Brian Smith

So what happened is that towards the end of the season, I got a call from the life insurance company, Transamerica.

Because I made a claim when Neil died back in February, March, and I'd not heard much except they rejected, they rejected.

I had a lawyer who kept pressing them.

And they finally called us and said, look, we've got to get this off the books by December 31st.

Can you come to Los Angeles?

And we spent a day negotiating with them and we ended up getting $200,000 as a settlement to walk away, even though Neil didn't even have his physical done.

So I was...

super lucky to have got that offer.

And in the meantime, I'd said to Della, look, I think I can pay you this amount.

I don't have the cash right now, but if I can keep this season together, I'll pay you.

And so I signed a promissory note with her.

And this $200,000 was enough to pay her note out.

And then by, you know, I owned the company 100% again.

You know, who would have ever thought that that would happen again?

I didn't have the skill to go out and raise the money like traditionally, you know, by this time there were sort of business plan modules, but I didn't really get into that.

I was still, you know, who's a rich person that I know?

There was no real structure to it.

And so I was always pushed down the road until I was desperate to get financing.

Here's the irony.

The business didn't need that much cash to run for the season.