238 | How Entrepreneurship Can Help People Leave High Control Groups with Charlie McCoy
Our guest this week on the pod is Charlie McCoy. Charlie is a 5x Founder including NYC's renown Artisan Barber and his newest organization, The Grooming Alchemist - a mential health & wellness advocay foundation working to improve the lives of cult survivors and empower underserved youth. This work is inspired by his personal story of leaving a cult and finding community in his local barbershop.
Resources mentioned in this episode are:
Interview with Charlie McCoy on How Entrepreneurship Can Help People Leave High Control Groups
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Charlie McCoy
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs Podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guests and our topic today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on, hit the subscribe button, do a rating and review. It helps tremendously. Thank you so much for considering it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Charlie McCoy. And our topic is How Entrepreneurship Can Help People Leave High Control Groups. Charlie is a 5x founder, including New York City's renowned artists and barber and his newest organization, the grooming Alchemist, a mental health and wellness advocacy Foundation, working to improve the lives of cult survivors and empower underserved youth. This work is inspired by his personal story of leaving a call and finding community in his local barber shop. Charlie, welcome to the show. Hey, Paul, pleasure to be here. But you've had a powerful journey. And you've turned it into quite impactful work. And I can't wait to help our audience connect with it. Sure, my pleasure. So before we get started in your journey, and incredible work you're doing Charlie, were called aware printers. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or a resiliency practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this really important, but not always easy work.
Charlie McCoy 01:44
Totally I, for the past eight years, have gone to the sauna or steam room three to six times a week, or religiously. And that's kind of helped me keep my like, circular circulatory system. And just like my overall cardiovascular system, my mind my body, just, you know, with all the pressure in the city helps me to release and it's really good for your endorphins. So I recommend, you know, people visit the sauna or steam room at their local gym, or if they have one in their building just you know, once twice, three times a week, just to keep yourself you know, well lubricated, internally.
Paul Zelizer 02:30
Talk about clearing the mind. I love saunas and steam rooms. I mean, I don't do them enough. Thank you for that reminder.
Charlie McCoy 02:37
I live life in New York like this ancient Rome, I gotta go to my steam room. Every every day is the better life.
Paul Zelizer 02:45
So, Charlie, to understand this work about helping people leave high control groups, working with people who are formerly cult and gang involved, like, you have a very powerful story and you have some very personal experience with what you call high control groups. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that? What is that history that helped inspire you and say, Hey, there's an important piece of work that I'm on this planet to do?
Charlie McCoy 03:14
Sure, I mean, like most people growing up, you just surrender to the circumstance, you know, your parents raised you and whatever religion that they're in, and it becomes a part of like, you know, a family tradition. In my case, my mother was a Jehovah's Witness. And again, you don't necessarily know you're in a high control group. You only find out that it's a hiker control group when you decide to leave. And that's when it becomes clear. But growing up, it was I think, my mother's way of keeping me out of harm's way maybe, you know, we grew up in an area that had a lot of gang violence, and was kind of dangerous. So, you know, her motto was if you're at the Kingdom Hall, and you're not in the streets, and you know, in the mid 90s, in the Midwest, that could have been, you know, a very wise thing. I decided to take this religion seriously. When I became my turn when I graduated high school, so around the age of 1819. So seriously, I became what they call a regular pioneer, then a Bethel, a Bethel light, which is a term for people who work at the religions headquarters and world headquarters, and also became a ministerial servant, and an elder and I did some missionary work throughout the course of about 12 years in the religion, and then I hit a turning point in my early 30s where I really saw my life just dead Definitely my life was, you know, looking out elderly and was was fine. I was working as a, you know, an elder and I was a ministerial servant for years in the current gation, I had a beautiful wife and wonderful community in the Jehovah's Witness organization. But I just couldn't come to grips with some of their teachings. As I get older, the teachings about you know, Armageddon, destroying everyone on Earth who's not a witness, and then some of their smaller, more practical teachings, and you know, like the blood transfusions or the holidays, for some reason. It just didn't sit well with me at this stage in my life, where I was at a time. So when I decided to leave Well, when I decided to voice, you know, what was going on, I immediately found that this is going to be a problem, I started to get chastised by close friends, relatives about this subject when I brought it up. So I decided not to bring it up. But to just escape, because that's just why, you know, where am I spirit was at the time. So I literally feigned depression, and wrote a letter to the governing body, the elders in my congregation. And I told everyone I loved that I had to basically go and be alone, for my own mental health, because that's just what I had to do. And I did that in 2015, in the winter of 2015. And, you know, when it when you do that the group instills in the minds of people who are believers that they can't talk to anyone who leaves because they, they can poison your mind. And so they call us an apostate. And you are shunned by the group. So, you know, anyone that I grew up with for the previous 12 years, or they were instructed not to speak to me to run, tonight greet me at all, like a man of the nations. And I had to basically rebuild, you know, from that decision. So I decided to, to, you know, to leave, get out, get my own apartment, focus on only on working. I was working at L'Oreal at the time, and I was also working for watchtower, as a barber as a Master Barber. So I just put, you know, that's how I applied my craft. And I had a great job in the city and also had a great position with the witnesses. But I decided to leave my position with the witnesses just focus on my secular work outside of the organization. And that led to me opening up my own barber shop in 2017. And then that led to me even going further with a second location. That dovetailed into a nonprofit, in the same with the same sort of work and NGO, a mental health nonprofit. And then the word
Paul Zelizer 08:09
did hold on just a second time. Because really, I want to get there, I promise you
Charlie McCoy 08:13
Oh, yeah, I'll wait for you to stop it. You never know. I
Paul Zelizer 08:16
know. You do. Great. Great. So like, just give our listeners a sense of like, Wait, so the first 30 something years of your life, this group is an incredibly big influence, not just for you, but your family, your entire community, because literally, you're not supposed to have a contact in any sort of deeply ongoing way with somebody who's not a part of this group. And they suddenly you're like, this isn't working for me, this isn't values aligned, and I'm going to pull back and they ostracize is like, Nope, okay. Charlie's a nonentity anymore in our circles, and this is your social support your spiritual, anything, you could say like, what was that? Like?
Charlie McCoy 09:00
It was an out of body experience. It was very interesting. I was kind of numb for the first few years. Because, you know, my value system was really propagated on witness belief. So I had to recreate exactly what it is, because I had a good a good life. So it wasn't like I was living. It was just, it wasn't for me. So I had to understand like, Okay, what from the group am I going to keep? Who am I going to be? How am I going to live in the world? Because they paint a picture of anyone not in the group as a Satan worshipping, drunken drunken sex greedy sex fiend. That's just like anyone who's not a witness, you know, other other groups do that. But I, you know, growing up, it was always a challenge because my mother would try to keep me away from anyone who wasn't a witness, but I was always making friends. And that's something that I've always had to migrate. Credit. So I've always been able to make friends and have friends who were witnesses who weren't witnesses. Yeah. And I had friends through my through my work over those years that I always treated well. And so when I did leave the group, I think karmically. I was able to rebuild, because I was just a solid, solid guy, you know? Yes. So, good
Paul Zelizer 10:25
barber shop, the barber shop had a role and you're talking about rebuilding? Yeah. And we'll get to like what you did, you did fabulous things. And we're going to what you grew with artists, and barber and then since then, but like, like, when you were in that rebuilding process, the barber shop had something to do with you rebuilding your life. Can you talk about
Charlie McCoy 10:46
that? Sure. I've been a barber since I was about 15. And I can remember having my own little barber studio, once I graduated high school. And one thing that was unique about that line of work was the community. So when I whenever I would open up a new shop, this happened twice before I moved to New York, I would quickly gather a following I a little bit about my background, I went to like three different high schools, several different elementary schools. So I knew a lot of young men in the city that I grew up in. So when I started to cut hair, for some reason, the word got out. And because I was good at what I did, I had a lot of friends and I that same blueprint, it's what I carry with me throughout my 20s. And so when I moved to watchtower, people found out I was a barber, I had a ton of extra friends, more than the average person because I would cut hair in my room, my room was a barber shop. And then I joined L'Oreal, and so I became Akiles. Barber, so everyone who would come to kilz, who knew me who my clients, those are my those are my friends, those are people who I saw him out, you know, we stopped and talking, you know, just a friendly guy doesn't mean I'm best friends with everyone. But typically, I'm you know, I've been popular for a long time. So I yeah, it hurt to have that particular pool of people who have been around reject me. But also, I was able to rebuild with people who I kind of had known since I moved to New York. And the transition wasn't extremely difficult because of the infrastructure and the time that I put in already, just again, having solid acquaintances. And then when I when I needed them, they were there. I just let them know I'm experiencing the transition in life. Now, hey, come with us on vacation. Hey, come with us. We have a Christmas party, hey, come with us on this snowboarding trip. And it was like before when I got those invites it when I was witness, I had to say no. But then all of a sudden, I didn't say no for two, three years. Now I have to say no, because I've built a pretty complex life. And so I value my time, be very careful about how I spend it. But yeah, that was the the unique thing that happened to me, I happen to be in a very like social city. And I happen to have a very social career. And I was able to use that to re establish my community, you know,
Paul Zelizer 13:15
now we're going to talk about how you help other people, especially young people, leverage this incredible career. Before we do that, I think it's really important for our listeners to understand what you've done with artists and Barber. So tell us like, what is artists and Barber? When did you start it? Like if I'm a listener, and I'm like, trying to understand it, like, walk me through, like I walk in the door to your first shop? What do I see? Who's there? What's happening? What are you guys doing? And just all that basic, like, what is art?
Charlie McCoy 13:46
I think just what makes us unique is that we're very hip brand, with a lot of cool people and a very, like conservative neighborhood in Manhattan. So you would think that like the juxtaposition, we you know, we wouldn't be as established as we are. But as it turns out, even though, you know, we're hip, and we're very, like, you know, liberal looking on the outside, we got a lot of kind of what our clients number one, we just need like excellence. Right? So everyone that works with me is really, really good at what they do have a small hand selected team of people who have been in industry know, 510 1520 years, and everyone you know, has really paid their dues and there's just a solid group. So it's difficult because the New York employment scene that shattered so a lot of the people who are working now and maybe they're new, maybe they they before the pendant, and maybe they're not but I can say that I have a group of people who are you know, friendly, they're talented, they're smart, they're good in the actual shop itself is a not, you know, my 10 years of working with, you know, luxury brands. So that's been used with kills organ in their multimillion dollar well planned barber shops. And even though mine was an indie, you know, independent star, indie brand, are very silly, you know, carefully selected like the mid century aesthetic, the, you know, the artwork, the way the shop flows, the music is all well curated. I spent years traveling and whenever I would travel to different countries, I would also visit barber shops, and just to see what the world had to offer. And so, you know, based on my experience, I know that I have one of the dopest barber shops in Manhattan in people look to Manhattan to set the standard in many industries for the world. So by extension, I had one of the coolest barbershops in the world. So that's where I'm at with it. I think when people come you know, I'm not I'm not over promising anything. You just give good haircuts. No one's gonna like pamper, pamper you or catered to you but you don't get a great cut. Pretty cool conversation, nice vibe, you can relax, places like an oasis in a semi upper Risa. So if you're on the Upper West, or freezing, you were in Manhattan, it's easy to get to night. So that's awesome bar was five years old, and it's going strong. Yeah,
Paul Zelizer 16:12
it's really it really took off, right? Like just listeners, you can go check out the website and get a sense, there's a link in the show notes. You can get a sense of the flavor, the feel of this brand. But somebody who does a lot of vetting of what brands are doing in the world artists and Barber is kicking ass. That's my opinion.
Charlie McCoy 16:34
We just appreciate that. We just did a deal with Harry's the shaving brand. Oh, totally. They work with us to come in and produce content related to men's mental health and the importance of barbershops. And we did a whole series with them, you can find it on our YouTube channel, and on our on our Instagram page. And on our website. You can get to all those videos from there. But yeah, other brands have recognized what we're doing. And that's really cool for me, because, you know, I'm only five years old, but there are brands who are multimillion dollar global brands, who have worked with us on several collaborations, I'm proud of that, you know, just means the community at large is recognizing what we build.
Paul Zelizer 17:19
Not. So a lot of people in your place Charlie would put their feet up on the coffee tables, and wow, had some rough times here kind of landed on my feet got this business, it's doing really well partners with Harry, I'm like, I'm just gonna put my feet on the coffee table, got some hair and like have a good time. But no, not Charlie McCoy. Charlie McCoy says, Okay, now it's time for the next thing. And this is a really impact focus thing, which is called the grooming Alchemist. Tell us a little bit about the grooming Alchemist and why you started
Charlie McCoy 17:51
it. Sure. But before we do that, let me just tell you, I really do want to put my feet up on the table, I really do want to just take a break and relax. And I do I do take time to like, refresh myself and like, work on my mental clarity. But when I'm, you know, when it's when it's time, it's time to get active. I tried to work about 80 hours a week. And so I basically spend like 25 hours with my barbershop, another 25 hours with my tech company, and then another 25 with the with the nonprofit. So right now we're working specifically with a school in the Bronx, the new venture Academy is to 19 One of my clients was a teacher there. And when I told him about my mental health initiative, he said I should come to school. So we decided to do is put together a program for middle and high school kids where we recreate the barber shop in the library. So the kids come in. We talked to him for a few minutes about financial literacy and entrepreneurship and ownership. Then we do haircuts for all the kids and then we give them grooming products. And we found that that's a big hit among the kids. Really my main goal is just to show African American and minority high earner who's doing something other than sports and entertainment, not to say there's anything wrong with those industries. I love those industries. But these kids need to know that you know, you know, NBA, the NBA only has 400 members, and you know are there millions of kids so they all can't go to the NBA. But many of them can establish a business they can become professional craftsmen, tradesmen, they can learn a lot of different things that can make them high earners, and I want them to see that from ages 678 And we even work with high school kids. So that right there is something that I wish I could have had when I was that age. So I'm just providing it for the new New York City public school system.
Paul Zelizer 20:03
What a fabulous project and again, like Obama listener, and I'm like, that sounds really cool. Like, like, give me a sense if I walked in to into the school and you guys are there and cutting some hair like what's what's happened in there? Like it's a quiet in the room? Is there a lot of jokes? Are they asking questions like what give me give me a sense of what's happening in that room
Charlie McCoy 20:25
is really what you say it's a lot of I mean, they're kids. We all been high school kids, they're cracking jokes. They're trying to figure out what this do with dreadlocks doing in their classroom while I'm here. And it's my job to just let them know, Hey, I'm here for you. And what we did was we decided to make content of our visits. So you can go to our grooming alchemists YouTube page, right? The grooming Alchemist Foundation has a YouTube page, where we feature the stories of men and women of color, talk about their triumphs a lot, a lot of them work in the city. So they're, you know, they're the neighbors of these kids. And I even have a couple of videos of the events at the school that you can see. But like you said, all kids are happy with their to get free haircuts and free products, hoping that the tokenomics and financial literacy that we're talking about sticks. But I think all in all, we have a pretty good program. Cool.
Paul Zelizer 21:30
So let's do this in a minute, I want to come back and hear how this all works in terms of the finances and how people find you. And you've got this whole other venture a tech company, which we haven't talked about yet, I want to talk about that before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you wanted to grow plus in terms of helping more people, and in terms of your income, so you could have a good quality life? If so, I'd like to talk to you about some research. When scientists look at whether humans hit our goals, like actually get there, in any domain of life, whether it's a wellness or fitness goal, or growing your business, the single biggest predictor is what scientists call social support. In other words, other people who are on that journey, maybe a little bit further down the road, who can share with us the ups and the downs, and some very specific resources for that particular journey. Where printers has a community called the AWARE printers community. And what we do is provide exactly that. It's been a great week, you can say I rocked something this week, it went really well. It really rough week, I thought I was gonna get my biggest client ever and it fell through and I'm really disappointed. You also get tangible referrals, feedback, somebody posted a new sales page recently in the group. Hey, can you take a look at this? How's this language for my intended ideal clients? This is landing, where can I make it better? What do you think of my pricing? from somebody who understands these kinds of brands? It's affordable starting at $25 a month. And if that sounds interesting to you, you can find out more aware printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the world printers community who sponsors this podcast. So Charlie, the second part of the show, we like to joke about putting on our social entrepreneur classes, and like help us understand the real nuts and bolts. So one of the nuts and bolts we haven't talked about yet is you have this whole other venture as if having a kick ass, you know, barber shop and then having an awesome nonprofit isn't enough. You got this tech company. Tell us about that.
Charlie McCoy 23:44
Sure. A couple years ago, some friends of mine colleagues started a tech company for barber shops. It was a barber shop management system similar to square. Well basically took care of our appointments and sales. And their target was barber shop owners like myself. And I just thought that was a fascinating thing. And I went to a stem High School. So you know, they were showing us how to do coding in the late 90s. So always been into tech and an early adopter. I run the digital marketing part of my business through all these different SaaS products. And I've been using SAS products to run different parts of my business for years. So I thought to myself, you know, when I started my business as a technician, I had to learn a whole new set of skills that were different than actually cutting right. So most of these owners, barber shop owners, they spend their time cutting hair running the business is a whole separate job that they have to spend time on. And you know, for me, it's taken me four years. You know, outside of the barber shop of just education, to understand the nuts and bolts of, you know the different things that you need to know to run the business, right. And then, two years ago, I did a mini MBA accelerator with Goldman Sachs and Babson, where they kind of went through and showed us 15 To 20 different subjects, and broke down how we can run our small businesses. So basically, I've taken my experience my education, and I rolled it into a SaaS product for barbershop owners that can help them take their barber shops to the next level. Right. So for a monthly subscription fee, they'll have access to 150 different videos covering financial statements negotiation, legal lifestyle, wellness, scaling the business, dealing with payroll and hiring, and owners get in addition to that services, so we have the videos that operate as a SAS revenue model, but it's also an agency so we can help out with public relations, PR, video production, digital marketing, social media management, even barbershop design, these are all things that I've done. In the industry, the past five years, I've opened up five different multimillion dollar barber shops. So the goal is to make artists and barber these, the standard for how most barber shops should operate and to scale that by offering all these owners there are 147,000 barber shop owners in the US alone. total addressable market includes Canada, the UK, Australia, and I hope that I can get the same sort of valuation as the guys are in squire, I think SAS had a multiplier of 75 to 100 last 24 months. So you know, if we can get to 6 million in sales, which essentially me having about 500 to 1000 barbershops, small, small drop in the bucket, then we get a 75 multiplier on this, let's say we do you know 5 million in sales, could easily get a 70 to $100 million valuation, that's not revenue, that's the valuation if we needed to get acquired. So that's kind of what I'm working on working to build this tech company that's going to help all these barbershops grow their in their revenue. globally. This so it's all in the same wheelhouse. I have a barber shop, I help barber shop owners, their businesses, I recreate barber shops in schools.
Paul Zelizer 27:49
Nice. What's Saska I'm pretty bad. He doesn't know what Sass it stands for software as a service. So we're not using jargon that somebody doesn't understand. What's the tech company called the party are worth turning.
Charlie McCoy 28:02
It's called artists in luxury brands. And we'll put
Paul Zelizer 28:07
a link to all of these resources artists in Barber, the shop, the grooming Alchemist, the nonprofit artists and luxury brands, that tech, SAS part of things, the YouTube channel, the Instagrams, anything I can find. We need it. So one of the things that I think is really interesting, try that and wonder, you know, our listeners are social entrepreneurs, really good at what they do, and who are thinking about having more positive impact and, you know, increasing their quality of life. So this transition that you're in that, you know, okay, I got it, I kind of got a recipe and a model and good people and artists and Barber, and that's working. And then I'm gonna leverage that into the nonprofit. Very interesting right there. I'm going to put a pin there. And I'm going to leverage that into a tech company that helps other people through videos and consulting and templates, etc, etc. So anything, you can help a social entrepreneur listener, he says a cap got a basic thing up and running. In your case, it's a service business, that's pretty common for our listeners, I have something where I'm helping people in some concrete way. And now I'm trying to think about how to leverage it. And in your case, I'm thinking particularly, you've leveraged it into the nonprofit space and help in youth development helping kids and you've leveraged it in this technology way. Anybody you could say somebody who's at that stage, let's say where you were, when artists and Barber was up and running, and you know, you weren't like waking up in the middle and I like oh my god, I don't know what I'm doing. Which we all go through as entrepreneurs by the way, or at least 99.9% of us when you're finally like, Okay, I feel like I kind of got a sense of how artists and barber works. Anything you can share about that process of leveraging once you have something that's working, both in the impact space and also leverage bridging in more as a, as a company and as an entrepreneur.
Charlie McCoy 30:04
Yeah, it's funny, you mentioned that because it's like two things. For me. Number one, I'm very I'm an outlier in the sense that I kind of did all this stuff when I was in a call. And I did for, for the group. So for example, when I was working in watchtower, I had six different jobs that they gave me and I managed the barbershop and I had these group outreach studies that I would do with kids in the Kingdom Hall, I managed to territories and I help I help them schedule a public talk. So I have this kind of entrepreneurial spirit to begin with, like, I've always had multiple revenue streams, even as a kid, I cut lawns, I had a bicycle shop, and I cut hair. So you know, number one, I think there's a unique thing where I just would like to do a lot of different things. But another thing is like when you're in the witnesses, and you leave, they tell you, you're going to be a failure. No matter who you are, no matter what you, you know, what gifts you have, they say, if you leave us, you're going to fail. So part of that, this, this fervor for the past few years has been this chip on my shoulder of saying to the group, not only will I not fail, I'll do things that you've never seen before. And so there's a little bit of that. And there's some insanity, kind of like entrepreneurial insanity mixed in. And so because I just wouldn't be denied this these concepts of outside of the barbershop. Like I tried to launch the tech company a couple of years ago, I also tried to be the nonprofit years ago, they both they all kept failing. But I just stayed at it until I learned exactly how to put these things together and and get the proper health, right, the proper attorneys, the proper accountants, the proper advisors, and consultants. So that's how I've been able to like iron out the kinks. So number one, I would say you have to have a burning desire to win at all costs, right, you have to just no matter of how people, how many people tell you what you're trying to do is the same if you really think it may work. It has it can't, it has to actually have some basis in reality. And you have to have that burning desire to win. And then number two, you have to connect with the right people who can help you get it done, right the first time or the second time, right? So consultants, advisors, I have dozens of them. So I've become a consultant and advisor. So, you know, two things, right? It starts with you, right as an individual, and your gifts and unique circumstances and drive and desire to win. And the second thing is the people around you, and their experience and ability to help you out. So those are two things that I would give as as pieces of advice.
Paul Zelizer 32:55
One of the things I'm noticing in your journey traveling, I wonder if you have any this again, suggestion or suggestions for our listeners, you started with artists and barber you started with cutting hair and and then creating a shop. And it's kind of like it's granular. And not everybody takes somebody might have said, Oh, look, there's all these barber shops, and there's no good software, and I'm coming at it from a software opportunity. And that can happen. And I've seen that be successful and the trajectory you took, which is like learning how to do the actual thing, in your case, being a great barber and then building a shop. And then thinking about how you can help other shops and then you know, thinking about how you can leverage it for kids in, you know, marginalized communities. Like that's the path you took, and anything you could say about the benefits of that path? And are there challenges of taking that path? Let's say that somebody comparatives, like oh, I have all this technology, and I see an opportunity to create software for barbershops, but I've never been a barber.
Charlie McCoy 34:03
I just for me, it was more of number one being good at the craft first, number two, understanding the fundamentals of operating a small business. And like once you get those fundamentals down, then it was it was a matter of me having the knowledge and the understanding of what was possible in the space. So I've taken several different ideas, several different advisors, they were terrible ideas, or, you know, the tech opportunity, the nonprofit opportunity. We're all as a result of working with other people at a different level and a different vantage point and then me presenting one thing but then saying hey, how about you do it this way? So to answer your question, you know, I can't take all the credit. I definitely am doing the work but I've had different people helped me conceptualize what can be done industry right So even when I got this, I use the IBIS World Report, which is a platform that helps you break down industry, stats and figures and key facts. That was a report that I got from Goldman Sachs, just to work on my barbershop and to know where my barber shop was in terms of the barbershop industry. But I use that same report to understand the challenges that owners are facing. Right, and I use that same report to understand what could be the career potential for new barbers. And so as I'm going to schools, I'm letting them know that there's a huge gap in industry, this is a high paying industry, you can make 50 to $100,000 a year, your first five years as a barber, no one talks about that. No one talks about how these kids have come out of school and immediately making money in an industry that really needs talented people that like are professional, you know, so there's work to be done in my, in my own industry. I'm not I'm doing different business models within the grooming space, but I'm still staying in the overall men's grooming, entrepreneurship kind of space, you know?
Paul Zelizer 36:10
Yeah. Makes sense. question that often comes up from our listeners is about like financing and capital like was Was this something you bootstrapped? In other words, you started as a barber and you took that money? And eventually, yes, invested in a shop or like when you're doing this tech product you have outside, like VC capital, like how have you financed these different ventures?
Charlie McCoy 36:32
Yesterday, the initial startup with a shop was bootstrapped from days it kills and you have good credit and working with different banks, I was able to get up and going with small business longer than my own financing. But over the years, I've relied on grants, I believe, a grant writer who works for me, and that person, do you know, I've had several grant writers, they help craft your story. So I've been I've gotten seen over six figures in grants in the past 48 months, two years old, two, three years. And so I've used that money wisely to hire contractors and pay for the right lawyers and different copywriters, and public relations people here and there to help boost different parts of these enterprises. So yeah, I've been able to use the money wisely. I've, I grew up in a situation where I had to do a whole lot with very little. So I've kept that skill throughout my life. So and I'm still trying to raise money, a seed round for the tech company, over the next two quarters, I'm trying to work with like Y Combinator, and different accelerators, and so forth, to really get this going. Because I think it has global traction. But again, yes, your question is a lot of bootstrapping, a little bit of bank lending and a lot of grants. And I'm just now turning to VCs and si si funding with these various platforms for the tech opportunity.
Paul Zelizer 38:09
Got a couple thoughts for you after the call is over at some, some VCs that might be really interested in what you're doing. I love what you're doing. So hopefully, they might be interested. So when you look ahead, Charlie done so much in irrelevant, talking, like seven years that Charlie McCoy was like reinventing his life, and leaning into the barber shop, profession and community to really help you to like three different ventures all going well, having a lot of impact, like when you look ahead next two to five years, but what's on your radar, what are you hoping to do both in terms of impact and as an entrepreneur?
Charlie McCoy 38:52
That's a great question. Well, again, these are the three businesses that I hope to grow the grooming Alchemist has potential to have a trademark in all 50 states. And so it has the potential to help out if I can get because they all work together. Why it's been good. Let's say I get 100 barber shops on my tech company, while they're in different cities. And if they want to give back, I can tie them into the grooming Alchemist in Kansas and Oklahoma in Florida, because there's always schools that have kids that are underprivileged and underserved. So the idea is I can recreate barbershops anywhere in the country, as long as I have the infrastructure in the barbershops and honors, you know, and I don't need a lot. We just need a few. So Harry's has a grant that they give for 5 million for the biggest impact and social social mission in men's mental health. Something like that could take us nationwide. Right? So that's something I'll be working on right now. I'm wanting to work with all the New York City schools to get the going Alchemist in their schools at least once and then I I can go nationwide, the tech company, the opportunity is in America, it's in Europe, it's in Australia. So as a matter of really tightening up our sales team, and we're going to get those owners on, on board to this tool that we have to help them. And really just build a company. That's really what I want to do the next 24 to 48 months is just build the companies
Paul Zelizer 40:19
try to I could hang out with you all day, you're doing such great work, and you're busy man. And our listeners are busy too. If there was something you were hoping we were going to talk about, we haven't touched on it yet. Or there's something you want to leave our listeners with, as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?
Charlie McCoy 40:36
Well, I wrote a book about my life. And the book comes out this summer, July 15. And it's called shunned. It's the story of how I ended up in the witnesses my life as a witness. And then what happened when I left? There's a lot that happened in the past seven years that, you know, really deserves to be unpacked. And people could use it as a guide. Hey, you know what, I'm in a high control situation, I'm a Mormon. I'm a witness. I'm, it could be anything, right? You could be in a controlling, you know, situation at home, it could be a lot of things. But during my story, you realize there are people like you who've been in situations like that, and you can get unstuck, right? You can. There's a path, there's a blueprint, and I read other people's blueprints, and so I decided to cut one out of my own. So I'm looking forward to put that out into the public. And then maybe doing a few Ted Ted Talks around the subject of social entrepreneurship and maybe motivating more people
Paul Zelizer 41:39
will do circle back around in the book goes live and let us know, Charlie, because I for one would love to tell people about it.
Charlie McCoy 41:45
Will do. Thank you. Thank you.
Paul Zelizer 41:47
Thanks so much for being on the show, Todd. I really appreciate
Charlie McCoy 41:50
it. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure again.
Paul Zelizer 41:54
So again, listeners, check out the show notes got there's so much great stuff there. Please check it out. Tell your friends, let's amplify and help spread the word about all these great projects. Before we go, I just want to remind you we love, love, love listener suggested topics and guests. If you have an idea, just go to the AWARE printers website, who are printers.com Check out our contact page. It has three simple criteria, we try to be really transparent. Here's the kind of stories that our listeners have told us. You said this is what we want. If you've got an idea, go check it out. And if it feels like a fit, send that on. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense time. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for. In our