#589: The World’s Most Profitable Nightclub Starts Accepting Bitcoin - Marc Roberts

Marc Roberts is a real estate mogul with more than $1 billion in assets across his portfolio. He is also the co-owner of E11even, the world’s most profitable nightclub per square foot. In this conversation, we discuss building a real estate empire, creating world’s most profitable nightclub, bitcoin, selling a penthouse for $22 million in crypto, and building the E11even brand. ======================= Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com ======================= Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code Exodus.com/pomp. This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today. =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Mark Roberts is a real estate mogul with more than $1 billion in assets across his portfolio. He is also the co-owner of Eleven, the world's most profitable nightclub per square foot. In this conversation, we discuss building a real estate empire, creating the world's most profitable nightclub, Bitcoin, selling a penthouse for $22 million in crypto, and building the Eleven brand globally. I really enjoyed this conversation with Mark, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Circle. Circle's a global financial technology firm

• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

  that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stable coins and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle's also a principal developer of USD Coin, USDC, which is the fastest-growing, regulated, fully-reserved dollar stable coin in the world, now standing at more than $15 billion market cap and adding nearly $300 million of net new digital dollars in circulation every week. The free Circle account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. You can learn more today at circle.com. Again, go to circle.com. They're the fastest-growing, regulated dollar stable coin. They've captured

• 1:25Anthony Pompliano?

  the attention of financial institutions and corporations alike. Go to circle.com to learn more and see why you should be using USDC. Next up is my friends over at Exodus. Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It's supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your portfolio's performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Treasure

• 2:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Hardware Wallet, making advanced security easy for everyone. You can visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. Again, exodus.com/pomp for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. Alright, let's get into this episode with Mark. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:54Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I'm here with a legend, absolute legend of South Florida, really the whole world. But what's going on, man? How are you, Mark?

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Everything's great. Thanks a lot for having me.

• 3:05Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. You are one of the owners of the highest grossing club per square foot in the world with 11, which is a club here in Miami. You guys started to take Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as payment. Why'd you do that?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Well, we did it really because we pride ourselves to be the forefront pioneers in all aspects of business. And the momentum for cryptocurrencies has been incredible, especially in the last six to eight months. And when the cryptocurrency conference was coming to Miami, it really lit a light bulb in our heads. And we said, you know what? We better be at the forefront of this because somebody's going to do it. Might as well be us. And we're the most well-known club in the world. And with everybody coming to town, it was just seemed like an idea that you had to do.

• 3:53Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you announced it, I think at first you were like, oh, you know, it's just like kind of a nonsense move. They're just announcing it. They're not going to actually accept it, or people aren't going to really pay. But people have been paying in Bitcoin, right?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Well, you know, the funny thing is, you don't just say, I'm taking crypto. And all of a sudden, you start processing it. It took a lot of complexities to figure it out. And our guys that worked for us were incredible at it. And we figured it out. We took trial and error. We tried a few different processing people. And before the conference, we hit bingo. We really had a seamless, a team that just processes stuff without any errors. A lot of other people tried in Miami and every, I think we were the only ones even accepted it. Because once people saw us, we were accepted. Accepting it. Everybody in the world tried to accept it, but they were not able to execute on it. And we executed on it to perfection and we took a lot of Bitcoin. It was great.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  It was a very smart move and a very profitable move and a wise move and everything that comes with it. And we were proud to be the first ones and we're also planning on staying with it and leading the forefront because we're very big believers in Bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies.

• 5:03Anthony Pompliano?

  So I know that you, hopefully this isn't sharing too much. I know that you own some Bitcoin, right? You're very interested in this space. The club's now accepting it and people have already paid. But they're not just paying like $20 for a drink, right? I mean, these are people who are buying tables, they're taking out cash, like they're doing a whole bunch of different things with it. And that's where really you guys have processed a lot of Bitcoin transactions.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, people are, you guys know our tables are a place from 5,000 to 50,000 a table. Some are 75, 100, depending on the night. And the big boys have been paying in Bitcoin. I mean, they've been coming, they're coming hard.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  So very profitable and I'm really glad because I have to say that, you know, you said that I own Bitcoin. I own a lot of Bitcoin because of you in particular, and you helped me believe in it. And it's kind of contagious because people see I believe in it and people see you believe in it. And now Miami, everybody's moving down here in the crypto world. So Miami is becoming like the crypto capital of the world. And I'm just really glad to be learning and meeting people and getting involved. I really believe it's the embryonic stages and I think it's going to be a significant part of our business going forward.

• 6:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I tend to agree. There's a second part of what you do. So I think most people know of Eleven, Gold Rush and kind of the clubs because that's a kind of a forward-facing big thing. But really your entire business historically has been from real estate, right? Like you've developed real estate, you've bought real estate. Maybe walk us through just kind of your career and how do you get to this point?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  It all began when I was in college. I went to American University. I played Division One college basketball. My basketball coach was Gary Williams, who coached Maryland to the national title, I think in 2002 or 2003.

• 6:47Anthony Pompliano?

  What position did you play?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  I was a guard. We had a really good team, Division One. We were one of the top 20 teams in the country, actually. We were a really good team. And I had these aspirations of being a pro, and they were very quickly dimmed when I started playing in college. I mean, I had a very good first year, and then we had a teammate of mine, Russell "Boo" Bowers, who was the leading scorer in the entire country. And about midway through the season, Bo came to practice, very lethargic. And Gary Williams, who was a complete maniac coach, I mean, he didn't put up with anything. He said, "Bo, you're very lethargic. What's going on?" He said, "Coach, these agents, I get up in the morning,

• 7:31Speaker 02

  they're knocking on my door. I go to bed, they're knocking on my door. In the middle of the night, they're knocking on my door. I can't get, I can't even get rid of them. I can't sleep." So the next agent that came on the campus got arrested. I mean, literally arrested. And he was not out of jail for like four to five days. So the word got out, "Don't go near American University campus. Don't go near Boo Bowers. You're going to jail." So me, the enterprising young man I was, I said, "I want to be his agent." So I started giving my per diem money. I started hanging out with him. I started becoming his best friend. And lo and behold, he made me his agent.

• 8:05Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So hold on a second. You're his teammate, but you realize that all these agents all want to be his agent, and because they think he's going to be highly selected in the NBA draft, all this stuff. And you're like, "Well, why would we let them be the agent? Why don't I just be your agent?"

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I became his agent, but there's only one problem. I was a kid. I could barely like read. I didn't know what a contract was. So I had a camp counselor from when I was 12 years old. I remember he became a lawyer. So I dialed him up, and I said, his name was Roy Greenman. I said, "Listen, Roy, I got an athlete. I want to sign him. You want to be my partner?" And he goes, "Who is it?" I said, "Russell "Boo" Bowers." Now, Boo Bowers is a big name back then. This is going back 40 years ago. He said, "You have Boo Bowers?" I said, "Yeah, I have Boo Bowers." I go, "I have to sign him." He goes, "Okay, let's partner up." So I signed him. We became partners. I started signing other athletes. And all of a sudden, I said, "Okay, I'm not going to be a pro. I know this. And if I stay in the school any longer," back then, there was all kinds of stuff going on in college.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Learning wasn't one of them. So I said, "I better get out of here." So I left college after three semesters, and I started my sports business.

• 9:10Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And so when you sign him, and then you start going to other athletes, what's your pitch to them?

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Oh, my pitch was, my pitch of a was, uh, you know, these guys are gonna be home with their wives and kids. I'm be out there working for you.

• 9:22Anthony Pompliano?

  (laughing)

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Like, I'm always gonna outwork me, that's still my pitch today, by the way, even though I have a wife and kids, but nobody outworks me. I, I told, I'm gonna outwork them, I'm gonna, I, I said, I'm gonna find the best people for you. I said, nobody's gonna get you a bigger contract, nobody's gonna find you more endorsements, and, you know, it's just like a ball of energy. I mean, you know me now, how I am. You can imagine me when I was nineteen.

• 9:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And they loved it.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Oh, they loved it. I signed a lot of guys up. So I started signing guys up, and I built a very substantial, uh, sports entertainment business. Uh, matter of fact, I was the first one to take a, a sports management company public on the national NASDAQ.

• 9:58Anthony Pompliano?

  So, how long into the lifetime of the company is it before you take it public?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Well, I started signing guys up. Uh, the first thing I did was get into, uh, signing up guys when I was about nineteen. I got a call from the local PAL representative, and he said to me, because there's a big article about me in my local paper. All the time I signed all these guys, I'm an agent, all this stuff. So this guy called me off that article and says, uh, he's calling me Mr. Roberts. This guy's like the head of the PAL, like a nineteen-year-old kid. He goes, "Mr. Roberts, uh, just read about you. How do you like to represent some fighters?" I said, "At that point, I would represent like a snail. You know, I'd represent anything." So I said, "Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, what do you need me to do?" He says, "Meet me at the gym." He gave me an address in Plainfield, New Jersey. He goes, "We have three state champions and a couple more national champions. When you, you know, come manage them." I said, "Okay, let me go look at them."

• 10:47Speaker 02

  So I went down to a sweaty gym in Plainfield, New Jersey. There's these animals working out, like, beasts. So I, I go, "What's your three best here?" He goes, "They're right over there." He says, "There's national champ, national champ, national champ." I said, "Okay, I'll take all three." He said, "Okay." We, we, and he brought the trainer over. He goes, "Listen, here's the way it works. You gotta put the trainer on a salary, you gotta give the guys a little money each week, you gotta get them fights, and you'll build them up." I didn't know anything about boxing. I said, "Okay, I'll take him." So I went, I said, "Okay, where do I get the money for all this?" I was a nineteen-year-old kid. So I go to my lawyer partner that was agent, I said, "How do you..." He goes, "Well, there's a thing called a limited partnership." I said, "I need about sixty grand with all this stuff to take me to like at least a year and a half

• 11:30Speaker 02

  before I start making these guys some money, I guess." He said, "Well, you gotta form a limited partnership." And I go, "I don't understand what he's talking about." I said, "Listen, how much money do I have to raise?" He goes, "Well, I said, "Let's do like six units at fifty thousand each." I said, "Okay." So I went out and I begged, borrowed, I was out, I was literally called every friend I ever met, talked to their dads, their uncles, their aunts, everybody. And I raised the money in a limited partnership. That was my first big raise.

• 12:01Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so you did six units at fifty K and now you got, you know, three hundred thousand dollars. And what do you do with it?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  I house the guys, I fed the guys, I put the trailer on retainer, you know, salary, built a little bit of a gym, and then I went out to try to find a fight. So I remember I called up Bob Lee, the, uh, uh... Well, first off, I just called all over the world to get this guy's fight. I couldn't get a fight to save my life for these guys. I called every promoter there was in the world. If I finally got the guy, my one guy, Albert Steele Mills, he was a national champ. I got him a fight in Hartford, Connecticut. He was fighting on a card with this guy, Marlon Starling, who was a big, big draw at the time. We drove up to Hartford, I brought my partner, he brought his two partners, the three of us going up there. Our first fight, it's a four-round fight.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  My guy gets in there, he knocks the guy from ring post to ring post to ring post to ring post. We're going, "Yeah, can't believe we have our first victory." There's fifteen thousand people in the stadium because Marlon Starling's a big draw. The decision comes in, my guy lost. How the heck did that happen? So I started explaining to me the facts of life of boxing. He goes, you can't fight a guy in his hometown. You gotta knock him out. Nobody told me that. So that, so on the way home, I say, you know what? I'm gonna start promoting my own fights in our hometown. If that's the way this game works. So I started promoting fights in Plainfield, New Jersey, which is right by where I grew up. And the first fight, I was pulling up the chairs. I did the posters. I was doing this, I was doing that, the matchmaking. I didn't know what the heck I was doing.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  And two days before the fight, there was like no sales. Literally no sales. I was like freaking because all the money was gonna be gone. So I said, uh, what the heck am I gonna do? I didn't know what to do. All of a sudden, sales started picking up and picking up and picking up. The fights sold out, 3,000 people, packed arena, packed house. What happened was I was in Plainfield, New Jersey. It was a little bit of a urban area. And the day before the fight, two days before the fight was when the welfare checks came out. And everybody got the money. Everybody started buying tickets. I didn't know, I was just lucky to draw. Lucky to real draw. And I sold the place out, a very successful show. I was the youngest person ever to promote a professional's boxing match.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  And I hold that distinction to today. I started promoting more boxing matches. I met Emmanuel Stewart, who was the number one boxing trainer of all time. Then I got involved with Tommy Hearns with him and started doing stuff with Tommy. And I started managing other athletes. And then, uh, then I signed the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. I got Ray Mercer, the gold medal champion. I managed him to the heavyweight title. My first heavyweight champion knocked out Tommy Morrison. A brutal knockout. Just a crazy brutal knockout. And that, then I started, uh, then I, we took that company public. Uh, through the number one company on Wall Street at the time called D.H. Blair, National NASDAQ, built that company up.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  That company sold for, uh, a lot, everybody made a lot of money. A lot of money.

• 15:04Anthony Pompliano?

  That seems to be a recurring theme when you are involved in a business. Everyone makes a lot of money.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the idea. That's definitely the idea. And then I, then a couple of years later, I took another sports management company public. And we did football, basketball, NASCAR. We did a lot of endorsements. We had a big marketing division. And we built that up and then I sold that. And then about. That was around like, just about coming into June, and my accountant said to me, this was back in like 99, my accountant said to me, hey, you know, if you could move to a state with no state income tax, you could save this much money. It was a significant amount. I said, really? He said, yeah, you go to Florida, Nevada, Texas. I said, okay, I'm going to South Beach. So I came right down to South Beach. I bought a place at

• 15:50Speaker 02

  South Beach, and I've been here ever since. And I was going to retire for a year, and what I did is I used to go around to new construction jobs and give deposits on units. This was when Miami was just starting to get really booming with the high rises. And I bought about maybe 100 condos. And I started making a lot of money just on-

• 16:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Because you were just buying the units and then renting them out?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  No, no, I just bought the, I bought the units pre-construction, gave it deposit, then the developers did all the work, and then when they were built, you just flip them.

• 16:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So you just resell them?

• 16:25Speaker 02

  I just resold them. It did very well. Then I started getting into the condo conversion business. We converted about 20,000 condos throughout Florida and Vegas and Arizona. From 2003 to 2008, we did very, very well. We were doing like 500 closings a month. It was crazy.

• 16:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And what do you do when you convert them?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  You buy a, it's like you buy a rental building, garn apartment or a high rise. We did right here, the view at Prickle, the view at Prickle right over here. It's right around the corner that we, we put that high rise. We converted like 355 units there. What we do is you buy a rental building, basically put some little paint down, paint the walls a little bit. With the garn apartments, you paint the parking space, little white stripes, put two banks in each room, and just put them for sale.

• 17:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So you basically buy the building, you spruce them up, and then you resell-

• 17:14Speaker 02

  And you convert them into condos. You got to go condo docs, you take the rentals, convert them into condos. Now you're selling apartments as condos. And it was a very hot market in 03 to 08. And we did, we did like 20,000 units.

• 17:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  And the money we made from that, I took and I started buying land in downtown Miami.

• 17:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And downtown Miami, for those that don't know, when they think of downtown, they probably think of South Beach, but South Beach is not downtown.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  No, no, South Beach is not downtown at all. South Beach is by where the ocean is. There's a bridge that connects Miami Beach to Miami. Miami, when you hear about Miami, now you're exploding. You're primarily and predominantly speaking about downtown Miami.

• 17:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  In downtown Miami, you used to not even have any cultures or any distinctions. Fast forward to today, you have, you know, the Park West area, which 11 is in, which is going to be the hottest, most booming area, where all the big high rises are being built, where the train station is, the Grand Central Station that takes you to West Palm, which is Fort Lauderdale now. There's stations being built in Aventura and Boca. Orlando will be opening up next year. Then it's going to go to Jacksonville and Tampa. So that's the Grand Central Station by right in that neighborhood. You also have the American Airlines Arena, which is now the FTX Arena. Now the crypto coming to dominate the marketplace. You have the Museum of Art and Science. You have the Performing Arts Center. You have

• 18:35Speaker 02

  the People Mover. You have the new on-off ramps, the $2 billion project to build, extend the highway. So everything, all the infrastructure is going to that area. And that's going to be the main area, like the Times Square area with all the action is in Miami at the end of the day. Then from there, you have the Tentacles. You have the Wynwood. You have the Midtown. You have the Design District. Then those are all to the north. Then to the south, you have the CBD District, Central Business District, which is right before you get to Brickell. Then you have Brickell, which has always been booming, because that was the first area really built up with the financial markets and condos, because the area of Park West where 11 is, people used to come down and big tractor trailers to come down to go to the cargo port. You have to come off the exit, go to Sixth Street

• 19:20Speaker 02

  and go onto the cargo port, which is like the third biggest cargo port in the country. And those trucks were the reason that area was never developed before. But there was a tunnel built about four years ago that alleviates all that traffic. And now it's opening up that area to be the area where all the new construction is. And that's why you see all this infrastructure there.

• 19:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And that's where a lot of the real estate you own is?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  That's where all the real estate that we own is. We own, at one time or another, I owned maybe like thirty, forty acres. We sold some off. We arbitrage some, we stayed in some. And today, my partner, primarily it's Michael Simkins, when we trot around, Brent Saunders, and Ira Saffert, Steve. You know, Mike and I own most of it. And then we have a few other partners in other, uh, smaller pieces. But we own about twelve acres.

• 20:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Enough to build maybe like twenty high rises.

• 20:10Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And so as you do this, uh, at what point do you say, I want to get into the club business? Because I think that this story is fascinating in terms of as you're buying up the land. I don't think the club business was necessarily something that you had in the cards.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  No, no, the club business was never, never in my mindset. There was a club in the middle of the whole assemblage. Because I did all the acquisitions for Miami World Center. Uh, I was a co-founder of that with Art Falcone. And then in two thousand and twelve, I started assembling the rest of the area, which is contiguous to Miami World Center, but right off the highway with Michael Simkins and his family. And I was going down the street one day with, uh, one of my friends. And he points to the club. There was a strip club there called Gold Rush. We renamed a, a, a club that we have up on Seventy Seventh and Biscayne, Gold Rush. But this was Gold Rush. This was.

• 21:00Anthony Pompliano?

  The original.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  The original Gold Rush, since ninety-two. This was an outright, down and dirty, dingy, gum on the floor. You wouldn't even walk in kind of place. You know, you'd have to shower for a week. Yep, yeah. So, but it was open twenty-four hours.

• 21:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  And my friend says, what's with that? It's the only thing on the neighborhood. I said, ah, I've never sell. It's twenty-four hours. It's, uh, guy's just never selling. So that night I went, well, you know, who says a guy would ever sell? Let me go see if this guy would ever sell that place. Because I just wanted for the real estate.

• 21:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  I didn't realize, I really didn't realize what was coming down the pike. So I did my thing. I always buy everything. I always bought in the neighborhood with what called a beard. I don't go in myself because they see my name. They started hearing bells, whistles, and I think they hit the lottery. So I always get a beard, another person, to go in and buy something. So I called up a buddy of mine and said, "You're gonna buy my beard. Go in, call the CFO of the company, see what the story is." Just happened to catch when the owner of the place was, he was in a hospital and he was ill and it wasn't good, wasn't looking good for him for the future. Let's just put it that way. So we

• 22:15Speaker 02

  did what we do best. We penetrated him. We got him to the table and I got him under contract. I got him under contract for, you know, a steal of a price for me because I was looking at real estate. Other people in the club business, it turns out this guy was like an icon. He had ninety strip clubs, this guy.

• 22:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  And every-

• 22:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Was he the kingpin of strip clubs in South Florida?

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, this guy, this guy's the kind of guy at so many clubs, he would say to the manager, "Listen, give me an envelope, this much a week, you keep the rest."

• 22:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  He was just going back to old school. He was doing like the seventies, the eighties, the nineties. This guy was really old school. So I ended up getting under contract. The minute the word got out that I had it under contract, every strip club operator in the country, you know, you name them, you know, from scorers to hustler to Sapphire, you name it, they came to see me and at that time, my partner, Michael Simkins, we said, "You know what? Let's just meet everybody and see what they have in mind."

• 23:16Anthony Pompliano?

  And why did they want to come see you guys? They wanted to help you operate it or they wanted to buy it?

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Well, firstly, they wanted to know is how the heck did you get this under contract? He promised me he would sell it to me. He was promising everybody in the business, "Oh, when I sell, you're the one that's getting it." Meanwhile, this guy obviously didn't want to sell it to anybody in the strip club business, you know, his competitors. He was never selling it to these guys. So they all came in and they all gave us huge presentations and why they should be the ones to be our partner in it. They all said, "Listen, we'll give you five million dollars, we'll give you a hundred grand a month in rent, and we'll be fifty-fifty partners." That was everybody's rap. So my partner, Michael Simkins, and I were looking at each other going, "Man, these people came fast." They didn't just come like over a period of a month. They came within a week. We met everybody in the whole industry. They came fast and furious. It was like you were the prettiest girl at the prom.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  I mean, it was unbelievable. So we said, you know what? Why don't we go try to put together a management team ourself? See, we do this ourselves. Who needs these guys? We can find the right team. So we met and started to view other people. Who's going to manage this? Michael and I, we don't manage clubs. We don't run clubs. It's a, you know, it's a real art.

• 24:22Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a different business.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  It's a different business. And we just wanted a club. We had nothing to do with it all. We have nothing in mind. Didn't even want any kind of club like that, even in our neighborhood.

• 24:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  We wanted to do something classy and what and eventually what Eleven became. So we met Dennis DeGorey. And Dennis DeGorey really seemed like a really smart guy. He had a great reputation. And we made a deal with Dennis that he would operate the club and put the team together. And then we started forming a concept. And, you know, a lot of people came up with a concept. They want to do this, so I'm doing that. Dennis had a real clear, real clear vision and Michael and I had as well. It agreed with on turning it into what Eleven is today. A very, very high end nightclub with a very small component of, you have beautiful girls. Because Eleven is anything but. So we don't even use that word.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  If any of our staff ever use that word, they're just, you know, they had a lot of demerits. You know, it's what Eleven is, is a unique nightlife experience. And what we did was we tore down the building that Gold Rush was in. And we built, you know, close to a forty million dollar facility. You know, we put in tremendous amount of money. We put in the best of everything. Best sound system, the best booths, the best design. I mean, Dennis was working on this design and with the architects for like maybe, I don't know, three, four months. And we built it in nine months. World record time. We built the club. I mean, literally world record time. And it was very challenging at first because everybody thought we were nuts. How are you ever going to make that money back? What are you doing? Like, what are you doing?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And at the beginning, these other guys, because you did have to have a beautiful girl component. The girls, everybody that was, these girls working elsewhere. They were telling them, clubs all throughout Florida, if you go work at Eleven, you're never going to work at this club again, and you're never going to work at any club again.

• 26:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  So we said, oh, man. You know, because these girls are unknown, they don't want, they were doing all fine. So we had to go hire girls all over the world and fly them in. And we had to pay for their travel, pay for their meals, pay for them to work. It was spending a lot of money each week. The first three, four months was kind of challenging. And so it would just start out like a big bang. Then we started getting traction and we put on shows, the Cirque du Soleil shows, our service is amazing. And we started, people started to realize it's a very unique experience. And low and behold, it started getting busier and busier and busier and busier. And towards the end of the first year, we said, we're onto something. And then all the girls started coming because the word was out. All the heavy hitters were coming there, money was being made. With social media today, it doesn't take long for the word to get out when these girls start making money.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And now fast forward today, and we're the number one club in the world. We're the number one club in almost every category. We're the number one club selling tequila or vodka, or Eleven Vodka is unbelievable.

• 27:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Where did the brand come from? So you have the Eleven hat on, it's very unique in terms of, for those that can't see it, it's basically the word eleven spelled, but rather than one L, there's basically two L's or the number eleven, right? So it's E eleven and then E V E N. Where did that brand come from?

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Well, Eleven is on Eleventh Street. So we named it Eleven. And the hats were natural, everybody's got hats. We put together the hats and next thing you know, everyone and their mother wanted to wear a hat. We sell seven figures of these hats a year.

• 27:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, seven figures.

• 27:49Anthony Pompliano?

  And is the double L or the number eleven in the name? That was just like a?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have a big marketing team. And it was a collaboration of our marketing team, Dennis DeGore, Gina Lopinto, Daniel Solomon. And they, they all got together and Michael and I loved it. And we just ran with it and it became iconic. I mean, you see these hats everywhere. When I go out of the country, I see them. On the West Coast, I see them. They're all over New York, everywhere in Miami. And like I said, we sell seven figures a year in hats. And which is pretty incredible because most people give hats away for name recognition. We sell these hats for fifty dollars a hat. And then we have another hat that lights up and we sell that for a hundred dollars a hat. And we can't keep them in stock.

• 28:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Mark Roberts, the Hat Salesman of the Year.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  We try.

• 28:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, what's fascinating about the brand is obviously you've built this club, right? It is incredible from a financial performance standpoint. It's literally the highest grossing club in the world per square foot. And as you just described the story, it was a real estate kind of play and you were really focused on real estate and then you guys kind of backed into the club business. You guys now have two clubs, right? Between Eleven and Gold Rush?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, Gold Rush is more of a protective measure because there's like two licenses

• 29:07Speaker 02

  in downtown Miami. So we're kind of protecting ourselves by, we wanted to own both. We like monopolies and Gold Rush has really taken off because it's an alternative. It's nothing like Eleven at all, but people love Gold Rush. They love going there. They have a great time there. It's a different vibe. So it's a complimentary because you can't go to Eleven every night, even though some people do. So, I mean, both places are not going to do fantastic, but Eleven is the catalyst that drives everything.

• 29:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Is Eleven open 24/7?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  24/7, it never closes.

• 29:38Anthony Pompliano?

  That's unique, right?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Well, that's very unique, yes.

• 29:42Anthony Pompliano?

  So how does that operate if you're open 24/7? You just have staff that kind of comes through?

• 29:46Speaker 02

  All the time. We have staff three shifts a day.

• 29:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  And they rotate. Yeah, they rotate.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  A lot of days between. What's good about it is it's open, but it gives us a lot of time to clean up. The place looks spotless every day. We keep it spotless. So we, you know, we keep all those workers working. It keeps everybody happy.

• 30:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so the Eleven brand now, you guys are branching out and you've got Eleven residences. So maybe describe like the residence tower and kind of what you guys are doing there.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Well, the Eleven Hotel and Residences is our, our big goal, especially this year, is to expand our IP. And we were very cognizant of what happened with Playboy. Playboy went out in February at a $400 million market cap. Today it sits at a $2 billion market cap. Like I can't even find a Playboy. I don't even, I don't know if anybody even reads a Playboy, but they took the name and they were unbelievably successful at taking the IP and creating different verticals with it. So we looked at it and we said, you know what? We could build a multi-billion dollar business off of our IP. Eleven is the catalyst, the club. I mean, there's not anybody that comes to town, doesn't go there. Everybody wants to go there. There's 500 to 1,000 people a night trying to get in and claw their way in.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  So we said, how do you take advantage of that? So the first thing we thought of is, you know, of course, the hats. And then we started our own vodka, which, you know, Nikki Simkins, who's my partner, Michael's wife, is the CEO. We've done a really good job, and Nikki's done an amazing job of getting it all over Florida. Our strategy with the vodka is, let's dominate Florida first, put it everywhere we can, saturate Florida. Obviously, it's the only vodka we serve at the club, which alone is a huge business. And then we'll take it national. And we've came out, you know, less than a year ago, and we're in almost 1,000 places now, just doing amazing. Southern Wine and Spirits who distributes it is, you know, on board to, you know, help us expand because they see how successful it is. So check that box.

• 31:47Anthony Pompliano?

  And that's Eleven Vodka.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Eleven Vodka. And we won the double gold award at the San Francisco tasting contest about two, three months ago. It's the leading award that you could get in the field. Like, every spirit strives to be a double gold award, and we won it, which is incredible. Because it tastes so great, and everybody loves it, the taste. And by the way, it's made here in Miami. It's local, and we've gotten some great local supports from everybody. And it's local, so, you know, I support everything local. And everybody here has been phenomenal, supporting it and branching out into other counties. So now we have the vodka. So then we said, okay, how we can make this more iconic, the IP? So last year, we went and we said, let's build an Eleven Hotel and Residences, but it's got to be iconic.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  It's got to be the best of the best, because Eleven stands for the best. You know, if you're on Eleven, you're going to get an amazing experience. You're going to get the best of the best. You're going to happy, live your life, be happy with your life. Everybody around it's going to be, you know, people that are ambitious and happy and positive attitude. And that's really what the brand stands for. It's one to create an environment like that in a building. So we partnered, you know, I'm a very good land assembler, and we're great real estate guys in a lot of respects. But we don't build high-rise. It's a very difficult task. So we said, who's the best high-rise builder? And PMG, Property Management Group, is built of like, probably 100 high-rises, very successful.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  So we teamed up with them and their two lead partners are Kevin Maloney and Ryan Shear. And Ryan lives here in Miami and we got to get to know him real well. We started figuring there's a lot of synergies and we trusted him and he's a great hard worker. He's got the culture we were looking for. So we partnered up with them and we started designing the tower and we came out with it. I don't know, I guess sort of like when COVID was ending and we sold it out in less than a month.

• 33:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And that's the residence in terms of people can come in and they can actually buy the resident.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, people come in, they buy a resident and they have the option. You could either rent it out when you're not there or just keep it as your resident. You don't have to rent it out. And it went over so big. I sold probably half the units myself to people I know. I mean, literally.

• 34:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  And we slowly sold it out fast. We sold it out without a sales office. We don't have a sales office built yet and we sold out. The club wasn't even open. The club was closed in the middle of COVID.

• 34:14Anthony Pompliano?

  It's crazy.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  So it's really crazy. It's a world record. We set like PMG never sold anything out that fast. Nobody's ever seen anything sell out that fast. And the clientele we sold it to are mega names. We were getting ready to announce some of them. They're mind boggling names. A lot of, you know, the kind of people that everybody wants to associate themselves with, be around. And it's what we're going to create is a Las Vegas type of hotel with those kinds of amenities without the casino in a five star environment.

• 34:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  We're going to have the best of the best restaurants, the best of the best sports bar, the best of the best gym, the best of the best med spa, the best of the best. Deepak Chopra has been announced, Wellness Center. Deepak lending his name to us is a good milestone for us because it's another vertical that wants to collaborate with us. We're going to have music studios. It's going to be.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  The place where everybody's gonna wanna be and our pool party is be second to none. Nobody's ever gonna see a pool party like this, ever, that they're gonna see at eleven hotel residences.

• 35:17Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the like average price of a unit there? Right? So just so people get a sense for it.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Well, the average square foot price is eleven hundred and fifty dollars a square foot. And I'd say the average price is hovers around a million bucks. You know, we sold one unit for twenty-two million dollars, which broke all the records in downtown Miami.

• 35:35Anthony Pompliano?

  That's my next comment was the unit that sold for twenty-two million, somebody paid in Bitcoin or crypto?

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Yes, they're crypto. Guys, a lot of crypto people have bought in the crypto community, which even made me more enthusiastic about the crypto.

• 35:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Because you started taking it at the club and then you announced that you were going to accept it for a purchase of the residence. And I think again, people were like, ah, they did the club thing, like, maybe that's just kind of a stunt. Oh, now they're doing it at the resident, no one's gonna buy one. And then literally you broke the record for a condo sale in downtown Miami for twenty-two million dollars. And so I bought it with, I don't know if it was Bitcoin or something else.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Well, here's the way it's gonna work. The first ten percent deposits, we've not announced yet that we were taking crypto. Crypto wasn't even like really on our radar screen. We took the first ten. It was a little bit on it. But then when all the momentum started building and the conference came and I started becoming so gung ho on it and become such a believer, the second deposits that we take, we're accepting crypto. We've had indications from the guys that are the crypto business that are buying, of course they're gonna pay a crypto. So we're expecting maybe a ten to fifteen percent of the second deposits in Bitcoin. Cause we take Bitcoin, people, we convert it. There's other coins and somehow my guys converting the Bitcoin, but I like Bitcoin.

• 36:53Anthony Pompliano?

  So basically everything, you take everything, but you put it in Bitcoin and the goal is to not sell it into cash, you hold it as Bitcoin?

• 37:00Speaker 02

  I'm a big believer in Bitcoin.

• 37:03Anthony Pompliano?

  This is why we are friends.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  I'm a very big believer in Bitcoin.

• 37:08Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, and so as you're doing this, what's next for the Eleven brand, right? So you've got the club, you've got the vodka, you've got the residence and hotel. Are you gonna look for more opportunities to leverage the brand and kind of do iconic things and build off the IP?

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Uh, yes. There's some things in the crypto field, very exciting things that I really don't want to announce because everybody seems to copy us these days. So I do it, I know they're gonna be trying to copy us. I'll tell you offline, of course. You're my crypto guru, of course. So we've got some exciting things we're doing with that universe that we're really excited about. Uh, we're also, um, building a, right now, a real infrastructure. We're, uh, we've interviewed a lot of top quality people to be our CEO of our intellectual property division. Uh, we've interviewed a lot of people to be second in command and so forth. So we're very determined to build a, a, a really big crypto infrastructure, uh, between our IP, you know, that we could handle the crypto, we could handle, for instance, like

• 38:08Speaker 02

  we want to do a cannabis, perhaps. We want to do, um, you know, a lingerie. We want to do sunglass line. We want, we want to do anything that anybody will license. We really want to be in the licensing business because that's where the money is. You license our name, we'll oversee it and we'll help market it and push it. But let's say we want to hook up with the top sunglass manufacturer, the top lingerie manufacturer. We want to hook up with, uh, you know, maybe, uh, you know, the top cannabis, uh, uh, brand out there. Um, and we've certain brands we're talking to right now. And at the end of the day, we want to really, I want to say emulate, like maybe what a, uh, Playboy did, but we want to, uh, create a licensing platform that you could monetize

• 38:52Speaker 02

  because those are the best because when you're sleeping, they're making you money.

• 38:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, well, and also part of it is, once you build the brand, the commoditization of the goods, uh, to some degree, works in your favor because you can take your brand, match it with the commoditized good, and now all of a sudden you can, uh, create something that people want, uh, and really differentiate yourself from the competitors in that market.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I don't think anybody has the brand recognition we have right now. Um, you know, we've done studies and all that. We, our brand is super, super strong. Uh, it's well-recognized. The, uh, demographics that it's recognized with, the exact demographic that advertisers go after. You know, I mean, listen, how many demographics you have where you could go from? I mean teenage kids aspire to go to Eleven for their 21st birthday. And that's like what they, that's, when I was young, I used to look forward to when I could drive when I was 18. Like literally all, all, anywhere I go, with young kids, they're in their teens, 50. They go, y'all, my son, and all he wants to do is go there, and that's all he talks about. So we have that, capture that audience. Then of course you have the 21 to 25 to 30 year olds.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  We capture that audience. 30 to 40, we capture that audience. We go right up to 70. We have 80 year olds come in and have a great time. We have more women than men on a lot of nights.

• 40:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  More women than men, a fact. We do more bachelorette parties than bachelor parties. That's a fact.

• 40:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  That's why the brand is so unique and so strong.

• 40:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Because most people would associate men going there, bachelor parties, that type of stuff. But actually it's more female and more bachelorette parties.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  I'd say, if you really had to go throughout the year, it's maybe 55, 45, which is astounding.

• 40:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  But that's just another example. It has nothing to do with a strip club, nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with the unique nightlife experience. You see the Cirque du Soleil shows, they cost us, you know, millions and millions of dollars a year to put on. We spend real money going, putting back into. Yeah. And we bring in top DJs and we bring in top acts. Like we gave, Drake did his first major performance there a few years ago. We had Usher, this is early on. Now we have everybody there. Everybody comes to a place. And in reality, on those nights, we make less money because we have to pay them.

• 41:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  But we do it because we want to give the customers, our clients, the best experience. And they go home and talk about it and so on and so forth. You know, we, we, we literally, we're building a brand. We just didn't know how powerful to, we start looking at each other, go, okay, we really got something here. Lightning in a bottle. And in the next, this year, you're going to see us lay an infrastructure. And I think you're going to see Eleven getting licensed in a lot of areas with a lot of credibility to it.

• 41:28Anthony Pompliano?

  You're an IP company that's licensing a great brand. And what I think I appreciate the most about you is you want to be first and you want to be iconic. And being first in everything from accepting Bitcoin to, you know, other things that you guys do. Uh, and then the iconic experience at the nightclub, the iconic hotel and residence, right? Like you, you keep using the same language over and over again, but that's what makes you guys stand out. That's what gives the brand kind of the legs that it stands on.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Well, you know, if you go back, you know, my career, I only had one goal when I left college. I never wanted to have a boss. My only goal is if I could go through my life without a boss, I did pretty good. So I was the first one, uh, to go to a professional boxing match at 19. I was the first one to take a sports management company public before I was 30. And then when I got down here, you know, everybody said, nobody's ever bought all this, so many pre-construction. So I put that a little bit of first bracket. Then we started doing condo conversions. We, we, we were among the first that really got into that. And, and then when we, and then of course, you know, I was the first one to start assembling land, prime land in downtown Miami. It's going to be the best land in downtown Miami at the end of the day.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Like co-founding Miami World Center and like, uh, having the acreage we have left with my partners. And then of course the club, you know, I think was a manifestation of all that. And putting everything first mover into that. And you know, my, my, uh, main partner, Michael Simkins and Dennis DeGore, you all are very aligned in what we do. You know, it's kind of like, you always have to have, I've had bad partners. And on this one, I got very lucky, I have great partners and we're all aligned in what we're doing and building. And we first mover in everything we do because we do quick. When, when everybody's aligned, things could work very quickly. You know, these big corporations, uh, it takes between the red tape. That's why, you know, it could take them forever.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  That's why entrepreneurs will always win the day. So we like to fancy ourselves as, uh, you know, entrepreneurs, fast movers, you know, and you know, we're well financed and we can move quickly. And that's like, they're going to win the day.

• 43:35Anthony Pompliano?

  I tend to think you're doing a great job.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 43:38Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Uh, I asked everyone three questions before we end, and then you get to ask me one question to finish up. The first question is, what's the most important book you think you've ever read?

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Robert's Rules.

• 43:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I knew you were gonna say that. All right, what's Robert's Rules?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  It's a book I wrote back in 1998.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  There's a story behind that one, too. You know, my buddy Roger King, who, King World Productions, he owned the Oprah Winfrey Show. And I used to hang out with Roger a lot. And I came out my book. And my book is more of like rules, like my philosophies, my business philosophies, teachings, and I had a huge publicity campaign going, like a half a million dollar publicity campaign in place by my publisher. I had the Oprah Winfrey Show back then. If you wanted the Oprah Winfrey Show.

• 44:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Game over.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  You were guaranteed to be a number one seller. Roger King, only Oprah Winfrey Show. He had me set up there. I was gonna be the, I wasn't not gonna be the book of the day. I was gonna be the book of the month. He had the whole thing lined up for me. I was in the front of Barnes and Noble, front of Borders. This whole thing was teed up like you wouldn't believe. As you very well know, the only one who's gonna know this, but when you take a company public and have a public company, before you do a financing, okay, there's something called a quiet period. You're not allowed to talk about your company at all. You're not allowed to promote it. And just as luck would have it, because I did all these deals a year and a half before my book come out. You have to set all this up. You don't just want to snap your fingers. As luck would have it, I was doing a secondary offering simultaneously with my book launch.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  So, you know, I go on, uh, my book came out, I go on Giants against the Green Bay Packers on a Sunday afternoon at 12 o'clock. I got interviewed right before the game by Donahan over Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's wife at the time. She started asking me about my book. So, of course, I gotta talk about the company. I started talking about the company, World Entertainment, I started talking about this and that. You know, I just said enough, two minutes go by, it was a two-minute quick thing. The next day, it was Monday, my SEC lawyers got a call from the SEC. Listen, we see Roberts on TV, on radio, if we even see him anywhere near the airwaves, we're holding your secondary offering for six months minimum.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Meanwhile, I had a $25 million secondary offering coming, like the money was like ready to go. Okay, they called me up, so you can't go on the air. I said, what's going on Oprah Winfrey that week? Okay, so I was like, oh man, it's like one of the worst calls I ever had. So I was like, oh, 25 million Oprah Winfrey? And this is going back, you know, going back a while, back now, this is going back like 22 years. Obviously, 25 million went out, so I called my publisher, I said, listen, I got very bad news.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  And this guy put a half, like this guy was like ready to go, you know, this guy does 300 books a year. I was the number one book, obviously, in a year. This guy thought we were hitting gold. I said, let's go understand, I can't believe this happened, I can't go on Oprah. I, I never got cursed out like this in my life. This guy cursed me for three minutes straight. I deserved it, I just took it. And he goes, you call Oprah, I'm, I'm done. And he hung the phone. I never talked to the guy since, by the way.

• 46:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 46:41Speaker 02

  I never talked to the guy since. This guy was so mad at me. I'd call up the executive producer of Oprah Winfrey's show. I start talking to her and she starts going, ha, you're funny, Mr. Roberts, you're funny, you're funny. She thought I was kidding around. I turned, I can't go on the show. She had no idea I was talking about quiet periods.

• 46:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  So lo and behold, I finally convinced her I can't go on. She told him like the stupidest human thing she ever met. Hung the phone up and I never went Oprah Winfrey.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Borders pulled it off, because they weren't putting on, because I was going on Oprah, they were getting ready for the avalanche. So, uh, that was very bad for the book. But lo and behold, the book did well, didn't do great like it should have, or would have done, but I think a lot of, I got a lot of letters. Back then, there was no emails, a lot of letters, loads of letters, thousands of letters, that would change people's lives. Everyone that reads it, I think, learns something from it and it was a great experience and.

• 47:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And he's got a picture of you on the front.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a gander tonight, I did that back then. It's funny how that works.

• 47:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. All right. Second question is sleep schedule. You and I will text at all hours of the day. It could be 6:00 AM, noon, 8:00 PM, 2:00 AM. You're always on. What is your sleep schedule?

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Well, here's the stats. That's what happened. I was about 16, 17 years old. You know, this, this was the day that changed my life.

• 47:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  I had a big thing going on at night. It was like a Saturday night. A big thing going on at night, but I fell asleep. I played a lot of, I played a lot of basketball as a kid, like eight hours a day. I had a big basketball day. I went home, suddenly I just fell asleep. So I woke up. I thought it was the morning. I thought I missed everything. I was panicked. I kept, I missed this part. I go, wow. And I look at the clock. I only slept three hours. Okay, you know, you ever do that?

• 48:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  You go to bed and you feel like it's the morning, you know, you don't know where you're at. So I, I got in the shower, took a shower and I was just fresh as a daisy. So I started saying to myself, you know, why don't I try doing this all the time? I'll be saving a lot of, you know, I'm gonna live a lot, many years. So I started to teach myself how to get up. So I started doing it three hours, three hours, three hours. So to this day, I only sleep like three hours a night. So I believe my, my motto is you'll sleep when you die.

• 48:50Anthony Pompliano?

  You do realize that that is insane.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Well, people say that, but you know, it's, I mean, I, I very rarely have gotten sick. I very rarely have slowed me down. And I like to think it's been a big advantage for me because when other people are sleeping, I've been working.

• 49:08Anthony Pompliano?

  And literally, I know you are because I think this morning you texted me at like 3:00 AM.

• 49:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So like you literally, you live this. I know you do. Uh, third question is aliens. Are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 49:23Speaker 02

  I find it hard to believe there's aliens.

• 49:25Anthony Pompliano?

  You think no?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  But, but I think I find it hard, but you know what? I found it hard to believe a lot of things in life. I find a lot of things hard to believe these days. I never thought I'd see COVID. I never think I was, think I'd ever see what we've been through. I have, I, I've never thought I'd see, uh, the, uh, society where you want to defund police. You know, I, I, there's so much I've believed in my lifetime I never see, but the older you get, the, you, you, you realize.

• 49:50Anthony Pompliano?

  The more you see.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  The more you see. So you know, like it come down, like I used to say during COVID and I used to see some of the policies people have with taxes and what they want to do to the economy and some of these policymakers. I used to say, you know, I would be, if aliens came onto the beach of Miami Beach and started walking up the beach, it wouldn't shock me anymore. I really was saying down the middle of covid, when the world was getting really crazy.

• 50:14Anthony Pompliano?

  They got UFOs now.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, am I a believer? I find it hard to believe, but nothing shocks me anymore.

• 50:20Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that is a great way to look at life, is to be skeptical, yet understand that the world is a wild place and anything can happen.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:29Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, you could ask me one question and finish up. What do you got for me?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, where is Bitcoin gonna be a year to 18 months from now?

• 50:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, I have no clue. Um, higher than it is today.

• 50:42Anthony Pompliano?

  That's the best answer I have for you. Over really, really long periods of time, for sure, there's lots of short-term price volatility, right? So you get, uh, it goes up, it goes down, it goes sideways, it goes up, it goes down, it goes sideways, I mean, just over and over and over and over again. But I think when you look, the longer the timeline, the easier it is to say it's gonna go up because of the structure of it, the kind of market structure. But I think that we've got quite a bit of room to run for this year, and then we'll see what happens kind of going into next year. And, uh, does it kind of go back into a bear market for a little bit, or does it kind of level off? Nobody really knows.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have one more question for you.

• 51:18Anthony Pompliano?

  All right.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  Where will you be at age 40?

• 51:20Anthony Pompliano?

  At age 40? Hopefully doing this with you again.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Great answer.

• 51:26Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, where should we send people on the internet? Should we send them to something about 11, something about you? Where do you want to send them?

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Well, you know, my website's markroberts.com.

• 51:34Anthony Pompliano?

  All right.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  There's a great video on there I think people enjoy.

• 51:37Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. N A R C Roberts dot com.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Yes, I think they'll enjoy that very much. There's a lot of stuff about 11 and where we're going. It's getting updated all the time. But I think everybody that could afford it would be very wise to buy an 11 hotel and residences. We're sold out of this one, but you know, we're, we're gonna be, uh, hopefully, uh, in the future, having a lot of opportunity for people to jump on the 11 bandwagon. And embrace the IP, live it, and we look forward to seeing you at the club very soon.

• 52:08Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm a believer. Keep going. All right, we'll do this again in the future.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Uh, thanks. Look forward to it.