speaker-0: Well I guess is another time for an episode of Winning with Winens. Let's go. And welcome back to Winning with Wine's Las Vegas' newest and coolest financial show. And I am your host, Ken Wynins. And you know, I love where we get our guest. I want to introduce you to an associate and I think soon to be good friend, Jeff Sailing. Jeff runs a group called Startup NV, but before we get started on that, first, hey Jeff, how you doing today? Pretty good. Where's your cowboy hat?
speaker-1: Wait, how are you? I don't have one.
speaker-0: Okay, we're gonna fix that. You can't live in this state without a cowboy hat. Come on now. But Jeff, you and I met. It's so funny where you meet people at we we kept crossing paths. So I saw a political fundraiser and then I think we were at some event. Well, we did a fundraiser here for our friend. Yeah. And then we I think we even met at a chamber event or something. It seems like we were at another thing, but I I just that's Nevada. You can
speaker-1: Vegas is a small town, the state is a small state, so you keep meeting the same people over and over again.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Now you yourself live in the northern half of the state.
speaker-1: I do. I live in between Incline Village and Reno, but equidistant to Carson City as well.
speaker-0: Now let me ask you this. I mean we're gonna get into what you do soon, but it seems to me because Reno's going through a renaissance too. We talk a lot about Las Vegas' changes, but Reno too. I mean, when you look at the manufacturing that's up there, it's crazy.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean the we focus on similar things but but different at the same time. And Nevada's such a small state, you know, our organization serves the whole state. And I spend about half my time in Vegas and about half in Reno. So yeah, Reno's gone through a renaissance. it's it's starting from a much smaller base, so it's still a much smaller city, maybe one fifth the size of Vegas. Is it really? Yeah. So people think it's bigger and or they also think Vegas is Much bigger than it is. But we who live here know it's a pretty small town. Everybody knows everybody. Yeah.
speaker-0: Well i the the old adage, hey, I know a guy. Yeah. It's and it's where you meet people. But people here are very approachable. You know, they I mean, you don't have I don't find pecking orders. I mean, you and I both spent a lot of time in California, born in r or raised there. And and you know, but doing business there is very different. Okay, real quick, I I mean I'm also involved with a mining association. It what's going on in the northern half of the state, coming out of Reno, is crazy what's going on with mining, with the rare earths and all the things.
speaker-1: It is. And I think we've got a real big opportunity in in front of us and actually was trying to work on a piece of legislation in the last legislative session, which had to do with some of the revenue that comes from mining and creating a sovereign wealth fund for the state based on some of that activity. And it just didn't get on the agenda. There was too many other things. but I had actually worked with the the fellow who represents my area, Ken DeLong, who's a Republican. And Steve Yeager, who was the speaker, we were trying to work on a bill between those two guys and it was sort of my idea. And like I said, there were so many other things on the agenda, it just didn't make it. but I'm hoping that we can work on it again soon.
speaker-0: That's a great idea. I mean I mean it's when you have trillions of dollars of resources as we have in the borders of Nevada, I mean that's gr it's crazy not to have that available.
speaker-1: And we've got 16 or 18 other states to follow. I mean, Alaska's got their big one based on oil, Texas's is based on oil, New Mexico's based on oil and minerals. Montana has one that's mostly based on minerals. North Dakota has one. West Virginia has one. There's a bunch of states that are looking to their future, creating, you know, a sovereign wealth fund that helps their states build things and do things that they otherwise couldn't do through the normal budgetary process in their legislature. So you're building It's like a savings plan based on the minerals that you have in the ground or oil in the case of Alaska and Texas.
speaker-0: talk later. It's funny. Folks, that's what happens with podcasts is you just start talking with somebody. But all right, let's get back on track. Okay. So let's talk about your organization. Sure. Okay. Which is Startup Nevada. And I just love, I mean, the title alone tells you all you need to know, but let's talk about it.
speaker-1: Sure. Startup Nevada. People call us that. We're our actual name is Startup NV, because we wanted the double entendre. Startup NV, Startup NV. but you can find us on startup NV.org. And we're an economic development and education nonprofit that has venture capital funds, for profit venture capital funds that are, I'll say, affiliated with the organization so that we can fund some of the companies that we're helping, the ones that have sort of the biggest. venture like returns possible. And we also help, I'll say, Main Street businesses at well that may not be venture fundable businesses, but that are just looking for help, education on how to get a business started, how they should fund it, and the various things that entrepreneurs need to know.
speaker-0: Well, you know, and it's funny because obviously I started several businesses. We know it can be tough. I actually think an interesting area that you folks are gonna be be dealing with, because obviously I've studied what you do, is these firms that are leaving California and they need to learn about Nevada. They need they need to understand you need to do this, this, this, and this in order to do it here. And it is different.
speaker-1: It is different. we have a better environment and so you know from a from a pure business perspective, regulatory perspective. And people most people understand and know that. I mean, having no state income tax is is a great thing. but at the same time, we're a less mature ecosystem than Silicon Valley or even Southern California or Austin or Seattle or any of the other ecosystems, startup ecosystems are a little bit ahead of us. Which is fine. Everybody has to start somewhere. And you know, we're coming up to speed really quickly. And just sh showing them what we do have, getting people comfortable with living here, because there's so many advantages to being here. And there's a phrase that almost all of the people who come here say usually it happens somewhere between three months and six months of being here. And it's I had no idea. And it and it's not because they're they're dumb or anything else, but they just didn't understand that there's a real community here. There's a real startup ecosystem, there's a real town that exists out of that wonderful, magnificent three-mile strip between Tropicana and Sahara. And it's great, brings 40 million people a year to our town. But there's so much more beyond that. And once you're here living here, you know that.
speaker-0: Well, you know, when because both of us had stories done with us by the Review Journal about and we both had the same ideas about the growth of the economic base in the state, the migration coming from other states. But you know, I I find it comical when I was literally back in Texas, and they were alluding that the mob still runs. I said, The mob? What what what's what what decade are you? And then the other thing was water. And then it was funny because I heard it from the economic development people in Arizona. I'm saying, now that if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, you idiots of drain your aquifer, we haven't even touched ours yet. And you're telling us we're running out of water? Are you guys kidding me? But you know, I think it's jealousy, Jeff. I I think there's a sense that we are special. And I think a lot of other places are jealous of it.
speaker-1: Well, we certainly think we're special. I think so. and we we have all kinds of opportunity in front of us and we've been smart about managing our resources. We've been smart about creating a a good reputation or a reputation for ourselves around the world, whether it's come and have fun in Vegas or come ski in in Reno Tahoe or if you're a hunter or a golfer or you know, a an outdoors person. I mean, we've got it all.
speaker-0: Well, you know, I'll go back real quick when you said, I didn't know that. I have that when get when clients come in, my clients come in from California. And again, they they think we live on the strip. No, we don't. You know, the we're in Summerlin right now. Henderson's a beautiful area, Centennial Hill, Lake Las Vegas, even parts away from the strip in proper Vegas, they're beautiful areas, beautiful. I mean, modern architecture, beautiful communities, well laid out infrastructure. It's a lot of good.
speaker-1: There is and and we have our our urban areas as well. If that's your if that's your your liking. I my office is downtown, near Fremont Street. And Fremont Street is interesting.
speaker-0: It is really a yep.
speaker-1: and and it's it's a it's it's fun. It's part of our community. I love it. I love all of it.
speaker-0: Well, you know, when we talk about even there, you know, the areas that are older parts of the town. We have our arts district. We have, I mean, look at Smith Center. I always always tell people, you know, I don't my friends from well, you and I are both from the Bay Area, and you get a little bit of well, we Davies Hall. Said, go look at the Smith Center. Private capital, not a dime of public money went into that thing. God bless the Smiths. They did their thing. But it's a beautiful. Now it's not you know, it's not a Victorian style opera house or symphony hall. It's our deco, but it fits Vegas. But the sound in there is best as anything I've ever heard.
speaker-1: Well I think the sphere might give it a runs for its
speaker-0: Well, now the spirit too. yeah, you're right. But see, that's a good thing, Jeff. All right, let's go back real quick. I want to talk. Well, actually, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a real quick break to hear from our sponsors. And I'm going to come back. And then Jeff Saly and I are going to talk about how he ended up in in Nevada. Cause I think hey, like I said, it it brings all of us together. This is Ken Winins winning with Winins, and we'll be right back. And welcome back to Winning with One is Las Vegas, newest and coolest financial show. But I'm gonna say Nevada's newest and coolest financial show because we have somebody who's in both ends of the state. Jeff Sailing from Startup Envy, my friend, let's talk about, you know, like we we just talked about how people get Vegas wrong. I think they get Reno wrong. A lot of people just think it's this mountain town and you go up there to go skiing. But a lot of people who've moved there say this is a great community. It's it it's wonderful. I mean, it it has modern conveniences. They're you know, the infrastructure they're every everywhere in our state they're redoing the roads and they're doing the Wi Fi and they're fixing the grid. They're doing all the things that really should be done.
speaker-1: Yeah, Reno's a great town. we love it. It's it's much smaller than Las Vegas for anybody who's not in Nevada. But no, it's a it's a it's a cool sort of modern mountain town. It's got got a an honest to God downtown, little less casino gaming focused than than we are here in Vegas. but yeah, it's I I that's where I call home. most of the time, sixty percent of the time. the other forty is here in in Vegas. But Little bit cooler. you're in the mountains. You get you get all four seasons, all you know, you get snow in the winter. so I you know, so if you're if you're somebody who likes a little bit more four seasons traditional kind of situation, yeah, it's it's a it's a great town and we're it's growing like crazy, just like Vegas. Yeah.
speaker-0: How did how is everything with the fires? Is it things how way more
speaker-1: The fire the most recent fires north of town, yeah, they're all they're all done. They're they're put out. It was dangerous there for a while. We had fires near my house, two years prior to that. So yeah, it's it's it is in the mountains, so you are subject to that kind of a a risk.
speaker-0: Well, you it you know, we talk about economic development. I think that's one of the real keys of why Nevada ha has the ACEs. You have you have let's say somebody from Arizona. Hey, Arizona's large I mean, where they're where you're gonna end up is in Phoenix. You know, you you go to Oregon, you're gonna open certain places. Here, you have flavors. You wanna go to Reno, you have Reno. You wanna come to Vegas, you have Vegas. You know what? And it's pretty easy to get back and forth. You know, if you have you like you, you're sixty forty.
speaker-1: Yep, sixty forty. I do it I think forty times a year according to Southwest.
speaker-0: So do you ever drive it or just
speaker-1: I have driven it. It's a it's it's a it's a hike. It's a seven and to eight hour drive.
speaker-0: Drive the speed limit, of course.
speaker-1: Well the speed limit's eighty, so it's it's not that hard to stay within the speed limit. And even if you go a little faster. but it's yeah, it's wide open in the rural areas of Nevada.
speaker-0: Now, I want to talk about you a bit if you don't mind. Okay. So you grew up you you were born in Pittsburgh. Yes. And I wanna ask you where did you grow up, you said all over. Right. So let's talk a little bit about that. So you're you're a would you say that your roots are the Midwest?
speaker-1: Well, that's where I spent my childhood until high school. I was in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Indianapolis primarily. A little bit of time in Jacksonville, Florida. But yeah, that's that's where I was a kid, you know, out in the woods hunting and fishing and and and just being a sort of a suburban kid.
speaker-0: Yeah, so for same with me. You can you know, it's interesting when people have grown outdoor people. You know, it's funny how you I can go to the indoor places, but I still love to know that I can get out and whether it's a horse ride or a motorcycle ride or as you say, golf or ski, you know, you can go do those things you need to do it. So then you ended up in California.
speaker-1: California during high school and went to the Bay Area. De La Salle Spartans go. That was my high school. and I went to college in the Bay Area as well. And then
speaker-0: Now where'd you go?
speaker-1: Cal State Hayward, it's called Cal State East Bay now. and during college, I worked as a truck driver and a forklift driver, and it was great, great money for me at the time, young. young man, you know, stacking boxes and driving trucks, delivering lots of paper, which we don't do anymore, into downtown San Francisco. and then and then because I was a pretty responsible young man, the company kept me on for a number of years. And after a few years in the logistics and and trucking business, I thought, I didn't really design my career to be here. Why am I here? Yeah. And that's when I got bit by the startup bug and I went sort of full full tech in the early nineteen nineties.
speaker-0: Well, you talk about the you know, we think of the berry in the early nineties. my goodness. Cause I I went to USF for my graduate studies and it was a special place to go to school and then to have your career kick off and that early because it was broad based. It was finance, it was tech, it was everything, everything under the moon there. So you start and then you met your wife there, I assume.
speaker-1: I actually met my wife in the logistics business. She was a customer of mine. wow. she was from the New York City area, and we warehoused their products, jellies and jams and and salsa and a bunch of other food products. and she was in charge of sort of their distribution and she came out. This this our warehouse for them was in Southern California in the city of commerce. and she came out to fire us. She was gonna move her account to a different provider. Yeah, I saved the account. six months later we were married. We now have two kids.
speaker-0: my goodness.
speaker-1: We now have two kids and grandkids.
speaker-0: my goodness. Well, that's a great story. I mean, I hope the family hey, listen, this you have to play this during the during the holidays. Now you also lived in Southern California.
speaker-1: I did. I spent the from nineteen seventy eight until nine two thousand eight I was in California, about half the time in the Bay Area, about half the time in Southern California. I
speaker-0: You do these halves and halves, huh?
speaker-1: guess I do, it seems to be part of my life.
speaker-0: All right, so you here you had you so you've lived really in a lot of different cultures, places, weather and economic thing. Why why Nevada? Why Vegas?
speaker-1: well, about two thousand eight, I was, you know, a Silicon Valley guy, right? I I was I was living in Southern California, but my startup was in San Jose. And my part of the the team was sales and professional services and sales engineering, all the stuff that faces outside the company. So I was on a plane every week to somewhere in the world. We sold our particular products to all the big enterprise companies all over the world. And So I was I was flying two hundred and fifty thousand miles a year, staying hundred and seventy five nights a year in ho hotels around the world. And it was like, why w the the people in California at that point, my view was they didn't seem to want me around there anymore. They didn't seem to want people like me in their state anymore. And with my daughter off to medical school and my son off to the military and me on a airplane, it was like, Well, I can fly from anywhere. Yeah. so let's look for a different place to be where they might appreciate me a little bit more. I've heard, you know, I spent a lot of time in the Reno Tahoe area when I was growing up and in college. So that's where my wife and I looked to go. And and we looked, it was two thousand eight, everything, if you remember, that was the great financial crisis. So everything, all the houses were for sale. We were like the only buyer, I swear, in the entire state of Nevada and Well, everything's on sale. Now's the time to buy. So so we we made the move. and I thought, all right, well, I'm gonna stay with my startup. We had just we had gone public a few years before. I wanted to to finish that task and then move on to the next startup, but I wanted to do it here in Nevada. And so I did. I spent a couple years still flying all over the world. we got the company to a point where I They didn't need the startup guy like me anymore. They needed more mature managers. I'm the zero to one guy. They needed the one to ten guy. So I started looking around to do my own thing. And I realized there's no capital here. There's no coders here. Things that I've later learned to call a startup ecosystem. You know, our company was in Silicon Valley. We were the startup ecosystem. And I it's like being a fish in water. You don't realize you're wet until you're not in the water anymore. and you know, so I I I I I it was it was frustrating to not be able to do the kinds of things that I wanted to do because we just didn't have the infrastructure for it. Yeah. So I I spent a while in I did a another startup in Austin, which is where I had a big network from my my Silicon Valley days. We had a a big part of our company was in Austin, Texas. went there, did a startup there, came back to Nevada and there we after a couple of years there still really wasn't a a startup ecosystem. Again, I I didn't really have a name for it. I had some friends that were starting something in Seattle. So I I joined them as a co-founder there. another couple of years came back again thinking, you know, I I I don't want to live in Seattle. I spent a couple of years there, but I didn't want to really live there full time. and then went back to Austin again because there still wasn't a startup ecosystem here. And in Austin, I I I did the last the startup I did there was in an incubator accelerator program called the Capital Factory. and that was when it sort of made sense to me. It was like, this is great. I I'm I'm doing this cool startup in Austin in the Capitol Factory. And I'm gonna I you know, I don't wanna I love Austin. I don't I don't want to live here, but I I now know what I want. I want a thing like the Capitol Factory, but I want it at home. There's eighteen hundred of these programs around the country. There's bound to be one somewhere in Nevada, Reno, Las Vegas, somewhere, right? Nope. Yeah, so I just modeled, it was in my head what what what I saw and felt at the Capitol Factory. and That's what was sort of the inspiration for what caused me and my my colleagues at the time to to kick off startup en v.
speaker-0: And then we have a startup NV. You know, we we share a a very parallel situation. But we're Jeff, we're gonna take another quick break. We're gonna come back for our podcast bonus section. Okay. And I want to talk more about this because I I mean, you're you're the vanguard of where the state needs to go on multiple fronts, not just tech. But anyway, folks, we'll be right back with Jeff Saling from Startup Envy and we have more to talk about. Be right back. And welcome back to Winning with One is Las Vegas and Nevada's newest and coolest financial show. But you know what? It's a business show. And Jeff Saling from Startup NV has been our fantastic guest. But Jeff, before we went on break, we we were talking about you know what it takes to have the foundation in place. And you know, and it is fun to think about a place that it is truly fertile ground. It is. It's new. You know, you you think, wow, this is the twenty-first century, and there's a place that that that is surrounded by success. But let me ask you this. So what you were saying is that there was just no I and I love your term ecosystem, because it everything feeds itself. Let me throw something at you, and partly of what I read in the article, what you brought up, made me think about it too. But all these cities that you talked about in the previous section all had a production mill for talent. They were producing these young, highly, and it's not so much best school, worst school. No, it's the programs. were being produced. And it's funny because I was literally just having this talk at a meeting at UNLV about this. And we were talking about the is the, you know, what made new old New York New York. And I remember telling him, I said, guys, Harvard did not build Wall Street. What built Wall Street was NYU. The compliance officers, the people who worked the excuse me, worked the floor, the people who worked the back offices, the all that plumbing was done by those people. Yes, you had The the the C suite was probably by these other schools. But I but we have to have that here. So now one thing that we did, you always have to do a little step. I told them, look, anybody graduating has to be licensed if they want to work in my field. You have to have a securities license. You know, in our day we used to call it the broker license. Now we call it the Seri 65. So guess what we did? We started a program, independent study at UNLV. UNR is going to start it next, I think next spring. And these young people coming out of the business schools and finance. are walking out with not only their degrees, but they're fully licensed. Great. So here's what it means. I can now talk to those firms that think they want to move here and tell them we have the internal talent. You want those young, energetic kids that don't expect you know to make big salaries right out of the block, you have it here. But I know what you mean about you just have to start somewhere. You do. Yep. You just have to start and just get it going. So here we are now. So how long has Startup NB been around?
speaker-1: Just we'll be on our tenth year next year. So nine nine and a piece.
speaker-0: So are you ahead of schedule on schedule?
speaker-1: I I don't even know what our schedule was supposed to be, but we were the idea here was our model is we we'll help anybody. So we'll help the main street businesses get up and going, we'll help the venture scalable business get up and going. So we because we didn't have capital in the ecosystem, we we built venture capital here adjacent to our organization so we could invest in these companies. so our idea was if we help you come you know, company get your first round of funding, we'd like you to donate a little tiny piece of equity. You know, we asked for 1%, can't always get 1%, but you get something, a third of a percent, a quarter percent shares, whatever. and it's donated to the nonprofit to startup NV. so we've been accumulating these little pieces of shares over the qu past nine years. And some of them look like they're gonna pay off. Wow. And so in the meantime, you know, we're we're we're getting grant funding from the feds, from the state, from the cities, from the counties, and that's sort of hand-to-mouth is how we survive. But we're hoping that one day, soon, hopefully within the next couple of years, some of these shares that we have in these startups, Nevada startups, are going to be actually worth some real money. And that's that's the longer term vision for us is to create our own foundation where we not only don't have to ask for grant money, but we can actually grant money back to other good causes in the community. And you can see it coming over the horizon now as these companies have matured and they've raised money from us and they've gone out and raised money from other venture capital firms in other places and the companies are on a good trajectory. You can see it coming. And I didn't know how long that would take. I mean, I I s sort of did because you know, if you start a venture capital fund, you think in terms of decades, right? You think, you know, I'm gonna start a venture capital fund and Hopefully I'll have some exits within 10 years. and we're we're getting to that 10 year anniversary. We didn't have venture capital from the very beginning, but we're far enough long now that it should start happening for us. It seems like it will, based on my observation of the companies and and their progress and in the various fields that they're working in. And that's the real dream. The dream is to have this foundation that will continue to promote entrepreneurship. at the venture scale level, at the local level, and also to your point in the universities, being able to to create our own talent here. you know, you work in the business school, I work in the school of engineering and I work up at UNR and UNLV. Sounds like you work at UNR and UNLV. I'm more on the technical engineering side, trying to create entrepreneurs out of engineers and scientists, but we need the business people as well.
speaker-0: Well, we don't want to leave. No, we don't want the brains. We don't want to educate them and then say, guys, we don't have jobs for you. You know, the same thing with the military. I mean, one of our our best kept secrets here, you said your son's serving. Look at how many people are coming out of the military, whether it's the Air Force or up in your world, the Navy. And they say, guys, with those skills you have, you might you know, would you like to stay? Yeah. You know, so we have to be able to offer that, Jeff. It's so critical at this point. But you know, let me ask you this. D do you feel That I mean, I'm hearing a lot when when we it's pretty funny because when I went with some of the governor's people, we were talking about the various aspects of financial services and they zeroed right in on fintech. I said, that's just one small sliver of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about wealth management, investment management. That's why I do really believe that Nevada can stake its claim, excuse me pun of mining, but as as the new financial center. I mean, these people want good tax structure, good governance. You know, we're gonna talk a bit about the business court that we're hoping is gonna go through. But we're we're willing to work together on all aspects to make this work. Hey, I want to go back to something you said last episode when you talked about you didn't feel wanted anymore. I felt that same way. I remember I was at a holiday party, it was still COVID, and I just remember people were still kind of just nasty. You know, they were still kind of in this I what do you want to call it, this PTSD episode. It's probably I'm I I hate using that because it's a military term. But I remember distinctly asking some people who I've known for years, and I was a fifth generation Californian. I mean, my family showed up in the 1850s. And I said, Can I ask you all a question? When did it become a crime to be a middle-aged white, straight, male Republican, capitalist, veteran Christian? And I just said it literally like that, rattled off my tongue. And I and instead of getting, no, we're we're an open community, we like all types, I I ended up getting kind of the same vibe of You know, this is probably not the good place for you anymore. I was going, Wow. I couldn't believe hearing or or alluding to that. And I I quickly decided I'm gonna go back to Nevada.
speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I don't know that I had the labels that that that you that you you were using on it. But I I had that feeling. and mine was earlier in two thousand eight. It wasn't quite the same as as it was later in, you know, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. But but I definitely had that feeling like, wow, they just they just don't seem to want me in particular or other people like me. I just wasn't welcome anymore. I wasn't like, I don't know, hate to go back to a high school analogy, but I wasn't I never felt like I was a cool kid, but I didn't feel like I was the one who was being ostracized either. And I started to feel ostracized. And it just it wasn't comfortable. And I had options. So I took
speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. Well, and and the good news is it it brings people from all walks of life to our state. Right. I mean, I I love that. I mean, you know, here you are and and I I th I see you in a way as a symbol of somebody who's lived all over, traveled, like you said, you traveled a tremendous amount on business and you chose Nevada. I mean, I think that's it, and certainly a beautiful part of the area that you where you live, as I have. I mean, I've said the same thing. I said this is this is home.
speaker-1: Means the water.
speaker-0: Home means he's at our license plate. All right, back on so as as we are today with where we see things in venture capital. Would you call yourself a think tank or or would you or an incubator for these kind of things? Or just more a five one C three that's trying to help these people navigate Nevada?
speaker-1: Well, we're economic development first, education second, and I'd say venture capital third. Okay. but the venture capital piece is the piece that funds all all of it, right? So that's the thing that leads to the returns that creates wealth here in Nevada that can feed back into the startup ecosystem. so it's important to have all of those aspects along with, you know, a good solid set of humans coming out of the university. migrating here from California or Seattle where they're doing stupid stuff on taxes too. and Yeah,
speaker-0: There's a lot of stupidity.
speaker-1: and and it's just self destructive stuff. But it's crazy crazy. But it's but we're grateful that those people want to come here. We're grateful that our universities seem to be focused on creating the right kind of talent to feed into this ecosystem. Whether it's getting your series sixty five license out of a business school or understanding how to To do an entrepreneurial journey as an engineer. we need all of those things. we need the capital to to fund it, to fund the best ideas, and and a community where it's welcomed. And I I don't, I hope that our community never gets to the point where people here feel ostracized for any reason. Yeah. I I pick your pick whatever reason that you or anybody else might feel ostracized. That shouldn't be the case anywhere.
speaker-0: I I think, you know, I always tell people, look, a healthy economy is actually a very fragile thing. destructive policies can wreck it very quickly. You know, I I both you and I, the time we spent in California, I don't never in our wildest dreams would we see it on the path that it's currently on. We're Jeff, we're gonna take another quick break. Folks, we'll be right back with Jeff Saling from Start of En V and we have more to talk about. Be right back. And welcome back to Winning With One. I know I there were some questions from our staff put together, but I think we probably covered a lot of it. Is there anything else you want to think that you think we should talk about?
speaker-1: I I think the only the only thing that I wanna encourage us to keep doing is keep working on the startup ecosystem, keep working on the venture capital ecosystem that supports it, because that's what long term gives us the fuel to keep the economy moving. I I know that we'll continue to have great people. And if as long as we can keep fueling it with with venture capital, keep making smart decisions on on our legislative agenda. Gotten to work on a few laws over the co past couple of years to help keep that moving. So I think we just need more of the same.
speaker-0: So if I'm successful of getting a bunch of these financial service companies, the money managers, the mutual funds, the wealth guys, to move to Nevada, you've got your pool of capital needed to do what you need.
speaker-1: Yeah, they'll they yeah, of course, because they become the angels in my ecosystem that will throw, you know, ten K or a hundred K or a million into one of the venture capital funds, which is a little different than the stuff that the series sixty five guys tend tend to work on, but it works alongside of what they do as a different type of capital in the ecosystem.
speaker-0: The alts. Everybody's looking for these alts now. So you but you know what? It's also relationship. And I I believe, and I've told this to people in California, because and and by the way, I'm sure you're hearing the same thing off of Sand Hill Road in the Bay Area as I'm hearing when you talk to people in Southern California. They've had enough. They really are. It's not political. They've just they're looking at the economics of it. Now this billionaire tax. And it just, I mean, I did an episode not long ago on it, but a friend of mine in California pointed out, he says, The while they're looking at passing this, they're making changes to the California Constitution. It's called Title 14. Means that any taxes on the books, they can adjust it. So it's going to become a millionaires' tax really fast. Which I I and then so they're they're all all of them see the writing on the wall, Jeff. They all see it. They say so they they come back and say to me, or they say to you, okay, you guys lived there. Tell us about it. Do you like it? Is it is it what you thought?
speaker-1: Yeah, well, I tell I tell the folks that are considering coming here, come, everybody's welcome. just be s just understand what our culture and our ecosystem is and adapt to it. Yeah. as opposed to bringing something from where you came from here and trying to impose that because it's just more comfortable. I I understand it might be more comfortable, but let let's let's let's be Nevadans together.
speaker-0: Exactly. All right, before I let you go, let's real quick, let's talk a little bit about the business courts. Cause I mean, you and I both share this in our mutual friend Joe Dahlia, even though he's wrapping up his legislative session here. He he worked on it very hard. let's talk briefly about it because I think it's important for the audience to understand we're trying to make this state even more business friendly. So let's talk about the business court. Is it a direct attack on Delaware?
speaker-1: Know if it's a dri it's it's something that's more for us. I mean, we're not doing it to put Delaware down or anything, but when in venture capital land where I live, you can incorporate in two states. Well, you can incorporate in 50 states, but really it comes down to two. Delaware is by far the most popular, and the reason it's the most popular is they have their chancery courts and they have reliably been predictable. If you have to go to litigation. You know it's going to be handled quickly, and you know it's going to be handled by expert judges who understand the business ideas. That's what gave them their edge. They've become less reliable. and we have you know elected judges here in Nevada, so they're not necessarily experts on business. Some we have some that are, but you're not always guaranteed to get them. So the idea is let's create business courts where we point judges through, you know, some sort of process where the legislature and the rest of the government weigh in on it. We get people who are actually qualified. They know the kinds of issues that come up in these courts and they can, they can, they can make a judgment on them quickly. And that's what business wants. Business wants if you do get into a dispute, let's get this sorted out as fast as we can and have it be adjudicated by people who actually know what the issues are. And, you know, I I have a lot of respect for the people who come up through family courts, through criminal courts, through all the other parts of the legal system. But the I don't expect them to know any more about business than I do about whatever their specialty is. So if we can get this it's passed once, we need to pass it a second time in this next legislative session, then it goes before us as voters because we're changing the constitution. and it's it's a two and a half billion dollar industry in Delaware. That Delaware otherwise doesn't have that much going for it. But the whole industry of co incorporation and all of the all of the law and other things that happen around businesses, so much of it gets gets litigated in Delaware. People incorporate in Delaware. If we can figure out a way to do that, not only will it be good for us, but I think it'll be good for the country to have two different jurisdictions that you can go to. You know, all the people in the western part of the United States have to go to to the east coast to get that kind of work done. I'd much rather have just fly to Vegas. We got we got so many flights coming here anywhere. You ever try to get to someplace in Delaware? It's almost impossible. So let's let's have our own business courts. Let's do the do the right thing. I think it'll be good for not only our Nevada businesses, I think it'll be good for all of our American businesses to have two legit sources of incorporation of a legal system that's got expertise in the area of business and that can sort of reliably get through the any dispute that you might have quickly. Not to say that they're gonna favor one side or another side, but that you have people that can make those judgments and you have good faith that it's going to be taken seriously and done with good consideration.
speaker-0: I'll add one other part to it. It's also too to make sure that we streamline our whole arbitration process. There's times things shouldn't go to court at all. I agree. These things can be settled out of court very efficiently. You know, it would be kind of fun to to actually have business court billboards because we've got the other the personal attorney guys, the injury guys all over the place. Let's have some other ones here, you know.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'm hoping that we don't have that many disputes in business, but when we do, it should be easy to sort them out. When you just can't agree and you need to have somebody help you to get to a resolution, arbitration's great, less expensive, quicker. if you do have to go to court, hopefully we can have business peop business courts where the people who are judging that know are are experts in it. Not not to say that we don't have good people here that can do that. in our current system, but you just never know.
speaker-0: Well, the other thing too, we do have diverse industries. They can't just be tech judges. They need more financial service judges. They see that's the thing I I hear about Delaware. Delaware knows certain industries cold, knows them cold. You jump into another area, and that was Elon Musk's big problem with Delaware. They didn't really understand what he was doing.
speaker-1: Well he lit the fuse, right? The the idea that the the board and the shareholders could have approved a pay package as crazy as his goals were, and then to have somebody come in and pass judgment on that when nobody was disputing it, that's that's just that's beyond crazy.
speaker-0: Well, and here we would said, fine, you know, just leave them please leave the money here and let us put it into to Jeff's program. Jeff, I the only thing I wanted to bring up, let's talk very quickly about legislative session. So everybody you might not know this, but our legislation meets every other year. And it's funny how those every two years c they come up fast.
speaker-1: They do. And there's a lot to get done in the hundred or one hundred and twenty days between January and the end of May. Session
speaker-0: You go for the full cycle?
speaker-1: I I'm usually working on one or two things, so I don't go and sit there all day. But if if I'm testifying for a bill or against something, or I've tried to get something introduced working through what working with one of the legislators here in the state, I go and support that. But I'm not there every day. Not like the not like the people in the legislature or the other Do you
speaker-0: You do you go as a non paid lobbyist or do you okay that
speaker-1: I was given that advice the very first year I did it is just register as a lobbyist. I'm not paid. Yeah. But but that was the advice I was given is they'll take you more seriously if you actually go about professionally registering and everything else. Plus you get a really cool badge.
speaker-0: I still keep mine. I love it. Let me ask you this real quick. I mean, I know we're you and I will I wanna have you come back, okay? We I think we're at let's get post legislative cycle and have a a a debrief on
speaker-1: Sounds good.
speaker-0: but I will just say this that when I went there I was really kind of taken ab with how many out of state lobbyists were there. And I brought it up to it both sides. I said, you know, look, I want us to run our own state. I don't and I loved it when I asked when I was talking to people, they said these were regional issues. B I called BS where I see it. no, this was trying to infiltrate our politics. And and both sides are doing it. They both but I no, leave us alone. We're our own state. We don't want you all here. I I I remember telling our lieutenant governor, I could not go to Sacramento and do that. You couldn't either. They wouldn't let us in. So why do we allow them to come? And I was heard we're an open state. Well we need to be careful.
speaker-1: If we do get to the point where we're all voting on the business courts, expect Delaware to weigh in heavily.
speaker-0: Well, exactly. I mean that would be pr we we we we'll hear some funny accents. Jeff Saling, if people want to get a hold of you, an entrepreneur wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way?
speaker-1: Two ways. you can find me on LinkedIn, so you can message me there, ask to connect, or on email, Jeff at startupnv.org.
speaker-0: And just and you're always welcome to talk to anybody.
speaker-1: Yeah, I talked to I talked to h I don't know, I didn't count it hundreds of people I'm sure every month, if not thousands.
speaker-0: All right. Jeff, thank you so much for and it I know this was a long segment, but we really do appreciate you coming on. Everybody, that wraps up the bonus section of Winning with Wynens. And you know what? Like I said, we have the best guest. This man right here is one of them. So we'll see you next week. Take care. Hey everybody, this is Ken Winins, the host of the Winning with Winens podcast. And I want to take a moment of your time to talk about how do you pick an investment advisor? Well, first off, we're not all the same. In fact, Winens Investments is the only Morningstar top-ranked manager based in Las Vegas. And last time I checked, we're number one in performance in all of Nevada. So if you're looking for something unique, something different, go with a firm that's been around since 1992, 100% independent and veteran-owned. Win with Winens. Look forward to hearing from you. Boy, that time went fast. I hope you had as much fun as I did during this segment of Winning with Wineins. Make sure and tune in next week for another round of guest and interesting topics. And if you missed this, make sure and check us out on Spotify, YouTube, or go to our website, winningwithwin's dot com, where there's a lot more information for you to follow. So good luck this next week. Look forward to seeing you then. Take care.
speaker-1: Wait, how are you? I don't have one.
speaker-0: Okay, we're gonna fix that. You can't live in this state without a cowboy hat. Come on now. But Jeff, you and I met. It's so funny where you meet people at we we kept crossing paths. So I saw a political fundraiser and then I think we were at some event. Well, we did a fundraiser here for our friend. Yeah. And then we I think we even met at a chamber event or something. It seems like we were at another thing, but I I just that's Nevada. You can
speaker-1: Vegas is a small town, the state is a small state, so you keep meeting the same people over and over again.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Now you yourself live in the northern half of the state.
speaker-1: I do. I live in between Incline Village and Reno, but equidistant to Carson City as well.
speaker-0: Now let me ask you this. I mean we're gonna get into what you do soon, but it seems to me because Reno's going through a renaissance too. We talk a lot about Las Vegas' changes, but Reno too. I mean, when you look at the manufacturing that's up there, it's crazy.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean the we focus on similar things but but different at the same time. And Nevada's such a small state, you know, our organization serves the whole state. And I spend about half my time in Vegas and about half in Reno. So yeah, Reno's gone through a renaissance. it's it's starting from a much smaller base, so it's still a much smaller city, maybe one fifth the size of Vegas. Is it really? Yeah. So people think it's bigger and or they also think Vegas is Much bigger than it is. But we who live here know it's a pretty small town. Everybody knows everybody. Yeah.
speaker-0: Well i the the old adage, hey, I know a guy. Yeah. It's and it's where you meet people. But people here are very approachable. You know, they I mean, you don't have I don't find pecking orders. I mean, you and I both spent a lot of time in California, born in r or raised there. And and you know, but doing business there is very different. Okay, real quick, I I mean I'm also involved with a mining association. It what's going on in the northern half of the state, coming out of Reno, is crazy what's going on with mining, with the rare earths and all the things.
speaker-1: It is. And I think we've got a real big opportunity in in front of us and actually was trying to work on a piece of legislation in the last legislative session, which had to do with some of the revenue that comes from mining and creating a sovereign wealth fund for the state based on some of that activity. And it just didn't get on the agenda. There was too many other things. but I had actually worked with the the fellow who represents my area, Ken DeLong, who's a Republican. And Steve Yeager, who was the speaker, we were trying to work on a bill between those two guys and it was sort of my idea. And like I said, there were so many other things on the agenda, it just didn't make it. but I'm hoping that we can work on it again soon.
speaker-0: That's a great idea. I mean I mean it's when you have trillions of dollars of resources as we have in the borders of Nevada, I mean that's gr it's crazy not to have that available.
speaker-1: And we've got 16 or 18 other states to follow. I mean, Alaska's got their big one based on oil, Texas's is based on oil, New Mexico's based on oil and minerals. Montana has one that's mostly based on minerals. North Dakota has one. West Virginia has one. There's a bunch of states that are looking to their future, creating, you know, a sovereign wealth fund that helps their states build things and do things that they otherwise couldn't do through the normal budgetary process in their legislature. So you're building It's like a savings plan based on the minerals that you have in the ground or oil in the case of Alaska and Texas.
speaker-0: talk later. It's funny. Folks, that's what happens with podcasts is you just start talking with somebody. But all right, let's get back on track. Okay. So let's talk about your organization. Sure. Okay. Which is Startup Nevada. And I just love, I mean, the title alone tells you all you need to know, but let's talk about it.
speaker-1: Sure. Startup Nevada. People call us that. We're our actual name is Startup NV, because we wanted the double entendre. Startup NV, Startup NV. but you can find us on startup NV.org. And we're an economic development and education nonprofit that has venture capital funds, for profit venture capital funds that are, I'll say, affiliated with the organization so that we can fund some of the companies that we're helping, the ones that have sort of the biggest. venture like returns possible. And we also help, I'll say, Main Street businesses at well that may not be venture fundable businesses, but that are just looking for help, education on how to get a business started, how they should fund it, and the various things that entrepreneurs need to know.
speaker-0: Well, you know, and it's funny because obviously I started several businesses. We know it can be tough. I actually think an interesting area that you folks are gonna be be dealing with, because obviously I've studied what you do, is these firms that are leaving California and they need to learn about Nevada. They need they need to understand you need to do this, this, this, and this in order to do it here. And it is different.
speaker-1: It is different. we have a better environment and so you know from a from a pure business perspective, regulatory perspective. And people most people understand and know that. I mean, having no state income tax is is a great thing. but at the same time, we're a less mature ecosystem than Silicon Valley or even Southern California or Austin or Seattle or any of the other ecosystems, startup ecosystems are a little bit ahead of us. Which is fine. Everybody has to start somewhere. And you know, we're coming up to speed really quickly. And just sh showing them what we do have, getting people comfortable with living here, because there's so many advantages to being here. And there's a phrase that almost all of the people who come here say usually it happens somewhere between three months and six months of being here. And it's I had no idea. And it and it's not because they're they're dumb or anything else, but they just didn't understand that there's a real community here. There's a real startup ecosystem, there's a real town that exists out of that wonderful, magnificent three-mile strip between Tropicana and Sahara. And it's great, brings 40 million people a year to our town. But there's so much more beyond that. And once you're here living here, you know that.
speaker-0: Well, you know, when because both of us had stories done with us by the Review Journal about and we both had the same ideas about the growth of the economic base in the state, the migration coming from other states. But you know, I I find it comical when I was literally back in Texas, and they were alluding that the mob still runs. I said, The mob? What what what's what what decade are you? And then the other thing was water. And then it was funny because I heard it from the economic development people in Arizona. I'm saying, now that if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, you idiots of drain your aquifer, we haven't even touched ours yet. And you're telling us we're running out of water? Are you guys kidding me? But you know, I think it's jealousy, Jeff. I I think there's a sense that we are special. And I think a lot of other places are jealous of it.
speaker-1: Well, we certainly think we're special. I think so. and we we have all kinds of opportunity in front of us and we've been smart about managing our resources. We've been smart about creating a a good reputation or a reputation for ourselves around the world, whether it's come and have fun in Vegas or come ski in in Reno Tahoe or if you're a hunter or a golfer or you know, a an outdoors person. I mean, we've got it all.
speaker-0: Well, you know, I'll go back real quick when you said, I didn't know that. I have that when get when clients come in, my clients come in from California. And again, they they think we live on the strip. No, we don't. You know, the we're in Summerlin right now. Henderson's a beautiful area, Centennial Hill, Lake Las Vegas, even parts away from the strip in proper Vegas, they're beautiful areas, beautiful. I mean, modern architecture, beautiful communities, well laid out infrastructure. It's a lot of good.
speaker-1: There is and and we have our our urban areas as well. If that's your if that's your your liking. I my office is downtown, near Fremont Street. And Fremont Street is interesting.
speaker-0: It is really a yep.
speaker-1: and and it's it's a it's it's fun. It's part of our community. I love it. I love all of it.
speaker-0: Well, you know, when we talk about even there, you know, the areas that are older parts of the town. We have our arts district. We have, I mean, look at Smith Center. I always always tell people, you know, I don't my friends from well, you and I are both from the Bay Area, and you get a little bit of well, we Davies Hall. Said, go look at the Smith Center. Private capital, not a dime of public money went into that thing. God bless the Smiths. They did their thing. But it's a beautiful. Now it's not you know, it's not a Victorian style opera house or symphony hall. It's our deco, but it fits Vegas. But the sound in there is best as anything I've ever heard.
speaker-1: Well I think the sphere might give it a runs for its
speaker-0: Well, now the spirit too. yeah, you're right. But see, that's a good thing, Jeff. All right, let's go back real quick. I want to talk. Well, actually, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a real quick break to hear from our sponsors. And I'm going to come back. And then Jeff Saly and I are going to talk about how he ended up in in Nevada. Cause I think hey, like I said, it it brings all of us together. This is Ken Winins winning with Winins, and we'll be right back. And welcome back to Winning with One is Las Vegas, newest and coolest financial show. But I'm gonna say Nevada's newest and coolest financial show because we have somebody who's in both ends of the state. Jeff Sailing from Startup Envy, my friend, let's talk about, you know, like we we just talked about how people get Vegas wrong. I think they get Reno wrong. A lot of people just think it's this mountain town and you go up there to go skiing. But a lot of people who've moved there say this is a great community. It's it it's wonderful. I mean, it it has modern conveniences. They're you know, the infrastructure they're every everywhere in our state they're redoing the roads and they're doing the Wi Fi and they're fixing the grid. They're doing all the things that really should be done.
speaker-1: Yeah, Reno's a great town. we love it. It's it's much smaller than Las Vegas for anybody who's not in Nevada. But no, it's a it's a it's a cool sort of modern mountain town. It's got got a an honest to God downtown, little less casino gaming focused than than we are here in Vegas. but yeah, it's I I that's where I call home. most of the time, sixty percent of the time. the other forty is here in in Vegas. But Little bit cooler. you're in the mountains. You get you get all four seasons, all you know, you get snow in the winter. so I you know, so if you're if you're somebody who likes a little bit more four seasons traditional kind of situation, yeah, it's it's a it's a great town and we're it's growing like crazy, just like Vegas. Yeah.
speaker-0: How did how is everything with the fires? Is it things how way more
speaker-1: The fire the most recent fires north of town, yeah, they're all they're all done. They're they're put out. It was dangerous there for a while. We had fires near my house, two years prior to that. So yeah, it's it's it is in the mountains, so you are subject to that kind of a a risk.
speaker-0: Well, you it you know, we talk about economic development. I think that's one of the real keys of why Nevada ha has the ACEs. You have you have let's say somebody from Arizona. Hey, Arizona's large I mean, where they're where you're gonna end up is in Phoenix. You know, you you go to Oregon, you're gonna open certain places. Here, you have flavors. You wanna go to Reno, you have Reno. You wanna come to Vegas, you have Vegas. You know what? And it's pretty easy to get back and forth. You know, if you have you like you, you're sixty forty.
speaker-1: Yep, sixty forty. I do it I think forty times a year according to Southwest.
speaker-0: So do you ever drive it or just
speaker-1: I have driven it. It's a it's it's a it's a hike. It's a seven and to eight hour drive.
speaker-0: Drive the speed limit, of course.
speaker-1: Well the speed limit's eighty, so it's it's not that hard to stay within the speed limit. And even if you go a little faster. but it's yeah, it's wide open in the rural areas of Nevada.
speaker-0: Now, I want to talk about you a bit if you don't mind. Okay. So you grew up you you were born in Pittsburgh. Yes. And I wanna ask you where did you grow up, you said all over. Right. So let's talk a little bit about that. So you're you're a would you say that your roots are the Midwest?
speaker-1: Well, that's where I spent my childhood until high school. I was in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Indianapolis primarily. A little bit of time in Jacksonville, Florida. But yeah, that's that's where I was a kid, you know, out in the woods hunting and fishing and and and just being a sort of a suburban kid.
speaker-0: Yeah, so for same with me. You can you know, it's interesting when people have grown outdoor people. You know, it's funny how you I can go to the indoor places, but I still love to know that I can get out and whether it's a horse ride or a motorcycle ride or as you say, golf or ski, you know, you can go do those things you need to do it. So then you ended up in California.
speaker-1: California during high school and went to the Bay Area. De La Salle Spartans go. That was my high school. and I went to college in the Bay Area as well. And then
speaker-0: Now where'd you go?
speaker-1: Cal State Hayward, it's called Cal State East Bay now. and during college, I worked as a truck driver and a forklift driver, and it was great, great money for me at the time, young. young man, you know, stacking boxes and driving trucks, delivering lots of paper, which we don't do anymore, into downtown San Francisco. and then and then because I was a pretty responsible young man, the company kept me on for a number of years. And after a few years in the logistics and and trucking business, I thought, I didn't really design my career to be here. Why am I here? Yeah. And that's when I got bit by the startup bug and I went sort of full full tech in the early nineteen nineties.
speaker-0: Well, you talk about the you know, we think of the berry in the early nineties. my goodness. Cause I I went to USF for my graduate studies and it was a special place to go to school and then to have your career kick off and that early because it was broad based. It was finance, it was tech, it was everything, everything under the moon there. So you start and then you met your wife there, I assume.
speaker-1: I actually met my wife in the logistics business. She was a customer of mine. wow. she was from the New York City area, and we warehoused their products, jellies and jams and and salsa and a bunch of other food products. and she was in charge of sort of their distribution and she came out. This this our warehouse for them was in Southern California in the city of commerce. and she came out to fire us. She was gonna move her account to a different provider. Yeah, I saved the account. six months later we were married. We now have two kids.
speaker-0: my goodness.
speaker-1: We now have two kids and grandkids.
speaker-0: my goodness. Well, that's a great story. I mean, I hope the family hey, listen, this you have to play this during the during the holidays. Now you also lived in Southern California.
speaker-1: I did. I spent the from nineteen seventy eight until nine two thousand eight I was in California, about half the time in the Bay Area, about half the time in Southern California. I
speaker-0: You do these halves and halves, huh?
speaker-1: guess I do, it seems to be part of my life.
speaker-0: All right, so you here you had you so you've lived really in a lot of different cultures, places, weather and economic thing. Why why Nevada? Why Vegas?
speaker-1: well, about two thousand eight, I was, you know, a Silicon Valley guy, right? I I was I was living in Southern California, but my startup was in San Jose. And my part of the the team was sales and professional services and sales engineering, all the stuff that faces outside the company. So I was on a plane every week to somewhere in the world. We sold our particular products to all the big enterprise companies all over the world. And So I was I was flying two hundred and fifty thousand miles a year, staying hundred and seventy five nights a year in ho hotels around the world. And it was like, why w the the people in California at that point, my view was they didn't seem to want me around there anymore. They didn't seem to want people like me in their state anymore. And with my daughter off to medical school and my son off to the military and me on a airplane, it was like, Well, I can fly from anywhere. Yeah. so let's look for a different place to be where they might appreciate me a little bit more. I've heard, you know, I spent a lot of time in the Reno Tahoe area when I was growing up and in college. So that's where my wife and I looked to go. And and we looked, it was two thousand eight, everything, if you remember, that was the great financial crisis. So everything, all the houses were for sale. We were like the only buyer, I swear, in the entire state of Nevada and Well, everything's on sale. Now's the time to buy. So so we we made the move. and I thought, all right, well, I'm gonna stay with my startup. We had just we had gone public a few years before. I wanted to to finish that task and then move on to the next startup, but I wanted to do it here in Nevada. And so I did. I spent a couple years still flying all over the world. we got the company to a point where I They didn't need the startup guy like me anymore. They needed more mature managers. I'm the zero to one guy. They needed the one to ten guy. So I started looking around to do my own thing. And I realized there's no capital here. There's no coders here. Things that I've later learned to call a startup ecosystem. You know, our company was in Silicon Valley. We were the startup ecosystem. And I it's like being a fish in water. You don't realize you're wet until you're not in the water anymore. and you know, so I I I I I it was it was frustrating to not be able to do the kinds of things that I wanted to do because we just didn't have the infrastructure for it. Yeah. So I I spent a while in I did a another startup in Austin, which is where I had a big network from my my Silicon Valley days. We had a a big part of our company was in Austin, Texas. went there, did a startup there, came back to Nevada and there we after a couple of years there still really wasn't a a startup ecosystem. Again, I I didn't really have a name for it. I had some friends that were starting something in Seattle. So I I joined them as a co-founder there. another couple of years came back again thinking, you know, I I I don't want to live in Seattle. I spent a couple of years there, but I didn't want to really live there full time. and then went back to Austin again because there still wasn't a startup ecosystem here. And in Austin, I I I did the last the startup I did there was in an incubator accelerator program called the Capital Factory. and that was when it sort of made sense to me. It was like, this is great. I I'm I'm doing this cool startup in Austin in the Capitol Factory. And I'm gonna I you know, I don't wanna I love Austin. I don't I don't want to live here, but I I now know what I want. I want a thing like the Capitol Factory, but I want it at home. There's eighteen hundred of these programs around the country. There's bound to be one somewhere in Nevada, Reno, Las Vegas, somewhere, right? Nope. Yeah, so I just modeled, it was in my head what what what I saw and felt at the Capitol Factory. and That's what was sort of the inspiration for what caused me and my my colleagues at the time to to kick off startup en v.
speaker-0: And then we have a startup NV. You know, we we share a a very parallel situation. But we're Jeff, we're gonna take another quick break. We're gonna come back for our podcast bonus section. Okay. And I want to talk more about this because I I mean, you're you're the vanguard of where the state needs to go on multiple fronts, not just tech. But anyway, folks, we'll be right back with Jeff Saling from Startup Envy and we have more to talk about. Be right back. And welcome back to Winning with One is Las Vegas and Nevada's newest and coolest financial show. But you know what? It's a business show. And Jeff Saling from Startup NV has been our fantastic guest. But Jeff, before we went on break, we we were talking about you know what it takes to have the foundation in place. And you know, and it is fun to think about a place that it is truly fertile ground. It is. It's new. You know, you you think, wow, this is the twenty-first century, and there's a place that that that is surrounded by success. But let me ask you this. So what you were saying is that there was just no I and I love your term ecosystem, because it everything feeds itself. Let me throw something at you, and partly of what I read in the article, what you brought up, made me think about it too. But all these cities that you talked about in the previous section all had a production mill for talent. They were producing these young, highly, and it's not so much best school, worst school. No, it's the programs. were being produced. And it's funny because I was literally just having this talk at a meeting at UNLV about this. And we were talking about the is the, you know, what made new old New York New York. And I remember telling him, I said, guys, Harvard did not build Wall Street. What built Wall Street was NYU. The compliance officers, the people who worked the excuse me, worked the floor, the people who worked the back offices, the all that plumbing was done by those people. Yes, you had The the the C suite was probably by these other schools. But I but we have to have that here. So now one thing that we did, you always have to do a little step. I told them, look, anybody graduating has to be licensed if they want to work in my field. You have to have a securities license. You know, in our day we used to call it the broker license. Now we call it the Seri 65. So guess what we did? We started a program, independent study at UNLV. UNR is going to start it next, I think next spring. And these young people coming out of the business schools and finance. are walking out with not only their degrees, but they're fully licensed. Great. So here's what it means. I can now talk to those firms that think they want to move here and tell them we have the internal talent. You want those young, energetic kids that don't expect you know to make big salaries right out of the block, you have it here. But I know what you mean about you just have to start somewhere. You do. Yep. You just have to start and just get it going. So here we are now. So how long has Startup NB been around?
speaker-1: Just we'll be on our tenth year next year. So nine nine and a piece.
speaker-0: So are you ahead of schedule on schedule?
speaker-1: I I don't even know what our schedule was supposed to be, but we were the idea here was our model is we we'll help anybody. So we'll help the main street businesses get up and going, we'll help the venture scalable business get up and going. So we because we didn't have capital in the ecosystem, we we built venture capital here adjacent to our organization so we could invest in these companies. so our idea was if we help you come you know, company get your first round of funding, we'd like you to donate a little tiny piece of equity. You know, we asked for 1%, can't always get 1%, but you get something, a third of a percent, a quarter percent shares, whatever. and it's donated to the nonprofit to startup NV. so we've been accumulating these little pieces of shares over the qu past nine years. And some of them look like they're gonna pay off. Wow. And so in the meantime, you know, we're we're we're getting grant funding from the feds, from the state, from the cities, from the counties, and that's sort of hand-to-mouth is how we survive. But we're hoping that one day, soon, hopefully within the next couple of years, some of these shares that we have in these startups, Nevada startups, are going to be actually worth some real money. And that's that's the longer term vision for us is to create our own foundation where we not only don't have to ask for grant money, but we can actually grant money back to other good causes in the community. And you can see it coming over the horizon now as these companies have matured and they've raised money from us and they've gone out and raised money from other venture capital firms in other places and the companies are on a good trajectory. You can see it coming. And I didn't know how long that would take. I mean, I I s sort of did because you know, if you start a venture capital fund, you think in terms of decades, right? You think, you know, I'm gonna start a venture capital fund and Hopefully I'll have some exits within 10 years. and we're we're getting to that 10 year anniversary. We didn't have venture capital from the very beginning, but we're far enough long now that it should start happening for us. It seems like it will, based on my observation of the companies and and their progress and in the various fields that they're working in. And that's the real dream. The dream is to have this foundation that will continue to promote entrepreneurship. at the venture scale level, at the local level, and also to your point in the universities, being able to to create our own talent here. you know, you work in the business school, I work in the school of engineering and I work up at UNR and UNLV. Sounds like you work at UNR and UNLV. I'm more on the technical engineering side, trying to create entrepreneurs out of engineers and scientists, but we need the business people as well.
speaker-0: Well, we don't want to leave. No, we don't want the brains. We don't want to educate them and then say, guys, we don't have jobs for you. You know, the same thing with the military. I mean, one of our our best kept secrets here, you said your son's serving. Look at how many people are coming out of the military, whether it's the Air Force or up in your world, the Navy. And they say, guys, with those skills you have, you might you know, would you like to stay? Yeah. You know, so we have to be able to offer that, Jeff. It's so critical at this point. But you know, let me ask you this. D do you feel That I mean, I'm hearing a lot when when we it's pretty funny because when I went with some of the governor's people, we were talking about the various aspects of financial services and they zeroed right in on fintech. I said, that's just one small sliver of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about wealth management, investment management. That's why I do really believe that Nevada can stake its claim, excuse me pun of mining, but as as the new financial center. I mean, these people want good tax structure, good governance. You know, we're gonna talk a bit about the business court that we're hoping is gonna go through. But we're we're willing to work together on all aspects to make this work. Hey, I want to go back to something you said last episode when you talked about you didn't feel wanted anymore. I felt that same way. I remember I was at a holiday party, it was still COVID, and I just remember people were still kind of just nasty. You know, they were still kind of in this I what do you want to call it, this PTSD episode. It's probably I'm I I hate using that because it's a military term. But I remember distinctly asking some people who I've known for years, and I was a fifth generation Californian. I mean, my family showed up in the 1850s. And I said, Can I ask you all a question? When did it become a crime to be a middle-aged white, straight, male Republican, capitalist, veteran Christian? And I just said it literally like that, rattled off my tongue. And I and instead of getting, no, we're we're an open community, we like all types, I I ended up getting kind of the same vibe of You know, this is probably not the good place for you anymore. I was going, Wow. I couldn't believe hearing or or alluding to that. And I I quickly decided I'm gonna go back to Nevada.
speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I don't know that I had the labels that that that you that you you were using on it. But I I had that feeling. and mine was earlier in two thousand eight. It wasn't quite the same as as it was later in, you know, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. But but I definitely had that feeling like, wow, they just they just don't seem to want me in particular or other people like me. I just wasn't welcome anymore. I wasn't like, I don't know, hate to go back to a high school analogy, but I wasn't I never felt like I was a cool kid, but I didn't feel like I was the one who was being ostracized either. And I started to feel ostracized. And it just it wasn't comfortable. And I had options. So I took
speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. Well, and and the good news is it it brings people from all walks of life to our state. Right. I mean, I I love that. I mean, you know, here you are and and I I th I see you in a way as a symbol of somebody who's lived all over, traveled, like you said, you traveled a tremendous amount on business and you chose Nevada. I mean, I think that's it, and certainly a beautiful part of the area that you where you live, as I have. I mean, I've said the same thing. I said this is this is home.
speaker-1: Means the water.
speaker-0: Home means he's at our license plate. All right, back on so as as we are today with where we see things in venture capital. Would you call yourself a think tank or or would you or an incubator for these kind of things? Or just more a five one C three that's trying to help these people navigate Nevada?
speaker-1: Well, we're economic development first, education second, and I'd say venture capital third. Okay. but the venture capital piece is the piece that funds all all of it, right? So that's the thing that leads to the returns that creates wealth here in Nevada that can feed back into the startup ecosystem. so it's important to have all of those aspects along with, you know, a good solid set of humans coming out of the university. migrating here from California or Seattle where they're doing stupid stuff on taxes too. and Yeah,
speaker-0: There's a lot of stupidity.
speaker-1: and and it's just self destructive stuff. But it's crazy crazy. But it's but we're grateful that those people want to come here. We're grateful that our universities seem to be focused on creating the right kind of talent to feed into this ecosystem. Whether it's getting your series sixty five license out of a business school or understanding how to To do an entrepreneurial journey as an engineer. we need all of those things. we need the capital to to fund it, to fund the best ideas, and and a community where it's welcomed. And I I don't, I hope that our community never gets to the point where people here feel ostracized for any reason. Yeah. I I pick your pick whatever reason that you or anybody else might feel ostracized. That shouldn't be the case anywhere.
speaker-0: I I think, you know, I always tell people, look, a healthy economy is actually a very fragile thing. destructive policies can wreck it very quickly. You know, I I both you and I, the time we spent in California, I don't never in our wildest dreams would we see it on the path that it's currently on. We're Jeff, we're gonna take another quick break. Folks, we'll be right back with Jeff Saling from Start of En V and we have more to talk about. Be right back. And welcome back to Winning With One. I know I there were some questions from our staff put together, but I think we probably covered a lot of it. Is there anything else you want to think that you think we should talk about?
speaker-1: I I think the only the only thing that I wanna encourage us to keep doing is keep working on the startup ecosystem, keep working on the venture capital ecosystem that supports it, because that's what long term gives us the fuel to keep the economy moving. I I know that we'll continue to have great people. And if as long as we can keep fueling it with with venture capital, keep making smart decisions on on our legislative agenda. Gotten to work on a few laws over the co past couple of years to help keep that moving. So I think we just need more of the same.
speaker-0: So if I'm successful of getting a bunch of these financial service companies, the money managers, the mutual funds, the wealth guys, to move to Nevada, you've got your pool of capital needed to do what you need.
speaker-1: Yeah, they'll they yeah, of course, because they become the angels in my ecosystem that will throw, you know, ten K or a hundred K or a million into one of the venture capital funds, which is a little different than the stuff that the series sixty five guys tend tend to work on, but it works alongside of what they do as a different type of capital in the ecosystem.
speaker-0: The alts. Everybody's looking for these alts now. So you but you know what? It's also relationship. And I I believe, and I've told this to people in California, because and and by the way, I'm sure you're hearing the same thing off of Sand Hill Road in the Bay Area as I'm hearing when you talk to people in Southern California. They've had enough. They really are. It's not political. They've just they're looking at the economics of it. Now this billionaire tax. And it just, I mean, I did an episode not long ago on it, but a friend of mine in California pointed out, he says, The while they're looking at passing this, they're making changes to the California Constitution. It's called Title 14. Means that any taxes on the books, they can adjust it. So it's going to become a millionaires' tax really fast. Which I I and then so they're they're all all of them see the writing on the wall, Jeff. They all see it. They say so they they come back and say to me, or they say to you, okay, you guys lived there. Tell us about it. Do you like it? Is it is it what you thought?
speaker-1: Yeah, well, I tell I tell the folks that are considering coming here, come, everybody's welcome. just be s just understand what our culture and our ecosystem is and adapt to it. Yeah. as opposed to bringing something from where you came from here and trying to impose that because it's just more comfortable. I I understand it might be more comfortable, but let let's let's let's be Nevadans together.
speaker-0: Exactly. All right, before I let you go, let's real quick, let's talk a little bit about the business courts. Cause I mean, you and I both share this in our mutual friend Joe Dahlia, even though he's wrapping up his legislative session here. He he worked on it very hard. let's talk briefly about it because I think it's important for the audience to understand we're trying to make this state even more business friendly. So let's talk about the business court. Is it a direct attack on Delaware?
speaker-1: Know if it's a dri it's it's something that's more for us. I mean, we're not doing it to put Delaware down or anything, but when in venture capital land where I live, you can incorporate in two states. Well, you can incorporate in 50 states, but really it comes down to two. Delaware is by far the most popular, and the reason it's the most popular is they have their chancery courts and they have reliably been predictable. If you have to go to litigation. You know it's going to be handled quickly, and you know it's going to be handled by expert judges who understand the business ideas. That's what gave them their edge. They've become less reliable. and we have you know elected judges here in Nevada, so they're not necessarily experts on business. Some we have some that are, but you're not always guaranteed to get them. So the idea is let's create business courts where we point judges through, you know, some sort of process where the legislature and the rest of the government weigh in on it. We get people who are actually qualified. They know the kinds of issues that come up in these courts and they can, they can, they can make a judgment on them quickly. And that's what business wants. Business wants if you do get into a dispute, let's get this sorted out as fast as we can and have it be adjudicated by people who actually know what the issues are. And, you know, I I have a lot of respect for the people who come up through family courts, through criminal courts, through all the other parts of the legal system. But the I don't expect them to know any more about business than I do about whatever their specialty is. So if we can get this it's passed once, we need to pass it a second time in this next legislative session, then it goes before us as voters because we're changing the constitution. and it's it's a two and a half billion dollar industry in Delaware. That Delaware otherwise doesn't have that much going for it. But the whole industry of co incorporation and all of the all of the law and other things that happen around businesses, so much of it gets gets litigated in Delaware. People incorporate in Delaware. If we can figure out a way to do that, not only will it be good for us, but I think it'll be good for the country to have two different jurisdictions that you can go to. You know, all the people in the western part of the United States have to go to to the east coast to get that kind of work done. I'd much rather have just fly to Vegas. We got we got so many flights coming here anywhere. You ever try to get to someplace in Delaware? It's almost impossible. So let's let's have our own business courts. Let's do the do the right thing. I think it'll be good for not only our Nevada businesses, I think it'll be good for all of our American businesses to have two legit sources of incorporation of a legal system that's got expertise in the area of business and that can sort of reliably get through the any dispute that you might have quickly. Not to say that they're gonna favor one side or another side, but that you have people that can make those judgments and you have good faith that it's going to be taken seriously and done with good consideration.
speaker-0: I'll add one other part to it. It's also too to make sure that we streamline our whole arbitration process. There's times things shouldn't go to court at all. I agree. These things can be settled out of court very efficiently. You know, it would be kind of fun to to actually have business court billboards because we've got the other the personal attorney guys, the injury guys all over the place. Let's have some other ones here, you know.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'm hoping that we don't have that many disputes in business, but when we do, it should be easy to sort them out. When you just can't agree and you need to have somebody help you to get to a resolution, arbitration's great, less expensive, quicker. if you do have to go to court, hopefully we can have business peop business courts where the people who are judging that know are are experts in it. Not not to say that we don't have good people here that can do that. in our current system, but you just never know.
speaker-0: Well, the other thing too, we do have diverse industries. They can't just be tech judges. They need more financial service judges. They see that's the thing I I hear about Delaware. Delaware knows certain industries cold, knows them cold. You jump into another area, and that was Elon Musk's big problem with Delaware. They didn't really understand what he was doing.
speaker-1: Well he lit the fuse, right? The the idea that the the board and the shareholders could have approved a pay package as crazy as his goals were, and then to have somebody come in and pass judgment on that when nobody was disputing it, that's that's just that's beyond crazy.
speaker-0: Well, and here we would said, fine, you know, just leave them please leave the money here and let us put it into to Jeff's program. Jeff, I the only thing I wanted to bring up, let's talk very quickly about legislative session. So everybody you might not know this, but our legislation meets every other year. And it's funny how those every two years c they come up fast.
speaker-1: They do. And there's a lot to get done in the hundred or one hundred and twenty days between January and the end of May. Session
speaker-0: You go for the full cycle?
speaker-1: I I'm usually working on one or two things, so I don't go and sit there all day. But if if I'm testifying for a bill or against something, or I've tried to get something introduced working through what working with one of the legislators here in the state, I go and support that. But I'm not there every day. Not like the not like the people in the legislature or the other Do you
speaker-0: You do you go as a non paid lobbyist or do you okay that
speaker-1: I was given that advice the very first year I did it is just register as a lobbyist. I'm not paid. Yeah. But but that was the advice I was given is they'll take you more seriously if you actually go about professionally registering and everything else. Plus you get a really cool badge.
speaker-0: I still keep mine. I love it. Let me ask you this real quick. I mean, I know we're you and I will I wanna have you come back, okay? We I think we're at let's get post legislative cycle and have a a a debrief on
speaker-1: Sounds good.
speaker-0: but I will just say this that when I went there I was really kind of taken ab with how many out of state lobbyists were there. And I brought it up to it both sides. I said, you know, look, I want us to run our own state. I don't and I loved it when I asked when I was talking to people, they said these were regional issues. B I called BS where I see it. no, this was trying to infiltrate our politics. And and both sides are doing it. They both but I no, leave us alone. We're our own state. We don't want you all here. I I I remember telling our lieutenant governor, I could not go to Sacramento and do that. You couldn't either. They wouldn't let us in. So why do we allow them to come? And I was heard we're an open state. Well we need to be careful.
speaker-1: If we do get to the point where we're all voting on the business courts, expect Delaware to weigh in heavily.
speaker-0: Well, exactly. I mean that would be pr we we we we'll hear some funny accents. Jeff Saling, if people want to get a hold of you, an entrepreneur wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way?
speaker-1: Two ways. you can find me on LinkedIn, so you can message me there, ask to connect, or on email, Jeff at startupnv.org.
speaker-0: And just and you're always welcome to talk to anybody.
speaker-1: Yeah, I talked to I talked to h I don't know, I didn't count it hundreds of people I'm sure every month, if not thousands.
speaker-0: All right. Jeff, thank you so much for and it I know this was a long segment, but we really do appreciate you coming on. Everybody, that wraps up the bonus section of Winning with Wynens. And you know what? Like I said, we have the best guest. This man right here is one of them. So we'll see you next week. Take care. Hey everybody, this is Ken Winins, the host of the Winning with Winens podcast. And I want to take a moment of your time to talk about how do you pick an investment advisor? Well, first off, we're not all the same. In fact, Winens Investments is the only Morningstar top-ranked manager based in Las Vegas. And last time I checked, we're number one in performance in all of Nevada. So if you're looking for something unique, something different, go with a firm that's been around since 1992, 100% independent and veteran-owned. Win with Winens. Look forward to hearing from you. Boy, that time went fast. I hope you had as much fun as I did during this segment of Winning with Wineins. Make sure and tune in next week for another round of guest and interesting topics. And if you missed this, make sure and check us out on Spotify, YouTube, or go to our website, winningwithwin's dot com, where there's a lot more information for you to follow. So good luck this next week. Look forward to seeing you then. Take care.
