Welcome to the launch of Reputation Matters, the podcast!

Crayton
Welcome to “Reputation Matters.” We’ve all heard of the hit TV show Shark Tank, but what would it be like to be the person behind the scenes keeping the water in the proverbial tank calm, and the sharks at bay, or tamed as it were? So our guest today is just that man. He helped Mark Cuban complete around 100 business deals on the hit show Shark Tank. He’s an entrepreneur in his own right, he truly understands the power of brand and reputation. More recently, he helped launch the Dallas, Texas-based company Legacy Knight. They’re a premier multi-family office platform. More importantly than that, Abe Minkara is just my dear friend. In fact, what a lot of people don’t know is that we were dating our wives at the exact same time 20 years ago and we’ve been happily married to each of them ever since. Abe Minkara, welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Abe
Thanks for having me, my friend.

Crayton
Okay, so I have to ask you, first and foremost, what is it like to work for Mark Cuban?

Abe
It’s a great experience. I mean, it’s a privilege to work with someone as distinguished and accomplished as he is. It’s been a truly unique experience. You learn a lot. You’re always on and you have exposure to a lot of different investments. Obviously, Shark Tank was one of them, which was a lot of fun. We also invested in other types of businesses as well.

Crayton
I want to talk about that, but before we move off, Mark, I mean, I remember you telling me one time he works always by email. Everything is by email. What’s that like, especially in a pre-COVID world?

Abe
That’s a superpower. I mean, keep in mind, it’s a larger organization. Everyone emails mark and he responds to every email. Not just internal, [but also] external. He has that ability to just self-manage all of all of his incoming emails and responds to everyone. Let’s say, if you’re sending him an investment opportunity, he’ll immediately say ‘no thanks, not for me,’ or if he’s interested, he’ll ask, ‘tell me more.’

Crayton
Yeah, I’ve had a couple of situations where for civic activities, we wanted him to speak. I think even you were like, ‘just email him,’ and sure enough, he, whether it’s yes or no, it’s astounding that he gets right back to you. Is he aware or does he think about the perception of him by being so responsive? Is he aware of the power of that kind of responsiveness?

Abe
I think so. I think it’s intentional. Back to the power of the brand, I think he has an amazing brand and he’s been building it over the years, and just gets better and better. It’s his commitment to his brand, and to his mission, to empower entrepreneurs. It’s something that I learned from him, even to this day. I’ll explain a little bit more about what we do at Legacy Knight, but we invest at growth stage businesses, even early-stage companies that still reach out to me. I still respond to every email and it’s better to respond and say, ‘you know, you’re not a fit for us. These are the criteria for us to invest in you. When you get to that stage, definitely reach out. In the meantime, let me give you some advice on who you should be connecting with and I’m happy to help you out just at a high level on the direction of the company.’ Then, if they come back great, but at least I kind of commit myself to take a step versus just not responding at all because it’s not a fit.

Crayton
Well, it’s a powerful lesson because you never know who is going to be your friend later. You never know when you might need something. I remember my mentor taught me – as long as it’s legal, ethical, moral, never pass up an opportunity to do a favor. Have you noticed his brand, his personal reputation evolving? Let me tell you what I mean. When he first started, of course, it was the Yahoo sale. Then, it was the owner of the Mavericks, and my impression, in so many ways, was the guy who would sit under the basket and scream at the referees. That almost seems like ancient history now. His brand has changed so much. What are your observations about his brand and who he is?

Abe
It’s continually evolving. There’s always a bigger platform that Mark is going to be going after. Shark Tank was a great platform. And it really aligned with what I believe is his mission to be kind of an ambassador, someone who empowers entrepreneurship in the country, in the U.S., and around the world now that Shark Tank is viewed all over the world through the syndication of CNBC, but there are other things. If you look at some of the more recent projects that Mark is working on, like Cost Plus Drug Company, that is a really disruptive business model. It’s another way for Mark to just elevate his brand and make a difference, change the world and do something good. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Cost Plus Drug Company, in a very short period of time, has been able to provide so much value for individuals needing access to generic drugs. What his platform offers is cost plus, so it’s really helping people that are in need to get access to the medication at a more affordable price than what’s currently available in the market.

Crayton
Tell me a little bit about your role with him. Did you ever find yourself in a position where you were giving him advice on his reputation or his personal brand?

Abe
It was more on the deals. I think Mark’s got everything else covered. He’s really good at it. There’s a lot of deals in his portfolio and sometimes it was just a matter of a slight miscommunication that could create some contention. It’s just about clarifying the messaging and making sure everyone has all the information relevant to the situation so you can get back to more of a constructive conversation, and not kind of spiral into a lot of conflict and drama. You see that a lot with early-stage companies and entrepreneurs, the way they communicate with their investors. Sometimes, it comes from the entrepreneurs themselves. They’re just not used to communicating to their investors. Maybe they’ve never had investors before. They’re running their own ship and now they get to a stage where they need that growth capital to bring on these new investors. There’s a certain dynamic though in terms of how you communicate to investors because there’s a certain expectation now. You have partners and they want to make money, but they also want to support you. So, what we’ve seen is, where there’s usually a lack of communication, and from a branding perspective, you know, at an early stage, the founder, CEO, is really the representation of the brand of the company. You’ve heard the term ‘investing in the jump,’ betting on the jockey, right? That’s what investors do at early stage. The better communicator, he or she is, the better chance they have to kind of navigate through the challenges and use their network of investors and advisors to overcome all these challenges because there are always going to be challenges.

Crayton
In a way, there are salespeople without it, seeming ‘salesy.’

Abe
Salespeople are technical people.

Crayton
What’s the best piece of advice you ever gave [Mark Cuban] that he took? What’s the best piece of advice you ever gave him that he didn’t take?

Abe
I don’t think I’ve given him any advice. I was on the receiving end. I got a lot of great advice. One thing that resonates is, as an entrepreneur, it’s all about sales. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Without sales, you’re dead. Always keep that in mind, and you’re always selling no matter what part of the business you’re focusing your efforts. Everybody should have their sales hat on. Every time, back to the branding side, whenever an employee goes out, and is facing with clients, vendors or prospects, they’re always a representation of your brand. That’s something to keep in mind and as the leader of that organization, you have to be the top ambassador, and you push that to your employees. If you can do that, you have a pretty good foundation, because that’s worth the cultural aspect. Your employees tend to be more loyal to the firm, more fulfilled and more aligned with the mission of the company because that’s what you want. You want your employees to be your brand ambassadors and you want your customers to be your brand ambassadors. If you can do those two right, I think you’re on your way.

Crayton
So, let’s talk a little bit about Shark Tank, and what your role was. So how did it work? Cuban would say, I mean, obviously said, if he said, “No,” he’s out and you never see him or hear from the investment opportunity again, but if he said, “Yes,” what would happen behind the scenes and what was your role?

Abe
Shark Tank the whole season, usually airs in October, ends in May. It’s filmed earlier that year, they do a week in June and a week in September, where they lock all the sharks in the studios from day to night, and they bring out of 40,000, at the time, applicants, they’re narrowed down to about 150. Wow. Those entrepreneurs get to pitch. The average pitch would last probably about an hour. On TV, they edit it down to maybe like three to five minutes. So, it’s a true pitch and there’s a lot of back and forth, it’s completely non-scripted, no retakes. So, if you screw up, there’s a good chance the editors might put that segment on TV because it creates some more drama. But that’s the beauty of the show. It’s a completely non-scripted show, whatever happens on the show, is, to some degree, kind of packaged in that segment. When you see a shark, walk up to the entrepreneurs and give them kind of commit to a deal and do a handshake deal on it. It’s a true commitment to invest, assuming no red flags in the diligence phase. So, let’s say a shark would commit to 10 deals in June, right? Those 10 deals, every shark has a team that would start working with each one of those entrepreneurs. They have a checklist, making sure the sales numbers that they pitched are accurate, you know, their financials are what they claimed they were, the IP that they claimed, actually holds and can be protected. Any commitments they had from, let’s say, vendors that they were using to close their pitch, or there could be a variety of things. The lawsuits they didn’t disclose, you never know. If any of those check off as a red flag, then most likely the deal’s off. So, on the show, you might see a handshake shake deal, in reality that investment didn’t happen.

Crayton
If the investment happens, doesn’t happen later, it’s not necessarily a foregone conclusion that the handshake won’t appear on the show. Like it could still appear on the show, even though later down the road that deal would fall apart.

Abe
Yeah, so in the earlier seasons, you would more likely see a handshake deal. And after the fact, the company did not actually close with the shark. I think in the more recent seasons of Shark Tank, they’ve changed that. They’ve noticed that created some confusion and there were also some entrepreneurs that were taking advantage of that platform. So, they were kind of doing anything it takes to get a handshake deal so they can get on the show and get the episode aired. After the fact, they would just drag their feet because they didn’t really want to give up equity.

Crayton
So, it is marketing ploy…

Abe
There’s a few companies that got away with it and then eventually I think the producers put together a new plan which is more geared towards making sure to only air companies that the sharks have already confirmed that they’ve closed on which makes more sense.

Crayton
It makes more sense for the integrity of the show, but also it goes back to a tried and true like reputation 101 which is be honest, do the right thing. Because if you don’t, it’s going to catch up with you later. I know that sounds overly simplistic, but I mean, bottom line that’s always true. So, Cuban says yes, the deal goes through, what was your role? What did you do?

Abe
So as part of the team, like our team made sure, these companies, one, the first thing we need to do is we supported these companies at every level, right? We had existing companies are always bringing on new companies from Shark Tank. We try to support them from day one, operationally. We make sure that any of the operational gaps on day one, through our internal network, external network, try to support. The first requirement is to make sure that they can maximize the impact of the show, because it’s a big platform, right. And it’s for you to make it through all of this the stages of going through kind of the email interviews, or more like the American Idol type kind of pitches, where you have to wait in line for a whole day to get an opportunity to pitch, all filters down to the day you actually get invited to the studio, and then your chances of actually getting a handshake deal and then, closing the deal. So, to get through all the stages, you want to make sure that okay, you made it. But this is just the beginning. There’s a ton of hurdles, there’s a lot of hurdles. And this is your opportunity really to take your company through this amazing platform and try to get as much exposure as possible. And that from a branding perspective, Shark Tank already has this brand appeal, right? Yeah. So, by associating your brand with Shark Tank, you already have kind of a huge boost. And we’ve seen companies do some significant sales on their website, the evening of the airing Shark Tank and throughout that weekend as well. One of the challenges we had in the early days, websites used to crash. This was maybe I’d say 15 years ago. Yeah, that was kind of the biggest challenge because at the time, there weren’t enough robust e-commerce platforms out there that could support the traffic from Shark Tank. Imagine watching this great pitch going on the website and there’s nothing there. It was a big miss for all of these entrepreneurs because you’re losing all that momentum. The Shark Tank game is you get on this platform, and you want to maximize the momentum as much as you can. The majority of companies after a year lose that Shark Tank effect and a lot of them unfortunately get back to their pre-Shark Tank revenue norm. The few exceptions that really do well keep growing and growing and growing.

Crayton
From, again, a reputation perspective, what was the difference between the ones who kind of went back and then the ones who really propelled and kept going and going and going? What did they do? Obviously, they took advantage of Shark Tank platform, but at some point, weeks and weeks and weeks pass and they have to be doing something else. You were kind of an internal consultant, it sounds like.

Abe
We are true partners with our entrepreneurs trying to support them. Even though we didn’t have controlling equity, we tried to provide them with as much support, because we were looking after our investment in the company, right? We would help them from preparing for the initial launch on the show. And then try to get them through all the momentum in terms of sales, because once you have more solid operational foundation, then you could scale right. You can’t just go to Walmart, if you don’t have your manufacturing, ready for a Walmart order. You don’t have the team and systems in place to manage a big order from an Amazon or Walmart. You’re missing out on the opportunity. Once you have the foundation, then you can go and really leverage the network. And that’s one thing that we did really well as we started building a network of partners for all of our companies. We can help accelerate growth, but we need to make sure they have the right foundation to scale.

Crayton
After the foundation, were you giving them marketing and PR advice like “Here’s what you need to do to protect your reputation, to get to the next level, to market yourself, to tell your story.”

Abe
We would give them high-level advice on lessons, what we’ve experienced in terms of what makes a successful company on Shark Tank. What are the things they should do to maximize their opportunity to thrive on the airing of the show and then beyond that? Even though we give the advice, not all the entrepreneurs follow our advice to a ‘T’, but the ones that do, most of them do really well.

Crayton
Can you boil down the difference? Again, from more of the marketing side, the ones that made it and are still making it vs. the ones that kind of fizzled out. Again, from a reputation perspective, what was the difference?

Abe
Shark Tank is a great platform for consumer product goods, right? That’s why you don’t see a lot of like B2B, SAAS businesses there. The consumer of Shark Tank loves that immediate gratification of going on the website and buying a product because they just fell in love with the entrepreneur and the idea, right? The successful ones usually are companies that appeal to the masses. Some of the popular names like ‘Scrub Daddy,’ Squatty Potty,’ ‘Dude Wipes,’ It’s something that everybody could need. Usually their price points are affordable. It’s not something that is a luxury item and those products do well, especially if you have a product that could eventually be on a subscription model. You use your branding on Shark Tank to really leverage your exposure and then it’s up to you, as a brand, to continually engage and provide more value to your customers over time. You have to innovate, too. You’re never going to make it on Shark Tank with just one product. It could be one product, but you build around it.

Crayton
You mean you’re never going to make it after Shark Tank?

Abe
You can. We’ve seen companies that get on Shark Tank and it was just the one product hit. Those are the ones who don’t really evolve. One product brand, there’s a few that really make it. If you really want a big company, you have to really think about now that you have the customer, what else can we provide that customer now that we have their trust? We’ve done our job in terms of the brand that we’re representing, the quality of product we’re providing. What else can we do to serve our client? Those are the companies that do well.

Crayton
You said something a moment ago that I think is really important – “If the viewers fall in love with the owner.” I think that’s so important. We spend a lot of time talking about the role of the leader. I’ll deal with a lot of CEOs who will say, ‘I want to push my people forward, or ‘we want to stay below the radar.’ The fact is you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be wildly successful and stable with the radar. There’s only one CEO, there’s only one leader. So, why not it be you and use that the power? I think your point is so important because people love a great story. Even if the product is just so so, or a little more expensive than they would ordinarily pay, if they really liked the person and the personality behind it or their story, they’re gonna buy and maybe later invest.

Abe
That’s why a lot of celebrity brands these days, you’re seeing a lot more of them because they have fans. People love their celebrities and whatever this celebrity offers as a product. There’s a good chance they’re gonna buy it even if it’s crap. That’s why what I love about [Shark Tank]. It’s one of the best educational platforms on TV. It’s great when I hear my friends watch Shark Tank with their kids and their kids are becoming savvy entrepreneurs, investors at a very young age. It’s great when you see a 12-year-old girl entrepreneur go on the show and get a deal from the shark. Imagine if you’re a 12-year-old boy or girl watching someone your age getting a deal from one of the sharks with an idea that she actually took from the ideation phase to a product and was able to navigate through all these different challenges to get on the show and get a deal. I think it’s very impactful.

Crayton
Almost six years ago, well four and a half years ago, you left Cuban companies and co-founded Legacy Knight. First of all, why, and what is Legacy Knight?

Abe
So Legacy Knight is a boutique multi-family office. To summarize, with Mark, I used to support entrepreneurs, from startup to an exit when they sell their business or get acquired. Legacy Knight supports entrepreneurs after their big liquidity event when they sell their business. It’s the next part of the journey and working with entrepreneurs at this next phase of life, which is very satisfying, too. A multi-family office, in layman’s terms, is a wealth management group that supports ultra high net worth investors, families or individuals. Basically, you have a family office, which is kind of a new term that you’re hearing these days. It’s a family that has significant wealth where they can justify hiring a team. It’s almost like a business to manage your portfolio. Instead of having everything outsourced through different firms, you have a team that manages your investment strategy, kind of all the different asset classes you’re investing in. They source investment opportunities, do the diligence and are aligned with the overall strategy and legacy of the family over time. Now, at what point can you justify hiring a team? If you’re at one billion plus, you can easily justify hiring. I can imagine most billionaires have their own family office. A multi-family offices is a team. It’s almost like having that kind of highly professional team of family office investment experts that put together the platform similar to a family office, but the back end is all shared by all the different families that are part of that group. It could be 10 families, it could be 100 families, but what each family is getting, is a much lower cost to a family office platform vs. doing it on their own. On the investment side, the team has access to a lot of different investment opportunities. Their access to getting you the best deals that are out there is exponential at that point. You get the power of sizing up as one group when you invest vs. having to go and compete for those deals on your own with a smaller check size.

Crayton
So, there’s power as a group, and one may have investment opportunities for the other that’s brokered all through you. So, when you are bringing these opportunities to the families that you represent or that work for you, is it just about the numbers or does the reputation of either the firm or the fund play a role in the advice? And if so, how?

Abe
Of course. When you’re investing in a business or investing in a fund, you’re investing in people, right? You’re investing in their track record, especially with the fund managers. You’re investing in the reputation of the managing partners. It’s all about reputation. The same thing with investing directly with a founder/ CEO. In your diligence, you talk to their employees. You talk to their other investors and board advisors. You talk to their vendors and try to assess what type of individual is going to be running the ship that you’re investing in. It could be a fund; it could be a company. Same thing with the fund managers. We are investing in their ability to execute on their strategy over and over and deliver results and ideally exceed the expectations at all times.

Crayton
Has there ever been a situation where the numbers look really good, but there was something about either the reputation of the firm, fund, or even people, a feeling you got where it raised a red flag and you told one of your ‘knights’ as you call them, or one of your family investors, ‘you know what, the numbers look good, but I don’t feel good about this?’

Abe
It happens a lot. We see deals come our way all the time and we also leverage our network to check on the individuals that are running that investment strategy. A lot of deals fall through despite a great business model or great team there’s just something about the founder’s reputation where it’s not where you need it to be. It’s not ‘flying colors’ from everyone and that puts a pause on the investment. All it takes is one mistake to mess your reputation. I know of a situation, I can’t say who it is, but it’s a well-known billionaire that ended up kind of not being a great fiduciary for his investors. It really messed up his reputation as a result. Anything for us that’s associated with that individual, we’re not going to invest in. All it took was just one mistake. It’s really hard to build trust. It’s really hard to build a great reputation and it’s all about maintaining it. If you mess up and you’re in that business, you know how difficult it is to reverse the damage that’s done from a reputational basis.

Crayton
So, where did Legacy Knight come from? What’s the story?

Abe
In new ultra high net worth, wealth management space, it’s all about legacy, right? You’re protecting the family’s legacy over the years. You’re extending it through multiple generations if you do it right. The initial concept was a legacy multi-family office. When we started with ‘Legacy Multi-Family Office,’ for me from a branding perspective, it was too generic. I remember googling ‘legacy multi-family offices’ to see what is out there. We were lost. Organically, maybe two senior living facilities popped up as top of the Google search page, like this is not where we want to belong. So, we were looking for an anchor for ‘legacy.’ When we found our office space, that we’re still in now, the moment we walked into that office space, we said ‘okay, this is where our business is going to be born.’ Something clicked with that ‘Knight.’ Legacy Knight started to have a nice ring to it. We then built the story around it. The knight is a protector of the family’s legacy. The knight is a 3-D piece on the chessboard. The best part is the domain was only $10 – LegacyKnight.com. That’s kind of how it came together and Legacy Knight, became a brand. I remember we were talking about Legacy Knight MFO or multi-family office as our domain to now we’re a brand – Legacy Knight. That’s it. We’ll be known as Legacy Knight. That’s what happened and now, because of those decisions we made, that we would be very intentional on day one from a branding perspective, it helps us be more recognizable in the space because we’re not just a generic legacy services firm, we’re Legacy Knight. We’re different. We’re our own brand. We’re in our own category. What’s amazing is it really worked out from an SEO perspective. So, if you Google ‘multi-family office Dallas’ or ‘family office Dallas,’ we’re either first or in the top five organic searches, which is amazing. For us, it’s a big deal because we’re an industry where we don’t market or advertise. It’s all about reputation, it’s all about word of mouth. So, when people search and find you, you already have a head start.

Crayton
Through Shark Tank, you mentored entrepreneurs. In your personal life, you’ve mentored entrepreneurs. Do you feel like you’re a long way away from that now that you’re dealing with high net? I don’t necessarily think of someone who’s reached a billionaire status as still being an entrepreneur.

Abe
The majority of our families are entrepreneurs. What’s great about what we do is truly providing value for these entrepreneurs. A lot of entrepreneurs work all their lives to get to a point where they’ve created enough value in their company that someone was willing to pay a lot of money to acquire it, but they never plan for what’s next. What do I do when I have $100 million in my bank account? How do I make sure I don’t lose it? What’s great about entrepreneurs is, even after a big liquidity event they might take a pause for a year, but then they’re going to be back in the game. They’re going to be back to create impact because entrepreneurs want to create impact. A lot of them will go back and do it in a for-profit matter because they know how to do that. Some might just say, ‘I want to create impact in a philanthropic way,’ and that’s where they focus all their energy. Some do both, but we love entrepreneurs that are back in the game and they’re out to build the next billion-dollar company. It’s usually more mission focused. They’ve learned a lot from their first journey, they were successful at it and now they’re going to be much more intentional on what they’re going to build, the value they’re going to create and even intentional on who they expect to sell this company to.

Crayton
They don’t want it to go to just anybody. They have a legacy to protect. I want to our last chapter to be a little bit about you. I’ve mentioned you are an entrepreneur. I remember when you launched a cosmetic skincare product – Bold For Men. Why don’t you talk a little bit about Bold For Men. What it was and why did you create it?

Abe
That was my first kind of entrepreneurial journey. They say, if you want to start a business, where do you start? Usually, you have a pain point that you want to solve. For me, I couldn’t find the right grooming products for men for head shavers. So, I thought, well, let’s go create one, and that’s what I did. This was in the days when you didn’t really see a lot of people shaving their head. Now, a lot of people shave their heads, it’s becoming kind of a more common thing. The messaging was ‘own it’ and ‘you’re not bald, your bold.’ That’s kind of where the branding came from. For me, it was great because I got to wear every hat as an entrepreneur, and you do it all. Then, as you grow as a business, you start delegating and hiring people. So, it was a great experience. With Legacy Knight, even though we’re a multi-family office, it was a startup four years ago. We started with one employee, two co-founders and now we have a team of 16 and we’re growing. You have to wear every hat, you have to do it all.

Crayton
I want to ask you one more question about ‘Bold’ from a reputation perspective. if you think about it, then and now, not much has changed when it comes to marketing reputation around men’s haircare products, particularly around baldness. It’s terrible. If you look at the products that are out there, their brand reputation and the way they market or talk about themselves. This seems perilous. How did you think about this and what did you do in order to differentiate yourself?

Abe
Well, for me, I positioned the product as a premium product. It was a little bit more expensive, but basically, you’re paying for quality. That was part of our messaging. That was part of the positioning of the product. It wasn’t like the women’s anti-aging products that cost $300 – $400. It’s still affordable, but it was positioned as a premium product for men. I think that really helped us get our niche in place and allowed us to really engage with our customers. It was also a waterless shave, which was different. It wasn’t as messy. It was fun working through the whole process all the way from working with the chemists on day one, to come up with the products and then once you have the product, getting to market.

Crayton
What principles of reputation have you adhered to as you’ve worked to build your own brand, the different chapters of your career in life?

Abe
I think it’s a combination of hard work and integrity. I think integrity is a big part of that. The other thing is, and it’s something Cuban used to say, there’s nothing wrong with being nice. Just be reciprocal in your relationships and always trying to be there for your friends, your family, your network and your colleagues. Always think about – how can you create value in anything you do? In everything you do, you always have to maintain a certain level of integrity, but you still have to do the work to maintain those relationships and I think that’s a big deal.

Crayton
We’re going to finish with a lightning round. First, what was your favorite invention or business on Shark Tank?

Abe
‘The ‘Power Pot.’ The Power Pot was a pot with a thermoelectric pad. When you add water and put it over source of heat, it generates a current so you can charge your phone off the grid.

Crayton
What is the craziest invention or business you saw on Shark Tank?

Abe
I think the craziest, in terms of a concept and how crazily successful they’ve been, is ‘Dude’ products or ‘Dude Wipes.’ It’s unbelievable. These guys are rock stars. They’re still crushing it.

Crayton
What’s the number one piece of advice you give entrepreneurs?

Abe
Never give up. There’s always a way.

Crayton
What’s the best piece of advice, either as an entrepreneur or a businessman or as a human being, that you’ve ever been given?

Abe
Be true to who you are.

Crayton
Favorite subject in school?

Abe
Math.

Crayton
What did you major in in college?

Abe
Computer engineering and business.

Crayton
Favorite holiday?

Abe
Christmas.

Crayton
Favorite hobby?

Abe
Skiing.

Crayton
Favorite guilty pleasure?

Abe
Ice cream.

Crayton
Favorite brand?

Abe
Ferrari.

Crayton
Favorite movie?

Abe
A Few Good Men.

Crayton
I thought you might say James Bond. You and I have this old tradition where when the new James Bond movie would come out, or for a while this was when a new Star Wars movie would come out because I had young kids, we’d meet at like 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock at night and go see the debut so I didn’t feel guilty when my kids were asleep. Favorite day of the week?

Abe
Thursday.

Crayton
Why?

Abe
I guess it’s just one day before the weekend. It’s like you’re almost there.

Crayton
Your hidden talent or superpower?

Abe
My wife says my superpower is that I care.

Crayton
You have a genuineness about you, for sure. If you could pick one person, alive or dead, to meet for dinner, who would you have dinner with?

Abe
Elon Musk would be an interesting guy just to meet one-on-one with and just talk about everything that he’s doing and where he sees the future.

Crayton
Abe Minkara, you’re a dear friend, a lifelong friend. Thank you for joining us on “Reputation Matters.” From your years with Cuban to Shark Tank to Bold For Men to now Legacy Knight, congratulations on all your success and everything you’re doing and you truly, from a reputation perspective, walk the talk. Thank you all for joining us on “Reputation Matters.” We’ll see you next time.