Last time we dove into Gabe's story - this time we hear from the other half of in|flow. In this episode, Ray shares how he was inspired to work with entrepreneurs and eventually become one himself.

Sit back, and enjoy story time with Rayman Khan as they recount their journey to becoming a co-founder of in|flow!

in|flow is comprised of brand strategy attorneys Rayman Khan and Gabriel Estrada.

Together we provide empowering and educational content so creators can build sustainable businesses. We help our clients better understand the nuances of forming and maintaining an LLC, building out a robust IP portfolio to strategically protect important copyrights and trademarks, as well as being a master of contracts! We're passionate about leveling the playing field between creators and the brands they work with - to ensure they're never taken advantage of!

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Yeah.

All right.

Hey everybody.

Welcome back to another episode of Rise Flow.

We are your host, Ray Khan and Gabe Estrada,

and we are attorneys for creators and multi passionate entrepreneurs.

That's right.

And welcome to episode two of our podcast.

And thank you so much for everybody that's tuned into the first

one, all the positive responses.

And yeah, we're hoping to get you a, a new episode.

Hopefully we could try weekly.

But yeah, we're gonna do our best to get some cool guests on here.

And yeah, I get you some, some cool tips on, , just business related legal stuff.

I mean, we'll just be talking about everything.

So hopefully we'll get that going.

But today we wanna focus on.

Ray Khan the co-founder of Inflow, and , we get to learn a little bit more

about Ray and kind of what makes him tick and how, , how he became such a

cool person and , how he ended up here.

So yeah, Ray, let's let's jump into it.

I'm ready for it.

Perfect.

So Ray, obviously, , for our viewers that, that know our law firm, , we're

based outta San Diego, but you're not originally from San Diego,

right?

No.

Yeah.

No, I'm originally from New York, Long Island, New York.

Long Island.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Born on Long Island.

Not in Long Island, like many people.

Misconstrue.

Yeah.

But on Long Island versus in Long Island.

Big debate, is it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Right.

Cause , the classic thing, like at least I'm speaking from everyone

who's from Long Island, right?

Yeah.

Usually when you're saying, , you're on the island, right?

Especially if you're from the city or you're in the city, you like,

Oh, I'm gonna be on the island this weekend, or something like that, right?

I was born on the, on the island, and when I came out to the West coast

and tell people like, Oh yeah, I'm like, , from Long Island or, , my house

was on Long Island, Things like that.

People were like, on Long Island, like, isn't it in Long Island?

Like, you're not, you're not on Manhattan, you're in Manhattan.

Right.

That's usually the, the classic debate there.

But just to clear that up for a lot of folk out there.

That's funny.

Yeah.

Hey, we, we learned something new.

I, I didn't know that.

So yeah, so tell us a little bit about, , you growing up, I know , you, , you

came from a family of entrepreneurs.

and I know your mom, your sister, but, , tell us a little bit about, about

that, about your upbringing and, , kind of what, what your childhood was like.

Yeah, absolutely.

So , I had a, an interesting childhood actually.

My, my parents, my mom, , was an entrepreneur, but not from the get go.

Right?

When my, my mom first started out, she actually was just

someone who was like a nanny.

She was someone who cleaned some houses for elder people.

She watched children, she just did what she could until she eventually , decided

to put herself through beauty school.

, and eventually she became a hair stylist.

But I remember like early, early on growing up my mom

would be, , just washing hair.

Like one, she was learning how to, , become a beautician.

She would just be like washing women's hair, cleaning up

the, , the salons and everything.

And I actually used to be with her cause my parents couldn't afford.

Childcare.

I would just hang out with my mom at the hair salon all day.

So I grew up in hair salons just, , hanging out, , doing whatever I could,

just letting the time pass away.

But, , I was a pretty, pretty chill child.

So I didn't complain much.

But yeah, it kind of started off that way.

My dad was a bus driver.

He was a New York City bus driver, Green Line.

, he would commute every day from Long Island to into the city.

And he worked the night shift, actually, so we didn't see him much.

Right.

He was, during the day or during the mornings, he'd be sleeping.

And by the time I was in school and stuff, he'd already be off to work.

So yeah, that was kind of like what my parents did.

And then eventually my mom, , she eventually got a

job, , became a, , a hair stylist.

She worked at kind of like this, like a small franchise, franchise hair salon.

In New York, and then eventually got to the point where she decided

she wanted to work for herself.

So not far from where we grew up on Long Island.

We, my mom basically opened up a hair salon, her own hair

salon, she actually called it.

I actually had the honor of na like, of naming it.

And this is before I knew much about naming a business.

My parents didn't really care, but it was actually called N and r Cool Cuts.

Oh, nice.

N and r

Cool Cuts.

Yeah.

And Nnr stands for Nadia and Ray.

It was named after me and my sister.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was proud to participate early on.

So your creative entrepreneur, creative entrepreneurship, who is

already there as a young child?

I mean, honestly, I mean, naming a business that's a big deal.

That really is, I mean, regardless of, , helping in that, I mean, I, I

bet you're, you're obviously proud.

How old were you around that time?

I was probably around like 13, 14, around that time.

Okay.

So you're, well,

you, you're very well understanding of what was going on and all that stuff.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

And at, at that age, did you kind of start seeing some of the, , now

thinking back on it, did you kind of notice some of the, the issues that

kind of we help our clients with while your mom was opening up that business?

Yeah, absolutely.

, you go from being someone who just shows up and cuts hair all the time to someone

who has to figure out inventory, right?

For the products you're selling, the products you're using.

, everything from reading a lease agreement to setting up an LLC to getting the

tax and continuing the accounting.

Writing out the books and keeping track of everything.

Right.

It's a lot more to learn.

And my mom did a great job.

, she had the help of my sister who at the time I believe was starting law

school or in law school and basically help her kind of get an idea of like

what she was supposed to expect.

But , for the most part there was a lot of unknown.

Like as many business owners explain, , as you mentioned in the previous episode,

opening up your own tattoo shop.

There's, , you just kind of figure out like, what's the next step?

Let me just tackle one step at a time.

Yeah.

But hey, you, you find a way to do it.

And especially someone like my mom who, , is a huge inspiration for me.

Like I said, she went from grinding, she was working all day doing,

, whether it be like watching children or cleaning up houses to going to

beauty school at night taking care of me and my sister the entire time.

Like, she was definitely an inspiration on me and just seeing

how much hard work goes into it.

Right.

A lot of people look at business owners as.

, , not doing much work, but , especially if you're a doing it yourself or a

solo entrepreneur, , for the most part.

Yeah.

My mom owned her own business.

She had her own hair salon.

She had like 10 chairs in there that people can cut at.

But for the most part, she probably was just ma mainly her right?

. So it was mainly like an empty salon with a lot of chairs.

And sometimes she had other people in there.

But I learned a lot from just like, , treating your clients, right?

Yeah.

To building a name for yourself, having a reputation, and, , knowing

what, what she was good at and just, yeah, doing that, showing up as that.

Right.

So, yeah.

Did you

have

any roles like in, in the shop, like when you were there?

Like were you customer service or picking up the

phone?

Yeah, so I would probably just be the person who swept up the hair.

Oh.

I was all my only obligation there, so I wasn entrusted

much, so.

Oh, man, . Well that's, so that's, that's really interesting because

yeah, I mean, you got to see.

your mom kind of go through this transition of Yeah.

Being kind of her, , working for some actually, , being a, a, , stay

at home kind of mom and then watching kids and then literally

building this, this whole company.

So that, I mean that as a kid, I'm sure that had to been inspiring.

You also mentioned your sister.

So tell me a little bit about your sister and kind of, , her and so you're saying

she went to law school, so you were about 13 for your proud middle school,

early high school.

Yeah.

I mean, I was a little older by the time she actually did go to law school, so.

By the time she was in law school, she was back in New York, so she originally,

the reason I even came out to San Diego in the first place was because

my sister went to college in San Diego.

And when I was visiting her in college, I was like, This seems like a cool place.

I think I wanna be here too.

So yeah.

By the time she came back to New York, she was already back in law

school in New York, and at the same time, she was also inspired

to open her own frozen yogurt shop.

Now at this point in time, frozen yogurt was pretty big in, on the west coast and.

Wasn't that big out in New York.

Actually, there was not many frozen yogurt places.

Probably zero actually.

Yeah.

So the idea of like self, , especially like self-made, not self-made, but like,

I guess make yourself make it your own Sunday kind of frozen yogurt idea Right.

That we see here.

Wasn't that popular out there?

So she brought that to the east coast.

She was actually the first like DIY, not, or like do it yourself frozen yogurt.

Yeah.

Shop.

There's

ones where you like pour everything and they weigh it and

like you put your whatever sprinkles.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So she was actually like the first frozen yogurt shop like that on the island.

Back in, I don't even know what time this is, but probably like around 2010 tenish.

Yeah.

So yeah.

She decided to open up room frozen yogurt shop while she was gonna law.

With the, like one of our cousins, so.

Okay.

Yeah, that was like inspiring as well.

And my sister was also just a big inspiration on me as well, , everything

from, , why even came out to San Diego, why I ended up going to law

school was mainly because of my sister and kind of the path she led.

And, , as first generation college students, we don't have many, , role

models that are, , doing things other than, , I guess blue collar work.

Right.

We knew a lot of people, especially the town we grew up in.

A lot of the people we knew worked, , , my dad was a bus

driver, my mom was a hairdresser.

Some people worked at grocery stores.

, that was basically it.

, I didn't really know a lawyer growing up.

I didn't know a doctor growing up.

Yeah.

So just seeing, being able to see my mom become a business owner just gave me a

basically insight into like, oh yeah, like there's things outside of just showing

up and working nine to five every day.

And same thing with my sister.

So yeah, she opened up that frozen yogurt shop and that was more of like,

I was a little older at the time seeing that happen and just figuring out

like, oh yeah, like these are the fun, this are the fun things when opening

a business, like the branding and being able to, , create a certain way.

It was, it was a very fun yogurt shop and my sister made it like

there was a very high feminine energy inside, which is, which is great.

Like, , once again, just knowing who your customers are, who you want to serve.

A lot of pinks, a lot of.

, it was like black and pink was the main colors.

So yeah, she was very smart in like, the way she kind of marketed it and

that was like, she was doing that while she was in law school too.

So I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, that's, And that, I bet.

So by that time you've already seen, , two, , strong female , people in your

life, , start their own business and kind of get into business for themselves.

So Yeah, I'm sure that's, I mean, that's huge inspiration.

And especially if you already looked up to your sister, how, how, how

many years apart are you from your

sister?

About five, Yeah, five years

apart.

Okay.

So it's not that much.

So you're kind of, so when she was opening up the fio shop where you,

you're still there or you're in college

already?

I had just started, like I was by the time, like the grand opening happened.

Yeah.

And then like a week later I was off to college, so.

Gotcha.

Mm-hmm.

. So.

Alright, so then you, you moved, you decided to take the dive and you, you

come to San Diego where you, where'd

you.

Go to school.

So I went to University of San Diego.

Go, Toreros.

. Gabe: There you go.

Mm-hmm.

. Okay.

So you obviously, you, you left your hometown, right?

You're, you're from Long Island you left your hometown, you're in San Diego.

What made you choose U S D and , what, how is that experience like?

Yeah, so, , I was just growing up, it was just odd, , like in

high school I was a mix of jock, I guess, and like nerd, right?

So I hung out with like the nerds and the AP classes.

I was also on the football team, but I was also captain of the tennis team.

And, , I got good grades, but I also was like, not trying hard at

all, , I was just kind of coasting.

I was, I guess the only class I really did like was biology actually.

And, , but at the same time, I was just very lack of days ago.

At the same time, . So like I went to US D mainly because.

I just thought it was really cool here.

I was, , growing up in Long Island, I was from suburbia.

We have beaches and stuff like that, but at the same time it's, it's pretty lame.

So I always thought about like, California would be pretty cool,

and I decided like, why not?

, my sister went to U S D, I knew it was, , a cool place to be.

I only applied to like two colleges and I was just really putting

all my eggs in one basket really.

So I ended up at u s.

And I, , was going to go for biology and I don't really know exactly what

I was gonna do with that degree.

I was, , I always wanted to be a zoologist, , at the end of

the day, I really wanted to be the next Steve Irwin in a way.

Ah, maybe I would've had to developed a fun accent . I have no idea

how that could have turned out.

But yeah.

Actually at the same time, once again, being super lazy, I missed the deadline

for like signing up for classes, and I, , by the time I told 'em like, Hey, I

want to, I wanna be in biology classes, they were like, Oh, that's booked up.

Sorry, but we have environmentals open that's kind of like biology.

And I was like, Sure, why not ? So I became an environmental major

just because I was lazy to sign up for the classes I need to, and

didn't want to change it later on.

So yeah, I became an environmental studies major, did that through college.

Thought I was gonna make, maybe become a marine scientist or something like that.

Had no idea I was going to law school until probably my junior

year when I realized like, Okay.

With this degree, I probably could be like a scientist testing dirt,

testing water and stuff like that.

So I was like, maybe I'll, I'll just go to law school.

It was kind of like a, yeah, like an opt out.

Yeah.

Well, and I kind of backing up, , for, for college , did, as far as like the,

the academics part, I mean, you're saying that you're kind of, , eh, lazy about

signing up, but like, how did you do?

I mean were, did you do well like in

college or, Yeah, so funny story when I first arrived at U S D,

I was just like thinking it was the same thing as high school, right?

Mm-hmm.

, and I had, I had like, not a huge scholarship, but I had a

scholarship to help pay for things.

And I remember after my first semester, like my grades were not good and I

had, was in jeopardy of losing my, I was like on the academic probation

jeopardy, losing my, my scholarship.

And that was a huge wake up call for me because, , once again, going to like

being that like first generation college student and knowing how hard my parents

worked, how hard, , they all the work they did to help me get to that point

and I was just kind of like wasting it.

Right.

And that put a lot of perspective for me where I finally, it like turned

something on in me to actually like, be responsible and take accountability

for what I was doing and, and the importance of what I was doing, right?

Like, going to college is a big deal and I didn't realize that until

I was almost taken away from me.

So, Right.

I worked my ass off and, , I eventually didn't lose my scholarship and actually

was able to become a little bit more academically inclined, taking interest

in like, , things I was doing, the skills I was developing and things like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that was, that was a huge wake up call for me because, , that that

could have went a lot of different ways, but I'm glad I was actually able to

surround myself with the right people and.

Do what I had to do to make that work, so.

Right.

Cool.

All right.

So then tell me about, I, and I know, , obviously the, the, the time at college,

cause I always hear these stories from you and there's, they're so cool.

Like, you had some pretty like, life changing experiences though, like during

that, like where you got to travel, like to these foreign countries and

have these amazing experiences mm-hmm.

and Yeah.

Tell us, tell us about some of those.

Yeah.

I'm gonna relive my glory days right now.

Yeah.

But yeah, when I was back in school, I was, had the opportunity

of going abroad, right?

Traveling abroad, and I didn't want to just go to, , Madrid and, , a lot of

like really great travel abroad programs.

But I found that there was something called Semester at Sea.

And if, for those who don't know, Semester at Sea is basically this

like big cruise ship that is filled with college students that has.

Professors on board teaching classes that you can get academic credit

for, and then instead of being in one country for four months, you're actually

going port to port around the world.

And our voyage actually went, went completely around the

world, which is really cool.

And yeah, we started, we started actually here in San Diego and then we left

to Hawaii, Japan, , traveled through, , central Southeast Asia, all that stuff.

India eventually to South Africa, all the way up to Barcelona at the end.

So we hit about like 14 ports on the way.

Yeah.

And that was a huge life changing experience for me.

The interesting about that program was at the same time, and this doesn't happen

all the time on this, on this study abroad program, but there was something

called Unreasonable Etsy at the same time.

And what that is, is from the Unreasonable Institute in Colorado, which is basically.

A kinda like an incubator program for entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship.

And that kind of opened my eyes a lot about what I wanted to do in the

future because while I was on the ship traveling, , learning firsthand,

getting a lot of experiences, , being in different country, waking up

every day and being in a different country almost, that we always say.

At the same time we were given firsthand experience with these entrepreneurs

who were invited onto the ship from all over the world to basically

one, just be with each other, right?

It was just developing community from people who were working

on different things, right?

We had people who were developing these plants that were, , gonna

purify water that can be planted in, , just agricultural areas in

Africa that can help purify the water.

And then there was like other people who were working on educational

initiatives all at different parts of their journey to one.

kind of basically leverage what they call the island effect is that if you're

trapped on the island with someone you're gonna find ways to share resources

look out for each other and try to survive and try to thrive, actually.

So that was the whole thing, was that the ship was supposed to be their island where

they were basically forced to have tough conversations about, , their plans, their

marketing approaches, things like that.

Mm-hmm.

, we were just there, that sometimes we were basically was like an internship,

being able to be so close with them to tackle these actual issues.

Yeah.

And just learning a lot about entrepreneurship in general and knowing

that it's not just about making profit, that there is a social aspect to

entrepreneurship or there can be, and that's kind of the new entrepreneurship.

This was back in 2013.

It was really eye opening to be like, Oh, wow.

Like you can make money and you could make a difference at the same time.

Yeah.

Which stuck with me for a, , a while up until now.

Like, this is what we're doing now.

So that was huge.

Well,

and the, and I brought that up because if you, if you think

about it, like a lot of those, a lot of those concepts that you're

bringing up are incorporated into inflow, , the whole, the nautical theme.

I mean, just, just that alone, this whole concept of, of Island, right?

It's the building, this community around our services.

And, and again, I think the, the social aspect of it, , that's

what we're trying to do.

We're trying to open, , the, the law to everyone, accessible to everyone.

So it, it's, it's really interesting to hear, , a lot of the, the stuff

that's, , from your life, how it's incorporated into, into inflow.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Totally influential.

Yeah.

Now I wanna, now there's, there's a big.

A big kind of person that was there that you got to hang out with and meet.

Tell us about

that.

Yeah, so going back to community, right?

So obviously on the shipboard community there was these entrepreneurs, There was

these students from all like different schools all over the, the country.

All over the world actually.

Professors from all over the country and staff, , from all the

country, but also guests, right?

For certain ports.

, sometimes guests would get on from one port, , maybe they'll get on at Japan

and then dock off at India, right?

Take a little, little part-time voyage with us.

And we had the honor of having Archbishop, Desmond Tutu from South

Africa on board with us, and he was on, on board with us for a while.

Actually.

He got on with us in San Diego and then got off, I think in South Africa.

Yeah, we basically brought him home and on the ship, , it was just great because.

, he's a huge historical figure in South Africa, world leader , just,

or just like world influence, right?

Just a preacher of love and community.

And it was just crazy to be like, , we'd be on the ship just having dinner

and he'd just be right next to us.

Like with his, , his, his contagious laugh, his little words of inspiration.

And at the same time, like I got to develop a little bit of relationship

with him, but more so his caretaker.

I developed like a, a good relationship with her, shared my story with her,

and by the time we were, it was time to basically drop him off in South Africa.

He wanted to invite some professors and students from the.

to his house.

Wow.

Now, out of about 700 students on the ship, he invited five students

and I actually got to be one of them.

Wow.

Who was able to, , go to his house and, , just share lunch with him,

meet his wife, meet his kids.

Yeah.

Just take a tour around his house and he has a modest home, , it's

nothing too crazy or fancy.

But he's got these pictures of him like meeting all these world leaders,

, Mother Teresa Ali, and like obviously, , country leaders and things like that.

So it was a really insane experience.

And , a big thing that Desmond Tutu or Archbishop Desmond Tutu

preaches about is a buntu, which basically means I am because we are,

is a simple translation of that.

And it's really just a focus of the fact that there really is no your, , there's

no personal ego to these things like.

, we are the reflection of our community.

We are the reflection of the people we surround ourselves with and,

, however you wanna interpret that.

Yeah.

And that was huge for me.

, just knowing that like this, that's an idea of collectivism.

Right?

Yeah.

And that was something I wanted to capture when we started Inflow.

Right.

, as a, as we, , launched this kind of legal membership program, I wanted to

make sure that community was center to it.

Yeah.

That's why we encourage our clients to work with one another, to lift

each other up, to share resources.

Right.

Even if you're competitors, right?

Like, even if you're not in our membership program, looking at the community of

entrepreneurs in general, looking at the community of your clients, looking at the

community of your collaborator and things like that, I think is just so important

to, to leverage that and, , take away the kind of like competitive nature of things.

Mm-hmm.

and knowing that you, once again, going back to an nautical thing,

but like a rising tide does lift all ships and I truly believe that.

So.

Yeah, that was Inflow was kind of just like the channel that allowed us to

kind of like mend these all together and provide it in a certain way.

Yeah.

No, I love that.

I love that.

And, and you're absolutely right.

I mean, that's the, the kind of focus of Inflow is the community and, and

in fact, empowering that community.

Right?

I think that's, that's a huge part of it.

And I love that, that taking away the ego of, of it, right?

It's not about the competition, it's about raising everybody.

And especially when you're talking about, , communities, , of just underprivileged

communities, communities of color, , that, that, , , I mean, a lot of times band

together to kind of help each other out.

Yeah.

So that's, that's a, a great way to put it.

Man, that, that's amazing.

So, okay, so then you, , you have all these awesome experiences and

all that you graduate from U S D.

What's going through your mind now?

What are you, are you saying I'm gonna go back home, or are

you, what are you gonna do?

Yeah, so at that point I knew that by the time I was

graduating U S D I basically knew I wanted to stay in San Diego.

So just trying to figure out any way to do that.

And I also knew I wanted to go to law school, so I applied to

California Western, right where we went, we, we, where we met.

And yeah, just mainly that was the whole idea was just finding out a way to stay in

San Diego, , and being able to continue on with like this academic journey I was on.

Yeah.

, once again, I was just graduating with an environmental studies degree.

Didn't really look forward to any of the career choices that, , were

available to me with that degree.

So I decided like maybe environmental law could be something I, I can

apply this, , this knowledge to.

So yeah, that was kind of like my foot in the door into law school.

And obviously things changed when, once I made a law school, Right.

I learned that environmental law wasn't for me.

I wasn't really.

Anything that intrigued me about the practice.

Yeah.

But I learned a lot of other things along the way.

, I found out what, , what I actually did enjoy about the law.

Yeah.

And actually, , just talking about like academic, like pursuits, even in

college, like yeah, I learned to get my shit together, but it was in law school

where I realized, I was like, Wow, I actually kind of enjoy, It was weird.

Like, I guess I like actually enjoyed like learning about it.

Yeah.

The pedagogy they say Right.

About case law and, , whether it was criminal procedure or

contracts or intellectual property.

I was really intrigued by it all and I was really, , getting into

my flow of learning about it.

Yeah.

And becoming academic.

Like it really, it really was an academic pursuit for me to like, be good at law.

So, Yeah.

That was really fun to just kind of find out about myself, which I had no idea.

Like I had no idea I was gonna be a lawyer until.

It was like a last resort to kind of save, save me from, , I don't know, becoming

a, a bi, like, I don't even know the environmental scientist or whatever.

Right.

So.

Well, it's funny

because yeah, in law school, and I actually do remember like my kind of first

impression of you and kind of just, just my memories from when we first started

chatting is that yeah, you were kind of focusing on, on environmental law, and I

remember you being very like, passionate about the environment and all that.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, as , when you're in law school, you, you start to

realize that some of these, these fields, like I think environmental

laws is a, is a perfect example.

The jobs are really in the kind of the polluters, right?

Yeah.

Defending against the law.

So you kind of realize real quick that it's like, , you're trying to

do a noble kind of profession and kind of help the environment, but in

reality, , the corporations that are polluting the environment are the ones

that are gonna be hiring the attorneys to, to defend against those laws.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Like I know a lot of environmental lawyers who are employed

by like Exxon Mobil, right?

Fossil fuel companies, things like that.

And then the opposite is just like you work for a non-profit that's suing them.

So at the end of the day, you're either in Coral all the time,

or you're working for Satan.

So , but no, not Satan, but like, , you're working for like a fossil fuel company or

Exxon Mobile , Shell, things like that.

Yeah.

Helping them kind of skirt around, , environmental regulations or

influencing environmental regulations.

Right.

So, Yeah.

Well, and then even after, Cause I, I do remember, so

obviously, , we went to law school, we graduated, , we passed the bar.

And then, We, we started working right.

We started working right off the bat.

And I, I remember you right outta law school, you, you didn't get into

some type you like, you were still working on environmental issues,

right?

Yeah, that's correct.

So yeah, just, , while I was in law school, probably even my first year I

realized like, probably environmental law is not gonna be the thing for me.

I realized I was really good at contract law.

That's when I got eventually invited on to be like a TA for contracts for

my final two years in law school.

I just really liked reading contracts, understanding them, making them better

and just understanding that the fact that they applied to everything.

So it was great to apply what I was learning in school

to, I don't know, music.

Right.

Apply to movies, right?

Yeah.

Basically everything that's happening is basically being written in a contract

and agreed on to sign in writing.

So I was looking at it, the fact that if I want to be a professional attorney,

I guess contract law is the easiest way for me to apply it in any way, manner.

I don't know, in any practice, I can take it forward in, for a certain industry.

Right.

Make the most sense.

So, yeah.

Okay.

So yeah, so, and I do remember that, welcome to

contracts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My little play on words, contracts with my last name.

But yeah, so while I was in school I was like, Ah, But at the same time I

was a little unsure about myself too.

, we just took the bar and for those of you don't know, like.

You usually, after you graduate law school, you study for three months.

You don't have a job.

You just study for three months.

You take the bar and then you wait three months to hear back

on whether you passed or not.

Yeah.

And honestly, like I, I studied hard.

I took the bar.

I was fairly confident in it, but I was also just very nervous.

I was very anxious Yeah.

About whether I passed or not.

And I was very unsure if I even wanted to take it again, if I needed to.

Right.

, and I'm over environmental law.

Yeah.

But at the end, after we graduated from law school and after we took the

bar, I was kind of pretty sure that I wanted to work in copyright law or

trademarks, or contracts in general.

Right.

I wanted to be a business advisor, right?

Mm-hmm.

, I wanted to be a business attorney.

So while I was waiting for results, it was time to get a job.

Right.

And a lot of people get post bar, , post bar positions.

You get, you go work for a law firm or , some type of, , whether the

government agency, like the DA's office, PDs office and you get a job that's,

, promised or contingent on the fact that.

Hey, like, come be a post bar clerk with us and if you pass the bar,

then you automatically get a job with us, which sounds great, but also

sound, it's nerve wracking, right?

Like what if you fail now you lost that job.

Right?

So I was, I don't know if I wanted to play that game.

So I was looking for jobs that didn't really require a law degree.

Mm-hmm.

. And I was checking out like what was available to me.

And lo and behold, in our local listing at our school for, , career choices,

there was a new job posting for environmental policy advisor for the

city of San Diego for a council member.

And they were specifically looking for someone with a law degree, even

though a law degree's not required.

They're looking for someone with one and looking for someone who

had a background in environmental.

Science and I was like, Wow, this job description was written for me.

So I showed up, nailed it, the interview and got the job.

, I loved it.

I just was, , I had no idea that that position even existed.

I didn't even know who my council member was at the time.

I didn't know what a council member was in general.

So it was just very like, eye opening in the fact that I kind of treated

that job as like a, I always say I was my master's degree in public policy.

Yeah.

Cause I had no idea how, , local government worked.

But I was able to get this position where I was able to help advise

on some meaningful legislation that occurred here locally in the

city of San Diego, I remember.

And really tapping into, , meeting a lot of different environmental

stakeholders working on cool projects, learning about what's up and coming.

Mm-hmm.

and a lot of cool nonprofits that are doing a lot of great work

when it comes to climate change.

You.

Water conservation, things like that.

Yeah.

So yeah, that was quite dozing, but definitely not something I

expected and definitely different than what we're doing now, so.

Right.

Yeah.

So, and yeah, I remember that.

I remember seeing you sometimes, like, there was like kind of the

equivalent of like cpa, right?

Where you could see like the hearings and all that, and you'd

see you in there and talking Yeah.

And, , educating, I guess, Right?

That's kind of what you're doing, right?

You're educating the council members about certain issues.

Yeah, I remember there was a big, a big issue which is funny because I think in

a lot of cities it's, it's up and coming.

The whole like motor scooter, right?

The e scooter, the, the, the birds here in San Diego, it turned into like this.

I mean, literally it was, not only was it a hazard at one point, it

was, they were littered everywhere.

I mean, there was, there was times where you'd see like, A little

mountain full of where people just start dumping them like, Oh yeah.

Over

the edges, the great scooter wars of like 2018 . Yeah,

I remember that.

And yeah, I remember you talking about, about that and some of the

policy work that you guys were doing

around that.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So for those of you don't know back before scooters were a thing

there was, there was no regulations obviously, but when they, when they

came to town, they just dumped their scooters on, on the sidewalks, Right?

No regulations.

They just said, Screw it.

Like, we're just gonna do, We don't know if we need a permit or not.

We'll see if they can stop us, or if, if they ask us for permits, then

we'll, we can help out with that.

But yeah, so we just, there was a big problem with just

like, who owns these things?

Like who's responsible?

Someone gets hurt.

Like, how many are in the city?

We have no idea.

We don't know.

Like they're collecting data from citizens who are using the apps and

like, what are they doing with that?

So there's a lot of like uncertainty about what was going on.

So obviously regulations were needed.

But specifically my council member.

Was the council member for the coastal district, right?

Mm-hmm.

or one of the two coastal districts.

Yes.

And there was a big issue with people using scooters on the boardwalks.

Now, just given the fact, the way the boardwalks are it just what didn't

make sense for motorized vehicles in general to be on boardwalks?

Right.

, just there was issues with kids getting hit by, like ran over by them.

Someone actually died on the boardwalk just from falling off a scooter.

, it's a sandy surface.

There's a lot of people, there's a lot of pedestrian traffic.

And here are people like zooming in and out with like different

scooters and different shapes and sizes with crazy acceleration speeds.

It just wasn't, didn't make sense.

Right.

And obviously it pissed off a lot of people.

Pissed off all the surfers, pissed off all the, , traditional beach goers.

So one of the things we actually led on and something like that,

I actually went to council.

, basically was the person telling the council like, Hey, this is the proposal.

Yeah.

Answering questions on behalf of this and moving this legislation forward was

to ban these scooters on the boardwalk.

Which did pass.

It was not an easy thing to get past cuz there was a lot of politics involved,

but, , there's nine council members and it passed five four with the simple majority.

So we were very proud about getting that passed.

And yeah, that was as fun once again, kind of like my master's degree and I

look at that as like my thesis, Right?

Yeah.

In that, so that's, it's always, , even if, , we always talk about just kind

of like going with the flow and like what's, , taking the opportunities that

come forward to you and to me, like I'm, I'm, I don't regret anything about

my time at the city council and being a policy advisor and things like that.

Yeah.

It was a huge just like growth for myself personally and how I present myself

professionally, what it means to do good work, what it means to work at a team.

Yeah.

And.

What it means to get things done, honestly.

Right.

So, yeah, that was a, that was a fun time.

But during,

during that time, you were still doing, you were doing

contract work still, right?

Kind of mm-hmm.

, Yeah.

Right.

With with other,

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

At the same time, , obviously the position I was in was in

a normal, , attorney position.

And I knew that, I knew that, and, , eventually I wouldn't

want to always be in politics.

Mm-hmm.

, I wouldn't wanna always be in public policy.

So I wanted to make sure I kept those skills fresh.

That came with , being a lawyer, being an attorney especially for

the actual work I wanted to do.

So at the same time, while I had this full-time position at the city

council, I was also a contract attorney.

I was working with, , as basically a freelance attorney

with a local, small firm owner.

Right.

He was great.

He worked mainly with small businesses.

Sometimes they were medium sized businesses, but he.

work mainly with contracts, a lot of business formation and trademarks.

That's where I kind of like got firsthand experience on learning about trademarks

and, , per probably prosecuting trademarks filing them and things like that.

So that was like a great experience is to keep my once again, skills

fresh and kind of develop that skill.

Yeah.

And then I also as a general counsel for small nonprofit so the, once

again, being able to form a nonprofit and then basically oversee all the

legal matters, all the contracts and things like that, once again was

just adding to my, , skillset Yeah.

Of being an attorney which I was super proud of, and once again,

gave me the confidence that.

, if I needed to do this for a client, I would do exactly how to

do it because I did it firsthand.

So yeah, I was, I was at a time basically holding three positions.

I was really busy, , in those three years on the city council.

So, Yeah.

Yeah, no,

I, I mean, I definitely remember that and it's, it's, it's so interesting

to kind of see that too, like, right, like kind of in, in, in the work that

you put into to inflow too, because you could kind of see, , pulling from

all these, these experiences and kind of how it all, , kind of molded into,

into, , what you do and what you're, , your, your individual practices, right?

Yeah.

For , whether you're still looking out for, for the general, , public.

I mean, cuz you still do that.

I mean, it's, it's not like something that you could just turn off, right?

No.

Like you're still very conscious about social issues and you're very, , Wanna

push that, that envelope forward.

So it's really, yeah, really interesting.

So you're at the council, , with the council member, you're doing

all this, and then 20, 20 hits.

Right.

And I bring that up because I remember during 2020 because, , me and you,

we were always friends, right?

Yeah.

We, we stayed friends.

And around that time I remember we linked up again specifically because of

my tattoo shop, because as you were in the council with the, with the council

member a group of tattoo shop owners reached out to you because you were,

, again, the kind of the, the, the council for, , for, for that Congress lady.

And it was, , there was this big push to.

help at least reopen some portions of the tattoo industry.

And I remember, , we kind of linked up again because, , you, you brought it to

my attention that there's these, this group that was doing that and I was

already trying to push that as well.

Do you remember that?

Yeah, I do.

I do.

Yeah.

But , obviously once the shutdown actually happened, , tell us about

how, how that kind of just changed your, your lifestyle and your,

your life.

Yeah, so it was kind of twofold.

Obviously it was the shutdown.

But another thing that kind of was happening at the same time

was that my council members term was coming to an end mm-hmm.

So I knew that I needed a, , I, I knew once again that I wasn't

gonna stay in public policy.

I wasn't gonna stay in politics.

So I knew that this was a perfect time to like step away from it.

Right.

My council member who, the main reason I even stayed there that

long was mainly because of her.

Like, she was a great.

, she was an entrepreneur too.

, her claim to fame was, , being very successful in, , her investments and

being very successful in the way she used her time and the things she built.

So I've learned a lot from her just firsthand on like how she

managed and, , her business expertise and things like that.

And then by the time, , so I knew that I didn't wanna work for another council

member, so I knew that, all right, we talked about inflow for a while.

We knew we wanted to start our own firm, and they thought like,

this is the perfect time, Right?

I'm about to, , lose my job per se, not lose it in a bad way,

but it was coming to an end.

Yeah.

And I also knew that, , based on the fact that, , things, we did speak about

Inflow, , even before the pandemic, we already knew we wanted it to be virtual.

Right.

We knew we wanted it to look a certain way.

Yeah.

And it just made sense because, , before the pandemic there was less

people expecting virtual services.

Right, Right.

During the pandemic.

That's what people, it switched, right there is a, a, a turn

in the, , the polls basically.

Yeah.

Where people were expecting even post pandemic virtual

services over in person services.

Right.

So it was just perfect.

Things were matching up.

There's a lot of new business owners happening during the pandemic.

Right.

A lot of people either kind of figure out what to do because they either A, lost

their job or two, were unhappy with their job and realize that there's opportunity

to pursue their passion and, , turn it into, , maybe some form of profit.

So just looking at all the trends, it was like the perfect time for actually the,

for us to pull the trigger on launching what we've been talking about for,

at that point, like three plus years.

So, yeah, I mean, it just can, And another thing is just like, why I

even thought, , the time was right was because I was also struggling.

Right?

Like, it wasn't, , a swish, like a, , an easy transition.

Right.

But I was struggling because.

Even I knew, like after I knew I had to like leave my, my job

at the city council, right.

I also was trying to get another attorney job, right?

Because I knew we wanted to launch Inflow, but the same time there was like, , there

is confidence was an issue, right?

Yes.

I mean, like any business, I think anyone, there's, there's always hesitation, right?

And it's, everyone tends to thread really lightly when it

comes to businesses, right?

Because look, remember, I mean, I talked about that, right?

About talking yourself out of it, right?

Yeah.

It's really easy to kind of sit there and overthink it and talk yourself out of it.

Because I remember we, we were having, cuz I, I was, I was

going through a transition, , I, I was at the public defender's

office, , doing criminal litigation.

I was kind of already, my mindset was more on, on inflow.

And I, and I recognized that and I, I realized that.

Yeah.

And I think when.

When we started talking about it, , I know you are, you are cautious about it because

again, it's like, what are we doing here?

Like, what?

And I was cautious because I was also like, well, , I have, , my family and

my mortgage and like, I can't just,

just bills to

pay.

I can't just leave this.

Like, so we gotta kind of do it, , slowly.

And, , I remember we, we talked about influe.

We, we had all these plans and we started drafting up all these

things until it got to the point where we were just like, Just do it.

Yeah.

Just do it.

Right?

Yeah.

It got to the point where just like, let's just do it.

Right.

And I think like a lot of times, like, it's like experience.

A lot of people think like they don't have enough experience to do it themselves.

Right?

There's a lot of people who work in, , Profession that they love working in,

but , their employee at that job, right?

But maybe they want to be the head hacha.

They wanna hang in their own shingle and they wanna start their own business.

Sometimes what holds 'em back is, I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Right?

Like, we talked to a lot of attorneys, like I'm always advocating for lawyers

to start their own practice anyway.

But a lot of times, a lot of the pushback is, I don't know if I'm ready.

I don't know if I can like, take all and all out responsibility by myself.

I don't, , I don't trust my experience.

And that was kind of like what I was struggling with was like obviously yes,

I was confident, but also struggling with the fact, like whether the time was right

and I'm like, maybe a little bit more experience in being a lawyer, like at a,

, a corporation or larger firm would help.

So I was looking for jobs, right?

Right.

I was looking for jobs with having trouble actually getting one or at

least getting one that aligned with me.

Right?

Right.

Once again, it was the pandemic, Right.

Like a lot of other people, I knew what I wanted to do and I knew my values.

Yeah.

And I knew my worth at the same time.

Yeah.

So, I was like getting going to these job interviews and I just, nothing

was, nothing was making sense.

I had job offers, but I just knew I would be unhappy and I didn't wanna

get myself caught up in something that would get me stuck, basically.

So at that point I was like, what, like, let's just do it.

Let's go for it.

And that's kind of like, , inflows main email addresses, Let's do this.

I'm in flow.com.

Yeah.

Because we were like, Let's just do it.

Right.

Let's

do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, man, I, I remember that and I think one of the most, I mean

the most memorable things about that that time was the excite.

I mean, it's still though that, and that's the like electricity behind

what we're we're doing, right.

With Inflow.

I mean, I remember just having like this horrible day or at work or whatever,

and then I would sit there and talk to you about the plans of inflow

and it would just like, Revive me.

I'm not joking.

Like I, and that's, that's the one thing that I, I could not have

imagined, , having a, a better partner in, in any of this, because I think

that excitement that we had, right?

Mm-hmm.

early on, like, just starting it.

I, I, I remember we had talked about that, right?

Yeah.

Like, dude, I needed that.

Like, I needed to talk about this because it just like, it

revives the excitement about it.

And remember our doing our, our, our first client, remember going through that Yeah.

Our, our kind of our very first, and especially dealing with, with

copyrights and all that stuff, and just kind of thinking about that, right?

Like thinking about that first client.

Kind of how deep we went into, into that, that whole thing.

And obviously we can't talk too much about it, but it was very contentious and we

immediately started going up against this other council and like another attorney.

And it was like, it was pretty, pretty intense.

Yeah.

It was intense, but also like fun.

Yeah, right.

Like it was a lot of fun.

It was like a crazy case.

Yeah.

It was a little bit of copyright.

Yeah.

It was a little contract, a little employment.

A little bit, , meeting with the other attorney.

Yeah.

, things like that.

An attorney who I already kind of knew from my time working

at the council member's office.

So yeah.

It was it was fun.

And that kind of gave us a little taste of like what we wanted to do.

Right.

And I think at that point we knew like, this is something that we could do Yeah.

That we could be good at because we were successful in that.

We got, at the end of the day, like, , there was no harm, no foul on our clients.

So, Yeah.

Yeah, that, and,

and I think for, for.

It just me thinking about the work that you actually put in beforehand, right.

Beforehand as far as the copyright and all that stuff, and how valuable

that became in that dispute.

Right?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

thinking about that and like now thinking about how, what we do in influence, really

giving this proactive advice on like, Hey, protect your, get your, your, your legal

ducks in a row early on, and it's gonna help you in the future with disputes.

And I think that was a perfect example of Oh

yeah, absolutely.

And just to elaborate for, for the audience is just basically came down

to a copyright dispute, whereas, , six months before that we told the client

to register a copyright to a photograph.

Yeah.

And at the time, it's hard to say, like, , you, hey, a copyright's gonna help you.

And they believed us and they did it.

Yeah.

And then six months later, , they don't only just have registered copyright, but

now it's actually being leveraged and used to assert their ownership to someone

else who was exploiting that photograph.

Advertising it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it wasn't even just like, it was like, it was like somebody

claiming it was their photograph that licensed it to an actual company to

use that photograph in their products.

Yeah.

Without exactly paying our client anything.

Yeah.

And it was just, it was just such a cool, It was almost like a, a law

school bar exam type of question.

Right.

It really was.

Yeah.

It's hypothetical that has like all these issues in there, but it was definitely,

it all came down to that proactive advice six months earlier.

Yeah.

Where if we didn't have that registered copyright, if we couldn't flex that in

the cease and desist letter, they probably would've told us to go pound rocks.

Right.

And hey, we're gonna move forward with this and we don't care what you say.

Right.

But , you, you flash a government document.

Yeah.

And you say, This is proof I own this and now it's on you to try to

figure out that I don't in court.

Guess what?

Like it didn't even matter who thought they owned it.

Yeah.

It was a company that said, Hey, we don't wanna get involved in this.

Like, we don't know who owns this, so guess what?

We're gonna cut sales, we're gonna cut these products and trash this inventory.

So yeah, it was just, , at the end of the day, once again, no harm, no

follow a client, but it was because they took that advice to get that

registered copyright early on.

So, Yeah.

And yeah, and that kind of just kicked it off.

Right.

And yeah, I mean, tell, tell us a little bit about that.

Cause I mean, and obviously, , throughout this podcast we're always gonna be

talking about, , processes and, and procedures and, and , little tips on, on

how to make your business more efficient and your law firm more efficient.

I mean, for if any lawyers are, are listening, but, , tell.

About that, , about kind of the whole build out, right?

Because I think that's one of the most impressive things.

, for, for me, watching you build out the systems and build out the stuff how, , we

always use that, the bootstrapping it.

Yeah.

And we literally did that here.

So j just kind of, just kind of overview of, of,

of all that.

Yeah, so I guess like the biggest overview really comes down to, I kind

of always had this like, skeptical look about the industry, right?

About the legal industry in general and Yeah.

Grounded in an actual evidence.

, just knowing that the legal industry doesn't work for everyone, right?

There's clearly benefit.

Like, there's clearly people who benefit more than others, right?

And , they always say the best way to complain is to make things better.

Yeah.

So that's what we, that's what I wanted to do with Inflow.

I wanted to show intrinsically and extrinsically, right?

And what I mean by that intrinsically is the fact.

The legal profession isn't, , as , great as people think it is.

Right.

There's a lot of unhappy lawyers out there.

Yeah.

But a lot of lawyers who are working 80, , trying to build, I don't know

how much they're billing a year, but , they're on these billable quotas.

They're working like 80 hour weeks.

They're really grinding.

Yes, the pays good, but that's what we call golden handcuffs.

Right.

There's just like a lot of mental, , health issues.

There's just, once again, a lot of people just upset and like maybe realizing that

being a lawyer wasn't right for them.

And I thought that was messed up.

Yeah.

It was like I didn't do all this work to be unhappy at the end of the day.

Right.

So I wanted to create something and in work environment where I felt happy in.

Right.

So that was One second, The extrinsic part of it is the fact that, , That

access to justice gap, right?

Yeah.

Where almost 90% of people who need a lawyer don't have access to one.

Yeah.

Which is a huge issue that, , a lot of times legal profession pawns that off

to like nonprofits to take care of, or the government through the PDs office to

take care of, or just other initiatives that it's not everybody, it's not every

attorney's problem, but it should be.

Right?

Right.

It should.

Like if we're gonna be a profession that prides ourself on justice and,

, serving everyone, then it needs to be on everyone's kind of radar to, to tackle.

So extrinsically, we also wanted to basically provide

legal services to more people.

Right.

And looking at ourselves as business attorneys, we were trying to figure out

the best way to basically democratize the ability to have general counsel or Right.

Having counsel services in general.

Right.

Because once again, proactive advice is so important, Right.

To launching a business, owning a business, to being a

creator, to being a creative.

Right.

Whether you're an artist, things like that.

So we, that was kind of like the push, the initial basically grand push about

that and the systems we put in place was basically to make that happen.

Right?

Yeah.

Like a lot of people say like, Hey, like how can you, , do so much for

your clients, but charge so little.

Right?

Right.

And it just comes down to the way we built Inflow, right.

Comes down to the fact that we have low overhead.

Right?

Right.

We don't have a large corner office in a building downtown.

Right, Right.

We don't have staff, we don't have , just like fancy cars

that we show off to our clients.

We don't have crazy marketing that we, , pay for, for billboards

and TV ads and things like that.

Our overhead's super low and instead of passing those savings on to ourselves,

right, we pass that on to our.

Right.

Right.

And, , being able to launch a subscription model that makes that sustainable, Right.

Being able to show up on social media as opposed to paying an

ad agency to run ads for us.

Right.

These are all things that are, , one just our, gives us the ability

to be more generous with what we can provide in our service.

Yeah.

And at the same time, just be more approachable to our audience.

Right.

So, Yeah.

Well, no, absolutely.

And I think the, a big kind of shift too that we saw with social media, right,

especially during the shutdown, is that there is this huge boom in kind of the,

the, the social media economy, Right.

Booming up.

And we are watching all these accounts, and I don't know if you remember, remember

I, I, I sent over an account, this really big influencer that ended up losing her

name because Nintendo ended up suing her.

And I was like, Man, if, if she would've talked to an attorney, Early

on, just about like trademarking, like her brand or her name, anybody

would've told her that, Hey, like you, you probably can't use that.

, you're gonna, , you're gonna lose it.

And , there was this video of her crying and, , cuz she lost this,

this name and this brand that she built, , over so many years and had

hundreds and thousands of followers.

And that was, that was also eye opening, right?

Because we kind of fell into this, this new market, right?

Where there was this whole social media boom, right?

Which was perfect for the, the business model, right?

It was perfect for what we were doing because maintain virtual, again,

passing those, those co those savings onto the clients allowed influencers

and, and, , online retailers to be able to afford legal services.

I think you always bring that up whenever we have consultations, but

you're always like, , all these big corporations have their in-house

attorneys and they have them right there in their, , in their office.

And they could just literally send an email, walk there and ask them something

proactively and they'll get some guidance.

Yeah.

Why can't, , your, your mom right?

And your sister or, , small businesses are an influencer, have that same access.

They

can Yeah.

And that was the whole thing mean, like, that's the best way to utilize us.

Right, , if you could pretty prevent something from happening down the line.

Yeah.

Just by, just simply education really comes down to, or just advice why not?

Right.

Instead of letting an issue develop into something that is

eventually gonna be very expensive.

And a huge headache.

Right?

Right.

And at the end of the day, I also don't want to have that

to deal with that headache.

Right.

We are problem solvers and yes, we are lawyers and we're supposed to help our

clients through those situations by the end of the day, if we wanna, we wanna keep

both our clients outta that situation, but also ourselves outta the situation.

We don't want to be, , in sad situations all the time and trying

to, , dig, , our clients outta a hole.

We want to help them avoid the holes Exactly.

To begin

with.

Yeah.

And I think that that's, that's been, if, if you really think about

it, , just the, the culmination of, of all of these experiences, right,

Your experiences, my experiences and kind of just, just the situation

that we are, , are put in the timing.

It all just kind of just worked out perfectly and yeah, that, I think that's

the, the greatest thing I think of, of kind of what we're building here, right?

That it is kind of a perfect storm.

And kind going back to this whole nautical theme.

Yeah.

It was, it was really the perfect storm.

Yeah.

, the timing, the, the markets, the, the time for change, I think people

are starving for, for change, right?

Yeah.

, these old kind of bureaucratic type of systems, these old school systems

like law and even just like a county and like, , these very old traditional

businesses kind of need a little kick in the, in the, but Right.

Yeah.

And kind of revamp them.

And I think our clients appreciate that.

Yeah.

They see that and, , we are, we are disrupting the legal field.

We are.

And we're proud of it.

, we might get some slack from, from other attorneys, but what, it's, it was time.

Yeah.

And, and , I think it's, it was just us kind of, , they always say like,

you don't want to be market driven, but you want to drive the market.

Right.

And I think that's so important because we're not just seeing like, , obviously

I, I would say Inflow is kind of an example of that, but we're seeing

that with all our clients as well.

Like there's a lot, this is a shift in general, Right?

Right.

From the creator economy to also the fact that, there is a lot of power

being basically shifted from larger corporations who kind of like, a few

decades ago, basically ran everything to, , from the media to, the news.

Where now if you're a consumer, you have options.

You're not just going to, the big, news companies anymore, but you can go

subscribe to someone's newsletter, right?

Which is just literally one person curating the news for a specific,

in a specific way that, , reflects your worldview, whatever it may be.

Right?

Right.

And then there's, , you're no longer listening to the same, , cable

television every day, or the same music tele like the music, right?

The radio channel and stuff like that.

You're able to go on Spotify, listen to exactly what you.

Not necessarily all artists from recording labels, but independent artists as well.

Like you're able to do that now basically because we've built through

the internet, social media, and all the other kind of tools we have

that allows the individual person to basically be their own media outlet.

Yeah.

Which is fun and awesome, but also doing it in a smart way.

Right, Right.

Because it's just, it's, it's awesome.

Right.

This is exactly why I advise other attorneys to, to, , if they're

looking to start their own business or start their own firm to do it.

Because, , traditionally if we started this a traditional way,

if we did Inflow and we were like, let's just do it a traditional way,

at the end of the day, we would just be doing legal work all the time.

Right.

Yeah.

Which is fine, but like there's more, like, we can just be

having more fun at the same time.

Right, Right.

Like, look at us like we are able to do this podcast great.

We're able to make our own TikTok videos.

We're able to, , do our own branding, figure out how we wanna

show up and then also experiment.

Doing legal services better right.

At the same time because of, , the persona we put on and kind of identifying the

exact kind of niche we wanna fill, so,

Right.

Yeah, no, you're a absolutely right.

If we would've done this a traditional way, , we would've been working

with, , these mid, larger, , companies having us do these, , contract

disputes and all that stuff, and it would've just consumed us Yeah.

With, , with Yeah.

The, the legal stuff, Right.

The stuff that most creators don't wanna deal with, Right?

Yeah.

But this allows us to not only be legal counsel, but also, , business

council , social media, right?

Yeah.

A lot of times we're, we're, we're giving advice on that, on

just social media, on marketing.

So it's, it's just been, it's been great and, , it's awesome

to hear your story kind of.

, and how it all ties in, right?

All your upbringing how that, , experience had an impact on, , the

way you look at stuff and the way it's being implemented within Flow is, I

think it's inspirational and yeah.

Thank you for sharing it.

Yeah, Thank, I think it's just, , between your story and my story,

it's like, mine comes from a very like inspirational kind of, , I was

inspired by seeing other people do it.

Yeah.

, my mom, my sister just taking a lot of like what I learned from being on Semester

at Sea, , Arch Brisbane, Arch Archbishop, Jasmine Tutu and just my experience, like

just knowing I wanted to do something that would have bigger impact than just

me, , being a transactional lawyer.

getting paid for X amount of work.

Yeah.

And then you who literally lived through it, right?

Like literally were a business owner and are a creator and able to, when

you speak to our clients, speak from perspective that is, , you can

actually basically connect with.

So yeah.

I think, I think it's just that culmination of both Yeah.

What we kind of been through Yeah.

Just comes together so perfectly in what we do and I think that's what's great

about being able to work closely with you.

So.

Absolutely.

And that's, and again, I, I think going back to, I think it, it for

me, , we have such a great dynamic because it's like we, we do, we push

each other in, in our certain ways.

Like we, we know how to like, motivate each other.

, and I'm telling you like any, every time you, you come up with the new.

Process or something that's like automated down the system and like your

excitement about it is so addictive.

And like I get all excited about it, , and then, , and then hopefully,

, I get excited about, , just other things where I'm just like, man,

no, we just gotta do it and like

do it.

Can you believe it?

And what if we

do this?

And what if we do that?

And I think we feed off each other and the excitement is

contagious amongst each other.

And hopefully that's translating to our clients and, and , the people

that are, that are following us on social media and they could see that

we're coming from, from a true place.

Right?

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's this, it's not, , this, this is us.

We're, we're actually excited about helping our clients.

And we always say this and pretty much every consultation we, we are living

vicariously through our clients.

We are 100%.

We love it regardless of type of business.

That excitement that we get from our.

We know what it's like now, so Yeah.

We feed off of it.

Yeah, I know.

Exactly.

This is kind of like the best thing about what we do is like getting

on those initial calls with someone who's like launching their business.

Yeah.

Or, , excited about, , putting something out into the world that they worked

hard on for a while and being a part of that in ways just like very fulfilling.

Yeah.

And then just doing what we can so they can pursue that better.

Right.

Like, at the end of the day, we just want to give them peace of mind, Right.

That they could work on the parts of their business that brings them joy and we can

handle what we're good at and the skill sets we have that allows 'em to do that.

Which in turn allows us to also do the same thing by providing

the services we offer in inflow in diverse different ways compared

to what other law firms are doing.

So, Yeah,

absolutely.

And it, again, it goes back to, , the, the title of this podcast, Right?

Rise and Flow because.

That's kind of what, what we're preaching, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Just step up, , just do it.

Get rid of the, the excuses.

Show up and again, go, go with the flow, , What makes you happy?

, it, it, it's, it's funny cuz I, I was never into this the whole like, , putting

stuff into the universe and the whole, but I, my perspective has changed, , since

inflow because it really, it really is.

It's, it's really more about, , what, what you put out there, it's

how, what you're gonna get back.

And it's, it's been an amazing experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, just, , going back Yeah.

Rise and flow, right?

As opposed to rise and grind a lot of people, , it's a common phrase.

Yeah.

, there shouldn't be a grind, Right?

Like what you're, if you're showing up and doing what you want to

do, like why grind yourself down?

Just like, and that's why we chose flow, right?

Just like flow with it.

. , just embody yourself in what brings you joy.

Yeah.

Be able to do that for others.

And , we find that at the end of the day that's super fulfilling and kind

of, , a lot of people who, , end up getting jobs or starting businesses

that could be very profitable.

Mm-hmm.

seem to be sometimes missing that.

Yeah.

And sometimes lack that happiness that everyone's after.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, I think that if you're able to be, show up,

be generous and enjoy and surround yourself with people who are down

with what you're providing and down with what you align yourself with.

Yeah.

Like, honestly, what more can you ask for?

So, Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I think just going back to what you were mentioning with

like putting things out in the universe, I think that goes a hundred

percent to your story too, right?

Where it's like you started off by just showing your love, the Star

Wars and your replica collection.

Mm-hmm.

. And what did that lead to?

Just led to other people who align with that to connect with you.

Yeah.

And then, Yeah.

Look at you now.

So,

. Gabe: Great.

Cool.

Well, thank you, Ray, for sharing all, , your story.

I think again, these first two episodes, we wanted to kind of

give, give our audience a little, a little, , introduction , to, to

us and what, what drives us and kind of what drives inflow, right?

Because at the end of the day, , yeah.

In inflow is us and these experiences and what we want to give back to our,

our clients and our community, really.

So thank you again, Ray.

Really appreciate you sharing.

Yeah.

Happy.

I'm excited to continue on and bring on other great creators and entrepreneurs

who can share their stories as well.

Yeah.

And how they got to where they're at.

So Absolutely.

Stay tuned.

Well, hopefully, , you're inspired and obviously you make sure you , follow

our, our, our channel and yeah.

We'll definitely be having some awesome guests.

Yeah.

And we'll see you guys next time.

It's a.