Building an Esports Empire: A Tale of Entrepreneurship with Morris Jackson and Brandon Parker

Welcome to Vegas Circle podcast with your hosts Paki Paki, Chris. We are people who are passionate about business, success and culture, and this is our platform to showcase people in our city who make it happen. On today's podcast, we have the owners of the Holland Esports and joining us to discuss establishing an esports training franchise business. We've got Mr Morris Jackson. We also got in a football player, brandon Parker, so we've got the business owners with us. Welcome.

We're going to jump right in.

You guys just had your grand opening packed house, over 300 people. Mays and I got a chance to join you guys. You guys are doing some things, man, in Vegas. Man, it's exciting to be able to see.

Yeah, yeah, I know we're excited. I mean, this was a remarkable opportunity for Brandon and I. It's funny because even how we started, I learned very quickly how much of a gamer he was. Okay, and when I was sharing with him exactly what I was looking to do, he was like do you know what games I play?

Like you know, yeah, you know what I do.

I'm like no, I didn't know that. But yeah, we saw this as a great opportunity to bring something new to Las Vegas, not just in Vegas, but across the US, yeah, and we're excited about where it's going to go.

Yeah, kind of jump right in. You know this is one of those things Everybody talks about being one of the next big waves. You know. Just, you know esports in general, competitive gaming. You know, as somebody like myself gets a little bit older can't play basketball, can't get on the sports field. That's where I start transitioning to more video games. You know what was the rating on the wall for you and make you want to jump into that space? Is it because of that fact of it or is it personal passion, like what made you make that decision For me? I?

would say personal passion. Like he told you, I was a gamer. I've been gaming my whole life, you know, from age eight, all the way up, you know, and I grew up in the era where online gaming didn't come around to about maybe middle school, high school for me. So I still had to go to my friend's house and play games all night with pizza, popcorn, drinks, all the. You know the fun, the style to feel and you get. So, you know, and talking with Morris and my passion, his passion, you know, for being a business owner, I said how can we recreate that feeling for the next generation? And that's where we found, you know, found about the Holland and what they're doing, and you know it was fully bought in and we tried to take it and we're trying to expand it.

Yeah.

And I can tell you can tell he he didn't have an issue in playing the game right With his height and his size, like he played professionally. And one thing that I saw, too, was that it wasn't just a platform for people who didn't play sports. It was for everyone to have a community to connect. But the one thing that we quickly noticed is the fact that there were so many gamers learning to play by themselves or play online, and what was happening? There was a gap in terms of social skills, and so it was like how do we start to bring all the things that we love about the game of football and the game of baseball and the game of basketball, where you can bring people together to enjoy the connection, the camaraderie, the, the fun, the, even the little bit of trash talk that happens?

every once in a while.

How did you bring that into one facility, and so that's why we ended up building Bahá'u'lláháin.

So talk a little bit about so Bahá'u'lláháin, there's, was it four or five franchises now I want to say in Texas, north Carolina, you guys are the first number one franchise now in Vegas that's opened up.

That is correct, so it's in two states.

This would be the third state. So how did this all come about? Like, how did you guys hear about you know, opening up this kind of franchise?

Yeah, so do some research. So the first thing that ended up happening is, I ended up I came across of an article in Goldman Sachs that talked about how eSports was the fastest growing sport in in the world ever to exist and that today is predominantly being played and are being organized in countries like Japan, korea, china, and then I quickly noticed that there was there was really no installations here in the US to really create this incubator, to build out gamers right. And so I mean you have your places like HyperX and Velocity, who do a great job at creating an environment where you can go learn how to play, but nothing that created more of an organized structure. And so we came across a company of a Holland. They launched their first franchise in Cornelius, north Carolina, and have all places. As for Brandon, brandon is from North Carolina.

Yeah, that place that he's talking about, the first location, actually about 35 minutes from when we live now and about really about 35 more. I grew up, yeah, it was nice to kind of step into the home grounds and take that element and bring it to Vegas.

Yeah, so it was really serendipitous, right. It was like, okay, well, this is a new franchise. They just launched their first one. It's from it's in his backyard.

So we started doing more research and we just I loved again the fact that they were looking to bring community to the esports gaming area and really focus on youth development. Almost like the like if you were to sign up a kid for Little League Baseball, right. It's like how did you bring them into an environment where they have a team, they have players, they have coaches and teach them skills to help them elevate themselves and move forward? And then I also saw this television show called Players and that really got me hooked because I saw how they end up doing that. And again I just I started to get excited about it, review the numbers, looked at the P&L's and realized, okay, this is actually a profitable model too.

And it's a model where they don't have all the answers to the puzzle yet, because there's so much to esports outside of just playing games. I mean, you have the streaming content with Twitch and kick. You also have the you know branding piece of it, because once one of these players went to tournament, how much of a brand just a branding they can create for themselves. And so we just saw all these different levels in terms of how you can educate and bring awareness to the gaming ethos and we just said, okay, this makes sense for more than one reason, so we decided to do it.

And how did you guys actually meet? How did you guys connect to be able to make this happen?

Oh yeah, so his wife Judith Judy for short is actually our realtor. We first so we. I've been with them. I was with the Redis for six years that unfortunately got released this year and she was one of the first realtor to reach out while we were still in Oakland like 2019, before we knew we were coming. Her and her partner, kathy, they reached out. So me and my wife were like okay, we know, we're going, let's you know, let's respond.

So we can get ready for the next move. So you know, we responded she helped us find that first home and we just kept a good, you know, not just business but you know, friendship relationship over the years. And then, you know, we just end up keep going to dinner with them, got closer and closer and this is how we end up in this place, morris is like the best network event I swear to God.

Oh sure, yeah, we bet probably, I think like a year ago now. I think right, yeah, at a event I shot out Mario, a mutual friend of ours. But we went to a tech event and Morris has got a way about him, man, but he knows what he's talking about. So you, we talk. He knows how to really put the vision together. So I said we talk about the esports. I'm like, oh, I know this is gonna be a home run because he's a visionary. So thank you, I appreciate that, but that's great man, she guys made it.

But Keck's, you guys know each other for a little while then yeah, yeah, obviously going on, okay, three years yeah, three years now we.

They flew out in 2019 like we were still in the season and they flew out in 2019 awesome and then in 2020. Obviously, we met them in person just during the pandemic, so it wasn't a whole lot of meeting you could do, but um, they still. You know, we just stuck by us the whole time yeah, yeah, I will tell you my now.

My wife uses me as eye candy, right?

because I tell you she she knows nothing about sports okay, do not do not repeat this on here, by the way, but she has gotten better over the years, but yeah, no, she's done a great job at her and her partner. Both they own a. They own a real estate company here in town called Las Vegas Sports and Entertainment and, um, but again, no, very little about sports. So she uses me to bring come in she'll, she'll build relationships with the wife.

And then, you know, because of my history of football, I went to building relationships with the players and I would tell you, brandon, I hit it off from the day one. I mean he just has, I mean you'll, you'll see through this episode. I mean he just has a glowing personality, he's ambitious, he's exciting. It's kind of hard not to like him, that's the thing. And so him and I just, I mean really, we just built a relationship over years and then, out of nowhere, we had dinner one night over at red rock, and then that's when we were just talking about different business strategies and what we were working on and what Brandon and them were looking at doing, and then, all of a sudden, we realized this was a perfect marriage for before the both of us so it's kind of an exciting time to get in the space and inside the exciting market.

You know, for me the one thing you see in Vegas is that it's almost becoming like an esports hub in some sense. Yeah, being at, you know, really competitive. It's a good entertainment capital, so I think it just lends itself extremely well to the continued development in that space. But you know, how important was you to be in like this market when you're developing any sports, or was it something just was a byproduct as like an excitement, just you're already here.

These esports are the fastest growing sport in the world. I think it's a 2.7 million dollar industry and it's growing and it's not going anywhere. I mean, they're starting to. You know. The virtual reality is coming along, the systems are keep evolving every time they release the system, you know, with their platform. So we knew that this is kind of going to be a big wave and we just wanted to take our surfboard and get you know ahead of the big wave, because who doesn't want to come to Vegas, especially if you're doing play?

you're in the air condition, so you need to work about the heat, you know you come game, you win your trophy, you win your winnings, you brag about it, you go to strip and celebrate and you kind of repeat in a couple months and I think the biggest term of EVO is here- every year, right, yeah?

so I think they have a big space in Luxor, right yeah, that's the grand stage, yeah, so you know, and you know, I've been watching EVO for years, so I didn't know it was here.

So imagine my excitement.

Oh, that's here so when they come back here?

yeah, that's in my backyard, so when they come, you know, in town to play, they can train with us. Yeah, you know, I get to meet all the heroes I've been watching for years. Hopefully, if we, you know, do this thing right, yeah, is this like one of a kind, then?

so is there, because I didn't hear about it till I knew about the Holland, right, so is there? Is there other kind of competitors that are in this space in Vegas, or is this the one of this kind of year?

well, the way, the way we built it out is are not he's not even we the way David Graham, who's actually the owner of a Holland okay, he started the franchise okay, and the way he built it out, it is one of it. It is one of a kind okay because it really focuses on the development of gaming, where a lot of other places you go to which there are plenty of places here in town where you can actually go. If you're a gamer today, go and actually game, got it. But where do you go learn? Where do you go? Where where do you go? Where's this place you go? To get taught or to get coached and developed.

That's where David Graham built out for Holland and that's what I felt. That's why we fell in love with it is because it wasn't only a place you come and play. It was a place you come and learn. You come in, you get mentored and coached, you get your skills, get developed, you get an assessment. That way you can see yourself graduate from one level to the next. And then it was a great opportunity for us to even institute team play, where now you get placed on a team. Now you, now you can work side by side, with people to help you evolve as a gameplayer yourself and then you can find yourself as a team entering the tournaments and then watching your team grow and develop. It almost kind of reminded me of you know, just coaching because I coached, you know, for many years here in Las Vegas and coaching football and coaching baseball and watching these young men and young women just evolve and watching their skills grow.

And now to be able to do this in a space like e-sports which, again, whether you're an athlete or you're not an athlete, it's inviting for everyone right. So now there's no, you don't have to be the tallest or the fastest, or you know, or the strongest. Right now you can just come in and as long as you have that eye, hand, eye coordination, the fast twist muscles, the fast problem solving skills, it started to you started to learn. It's it's enhancing young players brains and how they're able to do things at a faster speed than than I was able to do. I mean, I spent one day watching fortnight, watching my nephew play fortnight, and just how he was solving for things that he was anticipating. It was impressive, and not the speed he was doing it, it was giving me anxiety, it was just it was scaring me, like what are you doing, like why are you doing this? And so it was great to be able to find something that David Gramm has created, and he was the creator of Code Ninja.

So he had a franchise. It's very similar. Yeah, as we were mentioned earlier.

that's actually what I was thinking about was something very similar to that, yeah so he created that whole program with Code Ninja, teaching young kids how to code, and he took some of those same philosophies and same beliefs and brought it into eSports. And so when he built that curriculum around it to find a way to help be the incubator to grow gamers, I just again I fell in love with the whole process and I shared it with Brandon and he fell in love with it instantaneously. So we realized this is something we have to do. But we didn't decide to do one, we decided to do 50. So it wasn't about.

Strong statement yeah, wow.

Yeah, so our goal was 50 in five years. That's the number.

So that's exciting. What states are you guys looking at?

Obviously I'm here, obviously North Carolina, I believe Florida. We're probably going to try to crack into Texas. I know that's one of the original locations where but yeah, talked about Utah as well. Talked about Arizona. That's a good hotspot. We're talking about California because we want to stay on the West too, so but that's I mean. In those states you can easily drop 50 locations.

Oh yeah, especially California, just the South. Oh yeah, yeah, this is home world. You're getting to.

Silicon Valley because they like coding a game anyway. They go hand in hand so that's your hotspot, right there.

I love the fact that you were talking about the learning aspect. Right, that's what we were talking about on the phone a couple of weeks back. But me being a concerned father right, so I don't know much about gaming I know Chris does I don't play eSports or anything, but child predators are huge, right. Yeah, so I have a concern about that. So do you guys help with that aspect of kind of teaching kids what to look for and kind of the buffers I guess you would say right to be able to look for, and how to train them on who they're talking to and kind of walking them through that? Can you kind of share for our listeners?

Yeah. So the great thing is that every kid or every young gamer that comes in and learns in our facility, not only are they placed on a team, but they're also provided with a coach.

And so that coach really helps not only oversee their growth, their development, but also is there, provide advice as a mentor, right and so just like how you would with a football coach, baseball coach or basketball coach, how they just weren't only coaching you for the game. Some of our I know for me, some of my most inspirational leaders in my life were my coaches. They gave me life skills that I took off the field and helped me develop as a young man, hopefully to a grown man now not as grown as Brandon, because he's much taller than me but it really helped me evolve overall. And so that's what our coaches do today. Our coaches not only help these young players learn how to develop their skills on the sticks, but they also help them identify life skills, and one of the life skills is recognizing some of those social predators.

What are certain key words that you need to look out for? To know that you're not. You know you're actually playing with a child predator, right? They start asking you certain questions about your height, your size and things of that nature. None of that matters when it comes to gaming, so we're able to police that, and by policing that, we're able to help kids be more aware of what kind of conversations they're having with others, what the impacts of that would be. But also the great thing too is how do we involve the parents? Because just because your kids are gaming doesn't mean you need to distance yourself from that. How can you still be involved in that young gamer's life to help them, help your son, help your daughter understand how to make good decisions while they're playing?

you know playing on the stick, so you bring a lot of great points and I think it's one of those things that you know we game.

I don't know, pacquie doesn't, but I'll take it all and a lot of that is that you know trash talking it's.

you know a lot of we've all had the behaviors on there that people are saying things are not totally appropriate and a lot of times parents are just letting their kid go and they don't know what happens on there. I think you know me. I've grown up on it, I know firsthand. I know what to look for with my kids.

But for somebody that maybe like a Pacquie where his kids want to play, and he doesn't know, he separates from it and I think having that where you can trust somebody to oversee that process, for a parent that doesn't that a kid's interested in it. It makes it really more accessible to a lot of people that are trying to get into that space and they want to continue to develop, because I would love to have it when I was growing up. Yeah, because a lot of people are deterred from that type of behavior.

Yeah, absolutely yeah, to be able to be able to collaborate with your kids is awesome. Yeah, you know what?

I mean You've been telling me for years you need to Let them do it. I was like no, I was like I'm not like let them.

That's a good for them.

Like you said, the brain development is very quick with problem solving and processing skills, like it's very important, I think, in developing Okay, you know what Chris brought us to my attention, just to educate me, is if you look at a lot of the leaders and owners of the world, they're all gamers. I must all the and I didn't know it to you brought it up, I think it was a couple years back. So so for our listeners, and these guys are making a lot of money gaming a lot of serious money, so well something we need to recognize here too, in Nevada.

Right, you know, look at, look you go, you walk through a casino now and you see a slot machine. What is it now? It's a video game. Yeah, right. I mean my wife's favorite game is Willy Wonka, and it's not because of you know the money she wins, it's cause all the experience and the activities of the is gamified.

Right yeah.

You think about. We have creature for space here in Las Vegas where they build and drive and fly drones across, you know, across the country, I won't say other countries.

I don't know where they go, but they go Right, so yeah but I mean but, but guess what?

they're all being controlled by control sticks, right? So you see some of the jobs of the future and where it's going and how you know these. You know, we're teaching the kids the skills of tomorrow, and it's the skills of tomorrow is going to make them your next entrepreneurs, right? Your next Elon Musk? All right, yeah.

Musk, yeah, musk, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

But they're your next Elon, your next Steve, your next your next Bill Gates right, they're best that generation where it's not only giving them the skills to be able to do it but it's teaching them how to problem solve and forward thing and find new opportunities and find new ways of developing new things. And so it's just, you know, and also what we noticed with a lot of these, you know gamers who play like the employees that we hire. They're building their own computers. Yeah, like I'm, like that's that's, and they're teaching us how to build.

I know how to lay cat five cable. Now I can put that on my resume as of today. I can make a cat five cable, all because of what we learn from these young kids today. I think that's a big opportunity for us as adults where there's a lot we can learn from our kids and we can't fight them and pull them away from what's going to help them naturally evolve to what's going to be there for tomorrow. We got to embrace that and Valhalla is a place where it can be embraced. That's fantastic.

I learned a lot of skills from video gaming. Now, you know, remember the Red Rings of Death on the old Xbox.

How to replace heat sinks while they're soldering engineering skills at like 10 years old, trying to figure it out, yeah.

But it's important. Like you learn and you don't realize how many things you learn from it that can translate into real life skills that we all have to deal with.

See back then, the only skill I learned is how to clean my Nintendo. I didn't do that, so you look at the age. That's why you look at the old dudes in the room.

Let me ask about pricing rights, because you guys have different tiers, right From understanding, from where you want to pay monthly, I'm assuming. How does that work as far as those three tiers and pricing?

Yes. So you got to start from the top work. Yeah 299 is your VIP. That's where you get your four hours of scrimmage time, your four hours of practice time, weekly or not weekly.

but yeah, this week.

Yeah, I'm thinking monthly price. Then you get the podcast room, that's. We haven't mentioned that yet, but that's, you know, my wife Dominique.

I messed up. I didn't check out the podcast room. I was there.

That was the hidden gym man, I think that's and that's kind of what I feel like we have, what sets it apart from like your velocity or your hyper axis. We have something not only can it gain, but they can. They can tell you about it. You know smart like game for two hours and go in there in two hours and tell you how to just whooped everybody, yeah.

So that's a good play. By the way, yeah, that's a very good place.

Yeah, okay, seriously, you know so my wife designed that, obviously, and then so you get the parents night. You get four pizza nights with that. Vip parents night out is included as well. So Friday night, I think six to 10, I'm taking on hours, you know they can drop the kids off and you know going a nice date, okay, who doesn't like you know some kid free hours, especially me being the parent? Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, then I see what y'all do. Y'all are smart, yeah.

Y'all are extremely smart.

Yeah, get it involved, just try it you know.

And then you know your next level, your mid level, is going to be the standard members. It's going to be a one 99. That's, you know, your two hours kind of take everything you get and half it.

So okay.

You still a lot of time to develop, a lot of time to play in stuff. You still get, I think, one pizza night in the month. I'm still getting one parents night. So a lot of good stuff still included in that and it's the social level as well Social level. Yeah, I that seemed to fly, so bear with me. Um 60 bucks every two weeks, Thought it was I was going to say 120 every month, but then I've seen a 60 somewhere, so we got.

Yeah, it's not bad pricing, though. No, no, no, that's what just come here and it's not. Maybe sitter.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And, at worst case scenario, that's what they, what the parents, you know they it's baby setting.

Yeah, worst case scenario, but obviously we wanted to be more than we want to invest in you, kids, you want them to see them develop into, you know, to be the next generation streamers.

I just paid for soccer this past weekend. I'm understanding.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it adds up there.

Yeah, what would you say just problem solving, right, cause you guys are business guys, right, you're trying to figure this out. What's been like the the most significant challenge you've dealt with trying to build this franchise in Vegas? Cause I know it's hard, it's really hard to be able to do. So what were some of those roadblocks to be able to share?

Yeah. So I would say, finding good help is the most challenging part of doing this.

Well, people don't want to work nowadays. Yeah, what you're trying to say, you know you know, it's definitely.

You know, finding the right people to help you build out your vision is is is can be challenging, Um, you know. But again, even with with what we went through, um, it forced us to be more involved, which, in this first one, you know, literally we have our blood and our sweat, almost tears in that place, but we stopped that blood and sweat which is good Right.

Uh, but it's uh, finding good help was one of them. I would say also finding, uh, getting support in terms of just from the community aspect. Um, not in terms of showing up to be there to you know to, to you know to, to endorse your idea, but it's more about being there from a licensing perspective. Like you don't realize what a small business owner has to go through. When it comes to you, once you have your dreaming, you're excited. Then you find your building and you're excited, but then now permitting takes two months and now you now your dreams on pause and then life happens and then now, all of a sudden, your dream can get become a. You know, you're distracted from your dream.

So I almost think about how often do things like that, you know, kind of stops dreamers from stop dreaming and stops entrepreneurs from being entrepreneurs because you're trying to scale and grow.

But sometimes there are these roblox and this is no knock on our city, right, I know our government workers do an amazing job and they're just, they're overwhelmed with that. But with technology today, there needs to be better systems and processes put in place where what I want to go get my permit to open up my building, or get or get my taxation license right. These things should be more automatic, more streamlined. I mean, if I can get an IRS EIN number in a matter of a second, irs has figured it out, yeah, like. So if the IRS has figured it out, like, why can't we figure out ways, as a small business owner, to get the licensing, to get the permits and to get the things that you need to open up your doors relatively quickly? Because if you can catch me at that exciting moment in my life, then now I'm not only going to be able to start my business, but now I can scale and grow it at a faster pace.

I love just saying that yeah.

And I think the final piece too is from it's just from a funding aspect. You know, luckily for us, you know I've done well for myself throughout my life and clearly this man has done well for himself throughout his life right, and we had the means to overcome some of the challenges that we face.

because if we came from a place where we didn't have the means to overcome some of the challenges we faced with finding good help, we might not have had the capital to overcome that. I mean we had to come out of pocket a little bit more than what we anticipated because we had to bring in a new team to help us get to our finish line. And so I think about how many small business owners come to the table with the plan. No matter how well thought out your plan is, there's never. You can never prepare for the unexpected, and sometimes that unexpected challenge comes with a price tag. Well, if you didn't raise or you didn't have enough capital for that, you know for that unexpected event, then again, how many? I mean how many times have you driven by a business and seen it halfway built out and then stopped? Well, that's because they faced a challenge they didn't, they weren't ready for and they didn't have a blue.

Yeah, blue is a perfect example.

Yeah, exactly.

That's a really big good example.

And it's funny. It's funny you say that because we had I'll say this about the time it's come out we had Jonathan Johnson come on as the CEO of Plaza.

They bought all their furniture from out in blue, which we just tell us on a recent podcast.

So yeah, that's amazing man. That was great insights. It's very, and I don't think anybody's mentioned that before as far as the streamlining you know getting permanent and things like that is very frustrating, especially with Vegas or just Nevada in general, nevada and Delaware being one of the strongest for business owners right. To be able to come here and be able to do that. I'm glad you brought that up because it opens up a lot of communication which you need to address and it needs to be solved for right.

I mean and you think about the blood and the heartbeat of our country is entrepreneurship right? I mean our ability to be able to start a business and be our own bosses and be our own employer, like that's what's great about our country and for there's some state that have this figured out, where things can move along a lot faster. But I think we need to find a way to help things move faster here in Nevada so that that way we have more people being inspired to start their own business. But again, it's not just government work, but it's also again banks need to show up differently in terms of financing. You know being able to finance businesses right and I know it's difficult, because banks have to mitigate their risk and they have to make certain they're doing their property due diligence and again, when they lend you money, their job is to make certain you're going to pay me back right, yeah, they got an ROI.

Yeah, for sure, yeah, like you're going to pay me back, right so it's, you know, like again, it's a promissory, you know, but it's not like you're going to pay me back, but it's, you know, you're not. I don't want a promise, I want a guarantee. Yeah, it should be called guarantee note, not a promissory note, because they want guarantees that you're going to pay me back. But at the end of the day, there still needs to be pathways and strategies and funding opportunities to really help entrepreneurs learn how to get there, and whether it's teaching them how to raise capital from a seed perspective with family and friends or, you know, moving into learning how to work with banks in terms of sharing, you know, because there are startup friendly banks out there. I know the banks like Silicon Valley Bank, you know got, you know, got a bad rap, but you got to. You know, listen, they took a chance and they helped a lot of small businesses build and scale and grow their business.

They got burned a little bit yeah.

And they got burned a little bit, but there needs to continue to be ways for us to find pathways for true entrepreneurs out there to fund and to fund their dreams, because that's what this country's built on. Yeah.

I'm just saying that because I mean it. I was listening to this and I don't want to sidetrack it that much. But Kevin Hart we were talking about comedians earlier, right, and I was listening to him say this today, actually driving over here is he was talking about waiting in line, right. So he was saying this, this scenario of being a baseball player and saying that they were going to give you $5 million to hit one at that right, $5 million just got to hit at one time. He said most people, everybody named mama, will be waiting up right, waiting around the line, around the corner. But the main point he was trying to make was the grit of, let's say, you don't hit it the first time where you go back in that line five miles down the road and he's like that's what a success kicks in.

So you were talking about getting the permits and the adversity and the pivot and all of that. It takes a lot to be a business owner man. It takes a lot to be able to do this. I mean, we've been doing this for five years and it's a lot of work. You know what I mean. And pivot we've changed studios, different things, and I love that you're bringing that up, man.

So it's great, it's definitely not for the faint and heart right.

Not at all. You have to.

There has to be a level of resilience and you got to have this unsurmountable belief in yourself to be able to break through. Every time I think of starting a new business, I always envisioned it was this picture that I saw, probably about 20 years ago, of two guys with the pickaxe you know digging, oh yeah, you see that right, and you see one guy who is one swing away from striking diamonds and he stops right.

But then the other guy, he's still digging, he's still digging, he's literally five swings away, but it's, how do you not stop? Because you can realize you're so close to hitting what's possible and you're going to be thrown curveballs, you're going to be thrown challenges. You're going to be because, trust me, brandon and I saw it all Like you don't understand. There was a point last week where we didn't think it was going to happen. We were looking at each other going like I just looked at him saying I'm sorry.

I was talking with you during the year, you were like, yeah, I think we have it at all Saturday, yeah, and then Brandon looked at me and said you better not go home, you better live here.

No, it's not.

The size of Melissa too, but no but him and I, we were there probably 12, 13 hours a day and I mean I mean it's not a blessing. I mean, you know, brandon got injured, so you know, but it gave him the time to afford to be there, so he got to see the process, which, again I think that came. With that came a lot of significant learnings, right, I learned a lot during that process where I started to see a lot of the pain points that small businesses were going through, but then we both came up with ways to solve for it. And even today we solve for another problem. Like every day we're solving for something.

And again, that's what we're teaching these gamers right? These gamers are constantly solving problems and solving them at a fast pace. So we were an example of that and we're seeing our kids learn how to become amazing problem solvers. So when they want to go out there and be an entrepreneur whether it's a number one streamer, a podcaster, whether it's starting their own business they're now going to learn to every problem there's a solution. The key is can you stick with it and can you learn from it, and can you grow from it and can you be resilient?

I was. I wanted to just ask I'm going to ask you guys two separate questions, right? So I know you wear many hats, right, morris is, but I wanted to talk about article I read about recently Hotel Industry, obviously, bsbn, vegas. Right, it's $239 billion revenue. Industry. You recently just opened up a hotel out of state in Idaho. What was the piece of that? Right? Because it's 2% of black folks just period that own and I know you're a disruptor, like we've talked about. It seems like you guys want to get into certain spaces, right, esports is a big space. Hotel industries, you know, very stressful space to be able to get to and intimidating space to get into. What was. Can you kind of walk us through the process of why you jumped into, let's just say, the hotel first?

Yeah, so I think you hit the nail on the head. It was me being a disruptor. Anytime I see something where it's always been a certain way, I looked at it's time for it to be fixed right. So you know, when I we, you know I got lucky enough with one of my partners to purchase some land up in Blackfoot, idaho. I always look for land with. You know, I always have one thing in mind when I look for land is access to it. And so when I saw this piece of dirt, it was right off the 91 Highway, okay. And at the end of the day I figured, okay, even if nothing happens there, I can just flip it for a little bit of a profit because it's right next to our highway. Someone's going to want that free highway access.

They're going to always want that right. It's huge.

So you know, you know I would say fortunately for me they end up renaming the highway to Yellow Stone National Park Highway, and the moment they did that, and unbeknownst to me, it was all. It was all, it was all a blessing. They renamed the highway. All of a sudden I saw a great opportunity for us to build a hotel on there, and so I met with a few partners here in Las Vegas. I mean, I think that's the key about it.

One thing I can try to tell any entrepreneur out there is I don't try to conquer the world by yourself. Connect yourself with other entrepreneurs, other forward thinkers, other successful entrepreneurs that are out there, because they will open doors and introduce you to things that you may have never dreamed of. So there was a good friend of mine out here named Scott Burdett. So I ended up meeting with him up there by the Silver Knights training arena in Henderson, went to his office, shared with him. Hey, this is what I have.

I got this dirt up there in Blackfoot. What do I do with it? He goes you need to build a hotel, and so he says let me introduce you to some groups. So he introduced me to choice hotels, made an introduction to IHG and made an introduction to Wyndham, and when I called all three of those companies, none of them wasted a second to get on the plane and fly here to meet with me. But the first two who met with me only spoke to me about leasing the land and allowing one of their current hotel owners to build on that dirt. But Wyndham was the only one that looked me in my eye and said I'm not going to let you lease this to somebody else, I'm going to make you buy it Now. Me. I was like no, I just want to lease it and collect on the trip.

Net lease from Wyndham for the next 30 years of my life. I don't want to own a hotel.

I'm not trying to run a hotel, and her name was Stacy and she's like no, no, I'm not going to let you give up a tremendous opportunity for yourself.

So yeah, so she ended up showing me the numbers and showing us how much we can make. Then she started playing on my emotions, and so she started showing me statistics on minority ownerships in hotels. And then she showed me that less than 2% of minorities across the United States own hotels today. Then when you back out those the minority owners that own multiple hotels that number shrinks. And then she showed me the numbers for a number of African-American who owned hotels, and that just made me upset. And then so she got me in the right place. I'm like, OK, I'm changing that. So it gave me an opportunity. After she said once you get this first one, I promise you you're going to want another one. I'm like, no, I won't, I don't want another one. And the moment I signed that contract and we broke ground up in Blackfoot, it didn't take me, but 30 days later I wanted my next one.

I want another one now. Another one You're working at Vegas now, or is that an opportunity for you to undergo?

Yeah, there's definitely some opportunities for us here in Las Vegas. I would say Wyndham has become an amazing partner of ours, and I got to say they're not just a franchise owner, they're partners. Not only did they provide us with a lot of benefits for being minority owners, but they also provided us a lot of tremendous opportunities. I would tell you, wyndham doesn't approve everyone. I mean, you have to go through a rigorous application process and they hand select every single one of their owners, and so it was actually a proud moment for us to even be selected by them. That's awesome, and the moment that we got this first one going, they brought to us another opportunity that we're looking at here in Las Vegas and, if all goes well, hopefully in the next year, we should be announcing a huge, groundbreaking ceremony again, and with that one we're going to probably want 3,000 people to show up.

That's what's up, man. I killed it. That's a great perspective on that. I got to ask you about Super Bowl NFL. How do you feel about the Super Bowl being the Legion Stadium coming up? Oh, I can't wait, man.

Unfortunately I'm not with the Raiders, so I hope my next destination in about five weeks or so I'll get to beat.

When you come back and play. Are you going back to play? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's going to the Niners, oh wow.

He's putting his bid already, man, which I wouldn't mind. As long as the anything that pays, I'll play for it. But yeah, so I had a little minor, this Frank injury to my foot. As you know, that's like the one that usually takes people out. Thank goodness it didn't take me out. It was only a grade two no surgery, about eight to 12 weeks recovery. I think this is about week seven now. So we're well over halfway and I'm starting to run and jump and stuff.

So we're getting there.

But you know it'd be love to come back here. You know I wanted to be with the silver and black. I did especially because I live here. So imagine getting to go to Super Bowl where you don't even have to pay for a flight or hotel you just leave your house to 30 minutes.

Yeah, there you know Exactly. So, either way, you know wherever I land up, if we, just you know, if we some reason we don't win and don't make it there me and my wife, I think, is you know, nfl players are all entitled to two tickets. We're going.

We don't matter who it is, we're going. Nfl players always entitled to two tickets to Super Bowl. Yeah, I believe you, I know that.

So across there you have your rights to two tickets. A lot of people do is they get them and you know, something to a friend or something to a coworker or something. Smart yeah.

Because some tickets are crazy. They can do flip.

I've never done it, but you can turn a nice profit with them, so but this year we're going.

We always said, like it doesn't matter, it's going to be poppin, yeah, yeah, you know, if we don't get to, play on something, we'll go home, but we're best sure we'll be back for the Super Bowl.

Awesome, Like we're 100% going to be back.

Good stuff. Well, just being a business show, you got to leave us one nugget from perspective wise. What would you tell somebody that wants to build their own business or scared to do that? Obviously, you guys have done it and overcame it. What would you share with them?

I'll go first. I think he you know more. Sorry here, a lot on it is like you said, you cannot, you cannot anticipate those curve balls and you cannot let that stop you. You know, like you said, we're blessed with the capital that we were able to overcome a lot of the things that were thrown our way, but there's a couple who aren't so before you. Really, you know, stick your neck out there with your own capital and you know you think you have enough. Anticipate about 10, 20, maybe even 30 more over what you think it costs, because those last minute things like permitting, like you know, somebody not being the right person for the job, somebody not being the right person on the team, or this goes wrong, or you know, if you're sharing a building, the next person has this issue which costs you money to fix.

You know you have to be prepared for those things Like the exact amount they quote you as far as your equipment, your, your land, your, your building. Is that extra on?

it yeah, you need to go extra on it.

It's got like you know, and like buying a house, you know you don't buy the exact budget. You want to leave a little bit of room in the budget because you're obviously you know, if you have a wife like mine, she's going to work for you in the new furniture. You know she might run the car all of a sudden because you have to stuff for a game.

But you know you have to stay at my house right now talking to her, so you know you just got to prepare her, you just always build some cushion or whatever, and not just you know in this business, but wherever life, always have room for the mistakes, because they're going to happen.

Yeah, that's what's up. Good answer, brandon. Yeah, who about you?

Morris, yeah, you know, I would say for me, you know it's kind of hard to give one advice, but I would say, if I had a, if I had to give someone one is just, you know, stop waiting. I think a lot of times, when people have an idea or have a dream or see a, or see an opportunity, they it's almost like this analysis by paralysis, right, sometimes you overthink so much of what you want to do or what you should do, and I got to tell you I felt guilty of. I was, I was a victim of that for 28 years. I mean, I was in the financial services industry for 28 years and had a great gig doing that for 28 years.

No-transcript, never, you know, always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was inspired by my grandfather, who owned his own carpet cleaning business in Peoria, illinois, and I always wanted to be like him. But I was scared to be like him. I was scared to take that risk. I was scared to take that chance.

I, you know, I always, always found an excuse as to why I shouldn't do it versus doing the doing. The one thing I should have done is believed in myself, and so, the moment I started believing in myself and went after what I wanted, and just piggybacking on what Brandon said, understanding that the adversities, the challenges, the obstacles, it's just a part of the process, and believing it's a part of the process, just go for it, though. And so if I had one advice for every entrepreneur, just go for it, that you just take, take Nike's quote and just go do it like, just stop thinking about it, stop, stop sitting on it, stop sitting on your idea. Just go do it, and, and you'll find ways to make it happen if you really believe in what you want to get accomplished. Love it. Yeah, it's great both great answers.

We always ask, kind of ended it off with a Restaurant. So we always ask our guests about best restaurant for you. Give us a hole in the wall or something, but give us a gym of a restaurant that you like in Vegas.

You know there's, I gotta give you two, okay so the first one I would shout out would be partage.

Yeah, there's some good stuff. Buzz the French restaurant.

It's a French restaurant right there on spring mountain and Valley view, I want to say okay, but it's one of the top in Vegas I was.

All these eater lists and stuff.

I always see them on yeah, and they do this whole chef of Observation experience where you can actually watch the chef prepare your whole meal Okay that's cool If I ask my wife where do you want to go to eat? She'll say there She'll say partage, I gotta go to partage, I gotta check that out. The second place I would say is Esther's kitchen. Um this is bomb yeah I like this and it has to be the original esters. I know they open a new one over there in Tivoli Village.

We went to the one downtown, right. That's the OG I like, I love.

I mean it's just, you can't ask for better pasta. I mean it's good, fresh, and then, and then what that? The, the mozzarella cheese and the spread, they get all.

It's just they got a dessert this off the chain too I can't remember what that I don't ever make it to dessert.

That's all. I just tried the last time.

I was good, it was excellent.

Yeah, I give you a shot.

I'm gonna check that one out, and then Esther's kitchen that we've been to, so that's great. So, okay, what about you? What about you, brandon? Yeah, now I'm ready.

Okay, um, number one it's. It's been around for a while. My wife is not a fan, but I. This is one of my favorite places because, as you know, I'm from North Carolina. So, it's hard to find good southern soul food. Okay, greens and the mac and cheese mountain with eatery, that's.

Got a twist because it's black and Filipino.

We play with that spot, some ribs and lumpia.

It's got a, it's got a like a nice fusion set up.

But you know I love the sweet tea is. First of all they don't have sweet tea out here regularly. You know no Carolina, you know the south. That's a staple in the south.

So yeah that's already a plus. Yeah, I love the way they do their wings and they not too much breading, just crispy. I love the greens. I got a little vinegar kick to them. That's how I do my greens. I love my greens. A little bit of vinegar. Okay, back in Jesus. Amazing, the portions are great. Okay, I take my family. They never can finish me, I do they never finish. Okay, and then I'll do want to give you number two, which we all know. It's a popular China mama.

That's actually one of the few.

That's Jack, this is our last guess man, like I haven't been there yet.

Yeah, I was renovated. But they just move to a new location?

Yeah, right down the street from their own one.

I haven't been to the new one yet, but we went to the express and they do it the exact same way, so you can't go wrong with you the one.

Yeah, I'm gonna check out there. China, mama Mount West, and we heard about the essence kitchen and the other one. I'm sorry the last time was Part time, okay, yeah got some gems yeah when you go to partage ask, ask for Nicholas, okay, nick.

They just say Nick, I know more and I'm gonna say that carry you and then same with China.

Mama Ask for Ivy Ivy's, the owner of you heard that, so you see Chris and I pop up, but that's good stuff there. What else you guys finishing strong with with 2023? I know you got the franchises coming up, but what would you want to leave us out on that we might have forgot?

oh man, I just Talk about the purchase we just made.

Oh, right right.

Sorry, sorry. I'm so excited about Vegas we did end up. We did buy another. Look at the original Cornelius. Look as we talked about. We did just buy that congrats man. Yes, sir, we bought that, so that's gonna be on there. I probably Wednesday. I believe it's gonna be in our range. Yeah, also, not only that, we already have five licenses, I think before that it came with eight licenses as well, so not only do you get the.

Cornelius, but eight addition license, all in the Charlotte area. So I'm talking Valentine, I'm talking a mountain, I'm talking what's really hard Chapel Hill, a Greensboro, what's the Salem yeah, high point. I mean we're, we're gonna be, that's gonna be at least 10 in North Carolina alone, like 8 plus 9 plus 5, 14, so 14, that's one fifth of the you know playing franchise. I don't know games.

No, no, no and so it's funny We've been moving so fast. We might do 50 in three years at this pace.

Yeah and then you know like you talk top of challenges. He learned how to read. You know general contracting stuff, so now he knows how to do it dangling himself. So it's gonna be now.

Let's work out.

Jackson contractors, go get a deck play the next business, so that's excellent man.

Well, we appreciate hanging out with us. Man. Seriously, man, y'all dropped a lot of gyms and a lot of knowledge. Definitely check us out. The Vegas are calm and we appreciate you guys Checking out, checking us out.

So thanks, thanks, thanks. I appreciate it, thank you very much. Man Appreciate it.