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Trey Bowles: My investment website three years ago basically said, I'll invest in anything but healthcare. 

There's probably fewer markets where your entrepreneur has more conviction and purpose than healthcare because they feel really tied to the problem. Yeah. Because it affected them emotionally, you know, mentally, spiritually. 

I think we're gonna see a bunch of new venture studios launch across the country in the next couple of years. We just want to be one of the ones that do it in Texas. 

You just have to be okay not knowing everything and asking questions. 

Andrew Kazlow: Welcome to the Diligent Observer, where we help angel investors see what most miss. I'm your host, Andrew, and every week we explore what works, what doesn't, and why through conversations with experienced startup investors and operators.

My guest today is Trey Bowles, board member at the North Texas Angel Network and co-founder of the Dallas Entrepreneurship Center, 1845 Venture Studio, and an [00:01:00] incredible list of other entrepreneurship initiatives that you should definitely check out in the bio. In this episode, Trey opens up about his incredible transformation from totally avoiding healthcare investments to becoming an avid life science investor through his time as a Managing Director at Techstars, We explore why he believes the Venture Studio model offers a compelling middle ground between bootstrapping and traditional venture, his take on building relationships in healthcare and how many healthtech startups fail, not because the technology is bad, but because they don't understand that the reticence to innovate isn't about the technology, it's about finding the right champion, willing to take a risk. I hope you enjoy learning from Trey as much as I did.

Trey, yes. Thank you for being with me today. 

Trey Bowles: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Welcome to DFW Startup Week. 

Andrew Kazlow: Absolutely. Well, it has been uh, an action packed week, uh, today in particular. I'm really excited about. This is the Venture Forum Day, and you've got a half [00:02:00] dozen speaking engagements today.

So thanks for carving out some time amidst a very, packed schedule. I'd love to hear In the midst of all of this, what are some of the things that you are most excited about today? 

Trey Bowles: So this really represents, you know, this is our 10th year of DFW Startup Week. It really represents a once a year event where we can bring in everyone interested in entrepreneurship from corporations to universities, to entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, angels, whoever, and really dedicate a week publicly to what's going on in DFW for entrepreneurship. Early on it was called Dallas Startup Week. We changed it for a while. The DFW Startup Week, it went back. I'm so happy it's now gonna DFW Startup Week. We're truly a, a regionally focused entrepreneurial ecosystem, and that means every element, every city, every, every nook and cranny of our region is super important to build out and leverage and do the best job we can at building an ecosystem. So [00:03:00] first and foremost, I'm excited that this is still happening. I'm excited that it's our biggest year in in several years. I'm really excited about the content that's curated and created by the community, specifically around things that are relevant to people in the community.

And so the future of Venture Forum, which we started, three years ago. We have about three or four future venture forums a year. One of them is at DFW Startup Week. So it's just a great way to create content and um, learnings for investors, angels, and sort of series A and beyond founders. And so all those things coming together today makes this a really great day.

And then tonight after that, we've got a Texas AI Challenge Pitch Challenge, which has got you know, 500 or so people RSVP. So it's just an exciting week for entrepreneurship in North Texas. 

Andrew Kazlow: It really is. I mean, energy is so fun. It's unlike anything I've experienced elsewhere. You've got a lot going on personally. 

Trey Bowles: Yes.

Andrew Kazlow: As well. So tell us about some of the other projects that are most center for you during this season. 

Trey Bowles: Sure. [00:04:00] So, you know, I left, I was with a a global investment firm called Techstars for three years and got to invest in early stage tech companies. Primarily healthcare, but some of the other areas.

And so, I, I had launched the my Bowles Investment Group after I left, and I've been looking at different things to invest in and get excited about. And then also some things that I could remain an entrepreneur. And I built companies since I was in college. I loved doing that. And so we just, uh, recently launched Ryan Brown and I, uh, along with Eagle Venture Lab, launched something called 1845 Venture Studio.

Which is a really exciting initiative focusing on what's great about Texas for founders and how we can be supportive there. I'm still the co-chair of of the North Texas Angel Network and have some other angel network initiatives going on. It's just, It's really an opportunity to build and grow and, capitalize on what we believe will be 10 years of unbelievable growth in, in Texas and specifically the the DFW [00:05:00] area.

Andrew Kazlow: So say more about with your, your decision to move 1845 forward, what was the sense or the, the hypothesis, like what, what did you recognize that most people weren't seeing that that gave you the conviction to make that decision and to build this organization? 

Trey Bowles: So I think what, what I saw in venture over the last few years, and I'm still pro venture, absolutely.

But what I saw was I saw, a mass evolution from 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we had 200 or 300 venture capital organizations, and now we've got 13,000. And it seems to me, at least with my portfolio companies, that it is getting more and more difficult to raise funding, and more and more stringent in terms of the requirements.

And so I fear what's gonna happen is we're gonna have a lot of venture without places to go and a lot of funds that aren't able to place all of their cash. So when I was looking at what do I do next. Building a a, a venture fund didn't seem as important. And to, and in order to do it, to really be able to dedicate your time and build an [00:06:00] office and a team, you need about a hundred million dollar fund.

And so to build a hundred million dollar fund, which is obviously not guaranteed, and compete with Andreessen Horowitz and some of these other groups out there to place capital with companies, just seemed to me like a really long bet. And so when I looked at the other models, Ryan and Ryan Brown and I talked.

Venture Studio seemed really interesting because it seemed like between bootstrapping and full venture capital. So the idea is we're still helping raise money for these companies, but we're also bringing to bear the networks we've created around building companies for 20 plus years. The experience, which I usually talk mostly about the mistakes that we've made and learn from.

To be able to come alongside somebody, invest our time, invest something that support a business that is very specific in the problem they're solving, very specific in the solution that they have, and have a fair indication that that product or service is going to be purchased. Very important.

And then to leverage that in the unbelievable [00:07:00] ecosystem we have here mentors and advisors and investors. There's no better time to build something like this in Texas. And it also allows us to engage with angels because the total investment in a a in, in a company that we're gonna partner with isn't gonna be match.

It'll be a few million dollars. So as an angel, you put 25 grand check in a $3 million. You know, total $3 million raise. That's material. right? And then we don't have to sell the company for a billion dollars to have outsized returns. Everybody does well with a company that's got strong fundamentals, that grows quickly, that's intentional and has a plan to succeed.

That's what we're excited about. I think that's where there's a huge opportunity, and I think we're gonna see a bunch of new venture studios launch across the country in the next couple of years. We just want to be one of the ones that do it in Texas. 

Andrew Kazlow: One of the things I'm eager to learn more about from your story, Trey, is you have made a transition that most angel investors are afraid to make, and that is going [00:08:00] from, I don't invest in healthcare or life science to I am very active in this category.

I'd love to hear you just walk through that story.

Trey Bowles: Sure.

Andrew Kazlow: What happened that changed the, the tune for you and then where you're at now? 

Trey Bowles: Sure. So as we talked, when we initially talked, I told you like my, my investment website three years ago basically said, I'll invest in anything but healthcare.

Andrew Kazlow: Yep. 

Trey Bowles: And the reason was because I didn't know anything about healthcare. I hadn't spent time in it. I hadn't hadn't built, I'd kind of built one company in the healthcare space. But just didn't feel real comfortable with it. I think a mistake that angels sometimes make is they go, well, I built a FinTech company so I can invest in any market and be successful.

And that's not always the case. You need to understand a um, a, a given market and have some experience there. If you really think you're gonna be, just because you're a successful entrepreneur in one market doesn't mean that transfers. And I saw that. So I went, uh, Techstars had asked me to build an uh, accelerator for them in [00:09:00] North Texas.

And I said, what are you investing in? They said, healthcare. And I said, well, I don't really know that much about healthcare. And they said, does that bother you? And I said, it doesn't bother me. If it doesn't bother you, I'll figure it out. And so I got to spend three years surrounding myself with experts in the marketplace, investors in the marketplace, mentors, other portfolio companies that I learned from.

And I did a deep dive in research, a deep dive in experience, and made some, what I would consider some early mistakes in the way I invested. I wouldn't say we invested in bad companies or bad founders. I think we invested in companies that were solving clear needs in a market that I didn't realize there were other companies that had already sort of solved those needs or, was in a, were in a better position to solve those needs.

And so it took me a program um, to really feel more comfortable. Now we also have an exit from that class too. So, so there was, there was good and bad. And, and again, I think the entrepreneurs we invested in were, were great, [00:10:00] but I had to learn. Um, And then as I began to learn and began to sort of understand the market, I felt more comfortable.

Um, making investment decisions based upon the knowledge I had. But I continued to surround myself with people that were experts. We had a great partner in the, uh, university of North Texas Health Science Center that was our corporate partner. We worked with Texas Health Resources and Baylor Scott and White, and we had the head of orthopedic surgery from Kaiser Permanente was Mitch.

I mean, we, we were really blessed to have some amazing experts that I could go to and say, I like this founder. I like the concept. Will you look at this and tell me, am I right? Am I wrong? And sometimes they saved us for making investments that might not have been good. And a lot of times they empowered us to make investments that we saw, that we thought were really opportunistic.

Andrew Kazlow: So take me back to this season. Like, let's go to Trey two months into accepting this assignment. Right? You've been reading all of this stuff, talking to founders, you know, just inundating [00:11:00] yourself with understanding the space. What are some of the things that you found really surprising or that you didn't expect about investing in this category?

'Cause it's really scary for a lot of things, right?

Trey Bowles: Sure.

Andrew Kazlow: If I don't know anything or I'm, I'm unfamiliar, it's like. Oh my capital. They've gotta raise money a hundred times. It takes forever. Super high odds of failure. Like, what are some of the things that stood out to you or that you found surprising during the season?

Trey Bowles: I think first, I was surprised at how many people were, were business people trying to build solutions for healthcare. So, people who had had some sort of personal involvement in their life, they lost a loved one. Someone that had a bad experience in a surgery center. Somebody had dealt with one thing and another, which I liked was that there's probably fewer markets where your entrepreneur has more conviction and purpose than healthcare because they feel really tied to the problem. Yeah. Because it affected them emotionally, [00:12:00] you know, mentally, spiritually. Um, So there was a high conviction rate for how comfortable I was that they were gonna stick with the problem.

Andrew Kazlow: Why? 

It's just like in your face for so many. 

Trey Bowles: This is this is why I'm doing this. There was a lot of emotional, I also loved it because we were. In healthcare, every company you invest in is ideally going to make someone's life better. I mean, it's a very impact-oriented investment strategy. It's all for good.

There's great things about it. I think, I was not surprised, but, uh, reiterated to me how long the sales cycles are. How unwilling most of the groups in healthcare to transition, to innovate, to take chances, to leverage the power of data, to showcase. I mean, 'cause we just saw all the time, if you integrate this technology into your platform, into your whatever, that it's going to save you millions and billions of dollars from misdiagnoses or re-operation or [00:13:00] reintroductions to the hospital because, all that kind of stuff, there was such a reticence to sign onto that, which was surprising as well. But I think what was key for me was. And key for any entrepreneur investors, you just have to be okay not knowing everything and asking questions. Um, I've been in rooms where I, so I asked a question and people laughed at me that I didn't know what that word meant or what that study was.

And that never bothered me as an entrepreneur. It gave me a little bit of an edge because I'm completely comfortable with the fact that I don't know everything and I don't view lack of knowledge or lack of experience as a character flaw. Yeah. I view it as something that you can fix. And so for me it was constantly feeling comfortable in a room going, I don't understand that.

What does that mean? How does that affect this? What does that do here? Explain to me how payments work inside of a provider system. Explain to me what a provider means and just all of those elements. I was just a crash course. Fortunately, I, I'd had a a, a woman that I worked with [00:14:00] on our team that had spent time in healthcare, and so I could ask her a lot of questions that she could answer.

But I think most importantly it was inundating myself in the market by asking and understanding and seeing different things. Spending time and research, watching markets, taking a company and saying, this company just did these three things. Why was this company able to get FDA approval and clearance here?

But this company's doing the same thing was not. Help me understand the process for clinical trials and how does that work? And just going through all of those pieces, experientially and um, and, you know, through the network was really valuable to help me grow and learn. And I think as an angel, and the value of an angel network is that you have subject matter experts who can come in and give perspective on a deal.

Because of their expertise that you may not know. And I so I think listening to that, um, leveraging the power of the network inside of a an [00:15:00] an angel community is, is super helpful too. Finding people that you trust that you say, look, I may not a hundred percent understand this, but I believe in this investor and his or her gut. Sure. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust there too. So that's some of the ways that, we thought about it. We had a couple other health accelerators at Techstars, and so I was able to go to those teams too and say, what do you think about this deal? We had a a healthcare EIR, Entrepreneur In Residence that I was able to go to and work with.

So I, I leveraged every single possible resource I could to get me up to speed as quickly as possible. 

Andrew Kazlow: So help me think about, let's say we're talking with an angel who, here's what you're saying and goes, oh wow, like maybe I should get into this! 

Trey Bowles: Angel networks are made up of a bunch of type of people, some subject matter experts that are corporate people, consultants, attorneys, doctors, people who have a very specific line of business or career, uh, that have an accredit, that are accredited and have the ability to [00:16:00] utilize disposable income to invest. There are other entrepreneurs, other exited people like there. I think we think about We, uh, think about things differently.

So what I encourage people who are considering being an angel is, first of all, I, I encourage it. It's a great diversification strategy, but you gotta do it the right way. Meaning you need to what I tell people is you need to allocate a certain amount of money, whatever that money is for you. I can't, I'm not telling you what it is.

And you need to invest in 20 companies, not 3. If you're only gonna invest in 3, I don't encourage getting involved in angel investing. If you're gonna invest in 25, 20 to 30, there's statistical evidence around what types of returns. I know we did a bunch of work with a group several years ago that had seen there was about a 27.5% IRR return if you invested in more than 20 companies.

And then you have to train them. Can't be upset when one of these doesn't work because remember, most of them are not gonna work and it's not because they're not good companies, they're not good [00:17:00] founders. Doesn't mean that they lack integrity. Doesn't mean you made a bad bet on that company and that market opportunity.

It's because it's early stage and a lot of stuff can the wrong. But thinking about that is great. I love it too when, we're not talking about the entrepreneur. I love it too for subject matter experts. A lot of people in my age range that have been doing what they've been doing for business for 20 plus years, they're really good at it.

They're experts and they're probably at a point in their life where they're like, do I really want to do this for the next 20 years of my life? Well. They may or may not may, but they're also in a position. Most of them have families. They have houses, they have expenses that doesn't allow them to quit their job.

But being involved as an angel investor, taking an active role in these companies, not just capital but experience, allows you to feel creativity that you can't feel in your normal job. It allows you to uh, leverage your network in ways that can help them. It allows you to problem solve, it allows you to get and scratch that itch[00:18:00] 

that you may really wish that you could get without having to leave your job, without having to sacrifice that much needed, much dependent upon cashflow to really grow. And so I spent a lot of time with men and women talking through that. And they get really jazzed and excited about it.

Entrepreneurs were a little different. I think, part of what made Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley and I, what we're starting to see here in DFW is as companies are exiting in Silicon Valley, the millionaires that were made would go invest in each other or relaunch new companies and continue to grow, and they would, that's how it became this massive opportunity. I think here too, as entrepreneurs get involved in angel network net networking, they can do that as companies exit and they create millionaires. If the entrepreneur that built those companies train, educate, and invite their employees to participate in that capacity, we're going. So I think one of the big thing opportunities we have is there are a lot of accredited people that could be angels that are not, and we need to [00:19:00] go to those communities, those non-traditional um, avenues of consultants, right? and attorneys and accountants and doctors and things like that. And being just really, intentional about how we help explain to them how this works, how we sit alongside of them and help educate them and showcase to them.

Because they don't live in a world where failure is cool. Yeah, no. Right. They don't live in a world where like, you mess up as a doctor, somebody dies. But in our world, we just acknowledge what we know, and that is there're gonna be mistakes, things are gonna go wrong. You just gotta fix 'em quick and move on.

And so there's a, there's an excitement about that too. There's so many different things that could be done in an angel environment that at least when I first started, nobody told me about that. They were just like, oh, you just go invest money in companies. Most of it doesn't work. And then maybe you have one that hits.

That's not a good sales strategy. That's great. Right? Who's it? 

Andrew Kazlow: It's fascinating to think about, and here you talk about this [00:20:00] reticence in the life science community, the stakes are totally different, right? You can't afford to make a mistake. When it worked, like it, it, so pattern recognition. I'm curious, like in the three years you sat in that seat with your founders coming through all the time, what are the situations or scenarios when the healthcare system tended to say,

let's try this. What moved the needle versus the can't do it despite all your best logic? Like, I, no, it's not happening. Like, help me understand that. 

Trey Bowles: It came down to a couple things. The number one answer I would give if I had to give it one word, was relationship. 

Knowing the right person inside of a, a health system, um, and having the right, in addition to that, having the right mindset of the person in that health system.

Andrew Kazlow: What do you mean? 

Trey Bowles: I'm willing to try something. I'm willing to innovate. I'm willing to give this a chance. I'm willing to spend a little bit of extra time doing something that may or may not work. [00:21:00] Um, And recognizing that that was value. Getting the entire organization on board behind something is is difficult.

So Another huge opportunity that I saw with a lot of my companies is they weren't properly selling their product or service inside of that market. Um, we had taught them so much about how to pitch their business and company. They would get on the phone with somebody and pitch their business. There was no process of tell me what your biggest problems are.

Are you looking for a solution for that? If you had, If you had a ball that went in this basket, would that solve your problem? It would. Okay, great. Like walking them through and understanding: A. The organizational need; B. The how you can help solve an individual need for the person that you're working through and connecting your solution to that as opposed to just saying, here's my solution, where would you put it?

That's a fundamental sales fall, but again. Entrepreneurs tend to be really good at one thing, not the 25 different things you need to do to [00:22:00] build a business, which is why mentors and advisors and subject matter experts, angels and investors are so crucial to the process of helping those companies be successful. So, in the end there, you know, there are some health systems that are more innovative that are set up to try certain things, but overall, it's about really understanding the need and fitting that need, even if your product is a little different. What I saw a lot of times is, our companies would go try to do clinical trials at a university and they would say, here's what our, here's what our product does.

And, you know, the PI at the university would say, well, I wanna do a clinical trial, run this. And our entrepreneur would say, no, we're doing it. And they wouldn't get the clinical trial as opposed to saying, okay, look, we need to create an avenue where we're using our product to accomplish what we need to accomplish for you.

Thus making this a positive, mutually beneficial clinical trials, which is what they need. And then they customize their solution that's going [00:23:00] on. It's a lot about experience too, but it was really great to find the institutions where an individual was able to say, look, I'm willing to try something.

And a lot of our products, you know, we didn't do life sciences, we didn't do, you know, therapeutics in a way of, um, you know, we didn't do pharmaceuticals. Like we weren't giving people pills that if it didn't work would kill them. It was like digital health. It was like med devices that enhanced life. It was remote patient monitoring.

It was a lot of different components that didn't take. Wouldn't potentially lose your job if you tried something. 

Andrew Kazlow: Well, I think, the, even today sitting in this room, right, this is a nonprofit that's supporting all of this, or the tech network, it feels like creating the environment where that kind of testing is possible is just so important.

Who or where do you see that being done with excellence? Because to your point, the operating table is [00:24:00] not the place. 

Trey Bowles: Right. 

Andrew Kazlow: To test out if a new technology is working. There is a very well structured approval process. Right. Anybody that's in the healthcare space understands that. Where would you point to as maybe examples of your ecosystems or communities that are creating a platform for entrepreneurs that are coming out with these ideas to test and to innovate?

Where are you seeing that happen? 

Trey Bowles: I think university, some universities do that well. I think Ochsner is health system that does that well. Um, the Waltons are building their own medical school. They're gonna have the freedom to do that. I think value-based care is something I get so excited about because it's the concept of leveraging data and being rewarded for reduction of costs and efficiency of process.

And it's hard to get health systems to go in on that with you. It's hard to get, you know, CMS. Uh, Medicaid, Medicare to go in on that with you. But some of these groups out there are go, are willing to do the work in a hospital setting to prove that the data is true and then it will start to manifest and span [00:25:00] out across other pro other payers and providers.

And I think we need some people to be willing to test and do things like that because not only will it change healthcare from being a treatment-focused initiative, but also a preventative focus initiative. And I think that's where everybody thinks it needs to go. Everybody wants to go, but you don't wanna be the first to try it because you might not get paid back for it.

And so, And I also think that with the advent of digital health and telehealth solutions, which were accelerated in their adoption during COVID, uh, we saw a willingness to do things around personalized health and wellness. And I think that whereas before COVID in an individual's life, health and wellness was top 15 priorities.

Now it's top three. The benefit of that is that where our priorities go, our money goes. Therefore, we're gonna see disposable income moving to solutions that provide value for personalized health and [00:26:00] wellness. Unbelievable opportunity to invest there right now. That doesn't necessarily require provider or payer engagement.

Now it also doesn't solve the problem of supporting rural and underrepresented communities, like we need to, it's not fair if only people with disposable income get to improve their, their health. But that's, I would argue that is a, that is a conscious responsibility that healthcare and, uh, entrepreneurs and investors need to have.

It's about how are we making sure the solutions that we create are available for all markets and all communities. And I think thinking through that will be an important piece. I do think, and I do hope that at some point, the governmental agencies, health agencies will go back to being able to provide grants.

I think there's a lot of innovation that happens from that. So I think there's opportunities there too that we're losing right now because the funding's not there to do some of those early stage things, but, entrepreneurs need to be scrappy. [00:27:00] It's an opportunity for unbelievable opportunity for angels to get involved now because there's money that is very much needed by these companies that they're not getting through non-dilutive solutions.

Um, But on the other side, it's a great investment opportunity when there are non-dilutive solutions 'cause that money's sitting alongside of you and not, and not, uh, diluting you at all.

Andrew Kazlow: So, as a investor in the space, are you excited about the opportunity that this season around the funding pullback has created? Or are you nervous or maybe a bit of both? 

Trey Bowles: I wish that the non-diluted funding was still there. Yeah. Um, but you know. Man, how many companies have I built where things went really, really wrong that you didn't expect?

Just like, if you look at Texas, I think one of the values we have in the companies that build here, because it's not Silicon Valley, because there's not a few billion dollar funds, dripping million dollar investments across hundreds of companies. You have to build your company on fundamentals.

You have to have some element of [00:28:00] traction that's real behind your company to build and grow and be sustainable. And I don't think it is a bad thing to expect founders to have that. I also believe that there are certain elements of traction that you can get that don't cost any money. I tell entrepreneurs all the time, there are three things that you can do that you can't walk into my office and say, I don't have any funding.

I can't do that. The first one is checking your market. Researching the market, understanding if there is a need for your product. Two, talking to customers confirming that there is indeed a need, that their problem, that you sense is real and that they would pay to solve it, and that your your problem solves that.

And third, would they pay for it? And how much would they pay for it? Those things are traction-based elements that if I talk to a founder and they don't have that, they're not ready for funding. And they don't know that, right? I don't, we didn't get angry at entrepreneurs 'cause they don't know certain things they don't know that the one thing you [00:29:00] don't know is what you don't know. And so, So those pieces are things that as angels, I would encourage us to highlight, focus on, and, and make sure that when we are interacting with companies that are applying for funding, that we let them know that's something that we expect and that's something that they need to focus on before they come to us.

Because if they can't tell us that, then we're really at a bad place because we're investing in something that we don't know that there's actually a solution. And, and at Techstars I made the mistake of assuming that when a company came to Techstars and they said, this is my customer market, assuming that they had actually done those things, and, and in the beginning a few times I found out, oh, they hadn't.

So, we changed the way we focused on those key elements, but that can, that can absolutely be moved over, put in front of and imparted to an entrepreneur that's going through the, to the angel process. The last thing I would say, about overall approach between angels and [00:30:00] entrepreneurs is that we have an opportunity. I am a huge believer that whether you are a wannabe entrepreneur or a pre-seed entrepreneur or a exited entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is the hardest thing I have ever seen happen, and we need to show respect, and we need to show appreciation and an understanding that somebody's willing to go and try to build something. I see way too many angels and venture groups laugh at an answer that, an angel that an entrepreneur gives to make fun of an assumption that an entrepreneur makes and that makes me sick.

Likewise, I think we need to, not only 

we, we can honor those entrepreneurs in certain ways. One of the ways we do that is being very clear and very honest with feedback. Too many times have I had entrepreneurs pitch an investor. The investor says, oh, you don't have enough traction. And they ask, okay, what do I need to do?

And the VC will not tell them. Yep. They will not be clear. [00:31:00] And the reality is they're probably just like, I don't wanna invest in you for these three reasons, but they don't want to tell you. Anybody that works with 1845 Studio, anybody that works with any angel network that I'm involved with, I want every single one of them to have the opportunity to learn and hear and grow. And if we're not adding value to the entrepreneur, every interaction, even if that's a no, then we're not doing a service to the entrepreneur. And it's our job to honor them, respect them, and help them get better in the process. And so all angel investors out there, please hear me and please do this.

'Cause as an entrepreneur, it's not fair with all the other stuff that we have going on to feel like we're not being treated with respect for what we're doing, which is basically putting all of our blood, sweat, and tears into this baby that we're taking out and showing the world. And that's not easy. And if you've done it, you know what I'm saying?

If you haven't done it, then you can, you should shut your mouth. 

Andrew Kazlow: I can't agree more, and I can't think of a better [00:32:00] place to end than that comment. Trey, this has been such an honor. Thank you for carving out a few minutes to speak with us today. I look forward so much to our next conversation. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Diligent Observer. I'm your host, Andrew, and if you're an angel investor looking for essential angel intel in five minutes every week, I think you'd enjoy my newsletter. I send my best stuff, interesting deals, and more straight to your inbox so you never miss a thing.

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