June 11, 2025 • 34 mins
Buckle up for a raw, unfiltered journey of transformation that'll make your entrepreneurial soul IGNITE!
From a rough San Francisco neighborhood to selling his financial advisory firm, building groundbreaking tech, and now revolutionizing sports content with Bench, Dasarte Yarnway is the embodiment of creating your own destiny. This isn't just another success story—it's a masterclass in turning trauma into triumph, authenticity into opportunity.
In this electrifying episode, Dasarte breaks down:
- How losing his father at 12 became the fuel for his entrepreneurial fire
- The power of being unapologetically yourself in a world that tries to dim your light
- Turning personal pain into a mission to change generational financial narratives
- Insider secrets from his journey through Fisher Investments, Altruist, and beyond
Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, a sports fan, or someone hungry for real-world wisdom, this conversation will challenge everything you thought you knew about success.
Connect with Dasarte:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dasarte-yarnway-b3b39443/
- Instagram: @dasarteyarnway
🚀 Create. Communicate. Conquer.
Welcome to the No BS Wealth Podcast with Stoy Hall, your candid guide to financial clarity. In our third year, we're spicing things up by enhancing community ties and bringing you straight, no-fluff financial insights. Connect with us on NoBSWealthPodcast.com, and follow Stoy on social media for the latest episodes and expert discussions. Tune in, join the conversation, and transform your financial journey with us—no BS!
As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!
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DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stoy (00:00):
Y'all ain't ready for this one.
I can promise you, you are notready for this podcast today
with the finest of Desareehimself.
You got 2D one athletes playfootball.
I'm gonna chop it up aboutbusiness and financials and
whatnot, but you're just reallynot ready for the energy that's
going to be brought today.
So a.
Man, how have you been?
I know we haven't chatted in awhile back when we were at the
(00:22):
conference, but how have youbeen?
Desarte Yarnway (00:24):
Man, I'm blessed, first and foremost.
I'm excited to see you, bro.
It's been quite some time.
I've been watching you rip itup.
Every advisor that I talk to islike, have you seen what story's
doing?
So salute to you for justpushing the agenda for being
real and authentic.
Not having any BS in ourindustry.
I, I really appreciate seeingthat.
So just wanted to give you yourflowers on your podcast, first
(00:46):
and foremost.
Number two, I've been blessedsince the last time that we were
together.
I had a daughter, um, she's nowseven months old.
That tells you how long it'sbeen since we have last linked
up.
Um, I sold my business, right,and I know we'll talk about that
a little bit.
So my business in August of 2024started a new one and I'm
working hard on a bunch of newthings, so I'm excited to, to
(01:08):
jump into it today.
Stoy (01:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
But let's, let's, let's back itall the way up.
Yep.
Let's get to know who the hellyou are, where'd you come from?
How were you raised and and whydid you get into this money
game?
Desarte Yarnway (01:21):
Oh, man.
Um, we could take it back, man.
Before I even was born, myfamily we're, we're from
Liberia, west Africa.
My mom's a sweetheart.
My dad is a man's man,charismatic, handsome,
wonderful, thunderous voice, andjust the dude that all the dudes
wanted to be like and hang with.
My mom was actually born on arubber plantation called the
Firestone Plantation in WestAfrica, Liberia, where she went
(01:44):
to school, learned English, dideverything.
And on that plantation,Firestone Tires, we have them
here in America, right?
They bought hundreds of acres ofland for 10 cents an acre back
in the day.
And some of the people thatworked on that plantation,
including my mom, wereresponsible for getting the
substance that are used to makerubber tires.
(02:05):
In 19, 19 78, before LiberiaCivil War, my mother came to
America where she met my father,um, as a part of sort of this
exodus of Liberia, because ofthe political climate.
And they had my sister and tonsof other sisters.
I have five sisters.
I'm the only boy in theyoungest.
And we grew up in San Francisco,California.
(02:26):
I'm from San Francisco,California.
Super rough neighborhood in SanFrancisco, California at the
time, notorious for drugs,violence.
Um, now it's a beautiful area,but back then it wasn't.
In fact, my mom tells me thestory.
Our first day buying our, mychildhood home, um, in San
(02:48):
Francisco, it was actually thehome of a drug dealer.
So when they moved in from a 20story project that was getting
torn down, um, someone knockedon the door and was like, is
such and such here?
And she was like, I don't knowwho that person is.
And they're like, but the car'sright there.
I don't know who that person is.
The person proceeds to light thecar on fire blows up the car in
(03:11):
front of my childhood house.
So when you think about justwhere I come from, um, my
parents came from one war inLiberia to another.
But here in America, they won,you know, and they have five
wonderful children.
I think my mom said she has 16grandkids at this point in an
abundant life.
She recently retired four yearsago.
(03:32):
So, man, as I said before, I'mblessed and I'm looking to, to
multiplying those blessings all2025.
Stoy (03:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's crazy.
First of all, crazy story.
Would you say you're the best ofyour, of your siblings?
Are, are you the top dog?
I am the big
Desarte Yarnway (03:48):
little brother.
I will say that.
You know what I mean?
I'm the big little brother forsure.
I lost my dad in 20 2003, andhim and I are similar in a way
that we communicate, in a waythat we bring energy.
And I think, you know, when mysisters see me, they see him.
So there's a little bit of likerespect there.
And what that experience hasbeen able to do for me is like,
(04:10):
take risks, man.
You get to understand.
How finite life is super early.
So I was 12 years old when thathappened, and that grounds you,
you know, like this is not agame every minute, every day we
spend should be in pursuit ofsomething.
In some ways the kind of that islike putting a lot of pressure
on myself.
But in other ways, I've beenable to experience multiple
(04:33):
lives in this short amount oftime.
And you know, I have a really,really long time to go.
But you know, I've been able todo some cool things, write
books, be associated with majorgenerationally ambitious
companies.
Sell a company, right?
Build another one that's gonnabe huge.
Mergers, acquisitions, equity,all this stuff that if you're
not, you don't understand time,you really don't.
(04:54):
You think you just have all thetime, right?
And you never move.
So yeah, man, interesting life.
And it's just getting started.
Stoy (05:00):
Absolutely.
So let's, let's start in that,that, that career spot, what
took you from, and we'll, we'lldive in and we're always gonna
touch on football'cause.
That's what we do.
But talk to me about like, yougo from being an athlete, you
know, a top tier athlete, D one,playing football to like, why
get into this industry and whene everybody listening, when I
(05:20):
mean this industry, I'mobviously talking about the
money industry and I'm not justtalking about financial
planning, advising, um,'causeyou'll learn that he has other
businesses, but really it's themoney game itself.
What brought you into this game?
Desarte Yarnway (05:33):
Yeah, I mean, you know, this goes back to my
childhood and I think you don't,you don't understand why you do
what you do.
Until, you know, you look backand kind of calculate your
steps, you recalculate yoursteps.
So a couple key moments in mylife that kind of bring me to
this place of being a financialadvisor.
Number one was, was when myparents filed for bankruptcy.
(05:53):
I had to be maybe six or sevenyears old, but I was in the
office with that attorney asthey kind of went through.
That process, you know?
So I saw what it meant to likenot have money, and I didn't
think it impacted me that muchat the time.
Just thought mom and dad were inthe office, right.
Doing what they do.
But looking back that, thatstruck me.
You know, like obviouslysomething's wrong here in terms
(06:15):
of our financial wellbeing.
I.
I can't articulate or understandwhy as a child.
The second piece is just comingfrom nothing and losing my dad.
When you have five sisters and agrieving mother, it's like, what
are you gonna do?
You know, growing up in aneighborhood like that, you have
a choice.
You can be of the neighborhoodor be above the neighborhood,
(06:38):
and my choice was to be abovethe neighborhood and I decided
to play football as a means tokind of go to school.
First and foremost, right?
And hopefully use thatopportunity to get further and
make something of myself at thattime, quote unquote, making
something of myself was gettinga good job.
You know what I mean?
But little did I know that wouldkind of take me into
(06:59):
entrepreneurship.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but the money
game came to me in the sensethat I had gone through
experiences.
I wanted to make my dad proud,and it was the first opportunity
that I got outta school to do.
So I remember.
Interviewing for like 256schools.
I submitted app or or companiesapplications to these companies
(07:23):
and I'm like, one of them has tohit, you know what I mean?
Just using that, that sportambition to, to kind of assure
that, you know, I can.
I changed my narrative, so I gota call back from Fisher
Investments and I had, I didn'treally know anything about the
stock market despite taking allthese business classes and doing
(07:44):
all that stuff.
It was like my mom didn'tinvest.
She doesn't know if she's gonnaretire, but they were like, we
want you to come work herebecause this is the best
interview that we've ever hadand you're hungry.
So when I got there, the firstaccount that I got was a guy
that was Warren Buffett'sfriend, old dude.
I think he was born in like 1928or some something crazy.
(08:09):
So the way that he built hiswealth was Warren was like, Hey,
I'm buying a factory orsomething for this company.
They're gonna break down thefreeway to make it more or build
a freeway to make it moreaccessible.
The guy at the time owned apaint company, I need you to
paint the entire factory.
So he is like, I can either giveyou cash, and I think at the
(08:30):
time it was like$5,000.
He's like, I can give you$5,000cash, or I can give you 5,000 in
equity.
So the dude was like, gimme halfin cash and half in equity.
So.
Fast forward.
The account that I was workingon of his was 36 million at the
time, and I don't think we werehis only financial advisors.
(08:52):
Right.
Tells me the story and I'm like,what company was that?
He was like, it was Coca-Cola.
You know what I mean?
So that was pretty cool to likehear the impact of what
Understanding money could do foryou.
And from that moment on, I waslike, equity is a way, I gotta
figure out how to master thisgame.
Stoy (09:13):
Yeah, and, and we're gonna get into your companies too
right now, basically, but it'sreally cool to hear that story
because I didn't know that storybefore, even our late nights
with our STO and whatnot.
Like, we didn't talk about that,but it makes a lot of sense of
what you've done in your careerpath now.
Mm-hmm.
Let's, let's hit upon whathappened last August, right?
Let, let's hit that.
(09:33):
Yeah.
You had your own financialplanning firm.
You, you were doing what you'redoing there.
We talked about the advisingroles and things that we want to
do, you know, with Dr.
Preston Cherry and stuff likethat.
Um, and it comes down to, toselling it.
So walk us through that path andthat whole situation with
starting your own firm all theway through, you know, selling
it.
Desarte Yarnway (09:52):
Yeah, man.
So I go through FisherInvestments and you know, like a
typical athlete.
I'm like, man, I need more,gimme the ball.
What are we doing here?
You know what I mean?
And that forced me to, orencouraged me to go out and look
for other opportunities.
I enjoyed Fisher Investments.
Particularly because they reallyused, uh, the independence as a
superpower.
(10:13):
Like, we do things this way, wemarket this way, and these are
the people that we're gonna workwith.
I really, that was the biglesson that I took from that.
And so I went out, got a job atEdward Jones, Crested there,
grew practice from 5 million,like 20 million a few months,
got headhunted by a recruiter,went to HSBC bank as they were
restructuring their wealthmanagement division, first of
(10:33):
all, back to Edward Jones.
Most like.
Human firm you can work at.
They're all about knocking doorsand being small town heroes, uh,
from a financial planningperspective, teaches you how to
sit at the table and really, youknow, have empathy for people
and have that human aspect ofadvice, which I feel like can
sometimes be lost today.
Um.
(10:54):
HSBC bank though man, differentlife.
I'm getting on a train everyweek from DC Union Station to
New York City, grand Centralterminal, and I'm staying there
for a week, walking, working onWall Street, getting it done.
That is all about shareholdersand shareholder value.
You know what I mean?
Um, so I go through thesedifferent phases and I'm
(11:16):
learning these different lessonsalong the way, and I just think
to myself like.
This is not how I wanna run abusiness.
If this is closer to the topthan I was at.
I can't see myself going anyfurther from here.
If it's all about shareholdervalue, if it's all about just,
you know, what can I do for myshareholders and not, what can I
do for the client, the endclient.
(11:37):
So I went out on my own.
At that time I was, I wasturning 25, um, and I started my
firm.
That changed my life.
It forced me how to be aresponsible adult.
It forced me to get creative onclient acquisition.
It forced me to understand myown taxes, my own financial
circumstance, and it taught meabout risk, right?
(12:00):
We like to talk about risk froma market standpoint, portfolio
construction standpoint, but thereal risk is like, what are you
choosing not to do for aconservative or stable life?
And because I took that risk, mylife changed.
Stoy (12:16):
That's crazy to go through all that.
Right.
And not, I mean, you went fromEast Coast, west Coast, east
coast and back, which ishilarious.
I don't like East Coaster, soeveryone from the east coast.
Yeah, I don't like y'all.
Y y'all different.
And I don't, I don't, I can'tget behind it, just playing.
Um, so, so you're building thisthing, right?
And and we all, you buildingclientele working through that.
And we, when we had met likeover a year ago, you had talked
(12:39):
about, it's like, hey.
I wanna do other things.
Right, right.
You had, you had invested andbeen part of this, you know,
little company called Altruist,uh, which has grown into
something amazing too.
So what we'll hit upon that too,shout out tho those guys, but
what led to like, Hey, I'mbuilding this thing mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna sell it.
Was it always like, Hey, I'mbuilding it to sell it?
(12:59):
Or is it like, this is my careerand then an opportunity created
itself?
Desarte Yarnway (13:03):
No, man.
Um, I thought I was gonna be afinancial advisor for a very
long time.
I thought that this was, um, canyou hear that?
Yeah.
You can hear that?
No.
Okay, cool.
I thought that, um, I was gonnabe a financial advisor for a
very long time.
I thought that, you know, itwould last me until my fifties.
(13:24):
I thought that I was gonna dothis forever, but what I didn't
account for was the fact thatpeople change.
I.
And I was evolving and changingin the process of working and
growing my firm.
Um, and it really stressed me.
So fast forward from HSBC startmy firm.
The first 10 months of my firm,I got like 40 households of
young professionals inWashington, dc I'm blazing, I'm
(13:45):
writing blogs, I'm doingeverything.
I wrote my first book, datingBenji at that time, which put me
on the radar of a publisherhouse called Barry Kohler
Publishers.
They gave me a book deal.
I write the book, young Money.
Uh, the name of my firstpodcast, A Young Money podcast,
and it is crazy how my life isjust changing so fast, you know
(14:07):
what I mean?
So bunch of stuff happened.
Um, I'm trying to make the storybrief, but a bunch of stuff
happens and I get to the pointwhere I have two young kids, I
have a wife, I have a home, andthis is why you have to really
adhere to your why, right?
My why for this firm went backto my trauma when my dad never
(14:30):
seeing me play a football game.
I was an all American in highschool, 50 division one offers,
you know what I mean?
My why for creating my firm wasto have enough time to be there
for my future family.
At this time, I did not know Iwas gonna get married.
I did not know any of thesethings.
Stoy (14:47):
Right?
Desarte Yarnway (14:48):
Then as looked around in my life, I'm like.
I did what I said I was gonnado.
I got the house, I got the wife,I got the two kids.
But I've also created a job formyself as the solopreneur.
I am on the phones every singleminute of the day.
You know, I love my clients, butI don't really love the
technical aspect of the job.
(15:09):
I don't wanna create financialplans.
Um, sure I can hire out thatduty to somebody else, but you
know, I don't see myself doingthis for the next 10 years.
Right?
So, in my mind, after assessingjust what I want disartic to
look like, as I did when I was2025, it's like, who am I gonna
be at 35?
I need to build, I need to buildthat now to get there.
(15:30):
I did that same exercise.
I'm like, who am I gonna be whenI'm 40?
I need to build that now.
And that was the impetus for melooking for an acquirer from my
firm or being open to the ideafor somebody acquiring my firm.
And I was able to sell to a firmin San Francisco.
And it was just a seamlesstransition.
Stoy (15:49):
That's a, that's that's amazing story.
'cause as business owners, let'sgo back to the entrepreneur side
of things.
At the end of the day, your realretirement is.
You sell it to somebody or youbuild it a legacy and your kids
take over.
Like those, those are the twopaths.
There is no like half-assed andthen do it one way or another.
Right.
And to have that vision and, andreally actually not even the
(16:10):
vision, the, the wherewithal ofwho you are as Wow.
To say, I built this because ofmy trauma and what things I went
through and why I did that.
And guess what, that's changedand it does with kids and get
married.
Like things change.
And if it doesn't, I don't knowhow you got through it, but
like, you know, you have kids,those things change.
So more power to you on that.
(16:31):
But in the meantime though.
Regardless of the sale of thebusiness, you were involved with
some other things.
And for some of our listeners,go ahead and Google altruist
right now.
Go right ahead and do that.
You were integral to all ofthat.
How did that come about?
Right.
I'm, I'm a business owner in myown lane, do my own thing,
figuring things out.
How, how do you get involvedwith the FinTech?
(16:52):
How do you get involved withtech out, out of, out of the
bloom, you know, out of the wombtype of situation.
Desarte Yarnway (16:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I wanna just talk about thatand first of all.
I actually tweeted about thisand like wrote about this the
other day.
If you want to meet amazingpeople, you have to build
amazing things.
That is the rule of thumb.
A lot of people want to, youknow, meet Oprah or something,
but they're not doing thingsthat will ever catch the
attention of a person of statureand a person of value.
(17:19):
A person who's gone out andbuilt something for themselves.
You know what I mean?
Because.
The biggest risk, quote unquoteI took was starting a business
at such a young age.
After that, the smallest riskswere like putting myself out
there, writing a book,self-editing the book.
I'm sure I got typos all overthat book, but people loved it.
(17:41):
You know what I mean?
Um.
Creating a podcast and invitingpeople to go on this journey
with me.
And from that, Jason Wink.
Shout out to Jason.
I love Jason.
He's been a mentor, a friend,like change my life completely.
I get tapped to speak at the ogand if you are a financial
(18:01):
advisor, you might rememberWealth Stack Conference.
This is pre future proof.
Pre what we know today was inArizona.
So I'm speaking on a panel withsome big boys in wealth
management and um.
I'm talking about how I built myfirm.
Like I did this all digitally.
I did this by, you know, workingwith young professionals.
I did this in, you know, as a,as a passion project for myself.
(18:25):
And as I'm speaking, the crowdis like silent, bro.
They're like so dialed into whatI'm saying.
It's kind of strange.
They're listening to your boyand Jason Wayne comes up and
he's like, Hey, I remember thislike it was yesterday, it's
2019.
He's like, Hey, when you talk,people listen.
Keep talking and like hevanishes in thin air like
(18:47):
Prince, you know what I mean?
Like he just disappears.
Fast forward to like later thatyear, they had an opening for
someone to sort of run theirpodcast and they tapped me to do
it.
So that was how it started.
It started by me creating apodcast.
It started by me sort of sharingthe gospel.
It started by me sharing, youknow, my story and doing it this
(19:08):
way.
And getting the attention ofJason who was at just
serendipitously at that event onthat day in our session, I think
Altria had a big, Tyrone Rawshout out to him as well.
Tyrone was, um, talking about.
What he was gonna be doing withAltru at the time.
You know, Jason was there to seethat.
So if it wasn't for, you know,me being in the seat, me
(19:28):
creating, none of that would'vehappened.
Jason wouldn't have saw, and Iwouldn't have been involved with
the Altru.
Since Altru, I've been able tobe, you know, an advisory member
on wealth.com.
I've been able to be a part ofan acquisition of a FinTech
education company called Build.
Uh, big later I've been able todo a bunch of good things.
I invested in Tyrone's Companyon Ramp, right?
And I'm given opportunities toinvest in some of the future of
(19:49):
finance because I was able tocreate my world that I wanted to
live in.
So, um, all blessings all donewith the help of people in the
industry, like Jason Wink, likeTyrone Ross, like Justin
Castelli, like some of thesenames that you've seen before.
But it's been, it's been fun tocreate.
And, uh, create moreopportunities.
Stoy (20:08):
And that's where I, I preach all the time.
You, you, you don't becomesuccessful.
You are not successful.
There's not a richest person inthis world without a team, a
family, or these connections.
It's impossible.
Go back to the, the, the firstguy you had at, at Fisher who
was, you know.
He just painted for some equity.
(20:29):
Right.
Right.
And look where he's at.
It all comes down to who youknow and making sure that you
have those opportunities.
But the thing is, you need toput yourself out there.
If you don't, then those don'tcome about.
And the, and the thing is, thereare people who will always
gravitate to you if you juststick up to your own voice.
Yeah.
Right.
And I know being black dudes inthis industry, it's not easy.
Mm-hmm.
(20:50):
But once we learn to just do whowe are and speak how we speak.
Then people there.
There is none of those barriersas much anymore.
There always will be, but thereisn't as much anymore because
it's people Really just listento who you are.
Entrepreneurs out there,regardless of your industry.
Obviously if you're in ourindustry, listen up more, but
regardless of that, just be outthere doing what you do, but be
(21:12):
doing it loudly because theseopportunities.
That really Yes, might bepertaining to your industry.
For you, it led to all the otherthings that are going on, and
that's what leads to greatersuccess, greater opportunities,
and things that maybe changeyour career, which leads you to.
The bench.
Like what?
What is this new thing?
Right.
I'm just learning about itbecause your assistant emailed
(21:33):
and said the the bench, and Iwas like, what email is this?
I don't even know what's goingon.
And I just, yeah.
Do it a year ago.
So talk to us what this is like.
Right.
What's your next venture afterselling your advisory firm?
Desarte Yarnway (21:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Real quick on what you said,just about just being yourself,
number one, authenticity sell,you know, and I think that's
something that we struggle withas people of color in the
financial services industry inentrepreneurship.
Like we have a tendency to mutewho we are down for the
acceptance of others.
And actually it's quite thereverse.
Like if you're able to be moreof yourself.
(22:07):
People buy that, but people cansniff out a fake any day of the
week, you know what I mean?
So in addition to the advicethat you gave, anybody that's
listening to the podcast, beyourself and forget about
whoever else cares.
This is the no bullshit podcast,so fuck anybody else that cares.
You know what I mean?
If, if they don't accept you asyourself, you should not be
(22:30):
connected with them.
You know what I mean at all?
Because that's what matters.
It's about being.
It's about being yourself andyou're, you carry so much value
as your authentic self.
So I just want to reiterate thatin terms of bench, one of the
big lessons that I learned fromlike Jason Wink, and I tell
Jason, I tweet about this, Iwrite about this all the time in
my blogs, altruist has been myreal world, NBA, just from
(22:55):
everything that I've learned,the serendipity of the
connections that I made ininvesting in certain companies
that may have been acquired byAltru or everything about it has
been my real world.
The story about, um, the guythat worked with Warren Buffet
and painting the, the factoryand getting the Coca-Cola shares
led me to believe that there'sone thing that matters, and
that's equity as it pertains tofinance.
(23:17):
If you can build equity, you canchange your life.
And that is a decision makingprocess of how to use your
resources, your time, yourtalent and money to do that.
Right?
So.
Fast forward this whole journey.
I got the game, I got the tools,I got the knowledge.
The next logical step is tobuild something of enterprise
(23:38):
value that can impact the world.
And when you take the step upfrom serving your small
community to having impact onthe world, you can imagine that
the equity value of that ismassive, right?
So what I've built with Benchtakes me back to the beginning,
my first love football and mysecond love, which is creating
content.
(23:59):
And essentially what we've builtis a platform that is the
revenue engine for professionaland athletic sports teams and
programs to monetize theircontent and have direct fan
engagement.
You know, I played at a reallybig university and largely most
of the content that is filmednever will see the light of day.
So when you know the.
(24:19):
Alumni club is meeting with thehead coach and talking about
recruits and they're filming it,it will never be seen, right?
But if you're there in person,you'll see it.
So we created this platform toallow access to some of the
content that gets trashed, orit's just like a one-time thing
to be, uh, disseminated anddistributed on our platform to
alumni bases worldwide, tosports fans all over the place.
(24:41):
So you can take the example oflike cricket in India, second
most watched sport.
No distribution, but by enablingthem with bench, any cricket fan
can pay.
Whatever their fee is, right?
Let's say$20 a month to watchevery cricket game stream,
stream, live, right?
That's an example of a realworld use case.
A big university has a millionalumni worldwide.
(25:04):
They can charge their alumni Xamount of dollars to get all of
those behind the scenes, thoseinterviews, those player like
questions, spring games, thingsof that nature stream live
recorded up, kept on benchdistributed that they can't see
anywhere else, right?
So having that insight.
I built this for, you know, thatdemographic and also for retail
(25:25):
creators, individuals that wannamonetize their content more
effectively and and efficiently.
So it's been great man to, toget back in a space when I can
really just deal with two thingsthat I care a lot about, content
and sports and, you know, I cansee just this global use case
that will help us sort ofexecute on our mission, which is
to connect the world throughsports.
(25:46):
So,
Stoy (25:46):
super excited about it.
Man, that brings so many peoplein.
Right?
I went to Drake University.
We're not big, but the, as analumni, you always follow your
team regardless, right?
Whatever the problem is.
Sometimes you don't know how toget to those games.
Now, luckily, COVID did happen.
The ESPN plus pops up and helpsout, but mm-hmm.
(26:06):
There's stills behind thescenes.
It's, it's the, what's going onin the news.
Those things that you wouldn'tknow unless you're in that city
or you know, actually at theuniversity.
That's pretty powerful.
And then you, you.
Take it to these global sports.
I couldn't even imagine thedepths of your cricket, your
other types of golf.
Oh, yeah, hell, soccer ingeneral in itself out there,
(26:27):
like you're, you're able toreach, they're able to reach a
different spot that they didn'treally know was out there.
Right?
You don't really know where allyour alumni or your fans are at.
You just know that globallythere's a lot of'em, but if you
can reach them directly and itbrings revenue, not only back to
the, the entity itself, man,that.
Truly is a win-win, right?
(26:48):
It has to win because you'reconnecting the two things that
they've always been connectedjust now there's a direct line
Desarte Yarnway (26:57):
it, it's amazing.
You know, one of the use casesthat, you know, despite all of.
The, I don't care how you feelabout Elon Musk, you know what I
mean?
And the antics.
But he did something 10, 15years ago.
That was crazy.
He wrote the master plan forTesla.
Stoy (27:12):
Mm-hmm.
Desarte Yarnway (27:13):
And it's essentially in his master plan.
He was like, look, we gottabuild a really high quality
product that was a Tesla roasterat the time.
It was super hard to get and itwas super expensive.
Right.
We gotta make this thingexpensive, basically, is what
he's saying.
In a master plan, you can Googleit right now.
He's like, as we sell thesethings, we'll have a lot of
(27:33):
liquidity to make a cheapervehicle and we'll mass produce
this vehicle.
That's a model three to model Y,right?
We'll mass produce the video.
Uh, these, these vehicles, we'llmake it super accessible for
people.
And the more we do that we candecrease the carbon emissions in
the world, right?
And make the world a morehealthy, sustainable place.
So the way I see bench right nowin this infancy is saying, Hey.
(27:56):
We have this enterprise productand retail product.
We've already started with twouse cases.
Enterprise is sort of our breadand butter.
We make this product, we can godownstream hard where, you know,
grandma lives in Florida, buther son plays in Vegas.
Her grandson plays in Vegas.
She can watch the games on benchbecause she's not gonna fly from
Florida every weekend to seelittle Timmy play pop border.
(28:19):
Right?
So that connecting the worldthrough sports and being, you
know.
Assigned and aligned with thatmission is powerful because now
people can be closer to theirfamily.
They can, you know, commiserateabout a thing that they're all
passionate about, right?
And it's just a beautiful thing.
So I got some bro, and I'mexcited about it.
(28:39):
You know, I think that it'sgonna drive a lot of value.
And I can see just the feedbackfrom people that are using the
product now, and people in mydms like inquiring about how
they can be helpful.
These are fingerprints that, youknow, you see when you're on a
path to success.
Stoy (28:54):
Yeah, perfect timing really.
Um, I mean'cause ESP and themare failing in my opinion.
Uh, something needs to takeplace'cause where, where we're
living right now, ain't it?
Uh, we're missing a lot, so Iappreciate on that.
But you're an entrepreneurthough.
There, there isn't just alwaysone thing on your mind, and
you're not only doing one thingat one time.
Is there anything else thatyou're working on or in the back
(29:14):
of your brain that you're slowlyworking on?
Desarte Yarnway (29:16):
I mean, I'm, I'm still connected with the
Altru family, so we're, we'reworking on a few exciting things
here, multiple shows to helpfinancial advisors.
I think that, you know, throughfinancial services, you can
change a lot of people's lives.
For me, I have to change my lifefirst.
And through Altruist, I canenable a lot of financial
advisors, um, to do just that,right?
Change their lives and impacttheir clients in a really
(29:38):
meaningful way.
So, I'm still hosting theAdvisors Journey podcast and
another podcast that be comingout soon.
And, and it is bench man.
It's bench.
We're taking bench to the moonand being able to make sure that
we, we get that going.
Uh, of course, I'm on the boardand I'm an advisor for a lot of
startup companies.
Collecting and aligning equityand value in those arenas are
(29:58):
super important to me becausenot only do I get to be a part
growth, but I get to learn and Iget to impact from an advice
standpoint.
So the wheels are alwaysturning, I mean.
I'm the typical entrepreneurwhere I'm collecting domains
like crazy.
Yeah.
Just in case, you know what Imean?
You never know.
You never know.
I actually bought my namedesante.com the other day
(30:22):
because I feel like, man, thiswould be a magnificent name for
a luxury design agency orsomething, you know?
But yeah, man, my wheels arealways turning and I'm always
looking to, you know, impactman, impact the things that I
touch and turn'em into gold.
Stoy (30:37):
I love it.
I love it.
As we get to the end of the day,we, we always ask this one que
well, we ask two questions, butyour answered the first one.
First one was like your, what'syour first money memory?
And we've went down your roadand how it's turned into what
you are today.
So we don't need to hit uponthat one, but we want everyone
listening, regardless of youradvisor, not advice.
I don't care where you comefrom, but ultimately as an
(30:58):
entrepreneurs, you always getthe sense that you're alone and
you're trying to build thisthing alone and you're just
grinding away alone.
Mm-hmm.
It is not true.
You're not alone.
There's a lot of us out there, alot of resources that can help
you network.
You get to your next spot.
But what is something that youcan tell our audience today that
they could take today?
Take what you say implement andit'll get them further on their
(31:20):
journey.
Desarte Yarnway (31:21):
Create it.
Is that simple?
It sounds, it sounds big.
It sounds hard.
But you can create the life youwanna live, number one.
Um, you can create things thatattract amazing people.
You can create opportunities forpeople, right?
You can create your, your besthealth.
You know what I mean?
(31:42):
You are first and foremost acreator.
Everyone is right.
Lean into that.
Because as you begin to create,you change your environment, you
change the reality, and youimpact the reality of others.
So if you want to change yourworld right now, today, go and
create something.
Create a workout.
You know what I mean?
You'll, it will change you.
(32:02):
It will shift your reality.
So that's the biggest thing,more so than an entrepreneur, I
think that we're all tasked withbeing creators, and you can
shift your reality by justputting things in the atmosphere
and creating.
Stoy (32:15):
Create it, talk about it, communicate, let those people
know about it.
Right.
And that's, and that's the, thelast part of we, we always ask,
right?
Like, share, comment, all thatcrap.
I don't care about thealgorithm.
I don't do that shit for thealgorithm.
I do it because it reaches morepeople who need to hear it so
they can reach out.
'cause once you start talking tosomebody, you know, whether
that's tweeting us at Desartweeting story, coming on
(32:38):
podcasts.
Once you start communicating tosomeone, telling them your
story, what you want to do,people gravitate towards that.
That's that next step.
That's that next thing thathappens.
So you are creating.
Also communicate and let peopleknow what you're doing and be
loud and proud about it.
'cause if not, who else is gonnabe right?
Mm-hmm.
Who else is gonna be so, Heybrother, I, I appreciate
everything that you're doingshowing us the ropes in terms of
(32:59):
how to create a business, how tosell it, but also getting
involved with the game ofeverything that deals with
money.
I appreciate it.
I can't wait to, to catch backup when benches global and
everyone knows about it, and wecan talk even more about that at
that time.
Desarte Yarnway (33:11):
Yes, sir.
Can't wait.
I'll see you soon.
Y'all ain't ready for this one.
I can promise you, you are notready for this podcast today
with the finest of Desareehimself.
You got 2D one athletes playfootball.
I'm gonna chop it up aboutbusiness and financials and
whatnot, but you're just reallynot ready for the energy that's
going to be brought today.
So a.
Man, how have you been?
I know we haven't chatted in awhile back when we were at the
(00:22):
conference, but how have youbeen?
Desarte Yarnway (00:24):
Man, I'm blessed, first and foremost.
I'm excited to see you, bro.
It's been quite some time.
I've been watching you rip itup.
Every advisor that I talk to islike, have you seen what story's
doing?
So salute to you for justpushing the agenda for being
real and authentic.
Not having any BS in ourindustry.
I, I really appreciate seeingthat.
So just wanted to give you yourflowers on your podcast, first
(00:46):
and foremost.
Number two, I've been blessedsince the last time that we were
together.
I had a daughter, um, she's nowseven months old.
That tells you how long it'sbeen since we have last linked
up.
Um, I sold my business, right,and I know we'll talk about that
a little bit.
So my business in August of 2024started a new one and I'm
working hard on a bunch of newthings, so I'm excited to, to
(01:08):
jump into it today.
Stoy (01:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
But let's, let's, let's back itall the way up.
Yep.
Let's get to know who the hellyou are, where'd you come from?
How were you raised and and whydid you get into this money
game?
Desarte Yarnway (01:21):
Oh, man.
Um, we could take it back, man.
Before I even was born, myfamily we're, we're from
Liberia, west Africa.
My mom's a sweetheart.
My dad is a man's man,charismatic, handsome,
wonderful, thunderous voice, andjust the dude that all the dudes
wanted to be like and hang with.
My mom was actually born on arubber plantation called the
Firestone Plantation in WestAfrica, Liberia, where she went
(01:44):
to school, learned English, dideverything.
And on that plantation,Firestone Tires, we have them
here in America, right?
They bought hundreds of acres ofland for 10 cents an acre back
in the day.
And some of the people thatworked on that plantation,
including my mom, wereresponsible for getting the
substance that are used to makerubber tires.
(02:05):
In 19, 19 78, before LiberiaCivil War, my mother came to
America where she met my father,um, as a part of sort of this
exodus of Liberia, because ofthe political climate.
And they had my sister and tonsof other sisters.
I have five sisters.
I'm the only boy in theyoungest.
And we grew up in San Francisco,California.
(02:26):
I'm from San Francisco,California.
Super rough neighborhood in SanFrancisco, California at the
time, notorious for drugs,violence.
Um, now it's a beautiful area,but back then it wasn't.
In fact, my mom tells me thestory.
Our first day buying our, mychildhood home, um, in San
(02:48):
Francisco, it was actually thehome of a drug dealer.
So when they moved in from a 20story project that was getting
torn down, um, someone knockedon the door and was like, is
such and such here?
And she was like, I don't knowwho that person is.
And they're like, but the car'sright there.
I don't know who that person is.
The person proceeds to light thecar on fire blows up the car in
(03:11):
front of my childhood house.
So when you think about justwhere I come from, um, my
parents came from one war inLiberia to another.
But here in America, they won,you know, and they have five
wonderful children.
I think my mom said she has 16grandkids at this point in an
abundant life.
She recently retired four yearsago.
(03:32):
So, man, as I said before, I'mblessed and I'm looking to, to
multiplying those blessings all2025.
Stoy (03:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's crazy.
First of all, crazy story.
Would you say you're the best ofyour, of your siblings?
Are, are you the top dog?
I am the big
Desarte Yarnway (03:48):
little brother.
I will say that.
You know what I mean?
I'm the big little brother forsure.
I lost my dad in 20 2003, andhim and I are similar in a way
that we communicate, in a waythat we bring energy.
And I think, you know, when mysisters see me, they see him.
So there's a little bit of likerespect there.
And what that experience hasbeen able to do for me is like,
(04:10):
take risks, man.
You get to understand.
How finite life is super early.
So I was 12 years old when thathappened, and that grounds you,
you know, like this is not agame every minute, every day we
spend should be in pursuit ofsomething.
In some ways the kind of that islike putting a lot of pressure
on myself.
But in other ways, I've beenable to experience multiple
(04:33):
lives in this short amount oftime.
And you know, I have a really,really long time to go.
But you know, I've been able todo some cool things, write
books, be associated with majorgenerationally ambitious
companies.
Sell a company, right?
Build another one that's gonnabe huge.
Mergers, acquisitions, equity,all this stuff that if you're
not, you don't understand time,you really don't.
(04:54):
You think you just have all thetime, right?
And you never move.
So yeah, man, interesting life.
And it's just getting started.
Stoy (05:00):
Absolutely.
So let's, let's start in that,that, that career spot, what
took you from, and we'll, we'lldive in and we're always gonna
touch on football'cause.
That's what we do.
But talk to me about like, yougo from being an athlete, you
know, a top tier athlete, D one,playing football to like, why
get into this industry and whene everybody listening, when I
(05:20):
mean this industry, I'mobviously talking about the
money industry and I'm not justtalking about financial
planning, advising, um,'causeyou'll learn that he has other
businesses, but really it's themoney game itself.
What brought you into this game?
Desarte Yarnway (05:33):
Yeah, I mean, you know, this goes back to my
childhood and I think you don't,you don't understand why you do
what you do.
Until, you know, you look backand kind of calculate your
steps, you recalculate yoursteps.
So a couple key moments in mylife that kind of bring me to
this place of being a financialadvisor.
Number one was, was when myparents filed for bankruptcy.
(05:53):
I had to be maybe six or sevenyears old, but I was in the
office with that attorney asthey kind of went through.
That process, you know?
So I saw what it meant to likenot have money, and I didn't
think it impacted me that muchat the time.
Just thought mom and dad were inthe office, right.
Doing what they do.
But looking back that, thatstruck me.
You know, like obviouslysomething's wrong here in terms
(06:15):
of our financial wellbeing.
I.
I can't articulate or understandwhy as a child.
The second piece is just comingfrom nothing and losing my dad.
When you have five sisters and agrieving mother, it's like, what
are you gonna do?
You know, growing up in aneighborhood like that, you have
a choice.
You can be of the neighborhoodor be above the neighborhood,
(06:38):
and my choice was to be abovethe neighborhood and I decided
to play football as a means tokind of go to school.
First and foremost, right?
And hopefully use thatopportunity to get further and
make something of myself at thattime, quote unquote, making
something of myself was gettinga good job.
You know what I mean?
But little did I know that wouldkind of take me into
(06:59):
entrepreneurship.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but the money
game came to me in the sensethat I had gone through
experiences.
I wanted to make my dad proud,and it was the first opportunity
that I got outta school to do.
So I remember.
Interviewing for like 256schools.
I submitted app or or companiesapplications to these companies
(07:23):
and I'm like, one of them has tohit, you know what I mean?
Just using that, that sportambition to, to kind of assure
that, you know, I can.
I changed my narrative, so I gota call back from Fisher
Investments and I had, I didn'treally know anything about the
stock market despite taking allthese business classes and doing
(07:44):
all that stuff.
It was like my mom didn'tinvest.
She doesn't know if she's gonnaretire, but they were like, we
want you to come work herebecause this is the best
interview that we've ever hadand you're hungry.
So when I got there, the firstaccount that I got was a guy
that was Warren Buffett'sfriend, old dude.
I think he was born in like 1928or some something crazy.
(08:09):
So the way that he built hiswealth was Warren was like, Hey,
I'm buying a factory orsomething for this company.
They're gonna break down thefreeway to make it more or build
a freeway to make it moreaccessible.
The guy at the time owned apaint company, I need you to
paint the entire factory.
So he is like, I can either giveyou cash, and I think at the
(08:30):
time it was like$5,000.
He's like, I can give you$5,000cash, or I can give you 5,000 in
equity.
So the dude was like, gimme halfin cash and half in equity.
So.
Fast forward.
The account that I was workingon of his was 36 million at the
time, and I don't think we werehis only financial advisors.
(08:52):
Right.
Tells me the story and I'm like,what company was that?
He was like, it was Coca-Cola.
You know what I mean?
So that was pretty cool to likehear the impact of what
Understanding money could do foryou.
And from that moment on, I waslike, equity is a way, I gotta
figure out how to master thisgame.
Stoy (09:13):
Yeah, and, and we're gonna get into your companies too
right now, basically, but it'sreally cool to hear that story
because I didn't know that storybefore, even our late nights
with our STO and whatnot.
Like, we didn't talk about that,but it makes a lot of sense of
what you've done in your careerpath now.
Mm-hmm.
Let's, let's hit upon whathappened last August, right?
Let, let's hit that.
(09:33):
Yeah.
You had your own financialplanning firm.
You, you were doing what you'redoing there.
We talked about the advisingroles and things that we want to
do, you know, with Dr.
Preston Cherry and stuff likethat.
Um, and it comes down to, toselling it.
So walk us through that path andthat whole situation with
starting your own firm all theway through, you know, selling
it.
Desarte Yarnway (09:52):
Yeah, man.
So I go through FisherInvestments and you know, like a
typical athlete.
I'm like, man, I need more,gimme the ball.
What are we doing here?
You know what I mean?
And that forced me to, orencouraged me to go out and look
for other opportunities.
I enjoyed Fisher Investments.
Particularly because they reallyused, uh, the independence as a
superpower.
(10:13):
Like, we do things this way, wemarket this way, and these are
the people that we're gonna workwith.
I really, that was the biglesson that I took from that.
And so I went out, got a job atEdward Jones, Crested there,
grew practice from 5 million,like 20 million a few months,
got headhunted by a recruiter,went to HSBC bank as they were
restructuring their wealthmanagement division, first of
(10:33):
all, back to Edward Jones.
Most like.
Human firm you can work at.
They're all about knocking doorsand being small town heroes, uh,
from a financial planningperspective, teaches you how to
sit at the table and really, youknow, have empathy for people
and have that human aspect ofadvice, which I feel like can
sometimes be lost today.
Um.
(10:54):
HSBC bank though man, differentlife.
I'm getting on a train everyweek from DC Union Station to
New York City, grand Centralterminal, and I'm staying there
for a week, walking, working onWall Street, getting it done.
That is all about shareholdersand shareholder value.
You know what I mean?
Um, so I go through thesedifferent phases and I'm
(11:16):
learning these different lessonsalong the way, and I just think
to myself like.
This is not how I wanna run abusiness.
If this is closer to the topthan I was at.
I can't see myself going anyfurther from here.
If it's all about shareholdervalue, if it's all about just,
you know, what can I do for myshareholders and not, what can I
do for the client, the endclient.
(11:37):
So I went out on my own.
At that time I was, I wasturning 25, um, and I started my
firm.
That changed my life.
It forced me how to be aresponsible adult.
It forced me to get creative onclient acquisition.
It forced me to understand myown taxes, my own financial
circumstance, and it taught meabout risk, right?
(12:00):
We like to talk about risk froma market standpoint, portfolio
construction standpoint, but thereal risk is like, what are you
choosing not to do for aconservative or stable life?
And because I took that risk, mylife changed.
Stoy (12:16):
That's crazy to go through all that.
Right.
And not, I mean, you went fromEast Coast, west Coast, east
coast and back, which ishilarious.
I don't like East Coaster, soeveryone from the east coast.
Yeah, I don't like y'all.
Y y'all different.
And I don't, I don't, I can'tget behind it, just playing.
Um, so, so you're building thisthing, right?
And and we all, you buildingclientele working through that.
And we, when we had met likeover a year ago, you had talked
(12:39):
about, it's like, hey.
I wanna do other things.
Right, right.
You had, you had invested andbeen part of this, you know,
little company called Altruist,uh, which has grown into
something amazing too.
So what we'll hit upon that too,shout out tho those guys, but
what led to like, Hey, I'mbuilding this thing mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna sell it.
Was it always like, Hey, I'mbuilding it to sell it?
(12:59):
Or is it like, this is my careerand then an opportunity created
itself?
Desarte Yarnway (13:03):
No, man.
Um, I thought I was gonna be afinancial advisor for a very
long time.
I thought that this was, um, canyou hear that?
Yeah.
You can hear that?
No.
Okay, cool.
I thought that, um, I was gonnabe a financial advisor for a
very long time.
I thought that, you know, itwould last me until my fifties.
(13:24):
I thought that I was gonna dothis forever, but what I didn't
account for was the fact thatpeople change.
I.
And I was evolving and changingin the process of working and
growing my firm.
Um, and it really stressed me.
So fast forward from HSBC startmy firm.
The first 10 months of my firm,I got like 40 households of
young professionals inWashington, dc I'm blazing, I'm
(13:45):
writing blogs, I'm doingeverything.
I wrote my first book, datingBenji at that time, which put me
on the radar of a publisherhouse called Barry Kohler
Publishers.
They gave me a book deal.
I write the book, young Money.
Uh, the name of my firstpodcast, A Young Money podcast,
and it is crazy how my life isjust changing so fast, you know
(14:07):
what I mean?
So bunch of stuff happened.
Um, I'm trying to make the storybrief, but a bunch of stuff
happens and I get to the pointwhere I have two young kids, I
have a wife, I have a home, andthis is why you have to really
adhere to your why, right?
My why for this firm went backto my trauma when my dad never
(14:30):
seeing me play a football game.
I was an all American in highschool, 50 division one offers,
you know what I mean?
My why for creating my firm wasto have enough time to be there
for my future family.
At this time, I did not know Iwas gonna get married.
I did not know any of thesethings.
Stoy (14:47):
Right?
Desarte Yarnway (14:48):
Then as looked around in my life, I'm like.
I did what I said I was gonnado.
I got the house, I got the wife,I got the two kids.
But I've also created a job formyself as the solopreneur.
I am on the phones every singleminute of the day.
You know, I love my clients, butI don't really love the
technical aspect of the job.
(15:09):
I don't wanna create financialplans.
Um, sure I can hire out thatduty to somebody else, but you
know, I don't see myself doingthis for the next 10 years.
Right?
So, in my mind, after assessingjust what I want disartic to
look like, as I did when I was2025, it's like, who am I gonna
be at 35?
I need to build, I need to buildthat now to get there.
(15:30):
I did that same exercise.
I'm like, who am I gonna be whenI'm 40?
I need to build that now.
And that was the impetus for melooking for an acquirer from my
firm or being open to the ideafor somebody acquiring my firm.
And I was able to sell to a firmin San Francisco.
And it was just a seamlesstransition.
Stoy (15:49):
That's a, that's that's amazing story.
'cause as business owners, let'sgo back to the entrepreneur side
of things.
At the end of the day, your realretirement is.
You sell it to somebody or youbuild it a legacy and your kids
take over.
Like those, those are the twopaths.
There is no like half-assed andthen do it one way or another.
Right.
And to have that vision and, andreally actually not even the
(16:10):
vision, the, the wherewithal ofwho you are as Wow.
To say, I built this because ofmy trauma and what things I went
through and why I did that.
And guess what, that's changedand it does with kids and get
married.
Like things change.
And if it doesn't, I don't knowhow you got through it, but
like, you know, you have kids,those things change.
So more power to you on that.
(16:31):
But in the meantime though.
Regardless of the sale of thebusiness, you were involved with
some other things.
And for some of our listeners,go ahead and Google altruist
right now.
Go right ahead and do that.
You were integral to all ofthat.
How did that come about?
Right.
I'm, I'm a business owner in myown lane, do my own thing,
figuring things out.
How, how do you get involvedwith the FinTech?
(16:52):
How do you get involved withtech out, out of, out of the
bloom, you know, out of the wombtype of situation.
Desarte Yarnway (16:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I wanna just talk about thatand first of all.
I actually tweeted about thisand like wrote about this the
other day.
If you want to meet amazingpeople, you have to build
amazing things.
That is the rule of thumb.
A lot of people want to, youknow, meet Oprah or something,
but they're not doing thingsthat will ever catch the
attention of a person of statureand a person of value.
(17:19):
A person who's gone out andbuilt something for themselves.
You know what I mean?
Because.
The biggest risk, quote unquoteI took was starting a business
at such a young age.
After that, the smallest riskswere like putting myself out
there, writing a book,self-editing the book.
I'm sure I got typos all overthat book, but people loved it.
(17:41):
You know what I mean?
Um.
Creating a podcast and invitingpeople to go on this journey
with me.
And from that, Jason Wink.
Shout out to Jason.
I love Jason.
He's been a mentor, a friend,like change my life completely.
I get tapped to speak at the ogand if you are a financial
(18:01):
advisor, you might rememberWealth Stack Conference.
This is pre future proof.
Pre what we know today was inArizona.
So I'm speaking on a panel withsome big boys in wealth
management and um.
I'm talking about how I built myfirm.
Like I did this all digitally.
I did this by, you know, workingwith young professionals.
I did this in, you know, as a,as a passion project for myself.
(18:25):
And as I'm speaking, the crowdis like silent, bro.
They're like so dialed into whatI'm saying.
It's kind of strange.
They're listening to your boyand Jason Wayne comes up and
he's like, Hey, I remember thislike it was yesterday, it's
2019.
He's like, Hey, when you talk,people listen.
Keep talking and like hevanishes in thin air like
(18:47):
Prince, you know what I mean?
Like he just disappears.
Fast forward to like later thatyear, they had an opening for
someone to sort of run theirpodcast and they tapped me to do
it.
So that was how it started.
It started by me creating apodcast.
It started by me sort of sharingthe gospel.
It started by me sharing, youknow, my story and doing it this
(19:08):
way.
And getting the attention ofJason who was at just
serendipitously at that event onthat day in our session, I think
Altria had a big, Tyrone Rawshout out to him as well.
Tyrone was, um, talking about.
What he was gonna be doing withAltru at the time.
You know, Jason was there to seethat.
So if it wasn't for, you know,me being in the seat, me
(19:28):
creating, none of that would'vehappened.
Jason wouldn't have saw, and Iwouldn't have been involved with
the Altru.
Since Altru, I've been able tobe, you know, an advisory member
on wealth.com.
I've been able to be a part ofan acquisition of a FinTech
education company called Build.
Uh, big later I've been able todo a bunch of good things.
I invested in Tyrone's Companyon Ramp, right?
And I'm given opportunities toinvest in some of the future of
(19:49):
finance because I was able tocreate my world that I wanted to
live in.
So, um, all blessings all donewith the help of people in the
industry, like Jason Wink, likeTyrone Ross, like Justin
Castelli, like some of thesenames that you've seen before.
But it's been, it's been fun tocreate.
And, uh, create moreopportunities.
Stoy (20:08):
And that's where I, I preach all the time.
You, you, you don't becomesuccessful.
You are not successful.
There's not a richest person inthis world without a team, a
family, or these connections.
It's impossible.
Go back to the, the, the firstguy you had at, at Fisher who
was, you know.
He just painted for some equity.
(20:29):
Right.
Right.
And look where he's at.
It all comes down to who youknow and making sure that you
have those opportunities.
But the thing is, you need toput yourself out there.
If you don't, then those don'tcome about.
And the, and the thing is, thereare people who will always
gravitate to you if you juststick up to your own voice.
Yeah.
Right.
And I know being black dudes inthis industry, it's not easy.
Mm-hmm.
(20:50):
But once we learn to just do whowe are and speak how we speak.
Then people there.
There is none of those barriersas much anymore.
There always will be, but thereisn't as much anymore because
it's people Really just listento who you are.
Entrepreneurs out there,regardless of your industry.
Obviously if you're in ourindustry, listen up more, but
regardless of that, just be outthere doing what you do, but be
(21:12):
doing it loudly because theseopportunities.
That really Yes, might bepertaining to your industry.
For you, it led to all the otherthings that are going on, and
that's what leads to greatersuccess, greater opportunities,
and things that maybe changeyour career, which leads you to.
The bench.
Like what?
What is this new thing?
Right.
I'm just learning about itbecause your assistant emailed
(21:33):
and said the the bench, and Iwas like, what email is this?
I don't even know what's goingon.
And I just, yeah.
Do it a year ago.
So talk to us what this is like.
Right.
What's your next venture afterselling your advisory firm?
Desarte Yarnway (21:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Real quick on what you said,just about just being yourself,
number one, authenticity sell,you know, and I think that's
something that we struggle withas people of color in the
financial services industry inentrepreneurship.
Like we have a tendency to mutewho we are down for the
acceptance of others.
And actually it's quite thereverse.
Like if you're able to be moreof yourself.
(22:07):
People buy that, but people cansniff out a fake any day of the
week, you know what I mean?
So in addition to the advicethat you gave, anybody that's
listening to the podcast, beyourself and forget about
whoever else cares.
This is the no bullshit podcast,so fuck anybody else that cares.
You know what I mean?
If, if they don't accept you asyourself, you should not be
(22:30):
connected with them.
You know what I mean at all?
Because that's what matters.
It's about being.
It's about being yourself andyou're, you carry so much value
as your authentic self.
So I just want to reiterate thatin terms of bench, one of the
big lessons that I learned fromlike Jason Wink, and I tell
Jason, I tweet about this, Iwrite about this all the time in
my blogs, altruist has been myreal world, NBA, just from
(22:55):
everything that I've learned,the serendipity of the
connections that I made ininvesting in certain companies
that may have been acquired byAltru or everything about it has
been my real world.
The story about, um, the guythat worked with Warren Buffet
and painting the, the factoryand getting the Coca-Cola shares
led me to believe that there'sone thing that matters, and
that's equity as it pertains tofinance.
(23:17):
If you can build equity, you canchange your life.
And that is a decision makingprocess of how to use your
resources, your time, yourtalent and money to do that.
Right?
So.
Fast forward this whole journey.
I got the game, I got the tools,I got the knowledge.
The next logical step is tobuild something of enterprise
(23:38):
value that can impact the world.
And when you take the step upfrom serving your small
community to having impact onthe world, you can imagine that
the equity value of that ismassive, right?
So what I've built with Benchtakes me back to the beginning,
my first love football and mysecond love, which is creating
content.
(23:59):
And essentially what we've builtis a platform that is the
revenue engine for professionaland athletic sports teams and
programs to monetize theircontent and have direct fan
engagement.
You know, I played at a reallybig university and largely most
of the content that is filmednever will see the light of day.
So when you know the.
(24:19):
Alumni club is meeting with thehead coach and talking about
recruits and they're filming it,it will never be seen, right?
But if you're there in person,you'll see it.
So we created this platform toallow access to some of the
content that gets trashed, orit's just like a one-time thing
to be, uh, disseminated anddistributed on our platform to
alumni bases worldwide, tosports fans all over the place.
(24:41):
So you can take the example oflike cricket in India, second
most watched sport.
No distribution, but by enablingthem with bench, any cricket fan
can pay.
Whatever their fee is, right?
Let's say$20 a month to watchevery cricket game stream,
stream, live, right?
That's an example of a realworld use case.
A big university has a millionalumni worldwide.
(25:04):
They can charge their alumni Xamount of dollars to get all of
those behind the scenes, thoseinterviews, those player like
questions, spring games, thingsof that nature stream live
recorded up, kept on benchdistributed that they can't see
anywhere else, right?
So having that insight.
I built this for, you know, thatdemographic and also for retail
(25:25):
creators, individuals that wannamonetize their content more
effectively and and efficiently.
So it's been great man to, toget back in a space when I can
really just deal with two thingsthat I care a lot about, content
and sports and, you know, I cansee just this global use case
that will help us sort ofexecute on our mission, which is
to connect the world throughsports.
(25:46):
So,
Stoy (25:46):
super excited about it.
Man, that brings so many peoplein.
Right?
I went to Drake University.
We're not big, but the, as analumni, you always follow your
team regardless, right?
Whatever the problem is.
Sometimes you don't know how toget to those games.
Now, luckily, COVID did happen.
The ESPN plus pops up and helpsout, but mm-hmm.
(26:06):
There's stills behind thescenes.
It's, it's the, what's going onin the news.
Those things that you wouldn'tknow unless you're in that city
or you know, actually at theuniversity.
That's pretty powerful.
And then you, you.
Take it to these global sports.
I couldn't even imagine thedepths of your cricket, your
other types of golf.
Oh, yeah, hell, soccer ingeneral in itself out there,
(26:27):
like you're, you're able toreach, they're able to reach a
different spot that they didn'treally know was out there.
Right?
You don't really know where allyour alumni or your fans are at.
You just know that globallythere's a lot of'em, but if you
can reach them directly and itbrings revenue, not only back to
the, the entity itself, man,that.
Truly is a win-win, right?
(26:48):
It has to win because you'reconnecting the two things that
they've always been connectedjust now there's a direct line
Desarte Yarnway (26:57):
it, it's amazing.
You know, one of the use casesthat, you know, despite all of.
The, I don't care how you feelabout Elon Musk, you know what I
mean?
And the antics.
But he did something 10, 15years ago.
That was crazy.
He wrote the master plan forTesla.
Stoy (27:12):
Mm-hmm.
Desarte Yarnway (27:13):
And it's essentially in his master plan.
He was like, look, we gottabuild a really high quality
product that was a Tesla roasterat the time.
It was super hard to get and itwas super expensive.
Right.
We gotta make this thingexpensive, basically, is what
he's saying.
In a master plan, you can Googleit right now.
He's like, as we sell thesethings, we'll have a lot of
(27:33):
liquidity to make a cheapervehicle and we'll mass produce
this vehicle.
That's a model three to model Y,right?
We'll mass produce the video.
Uh, these, these vehicles, we'llmake it super accessible for
people.
And the more we do that we candecrease the carbon emissions in
the world, right?
And make the world a morehealthy, sustainable place.
So the way I see bench right nowin this infancy is saying, Hey.
(27:56):
We have this enterprise productand retail product.
We've already started with twouse cases.
Enterprise is sort of our breadand butter.
We make this product, we can godownstream hard where, you know,
grandma lives in Florida, buther son plays in Vegas.
Her grandson plays in Vegas.
She can watch the games on benchbecause she's not gonna fly from
Florida every weekend to seelittle Timmy play pop border.
(28:19):
Right?
So that connecting the worldthrough sports and being, you
know.
Assigned and aligned with thatmission is powerful because now
people can be closer to theirfamily.
They can, you know, commiserateabout a thing that they're all
passionate about, right?
And it's just a beautiful thing.
So I got some bro, and I'mexcited about it.
(28:39):
You know, I think that it'sgonna drive a lot of value.
And I can see just the feedbackfrom people that are using the
product now, and people in mydms like inquiring about how
they can be helpful.
These are fingerprints that, youknow, you see when you're on a
path to success.
Stoy (28:54):
Yeah, perfect timing really.
Um, I mean'cause ESP and themare failing in my opinion.
Uh, something needs to takeplace'cause where, where we're
living right now, ain't it?
Uh, we're missing a lot, so Iappreciate on that.
But you're an entrepreneurthough.
There, there isn't just alwaysone thing on your mind, and
you're not only doing one thingat one time.
Is there anything else thatyou're working on or in the back
(29:14):
of your brain that you're slowlyworking on?
Desarte Yarnway (29:16):
I mean, I'm, I'm still connected with the
Altru family, so we're, we'reworking on a few exciting things
here, multiple shows to helpfinancial advisors.
I think that, you know, throughfinancial services, you can
change a lot of people's lives.
For me, I have to change my lifefirst.
And through Altruist, I canenable a lot of financial
advisors, um, to do just that,right?
Change their lives and impacttheir clients in a really
(29:38):
meaningful way.
So, I'm still hosting theAdvisors Journey podcast and
another podcast that be comingout soon.
And, and it is bench man.
It's bench.
We're taking bench to the moonand being able to make sure that
we, we get that going.
Uh, of course, I'm on the boardand I'm an advisor for a lot of
startup companies.
Collecting and aligning equityand value in those arenas are
(29:58):
super important to me becausenot only do I get to be a part
growth, but I get to learn and Iget to impact from an advice
standpoint.
So the wheels are alwaysturning, I mean.
I'm the typical entrepreneurwhere I'm collecting domains
like crazy.
Yeah.
Just in case, you know what Imean?
You never know.
You never know.
I actually bought my namedesante.com the other day
(30:22):
because I feel like, man, thiswould be a magnificent name for
a luxury design agency orsomething, you know?
But yeah, man, my wheels arealways turning and I'm always
looking to, you know, impactman, impact the things that I
touch and turn'em into gold.
Stoy (30:37):
I love it.
I love it.
As we get to the end of the day,we, we always ask this one que
well, we ask two questions, butyour answered the first one.
First one was like your, what'syour first money memory?
And we've went down your roadand how it's turned into what
you are today.
So we don't need to hit uponthat one, but we want everyone
listening, regardless of youradvisor, not advice.
I don't care where you comefrom, but ultimately as an
(30:58):
entrepreneurs, you always getthe sense that you're alone and
you're trying to build thisthing alone and you're just
grinding away alone.
Mm-hmm.
It is not true.
You're not alone.
There's a lot of us out there, alot of resources that can help
you network.
You get to your next spot.
But what is something that youcan tell our audience today that
they could take today?
Take what you say implement andit'll get them further on their
(31:20):
journey.
Desarte Yarnway (31:21):
Create it.
Is that simple?
It sounds, it sounds big.
It sounds hard.
But you can create the life youwanna live, number one.
Um, you can create things thatattract amazing people.
You can create opportunities forpeople, right?
You can create your, your besthealth.
You know what I mean?
(31:42):
You are first and foremost acreator.
Everyone is right.
Lean into that.
Because as you begin to create,you change your environment, you
change the reality, and youimpact the reality of others.
So if you want to change yourworld right now, today, go and
create something.
Create a workout.
You know what I mean?
You'll, it will change you.
(32:02):
It will shift your reality.
So that's the biggest thing,more so than an entrepreneur, I
think that we're all tasked withbeing creators, and you can
shift your reality by justputting things in the atmosphere
and creating.
Stoy (32:15):
Create it, talk about it, communicate, let those people
know about it.
Right.
And that's, and that's the, thelast part of we, we always ask,
right?
Like, share, comment, all thatcrap.
I don't care about thealgorithm.
I don't do that shit for thealgorithm.
I do it because it reaches morepeople who need to hear it so
they can reach out.
'cause once you start talking tosomebody, you know, whether
that's tweeting us at Desartweeting story, coming on
(32:38):
podcasts.
Once you start communicating tosomeone, telling them your
story, what you want to do,people gravitate towards that.
That's that next step.
That's that next thing thathappens.
So you are creating.
Also communicate and let peopleknow what you're doing and be
loud and proud about it.
'cause if not, who else is gonnabe right?
Mm-hmm.
Who else is gonna be so, Heybrother, I, I appreciate
everything that you're doingshowing us the ropes in terms of
(32:59):
how to create a business, how tosell it, but also getting
involved with the game ofeverything that deals with
money.
I appreciate it.
I can't wait to, to catch backup when benches global and
everyone knows about it, and wecan talk even more about that at
that time.
Desarte Yarnway (33:11):
Yes, sir.
Can't wait.
I'll see you soon.
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