Nelson Chu On Raising $50 Million To Make Alternative Investments More Transparent And Accessible

Nelson Chu, the co-founder and CEO of Percent, is a testament to the power of resilience, determination, and visionary thinking. His journey from New Jersey to the helm of a multimillion-dollar fintech startup underscores his inherent entrepreneurial spirit and his ability to harness past experiences for future successes.

Percent has acquired funding from top-tier investors like Forté Ventures, White Star Capital, B Capital, and Vectr.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Chu’s journey from New Jersey to Rutgers University
• His early career, spanning wealth management to BlackRock
• His unsuccessful startup, consulting career, and the launch of Percent

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For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. 

Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Nelson Chu:

Nelson Chu is the current Founder and CEO of Percent, and they have also held positions at BlockFi, Recharge Capital, and MySupport. He has been in the business world for over 10 years, and their experience has been largely in strategic advisory and portfolio management.

Nelson got their start as an analyst with BlackRock’s Fixed Income Portfolio Management’s Business Strategy Group. He then went on to found Lumenary, a startup that helps other startups and established brands with their vision, expansion, and product scaling.

In 2014, they co-founded MySupport, an online platform that helps seniors, people with disabilities, and families connect with direct support workers.

The company was acquired by RISE Services in 2020. Nelson’s most recent venture is Percent, a financial technology company that provides instant cash-back rewards to users when they shop at certain stores.

Nelson Chu graduated from Rutgers University with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science.

Connect with Nelson Chu:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• TheOrg
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Um, alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So super excited about the guest that we have today. We’re gonna be talking about building scaling financing and transitioning from a service based business to a venture backed business I think that that’s quite the journey and I think that you’re all going to find this. Inspiring so without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest today. Nelson Chu welcome to the show. So born and raised in New Jersey nellson you know quite the upbringing with a traditional you know mom and and an entrepreneur dad. So.

Nelson Chu: Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Alejandro Cremades: Tell us about growing up give us a walk through memory lane.

Nelson Chu: Yeah, absolutely definitely definitely traditional upbringing in Central New Jersey Nothing too crazy, but my mother was definitely on the traditional side like you mentioned she basically said you have to go to an Ivy league school. You have to become a doctor or a lawyer or a banker and then you’ll be set for life.

Alejandro Cremades: The.

Nelson Chu: And me being the maybe quasi entrepreneurreneial person at a very young age was like I don’t believe you I’m not going to listen to any of that Basically and my father actually who was an entrepreneur in his own right? He had cofounded a software company with a bunch of his friends. Ah, he was very encouraging of me to try and start new things. Try new things Tinker with stuff.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: And his rule of thumb was basically if it’s under a thousand dollars. You’re not going to throw it away in two weeks I’ll buy it for you. So I was able to actually do a lot of creative stuff back in the day I bought a mac in like 9099 before anybody really cared about max back then taught myself photoshop taught myself moviemaking and so really flexed the side of my brain that was most certainly not academic and that was great.

Alejandro Cremades: And.

Nelson Chu: But then ultimately had to go to college and so went to a not ivy league school and that’s sort of how I evolved from there but you know it was ah it was an important part of my life I think for where I got to today in terms of being able to tinker with the creative side of my life and my brain that I didn’t have before and I give a lot of credit. My father for that. Although my mom did contribute to a lot of other things that are very good about me as well. But yes.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, and also you went to ruggers and and and basically you studied there a political science and then also economics and you accelerated the whole thing you know in 3 years I mean that’s quite an achievement. So why? why were you? So so in a hurry.

Nelson Chu: Yeah I was I think so done with academics I didn’t really like I did academics in high school I definitely didn’t like academics in college but again mom wanting me to be a doctor a lawyer or banker I swore off doctor because that’s like 7 years of med schools. That’s definitely not happening. Ah, but for lawyer and banker I was like let me keep my options open. Maybe I’ll go into finance. Maybe I’ll go into law Econ Polysy it kind of works out but I still want to finish quickly at the end of the day and I managed to squeeze in a minor in philosophy as well. Which probably is the most useful out of the all the other three that I studied so far.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, my god a little bit of everything you know what? when when you actually graduated you know, funny enough you know you you joined the financial service base and then you know it was it was quite the time you know back then because I mean obviously we were coming out of the economic meltdown. And they you joined bank of America you were doing wealth management and more of the same at Blackrock but it sounds like you know the stints that you did there. You know I mean we’re talking about a few years just a couple of years basically those were what propelled you into on entrepreneurship. So. Tell us what happened you know in that journey I mean it sounds like it sounds like perhaps you know like you met you know, whatever expectations you had from your mom and then maybe you kind of like were like okay I’ve made an eye want to do my own thing. What happened there? What made you you know switch direction.

Nelson Chu: Yeah, absolutely I think it was a very very deep disdain for corporate culture that kind of made me take the plunge ultimately and when I was starting out my career Bank America you know it’s a perfectly great company and I did learn a lot actually and I actually these days even encourage I only would hire. To start the career and corporate because you do learn a lot about professionalism and perfectionism and all those good things but you know don’t necessarily have to stay there for that long but I bank America I was doing wealth management and business intelligence on that side was a great starting point for my career. But honestly it was just very low impact. Everything I did didn’t really make a difference in the bottom line for the business ultimately and that was just not for me and so after a year and a half at bank of America I was thinking to myself and I was getting told by friends. Oh you should join the buy side buy side is so much better than the sell side and in my head I’m thinking all right? Well you know let’s go to the other side of the street see how it goes. And so I joined the largest buy-side shop on the street like you mentioned in blackrock on the operation side of fixed income portfolio management and within two months probably I was like you know what? I don’t think any of part of finances for me whatsoever. I’m so done with this but just in case you should probably see ah a job out for a year so I stayed there for a whole year.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Before I said okay you know what? the New York Tech startup ecosystem is taking off in 20122013 and now is the right time to take a plunge because how hard could it possibly be to build a startup and I realized very quickly how hard it was to actually build a startup so that’s a whole another story. But yes.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, So so when you when you actually you know did that that attempt of doing a startup I mean obviously you know you you did that and then you went into consulting and and we’ll talk about this just in a little bit because that’s you know, kind of like the sick way on where you are today. But. You know the the saying of you either succeed or you learn you know is quite real. So I guess that from this first attempt you know where you all obviously did not find the desirable outcome that you had to hope for I’m sure that you learned quite a bit I Guess. What was the biggest lesson that you had to take away you know from that experience.

Nelson Chu: Absolutely and I totally agree with that sentiment. Ah you have to every single thing that happens in your life happens for a reason and there’s no good or bad about it. You just learn from it right? if something was a great outcome. That’s obviously a great outcome for you and you learn the benefits of what worked in that situation.

Alejandro Cremades: Mean.

Nelson Chu: But if it was a not great. Outcome. You’re a better person because of it and so in that instance that startup that I tried to do it exploded within like six months that was literally it that was all I could have and I had poured every dollar I had saved up from finance to try to make it and get her off the ground but coming out of that because I had no idea what I was doing. Was picking up sales skills how to sell an idea to an investor which I didn’t really raise any money for how to design things because I asked to look good and all these things that I had actually done and tinkered with back when I was a lot younger in high school came back to bear in this instance for this startup I was trying to do.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Alejandro Cremades: I. Are.

Nelson Chu: And it ended up being the springboard for the consulting company like like you were mentioning because everything that I picked up there from the sales skills. The design skills the powerpoint skills. The deck skills was what got the consulting company off the ground and so everything that I am today everything that I’ve ever done has been because the things that I have accomplished and learned from. Historically.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Have gotten me to this point today and I’ve leveraged every bit of it to be able to kind of get percent to what it is today.

Alejandro Cremades: Now now let’s talk about the consulting you know gig that you did so. So basically there what you did is you became a consultant and you had your your firm where you were helping others. You know, pretty much on building their own stuff. So what were some of the things that you learned. Ah, and they you know you even had ah a really interesting success. You know story there because you had a company that was incuated there and and basically you guys ended up selling it. You know the company ended up being sold to um, private equity firm. But at least you were able to see the the full cycle of a business you know on reaching that finish line. But I’m sure like you know it was quite a journey and and quieting you know, ah full of full of lessons too. You know to to to be able to have that nice ah immediate turn towards building what ended up being percent. So so why was what were you guys doing there and and and how would you say that. That helped you to really give you that push to become you know a second time founder.

Nelson Chu: Yeah I almost always encourage just like I encourage people to go into corporate I Also encourage people to work in services as well because you learn a lot about how to create and operate a margin drivenven business right? which is very different than a venture back company where you’re flush with cash but in the consulting capacity. It was also an exercise in how do I figure out where we go next from here what services do we add? Do we have the capacity for it. So It was very very eye-opening in terms of just being open to new ideas and open to where you think a business can go and not saying no to anything essentially just keeping your eyes and options open.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean made.

Nelson Chu: So when we first got started as a consulting company. It was coming out of the fact that the startup I had done had imploded and so I was broke. So when you’re broke I’d argue you tend to do your best work because your back is against the wall and the first clients I got was to do pitch deck work because the pitch deck I had ah granted the idea for the startup was terrible but the pitch deck was great.

Alejandro Cremades: And was.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Ah, was to really do pitch deck for startups and it was leveraging all the design work that I had known how to pick up and design skills that I had picked up. It was leveraging my financial modeling skills from working in at Blackrock At Bank Of America and all that was pretty good right? And so from there. Ah, we started to have a lot of success with startups in raising money because they use our pitch deck to raise additional venture capital and the good news is when you help a startup with raising venture capital you feel like they feel like you were part of their journey. They end up coming back to you and saying oh can you do like design work for me like product and Uiu X Design

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Nelson Chu: Can you do development for me. Can you do marketing. Can you do branding and we kind of just crossed our fingers and said yeah, we like totally have all those skills in-house like we’ll help you here and you just hire for it accordingly and we built out our team from there. We maxed out about 15 people between design product, engineering etc and it was really.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, think as a regular make we like through the money.

Nelson Chu: Adjusting in and expanding the team to fill the gaps that we were seeing from clients so we didn’t just say oh we’re going to be known for pitchtex forever. It was being open to doing more building more expanding our offerings to be able to be more full service that has paid dividends for us here at percent as well and then from the incubation side and and launching my support I’m glad you bring that up. Um, it was because it was our first foray into saying what could a potential venture-backed company look like what does the process look like what do you have to do to get things off the ground things like that and it was a great experience in trying to sell a very ah complex product into a very opaque and archaic industry which is health insurance. Essentially.

Alejandro Cremades: Completely free.

Alejandro Cremades: E.

Nelson Chu: And medicaid. So that part of the process I think also gave me a lot of confidence in myself that I could actually do something like that again in capital markets which is equally archaic and equally opaque and things like that. So everything I’ve done to this point has led me to what I am today.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Don’t regret any of it and I think the ability to learn from everything process everything internally in my head and to figure out sort of you know how do we leverage and use Pattern recognition to see what the path forward is is what’s critically important but above all I think the most important takeaway was to have a.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Ah, overarching sense of confidence in yourself and your own abilities to be able to pull it off because the road is very rocky, very unstable, very unpredictable and if you have in the back of your mind that everything’s going to be okay and you’re going to figure it out then the likelihood of it being successful is significantly higher even if that’s not actually steeped in reality.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, So then so then let’s talk about that moment where the Il percent became so clear and what was that transition like from the service base side to the venture back side because I think that here you had an advantage you know on your end and that’s the fact that. You you you didn’t really need to like give like your notice and take the leap of faith and hope that things are going to work out and work night and day you know because you know you’re about to die I Mean in this case, you were able to perhaps transition at your own Pace. You know sort of saying So what? us do that? How is that for you.

Nelson Chu: Yeah I think transition your own pace is probably underselling sort of the urgency that we had here in terms of trying to get percent off the grounds but you know we were very fortunate I I attribute a lot of this to to luck and I think startups being successful if.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah, yeah.

Nelson Chu: People don’t attribute some of it to luck I think they’re doing themselves. They’re doing themselves a over-repsentation of of sort of their contributions to it. But in this instance we had a team right? We had a team that knew how to build products when you had a team that knew how to market and and build a brand and so the thinking was always for the right idea at the right time.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Alejandro Cremades: We can.

Nelson Chu: We should do something the old fashioned venture backed way and so percent was part of the outcomes of a whiteboarding session essentially where we were like what are are the ideas out there in the market and for better or worse as much as I swore off financial services after leaving Bank America and Blackrock we kept getting a lot of fintech clients as our consulting clients and so we’re always in and around the hoop. And we saw the opportunities at the time that were out there that we thought we could do just a little bit better right? and this is all again, a lot of learnings that I’ve taken from advising founders investing companies building the consulting company. We knew that if we can build a better mouse trap for an industry that is quasi established ish.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: You can probably get users to come to you. You don’t need to kind of start from 0 and build up a brand build a reputation sell people in what you’re doing so back in 28 17 2018 there were a lot of alternative investment platforms that were out there whether it’s like you know, investing in real estate investing and other startups investing in credit things like that and the challenge or the difference was.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: We felt it wasn’t very good for the investor to invest in these things. The investment maturities the term that you’d have to lock up your money was like 4 to 5 years that’s crazy like a lot of startups these startups only make it 4 to 5 years and then the minimums were super high. So yes, if you’re a.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, they need.

Nelson Chu: Hedge fund or ultra-hinet worth investor. It’d be two hundred fifty thousand dollars minimums but these were twenty five Forty Thousand dollars minimums that’s also very not approachable for the average person and the yield was pretty similar for everybody right 9 to 16% give or take and so we thought and we knew if we can just leverage everything that these companies have built.

Alejandro Cremades: A.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, let me.

Nelson Chu: But offer a lower minimum product. So $500 very approachable and offer a shorter duration product call it three months one month six months something like that. We’d be able to get a lot of interest from people who just you know are like to be able to try stuff before they actually commit to something and so that was a starting point and we knew that having advised have founders for a long time. Where you start the idea on the back of the napkin isn’t where you end right? Just be open to the idea of taking it somewhere else just have a good enough idea to start that was enough for percent to get off the ground. We were just a better alternative investment platform with a better mousetrap and we knew we could get investors that way and then we could figure it all out from there and so we had a team that knew how to do it. Built it very quickly got investor money because I knew investors from building the consulting company and all came together very nicely. Even if there was organized chaos going on behind the scenes.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Alejandro Cremades: And we know we.

Alejandro Cremades: So then so then tell us what ended up becoming percent and then at what point you know, like that switch you know happened.

Nelson Chu: Yeah I think it was always. We knew that this I probably wasn’t be where it’s going to end right because the market that we’re going after is finite. There’s only that many investors out there interested in private credit products. There’s only that many investors out there who are interested in alternatives and so there has to be something bigger here. And having gone through the process ourselves of doing these deals trying to get you know companies who need Debt Capital and investors want to invest in it on Board. We recognize that there was no tech to speak of in this industry and we also realized industry was like multitrillion.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: And so that’s when we opened our eyes The fact that rather than just being yet another platform or yet another investment bank or someone like that who’s an intermediary in the space. We should just own the infrastructure we should build all these sourcing capabilities the structuring capabilities the syndication capabilities the surveillance capabilities because if we’re having these problems as that intermediary.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Everybody else in the industry must be as well and that’s paid dividends as we’re seeing interest in adoption. What we’re building because the incumbent solution is excel phone calls and emails. So the bar is so low that we have a lot to work with here to make it that much better and we are exponentially better than the alternative.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, so then how do you guys make money.

Nelson Chu: Well, the good news is because we kind of are a software solution and there’s so many participants in the space we are able to charge everybody. But that means that if we could charge everybody. No one feels like they’re getting taken advantage of we don’t gouge anybody so we do charge the borrowers who need to borrow money or again financing. Ah, we charge the intermediaries the underwriters who do these deals and put that together and we charge investors to be able to get access to this ecosystem and we also have kind of pure place software solutions that we charge for on an ala cart basis if that’s all they want so it is a very very diverse business model that I think in a market like we’re in today. Ah, having a diversified revenue mix is super important. We definitely have that in spades. Thanks to the market that we’re in.

Alejandro Cremades: So I’ve heard you you know talk about you know. Also the evolution you know the market. What have you learned to about listening to the market so that you can adjust the execution towards.

Nelson Chu: That’s a great question I think sometimes the market doesn’t know what it needs and that that happens actually in in various different industries in ours in particular. Ah the difference is are you that much better than what they do today.

Alejandro Cremades: A.

Nelson Chu: Ah, because it’s just easier to do nothing and keep the existing workflows the same and so for us we knew that if we were to be successful in the space we need to actually have something extremely robust and extremely comprehensive because that’s the only way that will be successful.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: So there’s been other companies that do one piece of the puzzle or they solve it for one side of the 3 side of market. That’s not enough but you actually need to have all three sides working in tandem to be able to have it be worth their while to adopt software like this versus just sending an excel file over email and then just figuring out from there so we spent the better part of 4 years

Alejandro Cremades: Um I leave it.

Nelson Chu: Building the alternative investment platform but behind the scenes building software for all 3 sides to be able to actually then sell over time and that’s where we’re at today right? we are in a position where we’re very fortunate of having taken all the learnings of doing over a billion dollars in volume over four hundred transactions applied all those learnings to.

Alejandro Cremades: The. A.

Nelson Chu: The actual software side of the business and be able to sell a pure price software solution that is exponentially better because if it’s not exponentially better. People won’t do anything they will just do exactly what they do today and so we’ve spent the time the effort the money the resources to do in a very pragmatic and methodical way and it’s paying dividends now because we.

Alejandro Cremades: Wouldn’t believe. Are.

Nelson Chu: Listened to the market but we also knew where the puck was headed and so we built for that and sort of led the horse to water. Essentially.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, so let’s talk about resources and capital let’s double click on that how much capital have you guys raised to date and what has been the experience of going from 1 round to the next.

Nelson Chu: Yes, we raised close to $50000000 as the data is recording. We actually had closed our series b for a but little over $30000000 a couple months ago. So it’s and it’s been an interesting exercise I will say that what we do is not conventional for most venture capital investors.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Capital markets in general is a complex industry. That’s not really well understood unless you’re kind of in the space. So we’ve never really had that easy of a time fundraising even during the 0 interest rate environment where capital is very free and easy to come by. We’ve always had to sell the dream and I think the reality with capital markets company as well.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Is that the revenue doesn’t come for a while but when it does it accelerates very quickly from there and we’re kind of hitting that inflection point soon in the company’s life. But until then you are for sure selling that future vision selling that comprehensive feature set selling the three sider market which has already a challenge so it’s never been an easy time for us.

Alejandro Cremades: Are. EEEE.

Nelson Chu: And the most recent round our series B was by far the most complicated most difficult right? because I think it’s with Series B companies people are expecting. You have all your growth levers in place. You have all your product market fit figured figured out and you’re just really kind of putting money to scale. We use our series B to do a fundamental transformation of the business.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: From ah alternative investment platform marketplace exchange. What do you want to call it into a pure place software solution. We’re selling the dream of the future of software right? So not an easy sell and especially in the environment in 2022 for fundraising where it was extremely difficult. We were very fortunate that we found believers in the future state of our business when they saw what we had built. We ended up oversubscribing the round and also raising an evaluation that was higher than the prior round and so that’s I think rare in 2022 2023 that’s a credit to sort of everything we’ve put into the business at this point but it still took you know 490 conversations with one hundred and forty seven Bcs over the course of twelve months like that is.

Alejandro Cremades: Are E e.

Nelson Chu: By no means an easy fundraising process by any stretch of the imagination.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, yeah, no kidding now now you were talking about product Market fit there and the importance of it at what point was it evident that you guys had product Market fit.

Nelson Chu: So going back to our founding I think we knew that we’d have product Market fit from the get-go because there are other alternative investment platforms out there with different asset classes that are proven that investors like this type of stuff right? So We knew that if we can just go out there with our own version of it. We’d be modestly successful and there’s going to be product Market Fit. And that would buy us time to be able to turn the business profitable that bias time to be able to build software that we can then sell into the future state The future State Product Market Fit I’ll be the first to admit and that’s what the series B funding was For. We don’t have it yet right? because we’re not even really out to Market. We are going to figure that out.

Alejandro Cremades: E.

Nelson Chu: Um, we do have 4 years of history 4 years of learnings 4 years of knowledge of what works in the market based on our own experience of doing it and the thesis that we’re going to test very quickly is if it works for us. It should technically work for everybody else, but the jury is still out. We won’t know until we actually launch it in earnest in q four q one.

Alejandro Cremades: E.

Alejandro Cremades: E.

Nelson Chu: And that’s goingnna be the tell for whether this is actually going to be evolving as we expected but as is the case with every startup. It’s probably going to not go a according to plan. It’s going to cost you more money more people and more time than you expect. So if you bake that in then you probably will be okay.

Alejandro Cremades: Um, I hear you now now Nelson imagine you go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of percent is fully realized what does that word look like.

Nelson Chu: That is a a beautiful world that I probably have had either dreams or nightmares about on a regular basis but the the world for that is really that every single ah private market transaction is really flowing through our system whether it’s because we helped with the capital. But that’s because we helped with the workflow the tooling and everybody who transacts in that space whether it’s somebody who needs capital somebody who helps support the transaction process or somebody who’s putting the money to work is using our platform to be able to make things happen so you can think of it almost as like the bloomberg for private markets which doesn’t really exist that is the vision that we’re building towards. That is a multibillion dollar multitrillion dollar idea as proven out by bloombreak itself for public markets and I think given everything we’ve done so far in the last few years we are well on our way there.

Alejandro Cremades: Now, let’s let’s talk about because we’ve been talking here about the future I just want to talk about the past with a lens of reflection. So let’s say I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time maybe to that moment where you were you know there at Blackrock you know, ah perhaps like thinking about. Doing something of your own and and giving your notice now. Let’s say you have the opportunity of of being able to just whisper. You know your younger self ear on that on that you know younger self of of Nelson and and being able to give that younger Nelson. 1 piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Nelson Chu: Yeah I do have a couple mantras that I live by one of the ones that has gotten me through the challenging times of running a startup is that the the fact of the matter is nothing’s ever really as as bad as it seems like you know if something goes south if a deal blows up if. Ah, client pulls out. It’s not that bad right? like you still, you’re still here. Your team is still here. You’re still fighting and the sun will come up tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world just keep pushing put your head down and go but it’s also got to be balanced out with the other side. Nothing’s ever as good as it seems either. You could have the best conversation with a prospective client. You could have the best conversation at the Vc. And they just disappear right? So you’re riding high and then it just doesn’t happen and you can’t let that get you down like the reality is if you have the ability and uncanny ability to stay level through the process as an entrepreneur that will work out for you in spade and so I’ve finessed that and it took the consulting company to really kind of get us there because we had.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: Instances where we almost ran out of cash right? It’s like you know what we will figure this out. It’s not the end of the world and there’s instances where we almost ran out cash here percent as well and you know what you figure it out. It’s not the end of the world and at the same time we’ve had instances where we thought the partnerships would be done deals here that it would be a huge uplift in revenue and just disappears doesn’t work out as you expect and so.

Alejandro Cremades: The.

Alejandro Cremades: Are e.

Nelson Chu: Not being able to succumb to the highs and lows of this and just being able to keep a level head will be the most important skill any founder. Any entrepreneur can have because it helps you make better decisions along the way.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean obviously easier easier said than done I mean I’ve been there, you know with one of my last companies we we we almost run out of money like 6 times. No so I know I know I know. But yeah, so so I know I know the feeling but but but but this is so profound what what you’re sharing in.

Nelson Chu: I’m halfway there I got 3 So yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: And what? what? what came to mind there that I love to to get your take on is when you’re going through one of those tough times to say you’re you’re about to you know, run out of money you know Runway is tight. How do you quiet the mind. How do you? How do you quiet those what is that are hitting you on that are like so difficult to deal with.

Nelson Chu: Yeah, it’s going back to that unwavering belief in yourself right? because you need that confidence because the moment that confidence Slips. For example, if you’re running on a cash you asking somebody for money even though they in a normal situation would give you money if they don’t sense that confidence from you that you’re going to put it to good work. That it’s going to be used effectively that it’s going to make a huge difference. They’re not going to give it to you right? So You cannot in any way shape or form convey any sense of fear any sense of doubt and so pairing the ability to stay level headed with a confidence or quiet confidence in yourself. You will go very far as a result of that and I think I’ve.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Alejandro Cremades: This is. Are.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: If I had done percent when I first quit blackrock I would have failed definitely for sure because I haven’t gone through the ups and downs of that services business of the consulting business where you learn how to keep a level head along the way where you have trouble making payroll sometimes and you figure it out. That creativity without the stress is tantamount and incredibly important towards the startup journey and the entrepreneurial journey because it’s going to take all the creativity you got when things are really challenging and you cannot let fears what Ifs and doubts Cloud your mind you just need to basically believe that it’s all going to sort itself out.

Alejandro Cremades: Are.

Nelson Chu: And if it doesn’t to be honest as the founder you’re going to be fine like you will always be fine because that’s in your nature and so you just need to always kind of believe that it’s going to work itself and that you have the ability to do it because that will be what carries you through good times and bad.

Alejandro Cremades: Um I love that No some for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi what if the best way for them to do so.

Nelson Chu: Yeah, so we’re easy to find. It’s just percent.com if you’re interested in private credit investment opportunities yielding above 15% in this environment but for me personally I would be happy to chat with anybody who wants to learn more hear. My story or learn more about percent I’m just at Nelson at percent.com

Alejandro Cremades: You see enough. Well Nelson thank you so much for being on the dealmaker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Nelson Chu: Thanks so much for having me. It’s great talking to you.

*****

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