Shelby Clark On Building Turo Into A $1 Billion Business And Investing In Startups That Make Humanity More Resilient

Shelby Clark raised over half a billion dollars for his first company. Now he has switched to the other side of the table to invest in new emerging medicines and as a startup investor. His startup, Turo, attracted funding from top-tier investors like Expansion Venture Capital, Webb Investment Network, Quiet Capital, and General Motors.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Psychedelic therapies
• Recognizing the right moment to step back from your company as a founder
• What Shelby is investing in now

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About Shelby Clark:

Shelby is a pioneer & visionary in the sharing economy after he first started RelayRides, which soon became what we now know as Turo. Turo has raised over $500 million in venture capital, is the largest car-sharing marketplace in the world, and is expected to IPO in 2021.

Connect with Shelby Clark:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmaker show. So today. We have a very exciting entrepreneur I think that we’re gonna be learning quite a bit you know about building and scaling. Ah, you’re all goingnna find you know his story very inspiring so without farther ado let’s welcome our guest today Shelby Clark welcome to the show. So let’s do a little of how walk through Memory Lane Shelby so why you were born in Colorado so how was life growing up.

Shelby Clark: Hi. Thanks So for having me.

Shelby Clark: Ah, life was really good I lived in a very unexciting suburban. Ah town of Denver Colorado a grew in Laura Colorado Starbucks Applebees as far Asia I can see not very exciting but you know a really comfortable. Great place to grow up.

Alejandro Cremades: And I mean obviously very much an entrepreneurial I’m wondering if anyone in your family you know was running their own stuff or or did you get that bug later on.

Shelby Clark: Um, nobody was really running that but my mom likes to tell a story of um I was like 5 years old me my best friend Thatcher? Um, we had a little lemonade stand and when like our our sales weren’t enough. We like put our lemonade stand in the wagon and took it door to door and. None of the people could like resist the 5 year old boys like selling lemonade stand. So we like our eliminats and just crushed it. Let me wagon I guess it was so.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing now. Well I guess I guess you know you you also studied ah by a mechanical engineering or or what were bio medical engineering. What was that again. Okay.

Shelby Clark: Bio Medical engineering. Yeah um.

Alejandro Cremades: And how and what? how do you land? you know with that type of um degree or what what picked your curiosity you know on studying that okay.

Shelby Clark: Ah, sure so see I was um when I was studying my my father unfortunately passed away very suddenly hit a heart attack. And it was a really very tough experience for all of us and just like a heartbreak for my father who who passed away so early and I think that I Um, you know I got really intrigued by the idea of technology in the body and if there could be um. You know, different like health innovations that would help people. Um you know on a large scale that was you know, um, a really worthy endeavor in my in my perspective. So um, you know I picked a really tough major um to like I ended up like for a long time doing nothing with it and then swirling back around. So. Long time I was like why didn’t I pick an easier major. But um, I’ve definitely circled back around to it life since ago and in those circles.

Alejandro Cremades: And then consulting you know, obviously consulting. You know is very Helpful. You know when it comes to um, resolving Problems. You know as they say the um, the consulting you know like it’s It’s all about like tackling big problems breaking them into small problems and then tackling you know one after the other. So I Guess. What What do you? think you really got from from that experience as I in management consulting.

Shelby Clark: Yes, my first job out of college was in management consulting. Um, and I think that I always thought that I would end up at the business. The intersective business in Biochech and so to had a technical degree I thought that going in a business might be a good place. Um, and I think that I learned how to solve big problems with data. Um, it was you know, ah you sort of got thrown into the deep end and all these different like strange. Um you know, ah situations and industries. Um, you know I got to be like a really great expert on um, the upstream oil exploration process. Um I could tell you all about like manufacturing t-shirts. Um. You know airline maintenance. All these things. Um, so you get to to learn how to really orient yourself in a totally unfamiliar place very quickly. Um, yeah, and then like I said how to solve big problems with data which I think has proved to be you know a really valuable skill.

Alejandro Cremades: So then what what got you into into kiwa you know why did you? you know leave the consulting side of it and how do you land in Kiwa.

Shelby Clark: Yeah, so um, management is whole think is not a very pleasant experience. Um, there’s lots of things about I didn’t like um you know the life like the travel is really tough. The hours are long. It’s really demanding. Um and it doesn’t you don’t get like a warm feeling like you’re making them world a better place. Um. My first job was ah we did consulting burn airline maintenance like a big airline and um, our recommendations led to a thousand people being laid off um that was really tough. Um, you know, frankly none of the airlines in those era were doing well at all and so it was something where like you sort of needed to chop off the arm or save the body. Um, but it it certainly wasn’t a like you know make you feel good sort of thing. Um, and so burnout is really high managing its own thing and so 1 thing that my firm did was they had a nonprofit um satbbatical program. So after about 2 years I reached my limit of like um. Management consulting and I took about six months and volunteered for a really early stage nonprofit called kiva.org um kiva it’s a peer-to-peer microfinance lending platform. So like it connects people around the world for um, microloans that create that provide fanal services people who Don have access to them. So. This was like 2006 when I got involved in Kiva Kiva was just quite a rocket ship at the time. Um, um, it sort of was a a rare nonprofit to sort of a follow growth trajectory of like ah you know, um, a like ah at the time like web two o company and um, it was just it was super inspiring I felt super passionate about the work that we were doing.

Shelby Clark: Um, and you know here I sort of learned and I none of us knew anything about microfinance. Um, you know I think that this is where I sort of learn like what happens when you lock a bunch people in a room um with with that have a bunch of passion for something. Um and I also Learned. Um. How big of an impact that consumer internet could have um you know if you can sort of tackle. Um ah, social issues with um, sort of a model that scales. The impact can be incredible.

Alejandro Cremades: Now now in your case you know you go to ah Harvard ah business school and I guess my question here you know comes like what triggered that like why did you decide it was the right time to go into business school at that point.

Shelby Clark: Um, so this this experience at kiva which is very inspiring. Um I ah you know I was just very inspired to try to start a company. Um, but I didn’t really I didn’t have any time or ideas or money or partners or you know as I was thinking about like what do I do next Um I was realizing like. Okay, I’m inspired to start something but I don’t really have any of the things that it might take to start a company so that business school would be um, a a really fertile environment um to go try to incubate something and it was um I can’t say enough good things about um, you know how you know? um. Yeah I was I ended up going to Harvard business school. Um and just everything about it was was fantastic. The classmates were were incredible. Um, they um you know I guess you only learned so much in Mba. It’s a lot more about like the connections and and the space. But. You know I think that a lot of doors were open to me and it definitely made my entrepreneurial journey much easier.

Alejandro Cremades: Now for you. Obviously you know like you had the um the the idea of of a massive company that that now you know it’s it’s incredible I mean I mean I’m even a customer of this company too. But turo the idea of toro. So. So tell us about you know, obviously you you incubated you know this idea during your time at Harvard. But how did the idea come to you and and what were the steps that you took in order to bring it to life.

Shelby Clark: Sure so as I mentioned I went to hps with a really strong focus on entrepreneurship I really wanted to start start something but didn’t know what it was um and um I um. Was a big zip car fan at the time. So zip car is a carserring service and it’s an alternative to car. They sort of advertise themselves as an alternative car ownership that you can access a vehicle on short notice instead of meaning to own one and um I thought it to be pretty true. Um that you know I was able to access mobility whenever I needed it. Um. My problem was that if I didn’t reserve a car for in advance that everything near me was booked and so on Thanksgiving Day two thousand and eight I reserved the closest car to me and it was um, two and a half miles away and for anyone who’s spent any time in Boston um, you’ll know some of these awful winter days where it’s like sleeing upwards at you. You know it’s like. Elements are attacking me through every direction and so I like ho my bike and I’m like trudging through the sleet in the snow to get to this car and I’m surrounded like as I’m just noticing like thousands of cars that are lining the streets many of which covered in snow look like they haven’t been driven in weeks and are like just trudging along the way and be like. Why do I have to go so far to get to this car. Why can I get in that car. What can I get in that car and so you know I sort of like I took these two things that I love like they background at kiva the idea of connecting people online. Um and zip car and the ah the ability to like access vehicles in your neighborhood.

Shelby Clark: And it just like instantly I saw them clean together. It was just like it was obvious instantly and um, and and I was like okay wait a minute like there this either exists or there’s a reason why um and so. Like any good entrepreneur I go home and like first thing do is start reserving domain names I have all these awful domain names like your car is my car.com and communal wheels was the best 1 of the day like their company was called communal wheels for a good six months um and um and started looking into it like why is it. You know is anyone doing this? no. The answer and the reason why was insurance nobody could could figure out how to insure it there are all these like insurance is ah you know, ah inherently risk adverse industry. They don’t want to try new things and so finding an insurance company that would that would sort of create a new insurance product for us. Um, was like the difficult thing and. We were the first people to figure it out. Um, and so we became the first peer-to-peer car company to launch. Um in 2010.

Alejandro Cremades: And day for the people to that are listening to really get it. What ended up being the business model of a touro. How does the company make money.

Shelby Clark: Yeah, so you can think of us sort of like airbanee for cars. Um, so um, car owners are able to enroll their car. They make a listing for their car. They specify. You know when the car is available and then their car gets listed. And then if you’re if you’re looking for a vehicle. Um, you can search for new area. You can search at airports wherever you’re traveling. Um and see you know? Um, ah you know hundreds of thousands of cars located you know in many countries all over the world. Um, and really cool cars. You know it’s not just sort of like what you will find at just a regular car rental company. Um, where it’s like you know a standard. Kia or something with like manual windows like these are cool cars like there’re you know, um, a lot of like fun cars with personality sometimes whenever there there were Cds member Cds like there was like an using Cd collection and them like you know and the the car or meet you and they they they show you around their car and they tell you about it. Um, if you’re traveling they’ll often drop it off for you at the airport. Ah, so just way easier than hopping and you know on the the bus to go to the rental car place and so um, yeah I mean I’m really excited about it because you know we’re taking the majority of revenue you’d that you’d spend to rent a car and that goes directly to somebody in your community. Um, ah and um, being able to access. So. Ah, the majority of business is actually in cities. So a large portion is at the airports but a lot of it is also within cities as well and so what cities have shown is that as people have access to mobility in their neighborhoods. They’re less likely to own a car and um and that means they drive a lot less about 40% less. So.

Shelby Clark: Um, interestingly providing access to vehicles leads to lesse riding and is a great thing for the environment. So um and you know all while um, you know revitalizing? um income in neighborhoods and um, you know, really providing at this point like great jobs and businesses for for many entrepreneurs around the world.

Alejandro Cremades: And what were the early days like of tu like at what point you know? Also do you realize that you guys have turned a corner because building a company like this is not easy. You know it’s a marketplace you got this supply demand the chicken and the egg problem. So. Ah, what point do you start to see that you guys have turned the corner.

Shelby Clark: It took a while you know this wasn’t sort of like an overnight hockey stick. This was like a long slog and it wasn’t easy. You know I mean I think that there was um, one of the biggest turning points for us was um, a decision to launch the marketplace nationwide. Um, so. We started off going on like sort of ah a market by market and even sort of like a hyperlocal basis where we were really focused on like advertising and building supply and demand um on a ah you know and a really local scale. This is how Zipcar worked um and this is sort of like the model that we were looking at. Zipard they need to mean maintain high utilization rates in their vehicles and so they sort of rolled them out in small pods. Um, and it worked that worked okay, but whenever you have like the challenges in marketplace in terms of like what you were saying the chicken or egg of building both the supply and the demand it was just it was just difficult because if you don’t have the sort of the critical mass. It’s difficult to bring on the supply and. And sort of matching it up takes a while. So um, we ended up hiring a Ceo a guy named Andre Haddad um he was also an entrepreneur. His company was acquired by ebay and then he became an executive at ebay for about a decade so Andre had um you know a lot of experience as a leader and particularly experience building marketplaces and. But he knew is that you empower a marketplace and you get out of the way. So like all the things that we were doing to to try to make it easier um was actually just was just tripping it up. Um, we also installed a technology in every car so that you could unlock the car with your with with your smartphones you didn’t have to exchange keys.

Shelby Clark: And in order to do that you have to have local infrastructure. They’re sort of like all these things but I was convinced that like we we needed this. It had to be really simple and easy. How to be just as easy as zip car. Um, but airbnb was working and people were exchanging keys at the time and and so um, you know, ah. Was Andre’s lead and and he really pushed us to make this sort of bold move of like of launching nationwide and um, at first it like it didn’t go up. You know like we really didn’t have hyperloc scale. Um, and it was sort of this like very slow um very slow process and um during that we. Um, we really struggled to fund rates and the company almost went out of business. Um, and so you know our investors really stood behind us. They they did an inside round for us. Um, and you know they sort of came to a rescue and and you know fortunately, by the time we came out of it. Um, you know the business. It just took a while to like sort of build the. The supply and demand. Um, and you know we started to see like pockets forming and then the pockets expanded and then they you know they joined with other pockets and um, you know it’s ah it it took a while. Um, but you know today it’s a you know, very vibrant marketplace all of the United States we’re and we’re launching in other countries around the world. Um, just launched in um, ah in Australia um, and yeah so the yeah I mean one of the lessons was um, you know, empower marketplace and get out of the way.

Alejandro Cremades: And also I mean the company right now I mean I believe it has raised like over half a billion so you know that’s pretty incredible now in your case you know, um, how were the early the early races like.

Shelby Clark: Um I was a good fundraiser. Um, you know I think the I like very enthusiastic um in a person who like was you know, not afraid to like jump up on the table and you know showha we’re going to change the world. Um, so I don’t know I think that like the first couple rounds. Um. They they actually like went pretty well um, actually the the first round the seed round that was that was a challenging one I think that um first of all I was still in Boston and at the time Boston like just really hadn’t figured out consumer internet and so um, you know the the the investors would just sort of look at me like you want a stranger to drive by range over I don’t I don’t want a wife came from major river. And ah, but that was natural comment. Um, and ah the what was really interesting was what we did was you know I had all these surveys all people ran into their car and um, like nobody cared about my surveys and so um, what we did was we launched a website. And um, went out to the street corner I printed out like 10000 postcards and had like lots of conversations with people and sort of at the end of this process I had 40 people who would sign up their cars um to to rent them out and so um, this was sort of enough proof for ah for investors to say. And went went from this abstract thing to being like we don’t care about your survey. No one’s going to do this to being like here is 40 people who are waiting to do this Um, and they were like how much money do you need? Let’s go and so you know I think about entrepreneurship as um, sort of like a series of experiments that reduce risk. Um.

Shelby Clark: And and so that’s what this was it was saying like what is the biggest risk facing this idea. It’s that people won’t run out their cars and so what is the cheapest, easiest fastest experiment that I could do to directly address that risk and this worked um and so yeah for any other entrepreneur thinking about this. It’s ah like it’s always what a framework I think about is like you know. What are the experiments that you can do to reduce risk in you know, um in in the overall like concept or idea that you’re working on.

Alejandro Cremades: Now in your case you know after a few years you know you decide to say time to turn page. So how was that moment where you decide you know to leave us Ceo of ah of toro how and when did that happen.

Shelby Clark: Um, yeah I mean honestly, it was really challenging. Um, and you know I like talking about this now because it was so challenging and um, you know I think that like one of the things that was happening was I was having a trouble building my team and um I think my my investors got really nervous and um. And they they like yeah they they heavily encouraged me to step down. Um it like it was pretty aggressive to be honest, um, and at the time it was really scary. Um I was really upset. Um I felt like personally attacked and um. You know I think that we all could have handled it better I think that the investors could have had a more um of like a dialogue round was going on and and and why and I think that like I could have taken a deep look at like what I was good at and what I wanted to do and like frankly I wasn’t a great Ceo. Um, you know I had a lot to learn and um. I had a very difficult time prioritizing things. Um I tried to like just do everything and you know I I eventually was able to learn a lot whenever we brought in Andre as a Ceo um, and you know I ended up overlapping with Andre for about a year um and then you know it can be difficult to um. You know to be in a company when you’re no longer the decision maker a company that you started and so I ended up I ended up leaving um on pretty good terms. Um, and you know what I’ll what I’ll say is like I mean things went well with Andre and you know the the company has done phenomenally well. Um.

Shelby Clark: You know I cannot be upset at all about any of the things that have transpired and you know frankly, they’ve allowed me to go on and pursue other things and passions and I’m so thrilled about where I’m at and you know the company is in a fantastic shape and so you know I mean I think that like I guess what I would consider entrepreneurs is. You know I encourage them to consider is like you know taking a deep look at like at how they’re doing and you know what the right trajectory is both for them and the the company and you know not everybody is a great Ceo and it’s a different profile. It’s a different job. It’s a different skill set. It’s a different like um. You know level of stress to be the Ceo of a growing company compared to the founder of an early stage company. And yeah I think I was a really good founder and um, you know at the time it wasn’t a great person to scale a company and we found somebody that was you know? Um i’ I’m curious that like how that would change now as I’ve I’ve grown a lot as you know a person and an entrepreneur. Was able to learn a lot from Andre both the time that we overlapped as well as the time I was on the board and had to front row a seat to the way that the company grew and evolved um and you know I think that like for for everybody for investors for entrepreneurs. Um, you know having just a really clear and open dialogue about what the company needs and and where um. You know people are going to be the best in contributing without being um you know too concerned about you know what? that means for you know for your ego. Um, it’s you know it just it’s led to great places for me and um I didn’t think it would.

Alejandro Cremades: So after after the experience with Turo um you turn page and then you started peers. What was pis about.

Shelby Clark: Yeah, so peers was a sort of a benefits aimed to be a benefits platform for independent workers. So um turro became a big part of what became called the sharing Economy. So so as we are coming out of the you know 2008 economic crash and. People started sharing things and everybody loved it like the sharing economy was like a boom. It was a thing. The media. Loved it. We got wrapped up in this whole thing and at first it was all positive stories and and then you know uber and lyft hit the scene and it was like wait a minute are people sharing things or these just crappy jobs with no benefits and you know I i. I saw what they were saying and I also like really loved how people were able to like earn a lot of money like this was creating a lot of opportunity for people to work on their own terms and so you know I was like wait a minute. Let’s not throw the baby out of the bathwater like this is a good thing that we people are able to come entrepreneurs are able to earn income on their own terms. Um, and if the issue is like you know benefits in a safety net. Why don’t we address that instead of like you know trying to shut down the sharing economy and so that’s what we did. So we we tried um at the time you know there was a big movement known as portable benefits and so this was sort of ah you know at its grandest. It was really rethinking the social safety net for independent workers. Um, you know, ah about half of American Workers do not have a normal sort of 40 hour week job with benefits and so you know, um, the the social sapina that was that was designed to support americans just doesn’t exist anymore. Um.

Shelby Clark: And we can see the impact of that all over the country through homeness list through poverty. Um, and whenever there’s not sort of a safety net like it gets rough out there. Um, you know, ah people get desperate it like it can be. It can just it can make things really really difficult. Um I now live in Costa Rica um and Costa Rica has ah, universal health care. Um, and just even that like where everybody knows that like if they get sick that um ah they will be taken care of. Um, it sort of just changes the way that that people act and that they approach difficult times. So anyways, um.

Alejandro Cremades: and and 1 question here that I want to ask you is you know as the saying goes you either succeed or you learn you know, obviously the outcome of peers was not the the type of company that you built you know with tourum so in this case for you. You know when things turn south.

Shelby Clark: Okay.

Alejandro Cremades: You know what happened really personally for you? yeah.

Shelby Clark: Yeah, so so company I and failing. Um, you know this like we couldn’t get ah the share economy companies to pay for benefits for their workers. Um, if they did that they made them look more like employees which is the whole thing they were trying to avoid and we had all sorts of reason. Anyways, it didn’t work. And so the company failed and um I was I really found myself in a tough spot. Um, you know I had really sort of like built this like Persona as an entrepreneur. It’s like um, it’s like what I did like what you know why I was interesting was that I was like. You know, doing hip things and like starting companies and um I don’t know I feel like ah yeah, that Um, yeah, like it’s it just it’s It’s like the way that I that I knew myself the way that I felt good about myself was that like I was creating these. Exciting things in the world and so who was I without those and it just led me on this long rabbit hole about like okay um, well doing the start of the company and you know at this point Turru is actually doing really well and it was like okay if I start another company does it have to be more successful than Turo like how likely is it getting more successful than Turo um is it about impact. Okay, well Like. What’s the impact that I want to create like when is it big enough and you know it was like um I think that I was like I was really chasing sort of validation and success I think this is really a lot of like what our society teaches to do like more bigger better. Um, and um, you know I.

Shelby Clark: That’s that’s really sort of like where where am I is taken and so um, like in this depression. Um I was sort of in a whim I decided to do a yoga teacher training and so I called my sister and I said let’s go to Bali um, and do yoga teacher training and she was like but I don’t want to be a yoga teacher and I was like I don’t either I’ll just go to Bali come on. And um, so we did. We went to Bali and did a yoga teacher traininging and it just blew us both away I think that like I was I was expecting to like learn you know a bunch of yoga poses and I like found spirituality. Um, you know I think that for me it sort of like turned the camera around. Like I think that I was looking I was like constantly seeking outside for like all the things that were going to um you know make me whole or or provide the validation that I wanted or needed and um and it sort of like turns things around to a more introspective look um and you know, um and you know the ah. All of the other practices. Um that I was learning like aside from yoga like meditation breath work movement dance. Um, ah philosophy. Um, these things just lit me up and I felt like you know, totally alive. Super present. Really excited about about life like in the moment um less like sort of worrying about what I was if I was doing was good enough or going to change the world. Um, and um and at the end of that at the end the end of that experience which already was was proving to be very, you know, very impactful I did my first psilocybin journey and so I had done mushrooms many times socially recreationally like giggling at burn man or you know running around music festival.

Shelby Clark: Um, and this is the first time that I did them and a really intentional basis sort of sat and meditated until really until like the world around me dissolved. Um, and at first is a very scary thing for like the the world to dissolve around you. Um, and in that dissolving. Um I felt connected to everything I felt. Inextricably tied to nature I felt connected to the people in my lives I felt incredibly loved and supported both the people externally as well as for myself, it was this like this internally sourced sense of like satisfaction and validation that I wasn’t finding anywhere else and um, it just blew me why it and and like in this this like complete. Like connection. Love joy I mean I’ve just it was definitely one of the most beautiful experiences in my life and you know I think it’s like it’s tough to feel alone when you feel connected to everything. Um.

Alejandro Cremades: And how how do you How do you land? you know also in Costa Rica because obviously you continued in in that journey now and and and obviously you know what you’re doing too. You know with your. With with with now on the investment side. You know it’s very much you know, attached to to to that breakthrough that you experienced.

Shelby Clark: Absolutely yeah, so I mean you know my personal experience with with this psched dog journey. Um, and let me just look what was going on. You know, like am I just like a crazy hippie like doing drugs to jockle or wait a minute There’s a whole movement happening here and I came back to realize that. Um, Mdma was knocking in the door of being approved sorry I and repeat that I got to call um I came back to realize that Mdma was knocking the door and being approved um as a treatment for ptsd and there’s a whole line of medicines behind them. That um, were ah you know proving to be some of the most powerful um ah medicines that we have um and mental health and wellness and so I’ve really sort of shifted my entire career. Um to you know to support the the development of um of these. Ah, these therapies and and mental health and wellness more broadly. Um, so so yeah I mean and and a couple of different ways I mean um I as you mentioned I and as I think I mentioned I moved to Costa Rica um where ah, um, plant medicine. Um, ceremonies and Journeys have been been happening for a very long time. Um and opened a a psychedelic retreat center and community that’s focused on the lgbt community called the jungle neighborhood play in the jungle with us. It’s really, um, it’s a beautiful experience and um and ah.

Shelby Clark: And we’re really focusing on. Um you know, sort of ah overall wellness. Um, specifically for the lgbt community. Um, and then I’m also a a partner at a small investment fund called lion heart ventures and we focus on um, mental health and wellness and so I’m investing in really cool companies. Um, across the spectrum including consumer mental health applications just invested in a company called outro and it’s the opposite of intro and it’s a coaching app to help people get off of antidepressants. It’s a very difficult thing antidepressants are physically addictive and most people don’t even most doctors really don’t know the best way to get off of them. Um. And then we’re also investing in psychedelic therapies. So um, there’s ah, many psychedelic therapies that are coming through the Fda pipeline um, starting with the number of classic classic psychedelics like um Mdma psilocybin and then there’s a whole sort of second generation of psychedelics where. Um, you know, different aspects of the second psychede journey are being modified or improved or altered um to ah better address specific indications. So for example, um, if you can slightly modify a molecule and you can have it. Um, be more psychedelic or less psychedelic. You can have it last longer or last shorter or be shorter. Um, you can completely engineer out the psychedelic aspects. um you can um yeah there’s there’s you can um you know dial up or down specificity for specific receptors.

Shelby Clark: Um, that can help to you know address um, specific conditions or side effects. So um, there’s a ton that’s happening out there and um, you know I’ll stop short of saying that I think that psycheddotics can be a panacea Um, but I think that they can be an incredibly important medicine. Um, that both addresses. Um.

Shelby Clark: You know, specific and very difficult to deal with mental health conditions and um, you know at the most Grand I think that I could really shift. It could bring um you know a broad shift in Consciousness. Um, you know that helps us remember um you know our connection to the natural world and to each other um and you know I think that um you know. Ah, those realizations are going to be the root of how some of the most important changes in the world will be made.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously you know definitely a lot going on a lot of momentum. You know you’re obviously you know in Costa Rica you organize their retreats too I guess for the founders that are in the psychedelic space and. I guess for anyone that is listening now that would like to you know, reach out and say hi what will be the best way to do so Shelby.

Shelby Clark: Um, sure. Well um, you can find an Instagram Shelby Clark Flow um that’s probably the best bit of find me. So um, yeah, we’d love to hear from you. You can see all the things that we’re doing this is right now I’m in one of our cabins in Costa Rica we’ built this sort of like bamboo wonderland down here. Um, these really cool bamboo tree houses and um, yeah, so we’ve got really interesting retreats. Um, you know lots of events between retreats we we’re operating as a andbu good boticoel again, we’re focuseding the lgbg community right next door we have a stu retreat center called holos it’s holos global. Um, it’s a very similar psychedelic retreat center and community. Um, and so you know we’re we’re welcoming to all people. Um and you know holus is another great option as well. So.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing! Well hey Shelby thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an on earth to have you with us.

Shelby Clark: Thanks for having me nice chatting.

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