think, create just a better human in general. And I'm not a health expert, so I don't wanna sit here and get over my skis, but I will tell you, [00:28:00] go research what physical activity will do for brain function, and it should be all you need to know.

And burning 900 to a thousand calories per session in Juujitsu is a great way to do it while not stepping on a treadmill. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: That is amazing, and as we see. Here on the Deep Default Podcast, our first Wealth is our health. What a great slogan. We didn't invent that wish we would've, but our health is our first Wealth. And as we say to the members in the community, Deep Wealth Nation, hey, if you wanna get that big deal or you wanna have that Exit of a lifetime, how are you gonna do it?

If you can barely get out of bed? You don't have that clarity. You don't have that focus. It hurts to move. So absolutely having. Physical exercise, treating your body getting enough sleep, eating the right things, it's all a part of that. So couldn't agree with you more on that. Chris, lemme ask you this.

Going back to the entrepreneurial condition, and yes, some resemblance is to the Jiujitsu and what you were sharing. Let's not take the glass half full because entrepreneurs glass is always half full. I'll figure it out. I'll make things work. [00:29:00] What's having you walk away from the deal table. So in other words, a company's approached you, you're doing your due diligence on them, you're taking a look at everything.

You've gone through the numbers, you're meeting with the founders, you and the team you're talking, and hey, an amazing idea. But you know what, thanks, but no thanks. We're gonna take a pass on this. What needs to happen or what are you seeing for that to happen?

Chris Van Dusen: Yeah, there's a few things. My my biggest one is truly understanding the market, truly understanding your place in it, and knowing the numbers. We all have a good idea. I. Truly understanding the numbers. So we'll start there. Lot to unpack in all three of those but let's kind of start with understanding the market. I talk to a lot of founders and do a lot of due diligence on companies, and I will tell you the biggest kind of red flag for me is when your product, solution, whatever it may be, is for everyone in the world. I. You overestimate who it's for. So lemme give you an example. You have a SaaS based business that's a [00:30:00] type of CRM, just right.

Salesforce is gonna prove me wrong here, but the idea being you have a great CRM and you say it's for everyone to use, and you go maybe. But not really. They're like no. Everyone should use it. 'cause here's why. And they go through the myriad of use cases for it. And you go, oh, okay.

That I can see your point. Well where are you starting? We're starting with everyone and you're going, well, no. And so let's go make this a little more finite and say, this is a business to business type SaaS. And they're starting in healthcare, that's great. But they also wanna do defense, but they also want to do some kind of industrial manufacturing with it.

And just keep building it out. This is how they're building their roadmap and they're doing it simultaneously with your capital. Well, what they don't understand, and this is usually the thing I try to get across, is each individual industry I. Has its own kind of what I'll call educational chasm.

There are incumbents who have contracts, there are other CRMs that currently exist. Yours might be better. [00:31:00] There are current contracts in place, there are current relationships in place for why those are actually there. and by saying it'll solve for everyone and I'm gonna build teams and we're gonna go destroy.

You don't actually know how long it'll take to get one contract signed. What we look at is to try to focus on one or two verticals that you know and you have your subject matter expert in, or have a subject matter expert, how long it'll take back to the numbers to close a deal, who the big players are, how long contracts last, right?

Like all of the things that are defensible instead of we're doing everything. And that's usually hard because what ends up breaking down is your total addressable market, how much revenue you're going to generate on your forecast. Like everyone wants to overstate so they can raise more money during the round at a higher valuation so that it's less dilutive.

So they're gonna give you the biggest numbers possible. Well, no, show me how can dominate healthcare. We'll figure out the rest later. And if you can dominate healthcare, then you now have essentially capital permission to go dominate [00:32:00] another vertical. And by the way, you'll be able to raise that extra money you're trying to get now at a higher valuation.

And we've already taken care of not getting diluted in the same way, and it just becomes this problem of focus sometimes. So what I'm a quick yes to is someone who's. Done the journey before says, I'm trying to tackle this one thing in this one area, and if we do it right, then these other things follow sequentially at these new capital junctures.

And you're like, okay, now you understand how to build this properly.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Chris, as you're walking me through that, what is jumping to the top of the roof and shouting as loud as everyone can hear it. Here's what I'm taking from that. You're looking for a founder, number one. Who's passionate about a singular problem, not everything, but a singular problem that they're gonna be solving.

But I'm also hearing you say that Sure. Projections are nice. The numbers are nice between the founder though and the team. So you're looking at the talent as well. What is the founder bringing? Who's surrounding the founder that's getting [00:33:00] you excited about backing this team? And all too often that's, in my opinion, overlooked by so many entrepreneurs.

I got this great idea. Here's an amazing business model. Let's go. So for those in the nation that are hearing, what do you mean the team's important and a singular problem? You've just really hit that outta the park in terms of what's keeping at the table, wanting to do a deal. Thoughts about that? I.

Chris Van Dusen: Yeah. I think you're spot on. It is the people. Now also you mentioned people, so I want to dive into that a little bit because. Solo founders are interesting. When you look at co-founders, I really focus on the co-founder relationship. I don't have great statistics, but I will say it's in double digits, at least the percentage of companies that receive venture funding and ended up failing because the two co-founders don't get along.

Now, how do you vet that in diligence meetings where everyone's. Got their fancy suits on and doing the dog and pony for you, right? 'cause you're the one who has capital. It really takes a softer approach to diligence. [00:34:00] You're still gonna do all the, going through the data room and do this, but that's the, take 'em out for lunch individually and together, right?

Take 'em golfing if that's what they do, right? If depending try to do something outside of what your traditional. Diligence process would be to understand the relationship with the co-founders. Are they talking behind each other's back? Are they singing from the same hymnal?

These are all really important because at the end of the day, those 2, 3, 4, whatever it is, individuals are what are gonna make this company successful, and if they don't understand their lanes, they already aren't 100% aligned. That will degrade over time. And that's your, your dollars, your vest's, dollars livelihoods of many that work for these individuals that can get disrupted because they're not aligned from inception.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely, and my goodness, business partners forget that being an episode in and of itself. That's an entire series, Chris, that you and I can go down. 

Very hard to do. The odds aren't that [00:35:00] great and very smart for pointing it out and something that we should all be really keeping, okay, who am I looking to partner with?

Because that could be either taking my company to the next level, my e-learning company, it was the partners that took it to the next level. I could not have done that on my own. I've been in other businesses where that hasn't been the case. So partners, business partners are absolutely everything. You're very smart to be pointing that out.

And so you've really said this in other words, but let me ask you very directly. So we've talked about why you're walking away from the business table and you've also shared what's gonna keep you there. But what are you really looking for? So you're coming there, you and the team, you're coming there with a checklist that I would imagine, what's a no-brainer for you?

What would be some attributes that you're seeing that you and this cycle team are saying? Yes, we've checked every box. How quickly can we sign them up because this is something that we can really make a difference and help 'em with.

Chris Van Dusen: So the tough part about it is. You kind of know it when you see it. Now, I'm not gonna be that cliche I'll dive into it, but I think you've looked at deals as well, [00:36:00] Jeffrey, where you're like, oh wow, there's something here. And we can look at the data, we can look at traction, we can look at where they're at, and it'll all depend on what stage they're in.

But you're like, okay, there's something really interesting here. The other side, you'll look at stuff and go, okay, like I see it getting somewhere, but I'm not sure it's really gonna get to a place where there's a good enterprise value. Enough to get my investors the type of return they're looking for.

Doesn't mean it can't be a great business, right? And so what deals I look for in a perfect world fair valuation, this is if I drafted it out on a piece of paper and said, this is what I want every deal to look like a fair valuation. No longer than a five to seven year hold before a liquidity event could be private equity comes in, could be they go public and exit. This is what we model for, right? Multi, company founder. This is their second, third rodeo, and here's the one that I love that rarely happens. We've been fortunate. The last two deals I brought in did already have a buyer. Yeah. Not a [00:37:00] projected buyer, not a contemplated buyer.

You grow to this level. Here are the terms of us purchasing you.

One was a series B, one was a series C, several hundred million deals. We led both of those deals and there was already a buyer. They needed growth capital to get 'em to the next phase, but both of them were not modeled like true growth equity investments at, three to five x return.

They're modeled much higher than that. And so you look at those two deals and you go, okay, wait. I have multi-company founder. I have positive revenue, both companies and revenue. I have great valuations. I have a great robust team and I have buyers. If they can execute the strategy of which I believe they can.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so interesting with that and with that, so that's the ideal. That just doesn't happen. And sure you've seen that, but that out of every, who knows how many hundreds, maybe even thousands of deals that you're gonna have that. But it actually ties nicely into my next question. Because [00:38:00] I love what you're doing with you and the team.

You have a fractional C-suite, which you don't see a lot of, and it's not just any C-suite that's fractional. We're talking people that they have the accolades, they've got the awards, they have the success. This is not theory from a textbook that we're teaching in the classroom. This is straight from the trenches that you have that.

So you have that waiting to go, should it be needed? And I'm wondering, when you're working with an entrepreneur and they're looking at rapid growth, who doesn't want that? I. How do you advise them in terms of having that blend? I don't even want to use the word balance. Having that blend between, we're gonna have this rapid growth, but how do we keep the culture, the quality, the efficiency, also moving forward so that they're all tied together and not moving in opposite directions?

What does that look like and what are you doing for that?

Chris Van Dusen: Ultimately. We're gonna advise them the best we can, if we're in on secondment or sitting on the board, which is the majority of our positions, we're gonna be actively discussing as we [00:39:00] see culture, right? Start to slide. And it could be, sales are going really well, but sales are dominating and creating bad downward pressure on other teams.

Well, is that team's problem? Or sales? Sales the problem, figuring that out. But really at the end of the day, the idea is as a CEO, this is the founder of the company. You have three jobs, vision, culture, and capitalization.

You finish a round, you should be raising your next round. Now, do you have one in market? No. But should you be PT Barnum, telling everyone who will listen about the fact you closed when you're getting your next one and what you're going to do, from a company performance to get there.

Oh, absolutely. From a vision perspective, it is yours and yours alone. If you're the sole founder to say where this company is going and to make sure it stays on track and not let anyone or anything take it off. Kind of back to what we were talking about before and last is driving, harnessing, and leading the culture of the business so that it can fulfill that vision.

[00:40:00] Now, if you have a, we're in the office at 5:00 AM till 12:00 PM. It's not saying that has to be the culture, but that's the culture you're driving. You've set expectations. I wouldn't necessarily agree with those expectations. However, if that's the type of people you want, and now you have groups of people that are saying, I don't want to do that.

Your vision, your culture are that, and you are sticking to it. When you start allowing other people to set other rules, then what ends up happening is. Those other people who are driving hard and fast and believe the same things you do will start pulling back as well. And now you don't have the culture you wanted before.

And just to be clear, I'm not advocating that startup culture and the old school way of doing it is the right way. What I'm saying is whatever you want your culture to be, you own as the founder. No HR person's gonna come in and create Pizza Fridays, and all of a sudden your productivity's gonna go up.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So with that in mind, Chris, when would be the right time for a founder who wants to get that growth? [00:41:00] But to also realize, hey, I don't have it in house. That kind of a talent. And Solyco, yeah, they've got this fractional C-suite. I can speak with them. We can figure something out. When would they know? Is the time are the telltale signs of, okay.

Yes. Now's the time. Let me speak to Chris and team to see what we might be able to do, how they might be able to help us.

Chris Van Dusen: I think you hit the nail on the head early. It's when you're at an inflection point of growth, do you have the right butts in the right seats for it? If you don't, certainly Solyco and our team, if you're one of our portfolio companies, we'll jump in to help you get ready for it.

We can help interview, we can help. Understand and build the team structure. We may introduce you to, great recruiters ga, great HR professionals that we don't have in house, but we would certainly recommend that we used before to say these are the type of people we want. We're gonna bring our networks to bear to say, I have a great company that is doing X, Y, Z and we need this type of leader in there and this division or part of the company.

What's great as well is we have a very large and curated and unbelievable LP [00:42:00] network. And so a lot of these investors might be investors in this specific company and we can go, Hey, they built a company and sold it in, around or adjacent to this space. Maybe they know some great senior leaders who would be able to do and replicate the type of growth they had at their company here.

And so part of our value add is to look and I think I said this earlier, over the horizon and say, oh. That's coming. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. How do we prep, prepare, and get ready for it? And again, that could be in-house talent or that could be getting the right things in place to really capture that growth wave when it happens.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Interesting in terms of how you look at that and in terms of that vantage point. Chris, before we go into wrap up mode, my goodness, there are so many questions that I haven't even gotten out there. We've just scratched the surface. So let me ask you this before the wrap up. Is there a question I haven't yet asked that you'd like to address or even a message, a theme or a topic we haven't yet covered that you'd like to put [00:43:00] out there to the Deep Wealth Nation?

Chris Van Dusen: A very comprehensive, I think each of the questions you have, we could go super deep in, right? They could be their own podcast. Probably from a messaging perspective, I'd love to say, and I know your listeners just like myself, are entrepreneurs, right? They love the journey, they love the rollercoaster that is the joy and pain of being an entrepreneur.

There's always a solution, and I'm not trying to sound like a therapist, but there's always a solution and it's finding other people like yourself, Jeffrey. Me or whomever in your network that you can use as a confidant, because I will tell you, the journey is lonely. The journey is tough, and being able to have someone to say today sucked and be able to have them listen and go, okay, but tomorrow's going to be better, is actually really important just from a mental health perspective as you're on this journey.

There is a great study that came out on the predictors of success [00:44:00] in being an entrepreneur. And the number one predictor was having someone that could be a family member, it could be a spouse, could be a love, whatever it is to speak with about the journey. ' cause most don't.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And there's that saying it's lonely at the top, and it's true, and it is there for a reason, because it really is oftentimes not having that outlet. It's detrimental. To the business, to our mental health, to the overall vision. So I love what you and the team you're bringing in terms of, well hey, it doesn't have to be lonely at the top, we have the experience, we have the firepower, we can make this happen.

We've got a system and os, if you will, that actually works and it's got results. Absolutely love that. So Chris, with that said, sadly, very sadly, we're going into wrap up mode here. It's a tradition here on the Deep Podcast. It's really, it's my honor, it's my privilege where I ask every guest the same question.

It's a fun question. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any [00:45:00] point in time. So Chris, the fun part is tomorrow morning you look outside your window and lo and behold, there it is. It's the Florian car. It's curbside, the door is open.

You're now gonna hop on in and you're gonna go to any point in your life, Chris, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or, Hey Chris, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Chris Van Dusen: So number one, I would tell myself to figure out how to do jiujitsu back in 1993 when it started coming to the US versus starting at 36 in 2016. Very different. Because I will not say that I have the same grit, resilience, and fortitude as I have today.

And certainly the journey was a great piece of that, the last piece, and especially if they then have to continue to live that life, right? After I've gotten this advice would be keep moving forward because I did, or I wouldn't be here, [00:46:00] but keep, it'll be okay.

'cause there were days you don't know if it's gonna be okay. So it will be okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. So keep moving forward. It'll all be okay. It's all gonna work out. It's all part of the journey. We don't realize it at the time. I know for myself, some of the absolute worst things, or at least what I thought were the worst things back in the day, were the very things that helped elevate me to get to the next level.

So very true. I. And Chris, let me ask you this. For someone in the default nation, they have a question for you. They wanna speak to you, they love what you're doing, your approach to business, how you can help their business get to the next level, where would be the best place online for them to reach you?

Chris Van Dusen: LinkedIn. Great place. Chris m Van Dusen Instagram, the same thing, same handle, or shoot me an email. Would love to chat. It's C Van Dusen at Solyco capital.com.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And DePaul Nation, it does not get any easier. It's all in the show notes. It's a point and click. So go there. Hey, Chris has been there, he's done that. Multiple exits [00:47:00] making a huge difference out there. Literally changing the. Social fabric of society in terms of what he's doing. So reach out to him and have a conversation.

He will come out a whole lot better than when he came into that. And that said, Chris, it's official. This is a wrap. And as we'd love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Chris Van Dusen: Thank you. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

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God bless.