Do Things Differently
James Kandasamy
Devin Miller
The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
3/12/2021
Do Things Differently
The Inventive Journey
Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.
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ai generated transcription
i would say three things one is you know
work hard
second is be persistence right uh third
is do things differently from others
right a lot of times people want to just
do like what everybody else is doing
and that's just gonna put you on a
normal
category right but you know if you look
at things like you know where you do
things differently from everyone else
uh that makes you you know different
from everyone else and there's a better
chance of you breaking out
[Music]
hey everyone this is devin miller here
with another episode of the inventive
journey i'm your host devin miller the
serial entrepreneur that's grown several
uh startups
in the seven eight figure businesses as
well as a ceo and founder of miller ip
law where we help startups and small
businesses
with their patents and trademarks and
everything else related to their
business
and if you ever need help with anything
feel free to reach out to us at
strategymeeting.com and we're always
here to help
now today we've got another great guest
on the podcast
james and ken or candace samia
yes candace amy candace sammy that was
close
and uh james uh originally uh was from
malaysia
went i think went to college in malaysia
got a double e degree
um did a few startup jobs in college and
then moved from malaysia to the us
and uh in the us was on some i think
temporary assignment
went back to malaysia after a period of
time then came back to the u.s and went
uh and went to austin texas and did a
full time gig
i think worked in the semiconductor
industry um for quite a while
and then got i think went back to
malaysia if i remember and got an mba
and they did a few kind of software
startups did some side hustles and
nighttime gigs and
getting it all up and going and then got
into real estate and been doing that for
the last several years last few years
and raising money with private investors
and whatnot
so with that much as a introduction and
uh
introduction welcome on the podcast
james absolutely happy to be here devin
so i gave the kind of 30 second quick
run through of uh of your journey but
let's start to go back tell us a little
bit about
being in malaysia going to college there
and getting your double e and we'll pick
up on your journey from there
yeah absolutely absolutely i mean i was
born and raised in malaysia right so i
did all my entire education over there
except for my mba
which i did you know somewhat with the
in australia
right with the university of adelaide as
well then uh came to the u.s
on a on a manager visa which is called
l1 visa for a company here you know
there was a need
it was an inter-company transition and
um
when i came here you know i mean i was
always i was already coming here a few
times before that on a relocation so i
really like you know some cities and
the us in general right so um before you
now before you came into the us
you graduated with a double a degree in
malaysia and i think you mentioned that
you worked a few startup
jobs while you're in college kind of as
you're getting the double yeah yeah well
i mean
i mean startup yes while when i was
doing degree i was trying to do you know
i was selling shirts
buy you know buy for what uh ten dollars
and sell for like you know three dollar
each or something
i mean not three dollars maybe less
maybe maybe more than that but i can't
remember but i was selling shirts i was
trying to do my
um you know some kind of physics work
workbook
a while you know while during summer
break uh in college and trying to sell
that
well everybody was enjoying summer break
i was like spending my summer break
writing a call a physics workbook you
know to sell
i did pretty well i mean i didn't make
money you know but of course nothing big
like uh you know but it does make you
know
4x 5x income than what i was doing i
always like
always like to do something to make
money but i never understood the
entrepreneurial
spirits inside me until recently right
because even when i was working
on uh on a big large semiconductor
company while he went malaysia
uh i didn't do much uh
startup while working because i was so
busy working right but when i came to
the us
trying to do a software startup here you
know some webpage and
now one quick question so you come to
the us was that because you found a job
opportunity you wanted to come to the us
i want yeah i wanted to come and i had a
job opportunity as well it was an
inter-company transition
right so i definitely wanted to come
here i wanted to go to
uh i had a few options going to
australia going to canada going to the
us
right so i had all pr's lined up but i
ended up coming to the us
uh yeah i really want to come here
because of the you know how uh
capitalism works here right and um so
now walk me through that did you
did you apply to the job in the us and
then once you get accepted you get the
the green card is that kind of how you
came in yes yes correct
correct but but the thing is i didn't
apply so this was intercompany right so
basically i was in a
i was in a company where i had a
headquarters in the us and i was in
malaysia
and you know i was deciding to leave the
country to some other country so the
option i gave to the current companies
and either i go to the us
or i go out of the country right because
i had i had i really wanted to get out
to another country at that time
just to change my life right uh there
are certain limitations in malaysia in
terms of growing
and you know how capitalism works
compared to you know other countries
right so i really want to get out
so i had a few options like canada and
australia and uh
you know usually the current company
doesn't allow me to come
within the because then everybody will
start leaving from you know from low
cost jio to a high cost geo right
so um but i think uh i made the case you
know
that my skills are needed at the
headquarters here
and they definitely had a problem here
there was a big problem in one
department at which they thought that
they can use my skill
so it was a mutual understanding that
i'm going to come to the u.s uh
on a visa or within the company so it's
the same company but i came on a visa
no one and i know they're interrupting
but just have yeah sure absolutely go
ahead
questions no when you started with that
company was it the idea hey i want to go
for it i want to go to the u.s or
australia other places
and so that's why you sought out that
job originally in malaysia
it was just hey i'm working for this
company i see this opportunity
why not go for it kind of which order
was that well i was already in malaysia
and i was deciding to leave the country
right so but i thought okay why not i
moved to the us within the same company
right uh the company in malaysia they
don't really support it they're very
against it because as i said
they do not want like everybody moving
from this
satellite uh city satellite company
to this headquarters because that's the
reason why they created all these
satellite uh you know uh
offices right all over the nation right
large companies they set up you know
in a lower cost uh geography you know to
reduce uh
labor costs right and and also to ease
manufacturing and also
as well so but the thing is you know i
had an option right either i leave or i
come
through the company to the headquarters
so finally the company was gracious
enough to allow me to come within the
company to come to the
headquarters right and they had
definitely there's a need because there
was a
job that needed my skill and i wanted to
come as well
okay so no that makes perfect sense so
you decide okay you've got this
opportunity coming to the u.s think
it'll be a great experience you convince
a company
you come to the u.s you work for a
period of time now how long were you
with that company how long did you work
in the u.s because i think eventually
you went back to malaysia after a period
of time right
uh no no i did not go back after that i
mean in the beginning when i was
relocating back and forth i was going
like three or four times but uh once i
came here permanently i was here
permanently so
so i've been here almost like 11 years
right now in the us
so so now you come to the us you work
for the malaysian company and
how long did that last and kind of what
or where did you go to from there yeah
it's not really a malaysian company it's
a u.s company but they had a base in
malays
in malaysia so so it is a u.s company uh
i was there for almost two and a half
years
right so i yeah i got my green card
within four months because you know
i i came on a special visa which is
called a manager visa
and i'm a malaysian so our visa takes
very very
quick so now after that you know after
you
you worked there for you said a couple
years or two and a half years or so
now where did you kind of transition
from there where did you go from there
kind of how did
what made i went to another another
semiconductor company and i worked for
seven years
there and you know that's where i
started you know
start venturing into different different
uh businesses right because
you know sometimes working in one job
can be very monotonous and can be
pretty boring i mean especially i mean i
can't blame the companies right but they
can't be doing
new products all the time right they can
do
same product but small tweaks same
products small tweaks
because if they do new product then they
have to test the markets manufacturing
complex
complexity you know so they can't do
that so there's a lot of
not a lot of new development that's
happening in big companies
unless you are an r d even an r d you
know a lot of products doesn't really
make
it to the uh to the sales part of it
right
so and every time i go for these small
small companies i like to go into this
small small department which has a lot
of problems because
i like to solve any problem i don't want
to work on a i don't want to go to a
department where everything is done
right everything is processed and you
just go and execute whatever people have
created i like to go and create stuff
create processes
and i think there's a lot of you know
probably with the engineering background
and the
you know and everything else there is
kind of that mentality of hey i want to
actually
grow build do something rather than just
hey everything works fine and now we're
just kind of in maintenance mode there's
something to
be said for kind of building and growing
something
so now you did that for about seven
years and then what kind of caused the
transition after working for them for
uh that period of time uh it's just uh
there's a big aha moment when i went to
the second company on my first day
i was sitting after this is like three
years after you know being in the u.s
first two years i was busy working you
know the third year i went because of
the same company malaysia company us
company same culture
same process so i didn't really feel
different but the third year when i went
to another company in the u.s which is
i'd never been in a different company my
entire world my entire life i only
worked in one company for 16 17 years
and now i'm in a new company right so
when i went to that company i talked to
my my boss came and sat down with me and
he asked me you know how's life and all
that and he told me well you're going to
be working here for another 16 years
because we have all the stock options
and i say why is that 16 years well he
said
well you have three kids and you know
college is very expensive here right and
and i asked him how much how expensive
he is 200 300 when he said two or three
hundred thousand per per kid i was like
wow really because my engineering degree
only cost four thousand
five thousand us dollars for entire five
years hmm hey that's a great deal
absolutely i mean that's like unheard
deal over here right
here it's like what 300 000 at least
minimum hundred thousand dollars
on an in-state college right so so i
didn't even know that
cost so much in the u.s when i came here
that was one aha moment i said wow i
cannot continue working my w-2 job
right because w-2 job it is what it is
you have a limited
amount of pay rise you have a limited
time and you have always have someone
working above you you're working for
someone so i said okay i need to have
another job which can
get me some other income as well on top
of my w2 job right
and and double to job is like okay yeah
you have a base pay but
you know they have this golden handcuff
right where they give you a lot of
stocks you know in the next future yes
right they give you like five years
three so they want you to keep on
staying with them it's called golden
handcuff right so that you don't really
leave right because you always oh
my stock is gonna rest or my stuck gonna
wear so you don't really leave right so
absolutely yeah i mean it's kind of the
perpetual hey there and
and i certainly i don't fault them for
they're trying to say the best talent
we're trying to
keep on as long as possible they have
the institution all knowledge they can
get things done and do it well and so
there's certainly a motivation but at
the same time you're you're kind of
always in that catch 22. we're saying
okay and a little bit longer after these
vests i'm gone and then they
keep offering it so you eventually just
have to say hey i want to go my own way
i'm going to do my own thing and
and here we go yeah correct so you
always uh
i know i'm a bit everybody's trapped in
the w-2 job right
and that is you know i know that is
existing i needed that because i'm very
new in the u.s i mean keep in mind i was
just only two or three years
in the u.s at that time and i cannot
leave my job
and and go and try to do things on my
own so i said i'm gonna do something
on my own uh on my spare time so i was
trying to do some softwares that i'm
trying to do some web pages
to do some math tutoring i had that idea
every day i worked
late hours after work tried to do that
at the end i realized i'm not the best
programmer out there i mean you need a
big resources to do that and i can't do
this alone i mean
i was not programming everything myself
i was doing the concept and
i had offshore you know people from uh
overseas people who are trying to do
programming for me but
it just takes so much of work so much of
resource to do a really good software
right
so after some time i saw a lot of new
software coming i said okay i'm gonna
shut this down because this is not gonna
work
you know i'm not i'm not that good or i
do not know
that much of resources or money to go
and hire really good programmers to do
it
in house so i gave up on that and after
that we tried to do stocks
stocks trading well i had that ego how
difficult stock's going to be you know
if you're an engineer
you're probably really good at mad you
can solve this algorithm right so
i start reading all kind of book you
know candlestick you know
line charts all kind of analysis and try
to put all that into a context but at
the end i realized that stock is
actually just playing with your fear and
greed
there's a lot of truth to it i think
there's you know there is some skill
involved
but even just reading what the tea
leaves are what's coming next how the
market's going to react how other people
are going to react
everything else there's a lot more
emotion and a lot more you know
non-math type of things not man yeah you
can i mean i mean unless you're
i mean i'm sure a lot of your listeners
gonna say well i made money with stock
but my question to them is did you make
money with your skill or you were just
lucky
yeah and i think there's combination
there's a lot of luck in
involved as well as you know some skill
and it's hard to
delineate out which is which and
sometimes it's a combination of both
yeah i'm not saying stock is bad
definitely not but i'm just saying for
my personality because i like to look at
my phone
with the phone nowadays you can look at
every few seconds every movement you can
see it right
my personality was like i just keep on
looking at my phone and i lost all my
peace in life
right you don't have a piece because
stock is so volatile i mean i'm sure
people are very
good at stock when they do long-term
trading and even
if they do short-term trading they're
probably good at you know they're
probably good at something right but
i don't know i read uh some article
finally after losing some money on stock
i read that 98 percent of the individual
investors never really make money on
stocks
and because you know all these investors
all these guys play out the small
the small investors right so except for
the gamestop issue that recently came
that was like
okay i thought okay because
every time i buy stock you know at nine
o'clock you buy it and then after that
10 30 start dropping like crazy and i
got panning i sell
and 11 30 start going back up again and
that happens consistently in all the
stocks i buy and i know so i know
there's big institutional guys playing
the you know the small guys out
right so i gave up on stocks because
give up on stocks
so now how did you so you're kind of
trying to say hey where am i going to
land i want to do my own thing
you know i don't want to hit that glass
ceiling to where i can only make so much
and i can only have so much you know
influence type of a thing
so how did you kind of land on what you
were finally going to build or where
you're going to put your
money in effort and be successful
absolutely i mean i met another engineer
engineering manager who said he's buying
rentals you're buying once a year i said
what is that okay
so that's where i started looking at
houses right you say buying a rental
okay i used to do some flips
back in malaysia i mean just one or two
flips not a lot but
i know real estate appreciates uh if you
buy it right and style
so he was saying he buys like one house
a year and when i did the math
you can make like eight nine percent on
a normal house
with the amortization people pay down
the resident pay down you get a good
loan
thirty year fixed you know you okay that
makes sense okay i can do this slowly
right i can buy like 10 houses
so i say one house can make nine okay i
can buy 10 houses right but
but i also had very small amount of
money i only had 50 000 to start with
when i
came here because i didn't have any ira
i didn't have any 401k when i came here
right and
and you know where i came from you know
the pay was given was really good pay
but it was just nice for me to start and
every month
we just burned through all the money
that we make in a w-2 right
so i only had like 50 000. so with 50
000 what can i do right then i start
researching then i
then i found a way to buy a house really
really cheap even with 50
000 you can buy like few houses right so
i use that method to
buy these houses where you buy and you
re you remodel
and refinanced and you take out your
money
so you can basically you know buy houses
with very very low down payment
so that was the method i found and
started buying single-family houses and
now we are buying apartment complexes
after 13 hours we render apartment
complexes
so in other words you figured out hey
okay i've got i think this is a good
opportunity i'm going to get into it
don't have an exorbitant amount of
savings or money i can just invest
so start out smaller or slower and
figure out what you can do
flip those and kind of built it up as
you went along is that a fair summary
yeah that's a fair statement let's face
it
of course you need to find a mentor to
teach you that right because you know
it's not like anybody can do this i'm
not saying
anybody can do this but you know if you
had a mentor you can just have a
shortcut
because i can just tell you right so i
got a mentor and he taught me how to do
single family uh rental flips and later
on we moved on to apartment complexes
so now so now you've got achievement
investment group is that kind of built
on top of
the commercial real estate kind of how
did you get into investing for others or
building an investment group or kind of
how did that evolve
well i mean a chief investment group is
just uh it's just a name when we
started on a single family and
you know once we hit like 13 houses we
said okay this is too small scale and
because on the loan side uh we can get
like up to like 10 loans and after that
you have to go to commercial loans
and it was too much work for single
family so we moved on to
apartment complexes by buying a
pomegranate which is much larger but i
you know i didn't have the money as well
so i had the single family houses which
i built 400 000 of equity
but buying an apartment complex you need
a lot more than that right so then i
realized about something called
syndication where you can syndicate
money from a group of investors
right there is a guideline to a you know
five or six b five or six c that's
different guideline
and i use that guideline to raise money
from some of my friends and families to
buy our first
apartment complex no i think that you
know
it's interesting how how you you know
going through building things and and
making it bigger you know takes a bit of
time it's always kind of the
everybody thinks it's overnight success
hey you oh you had the money you
invested in one house and now you're
you know rich and you're a millionaire
and you can retire because you know you
just got lucky but i think you know kind
of almost
antithesis or opposite to the stock
market is there's you know there's some
skill and work in in in building
involving
and flipping houses so to speak but all
in real estate
investing but then it's also kind of a
slow growth to really be able to
get a you know a sizable portfolio and
be able to actually have that
income generated so now as you kind of
look towards you know
a future ford looking a bit kind of
where do you see the next phase of your
journey heading is it continuing to
do more deals bring on additional
investment bring out outside people keep
it more internal
how do you kind of see that going yeah
so right now we have like 2 000 units
under our management
10 properties 10 large complexes average
200 units per complex
so moving forward what we are looking at
is basically to go
more i mean as we want to buy more
because we want to focus on one asset
class
because all there's so much of nuances
right i mean so much of detail so much
of
you know analysis so much of algorithm
to really make sure we get it right
but i want to slightly expand it to
ground up construction as well where we
do you know building
from ground up because an apartment
complex becomes so expensive that it
makes sense to just build one
right rather than go and beating and buy
something very expensive we would rather
just build one
so we're trying to go more into a ground
up construction we're trying to go more
into affordable housing as well
um where we can do something called a
low income housing tax credit but we
have been doing all market rate all the
time
market rate housing um and we'll
continue to do that so yeah
keep on buying more deal more efficient
we are high we just hired a few
really good corporate staffs to come and
help us
uh one ceo who just came in we have an
executive
assistant and we have analysts i just
hired and uh with all these people that
have hired i hope that we can
keep that pipeline full of deal coming
in we'll be managed because we also
manage our asset right so
so we're going to keep on doing deals
because there's so much of capital
looking to place money in real estate
right now and it's hard to find deal
that makes sense
and i just hire all these people so that
we can keep on doing deals so we want to
grow
and you know keep on doing deals
no and i think that sounds like an
exciting place to be and it's kind of
the hey we're going to con
we're going to figure out how to expand
our reach in additional markets or at
least you know have additional
opportunities and also just grow the
business and make it even more
successful so
absolutely makes sense so absolutely
well as we wrap towards the end of the
podcast i always ask two questions at
the end of each uh
each uh podcast or each episode so we'll
jump to those now so the first question
i always ask is
along your journey what was the worst
business decision you ever made and what
did you learn from it
was business decision i made
probably not getting educated before
starting
um i think my first house i mean i
didn't i didn't eventually buy it
because i
i supposed to get i was supposed to meet
up my my mentors the next week but this
week i said okay i was so
rushing to go and buy deals and i just
put one deal under contract
without knowing how to analyze it very
well and uh you know that deal didn't do
well
but so make sure that you get educated
before doing this kind of uh big deals
and i think that that's a it's a good
and whatever industry you're in getting
that education that understanding i mean
too often you think oh i'll be the
exception or oh i'll
go with my gutter oh i'll do you know
learn along the way but you know
that oftentimes while it works on
television and movies when you get into
reality it's no it's very seldom are you
just able to
wing it and just go by your gut and just
try something it's much better
i think to do that education part
understand what you're doing why you're
doing what are the risks can you live
with the risks
you know what's the downside what's the
upside what is the industry and kind of
start to answer all those questions
and it increases the likelihood of
success and yet it's so easy to
when you get into a deal or to get into
an opportunity to just want to get going
and want to
jump into it you never do that you know
that education piece is oftentimes
so critical well as now the second
question i always ask
is so um if you're now talking to
somebody that's just getting into a
startup or a small business
what be the one piece of advice you give
them i would say three things one is you
know work hard
second is be persistence right third is
do things differently from others
right a lot of times people want to just
do like what everybody else is doing
and that's just going to put you on a
normal
normal category right but you know if
you look at things like you know where
you do things differently from everyone
else
uh that makes you you know different
from everyone else and there's a better
chance of you breaking out
uh to reach your goal right and uh
be persistent yeah of course you have to
be persistent that's you know that's the
test of the
of the time of the game that's the name
of the game right no matter how much you
try you have to keep on trying different
different stuff until you
you know until you hit your goal so work
hard is you know you have to overwork
everyone else that's that's
no choice there because everybody is
trying to come up with life or a lot of
people coming on
live and you want to be you want to
really break out um
you know you have to you know do the
hard work
no and i think that that's certainly a
great piece of advice and something
people should
take to heart well as we wrap
wrap up first of all just as a quick
heads up for all the listeners we are
doing the bonus question of your top
intellectual property uh question that
you have
so stay tuned if you want to hear the
answer to that but otherwise if you're
wrapping up listening to the podcast
before they go what's the best way for
them to reach out to you to
they want to be an employee they want to
be a they want to be invest with you
they want a mentor they want to be
a investor they want to be your next
best friend any or all the above
what's the best way to reach out to you
and connect up yeah my website is
achieveinvestmentgroup.com
achieve is like achieving a goal ach i
eve achieve
investmentgroup.com they can come and
register
on that website to be in touch with me
if you want to be a passive investor
invest with us i have a lot of engineers
a lot of doctors a lot of
a lot of business people a lot of real
estate people investing with me because
this is passive income because we do the
main work and they are the passive
investors
on my website there's a link called
invest with us come and click there
there's a form fill up that form and
you'll get access to my calendar
and i would say you know you guys
definitely should read up my book
it's a best-selling book in amazon and
top 15 book by jim cramer the street
for real estate investing it's called
passive investing
in real estate you can get it for free
at passiveinvestingrealestate.com
passive investing in real estate.com
well awesome i definitely encourage
everybody to reach out connect up find
out more and use the different avenues
that you mentioned
well as as we wrap up first of all thank
you for coming on the podcast now for
all of you that are listeners if you
have your own journey to tell
feel free to go to inventiveguest.com
sign up to be a guest on the podcast and
share your journey if you're a listener
also one make sure to click subscribe so
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and two leave us a review so new people
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or with strategy for your business with
patents trademarks or anything else
feel free to go to strategymeeting.com
so thank you again and with that we'll
now transition over for all of
the all of you that are continuing to
listen and want to hear james it top
intellectual property question
let james flip the table a bit ask me a
question so with that what is your top
question
sure sure so i mean so if like people
like me we're in real estate right so
i'm not doing
uh you know silicon design or what even
though we were doing at some point i was
that was my
my engineering job right so i know
there's a lot of ip protection that we
always apply and all that but
coming to business side where we have
built a brand right like we build a
brand
like achieve investmentgroup.com right
so
um and uh how do i protect my brand
yeah so real estate so as a quick or 30
second summary there are kind of three
different parts of intellectual property
there's
patents trademarks copyrights patents
are going to be for inventions widgets
something that does something which
typically doesn't apply to real estate
although we do have a few real estate
clients that have made
software platforms or other ways to make
something more efficient
to do something new you know you think
of not
this our client but you know an airbnb
where that's in the real estate realm
but they certainly have a
lot of technology and ways they do that
that would fall under patents but if
you're saying hey we're real estate firm
we're really just investing we're
looking for good deals then that's
typically going to fall more into
trademarks which is you mentioned their
branding
so then the question is is you know what
is your brand worth is it
one where really everything is word of
mouth where everything is just
you have a good reputation of people are
coming to you then your brand is
is is important but it's important for a
different reason but let's you know
really you're going to look at and say
if somebody were to come along
knock off our brand copy it or otherwise
do something
similar is it going to hurt or affect
our business if the
answer is yes then you're going to say
okay then we're wanting to protect our
brand and you know
love him or hate him one of the top real
estate brands would have been donald
trump right or trump you know trump with
all of his real estate whether he agree
with him or not that was a lot of his
value in his brand that he built his
real estate company
was based on the rep you know the the
trump brand and so that was where they
leveraged it so if you're saying hey
we're going to build a big real estate
company and however you follow the
political state or
spectrum or anything else you're going
to say we want to build a brand where
people know it where they invest in us
they know the quality of our real estate
they know the quality of our investments
then you're going to protect the name
with the trademark and so that's where
really a lot of your value is is because
one is the people you hire the deals
that you can find and then the the white
reason people trust with you
trust you is because of your brand and
that would fall into trademark so
that's typically when you get into real
estate unless you have the technology
site or something as an airbnb or
something that's driver or analytics or
something that's going to be worthwhile
otherwise you're going to typically
protect or go into branding which would
be more in the trademarks
got it got it so if if if let's say my
brand is trademark right let's say
achieve investment groups trademark and
one day i find someone using that
uh how what do i do i do how do i
approach them tell them generally you
know you should stop it or do i you know
do i get
people like you to send them some letter
yeah so
and when you define gently that's
probably a good way because there's
different you can be very aggressive
somebody you feel infringes your
trademark
you can just simply go out and file a
lawsuit you don't have to do a cease and
desist you don't have to reach out to
them you can just file a lawsuit
one day they get those papers and then
you both show up in court and duke it
out type of a thing
if you want to take a step back at you
and say hey i'm not here to file suits i
don't want to
you know go through that time and
expense unnecessarily one is you can
always reach out to them and they may
not be aware of you or they may be a
small individual or they may just be
getting started
and they may you may be able to find an
agreement whether they stop using it or
they pay you a licensing fee or
something of that nature
if after you reach out to them they
typically kind of blow you off or they
say no i'm going to keep doing what i'm
doing i'm not going to listen to you
then you have to decide how much you
want to ratchet up and you a lot of
times that's you know
engage a law firm you send a cease and
desist letter you put them more on
notice
put a little bit more teeth behind it
and let them know you're serious and
then you give them a period of time
to decide whether or not they want to
respond to the cease and desist they
don't aren't
legally obligated to but a lot of times
they're saying hey they've engaged a law
firm i
can see where this is headed let's try
and i'll take this more seriously
if they blow that off then that is where
you have to file the law so you have to
say okay
how much is my brand worth how much are
they you know hurting my brand in the
sense of saying hey they're a small
tiny individual they're not hurting my
brand very much at all and
it's probably gonna cost me more to go
to lawsuit than it is to just let them
go
then you may say from a business
perspective it doesn't it doesn't make
sense to invest on the other hand
you may say hey we are seeing a a lot of
customers that are getting confused or
going to their brand because if they
think it's us or anything of that nature
then you're going to go and you're going
to file a lawsuit you can say hey this
is costing us
tens of thousands hundreds of thousand
dollars a year in lost business
then you're gonna have to say it's
worthwhile to invest in getting them to
stop using it so
those are kind of your few options
everything from nicely reaching out to
them
all the way to lawsuits and kind of a
cease and desist letters in between
okay can i ask one more question sure go
ahead
so let's say on domain name right let's
say we have a dot com
and someone take the same name put a dot
io or dotnet or what right so
that can be confusing for a lot of
investors i mean a lot of people right
so
how do you deal with that yeah domain
names are
they're a bit of still the wild west
they're starting to get some case law
behind it or some understanding
i mean there isn't anything if you don't
go get and there's so many now that you
can do whether it's dot you know
dot io dot edu dot gov dot you know
whatever dot
a whole bunch of things and so you know
typically when you get your domain name
you're saying
i don't want to spend all the money or
it doesn't make sense to try and get
everything possible because even if you
get all the last.com.whatever
then they change one little spelling in
it and then it starts all over
or they drop one word off or they add
one word so it's kind of always that
you know popping up and so when a lot of
times when you get into domain names
if it's simply just a domain name and
they're doing nothing else in their
branding nothing else to confuse you
know nothing else to use your brand
nothing else to use the same words or
anything else it's typically going to be
difficult to just simply stop them from
using the domain name other than to just
be much better in seo and be able to
just simply outrank them such that when
people search for them
they never find you know their
competitors so far down the list that
there's never confusion
now if they get the domain name and they
start using that domain name and it is
confusingly similar to yours so now they
have the domain but all of their
material on their website and everything
else
is using your brand or similar to your
brand then you can still
infringe on trademarks so that's
generally if it's only do the domain
name
you probably have there are some avenues
but it gets fairly more complex and
and more complicated you're better just
to compete with them on seo and outrank
them
but as soon as they start using any of
the other branding stuff within their
website material or anything else
that's when you can kind of engage them
even or gauge them further
awesome awesome all right well with that
james i appreciate the intellectual
property questions it's always fun to
hear
what other questions people have and
have the table turned a bit and you guys
get asked me questions
so appreciate coming on the podcast it's
been a great time and been a pleasure
and wish the next leg of your journey
even better than the last
absolutely thanks devin and i hope
really i really hope i add
value to your audience and listen
[Music]
absolutely
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