Q And so Phil, why do you guys, I mean, I imagine if you wanted to, you could pretty easily go out and raise a 20 or thirty million dollar venture capital fund, right, and not worry about syndicates at all. Why mess around with this?
A Uh, I don't consider messing around. I, I think it's, uh, it's a lot of fun, and it's really, um, very true to Barbara's mission, uh, about making, uh, venture investing sort of more accessible to the average investor. Um, she's all about that, and she talks about that occasionally on Shark Tank, and, uh, she wants to allow people to invest with her and share ideas and bring their knowledge to the table. So I think, you know, we both believe strongly in that, and this is a great model. We have, our backers are fantastic in terms of the network. You would think, in your example, that investing 2000 dollars in a deal, you might not feel that vested, you might not do a lot of work to try to help the company. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our syndicate backers go out of their way to help our portfolio companies all the time. They make introductions, they will do strategic, provide strategic advice, all kinds of different things. And it's a wonderful relationship. And that comes out of bringing them on board and making it accessible and making it, uh, making it early for them. Whereas in your point, If you had a fund with LPs, they generally are strictly financial investors, right? They're not interested so much in helping out, or they don't have the time to. They're building a large portfolio. But the individuals who are investing smaller amounts, it's more meaningful to…
AI assessment note: “very true to Barbara's mission, uh, about making, uh, venture investing sort of more accessible”