What if your next breakthrough in entrepreneurship comes not from your product, but from the relationships you build and the way you position yourself as a thought leader? In this episode, Marcia Dawood welcomes Chris Haroun—a former hedge fund manager, early investor in tech giants, and top-rated business educator—to share actionable insights for founders and business owners. With a rich background spanning Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and managing his own billion-dollar fund, Chris Haroun now channels his expertise into teaching practical business skills. He emphasizes networking, leveraging social media, and becoming a resource for others as core pillars of success—challenging traditional MBA paradigms. Packed with advice on raising capital, building credibility, and even navigating the complexities of crypto investing, this episode is essential for anyone eager to grow their business in today’s fast-paced landscape. If you want real-world strategies from someone who’s walked the walk, you won’t want to miss it.
What if your next breakthrough in entrepreneurship comes not from your product, but from the relationships you build and the way you position yourself as a thought leader? In this episode, Marcia Dawood welcomes Chris Haroun—a former hedge fund manager, early investor in tech giants, and top-rated business educator—to share actionable insights for founders and business owners.
With a rich background spanning Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and managing his own billion-dollar fund, Chris Haroun now channels his expertise into teaching practical business skills. He emphasizes networking, leveraging social media, and becoming a resource for others as core pillars of success—challenging traditional MBA paradigms.
Packed with advice on raising capital, building credibility, and even navigating the complexities of crypto investing, this episode is essential for anyone eager to grow their business in today’s fast-paced landscape. If you want real-world strategies from someone who’s walked the walk, you won’t want to miss it.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/charoun/
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https://harouneducationventures.com/
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Marcia Dawood [00:00:02 - 00:00:05]:
[00:00:02] Chris, welcome to the Angel Next Door podcast. [00:00:04] Thanks for being here.
Chris Haroun [00:00:06 - 00:00:07]:
[00:00:06] Thanks so much for having me.
Marcia Dawood [00:00:07 - 00:00:34]:
[00:00:07] Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you today. [00:00:10] So much in your background and all the different things that you've created— courses, books— really excited to get to know a little bit about how you actually help business owners, funders, all different kinds of people to be able to have a more robust business portfolio, whatever it is that they're working on. [00:00:28] So start To start off, tell us a little bit about your background and what has you so passionate about this.
Chris Haroun [00:00:34 - 00:01:06]:
[00:00:34] Yeah, absolutely. [00:00:35] So, I'm originally from Canada, and then I moved to the United States in my 20s, spent about 5 years at Goldman Sachs, then transitioned to the hedge fund industry, worked at Citadel, started my own hedge fund in 2007, raised and managed over a billion dollars, humbly, uh, invested in Facebook and Palantir pre-IPO. [00:00:53] Uh, and then I introduced, uh, Tony Robbins more than 10 years ago to one of my portfolio companies in venture capital, and he convinced me to teach. [00:01:02] And I've never been happier teaching because when one teaches, two learn.
Marcia Dawood [00:01:07 - 00:01:23]:
[00:01:07] That's right. [00:01:08] I could not agree with you more. [00:01:10] So tell us a little bit about your philosophies on business. [00:01:15] I know you talk a lot about that you can have MBA-level, uh, knowledge, but don't necessarily have to go to big, fancy, expensive schools.
Chris Haroun [00:01:24 - 00:01:46]:
[00:01:24] Yeah. [00:01:25] So one of the problems with traditional business education— I have an undergraduate degree from McGill University in business and an MBA in finance from Columbia. [00:01:33] One of the problems is they don't teach you the most important lessons to make you successful in life. [00:01:38] They don't teach you how to start a business. [00:01:40] They don't teach you how to raise capital. [00:01:41] They don't teach you how to network. [00:01:42] They don't teach you how to manage your own money. [00:01:44] They teach you how to manage other people's money.
Chris Haroun [00:01:46 - 00:01:55]:
[00:01:46] And so I was very frustrated with business education., and as a result, I thought it would be interesting if I were to start teaching online.
Marcia Dawood [00:01:56 - 00:02:18]:
[00:01:56] Yeah. [00:01:57] Great. [00:01:57] So tell us a little bit more like about your course. [00:02:01] How is it that, like, we have a lot of founders, for example, that listen to the show and they could be at a stage where they're thinking about an idea and they wanna build a business, or they could be very far along. [00:02:14] So how is it that you get people thinking a little bit differently?
Chris Haroun [00:02:18 - 00:02:51]:
[00:02:18] Yeah. [00:02:18] So I, I would say that your network is your net worth and relationships are always more important than product knowledge. [00:02:25] And so when it— rather than talk about my programs, I'm not here to pitch that. [00:02:28] I'm here to humbly help in any way I can with people listening. [00:02:32] So when you're trying to raise capital, don't approach venture capital firms initially. [00:02:38] What I want your listeners to do is step 1, write an incredible LinkedIn profile. [00:02:44] Step 2, write articles every single week on whatever it is your company does. [00:02:49] I want you to be a thought leader.
Chris Haroun [00:02:51 - 00:03:40]:
[00:02:51] And the benefit of doing that is that people will take you more seriously when they look you up on LinkedIn. [00:02:57] And then next up, I want you to set up lots of informational meetings with high net worth investors. [00:03:03] Now you might be listening and thinking, why would anybody want to meet with me? [00:03:09] Well, people wanna help those have similar life experiences. [00:03:12] And so what I want you to do, and this is your listeners, I want you to all imagine that it's 20 years in the future and you're way more successful than you already are today. [00:03:21] And you get an inmail from somebody who really reminds you of yourself when you're 20 years younger. [00:03:27] And it might say something like this, John, hope all is well. [00:03:31] I also went to the Toronto French School and I also graduated from Yale University and I also work in the tech sector here in the Bay Area. [00:03:38] All those things are true for me.
Chris Haroun [00:03:40 - 00:04:10]:
[00:03:40] Please let me know if you have time for a quick Zoom call. [00:03:42] Thanks a lot, Chris. [00:03:45] Well, most of the time people are going to say yes to that meeting. [00:03:49] And you don't say why you want to meet. [00:03:51] And there's nothing unethical about that. [00:03:54] Because if you say why you want to meet, like, I'm trying to raise money or I'm trying to get a job, they're probably not going to respond. [00:04:01] But you want to see you in themselves 20 years ago and say yes to the meeting. [00:04:06] Once you get the meeting, You bond before business, then you pitch your business model.
Chris Haroun [00:04:10 - 00:04:13]:
[00:04:10] And I can talk about that in more detail if you like me to.
Marcia Dawood [00:04:13 - 00:04:14]:
[00:04:13] Yes, please.
Chris Haroun [00:04:15 - 00:05:06]:
[00:04:15] Yeah. [00:04:15] So what you do in the initial stages of the meeting is you bond, you talk about what you have in common. [00:04:21] Is that student center still open on campus? [00:04:24] And then what you do is you talk about their career, ask them for advice on what they've made them successful, and ask them if they could give themselves advice 20 years ago, what would that be? [00:04:35] Then you're going to pivot to asking for permission. [00:04:38] Can I show you my slides just to get a little bit of feedback? [00:04:41] And quick side note, when it comes to investor presentations, less is more. [00:04:45] I want you all to do a search on Airbnb pitch deck. [00:04:50] Never have more than 10 or 12 slides and no more than 3 bullet points per slide. [00:04:56] And you're going to talk about your business model and ask them, if they would like to be an advisor, right? [00:05:03] Which doesn't cost you anything. [00:05:04] And remember, closed mouths don't get fed.
Chris Haroun [00:05:06 - 00:05:37]:
[00:05:06] Ask and you'll receive. [00:05:07] It's prophetic. [00:05:07] It's been true since, since the beginning of time. [00:05:10] And then you have to ask for the sale. [00:05:12] Now, obviously this is over the course of a 45-minute meeting. [00:05:15] You ask them if they'd be interested in not only being an advisor, but also an investor. [00:05:22] And if they say no, then ask them if if they can kindly introduce you to people that have something else in common with you, just for an informational meeting. [00:05:33] Again, your network is your net worth, and relationships are more important than product knowledge.
Marcia Dawood [00:05:37 - 00:05:58]:
[00:05:37] Now, that makes so much sense because, I mean, I get email or LinkedIn messages all the time from people who I don't know, and they basically start off with, I have this great company and this is what we do and we're raising money and we wanna send you our pitch deck. [00:05:54] And I'm like, I don't even know who you are.
Chris Haroun [00:05:59 - 00:06:20]:
[00:05:59] So, yeah. [00:06:00] And, and you have to go into those meetings trying to help people. [00:06:03] There's a great book called Give and Take, and I'll summarize it quickly. [00:06:07] The richest and most successful people in the world are givers. [00:06:11] The top 1% of people, you know, some are avaricious, but some have good hearts. [00:06:16] And if you give, you'll receive. [00:06:18] Again, it's prophetic. [00:06:19] It's been true since the beginning of the time.
Chris Haroun [00:06:20 - 00:06:44]:
[00:06:20] What does that mean in terms of networking? [00:06:23] Well, go into every single meeting, as Dale Carnegie used to say, arouse the in-eager want. [00:06:28] Talk about it from their perspective. [00:06:30] How can you help them? [00:06:32] Try to be resourceful as well and offer that up. [00:06:35] You explicitly say in these informational meetings, is there anything I can humbly do or be resourceful in any way to helping you with your business?
Marcia Dawood [00:06:44 - 00:07:09]:
[00:06:44] Yes, that makes a lot of sense. [00:06:46] So once you have the meeting, let's say that I— what I find a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is then getting to the second meeting, which in a lot of cases the first meeting isn't going to close them as an investor or sometimes even as an advisor. [00:07:02] So how do you talk to people about that progression of going from a first meeting to a bigger relationship?
Chris Haroun [00:07:09 - 00:07:48]:
[00:07:09] That's a great question. [00:07:10] The second the meeting is done, you send an email saying something along the lines of, John, pleasure to meet you today, semicolon. [00:07:17] I enjoyed our conversation with respect to what we talked about, topic X. [00:07:22] Here's an interesting article I found for you, for example. [00:07:25] Okay. [00:07:25] And then what you do is you make copious notes, a lot of notes, and you try to think about it from their perspective. [00:07:30] How can I help them? [00:07:32] And you reach out to them again in a couple of weeks offering something additive to help them with their biggest business problems, so to speak. [00:07:40] And in that inmail, which you keep short, of course, you also say, please let me know if you have time for a quick coffee or a Zoom meeting to discuss in more detail.
Marcia Dawood [00:07:48 - 00:08:00]:
[00:07:48] Thanks a lot. [00:07:49] Yeah. [00:07:49] And what do you find as far as like in-person versus Zoom meetings? [00:07:54] Are you seeing that people are more willing or eager to meet in person nowadays?
Chris Haroun [00:08:01 - 00:08:29]:
[00:08:01] Yeah, well, since COVID we witnessed the death of distance and most people like to do it over Zoom. [00:08:05] So if you're going to do it over Zoom, remember that a good Zoom setup will do more for your career than a great Italian suit will. [00:08:12] Make sure you have the right lighting, right audio, etc. [00:08:15] But if given the choice, you always want to meet in person. [00:08:18] It's just more personable. [00:08:19] If it's at a coffee shop, you arrive 5 to 10 minutes early. [00:08:23] You call over the maitre d' or whoever's working at the counter and tell them, here's my credit card, make sure I pay for this.
Marcia Dawood [00:08:29 - 00:08:46]:
[00:08:29] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. [00:08:32] And then when you're getting to a point of, okay, you need to raise money and you've had a bunch of these meetings, you've talked to a bunch of people. [00:08:41] How do we actually get entrepreneurs' help in the close?
Chris Haroun [00:08:46 - 00:09:37]:
[00:08:46] Yeah. [00:08:47] So a lot of entrepreneurs don't actually ask for the sale. [00:08:50] And I know that sounds really strange, but you have to ask. [00:08:54] Closed mouths don't get fed. [00:08:56] And if you find that you don't have enough credibility, then what you can do is you can do exactly what Mark Zuckerberg did when he was starting Facebook. [00:09:07] You can surround yourself with those that have more credibility. [00:09:11] So for example, with Zuckerberg, we had Peter Thiel as well as Sean Parker on his advisory board. [00:09:18] And so as you think about your business plan and the gaps in your skillset, and you think about it from the perspective of potential investor, how do you assuage their concerns about your lack of experience? [00:09:30] What you can do is think about a couple of people from certain companies that can be on your advisory board.
Chris Haroun [00:09:37 - 00:10:21]:
[00:09:37] So for example, if you're coming up with a search engine or a similar business model, what you can do is you can do an advanced search in LinkedIn and find people that perhaps work at Google to have something in common with you. [00:09:53] Similar to what I spoke about before, maybe you say, we went to the same high school, same undergrad, please let me know if you have time for a coffee. [00:10:00] And then you sit down with them and you mention your business plan and you ask them to be an advisor, not an investor, but an advisor. [00:10:09] Then you get their permission to put their image and a logo of the company on your slides as well. [00:10:16] And that might help again, to assuage investor concerns that you don't have enough
Marcia Dawood [00:10:23 - 00:10:44]:
[00:10:23] experience. [00:10:23] Got it. [00:10:24] So what are some of the things— I know you talk a lot about, um, an MBA can be a waste of time or money. [00:10:31] What are some of the things that you think people really do need to know that is in the MBA world but is lacking from what their, their practical skills are that they're getting?
Chris Haroun [00:10:44 - 00:11:30]:
[00:10:44] Yeah, so I would say again, it comes down to networking. [00:10:48] Relationships are always more important than product knowledge and really leverage social media and don't be afraid to take risks and to write articles and just share your thoughts. [00:10:57] For example, Have you ever seen a Tesla commercial? [00:11:01] Neither have I. [00:11:02] Well, you can market yourself and your business and what you do on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. [00:11:10] And always try to see yourself as additive, meaning adding value, helping people, giving, you'll receive. [00:11:16] That's just the way it is. [00:11:17] And once you get enough credibility in terms of social proof, enough contacts on LinkedIn, et cetera, and don't forget to ask people to write recommendations for you. [00:11:26] Once you get enough of that, you can reach out to the media.
Chris Haroun [00:11:30 - 00:11:58]:
[00:11:30] And when you reach out to the media, and I've done a lot of this in my career as well, you want to be additive as well. [00:11:37] So for example, if you have an AI platform solution and you find that there's certain tech journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Businessweek, Business Insider, et cetera, you reach out to them and say, I see that you cover the tech sector. [00:11:53] I'd like to offer myself up as a resource in case you ever have any questions about this
Marcia Dawood [00:12:00 - 00:12:27]:
[00:12:00] sector. [00:12:01] Got it. [00:12:02] Yes, that— I think that's another thing that a lot of entrepreneurs, they get very focused on what they're building and getting their company to wherever it needs to be, that they don't think about becoming actual thought leaders in their area of expertise. [00:12:17] And I like this idea of being able to pitch themselves to different media outlets and things like that. [00:12:22] How would one go about even starting —would you suggest?
Chris Haroun [00:12:27 - 00:13:03]:
[00:12:27] Yeah, so I had breakfast years ago with the head of editorial services at LinkedIn, Carolyn Fairchild. [00:12:33] And when it comes to writing articles, you always have to ask yourself these two questions. [00:12:38] Number one, why you? [00:12:40] Why now? [00:12:41] Hmm. [00:12:41] The second something pertinent comes out that is media-oriented, you need to publish that article right away on LinkedIn. [00:12:50] And you gotta repurpose it also on other social media platforms. [00:12:54] You have the script already, LinkedIn, and you gotta do this over and over again. [00:12:58] Rinse, lather, repeat. [00:12:59] Even if you don't have that many likes or views or whatever, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Chris Haroun [00:13:03 - 00:13:09]:
[00:13:03] And eventually you'll get enough social proof and people will take you seriously when you reach out to the media and others.
Marcia Dawood [00:13:09 - 00:13:28]:
[00:13:09] So what about financial education? [00:13:12] And you've done obviously a lot between hedge funds and Managing quite a bit of assets under management. [00:13:20] Like, how would you say if somebody doesn't have an MBA or maybe they haven't gone to the right schools, but they are trying to build a business, how do they learn about that?
Chris Haroun [00:13:28 - 00:13:48]:
[00:13:28] Yeah, I would start by taking personal finance courses. [00:13:31] I have a lot of courses as well. [00:13:33] I'm not here to pitch my stuff, but what you want to do is you want to learn from people that have done it. [00:13:38] The problem with university education is it's very theoretical. [00:13:43] You wanna learn from people that have done it. [00:13:45] Don't ever take advice from somebody that's not successful.
Marcia Dawood [00:13:50 - 00:14:25]:
[00:13:50] Right. [00:13:50] So you mentioned that you've had experience with hedge funds. [00:13:54] Clearly that means that you have experience in the stock market, things like that. [00:13:58] We have had several guests come on before onto the podcast and talk about cryptocurrency. [00:14:04] I would love to hear your thoughts on where we are right now with that. [00:14:09] What do you think of the different types of coins? [00:14:12] We hear an awful lot in the media about Bitcoin, we're hearing more about Solana. [00:14:17] We just had Anthony Scaramucci on not too long ago, and he was talking about his new book, Solana Rising. [00:14:22] So tell us your thoughts on the whole industry.
Chris Haroun [00:14:25 - 00:15:07]:
[00:14:25] Yeah, so over 95% of cryptocurrencies are a scam. [00:14:31] And unlike when you invest in publicly traded stocks, there's no S-1 document, meaning investment offering memorandum, where you can read all the risks that investment bankers and lawyers write. [00:14:42] So under no situation should you have more than 5% of your capital ever in any one particular cryptocurrency. [00:14:50] Now, in terms of my thoughts on the sector, never buy at an all-time high. [00:14:55] Do your own investment research. [00:14:58] Buy when they're oversold. [00:14:59] So for example, last week Bitcoin had a relative strength index reading of 18.3. [00:15:05] Anything below 20 means it's oversold.
Chris Haroun [00:15:07 - 00:16:02]:
[00:15:07] Mm-hmm. [00:15:08] That's, Buy. [00:15:08] Now, in terms of my thought process on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies longer term, let me talk a little bit about cash. [00:15:16] So in my hand here, I'm holding a bunch of US dollars, and this fiat currency hasn't changed. [00:15:22] It's looked just like this since about 1933. [00:15:26] Now, currently there's $96 trillion of this stuff from first world countries in the world, and that's up from about $90 trillion during COVID Now, currently about $3.5 billion is the size of the global market cap of cryptocurrencies. [00:15:45] I humbly believe that governments are going to increase the amount of cash out there by about 5% per year over the next 20 years. [00:15:53] And what that means is approximately $200— $250 trillion worth of cash out there in about 20 years.
Chris Haroun [00:16:02 - 00:16:45]:
[00:16:02] And I believe that Bitcoin will be about 10% of that market cap in 20 years. [00:16:08] So that implies a market cap of $25 trillion for Bitcoin, which means a million dollars in about 20 years. [00:16:15] Now, I don't care about the path, I care about the destination. [00:16:18] I don't really care about volatility, but I know in my heart that at some point in my life, Bitcoin will be a million dollars. [00:16:26] Now, One thing I like about Bitcoin, and again, I don't recommend that any of your listeners have this as more than 5% of your liquid net worth because there are risks. [00:16:33] But what I do like about Bitcoin is it has first mover advantage since it was released back in 2009. [00:16:39] And also there's a limit on supply. [00:16:41] There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin created by the year
Marcia Dawood [00:16:47 - 00:16:59]:
[00:16:47] 2140. [00:16:47] Right. [00:16:48] Okay. [00:16:48] So let's unpack a bunch of the stuff that you just talked about. [00:16:50] First, talk about the 18% and when it went below 20, dissect that for our listeners cuz we haven't really talked about that on the show before.
Chris Haroun [00:16:59 - 00:17:11]:
[00:16:59] Yeah. [00:16:59] Yeah, absolutely. [00:17:00] So when I invest, I love to look at 3 things in this order. [00:17:04] Number 1, fundamentals. [00:17:05] Okay. [00:17:06] Number 2, valuation. [00:17:07] And a distant third is technical analysis. [00:17:09] I don't believe in day trading.
Chris Haroun [00:17:11 - 00:17:46]:
[00:17:11] It doesn't work. [00:17:12] It's like gambling. [00:17:14] But when you look at technical analysis, it's great to always buy investments that are oversold. [00:17:22] And when I say oversold, I'm referring to the relative strength index. [00:17:26] Or the RSI. [00:17:28] So you can look up the RSI for BTC, Bitcoin, or any stock, for example. [00:17:33] And when the relative strength index is below 20, it means that many more people are selling versus buying. [00:17:40] And if you believe in the fundamentals and the valuation of any asset class, that's usually the best time to buy.
Chris Haroun [00:17:46 - 00:18:25]:
[00:17:46] Because if you buy an instrument or any investment that everybody already loves and everybody owns, that is overbought, then there's not that many incremental investors to push it higher. [00:17:58] Yeah. [00:17:58] And one last thing I have to say as a proud Canadian, I live in the Bay Area, but I was born just outside of Toronto. [00:18:03] I idolized Wayne Gretzky growing up. [00:18:06] And when asked why he was successful, he humbly said it was not because he skates where the puck is, but rather because he skates where the puck is going to be. [00:18:16] And by the same token, We have to invest in companies that investors are going to like, and we have to think long term.
Marcia Dawood [00:18:25 - 00:18:47]:
[00:18:25] So interesting. [00:18:26] Okay. [00:18:26] So then you also spoke about the, uh, how Bitcoin and the US currency— so you think that the US government will actually use US dollars to buy Bitcoin so that part of the government's assets will the 10% Bitcoin?
Chris Haroun [00:18:47 - 00:19:39]:
[00:18:47] I, I don't know if the US government's going to buy Bitcoin, but I do know for a fact, and we all know, that the US government's going to print a lot more of this stuff. [00:18:56] And it's interesting because we had an extreme market sell-off last week. [00:18:59] A lot of people don't understand why it happened. [00:19:02] My perspective is as follows: the Trump administration— and this is the first administration I've ever heard in my life do this— They're in favor of a weak dollar, and that means printing much more of this stuff. [00:19:16] And one of the reasons they're in favor of a weak dollar with the new Federal Reserve chairperson being appointed— one of the reasons is it's actually quite smart, and I did not vote in the last election, but if you think about it, if tariffs are going to be about 15% across the board, it makes our exports more expensive. [00:19:35] So how do you make our exports cheaper? [00:19:37] You weaken the dollar.
Marcia Dawood [00:19:40 - 00:19:44]:
[00:19:40] Wow. [00:19:40] Okay. [00:19:40] I hadn't heard it explained like that before. [00:19:43] Interesting.
Chris Haroun [00:19:44 - 00:19:44]:
[00:19:44] Okay.
Marcia Dawood [00:19:44 - 00:19:50]:
[00:19:44] So then what about the— okay, so sticking along the Bitcoin theme then. [00:19:48] So how does Bitcoin then get to be
Chris Haroun [00:19:52 - 00:20:00]:
[00:19:52] 10%? [00:19:53] Well, I think that the more you print of this stuff, the higher the valuation goes, a more speculative investment, right?
Marcia Dawood [00:20:00 - 00:20:01]:
[00:20:00] I see.
Chris Haroun [00:20:01 - 00:20:14]:
[00:20:01] Okay. [00:20:02] Yeah. [00:20:02] If you increase this by 5% per year over 20 years, the future value means that you're gonna have about $250 trillion worth of cash in all major currencies. [00:20:10] Whereas with Bitcoin, there's only gonna be 21 billion Bitcoin ever made by the year 2140.
Marcia Dawood [00:20:15 - 00:20:21]:
[00:20:15] Yeah. [00:20:16] Right. [00:20:17] And then what about other coins? [00:20:18] What do you think of Solana?
Chris Haroun [00:20:21 - 00:21:02]:
[00:20:21] I haven't done that much research on Solana, but generally speaking, I tend to like investments that are a platform. [00:20:27] If you own the road, you charge the cars. [00:20:30] For example, with Apple, with iOS, or with Google, with Android, or even with Microsoft, with Windows, you own the platform, you charge the cars. [00:20:40] And so another cryptocurrency I like longer term is Ethereum. [00:20:45] Mm-hmm. [00:20:45] Ethereum is essentially a platform where NFTs and ICOs, which are like IPOs but for cryptos, generally occur. [00:20:53] But the only caveat I have with Ethereum that makes me a little bit uncomfortable relative to Bitcoin, is that there's no limit on supply.
Marcia Dawood [00:21:02 - 00:21:12]:
[00:21:02] So explain then that for our listeners what you're talking about related to how Bitcoin is not the platform and Ethereum is.
Chris Haroun [00:21:12 - 00:21:50]:
[00:21:12] Yeah. [00:21:13] So, so Bitcoin is basically a digital ledger. [00:21:16] So think of those old accounting books where you write down debits and credits. [00:21:20] That's what Bitcoin essentially is. [00:21:23] Whereas with Ethereum, it's so much more. [00:21:25] And the reason we have many cryptocurrencies that have been created since Bitcoin was created in 2009 is not just because it's a gold rush, but also because newer cryptos do things better than older cryptos. [00:21:39] And so Bitcoin is just a digital ledger and it's slow. [00:21:44] Newer cryptos are faster and newer cryptos do more things like Ethereum, which has a platform as well.
Marcia Dawood [00:21:50 - 00:22:33]:
[00:21:50] I see. [00:21:53] Okay. [00:21:53] Very fascinating, all of the things that we can invest in nowadays. [00:21:57] Back in the day, in my first book, I actually talk about how in the '80s you had to have a broker and you had to put money in your account and somebody had to go to the trading floor and there was no such thing as E-Trade or things that could happen really fast, right? [00:22:12] And here we are, we have so many options of the things that we can invest in, but our fingertips— how do you feel about cryptocurrency becoming easier and easier? [00:22:22] Do you think that's gonna happen relatively quickly? [00:22:24] 'Cause like right now it's still relatively cumbersome. [00:22:28] I think a lot of it is because of the blockchain, but what are your thoughts on that?
Chris Haroun [00:22:33 - 00:23:21]:
[00:22:33] Yeah, so I remember back in 2004 when the gold— and this is fake gold here, but when the gold ETF was created, ticker GLD. [00:22:42] And what I loved about that is I knew that I could finally buy gold knowing that it's 100% real. [00:22:48] And it's liquid. [00:22:49] I can get in and out quickly. [00:22:51] So it made it easier to buy. [00:22:52] And the reason I brought this— I bring this up is because not that long ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission blessed Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ETFs. [00:23:02] And that's a wonderful thing because before that point in time, if you wanted to buy Bitcoin in a hard storage wallet, it was so painful to do because you had to write down 12 to 24 little keywords for anybody that's used to— sorry, sorry. [00:23:18] And by the time you placed your order, you're like, oh, I'm losing confidence in this.
Chris Haroun [00:23:21 - 00:23:58]:
[00:23:21] I'm going to cut my order in half. [00:23:23] Uh-huh. [00:23:24] Well, now it's extraordinarily liquid. [00:23:26] Anybody can invest. [00:23:28] And what's really driving Bitcoin is not retail, it's institutional investors. [00:23:33] And so if you go back to 2012, almost 100% ownership of Bitcoin back then was retail investors. [00:23:42] And every year institution is increasing materially, especially with ETFs. [00:23:46] These are big institutions that issue these, and as a result, sovereign wealth funds, governments, pension plans, endowments, et cetera, can all pile into these instruments because it's much more liquid
Marcia Dawood [00:24:00 - 00:24:15]:
[00:24:00] now. [00:24:02] Interesting. [00:24:02] And is this something that is also part of your courses that you're teaching people about currency investing as well as having your own MBA?
Chris Haroun [00:24:15 - 00:24:37]:
[00:24:15] Yeah, yeah. [00:24:16] So my MBA degree program is not accredited. [00:24:19] It's not accredited, it never will be, because I don't want governments tell me what I can and cannot teach. [00:24:23] I'm more of a libertarian. [00:24:25] But yes, each— all aspects of business, sales and marketing, entrepreneurship, finance and accounting, personal growth, AI, social media, and much more.
Marcia Dawood [00:24:37 - 00:25:00]:
[00:24:37] Great, because I know you're not here to pitch your courses, you're here to give us this great information, which you have been very generous in telling us all of these great tips and tricks, but we really would like to know more about the courses. [00:24:49] So please explain, Elise, a little bit how they work. [00:24:52] Are they different lengths? [00:24:54] How would people go about getting to know you and getting to know how your courses work?
Chris Haroun [00:25:00 - 00:25:28]:
[00:25:00] Yeah, thank you. [00:25:01] Is it okay if I share my screen? [00:25:04] Sure. [00:25:04] Okay, great. [00:25:06] So I'm gonna share my screen and you can always go to harunmba.com to learn more. [00:25:12] But I'm gonna show you my community here. [00:25:14] And for anybody that teaches online, what I want you to do is I want you to create a sense of community. [00:25:22] And so I've got 700 hours of my humbly award-winning courses here. [00:25:26] Everything I've ever made, everything I will make.
Chris Haroun [00:25:28 - 00:25:47]:
[00:25:28] I've got 2 million paying customers in every single country, humbly. [00:25:31] And all my profits in the long run go to building schools in Africa. [00:25:34] We built a couple so far. [00:25:36] Nice. [00:25:37] Uh, there's— It's the reason I, I do what I do. [00:25:39] And we have events. [00:25:41] We have daily calls. [00:25:42] You get 7 hours per week of daily group Zoom calls with me, one-on-ones, et cetera.
Chris Haroun [00:25:47 - 00:26:12]:
[00:25:47] And we have an app as well. [00:25:49] Anybody posts whatever they want on here is, is well. [00:25:52] And we have members. [00:25:54] Okay. [00:25:54] So I've got 164 members in this cohort here. [00:25:58] And let me stop sharing. [00:25:59] And I want to give advice for anybody that teaches online. [00:26:02] Or does anything online, okay? [00:26:07] AI is going to destroy this industry and already has.
Chris Haroun [00:26:12 - 00:26:32]:
[00:26:12] And so where I think the world is going with online teaching longer term, and I've got a solution for it, I think that everybody that's not taking online courses now and learning from AI, I get it, I do the same thing, but I do believe that within a few years we're gonna get very lonely.
Marcia Dawood [00:26:32 - 00:26:33]:
[00:26:32] Mm-hmm.
Chris Haroun [00:26:33 - 00:26:53]:
[00:26:33] And we need a sense of community. [00:26:36] And so I advise everybody on this webcast that has their own business to really think about creating a community. [00:26:43] You can use Skool. [00:26:44] That's S-K-O-O-L. [00:26:44] An alternative— I'm not sponsored by anybody. [00:26:48] I never am, please. [00:26:48] I just wanna humbly help. [00:26:50] Create a sense of community as well.
Chris Haroun [00:26:53 - 00:26:57]:
[00:26:53] Otherwise, AI is gonna eat your lunch.
Marcia Dawood [00:26:57 - 00:27:18]:
[00:26:57] So interesting. [00:26:58] Well, Chris, you've given us so many wonderful tips and tricks. [00:27:02] I really appreciate you coming on the show today and talking about this. [00:27:05] Uh, LinkedIn tips that you gave us at the very beginning of the show were gold, especially for founders who are fundraising. [00:27:12] So, uh, make sure that you follow Chris. [00:27:14] Where's the best place to find you? [00:27:15] You gave us the website before. [00:27:16] Give it to us one more time.
Chris Haroun [00:27:18 - 00:27:24]:
[00:27:18] Oh, sure. [00:27:18] It's harounmba.com. [00:27:20] That's H-A-R-O-U-N. [00:27:24] Mba.com.
Marcia Dawood [00:27:24 - 00:27:28]:
[00:27:24] Thank you. [00:27:25] Perfect. [00:27:25] And we will make sure to put that in the show notes. [00:27:27] So thanks for being here.
Chris Haroun [00:27:28 - 00:27:30]:
[00:27:28] Thanks for your time. [00:27:29] I appreciate it.