Yohance: All right, let's hit it. Dasarte, my man, it's been a month of Sundays. How you been?

Dasarte: I've been really, really well, man. I cannot complain. My family, as I like to say, is happy, healthy, and secure. So there are literally no complaints and only blessings. Yo, thank you so much for having

Yohance: me on your show today, and I'm glad to have you back because we did this before, right? This isn't.

Dasarte: Yeah, in the beginning. Oh, yeah.

Yohance: In the very in the closet. The COVID closet days.

Dasarte: Yes.

Yohance: I was recording in the Closet. I do remember that. And that's when you, that's when you introduced me to ultras. Look at that.

Dasarte: Yeah. Serendipitous, man. So thank you for having me on the show then. Thank you for having me on it now, and thank you for just being, you know, somebody that's been in my corner through every stage of my career as, you know, an entrepreneur. So I've always got an idea. But you've done your, your share of counseling and helping me to make, you know, the best decisions as I navigate greatness, so I really appreciate you.

Yohance: Hey, it was, it was all reciprocal, man. I was just putting, giving back what you were giving me. That's it. I, I, I wish I could say I'm, I'm that unique of an individual, but I'm not. I saw greatness in you, you saw it in me, and we just, we've been lifting each other up since then. So in speaking of lifting up in entrepreneurship, you've got a brand new thing going now. I see you got the, the logo, the chest plate there. Yeah. What do what? Well, you know, I know what Bench is, but, but tell us what is, what is Bench?

Dasarte: Yeah. Well, before we get to Bench, man, I just want to say to your audience, like, my name is Dasarte Yanway. I'm super happy to be on the podcast here today. And in, in another life, I was a financial advisor, wealth management, wealth manager, just like Yohance, running my firm for right around nine years before exiting that firm and mid 2024 to pursue this project, which is called Bench. And there's a bunch of technical ways that I can explain what Bench is, and I'm sure we'll get into that. But the most relatable way is Bench is my life turned inside out. It's a mirror of me going into a piece of technology to help impact as many people as it possibly can. For those who haven't listened to that first episode that we did, you know, I'm a son of two immigrants that Escaped the Civil War. My mom was literally born on a rubber plantation. I play football at University of California, Berkeley. Running back, all American, NFL bound. Prior to tearing my acl, managed to matriculate into finance. And that's how I was able to meet you, Yohance. And you know, just start businesses, help advisors at the time, scale their businesses. Right. And sit next to some of the greatest entrepreneurs in our industry, right. Most notably Jason Wank, who is a CEO and founder of Altruist. Right. And Bench is a convergence of all of these experience into experiences into one, one idea and one venture, right. So you have media through Altruist and scaling my own firm. You have finance through serving people in wealth management, being a part of the altruist journey. They have athletics, which is sports media and which is one of the fastest growing verticals in media, period, is sports media, right. So bench essentially is the revenue engine that helps individual creators, teams and leagues monetize their content more efficiently. If you are in this space or not, there are a couple alarming stats that just are signaling the shift that is happening in sports media, which is one, if you watch any bit of TV, 96 of the top 100 programs that came on last year were all sporting events. Every network right now is trying to have a podcast vertical for sports entertainment and there are hundreds of individual podcast creators coming to market per day. With that being said, sports and the creator economy in sports is growing at almost 30% a year, right? So when you take all of these stats, there's something there that there is no company that, that is, that is really taking advantage of and providing a gateway for these people to own and monetize their work more efficiently. And as we say in the sports industry, we're the last frontier. So when technology happens, you're usually last to get it in sports, you know what I mean? But it doesn't have to be that way. So again, Bench is that monetization engine for sports creators, which is a big umbrella, teams, leagues to monetize their work more efficiently.

Yohance: What do you define what you mean by monetize their work? Because I mean, what comes to mind first is I'm thinking about nil and all that fun stuff. I mean, that's a form of monetization. But it seems like what you're doing is on a much more grassroots or even granule level.

Dasarte: I would say it's a bigger idea than just nil. So name, image and likeness is essentially, for those who don't know, is a rule that was passed by the NCAA allowing college Athletes to finally get a piece of the jersey sales. That's how it started. And any like video game appearances that would happen. I remember that ncaa, you know, games that they would be, they would be in. Because if you think of like the Reggie Bush of the time was really like the biggest star in college football for a while, they probably sold millions of jerseys and never received a cent. So that forced a lot of college athletes at the time to like backdoor and receive payments from people when technically they earned it, you know. But they would get in trouble because the NCAA owned the rights to your name, your image and your likeness. So when people talk about nil, you know, it's really supposed to be for you to kind of create businesses, use your likeness to go sign jerseys and do things, to receive payment for, you know, be a brand ambassador for a car dealership or something like that and be paid for that. Our business is way bigger than that opportunity, but will benefit from the opportunity that athletes can now make money from their name, image and likeness. So our business, when we think about like creators, we're talking about the millions of people that are, have a mic like this, that have their phones like this, right? And they're posting content. But the old legacy platforms have essentially created these platforms for attention, right? So everything in regards to the algorithm and the, the experiences so you can hopefully get as many views as you can. There are people with millions of followers and that are broke. You know what I mean? So we flipped that philosophy on his head and said, hey, there are communities that have raging fans in sports and they're looking for ways to be more proximate to their team, to their favorite creator, to their favorite athlete. And as it exists today, the athlete has really few ways to monetize on these larger platforms. So we've created an ecosystem, a platform, use whatever words you want that starts with creator monetization first. We can kind of unpeel the onion there and like talk about what is creative market monetization. But essentially in sports, there's always been five types of monetization. So there's ticketing, right? Being live at the event, there's sponsorships. So when you go to a game, you see like a patch on a jersey or you know, those are real life sponsorships, activations. But there's digital activations as well. There's ads, right? You can see that on YouTube programmatically popping up pre mid and you know, enroll in your video.

Yohance: And there's the lower thirds.

Dasarte: Right, right, right, yeah. There's direct monetization. Or subscription where I can say, hey, yo, I love your show. I know you have exclusive episodes. I want to pay this $3 a month to like watch your show. Right. We've, and there's gaming. As we mentioned before, we've condensed most of this into one platform where a creator can use our tools and do all of those things on bench. So instead of just saying, hey, I hope this gets views and I hope, you know, these views add up to something that I can, you know, take home and buy groceries, we're giving you everything that you need to be able to create your media business on bench.

Yohance: Now at what level is this, Is this at a collegiate level? Is this at a professional level? Who is this for?

Dasarte: Yeah, so we actually have had colleges tested. We did the WMBA's G League last year in a tournament of champions. We had a TV channel, a regional TV channel actually signed as a client most recently. And they, you know, regional sports networks, they're only in that region, so it's like a radius of 50 miles or something, I don't know. And they're like, we want national exposure because our content is great, but only X amount of people are seeing it. You know what I mean? So the way that I've construction my thesis is like Ben should be used by sports properties at every level. So professional tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, all the sports professional levels all the way down to Pop Warner. If a mom, you know, has her parents in Florida retired, but she wants to watch the grandson play in California, you should be able to go on bench and see them play, you know what I mean? And the infrastructure is that easy to use. So it's taken a lot of iterations, a lot of elite engineering, a lot of time, effort, money to build the platform to get to this stage. But the, the, the market is so big for what bench can be and, and will be over time.

Yohance: So when you mentioned the monetization aspect, you said from the professionals all the way down to the Pop Warner, I mean, let me selfishly talk about myself. I'm a soccer coach for a U9. Well now we're going to U10 soccer league and we, you know, we have our, our regional following, of course, but there is that time to time where I have family members that can't make it to the game or, or you know, or she has a, a. Is that a great grandmother? Yeah, a great grandmother who is bedridden right now. So she's not getting out to the game. So you're saying there's a way that that if we were bench clients, there was a, there's a way that we could make ourselves be seen nationwide if we wanted to. But how could that turn into monetization? I mean, because our team's always raising money. You know, we're selling candy and donuts and stuff like that so we can get jerseys. I mean, is, is this another method of monetization for our team?

Dasarte: It is. Exactly. So, you know, actually I was in San Diego with my daughter like two years ago when this idea first like caught fire in my brain. And we're on the boardwalk right across from Coronado and we're walking and this young black girl comes up to us and selling chocolate like, hey, I play AU basketball and we're doing a fundraiser for chocolate. You probably have to do that. We're old school, you know, so we, we had to do that back in the day as well. And that stuck with me because I'm like, man, take all my money. One, but two, she's only going to reach a certain amount of people on this boardwalk today, right? Out of all these people, maybe like 5% might feel something to, to give her right on bench. A Pop Warner team like I played on our AU team can essentially run donations through subscriptions or through one time ppv. We have pay per view tickets. I actually have a boxing club that's running a fight that will be using Bench for the pay per view tickets. They can do that online. Bench. So now you're saying, hey, you want to donate to my team? We have seasonal subscriptions or something. At $10 a month you can support a child or something like that, you know what I mean? And they can do that through bench. So I think these use cases are far and wide and it's just my, my methodology, my philosophy is saying let's create the infrastructure and people will innovate on top of it. Right? So when you think about like Stripe or anything about Shopify is a good example, right? Like we're giving you the infrastructure to build your store. I don't know what clothes you're going to sell, I don't know what products you're going to actually sell. But I know that with this infrastructure it'll be more efficient than the way that you're selling today. And that's the same case for benchmark.

Yohance: So, so this can be done from a team perspective, but it could also be done individually as an athlete.

Dasarte: Yeah, athletes are brands. You know, one of my sisters was a big blogger back in the day and they would send like jeans, House of Darion, Beyonce jeans or something for bloggers to review. Right. And that was like the way. That was another form of distribution for a lot of companies at that point. Now, P. Built in followings, personal brands are the new bloggers. They are the new marketing channels. A couple reasons why they have built in trust from their audience. Right. It's cheaper than running a commercial on a Super bowl or, you know, getting a premier spot on tv. Right. And their demographic can be our buyers. So an individual has so much power, influence, that's what we call them, influencers. You know, to influence a demographic of people, they often want to like monetize those people for themselves. As it exists today, influencers are creating, you know, other products to monetize. So let's say, you know, my wife likes doing hair and she gets a million followers. She's like, maybe I should create a hair brand, you know what I mean? To now monetize those million followers. But your content is a product itself. There's just no efficient ways to charge for it and no rails, no systems that make that process efficient. Does that make sense? So, yeah, individuals. I think that we'll have a ton of individuals using Bench. And actually we're trying to create Q and A to make sure that Bench doesn't turn into like Only Fans or something because it's just such a good system, you know, to use if you really are trying to monetize your work.

Yohance: I don't think there's anything wrong with it with the Only Fans model because if I remember correctly, the revenue per employee at Only Fans was the highest out of any of the tech companies last year. I don't know if you heard about that. So.

Dasarte: Yeah, like 300, 400,000. Yeah. And yeah.

Yohance: Which is insane. So. Okay, so I. If we're on the. Again, getting back to my selfishness here. So as a coach for team, if we were to assimilate on Bench, you're saying we could do everything from donation based subscriptions. If we had, you know, someone recording our games, we could potentially have. Or even just highlights. We could have a place where that could live. Yes, but I have so many other questions about, you know, getting into the. Because I mean, these are. These are kids essentially. So I mean, would I have to go to all the parents and get permission to be able to put their child onto this website? I mean, how. I'm just curious about logistics. Again, I'm being incredibly selfish here, but.

Dasarte: Right. I mean, I think organizationally maybe you want to do some permissions, but that's not At a bench level, Right. So you're like, okay, when you sign up, like, do we have provision to stream the games? Your kids are going to be on the games. I mean, at my school, the school that my daughters go to, they market a lot. So they take pictures of the kids. They're like, can we take pictures of your kids for brochures or something? Maybe you want to do that just to be safe. But what we provide is a functionality. What you will provide is process on how that gets that, how that gets done. We make it easy for you to stream the games, capture income right through the tools, like with our integration with Stripe and, you know, different services, Google Cloud and aws, that allows us to store all of the, you know, the work that you're doing. Super safe, super, you know, trusted services. It's the innovation that comes from the teams and the creators that will make bench valuable. Right. One of the neat things is like, you'll be able to just take your phone, put your channel, browser or whatever into your entry browser and just stream by putting your phone up, you'll have a soccer overlay, Somebody can keep score, press a button when somebody hits a goal. You know what I mean? So you have all those tools at your, at your disposal to make it work. So, yeah, self is you, you. If you're being selfish, you'll be able to do everything that you want to do from the platform. Interesting.

Yohance: And how, how does bench get paid?

Dasarte: So bench gets paid in a couple ways. We take a 5% take rate for all transactions, which is an industry high. So all the payments that you receive, you receive 95 of those payments, which is, wow, probably the highest in the industry. We do.

Yohance: I think that's better than. What's the one where you raise money all the time? GoFundMe. I think it's better to go fund me, probably.

Dasarte: I mean, that's the, the benefit of, you know, being leaned. We also do subscriptions, so there's like super streamers out there. Right. We charge bundles of streaming hours at a time. So let's say you for a month, you're gonna need 10 hours of streaming or something. We have packages that kind of align with people's needs for their business. Right. And then we do 30% take rate on like ads and sponsorship matches. So for example, we had a case last year where a pizza, a local pizza shop, did a hundred thousand dollars to market through high school football teams. Right. Okay. And we just use the data that we got from all the teams in the area and we paired Their ads with that football team. So in the middle of the game, the commentator, color commentator, would say, like, hey, this is brought to you by this pizza shop, Johan's Pizza Shop, down on this street in San Francisco. They're sponsoring this game. Go get a slice of pizza after the game. And the pizza shop was right across the street from the stadium where the game was played. So that was shown on the stream. So again, taking all of those components of the sports industry and distilling it down so that the, the everyday creator, the, you know, semi pro team, the high school, the youth team can have a system to monetize more efficiently.

Yohance: Freaking brilliant. And you said, oh, this idea all came from seeing a young lady sell, sell some chocolate for her AAU team.

Dasarte: Well, well, the, the youth league idea did, but I think for me it was a conversion to my experience. Like if we, if we just counted like being a college football player, a star in a sense, Tango acl, sitting on the bench. That's why the, the name's Bench. Because from the bench you have the best view of the game. Right?

Yohance: See what you did there?

Dasarte: Okay, you see that? And then going into finance and seeing, learning how to build businesses that scale. At the end of the day, they're great ideas and they're great businesses. Those are two different things. You know what I mean? A great idea can work, but that doesn't mean it's a great business. You see this on the stock market all the time where it's like, man, we needed Uber, you know, but Uber is very expensive to run and took a long time to be profitable. You know, so, you know, you have great ideas, you have impactful ideas, you have game changing ideas, but sometimes they don't make for good businesses over a long period of time. So just learning how, like what makes a good business, that's the finance experience and then media experience. Like I was ahead of community and you know, content podcasting at Altruist. And I grew my firm strictly from content. Like, I didn't do many things well outside of being able to like create content, attract my next client through the work and the value that we put out via content. So when you take, you know, athletic experience and understanding, you know, sports media, when you take content generation, right, and using that as a funnel to acquire clients. And when you take understanding, you know, what makes a good business, you jumble out of all them together and you get bench. So. Got it.

Yohance: All right, I wanna, I need to switch gears with you really quick because there is a very controversial topic that I want to discuss with you that. Yeah, irks my nerve every day of the week. Can we talk about gambling?

Dasarte: Gambling, let's talk about it. Sure.

Yohance: It really bothers me to see LeBron James, Kevin Hart, what's his name from the Clippers, Blake Griffin, even kg. I mean the list goes on and on of these athletes that are taking these massive checks from these gambling companies and promoting gambling. I mean it is prolific. It is every commercial break during the finals, every time the sportscasters are doing recaps, etc, I see something about gambling in the lower thirds or when they're doing the pregame. They're talking about the odds of this and the odds of that and how you can go start gambling for free, which is an oxymoron in itself. Gamble for free. That. No, that's not

Dasarte: it.

Yohance: How is it that even if we want to talk about the stock market and financial industry, which is a multi billion probably trillion dollar industry in itself, how is it that we can't promote saving money? Or how is it that these athletes can be okay with promoting gambling when we know that it's like one of the worst vices that destroy financial literacy, financial wealth in some of the most underserved communities. So as an athlete, as someone that has this platform, what are your, what are your thoughts on that?

Dasarte: Yeah, that's a great question. I have a number of thoughts in regards to gambling and how it's sort of been an infestation in sports media and we can just like break them all down. So number one again, gambling in the attachment to sports and specifically athletes with influence almost proves my thesis. It actually proves my thesis for how athletes are a form of distribution for products. Right? So you know, take gambling out and put, you know, Old Spice in. Take gambling out and put a watch in a whoop in any product in athletes are some the gateway to mass distribution at one time because of trust, loyalty and credibility. Right? So again, just speaking of it that way, like we can distill that process for brands all the way to mom and pop shops, right? Two creators and athletes that have built in trust. So that's number one. You know, I think it's. It lies at the individual on what their morals are to choose what they're willing to take on as a sponsorship opportunity. But that proves a thesis of bench. Number two, I don't like it, you know what I mean? Specifically with gambling because it does not promote health, wealth, the betterment of society. And I think that there are a ton of companies across industries that play these games that market to human vices, that market to, you know, human vulnerabilities. And this is another example of that, right? It's like, okay, well I know you want, you're going to gamble anyway. You know, we, we should be the people that take advantage of it and we're going to do it in a way that the distribution feels credible. Right? I don't think that's the best thing to do. And then number three, I think that, you know, the sports industry has become a bigger industry. It's a bigger business than it was even 10 years ago, you know what I mean? And to sustain such industry, you're always looking for new revenue streams, new partnerships, right? So on one end, it's like the business of maintaining and sustaining and growing a business and it's gambling's moment, you know what I mean? That helps with that. So it's a, it's a convergence of a lot of things that are happening right now that is forcing gambling to be in the spotlight. I think in the pandemic, gambling really had a run because people are at home and sports was the only thing on that you can really gamble on. You know what I mean? And some of the pandemic vices are still around. Like the number of people that were drinking went up, the gambling went up in the pandemic. Right. And people are still riding that wave. So I'm interested to see what happens over the next five to seven years, right. When the world, barring you know, any other catastrophic generational events that could happen, the world normalizes a little bit. Like, do these things stay in place? Do, does anything change? If it's not gambling, is it, is it, you know, drinking, you know, or you know, will it change? So, interested in it? Not a fan of it. Not, not supportive of anything that's going to necessarily tear people down. But on the other side, I know, like anything, businesses are opportunistic, right?

Yohance: Yeah. It just frustrates me that you have these, like you said, proving your thesis about athletes being the gateway through the, the trust that's already built and the loyalty that's already built to these athletes. But. Correct, you know, these athletes and entertainers for that matter, some of them are worth millions to them, losing 500, a thousand dollars, I mean, that's how much they make in a minute. But for the average Joe or Sally to gamble away their rent money, their, you know, light bill, their food money, their kids, scholarship and tuition money. I was reading an article the other day actually that a client sent to me where there's an a, an author or a journalist that examined the lives of some women whose husbands were secretly gambling behind their back. And there was one, there's a story about one where I think he gambled away like $300,000 over a period of years like from their kids college fund. And I know the gambling mindset is like, oh well, all I have to do is win once and my kid can go to Princeton. But you know something for a lot of people that day never comes. So it just, it just really, it's disturbing. Like you said, it really just shows the values of these entertainers and these athletes. But it's disturbing that they promote this vice. Like it's okay. And it's disturbing that the, these companies have made it so accessible. Now I'm not gonna sit here and say that I don't gamble, okay? I, I love to be some March Madness. I'm gonna put out, you know, a couple hundred dollars every year, fill up my little March Madness sheet and see if anything comes back. I like if I'm at first I happen to be in Vegas because I don't, I don't use any of the apps, but if I happen to be in Vegas before the football season starts, oh, I'm gonna go throw 50 on my Panthers to go to Super bowl and 25 to win the NFC championship because you know, you got to kind of hedge your bets there and I don't mind sitting down at a, at a friendly poker table and that's. But again, these are more, it's more as a, as a vacation than, you know, because I've seen it. I've looked at, you know, as a financial advisor, I've looked at clients financial transactions and I'll see the 25, 30, 45, 50, 60 something dollars a day going to these gambling apps and not a lot of money coming back the other way.

Dasarte: Yeah, I mean that's what I was gambling. Right.

Yohance: Yeah. But, but even if we think about the, again, the accessibility of it, I mean, do you have any concerns of, of how Bench is now exposing more games that could potentially expose more gambling? I mean, I'd hate to say it, but I wouldn't want to see gambling happening on my daughter's, you know, U10 soccer league. But if the access is there and availability is there, I mean, that could happen.

Dasarte: Yeah. So one of the things that we did early with Bench because we were actually working with a private school and private school, I want one of the best ball teams in Northern California. And one of the things that they wanted was to not be associated with any gambling, any sort of stock adjacent stuff like vaping and things of that nature. So when you look at one of our flagship products which is Sponsor Match AI, it's essentially an AI tool that we use to scrape data off of videos, demographics, views, you know, click through rate, stuff like that to match with sponsors. We give the power to the group. Let's say in this case it's your men's, you know, basketball league team, you know, to choose what sponsorships they are willing to advocate for or not. So we, we'll put this in a real life. So Johan says men's basketball league does, you know, a thousand views every video the pizza stop down the street wants to use you to market something and you know, a gambling company does as well. You'll get both of those in your inbox and you can accept or deny which one. So that you want to, you know, use or take the money for to now put that ad roll or read or overlay in your video. So we're giving power back to the creators, number one. Number two, we. Technology is powerful. So to allow something like that to exist is, is a line of code to ensure that you're screening all those sponsors, are screening all the opportunities that come through your platform, right? So I think a little bit of a, of a value system here, right, that you can say, hey, we're going to do everything in our power, right technologically to ensure that our platform operates with the highest form of ethics and morals, our moral standard. And I think that's important too, when you start using money as your moral compass, you'll do anything, you know, so I think it's important to, as a, as a founder to really look at it and say like, hey, what is the best experience for all these people, you know, in their different levels, what gives them most opportunity to monetize but also keep the integrity of who we are as a company and me as a founder. So yeah, there's really no great answer to that because people will bet on anything now nowadays. But to the best of our ability, we want to protect everyone on the platform and not having them be a subject of, you know, something that we probably can't control.

Yohance: I have a lot of listeners that are parents to student athletes, you know, high school, maybe even starting to think about their collegiate opportunities for someone that's been in that role as a student athlete and now, like you said, is set at many different tables from technology to brand branding and promoting and advising. What are some of the things that parents should Be thinking about educating their student athletes about their brand and monetization in this new, technologically advanced world that we're in.

Dasarte: Yeah, yeah. I think the big theme here for athletes, creators, teams, leagues, is a brand is hard to build and easy to break. So a brand is fragile, you know, so whether that's in person and how you communicate and look somebody in the eye and shake their hand with a firm hand, with a firm handshake, or digitally, what you're saying and doing, right. All these are to your brand. And you have to remember that it's hard to build and easy to break. So you want to make sure that whenever you're outside of this house, as a parent, speaking of their kids. Right. You are representing yourself in this family with the utmost level of, you know, integrity and respect. And I think that's a big takeaway for student athletes in this day and age, because there's a lot of copycats online, and these kids are born with cell phones, you know, so there's a lot of influences, again, that kids are trying to emulate. But if that doesn't align with whatever your family standard is, it's probably something that we should continue to coach and counsel our kids on doing, not doing in real time. In real time. Because, you know, as we know, we all make mistakes as kids, and our kids will make mistakes.

Yohance: There's no proof of the mistakes I made because there were no cell phones. So right

Dasarte: when it happens, you have to. This is a teaching opportunity for us. I'll say, like, hey, remember we talked about a brand is hard to build and easy to break. These actions, if continued, could break your brand and limit your opportunities to do whatever you want to do. Be a doctor or, you know, play professional football, you know, And I think we now more than ever have to really lean into those teaching opportunities with our kids in the age of the Internet.

Yohance: And what should parents be thinking about financially, again, with the influx of nil? And I'm hearing that nil is starting to trickle its way into. And not directly nil, but the monetization of student athletes is starting to trickle into high schools around the country. So how do. I mean, where does the conversation start with the parent? Because a lot of times these parents are also impoverished themselves.

Dasarte: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the conversations with a parent, with the parents, start with getting educated themselves. Right. And talking to somebody like you, if those opportunities present themselves, and hopefully before that. Right. Because a parent that is not educated will only transfer uneducated information, you know, or hypotheses. Onto their children. So I think, you know, the thing that I think about the most is, you know, how can we educate some of the gatekeepers, some of the nil agents that have their professional athletes on bench or, you know, some of the schools that might shoot their, you know, student athletes onto bench? How do we educate them? Because it's going to be important for them to say, like, hey, you can use all these tools to monetize, and this is your mom, right? This is how you do it. So I think the same goes with parents. Like, parents have to be an example of what they want their kids to, you know, exude and demonstrate in the world.

Yohance: Agreed, Agreed. So for. For all of our student athletes, athletes, creators, and enterprises, as you so eloquently pointed out on LinkedIn this morning. Okay. And every time I open LinkedIn, Disarte's on there. I don't know if it. I think they know that we're friends and I open up. He's the first thing there. So I was learning about Enterprises. Your most recent post. How can they learn more about Bench? Where can they find more information?

Dasarte: Yeah, I would tell everybody JoinTheBench.com is where the wait list is. So on launch day, which is June 8, you'll get a ton of information on how to Wait, wait, what was

Yohance: that launch day again?

Dasarte: June 8, 2026.

Yohance: It's my birthday.

Dasarte: Yeah, I did that on purpose.

Yohance: I know you did.

Dasarte: So June 8, 2026, is the last day on Bench. And you know where you can watch all the content on launch day is Bench sports dot com. Bench sports dot com. Right. So, yeah, we're excited about it. We think that this is an impactful business that will scale and help a lot of people. And that's the way that I look at everything, is like, how can I help as many people for the entrepreneurs and that are listening to the conversation, you know, think about impact in terms of, like, will this business help people? And the more people you help, the more successful your business will be. And I think Bench has a. A chance to do that. Got it, Got it.

Yohance: All right. And since we are recording this in the midst of a lot of sports things that are going on, we'll see if it get out gets out in time, even if it doesn't. We'd love to know your answer. Who's taking NBA Finals?

Dasarte: Good question. I think it's gonna be Oklahoma City.

Yohance: Oklahoma City. Over the Knicks.

Dasarte: Over the Knicks.

Yohance: Over the Knicks.

Dasarte: Okay. Okay.

Yohance: And did you agree with the mvp?

Dasarte: That's Tough. I don't. I don't think. I agree. While SGA is a great player and, you know, very fluid on the basketball court, there's something to be said about Wimby and the way that he plays the game at both sides of the court. So I think if I were to choose, I think we're looking at a generational player. And Victor Womenyama, his range, his ability as a. As a big man and a guardian, it's something that we might not see again. And we had that same conversation with LeBron over 20 years ago. You know what I mean? I think Wemby has a chance to. To be someone we will never forget.

Yohance: It was. It was very interesting to see David Robinson talk about Wimby. And. And like you said, he is. He is a generational player. Like, we. I. When I saw him launch the ball basically from Curry's range and sink it, and, like, I don't even understand the physics of that shot. I don't. I just. Anyways. All right. And since we are way ahead of time, we can call. How much. Do you watch soccer now? I do now. Do you have any calls on FIFA this year?

Dasarte: I've been okay. Yeah. I think it's going to be competitive, to be honest. I think US has a chance to make it decently far. I don't think they will win.

Yohance: Okay, agree.

Dasarte: I think Brazil is going to make a run because Neymar, this is the last season, his last World cup, and I think England has a chance as well. The Dark Horses are going to be like an African country that just breaks out. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So thinking about, like, Morocco or Egypt or something that just breaks out and, like, wins a couple games, then you have European, small European countries that always tend to do pretty well. But I would say Brazil can go a long ways this year, and they want to make kind of like Messi was a while back. When Messi had his tour, they knew he was getting old. You know what I mean? Y. So I think Brazil has a good chance.

Yohance: Okay. All right. And finally, to get to your sport. The draft just wrapped up not too long ago. Been a lot of trades and moves. Athletes are headed to OTAs and such. Last year was an interesting year. I just want to. Let me ask about New England.

Dasarte: Yeah. Okay.

Yohance: It's a hell of a run they had last year.

Dasarte: It was.

Yohance: Do you think, especially with all the controversy around the team right now, do you think it's going to be a distraction? You think it was a fluke or do you think he can do it again?

Dasarte: I think they'll be good. I don't think there will be. I think they could have similar success as last year, but I don't think they're ready for the Super Bowl. They still have to make some adjustments. Quarterback has to mature, you know, and there's just a number of pieces that they need to. They need more time, more time in, you know what I mean, together. But I think they'll be good. They have an elite coaching staff there in a franchise that knows how to win, is how. Have won a lot. So I think they know they have a culture of winning and a culture of working hard. If I were to pick somebody that has a decent chance at going the distance, I don't think Seattle will repeat. A lot of those players have gotten deals. The running back that just took the show and got MVP last year, gone. I think San Francisco, if healthy, can make a run. I think Chicago has a chance to go far. You know what I mean? And, you know, I want to say the Bills, but they just fired their coach. So there's a lot of changes, a lot of shifting going on. But I think San Francisco, Chicago, you know, it's LA's last year with Stafford, presumably. Right. So we'll just have to see when the season comes up who. Who kind of takes the cake. All right.

Yohance: All right. Well, it's. It's been recorded. It's in the can, so we get to go back and see how well your prediction markets went.

Dasarte: No one's paying me a million dollars to say this, you know, yet.

Dasarte, we really appreciate you hanging out with us again on the Money Script podcast. Please, as you're listening, if you know of an enterprise, if you know of a student organization, a sports organization that is looking for ways to get more eyeballs, to get more involved with their community or to raise capital, create awareness. Just know that bench is an opportunity for that. Again, like you heard me say, selfishly, I'm thinking about, as a coach, I've. I poured a considerable amount of money into the team, just my own, out of the kindness of my heart. And I'm a volunteer coach, but I know that there's a community that's there that's willing to. To help. And I've had parents ask, do you record the games? I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know how to do that. But then, of course, as soon as they say it, I get these ads in my Instagram, these machines you can set up that basically Follow the ball for a whole soccer game. I didn't know that was a thing. And puts it right to your phone. So, you know, who knows, maybe this could be an opportunity. And I also want to just thank you to Sarte for your innovation, your selflessness, and your desire just to make your communities better and the people. And create more opportunities for people in your community and people around the world. Because this is something that, this is a worldwide idea, and I think it's. I think it's a great idea and I think it's a great business. So I'm really excited. I'm going to join that wait list now that I know it is available, and it'll give me something to do on my birthday. And. And you said it was the website again.

Yohance: Dasarte, we really appreciate you hanging out with us again on the Money Script podcast. Please, as you're listening, if you know of an enterprise, if you know of a student organization, a sports organization that is looking for ways to get more eyeballs, to get more involved with their community or to raise capital, create awareness. Just know that bench is an opportunity for that. Again, like you heard me say, selfishly, I'm thinking about, as a coach, I've. I poured a considerable amount of money into the team, just my own, out of the kindness of my heart. And I'm a volunteer coach, but I know that there's a community that's there that's willing to. To help. And I've had parents ask, do you record the games? I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know how to do that. But then, of course, as soon as they say it, I get these ads in my Instagram, these machines you can set up that basically Follow the ball for a whole soccer game. I didn't know that was a thing. And puts it right to your phone. So, you know, who knows, maybe this could be an opportunity. And I also want to just thank you to dasarte for your innovation, your selflessness, and your desire just to make your communities better and the people. And create more opportunities for people in your community and people around the world. Because this is something that, this is a worldwide idea, and I think it's. I think it's a great idea and I think it's a great business. So I'm really excited. I'm going to join that wait list now that I know it's available, and it'll give me something to do on my birthday. And. And you said it was the website again.

Dasarte: Bench sports.com June 8.

Yohance: Benchports.com June 8. I'll be tuned in. I'm looking forward to poking around, seeing what else is out there. I'm also thinking, you know, especially if there's other junior leagues out there, it's one of the hardest things for my players is, is they can go on YouTube and they can watch a lot of adults play soccer, but, you know, if there's other younger leagues out there that they can go out and see other people like them actually play and something they can actually just watch right there on their, on their phones, on their iPads, things of that nature, I think that's a great resource as well. So, yeah, like you said, the resources, the, the permutations of this are endless. And I know, like you said, you just, you're creating the platform so that others can go and create the processes and the implementations of utilizing that platform. And, And I think that's genius. I do.

Dasarte: I do.

Yohance: So. All right, brother. Well, I appreciate you, man. And next time I'll see you on. Was it a bench Live?

Dasarte: Yeah, we'll do a live.

Yohance: All right, brother, look forward to it. I appreciate you.

Dasarte: Thanks so much. Yep.

Yohance: All right. Okay, so I'll pick up and do our intro. Yeah, man, congrats.

Dasarte: Thank you, man.

Yohance: I know more now, so I, I didn't. I don't really knew what I was watching on LinkedIn, so I, you did clear a few things up for me, so I, I am that much more excited and intrigued.

Dasarte: Yeah, bro. I actually, I didn't raise too much money because I had, I, I had saved a lot for this, but I did take some family and friends money and I took a one small check from a VC. They did their analysis and they gave me a $10 million valuation on the technology already. Yeah. So I feel really confident about it and I think there's room, there's legs. My hope is that I can 5x this valuation and sell it from a financial standpoint. I, like, I took, I took the QSBS registration and the whole thing two years ago. So while I was still at Altruist, I incorporated the business file for QSBS 83B election. So I technically have three years left on that time frame of holding my shares to sell and get the proceeds tax free. So crazy, I'm thinking to myself, like, I just need to scale, get to like, let's say if I get to 3 to 5 million in ARR, these valuations for businesses like this are like 10 to 26x. So 10x of 50, you know, 50 at 5 with healthy margins, which our business has because it's software. You know what I mean? It's just like sell the same thing over and over again. So I think we could do it. I know we can do it. Y' all can. You can. Yeah.

Yohance: Yeah, indeed. I'm thinking about next season, how we can raise some money.

Dasarte: Yeah, you see, you'll go on there. You can check it out. And then Mobile app is coming soon. Samsung app is coming soon. So people can watch their kids in there inside their house and watch their favorite creators inside their house. We all, we already have our product roadmap, so should be a good one, man.

Yohance: That's incredible.

Dasarte: Incredible.

Yohance: The Sarte. I appreciate you, brother. Enjoy the three day weekend.

Dasarte: All right, brother. All right, man. All right, man. We'll talk soon.

Yohance: Yep. Welcome to the Money Script podcast. It's your host, Yohance Harrison coming to you live. No, I'm not live. This is recording. Recording. We were recording. I was, I did something live earlier and so I, I think I was still in that mindset. I hope you are having a wonderful 2025. 2026. I'm gonna start that over. That was horrible. Welcome to the Money Script podcast. It's your host, Yohance Harrison. So happy to be with each and every one of you today. Welcome. We are getting deeper into season 6, 2026 of the money Script podcast. As you know, we took a brief pause. I had some, some life things that were going on, but it's all good. It was good stuff. I talked about it already. We don't have to get into it right now. Today I have a repeat guest that has become not only a friend, but a brother from another mother, Mr. Dasarte Yarnway. He is the founder. Excuse me, Mr. Dasarte. Yarnway, the founder of Bench. We are going to be talking about sports. We're going to be talking about this new platform that he's built and how it's going to help athletes and enterprises and teens and just creators from all over the world have a place where they can, where they can show their talents, where they can get paired with advertisers, where they can. There's a lot of things they can do. Actually. We're still discovering all the things that can be done on this platform. So I'm really excited about the conversations you're going to hear. He's also going to give you some predictions. He is a sports guy, so he's going to give his prediction on the NBA Finals, which by the time you listen to this, may or may not have already happened. You'll see that we don't quite agree. He has his view and I have mine. He is a bit biased when it comes to NFL. I'm just going to say that he, and he, for some reason, he did not mention my Panthers at all, which I guess, I mean, why would he. He's a NorCal guy and also talking some, some FIFA, some World Cup. He has an interesting take on that and I'll say I pretty much agree with him. So. But do yourself a favor, do a friend a favor. If you know a student athlete, if you know someone else that is a coach of a team or a manager of a team, you might want to send this episode to them. I'm confident they're going to want to learn a little bit more about the bench, about bench and how it can support them in their efforts. So without any further ado, let's get to our interview with Dasarte.