00:00 Rob: Just paying people every month makes a big difference because every single month they get a deposit and they think about us Welcome to funds that one where we dive into some of the world's most renowned investment funds We'll interview investment managers across the alternative landscape and learn how they built their million and even billion dollar asset management Empires will explore teams structures strategies and best practices and launching and running alternative investment funds Hey guys today had a conversation with Rob Fuller founder of ROI property This guy has you know hundreds of millions under management wealth of knowledge just all-out fascinating conversation We got into real estate development how we built his teams how he structured, you know, some of the things in his docs You know how he works with LPs and you know kind of his some of his fundraising strategies I think you guys are really gonna love this conversation Your initial strategy was just fix and flip yeah, right Yeah, okay, and did you subcontract that out that work? Did you do yourself?

01:03 Rob So we bought all over the country that year in 2009 2008 2009 I think we bought in 13 houses in Multiple states we bought a couple in Chicago a couple in Detroit a couple in Atlanta One or two in Tennessee So we would sub it out we were living in California at the time Yeah, I mean some of those houses we bought for $2,000, right? It seems crazy the taxes every year in Detroit were more than that. We paid for the houses. Whoa So but we had great renters. We had a Teaching assistant was running one of them The church rented the other would you manage the property? No, I'm a property manager. I did it as well so Rents were Five six hundred bucks a month seven hundred bucks an expensive homes, but we didn't pay a lot for them I think the 13 houses that we bought in 2009 cost us less than a hundred thousand dollars. Whoa. Yeah That is crazy. Yeah So they were inexpensive. I mean, I think one of them we bought Yeah, Chicago paid like eight grand for it when we sold it five years later. We sold it for about 75. Yeah again, that's still not a lot in today's day and age, but I mean it's probably Couple times more than that value today, maybe three

02:21 Lincoln So when do you start leveraging? Yeah, you know, did you just reach you know inherent capacity limits and you said we got to start raising money from other people Or how did you start going into the business of you know managing OPM?

02:36 Rob Yeah, I think it was a combination of you find good deals and you think I don't want to let that one pass us up And also if you have a bandwidth so some of it was just the ability to go out and do more But didn't have enough of our own cash to do it. So I Think it's it's kind of all of the above, you know, and you think okay, there's opportunities and and there's assets that to buy and and And then we also had people approaching us after a little while saying hey, you know, you're doing this Can I put some money in that kind of thing? Yeah

03:09 Lincoln Yeah, well paint me a picture what your firm looks like today just what eight years later You know, I know you've got multiple funds that you're managing multiple products, you know, just give me the full

03:21 Rob Okay, you know high level. Yeah, so we've we've closed out a few funds. We have a couple going right now one that we're just launching but essentially about 25 employees here in Orham, Utah just north of Provo by UV you and BYU Right now we have about 17 projects projects range smallest ones 26 homes largest ones several thousand lots There was many of those lots will want to selling to builders and some of them will build on ourselves Wide range of markets that we're in Got projects in Texas, Alabama Huntsville specifically multiple markets in Georgia and those projects are specifically most of them are specifically build a rent and projects where we Build the community either hold on to the entire community as rentals kind of like a horizontal multifamily So yeah, it's classified as or We'll sell the entire community to somebody else. Okay, so it's stabilized or pre stabilization Sometimes it's co so it's certificate of occupancy as soon as the buildings are done. Some funds will take them They'll lease them up. So there's a there's a wide range of different exit strategies Sometimes you can just literally sell the homes one by one by one We try to get as be as versatile as possible. It's single-family homes. So it's not Quite as niches say multifamily and I mean build a run is a niche But it has multiple exits because they are single-family homes. You can sell them Individually or as groups or hold on home What's your preferred exit strategy out of all this love to hold on oh, yeah Yeah, but that only works and because we raise money so we have to return the money plus profit, right? And we tend to pay a flat fee. So an insurance and part of the reason we do that for some Simplicity sake. Yeah, right. We'll do sometimes a prefer Treat it like a debt fund and just to a flat interest rate But we do that so going in people know exactly what they're getting when they get out. Yeah, and So you have like different share classes then or do you know? The most recent one is just a flat 12% 1% per month

05:34 Lincoln It's cool And have you ever looked at doing like continuation funds if you want to hold on to those assets in perpetuity or?

05:41 Rob generally when we do it will will exit the asset and Because we've built in so much equity through our process or of annexing rezoning and titling land building it all of that We usually have enough equity in the deal to be able to hold on it without Having to do a continuation fund, but we we've talked about it. I don't have it needed to do it. Yeah, so total AUM today Of other people's cash, yeah or totally equity under assets under management In real estate, we have you know hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate, right? But as far as other people's money that we have

06:18 Lincoln Probably about 50 million dollars cool That's awesome. And you're have you primarily, you know Done the same thing across your different products your for funds and you branched into different product sets Are you going to branch into different product sets? You know, what does what do things look like there?

06:36 Rob It's the first few that we did were fix and flip and kind of we fix them to either flip them To other people as homeowners or to sell as rentals. So we did that early on For the last well, I mean kind of there was a break in time where we didn't do any funds for a while because Of what we were doing. We were able to use institutional debt Which we it has its pros and cons. Yeah, right there are advantages to having a fund Well, why don't you tell the listeners? What are some of the pros to work with an institutional group? One big check right? It's not lots of little relationships which relationships are great But I'm not an extremely extroverted person, right? So I like being able to have a relationship with a banker who you know Whether it's a debt fund and hedge fund family office, whoever that will write you a big check That's that's nice because you don't have as many relationships to continue fostering and if I'm I consider myself a real estate developer and That's a full-time thing but we raising money is also a full-time thing right and having those relationships and fostering those and growing those and and so It's easy when you have an institutional group who can write checks to do that I will say that the last couple of years that's been slowing down which is one of the reasons I started Moving back towards opening a fund and then a second one. So this is our fifth one but The advantage is there is that you're not beholden to groups that are then beholden to Wall Street who have said right? You're not gonna fund anything else, right? Yeah, we're stopping and Bankers will still call me the loan originators will they'll you know to chat and hey what's going on and and All the while knowing that they're not gonna be writing any loans because they can't that you know banks or debt funds For the most part are stalled. Yeah, they're with all the rate changes and Bank uncertainty and so many of them have paused but loan originators are oftentimes still making and keeping and fostering relationships because they want to be able to relationships for when they do Eventually open up their own ability to lend again So from my perspective raising money gives us a little more control of our own destiny. Yeah to say it that way

08:56 Lincoln So well, I often tell people, you know, they're as much as you know investors like diversification in their assets and in their investments asset managers Investment managers need to have diversification in their LPs, right a good mix of you know Institutional grade LPs and your high net worths and your family offices just because their you know, time periods are different They're timed allocation and and Makes for a more robust, you know portfolio. Yeah, so I was cutting it I cut you off a little bit as you were talking about your product sets So where you know, where do you see those going you plan on just doing your vanilla? You know development for the next decade or are you trying to get into other asset classes or how do you think about you know As you're building your business of funds and asset management, you know, what is what does the roadmap look like?

09:46 Rob I think we'll probably stick with vanilla. Yeah, it's just we know it if we do venture into other things Generally, it's with our own cash not with investor capital We don't usually go into that and bring investors in right away if we have things that we do generally We know build the rent that we know that space we know Residential housing and feel really comfortable doing that and raising money to that end Yeah And then if we have other things that we put cash into not saying we wouldn't bring people to it later But we certainly right now we know what we're doing within that the housing residential markets And so we can go and when we do it will oftentimes by land And exit into cities or municipalities that are local Rezoning entitle it even Say frequently I'll say that we just use our own money for that part of it as well and that part is Where you create a lot of value and you give your the value of the land a huge lift because you're Increasing the kind of height you're putting the land closer to its highest and best use right? So if it's agricultural land And we're making it residential land that value of that land jumps up substantially Depending on who you're asking me if you're asking the ranchers they're like, it's not the best use we'd rather graze our cattle but right You make it worth more as you rezone it and title it That that part it also is also typically more risky because you don't it's not a slam dunk Not everything gets entitled on it. Everything gets annexed But we'll do that usually even by having the sellers carry back we'll make an offer say we'll buy this in two years or When we get permits to move land and title it and all that

11:35 Lincoln So you typically take down the land with your own cash then and wait to bring in investor dollars for the actual construction loans So then do you then you then get a participate on the step-up and basis in the land?

11:48 Rob So because we do a debt fund generally is also part of the reason we do debt funds because there's no need for that Yeah, the hard part is when you do equity and you're bringing people in as an LP Equity position right you've got to go through that process of reappraising the land and making a justification for why the land is worth I Bought it for a million and I did all this work and now it's worth two million, right? right and there will be some real costs in that additional lift, but When you do a debt I can say well, it's it's worth two million now You know, but we we have a hard million plus maybe another hundred or whatever in it. So we've got a hard 1.1 in it But a lot of times we'll even wait to close on the land with this with the Seller until we've gotten those permits in place so a lot of times we don't have any cash in the deal other than some earnest money and soft costs for annexation returning rezoning and entitlement And so we close, you know when we have an actual permit in hand kind of situation to do work but we don't that way we don't have to get in the You know speculative discussion about what the land is worth because you only really know what it's worth Right you can get an appraisal but You know if there's ever really an issue people go well the appraisal was favored in your direction, you know So it's easier. That's one of the reasons I like that funds. It's easier just to say You're gonna get this percentage of return it makes sense for some people it doesn't make sense for everyone and What I found is there's enough people that it makes sense for That we get a pretty good chunk of people that invest with us as a result We lose some investors who are a little bit more willing to take on risk Because they don't know where it's gonna be go they may get higher return. They may not

13:27 Lincoln Ours is treated more like a pure debt play. Yeah when you're selling those, you know fixed return profile of investments You know a lot of you know, my former clients have just you get a lot of pushback in terms Well, I want to participate on the upside, you know, and so how do you how do you navigate that response? How do you communicate that with them, you know to play the roles or you know, how would you respond to that?

13:53 Rob Typically, I'd say that's not my investor right? Yeah, and just say that that's totally fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings No is my second favorite answer. I'll tell people, you know I'd rather get to a no fast than then a maybe for a long time But it's interesting because even the institutional firms who had been doing equity positions for a long time have now Backed off that and they're doing debt. Yeah, right So it's it's where a lot of Institutional groups and individuals are feeling more secure That's where I tend to reside anyway, because it's where I've where I've been and how I like to pay people out So I have a lot more people coming my way now than I had in the past but say If I if I have to tell people it's well it makes sense for some it doesn't make sense for every Upside and just say this isn't your investment

14:42 Lincoln So where you know the risk-free rates have gone from you know, one to five, you know I can go buy a ten-year trade or several treasury for yeah worth of five percent, right? You know Do you feel like you're competing more with that or are you still able to provide enough premium?

15:00 Rob Regardless of the current rate environment environment to still be competitive or is that yeah work work 12 percent It's a flat return. So it tends to be people really like that number. Yeah, it seems to be you know, we pay it Generally, we pay every month 1% per month. Oh, really construction fund. Yeah, like as if I were going to You know debt fund run by somebody else or or bank that would be higher interest rate. We pay every single month It's construction financing for us. Yeah And then what's your typical term? Two to three years, wow, okay So we right now the fund that we're raising is a three-year term I feel like that gives us enough time to To kind of get through some of the rate environments get some of these projects refinanced and it's pretty sure comparably

15:47 Lincoln You know when you look at market, you know, have you ever thought about or entertained? You know having a longer term or five to seven or even ten and then just turning the capital multiple times or

15:59 Rob So we will even in that time frame three years turn the capital a couple of times really because it's yeah We the way our projects we we would invest this cash as we're ready to go vertical Right in the vertical time frame for a build is not three years even right? It's yeah So I'll give you an example. We've got one community. We break ground on on August 1st It took us about a year and a half almost Year. Yeah year and a half then we're gonna have a three year period Almost year. Yeah year and a half then Once we got the permits that's in North, Georgia Just north of Atlanta Once we got the permits and it was getting everything mobilized for the site work to begin on August 1st That particular project we will Build 174 town homes in it and they're kind of in pods of 10 or so But we'll start a pot of 10 every month But their town homes that will finish a pot every three or four months, right? So you know within Four months we're recycling the money from the first month back over so and those units to complete the units It's in Georgia the cost of building there is much less. So yeah, we can recycle that just in that one community several times Yeah that those funds so Because of that we can and then when they're done when as the units are completed and they're cash flowing they're rented there's many more opportunities in that particular community will put it to a bridge line and then Which which will be eight or nine percent and then when they're all done and stabilized we'll move it to a HUD loan And how does it so in that particular community? We have it we just testing the waters talking with our brokers for long-term agency debt It's about five point one five percent in today's market You know a hundred percent of our costs out So be able to refinance and get all of our costs out just with the way and again some of that is The bankers doing their best at guesstimation of where things will be at but they took pretty aggressive Stance with cap rates and things like that Not I guess more conservative, but they they moved them to a sixth quarter Which that community today would be trading at five and a quarter to five and a half. Yeah, so they They're taking the steps they need to make sure that we're getting realistic pricing, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, so what do you think?

18:22 Lincoln What do you think sets you apart, you know and your firm as opposed to others or regular builders or like What's your what's your edge, you know in the marketplace or?

18:33 Rob How do you like that most builders are? Build to sell we're built to rent. So that's one thing that's it's unique about us Comparison to Most the people you'll run into on a daily basis. We tend to hire out. I mean, we've had Lenar build a community for us Yeah, we'll hire General contractors to come in and build an entire community for us. These guys are Experienced at building big projects Which is different from most your your builders who are building You know even homes in a community that would usually have buyers lined up and sometimes we have institutions Lined up but Ours is more geared towards it where possible. I'd love to hold everything we could yeah And we can get takeout financing to support that and so I think Our ability to raise capital is one of our advantages because many people can't do that The access to the relationships that we have with institutional buyers That's a nice exit because it returns all our cash plus some profit. Yeah So I'd say those are a couple of our advantages that other people don't have they can they can form those relationships But it takes years. We've been doing this for a decade. So yeah. Yeah. No, that's great I'd like to shift the conversation and talk a little bit more more about roles in the fund

19:55 Lincoln So, you know, I think we've had a lot of people that have been doing this for a decade So we talked a little bit more about roles in the fund So, you know as an emerging fund you were probably wearing a lot of different hats, you know and a little bit everything Yeah, you know alluded to it earlier, you know being a full-time investor versus operator or investment officer you know, I'd love to hear what where do you feel like what is your core role right now and

20:22 Rob You know, what do you plan on you know, how do you plan on developing that? Okay Well, we have outside counsel that does most of our legal we have controller and in-house that does a lot of that and and then an outside auditing firm as well That does our tax and accounting and and an audit In the past we I was more hands-on as far as getting into every single nitty-gritty detail of every single project Every single project but now I have multiple staff members that will run projects and they report back to me on a weekly basis We have our meetings and go over that and that somebody does a lot more the finance of Like bank financing and things like that and of course have the different the different team members I think the tricky part is because I love real estate development so much Trying to And again, that's part of the reason I like those big institutional firms because they can write that big check I think that you end up a little bit further away from the hands-on as you you grow in size And as you become a manager of people because ultimately as you grow a fund or you grow a company you end up with 100 employees Some portion of your time is going to be spent doing that unless you have somebody that comes in It's really great at operations that can run that piece and so I try to balance that and try to balance my real estate development with The people managing with the fundraising We have a fundraising team

22:00 Lincoln In office because now you've got like what would you say 25 employees? Yeah Tell me about you know first of your you know first couple key hires You know as you were growing your business and growing your your firm and uh, you know How you made those decisions of partner selection? Or you know key employee selection as you're building out your business

22:24 Rob Good question. Okay. So I think part of it was I like to hire people who are smarter meet smarter than me in the area that they're that they're in right? I mean that seems like a common sense answer but It's amazing how many people don't hire people that are smarter than them. They hire people that they can train to do everything My thought was hire, you know somebody who's a controller who has you know Our controller worked at an auditing firm worked at a builder He can bring in best practices that he's seen in the industry because he's been around it for 20 years So hiring somebody like that is helpful from my perspective because they bring in The advantages and the things they've learned other places Our construction manager was a was a really good hire Again, same thing somebody who can i've been in construction been in and around construction it's not the same as having a construction management degree and Knowing more the ins and outs than even I do right because I don't i'm not on site building things so Project manager was also a key Key role that i've hired So one of my svps is it came from a background of city employment economics and planning manager for a city down in arizona and Brigham and was a huge help Because he understood how these projects are supposed to go from the city perspective, right? And so helping us To be in kind of attuned to their processes because we have a way that we can say Oh, well, it should go this way Well how we think it should go isn't necessarily how the city thinks it should go and make sure that all the t's are crossed And i's are dotted and so I would say those are all Key roles for me so controller construction manager and kind of project managers that we've had our svp

24:20 Lincoln For me, so tell me what you what you learned from Compensating and incentivizing, you know key employees, especially in an investments You know management business have you stuck primarily to salaries or you let them in on the carry or is it sizable? You know if you if you're comfortable

24:40 Rob So we we do bonuses and I would say Sizable is is right. Um, but partly because I am more of the type of person I come from a background where I'd rather have people have large incentives then um and Depending on the role, right? It might be a few thousand dollars for Some roles, but it might be fifty thousand dollars for another role, right? And that can very much depend on the value that they create within your business and and the um taking Energy your time energy and effort off of my plate that I have to expand right if I have to spend time on something um But I can hand it off and somebody else can spend even twice as much or three times as much as time as I did but to do it better than I was doing it because I didn't have enough time and because they That really that task required more time for me. That's um hugely important to be able to get projects and tasks the time they need and sometimes as managers or as entrepreneurs you end up Shortcutting things that need more time spent on them because we don't have the time We don't have the money to hire somebody else to do it but finding a way to do that is is pretty important because otherwise you're shortcutting the things that may end up making you the most money or That may prevent you from getting in most trouble, right? You know, especially if you're talking about funds Shortcutting compliance is not a good idea, right? You're gonna get yourself more trouble. So understanding what you're getting yourself into is is pretty key

26:12 Lincoln um Let's answer your question. Yeah. Well, that's great. That's that yeah, that's great, you know as you bring up compliance, it's typically uh Something that it's a it's the big monster in the closet, you know that people don't want to address or or you know Take on you know, how have you navigated your real estate business from a compliance lend? Have you outsourced that to a third party compliance officer? Do you have your legal counsel that's guided you there?

26:43 Rob Do you have a cco like what does that look like? So one of my mentors early on Was a guy he went to Yale law He's practiced law mergers and acquisitions. So he's in securities Yeah, and then he and his brother did business and sold it and he retired when he was 42 Which was about 20 some years ago 22 23 and uh, and since then he's been in real estate. Oh, okay, and so um Met about a decade ago As I was starting to take on more capital and things like that And he's invested at times Over 15 million dollars with me some points in the last 10 years He's had less he's had zero dollars with me just depending on whether things have been paid off or kind of where we're at And Because of his background in securities one of the things i've learned from him He's a great mentor to have because he's in real estate a lot of people that are in real estate I don't know how many people in your audience are in real estate, but A lot of times people think oh i'm in real estate. I'm not in securities And the general rule is that in most cases you are in securities If you're in real estate and many people don't recognize if you're taking money from somebody and they're expecting a return there's more qualifications than that, but If somebody wants to get upset and you're taking their money and you're they're getting a return You're going to be lumped in with the security at some point. Yeah, even if they took some active role at some point in you know Selecting the property and there are no guys that'll do that and they'll you know, kind of as a fluff send out an email Hey, what do you think? Okay, they gave me my other feedback. They're actively involved. It's not the same thing Yeah As the day in day out the guy's got a job doing something totally different and you're trying to claim he's an actively involved in your investment It's generally not the case. They most guys I know in real estate think they're that think they're not securities They are but one of the things my mentors told me is is disclose disclose disclose, right? Just tell everything right? Yeah. And again, this is where you get people who are They'll they'll say well, you know, I don't like this or I don't like that and you say, okay This isn't your investment. Yeah, right and that's fine the tricky part is you know guys get into investments where people disclose less And then things don't work out the way they want That other, you know, and then they end up getting sued or whatever, right? and or you know investors lose money and I didn't know and It's just easier and better to disclose and help people feel comfortable with the fact that this is an investment It's doesn't always go the way we want it to go we're going to do our very best and ultimately when people invest with you they're Investing with The operator right the person in charge and The paperwork's there is a backup, but you know, I found in a lot of ways it really protects the operator more than it protects the

29:28 Lincoln investor but You know, it's there to protect both parties. It is but I find a lot of times it yeah plays to your place to your benefit So tell me a little bit, you know as could I dig a little deeper there? How are you guys structured? Do you have an ria?

29:44 Rob Or we don't okay We work with a lot of different groups that honestly our biggest lead source is current clients We get every week. We'll get I don't know five to ten people who say hey My friend so-and-so is interested interested in investing and they've been investing with the current person has been investing with us for One to five years or whatever. We get a lot of investment and a lot of that is because we're just Constantly trying to update people like we had a grand opening at one of our our sites in colorado this last week so we sent that out to our investors and bunch of people came and One guy brought his brother and his and his another guy brought somebody else and a friend and And so those kinds of things we had about 200 members of the public there to look at the project It was that's one of our few that is is for sale to owners and so we had a lot of agents and Builders and people like that coming to look at the project. So

30:44 Lincoln So that's been a great, you know source for new investor capital coming in. Yeah So along that same thread, you know what that's probably One of the hardest parts for emerging managers and new fund managers is actually raising the money you know, what is What are either tips or tricks or strategies that you've used or approaches? That have been, you know helpful that you know, maybe aren't the obvious ones

31:12 Rob Again my mentor had kind of For years I did kind of like an accrual basis on our projects like hey when it sells We'll do this one of the things that I learned Over time is working with institutional groups that was built in a like an interest reserve where they Hey, we're gonna lend you a million but on paper. It's gonna look like 1.2 or whatever it is and that extra 200,000 we're putting in a bank and you're gonna pay us Our interest every month from that extra money The point of me sharing that is that One of the things that we've done sometimes is either with that or with other assets as they sell Just paying people every month makes a big difference Because every single month they get a deposit and they think about us And so when they are thinking about their friend who's talking about investments Or what to invest their money in? They think of us. So one of our biggest sources of Of referrals is is is our current customers, but it's partly because we're always on their mind Money every single month And again, it's it's for us that we treat it like debt Yeah, it's like any other bank or any investment fund that would that invest in us. They expect a payment every month And there's very few of those types of groups that will accrue it But a lot of times when people I shouldn't say a lot frequently when I hear about it people said, oh, yeah We're my investors are going to get paid in five years from now. So between now and five years from now They don't think they don't think about them. That's really interesting So and it doesn't work for everything it works for me because i'm a real estate guy and and it's kind of an industry standard anyway So it's easy for me to say to somebody. Hey, we're going to return money now if you're investing in a fund that's in investing in A tech company venture capital. It's not making money Doesn't really make sense, right? But it works for us because we're in real estate Have you had a month where you haven't been able to pay that monthly fee? No, because we we do what I was saying You know having said the interest reserve and we'll also have we've got you know That community I mentioned a minute ago was we sell the assets in there. We'll have You know millions of dollars that comes back that we can use to pay investor uh interest so that's one of the handy things but If we weren't going to be able to one of the things I would say is you just got to be Upfront about it and say we're challenged in this way because of this

33:30 Lincoln And so we're not we aren't able to pay this month because your docs don't guarantee in any way she performed Uh, which they shouldn't um, no but You know, it's just the expectation that you kick off. Uh, you know a monthly distribution Cool. Yep, and we do it. Yeah So how have you now have you ever had any investors that have had liquidity issues and need to get out early Uh, have you you know, what do you what's your experience in dealing with the secondaries market? uh

34:00 Rob You know, what would you have to say there? So Yeah, that's something that happens It's happened a number of times over the years and actually when we When we were writing this most recent fund documents we were looking at Some sort of language in the document that would allow people to get out if they needed it And then we were looking at the The fact of the matter is we've we've been fortunate we've because we have investors that are constantly coming to us We probably operate different than others again where we'll just either we'll use our own capital and Pay them out or somebody else will come in When we originally writing it we were writing it to the thought that there would be some sort of penalty But just in the end decided not to put a penalty in for it. That's just our style I mean there's again, there's no there's no requirement for us to pay people out early um But so you don't charge a massive slap on the wrist fee if somebody needs to withdraw. Wow, that's really that's what we also don't guarantee it So they come in and say And in massive i've never had anybody who said, you know any five million dollars out tomorrow. Yeah I think a couple months ago. We had somebody who's like I decided to buy a house And I ate five hundred thousand dollars at the end of june. Yeah, right so we

35:18 Lincoln Got him five hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, that doesn't generally happen. It's unusual cool Well as we wrap up, uh, you know a couple of last questions here You know what what advice would you have to either emerging managers or people that are Five or ten years behind you that are just getting going or You know along in their journey, you know, what what what did you wish you knew when you were first starting out?

35:48 Rob I don't think anybody thinks it's easy. But really when you ask them if you said hey this is Is this easy most people are gonna say no, it's not easy But in their mind they have some idea that it's going to be easier than it really is, right? They think i'm going to be able to raise the money or i'm going to You know people are just going to fall in love with what i'm doing right because what i'm doing is so great and What my my recommendation would be is is not to change that necessarily like I want you to be passionate about what you're doing But be patient and be patient with yourself and other people um Try to be as realistic as possible when you when you go into it and say and but but what if they don't? right, yeah, if they if I can't sell people on on my ability or the the vision or How great this is going to be what happens then And have a good Path laid out for Achieving your passion even if you're not able to do it, but partly because when people see that that's there they go Okay, they don't need my money I'll invest with them. That's what I found a lot of the time When you don't need the money, it tends to come more readily And even if it's a an error an error of I don't need the money even if you do you're like I need this money Right desperation doesn't bring people and so being patient being Fourth fourth, right with what everything that you're planning on doing and how you're planning on doing it um, it's helpful and You'll learn to be able to explain that to be better people better as you get involved in sharing it more and more but Takes time. Yeah, there's no shortcut. You know, some people naturally have An ability to raise money more than others because their personality or their passion or whatever it is but Um, let's say stick with it. That's especially if that's not you stick with it because it just takes some time. Yeah

37:44 Lincoln What are some what are some habits that you feel like have attributed to your success? Uh and or the success of your firm?

37:55 Rob Um I mentioned before this a little bit but just and kind of even just now the having a plan for an exit Or if things don't go your way like the way that you want them to go because they very rarely do in real estate in Probably in almost any business as an entrepreneur they can say most things don't go the way you want them to go But just having a plan You can kind of stick to knowing that it's going to pivot but Having something that's more solid because I meet a lot of guys who are I'd say more whimsical maybe a light way of saying it but they don't always have a clear line And clarity about where they're going and what they're doing to get there. Yeah More more of a methodical approach. Yeah And even if that's not your personality sitting down with somebody who can help you write it down on paper Say here's what I want to achieve and poke some holes in it Yeah, because that'll help also if you're going to raise money Because you're going to meet people with money and they're going to want to know What where are the holes in this and what are you doing to make sure that we don't?

39:01 Lincoln Fall through one of those holes, right? Yep. So yeah, that's great Uh, what are on the flip side, you know, what are maybe some either investment or business pet peeves? You know that just kind of agitate you

39:15 Rob Yeah I don't know how to say the right word for me, but I'm pretty pretty easygoing but I would definitely say things that Are areas of of improvement for my staff and and myself probably as well, but just communicating communicating clearly in a email, uh is particularly in writing because One of the things we had early on was one of my my team members I brought on eight or nine years ago Comes from kind of his swap formally swap, but you know kind of that more militaristic Um kind of but if it's not written, it's not true Right. So write everything down Uh, it can't be hearsay or she said that or you know, whatever. Yeah So I would say that and then acronyms are really dangerous and making an assumption that whoever you're communicating with understands things to the level that you Understand them right so if i'm sending you an email I say hey do this thing tomorrow at seven Or do that thing we talked about or that or you know this that the other acronyms are hard So just clarity of communication help um, and again going back to investors because I think that's uh and raising money and We can't make assumptions that people know what you know Yeah, right if they knew if they knew what you knew If they knew what you knew they may be doing exactly what you're doing and my guess is that you're probably raising from people who Don't know what you know, so they just assume that they don't they may be smart it's not don't you don't you don't want to speak down to them, but they may they may be able to understand it, but just not understand it yet because of of Their lack of exposure to it. So I'd say just make sure really clear

40:56 Lincoln communication Love it rob, thank you so much for coming in today and sharing your story and Uh, really appreciate your time. It's an awesome conversation. Appreciate you having me Hey guys, thanks for listening. As you know, we don't run ads on this channel So if you could really help me out if this podcast has added any value to you or your business Please subscribe rate and review. I would appreciate that greatly. Thank you All information shared are the sole thoughts and opinions of the author Do not take any information as legal or financial advice You should seek a certified accountant and a professional legal team before taking any further action We are not selling or soliciting a security in any way shape or form This content is for educational purposes only and is not to be construed as financial or legal advice Clients of fund launch or black card capital partners may maintain positions and securities discussed on this podcast