Join Tim as he chats with Phil Scully from Explorer 1 Fund.
My Scully has over 13 years as an institutional investment analyst. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (MBA) and Kenyon College (BA). He is a Big Brother through Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and served as a Director of New Directions for Veterans from 2010 to 2014.
Connect with Phil: https://www.explorer1fund.space/
Full Transcript:
[00:00:12] Tim Chrisman: And welcome to another edition of podcasts for the future. My name is Tim Chrisman and I'm joined today by Phil Scully, the general partner and co-founder of the Explorer one venture firm. Mr Scully co-founded explore one fund in 2021 and is responsible for the operations, fundraising and investment due diligence.
[00:00:42] Prior to that. He worked as an institutional investor analyst for 12 years. He was a senior equity analyst at dividend assets capital from 2015 to 2020. Worked as an equity research associate with the capital group companies from 2008 to 2015, and from [00:01:00] 2006 to 2008, Phil worked as an investment banking associate in the energy and financial divisions for credit suites.
[00:01:07] He has an MBA from Georgetown university and received his BA from Kenyon college. He's a big brother through big brothers, big sisters of America, and previously served on the board of directors of new directions.
[00:01:21] Phil it's. It's great to have you here today. Thanks. Thanks for joining us,
[00:01:26] Phil Scully: Tim. Thanks so much for having me on to talk about space really exciting
[00:01:30] Tim Chrisman: time for space. Yeah, no. And I'm I'm particularly interested to hear more about what what got you into space.
[00:01:40] We'll build into what you're doing. But, I'm always curious what it is that gets people interested in space and brings them into the sector.
[00:01:48] Phil Scully: Yeah. I had been working in investing in financial services and worked for a large mutual fund. And I've worked with this this woman, I think.
[00:01:56] She is probably the greatest investor in the world, or at [00:02:00] least that I've interacted with and her name was sky. And so sky was investing into companies that were biotech companies, healthcare companies, and everything that she thought about was, big had to change the world. And so we started working on a company and they potentially were going to cure a disease and that's happened very few times.
[00:02:21] Over the course of history. And so they were going to cure hepatitis C. Oh, it turned out they did cure hepatitis C and sky was a very large investor in that company. In the company, she was working for the largest investor, one of our investors. And so this sort of turned on this light bulb in my mind that.
[00:02:39] I could use my skills of investing to really invest in companies that could do great things for humanity. And so I started looking at things like psilocybin and how that could help people with depression. There's wonderful news about magic mushrooms today. How can cure or help cure TRD treatment resistant depression.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] I started looking at Elon Musk a lot, what he was working on with his car company and the wife at the time had to test them. We really enjoyed that, but we thought more about, not getting fuel and gas and starting to use electric cars and stuff. All of these things brought me to space in this new space economy.
[00:03:19] What space can do potentially for humanity to me in terms of solving a lot of problems we have here on earth is the reason why I'm spending. A lot of time on space and trying to get capital into these new forming fast for me companies, I think a lot of people that I'm interacting with in space have this same mission, the same mantra space is good for humanity.
[00:03:46] And so that, that's the reason I didn't grow up like an avid reader of science fiction. Yeah. I do love. Burning man and love AI and robots and that type of thing. But I don't have a background [00:04:00] in building rocket ships and going to the Mojave to launch rockets. I just really liked the potential for space companies to help.
[00:04:09] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no it's fascinating because growing up, I watched star Trek with my dad and initially thought, know, it'd be cool to do something in space. Then found out I needed to do math in order to do physics. And it was math. I wasn't interested in. Statistics is cool. Calculus is not, but and so I, spent the next 15 years basically thinking like spaces for me.
[00:04:31] And that's most people go through life. We're not rocket scientists, we're not nuclear, some nuclear engineer that can solve equations in our head. But it's been fascinating watching the space economy grow and expand the sort of people that are needed. It's not just the people from the sixties who need to get us to the moon for the first time, we really do need a much broader array of people and everybody has pretty similar motivations.
[00:04:58] They're talking about how can [00:05:00] space make the world a better place. And that really does seem to be a unifying thing for a lot of people coming into the sector I've
[00:05:10] Phil Scully: seen and. Many companies with companies have technology that I could never understand with chief technology officers, chief innovation officers explaining concepts that I'm just not smart enough to understand, but the really great entrepreneurs.
[00:05:25] They're really great empire builders business builders. They understand that the technology is important and understanding that's important, but it's place in the economy, its ability to raise capital the ability to. Attract customers, consumers that you have to be able to relate to all types of people.
[00:05:41] And while I think it's very impressive that JPL and NASA have some of the smartest people. I realize it will be outsiders like us that really help prove out the potential for space. If you just have people that are focused on building [00:06:00] rockets and truth, seeking missions and academia, you really will not see the full potential.
[00:06:06] Yeah, I think we went as the equivalent of the internet. The internet is a wonderful place that invents crazy things at the beginning of the internet, people are trying to sell these absolutely absurd. Online. And then all those companies went out of business years later, those companies that were selling things online, they allowed people to survive during COVID.
[00:06:32] So you need these creative types of people. I think within blockchain you saw the NFT market bring a tangible approach to the crypto world. And so I think that's what happened on me, the best companies I'm saying, Tim. Are the ones that marry a very strong technical person. With an outsider with the young entrepreneur with a different perspective.
[00:06:57] And now that perspective I would say [00:07:00] is not just going to be technical or non-technical, it's going to be, do we have enough women working in space? Do we have enough people from different socioeconomic backgrounds? It's not going to be. The old world of space anymore, Ilan will not allow that it won't allow us to get to Mars.
[00:07:19] So I think people like yourself, people like myself are being tracked in this industry, and now there's a role for us. And I think that's a really big positive, and I think that's a recent development.
[00:07:31] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, it really is. And it's been a exciting time to be able to see and help facilitate. People from all walks of life coming in.
[00:07:42] I mean we host a monthly conference series over here at the foundation where we try to bring in people that are adjacent to the space sector, but doing things that the sector needs and that ranges from what are people gonna wear in space to surface the lay performances? Like [00:08:00] both of those are inevitable at some point.
[00:08:02] And. There are people thinking about it and it's exciting because basically anything we have here on the ground, we're going to need in space. And so it's it's been really cool to see people starting to realize that they too can join this.
[00:08:18] Phil Scully: I think you'll like the star. I was talking to a company recently.
[00:08:22] And they make cookie ovens for space. I was asking them where they came with this idea. Cause I was like I think we need to focus on food and water and some of these basic things, apparel you mentioned, I think that's a great area. And they said they were meeting with someone in the government and they said, the worst thing that will happen is we do end up figuring out transportation.
[00:08:47] And we do figuring out, figure out colonizing a a location off earth. And then everyone wants to come back because the food is so terrible. And I thought that was a funny thing, but you have to realize, like [00:09:00] you create a world. You have to create a world that people want to live in. So we'll have to have art and we'll have to have great food and culture.
[00:09:09] And it'll have to be a healthy environment for people to live in. And you're not gonna figure that out if it's just a bunch of people. From NASA that are constantly thinking about what's the safety around this transport vehicle, or what's the efficiency you need these other type too.
[00:09:26] But stay spaces a a lot of work to do, because I think right now, Labor is such a big issue with companies and trying to find great talent and a lot of space companies they're in areas like Florida and Texas, Colorado, and those are very tight labor markets. So they'll have to pull in different skillsets.
[00:09:44] Tim Chrisman: Yeah. And that is something. PR we consistently hear from executives at large companies all the way down to startups that they just can't find those skilled laborers fast enough. And so [00:10:00] yeah it's been really surprising because in my head that's a natural. Pipeline of workers for any sector.
[00:10:08] But a couple of times I've talked to community and technical college leadership and explain to them how they can participate in the space sector. It's like telling a kid at Christmas, they got the present, they wanted their eyes light up. They get so excited. Too often, they think they're not good enough or smart enough or cool enough to be in this cutting edge field.
[00:10:29] But the reality is we need them more than we need somebody to design a new rocket. I'm a hundred
[00:10:36] Phil Scully: percent agree with you. Absolutely.
[00:10:38] Tim Chrisman: Yeah. So a lot of your experience is in finance and as we were talking about a little before the podcast For many people many less centers here, finance is what you do with your budget and the bank you deal with.
[00:10:54] But for what we talk about here in the space sector goes far [00:11:00] beyond that and your experience is it a good number of different types of institutions. So I'd love to hear more about your experience in the finance sector that
[00:11:10] Phil Scully: Yeah, absolutely. So my background, yeah, I worked in I've worked in investment management for awhile.
[00:11:17] Worked for a great company called the capital group companies. They're a large public equity investor. And Got really interested in doing private investment. I think the world has changed a lot. Over the recent period, people don't focus and think about putting money into a bank.
[00:11:35] They may not trust the bank or they may not be able to handle beating inflation with the savings rate they're going out for the bank. So you have a whole new generation that has started to control their investments. And so maybe they're using the crypto market with Bitcoin, or what we've seen recently is we've seen young entrepreneurs, great investors, great risk takers.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] They're starting to invest into the private markets. And as a witness to that or someone that was observing that. And on the sidelines, I just became extremely fascinated in that how people could control their own investment performance, how people control their own liquidity. And so I look at space is just a really great opportunity for people to invest into private companies, invest into funds.
[00:12:31] It's. Very large opportunity. It has a very large and long tail. You have extremely disruptive companies, but they're all at the early stages. So I have. And fascinated with this burgeoning asset class. I think of space as something that's great for humanity, but I also think it's something that could be a great asset class.
[00:12:55] And there is no one that has an advantage over anyone in this [00:13:00] space. If you were to go into the ETF world, you may encounter a company like BlackRock. If you will go into ESG investing, you may have. Counter company like BlackRock. Again, you have massive incumbents that have structural advantages that does not exist in the new space economy and the combination of a very technical asset class with a very early as a class, it gives the advantage to regular people that are willing to put in.
[00:13:29] That can reach out to people on Twitter and just communicate with them. I think what I'm fascinated by is, you look at the everyday astronaut. He is essentially created a media company and as a number of followers and is able to reach and communicate directly with the most powerful CEO in the world.
[00:13:51] I just don't know in what industry. You could possibly do that. And if I look at maybe with the exception of crypto, but if I [00:14:00] was to say to you, Tim, I have this idea, I'm going to become a very big media company and I'm going to fall healthcare and biotech companies. And you're like, okay. And I said, I'm going to call the CEO of Johnson and Johnson do an interview with them.
[00:14:15] I don't think it's, it would be. Yeah space, you have that potential to reach people, to make investments. And I launched a private fund, a $20 million proof concept with a very small team. And we've just been trying to bring people into space and get more people invested in space. I think the best contribution this fund has had is that we have been able to pull an investor.
[00:14:45] And get those investors into companies. I think that's good. Yeah. We have also seen great ideas that just need to be linked up with other people that have access to financing other capital. And we've just facilitated that. And [00:15:00] so that is probably what I'm most excited about. Just trying to get ideas that people have out, try and get them capital, and then they'll allow them to build these great companies.
[00:15:11] But. We are at the very beginning of this. And I know a lot of people think, space X is a big company and transportation is big and we're getting a lot of media attention. There is not a lot of market cap and enterprise. In this sector. Yeah. Especially when you look at it versus the addressable market and the potential.
[00:15:34] I think it is one of the most undervalued assets, that I've ever seen. And I remember looking at Tesla very early and Netflix, very early and Bitcoin, very early in and seeing some trans transformational potential. But I don't know if I've ever seen anything like what we possibly can do in space.
[00:15:54] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no, it's true. It's the closest analog I use is when [00:16:00] we as humanity figured out that the ocean was something we could use A long time sailing the ocean least the blue water was something that wasn't possible losing sight of land, but between that unlocked new continents, new industries and trillions of dollars of economic potential and humanities venturing into this next Domain that we're used to being on air, land and sea, and now we can go to space and,
[00:16:32] Phil Scully: yeah, that's a wonderful analogy.
[00:16:33] Yeah. We are just, hopefully we are a little bit more civilized than regular loaf, Brooke, and the Vikings when we arrive at these new lands. But I think that's an amazing analogy. I I hadn't heard anyone talk about that. Yeah,
[00:16:48] Tim Chrisman: no. And you're right about that. Hopefully we're more civilized because every time humans, we're a wandering species.
[00:16:56] Every time we've gone somewhere new we've exploited, [00:17:00] whatever it is the animals, the people who are already there. But now in space, we have a chance to do that, where it truly is the people going are taking the risks. There's not an plant life, animal life, other humans that are. Going to be exploited at least initially.
[00:17:15] And hopefully we can use that to create a norm that really is able to persist.
[00:17:21] Phil Scully: I saw this podcast and I was up really early and it was Elan talking to Lex Friedman and he was talking about the government that he would set up on Mars. And I was just the depth of that conversation and how much they both were talking about and how much Elan had thought about it.
[00:17:41] Yeah, it just, it got me excited, excited to think okay, people are starting to think about if this is inevitable, how will we interact with the, like you were saying the land there and potentially that the life that we encounter there.
[00:17:54] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no it's really interesting because we have such ubiquitous information.[00:18:00]
[00:18:00] We can have a ton of people thinking about problems before we encounter them. And that, I don't know that's happened before in history. It's yeah, the information's always been centralized with a few people. And so we didn't have this much perspective and insight from such a range of people, which I think is only going to help us.
[00:18:20] It's
[00:18:21] Phil Scully: so funny because the way I think about space is I just think about it in very basic terms. You have companies that in this first wave, this infrastructure build. Those companies will generate revenues and there aren't a lot of those companies. And so as an investor, when you see not a lot of competition, that's usually attractive, wider business, but it's not about attraction.
[00:18:47] Then you can keep pricing and you can have more market share. So I think of that. Very basic, what we're executing on. And then I see the longer-term vision of it, but I'm really [00:19:00] just focused on just this needs to happen, because if we don't take this first step, then it will be very hard for us if we don't have that, basically.
[00:19:09] I think we're essentially building the Android marketplace and then behind that is, match.com and Airbnb and Uber, but just much bigger. If we get an energy and space company, It will be the biggest company we've ever seen. If it provides free, unlimited energy to earth, the value of that that's significant value oh yeah,
[00:19:34] Tim Chrisman: no, it's a huge piece of what we're doing it.
[00:19:37] The foundation is advocating for that infrastructure layer. Human space flight is sexy. Stem is exciting. All of this is cool, but. The sort of road rails, sewer, that Android marketplace you're talking about, that's the boring piece that if it doesn't work, none of the rest is doable.
[00:19:57] And trying to. Oh, in our talks with [00:20:00] Congress, talking with them, Hey, there's a lot of capital flowing into space, but there needs to be these infrastructure investment tools that are used on the ground, bonds, loan guarantees, credit markets. This is what really fuels the development of infrastructure.
[00:20:16] And there does seem to be a lot more interest and attention being paid to that. So that's really good. That's wonderful. Yeah. So you mentioned this. You you helped start last year, was it that's
[00:20:28] Phil Scully: right? Yeah. Last spring we launched a fund to invest in a private space companies, early stage private space companies.
[00:20:37] And the way we thought about it was it's really hard to determine what's going to be successful. And so we started calling. Different companies. And then we created a framework don't invest. There are companies that are participating in transport. So let's take a look at some of those companies, try and find [00:21:00] the best fit for us, the best companies, best technology.
[00:21:02] There are companies that are working. Telecom opportunities, satellites try and find the best company in there. There are emerging space companies. So like an area like space manufacturing, try and find the best. So we broke it up into different buckets. And this is what you'll see when investors are investing and they have no idea what's going on.
[00:21:26] You just, I think it looks good. It certainly feels like something big now. I don't understand it. And agents spread out my wrists. And so they build a portfolio. So you might see this in something like oncology. So as you think about curing cancer, this is a trillion dollar opportunity. If you put all oncology areas, all cancer areas together, it's a very large market, but you don't know, should I be in.
[00:21:58] Breasts I've been [00:22:00] testicular what areas. And and then you don't know which companies, so you may build a portfolio and have different opportunities in there for piano. That's what we did with the space foam. We launched the space funding. We said we're going to spread out over 10 companies. Okay. But a good way, a good position in those 10 companies.
[00:22:20] And we've been investing now for a. One year, we tried to raise $20 million. We've been successful doing that. We had a crazy experience raising the money. It's almost like a book. We have one individual. He for the last couple months Daniel has been Tulsa. Houston Austin, San Antonio. He had to get from Kansas city to Omaha.
[00:22:49] There were no rental cars. So he had to drive back and forth. Has been in Chicago. I've been in Miami, we've been in Arizona and Phoenix. We've been meeting [00:23:00] investors in every part of the country. And what was happening was people were starting to hear more about space people. Also hadn't met with people in alone.
[00:23:12] So we started showing up in towns like Nashville and people were like, I love space, but also thank you for visiting. We haven't had anyone come and visit. In two years, we went to Tulsa. We met this amazing family office there and just had these great conversations. They were like, no one comes to Tulsa, Oklahoma city to visit us.
[00:23:34] So we started bringing. People this concept of space and just saying, Hey, we think you're going to be investing in this area. This is what we're doing. And we started getting more investors. And so now the fund is almost closed. We would like to start working on, in addition, a next fund, that's a model we do in venture capital for your audience in venture capital.
[00:23:56] You prove out your model with a small fund and then you [00:24:00] try and get more investors in a bigger fund. And then that's the business model that you follow there and you try and hope they get three to four great companies in your portfolio. And then some don't work. Like some, they hit a snag, they run out of capital.
[00:24:18] So we've been having a great time, but what's been the most fun is just talking to people about space. I can not tell you a conversation we've had with. Where they haven't loved the idea of space. Like I said, people have said, you're crazy. You shouldn't be spending your time in this. This is it's too early.
[00:24:38] But no one has said, I don't want to talk to you about space, everyone generally tell me what Elon is doing. I don't understand it. What's the difference between Bezos and Elon? What is going on with China on dark side? Is Russia still like the questions we get are amazing. Oh yeah. And honestly, when you travel.
[00:24:59] Across the [00:25:00] country. It's a very uniting topic of space, like the importance that people see around space and the interest they have to meet aliens. It's a really fun topic. And I think we're going to continue to do that like this summer. I think we're going to go to Utah and Wyoming and Montana. A lot of people, a lot of investors go to the mountains now.
[00:25:21] The summers. And so we're going to travel to all those places. We want to go to DC and Virginia and Baltimore and meet with there's a lot of great investments, investment firms there. So it's been a really amazing journey. Just traveling, talking to people about. Probably something, some you get when you're talking to people and recording this great conversations it's a great topic.
[00:25:43] A lot of fun.
[00:25:45] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, it really is. And that unifying piece has been so cool. All of my education's around political science and being based at a DC here I'm used to hearing the partisanship talks, but a space [00:26:00] cuts across all that. And it's been really cool to see that basically regardless of what else is going on.
[00:26:06] Spaces exciting, interesting, and unifying. And, in some parts it's probably because what you're talking about, Russia and China are major threats there and people recognize that and nobody wants the other party to win, but we don't want to live under China's rule. As you were saying earlier we don't want that more.
[00:26:24] Phil Scully: What's also interesting is. You go to Miami and you meet, you might meet like a young entrepreneur, very successful eith investor worth tens of millions of dollars, and we'll make an investment decision. In a matter of seconds, you can send them a telegram message. Hey, we're, it should invest in this company and then you'll get a message back.
[00:26:52] They're like, sounds great. I'm in. So you'll meet someone. Who's a natural risk taker. Young has a lot of time on their side, [00:27:00] right? If you're younger, you can make a lot of mistakes because you have more time to make up for it. But then you go to a very conservative place. Not Miami, but like the Midwest of the U S and you meet with someone and they're later in their.
[00:27:16] A traditional finance person running a big business, running a registered investment advisor. So that would be like a person that you send money to. And then they have a bunch of people like you, that they gather all that money. They pull it together. They're called a financial advisor or a registered investment advisor RIA.
[00:27:36] And you meet with the person in Miami who's young and is very in this defy world, decentralized finance or crypto world. And you meet with the. Traditional five-person that's called trad fi and their love for space is exactly the same. But they're just like, no, I see it. I believe that, I don't know, like if [00:28:00] tourism is like, what I'm interested in, I may be more interested in like the images we get and what we're able to do with that data.
[00:28:07] How can that help us with precision farming or one person may be like, I just think about safety and I don't want. I D I don't want us to see the moon to another region. I think we should part of it, but it's a very different person you're meeting and you're having similar conversations.
[00:28:24] And that to me is I went to Georgetown and I spent a bunch of time in DC. And so I haven't been in this recent iteration of DC in the last 10 years, but. It was always these like polarizing conversations on topics that seem to be like similar to me often. Do you want to drive a test?
[00:28:43] Yeah. You want to drive a Tesla? It's fast. It's quiet sound. System's great. But what that represents is, but space. It just really does. It's a common thread for people. And so that is that makes those conversations fun. And I don't know if I could ever connect those to people like someone in Kansas city to [00:29:00] Miami and have them go out to dinner, but they're connected through us.
[00:29:04] Yeah.
[00:29:04] Tim Chrisman: And it sounds like they would at least be able to have a good conversation.
[00:29:09] Phil Scully: We'll just put them in telegram and we'll just send them pictures of skyscrapers that are, the Starship and Brownsville, and they'll both be happy. So it's true. It's true. But we need all of those people, because we need. The the older generation of people that have all the wealth in this country, the silver lining, we need their capital. And then we need like the young entrepreneurs to build businesses and take risks. So we need.
[00:29:39] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no, it's true. And a lot of times the challenge in talking with those more conservative people, at least on the politics side that we're doing here is convincing them that it's now they're going to be interested.
[00:29:52] They're excited, but it's often, is that something that's happening now in my lifetime? And. I enjoy [00:30:00] having those conversations, being able to convince them that, no, this is where we're at. You lived through the.com era, here's where we're at on that map. And it's I think, yeah it's really exciting to be able to have those conversations.
[00:30:14] So I
[00:30:15] Phil Scully: used to have those two. That's who I mainly talk to and it will be like a family office. So that's a family that maybe had a business and then they sold that business and they made a lot of money off it. And so rather than have outsourcing the investments that they have, the portfolio, they have their own investment company called a family office.
[00:30:38] So we talked to these folks and. These folks no longer having the, why space a few years ago? Like you can get convinced anyone. That space was an interesting asset class. And even 12, 18 months ago, you had some people, but in general, people just were like, this is not a good area to [00:31:00] invest.
[00:31:00] Why would I do it? Why now you'd always get that question. And I think we are really close to being past. For the people I talked to, which would be like investors, and now it'll take a awhile for adoption of everyone. But I think from an investment perspective, when you're in that uncomfortable area and having those uncomfortable conversations and people don't believe you.
[00:31:24] So those are when you have to feel the most excited, because if you are. Which you're not always going to be right. But if you are right, then all of those people are behind you and you've already invested. And so what they'll have to do is they'll have to catch up if you're right. And so that's what drives, that for risk-takers that's what drives really nice
[00:31:52] Tim Chrisman: performance.
[00:31:53] Oh yeah. It's interesting. I'm more on the risk take inside my wife's less and exactly how I describe it. I'm like I [00:32:00] tell a lot of jokes to her. Not many are funny to her. They're all funny. But I tell her. I tell more funny jokes. And you, even though I have a 4% success rate, I'm just going to tell her, and you're going to think for a funny you're going to find that perfect one.
[00:32:14] And you're going to tell one joke and it's going to be funny, but I'm still ahead. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall. It's it's going
[00:32:21] Phil Scully: to pay off by the way that's investing. Yeah. You are investing and into numerous projects. Like private investment or stocks. And then if you're a great investor, something happens where one looks different and it could be like Netflix, you just are investing in Netflix and you're interested, but you're probably not investing on Netflix.
[00:32:44] You're invested in 20 other things. And then all of a sudden something just clicks. And so when you get that. One joke. And you just that's where you're going to tell everyone that joke. [00:33:00] When you get that one, Netflix, you get that one Bitcoin, you get that one space company. That's where all your eggs go.
[00:33:08] You push all your chips on that, and then that's how you drive good performance. So that strategy that using the joke, telling us. Something similar. I would use it investing.
[00:33:18] Tim Chrisman: It's yeah, I'll have to try that. One day jokes are a lot cheaper. It's a lot easier. I can raise a joke fund.
[00:33:25] Pretty cheap.
[00:33:25] Phil Scully: I have come down easier to start businesses in this country. And so it's easier to invest in it's ever been, I think the democratization of the crypto markets and what we're seeing with there's a great crowdsourcing, a company called space ventures. They're out of Florida and they do a wonderful job of bringing retail everyday investors into these amazing space companies.
[00:33:49] And so when you can invest in. Smaller dollar amounts and you don't need to be worth millions of dollars. I that to me is the dream. So they're doing a wonderful job.
[00:33:59] Tim Chrisman: No agreed. [00:34:00] And so I know the founders over there and what I really liked about what they do is it's not, they've taken the Kickstarter Indiegogo thing and made it.
[00:34:10] Better because they're vetting the companies, they let on, they're putting them through audits. And so instead of you, as the retail investor, having to lick your finger and see which way the wind's blowing, you can know there's a certain level of due diligence or. But then you still get to, do you still get the buy in?
[00:34:30] And I think that's a really exciting model.
[00:34:34] Phil Scully: Yeah. Yeah. It
[00:34:35] Tim Chrisman: really is. I know we're coming up on time here, but is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you think would be interesting?
[00:34:44] Phil Scully: I just think everyone should spend more time on space. I think if people haven't seen what Elon is building in Southern Texas, I would go on Twitter and start following him.
[00:34:56] If anyone has any questions, I would just reach out to companies. The people that are [00:35:00] starting, this companies are. Are doing it for the right reasons. And and I would be surprised if they don't reach out to your listeners and folks that are passionate about it. I think it's a great ecosystem. I think we're going to be looking at space and talking about space for a very long.
[00:35:15] Yeah, especially on the investment side, we're really early. And so I think it's a good place to be right now. And yeah, I would just encourage everyone with dad questions to reach out and spend more time reading about it, looking and following it on social media. And then if you have the. I would travel to see some of these launches.
[00:35:36] I think what we're hearing about these launches and these trips to space is that it's almost like a religious experience in people. There's a company called space perspective. So they take you to space on a balloon. It's a company that the fund I'm associated with is invested in. And what I hear from that.
[00:35:58] Journey is [00:36:00] that once you see the arc curvature of the earth, it's, it gives you a new sort of perspective on earth and humanity and you come back kind of change person. Yeah, I think these are the things that people should aspire to and should work on for their life school. So really appreciate your time.
[00:36:19] And please, if anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out.
[00:36:22] Tim Chrisman: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today, Phil. And I agree, the more people asking questions, getting involved the better it's what we need as a sector. Yeah. Thanks for your time today and look forward to seeing what you all do here in the future.
[00:36:38] Phil Scully: Wonderful. Thank you. Bye.
[00:36:42]