Adam Torres and Manuj Grover discuss The PIPEs Conference.
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Show Notes:
Listen to The PIPEs Conference coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Manuj Grover, Vice President of Business Development at Public Yield Capital, explore Pubic Yield Capital and The PIPEs Conference.
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About Public Yield Capital
Public Yield Capital (PYC) is an investment outreach platform enabling startups and public companies to reach and engage with a high volume of investors at scale to support capital raises through Regulation A+, Reg. CF, Reg. D, and other equity crowdfunding opportunities.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today we are at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida for a DealFlow event, the Pipes Conference, and my guest is Manouche. Manouche, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it. Alright, man.
So not a bad venue. What do you think about the casino? Come on. It’s massive. I’m Canadian, so they don’t have this many big casinos there. The only thing is, signage sucks, because I was like walking in circles before I pumped. Where the conference was. I got lucky and somebody else found me. They saw me with a, sir are you lost?
Well, you look more popular than I do, right? I just look like I’m an average dude just walking around. Eventually you found my space here, so I’m good. Yeah, what part of Canada were you from? Born in Montreal, but Now I’m currently residing in Toronto, Canada. Ah, I love Toronto. Spend many a boxing day out there.
I’m from Michigan originally, and we used to go over to Windsor, then go to Toronto too, and just, you know, have a lot of fun there. So we’re not gonna talk about that on this show, but no. So what brings you to the conference today? Well, actually, so I’m a media partner with a deal flow group for their, primarily their regulation, a fraud funding and a micro cap events.
So I have an investor outreach platform that targets. Public companies, private companies are in the capital raising phase as well as building up. So essentially the, the tagline is attract and engage with retail investors at scale. Because we have, we have a platform that we function with, but we play in a very niche.
Way into capital markets. Yes. So firms like deal flow that do these events, other investment banks that do their own conferences, leverage your ability to reach out to an audience at scale, to bring eyeballs to the event and hopefully have people actually attend like yourself or any other of these vendors.
Yeah, no, it’s amazing. And I know they had their SPAC and reg a conference, I believe earlier this year. Yeah, I couldn’t make that. I covered that virtually, but I couldn’t make it in person for that one, but I wanted to go. I think it’s at another cool venue, if I’m not mistaken. It’s at the Westchester Country Club.
No, it’s not. That’s what I thought. It was a pretty cool venue, I thought. I can’t afford the membership, so they didn’t let me go up there, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful building. And I know the micro cab conference is going to be coming up again too, right? That has to be in the Atlanta city at the end of January.
Oh man. I think I might have to try and figure that one out in person. We’ll see if I’m on my schedule. It’s like, but that is, that is why I think that is a very good event is if you, for those who follow the micro cab. A lot of the conferences are either very small, very niche, or they’re run by the investment banks themselves that bring their clients.
This one, the way deal flow, the deal flow group Brooke, Steve, Phil, the way they run it, it is basically open to anyone in the space and because they’re the clients. We’re both entrepreneurs in a space. They’re entrepreneurial as well. The thing I thought about, yeah, how can you improve the experience?
And I think the pipes specifically is first time they’ve done in many, many years. Is he first time I think in Florida, which is really cool. Yeah. I don’t give all the New Yorkers and the people from Toronto, like they shot in this. And it was warmer outside. Yeah. Some warm sun, you know like I’m not on my vitamin details.
I can actually go outside and not freeze my tush. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a great, it’s awesome to be here. So for your platform, I understand you’re one of the co founders. Like how’d the idea come about? Like talk to me a little bit about how it got created. So it was basically, I would say survival. I started starting from in 2020 and our original service was investor marketing for public companies.
Prior to that being Canadian, as you can appreciate. There was a cannabis boom in the U. S. and Canada. Legislation only allowed them to access capital through the public markets. I’m there. It’s still the case. And because they’re not institutional, like nobody, because of institutions could not invest in them because at a U.
S. exposure, there was a very big restriction on how they raised capital. So mutual investors, people like you and I, getting solicited or attracted to this opportunity, which is brand spanking new, was the only means. So that was both the genesis of our business. I’m glad you reached out to these audiences, tell them about the story, and for a while it went well, but as we all know, it’s been tough in the United States.
And so the expression that you Canadians use is, the US loses, Canada catches a cold. And because of the restrictions and the difficulties these cannabis camps have in the United States, It’s the capital for the new Canada as well. So, and they decided there were direction to go. Scaled up to mining is a natural business for the Canadian side.
For sure. Tech was difficult, the techs were growing, so. But mostly Canadian market cap. And then COVID hit. Yeah. Lo and behold. Solid way for you to get to that one. Yeah. The world, funny enough, it’s a complete side story the day before. So we were supposed to go on as family and friends go on vacation on March 13th.
So in Canada, PDAC happened, the largest mining show in the world of capital markets. And that next, that weekend, you hear all some people getting COVID, don’t know what it’s much about. And I’m watching Contagion. Oh, the movie, you know, and I’m like, Oh shit is this is my French is that just going to happen?
And then the next day, the boards that shut down and stuck at home for a week, we’ve been learning, which allowed like these types of setups to happen where virtually you can now communicate and it’s people comfortable with it. So it did change the world, I think, for some positive aspects. And, but then on a business point of view, everybody shut down their budgets.
The. Nobody knew nobody was going to, you don’t know, we’re going to be in this, we’re not going to be a business where you don’t know how long this is going to take and it’s easy to cut services that are not essential. Yeah. So marketing to public, to investors, even though fiduciary is important, was not priority for the cash.
Yeah. Yeah. So literally within one week, all sales stops. Wow. Now, all of a sudden it’s new business. Yes, it pivoted from being a one man show, my business partner, now we’re partners. We started with a new brand and now we’re like, who should live in business? A few years earlier, like I was in the financial services look, look, I sold life insurance.
So, so I started as an advisor, pivoted to banks to do a debt deals, primarily for construction of apartment buildings and financing the large, like large bundles of residential. So we bundled them and split them as assets, basically what caused the 2008 crash. Yeah. And a small mistake. Then we’re thinking, okay, how do we, how do we survive?
And after I’d left the financial services business, I learned about equity crowdfunding being a class in my MBA program, but in ventures. So this would be my pivot into capital markets. Yeah. Because when you’re sure retail and, and capital markets at that current time, the trend was speaking to high net worth investors, wanting and dining them.
Yeah. And take him on to roadshows and indigenous CEO meetings that was in my, my network. So crowdfunding, I’m a retail, I’m a financial advisor, retail investment. So I went in and started building my network through there. Mm hmm. And that, those relationships. Allowed us to pivot from public markets to U.
S. based equity crowdfunding. So, I mean, I don’t know, are we perviating the exemptions that exist? Yeah. So, regulation A, you may have heard of, the regulation D for accredited actors, regular CF. There are a lot of writing about it on Amazonian, the audience members that you can read up on it, just Google it, like in my firm’s website will pop up because we’re, we write tons of content about those types of rules and how we can raise TAPO using them and how they integrate into the general overall TAPO markets.
That was our savior in the short term because, We were able to get clients with budget. Every crowdfunding in that manner is basically an e commerce transaction. You gotta do marketing to attract eyeballs to your story. And then they buy on a platform. So basically like buying something on Amazon. For sure.
Very streamlined process. And that’s the mantra. But as time goes on, more and more deals start coming in. Cause it’s virtual. More competition. Marketing has a low barrier to entry. Anybody can set up shop and you’re competing with them. So then you’re now you’re really aggressively competing with for for business margins are dropping and because it’s COVID as you Remember about that time finding people willing to work and it was getting expenses.
So my operational costs are going up And competitions isn’t pricing down because we’re working from home. So the markets are getting tired. So it’s on both sides. Exactly. And it’s a service business. So it’s not, it’s just a recurring revenue model that we make our money. Even though I’m like sleeping, you know, you have to provide a service and you get compensated for that.
So we thought, okay, where’s the gap in the market? Like once again, you pivoted already once from public to private markets. And now we’re in the private markets and saying, okay, how do we, How do we be a step ahead? Because just like that, somebody could take over as it’ll be out of business and be redundant.
So ponder intuitively where everything about crowdfunding is about online, streamlined and efficiency. I was on an Amazon app one day and I was like, Even Amazon has customer service. And interestingly enough, one of my clients was saying, Hey, we’re going to be we have all these leads and nobody’s talking to them and shit.
Oh my God, there’s an opportunity right here. So I had hired. To investor relations specialists, which I like to say investor custom support people to help in sales because they were experienced. I said, stop doing that. This client is asking for help to have to follow up with these investors and partner in custom support.
I think this is the direction to go. He went by this part of the article once or if they’ve been, I’ll be done. And now that represents about 80 percent of my revenues. So we provide, And crowdfunding side of companies that are like major brands like Voxable, Miso Robotics, Gage Cannabis, and many others.
We provide outreach to the regional investors that show an interest, to answer questions they have, which I said earlier. Investor customer support. This way, like for example, if you look at a deal, you find it interesting, you want to learn more and you want to know to other real people about this and your particular questions.
My team answers it to actually hopefully reduce the barriers in your decision making to actually invest in that opportunity. We have to follow all the rules. Very, very stringent and compliance. So now, officially, we’ve been doing this since 2021, so four whole years. Man, what a great story. What a great entrepreneurial story.
And so, I can imagine when you’re working with businesses and companies and other things like that, you having been an entrepreneur, you going through these type of pitts, these other things, like, it’s different. Like, the way you’re able to see a deal, the way you’re able to see Another entrepreneur and what they’re going through and like depending on the size of the business and where you’re at next, like I feel like people like to work with people like that, that have their own grit and story behind them too.
I appreciate you saying that and like in the capital markets, if you take the bankers out of it, there’s still the banking aspect out of it. That all entrepreneurs are trying to make a change and for myself, it’s not about always some people want to be rich and wealthy. Other people want to be in power and influence.
I would love those things. Yeah. But my motivation is the level for, I want to change the world in my own mini way and be fulfilled doing it. Like many others, we’re a two income family. I’m an entrepreneur. My wife has a stable job. Yeah. And she’s almost like She was like this week like wait, you’re going to wear it.
No, i’m just like Actually, you’re going to heart rocket. You know what that’s work. No. Well, actually I had a story to that. I’m just messing with you No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you need just because she’s gonna see this and shout out to the To you and all of those that make the entrepreneur dream possible.
So shout out to my news as well. So I have to own this, I have to own this and you hit the nail on the head, what you just said, because so I’m based out of Canada based on Toronto, which is like a Chicago, like New York, like a mini New York. And she is vice president at Canada’s third largest insurance company.
So she’s a big buck. Can’t wait till she sees this. She got a shout out. She is the boss lady. I remember at work, I had a call with a couple of friends. I was just speaking on speaker phone and then she asked me, so are you guys going anywhere? And I said, yeah, I’m going on some business trips. And by the way, I’m going on a business trip too.
So imagine somebody’s going to you’ve heard of Bismarck, North Dakota? Yes. So she’s going to the Canadian equivalent to Bismarck, North Dakota, because that’s where her corporate head office is. And in the last month, I’ve been to Chicago, New York, in Manhattan, and South, I was in South Beach two days ago, and I’m here now.
So, like, there is a, there is not a fairness in the, the world, the world I play in and the world she plays in. And whereas I’m the entrepreneur where one day or business next year or not. And she’s, she’s a rock. Let’s put it this way. Yeah. Amazing. And Freddie, I’m glad you give her that credit too. It’s amazing.
Because if I don’t, if she sees it, she’s going to whoop my ass, man. It’s self preservation. It’s not about credit. It’s all about self preservation. Do they need to take risk management? Actually, no, it’s about risk management. There you go. I like it. No, you mentioned earlier about pivoting. Yeah. I’m going to let go of your mind.
We’re pivoting again. Yay. So, issue is, when you’re in the out, outbound, we use technology to save time. Dial, just had your election. Everybody’s dialing for the, like, in aggressively that infrastructure standard. So it’s replicable once again, the bear to enter the business, not very, very high. So now we’re thinking, okay, what’s next?
We know people can do marketing, make websites, designs to Google paid, paid ads, and so on. Okay. We are capable of doing these average individually on the whole crowdfunding side. And now we’re applying it to the public markets, because the public markets have rebounded a bit. Tough for the last couple of years, it’s still a big business.
So for now, we’re getting into, okay, rather than just throwing money on the wall and hoping that I’d buy like, advertisers, I don’t know if that goes well and people get attracted. Instead of having, basically you shouldn’t shit on the wall with sticks. We’re not paying any more attention to data analytics.
So we go to our public company clients, look at their investor databases, add enriched, organized unstructured data, find trends, source demographic, economic, contact information. And now you have a pool of database where you can build off and create more audiences that look like it. So instead of basically blindly throwing a dart, now you actually have a target you can look for.
Yeah. And because the idea is that if you bought a company that’s public, that’s not one of the major ones because we like the story. There’s a, like Cologuard. Cologuard? Mm mm. It’s a company that you shit on the box, send it to them, and they analyze it. Oh yeah, yeah, I have heard of it. Right? It’s owned by a billion dollar 30 It’s still expensive and you have to shit in the box.
There’s a private company that’s going public that is actually wants to keep it in depth and use urine instead. It’s easier to pee in a ball’s cup. It’s easier to pee in a cup than shit in a box. I hope I gave a great image to your audience. Yes, thank you. Now, Imagine trying to get people to look at that opportunity by knowing who are actually investing in Poligart.
And they take a communication and say, Hey, you like this company? This is a similar technology. It works slightly differently, but as effective. Here’s the opportunity. If you want information, go on the site or call my team. I will get back to you. So that’s where the messaging comes in. And then on top of that, we’re a small business.
Yeah. Right. And one thing COVID has taught me, it is that it has been hard to manage people and it is hard to find good people who want to work. Like a lot of my goal is not to offend anyone, but I find in today’s world, people are, it’s hard to find people who want to sit on the phone and make calls. So we’ve developed a conversational AI agent that can do 10, 000 calls a day.
So as a result, now. I’m pivoting more with style just being a service business to being a technology based business that has enhanced services on top of that. Yeah. So we can scale, you can touch with a lot more people, get more data interaction, reinforce that data. And then basically provide feedback to our clients who then to have a call to action based on the information we provide them.
So we become a value add partner than just a vendor. We start to do marketing. And that’s the good news, man. You, you deliver today. That would, this is a great story, not just of the, of your business and what you’re doing and obviously. See where, you know, I’m giving some love to the deal flow guys, but also with your pivoting, your story as an entrepreneur, last question, I want you to, or last thing I want you to do, look into the camera and tell people how they can follow you, how they can learn more about your company and how they can connect.
Oh, that’s awesome. And once again, I would like to give you credit. We’re here, this technology is phenomenal. You are seasoned veteran in this space and you’re using whatever tools are available to make yourself more effective, but props to you too, which is I’ll take that. That’s, that’s how you grow.
That’s how you learn, and that’s how you did it. Once again my name is Mnu Grover. I’m Vice President and Co-founder of Public Legal Capital. You can find us online. So our website is Triple W Publi, that’s P-U-B-L-I-C, yield, Y-I-E-L-D, dot capital C-A-I-T-L. My email is my first name, Mannu, M-A-N-U-J.
I probably go out capital and I’ll just put my phone number in there, give me a holler, I actually pick up. So don’t worry if you call me we’ll answer. 647 938 4222. So it’ll be a pleasure to connect and share more stories. Fantastic. If everybody, everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put the link to the website and the show notes so that you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And speaking to the audience, this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day. We bring you. New content, new ideas, and hopefully a new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and the news again in a pleasure, man.
so much for the opportunity.