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TRANSCRIPT: SE.Club – EP28: What Are the Paradigm Shifts? / 9-17-21

 Hello, everyone. , , this is going to be a really fun session. We did this last week and we came up with a boat 25 trends or opportunities for entrepreneurs or for startups, or for even those thinking of joining a startup or investing in a startup.

 You know, what is, what are those trends? What are those paradigm shifts that are out there that give opportunity for entrepreneurs? And I asked this question, why is it that startups have such an advantage over big corporations when it comes to. These kinds of changes in the economy or changes in trends or regulatory changes.

 And I had the opportunity to work for a fortune 1000 company for three years. So I sold my company back in 2006, and that company was in the cloud computing space. We actually really were one of the few companies who pioneered it in the late nineties, early two thousands. And we sold it in 96. And I had the great opportunity as an entrepreneur to work for a fortune 1000 company.

 And I reported directly to the CEO of this particular company. I will hold back naming names. And I found that in this environment of thousands of people in a company that already has a profit center, it was very challenging to bring new ideas to that. And for those who did bring the new ideas to the table, if they didn't succeed, they'd often be removed from the company or they would be demoted.

 The, the, the fact of the matter is corporations do not have the culture that exists for the most part. Now there are some exceptions, you know, we could probably name a few companies here that we know about, and there are exceptions to the rule, but the fact of the matter is big companies sometimes get in their own way of innovation, enter the entrepreneur.

 And that's what today's session is all about. This is all about what are the trends, you know, what are the paradigm shifts that exists that we can seize upon to build businesses? And I can tell you firsthand, I've done it for 25 years now. I've been involved in many new industries, many do starting many new companies, and I've had a lot of success.

 What's the show all about the show's all about cracking the formula. What is the secret sauce that serial entrepreneurs do over and over again? And I was thinking back in my mind, who is the serial entrepreneur out there that we all sort of look up to right now? And I know Steve jobs was obviously one of those examples, but right now, Elon Musk stands out.

 He's launching space, X, Tesla, the boring company. He's got open AI and he's got neuro link. I think neuro lake might be a little bit out there, but I'll leave it at that. I mean, it's incredible in Fort Lauderdale last week, they announced they're going to, they're going to build a tunnel and almost like a pseudo subway system using self-driving Tesla cars under the city.

 And it's just absolutely incredible. The kind of innovation and technology that he's bringing to the market. We want you on stage. If you're an entrepreneur, you want to talk about. New ideas, new trends, new paradigm shifts. Maybe you capitalized on a new paradigm shift or a new trend over the last 10, 15 years.

 We want to hear about those last week. We talked a lot. We talked a lot about NFTs, so hopefully we will cover some new ground. Uh, today, today I'm actually driving in one hour from now to a, uh, an island on the west coast of Florida. And I'm looking at vacation rentals. There's been a massive shift in people using vacation rentals instead of hotels.

 And now I'm beginning to invest in that space. What's your idea. Come on stage, please raise your hand. We want you on stage. We want to hear from you. Jeff's going to moderate today. Take it away. Thank you Colin. And thank you everyone for joining us for this week's edition of the serial entrepreneur hour, focusing on new startup ideas and trends.

 I want to remind everyone before we bring people up, that we are recording this show. So if you do raise your hand and come up on stage and participate, you are giving us your permission to record you. And you can find recordings of this show. And many other shows over@startup.club, which is the website for startup club.

 So go over there, check it out, sign up for our mailing list and make sure you're kept informed of everything going on in up club. As Colin mentioned, this is a great, great topic. And it's funny since I've known Collin for many years, he used to always tell me he lives in the future. And what he meant by that is he's always interested in that next trend.

 He's always looking for the opportunities that are going to. From the next trend. And that's what we want you to come up and tell us, share with us your next trend that you think is creating great opportunities for startups and for entrepreneurs. So with that, um, I'll start by asking our fellow moderators.

 If they have a trend they want to bring up. So Michelle, I see you've un-muted yourself. So Michelle, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I really love this subject is so interesting to me to see, you know, what really cool technologies, social economic behaviors that people are really picking up on that they feel are extremely relevant.

 Um, I personally believe that oftentimes the best ones that really get legs and really get adoption or base and, you know, kind of social good, um, you know, applications, it's stuff, people really, really, truly. So I actually was looking at the Gartner. If you guys know the Gartner Gartner group, they're pretty amazing, but they did a study on top strategy technology trends for 2021.

 And, you know, not surprising quite a bit of this, you know, is being fueled by the current situation that we've all been living under with COVID. So I thought that was interesting. Um, specifically, you know, something that's really interesting. I've always been in, you know, like kind of operations and leadership roles is for some really heavy trend right now, which is anywhere operations is what they call it by Cartner because we all know, like things have dramatically changed where we need to be able to operate businesses.

 Um, remotely, meaning from your home. I don't know if that's remote, but you know, not, you know, outside of the traditional office space, which by the way, is quite stifling creatively to many people, some of us like it because we like to interact heavily, but there are technologies like anything that's like really coalescing and bringing those people together from the employees to the customer, to the operations, like really thinking in a digital world and not making everything be this overly bearing physical presence.

 So I think that's interesting. I think we are already witnessing it with the, you know, popularity, of course, zoom, I'd be shocked if no one's heard of that of slack, but there's this opportunity to bring all that together, you know, for the benefit of customers first and foremost, but also the operations and the.

 Not so much that, you know, the customer's always right and we all have to die and, you know, live by whatever that means. Like how can it work and the bigger global world. So, you know, um, I'm interested in that myself in terms, thank you. Uh, the gentleman who just left, but very interesting, you know, is that that kind of technology is really moving fast forward.

 And even in really big companies that typically would not have wanted it. And you know, what are the implications for technology for new software, negative and positive? What is the implication for commercial real estate? There's, there's so much to think about. So, um, that's my contribution and I have a few other ideas on it, but I I'd love to hear what other folks have to say.

 Thank you. I think it's interesting that what you're doing is you're saying here's this big shift, this big change. And then there's all these other things that are. I actually believe what I mentioned earlier around vacation rentals and Airbnb and how that the pandemic has going to fuel this idea of working remotely and that we don't always have to be, you know, three 50 weeks a year in an office space.

 We can actually work on an island in Florida. And I think that the technology shifts these opportunities. There's so many ancillary opportunities from one shift that it's mind boggling if you think about it. Yeah. Thank you. Colin and Michelle, I like the term anywhere operations. That's interesting. And I think you both referred to the pandemic and the effects of COVID and I think we're in an unusual time as entrepreneurs right now, because I think there were more.

 Perhaps more of these shifts, these dramatic shifts happening now at once than ever before. And I think part of that is because the pandemic has really acted as an accelerant. Many of these trends would have come to be sooner or later, or there was signs that we were moving in that direction, but the pandemic has acted as an accelerant.

 And now we have all of these things moving forward at once. And I think that's creating tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs and startups. Ed, welcome to start up club. I think you've been here before as the founder of startup club. What are the trends that you've been seeing it from your point? I I'm driving right now.

 So I really can't talk to him just coming up to support. So please continue. Okay. So one of the trends ed is being, uh, aware of is not self-driving, but self-driving actually driving himself. Uh, not to be confused with self-driving cars today. We have self-driving ed, ed, thanks for joining us. And thanks for your support, Jeffrey who spells it differently than I do.

 Jeffrey. Welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. What are the trends that you get excited about? Hey, everyone, I'm Jeffrey from Uganda. Uh, I am seeing a huge trend in devices. Um, we definitely have a lot more devices in our world or in our lives. Uh, and average average number of devices per household has increased, um, number of connected devices.

 You know, short up to about a 46 billion, uh, coming up on, um, when about, um, 50 billion this year, uh, and all these devices, uh, definitely going to change the way we live. We're going to live a more connected life. And I see, I see that this is going to be a huge trend in the coming years. We're looking at 125 billion devices by, uh, 2031.

 And I think we're going to beat that number will probably be in, you know, uh, in the range of 200 to 300 million, um, because of the high growth in, you know, satellite connectivity, looking at the space race right now with lower costs, um, uh, costs, uh, of launches, um, for satellites, we're definitely going to see a race to connect more devices.

 And, um, uh, I think this is an emerging trend that's going to make. Uh, much easier, much more connected, much smarter. Uh, another trend of course, is, you know, the smart home, uh, the smart cities, uh, which are all driven by the way by devices. Uh, another trend I would like to lastly highlight is electric mobility.

 I think electric mobility is going to, you know, uh, I, I would say it's already revolutionaries in, um, how we, how we basically move, uh, and how we get from place to place. And I think that's going to, you know, uh, go even faster in the next few, uh, in the next few years, I wouldn't want to speak, um, about everything.

 Uh, but I think those are the few that I can highlight. I've been monitoring and I'm participating in. Thank you, Jeffrey. Those are, those are all interesting trends that I think the, the electric mobility is interesting cause uh, many of you may may remember back in the day, there were rumors of this new product that was going to change the world and it was code named ginger.

 And that ended up being the segue, the original segway, the big one that, um, never really took off. And now of course, that company segway is actually one of the leading manufacturers of these electric scooters that are used by bird and all these other companies. And it is happening. I have a quick question for you, Jeffrey, you mentioned the growth of all these connected devices.

 Currently. It sounded like from your numbers, there's seven connected devices for every human being on the planet. Um, with that, what is the opportunity that you see for an entrepreneur or a startup? What are the businesses people can be looking at either starting or investing in that will benefit from this rise in connected devices?

 Do you have a thought on that? Yes, I do. And I'm actually doing something about it. So. I see all these devices run off of batteries, um, or majority of them, um, and most of these devices are portable and when they run out of battery, uh, trust me, it's a real hiccup, getting them to church or getting them charged.

 So I run a startup in Uganda called charge core technologies. And what we do is we're setting up public phone charging stations and public device charging stations, basically, plus, um, portable, um, little power banks, uh, but one, two, 3000 million pounds that are really portable pocket size that can be used to power, any USB type C lightning or micro USB, um, type device.

 So I see a lot of trends in, in power for the mobile. Uh, because it's a real hiccup when these run out of battery. Secondly, I see a lot of opportunities in connectivity for these devices. Um, if you look at the current connectivity threshold, you're looking at it in a, in an average household, you're looking at like 10 devices personally.

 I own about five devices, myself, uh, airports, my phone, my Kindle, my, uh, my spare phone and, you know, uh, under my fight. But this might, if I can only connect a few devices as we increasingly develop, we're going to. Better connectivity on the coast. So I think there's a huge need for, uh, mobile connectivity, uh, to basically string together all of these connected devices and keep you connected.

 Thank you, Jeffrey. Those are both good suggestions. And I think I'm similar to what we talked about once before you're looking at opportunities to basically provide the picks and shovels for the gold diggers. Right? You have all these battery powered devices. Well, you need to support that with ways to charge those devices.

 Thanks for sharing those thoughts. We appreciate it. Sanjay. You're up next? What is a trend? That's got you excited. Okay. Thanks Jeff. Thanks for enlightening me. Uh, I personally, uh, have a, uh, very strong conviction that a entire model of a Euro monetary and fiscal system across the globe is going to get redefined.

 Okay. Primarily it will be driven by. Technology and, uh, and a proliferation of, uh, crypto adoption across the world. And we have seen the beginning, which has started in few of the economics while naysayers have a different view about, uh, because of different reason. Obviously any new technology has a lot of, uh, downside at the initial phase of the life cycle.

 But, uh, I see that, uh, maturing very soon and that soon could be as early as probably maybe next to two to three years time, which will redefine. And in addition to that unseen apart from, uh, this, uh, and which, which is going to threaten fiscal as well as monetary authorities across the nations of the world, And, uh, uh, because again, crypto adoption, because imagine if a, yet to some extent, imagine if the theater is going to be replaced by crypto, even for 25, 30% of the global transaction side, imagine the kind of impact it will.

 It will, it will make, uh, an overall economic, uh, side and, uh, how the policy changes will have, uh, uh, I mean, to say monetary and fiscal authority need to, uh, get a redefined their policies and entire strategy. Actually, if you ask, so that is one big thing MC because, and, uh, uh, this, this, there are many other pieces also, which are, uh, compelling now, you know, the advent of CBDC.

 Yeah. I think just to focus on the first one, you mentioned Sanjay, which is great because you're looking at crypto from the way it will disrupt actual monetary. Systems and monetary authority. So a lot of us, when we think about crypto, you know, we're caught up in the buzz word of the day, whether that's NFTs and Ethereum and Bitcoin, but you're thinking of it on a more global monetary basis and the impact that will have.

 And it is interesting. I believe there's already one country, I believe, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's San Salvador that has officially adopted, um, Bitcoin as the currency of the country. So obviously that's a small country and it's just the beginning, but, um, I think you see a trend towards a much more global adoption of some type of crypto based, uh, currency to replace Fiat currency.

 So I think that's very interesting. Imagine, just look at, just look at El Salvador. Just think about the massive change in their economy because of the crypto and how the opportunities that would exist for those who are in El Salvador, who, who, who grabbed upon grab those opportunities who sees them. And take advantage of that huge shift in their country.

 Very, very interesting to see. Thank you very much Sanjay, but we do need to move on. We have a lot of people today. Uh, Desha, welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. What are the trends? You're fall. Thank you so much Jeffrey for calling me in. All right. So I personally think that not just supposedly in fact, this is something I've noticed, this is something which has happened with me, et cetera.

 Uh, the healthcare industry has, is dawning in do online, like before you could not really think that you can work out at home, uh, for a long period of time. And now the entire sector, the entire offline sector of, um, you know, working out, going to. B as like a gym space auto CrossFit box or a studio space to already work out.

 You can actually do all of that at, from home without traveling and without really making an effort. You know, there's so many other things which are into consideration. So in my personal opinion, uh, healthcare industry will keep growing in the online space and probably there'll be what you rally or virtual reality, which we'll hit on.

 Uh, pretty soon I'm expecting this to hit on in the next two, three years. So yeah, I think, um, healthcare will boom up, um, do already. Yeah, thank you, Dasha. I think that's a great point. I think that the, the difference is, again, it's all these trends sort of coming together, but what's changed for exercising at home.

 At least from my own personal experience is the interactivity of having that two way communications, whether it's via zoom or FaceTime or something else where instead of in the old days of home fitness, you'd watch Jane Fonda on a videotape jumping up and down, and you'd try to copy her jumping up and down.

 Now you can actually have your coach and your even other people in the class, seeing you in real time, seeing what you're doing, commenting on you, coaching you as you do it. And that really has changed the game for fitness in your home. I think so. That's a great, great point. Great trend. Terrific. Thank you, Dasha Muhammad.

 What's a trend. That's gotten you excited.

 Uh, good to everyone. Uh, thank you, Jeffrey for to share my idea. Uh, I would add something to Michelle's point, uh, as before all these fitness stuff. Uh, everyone, these days want to eat clean food, especially, uh, I am on where I'm living. People just want to eat a Supreme free vegetables, periphery, um, fruits and things like that.

 So what I am looking to do is to create a space, uh, where people like me and you like people. I have a time and experience growing veggies and fruits can book their personal space, uh, in some, uh, far away place. And they can control the V those veggies grow, using a simple app that they can interact on your phone.

 So like, uh, if you want to water your veggies today, you can just let on the app that what may register the, if you want to add, uh, any fertilizer or you just want to draw, you can select those options and you will be growing your own. Yeah. Without any fertilizers or things like that, that you don't have to worry about, uh, if there is any surprises or things like that, those, uh, which are, uh, harmful for human bodies.

 So, uh, my goal is to let people eat fresh food, uh, that they deserve and on a minimal price that we would charge them, uh, to, you know, Uh, complete their orders that, uh, their directives that they're giving to the app. That's great. Muhammad, I think, uh, remote gardening. Um, it's very interesting that you pointed out and you and Desha, both that, you know, there are these trends towards greater fitness trends towards eating clean.

 And green foods. Um, in the early days of tech of the technological revolution, one could argue perhaps that technology ruined food. You know, it caused things to be mass produced. It caused the introduction of many pesticides and preservatives into the food chain. And now it seems like we're seeing a shift where we're seeing technology being used to actually improve the quality of food and make food, um, less processed and more green and clean as you suggest.

 So I think that's a wonderful trend, uh, to leverage technology, to help us all be more fit and eat healthier foods. So thank you for bringing that up and thank you. Disha as well. Uh, next up we have George, George. I hope you're doing well. It's great to see you. What trends are you excited about? Yeah. Thank you guys so much.

 Um, yeah, one of the trends that I'm really excited about is it is in the NFP space. Uh, what's going on with, um, these NFTs. Um, I think they're very dynamic. Uh they're they kind of remind me of, um, domain names, right? The domain names, like for me are the original NMT non fungible token. Um, so I think the technology that could come from these entities could be something very special as companies are starting to adapt to these.

 Um, of course, if anybody didn't know, uh, what an MTS, I mean, an entity could be anything, right. That's that's, uh, created on the blockchain. So for me, like I said, I look at some of these NFTs when I buy them myself, um, as like one of one pictures, but they also could, you also could use them for your business.

 Uh, you could use them for anything you need to do pertaining to your company. Um, but that's what I'm looking at right now. Uh, Jeffrey is, uh, is I'm really excited about this NMT. So George, can you give us, I think, would be helpful sort of a practical example of, of a way you are actually using an NFT for yourself or for your business, right?

 Yeah. As a matter of fact, um, I'm using one right now. I'm actually the co-founder with a guy out of Australia. We created a NMT called blazed punks, uh, dot com ablaze punk is, um, cause I'm in the cannabis space. So, um, I'm, I'm kind of connecting with the cannabis smokers from around the world. And so we created these, uh, these images, uh, pixel images, uh, to identify with the, with the cannabis smokers.

 So, um, I, I, I'm going to get 12 of them, so I pick one of them. And, um, maybe I, maybe I should change it on PTR. I don't know, but I, I have one that we did. That's actually going to be the face of our laboratory and we named them testing Tom. That's what we named the NFT testing, Tom, and it's going to be the mascot of the laboratory.

 So that's how we're going to use it. We're going to use it, um, on, on, uh, apparel. We're going to use it, you know, on the site, you know, we're going to, we're going to promote it the way we're going to promote it because we did that. Um, we just had one of the biggest. Cannabis, uh, machinery companies, which is Pelke and Elmer, apparently also once one of these place punks as their mascot for their company.

 So the way we're using it, it's kinda like, um, it's kinda like a brand, right. We're using that entity as a brand for us. And, uh, I think that dynamic events, because that image we have is a one-on-one and it cannot be recreated. So it's kind of like a domain name. Um, but it's uh, go ahead, George. George, I mean, like you just brought up probably and we missed it last week.

 Probably one of the biggest changes in regulation over the last 10 years around cannabis, around marijuana and I'm Canadian. And I see it. I see there are more marijuana shops in Toronto and Ontario than there are liquor stores. Um, one is actually run by the government, Ontario, the others run by entrepreneurs, but there are been hundreds of thousands of businesses started because of regulatory change.

 Are you able to talk at all about, I mean, you mentioned it a little bit there about your, um, the new testing business in California. Are you able to talk about that at all? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We, me and my brother, um, started, uh, we co-founded, uh, us cannabis laboratories, Inc, uh, where we're actually a licensed state licensed facility, uh, by the state of California.

 Uh, we saw, we saw the need. In the cannabis space, uh, for testing because you know, right now California is really behind, uh, with testing facilities. I think right now we're probably like the number 25th facility in the state of California. And right now they, they need to be at 400. They need, they need 400 laboratories to keep up with the demand for the cannabis in, in, in the state.

 But, but yeah, we saw that trend come three years back, four years back. And me and my brother just began to hammer at it little by little. Um, and now we're at the point now we're ready to open. And so, you know, that's a big, big, uh, big thing for us because like I said, you know, this is, this is what cannabis is about.

 You know, we want people to understand that when they, when they smoke the cannabis, that they get a clean product that is free of pesticides that is free of, uh, radical, you know, radical metal or. And so, um, you know, this cannabis space is a big thing, and I think it's going to continue to get regulated.

 We're just hoping that, you know, the, the, the United States lifts the bag and it just goes nationwide because I think, you know, a lot of people are, are consuming cannabis, want to make sure we're, you know, we're one of the companies that are open up and kind of, uh, pushing high quality, uh, cannabis to the, to the end user.

 Hey Georgia. I also know that you're big on domain names. I know I personally registered, um, cannabis.shop names.club. Of course, we're the people behind.club and we registered, I registered a lot of those personally. Um, I know you've done a lot of.club names, law.com. Now. Um, I also know that there's a Michelle.

 You might remember this there's a service on, on that Verisign puts out. It talks about the last 30 days, the most popular words registered in the.com because you can often see trends when you analyze these domain investors and what they're doing. And that's a way of picking up on it is anywhere.

 Remember that survey. The Verisign had Michelle or Jeff or George. Yeah. You know, I'm looking, I'm trying to look it up right now. I will let's look it up and let's move on that. Yeah, no, but George, thank you for bringing up both the NFTs and the cannabis and colony. Right. It's interesting. When we talked about trends last week, um, this trend towards cannabis and all the businesses that are adjacent to cannabis with the legalization in so many states and even countries, um, those are big opportunities now for entrepreneurs to, and George, you're taking advantage of two big trends with your NFTs and cannabis and bringing them together.

 So good luck with that. We appreciate you sharing those stories. Laura's good to see you, speaking of people in the domain industry or what trends have gotten you excited. Hey Jeff, thank you very much. Uh, very excited about, um, food waste about reducing food waste. Um, I'm involved in a project now that is, has been going on for three years in Luxembourg, which is basically about, uh, reducing food waste.

 Um, I was not aware, but have become aware that 50% of all fresh food that we see when we go into basically a supermarket or. It's actually thrown away today. Um, which of course is it's very sad. Um, and with the technologies that we have today, we can, uh, we can do a lot about that. Not only in food, but also in closing in technologies and, and other ways.

 Um, I think that's, that's a trend that is, uh, very interesting and that will do good for a lot of people and for environment, of course, uh, it's a great trend of food waste and it's interesting. There's a company. I can't think of the name here in the states that they sell. It's like broken, you know, it's, it's bad vegetables like vegetables that don't look good enough for the supermarket.

 So you subscribe and you get all this fresh produce at a significant discount. Because they're not perfect, right? Because in the grocery stores, they want everything to look perfect on display, but the way it looks in the way it tastes and the nutritional value are not necessarily the same thing. So you can have a, something that might not look perfectly round and still be a wonderful, healthy apple or tomato or whatever.

 So that's an interesting take on dealing with, um, food waste. Thank you, Louise. And I see, I refresh and I apologize. It looks like I skipped over Amy, so I apologize. So, Amy, I'm going to jump over to you next and then we'll get back back to Ravi and Priscilla and Roland and everyone else. So Amy, welcome to the show.

 Lars, could you close your microphone, please?

 It's an honor to be here. I've seen your stuff pop up a few times. And my area kind of falls in line with what y'all were saying with working from home and utilizing them. Mine also goes into electronic signatures and electronic notarizations. So there is a new, um, process where you can actually have your documents notarized or certified online with a legal notary Republic in 38 states.

 And it's good anywhere in the U S you can also utilize this service for ARPA steel processes. So if you have a document, you don't necessarily have to go to the consulate anymore. If it's coming to the USA, it's really easy. You go through an IV check and you meet with the notary on zoom and sign the documents electronically similar to like doc DocuSign or dot loop.

 And when it's done, it's encrypted and completely leave. I love that personally. One of the things, every time I have to get something notarized, it's such a M P I T a. If you know what that stands for to have to go find a notary. In fact, um, in previous companies that I've been involved with, we used to make, not make, but strongly suggest that at least one person on the administrative team be a notary public so that they can notarize things right then and there in the office.

 So I love that idea. Do you happen to know if Florida's asking for a friend, if Florida is a state that allows the electronic notaries. It is, um, Florida's one of the first ones to actually completely legalize it, uh, Virginia being the absolute first. But even if let's put it this way, California is not, but you can connect to a notary that's in another state and the document can still be used in California.

 So the laws don't pertain to the client and only pertains to the notary. So anyone anywhere in the world can utilize online that electronic notarization it's just whether or not the notary has the legal authority, the backbone to do it. So any client can connect. Well, that's a great tip and a great trend that I didn't know.

 So, um, that's something that I've learned today and I hope others have learned from that too. Thank you so much for sharing that, Amy. That's great. Next we'll go to, I hope I pronounce it correctly. welcome. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I, um, have noticed that since, uh, COVID hit the divorce rate, went up to about 70% across the board, across us and Canada.

 Well, take a sip of water there, the divorce rate in increase in the divorce rate. Um, yeah, it's interesting what COVID has done to a relationship. So did you, do you see that trend as an opportunity? Yeah. Sorry about that. Absolutely. So what I saw was that there was this giant trend and a movement that was not helping families at all.

 That was basically taking families to a point of destruction where parents were following each other's bad footsteps. There was this constant, um, paradigm, this old way of thinking this old way of doing things and the parents are falling each other's, um, negative ways. So what I did is that I decided to create an app that actually, uh, blends together and bridges the gap between parents who are contemplating divorce, or at least separated who have questions and concerns and worries, and anxieties don't know what to do and how to do it.

 And don't know if they should stay married or get divorced. And I bridge the gap between them and coaches, experts, and professionals from various industries who have the experience and the strategies and the wisdom personally, and our professionals to help them. So rather than thinking that only therapists and only lawyers are the ones that can help you once you've made the decision to divorce, there are many of them.

 Uh, professionals who are out there and who can help in a much bigger way. And so now we're seeing that we're changing the dynamic of the way parents are viewing divorce and viewing marriage and, and viewing life in general because we're helping them think differently. So we're not, pro-marriage, we're not pro divorce.

 What we do is simply give them so much information, educational tools in the app, allow them to engage with coaches and then really start looking outside of the box. We just plant seeds of thoughts in their mind that really changes their ways of thinking. And we have saved so many families from actually getting divorced because of this, a varied way of thinking this very way of looking at life.

 So I think that the trend is that we need to help people, individuals, yes. Technology and all that is important. But at the end of the day, the people are looking for help. People are looking for new ways of dealing with situations and are looking for something fresh. And so, and I think that in terms of marriage and families, and really protecting our future, that this is the best way to take care of our, our future leaders, which has.

 Thank you so much. That's great, Ravi. Then you said it's an app. And I think that is picking up on another trend, which is that this trend for people to feel much more comfortable now dealing with medical, mental health, health relationship issues, uh, through technology, through an app, through a zoom call through other technological means as opposed to going and sitting in a room with someone.

 So I think that opens up a lot of doors. We've talked about it for fitness. We've talked about it for gardening. Now we're talking about it for managing relationships and, and hopefully smoothing out potential divorce situations. So it sounds like a really great app and a great trend that you're taking advantage of.

 So thank you for sharing that. Priscilla. Very good to see you. And I'm sure you're up on some interesting trends. What did you want to share Gracie and you Jeff Reed, everyone. All my friends here on clubhouse. You're so funny. It's so true. So disclaimer, I am not going to advertise anyone and this is not set in stone.

 I'm considering it. So I was approached by a producer for a docu series. Right. But get this, that has, it's an NFP that also has unlockable tokens. And I thought that was just a really interesting take for NFTs. And, you know, I'm like, if anyone's really going to know about this, let me join, uh, Collin Jeffrey, Rachel, and Michelle session.

 And, and talk about this. So I just wanted to know your thoughts about that. So it's really interesting that you brought that up. Priscilla. I recently listened to an interview on a podcast with Ashton. And his wife and she, and she is actually doing something very similar to what you described, where she's created some animated characters and she she's creating an animated TV series, but instead of going through the traditional channels of producing and then, um, getting distribution for that show, they're actually gonna fund the production of it through the sale of NFTs of the characters.

 And then of course the owners of those NFTs will have certain access to the content, um, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So very much in line with what you're talking about, but it's opening up a whole new way for creatives to look at funding approaches. Distributing a project producing a project, all tied into the NFTs and the blockchain.

 So really interesting concept. Um, it's a good interview. I think, I can't remember which show they were interviewed on, but if you, if you Google them, uh, hopefully you could find that interview. It was really interesting. Oh my goodness. So without just letting the cat out of the hat, um, my brother was part of Ashton Kutcher's docu series going from broke.

 So, um, yeah, I I'm on board with what you're saying and I just think it's just so interesting what's happening, but thank you for that feedback. Cause that's also good to know. Yeah. And I think it wasn't Ashton who was driving it. It was his wife, Mila Kunis. She she's the one who's really the, the creative, um, force behind this project.

 So really interesting stuff. Thank you for bringing that take like an existing business like Michelle Meow Arrington's that you're working on. You have a community of 2 million followers on Facebook and Instagram. And we were talking about two weeks ago, we started talking about this idea of using, of, of selling the artwork that is generated by the artists at me Ellington's to, um, as NFTs.

 Did you want to just touch upon that Michelle? Or am I jumping way ahead? Yeah, no, it's, it's good because, you know, I don't know much about FTS and I'm really trying to learn because I, what I'm finding it's more and more diverse. It's very generic term, obviously. Um, but one thing that keeps resonating to me is ownership.

 And also, you know, if you have like a customer base, a fan base, a club, whatever that has an affinity with your artwork, like there's a huge opportunity to potentially, you know, monetize. You know, artwork or, you know, anything content that you could monetize, like in the past, like in an unbelievable way.

 And you know, I'm really excited about it and I'm still trying to learn about it myself. So, um, I do believe that artists rights should be protected and, you know, digital rights acts and all this have always, you know, have not always, but have recently become popular, but I love this whole turn for music, for artists, for content providers, being able to actually.

 You know, monetize the hard work they've done rather than continually being a starving artists. So I'm into it. Yeah. The other piece, Michelle, that you sort of just touched on the edge of, which I want to mention to you too, is there's a big potential community aspect to an NFT because basically because it's exclusive, you know, because that's what creates the value.

 So, you know, there's 10,000 board apes, there's going to be X number of Meow LinkedIn's NFTs that you'll decide to put out there by owning one. The owner can be entitled to certain privileges. So literally. Owning an NFT and a series like that becomes your membership card into an exclusive community. And many of the NFT properties out there are leveraging that community aspect by giving different perks to their members.

 Those perks could be additional NFTE. So there've been additional drops. So for example, everyone who had a board, a, I think they got, uh, another, another NFT and it only went to the holder at that moment in time. So that also encourages people to hold their NFTs and not flip them too fast, because if they would've sold it, they would have missed out on that drop, which basically gives them essentially another free and Ft that also has value.

 So there are a lot of opportunities to build and expand upon your community by using NFTs as kind of that exclusive membership into that community. So really interesting stuff. Yeah. I think that's a really great point. Yeah, exactly. Membership has its privileges. And instead of Karl Malden with an American express card, we're going to see George with his, uh, his NFTs.

 Right. Uh, excellent. So we have about 15, 16 minutes left. We've got a few people up on stage who haven't spoken yet. So want to try to get to everyone, Priscilla. Thanks for bringing all that up. Let's go to Roland. Next Roland. Welcome. Thank you, Jeffrey. How can I help? What's a trend that you are excited about where anywhere.

 Okay. Well, I would say depends how broad you want to go, but really I would say, uh, would make as highlighted is that there is going to be,

 so are you dipped out there? Roland? Can you guys you're, you're dipping in and out a little. Roland. We're going to, we'll go. We'll go on to, uh, Elijah. Oh yeah. That's better. Okay, fantastic. So it really depends how you want to look at it. So the pandemic has highlighted the need for the shift from physical to digital, but that really means dematerialization.

 So that's one of the big trends. The second big trend is what I would call democratization of access. Uh, clearly highlighted in Priscilla's example with NFTs. So the question then becomes, how do you use this different mechanisms to democratize access either to ownership or equity or identity or many other different things?

 Right. So diminished utilization, uh, democratization of access, and possibly if you want to throw in a third one, then I would throw in identity. I'm done. Thanks Roland. You know, I think it's really interesting. The point you made about democratization of access. Um, the blockchain technology, I think, is doing that in a number of areas.

 And these are some trends we haven't talked about yet, but because of that technology, it's very easy now to do. Micro payments or to split things up. So if anyone is dealing in crypto now, you know that, you know, one Bitcoin might be $50,000. So obviously most of the transactions involving Bitcoin are done in fractions.

 So because you can, fractionalize ownership very easily on the blockchain. There have been some new things coming up that are doing just what you said, democratization of asks of access. For example, there's a company that's invested in art, real art, you know, Picasso paintings, famous artworks, and then they let you buy.

 Fractionalized shares in that art. So instead of one wealthy collector, being able to buy a painting for a few million dollars and then resell it many years later for 10 times that now you could actually own a fractionalized piece of a Picasso painting. And maybe in 10 years, it'll be worth 10 X. What your share is.

 And you can do that for very small increments because the blockchain can handle all that, um, chain of title and the fractionalization. So that is to your point, rolling, um, giving access to fine art ownership to people who normally wouldn't have access to fine art or even classic cars. I believe it might be the same company that lets you buy a fractional ownership of, uh, an exotic car, not an exotic car.

 That's going to be driven. It's one, that's sitting in a warehouse or in a museum somewhere, but you can now be a fractional owner of that vehicle. If I may just share a couple of examples. So with NFTs, you saw that coming to baseball. Uh, with, um, you know, fractional art, you saw that coming to, uh, what the Fitzy gallery in Florence did with one of Michelangelo's works.

 So I think that's just the beginning. The question becomes more, I guess the more important question is what will be the viable economic models that will govern this to make it sustainable. I'm done. Yeah, that's a good point. And as was brought up earlier, you know, this, uh, introduction of not just crypto, but the blockchain technology is going to disrupt a lot of areas and, and create, um, new challenges for how things are regulated, new challenges for how things are administered.

 Um, so really interesting trend. Thank you for bringing that up. Let's go to Elijah next, Elijah. Welcome. And what's a trend that's gotten you excited. Well, I mean, I'm in food and food systems and. I'm interested. I mean, maybe there's some experts here who have ideas on this. I'm wondering if like food systems can be on the blockchain and can be an NFT, um, particularly as it relates to emergency management and, um, as environmental disasters and pandemics become more normal, um, um, securing food systems from a community base, um, you know, uh, democratized access, um, with democratized access, I think is the future for me anyway.

 So I'm trying to see how this might fit into a blockchain format. I know very, very little about it. You know, it's like clubhouse knowledge. It's like, I just sit in some rooms and ask questions about what it NFT is. But then I see people saying that NMT can go into identity and I asked months ago if it could be a farm, but then it's like, no, it can't be a farm.

 Or it's like, if it's a certain type of soil, maybe the soil is providing a certain new. Um, or certain combinations of, of nutrients that people want to invest in, in a certain type of way. But then I thought about, um, you know, I, I don't just deal farm by farm, you know, but I deal with like systemic. Um, and we've been playing with alternative food systems here in the Washington DC area in the nation's Capitol for a while, but the pandemic showed us that we, um, um, it's time to actually activate a lot of these systems in a variety of ways.

 And democratizing access is a part of what I do, um, on the nonprofit side of things. So I just wondered if anybody had any thoughts about this. This is Elijah. Um, 10 speaking. Uh, I just wanted to provide Elijah with some thoughts. Um, so I can, I'm happy to put you in touch with a company that's helping African farmers with blockchain and democratizing access to the supply chain.

 Uh, maybe you can get some insights from them. Thanks. Done. Please provide me with a link. I would love that, um, to send me a, uh, a back channel. Yeah. Thank you for that role. And, and thank you Elijah, for the question. And this is what's great about clubhouse Collin off mentions that really, you know, it's a community and here we are in startup club and everyone on stage not only gets to share some of their ideas, but we get to help each other.

 So Roland, I appreciate you stepping in and providing some help, uh, for Elijah. And it's really interesting and I'm sure there must be ways to do it. I know that the food supply chain was trying to leverage, you know, barcodes and, and, um, um, and if not NFTs, but NFC chips and things like that to manage the supply chain.

 So I would imagine with the power that blockchain has as a chain of title, there must be ways to, to involve it in the food supply chain as well. So it'd be interesting to learn what you learned from Roland and the people he puts you in touch with. Maybe you'll come back to another edition of serial entrepreneur hour into.

 Uh, Jeffrey, just to add to that, I've been collaborating, uh, advising a startup in it's nation stage in India that has been able to apply blockchain to gold dust in terms of the supply chain enabled quantify the right you're breaking up again. Rolling. But I think we got the gist of it, um, uh, supply, uh, applying blockchain to gold dust, um, supply chain, which is fascinating.

 Um, let's move on. We've got two more people to get to, and then we'll wrap up. Today's show. I hope I pronounce your name correctly and welcome to clubhouse. I see the party popper. Russia. Welcome. Yeah, Heidi, thank you for inviting me. So, um, what I would like to talk about is, uh, again, So basically what we have talked so far as NFTs and cryptocurrency actually, uh, blockchain is more vast.

 It's an open seat and, uh, these are a small part of it. Just like an, uh, what clubhouse is basically to Android or iOS is what NFD is to blockchain. So, uh, when we talk about blockchain, uh, there are numerous of examples where any industry can apply it. Uh, we saw Gregory talk about something, uh, uh, related to multiple devices.

 So with more devices comes greater responsibility. So that is something that can be done with blockchain. Then comes, see supply chain tracking and tracing that also can be done on blockchain. I personally have heard multiple agriculture companies as well, that are moving their supply chain over to blockchain and, uh, There are enormous examples, medical, uh, medical trials, anything at all.

 Thank you, Rushi. That's a great point that you bring up and I love the analogy you gave that a, you know, clubhouse is to Android as a NFTs are to blockchain. Um, it really does help put it into perspective. So thank you for that. So we have one more guest today on the show and then we'll, uh, wrap it up for today and I'll let Colin do our, our, our serial entrepreneur, our close out.

 So I've action. Welcome to the serial entrepreneur hour. What is the trend that you were excited about? Thank you, Jeffrey. Um, uh, I, uh, love everything to do with clean tech and I am involved in numerous clean tech companies, uh, both on, uh, mineral processing robotics and, uh, you know, removing fossil fuels, replacing them with more renewable energy.

 And I think, um, because we are running out of resources. And that's why we see prices increasing on raw material, on food and everything that has to do with earth. And, um, this running out of resources is partially because of the increasing population, but the majority of it is because of mismanagement of our resources, clean tech companies, uh, are actually the ones who will make us sustainable going forward and help us, uh, have the lifestyle that we're used to without, uh, making things exorbitantly expensive for us.

 Uh, so there are unaffordable. Thank you for that clean tech. That's one that hasn't come up before, but as you pointed out, it's a, it's a very important, um, technology, especially now. Um, I did look it up and I wanted to mention the, the company I mentioned earlier that lets you invest in. And, and fine art is called master works.io, masterworks.io.

 So I just wanted to share that and I want to thank everyone. Who's joined us today, both onstage and in the audience. This was great because I think Colin, you, you can tell me your opinion, but I think you were expecting everything to be about NFTs again, but we had a lot of other great suggestions and great trends, and clearly there are no shortage of, of shifts in technology and in consumer behavior, um, to create wonderful opportunities for investors, startups, entrepreneurs, innovators, um, to move things forward.

 So it's very exciting. Great discussion. Thank you, Colin. I'll turn it back to you. Well, you know what? It's never been a better time in history to be an entrepreneur. All of the technology shifts over the last. 2030 years, or I guess you could say for the last thousands of years, but for the, for the most part, it's been accelerating much quicker.

 The change is out there. It's huge. It's constant. Enter the entrepreneur. This is our opportunity. This is an opportunity for startups. Look at today. Today could not have happened without clubhouse, without social audio. Um, becoming a reality. It's incredible what the community put together today. And if you liked this episode, go to startup.club, do two things.

 One we've recorded now probably about a hundred episodes on startup club, including about 25 of, uh, the serial entrepreneur hour that we do every Friday at two o'clock Eastern. Um, and you can, you can find topics from everything from crowdfunding to. Um, launching your own, your own brand, everything it's there next week.

 Talk about brands next week. The title is build a brand, not just a startup, and we've got Jeff who's COO he's going to come in and help us here. And we also have Alivia who, uh, came up with this, this idea for next week's show, build a brand, not just a startup. Um, oh, and the other thing on startup.club is definitely sign up to the email address if you haven't already done.

 So please sign up. We have a number of big speakers that we bring on to startup club. And for the most part, you won't know they exist, or you won't know they're coming, unless you're on that email list, go to startup.club and sign up to it. What a great episode. Thank you, Colin. Um, Michelle or any of our other moderators have any final remarks before we close out the.

 Yeah, I would just say this has been phenomenal. Um, you know, I'm always continue to be impressed of the audience that comes people that we're able to bring on stage. We thank all of you for attending today, and we really hope to see you next week as well. Great. Thank you, Michelle. And thanks again, everyone.

 , we hope you have a great weekend and we look forward to you joining us again for another serial entrepreneur hour here on startup club. Thanks everyone.

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EP174: Business Mindset: Starting vs Scaling

EP173: Minor Majors for Maximum Impact

EP172: Startup Secrets: Scale with AI

EP171: Boss vs. Coach: Leadership Balance

EP170: Timing the Sale of Your Company

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The question is, are you always looking for the next trend?