Why Family Office Access Isn't What You Think | Danielle Patterson

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:01.511)
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Arthur's Roundtable. I have to tell you, I'm super pleased to fit into Danielle's schedule. We have done this before, prior to her sale of her company, and now she has an a role within a a larger company and super excited for her that she had a an exit, so to speak, even though she's sticking around. And so we're gonna talk talk a little bit about her.

origin story, but then get into a little bit of how this all came about and how things are going and what's important to her and the in her new role. Is that is that good, Danielle?

Danielle Patterson (00:41.612)
That's amazing. Yeah. And it's crazy to think. When we met, it was a a totally different world and how much changes in the course of a couple months. Exactly. Exactly. Well yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:43.216)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:48.775)
In in many ways, right. Yeah. Yeah, so you bet. My pleasure. So let's give some start at the beginning a little bit that with you to give some people some context if that's all right.

Danielle Patterson (01:06.05)
Yeah. So born and raised California, one of four children. didn't know this until I was an adult. And it's really interesting when you start talking about it to see all the others, but dyslexic. So I think that it it's interesting when I look back, I'm like, I think it plays a more important role in my journey than I realized. I think I was destined to be an entrepreneur because you you just think out of the box and you create your own solutions and you have really hard work ethic because

the way most people learn you don't. So interesting reflection now knowing what I know, but you know, yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:41.554)
Do you think I'm going interrupt you only because I've been using a lot of AI or SI, whatever you want to call it, and I talk to it as opposed to type. And then when I go back to typing, I have now either lost my ability to spell or it I'm dyslexic because I regularly put the wrong letters in front of another letter in a word that I know exactly how it's spelt.

Danielle Patterson (01:47.01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (01:52.792)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (02:10.991)
So I don't know whether I've built this, you know, buffer in my head that because I'm talking, I can't type any longer. I'm okay with not typing, by the way, but it's really it's like weird, right?

Danielle Patterson (02:11.18)
Interesting.

Danielle Patterson (02:24.994)
Well, it's fascinating and it does make you ponder and stop like, are we all losing our ability to really articulate? You know, we're so used to short form texting and now we're not even texting, we're talking and we're directing our AIs. And for me, at first it was like unlocking the superpower because I I always was held back by be just being terrible with grammar and spelling.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (02:30.587)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (02:36.625)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (02:49.74)
And and don't ask me to book travel. I've I've done it before and I've literally sorry everyone, we're actually gonna take this trip a year out from when we originally

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (02:58.373)
I still use I still use a travel agent because I can't do it. Like I I just can't. I just here, do this. Right. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (03:01.538)
Hehehehehe

Danielle Patterson (03:06.402)
Yeah. But it's interesting. Yeah. It it's interesting to see how AI has really just unlocked a new level of productivity just because I think forming emails and and that part was was has just always been hard. You know, I still have to go put your right hand on your heart to like know what my right hand is. I have to do January, February, March, April, May. Like it it's wild. But growing up I I didn't know this. It wasn't like you had a diagnosis. I repeated the first grade because learning to read was hard.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (03:26.487)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (03:35.66)
But I wasn't gifted and talented for like art and and things that were creative. And so that just always kind of guided what I felt I was supposed to do. So I went to school. I s I contemplated, should I, should I go to art college? You know, I'm I really love art. I'm very creative and I'm good at it. But I thought, do I really want to do art as a career? Or should I get something a little bit more broad that then I can use my creativity? it ultimately came down to

You know, California schools, going out of out of school, like I considered the Savannah School of Art and Design. I also was really drawn. I loved Boulder, Seattle, but ended up going in state. UC Santa Cruz, a banana slug, such a unique schooling experience. That was the very last grade where we could choose whether we wanted grades or written evaluations. It was like such a Yeah. Exactly. And get this California, all the hippies.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (04:28.903)
So progress so progressive, right?

Danielle Patterson (04:35.157)
Our school was clothing optional. I don't I mean, what? And and I think that rule changed the when I left. It's it's not a a a a rule anymore, but it it was just welcome to California, you know. And and that's the world I grew up in. You know, I I loved my upbringing, I loved my family. we spent a ton of times outdoors. I would like roam the countryside, building forts.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (04:40.954)
Wow.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (04:47.281)
That is super hippy dippy. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (05:03.455)
I the house my parents built, my dad still lives there. It was, you know, the the home they bought in 1980 when I was born. And you go back and they've got these beautiful red woods they've planted. And I it definitely a piece of my heart will always be in California. But fast forward after college, graduated, got got my to me, what was my dream job. I was working for Franz Lantine, who is a National Geographic Wildlife Photographer and

His work really focused on conservation and he would travel to you know parts of Africa and photograph the gorillas or you know the Galapagos and photograph the albatross. And so he would just go to these unknown parts of the world and bring beauty and help educate people on the environment and the animals. And his wife was a videographer and a writer. So really cool husband-wife duo.

travel, we would manage things on the home front and he was Dutch, so he would have exhibits all around the globe and he would host workshops. he you know, there there's always interesting dynamics with every personality. But I I loved what I did. met my husband Warren, married, fell in love, bought our first home.

And he had a landscape design business. So he's very creative. He when I first met him, I'm like, this is just someone my family would love. And I actually tried to hook him up with my older sister. And I'm thankful that didn't work out. And I kind of joke, I mean, to this day, I love matchmaking. Whether it's professional or personal, it brings me a lot of joy to bring good people together. And so I'm I'm thankful I didn't make that successful matchmake.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (06:28.749)
Danielle Patterson (06:46.185)
but yeah at the time I was doing a lot of photography on the side and I actually was the invited to help and work alongside the main photographer to capture some of his gardens for his portfolio and and that, you know, we got married but in two thousand eight that that

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (07:00.646)
Nice.

Danielle Patterson (07:06.881)
business. We did everything we had to do not to declare bankruptcy. And watching him go through that, you know, what he had built, all of the people he was providing, it was hard. But we were resourceful, we were young, we rented our house. We were like, we're just gonna go l not even lick our wounds. You know, I just am really grateful we both have an optimistic outlook and we did what we needed to do. And we moved out east, always with the intention to come back. But this is where I joke.

You know, it's hard to leave California, but when you do and you see what your real estate dollars can get you, you're kind of like, And we reinvented ourselves. My husband took every lesson he learned from that first business and kind of came up with a thesis of low employee count, high revenue, you know, something that wasn't going to be so volatile. And he started a cloud hosting company. And it was actually in response, you know, we we went out there and just looked for whatever opportunities we could and

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (07:41.287)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Patterson (08:03.969)
He saw his father, who was doing bookkeeping at the time, was, you know, driving across town, sitting in traffic to bring his clients these like Excel spreadsheets. And he thought, surely there's a better solution. And when he looked into it, he's like, cloud hosting, Excel. And and it just morphed and it morphed into an incredible business for him. And he ended up selling, getting acquired. And you know, through each of those chapters, I learned so much from him. And not just

you know, the the business side and the language around business, but also the emotional side, you know, when you get acquired and when you sell and they scaled and eventually sold to private equity, which, you know, he he should be interviewed on your podcast. You know, he's still coming into his own identity and what, you know, building something for 14 years and then continuing to run it under different ownership.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (08:53.371)
Happy to, yeah.

Danielle Patterson (09:03.789)
and and also, you know, he uses the car analogy. It's like he had a garage full of cars, but he was only learning to drive one. And that was business. You know, he loved what he did. He poured himself into it and the people, but when it's no longer yours and you're looking for a new direction, it's like, I have to learn how to drive all these other cars. And, you know, as a father, we've got three kids. We've got they're 14, 12, and 10. It's crazy. They're growing like weeds.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (09:23.42)
That's

Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (09:30.84)
But yeah, he's just he's really stepped into to fatherhood and being there for them, which coming back to my story, has been amazing. So we passed the baton. So I I wanted stability as he was scaling this cloud hosting. I thought, I'm gonna get a job with benefits and security because you know, again, we're we're a team. And I again I find these like husband and wife duos. It was a pediatric dentist, brilliant. Her name was Dr. Bird.

B I R D. And so she had the most fun branding. It was so creative and fun in her office, but she was dual certified. She was also an orthodontist. So she went to school for many, many years. And her husband was the business mind. And they they created this like well-oiled machine. When you looked at the the profits and really what they were building, it was something special. And they wanted to be able to

offer the orthodontic services beyond just the children. So I helped them develop a second brand and open additional practice across the street. And I just kind of whatever it took, I wore every hat in that office. And I think my my skills always shined in the creative area. So I did a lot with marketing. And I think it's just, you know, that that work ethic. And so I did that for eight years. And I think through Warren's acquisitions and are really gaining financial stability.

felt like, okay, we've reached a time where I'm investing a lot of my energy into building someone else's success. And they were so good to me. I mean, I had a a work car. I was able to work from home, but I was pregnant with my third child. And I thought, I'm I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make the entrepreneurial leap. And Warren was always looking for opportunities, you know, passive ways to diversify our portfolio. And he somehow formed a

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (11:01.233)
S somebody else's dream, right? Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (11:23.927)
Partnership with a gentleman named Douglas Fathers, who had a lot of different financial services offerings. ultimately, he advises funds on offshore fund formation and he managed hedge funds. And kind of in his own early career raising capital for hedge funds, one of the products he spun off was Family Office List. And it was this great high revenue.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (11:47.841)
Yeah, that that list that that company n now that you mentioned it, that company existed before you.

Danielle Patterson (11:55.811)
Yeah. It was founded in two thousand one, believe it or not. So, like before anyone really knew what a family office was, he was advising these early fund managers, like basically who were going through his journey. They were exhausting friends and family. Where do I go next? I'm not ready for institutional capital. So it was like lo and behold, this this world of family offices. And no one really knew what they were. So they needed his guidance and they needed these directories to help, you know, with their their fund.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (12:01.83)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (12:08.913)
No.

Danielle Patterson (12:25.666)
raising. And that's that's what the product was. And it was mind-boggling that people would pay hundreds of dollars. And when I came in, it was really with that sales and marketing expertise and it was a partnership. And my husband jokes you, you know, he's like, you just sprinkled a little fairy dust on it and it transformed. I'm like, well, I return calls, you know, it's it's like you don't have to do much to be good. It's just caring. Exactly. And that's it was kind of like fishing, you know, it was like I just love to

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (12:45.701)
Right.

You have to pay attention to it, right? Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (12:54.754)
help people and be responsive, but I didn't know the industry the way I know it now. So it took a lot of learning. And I definitely struggled with imposter syndrome in the early stage because I just thought like, I don't know what I'm doing and I really don't love what I'm selling. The more I learned, the less I loved it. But I again saw the opportunity and it's important to me. Like I want to provide for my family. I don't want all that burden to be carried by my husband alone. And I see

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (13:21.009)
So wait a minute, what you just said, why didn't you love it?

Danielle Patterson (13:25.602)
It it just felt dirty. I felt like you guys are just like spraying and praying in how what how does this how is this received by the family offices? And is it working? And I just felt felt like, well, the integrity of the data, that was step one. It was like, let's do what I know and what I can do. So I I hired a a research team that was like step one, let's let's improve the quality. Let's

Feel proud about what we're selling, at least from the standpoint of like this is the most up-to-date data. And we can say that proudly. We're not saying that it's gonna work, but we at least will have that integrity. And so the more we improve the quality, I thought, well, why why don't we expand it? Like first, what kind of family office? Because the approach should be different. They're not all structured the same. So at least like let's find some ways to differentiate so people can be more strategic, they can segment.

And craft the messaging and the outreach more strategically. And then it's like, well, if we're going through all this effort and we are literally enhancing, improving it daily, why are we selling something static? I would get clients who are like, Yeah, well, I bought this three years ago. And I'm like, well, my gosh, it's so much better. So we we decided, like, let's build a platform. And we we went with some friends of ours that had a development company because we're basically handing over.

Our product. It's like our IP at that point. So we needed people we could trust and bootstrapped the whole thing. And it took a lot of time. But you know, when I set my mind to something, and I think what was really transformative for me was when I just got over the fear and was like, I'm, you know, give me the feedback, good, bad, or ugly. And and I want to work with you. I wanna make it right. I wanna make it better. And that was always kind of the drive. And so just step by step.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (14:49.231)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (15:10.172)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (15:18.111)
launched the platform, okay, now we have a system, data's continuously updated, delivered. We built in a way to catch emails that were undeliverable. We, you know, built in a regular system for maintaining. We got a good cadence with timestamps to make sure we're updating the information in the mandate. And that's really I think what transformed it. It was no longer a list. It was a a tool that helped people

research the family offices. And in all of my learning and understanding how the industry worked, I I kind of developed this methodology around how to succeed. And I felt, you know, I've got to practice what I preach and it's lead with value. I always felt like I want to overdeliver and I and I want to truly help you. And so if my product wasn't the right solution, I'm not going to sell someone on it. You know, I'm only going to offer this if I know that you're going to use it in the right way and that we can help

Get you to success. And the greatest reward was really featuring them in a case study because then it helped get them the visibility and it was like a win-win. So, you know, the the interview series, the the masterclass, it all stemmed from my own curiosity and wanting to learn, but needing to be efficient with my time. So we, you know, hosted the master class series, which you generously shared your wisdom. It was one that people still talk about to this day.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (16:38.233)
My well you're very kind, yeah.

Danielle Patterson (16:42.111)
And it's, you know, it's like we're all we're all students of the universe. You know, the the learning never stops. So I still to this day, every month we host some sort of programming, whether it's focused on empowering people with new tools and techniques to market within the industry because it's always changing, or whether it's learning from the families themselves. What are they struggling from? And I personally I love hearing from those that

are are willing to talk about the struggles, but also the the ways that they've overcome them. Because I think families, like here in Charleston where I live now, a family reached out because they know I talk to a lot and they're like, well, we just want to know what you're seeing. The complexity, like the more successful we get, the more complex it is. And we have to file all these forms manually because you know they're they don't necessarily want to adopt technology and

you know, the the next generation wants to do different things. They want to build brands. They want to start foundations. But what's hard is no one in Charleston wants to talk about money. It's considered impolite. And we just we we they crave like being able just to know what other people are doing and to learn and collaborate. And I think that's also kind of some of this next generation drive we're seeing. And I'm encouraged by it. I mean there's a double-edged sword. One of the

programs that we did was focusing on PR and kind of how we're now seeing families being like, well we've our our data's getting out there, our story's getting out there. We need to build a brand or it's going to be written for us. Right.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (18:18.051)
Or yeah. Yeah. Control the narrative. What you said earlier is really interesting, and of course we live this day in, day out in w you know, in if in FOI is if somebody even if it it's a really good data and intelligently constructed list of family offices, there are people who will just spray and pray and not do the hard work.

Danielle Patterson (18:47.565)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (18:48.111)
So the result is going to be exactly what you expect, not good, right? And it's just like anything else. It's what you know about who you know, right? And so if you're calling a family office to pitch your emerging manager and they don't invest in any hedge funds, why are you wasting your time? Like, and and you know, I say this regularly and has a lot to do with.

Danielle Patterson (18:53.602)
Yeah, yeah.

Danielle Patterson (18:58.892)
Right, right.

Danielle Patterson (19:08.652)
Yes, absolutely.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (19:16.451)
only having now thirty seven and a half years left to my life is that the most valuable thing is your time and people waste their time all the time. And of course and of course they don't all they also don't value anybody else's time, which is a big problem.

Danielle Patterson (19:25.528)
They do.

Danielle Patterson (19:34.305)
And that, you know, this this methodology, it I call it foster offer align. And I start at the end because maybe because I'm dyslexic, but because it's a long-term relationship. So the alignment piece. And to align, it's gonna require you to spend your time. You have to invest in the relationship before it exists. You have to do your research so that you're not reaching out totally misaligned, wasting that person's time.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (19:53.894)
Totally.

Danielle Patterson (20:01.376)
Also being really thoughtful and intentional, not just pitching them, but rather making it easy for them to understand the relevance, you know, and and trying to lead with more of a personal connection versus just purely business, because they do business with people they trust, and it's the trust that opens the door to the next conversation. And so for me, it it takes time. It took me a decade to learn these things, but I'm really passionate about.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (20:08.827)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Patterson (20:30.24)
at least sharing what I've learned and and trying to lead by example. And so this next chapter, Fast Forward, sold the company in in February. And that that happened wasn't that I was looking to sell it. I knew eventually it would probably happen. And, you know, once my husband sold his company private equity, he had more time to kind of look at what I had done. And he's like, my gosh, well, this is quite a little you know, creation you've you've made.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (20:57.735)
It wasn't just your project while you're in your room, right?

Danielle Patterson (21:01.994)
Yeah, he's like, my gosh. And and he loves like he did, I think, nine different acquisitions throughout his career and and he calls it like threading the needle. Like really he loves negotiating deals and he loves helping people through, you know, the acquisition process. So for for us we we talked about it, but we thought it would be like five years down the line, we were really gonna position ourselves well. But s but we got approached. We got approached by ISS Market Intelligence. they sit within

ISS Stocks, a privately held German company. Deutsche Borsch Borsche is the the portfolio company. And they actually just bought out their shareholder that had 20% just this year as well. So a lot of changes going on with their organization. They were about to do an IPO and things changed, but their their growth strategy has been through acquisition. And, you know.

the well-oiled machine of acquiring and we have this process and we have all these synergistic brands and I definitely saw that. And their biggest competitor was becoming FinTrix. And FinTrix is my biggest competitor too. So I firmly felt, you know, stronger together. And that was the message they were telling employees because, you know, they're creating new branding, new culture to bring everyone together. And

It it was it's, you know, maybe nine months in and we're s we're still struggling to, you know, really unify.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (22:32.175)
Always takes time to to mesh things. Is isn't Pintrix owned by was it S P or Moody's or somebody? Or is it independent?

Danielle Patterson (22:41.154)
Now I'm like, I need to look it up. I think it's independent. I know they did a big capital raise. I th I want to say like almost eight million. they have a large team, a really great sales team. a beautiful product. Nothing, nothing bad to say. It's more institutionally priced. So when I ran Family Office Access, I mean, one of the things that I loved is I could create a more flexible solution for foundations or smaller clients and and really, you know, help them navigate.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (22:43.781)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (23:10.414)
And I had a monthly model which which made it easier for people to access and to pay as they go. The problem again, it's kind of the perception. We rebranded from family office list to family office access when it became something much more. And that was really helpful because the perception is like it's it's not a list, don't approach it that way. same thing with you know the the monthly model.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (23:32.764)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (23:37.879)
I wanted to provide people flexibility, but I didn't, I really didn't want them coming in thinking, well, three-month minimum, so I'm gonna have success in three months, because it's it is a long-term strategy. And the ongoing value is not only that you get meticulously maintained data, but our team is always adding new data. And now we have, you know, robust resources. Our research team has doubled in size since acquisition. And I'm almost telling them, like, whoa, guys, ease the

New firm edition, because we were we were averaging forty new firms per month, you know, year over year. And I think last month they added like 230. And we have the greatest coverage of anyone else out there. But for me, the the family office world less is more. You need the lineman and you really need as much detail and enrichment. So we are, you know, it's fun. We we are still every day developing, we're still building, still growing. I think the biggest challenge we have within the organization is how do we take

all of these different products, like for us, discovery data, that's the world of RIAs, broker dealers, insurance agents, anyone registered, that that makes sense. It fits, it merges, but other, you know, Bright Scope, there's all different financial products. And so really I I love creative marketing and creating the narrative, but it's it's hard for some of these sales guys. And it needs you need to really be a domain expert to to help your clients. So that's that's what we're working on.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (25:02.191)
You don't have to you don't have to answer this, but is it easier for you to sell your subscription or or they still haven't got their shit together to the point where and this is recorded, so you don't have to answer any of this. the our the argument is that it oughta be easier at some point, right?

Danielle Patterson (25:17.964)
Yeah, yeah.

Danielle Patterson (25:24.6)
Yeah. Yeah. So double-edged sword, we made it very easy. You could come online, the price was advertised, you'd literally check out through Stripe. You didn't even have to talk to me. But it didn't give me the opportunity to vet, to make sure they're using it the way we intend. And so now it there's more friction in the buying process. They need to go through a contract. They need to, you know, speak with a sales team. The sales team

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (25:33.5)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (25:37.072)
Right.

Danielle Patterson (25:52.737)
has done a tremendous job learning. They love, you know, I I brought I bring them to events with me. I introduce them to people. They're eager to learn. But you know, it takes time. It's very different world than than institutional investors. So so I think the more confidence they get, you know, I love joining in the calls and they invite me because I can I can shine the light on a lot of things. But the the process is different, for better or worse. I think we're getting there because the company has

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (26:04.743)
Totally. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (26:22.002)
so many complementary offerings between media and marketing that that we can bring to make a much more powerful unmatched solution I haven't seen anywhere else.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (26:34.129)
Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, for the for the record to the audience, you know, Family Office Insights and courtesy of Danielle, we were customers. You know, we happily paid the fee and enjoyed being a customer. And I want to disclose something so you don't hear it from somewhere else. And this was not intentional. Can you see that?

Danielle Patterson (26:54.958)
I can see it.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (26:58.425)
It has nothing to do with family office access. I just I wrote I wrote an article in Family Office magazine. But it's not hasn't anything to do with your company. It has to do with what how we're positioning access to the family offices through family office insight. So I don't want you to see this from somebody else and say I'm trying to put an end to it, right?

Danielle Patterson (27:05.835)
my gosh.

Danielle Patterson (27:18.324)
No. Well, and I I love marketing. It's kind of the the most joy I get out of all the different hats I wear. And when we rebranded from Family Office List to Family Office Access, you know, you kind of go through every possible, you know, we were like, it should be haystack, like finding a needle in Haystack, and it's a tech stack, and you know, and I'm like, no, it can't be too far of a departure. I built a lot of brand equity in Family Office List, and I want Family Office in the name.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (27:38.981)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (27:48.429)
I found Family Office Insights and I was like, that is just so brilliant. Who is this author, Bavelis? I was like, I need like how do we partner? So that's actually what led me to you through the brand discovery. And I think your brand is amazing and I love what you do. Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (28:01.018)
Yeah.

been doing it a long time, but thanks for the kind words. And yeah, we're not in the business that you're in, but you know, it's we've been sorta staying under the radar for a long time. But yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (28:15.798)
Yeah. I think that's a great way. I mean, you have a great reputation and I know the the great visibility, I think that's the thing is people are having a hard time doing the outbound. So if you can create a community and turn it into inbound and help with facilitated introductions. and that's where, you know, the more you more time you spend, the more you get to know people and you know where you can lead with value and

I I think increasingly as family offices get more sophisticated, you know, they're looking for deals and you have the expertise. Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (28:49.273)
It's counterintuitive. There's a huge appetite for deals. It just that they don't want to see everything that everybody else has seen and dismissed. And second, it's trust, right? Who, how is this coming to me? And I will, if you don't mind me saying something about what we do. It really has served us well that we don't get paid any type of success or banking fee.

Danielle Patterson (28:56.643)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (29:17.633)
And it also from a construct perspective allows us to be in a defensible position if anything goes wrong with anybody that invests in something and somebody commits fraud or because we're not we're not getting paid on somebody deploying capital. That's not why we don't take the money. We don't take the money because we're not bankers and we're not regulated. And so one of the things that

Danielle Patterson (29:35.16)
Yes.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (29:47.652)
I'm regularly criticized for is for not $225 million was deployed into people that presented or somehow connected with family offices through Family Office Insights. And the, you know, the entrepreneurial brain is going, wow, three percent of that's a lot of money, right? And of course, we've been able to satiate the appetite for deal flow that

Danielle Patterson (30:04.814)
Right, right.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (30:14.093)
Is interesting and have people opt in and not be also chasing them to make sure we get paid. Right? So that served us well.

Danielle Patterson (30:19.67)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm curious how you handle because you must get it all the time. You know, people they just want introductions, but if you don't know them, you y you know, that's an extension of your own relationship trust. So how do you handle people who say, Hey, can I get warm introductions?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (30:37.861)
Well, I can say it for the record, because this will be taped. We don't do warm introductions because it comes with first a whole bunch of risk. And I'm not saying that I don't do them in my life. I do them all the time in my life. But the point is not a wait a minute. Help me understand. I've been doing this for twenty-five years and you want

Danielle Patterson (30:50.189)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (30:54.52)
Ready.

Professionally, it's not a business model. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (31:05.987)
me to help you launch or at least enhance your business and I'm not gonna get paid for it and all I have is risk in that equation. Explain to me why I would do this, right? Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (31:16.502)
I yeah, I hope people understand. And and to your point, I think the moment you do get paid, it it's not gonna be genuine because do you believe in the opportunity if someone, you know, just because they're paying you to do it and

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (31:28.027)
Yeah. Yeah.

List I love I think brokers and bankers and people all do great work and award at getting paid. We're just not that, right? and I don't blame people for asking. But we right. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (31:41.762)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (31:46.637)
Right. Right. Well, and it gives us the opportunity to help them understand a little bit about how the industry works and and if anything, an opportunity to kind of educate and to give tips on how they can maybe build some of that relationship trust themselves.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (32:03.013)
Yeah, and I came out blatantly said we don't do that. Look, there are times where somebody comes in, they engage us for something else. They engage us to do what we do at Family Office Insights. And I happen to know somebody that would really want to know about that. That's easy, right? That's easy, right? And that comes without you even asking for it. But if you want me to sit down with my Rolodex while I'm, you know,

Danielle Patterson (32:18.412)
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (32:31.663)
reading a book or looking at the birds. I have four partridges sitting right out outside here right now. You want me to take time away from that to do some sort of reconciliation and refer people to you, make the warm induction introduction, follow it up and not make any money and have nothing but risk? I don't think so. Right.

Danielle Patterson (32:48.918)
Right. And if it's someone like, you know, someone I believe in and I'm I'm investing my own time and energy and I want to see them succeed, sure, it's a full nother story. But, you know, that's that's rare and that takes time for that trust to establish within you you know, your own relationship. So yeah. Thank you. It's it I still har find a hard time explaining that, but you did it really well and that's it's just I think it just comes down to education on how it works and

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (32:59.803)
Completely different.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (33:16.805)
Yeah, and and I don't mean to be smar me or or not smar me. I don't mean to be overzealous with my words when I explain it to people because I'm I'm polite, like I'm generally a polite guy. but it's really easy to to to if someone's pressing you to say, okay, wait a minute, I have twenty-five years of relationships and you want me

Danielle Patterson (33:27.639)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (33:45.734)
to bring them over to you by proxy and there's no quid quo pro except for risk. How does that make sense to you? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I mean it it I don't we I don't mean to harp on it, but it happens all the time, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (33:53.048)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly. You just r return reverse the question back to them. Yeah. Well this is

Danielle Patterson (34:07.384)
Yeah. Yeah.

So this is an interesting recent discovery. we have within ISS there is a media platform and they own a few different assets, Chief Investment Magazine being one of the biggest ones. and they do events, they do like chief investment officer awards, dinner in New York every year. and so they they have regular editorials that come out and for the very first time since being

Since I joined, they were like, We're gonna run a special feature. They every month they have a different special feature topic. They're like, We're gonna write one on family offices. And I didn't contribute or write the editorial piece, but they did an advertisement for our arm of the company. Again, we're the same company, but it's you know our division, market intelligence. and I was able to invite one of my clients in to

Co-brand alongside of us or or split the share of voice. And just this week we got to review the results, and what was really telling is just how statistically it has outperformed any other special feature they've run. And that tells us just how eager everyone is to learn about the world of family offices. And I'm excited because this is, yes, I know, haven't I mean this is the world I live in, and I've been, you know.

blowing yelling through my megaphone since since joining this company, but it's the the data doesn't lie. And I'm I'm pleased to see now this the 2027 plan is to do, you know, special feature webinars and to do more editorial special features on Family Offices. And and I think that's great because they're leading with value, they're helping educate, and it's great opportunity for people who again, they need the visibility. And and again I tell people lead with value.

Danielle Patterson (36:02.572)
If you can contribute and the best way to do that is through education or or you know, give giving before you ask anything.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (36:11.141)
Yeah. Look, it's not just marketing 101. It is the only way to build trust. Right. I mean, even if you're in a the consumer business, it it still works. It's amazing, right? It's the freemium to premium model still works, right? Demonstrate some value, give a lot away, build some trust, upsell, upsell, upsell, right?

Danielle Patterson (36:19.342)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Patterson (36:30.178)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (36:39.244)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I find what's interesting is, you know, every family has their investment mandates and and that can be driven by the CIO who's looking at risk and return. And it can be really different from where the family made their wealth. And the principal may still be trying to preserve, you know, that that legacy he's built in a certain way. But you have different people within the family office. You know, you'll have

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (36:39.983)
That model still works, right? Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (37:06.358)
Maybe someone who's heading the philanthropy, and that could be under a foundation or a completely separate umbrella. And so I encourage people, you know, when you look at the family office, don't just be focused on one lane. Understand holistically what they stand for, what the family's history is, but but be mindful of who you're talking to and what their goal of success is. And I think what what is easy, at least for me from a relational standpoint, is really

lean into their philanthropy. What are they interested in? it it uncovers their values and often will help with alignment and connecting on a human level. you know, but not everyone. Some people are like, no, I just have this hedge fund. But it but it helps with the human side because this is the ultimately it's an entity set up to support a family. So really understanding the family is is important.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (37:57.768)
Yeah, it's really not surprising w when you hit on a cord and people light up, it's obvious, right? And if you're just talking about, you know, the efficient frontier and Marco Carlo simulations and all the details, it's like, even if you're especially if you're a principal of the family and you just send me the report, like or talk like it's because people get passionate about

Danielle Patterson (38:21.804)
Hehehe.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (38:25.883)
That's why good salesmen are great stor storytellers, right? That's that's why good entrepreneurs have figured out, and we don't do any coaching. I don't want to put it out there and and get a bunch of calls about help me tell my story, right? But if you're if you're a really good storyteller as an entrepreneur, you will win. If you're just putting a deck together and giving the table stakes to everybody.

Danielle Patterson (38:29.07)
Yes.

Danielle Patterson (38:41.647)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (38:50.253)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (38:55.803)
You know, and you put a Tam Sam model up, everybody's going, my God, why do I have to listen to this again? Right. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (39:02.751)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I tell people, you know, they they sometimes get really intimidated because these are really, you know, successful entities, but like it's ultimately people behind them and people do business with people.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (39:16.869)
Yeah. No, and people love good stories. And then if you back the good story up with an infrastructure that allows you to execute on it, that's what matters, right?

Danielle Patterson (39:24.227)
Ha ha ha.

Danielle Patterson (39:32.449)
Yeah. And that's too where not every family wants the public exposure, but those that are starting to tell their own stories and to build their own brands, you know, so much is revealed in in the branding and the storytelling they share. So, you know, psych excuse me. Psychologically, thank you. There we go.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (39:47.035)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (39:50.639)
Okay. Take your time. Drink some more w I'm gonna drink some water with you.

Danielle Patterson (40:03.01)
Yeah, I went down the wrong pipe.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (40:06.449)
So what's what's cooking for you now? What interests you in terms of your activity and what do you see the next six months? And I know you've been doing a lot of traveling and events and so forth and

Danielle Patterson (40:20.098)
Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, I'm not the one who's sitting there doing sales demos back to back. I have a s a marketing team to support me, but I'm still really leaning into helping educate and open up opportunity to the entire company so that they get where I'm coming from and then we can think how do we work collectively to build better solutions, you know, across all of our different offerings. So really I'm

grateful, I'm a collaborative person, but I also have to work, you know, so many of the existing partnerships I had, whether they were event partners, kind of formalizing them now under the new roof. And that does take, you know, going threading the needle through the needle.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (41:02.831)
It's always it's always nice when you're the boss to make a decision and just keep on moving, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (41:06.616)
Just quick and and go with it. But we're we are making progress and and and for me it took a while, but like I know who I need to be speaking with, what they do, and I finally understand the inner workings. I didn't anticipate how hard that would be. And also, yeah, you know, it's like your passion doesn't turn off. And for me, learning to set some boundaries, because you know, when it's my business, you're up till whenever you are getting things done and

Like, why am I still doing this? It's it's like you know, the the work is always going to be there. So learning to kind of rewire, to to fit the new container. That that's something I'm working on personally. But I think I'm making a lot of progress. I'm I'm really excited about the new leadership we have in place. We just brought in a new CEO, it's just all about collaboration, one unified sales team, really coming up with the story, the story that that.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (41:36.455)
And

Danielle Patterson (42:00.823)
our clients can understand and and putting the clients at the center of everything we do. And they have this beautiful prism that is their logo, ISS Market Intelligence. And I feel like, you know, when we evolve around that that client and we we become brilliant together. And so I really believe that it was one of the reasons I felt my product helped them succeed in in that missing piece of the unregulated data. And I think, you know, we are rebuilding the tech stack.

And it's nice to not have to do it alone. You know, I I've wore everything and now we have teams of experts and I know how to speak all of their languages because I've done all of the things. So it it it's fun and it's rewarding to to really have some great talent and to meet people who, you know, that's what they do. And I can I can bring my perspective from I understand exactly what you're talking about, but I also know how it affects marketing and sales. And and so I feel

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (42:33.191)
Isn't that great?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (42:41.287)
Amazing.

Danielle Patterson (42:58.334)
grateful that I'm I'm I'm valued, my voice is valued there and I still get to work from home. That's that's big for me. And I still get to travel and support the events and continue learning. I think that's so important to me. It's the the landscape is evolving. And so really knowing what the families are talking about, what matters to them and and forging new partnerships, that's something that I think is really important.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (42:58.417)
Super valuable.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (43:24.411)
Yeah, I'll share it with you offline, but we're doing some really cool stuff that I think might help help. And it's not not us selling anything to you or your group, but just the way we're doing things 'cause we've been terrible at I mean really, really bad at connecting family offices with other family offices. Except when I was in New York City, it happened

Danielle Patterson (43:48.621)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (43:54.214)
Because we would have casual cocktail parties at the Seho House or the Baccarat or something. And I would just invite the people that I knew well or were doing something super cool. And there was no sponsor. It was just us putting people together, right? And I do that here now. there's lots of really interesting people here, like more than you would even imagine. and and so

Danielle Patterson (44:10.686)
Mm.

Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (44:19.128)
Wow.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (44:22.587)
We were really, really bad at that. And then COVID happened and we got worse. and so we're starting to do some cool stuff without the f the friction or the that comes along with who's gonna pay for this, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (44:27.747)
Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (44:41.078)
Yes. That's huge. I think people are craving it. It doesn't have to be massive. I think smaller where you can show up and and there's you know, you're you're there 'cause you wanna be and there's a mutual connection and the energy is is just very different in those settings. So I'm excited to learn more.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (45:00.549)
Yeah, and and I will admit I miss New York City for this reason among many, aside from there's only three restaurants out here that we're willing to eat at and we had twenty-two thousand to choose from in Manhattan. but, you know, it just automatically happened. You know, we had I'm mentioning things, but the Soho House is kinda lame now. But we had Soho House, we had the Core Club, we had the Baccarat Hotel. These were places where we would just have regular

Danielle Patterson (45:10.639)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (45:30.011)
We and and then the Trump Tower, the John George restaurant there, every Monday night we'd have a group of people and that just just blew up, right? Without us. and so we just don't do that since COVID. anyway, this is about you, not me. I just thought I would share that. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (45:40.396)
I can imagine. Yeah.

Danielle Patterson (45:49.231)
No, I I love that. It's like, they have a it's just a monthly gathering, but they call it Wall Street, Charleston. And so it's all the financial people in Charleston and it and it is. It's it's really interesting to just meet different people and we're there, not to pitch, not to sell, but just to get to know people and extend their network. Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (46:07.739)
To hang out, yeah. Listen, there's nothing wrong with having a gathering of people with an agenda. Just tell everybody what your agenda is. That's all. It's really simple. All right. Well, I'm really grateful that you had made some time to do this again. And I hope that you take your container because I get a sense there's probably another company you're gonna build in the office, but that's just me.

Danielle Patterson (46:14.412)
Yeah. Yes. There you go. I love it. I love it.

Danielle Patterson (46:35.041)
Okay.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (46:37.935)
So take the time, enjoy not having all the people tugging on ya. Right.

Danielle Patterson (46:43.936)
Yeah. I I appreciate that. It will be fun. I mean, I can't believe how much has changed since we did this last time and can't wait to do it again.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (46:50.876)
Yeah. Yeah, super appreciate you, Daniel. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks everybody for joining. Till next time. Okay.

Danielle Patterson (46:54.978)
Thank you. Of course.