 Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to DAV's Patriots Pitch. I'm your host and director of DAV Patriot Boot Camp, Nick Brophy. The A.V. Patriots Pitch is a unique pitch competition which showcases top finalists from our most recent DAV Patriot Boot Camp cohort, which we held last month at our national HQ in Erlanga, Kentucky. Yes, it's inspired by the TV show Shark Tank. Our dynamic event brings together these entrepreneurs and a panel of accomplished judges, many of which are investors, industry experts, and successful entrepreneurs themselves who are eager to support and invest in veteran-led and or veteran-spouse-led businesses. The top contestant today will win $1,500 in non-dilutive capital, always an entrepreneur's favorite kind of capital. The runner-up will win $1,000 and the veteran coming in third place, $500. Sadly, since we have four contestants today, one entrepreneur will walk away without money, but will gain the wealth of experience and, of course, DAV's community. And while these funds may provide some cushion to support their ventures, each entrepreneur was offered a chance for one-on-one coaching focused on further improving their ability to sell their ideas to customers and potentially future investors. But before we begin and cover the rules, I'd like to take a moment to introduce our panel of judges for today's competition. We're going to start first with Taylor Macklemore, co-founder and CEO of Future State Ventures and a co-founder of Patriot Bootcamp and is now the co-chair of DAV's National Veterans Entrepreneurship Council. Taylor is a venture builder, scale operator, community connector, and investor. He's also an advisor to Shurm Labs and sits on a number of startup boards. Taylor's also served on the Colorado banking board and he serves as a pension fund trustee for the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association. That's a mouthful. Previously, he was a managing director of ABLE, a venture and product studio. Taylor was responsible for ABLE's new venture and investing practices in all finance, legal operations, and human resources functions for three offices on two continents while the company achieved over 15x growth. While at ABLE, he was also a co-founder and investment lead for codable coding school in Latin America. Before his work there, Taylor worked in investment banking assisting in the arrangement of more than 12 billion financing for leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, and other corporate transactions. And while that is a long resume, we are very, very pleased to have Taylor Macklemore. Welcome, Taylor, to the panel. Thank you for having me. I'm grateful to be here. More than anything, I'd just like to say I'm grateful to be a part of this DAV community and I believe in the power and potential of veteran entrepreneurs. So I'm excited to hear what people have to say and see how we can support them. And our next judge, Valerie Lavin, is a DAV Patriot Boot Camp Council member as well, mentor and of course respected leader in the veterinary community down in the Tampa Bay area. She is actively serving her fellow veterinarians through ActionZone Inc, a Florida-based nonprofit that provides education and training and entrepreneurship to those who served. Valerie is also a board member of the Institute of Strategic Policy Solutions and an impact board member of, is it Synapsee, Florida? She's worked with the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce and Bunker Labs as a volunteer city leader and as a director of ecosystem development. She helped Bunker Labs develop its ambassador program, a service-disabled retired soldier with more than two decades of service. Valerie served in the military intelligence community before being called to duty at US CENTCOM, Commandant Headquarters as a First Sergeant. She's CEO of Luminary Global, a company that provides the military law enforcement and first responders with specialized equipment and supplies and Valerie has received numerous honors and recognition for her military service and more importantly, contributions to the business community. Valerie, welcome to DAV's Patriots Bits for the first time, I believe. Yeah, the first time. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and like Taylor, I am very excited and love watching a veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs thrive in small business ownership. Great. We're so happy to have both of you and that leads us to our final and third judge, our third and final judge, rather Tom Cox, the founder of Vertical Motion, an organization devoted to helping mid-career professionals and aspiring leaders become authentic, empathetic and audacious executives. The two-time VC back startup founder, Tom, is closed more than one and a half billion in B2B sales and B2G sales, is a former senior executive in publicly traded organizations and an Army veteran holds an MBA and is a recent leukemia survivor and we are so thankful for that, Tom. Tom holds several patents for his work in revolutionizing satellite communications and other technology breakthroughs throughout its career. Recovering from cancer, Tom retired from his 25-year space satellite career to become executive career coach for aspiring executives and Tom has mentored hundreds of professionals and entrepreneurs more than a decade and has been a mentor to the DAV Patriot Bootcamp and Techstars communities since 2017. Tom, thanks for carving time out of your day and again, thank you for being a part of DAV Patriot Bootcamp and Patriot's pitch panel. Welcome, Tom. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, everybody. I'm really glad to be here. Love DAV's mission, love working with the organization and I'm glad to be on this side of the table as opposed to pitching myself. Sure you are. And Taylor, Valerie and Tom, I mean, they're inviting them to be judges. They're living examples of the quality of instruction and mentorship available within the DAV Patriot Bootcamp ecosystem and frankly all entrepreneurial ecosystems and we're grateful for all that they do for us to make this program possible and all the support that they provide. So I bet everyone out there is wondering when are we going to get to the contest? Well, we are going to get to the contest here in just a moment but first we're going to cover the rules and then we're going to jump right in. So contestants, I hope you're getting ready. To start the program, first I'm going to introduce each participant by name. When they begin, so will the clock and they have two minutes to present without any slides before they experience the dreaded cowbell which I do have sitting right next to me. After their pitch, the judges will have three minutes or so to ask clarifying questions before we move on to the next contestant. Once all the contestants have presented their pitches, the judges and actually everybody out there watching will be able to vote for the top three contestants and then we'll announce the winners towards the end. So without further ado, I think it makes sense to move on to our first contestant and our first contestant is Mr. Michael Malinsky, Marine Corps veteran, father of three and founder of people, a founder of TADPulse Swimsuit, a company focused on providing innovative and high quality swimsuits that enhance the swimming experience for children. With a passion for safety, inherent playfulness and helping young swimmers build confidence through core understanding of progressive swimming techniques in a fun and effective suit. Ladies and gentlemen and everybody else out there, Michael Malinsky, Mike, take a deep breath because remember the timer will start when you do. What if learning how to swim was as easy as play? What would it look like? It would be fun, it would feel natural and it would be empowering. My name is Michael Malinsky, inventor of the TADPulse Swimsuit. Completely changing the way children learn to swim, I created a full body swimsuit that evenly spreads buoyancy from ankle to elbow with 24 strategically placed pockets each with a removable foam insert. There are two main problems with today's swim aides, they're all located across the chest and arms and they're binary. It's either helping them tread water in a forward motion or they sink like a rock when it's not in use. TADPulse swimsuits design not only provides buoyancy and freedom of movement but also evolves as young swimmers gain confidence. By removing a foam insert one at a time the child has to work a little bit harder just to keep their head above the water just like an athlete adds weights to get stronger in the gym. TADPulse swimsuit is more than just a retail company, we're socially aware and we transcend conventional business boundaries. That's with with every ninth swimsuit sold the 10th one will be given away to a community historically marginalized when it comes to access the public swimming areas. We strive not only to save lives through water safety but also contribute to broader societal healing. Today I'm asking you for $1,500 to increase inventory and cover marketing expenses. Funding will allow me to send samples to a parent's number one trusted water safety advisor, their kid's swim instructor. This is the ripple effect that I need to spread the word of my design's efficacy and create social proof that it works. Thank you for making water safety and confidence building a priority with TADPulse swimsuit. Excellent, excellent. All right, so TADPulse swimsuit, Mike Malinsky, let's start with Tom and see if he has any questions for Mike. Excellent pitch, Mike, I appreciate that. Question for you, can you tell me a little bit about your current revenue run rate and profitability? So right now the suits cost me about $26 a piece and I retail for $100. I'm bootstrapping the entire thing, haven't taken any investment and I do have a purchase order from a local pool store for 40 units and I'll be getting that done later this month. I was actually just wrapping that up before our pitch contest. Excellent, okay, thank you. Anything from you, Valerie? Great job, Michael. I do have a couple of questions about the suit itself. Tell me about the material. Is it SPF or does it provide any protection? How easy is it to get on and off? Does it cause rashes? I'm just thinking, you know, parents, that seems very a lot to put on before I take my kids swimming. Sure, this is actually SPF 40, so it does provide UV protection and the swimsuit material is the same material as all other swimsuits. It's mostly spandex and so far no rashes. It's the same design as a full-body swimsuit. A parent would order to just to cover protection from the sun, but mine has the patent-pending pockets on there to spread out the buoyancy. Okay, thank you. I do have another question, Nick, but I can wait my turn. Go ahead, no, go ahead, Valerie. How are you marketing this? What is your go-to-market strategy with this? How are you reaching the parents? Having it at the pool store is great, but how are we getting the parents to the pool store? So right now I have Facebook, Instagram, my own website launched just in December. This is like a brand new product and now that this mannequin actually just came in today, I'll be making videos and showcasing more of that. YouTube channel started and TikToks around the corner. Yeah, it's just right now it's organic, sending it out to friends and family and everybody that sees a kid wearing one of these crazy-looking suits, you know, their interest is peaked and so right now it's word of mouth. Okay, thank you. Great, I can see Taylor's stomping at the bit. Taylor has little kids too. Taylor, what questions do you have? I always have questions, especially when it comes to kids' projects, the products. This is really well done on the pitch. How big do you think this market is? You know, there's a lot of kids out there and this is a critical skill, but have you put your arms around how you would quantify it? Sure. Yeah, let me just, just my thing here. So there are 400, sorry, 49 million children in the United States under the age of 10 and the number one cause of death in children, foreign under, is drowning and it's number two from 10 to five. That's a rate of 2.5 per day. So there is a market out there. The cost of a suit is less than what somebody would pay for a set of swim instructions. So that's where I say it's empowering. So it gives parents the confidence to put something on their child, know that they won't sink in the water, but they can have, they can splash around and beat and do what the big kids are doing. So the market's there. Everybody that I've talked to says like, I wish you made this five years ago, my kids are teenagers now, you know, and stuff of that nature. If you were, if you make less than $50,000 a year, that household, it has 80% likely to have poor swim skills. If you are a person of color, black and indigenous people of color, you're 64% more likely to drown. And that's where my mission statement comes into for every night I sell, I'm going to give one away. That's where I'm giving away to. And I'm not trying to make that the marketing pitch. I just kind of want to do that behind closed doors and just make a difference. I really appreciate your mission. Thanks for the response. Great. Mike, thank you so much for your pitch. That was great. We're going to move on to our second contestant, everybody. And our second contestant today is Jasmine Paul. So Jasmine is an Air Force veteran and founder of the Wealth Playground, a financial education startup teaching kids about money. Her work was selected by Harvard's Read Labs to teach all third graders in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District. Her work has impacted the lives of over 10,000 young people in counting. The Wealth Playground designs interactive, engaging, and memorable experiences for youth ages five to 18 years old. Through their award-winning children's book series, Financial Education Workshops and Curriculum Development, they are empowering the next generation of wealth builders. Ladies and gentlemen, Jasmine Paul. Jasmine, remember, once you start talking, the timer starts when you do. Hi, everyone. My name is Jasmine Paul, and I'm the founder of the Wealth Playground. When I was a senior in college, I had a 3.4 GPA studying communications and Arabic. My friends and family would say that I was smart and successful, but I had a secret. I was living in my car and on friends' couches. It wasn't about ambition or intelligence. It had everything to do with not managing my money well and not asking for help. So I learned as much as I could about saving and investing through hours at the library and reading tons of books and asking mentors, and I finally figured it out. So while I was managing multi-billion-dollar budgets and holding the keys to nuclear weapons in the Air Force, I started teaching my coworkers and friends, and I was able to help 110 people repay $350,000 in student loan and credit card debt. And then I thought, why not teach kids? So that's why I created the Wealth Playground, a series of children's books, curricula, and workshops that inspire the next generation of wealth builders between the ages of five to 13. And we make it fun and enjoyable. To date, we've been able to sell 10,000 copies of our children's book series and work with organizations like the Taco Bell Foundation, Harvard University's Read Labs, the San Antonio Museum, schools in several states, and so much more. Today, we're seeking funding to reband the Wealth Playground and increase our user experience and to hire a curriculum development team to ensure that our curriculum is the best throughout the country. The Wealth Playground is impacting the next generation of wealth builders to live out their best dreams instead of living in their cars. Thank you. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Okay, we're going to start with, we're going to go to reverse for a minute. We're going to start with Taylor if he has any questions. What's the largest challenge that you're facing to drive growth and launch right now? The largest challenge that I'm facing currently is reaching the decision makers in the different school systems. I feel there's teachers and people that are serving on school boards who are super interested. So I think my biggest challenge right now is like reaching the decision maker because I believe once I reach them, they're all in. That's great. And I really appreciate what you're working on. Great to see. So thank you. Thank you. Valerie, what questions do you have for Jasmine? Hi, Jasmine. Great job. Fun fact, Jasmine is actually alumni of ActionZone. So it's amazing to have watched her journey and have her here today. Jasmine is just incredible. So just to add on to your current challenge that Taylor asked, are you registered in county and states as a potential vendor for schools? We can just get into the decision maker. Okay, you are. So I'm on by boards here in the state of Texas as well as the South Central Textures Regional Certification Agency. And then I'm currently in the process of working through a few ISDs that are in the state of Texas. And when are you coming back to Florida? Whenever like we need to find a school that's ready for an author visit or financial literacy workshop and I'm down. Okay, so my question, my next question is what does it cost a school system to adopt your program? Yes, so it depends on the type of model. If it's the after school program, it's going to cost anywhere between $55 to $75 per student that will be involved in the program. And that's a licensing curriculum. And that will be for a facilitator of my staff to come in, help the school and then they would provide the financial literacy curriculum. And what kind of profit does that provide you? It's about, it's between a 45 to 50% profit margin. And it just depends again on the deliverability. If they want online only, it's going to increase the profit on our side. Great. Thank you. Tom, what about yourself, sir? Any questions for Jasmine? I love the theme today so far. It's been for helping children. I love this. My question to you, what are the materials like? What do the children actually interact with? Yes, so we have a series of five different children's books as well as worksheets, digital products, and then videos. So I can show you here. So here's our first book that we've been able to sell 10,000 copies of. We have our workbook that has about 40 activities ranging from saving, investing, and growing money. Here's another book. And then we also have the Spanish versions of the books as well as our worksheets that will, worksheets and facilitators guides that will help our teachers to facilitate the information. And then my other question for you is, is this something that I could buy online as a parent, even if I'm not aware of, like if I'm not part of a school that you have a partnership with? Absolutely. So you can go over to thewealthplayground.com slash shop and shop there, as well as we're on Amazon, Bards and Noble, and then currently in 11 bookstores throughout the state of Texas, Massachusetts, and Missouri. And then all of your marketing so far has been organic? Everything has been organic, have not done paid ads. It's been word of mouth. We currently have about 5,000 followers across our social media. That's on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And it's truly been people have found us on Instagram or they found us on Amazon and have formed a relationship from there. Excellent. Great pitch, great product, great presentation. Thank you. All right. Thank you, judges, and thank you, Jasmine, for your presentation. Our next contestant, let's get down to business with Dr. Oskar Vasquez and his associate. And Oskar is a Marine Corps veteran passionate about scientific discovery and patient-centered care. This is why he founded and is the CEO of Hanser Mune Inc., a biotechnology startup founded in collaboration with faculty and colleagues from the One Health team at UC Davis. Hanser Mune is dedicated to pursuing groundbreaking science to discover and develop medicines for people and animals with severe and life-threatening diseases. And their transformational discoveries include the first immunotherapies to prevent and treat cancers. Dr. Oskar Vasquez, the clock starts when you do. Thank you, everyone. In 2019, a 40-year-old mother with young children was running out of time. Rosa had stage 4 breast cancer that she and her doctors have been fighting with every treatment available, but nothing worked. At this point in her disease, oncologists would consider Rosa a patient with a very poor prognosis, while others would just simply consider her a hopeless case. That's why she visited our colleague and friend, Dr. Juan Marquez, at the Sonora Cancer Center. He gave her the experimental cancer treatment that we developed. And after one year, her cancer was in remission, gone, undetectable in her body. This story is the same for 24 other women that were part of this critical trial. We are cancer immune, and this is the most exciting research that our team has conducted so far. I am Dr. Oskar Vasquez, an MD-PhD focused in Neuro-Incology. And I'm Dr. Elizabeth Tenborg, a UC Davis-trained veterinarian specializing in immunology. Our team includes a PhD immunologist who founded a biotech company that went public, an MD-PhD with 10 years of experiencing developing immunotherapies, and a PhD data scientist who uses AI to develop novel immunotherapies. We leverage AI to find cancer cell biomarkers most likely to generate an effective immune response and use these markers to detect cancer long before traditional and more expensive diagnostics. We use similar molecules to train an immune system fire team to attack that cancer. We need funding to file our patents and move to the next phase of clinical trials. For Rosa, one of the hopeless cases, cancer immune treatment was life-saving, and a good reason to be hopeful. We can save the lives of millions of other patients around the world with your help. Okay, great. Wonderful. All right, judges, I see some ears perked. So let's start with, let's start with Valerie this time. Valerie, what questions do you have for cancer mute? So what, to get the patents, but is this accessible to the general public or wherever you are located? Meaning that to get the patents or? No, to have the test done. Are you doing the testing now? You're just trying to raise money to get the patents, right? Yeah, so the testing that we are talking about, for example, we have done already in collaboration with the Sonora Cancer Research Center. And with them, we were able to actually test on patients the effectiveness of our diagnostic test, which is one of our products to identify biomarkers of cancer much earlier than, let's say, in the case of patients with breast cancer like Rosa, than a mammogram would. And so the idea would be that once a diagnostic is developed, it would be still a testing that is done at a clinical setting and not precisely, not the patient himself. Okay, all right, thank you. Taylor, what do you have for the team at Cancer Mute? I'm interested in, what is the time that you expect it all take to go to market with this? Because building biomedical innovation like this, I generally think of it as not quick, but it's such a pressing issue that I think it's valuable that you all are working on this to bring it to market. But what's the timing look like? That's a great question. And right now, the projections that we have to bring specifically the breast cancer diagnostics through that phase one clinical trial and into the market is going to be approximately four years. And that's our conservative estimate. And as you know, with clinical trials for therapies, that timeframe does tend to be longer. The unfair advantage that we're working with is that we actually know this technology works already due to the pilot trial that we've ran with the Sonora Cancer Center. So with that in mind, although clinical trials to get immunotherapy onto market can be anywhere from eight to 12 years, we expect this will be able to deliver on the shorter end of that timeframe. Thanks for the work that you're doing, critical issue. Of course. Great. Tom, any last questions for Cancer Mute? Yeah, so obviously I have a little bit of experience with these types of clinical trials. So my question, I think Taylor answered the question I had about the timeframe and those timeframes make sense to me. Who buys this? Who ultimately is your target customer? Because I can understand that you're identifying cancer very early. But is that something that a GP would want to order a test for? Or is this more for oncology departments to use? For the diagnostic test, which by the way, let me just start by saying this. Thank you for sharing your story at the beginning of the event today. That's very powerful and inspiring for us, the clinicians. So the clients here would be for the diagnostic test. It would be general practice providers that would include gynecologists, for example, that do a lot of, manage a lot of the early detection of these kind of lesions. So primary care physicians, family medicine physicians, internists, health systems that basically holds this kind of services will be the primary customer. Okay, see the long road ahead of you, years for the whole clinical trial process. And ultimately, once you receive acceptance, at that point, then it's a matter of awareness, getting your message out there. So what is your plan in terms of a long-term business strategy for going through the trials and then doing the customer awareness piece? So part of the plan that we will leverage is actually which is one of the reasons why our partnership with Dr. Tambor and the faculty at the School of Veterinary Medicine is that one of the things that we can do to bridge, I mean to bring closer the gap between development, R&D, and eventual marketing commercialization of a product that makes revenue is that we can use similar technology that we use to develop the diagnostic in humans to develop a diagnostic in animals. So and the regulatory threshold to market a product in veterinary medicine is a little bit shorter. So by doing both development pipelines simultaneously, we hope that we'll have a product in market addressing the needs of the veterinary medicine community much quicker. And then eventually what ends up happening in many diagnostic areas or even therapeutic areas in the United States at least and most places throughout the world is that once you have the data out of the trials to prove the safety and efficacy of a product, adoption kind of falls in a domino path in that then the governing bodies within the practice of medicine start endorsing the use of that technology. So a lot of the marketing is actually done internally between the clinicians practicing that kind of medicine because the moment that you have access to a tool that is more efficacious at actually doing the diagnostic or in this case doing the treatment then adoption kind of follows the recommendations of the College of Gynecologics practitioners for example in the United States and eventually the world. Appreciate what you're doing. Thank you and I'll say I love the idea of sprinting to revenue through the veterinary service first. Love it. Thank you. Great, great questions judges, quick, great responses, contestants and so we're going to move on to our fourth and final pitch competitor for today and this is E. Jacob Slody an Air Force veteran, Harvard Business School alumni and founder of Veterans Communication Group America's first veteran-owned and operated national advertising agency that focuses on creating a bridge for veterans to enter the marketing advertising industry where they are sorely underrepresented. So let's have a warm welcome from Mr. E. Jacob Slody and so remember E when the when you start speaking the clock starts too. Okay well welcome for my spacious college dormitory today I'm E. Slody and I'm going to talk to you about advertising. Now I know a lot of people don't like advertising and honestly what I'm about to tell you is probably going to make you like it even less but stick with me it's going to get better as I talk. Okay so here's the ugly. Over 10 million dollars is spent in the advertising industry to communicate and help veterans but almost none of that money ever goes to veterans. It goes to advertising agencies owned by civilians because they believe that the people who have never served in the military are the communication experts when speaking to people in the military. It simply makes no sense but it has been the way that this business has run for a hundred years. My company Veterans Communication Group is about to disrupt that because we are the first national veteran-owned and operated advertising agency in America. Top line this business hires and trains vets for careers in advertising. Our model is to service the 99 million dollars of advertising set aside issued by the government every year and be the premium subcontractor entity for the 7 billion dollar military recruitment market that is currently returning to worst ROI since 1940. This system has to change. Even commercial brands are struggling to find an authentic way to communicate to veterans in a market that's worth 43 billion dollars. These are big numbers that demand big change and Veterans Communication Group is committed to making that happen because we are the right company with the right people at the right time. Be a part of that change today and help me fund this company. Thank you. All right. All right. Judges, what questions do you have? We're going to start with Tom this time. Tom, what questions do you have for E? Great pitch. E, can you tell me a little bit about this 99 million set aside? Is that funding that the U.S. federal government spends on military recruitment or is it set aside for different things? That's a good, that's a great question. That is part of the 10, that is a section of the 10 billion I discussed about. The 99 is the about 0.6, the 0.6, 6.6 percent of military contracts that are put out equals about an advertising. It's about 1.5, but they have special set-asides just for veterans to pitch and win. That small number is dedicated to us. There are other groups in that boat, but once again, there is no national advertising agency that is veteran-owned and operated servicing that category. It's a little bit of blue water. And do you have the ability to generate a better row as return on ad spend for these clients? I understand that you understand the mission, but can you translate that into actually, actual ads that convert? It's a very good question. Yes, yes. I've been in the industry for 17 years. I won area award. I've won CANS multiple times. I am the top awarded veteran creative director in America. I have helped lead and be a part of CANS North America agency of the year, ad ages, agency of the year, and ad weeks, agency of the decade. Excellent credentials. I appreciate it. Great pitch. Those are all my mentors. I was part of that. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Taylor, what do you think? What questions do you have for E? Impressive experience to go after this mission. Tell us more about the team that you need to build to be successful. I have two other founders already. I'm going to leave them nameless because they're employed somewhere else right now. The team I need immediately is me and these two founders. I represent the creative side. I have a client services and then a strategist. Now, the expanding that team, I am in contract negotiations right now with bolting on another ad agency that's been around for about 150 years. I have a lot of experience with them. I've managed their teams before, so we're going to bolt them on and that's going to be media and also production and any loose holes that we have. Throughout the years, when I get going and funded, I'll start decreasing all the non-veterans and replace them with veterans. I'm very upfront with that with everyone I freelance and hire. This is a temporary position that will be filled by a veteran because that is the mission of this entity. Great. Thank you. All right, Valerie, what questions do you have for E? I appreciate your mission. It drives me crazy when organizations use veterans to market their organizations and then don't do anything for veterans. I appreciate that. I call it green wallpapering. I call it green wallpapering. I was trying to be political in my comments. I hope there's been any non-veteran people listening. Mike, I have two questions. One, does your agency help non-profits because their pocket books are much smaller? Well, they're carrying change persons compared to pocket books. That's part of the give back of this program is I will be part of DAV and all these veterans coming through that have these great ideas, product services, that's going to be our give back. We're going to help them and we're going to create campaigns for them. Within reason, I don't have a million bucks, but I'll help them promote their items and products and push their ideas out and suggest media. If the business is good, I'm not afraid to give a portion of that media and pay for it myself. Well, that's great. I know DAV and the Patriot Big Camp members will appreciate that. My second question is, what would you do with the $1,500? Should you be selected as the winner for this competition? I'm buying new laptops from the three founders. That's what we need. That would be a portion of that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Great. Now, another great round of questions from the judges and thank you, Yi, for the pitch and congratulations to all for contestants for finishing, getting through the pitches. We didn't even ring the cowbell once. We barely scratched the surface. We came close on one, but you guys timed it perfectly. Wonderful. I'm glad I don't have to ring that cowbell. So I thank you for that. Now it's time for voting. Now that we've heard from everybody, it's time to cast a vote. If you're on a social media platform of sorts, we have posted a link by this time to cast your votes. We'll give a few minutes to vote and then we'll announce the winner. Go ahead and access the link and cast your vote. While you're doing that, I'd like to thank a few people for being here today. First, I want to thank our judges, of course, Taylor, Valerie, and Tom for all your contributions mentioned in the beginning, but we can't mention it enough for all the things you do for DAV Patriot Boot Camp and carving time out of your day. So thank you for all of that. And for being constructive on your questions and feedback. Really, I'm sure that's well received by the participants. Second, I want to thank our contestants for carving out time. I realize you guys got busy things going on, whether that be full-time jobs and or your venture. So we really were always appreciative that you that you take time to come to DAV Patriot Boot Camp and that you take the time to participate in the competition because you could very well not and we really are grateful for that. And then lastly, anyone out there who's watching on social media or on some other platform, thank you for showing your support to each of these entrepreneurs. That's what we love most about the DAV Patriot Boot Camp and our community is how we encourage and support one another and tune in and find ways to connect. So grateful for all that you do there. If you're not familiar with DAV Patriot Boot Camp and you're here watching, we thank you for that too. If you're looking to learn more about the program, you can visit DAV PatriotBootCamp.org or you can follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook under DAV Patriot Boot Camp, which is probably what you're watching this on right now. So if you're interested in a cohort, we got our next one coming up in May, which is going to be here in the Cincinnati area in Erlanga, Kentucky. That application is posted, you can apply in our October link, which will be held in Washington, D.C., will be posted here in the near future. So stay tuned for that and apply on our website. And then while if you don't know about how it works, participants are typically asked to pay for their travel and to cover their lodging at our partner hotel. But outside of that, we pay for everything. And we've had many folks estimate the value of this program minimally at $7,500. And of course, you gain access to a network of support, like you've seen here today, that is absolutely transformative. As a matter of fact, one participant from our last cohort had to say this. There are a few places, there are a few places where you can enter a room and have 50 other people who are unequivocally dedicated to your growth. And DAV PatriotBootCamp brings in some of the best and brightest peers and mentors to advance that mission. And I think that speaks for itself. Another alumnus said that they spent nearly $40,000 on masterminds last year. And they were all amazing masterminds, but this event blew them out of the water. And so those are examples, real examples from our last cohort of what people feel about DAV PatriotBootCamp. We really appreciate that. What else can we say other than thank you to those who support us? So if you're interested in other future events, you can find all the information on PatriotBootCamp.org under programs. We also host a thing called Caffeine Connect. It's a webinar series where we bring experienced entrepreneurs on to teach about a relevant business topic. And that typically happens each month, speaking of which, our next event is next week, March 14th, two to three p.m. Eastern time here, where a Christian Sergeant and Army veteran is going to be teaching about building a defense tech company as she has spent significant time in the defense tech industry. So you can RSVP for that via Eventbrite. And if you're looking to support, if you're looking, if you're a veteran looking for support with your service-connected benefits, naturally DAV, we're the resident experts on that and you can get started at benefitsquestions.org to find an office near you and to get the ball rolling. Lastly, before we go into announcing the winners, if you are looking to get involved and join the fight for veterans, you can sign up for the Commander's Action Network at DAVCanDAVCAN.org. There you'll be notified anytime there are veteran-focused legislation brought forward by DAV, and you can easily send a pre-written letter to support that initiative to your state representative. So that, again, that's DAVCAN.org. You're looking to get involved and fight for veterans' rights that DAV brings forward. So appreciate that support there. Let's take a look at the results here, and I apologize for looking at my screen next to me, but there's a lot of things going on. And so right now I'm ready to announce the winners and award that money. So coming in our second runner up, or also known as third place, is Mr. Mike Molinski with the Tadpole swimsuit. So, you know, round of applause for Michael. Our first runner up or second place is Oscar Vazquez with Hanser Mune. So again, round of applause. Congratulations to you both. And again, the second runner up is $500. The first runner up is $1,000, and our $1,500 grand prize winner for today is Jasmine Paul, the Wealth Playground. Congratulations to all of you who participated. And for E, amen, you got a plethora of the wealth, got a great presentation, and we're always going to be here to support you. And hopefully somebody saw you online that wants to invest in you as well. So we're thankful for all of you taking out the time today. So we wish you all the best and luck as you take on the next challenge on your venture. And we're here for you at DAVPatreon Bootcamp. So everybody know we're a little ahead of the curve, but it is what it is. And so until next time, activate, mentor, create, and grow. Patreon Six, out.