Greg Little aka Bunkie Perkins
0:20 we checked, we chased him so hard that I actually mocked up the logo for storm. Uh, uh, uh, creek. What was it? Crow Creek. Number two. Yeah. Put the big Roman numeral on it. We sent it to
0:34 him. And I think we had him. We had him. He was saying the term she looks good and all that. And then NGP took him to Argentina to shoot pigeon and he went, he wasn't coming with Kane at that
0:45 point. You wouldn't go with Kane. Yeah. Yeah.
0:51 You know, the last that that was what that last iteration completely turned me off to Providence. That was my first private equity, like venture was with Techalote. Yeah. And like, we bought
1:03 this huge. We had
1:07 250, 000. And we were doing great. We were doing great wells and we were turning25 million like quarterly to NGP, like doing what you're supposed to do, like running in a little gasket. Right.
1:19 didn't matter at the end of the day. Like they were, they were going to roll us up with two other companies for all sudden. It didn't matter.
1:27 This isn't like we're doing the right thing and we're still losing. Yeah. And it's, you know, I never want to be since they kicked my ass out of the club. I never wanted to defend private equity.
1:38 But,
1:40 you know, there, there is just a, as we all know, unfortunately, GNA is not linear and oil and gas. You know, it's more kind of stair stuff. So, I mean, if you think something trades at kind
1:53 of five times cash flow, I mean, whacking out five million in GNA across support folios, 25 million bucks, you know. And so, and the other thing I have, I feel bad about for management teams is
2:08 shit can happen. Sure. And you just get tagged as being bad, or stupid, or whatever, when. No, that was a known risk and it just happened. And just the risk that we thought was there happened.
2:21 Yeah, yeah. So anyway, my, okay, so we'll, well, we could go on with the love fest with Storm forever, but my favorite Storm story that he told me is one night he comes home with his wife,
2:36 they've eaten dinner, she's got the doggy bag, this big piece of fish that, for whatever reason, had almost a whole fish, and they're just arguing Arguing in the car all the way home, they get
2:48 to the front of the house, they unlock in the front door, and they're just going at it, and she throws the doggy bag and the fish at him. So the fish winds up in the front lawn. Storm opens the
3:01 door, the dog runs out, smells the fish, goes over there, gobbles the fish down. Fish said until the day that, all right, Storm said until the day that dog died, front yard, it stood right
3:15 where that vision was, just waiting for the magical area. Watch it up again. You never done. Exactly. That's funny. Well, Greg Little, you're cool to come on. So this is kind of why it's a
3:26 John who works here with us at Dijawakar. Did you all go to college? John and I were in the master's program at Tulsa. So University of Tulsa has a, they used, I don't anymore, it's a masters of
3:38 energy business program, which basically is an MBA, but energy focused. And he and I were in the program together. So we finished together. So John
3:49 and I have known each other for a while. And just down here at Nate, trying to figure it out. Good. Yeah. When you do come back and tell us shit. Yeah. If anybody has any suggestions on them.
4:02 My first name was 1995. And I think it started in '93, maybe in '94 Strong I think my I was thinking about that yesterday my first one was So we're going on the 20 year. Oh shit. That's a lot of
4:15 bourbon cokes over at the four seasons bar A lot of four seasons bar or as we call it the two and a half seasons Yeah, cuz I was always the crappiest four seasons in the whole chain. It was packed I
4:27 was actually there last night. It was packed. They actually have a really good bourbon selection. No shocking Well, they put some money into it recently. So it's not as bad as it used to be.
4:37 Yeah So, yeah, it was packed. But yeah, we're down here just trying to figure it out at2 gas and you know, just
4:47 I don't know. We'll see so you know back when I want to say it was 1995 it was it was back at the Westin Hotel in the in the Galleria So it wasn't at the George R Brown, right and they literally had
5:01 booze. So I mean it looked like a science fair, you know Then in junior high and my hero is this guy I walk up You know, I'm a young associate. I don't know anything about oil and gas. I'll walk
5:13 up and this guy pitches me on this 3D seismic, his brand new thing, got this bright spot. And so he draws a map. He's like, man, there's the high. We're going to hit it. It's going to be a
5:25 boomer. Next year I come back, he had gotten the well drilled. It was a dry hole, but he basically moved the high, the high, an offset location over And he said, oh yeah, we picked up a little
5:40 of this and the log, we're down dip, we're going over there. That dude got it drilled again. And then it was a dry hole. And then he moved it up, an offset. And that guy got that same prospect
5:52 drilled three times. I mean, he never found anything though. He was just, I don't know, persistent, I guess. Yes, there's a lot of that going on. Yeah, I think it's a weird, it's a very
6:05 weird time
6:08 the industry from like a small operator standpoint, which is what I am. And so it's really weird from a acquisition standpoint. It's very hard to get people to sell you anything right now because
6:24 they don't want to sell at the low, you know, they're not going to sell as they do. And unless they have low is, is price and multiples. I mean, it's, you know, it's not just low prices And
6:35 then the other factor that we've definitely run into is debt. Like bank debt right now is so difficult to, to get anything done. But great anecdote to that is we were trying to close a deal at the
6:51 end of the year of last year, a very small deal. It was, it was a basically a bolt on what we already have
6:58 15 million dollars So like literally not alone. And the whole point of I was going to a bank that I didn't normally deal with because I wanted to establish, this is a small deal. I want to
7:10 establish different banking relationships and want to go try to do, you know, just this little bitty deal. Surely, you know, that won't be a big deal. We were buying it at PV 40, okay? So the
7:23 bank says, oh, we'll loan you 50, 60 of PV nine. They tell you that, none of that is true. Because if I bring you a deal at PV 40 and you tell me that you're gonna fund 50 of PV nine, you're
7:38 going to fund the whole thing. Right. They had no interest in that. Yeah. They wanted half the money up front. They wanted a one-year AM and they wanted, Wow. And they wanted accelerated
7:50 payments. And this was a small deal that was making, it's old production, making current prices, probably making 50 to70, 000 a month,
8:04 It was a small deal, but operationally, it was a good deal for us, but I was like, guys, this is a bad deal for you, and it's a bad deal for us. It doesn't make any money at the terms you're
8:15 telling us. And you say you're an energy lender, but if you're not willing to lend on PV 40, you are not an energy lender. You're just a bank, which is fine, it's fine, but that's not what you
8:26 are. So we ended up losing the deal, and it's still out there, I guess, if we wanted to get it, but that just kind of shows you conventional lending, we did, so our first deal. This was in the
8:41 middle of COVID, I had just finished, I was working for a private equity back group and got rolled up, you know, as they were consolidating, it was NGP. And so me and my partner were like, you
8:58 know, we can do this, we can go raise money and go do it ourselves Well, go try to raise money. in the middle of COVID when oil went negative and that's really in in pitch, oil and gas deal.
9:11 It's really hard. It took us about a year to raise. We raised 13 million dollars. Okay. And the deal we ended up buying was was a marketed deal. And, you know, I have a friend that is now our,
9:30 you know, banker is the bank we use exclusively pretty much.
9:35 You know, he said, well, what about, you know, conventional lending just to make sense financially, like economically, it didn't make sense. What about a USDA loan? I was like, well, tell
9:45 me about the USDA loan. So the USDA has a program where they lend for rural development And rural development can mean a lot of things. But the asset we were buying was out in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
9:60 And if you've ever been in the Oklahoma Panhandle, it's all wind and snakes. That's There's nothing else out there. I think that's the definition of rural. Yeah. It is the most rural you get.
10:10 And so a new qualified on that. And so the great thing about the USDA is they will lend 80 loan to value, okay? They will, it is the term of the loan is the half life of the asset, okay? So the
10:26 asset we were buying is like 25 years. So we got like a 10 plus term, like length on the loan And it's a fixed interest rate. And so at the time interest rates were low and so we got a good good
10:38 term on that. They don't read a term in every six months. It's just flat, right? So literally bought a8 and a half million asset with13 million in equity and used the USDA loan. Now the downside
10:53 to USDA loan is you're dealing with the government, right? And so it takes longer. Like, you know, typical bank you can get a deal closer to month, month and a half, you know, depending on
11:02 what it is. this took six months, because
11:11 you have to go through the local USDA, and if it's larger, the USDA loans are capped25 million. And so if you go over a certain amount, you have to go through the USDA
11:24 office in Washington. So we were lucky enough, we were low enough financially, you know, the purchase price where we only have to go through the state The problem with the state is those that are
11:33 state employees, if you're ever dealt with state employees, like go get a driver's license, best of luck. And so the crazy thing is we could never get a response from them, right? Like try and
11:45 try and try and find. We know that the office isn't still water, okay, in an unmarked building, like, you know, that's locked, you can't get in. And me and my partner, more me, this is where
11:57 my internet savvy comes in attract the god damn it's in the head of the Oklahoma USDA, I found him on Facebook, okay? And I tracked him down and I found out where the office was and what his name
12:10 was and what his phone number was. 'Cause you can't call the USDA. You can't pick up a phone call. Just, there's no, you know, there's no
12:18 communication. They'll talk to the bank, they really won't talk to you. So we tracked him down and we went to Stillwater. It was me, my partner, and the president of the bank walked in, met
12:28 with him for an hour 'cause they had never done it along gasoline Like, they're typically dealing with farmers, right? I mean, you know, we didn't develop it. And so we sat there for an hour and
12:37 walked him through the financials and showed him what it was. Ended up approving it. It was the first oil and gas loan through the USDA in the state of Oklahoma. Now, I mean, any of the crazy
12:49 green stuff or you were just dealing with an Oklahoma dude? Just, yeah, dealing with an Oklahoma dude. Like, it was a guy from Stillwater who liked to work and then kick off at 230, go fishing.
12:59 Yeah.
13:02 It was a good old boy, but they're good old boys that don't want to be messed with, right? Right. And so you walk a fine line between
13:10 pissing off and like being diligent. Like it's a tough line to walk, but I think we walked it pretty good. And so, you know, it turned out great. We bought this asset and, you know, we were
13:22 very fortunate in the run up. You know, we bought it at 220 gas. And then for the next year and a half, gas was, you know, five, six, seven dollars. Yeah, that's what I'd say So we ended up,
13:33 you know, with that13
13:35 million investment, the day we closed, I handed the equity partner his check back because we had made enough between the signing of the PSA and the close to give him his entire check back. Like,
13:48 'cause it went from 220 to4 in the three month span. Yeah. And then since then we made our return105 million in
13:59 dividends back to him in a year and a half. Yeah, it didn't suck to a nice, nice 10x. And then the asset. By the way, I hope Colin McClellan's listening to this because a certain shareholder
14:12 would like to see that from digital hopcanners. Yeah, get on that Colin. Yeah. And then the operationally, I'm under no illusion that like pricing didn't
14:24 exponentially help that. But I'd always hear it. But we also, we bought right, right? But then also we went in and improved production by 25. It was just low hanging fruit. We didn't drill, we
14:35 just went in there and did workovers and did some re-completes and plumbing. Yeah, did what we do. And the value of the asset now, we had an economics run done by a third party out in Oklahoma
14:47 City three months ago and it was30 million, we bought it for eight and a half. And so
14:54 one of the things that I'm running into now, And, you know, I'd love to hear your. Advice anybody's I'm open to anybody's advice, right? It's worth what you'll pay for it So I have that story,
15:09 right? Right. That's a good story. How do I go raise money off that? Well for my next one. Do I go do I just tell you that story and be like give me money? I've done this let me do it again or
15:22 do I go buy an asset? right and Present it to you if you know if you're ready to invest a million dollars and I'm saying look we bought this asset the second asset that we're gonna buy you know that
15:34 we have a PSA on we're closing on it and we're gonna do the same thing we just did and Here's the base for whatever the next fund is That's an easier raise I think let me do this because this actually
15:48 dovetails with the question I wanted to ask you because I think a lot of folks that listen to my podcast want to be you They want to go out find an asset do this You figure out a way to finance it and
16:03 all. And so I'll go first with my answer to your question, but be thinking about if you had to summarize what you did with an eye towards repeatability, like how can somebody else go do this? I'm
16:20 gonna ask you that question, 'cause I think these two things dovetail together because if I'm a fund of some sort, you know, an NGP or the like, that's a great story. It also sounds like, how do
16:36 I know you can do it again? Right. You know? Right. And so you wanna, you wanna kind of put the story is less, here's what I did, the story is I learned and this is why I can do it again, you
16:50 know? So it's kind of replicating that. I found that, you know, I can buy out of bankruptcies and the thing I can do that's unique is the paperwork or whatever it is, or. I have found we can go
17:03 force pool people out of stuff, or whatever the case is, you've got kind of your unique aspect. I generally speaking, smaller, nicheier type stuff, has more credibility when it comes to
17:16 repeatability. I'm
17:18 gonna go in, I mean, I used to love private equity guys that say, I need 500 million dollars. Kinda wanna go outbid Chesapeake in an auction. Great Yeah, that sounds best of luck. So it's kind
17:32 of like, what is that repeatability? And then the
17:39 other thing I would say too is, it may just be one of those things that, if I'm sitting in your shoes, I'm out looking for that next thing.
17:53 And this is a hard thing to wrap your mind around, but I always said that really the way to view a barrel of oil. or whatever is you convert it into dollars and out of dollars. And so if you're
18:08 fields at the point where you could go sell it at a PV 10, 12, something like that, and you find another asset that you think you can return 30 or 40, sell this asset and go buy that one and just
18:21 keep compounding money Because every time you start over on a financing, you lose and affect the compounding of that money to some degree. Because at the end of the day, people just freaking hate
18:38 oil and gas. They just do right now. We talk all the time on here about how we just seeded the narrative to the environmentalists We don't tell our stories, and then we whine about how, Oh, the
18:50 environmentalists get this. I'm like, Well, show me your content. I don't have any. Okay, well, great. What happens in a vacuum? We've got to know the other side expands.
19:01 But so it's really hard from that point of view. And then, because back in the day, you used to be able to go through a process and we go to secain and see NGP of Quantum. We could get my term
19:14 sheets and blah, blah, blah. And now it's trying to find that, that like buddy that helped finance your business. It's, you know, it takes a lot of searching. Yeah, it's a different animal,
19:28 I think now I mean, just from a PE side, I know for a fact, you know, used to be, you make the team, you get a term sheet from, you know, NGP, Kane, whoever the hell it is. And then you
19:44 burn GNA for a year trying to find an asset. Right. PE isn't paying for GNA right now. Like you were not getting it. And that was honestly, on a much smaller scale, that was our idea. It's like,
19:55 hey man, we are not going to staff up so many people make this mistake. There is a specific company right now, I'm thinking up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that has drilled three wells, right? Maybe,
20:08 maybe four. They have 40 people in the office. What are you doing? Yeah. Like our company has 500 wells and another 300 non-op. I have 15 people in the field and four people in my office,
20:23 including me. Yeah. On a good day. Run, yeah, yeah Run lean, like you have to be, run as lean as you possibly can, 'cause at the end of the day, it's just gonna help you break even, but also
20:35 like, it's not the, if you're one of those groups that's out there just burning GA, burning investors money, like 'cause you have the nice office, our first office, right? So Tulsa, if you
20:50 know anything about Tulsa, it's kind of split between like Midtown and South Tulsa And the further south you get them like, it's all chain restaurants.
21:05 the worst dystopian, you know, landscape that you can think of. Yeah, that is, that is South Tulsa. I live in South Tulsa and so my partner lived even further south in Bixby, which is a suburb,
21:14 if you don't know anything about Tulsa. And I was like, Hey, man, this is after we bought the asset. I was like, I don't want to be downtown. It doesn't make any sense. Like we can do this not
21:25 downtown. Yeah. I was like, there's no reason to pay X If this was, you know, when commercial real estate wasn't begging for people to show up, like, you know, the price was still high. It's
21:35 like, that's, it's ridiculous. We ended up getting a little executive office that a guy built in Glenpool, Oklahoma. Glenpool is, you wouldn't know that you're in Glenpool. Like if you came out
21:48 of Tulsa, like it's just all one, one place. Glenpool back in the day. The reason it's called Glenpool is because the Glenpool of oil was, that That was kind of the big oil boom and Tulsa, that
21:60 role. well, city. And so we ended up getting a3, 000 a month, six office with a, uh, with a conference room. Like that was our office for the first two and a half years. It was great. Like
22:15 nobody messed with us. We literally, the guy, we were, he built a bunch of these little executive offices and he's in Glenpole. So we can't rent them. So literally it was us, a insurance
22:27 company, a roofing company. And then he, he rented the rest of the other six buildings to a marijuana grow operation. So we would show up every day at the office and just, you know, it was,
22:40 you'd smell the, the processing going all right. And honestly, if you went to our dumpster, you could start your own grow operation because they just, they dump the plants out there, which I'm
22:50 sure is not regulation. But that's how they were rolling in Glenpool. But like, you don't need all that stuff. And the minute you think you do, you're, I mean, You're doing it wrong, I think.
23:00 Yeah, you know, you don't need all that stuff. So, I'm gonna ask you this question to, okay, you know, are there three to five lessons, two to four, whatever you wanna say, that you would
23:15 tell the young guy who wants to go replicate what you do, number one was clearly keep GA low and all. And then the thing, I'm gonna follow that
23:26 up with when we start talking about that is, 'cause I wanna roll into something else you do, I actually think we are missing a huge thing in energy when it comes to fundraising in any sort of shape
23:40 and way. We don't use content to do it. We put together a book, we go into NGP's office or Quantum's office, we put it down and we walk through it and we like write on that book secret, you know,
23:56 punishable of death if you share this
24:00 any other industry, you go pull up Mark Andreessen's, Andreessen Horowitz, the largest VC fund on the planet. You pull up their website, it looks like a media company. Hey, here's our podcast
24:11 about the latest issues in gaming. Here's our white paper on the unbundling of LinkedIn, et cetera, pull up Carlisle, pull up KKR, all these guys. I mean, even, you know, if you think about
24:24 it, Warren Buffett's annual shareholder letter was the
24:31 how you used to do content, you write it. And he would get so much in the way of press for that and everything. So I actually think all of energy fundraising should be doing this podcast, posting
24:48 on Twitter, LinkedIn, telling our stories. Like I did buy you next time you go out to the field, you got an iPhone, you know, shoot what you're doing, document it. People go, Wow, that's
24:58 cool. And I do think if a lot of us were doing that, it kind of turns your world from outbound, you chasing money to potentially putt stuff popping in. 'Cause with the leverage of the internet,
25:11 everybody on the planet can see what you're talking about. Yeah. So I would say, so to answer your first question, like how do you do what I did? Part of it is just blind confidence. I mean,
25:25 really Yeah, like I'm a
25:28 confident person, but I'm also, I don't think I know everything. Like I'm very, I know that people are smarter than me. I know technically and just in general, very smarter than me. I mean,
25:42 I've got a couple of degrees, but that's just because I'm stupid. Like really just a glutton for punishment, really. And I think, honestly, you know, you're talking about John, like, he and I,
25:57 I went and got an A. energy MBA, because I was pissed off because I'd been passed up for a promotion. And it was given to a guy that had the same credentials that as me. And so I was pissed off.
26:10 I was like, I will never let that happen again. I will be more qualified than anybody that I go up against. And so that's why I did that, which I don't know if that's a40, 000 at University of
26:22 Tulsa later. I'm not sure that it helped, but it's a real fuck you. Yeah, it really was Yeah, my wife was really pleased, but part of it is just blind confidence. Like you, you have to believe
26:37 that you can do this because you've seen other people, let me tell you something. Here's the secret. All the guys, most of the guys that are super successful in the oil business. Like it's not
26:46 because they're super smart. It was because they were in the right place at the right time or they knew the right people or they worked their ass off. Like it's one of those three more than likely
26:55 And so that's part of it. that I would say, especially in the current times with financing and just, you know, gas is under2 right now, be creative. And I don't know what that necessarily means
27:10 for you. For me, it was find creative financing. And so, you know, like I told the story about the USDA, that was the creative financing for me. And I'll do it again, I hate the process. And,
27:23 you know, the next big deal will buy because the terms are so good Like I don't worry about my debt service. I just don't because it's so small considering, you know, just the general cash flow
27:37 that we have, you know, month or month. And so, be creative, whether that's bank financing or friends and family or institutionally, like whatever it is, you've got to be,
27:51 you know, you've got to be creative that way. And the third thing I would say is - Let me add one point there I had this discussion a couple nights ago young guy at the bar. Hey, Chuck, if I want
28:02 to build my own company, what advice do you have? I'm starting my own company. How do I structure the financing? And he started talking about it and I got, hey, I'm gonna sound like a real huge
28:11 dick here and I don't mean to, but how much money are you worth? Just tell me. And I'm sure the guy wasn't worth this, but he said, man, I've got about100, 000 in the bank. I just told him,
28:22 sign whatever they put in front of you. It doesn't matter, don't get cute, try to structure this, that you just go talk to 10 people, and if one's willing to offer you money, you just sign it
28:33 and go. Yes. 'Cause there is no poor to rich person on the planet. That's something. That great deal the first time. Yeah, and that's why they're rich. Yeah. They got into the game. They
28:45 turned out they were a player. Listen, the guy that financed us is a friend, right? Right. But he still made a shit ton of money off of me in the past two and a half years. I made a little bit
28:55 of money, He made a whole lot of money.
28:59 Yeah, get the first deal under your belt, it doesn't matter. 'Cause a track record is more important than what the fucking terms of the deal were. Well, and I always tell people too, it's like,
29:09 I mean, it's like around here at Digital Wildcatters, I mean, if, you know, I was the lead investor on the last round and all, if I make a lot of money, Colin can come in here and ask for stuff,
29:25 and that's usually an easy conversation It's not an easy conversation at time zero when I think I'm writing a check. Sure. Then I'm gonna lose all of it and all I've done is so that I have a nice
29:35 podcast to get. Sure. You know, so yeah. Yeah. Just sign it, get in the game. Yeah, get in the game, build, build your reputation. I mean, I now have, you know, I met with a buddy
29:48 yesterday as the CEO of a company here in town, and he's like, you now have a story. Like, you didn't have one or two or three. You had all the education in the world and you had, you had. you
29:58 know, almost 20 years of work in the industry, but now you have a story. Yeah. And that's more important than whatever the terms of the deal are. Totally. And so
30:09 the, I had a third point about. Oh, and I can say it up, sorry. The third point is, I am not an engineer. I am not a geologist. I have a law degree. I have an
30:22 MBA, I'm third-generational in gas. I know just enough to be dangerous And so, have people around you that know what the hell they're doing. I have a great partner who, I mean, I'll tell anybody
30:35 that wants to listen. He's the best operational engineer I've ever met in my life. And he's, I'm very fortunate to have him. And he knows what he's doing. I have two geologists that I worked with
30:44 for several years with private equity. They're awesome. Like, have people that are smarter than you around. Like, you cannot, you're never gonna make a mistake when you got. smart people that
30:59 know stuff you don't know. There's a lot, I don't know. And so I don't wanna act like I know everything and certainly from an operational standpoint, like you start talking about sleeves and
31:12 casing and you know, hey buddy, do what you do brother. Like you know better than I do. Like I can fake it for about a 20 minute conversation, but like when it gets down to the nuts and bolts
31:24 like you gotta have somebody operationally that can handle it Be self-aware, I mean yeah, 'cause we've all got blind spots. Yeah,
31:33 and you have to be willing to admit that. Like I'm willing to admit I'm a terrible accountant, I'm a terrible operational engineer, and I'm a terrible geologist. I'm good at talking to people and
31:45 raising money and like larger vision stuff, right? And that's my role and I'm fine with it. Well, and also I bet you're good too, is you've got a great partner that's an operational engineer.
31:59 You've also got enough wherewithal to verify that. You know, he's not just talking a good game. You're watching production go up, you're watching costs get cut. He's saying, Hey, this is going
32:09 to happen and it happens when it doesn't happen. He told you beforehand, Hey, here's our risk here. That sleeve gets jammed and I'll cut it off at100, 000 or what?
32:19 A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent Um, and then, you know, you're talking about just the social media aspect. So, I, you know, for the, for the people that are on, I guess, uh,
32:31 energy financial Twitter that are listening to this, I'm Bunkie Perkins on, on Twitter. Uh, and I have, I don't know, 60, 000 followers, like, you know, it's decent. Like I could, I, I've,
32:44 I've, I've been hesitant to go on Twitter and like reveal a ton of stuff, not because I'm scared of being doxxed or like I don't care anymore. Right. But, you know, I have young kids, I have a
32:58 wife, like, I don't want some jokers standing, you know, showing up at the door. In fact, at one point, I got threatened, my favorite showing up at the door threatened Twitter interaction was
33:10 with the late, great God rest his soul, Ron Mallet, who was the quarterback at Arkansas. There was a point where he was a quarterback at Arkansas, and me and a couple of buddies started a Twitter
33:22 account called, it
33:26 was a Ron Mallet Twitter account, and we pretended to be him, and he's just a real scum baggage from Texark, Canada, Arkansas, just diamond earrings, like the whole bit. And he found out who
33:29 was in charge of it. I
33:42 mean, because it wasn't a big secret, and he threatened to come to my house and beat me up. Six foot seven. Like, I was like, he's like, I will come to your house and told us to kick your ass.
33:53 All right, Ryan, come
34:00 So, all I'd say, I'm kind of, I'm a little slow to reveal a lot of that stuff, not because I'm, you know, worried about people finding out who I am, but more just like wife and kids, I'm
34:08 trying to protect them. Yeah.
34:11 But I think I could go on Twitter and be like, hey, I'm trying to raise some money. I have enough people that follow me that, I mean, I could probably do it. I'm a little hesitant to do that So
34:24 let me be your media advisor for just a second. 'Cause I want to on podcast last week and they called me a micro celebrity. I'm probably that too. Of course I had to do that. Well, I assume you
34:36 mean from the waist above. Yeah. Yeah, I had to do that gratuitous joke, but I would actually take a step back. 'Cause you, why do you have 60, 000 followers? 'Cause you're funny as shit,
34:49 it's great. I love reading that I mean, man, you know, and I hate Bobby Petrino too.
34:56 Your stuff's really funny, it's engaging and all. And I can tell by reading it, okay, this guy's smart. You can't make these jokes if you're not sorry. I would actually turn to your opinion
35:08 about an SEC coach in some way, shape, or form. You've established that. So I don't know that I would go, hey, I'm raising money for this. I might start showing them some oil and gas stuff.
35:19 Maybe it's a, maybe it's Bunky Perkins does oil or maybe it's just through Bunky Perkins But if you start showing some people, hey, man, we're working this well over and stuff, I bet you start
35:30 getting reach out of people saying, hey, man, next time you wanna do something, man, let me know, I wanna finance it, you know? 'Cause it's that thought leadership, authentic, genuine
35:41 content that people go, I wanna reach out to that guy. I think people ask me a lot, like, hey, do you making money off that Twitter account? No, I don't, and maybe that's to my own fault.
35:54 And I mean, I started it because, so before I was in oil and gas, I was, I was working in sports. So when I finished law school, my first job, I was the assistant athletic director at Louisiana
36:05 Tech. And then after that, I was a GM in the arena football league, which was a whole experience. That's where Bunkie Perkins actually came from. I was just so you know, the Houston team started
36:18 off Texas terror and then they went to the Houston Thundercats or whatever I was actually voted Voice of Thunder and they wrote me up in the program about how I was the loudest, most obnoxious fan.
36:31 I mean, that's high praise from the arena league. I was a GM of what became the New Orleans Voodoo, which in the NFL,
36:44 but I did that. I started the Twitter account because I was bored, like in the off season, like what the hell you're gonna do And so started it like that and so I've never really like Um, gaining
36:56 monetary, you know, benefit from it. But I will say I have met a ton of really cool people. I've gotten to do a lot of really cool stuff because of it. Like I last year, the, the PGA
37:09 championship was in Tulsa, right? And Scott van Pelt and Stanford Steve were, we're there doing the broadcast. And they hit me up on Twitter and like, Hey, you want to go to dinner? Well, yeah,
37:12 I'd love to go to dinner with Scott van Pelt. Oh, yeah And so Scott and Steve
37:23 and I are friends. Like we text back and forth. I text Steve a couple of times during the football season and like stuff like that. I get to go play a lot of really cool golf courses. Like I have
37:35 a lot of friends that are, you know, involved in golf media or, you know, even professionals and, you know, I'll get to go do trips like that. And so it does have some return on my really
37:47 crappy investment And I love this story because I think that happens in energy if we would just do it. and we don't, we bury our heads in the sand. There's a couple guys. So I got into, I guess,
37:60 EFT, Energy Financial Twitter during COVID, right? And so that's where I found you. That's where I found a lot of guys that are in the industry. And at the time, it was just a great coping
38:13 mechanism. Because
38:15 it was like, we're all of this shit sandwich together, boys, let's just, you know. But over time, it's really been beneficial just to pick other people's brains, meet guys in the industry. You
38:28 never know what
38:32 another guy might have as an opportunity for you until you talk to him. Until you reach out. Until if somebody on Twitter says something that we really interest, you hit him up, like hit him or
38:46 her up. Yeah, DM's all right, dude. Like, yeah. Like, hey, I was really interested in what you're talking about That's, you know, I think. Don't be afraid to do that, is what I'm saying.
38:56 Well, and it's interesting, 'cause what I think Digital Wildcatters is gonna have me do over the next year, 'cause we've got our Knowledge App collide that we're gonna launch a new version of in
39:07 April. Two years ago, we launched the really, really shitty version, and then a year ago, we made it slightly less shitty, but still pretty crappy. And so April, we're gonna launch it,
39:17 and so they're gonna actually have me out on the road given the old white guy speeches. And that's one of the things I'm gonna say to the old white guys is, you don't understand, these kids are
39:28 digitally native. I was in New York, my girlfriend's a partner at one of the big accounting consulting firms, and she had meetings, and I'm unemployed, dude. And so she goes, okay, what are
39:39 you gonna do today? And I said, I'm gonna go to bar and have a drink with somebody I met on Twitter. And she goes, who's that? And I go, Frankie, four fingers? Sure. She's like, you go on
39:49 somebody named Frankie, four fingers? What's his real name or her real name? I don't know. We're gonna find out. We had a great time. Yeah. I've had several experiences like that. And like,
39:59 you've just, yeah, while my pillow is scary to meet Frankie Four Fingers at a random bar in New York and Red Hook. But like,
40:10 yeah, you've got to take advantage of it because, you know, the crazy thing, I think in the industry, just in general, there's a huge age gap. Like, I'm considered young. I'm 45 years old.
40:20 Yeah. There's not a lot of guys under me and the guys - I'm considered young at 55. Yeah, yeah. The guys that are under me, you're right. They're listening to podcasts, they're on Twitter.
40:31 They're, you know, they've got Discord. They're, you know, whatever it is. And the aging out industry, the aging out of our industry doesn't appreciate that. And they're gonna have to
40:46 eventually because we're gonna be the only one with the left. Yeah. Like, you know, and so I think it's, It's totally important to embrace that. Like don't be scared of it and
41:01 use it to your advantage. And I'm talking to myself too, right? Well, and I'm gonna take you on the road with the speech 'cause my speech is gonna be kind of equal parts. They're digitally native.
41:11 The other thing is they're amazingly collaborative. Sure. I mean, young people are collaborative where we've all had in the business, we've known something that nobody else has and we made a
41:22 million bucks 'cause we were able to use it. And we've pissed away25 million because we wouldn't share information with somebody. I mean, good God, how much money did we burn trying to figure out
41:33 spacing? I got a software engineer buddy who sits there and goes, You know software engineers, we have stack overflow. And like some guy from Google say, Hey, I'm stuck, I can't write this code.
41:47 And a guy from Microsoft would be like, Oh, I wrote a patch for that six months ago Why don't you try this? Yep. I mean, that's Google and Microsoft, right? And could you imagine Chevron and
41:59 Exxon sitting now, let's learn how to space together, you know? And he just, this engineer always goes, you mean to tell me, two sections of the land, you drop250 million, and
42:10 you have not talked to your neighbor to see how their wells have done. Well, we got some data. No, no, no, no, public data sucks, you have it sat down. So collaborative. And then the other
42:21 thing is we're rolling on this The other thing I've found about the kids just hanging out here at Digital Walk Hatter is
42:28 kids get their sense of fulfillment from so much more than their job. I want to hear what you have to say about this, because with my age, your sense of fulfillment was, how much money do I make?
42:41 What name is on my business card? And my kid's athletic achievements, period, right? I mean, if your kid's an amazing musician, you would still kind of turn your nose up and go, oh.
42:53 But that's it, but kids today work maybe 20 of what they, they, they're fulfillment. They like, they like challenges. They like solving things, they're collaborative. They go out with their
43:05 friends. They learn an instrument, you know. They're just so much broader, but. I think for me, my life is pretty simple at this point. Like, and I like it that way. I, you know, Tulsa's a
43:19 great town to keep it simple, right? I love 15 minutes from anything. And it's easy to get back and forth. So like between my kids and my wife and work, like I enjoy going in the office, I enjoy,
43:32 but I also enjoy, you know, spending time with my kids, going and playing golf. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a, and I don't really care about,
43:42 like, I don't care that I'm a CEO or a president or a managing partner or whatever the hell, like you can call me whatever you want. Like I, my track record speaks for itself Like it doesn't
43:52 really matter. about that. Like I'm going to make money because I'm good at what I do, not because, you know, of any other, you know, outside, you know, situation. I, but I also look at
44:03 some, my wife is how much sugar she's six years younger. Sweet. Yeah, I have a nice she, I'm a brag owner for a second. Nobody cares about this, but it's actually really cool for, you know,
44:16 for me personally. Um, she about seven years ago started a pillow company in one of our spare bedroom, right? It was before we had kids. She was just kind of, you know, screwing around and I'll
44:28 make some pillows until I'm on Etsy. We now have eight warehouses, 35 employees and sell all over the world. No way. It's crazy. She does. She has, uh, uh, contracts to, uh, do all of the
44:43 VIP for F1 for Ferrari. She does all the Bugatti stuff. She does Rolls Royce. She does Rolex. It's hilarious. How do people find that? It's shoplittledesigncocom. Shop Little Dukes. Yeah,
44:54 shoplittledesigncocom.
44:59 Like she, yeah, just built it from scratch. We didn't take a dime of debt. We don't have any debt in that business. It's a multi-million dollar business at this point. It's crazy. Like, famous
45:09 people buy from us. The Kardashians on a regular buy from us is crazy. But she built that thing out of nothing. It's great for me 'cause it's special with two dollar gas, I'm like, what? Sweetie,
45:20 you got this. Yeah, the kids can still get, we can pay tuition this month, you know, because she, but
45:29 she's passionate about that and she doesn't really care what her title is and doesn't really care about the money. Like she loves her people. We have a lot of first generation Americans that work
45:38 for us. And you know, that's just in any industry like that, where you're making something, you have people sewing for you. And like, it was super important to her to have health insurance for
45:49 all those people.
45:52 100 of the health insurance they don't pay anything and it's not because we don't pay him enough. It's just because like the the cost is De minimis for us in the long run and it's more important to
46:03 take care of those people and so I take honestly I take a lot of what she's done and try to apply it to what we do and It's it's I don't know how good a job. I do sometimes with it But but it's it's
46:15 great that both of us are in the house together and we can kind of talk through two completely different industries but have the same problems especially like just managing people and and you know
46:27 Managing expectations and thinking about growth and all the stuff like it's it's been really cool to have you know, your partner in life also running a million dollar company and can talk to her
46:38 about stuff that Normally you come home and like your spouse has been playing tennis all day and dealing with the kids and like you don't have the opportunity to like vent about stuff because she
46:50 doesn't. she or he doesn't understand, you know? So that has been very cool, and I'm very fortunate in that respect. Yeah, no, and the story you just told kind of fits the vibe of what I was
47:06 trying to talk about, the fulfillment, I mean, she's,
47:11 you know, 38 or what are, you know, younger, that's what you get out of people like, Man, I'm gonna get everybody health insurance, you know? And it's not, well, you know, how much money do
47:22 I make today? That's kind of the vibe you get from kids and the old white guys in the end, they don't get that. Now I will also say the old white guys in the oil and gas business have some of the
47:32 biggest hearts on the planet. Sure. I mean, they really do. I mean, I don't think a, you know, when oil is minus 37, I do not think a major charity in Houston went bankrupt. 'Cause oil and
47:43 gas guys were like, Well, this really sucks, but they did it. Let's go stroke the stroke So, okay. I need one really cool Stephen's story. Okay. And Stephen's the Little Rock Arkansas folks.
47:57 The Cabal. The Cabal. I worked there for seven years, six years in the Houston office, one year in Dallas. I always said, I wanted to do well, but not well enough to get promoted. And since
48:09 you're a sports guy, I'll go with one of my favorite stories. So Jack Stevens was chairman of Augusta for 20-some-odd years. And he would put the green jacket on the winner, and he was always so
48:21 publicity shy
48:24 that kind of killed him to do that. But anyway,
48:28 so back, I think it was 1972. The master's always been on CBS. So CBS and whoever the chairman of Augusta have a really good relationship. And so CBS owns the Yankees at the time. They had bought
48:44 it five years before 'cause they were gonna, this was gonna be entertainment for TV and. baseball is just a shit show. And CBS kind of quickly realized this is not our jam. So CBS picks up the
48:58 phone and calls Jack and says, hey, Jack, we own the Yankees. We have no idea what we're doing. We spent12 million on it. We're a public company. Give us12 million so we don't take a loss and
49:14 all this. And we'll give you the Yankees Jack Stevens said, can I move them down here to Little Rock? That is quintessential Stevens. And CVS said that might not be the best move, Jackie,
49:27 because I really appreciate the phone call, but I'm not interested. Well, and then they built the Stevens baseball facility in Little Rock. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah, we do this. Yeah. That
49:39 family, and it's such a, like, unless you're, I guess, deep in the wall of gas or, I mean, even investing with Stevens, like you don't really know about them.
49:50 Like they're amazing. That's amazing family and I learned a ton. You all worked for three and a half years. I learned a ton just on
49:59 Yes, I mean, they're true. They're super shrewd amazingly. Yeah, learn how to save money learning how to protect your assets learn how to, you know Take advantage like right now They they are
50:13 probably buying two dollar gas. They're out there buying and you know that that's the way it should be done It's like okay in in good times you're saving your money. You're you're being you know
50:24 Responsible and then when gas goes to two or oil goes to 40 then you start buying then the village blood in the streets and that they've made their entire Living multiple generations off of that. And
50:36 so I took a lot from them. I'm very grateful So I have I have a good story. I have a good oil and gas story that has nothing to do with Stephen's family But I think it's something to enjoy
50:51 Okay, okay, Kelsey Warren. Yeah, okay, very wealthy individual Kelsey We have mutual friends Kelsey and I do and one of those friends was getting married. I happen to be in this wedding and so
51:06 Kelsey You talked about you know old white guys being magnanimous and Kelsey hosted the vaginal party
51:14 We I drove down I was living I think it was living available at the time and My buddy Chris who's getting married calls me he goes. Hey our bachelor party I really don't know what's going on just
51:26 drive to Dallas and meet me at the millionaire FBO, okay, I can certainly do that Get there and it's Kelsey. Okay, and guy's falcon airplane Ready for us. We all is 20 of us get on the plane.
51:43 Okay, don't know where we're going Okay, we start in south, like real south. We passed the Yucatan Peninsula, I'm like, where you going?
51:54 We land in Roetan, Honduras. OK, all right. We get off the plane in Roetan. There is another plane, it's the biggest assessment they make, like an eight-seater, right? We get on that. We fly
52:08 to Kelsey's private island off the coast of Honduras. It's called Barbara Red Island, you can look it up. It used to be an old drug dealer's haven OK, but he bought the island and may or may not
52:22 have hired some ex-seals to go in there and clean out, quote unquote, the island. And so we land on the island, OK? And he has a full security staff, like dudes with automatic weapons, a whole
52:39 deal. Think of the greatest rich guy drug cartel thing you can think of it pretty much was that. And we spent the weekend on his island. That's cool enough, right? He's got like a 50, 000 square
52:54 foot house that overlooks, you know, the water and it's just amazing. He had a zipline course all throughout the island and the last zipline went from like in the jungle into his living room, like
53:08 wild stuff. Great guy, but the crazy part about it was on Sunday, we're sitting there, we're having breakfast and Kelsey gets phone call And he goes, leaves the room, comes back. Says, Guys,
53:21 I need to talk to you. He goes, Listen, that was the CIA. There is a coup going on currently in Honduras. We are going to land in Honduras.
53:35 Don't fuck it up, basically.
53:38 So it was, I mean, maybe I'm talking out of school, but I think it was a US government-backed coup And so we land and row it in. and the military is waiting on us. They walk us from the Cessna to
53:56 Kelsey's plane. And we all get on the plane, don't say a word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And take off the lane back and down. Holy shit. So a bachelor party at Kelsey Warren's private island of
54:08 Honduras with a government coup. Nice. That is about as good of a oil and gas story that I have of just. I mean, that's top five of all time. Yeah, I still have pictures from it. It's great.
54:25 Kelsey's a, you know, you think, I mean, he's a killer, like the guy's a killer, but he's also a super nice guy. Yeah, well, what I've always said about Kelsey is I don't want to divide a pie
54:36 with him, but I'd do business with him on a handshake if the pie discussion was already cut, you know. And like, so him, he came from nothing He's just on country board from these taxes. he, he
54:50 was not nepotism was not in play for him. And so, like, you know, I certainly don't think I'll ever be Kelsey Warren, but like, it's possible. Like, yeah, that guy came from nothing and
55:02 literally, so the wealthy of America. Yeah. Yeah, back when I was at Stevens, we were in for the year I was there in Dallas, we were in the crescent.
55:14 And Ray Davies and Kelsey Warren had started energy transfer and it was in a little house kind of diagonally across the street. Yeah, they still have that house. That house is still I don't I don't
55:26 know if anybody works out of there. Yeah. So, you know, Ray Ray retired and owns the right. Right. Yeah. But yeah, that that that is another interesting. I went to a meeting there. I
55:39 actually took Rick Turner of Stevens with me into that meeting. Charlie Waters and Cliff Harris. Sure. Dallas Cowboys worked for Energy Transfer and they were sitting there. Yes, they did.
55:50 Yeah, that's a very interesting company and Kelsey is one of the, one of the guys I definitely look up to, but also I would want to cross. Yeah, exactly. All right, we're gonna get out of here.
56:03 I used to on the podcast, I would do five questions. Remember when Craig Kilborn ran the Daily Show before Stuart came in and he would always do the five questions. I used to do that on the podcast.
56:14 If it wasn't the middle of Nate, I would have had five questions written for you So I don't have that. I got one question. Okay, one question. Monkey Perkins, cage match, three year letterman.
56:27 Who wins? I mean, coach, he gets definitely, he's probably got the leverage on me. I mean, I'm not small. I mean, I'm a pretty big guy, but I feel like his technique would probably win over.
56:42 He's a great Twitter account if you don't follow him. He's
56:46 one of my favorites And so, yeah, three-year letterman heat. I'm gonna give him the win. I'm giving the win. All my money's on Bunkie. I'm all in on Bunkie. You got him. I appreciate that. I
56:58 appreciate that. I am falling apart daily, physically. And so, you know, I think coach will probably take me. I'm willing to take that. But you did not finance your waterbed, so. Well, not
57:11 yet. Two dollar gas, who knows? It does. Got the pillow business. That's right, God bless people. Dude, thanks for coming on. This is really cool. No, thank you so much All the EFT people
57:20 that listen, I know sometimes I don't interact with you guys, but I'm always reading you guys. You make me laugh and keep me sane on a consistent basis. Awesome. Take care everybody. Yeah, man.
