#203 - Daniel Nikic on AI, International Investing & The Future of Entrepreneurship

0:00 My father used to say this back in the day, he's like, Always be grateful that you can pay tax. It's always bad if you can't pay the taxes. Then you know you're not making money. All right, hey guys, welcome back to what's going to be another awesome conversation on whatever day this comes out. But we have these in studio here on Thursdays, and what a way to kick off the conversations that we're gonna have today, the three or four of them, with someone from overseas again, a guy that's born in Canada, but now is in Croatia, it's where his heritage and his family comes from.

0:50 So today's guest is a global investment strategist, entrepreneur, and founded founder of Coraz. It's C O H R E S, a boutique investment research firm focused on helping investors, venture capitalists, and founders make smarter decisions in a world full of noise and hype, which we know there's a ton. Based in Europe, but with a truly global perspective, he's analyzed over fifteen thousand companies across sectors like AI, SaaS, and data, and brings lessons from the front lines of market research, due diligence, and founder psychology. So please welcome Daniel Nikic Welcome, man. Well, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

1:31 Yeah, man. where do you think we kick off the conversation? I mean, I know every day I just got finished listening to one of the largest podcasts in the world, and their two hour conversation was all about AI and really what's happening and the book that she just wrote and is it good for humanity or not? So I don't think we have the time to go dupe deep, deep, deep in there. However, in your space and your field of investment strategy, is AI a good thing or is it some of both, good and bad? that's a good question. I think it AI is forcing individuals to be more efficient in what they do.

2:11 In my opinion, I believe AI is getting rid of the replacing, let's just say, the bot work. Because I myself use AI for some stuff, but I know it doesn't have the experience or expertise. Like you have to either train it 'cause still augmented AI. So in other words It's still AI that needs to be controlled or let's just say mentored by human. And I believe AI is gonna take over quite a few jobs, but it's also gonna create jobs. But is it gonna tak create more jobs than what's gonna take over? Probably not. But I think humans have always been resilient throughout history and they'll find a way.

2:56 Just look at the internet. How many people lost jobs because of the internet? But there's also the question: is it going to be used for good or used for bad? It depends what's going to be used for at the end of the day. We see what's going on with cybersecurity, deep fakes. We see what's going on with the wars on TV. You don't know if it's real or fake today. You have to like double guess to see what the sources are. So, long story short, I think it's good if you know how to use it. It's bad. If you don't know how to use it and you can't adapt. Do you think there will be some byproduct that's bad that we don't have control over, right? This is I think this is the conversation that everyone I think everyone would be okay with AI as long as we don't believe that it's gonna take over all the thought and all the judgment and all the morality of the world.

3:49 Right? I think we'd be okay if it's a resource that we use to be more efficient, to improve our skills. To outperform other people. Cause right now we do that. It's higher education, the company you work for, mentors or leaders that you're around. There's ways to compound and level up your experience and your ability beyond other humans. So if we can use it for that way, it just shows up in a faster way. But we're concerned that it's going to take over the thought of the world. Yeah, it makes you think is it gonna be like the movie the Terminator in some ways. But I think AI for business is gonna be quite well, but I think a lot of companies jumped on the, let's just say, bandwiggin of AI, or in other words, fear of missing out, then they just said, we're gonna use AI, we're gonna cut a lot of jobs and they didn't use it efficiently.

4:43 Because if you know what you wanna use AI for, it's great. And is it gonna be used for bad? I I can just say for example, defense and military. We see what's going on in Russia and Ukraine, we see what's going on with Iran and Middle East. You're not going against a human, you're going with with some drone who doesn't care or vice versa. You can't tell a drone to stop or whatever. So the question is, is it going to take over thought in general and just make humans the byproduct? I think if we could answer that question, I think we'd all be okay with it. But it seems to be, you know, even Altman and all these guys who started these companies say there's a 10 to 25% chance there's a really bad outcome for humans.

5:29 And so that's a that's bad. Like if that was a percentage of an asteroid hitting us every week, I think we'd do something about it. So the question I have is. Are humans even gonna be relevant in the investment space and the strategy phase space in ten years based on your projections? yeah, definitely. Because you still use human intuition to invest in a company if we're going to talk about the investment space. And a lot of times, based on my experience working with investors or even those who were previously entrepreneurs or founders that had an exit, they always say it's important to say what the leadership is and who the team is. Because my opinion, the best entrepreneurs or founders or successful I would say owners are those who can deal with stress and volatility and being able to deal with humans.

6:19 You're doing business with humans at the end of the day. You're not doing it's not an AI dealing with another AI and negotiating. It's human with humans. So I think humans will always be important in terms of investment space. That's my honest opinion. Though the need to do some of the work that I had to do before will be decreased. Like before AI is pretty much doing the basic copy and paste work I see right now. You just have to you still have to analyze it. Like I have an AI con search thing for my investment research, but I still audit it. I still use it, I deal the framework, I make sure that it's all according to what it should be.

6:59 I don't take it at face value. And you always have to audit AI. And I think we've heard it from several people, like Sam Altman mentioned auditing AI is important. And so long story short, Humans are will always and still are important in investment space. What you think? You've researched, I believe somewhere in the neighborhood, it's a crazy number of over 15,000 companies in the U.S. and Europe. What's your big takeaway? And we're talking about here on interviews. So let's act like you're not sitting here having this conversation with me. There's not people listening. What's your takeaway in your quiet moment about business, about strategy, about investments from all the reflection you have over 15,000?

7:46 If you're sitting at a coffee shop, Or sitting and just wondering how it all goes together. What's your takeaway from evaluating all these companies? My opinion is the most successful entrepreneurs can diddle with criticism. They're not they're not sensitive to someone saying, Hey, I don't think you're gonna succeed, or this isn't a good job. They're persistent, very persistent, and I wouldn't I don't think passion is the right word. I would say they're disciplined. There's discipline to adjust to get that fundraising. Cause there's some startups I've seen, they send their Excelsior.

8:28 I could have like their financial, I could have done that in grade eight math. So they and they know finance. They have to have some basic knowledge of finance. Cause you're dealing at the end of the day, you're dealing with business. You might have a great idea, but let's be realistic. Investors want to return their investments. They're not doing charity. You have to know finance somewhat. And the investors have to somewhat believe in you. And somewhat like you. You have to make a good impression. It's funny, I heard Richard Branson in an interview from, you know, all his virgin companies. not to push back on what you're saying, 'cause I I I process you do have no finance, you have no cash flow, it's important to know net and gross. But what just went through my head, because I was agreeing with you, Richard Branson talks about this time that he was in one of our board meetings, one of his board meetings, and they started talking about gross and net profit.

9:18 And one of the people in the room gathered really quick that he didn't know what they were talking about. So on the next break, he pulled Branson aside. He's hey, I'm not doing this attack, I want to help you, but do you know what a net profit is? And he said, No, I don't. And to cr the crazy thing to me is he had built these companies without knowing that because he has dyslexia. But maybe that's another example of the elite other characteristics as a human that you have that will overcome some of it. So when I heard that, I went, How do you get that far with truly not understanding net and gross? I think he's a great storyteller though. Richard Branson, he knows how to storytell.

10:00 And I never met the person personally, but you kinda get a image of the person that he's solely back. He can deal with anything. He's not a stressful person. He's you don't see that he's anxious. He's like the type of person you want to go to have a drink with. Like you think you you know you'll have a good time. So he's in some ways he's good at he's a good showman. And that he's a good entrepreneur, but he can storytell and you feel like wow, he's he really cares about what he does. And I think one thing that is important when you're anal saying, Will AI take over what humans do?

10:41 AI can't see if someone's very passionate stuff or like the emotions of what a person is selling. And yeah, there's voice AI. I looked at voice AI tech since 2018, and there is very interesting voice tech companies. When you see someone's impr expression, even the nonverbal, their face and stuff, you're like, wow, this person's so passionate. You're like, if I don't have any money, I think I could build something with this person. We could start from zero. And I think that's what he gives off in terms of that energy. And you do make a good point. Maybe the finance as some cases are not, but they better have some they usually have someone who can help them with that aspect.

11:25 'Cause at the end of the day they have to know something in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be able to pay your bills and you have to be able to draw a line between some some ROI for some investors if that's what you're doing, or at the end of the day, raise money, how to scale and grow a company. You need money to do these things. what give us some insight about investing internationally outside of our continent or our countries, because I would you know, there's already a limited amount of knowledge around investment strategy in general from an average American. Let's just say that. Well, how should we process investment in Europe or in Australia, these other places? Cause we don't even totally conquer it and know it here. Can you explain the difference, the positives and negatives?

12:06 because they're completely different markets. So what's what's different and what's the same? Explain explain this to us. Okay. No, that's a great question. It kind of goes with social cultural factors. Americans, and I'm Canadian, so I know quite a bit about Americas and I worked with a lot of Americans. They're not afraid of failure. It's always been a country that's taken risks since the founding fathers who came from England, Wales, present day Wales and etc. They came there, it was entrepreneurial, the gold mine, everything. I think American companies are very good at marketing. Like when look at it all these huge companies from states, you ask a kid in Albania, they know what McDonald's is.

12:51 Like that's how strong marketing is in America, hence Hollywood. So I would say in America, the valuations are the highest, most of the cases. And overall, whoever I talk to from the Middle East, Europe, Asia, they're all fond of how Americans are willing to take a risk and not afraid of failure. And that's huge. Europeans are a bit different. They're more academic, more I think maybe it could be from history too, World War One, World War Two. Cause those all have factors, how someone's raised and stuff. It's also like be careful that they're less willing to take risks, but they're very academic. They have one of the best R D, I would say, institutions from Cambridge and also in Germany.

13:34 Middle East, I think right now, currently We see there's an issue with Iran and UA and the Gulf countries. But when I was there in Saudi Arabia and stuff, I feel like they're trying to find which way to go. They admire how business is done in America, but also they have their culture. You can't jump in and call and be like, Okay, let's talk business right away. It takes a while. It they like to take their time to know the person. They have to build trust with you and stuff. And in my opinion, the quickest way to do business is America. The closest to America is probably UK. And then it's Canada, Australia, the Commonwealth countries and then Europe. But a lot of the countries you would see the founders, they take and get a business idea from either something they grew up with or the main industries that are in that country.

14:26 So overall to do business, the quickest is in America. Yeah, so then from an investment standpoint, it seems like there's a longer return horizon for companies that are out outside the US. If they're gonna be slower, if they're not gonna be as risky, it seems like you're either gonna have smaller retorns short term, and if you want a larger ROI, you're gonna have to wait on a longer horizon, which means the compounding effect is reduced. I agree with that, but there's also some cases where I say Sweden's an interesting country. Besides having great pop music in the past. It's also a country that has developed interesting companies such as if I'm not mistaken, Skype, you see with Spotify, these are quite innovative companies.

15:13 Like Skype was a first like before Zoom and everything. Yeah. Like it kinda changed how we communicate and stuff. We would be doing these podcasts via Skype fifteen, sixteen years ago, right? And I think it's also there are some cases where companies are quite innovative, but the thing with America is the fear of not failing. And fear takes away a lot of people from being still, but I see Europe changing. Like I would say Europe's probably 10 to 15 years behind America when it comes to investing and stuff in VCs. And also we have to be realistic. America has the largest access to capital, the banking system.

15:53 the strength of the American dollar. That takes a factor too, in my opinion. So what do investors do when they're investing in Europe or the Middle East? What do you do? Like how do you process? You know, because on average, I think you go back 30, 40, 50 years, on average, the SP has an average return of somewhere between eight and ten percent, I believe. It's somewhere in there. And if you just keep your investments and you just keep on rolling the profit over, if you do that, you can accurately predict over twenty, thirty, and forty years on what that is going to look like. So if if that's our metric, well, I could just invest invest in a you know, just an average fund, the S P top 500 companies, whatever it is, I can do that and I can get eight or ten percent.

16:42 Or there's this other investment that it appears the pro forma looks like it's fifteen percent, it's eighteen percent ROI. It seems like, am I gonna be in bonds now? What are rates? What are the metrics in these other countries that are used? Is it based on what's the best return? Or is it more based upon just what you want to invest in because you like something? Cause it seems like if it's just based upon the ROI, what's an argument we would make to invest in any of these places if it's not as predictable or is not as high? No, that's a great question. I think a lot of times the general public does not understand how many startups and RSH companies fail.

17:23 I believe the rates like only eight percent go from C to C or C. But a lot of times these companies get acquired and then they're used as widgets for products. A lot of factors are taking in to get a return on investment is looking at the transactions and exits in that industry. So it's pretty much if we're going to invest in health AI that's dealing with let's just say diagnostics, what companies have been found funded in this industry, how many companies have been acquired or gone public? And you have to look at the rates and it's like, okay, we're gonna invest in this. And I think it's somewhat of the process and the chase that a lot of these VCs, LPs, and filming offices like because the returns can be astronomical if you get it.

18:10 And that's why a lot of these pension funds. our limited partners into these VC funds because it gives a bigger rate of return than say investing in the SP and stuff, looking also in terms of inflation rate. So in long term sh long story short, ROI is usually the main driver in terms of evaluating if it's worth investing in these companies. That's my honest opinion. People could say economics and stuff, but you can have a successful company out of Armenia. And they could just move to Delaware and be an American company all of sudden and then you get a return of ten X. So I wouldn't say too much in terms of economics and stuff, to be honest.

18:51 Yeah. So it's the same metric that you're making an investment worldwide, pretty much. What's the return gonna be based on my investment based upon the time horizon? Yes, and I think I think most people who are in investment states know this, but a lot of companies move to the states cause they're looking to get an exit or acquisition or tax purposes, hence the great state of Delaware. And that's usually the case. And I've seen Israeli companies dealing with their accountants just an opening just to have a chance to get funded. Just to get funded, no guaranteed. So that's the power that America has in terms of the access of cap.

19:35 Is you touched on tax. We're not accountants and CPAs so we're not going to give advice on it, but does it complicate a cross border and a cross ocean economics of investments? I think so, but this one person, they were head of a bank's in Australia and Oceana and I had a meeting with them in Dubai, and he stated a great comment. It was kind of common sense. Why would someone talk about taxes if they haven't made any money yet? And it's kind of true. First generate the wealth, and they say you should generate the wealth where your domestic country of your company and stuff or the market that you're trying to target, then look into taxes and stuff. Take it step by step.

20:16 You can't jump onto taxes. And not generate wealth. And I think sometimes people founders jump that too quickly. First build a company, bring value. Then think about taxes and how to reduce costs. There's also a saying, my father used to say this back in the day, he's like, always be grateful that you can pay tax. It's always bad if you can't pay the taxes. Then you know you're not making money. So you mentioned Dubai that you've been there and talking. tell us about Dubai. It's fascinating to people who haven't been there. and as you tell us about it, tell me why I should or shouldn't go to Dubai and do business and look for business and networking if I've never been there or don't have connections.

21:05 No, that's a great question. So when I first went to Dubai, I didn't have connections. I went old school cold. Contact, see if you're meeting, this is who I am, this is what I do. And obviously I'm talking about Dubai prior to what's going on right now in the Gulf War. We don't know what's gonna happen after. It'll be back, but at some point it'll be back. I you know, every war comes to an end. I think so. I just don't know what the tax benefits in terms of financial situation was gonna happen. But Dubai had a huge influx of high net worth individuals. I think the one of the largest in the past in 2025. And when I was there, being that I'm I'm born in Canada near I felt like it was like Toronto on a beach.

21:51 Very multicultural. You could speak English, no problem. Everyone speaks English and stuff. And it's very easy to get stuff that you need. There's so many family offices, VCs, if they want to get funding, they usually have to open an office there. So because now they're like, we have a lot of capital. We can make it attractive. You guys come here if you guys are interested and try to invest in try to hire people that are locally and try to invest in the local economy too. And a lot of the limited partners of a lot of these VC funds and et cetera are from the Gulf states who have oil money and et cetera. And the thing with Dubai It there's a lot of businesses there. There's a lot of international business people, but a lot of them say if you want to make business here, it's about relationships.

22:40 It takes time, trust and everything. And that's kind of the social cultural factors. Yeah, it's multicultural, but still has that obviously the Arabic social culture. They have to trust you a bit to get to know you and to see it and they're very hospitable. I have to be very open and very hospitable. And it they're f investing a lot into AI and stuff, but it is an area that's driven a lot by foreign capital. But as we see a lot of foreign capital, like because of tax incentives and et cetera. And I think they had a very good plan in terms of trying to attract wealth there. And there's so many family offices that have there. They have so many events. They have like these free trade zones. They did it very smart.

23:20 to be an efficient country that's small, I think the population is o only eleven million and only ten percent of the population, give or take, are actually Emirati. So that's a huge statistic. So if you're looking for Yeah, who should go? If you're looking for capital and you need capital, you have a product and you have something to stand by your word to be like, hey, I've done something. You can go there, and you're most likely will to open a subsidiary there or something if you want to attract capital there. But it's still probably better than not gaining capital. And you will have a probably a good chance of getting some investment. Obviously, if the product's viable and et cetera.

24:02 But if you're coming with nothing, And don't have experience, you don't have the knowledge, I wouldn't recommend it because you have to bring some knowledge. It's kind of like it's a transactional relationship. No one's gonna give you charity. And I think that's something that a lot of founders do not realize. You're getting money because they see value in it. They're getting it's a transactional relationship. And it's not for free. It's like getting a bank loan. The bank gives you a loan because they see some value, they have some guaranteed to give you this money. How are people internationally protected? When where we grow up and where we're from, we understand the walls and court systems and how to operate.

24:43 How can people feel confident making an investment into a culture they know nothing about? You have to have a local partner, you gotta do your research. You have to do your research. You can't go blind side. Would you buy a car without doing some research? Would you look into a buy a house making it like that? You have to somewhat do your research. And I think a lot of individuals jump that gun. And I've opened a company in UK. I worked with a comp co founding company in States and also in Croatia. I did my research before opening. Okay. How is the process and et cetera. You talk to experts, you could talk to accounts, you could talk to lawyers. They're gonna give you some advice because they want your business. If you're gonna open it, it's common sense to them. And if you're gonna invest in a a foreign country, they usually say get a local partner.

25:30 Like look at India. There's over 1.4 billion. But I've heard from a lot of people who are Indians or expats from India, they all say to me, if you're gonna do business in the country, get a local partner who understands the social culture factors, who knows. who to talk to if there's a problem. You have to have some way of a contingency plan. It might be difficult, but it could be working with an international consulting firm or international legal firm if it makes it easier for the individual or team. So when we're talking about making investments in these companies, whether it be a stock or making a seed investment in a in a startup, we touched on a little bit, but let's go a little deeper. What signals as an investor and as a researcher really matter versus which ones are noise and irrelevant?

26:16 Because I think that's one of the toughest things to cut through in the world now is whoever controls the narrative seems to be telling the truth, whether it is or not. That's a great question. So I think when someone's gonna invest in a company, they always look at the market. Is it gonna be a market still in the next five to ten years? Because the way technology's changing and pretty much revolutionizing industries, you have to be realistic. Like if you said to someone right now, Hey, I have a company that does postal mail, you probably won't invest in them right now. But like this is an old company. It's not relevant. So you have to look at the market.

26:58 You have to look at the company itself. Cause you hear a lot of companies, they say they're AI, da da da. Get someone who knows tech to check their tech. Do your due diligence. Don't skip that part and be like, they got a great branding. it's gonna go with that. We saw what happened with crypto companies. We saw what happened with a lot of startups of those cases. They just jumped a gun. They didn't do their due diligence. And it's just making sure you do your research. And look at the finances. I remember I've looked at companies with investors. Great company, great tech, everything. We look at their finds, I'm like, this one company, they had immigration legal papers as R and D. I'm like, that's not R and D. That's your personal stuff.

27:38 And person says, Yeah, it is. I'm like, Well, I'm an immigrant. I know it's not R and D for a fact. Like, you have to look in the details. I know it might be long and might be boring. But sometimes boring can save you a lot of misery in the future. And at the end of the day, if it's a VC fund, they have to answer to their limited partners, which are high net worth individuals, could be family and friends, and it could be pension funds and et cetera. So I would say do your research and get expert advice if you need to, because I've seen investor venture capital funds, they outsource some of the stuff to the legal teams that they think can help them.

28:18 'Cause they want to make a huge risk. So you've said that investors should pay attention to how a founder handles stress. Right. So how does the founder behavior based on the how they handle that stress, how does that behavior impact long term success beyond just product or growth numbers? I would say today startups are a lot different than it was five or ten years ago. Cause startup teams are probably a lot smarter to get that certain valuation, right? With AI, but you're dealing with different people. You're gonna have times that they're not going well. Look at every successful company, Tesla in the late two thousands.

29:02 No one you've heard stories about I had to take loans, we had like two weeks to survive. It could have been in Facebook when they had to acquire another company. Are they willing to pivot? Are they willing to see how they can survive and grow continually? Because a lot of these companies, they constantly have to innovate. And it's stressful also to be like, hey, we got to change our plan. Or a competitor's coming in. Or copyrights. How can I deal with criticism? And to be honest, you're going to deal with bad press. You like it or not, someone's going to hate on you. They're going to write a pardon me, a negative article about you. It could be, this person does, they did this, they did this.

29:43 And in today's world, we see also with social media, you post something you got at least 10 people or we can't wait to criticize you. And I would say stress dealing with people, dealing with failure, not in dealing with times where you're gonna you're gonna feel like the company's not going to succeed. Cause I think anyone who's been an entrepreneur has dealt with that. And my honest opinion I've been screwed over by someone not paying me. I've never met a someone who's successful, who's an entrepreneur that has not been screwed over, part of my language, with a payment or something. I would love to meet someone who hasn't, and I'll be like, wow, you're you should be a template for how to be a hundred because everyone who's gone through that, worked hard, completed a service of product, and they don't get paid.

30:24 That's brutal. Cause you can't get back time. Yeah, there's a lot of investors that I talk to that unless someone has a story of failure and having to push through significant stress, downside, unease, they won't invest in them. So even though there might be those unicorns that you talk about that never dealt with that, they won't invest in those people because they know inevitably, to your point, tough times are gonna come and they want an example of the people that are gonna push through. And set a wilt and go home. No, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, it's essential. so you emphasize network and credibility of people and do our research, people and companies.

31:08 What are practical ways founders can build trust with investors before a pitch? So we talked about going to Dubai, you need to have something. And you said, Hey, it's about building a relationship. It's not just there. I think all this spectrum that we're speaking to is about, you know, we said you said Branson, Richard Branson tells a good story. That just means he's a good salesman. Right. And he he's able to sell his idea to employees, to investors, when things are tough, keep going, we're gonna find a way. So but what are people everybody wants to raise money. So what are practical ways the founders can build trust with these investors before the pitch? That's a great question. I would say have obviously a demo if they don't have a full product out so they can show what they're doing.

31:52 And a lot of times I always hear I remember there was a very successful individual that I worked with and they were an investor. They said, I want to know the problem and how they came to the idea of this solution. If it's just copyright, they're not gonna be I'm not too interested. They're like, I'm willing to to forget about it. I can sleep at night. Because if they have if they came with the idea through experience, then they know the solution that's needed. So they have to have a problem solution, what the idea is. I would say also what's very important is do they have some, if possible, already users that can back it up.

32:37 To be like, Hey, I've used this, it's quite interesting, da da da and do they have a plan to pivot if things go wrong? 'Cause I've seen some entrepreneurs, they got drilled. I was part of a startup that didn't succeed and we got drilled and stuff to like, why should we go with you? What if this happens? How are you gonna pivot? What this? And you have to have an exit strategy. What's the goal? Do you wanna be a company? Okay, then we invest in you guys, we sell to a secondary fund because these investors wanna know what your exit plan is too. What what's interesting in this conversation, all the research you've done, researching these fifteen thousand plus companies, what makes you passionate about this area and space?

33:18 terms of investment research. Yeah. Yeah. And what you're doing on a daily basis and sitting here and talking about it. I think it's always since I was a kid. Like I was really into sports. If you ask me about hockey, basketball, I would look at which college they went to, where they played. I've always liked numbers and I always liked, okay, how does someone get to this point? And I'm the type of person who can watch the news, not politics, but like what's going on and stuff. And I was always curious about how does someone do something. Not in terms of how much I maybe this isn't right to say, I really don't care what someone spends on their daily. I could care less if someone has a Ferrari. Good for them. I care about, if they have a business, okay, how did they come to with that idea?

33:58 How do you deal with this? How do they deal with this? And with investment research, it's never boring. Every day is different. I'd never had one day similar to another day. And I started off in accounting. So those who know what accounting is, debit equals credit. It's and plus you have to ask someone to give invoices and you'll know if they're lying and stuff. That's stressful to me. I would never deal with that. And I think it's kind of I think it's The process. You see what's going on. You see what's the changes that's happening. I remember I first looked at AI in 2018. There wasn't that much information. Yeah, I've seen some quantum, some Spark words. It's still SaaS very popular. And then once ChatGPT came out, boom, everyone's talking about AI.

34:41 Da da da da. And it's interesting to see trends and interest to see how the world is connected. We like it or not. This is what's going on in the With Iran, it's impacting the whole world. What happened with Russia and Ukraine, it's impacting the whole world. What's happening? People could say, for example, what happened in Louisiana when there was the oil leak with British Patrum, that affected the world. People don't realize it, but these events have impact. And it's interesting how stuff can impact and Long story short, I think for entrepreneurs and even those who have success stories, I don't think we should criticize if they did it the right way.

35:22 We should be like, wow, they had a great idea. Kudos. They're willing to take the risk because it's easy to criticize unless you've been in that position. And I think sometimes people have to somewhat look, self assess themselves to be like, this person did this job, or even if they failed, they took the chance, they took the risk. They did the hard work and I don't think that's respected that much today's world. Yeah. in business, one of the most difficult things, the reason the reason why I've identified most businesses fail is because they don't do enough business development, business prospecting. They're not out searching for clients and selling on a daily basis. Because if you're willing to do that, it really is a top of funnel numbers game, running CRMs, creating relationships.

36:07 There's a lot of people who have won with products that I feel like it's a mediocre product. But they built a network of customers, relationships, networking. What do you do that on a daily basis? We're sitting here having this conversation. This is one form, but what do you do on a daily basis as you, the entrepreneur, to build your business? What have you found most important? And what are the daily activities and hacks that you're working on? that's a great question. So when I first started my company, I had to get used to rejection. So this is back to 2014. I'm calling, emailing, getting rejected. I think I got rejected by over 10,000 people. And you have to be able to deal with rejection. When you get rejected, you don't you're used to it.

36:49 You're like, no, okay, thank you. Have a great day. They could be you're an A. Okay, thank you. Have a great day. All the best. You don't take you don't take it as personal criticism because they don't know you. But What I learned too, you have to be able to market yourself, especially as an entrepreneur. And it took me a while to get used to it. I'm like, how can I market myself? Okay, I'll write about what's going on in the markets, I'll do research. And you have to be able to give free samples. You've heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, right? I had d I had dinner with him about two months ago in New York City. Well, you could tell him his story if you ever not a it was through another connection. There was twelve of us, so he didn't know me beforehand, but but yeah, it's funny. We put out some social media yesterday where he's sitting here talking to me and I'm staring at him like it's funny.

37:32 So yeah. So this is back in twenty fifteen. He mentioned some people have to give their head have to be realistic. Why will someone want to work with you if they don't know you? Offer them something free. And then I did that. Give free samples. Hey, here's a you want to see sample work that I'm doing that could be of interest. Here you go. Here's a free sample. Tell me what you about you like, okay, let's talk. You kind of have to get people to give something free to want. It's kind of like freemium. And we see it with a lot of products on the internet. And First you have to be able to give samples, you have to be able to contact, you have to deal with rejection, and you have to market yourself. And I always say this, stay away from politics and religion unless you're not making money off of it.

38:16 Cause you know who you're gonna offend. Now at the end of the day, if it doesn't pay your bills, it doesn't matter. Cause in my honest opinion, at the end of the day, people care about being able to f feed themselves and their loved ones. Cause if you can't do that, then you're dealing with real stress, in my opinion. Hm. So to market and brand and you had to learn that and it wasn't comfortable, right? You had to really step outside of your comfort zone. I it was brutal. It was brutal. Like there are some days, like I talk to a month, there's some days you feel like the biggest loser. You're like, I am a loser. I can't do this. But some days you're like, I am Rocky Bobo. I could take on anyway.

38:57 And I don't know how you feel, but the first client you get, it is the bet it's like you win the Stanley Cup, the Super Bowl. It's amazing. In my opinion, the first client, it could be like for two bucks. Who cares? It's amazing because you did it. It's no one helped you. Well, it could be from reference stuff, but they wanted what you offer. You can't buy knowledge. You can't buy intelligence. You have to earn it. And that's the great thing about it. When you're an entrepreneur, you build something and someone gets it, you're like, wow. And it could be a team. It's the best feeling. Whoever I talk to is an entrepreneur, they say that they all remember their first sale. Why do you think that was special?

39:37 Because it was kind of like you maybe it's kind of I think all entrepreneurs are like this 'cause they love their job. It's kind of like a child to them, but it's kind of like it's a validation thing. It's like someone in the world values what I'm offering. And they like it and it's a respect thing too. If you ask anyone, I think they respect is so important. And being an entrepreneur is someone willing. take their money to buy what you're offering is a big like, wow. And I think it's also a good sign of all the hard work you did is paying off. What do we need to do to maintain that same level of excitement and satisfaction as we get into the mundane, everyday, cyclical production of our businesses?

40:27 No, that's great. I think it goes back to what I said before, being able to manage stress. Cause what I went through, it was stressful. Getting rejected and stuff. And you have to go in with the Monday with a clear head, be like, I I I know it seems I don't want to sound negative, but expect bad things, but make sure what's your priorities. It could be health. It could be that person that you love or healthy. It could be like, I got my seven hours sleep, whatever is it the most most important, and everything else will be Done well because I worked with great entrepreneurs and the way they've been able to deal with stress, I was like, you can call me 247 because you taught me how to deal with stress that goes in my personal and business life.

41:11 That's so valuable. So being able to go on a money be like, hey, I can expect it to be a stressful day, but you know what? I can find a solution. That's very important. Who's who's Daniel's ideal client? Well, family office or a venture capital fund that values research, that they use research to make investment decisions. That's my ideal client. Did you design that or did that evolve that that was necessary to focus on that being the ideal client? Did you set out that was it or did that evolve?

41:51 That evolved, I pivoted because I did a research on family offices for a company for a publisher in 2016. Before it was just finan it was actually financial management initially and some research. But I got more clients doing research and I did a research for a company that dealt with family offices, just analyzing them, and then that opened my eyes. I'm like, wow. Then you see What a t tell us what a family office is. Okay. Family office is usually a case. It's a high net worth individual. Let's just say they invented this pencil and they sold hundreds of millions. And they're like, you know what? I got all this money. I have children, but I don't know how they're gonna deal with the money.

42:34 I wanna make sure it's the money's generational wealth. And usually they need if I'm not mistaken, over fifty million in assets or in cat liquidity. And then they build the office a family office and invest in companies, or sometimes they're part they own shares in like legal companies, accounting firms, philanthropy, and et cetera. And what I've noticed, a lot of these family offices, they have one company that does investment, then the accounting company that they own does accounting for this investment office. It's like a domino effect. It's all connected, it's all circling. And it Is where you see where a lot of money goes into the world.

43:15 Bill Gates and his former wife, they had the Bill Gates and Melinda Foundation. That's a philanthropy. There's so many I would say most of the successful business people that we see today most likely have family offices. It's just a way that they're making investments and allocating capital, right? Definitely. And it's so they can secure their generational wealth. It minimizes tax liability too. And they have real estate companies and stuff. I think you see in the UK, you see UAE, there's a l a lot of family offices that went there, Singapore. The what about this part of this coming into the conversation?

43:55 What what what didn't we talk about? Like 'cause I got this picture of Daniel here in the black suit. He looks like James Bond coming from Croatia. what what's on your mind right now in March of twenty sixth that we didn't talk about? How the future of the workplace is gonna be. I think we see what I see with investing in a lot of companies. I look at, for example, someone's talking to me about real estate. Why is it important that some companies still have offices and stuff? I'm like, it's a domino fact. These banks are backing up, and like these real estate developers, and hence JP Morgan has that new headquarters in New York City, Manhattan, and How much is the workspace going to change and how much are companies are are we going to see a thousand people, companies that are in a service industry or product, or is there going to be maximum maybe a hundred?

44:49 I think that's going to change rapidly because it was interesting. I'm a big fan of history. And I believe in the late fifties, Detroit was the richest city in the world. And you see how much the workplace has changed with the auto industry and stuff like that. What will the f will there be more entrepreneurs and less big corporations? And I s think that's probably gonna be the path, especially what we see with AI agents. You could build the app in like a few dates if you want to. So I think the workplace is gonna change rapidly. For the better or or worse, we'll see. But I think it's definitely gonna change.

45:30 Yeah. Do you think that these things are how tough is it to predict these outcomes? it's difficult at times because a lot of times I looked at companies and I'm like, you know what, I think they're gonna be successful. Boom, they get hit. By it could be a competitor coming up because When you said looking into companies to invest in, it's good to have traction. So that means have some customers or have letter of intents of potential customers that want to work with you when you release a certain product because it's so difficult to get that. And I really do respect anyone who's building something 'cause it's extremely stressful.

46:14 'Cause you're thinking big work twenty four seven, but It is extremely important to have that. The this is a good conversation. Family offices, philanthropic organizations that are looking to make investments. It sounds like Daniel Nikic in Croatia is your dude. How wait, when did you leave? We're wrapping this up, but when did you leave Canada and go to Croatia? So I finished university in two thousand nine. I went to Brock and I was twenty one years old. So I'm like, see how Europe is. Why not? Twenty one. And then I ended up staying. But I did not think I was gonna stay.

46:54 I was again I ended up staying due to personal reasons and I don't regret it because who knows how my life would be and I think you can't live w life with a regret if you're doing the right thing at the end of the day. And I probably wouldn't be an entrepreneur today if I didn't do that. If you're doing the right things, you don't have to live with regret. That's a great way to end the conversation. hey, what's the one place that people should come and engage with you? LinkedIn, a website, a social media, what's the one that you want to direct them to? they can check out my website where they can see 'cause I post blogs and podcasts I've been on and they can see my background work, which is DanielNekich dot com, or they can go on my LinkedIn. They I usually post some research that I've noticed like about recent news that's interesting, give takeaways, what's going on.

47:38 So they can also reach out to me there too. Awesome. Hey Daniel, thanks for giving us this time and giving us a little bit of an exposure to what's happening internationally with investment and if we should go to Dubai or not, about entrepreneurs dealing with stress and just act the right way, do the right thing. You're not gonna have to worry about regrets. That's an awesome way to leave this man. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.