483 Christine Healey

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] What if owning a slice of the next SpaceX or Stripe was possible before they ever hit Wall Street? Christine Healy carved your path through the opaque corridors of private markets, first at Credit Suisse and Jefferies then as portfolio manager at Destiny and Senior Director at Forge before launching HEALEY PRE‑IPO, a boutique white glove broker service based in Austin, Texas.

With nearly a decade of experience and over $600 million in pre IPO transactions closed she thrives at the intersection of trust, Precision and elite deal making.

Her mission?

To demystify a market that rewards connection and punishes apathy.

Christine connects accredited investors from high net worth individuals to early tech employees with founders and funds offering private stock opportunities in late stage unicorns like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe. This isn't a legal lecture or a sales pitch. It's an invitation to peer behind the velvet [00:01:00] rope, a conversation about how access is built, what it costs, and what it means to bet on tomorrow's giants today.

Christine doesn't just source deals, she guides her clients through the humanity behind 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 C E S 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.

Deep Wealth Nation welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. For all you post Exit entrepreneurs out there, and even you founders, you're throwing off some terrific profits and you're asking, what's next for my investment? How can I earn some profits while I'm sleeping and take my financial portfolio to the next level?

Do I have a guest for you? We have a very special guest in the House of Deep Wealth. You heard it all in the official introduction. Christine, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. You're doing something really interesting out there, but before we even get there, there is always a story behind the story.

So Christine, what is your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Christine Healey: thanks so much for having me. In terms of my story I started off down the straight and narrow in investment banking thinking that was the, shortcut to success. Just put in the long hours at the bank and there's your career. I didn't love it the way I, wanted to, and I [00:04:00] was looking for something more entrepreneurial.

So I went to a early-ish startup around Series A and the startup I joined happened to be building a stock market for private companies. And that idea blew my mind at the time. These were companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Lyft. Uber that are now in the public markets, but at the time were these huge iconic private companies, and they were saying why shouldn't people be able to invest in Airbnb?

And so I almost stumbled upon it when I was looking for a cool startup to join. And just fell in love with the industry, fell in love with the clients and the deals I was working on. And you know what, I've been doing this ever since, that was 2018 and now I'm, still very specialized in this area ever since.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. Wow. There's a lot. Third to unpack for someone in Deep Wealth Nation who has just been so [00:05:00] busy, Christine running their company, they're not necessarily familiar with some of the lingo and what's going on. So when you're talking about a Series A, someone may be saying, okay, series A, what the heck is a series A?

So what would that mean? And. In terms of you being that matchmaker, I mean, you're throwing around some terrific names out there. How does that all fit in? So what would you say to someone in Deep Wealth Nation who is just starting to come to the position of, Hey, I have some extra dollars. Maybe I wanna invest that, but I just don't wanna go to my typical stock or ETFI wanna go to something that.

A bit of a longer play perhaps, but when it goes, it can really go. And by the way, Deep Wealth nation, this is not investment advice. It's simply Christine and myself having some conversations, sharing our opinions. And you can listen in on, on that. But Christine, for someone who's gonna be new to this, what does Series A mean and how exactly are you playing a role in something that sounds really exciting?

Christine Healey: Absolutely. So the world we're looking at here is private tech companies. [00:06:00] These are startups focused in the tech space. Anything from AI to space to financial technology. And these business models often require a lot of funding from venture capitalists. So think something like Shark Tank, but maybe on an even larger scale when you're building technology.

So series A, series B, series C, et cetera, basically just refers to the funding round where they take money from venture capitalists. So series A being one of the earlier funding rounds you can do, and then when you get further along in the alphabet, you're talking about much more mature and companies gradually.

So you can even have series K, et cetera, funding rounds when it comes to these really large companies that, think something like SpaceX or Stripe, where they might still be raising even at a relatively. Relatively late stage in their company cycle. So I'm a private tech specialist. What that means is looking at the [00:07:00] stock and investing in stocks of companies that haven't yet hit the public market.

So you can't just go buy them on your normal Robinhood app or your Fidelity app. You have to follow this bespoke process. So, like you said, a lot of people are in these professional careers or they're entrepreneurs and. They're so busy doing what they do often with a lot of success and it's consuming.

They may have some cash built up, be doing well for themselves, but they don't have the time or the awareness of, okay, where do I take it from here? I've built up some Wealth. How do I try and build a portfolio around this? Or what are the different areas I can invest in rather than just having all my money, all my time tied up in my day-to-day business that I'm working on.

So that's a really common profile.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Christine, for someone who's gonna be looking at this, let's look at you. For example, urac, [00:08:00] credit Suisse, and Jeff's two big names when it comes to investment banks. It's not as easy as it sounds because listeners saying, oh okay, yeah, I've heard of some of these companies that particularly open.

Maybe I'll just call 'em up and ask them if I can write them a check and see what goes on with that. So behind the scenes, what's really going on in terms of the research, the contacts, even the ability to write a check because it's likely not gonna happen or very difficult at best. So what's going on behind the scenes that you'd want someone to know of?

What's up against them if I want to be an investor in some of these early startups.

Christine Healey: What's really going on behind the scenes is that these large tech. Companies are grasping onto as much control as possible. They are, in many cases, going after these huge moonshot goals like colonizing Mars in the case of SpaceX or building ai that's gonna change our world in the case of open AI and others.

And these companies are [00:09:00] extremely picky, extremely restrictive in terms of who can actually access their shares. So if, like you said, someone just emails one of these top companies and says, can I invest? You probably won't even get a reply. It's just not something that's gonna be available to you. These companies in general do not want.

Individual investors to partake in their funding rounds and to have their stock unless you are, a billionaire in your own right. And then you might have special access and know the right folks and get it get your ticket in. So for the most part it's just not realistic to directly get that access to the funding rounds.

If you are a regular person trying to put in a hundred thousand dollars, not trying to put in a hundred million dollars. And so you have to look to alternative routes. So really commonly we can look at secondary trades, meaning. We won't get into the funding round, but maybe we can find an employee of that company that has [00:10:00] stock that needs cash for one reason or another.

Maybe they're starting their own next business venture, or we can look to a venture capital fund that got into one of those rounds, but now they want to cash out some and a number of other sources, and we can actually match investors to these private sellers. When in many cases the companies themselves might not be interested in facilitating that trade.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So behind the scenes you're involved in these communities. You're almost like the Sherlock Homes out there if you call, of finding people who have stock, early stock. It's not even public yet that they may want to get some liquidity themselves. But I'm wondering, because when you look at some of these names, these aren't just any names, they're some of the titans of business, SpaceX, Stripe, open ai, Andro, many others along the way.

So what does it even take, Christine, for you to post a logo on your board and say, okay, if you're interested in this company, let me know. Let me see how I might be able to help you. Because there must be some kind of threshold. There's many more companies out there. You're [00:11:00] likely saying no more than you're saying.

Yes. Let me. Take this company and make it available to my clienteles. What's going on behind the scenes with that?

Christine Healey: So I have to stay very disciplined in my business and look at the, a short list of companies where I know I can serve my clients best, whether they're buyers or sellers. So in practice, that means staying focused on transactions in the top 20 or so companies that are most active, most sought after, and ultimately where there's more of a marketplace on buy-side and sell-side.

So what's interesting in this market is that. The more of a buyer base I build up, the better I can serve those sellers. But equally, the more sellers I build up in my network, the more access I have for the buyers. And so it's really been compounding over time throughout my various experiences since 2018 where I've built this robust network of buyers and sellers and it just compounds because of the synergies and the network effects of building up both sides of the market.

So we're talking. [00:12:00] SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe Scale, ai, anthropic, Andal Revolut. Just relatively long list of companies that fit that profile of large pre IPO Tech Giant. And that's where I like to focus my time on being the Sherlock Holmes, a private stock and trying to find. The right counterparties or the right mix of sources to fit what each investor or each seller is looking for in the market.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Deep Wealth nation. To put this in perspective, you're out there, you want to invest well, in likelihood, you're probably never even heard of some of these startups that have just got going, and by the time. You hear about them. It's already too late. They're already going public. Or maybe they are public.

And yes, there's a financial opportunity for potentially some profits to be made at that point. If you do it right though, and you can get in before these companies go public, there's a larger opportunity for some financial gains. So, Christine, talk to us about this because the whole pre IPO market that you're focusing on very narrowly focused, and [00:13:00] if you have the right connections and you're able to get in the door.

And you have that appetite for risk because this is not something that is gonna be like your typical, maybe I'll go to the s and p 500 ETF and just set it and forget it. There's a lot more risk going on with this. There is a. Big opportunity. A big upside here as well as a big downside. But on the upside, why don't you share with Deep Wealth Nation what's in store for them?

Should they decide to go this route that they're not gonna get with your typical stock that's already out there, or buying an ETF or your other typical financial advice, what's going on here that makes this different than what they may already have access to?

Christine Healey: So what individual investors are up against today is this relatively new phenomenon that these high tech companies are delaying their IPOs longer than ever. You had Reddit recently go public at, I think 19 years old. Which is unheard of in terms of when companies would go public in the past, and you have companies today that are reaching [00:14:00] hundreds of billions of dollars in valuation, hundreds of billions of dollars.

Still entirely on the private market. So for example, you have SpaceX, which recently got to 400 billion in valuation. You had OpenAI just recently reached 500 billion in valuation. And these are crazy numbers we're talking about. So in today's world, the fact that a company could be half a trillion in valuation.

And still not be available to the public market is really wild when you think about it. So if a company is not available to the public market, what that means day to day is people are seeing, wow, OpenAI just came out with this great product chat. GPT just had this new feature, or SpaceX just had this amazing new milestone.

But you're watching these developments as a bystander because you can't just go on your Fidelity app. And go buy SpaceX shares. It doesn't work like [00:15:00] that because these companies are not public yet. So it's a really frustrating dynamic where often really well-to-do successful people are sitting there saying, I want a piece of this company that I see as being the future of humanity or changing the world.

I'm frustrated with just being a bystander. Why can't I have a financial stake in this company? It feels really unfair in a sense. To a lot of really aware, savvy investors that would be a great fit. Were it not for this access issue. So part of why this, job is so interesting is because in a world where companies can get to $500 billion entirely on the private market, in many cases, a lot of a company's growth has already happened.

By the time everyday public investors get a chance at that company after the IPO on their brokerage account. So there's a real access issue and a really, and inequality there where people [00:16:00] say, why should it just be the venture capitalists or the billionaires that get to access these companies before the IPO, and especially in recent times where the IPOs themselves have been really hit or miss.

It's very hard if you are investing just on the day of the IPO or anytime after that, who's to say how much growth is left in that company, if they've already had so much of their growth privately. And you might be really subject to the swings of the public market at that point, 'cause you got in so late essentially.

So a lot of investors are saying, what if I actually got in before the IPO, maybe even one or two years or funding rounds before they actually list? What would that look like in terms of my, cost basis going into the IPO. If I get in at the right price, maybe I'll have a bit more of a buffer.

There's a bit more room still left in the company's growth from here. So [00:17:00] I'm not just subject to that. Post IPO volatility.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And with more risk, you have more reward as a saying goes. And that said, and I get the sense that things are changing. Up until recently though, going public, never before have we seen companies hold off for so long, and part of it was really. From the political side and not to get into politics, it just seemed as though there were a negative sentiment from different government departments about going public and antitrust and all of that.

That's changed since we've had a regime change, and I imagine things are opening up now, so quote-unquote, normal times, whatever normal times mean from a company raising series A, B, C, D, et cetera. To going public. How long does that typically take? Where did it go to and where do you see it going to now?

Christine Healey: In the past, it wouldn't be strange for a company that's maybe five or six or seven years old to go public today. There's numerous examples [00:18:00] of companies that are 10, 12, 15 years even more that are. Still being private or maybe intending to still stay private for a lot longer. So, for example, with SpaceX Elon hasn't really shown any signs that he even wants to go public anytime soon.

And so it's possible that SpaceX won't be a public company until humans have colonized Mars and much, much further down that journey. What a wild thought proposition. So it's very different. And because you have these big companies and you have these iconic founders like Elon Musk that are questioning the default mode of, okay, what does success look like?

Success looks like an IPO Exit. Does it have to? Elon says, maybe no. So you see different routes being modeled. Like what if I stay private and I keep building privately, even though I'm this huge company by this point? And people are challenging [00:19:00] that status quo and the necessity of going public.

Because when you're public, suddenly you're dealing with maybe quarterly disclosures. You're dealing with the volatility day to day of your stock, and you just have a number of other pressures. Other than building your business and achieving your goals. So people are really questioning that reality and saying what's in it for me?

Will I be better served as a company to keep building privately? And the risk reward where the ROI of going public maybe isn't as much today as it has seems in the past.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So from an investor standpoint, and you can correct me if I'm OnBase or off base, Christine, really what I'm hearing is yes, there can be a tremendous reward when you can get in pre IPO. The flip side of that though is there's no guarantee of when the IPO could happen. So if you're an investor who says, okay, I wanna invest today in the next 12 to 24 months, I want to have hopefully my capital back, plus some profits.

No guarantees [00:20:00] about that. It may not be one or two years, it may be five years or three years or seven years. There's really no pressure onto the company. It's up to them to decide when and if they're gonna be going public. How am I doing with that?

Christine Healey: Yep. I agree with most, if not all of what you said. There's a lot of different outcomes here. Of companies that may be in that pre IPO stage, so they're large unicorns or decacorns. They're actively traded in these kind of deals. And from there a lot of things can happen. Sometimes you see 'em completely plateau and deals fall to the wayside.

You see companies that. Go from success to success. They raise a lot more funding rounds at escalating higher valuations, or they have this amazing IPO. So you see fantastic growth and success stories. You also see massive failures. Companies like FTX, which were in the tens of billions in value and then completely collapsed, or 23 And Me, which was really actively traded when I first started in this industry and has now, now not doing [00:21:00] very well either. So as you say, the risk is very real. This is not for every investor, but if you can find the right names, the risk reward profile can be really interesting. And this is really for a type of investor that has a lot of conviction in certain companies and really believes in what they're buying into and the hope for an outsized return.

So that's fascinating. Yeah. And to touch on the timeline of IPOs is a really interesting point because a lot of people do assume, okay, if I invest privately, the way I'm gonna get my money here is if that company goes public. But as these markets grow, there's other avenues emerging. For example, what if SpaceX doesn't go public for 10, 15 years from today?

What if I don't have to wait for that? IPO what if five years from now I might be able to sell to another private buyer? Huh. That's a whole new channel at that point. And so again, it's almost like the theme of [00:22:00] this is IPOs are not the end destination that they used to automatically be perceived as in a lot of people's minds.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Christine, you read my mind because what you are doing, which is absolutely fascinating. You are creating a market within a market, you're truly a matchmaker going way back to when matchmaking began. But it's not people, now it's companies. Because to your point, if a company takes one year or 10 years or something in between, in some ways it almost doesn't matter because you're out there.

And as an example, maybe I was employee number one. In a company, I have all kinds of stock. I wanna offload some of that stock to do who knows what, put my kids through school, do something for my parents, do something for myself. You're there. Or maybe now I'm an investor and made some investments through you, but now the company's not public yet and I wanna get some liquidity.

So I'm going back to you. So you're out there and you're matching up people who have ownership in these companies that aren't public yet, and you're able to help them sell or buy everything else in [00:23:00] between. What's that been like the past, I'm gonna say six to eight months because things have been changing so quickly.

So how's that been going for you?

Christine Healey: Yeah, I love the analogy of matchmaking. I use that all the time because intuitively we know matchmaking well, everyone's, every person's different. Finding a match can be very intricate and very nuanced, and that's exactly how it is. In this world. So there's all kinds of different buyers in this market.

There's people wanting to put in 50 K or a hundred K, there's people wanting to put in 1 million or 5 million or 10 million. There's individuals, there's funds, there's family offices, all kinds of folks. Some people might be looking for something that has more financial data visibility. Some people might want something that is.

In AI or space or some other industry, some investors might be looking more for stability and traction, and some might be really looking for that moonshot return where they really want 10 x plus on their investment. So different risk, different growth profiles for [00:24:00] everybody. What is in common about my clients is in general, they're all really dissatisfied with the experience in this market, with the chaos because.

Especially people that are used to public market investing don't always realize the quirks of private investing. There's no price uniformity, there's no structure uniformity, and it's extremely fragmented. So you wanna buy a public stock, you go on your brokerage app, you look it up, it spits out a price, and you can go from there.

If you wanna buy a private stock, there could be a number of different sellers offering the same company through different structures at different prices. And so it's this scavenger hunt in the market of figuring out where can I get the best combination of structures and prices? Also, considering my investment size, who can match the size I wanna do, and also how reliable are [00:25:00] these folks?

When the market is so fragmented, it's, it can be very confusing, especially if you're that founder that doesn't have time to do your 10,000 hours to figure out the details here that only come through experience. And the last thing you wanna do is invest in a deal that's gonna waste your time, or God forbid, not be credible or reputable at all and something bad happens.

So it's a real challenge and there's a lot of analysis paralysis and confusion and overwhelm. To approach a market that's as nuts and as chaotic and fragmented as this. So almost across the board, people want a more reliable, user friendly, simple way to access these deals. And that's why I try and do a concierge kind of approach where I've been in this market for what feels like forever now, and I can be that concierge to make the process simple and to find people offers, help them negotiate and close these.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Christine, I'm gonna [00:26:00] ask somewhat of an unfair question because you would likely say well, Jeffrey, it really depends on the individual, the investor, or their risk appetite. Let me ask it anyways. Typical size of check being written. So Christina, I'm coming to you and yes, I wanna invest in some of these companies that I don't have access to.

You've done the research and I'm gonna trust your judgment and recommendation. Typical size of investment. What are we looking at?

Christine Healey: While there is a variety it's the minimum starts to look like 50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars, depending on. Specifics of the deal. So quite a big hurdle really. It's something that's hard to do with $10,000 or truly much smaller amounts. So investors also have to grapple with these minimums and say, I may not be able to diversify that easily unless you've got a million dollars sitting around and you wanna put a hundred K into 10 names.

Sure. Obviously the more capital you're working with the more able you are to diversify [00:27:00] because some of these deals have quite large entry minimums, so that's quite common. And you have to figure out the balance between diversification and concentrated high conviction bets depending on the minimums and the assets that you're trying to deploy.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's what I'm hearing you say is there may not necessarily be a typical, but it's not uncommon for a 50,000, a hundred thousand in one particular company. Of course, if someone comes to you and says, Hey, I want to write a million dollar check, and there's availability, you're gonna do that, and so you're in business to be in business and well deserved to do that.

You, in terms of how you're operating from your profit level, is it taking a percentage of the transaction? Is it something along the buy sell price that's going on? How are you doing that?

Christine Healey: I charge an upfront broker commission, which is always clearly disclosed, typically 5%, and it can scale down depending on the size of deal that we're doing. So buyers should expect to pay that 5% commission and. That's how I get paid. And then [00:28:00] separately, depending on the deal, we're looking at if there are any additional fees coming from the seller.

For example, if maybe your perfect deal is coming in the form of a fund or some vehicle that holds the shares of the company you're after, if you end up going through a fund as your seller at that point. I'll also help walk you through any fees or quirks involved in the structure you're going into, so you understand that upfront before you decide yes or no.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Christine, for someone in Deep Wealth Nation who now finds themself in a situation where they can write the check, and that wasn't always the case. They're bootstrapping their company, they're getting it to a certain point. This kind of investment. Many upsides is terrific actually, when you can get it right.

That said, it's not necessarily gonna be for everyone out there. So as an investor now, so we're taking off our entrepreneurial hat, our business owner hat, we're putting on an investor's hat, these kinds of investments. Who are they for? Who are they not for?

Christine Healey: They are for a, an investor with [00:29:00] a high appetite for risk. An investor that has high conviction in certain companies that they believe in, that they believe will produce potentially outsized returns. This is not for someone who needs to be incredibly diversified unless they're working with a huge asset base just because of the minimums per deal.

This is not for somebody that is looking for low risk, guaranteed growth or anything like that. These are obviously equity investments. There's not a bond component. You don't typically get dividends, so this is not for people that are looking for an income generating asset.

This is geared towards growth and you're hoping that the actual value per share is gonna grow over time. And that'll be your golden result rather than collecting dividends or income or other cash flow along the way.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Christine on that note, since these companies aren't publicly traded, and it's not as though I can go to my favorite [00:30:00] brokerage or even online and type in the symbol and see what the value is today. How am I finding the value? If I invested it today and tomorrow as an example, I wanna see, okay, how am I doing?

Or next month or next year, how do I find out what the value is?

Christine Healey: So the answer is it's really hard to contextualize pricing if you're doing this on your own. If you're that business owner or that doctor and you just, you maybe see a SpaceX deal and you get a certain quote or a certain number and you think, how do I know if this is any good? How do I know if this offer I'm seeing is at the low end of the market, the high end, right on the money somewhere in the middle.

How do I know if this is a premium to the last round or to where other deals have closed? It's very confusing. You see these isolated data points, so there's, there are some data sources and companies popping up that are trying to bring more data transparency in helping investors, but they're still pretty limited.

So what you can get in terms of context as just an individual approaching this [00:31:00] market is honestly very minimal. And so for a lot of people it can make sense to work with a broker, especially a broker who specializes in the markets of those few companies you're trying to access. Because we, we do these deals day in and day out, so we can tell you.

Where deals have been closing recently, where buyers and sellers currently are. The number of people active in the market right now, very roughly, of course, meaning is this a very active market for this company? Is it quite thinly traded? Did the company recently do a funding round?

Is this deal at a premium to that funding round? Is it at a discount? All these different ways, we can take that isolated data point and make it more contextualized and make you understand what you're actually getting in the context of the market. So the more information and experience and context really the better so that you go into a negotiation with that seller armed with the right.

The right [00:32:00] data points and awareness, and you can be educated really, and not just take that first offer out there because I think individual investors in particular are the most vulnerable to shady offers or deals that are overpriced or deals that have these egregious fees. If they don't have those data points in that context to really understand what they're looking at and how competitive it is for that deal.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So it sounds as though a couple of things. On the one hand, if you're gonna be going at this, you need to have some patience and it good old supply and demand. Depending on where things are, perhaps it'll propel it forward, or perhaps it'll be lower than what it was. But it's having someone like yourself.

You're out there, you're creating really your own market. You're bringing the buyers, you're bringing the sellers, you're bringing them all together. Making it easy for me instead of me having to go out there and do it and imagine all the emails, I can't even imagine the phone calls, the emails, the outreaches, Hey [00:33:00] Jeffrey, you have some stock in this company.

Would you like to sell some? And you're looking to bring that together. I can only imagine some of the conversations. You can probably write books and books on the stories behind that of making this happen. And so all of that said, Christine, where we sit here today, and of course things are gonna change by the time the episode comes out live.

But that said, where is this marketplace going in terms of public offerings? And now that we're seeing capital markets finally open back up and we're starting to see IPOs finally get back out their predictions in terms of what we're gonna be looking at, I.

Christine Healey: Yeah, I think a lot of people are saying the IPO market is opening back up. You see some IPOs that so far are looking quite good, like circle IPO among others. And so a lot of people are saying, we'll see more of these giant tech companies go public. I think that may happen to a certain extent, but I think a lot of that IPO pipeline is gonna be cannibalized by.

The number of companies that [00:34:00] pause and delay their IPOs like we've been talking about companies that say, I am literally on the brink of IPO. I could go public. It might even be the right time in the markets where this could be a successful IPO, but I'm still gonna stay private because. The value add of going public maybe isn't there.

So I think you'll see that effect more and more. And as an alternative to IPOs, you'll see more giant companies doing things like massive organized stock buybacks where these companies might let their shareholders sell. In a tender or another company organized program, maybe once a year or something like that, so people that really have that burning need to cash out can do that, but while the company still gets to stay private, and so it's like a compromise where companies can acknowledge the fact that people are there 15 years that might really need to cash out from the shareholder base [00:35:00] and they can satisfy that urge.

Through a, company controlled sale process, but delay the IPO further, I think we'll see a lot more of that, and that'll really exacerbate this tension really in this access issue of getting everyday people into these companies before, before the IPO, which could still be pushed down the road.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's interesting about this, the circles that you're traveling in. And on the one hand, okay, AI and investment, that's a very different conversation than what's actually going on in the world of ai. But would love to ask you, given the circles that you're in, where you sit, who you're speaking with, what are you seeing with ai in terms of where we are today, and best guess, I'm not even gonna go out ears because things are changing by the day.

So I would say three months from now, six months from now, any insights, any predictions of what we should be expecting with AI and where it's gonna be taking us.

Christine Healey: AI has quickly become. One of the most [00:36:00] dominant, if not the most dominant industries that we see demand for these private deals. So there's a number of AI companies open AI scale, ai anthropic really many others that are dominating the attention of a lot of pre IPO investors. So you also see.

AI companies popping up very quickly that have become incredibly well funded or well valued very fast. So companies that might only be a year or two old being valued at billions, tens of billions possibly even larger. And so there's this explosion of value creation. I think some people are incredibly excited about that and a lot of people wanna buy into these potential growth stories.

You also have investors saying. There's some sort of AI bubble potentially happening here. You have a six month old company that's worth billions of dollars. What the heck are you talking about? Something's gotta go wrong here. So when you look at the number of AI [00:37:00] companies that are valued at billions or that have, exploded. Really in, in such a short amount of time, it seems to the skeptic, not all of them can succeed. There's gonna be some companies that fall to the wayside or some sort of adjustment over time because it's, can it really be possible that all this, trillions and trillions of dollars have really been created in these short timelines. yes, perhaps no. And so for sure, there's a lot of excitement about ai and it'll be interesting to see which companies within the AI universe can actually sustain that momentum and put value behind some of the optimism and investments that people have come into, come in forth.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And when it comes to ai, Christine, in terms of your world, finding the buyers, finding the sellers, getting in on these pre IPO opportunities, has it been playing a role with you and where do you see that going?

Christine Healey: I would say no, personally, I think [00:38:00] one of the biggest challenges of this market is that there's, what I, in a kind of a cheeky way, call a proliferation of mediocrity. So a lot of people have realized that this market can be lucrative, that there's interesting deals to be done, and there's a swarm of new.

Platforms, crowdfunding sites, just businesses of all kinds, trying to get a piece of this market, which is partly why it's become even more fragmented. Even more chaotic. So the quality I think, has gone down because there's so many people trying to serve investors or be a broker that really lack the experience, lack the years Of work in this industry to be able to deal with those quirks in a more masterful way and help investors navigate through the chaos more seamlessly. So it's more and more common for. That business owner we've been talking about, our quintessential successful business owner, maybe they've even seen something like [00:39:00] SpaceX or one of these private stocks offered somewhere in their email inbox.

Maybe they've gotten something at some point, but it probably seems sketchy or they weren't sure if they could rely upon it. Maybe the person offering it is not a licensed broker with finra. it maybe there's some access there, but it doesn't really seem like the right access, the right quality.

And so what's really scarce in this industry is that experienced sourcing partner, negotiating partner to actually help people understand these structures and transactions and. Do that in a more personal, high quality way. You get a lot of less high quality folks trying to, get their hand in to the detriment of the actual investors.

In terms of ai, my perspective is similar, meaning I think people are trying to build AI and trying to build automations for the pre IPO trading industry. A lot of what's been built so far is. [00:40:00] Not quite good enough to replace a human expert. And so with all these companies pushing digitized solutions and pushing these, these platforms for trades, but not necessarily to the highest quality, I think that, again, just exacerbates the issues in the actual client experience.

So when the, these companies that are trying to digitize, trying to use AI to automate everything typically it's because they themselves are trying to raise VC funding grow as a business. They're trying to get VC backers. they're trying to go for hypergrowth. So a lot of my competitors are these large.

VC-backed platforms that are trying to literally become a $10 billion company in their own right and scale at all costs effectively. And I'm saying that might be great having 500,000 users or covering 400 different companies. [00:41:00] That might be great if you're trying to impress the vc looking at your deck.

It's not so great if you're one of those 500,000 users and you just want a reliable person to help you with a big financial decision that you're making. And so I'm saying all these companies are going automated. They're going scale. I'm gonna stay a disciplined small business. I'm gonna focus on a small list of the companies that are most relevant to most investors.

I'm gonna have a small. A list of clients that I know I can serve to a high quality. I'm not raising VC funding. I'm not going for hypergrowth. I'm trying to serve my clients. Keep the standard high, but at the same time enable them to. Leverage my years of experience and my expansive Rolodex so they can get that same quality or even better quality, hopefully, but in a way that's personal and that treats them with respect and care because I know my [00:42:00] clients are my biggest asset and my business and go with a new strategy compared to these large platforms that I think are really missing the point of what these clients are going through and what they really need.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What I love about this in a world that's going automated and AI and all technology, you're saying, Hey, not for me. I'm good old bespoke, and it's one off at a time and it's not scalable and it's very hands-on, which is always refreshing to hear. Christine, there are so many questions I haven't yet had a chance to ask.

And before we go into wrap up mode, let me ask you this. Is there a question I haven't asked that you'd like to put out there or even a topic, a theme or a message that we haven't covered yet?

Christine Healey: I would just say we've gone into all kinds of the nuances why this market is so complicated. Yes, it can be a very complicated, intimidating market, but it doesn't have to be. That's something I feel really passionate about. There's ways to learn how [00:43:00] to assess opportunities in the right way to get support by someone like me to help make this really streamlined.

So you don't have to be intimidated by, the process or the prospect of getting into some of these companies that you might've been tracking for years now, you might've been looking at the idea of SpaceX wanting to get in, and I don't want people to come away with this idea that it's too frustrating.

There's no good players, nothing's reliable, reliable opportunities and the reliable players are there. You just need little help sometimes to find them, and I want people to have this hope that there's a more streamlined way to access companies that they can feel so, so, so excited about and feel like they're actually participating in potentially the future of our generation or future of humanity.

In the case of some of these high tech deals, there's a way to do that in a way that still honors your needs and is more streamlined for you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Words for the wise Deep Wealth nation. [00:44:00] Hope you took that in. That is some terrific insights. And actually, Christina, it's a perfect segue for our wrap up. You. It's our tradition here on the GPL podcast. It's really my privilege and my honor, where every guest I ask 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, Christine, to any point in time. So imagine now is tomorrow morning, and Christine, you look outside your window. This is the fun part. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in which you do, and you're now gonna go to any point in your life, Christine, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be.

Christine, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or, Hey Christine, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Christine Healey: I've always said I have no desire to go back to my early twenties where I was slaving away in the investment bank. So if there is a way to somehow pass on the advice to myself without physically going back to that would be really interesting to me. I'll send a proxy to get in the car and go [00:45:00] back and pass this message to myself so I don't go have to go.

I don't have to go back to those days. But I think when you are hyper motivated you don't always keep that balance with your health and wellness. There's a real cost to that. And so I think it's definitely possible to still be successful and ambitious, whether it's running your own business or just doing something very challenging, but to still honor what your body needs, what your spirit needs, and keep that respect for the other side of the house and to.

To look after your health and wellness, whether it's psychological wellness, whether it's making sure you're getting enough sleep, whether you're caring for a chronic condition you may have, and not just forsaking it for the long working hours. I think it enables you ultimately to be more successful. And I think we all learn this, especially if we're business owners and we are constantly feeling burnt out.

[00:46:00] But some of the best things you can do for your success and your longevity is to balance that ambition with self-care. And that's something I've maybe learned the hard way working 120 hours in the investment bank for a long time. But I wish I could say, your needs are important.

Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up, and I found in running my own business and in doing this kind of work after the fact, sometimes it's the moments where you take a pause and you get some perspective on what you've been grinding away at. That it's those moments that enable you to have the sparks of genius or the idea that changes everything.

Sometimes it's going, actually going to that networking event rather than being holed up at home that leads you to your next investor or your next partner or just changes the way you think about your business problems. And so sometimes by actually not going so [00:47:00] full throttle on our work that we neglect our health and wellness and social life, et cetera, it can actually be the catalyst for.

The next stage of growth in your business.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Love that, and you are preaching to the call. Are here at Deep Wealth because that's our tagline, extracting your Deep Wealth in business and life. And you're saying completely subscribe to that of, Hey, you gotta look after your health and wellness first. Slow down so you can speed up. Because health is our first Wealth.

And if we don't have that. What's the rest of it all for? So could not agree with you. More words to the wise. And Christine, before we wrap up, somebody has a question they wanna speak to you, maybe they even wanna write the check to make an investment in one of these stellar companies before they go public.

Where would be the best place online to reach you? I.

Christine Healey: So send me a DM on LinkedIn at Christine Healey, H-E-A-L-E-Y. If you want a one-on-one session to talk more about this or exact. What deal you wanna come into. Let me know one way or another. You can also go to my [00:48:00] website, healy pre ipo.com. It's H-E-A-L-E-Y pre ipo.com, and you can sign up for my mailing list there.

If you're the type of person that just wants to learn more, start seeing how I talk about the markets or potentially be offered deals. Depending on your suitability, so you can start one or two channels depending on whether you just wanna get a bit of exposure. Sign up for my mailing list, or actually just talk to me directly and dive right into a conversation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Deep Wealth nation, it does not get any easier. It's all in the show notes. It's a point and click. It's all there for you. Christine, congratulations. It's official. This is a wrap and as we love to say here at Deep May you continue to thrive and prosper. While you remain healthy and safe, thank you so much.

Christine Healey: Thanks so much, Jeffrey. 

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 [00:49:00] 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? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

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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.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.