[00:00:28] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by two co-founders of United Effects Ventures, Bo Motlagh, and Frank Schultz. Gentlemen, how are we.

[00:00:39] Bo: Doing good. Yeah. 

[00:00:42] Jay: All right, Bo, you've been on the show before, very, very similar company name. so I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this one to you first, even though people may have heard it. where'd you grow up and did it have an impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:00:55] Bo: I grew up, right around here in, Havertown actually, absolutely had an impact. I come from a family of people who start their own businesses. My father had multiple businesses. My stepmom actually has an active architectural firm. My mom had a strong work ethic. She worked three jobs, so I learned very early in my life.

I think I was, I think I told this story last time too, but I was marched down to a 7Eleven at 14 and told you work here now. so I understand work. It's always been a part of my DNA, and it very much grew up in this area and wanted to continue to work here.

[00:01:27] Jay: Beautiful. Frank, same to you. Where did you grow up and did it have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:01:32] Frank: Yeah, I grew up, in West Norriton, so northwest of Philadelphia, in the Norristown area, and my dad was also an entrepreneur. still is to this day. had a business with multiple employees, now it's just him. And he went through kind of all the phases of working on by yourself and then having a team and then kind of going back and saying, Hey, this is really simple if I work by myself, definitely saw, you know, what you can you get out of, entrepreneurship, what you put into it.

And so I saw that with my dad and, kind of the hard work is what you get. Back. If you put hard work in, you get something good back from it. And so, you know, just like Bo I left at 14. I had working papers, went to go work. I've had multiple jobs ever since my entire life. And, just kind of was always trying to figure out how to stay busy and stay outta trouble and hopefully make some money while doing it.

[00:02:17] Jay: Beautiful. It makes me feel better about sending my kids to work at 14 as well, which I

have done, and I'll continue to do it for all of my six children. So where did the idea come from, for United Effects Ventures? I mean, I know Bo we had talked, you had had, I think it was a, service company or a platform company or back and forth a couple times, and you had made a bunch of pivots and you were doing a bunch of different things. Frank, I know you had exited, I think it's Infinite Blue at some point. you know, Frank, if you wanna just gimme the, kind of timeline around that and like how you and, Bo kind of got together. And then Bo feel free to, jump in anything there.

[00:02:47] Bo: Sure.

[00:02:48] Frank: Yeah, definitely. So it was Infinite Blue, exited about a little over a year ago. So, this point would've been July of, 2024. and I met probably, I guess five years prior. And so in our evolution of building Infinite Blue, we built our software on a low code platform. we found out that we were the biggest customer of the low code platform, and we bought it from within a publicly traded company. And, when we did that, someone introduced me to Bo and we had a lunch and I said, Hey, Bo, I think you should come work for us and grow this platform, this low-code platform as a business unit inside of Infinite Blue. We'll continue to be a customer for our applications, but you can run it and continue to kind of sell this to other, other vendors that are using this for their software.

And, We had a really good set of conversations and Bo said, I think I want to build a business. now I think I want to go try and do that. And I said, look, anyway, I can be helpful, let me know. And we kept in touch. we kind of went divergent paths and kept running back into each other. And then as our, as my business was for sale, Bo and I reconnected and I said, Hey, I've been kind of coaching and talking to some entrepreneurs.

Like I'd love to kind of hear what's going on with what you're doing. And, we started talking and, Bo I'll probably turn it over to you at that point because I think we had some, like good breakfast kinda lunches and met up and talk through what you're kind of doing with United Effects.

[00:04:04] Bo: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so for me. United Effects, had like you said, Jay, it pivoted a lot. I was trying to figure out what, it was going to do and what it was going, you know, be I had, this platform idea in the beginning. and, you know, we, didn't really figure out product market fit on that.

And so there was a lot of back and forth. There was a lot of iterations. There was a lot of. Consulting work that was happening. And so, and a lot of IP that was being built up. So we had two patents. We have trademarks, we had playbooks for CTOs and CEOs that we were doing just because that's what people were asking us to do.

But it wasn't really the core of what I had started to build. And then I sort of poked my head up and I just said, this isn't quite going the way I wanted it to. and I started thinking about. Why I had started in the first place. It's really funny. I had this notebook, I actually found it right here that 10 years ago I had written the words United Effects in, and I had written a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with what the business was that I thought was, interesting and, vibrant and, something worth doing around, building a community and building, something that helps build other startups and build other businesses and products.

And, I was reading it and going. Well, that's, not what I ended up doing. That's weird. and so I ended up, talking to, you know, and talking to Frank and he was really helpful in trying to help me figure out what things were, and he asked a question that really sort of sealed the deal for me, 

So then Frank asked me, a question that really sort of sealed the deal for me. He asked, Why are you doing this? And it was an interesting at, first I just sort of laughed it off. I went and thought about it for a week and I got back on a call with him and I told him, I'm kind of annoyed at you 'cause I, don't know, the, I don't think I want to keep doing this.

And so, anyway, long, I know I'm sort of rambling, but basically we, I ended up, poking my head up and, looking around and seeing that there was this whole ecosystem out there. And Frank and I just kept talking about it. And I think we just got each other excited about. The idea of would be a factory that makes other factories, in this case startups.

And we started thinking through that. The word venture studio popped up. Everybody got very excited. And so, it was October 31st at 11 o'clock. Frank then sends me a text message that says, I think we should do this. Let's partner up. And I said, all right, here we go.

[00:06:20] Frank: And, to be fair by the way, I just wanna say that I asked Bo why he was still doing it. 'cause I was trying to lead him to what he was actually trying to accomplish. 

[00:06:28] Jay: There you go. 

[00:06:28] Frank: I feel, I wasn't trying to say, why are you still doing this? I was like, Hey, what's the goal we're trying to get to here and how do we help map that out? Because I felt, I mean, Bo at that point, like you get into it and you're trying to find product market fit. And you would have like, someone would say, Hey, if it just danced like this, I would buy it. And you go, let me go make it dance. And then they would say, actually what I wanted to do is make me coffee in the morning and be, would be like, I think I can do that. And then, you know, I was like, well what are we really trying to get to? Let's go back to the beginning and figure out what you really wanted to do here. and so it wasn't meant to be an existential question, but I think it turned into that, which I'm happy for 'cause it. Brought us together so it worked out.

[00:07:04] Jay: Is the reason why everybody got excited because, you're gonna give them money. Is that what it like, is that there's lots of hype, right? You're like, I was a venture studio and like venture sounds cool and is venture exciting to people who are not in that space. because there's all these startups who are like. Feeling like they need capital to get to the next step? Or just like, is that why people got so excited about this announcement Bo, 'cause obviously I saw the post on, on LinkedIn and you know, people responding, you're like, oh my god, I'm getting flooded with, you know. And last time we talked, you know, you had dozens or hundreds or whatever applications in the first, you know, week or whatever it was like, why do people get so excited about the word venture, especially maybe in Philadelphia.

[00:07:43] Bo: I think it was, I think it's two things. I mean, one. Frank and I are, founders and operators. And, one of the things that we were doing that was making people pay attention at all was talking about how hard it is to be that in Philadelphia. creating a B2B business here is difficult enough.

Creating one that's technically focused, is really hard. There are, a lot of VCs, angels, and, all sorts of founders in the city that are in that B2B space. But even now, even as we're starting to understand that enterprise is such a huge part of the economy here, it's still difficult to understand for people.

Like, what does that mean? What is enterprise B2B? What is, what does that mean? Especially now that SaaS is dead or whatever that means. And so we. were talking about that and how hard that is, and I think that resonated with a lot of people. And then we said we wanna do something about it. And we started pointing at the issues that everybody's running into.

When you talk to an investor and they say, you know, talk to us when you're at a million, when you try to figure out how do I actually structure my business here? And nobody's really there to give you those answers. They want you to figure it out. It was so. You know, you have to fail to figure it out in Philly.

And that seemed off because isn't the goal for all of us to make money to be successful. And there was a lot of hype, you know, come to this pitch competition, the winner gets to pitch again. okay. Dance, dance for us. And, so our whole, you know, I think what we rallied around and what people began to rally around us for was just.

Can we cut that out? Like can we just focus on what it is that we're trying to do and build interesting and good long lasting businesses in the area? Make sure that the money is flowing inwards so we can continue to innovate so we can keep building jobs and keep building our communities. I think that is why people got excited because they recognized that wasn't happening and it used to, but after COVID, things have gotten pretty bad here.

[00:09:36] Jay: Yeah, and I keep, I mean, I hear it time and time and again, I'm not, I'm trying to say this in a way that doesn't infuriate people that listen to this, the Philadelphia VC scene is, you know, they're, tight with their money. You know, it's not flowing as maybe freely as other places. And, you know, I, I've heard it sucks, which I don't know if I, you know, I don't have enough, Experience in the space to agree or disagree with that. But, you know, I hear from a lot of founders and or people in the VC space that are just like this, this isn't a great market for it. Why? And Frank, you know, you've sold a company recently. so, you know, I, assume, you know, you're kind of connected, you know, to just, that kind of world. How do we rank? Like why is it difficult in Philadelphia? Is the money not flowing as freely? Are they more like stringent about stuff? Like, why is it so traditionally tough in Philadelphia for these startups to get, you know, venture funding or whatever it is they need to get to the next level?

[00:10:25] Frank: So much, that I could say about this and I'll try and keep it concise. I bootstrapped my business for the first seven years and then we took an A round. When we raised the A round, I had to go out of region to raise it. When we looked to exit, we pitched in the valley. We pitched New York, we pitched, in the Northeast, we pitched Philadelphia. Philadelphia didn't quite get, the PE firms didn't quite get that. We were a software business with 97% retention and positive net dollar churn year over year, which means our existing customers were paying us more every year, as far as their being customers. And so they didn't quite get. The model, which was weird.

And so, venture's probably a misunderstood word in the area because we think more in terms of kind of angel investments and probably money that really maybe doesn't have strings or help attached to it. But really hard because when we took investment for Infinite Blue, I wanted, smart money.

So I wanted help. And introductions and assistance kind of around the investment. And not just capital because you know, I there you want more, I think with that. Now it depends if it's your, you know, if that was my first startup, if it's your second, third, fourth startup, maybe you need less advisory and maybe you actually just need capital 'cause you know how to manage it efficiently. but venture's not a concept that. Is very prevalent in Philadelphia. And I think there's a couple things. Bo and I like, we have people, we have, other firms probably I would call them angel firms in the area that we kind of will trade deals with back and forth. And we may go in on things together and, you know, sometimes it's not a good fit for us.

It's a good fit for them and that's great. when it gets to kind of the venture and the PE in the region, it's really tough because. People have said privately and now they're starting to say it publicly that there's nothing good to invest in Philadelphia. just breaks, that just like hurts us.

Like that's not true. it's not something we should be saying. And if you do really think that, like let's go fix it together. Right. I think it's really tough and that, that hurts Bo, and I think in what we're trying to do and because that community piece we're really trying to. Establish, but there's things we have to scaffold up before the community can feel the support there. so there's that. That was not a concise answer, Jay, but like it's really tough because I know be, and I feel really, really passionately about trying to make Philly the next Austin in a lot of ways. Right? So I would even say Silicon Valley, I would say, you know, how do we make it where I'm starting a business and I feel supported by the community and I can get the right support at the right time of the business.

Whether I'm in the beginning and trying to find product market fit, whether I'm in the scaling phase or I'm at the back end and I'm saying, okay, I think it's time to do something different. Let me exit. How do I get the support there? It really drops off, you know, kind of for that. And we're trying to say, well, what do we need for every stage in the middle there? but it's tough, you know, you're trying to start here. It's, probably been a market like where you're probably gonna bootstrap. You're probably gonna take a little bit of investment. You may go outta market. we want to see companies build in Philly and stay in Philly. That's one of our core goals.

[00:13:26] Jay: Is it, because of, the industries that are here? Is it because of. The types of VCs and the PEs that are in the, like, why is it not great here compared to us? Like, what are we missing? What is the, piece to it?

[00:13:40] Frank: Software for sure is not. As well represented. And so I think we're really good at kind of, biotech, healthcare kind of oriented investments. And so, I think that's the proximity to a lot of the pharmaceutical companies that are in the region, universities that kind of are oriented around that. But. The, software piece and kind of the SaaS piece or the B2B space. I mean, we have a lot of amazing enterprises that are right in our backyard, and we have some sleepers that are doing, you know, eight figure, you know, nine figure, revenue, numbers that nobody even knows about because they keep their head down and they haven't taken any external capital and they grow. Those are the people. We gotta work back into the network here. And, but it's tough. Like it, this is a tough space to start something that is oriented around software and kind of B2B, but Bo, I don't know if you had any different thoughts on that.

[00:14:31] Bo: No, I, think you're right. I think it's, when it's not one thing, you know, like Frank's kind of saying here. I think, and I will say I think it was better, you know, and, lots of people have said this before, I think pre COVID. I think it was better everywhere including Philadelphia. and, you know, post COVID things really broke down pretty, pretty heavily in, this city, and I think we didn't recover as well as some of some other regions.

and there part, I mean I think one of the biggest issues for founders specifically, especially early stage is there's not been a consistent. Way of understanding where your peers are and where the help is. It's a lot of siloed events and communities and, honestly, a lot of these communities tend to step on each other.

you know, I think it was last week there was like three hackathons basically all happening at the same time, and which is very great. And it's, amazing that that's even happening. So we can see. Things are coming back up. But traditionally, and even now, despite some of the activity there, hasn't been a lot of coordination.

Some of that is changing now, and you know, we're grateful for that and we wanna support that as well. but I think those types of things have made it difficult for founders to express their ideas. And then similar to what, you know, Frank is saying here, I think Eds and Meds, that's what Philly's known for.

and you know. Traditional investors really come from financial backgrounds, real estate and, health tech. And, so when we start to see really highly technical, ideas coming to, the forefront, they don't always mesh. They're not great fits. you know, I always tell people there's not one way to win over every investor.

You have to find the investors that are right for you. And unfortunately here, the investors that are right for those types of businesses haven't really been, a lot of them have not been here. and I think hopefully that's starting to shift a little bit as well. As we begin to expose others, exited founders, others in the, ecosystem like Frank, who are, you know, in a position to maybe, who understand that world and are willing to be part of it again.

and, I think that's part of it as well. It's just creating the right mix of people, and of ideas so that these things have an opportunity to flourish.

[00:16:43] Jay: So I, love all that and I appreciate all those answers. what I wanna know is, what is the. Business reason for doing this for you guys, right? I mean, we all wanna do all altruistic things and we all wanna help the community and we want, I mean, I think everybody on this call does, I don't mean everybody 'cause there's certainly people who don't share that vision in Philadelphia.

But I think, you know, the three of us kind of, agree that like a healthy ecosystem for tech helps everybody. Tell me about the business side of it. Like where, how are you guys making money? Like what, is the plan for the business? Like what, is the business in general? Are you guys connecting people?

Like, I know there's a lot of, we've talked about this before about, some of the pre stuff before, but just gimme kind of the. quick rundown of like what it actually is and then how are you guys monetizing it in a way that like, you're excited about this business. 'cause as you know, as business owners, like you have to not just be excited about your clients, but about the business itself and like what you're building towards and what you're growing and like, what you're, you know, you're iterating on your own stuff while you're also teaching people how to iterate on their own stuff.

So like, tell me about the business side of things and like what you guys do and how you monetize it.

[00:17:43] Bo: Yeah, absolutely. we are unapologetically a for-profit entity. we are absolutely.

[00:17:48] Jay: AI type deal. You're not gonna say you're a, a nonprofit and then just start making

[00:17:53] Bo: And fact we, you know, we love that there are nonprofits that are supporting the community, but fundamentally, you know, we think for-profit industries and for-profit businesses are the ones that really need to lead the way here because they know the pain, they feel the pain, and they can help others understand how to, deal with those things.

And so. we are very much for profit. We make money basically in two ways. first is through investments. We do make capital investments in startups when we think that we can help them and we get operationally involved. and we expect ROIs on those over, you know, as those companies move forward. and we also sell services, both for revenue and also sometimes we'll exchange some equity in for that.

But fundamentally, we are, we have services around product market fit. we have services that we're launching around software development. we do. Engineering and technology and enterprise very, very well. It's something Frank and I have been doing our whole lives, and so, we absolutely are looking for opportunities to sell that capability so that we can create, revenue streams that support us as we begin to invest more, and push forward into the community with these ideas. Anything

you wanna add there, Frank?

[00:18:56] Frank: No, I think the, I mean the why be altruistic too, as far as the community piece goes, probably has a different answer in kind of, but it's wrapped both in altruism and capitalism, I think, in both aspects. So, you know, we look at, if we look at a, thesis that says, Hey, we wanna invest first in Philly based companies and then, you know, look kind of around the rest of the country beyond that, but we really want to. You know, we would put more weight to a Philadelphia kind of region based company, or a tri-state area company. we have to help build the ecosystem up to create the pipeline of companies that we can invest in and do work with. And so, you know, it's an altruistic piece for us to say, Hey, we want to go out. And help build the community and bring these different pieces together. So to Bo's point, 3 people aren't doing a hackathon on the same day and pulling from the same kind of group of people. what are we really trying to accomplish? And there's not programming against each other. 'cause we're not that big of a city for what we're trying to do. but the other piece is the capitalistic piece for us is to say like, how can we create more things in our backyard that we're able to make a difference by rolling up our sleeves and getting involved in, but also to invest capital in? so I think those two things together are what led us to say like, we can't, we're gonna end up outside of Philly with a lot of our external investments if we don't help incubate the community. We kind of started all this by saying what do we wish we had when we were starting our own businesses? And that was like the key point that really led us to the, Hey, we really need to help build a pipeline whether we invest or someone else in the region does. But it's interesting, like, Philly's not a competitive team sport for, or like a division one venture capital market.

It's really not. There's something for all of us, which is interesting. and so we're trying to bring a lot of that together, like, because there really should be something for every type of investor in the area. And hopefully we can bring more, I don't know. We should, be able to unleash capital in region first, and then hopefully we attract outside capital to come into Philadelphia as well.

More than it has.

[00:20:56] Jay: Yeah. Love that. so, when you guys evaluate a founder now, what's, you know, what's the signal you guys trust more than pitch decks and slides? I mean, is it, strong economics? Like, is that the number, like what is the number one thing that you're like, okay, they have their shit together. We want to, you know, spend some of our war chest investing in this company.

What is it? what is the one thing.

Bo you can Bo, you can take this one out. I wanna hear, I, don't wanna hear the list. I wanna hear number one, what is the, the ringer where you're like, oh, because there, I know you have that

off the, the off side, which is like, we see that and we don't wanna work with that company.

But what is the one thing that you guys see to go, oh, that's, that's what's, when we wanna take a look at.

[00:21:38] Bo: I mean, at the end of the day. So one of the things that I think to, to, you know, to couch this, with is that there are a lot of opportunities here. I mean, you know, you mentioned when the last time we caught up there was several hundred. We've looked at, I think at this point, the three, 400 applications that we've seen.

And so we recognize that there are opportunities and so one of the first things, but that we can't like, do everything. So one of the first things that you know, I look for is just, is there a relationship possible with this founder? because. We're we, the way we invest and the way we bring ourselves to the table is we bring ourselves to the table.

We're not throwing money at you and saying, we'll see you in. You know, a year, tell us how it went. if we're investing, it means we're getting involved and we wanna work with you, you know? And so in many ways it's, it has to be a strong relationship that we can, that we feel will work. And so one of the first things I'm looking for is what's the dynamic here?

Are you coachable? Are you interested in what we have to say? Are you just trying to take our money? is this. something where you are an expert, and you know exactly what you're talking about. and it's really just sort of helping you coalesce the other pieces, you know, with sales and tech and maybe things like that.

and so I'm usually just looking for, is this person an expert in their space? Is this somebody that I feel like would be coachable? And is this somebody I wanna work with for a few years? Because that's, literally what this is. all of those boxes get checked, then I'll move into the, okay.

Tell me what's going on. Help me understand. And I would say the next big thing is just what evidence do you have that anybody cares about your idea? And it doesn't have to be a lot of evidence, but something,

[00:23:16] Jay: Sure.

Frank, what about you?

[00:23:20] Frank: Bo and I are very like-minded, which scares us both sometimes. but you know, coachability, for sure, are they a subject matter expert in their space? And so maybe they're not. Maybe they haven't built software before or maybe they don't know how to go to market or, there's some piece they don't know how to do and we can fill in and it's really obvious how we kind of fit in and what they do. those are the kind of the two main things. But it's funny when we get a, when we get pitched. We get pitched multiple times per week. All like, you know, there's some, every day we kind of talk to a couple people, which is interesting and we haven't really marketed even that well, which we're both amazed by.

But it just shows the need in our area. When Bo and I hear an idea or meet a founder that we really like, it's almost like we can't, go fast enough or we can't wait to get into it. It's like unwrapping the, present at Christmas that you saw the big box under the tree and you went to bed and had to wait till the next morning. You know, for us it's like we can't wait to get in there and help this person and see them flourish and, We have a portfolio company now, you know, we have a founder that the, business is growing really fast and literally on a call two days ago and, they said, I don't feel like we're going fast enough.

How do I get more customers? they're like, way ahead of I think where we thought we were gonna be. and it's been really amazing, but they can't wait to go faster. And we're going, you're doing everything right. Just keep doing right now. It's okay. and, you know, but finding the right people that just, we can't hold them back.

And we're excited to go work with them, but we're also excited to kind of stay out of their way and let them kind of grow and fill in the gaps for them 

[00:24:53] Jay: Hmm.

[00:24:54] Frank: A lot of it aligns kind of the way I think I developed as a CEO, which was, you know, I was, in the beginning I could say I did everyone's job at some point because I was, you know, starting my business.

and then later on, you know, my job was to unblock my team from being able to do their jobs. And so how do I best make sure that they have as the minimal amount of restrictions in front of 'em and they can just go run as fast as possible. I think about that the same way with our portfolio companies that we work with.

Like how do we help them be the best version of what they can do? And if they're a subject matter expert in their space and they're really struggling on how do I build good software, don't worry about that. Go speak about your space and go engage with, you know, your community there because that's where you're really amazing and you're kind of this 10 Xer, but you might not be great at, answering a support ticket.

So why would I waste a founder's time on kind of doing that? How do we basically make sure that they're more efficient with their time?

[00:25:47] Jay: All right. Do, was Bob Moul from Enigma, your first customer,

[00:25:52] Bo: Yeah, 

[00:25:52] Jay: and if so, how did you get Bob Moul from Enigma as your first customer? Because I, you know, I know Bob from the, boomy days and his like ridiculous kind of turnaround efforts that he is done and, you know, we've, I've kind of. Watched him was from afar and, been a fan. And now I see him with this and I'm like, geez, if I had, you know, a hundred thousand, I'll just give it him to invest worth a million, you know, at some point. But, how did you guys hook up with Bob? Like how, who, tell me the story about your first customer.

[00:26:17] Bo: Yeah, so, Bob. So, I had a relationship with Enigma, Enigma Networks, which obviously Bob's the CEO of, and, that relationship was through, The Bob's co-founder, Mark Viglione, his father, John Viglione, and I worked together at Vertex, years ago. And so when they needed some input in terms of the technical approach and what they were doing, They brought me in and so I was already sort of consulting a little bit, on the product as they were developing Enigma ai. and obviously I was getting excited about what they were doing. And so, it was all really just luck, I think, and good timing and the fact that we already had a great relationship.

they mentioned they were, I don't think they even knew this was. before, Frank and I officially launched 'cause we officially launched in January. and then we were in stealth for a while. But before that, even before then, they didn't know what I was doing with Frank. and they made a mention that they were gonna do a round soon, and I was, and I just like, called Frank as I was driving home that day, like, Hey, I, I think we should look at this.

And, and so it was, a little bit of just good timing. And, again, it's the same thing. Good relationship, right? I've known those folks for a while. we work really well together. And so it was this great opportunity to get involved and help them and for them to be, you know, an amazing, portfolio company for us.

And so we jumped at it and that's how it happened. We, and then we just kept working together, so nothing really changed except maybe we got a little bit more involved because we invested.

[00:27:42] Jay: Love that. All right. I have so many more questions, but we're gonna wrap it here. I have one more question for each of you. non-business related, I'm gonna say it one more time 'cause every time I say it I hear business related stuff, non-business related. Just Frank being Frank, Bo being Bo, I'm gonna ask you first, Frank, so Bo has already answered this question so he already knows what's coming.

Maybe he probably forgot. Frank, if you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be

[00:28:12] Frank: Wow. I would love, this is probably, you hear this all the time, you said on earth though, well, can I build a rocket to leave Earth go out into space? So.

[00:28:23] Jay: You can go to space,

[00:28:24] Frank: I can do that. So I'm working on my private pilot certificate now, so hopefully I'll be myself in a single piston, propeller plane soon. but you know, once I do that, like I would, I would love to kind of hit the go out into space and, you know, we need to get back to, I think to the moon. And I don't know about how I feel about living on Mars, but, you know, leaving, 

[00:28:44] Jay: Well, we've, we, I've heard in space before, and I love that. That's, that's a, that's kind of like a childhood dream one. And by the way, I'm also a student pilot, so we'll have to compare notes, at some point. Bo.

[00:28:55] Bo: What did I say last time? Do you remember?

[00:28:58] Jay: So I

just remember you were in the same room. That's all I remember. I

[00:29:01] Bo: Yeah. 

[00:29:01] Jay: other than that. I'm a, a visual guy. if you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:29:08] Bo: Honestly, like right now. if I wasn't doing United Effects Ventures, then I could do anything I wanted. I'd probably just hit the road with my wife Jackie. I think I'd want to just travel as much as possible and, probably try food in every country on the planet. I think 

[00:29:24] Jay: That's a, great answer. God, that's good answer. me too, both of you guys. I would fly to space and I would just travel around forever. That's, I just love it so much.

right. 

[00:29:32] Bo: and eat.

[00:29:33] Jay: Eat and drink. That's it. That's all you need in life, honestly. okay. Well, you guys are awesome. it's no surprise why, you know, you've been a magnet to the, community in Philadelphia.

I,agree with everything you've said. I think there's a big, there was a big gap and it seems like you guys are slowly expanding to fill that gap, which is awesome. if, anybody wants to reach out to you guys directly, Frank, what would be the best way to get in touch with you and then Bo the same question.

[00:29:57] Frank: Yeah, I think, for either of us ue.ventures, so United Effects UE dot Ventures is probably the best way. we're both on LinkedIn, pretty active on LinkedIn as well. but look, the other thing, you can find us, if you go to a Philly entrepreneur focused event, we probably will be there even if we're running it.

We're trying to spread out and join all of those, so.

[00:30:16] Jay: Awesome.

[00:30:17] Bo: Yeah, only thing add is, you should check out our monthly meetup. it's the first Wednesday of every month called the Ground Floor. it's a fun party. It's basically a top bar for startups.no pressure. You can pitch if you want to, but really it's there so that startup founders have a community that they can go to and relax with.

and the next one is on the third. It's a holiday. 

[00:30:38] Jay: Where is it at? Where is it hosted at?

[00:30:40] Bo: we do this with our partners,Tactix Real Estate, it's in their building. 

[00:30:44] Jay: Okay. I thought you were gonna say it was gonna be at Sky High, which would be like a funny place to have

Ground Floor on like top of a building a funny place to have. Yeah. So anyway, all right, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for the time. Have a great weekend and we'll catch up again soon.

All right. Thanks guys.

[00:30:57] Bo: Thanks.

[00:30:58] Jay: See you guys. 

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