Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicholas Valenta.
Nicholas, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was very blessed to have grown up faster than most of my peers. My mom is a single parent, and my family is a big Italian family with my cousins all much older than me. I was always treated as an adult and traveled with my mom to business meetings across the country. By the time I was in high school I had already been to almost all of the states. To date, I am only missing four that I have not visited yet.
Traveling opened my eyes to many demographics, which would later help me with the brand building division of Arion because it helped provide me with an understanding of each region and how people operate, but early on, I wanted to manage money. I knew I wanted to manage money since I was in eighth grade. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was actively stock trading and giving my mom’s friends unwarranted advice.
When it came time to pick colleges, I chose SMU because I was offered a decent scholarship and was one of the select few that was able to start business school as a freshman (BBA Scholar Program). This allowed me to take a class on entrepreneurship and helped me learn how to vet some of my business ideas.
Since my mother was a single parent, I always sought mentors. I met a man who became my mentor in a gym because he was wearing a NYC Nike shirt, and I was infatuated with New York and Wall Street. His name is Scott Mathis, and he owns a boutique private equity firm, Algodon Group, where I interned after my freshman year in college. Although I did not know it at the time, my finance internship with Algodon would introduce me to the world of brand building and marketing. While I was there, I did much more than asset pricing and valuation modeling. Scott, the CEO, allowed me to help create company brochures and asked for input on growing several of the brands he owned. I even was able to fly around the country with the Algodon team and assist them during their road shows (where they raise money). One of the brands was Algodon Wines, a well-known vineyard from Argentina (this is important later).
After summer, I decided to start a small technology consulting firm that sprouted from an idea in my entrepreneurship class freshman year. It did well but had an obvious growth ceiling, so I chose to intern in finance again but on the other side. Rather than being in alternative assets, I chose to try my hand at wealth management for Ayco, A Goldman Sachs Company. I worked there because I wanted to learn the conservative side of building investment strategies and how to deal with high net worth clients.
During my time at Ayco is when the idea for Arion came about. One of my best friends is Carlos Gracida Jr. a great polo player and the son of the most awarded polo player ever. His father, Carlos Gracida Sr., passed away while I was working at Algodon, but it was not until a year later that I was able to visit him in Wellington, Florida, where the equestrian winter season is every year. I realized that the Gracida name needed a brand, so we started Gracida Wines. We thought that taking the brand, and luxury associated with polo, and offering a wonderful wine at an affordable price would be a success. We currently have three wines and all are well received. Even master sommelier, Virginia Philip, who carries only exclusive wines from all over the world, carries our wines in her Palm Beach store. We recently brought our wines to Dallas and are currently in several exclusive places including Park House and Network Bar. We are trying to grow our Dallas reach now.
This branding deal made me realize there is major market that is underserved – athletes needing to have a post-career. So I started Arion. The goal originally was to be the one stop shop for athletes. We would handle their contract negotiations, then handle their finances, and finally, help them build a brand to help them long outlast their professional sports careers. I became a MLB agent and partnered with a well known NFL agent. We quickly realized this was a major need but most athletes entering the league were not remotely thinking about long term goals. So we only took on a few clients, but we started taking on many small business owners for the same services because the same issue holds true for business owners – they are really good at one specific thing but do not necessarily have the infrastructure or understanding of financial budgeting, tax filing, branding, and marketing that is needed to grow a business. This quickly became our bread and butter and still is.
We now have serviced over 30 clients, from athletes to small business owners to large businesses just looking for the next innovative campaign idea and a team to implement it. We also service anyone looking to stabilize and grow their financial resources by offering a boutique approach to the family office investment model.
Our finance department sprouted from the small money we received from athletes early on and has evolved into us providing family office level services for smaller net worth individuals ($1 to 200 million). This includes portfolio building, asset allocation, and investment sourcing, concierge services, and trust management.
Has it been a smooth road?
My journey has been anything but smooth, but I feel that is the case for most people trying to fight the normal career path by creating a road for themselves.
Many people say first impressions are everything, but in my industry people judge me before I even open my mouth. I am constantly fighting an uphill battle because of my youth. This is obviously combated once a potential client takes the time to understand me and my story, but there is definitely a stigma with youth. In both financial investing and branding there is a huge advantage to having experience, and almost everyone immediately associates experience with age.
It is actually quite interesting because I have found, generally speaking, that once someone is successful, they tend to become complacent. Once something works out for someone, they stick to it. I try to take the opposite approach with every client. I really focus on creating what will work specific to each client, which is rarely the same cookie cutter investment strategy or campaign strategy.
One specific time I was in a meeting trying to acquire a business on a client’s behalf and was point blank asked: “Are you here to do actual business or are you playing business dress up?” This was a reference to my age.
I also am unable to access any sort of line of credit or financing from the bank because of my age, which made starting my business very hard. I ended up finding private investors to help pay for all the legal fees associated with starting a financial firm.
I continue to fight the age battle but have combated that by building a tremendous advisory board of powerful and successful people in the financial and creative realms.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Arion Group story. Tell us more about the business.
The Arion Group was created three years ago. I found that many highly successful individuals and companies became successful because they were/are really good at one specific thing. This helps them amass wealth but does not help them grow it through other avenues. There are people that are incredible at engineering new medical devices but do not know a thing about the proper way to market the device to the daily consumer. There are businessmen that make millions of dollars over a period of time but bounce from financial advisor to financial advisor because they realize many advisors are static and just looking to collect a management fee without truly doing any work or without being willing to sift through 30 deals just to find the perfect one. We try to solve these problems.
On the marketing side, we help companies grow their brand by first understanding their vision, then taking that vision and creating a detailed strategy that we ultimately help implement. This often is in the form of advertising campaigns, product release campaigns, and digital marketing strategies.
On the financial management side, we have found that the family office model is best but has traditionally been offered to only the ultra-wealthy. We have partnered with many alternative asset firms (Private Equity and Hedge Funds) and see over 30 deals a month that we feel are some of the smartest money deal in the country. We are able to provide our clients access to these deals that they otherwise would not even know about. Everyone cares about generational wealth once successful, we help provide the strategy and implementation of making this a reality.
My proudest moment was seeing my business model in full function on our Gracida Wine project. We raised the money for that project, designed the labels, found the vineyard, learned the three-tier system, and brought the wine to the states with a successful marketing strategy.
Many people want to own a business and be successful but do not take it seriously enough to do so. If you take it seriously, we are the firm to help you build your empire.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
With advertising and marketing, I believe there will be a tremendous shut down of middle-market firms across the country due to freelance work and the growth of entrepreneurs starting small businesses.
In advertising, there really is no middle ground anymore. Companies hiring advertising agencies are either super small and willing to cut corners on quality due to budget restraints or are large and wanting top tier work. There is a dying middle tier of firms that do not have that “one big client” to keep them afloat because they charge more than freelancers and small firms but do not have the portfolio to land the big fish quite yet.
In finance, I believe there will need to be a major overhaul in the definition of financial advisory. I have met with some of the most brilliant and successful people in this space and hear a recurring theme from all of them. Although they reap the benefits, they agree that big shop financial advisory is a complacent and stagnant role that often leaves clients unhappy and financial firms experiencing slower than normal growth in years that are not objectively booming. So I believe there will be a rise of smaller shops in the financial management space. I think people that have the drive and know-how, such as myself, will use their big bank track record to attract high net worth clients to jump ship and work with a smaller firm. This is already being seen somewhat. The only issue with this is we are seeing a cut in management and performance fees, which is bad for everyone, but my firm does the same thing to acquire bigger clients.
Pricing:
- Family Office Management – 1%
Contact Info:
- Address: 3625 N. Hall St.
Suite 610
Dallas, TX, 75219 - Website: theariongroup.com
- Phone: 2145073539
- Email: contact@theariongroup.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theariongroup/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arionagency/
Image Credit:
Alex Ferrer & Jade Shellis
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