The Early Signals That Tell You Retail Trusts Your DESPAC — Mo Abdi, RetailVolts

Chaz Churchwell: 0:23

What's going on everybody? This is Chaz, your host of The DESPAC Podcast. So I've got a different kind of guest for you today. This guy's locked into the SPAC ecosystem and the DESPAC ecosystem in a completely different way from anybody else that we've had on the show so far. I wanna introduce to you Dr. Mo from RetailVolts. And Doc, good having you on the show. What's going on, Mo?

Mo Abdi: 0:51

Thank you so much, Chaz. A pleasure to be here today. Doing well, thank you.

Chaz Churchwell: 0:55

I love it, brother. I love it. So some of you, if you're in the SPAC ecosystem, you may already be familiar with RetailVolts. Um, some of you may not, but I wanna make sure that if you're not, that I bring you in to help you understand who these guys are, what they're bringing to the table, and particularly if you're a private company going public and you're going to use a SPAC as the vehicle to do it, why you need to be locked in for the next 30 minutes or so while Mo helps you understand some of the ways that you can increase visibility for your company. And visibility, as you know, if you're gonna be public-facing, you gotta be visible for them to know to buy your stock. So Mo, good to have you here, man. Why don't you just, uh, start by introducing yourself and, uh, and RetailVolts a little bit.

Mo Abdi: 1:48

Yeah. My name is Mo Abdi. I'm a physician by training, uh, turned, uh, founder. We've been, uh, stealth for a while as a, as a company, RetailVolts. Uh, however, now we have, uh, many commercial, uh, uh, contracts, and we're helping a lot of firms make sure that they have their face in front of the people that they need to have their face in front of. Um, you know, basically, like right now, strangers on the internet are pricing your stock. They're talking about it, and a lot of people, a lot of companies don't know how to keep track of that or how to sway that, and that's where RetailVolts comes in, and that's how we bring value to our clients.

Chaz Churchwell: 2:29

I like it. So, um, l- let me ask just kind of for starters, you, you talk about online. Like, what are, uh, what are the platforms that you guys are utilizing to help increase visibility, and why are those significant?

Mo Abdi: 2:46

So, the, globally we, our agency is two parts. The first part is, uh, uh, GateWatch AI, which is a market intelligence, uh, sentiment portal which helps us analyze and see what people are saying about your firm. This could be, uh, a company that's about to list an IPO, a De-SPAC, the SPAC itself, or a company going under reverse merger. It, it watches and listens across all the social media silos from Reddit, StockTwits, Discord, uh, and others, just to see what people are saying on X about you. And then we use that data to help make the conversation, uh, be organized, uh, to see how you can, as a company yourself, be involved in that discussion to be where people are at. And that's done through our other arm, which is the RetailVolts, uh, Full-Stack Media Agency. So these two components, the GateWatch AI, uh, market intelligence platform, which all our clients have access to, and the media agency work together to help, uh, bring value to the company. So that's what we do, and we're on more or less every, every social media platform you can think of.

Chaz Churchwell: 4:03

So let me ask you this. You, you talk about the GateWatch AI component, and you talk about the RetailVolts component. Like, what made you build out both of these and put them together instead of just picking one lane and running?

Mo Abdi: 4:19

To be honest with you, it wasn't like that. When we first started- … it was just one thing. It was, uh, you know, the, the media agency. We were developing that and growing that. And even the way it started, it was very organic. You know, it was right before COVID. A lot of CEOs wanted to have a chat in the hundreds of, uh, Reddit subreddits that, that I was running. And a friend of mine said, "Hey, this, this You're bringing real value to companies out there. You should be really, uh … Let's do something and make a company about that." His name is Krishan. Very smart guy, very intelligent guy. That's the guy who gave this idea of, uh, turning it into a business. And, and then that's how, uh, RetailVolts was born. It was previously called Retail Sparks, now RetailVolts. It took a while to develop. Uh, you know, uh, Krishan is leading, uh, Sentinel right now, which is, uh, a, a big data intelligence firm, sentiment firm. Very powerful, uh, working with Naravance. Uh, and from this history of developing and gathering all this data and, and, and b- being in this milieu of a lot of data, we realized we needed, uh- A way to kind of monitor the conversation, get this data and process it, and that's how GateWatch AI developed. It came from a lab, a research lab which we call Skunk Works, which we have internally, uh, similar to Skunk Works that the military- Okay … has for developing aircraft, different aircraft. So we have that, and, and we developed, uh, GateWatch AI through that, tested it out over a period of 15 months. You know, we have a f- full stack developer and two engineers who worked on it, uh, beta tested it and went live, and it's really helping the clients. The clients love it. So that's how that, that project came together, the GateWatch AI. And I wasn't planning to, but now we have these two arms, but it forms a full circle from the detection, monitoring, listening, then to actually developing a plan and delivering it through the media agency side.

Chaz Churchwell: 6:21

So let's just kind of, l- let's just kinda keep on talking about the platforms really that are there. Uh, I wanna talk about this, about the GateWatch AI. Um, and you, I think you said it tracks market intelligence and sentiment, uh, across what platforms?

Mo Abdi: 6:39

Or was

Chaz Churchwell: 6:39

it- Well,

Mo Abdi: 6:39

right now we're tracking on X, which is the largest financial platform for people that, where they're getting financial information from. The next one we're tracking is Reddit, and the third one is, uh, StockTwits. And we're also integrated Edgar into this as well, and into news from the Globe Wire. And the reason why we do that is we have, like, a truthiness bar, so if someone, uh, posts, uh, some discussion talking about a particular firm, uh, that information is compared to what's out there in the, you know, in, on Edgar and on the news, and it makes a decision, is this a, actually a tr- very truthful post made by that person? And we have a score below that person's post, and they're named as well, so you can keep track of these people who are posting about you as well.

Chaz Churchwell: 7:23

So, okay, I, I wanna talk about this real quick 'cause this is actually, I… You may not know this. This is incredibly timely. Um, there's actually a company that just had securities litigation filed against them. No joke. I, I wanna say it was, I wanna say it was either beginning of this week or it was last week. Mm-hmm. Um, and what it is is it's just another story of a pump and dump that's, uh, that got called out- And what happened is it's a Malaysian company. Mm-hmm. So the, the SEC, um, basically s- their cross-border task force- Mm-hmm said that these guys were doing online schemes to where they were pushing out content and data around- Mm-hmm … their company, and then basically saying that,"Hey, this is amazing. Gotta buy it. Get in on this now," whatever, you know. And then, uh, allegedly doing all of that type of stuff. And so of course, when the SEC goes ahead and reports on that, then the attorneys, they incline. The plaintiff attorneys are very happy to take that information, run with it, get shareholders and step in, and, and securities litigation ensues, right? Mm-hmm. So these guys went up 400% based off of what they were doing with social media pushing, and then it tanked 93% very quickly thereafter. So you're… Are you telling me that GateWatch AI is actually gonna help with, um, protecting investors from trash like

Mo Abdi: 9:01

that? Exactly, exactly. And- That's really

Chaz Churchwell: 9:03

cool, dude… Mo Abdi: it, it monitors and listens basically spam, a pump and dump? Is this, like, a coordinated posts by a bunch of different folks, different networks? And you can even timestamp them and see where they're coming from. Down the road, we also wanna be able to track their IP addresses and put multiple layers to it. Very valuable to the clients. They like seeing this stuff. Uh, and what discussions are being had, and who's plotting, and who they're, and their, and their handles as well. And then you can- This is good … kind of keep track of them, and you get a daily email summary of this as well, so you don't have to be constantly logged on. Okay. So, so I, I, I didn't even plan on talking to you about that or asking you that, so apologies. Um- … but, like, but kinda keeping in rhythm with some of the- Mm-hmm … other thoughts that I had that I wanted to make sure that we run through, um, I, I wanna talk about specifically, like, when a company goes through, they do their DESPAC, they're public now. Mm-hmm. What are the early signs that tell these newly public companies that just came through a DESPAC that they're winning, winning or losing trust with the market?

Mo Abdi: 10:18

The key sign we find is that even before they head to de-SPAC, three to f- six months, are people talking about the transaction? Are they excited about it?

Chaz Churchwell: 10:29

Okay.

Mo Abdi: 10:29

Are they, are they excited about the target firm's technology, you know, what they're doing? Are they excited about the sponsor? You know, s- there's some serial sponsors that people keep an eye on, and when they see them come up with a, even the vehicle without even having a target, they get excited and start talking about them. So the key signal we see is excitement, and this excitement's actually measurable. And, and you can relate that to even to the redemption rates from that, which is very interesting, and nobody's doing that, collecting that kind of data.

Chaz Churchwell: 11:01

So would you, would you say that people tend to be more excited from a standpoint of, like, social sentiment or just looking at fundamentals whenever you're doing this? Like, with it being social media, is it more of just kind of the social sentiment- Mm … retail investor kind of thing?

Mo Abdi: 11:18

There's different layers to it. The first layer, which is the larger layer, which is more applying to a bigger denominator, common denominator, is the social sentiment, like the buzz around the company.

Chaz Churchwell: 11:31

Yeah.

Mo Abdi: 11:31

Right? And then there's a second layer when you peel it off, the people that are looking from a frame of a technical, technical frame, technical analysis, looking at the actual, uh, product itself that's being sold, whether it's a, you know, RWA, real-world asset tokenization product like Securitize, or electric vehicle, you know, like Lucid when it came through as a SPAC.

Chaz Churchwell: 11:54

Yep.

Mo Abdi: 11:55

Uh, and, and then there's a third deeper layer, analytical layer that looks at the financial transaction, that looks as how is the, how it's structured is given the trust size, the valuation that's given to the company, and then on de-SPAC starting to be traded at $10, is it gonna hold $10 or is it gonna go right on down, right? Uh, so you have these three layers working together with the f- the social s- uh, sentiment framework being the key driver, followed then by the, the actual product itself, and then the third from the social, retail traders anyways, uh, is the fundamentals analysis, right? Which is a, a different framework than you would see from, you know, a sell side or a buy side analyst, right? Uh, these guys are looking, uh, honestly from, from buzz, basically, the majority of them.

Chaz Churchwell: 12:47

So, okay. L- let, let's talk about this. Let's… You mentioned a minute ago six months. You said that these guys need to see starting six months ahead of when they even do the combination how is the retail investor market already responding to them. Is there a buzz? Everything like that. If that's six months out, then let me ask, how early do these companies that are private going public through a DESPAC need to be already working to build their presence with, uh, with media, retail investors, um, and all of that before the DESPAC's actually gonna close?

Mo Abdi: 13:29

I've seen them usually around six-month mark, they start, like, their digital roadshow-ish. You know, uh, when obviously this is a- after the announcement of the, uh, of the deal, you know. Uh, you see the earned media starts to come out. You know- Yeah … we see that, like, announcing the deal, you know, on the wire. And then sometimes we do see, uh, pieces on the, the CEOs from both end, you know, from the sponsor side and from the target side, especially if it's a more highly visible company. Um, and then as we get closer, we see more tempo, uh, uh, about the product, what they're doing, just to build an ex- like, an informed, uh, base, uh, around the company, you know? Some companies are better than others. Some sponsors are better than others. What I have noticed is that the top three sponsors, the top three to five are very good at this. These are guys who have gone, you know, brought companies public 10 times or more. Uh, they know what they're doing, and they know who to go to to sell their story. And, uh, and the retail's part of their approach. They a- at minimum approach firms like us to help them, uh, sell their story, tell their story, you know, in a way that, uh, retail understands, in a language they understand. You gotta remember, Chaz, uh, you know, like our fathers' generation, they looked at the back of the newspaper for all their information about stocks and, and different companies. Uh, our generation, uh, you know, you know, like, the, or the people that are, you know, 10, 15 years older than us, maybe they still watch news, Fox News, uh, listen to Cramer, that crazy guy on the TV- Dude you know, to get their stock information. I remember him. You know, I still do that sometimes on the podcast when I'm driving. But the younger generation, the mill- millennials, they go to Reddit, they go to, uh, StockTwits, they go to X to get their investment information. And you have- Mm-hmm … to be at these places. You have to meet them where they're at, right? And a lot of the big media agencies, a lot of the big PR firms, uh, are still figuring out this equation and how to do it, you know, obviously in a kosher manner, but also an effective manner, right? An effective manner that scales. And, uh- That's where we're at. We're the only organization, one of the top organizations that's doing it f- definitely for sure for SPACs and de-SPAC, but in the space of IPOs, reverse mergers, and, and direct listings, helping these firms, making sure their stories are told accurately using all the publicly available information in a kosher fashion, uh, that's compliant, uh, to the different silos of the, uh, social media, uh, milieu, right? Uh, so that's, that's what we're doing. That's what we're seeing, and, uh, th- this is the future because as you're aware of, 36% of equity flow is from retail traders r- right after, I think, stock buybacks. That's, that's like the top two. Now,

Chaz Churchwell: 16:22

is this, is this post-combination?

Mo Abdi: 16:24

Uh, you mean what I'm saying? No, this is glo- globally across the market, uh, equities market. Oh, okay. When you look at all the dollars, uh, that are circulating and where they're going, I think number one is stock buybacks, if I remember correctly, and number two is retail traders, basically day traders- Mm … at 36% of, uh, equity flow. Forbes had a piece that came out a couple of months ago about it, uh, so did, uh, Bloomberg as well. You can look it up online. It's crazy. I, I thought, you know, my estimation was, like, one… like 10% or something like that. Then when I saw those numbers, it blew my mind. Mm. The crazy part is it, is because of these significant number of day traders, which are increasingly becoming a greater portion of the, uh, the equity flow, you know, on a daily basis, uh, you need to approach them at where they're at, or, you know, the old platforms are not working anymore. The legacy me- media is failing strongly in this aspect.

Chaz Churchwell: 17:20

Got it. Yeah, it's actually hilarious, 'cause d- did you ever watch that TV show Heroes? Did you ever see that one?

Mo Abdi: 17:27

No. What is it about?

Chaz Churchwell: 17:29

So, no, I, I loved it. It was this show to where it was these people that, um, just talking about human genetics and that were always constantly evolving, and these particular ones had some marker or whatever- Mm-hmm that had, like, once activated, they actually had random superpowers. Whatever. Right. But, like, but the thing is is that in one scene you see this guy who's reading the newspaper to an old man that's dying, and he's reading the, uh, he's reading what stocks are up and down out of the newspaper. Mm-hmm. And I just happened to be watching that, like, this past week, and, and I was like, man, I remember whenever I was in school and they told us about reading the stocks out of the newspaper and, like, and then I started thinking about it. I was like, you get to see it once a day. And you only get to see what had already been happening at close the day before. And now we have all of this real-time information. It's insane how much it's evolved and will continue to evolve. Um, but so let me ask this, 'cause you talked about just your presence with, uh, with RetailVolts, with GateWatch AI, and just, um, the, the amount of people that you have that you're connecting with, everything like that. I know that you guys have, have repped for, like, 30 or 40, uh, public companies doing roughly $40, $50 billion worth of market capitalization. Um, let me ask you, what is the biggest difference with what you guys do? What's the biggest difference for preparing a company for a SPAC merger versus a traditional IPO?'Cause a lot of these companies, they may have already had their mindset, like, "Oh, we're gonna do an IPO," but now their IPO has just kind of fallen, dashed upon the rocks and they're exploring their other options. Now they're looking at a DESPAC as an alternative. And so, like, how would they need to pivot their strategy and, and, like, how… And how would you say that somebody like RetailVolts and GateWatch AI could be a partner for them on that?

Mo Abdi: 19:38

Yeah. That's a very good question, uh, Chaz. I never really thought about it, but, but the key difference we've noticed is that when you go public through a SPAC, there's a whole process that is kind of, I feel like, it's like a more longer IPO, right? Let's put it that way. Because you, there's the deal that's announced, the vehicle is there, takes a couple of months to complete the transaction. You wanna have visibility, people to know about the deal. Uh- And the crazy part is when you go to the general public, a lot of people don't know about SPACs, to be honest with you. They know about IPOs, they know companies directly listing, but much less know about SPACs, right? So there's more education required-

Chaz Churchwell: 20:18

So true… Mo Abdi: in terms of the retail And we control the largest distribution for SPACs, you know, for, for retail and de-SPACs. And we tell them this is the kind of way to approach them and educating them and, uh, make sure they understand, uh, the target firm, the sponsor, uh, the, uh, the product of the target firm and why it's gonna be bringing value. Because at the end of the day, these companies are going public, uh, you know, they're bringing value to the world, right? They're making the world a richer place, you know, in terms of the products and services they offer, and they want their story to be told. And that's what we do at RetailVolts. We meet them. We have creative sessions. We have creative experts. We figure out how to best tell their stories, how to best approach. Not only that, uh, we have a earned media session where we also work with the, with the, with the CEO and the rest of the team to make sure they know the options they have for their earned media, where they should be going, where they should be doing the interviews, and helping us set, set them up, because we do in-house earned media as well. That's another feature that we have. And then we offer them as well this GateWatch AI, uh, Portal, which they can themselves monitor the, the sentiment and what people are saying about them in real time. That comes with a summary into your, into your, into your, into your inbox once daily because you're a busy CEO. You don't have time. You can use five minutes, read what people are saying, generally know if it's a bearish and bullish, whether you need to change of- your trajectory of how you're presenting yourself. So these are the kind of, uh, solutions we provide to private firms as they go public, as they try to evaluate. Even some firms we- we've talked to, they're trying to figure out which way to go direct listing. A lot of them want, obviously, IPOs, but then they realize about the, how difficult it is to, it is to do that, right? Yeah. Um, then we come in and kinda educate them about the, the process. Man, all I'm thinking is, uh, you talked about how they can go in there and they can actually read what investors are saying about them, about them, and I'm just thinking to myself, man, they should probably take some ashwagandha or some St. John's wort before they do that, and then set a counseling session to start right after they do that 'cause just, 'cause people can be cruel. Even when you're winning, people can be cruel. Yeah. And I don't know. I'm just, I'm like- I

Mo Abdi: 22:37

definitely agree with you, man. I've talked to a lot of, you know- very emotional, high and lows, uh, CEOs, and you just kinda tell them, you know, "Buddy, it's okay. It's, you know, tomorrow will be a better day," you know? Uh, maybe we need a psychologist as part of the team, you know, and a psychiatrist, you know? And I don't know, but, but I totally agree with you. People can be really mean on, in social media. And the thing is, you also wanna now tell the truth from the falsehood, because there's a lot of bots running around repeating the same, parroting the same message. One guy can have a million bots, you know, uh, totally destroying your reputation, and we can identify which, where that's coming from, who they are, and help you how to… And give you options on how to deal with that.

Chaz Churchwell: 23:17

So, okay. Actually, dude, that sounds really interesting. So can we dive into that a little bit? Yeah. Because I don't think about, I, I don't think that a lot of companies, particularly if you're private, you're not used to this being a thing. So, and, and I know that I've had a couple of my clients who have told me that- Mm-hmm … they've fallen prey to this. Mm-hmm. So can you talk about these bots and, and then really what you're able to do to help combat that a little bit more?

Mo Abdi: 23:46

Yeah. Before I do that, I'll explain how these bot networks work, where are they coming from. So my undergrad was in physics. I also did a lot of programming. So- I kind of was aware of, like, different things you can do, you could say almost dark hat, you know? Like, and on different platforms, you know, whether it was, a long time ago, LiveJournal, I don't know if you remember that, or, you know, MSN, you know, the messenger. Uh-

Chaz Churchwell: 24:11

Yep, yep… Mo Abdi: uh, there's, uh, the… I'm There's- Yeah … basically what happens is that on platforms like, for example, X, there's people that have the ability to instantaneously generate thousands of accounts and then run them as a single account, and then overlay AI or another tool so they all appear unique. And then what they can do is they can say, "Hey, we don't like that particular company. We're shorting it. Please send this particular message and make sure it's everywhere," right? Uh, these people are more on the dark hat side, you know, uh, and they probably have a vested financial interest in shorting this company. And then all of a sudden on X you see all these messages, you know, negative about you and the company coming out of nowhere or on the back of negative, uh, earnings reports. I was like, "Oh, this is so disproportionate to…" You know, y- and then all of a sudden it feels like the whole community on X is against you, and I've seen companies like that. They're coming, "Hey, the whole community on X is against us," right? There are ways to identify them. They usually come from few IP addresses. The… You can also look at the timestamps. When the times are… They're literally sometimes same minute they all come out, a thousand messages, right? And there's different ways of analyzing that. Yeah. So we can keep track of that, and there's different ways to act against them. We call them FUD teams, you know, fear, uh, you know, demise and, you know, and mania. So, like, we have teams to kind of identify, and we have, like, counter-FUD teams to deal with them, for example. Up to including working with directly with our X reps, our Reddit reps, and our other social media reps which we directly work with, uh, identifying these type of accounts, which helps, helps, uh, clear these bots. So bots, uh, are majority used for negative ways to, uh, spread negative messages or sometimes positive messages if they're pumping them. Um, they're usually run out of, uh, Eastern Europe , uh, India or Pakistan. Uh, so you can look at the IP addresses as well and where the accounts were made. Different ways of looking at them, you know? Yeah. I hope that, I hope that explained. And just like you have them on X, you have them on Reddit, you have them on Discord, you have them on StockTwits, and companies need to be aware of them, right? Because- You could be taken over by bots So, no, they're … It, it's, it's such a problem. I see so many companies that are falling prey to it, um, whether it's getting pumped up or whether it's getting pushed down. In fact, I don't know that it's a thing, but I've heard that it's a thing to where, uh, to where you're getting a short squeeze that'll happen post-combination on some combinate- Mm-hmm … on some companies, and these guys will go out for, like, for a couple of weeks, and they'll actually help to kinda push the narrative on it so that they can be shorting it. And then all of the sudden, they turn off the spigot for all of that extra stuff that they're putting out there. Mm-hmm. And then everything falls, and then, and then they're just … They make their money because they shorted, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I, uh … Which I think that that type of stuff, if, if you're listening right now and you do that, I think you're trash. I absolutely think you're trash, just so you know. Mm-hmm. But, um, I, I hate whenever people do that kinda crap, the manipulating. So, but I, I would ask, is that something to where that's part of your standard package that people get whenever they jump in with RetailVolts and GateWatch AI, or is that something to where, um, that's an add-on that they can actually come and take advantage of? If they- So part of- … help out.

Mo Abdi: 27:51

Yeah. So when a client is onboarded, we have a social media audit session where we look at across all their social media accounts to see what's happening, how they could be optimized, and if there's any, uh, bearish or bullish sentiment, and also if there's any concerns or issues with bots or other items like I, like we discussed. And then we present strategies. So every single client gets it. Every single client has a creative strategy session. They have an earned media session. They have a social media, uh, strategy session, and a global, you know, coordination of efforts with their p- PR and media with ours as well. Four big sessions right at the beginning, right within the first week. Yeah. So that, you know, all the horses are heading in the same direction, and we've kinda mapped out the first, you know, one to three months to make sure, uh, things go well. And generally, they do go very well for our companies. We also do our due diligence. Obviously, we don't ac- accept every single private firm, you know? Sometimes a company might have a product that's very weak or vaporware, you know what I mean? Uh, so we have to do due diligence on them just to make sure what they're bringing to market is actually a real product that's bringing value. Because we really do believe in that everybody can win in these transaction. The retail who's buying can win, the company that's going public is gonna win, and the whole world with the val- the product that they brought, right?'Cause that's-

Chaz Churchwell: 29:12

Yeah… Mo Abdi: that's the benefit Uh, because money is useless. Money is just a, a commodity, right? Money is a tool that we use, uh, to, uh, make our world a better place, right? Ideally, anyways, right? And at RetailVolts, that's what we hope to do, just, uh, on the, s- stay on the positive side of capitalism and make sure, uh, we work with companies that are bringing value to the world and make sure that everybody wins in the transaction. So let me shift gears real quick. Um, like you've talked about just a little bit ago, whenever you were kind of unpacking the bots, you were actually talking about kind of your background. You studied physics, everything like that. And so, and I know early in the conversation you mentioned that you, uh, that you did oncology. Um, so outside of RetailVolts, I'd, I'd love to just hear a little bit more about what prompted you, first of all, to make the jump from doing what you do today from being an oncologist. Could you, like, could you just kind of share that story?

Mo Abdi: 30:21

Yeah. Honestly, I never planned it out. It, it just happened, you know? Uh, just like that GateWatch AI evolved, uh, you know, out of the projects that we were doing organically and Skunk Works. Um, I always been on, you know, I was that generation that was born with a, you know, my dad gave me a computer to work and repair, and, and then I've just been chronically online since I was 12, you know. From, I have the same LiveJournal account, which I, it's like my diary, basically, it's embarrassing to say this, that I write in, and I've been using it since 20- 2009 or something like that, you know? So it's like 16, 17 years, 17 years old. Wow. You know? And then, you know, I, I had Reddit since Reddit was there from the beginning, and I've been a moderator for, you know, 10 years, you know. And, and from that, during that process, became moderator over 120 subreddits of all the topics that I have interest in, whether it's in cats, cats like void cats, like black cats. You know, I really like void, like, you know, like Bengal cats, you know. Uh, to, you know, robotics to Star Wars, Star Trek related subreddits to, you know, just math, uh, you know, applied physics, uh, things that interested me and I started, like, discussions with groups of people, and then that evolved into a sub. And one of them was, a couple of them were financial subreddits, right? A- a- and there were bunch of guys, you know, they were lawyers, they were physicians, uh, you know, PE guys, just talking about different things. And before I knew it, there were companies that were trying to gain access to these subreddits so they can tell their stories, you know. And so I did maybe, like, 20 or 30 CEO interviews before another friend told me, "Hey, we can-- I think you can make a business out of this because you're bringing so much value, and you've just been doing it for free for years." I was like, "All right, whatever. Let's just do it. Let's see what happens." And honestly, it turned into a s- you know, a seven-figure business overnight, you know, um, uh, doing the, hosting these interviews and, and then with, you know how my brain works, I always had this skunkworks lab where just develop ideas, you know, and test them out, see what sticks. And from that came out Retail Sparks first, then RetailVolts, and all the product and service lines we offer, right? Uh, m- mostly stealth the first three years doing research and then, uh, live 2024, and ever since then, uh, you know, the sky has been the limit, honestly.

Chaz Churchwell: 32:52

So I, I appreciate that, man. The, uh, it, it's funny because if you guys didn't catch it, he was talking about cats. So, um, so interesting thing about Mo is you live on a farm and, and you live outside of Omaha, Nebraska- Yeah … on a farm. You've got rescue horses, rescue cats, rescue dogs, and you just go out there and you, like, you blow stuff up, and you've got rockets that you launch up and everything like that, and you're just, you're just kinda living that redneck life almost in, in a lot of ways, but from kind of like a, a techy, nerdy type angle, and it's… I love that. I think that's so awesome and cool. Um- Yeah … I just got one question. Knowing that you live in Omaha, I mean, is, is the Oracle one of your clients? Like, have you, have you got him on board yet?

Mo Abdi: 33:48

No, but hopefully one day. I've been one degree, a couple of times away. A couple of our clients had Warren as an investor, you know, but I have never met him yet. You know, I'm sure if I tried, I can, you know? We're in the same town. He- I know the McDonald's he goes to every morning, uh, you know, but I, I just like letting things happen organically and naturally, you know? And-

Chaz Churchwell: 34:09

He eats breakfast at McDonald's every morning?

Mo Abdi: 34:11

I'm not lying. He does. Look him up. Look it up. He-

Chaz Churchwell: 34:16

That's awesome… Mo Abdi: goes to the same every single morning, you know? Um- And all, and all along, I mean, 'cause he's, he's, he has lived a very long life, right? And all along, everybody's telling you that McDonald's is so horrible for you, and then here's this guy.

Mo Abdi: 34:33

There's always outliers, right?

Chaz Churchwell: 34:34

Right.

Mo Abdi: 34:35

That's what I'm thinking, you know what I mean? Oh, and I know he's genuine. He's talked about it numerous times, you know, and I watched some of his interviews. I was like, "Yeah, that's…" And other people have pointed that out, you know? So I know… And he, he has no reason to lie, and he, he says things as they are mostly, you know? Uh, so that's very interesting. But, but yeah, honestly, I married into a redneck family, so that's one reason why I'm here too.

Chaz Churchwell: 34:59

Ah.

Mo Abdi: 34:59

Yeah. Trucks all over the house, you know, and it's fun, honestly. You know, my wife is currently away traveling, uh, visiting her family, so I'm, like, managing the farm in the morning, getting up at 4:00 or 5:00 AM, you know, feeding all the horses, making sure they, you know, have their grain, make sure the hay is out, and then some of the older, sicker horses have their, you know, extra pellets. And I've been- Yeah … two goats escaped recently from a electric fence, and I don't even know what the solution is. I told Erica, "I don't know what to do here." I tried to wrangle them in, like, in pitch black darkness two nights ago. It was me fighting a goat, holding his horns. Yeah, that totally failed. I felt I could just drag him back, you know, drag him back, and he, he wasn't having it, you know? Uh, but honestly, it's fun. It's, it's, it's a space I like going, and it's just totally disconnects from the internet and the digital world and kind of reset myself. I like connecting with the ground and earth, you know, just sitting there on the ground and especially smelling the soil after rain. You know, these are things that kind of ground me and- Mm and, uh, keep things, um, um, like know where the, where the true north is, you know. That and God, obviously, like you said. I

Chaz Churchwell: 36:12

love that, man. Absolutely love that. So just, uh, do you have any final notes, any final things that you'd want to throw out there to the listeners?

Mo Abdi: 36:19

I just want to say thank you so much, Chaz, for your DESPAC Podcast. I love it. I was listening to my drive. The last one was Brandon Sun. I loved that interview. I tangentially have talked over email with Brandon as well with mutual clients and stuff, but hearing that side of him was very valuable. Please keep that up. It's very valuable to the community, and thank you for the work you're doing for the SPAC and De-SPAC community. We need people like you out there, you know, and, uh, you know, providing the insurance for, for the C-suite, uh, providing this forum for people to connect and talk to each other. Um, and, uh, you know, thank you so much for the moment here, and really appreciate you.

Chaz Churchwell: 37:01

No, man, I appreciate you. Thanks so much for coming on. It's been a, it's been an honor sharing some time with you, brother, and I appreciate you speaking to all of these private companies looking to go public and considering a DESPAC, helping them figure out, how do you, how do you become public-facing better whenever you are going to be a public company? So I appreciate you, appreciate RetailVolts, GateWatch AI, or GateWatch AI, sorry, um, and just everything that you guys have going on. So again, everybody, I've got Mo, and I'm your host, Chaz, with Churchwell Insurance Agency, your host of The DESPAC Podcast. If you haven't given us a review yet, please go online, take 30 seconds. Such a blessing to help us get a further reach in the community, um, for more people who need to actually unpack and understand what we have going on. Blessings. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Mo Abdi: 37:57

Take care. Bye-bye, Chaz.