Jeffery: Welcome to the supporters fund ask an investor, I’m your host Jeffrey potvin and let’s please welcome Sa’ad shah noetic fund as our investor for today welcome sa’ad, I’m i’m i’m taking your name with the million sides that, I know it am, I okay i’m gonna get this right i’m gonna make sure, I say it right but it’s pleasure to have you join us today.

Sa’ad: Thank you very much jeffrey, I appreciate it and it’s saad by the way but appreciate it.

Jeffery: I like it, I like it it’s a great name and uh it uh, I think it’s the apostrophe that throws me off because in my brain i’m like okay this is how i’ve got to say it and then bam but either way pleasure to have you here today we’re very excited and, I can say i’m excited about everybody that, I get the opportunity to interview but today i’m i’m going to say i’m just one step a little higher excited that, I get to chat with you and i don’t want to take it away from all the other great investors that we’ve got to talk to but you’re doing some really creative things that are really going to change the world and i’ve been following what you’re doing what this space is doing and, I got goosebumps just talking about right now if you could show this on camera because, I think it’s exceptionally cool uh the areas that you guys are really focused in on and before, I steal that thunder i want to see if you could give us a little bit more about your background all the way from your rbc days share a little bit about yourself and then what you’re up to today and then i’m going to interject throughout that and then one thing about you that nobody else would know.

Sa’ad: Oh dear okay well my my professional career has been in investment management and in banking so, I started off at rbc in real estate markets and then moved on to the corporate credit side of the table corporate banking and then ultimately on to the derivatives desk um and, I was in sales uh for fx and commodity derivatives and became the um the head of global financial engineering for rbc uh capital markets financial engineering deal team that is, I left in 2000 and early 2007 to join the current co-founder of noetic um my partner in crime warren wright we were looking to build an asset management firm that was focused on esoteric strategies, I think this is important to the equation because it tells you where the dna came from and these are strategies that were hedge fund strategies that were very uncorrelated to the markets so we’re talking about strategies that were the likes of reinsurance weather derivatives music royalty a lot of ip related businesses pharmaceutical royalty film financing uh we did a very sort of a large slate financing deal with 20th century fox um so you know complex commodity trades complex credit trades but strategies that you know were not dependent on whether the markets were up or down and those strategies served us well in years like 2008 and 2011 and then we sold our business through the carlisle group they came knocking on the door and it was uh it was a great sale for us and and then, I spent a couple of years at carlisle as a managing director and then you know wasn’t interested in staying with a large organization wanted to go back to focusing on the esoteric areas so, I focused on disruptive innovation worked with and have been advising folks at rose park advisors that’s professor clay christensen’s family office really professor christensen passed away a few years ago but is the father of disruptive innovation so disruptive innovations of interest to me education technologies of interest to me renewable energy a lot of the impact-related investments but psychedelics and in particular cns which is central nervous system focused investments are very important to me it’s it’s an area that i’ve been studying for 20 years and, I want to be very careful when, I say that um because it’s not like i’ve been you know sitting in some dark basement tripping for 20 years no i’ve been following the history of the culture the science the neuroscience the ethnobotany the pharmacology the pharmacokinetics behind many of these plant medicines that go back literally 10 to 12 000 years from what we can gather through history and have been you know incredibly profound and game changing and transformative through enough anecdotal evidence to show that they’re able to actually get to the root cause of our mental distress as opposed to it being a short-term remedy or treating the symptom so it’s an exciting area we launched noedic in 2020 very early um we have two funds our first fund is closed that has generated about 400 return the first dollar in that’s how um the growth has been in that fund so very exciting we’ve had five exits fund two where we’re looking to raise capital but we’re going to be closing fund two in short order uh by the end of september uh mid-october latest um so that that’s the that’s a bit of story about myself and and noetic in terms of one thing that that nobody knows about me um at all perhaps maybe very very few people is that um i’m a trained kenner, I i trained as a tenor throughout high school so, I i sing and, I sing right now only in the shower uh it’s not for um for for for anybody else for that matter, I don’t think they’d be they’d be very pleased with the my voice so um so there you go i hope that answers your question.

Jeffery: Well that’s amazing and and, I have to ask did you want to do a quick snapshot of the uh the tenor side of things, I would be, I think that would be pretty exceptional to see, I don’t think, I know anybody that has uh this background so i’m only uh being a little bit um off the rocker there to put you on the spot but very exciting and so cool that you have a background uh that’s so diverse but even being able to just jump in front of a room to be able to do that at a large scale is exceptional um i would be shaking like a leaf so, I think that uh it’s pretty cool to have an experience like that.

Sa’ad: Thank you thank you jeffrey.

Jeffery: So to kind of peel back to a lot of the back in the days of rbc and to where you are today, I think there’s been obviously a tremendous amount of of learning and and, I like that you shared that you haven’t spent uh 20 years in the basement testing and running through the psychedelic side of things to kind of get to the experimental and pass that to the investment stage but to go back in when you were working at the rbc side maybe you could share a little bit more about how the the derivative side the capital market side really operates and not just in um, I wouldn’t say it’s so much focused at all in this case on startup side but what it does do is it really helps you understand assets and i’m thinking the last couple years of the world has really started to learn publicly what assets are, I think everybody in the back of their mind were like yeah cool, I own a home maybe but, I think today the world through the pandemic has started to really educate themselves and this goes to that whole d5 and allowing people to learn more about how to self fund self-operate function maybe you can share a little bit about that experience and the learning because, I think that in today’s world it’s becoming more and more accessible on what assets are and how people are driving through instagram and sharing content a lot of it is about you need to build your own ice machine you need to do this you need to do that and everything’s about bringing dollars and finding ways to make money off assets on every aspect of life and as you said you’ve got assets that you were driving into but they weren’t failing they just grow over time it’s just a matter of letting time occur maybe share a little bit about that background and that experience if you could.

Sa’ad: Yeah no i the experience at rbc was invaluable because it allowed me to understand optionality and optionality is critical, I think to the equation and what does optionality mean you need to understand risk and how to manage risk and understand where the risks lie how to price those risks what is the risk premium that is needed um you know by investors to to take on the risks and and then how do you construct a portfolio with all these positions that are ideally orthogonal uh to the markets and orthogonal to each other and in a way you capture um you know the quintessential risk premia that your investors are looking for so in order to understand risk you are always in a situation even in life where you need to understand what is it that you’re long and what is it that you’re short and in particular you know there’s certain um greeks that you know like when, I say greeks that you need to understand you know where you’re long gamma where your short gamma and all our folks may understand you know calls and puts but um the nuances of understanding how volatility plays into the equation is is very very important and the way that, I often try and help people to understand for example just the mere concept of where you’re long and short gamma um you know, I will say that with with my um um with with my mother i’m i’m i’m long gamma, I don’t have to do very much and should be very happy with me right but with my dad i’m short gamma which is, I can do everything perfectly well but i i messed up one little bit on one little thing and all of a sudden it’s like wow and and so that’s a way to explain yama and so for me it was understanding optionality understanding risk and then being able to explain and and you know actualize that within a portfolio setting to better meet clients and investors needs that training was invaluable and, I think that that training and that understanding of risk should be part of every entrepreneur’s toolbox.

Jeffery: I almost think that risk should be something that is learned throughout time through high school university because, I think we lack the ability to understand how something really functions especially from a monetary value and understanding what risk means today versus five years from now and what is the value you’re going to gain from being early and you know taking where you guys are in your fund in the the area that you’re going into which is very early early into um areas that are just getting approvals by um governments that will or will not allow this to go forward which is a huge risk um in psychedelics so going back into that time period you start to look through numbers looking through value and you know today you could say that um you know and it’s not talked about a lot but the price of a home as an example you know 20 years ago the price of a home was x and today it’s 100 times that value but maybe people couldn’t have seen that the markets were going to open up so many dollars that we’re going to create this form of inflation or form of um of value in an asset and today everything is an asset and you’ve done this through music you see a lot today, I think justin timberlake just sold for a hundred million his um portfolio of uh of music so there’s a lot of musicians doing this now so they’re realizing that they’ve got a book of assets so now because everybody’s starting to realize that my car’s done asset now even used cars are becoming um less written down every year because they’re like wait a second this thing’s might be old but it actually can still run it has all this metal it has all this value we shouldn’t be depreciating the hell out of this and now all of a sudden this old car has got more value today than it ever has in the history of cars so people are starting to respect more of the value of assets and having that knowledge on how to assess that risk how do you look at even again back in your rbc days how were you looking at where a market was going to go and where it would eventually end up in 10 years so that you would see success versus stealing seeing it followed you know.

Sa’ad: I think a large part of that really came from from the time that was spent in about nine years spent at diversified global asset management which is where, I went to right after rbc and that’s the business that we sold to the carlisle group which you know as as your listeners will likely know is a large private equity firm based out of washington d.c and um our bus the whole business at dgam was to focus on unique strategies and risk and emerging strategies and these are strategies that actually didn’t exist so we we helped seed those strategies right so you mentioned music royalty that was one of our strategies where you know um people may remember the david bowie bonds but you know music royalty uh really came into the scene because you’re able to now amass these uh pools of assets and every time it plays at a hair salon or on by a dj in a radio station you get you get a royalty free from it same thing with pharmaceutical royalties that was another one where we you know buy the royalty stream from the actual inventor or or the group that sort of you know help put it together and we price it as such and give them one lump sum amount um and take over the royalty stream so the with that, I think what’s what’s critical here is to understand that every one of these lives these these strategies that are new emerging much like psychedelics much like cns cns you know, I say with an asterisk might you has a life cycle okay and initially when it comes on to the scene it’s gonna distinctly attract a very small subset of investors and a cohort of individuals and parties and and institutions and then it’s going to evolve and as that evolves much like you know a baby learns to crawl then you know then then walk and then becomes an adolescent these strategies have a natural life cycle to them and knowing how to um again extract the risk premia at those various stages of the life cycle is very important once you’ve seen that you you see that in very diverse set of strategies right that are not related to each other so you know cocoa trading and coffee trading to music royalty to you know reinsurance and weather derivatives um you realize that that life cycle kind of is the same for for many maybe it doesn’t have the same cadence but it it goes through a process right and when you are able to identify that that’s very helpful and that just comes from years of experience in seeding these kinds of strategies and understanding the life cycle so, I think that’s what we came away with in being able to identify quite early on that wait a second this is an emerging strategy this is an unmet need this is going to get bigger right and part of that is to identify what are the catalysts that have to take place in order for that to happen and, I just want to give you one analogy when you take a look at what we’re doing right now we’re on zoom okay zoom and a lot of the education technology platforms like coursera udemy so on weren’t able to come on to the scene if it wasn’t for cloud computing and and you know broadband um that that really came onto the scene in 2009 2010. if it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing right now right so that was the catalyst and then all of a sudden all these companies started to come into place and now everybody’s very familiar with the ubiquitous zoom platform for example in the same way they’re distinct things that have happened in neuroscience um and our understanding of the mapping of the brain and the mind um that we’ve learned in the last five years that you know and we’ve learned more about the human brain the last five years than any other time in history and a lot of those learnings have been catalysts for allowing us to go deeper and dive deeper into the central nervous system and better through precision um target the distinct areas in the brain that we need to in order to see distinct outcomes for for the better and and so it we were able to identify those catalysts that took place and and as a result you know um start to identify those entrepreneurs and researchers that were doing some profound work in the space and we’re very excited about the outcome right this is this is probably the in my opinion uh one of the top three biggest unmet needs in humanity right and mental health is not getting any better with everything that’s going on it’s unfortunately going to get worse and so this needs to be an area that requires a lot more focus a lot more capital a lot more attention and it has a incredible amount going for it, I mean incredible application it’s incredibly efficacious but it’s also it’s also the right time it’s sort of the golden era for investing in neuroscience in our opinion.

Jeffery: Which, I think again is phenomenal the the direction of where this comes from but if you kind of look back on when you’re talking about different forms of catalyst that have created a movement when you look at the other large movement that’s occurred in the last five years which was the uh almost becoming the globalization of of weed or metal america medical america marijuana that then moved of course now into uh usage there was this massive push everything skyrocketed so let’s say that it was probably 10 years ago when this started to take a movement going forward and you started to try to move it more to this legal framework so i’m not sure where the catalyst was but the marketing side of it and the make money side of it is kind of the big driver to how they could open this up you realize that it’s a leaf this should be normalized why is this not so what was the catalyst that created that and was it was in this case of marijuana being legalized and now being pushed globally was that more of uh centralizing around marketing and money versus creating a catalyst for good so where you’re coming from on the psychedelic side you’re using the catalyst that we know more we have more logical understanding of the brain we’re diving into that more mental health is having bigger problems so does this become because of that it actually has a different form of catalyst it isn’t about money it isn’t about uh creating this market uh and taking something out of the gray area and moving it into the public eye it’s taking something that was in the gray area because it was put in the gray area for the wrong reasons because people didn’t want to take the time to better understand uh the mental development that can come out of the proper usage of this so you have a different form of catalyst and what i’m trying to get from this discussion is that when you’re looking at analyzing markets and this goes from auto to you name it pharmaceuticals all the way across how do you determine what the catalyst is that’s going to bring value and bring long-term value versus a short-term value which was a real fast gain in marijuana and then the fall off a cliff versus what you’re doing that’s going to bring this into hundreds of years worth of development and value for everybody from mental financial all the way across the spectrum.

Sa’ad: Yeah that’s a great question jeffrey and, I appreciate you asking that because um marijuana and psychedelics are worlds apart they’re just as apples and oranges as mars and venus and it’s very important to understand that because with marijuana although there is a medicinal side to it of course the the real revenue is in the recreational use of it and then being available and and you know at uh across across the platform um and so it’s more of a consumer package goods play it’s more of a branding exercise more about a marketing exercise whereas what’s happening with psychedelics although there’s a small contingency that is you know again focused on the the uh potentially sort of marketing towards the decriminalization movement that’s taking place in oregon and ultimately may happen in california the the vast the majority of it is clinical trials it’s about new chemical entities or novel chemical entities it’s about drug development and drug discovery it’s about getting it through ind then phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 you know the whole fda approval process and health canada’s approval process and then an element of commercializing it what’s the best delivery mechanism and so on so it’s a very different animal altogether and it is um it is not for sort of you know making it available uh legally recreationally it’s it’s really about ensuring that the process that is followed for medicinal use will ultimately get approved for therapeutic purposes but it’ll be needed to be administered by somebody that’s trained um to to administer that these are very very very powerful molecules right and that’s the one important thing to understand and preparing for it knowing whether you should be partaking in it the way to partake in it the follow-up thereafter the integration all of that is critically important so ultimately this is a lot more about therapy it is also very much probably one of the most pronounced example of precision medicine and what, I mean by that is you can give 25 000 people the same exact dose of the same exact molecule let’s say silicon or psilocybin here and um and you’ll have 25 000 different experiences because of what’s subjective what’s in your default mode network so we have to be very careful right this is not akin to marijuana for that matter so as a result, I think what we saw initially was there were a lot of investors that came into the space early in 2020 that built up a lot of hype and took markets to a level that you know really shouldn’t have gone to and then they soon realized that wait a second this is not marijuana this is not uh really going in that direction at all and and a lot of those companies have come down hard right from from their highs um is because the hype driven investors sort of left that’s all part and parcel of what would happen in the life cycle of an emerging strategy so none of that was news to us or we were surprised we expected it but it’s very important to differentiate that the drug development drug discovery taking place with psychedelic molecules is not what the cannabis industry went through and there are very few comparisons to that if anything perhaps maybe the the the real comparison really comes with regards to a regulatory protocol that you can compare to what happened and what cannabis went through potentially with what psychedelics may have to go through.

Jeffery: So does this put in context, I guess the disruptive industries that you’re working towards and in that you’re always going to have people that are going to over inflate something um because they’re not seeing the longevity of the value that you’re creating and does this affect the real value of what you’re trying to produce because it’s the new shiny thing right everybody, I found over years of sales is that people love to meet new people but they go back to what they know so they love the fact that this is disruptive new and it’s exciting but after about a little bit of time and not seeing what they think they’re supposed to see they fall out drop it but they take the value with them so is that kind of what’s happening and you’re seeing this in a lot of spaces or is this something that we’re going to work through because disruption does go through these cycles as well.

Sa’ad: Yeah there’s an element of irrational exuberance there is was a uh missed misunderstood or misperceived and you know kind of analogy between what was happening in cannabis and a lot of investors said well it was the early investors in cannabis that made a lot of money so we don’t want to lose out so let’s go into psychedelics because it looks like it’s the same thing and they’re all the same thing and it’s just the furthest from the truth and so uh again that’s just part of what makes a market the market that’s the exciting part um, I i think what what is what is critical to understand here is that when that hype-driven investor leaves um you do get the uh you know the the more serious investors that end up staying that truly understand and appreciate it for what it is which is that listen this has got a long cycle to it this is a long road and if, I was to use any sports analogy it actually doesn’t matter what sports analogy, I use because what we’ve literally done is just parked our car in the parking lot whether you’re going to go see a baseball game or an ice hockey whatever it doesn’t matter like we’ve just parked the car in the parking lot and we’re making our way to the station that’s how early we are right there are currently um you know 60 compounds in clinical trials of which, I would say 18 of them are where actual dosage is taking place we’ve got one in phase three you know a huge chunk in phase two a and phase two b there are a lot more in phase uh and phase one but the way to think about this area is to think about it in terms of indication which is what what is the indication that they’re going after what is the problem that they’re trying to solve and the biggest problem that’s trying to be solved right now is treatment resistant depression by virtue of its name there is no treatment for that depression it’s treatment resistant right and that’s a very serious issue the second one interestingly enough right now is alcohol use um um right and so it’s it’s alcohol disorder where there’s that’s a that’s a huge uh area that’s currently unmet um and uh and thereafter it’s anxiety um we’re also looking at eating disorders um you know we’ve got work going on with certain inflammatory related ailments but the top three are really with regards to anxiety ptsd first and foremost treatment resistant depression and alcohol use disorder so when you take a look at by indication to answer your question you’re sort of saying okay that’s that’s the indication what’s currently working not very much this is really important for your listeners to to viewers to understand and appreciate lithium was discovered by john kade in australia in 1949 it was brought to the us in 1950 and when it was brought to the u.s and they administered to those that had mental health issues which again if you had a mental issue mental health issue then you were in a hospital in the hospital that you were institutionalized and what they found was through the administration of lithium 70 percent 7-0 70 of hospital beds were freed up so at that time in the 50s they said we found the holy grail what do we need to spend a lot of time in cns and lithium works look at it like it was healing everybody and fast forward to the 80s prozac is literally a slight design improvement to lithium there has been very little innovation here and we know that the side effects of these ssris and snris the antidepressants are massive they cause major major problems the the actual drug itself works it interacts with the receptor the way it needs to but it also has to meet every other ascender how you don’t need it it shouldn’t it should just meet with the one receptor that you need to go to meet and that’s it you don’t need to meet everybody else but the problem is that they meet everybody so that’s why there’s this unmet need because the current platform is not working it’s causing more issues there’s been little innovation because there’s a little understanding of what else could should really be done and because psychedelics were kind of put in this in this bucket of substance abuse disorder a schedule one list the work stopped but in the 90s a bunch of these institutions that were working on it at the various academic institutions and and other private organizations and public organizations got together at esseline in san francisco like just south of san francisco and said okay guys um here’s what we found through our research and it was like wow here’s what we found and that’s when sort of the reawakening or the renaissance the beginnings of this renaissance movement really started because that’s when the research came to the forefront and you realize with all this anecdotal evidence and some of the work that was going on at select institutions that the results were profound and that’s why we’re back on track because now we actually have a real efficacious way of solving the problem but still there are a lot of risks jeffrey, I want to make sure that everybody understands this is not without risk we know that the molecules work that the science is incredibly compelling but there’s a lot of plumbing that still needs to be figured out right um we need to figure out what is the best delivery mechanism we need to understand aspects of the duration right here we need to find a way how this will actually be commercialized which molecules are best suited for which indication not everybody this is not for everybody not everybody is predisposed to psychedelics if you are suffering from schizophrenia or psychosis it’s off the table it’s completely off the table but there’s certain things that we’re doing now that would allow those that are suffering from those ailments to actually partake in this so it’s it gets really really exciting um and and this is the time for it.

Jeffery: Well it’s uh it’s certainly what, I again, I find really exciting about this space and you talked to a few of these these pieces earlier um and of course when you’re getting into the risk format and how this is all going to play itself out um and, I think the idea for an entrepreneur when they’re getting into this type of product or this this space is trying to understand am, I getting my am, I creating a business that has longevity because the right catalysts are being formed have been formed or they exist and in the case of where you’re coming from or at least what i’m seeing that you’ve done with the business currently is that you had catalysts that helped supported you to jump into this space and start to look at ways that you could support new drugs and new patterns of working and helping people with mental disabilities and looking at the key ones that could be solved in this space so now kind of taking that analogy and how you’ve been able to operate how can you describe what is a better way for entrepreneurs now today to start looking at uh new spaces that are coming and where do you see these new spaces unfolding not just in the psychedelic space but other areas like robotics whatever that might be what are the catalysts that are driving these spaces to be of value today or will be of value in five to ten years.

Sa’ad: You know it’s technology moves at a rapid pace and that’s the one freight train you never want to stand in front right ultimately um, I will go out and say that there may well be technological advancements that take place which we’re already seeing with you know certain modalities like transcranial magnetic therapy right neurofeedback modulation others where without the use of any drugs we can actually solve these problems right and so that’s one freight train, I will not want to stand in front of so it’s really understanding really you know what what is the research that’s underway um that could be disruptive here um uh where you know where where that research is you know how far it needs to go um you know folks don’t realize that you know for example in the renewable energy space um uh fusion is is a very compelling uh uh you know case now and it’s a it’s something that we’re not that far away from where we can actually find a way to um you know harness fusion we already know that we can get it to the right temperature of the plasma now we need to just control it there are few parties around the world that are working on this that have been highly funded but we can have entire neighborhoods and cities um you know completely powered by fusion and without the risks by the way right without the risks um but that has taken about 15 or more years to get to where it is now it’s still maybe five or six years away um many maybe eight years but it’s a very compelling case so it’s about keeping track of the the technology more importantly it’s trying to better understand what what is working what is not working um and why is it that it’s not working right so regardless of the industry if you’re on top of the disruptive elements you’re on top of exactly how the needs are being met and not being met and then what is the unique value proposition that you’re bringing to the table that is going to disrupt this now it’s important to understand disruption right because um you know the way that clay christensen has written about it and explains it is really important because 98 of the time when people say something is disruptive they’re not actually understanding you know that that term will understand that definition to be disruptive in order for the incumbent not to get upset you need to come up with a product or service that is actually inferior or cheaper to the incumbent and all that means then is that your probability of success in that case um goes up slightly goes up from, I don’t know six or eight percent to you know a little under 40 percent potentially um but it doesn’t still mean you’re going to be successful just means your probability of success is greater because you’re coming up with a product that’s cheaper inferior to the incumbent but the trade-off is that you are catering to a market that is just not being carried that’s the key thing you’re catering to a market nobody’s catering to and the company ignores you because you’re either cheaper or inferior to what they are but with technology improving you know that your product and service will ultimately improve and take over so prime example of that are the the the mini sort of steel mills now um you know that have replaced the full blast steel uh of the full blast furnace steel mills it’s about how the personal computer took over the the mini computer there are many examples of that but, I think that’s critical to understand and if you understand the logic behind that, I think you can come up with a better unique value proposition for your product offering a service now.

Jeffery: That’s awesome and, I think that does really help people better understand when they’re building companies starting out new companies they have to look at a lot of these things versus just having a passion play and diving in investors are looking for something that is disruptive scalable and all these terms that people really don’t understand what they mean when you get granular into them and this is the type of thing and how they’re going to bring success is that you’ve created a runway you’ve created a market that’s not being serviced you’ve got products that are in the market that have flaws or that they’re not meeting the need of the environment that they’re working in or in the case of fusion they’re doing the right things but they need that extra catalyst to come in and really ramp them up and those are the little things that you have to look at but, I think one of the key factors of all of this is that you’re in that environment and that you’re focused on that environment and that’s going to bring a lot of value into your business or into your startup when you start to plan and start to grow uh this business or this model into the future.

Sa’ad: Yeah no a hundred percent you’ve got it right jeffrey that that’s really good.

Jeffery: So, I think um there was one thing, I was going to add just in the psychedelic space, I know there was a lot of work that was being done back in the 60s 40s to 60s in montreal and it kind of really got shut down at some point in there is there been a lot of um work canadian north america side where people are going back to the original testing and the original data that was in the market to figure out if there was ways to enhance some of the pre-work that was done or does everybody kind of just dismiss whatever has been done in the market and they just kind of plow forward and try to create something new and disregard what may have been tested or run or gone through the fda back in those days.

Sa’ad: No everything that’s happened in the past has been incredibly instrumental and helpful to you know taking us further down right it’s iterative so you needed all of that to happen and that has been a very important part of the equation psychedelics you know as standard roth uh talks about it essentially allowed us to it’s it the best analogy, I can use is that they were it’s like it was a it’s a telescope to look into the the workings of the brain and the mind and the psyche that’s what psychedelics did right it’s important to note that what psychedelics do is that they inhibit the inhibitor and what, I mean by that is that we’ve got this default mode network the default mode network is where we store all our trauma it’s where the past is stored memories are stored okay and it’s also what you know we use to try and figure out what’s going to happen in the future our anxiety about the future and what may happen there so you’re doing everything except living in the now when when you’re in the now the default network is you know pretty much useless but most of the time we’re not living in it right and a lot of folks are are really hung up on what happened in the past and you know the trauma and so on now when you shut that down momentarily and you’re able to now take a look at the same problem or issues but you’re looking at it from a different perspective all of a sudden it’s almost as if you’re looking at it from a different lens or think about it this way if if the problem is an 800 pound gorilla in the room and now all of a sudden you’ve shrunk it down to the size of mini me it’s much easier to deal with right that learning and that understanding of how psychedelics facilitate that in the way that it interact with the right receptors the serotonin receptors is incredibly important and that’s all the work that has been done but also just to kind of give you a bit of a history on this plant medicine goes back way way back in history the first mention of it that we understand know now is in the rig vedas um um you know uh that that that you know many argue the rigors are much older than than many believe them to be astronomically they’re about 10 000 years old or more but the soma was mentioned there and this is a planet that gives you immortal immortality um the houma which is in the persian culture and the persian empire the portion of civilization again had this similar sort of uh and that is the syrian rule okay and that’s known as the houma we also have um depiction of the blue lotus flower um in uh ancient egypt it’s it’s all over their markings right and the blue lotus flower was was was dipped into wine and used for ceremony in in all these cases right the these plant medicines were used by nobility for them to commune or to receive certain you know wisdom or part of their ritual but they weren’t shared with everybody else but you know from k park that goes back 4000 bc, I mean this is very old technology and, I do call it technology and so we’ve been dealing with this for a long time there’s also a a very very famous theory uh with regards what terence mckenna came up with called the stoned ape theory because at some point 200 000 years ago there was a major shift in our consciousness and the way of our thinking that that propelled us to to you know to where we are today really and what was that and the theory is that you know you had these um beings that started to eat the mushrooms and and that sort of helped expand their consciousness but um this goes way way this is not new these plant medicines are not new these molecules are not new but a bulk of that work was done at the turn of the 20th century so in 1894 1896 um you know mescaline with mescaline mdma in the in the early 1900s you know we we had in the sandoz lab with lsd so it stopped but when we took it over again all of that research was incredibly important to the equation going forward and and now we’re catching up but we know so much more there’s also tons of anecdotal evidence that we need to look into that has been absolutely instrumental in us understanding how these molecules work.

Jeffery: So there’s there is a lot of um a lot of great changes that are happening in this space and, I do wholeheartedly appreciate uh you sharing all this which is awesome.

Sa’ad: Yeah look it’s it’s it’s my pleasure, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that look the the the there’s a return on financial capital here that is very very compelling because of how large this unmet need is no doubt but there’s also an incredible return on human capital that should really be you know paid attention to and and that is going to be profound here right and if we can solve this problem and you know and if it it ends up just allowing you know certain individuals within your community your neighborhood to be happier shinier people um then that that is that is that is game changing um so it uh again there are risks there’s a lot of risks in the plumbing but the risk that is um you know it’s more, I guess you could say digital or or is is trickier is the risk pertaining to whether these molecules are efficacious or not we know the science is compelling we know their implications the risks lie more in how do we actually find a way to scale this make it available commercialize it and um and disseminate it to to those that need it and those are the problems that need to be solved.

Jeffery: And educate a lot of people along the way so, I i do uh totally agree with that and, I think there’s a huge huge opportunity for mankind to to be able to learn from this and grow everyone grow from this and mentally help a lot of people so amazing share we’re going to transition now into i’m kind of more of that heartfelt story and we’re touching on a little bit of this but maybe you can share a story through the investments that you’ve made over time and just talk a little bit about a use case around what it takes to really be an entrepreneur.

Sa’ad: Yeah, I mean you know um i think that story is is one of what, I would call the hero’s journey that you know joseph campbell very articulately kind of laid out um and uh the hero’s journey really requires the entrepreneur to again um take on a risk that is you know that they’re they’re scared of taking on um but they’re compelled to want to take it on they’re they’re motivated by it and it’s testing you know their conviction in that um idea concept thought that that is very important to to this equation so you’ve got your necessary building blocks which is obviously identifying an unmet need seeing that you’ve got something that’s truly disruptive building a value proposition around it but there’s so many other factors that come into play especially in this market environment do you have access to capital do you have access to deep pockets do you have the ability to you know kind of maintain your burn over the next x amount of time to get through this what are the major milestones that need to be reached and how does that add to value um and there’s been some some incredible stories in our portfolio you have to keep in mind that within our portfolio a little over 50 percent is based on its focus on psychedelic drug development drug discovery but we’re out to solve a particular problem with mental health so we’re looking at other modalities too wearables medical devices um other modalities that can be very very helpful here and you know the stories that clearly stand out to be the success stories here with entrepreneurs is one that is very heavily research-backed so they’ve got the science the science is incredibly compelling but probably the one factor that distinguishes those that really do well with this in terms of getting the capital that they need and moving forward is apart from all the things that, I mentioned is the ability to tell the story properly and to tell the story in a way that resonates with the investors and resonates with you know their particular investment goals and objectives if you know the the it’s it’s that individual that group that is able to tell a better story that is able to see success much sooner and faster so how you build it within the narrative is an important part of the equation and that’s one thing that, I wanted to highlight because people don’t typically tend to talk about that as much.

Jeffery: Awesome totally agree with that that you know know your audience but just be able to share that story that articulates the real problem the solution that you’re going after and all of those factors that you brought in make such a big difference if uh and it’s not always about deep pockets it’s about having the right partners uh the right advisors the people that are going to assist you along the way the groups that are going to assist you and being able to help carry you through and especially in the utilizing your side of it from the the drug acceptance side of it there’s so many stages and so many extra costs to come in at each level so you really do have to have a really strong roadmap that’s going to allow you to succeed and go through these stages that can take anywhere from three years to 10 and uh not a lot of people plan for a 10-year rollout of a business without making money so there’s a lot of things that get tied into that.

Sa’ad: Indeed well said

Jeffery: Well we’re going to jump into some rapid fire questions um they’re uh they’re pretty straightforward pick one or the other first ones are going to be business so you can relate on the investor side um on which option you want to choose so ready to roll.

Sa’ad: Sure

Jeffery: All right let’s do this all right first question founder or co-founder.

Sa’ad: Co-founder

Jeffery: Okay unicorn or a four-year 10x exit

Sa’ad: Unicorn go big or go
Jeffery: Tech or cpg

Sa’ad: Tech

Jeffery: Nfts or web 3.0

Sa’ad: Web 3.0

Jeffery: Ai or blockchain

Sa’ad: Blockchain

Jeffery: First time founder or second third time founder

Sa’ad: Third time founder four-time founder

Jeffery: love it first money in or series a

Sa’ad: Good question um depends on your risk profile but you know if you’re able to do well with
first money in and are able to pick that winner early on that’s huge huge that’s a huge win good good track record there so first money in more risky.

Jeffery: Angel or vc

Sa’ad: vc

Jeffery: Board seat or observer

Sa’ad: Board seat

Jeffery: Save for convertible note

Sa’ad: Convert

Jeffery: Lead or follow

Sa’ad: Lead

Jeffery: Equity or interest payments

Sa’ad: Equity

Jeffery: Favorite part of investing

Sa’ad: Sorry

Jeffery: Favorite part of investing

Sa’ad: You’re asking what is my favorite part of investing

Jeffery: Correct

Sa’ad: oh just uh favorite part of investing is is to walk through everyone’s you know value proposition understand how they got there it’s like watching a movie.

Jeffery: I like it number of companies invested per year

Sa’ad: Per year well we’ve uh, I would say we’re on average about uh eight to ten

Jeffery: Love it uh any preferred terms

Sa’ad: No, I mean everything is so unique to that particular opportunity that there’s there’s you know it’s a preferred term is always a customized approach it’s customized terms, I like to use customized terms.

Jeffery: Okay you mentioned a little bit of this but just to reiterate it vertical as a focus.

Sa’ad: For us it’s central nervous system it’s focused on solving that one problem so we’re looking at all modalities but there’s so much more that goes with it it’s the infrastructure it’s the you know it’s the the tech that plays behind the scenes it’s uh uh the the platforms to build the modalities you know it’s it’s looking at everything from from insurance to psychological system therapy curriculum and sessions to the the actual you know molecules of course but there’s so much more in this ecosystem that is compelling and that needs to be in place.

Jeffery: I love it two qualities of startup needs in order to stand out to you.

Sa’ad: The story of course the experience but more importantly it’s the focus on trying to communicate all the mistakes that they’ve made in the past i want to learn about the failures and what they learned from it.

Jeffery: That’s great great answer okay we’re going to move to the personal questions.

Sa’ad: Oh boy

Jeffery: Most famous person that pops in your mind.

Sa’ad: Most famous person that pops in my mind oh god marcus aurelius

Jeffery: Nice book or movie

Sa’ad: oh book

Jeffery: I’ve been updating my uh my questions a little bit so i’m trying to make them uh.

Sa’ad: So this is not a rapid fire you ask me whether, I prefer a book or a movie asking me which is my favorite book.

Jeffery: Book or movie no, I that’s another question but uh that’ll come after but um i’ve been modifying these questions somewhat so superman or batman.

Sa’ad: Batman

Jeffery: Restaurant or picnic

Sa’ad: Restaurant

Jeffery: First brand that pops in your mind

Sa’ad: First brand that nike

Jeffery: Okay five minutes with bezos or oprah

Sa’ad: Oprah

Jeffery: Mountain or beach

Sa’ad: Mountain

Jeffery: Favorite sports team

Sa’ad: Favorite sports team the leafs

Jeffery: Maybe we should ask that sorry we should ask no question again, I know you want to put in another answer.

Sa’ad: Oh you got it you gotta stick you gotta stick with you you’ve gotta stick with you know your conviction here so, I you know i’m gonna i’m going to uh continue to to stick with them until you know they make it through so yeah i’m loyal right.

Jeffery: Loyalties is good uh bike or run

Sa’ad: Bike
Jeffery: Beach or mountain

Sa’ad: Mountain

Jeffery: Big mac or chicken mcnuggets

Sa’ad: Bigmac

Jeffery: Trophy or money,

Sa’ad: I don’t, I don’t need either but go ahead trophy or money trophy or money money

Jeffery: Beer wine

Sa’ad: Wine

Jeffery: King queen or rich

Sa’ad: Rich those are my options

Jeffery: Concert or amusement park

Sa’ad: Concert

Jeffery: Fortune cookie or birthday cake

Sa’ad: Birthday cake

Jeffery: Ted talk or book reading

Sa’ad: Book reading

Jeffery: Tick tock or instagram

Sa’ad: tick tock

Jeffery: Facebook or linkedin

Sa’ad:Llinkedin

Jeffery: Favorite book

Sa’ad: Favorite book boy there’s there’s there’s so many but, I would say that one of the books that, I keep going back to is siddhartha by herman hess.

Jeffery: Siddhartha

Sa’ad: Yeah by herman hess there’s a beautiful line at the towards the end of the book um which is that you can knowledge is transferable but wisdom is not right so you can you can read all day long about how not to make certain mistakes but you’re really going to learn once you walk the walk and go through the process and then you go okay, I get it so wisdom you know is not transferable you have to walk it with it breathe it Sorry

Jeffery: Go ahead no that’s good agreed uh favorite movie and what character would you play

Sa’ad: Favorite movie you know what this just popped in my mind only because it’s uh it’s been fresh but, I just uh you know, I was watching the obi-wan kenobi thing on disney plus and, I would say my favorite movie as, I was watching that was just incredibly how impactful how impactful star wars has been so, I would say star wars the first one that came out in the 70s and and and the character my favorite character in that would be obi-wan kenobi

Jeffery: Yeah his calm demeanor and, I guess kicking butt also kind of ties in there nicely.

Sa’ad: so character that’s exactly it wise man that’s where wisdom you saw wisdom there go ahead

Jeffery: Agreed what is the meaning of success to you

Sa’ad: Meaning of success to me is to be able to wake up every day and feel good about the day and be in a good mood that to me is success if we can do that if, I can do that then then you know very successful yeah that’s what meaning of success is,

Jeffery: I love it your favorite app on your mobile phone that you’re using

Sa’ad: Favorite app um god, I i, I would say you know what it’s um it’s blink list, I love blindpost list

Jeffery: All right.

Sa’ad: Yeah it’s a the summation of many books and so you get to see whether that’s worth reading or not because it gives you a 20-minute summation of the book and then you go yeah i’d like to learn more about this so it allows me to screen books,

Jeffery: I like that it’s a good idea all right cool all right last question what is your superpower

Sa’ad: I don’t know if you call it a superpower but what, I enjoy doing is is is conveying or telling a story or trying to simplify complex things so it’s, I think it’s in in my ability to um narrate to tell a story as a narrator i’d say.

Jeffery: Well in the short time that i’ve got to to know you, I would say that you’re very good at opening up sharing synthesizing a value in something and helping people better understand what they’re getting into by being very descriptive and, I think that really helps people align with to your point the story and being able to move forward so, I think you do a fantastic job at articulating yourself
and helping people follow the journey so, I i want to say that it’s been a privilege and an honor to be able to learn and share lots of great ideas but learn more about this space that’s really unique and hopefully going to define a lot of and help a lot of people in the mental health capacity but, I want to thank you very much for all your time today and the way we like to kind of end our show is we like to give you the last word so anything that you want to share to the investor community or to the startups, I turn it over to you but thank you very much again for all your time and sharing today.

Sa’ad: No thank you jeffrey that’s if anything all of that is really just a testament to you know you being a great host and a great moderator so, I appreciate the questions and your approach to it um what i’d like to leave everybody with is is that you know you don’t need to believe in in psychedelics you don’t need to believe in the the you know um the way in which you know these plant medicines have played a role in our history or any of that part of the narrative but, I would ask everybody to be open-minded and keep an eye out for the developments that are taking place in cns central nervous system um you know mental health now is a topic that we put front and center we’re not ashamed to talk about it anymore the pandemic was critical to that but we now need to start to pay attention to the solutions and um ultimately you know the holy grail here is is that if we can find a way to solve this problem in a way that that arms the next generation to be in a better position to you know deal with these stresses because these stresses are not going to get any better so, I would ask everybody to keep an open mind and just to pay attention to what’s going on because it is incredibly profound.

Jeffery: I love it and, I wholeheartedly support that and agree that there is so much opportunity with an open mind in any area but more specifically in areas that we’re afraid of because of the unknowns, I think that with some time learning and slow education, I think we’re all going to get there and be more accepting accepting of things that can change our lives with uh just a little tiny bit of a dab and you’ll never know what could happen so, I think there’s uh certainly a lot of opportunity in the world so thank you very much again for all your time and for sharing.

Sa’ad: Thank you jeffrey it’s been a pleasure all the best.

Jeffery: Hey that was awesome uh again because i’m a big fan of this space and, I think where psychedelics are going it’s very exciting and there was a few things that, I think you know from his comments around you know joseph campbell and the hero’s journey when he was sharing a lot of that uh all the way to you know just being able to work through the models and what what the catalyst is around your business what catalyst is going to create this new format for you to dive in and build a business that others going to see the value and that you can build on this for years to come, I think a lot of times we forget that there has to be some impetus put on where this business is going to go and how can it scale and there has to be a trigger point and when the trigger point occurs like he talked about with zoom when if they didn’t have these modalities set up earlier that created the opportunity for a better uh way to communicate then five years later we wouldn’t be sitting where we are with zoom and everybody being able to work remotely so there’s always something that creates the drive forward and opens a market and what are those things that you’re getting created today that are going to allow you to create a market and be able to solve a problem that nobody else is solving so a lot of great insights and a lot of great details shared and, I think a lot of learning there so it was amazing to have that discussion so thank you very much for joining us today if you enjoyed this conversation please feel free to share with your friends or subscribe to our youtube channel follow us on spotify apple podcast and or stitcher your support and comments are truly appreciated you can also check us out at supportersfun.com or for startup events visit openpeoplenetwork.com thank you and have a fantastic day.