Fantastic. Ok. So I know we only have 20 minutes. So I need to get rolling and I'm sure other people will be joining us as we come in.Um But since we are a small group, if you have questions, you know, please um you know, go ahead and feel free to ask them in the chat. I'll try to keep an eye on that. And um and it would be nice to know if you can include in the chat. Um If you have any specific questions going into this or is there any burning, you know, desire or need that you have? And it would be helpful um to know if you're from large corporations. Um um And, or if you're from small start ups. Ok. So I can tailor some of my remarks. Ok. But I'm gonna go ahead and jump in. So my name is Mona Defra. I am 1/4 time founder, um now CEO and founder of Rata Inc. So, Rata is the new entrepreneurship network. We are streaming and community platform. We are just launching now we've been building for years. So you can go to Radi vision.com and see what's there and it's also an integrated social network. So we're here to support start ups and in fundraising and we're here to help everybody grow wealth.

And, um, so that's part of the conversation here is I've spent three decades in this ecosystem and I want to make sure that all of you are developing the careers that you want and that you deserve. And today's financial markets in the last 23 years in tech world um has really changed a lot and um people don't realize how negatively it's affecting people's careers. So, um and then feel free to ask questions, of course. OK. So moving on to the next slide. OK, so I've been doing this for three decades, 30 years. And this is the way that I see the world um is that it's almost like frogs boiling in water. So if you know the old adage, if you put frogs who are cold blooded creatures into cold water and then slowly warm up the water, they, they don't feel anything, you know, they just acclimate because their body temperature changes to their surrounding. Whereas if you put frogs into hot water, they would immediately jump out because they would notice the difference and save their own lives. So what's been happening over three decades is the entire venture capital system has changed very dramatically if um you um the webinar is being recorded.

Ok. Do you see it now? And then let me go into, OK, do you guys see it now, Hanan? Do you see it? Oh yes, you can see it. OK. People are telling me this, OK. This is the same screen I had before. So I apologize. I don't know what happened. Technical glitch. OK. So this is what's been happening in our world, you know, people gradually. So you guys are coming in. I'm assuming mo most of you are younger than me, you're, you know, in the beginning or middle of your career, not, you know, closer to the end of your career like me. And um so you're coming in and you don't realize that the world was different before. And um so my background is that um I have been a member of 12 start up teams. The last four as founder and CEO um I started out my first decade was executing four IP OS for four tech companies and you know, talking to Wall Street helping manage the IP O with the CEO CFO and the bankers and then the bankers would leave and I would take over and manage pr ir investor relations and public relations and the communications for the company write the no reports and all of that, I also helped raise several funds, a private equity fund, venture capital funds, private placements.

I was a registered investment banker for some time. And um so I spent a long time in this career and I also built one of the four companies I built, it was uh inside venture, the first private market platform, um I was asked to come to Silicon Valley to fix the IP O crisis back in 2007. And I built inside venture um which delivered the first private market platform and new IP O solutions, which helped kind of create the unicorn trend. So just to give you a little background on how whoops, how the world used to work um in uh before things changed. So in the eighties and nineties, when Microsoft and Apple and Intel and Amazon were built, it was like this column here where these were the IP OS of the past, people had confidence in IP OS. Companies went public in 3 to 5 years. On average, the entire venture industry shaped itself around IP OS in 3 to 5 years. And so they were only seven year funds today. It takes 11 to 14 years to go to IP O I did this infographic um about 89 years ago. It used to take 89, 10 years to IP O today. It's 1112, 1314 years and who knows this year, they're not expecting more IP OS.

Um People used to invest on a long term basis, venture capitals, long term investing, founders were long term investing, the mutual funds who bought IP OS were long term investing. And um and then there was a whole, you know, marketing infrastructure with the banks, with the research analysts um, brokers and market makers who, who could support, um IP OS. But then when in the late nineties decimalization came around. So we went from the fractional system of buying shares. So it was a quarter of a point. So one and a quarter, 1.5, you know, one and three quarters, we went to 10 cents and then a penny and then fractions of a penny. And so that helped, you know, we went to electronic trading, which helped the markets move faster. But it also um took away the profits that bankers uh that the stockbrokers used to make. So we had a whole stockbroker system that would support investors. And back then half of my shareholder bases at my four companies, retail investors. This is non institutions. So they aren't the big institutions that come in and buy and they're not um professional, you know, V CS. Um These were everyday people, even if they were high net worth or accredited, they were still usually buying on their own. They didn't have access until the IP O but IP OS were 3 to 5 years. So everybody had access at that time today.

Um Very few people have access. So I've been working in this world where I've innovated in creating private market platforms. And then with my past company and with uh Rata vision, I'm helping to fill the marketing gap, what the small bankers used to do that were gobbled up by the big bankers when decimalization and electronic trading came in and the big banks came in, bought the small banks and everything went very, very big to fit the banker clients who were high velocity traders.

So that's what, you know, you we're all here as women in tech and we're creating, you know, great um companies. Um And I apologize, my, my presentation is being weird. It's never done this before. OK? But this is the world that we live in now. So in the late nineties, what what was happening is we were shifting from the industrial revolution to the entrepreneurial revolution. And so those folks who had access to private markets, which is where most of the wealth is being created. So they're really the top one and 10% the institutional and the ultra high net worth folks who have access to these deals were growing well faster than ever. And so the situation today is that 90% of start ups who are looking for venture funding fail to raise. So there's more start ups than ever in history, 100 million, but 90% of them won't raise. And then um 90% of consumers don't even have access to these deals. So those at the top who are creating more wealth than ever also are raising the um cost of living so that it's harder and harder. And those of you who are here in Silicon Valley know it's very difficult to buy a house, it's now over 2 million for an average house. And then when you look at um, these numbers that show, ok.

So there's over 1000 companies that get seed investment, but just to get to the second round, which usually is within 12 to 24 months, um, that half of them drop out right there. The V CS aren't going to continue to fund them. So there's this fallacy that all you need is the best idea. But you're really channeling all of the innovation and technology that you all have through this funnel. And so only really one percent of companies will break through to IP O even stripe one of the most valuable companies hasn't IP O yet. So this, this financial markets, infrastructure changes our careers and changes what we do. And then if you're an employee of the company or if you're a founder, it, it changes your net worth in a very big way. So, um and that's what I'm here to give you information so that you can hack the system as best you can because if you don't um fight for yourself, no one else is gonna do that for you. And here we look at a company like Box, which is a terrific company. Very sticky, super dedicated founders who are still with the company.

20 years later, he dropped out of college to do this Aaron Levy and you can see it had a low valuation but very quickly grew. So this is when I was building the private markets platform and bringing public investors who used to invest in 3 to 5 years. It used to be public now it's private. So um we helped bring these public players into this market and they brought in a lot of funds and it helped the unicorns get started. So the 1st 80 companies on my platform were the 1st 80 unicorns, although they weren't called unicorns. Till 3.5 years later, we sold the company a second market. 2.5 years later, sold it to the NASDAQ. And then in 2021 it was spun out as the NASDAQ private market. So I built that or the earlier version of that. Um But what ended up happening is you see here, unfortunately, when second market and NASDAQ bought it, they shifted away from IP OS and more into secondary. So the IP O crisis wasn't really totally fixed. We brought in more money, but the money kind of, you know, was a band aid over the real fundamental infrastructure problems. And so when you look at these rounds, I think these are brilliant, by the way, these charts and there's many of them, there's now a couple dozen, they come from Equity, Zen.

So I think it's Equity zen.com or.co um But Google it and you can see here on a series a the little white dot is how much people invest and then at IP O, this is what it was worth. So those folks get the highest return 4700% in the series B. So there was more invested 3.4 million. So that's why the circle is bigger. But look at the number, the number is half now. Um But still 2000% return the public market. If you're lucky is gonna get you 1020 maybe the bull market year 30%. But regardless of what's happening in the bull market, private market is uh 20 I'm sorry, 70% higher. So private equity is 70% higher and VC is probably 100 50% higher than the public markets. So if you're vanguard or your 401k and Ira s are in the public market only, which is what's allowed legally because you need protection as a smaller investor, you're getting screwed because the cost of living is up here and you're actually going down when you think you're going up and we need to change and it's being changed right now.

It's, it's happening. So I have good news for you. Don't worry, but you can see that even in the later rounds. So this is what I helped to create these later rounds, bringing public investors in with a new source of fund to keep companies funded longer. Is that some of these later rounds made small returns less than the public markets and some of them lost money because of the way companies are treated at IP O. Um, so I know we're coming close and then at the end, when you look here, Aaron Levy had, um, I don't know if you can see this, but I think, uh, less than 5% of the company at the end and he deserved better than that, I believe. And there's equities then. Um, so an IP O typically companies come out because of the structure of the market. There's this dip. So even if your company goes public, you can't even sell your stock for two years because it's under the IP O price, it may be better than your equity price. So ways that you can build your equity portfolio is to found a company, but just be careful, you might be in here for 14 years. So bootstrap it as long as you can because those highest returns at the beginning will belong to you and build the business.

Don't worry about getting venture funding, build a real business, get your clients, then people will want to come in. Um And, and don't build a business that takes five years, you know, like I did like a Hulu. Um but you know, it'll, it takes a long time. So it takes a lot of funding um become an employee of a great start up. So many of you in the room may already have done that, but come at the right time if you come in too early, you may have 14 years and then your employee stock option. Um, grant is only for 10 years. So be careful how many years that is, you can negotiate. Um, you can talk, you know, to, um, hr if you don't negotiate, you're, they're not gonna give it to you. So you have to ask. Um, and then you can also have a side hustle, you know, the, the guy who painted the mural at Facebook, um his, he took equity because they couldn't pay him the full amount and his shares were worth 200 million the first day of trading. So there's only usually one Facebook, but you know, um I'm sure if it was worth 2 million, you wouldn't um sneeze at that, you can also do private market investing which the SEC has now allowed.

Um So when you assess your equity package, ask questions, how's the business doing? Take a look at the rounds that they've raised? Are they increasing? Are they, is it getting harder for the company to raise? Um What's the timing for an exit? Ask them that question, you know, be careful of the economic cycles in the market. Um And um are the investors who are the investors? Are they really strong investor because strong investor will push a deal through and get an exit for you. Um Is the exit gonna be an IP O or an M and A? And um and then when you negotiate your offer, you have to ask because they're not gonna just give it to you. I mean, they, they'll offer you something, but if you ask, you can often get a lot more. And so please do ask what the strike price is. That means that's the price you're gonna have to buy these shares. If you have a stock grant, they don't even give them to you, you have to buy them. Um, and then there's a vesting period time to exit up to 10 years. Um What's the valuation of the company? And you may want to look at the cap table to see what percentage you own at the end. Um And, uh, I'm happy to answer questions. We have a minute or so, barely left. If anybody has any questions, you can put it into the chat.

Um But hopefully this will help you. And I'll give, if you're not gonna ask a question, I'll just share an experience with my son who's now um, uh 28 years old and he was, uh, he came out of Brown University Engineering, took a position with a security start up, um, cybersecurity in Redwood City and the company was having difficulty raising but did eventually get around.

Um They had tremendous clients, Google, Facebook, Starbucks, like everybody was using them, they were fishing protection. And when he, when he left, he didn't buy the shares because he would have had to spend like $40,000 to buy his shares and he was skeptical that they were actually gonna have an exit. And less than a year later, they actually did have an exit and he left 60,000 on the table, but he would have had to risk 40,000 to get that. Um, so just for your information and then there are companies like equities then where you could actually sell the shares and maybe they can sell them before you even buy them. Um And so there's a lot of secondary trading opportunities. So um and he was just too busy to worry about that um because he has a side hustle that's probably worth about 5 million right now while he still works full time as a software engineer. Um because that's what it takes to survive in Silicon Valley, it's very expensive to live here. Um So thank you all for being here and spending your time with me today.

I hope I gave you something of value that will, you know, improve your career, help you pick the right companies to work for, to invest your creativity and innovation and great ideas and hard work. Oh, so the right time to enter a company, it really depends on the company, like, but you wanna get a company on the upswing. So I would say like, you know, that the first investors get the largest returns. Um but it depends really if you really believe in the company. So that's the important thing. Are they getting clients and growing quickly? Like for rata vision now is a great time because we're just doing our first big funding round because I funded it. Um And so now is the time where, you know, it's gonna go crazy but people coming in now because of the market conditions and so on can, can get a good price still before it goes bonkers. Um So that's a perfect time to come in. Um When the economy is down is, is a good time also because things will be discounted. Um But you don't want to come in too early or too late, um because you'll get stuck and you wanna make sure your stock options allow you to trade or at least give you, you know, usually the company reserves a first right of refusal, but they have to match um what you have.

So, um hopefully those pieces of information are helpful. Ok? And I wish you all the bats for very successful careers and a ton of wealth being created and radi vision is here to change all of this so that you all can enjoy beautiful thriving lives. Thank you so much.