Founders In The Lab with Ruben Kanya

GUEST SUMMARY

We brought Mark Podolsky in the lab, a former investment banker turned into what people refer to as ‘The Land Geek’ share with Experiment Nation how you can build a profitable business from dirt. Often in the lab, we’ve had investors discuss multiple real estate models built on land, but Mark takes us back to the core foundation asset in real estate —  land. You’ve heard the saying, ‘They’re not making any more of it’, and for this reason, Mark has found a niche in an indestructible niche of the very same place we find ourselves experimenting on everyday — land.

Mark has been buying and selling raw land for over 20 years. He completed over 5,500 land deals and his company received an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Mark is also the author of Dirt Rich, a guide to help you build passive income by raw land investing. Believe it or not, by leveraging technology and a remote team, Mark is practically able to do this anywhere in the world.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

04:44 - Guest background

06:12 - Why land is an interesting asset

07:46 - Turning land into a profitable business

10:52 - Creating a passive income

KEEPING IT REAL:

13:20 - What is a Land note?

16:05 - Who are the avatars for the Land Note

20:35 - Note strategy

25:33 - Becoming the “Land Geek”

28:20 - Finding buyers to flip land

34:02 - Good land vs a great land

35:49 - Key things to include in the marketing

37:28 - How long does it take to do due diligence

40:04 - Difference between buying and selling raw land vs residential land

42:28 - What’s next for Mark?

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

33:36 - “Value is in the eye of the beholder.” - Mark Podolsky

42:38 - “I think people always want a real asset and I think they always want a good deal. As long as those two things remain, then the land investing niche will continue to thrive.” - Mark Podolsky

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Website: https://www.thelandgeek.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelandgeek

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelandgeek

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelandgeek/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLandGeek

GUEST SUMMARY

This week Phil Capron joins us in the lab as a navy veteran, Founder of Mission First Capital — which provides investment opportunities for veterans. As the author of "Your VA Loan: and How It Can Make You a Millionaire", Phil not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk having been in the same shoes as a veteran's face today. He purchased his first home in 2010 using a VA loan while on active duty.

Phil Capron, served as a Naval Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewman. Upon getting out of the military,  He got his start in the real estate business by flipping properties in coastal Virginia, helping many of his veteran peers as a real estate agent. Upon transitioning out of the military and elevating in his real estate ventures getting into apartment syndication,  Phil quickly realized that there was a limit in the amount of veterans he could include in his deals for the simple fact that they couldn’t afford the traditional investments in the range of 50K as a barrier of entry. It became very clear that he couldn’t include his veteran military brothers and sisters due to regulations surrounding net worth or income.

Phil then decided he was going to level the playing field and fix that. Mission First Capital was born. At Mission First Capital, Phil makes it feasible for investors to invest as little as $5,000 which allows him to serve & educate his military community on the advantages and power of being able to invest in real estate assets collectively.

10 years and over 500 apartment units later, Phil's focus is expanding real estate opportunities for military members and veterans. His next mission is to create 1000 veteran-owned small businesses in the next 10 years

Ten years and counting in the real estate game,  Phil is a true veteran of experimenting, as he experimented a proof of concept and is bringing it back to his community to build on. If you're a veteran or anyone else who feels that some barriers of entry exist, Phil joins us in the lab to help you break through those beliefs and give you real life solutions to overcome them.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

05:50 - Guest background

08:38 - Definition of Veteran

13:02 - How Mission First Capital created

KEEPING IT REAL:

17:56 - How to know if it’s a bad advice

20:54 - Measuring a good investment

22:29 - Syndication

27:49 - Goal for Mission First Capital

30:48 - What should be the best Call to Action

32:45 - Biggest misconception

33:27 - Best Advice Received

35:42 - Favorite Book

36:41 - Best tool

36:53 - Best Habit

37:55 - One 300 Units vs 3 buildings of a 100 unit

39:05 - Cash Flow vs Equity

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

"We only get one go around at this that we know of so you might as well take every opportunity everyday and do what you wanna' do."

"When you find something that works, don't keep it a secret."

"You need to work to learn before you work to earn."

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-capron-mission-first-capital/

Website: https://missionfirstcapital.com/

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/missionfirstcapital/?_rdc=1&_rdr

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MissionFirstCap

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionfirstcapital/

GUEST SUMMARY

This week in the lab, we have Steven Pesavento, an entrepreneur, real estate investor, host of The Investor Mindset Podcast, and president of VonFinch Capital. He went from zero to buying, to the single-family operator and flipped over $22 Million in 2 years and 200 houses in under 3 years. He successfully raised $10’s Million of dollars which cycled through multiple assets.

After leaving his management consulting profession and the tech world, he started real estate as a business seeing it as just buying an asset to operate and make a profit. Little did he know, he fires up every time he learned something from the most successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders and investors in the world. He powers up when he can bring impact and inspire people. Now their company has grown through discovering the Investor Mindset. They are focused on rapid growth and modeling success. Their investors have the freedom to have diversification.

As an experienced investor, he shares his experiments, strategies and the common denominator he’s found rubbing shoulders with the best in the industry on and off his Investor Mindset podcast. If you are on a journey of experimenting with your business in real estate and honing your mindset to be successful, you’ll certainly learn a ton from a true practitioner Steven because he is obsessed with understanding how we can think better, be better, and do better.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

4:44 - Guest background and a glimpse of his mindset

8:03 - Steven’s initial input

12:54 - Nurture versus Nature

KEEPING IT REAL:

19:43 - In-depth ongoing through experimentations and getting results

27:51 - What Steven’s Company do for investors

31:52 - Allowing investors to have diversification

33:14 - Tax strategies

36:16 - Multiple common denominators of successful individuals

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

“Mindset is simply your thoughts and beliefs that end up leading to the actions you take. Therefore the outcomes you experience are when you realize that mindset itself is just the operating system and when you can change that code you actually start having a different result .”

“When you're in survival mode you can do anything. Anything is possible but it's really important to get aligned with those values.”

“The difference I see in very successful investors and entrepreneurs is that they see challenges as opportunities.”

“Go towards the obstacle because that's where you're going to grow.”

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Website: https://investormindset.com/

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/thestevenpesavento?_rdc=1&_rdr

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpesavento/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven.pesavento/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevenpesavento?lang=en

Ebook: 5 success principles - https://investormindset.com/5-success-principles/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=5sc-optin&utm_campaign=5sc-optin

GUEST SUMMARY

Bill Gross has been in sales, management, ownership and was at one point a lender that ended up carving out a niche as the go to probate expert in LA, building his book of business, and now taking on bigger initiatives in helping his team do the same within the space. Bill reminds us of the importance of building a network whether you’re in business or not to be able to leverage your network which eventually turns into your net worth — if done properly and strategically. Bill practices what he preaches as someone who's leveraged his network before and after he was in business to bring it all full circle. When the mortgage crisis hit, Bill had been in 12 companies in 13 years due to the instability within the marketplace, so Bill was then driven to control his destiny and build his own business within a very unique niche — today known as the go to probate expert in LA, which pays more than dividends when it comes to being a thought leader in the marketplace that everyone gravitates towards and keep in mind first. More notably, his strategic partnerships play a huge factor in his ability to serve those who need it the most. Lots of notable gems in the lab for this one, tune in.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

2:28 - Guest background

5:07 - When did Bill get into real estate

7:26 - Key advice for new real estate investors

14:33 - Advice for new Agents

KEEPING IT REAL:

20:14 - Defining probate and how did it come into play

25:36 - Importance of niches

32:09 - In-depth on Probate

42:41 - Good fundamentals is good fundamentals

44:51 - What’s next for Bill

48:47 - Bill’s Thought Process on reaching goals

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/BillGrossEXP

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgrossexp/

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/BillGrossEXP?_rdc=1&_rdr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/BillGrossEXP/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillGrossEXP

In this episode Ruben talks about the proper way to look at experiments and how to execute them in your lab in 2022.  Experiments have three key layers.

1. Execute all experiments from beginning to end

2. Allow series of experiments to compound to see the results

3. Identify how less experiments can lead to more in your lab or how to experiment bigger with the same amount of energy & effort

Let's build.

GUEST SUMMARY

Michael Morawski is a real estate investment veteran. He has controlled over $285,000,000 in real estate transactions.  He is an entrepreneur, author, real estate trainer, public speaker, and personal coach with a strong, personal resilience, and deep desire to help others accomplish an extraordinary life. He has coached hundreds of real estate investors to fulfill their dreams.

Mike started his career as a general contractor in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago with $5 mm in annual revenue. He then sold his company and took some time off to decide what to do next. He entered the real estate industry as a sales agent building a team of agents and support staff that produced over $20 mm per year in sales production.

Mike started a private equity firm in 2005, raising $18 mm in private equity and acquired $60 mm in multi-family apartments including 4,000 units in five different US markets. As part of the company’s growth, Mike built and developed a property management division that managed 7,500 units, along the way Mike ran into some hiccups and lessons that he shares with us and leading to him being indicted into prison.

In this episode, Mike rolls up his sleeves and shares wisdom from his wins and losses and reminds us that success always leaves clues. If you want to know how to identify your blind spots and anticipate red flags with deals, partners and your portfolio,  Tune in to this episode, you’ll be glad you did.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

02:44 - Background of the guest

05:44 - Transitioning to Real Estate

08:18 - For sale by owner strategy

10:33 - Disadvantages of technologies (cellphones)

KEEPING IT REAL:

13:45 - Educate yourself by reading a lot of books

16:57 - Getting different coaches

18:50 - Get a coach that is 10 steps ahead of you

21:23 - Private equity model

25:33 - Raising capital on the first deal

28:02 - Starting off with a bad deal

30:54 - What if the market’s going to crash

32:10 - Not be over leveraged

35:05 - Underwriting deals

37:02 - 3 Core Businesses of the guest

43:45 - Make sure you’re always disclosing deals to your investors

48:21 - Don’t ignore the red flag signs

54:37 - Fundamental Lessons

57:27 - What’s next for Mike 3

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

03:13 - “ If you do whatever successful people have done, you can cut the learning curve and cut the time.”

“A good coach can’t be your friend.”

17:26 “You need to go on and get something else from somebody else.”

56:22 - “Success leaves clues. And don’t let your past or your stumbles define you because they’re not who you are. Take action and move forward.”

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Website: www.mycoreintentions.com

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mycoreintentions

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mycoreintentions/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mycoreintentions%20

Book: https://mycoreintentions.com/product/exit-plan-ebook

GUEST SUMMARY

Roddrick Jones, CEO and Co-Founder of Aparti Capital, is a consummate real estate professional with strong experience in real estate principalling and transactional finance.

He helps investors acquire Multifamily Real Estate with strategic financing. Roddrick focuses on the combination of senior debt, mezzanine debt, preferential and common equity into what he labels as the capital stack for investor’s to take advantage.

Roddrick comes into the lab to talk about the layers of the capital stack with respect to returns and risk, often overlooked as an instrument used to get the best returns for yourself and your investors.

Roddrick is able to explain and challenge the quintessential 75% debt and 25% equity but he dives a bit deeper as he talks about the different tranches within the different layers of capital. If you’re looking to further understand how to structure your financing in your lab, you may want to tune into this episode to finance your very own experiments in your lab very strategically.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

02:17 - Background of the Guest

03:19 - Serving the Community

06:11 - What Brokering means

07:33 - Asset Based Brokering

KEEPING IT REAL:

09:50 - Why we are getting push backs

13:54 - Investing in deals

18:51 - Taking on the entire stack or one layer at a time

21:19 - Breaking down the percentage of the layers

26:25 - The Key Stakeholder

28:00 - Growing with the Client by the best of both ways possible

30:57 - More In-Depth on current property investment

35:48 - Pitch Deck

40:30 - Roots of Roddrick

47:14 - What is next for Aparti Capital Markets

50:06 - What drives Roddrick Jones

53:15 - What is the back end of loan processes

57:05 - Favorite Book - The Carpenter by Jon Gordon | Rich Dad Poor Dad by Rober T. Kiyosaki | The Magic Of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

58:35 - Best Habit

59:16 - Best Tool

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

10:27 - “A sponsor and an investor are in a business of finding deals and finding money. And if you are not finding deals, you better be finding money and if you’re not finding money, you better be finding deals.”

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Website: www.aparticapitalmarkets.com

Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roddrickjones

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aparticapitalmarkets

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aparticapitalmarkets/

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 770-41-51602

Joining us this week in the lab is Julie George, author of the best-seller book “Million Dollar Host” and a rockstar expert on Airbnb who built a unique property portfolio in less than 3 years with $8million dollars booking income.

Julie lives in Australia, studied Hospitality Management, and dreamt of running her own hotel. After working for years in a corporate company, she decided to break free and be her own boss, have that financial freedom and flexibility to do whatever she wanted. She started with little secretarial service,  an errand running service, and then bought a few investment properties. Since Julie loved the real estate industry, by the time her long-term renter moved out she discovered the world of Airbnb in 2016. She went from earning $240 per week to $600 per week using the sharing platform of Airbnb.

Julie’s first year in the short-term rental business grossed her total income of $1.4 Million. She loves to experiment which is why her unique business structure and operation made her dream of running a hotel into 130 instant hotels. Imagine her one property accommodates 400-500 guests per night, bigger than the biggest hotel in their city. Making her the Industry Expert on Airbnb in Australia. As a way of Julie’s giving back to the community she now travels the world speaking, mentoring, and consulting on ‘Airbnb’ and ‘building a business on the back of the sharing economy.

If you want to learn and be successful in putting your property in Airbnb, develop your unique business structure, and make use of the social media platforms, you’ll definitely want to hear from Julie on how she had the right model on the right framework in the right vehicle! So, grab your pen and notebook, and together let’s build!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

04:01 - Background of the Guest

07:24 - Launching the first STR

11:35 - Be passionate about what you’re doing

14:57 - Trying to figure out bringing people in

19:18 - Finding the guest - Airbnb

24:44 - Developing a business structure

28:03 - Charging the cleaning fee

31:20 - Franchise model inspiration

35:51 - How other property hosts brings some business

39:44 - Key takeaway for good branding

44:41 - Buying the furniture

47:48 - Not all properties are right for STR

51:52 - Structuring partnerships

55:09 - Favorite Book - Get Paid for Your Pad

55:55 - Best Habit - Achieve one thing per day

57:15 - How impactful is social media

1:02:08 - Connecting more with the guest

Website

Instagram

LinkedIn

Youtube

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Guesty.com which is a property management software that Ruben and his team use as short term rental Superhosts to manage and streamline all communication with their guests and team to make it a memorable stay for each guest that books their property. Use our private unique link here https://hosts.guesty.com/?r=therealestateexperiment  to let Guesty know we sent you!

GUEST SUMMARY

After backpacking around in 2009 and coming back to corporate, he stumbled across the well-known book Rich Dad, Poor Dad which opened his eyes to using money to work for him. He then spent half of his savings to move across the world to come to America and build his American dream. But Reed built his American dream in a very unorthodox way, it wasn’t getting a good job to own a single-family home, rather it was getting a job leveraging his expertise as a civil engineer to help him obtain a visa in the U.S. to gain proximity to working closely with investors. Reed achieved his American dream through real estate syndication.

Half a billion in assets under management later, Reed is still finding ways to make breakthroughs through curiosity and constant education. He has done his share of sharing what he has learned as a two times bestselling author of Investing in the U.S. - the Ultimate Guide to US Real Estate and 10,000 Miles to the American Dream. As the host of the “Investing in the U.S. Podcast’ we are honored to be joined by another long-distance experimenter, podcaster and are in great company to receive true and tested experiments in the lab.

If you want to learn how you can come to the U.S. to build your empire through real estate syndication, you’ll most certainly learn more than a thing or two from Reed Goosens. Let’s build!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

03:05 - Guest Background - Living the American dream

11:34 - Tertiary Markets outside New York state

14:54 - Learn from your first deal

17:35 - Mindset over everything

KEEPING IT REAL:

22:17 - Creating wealth

26:59 - Bringing value through social media

31:49 - Key Takeaway - know how to solve a problem

35:14 - Being curious is an advantage

38:44 - Plane and Pilot Analogy

40:16 - Building a strong foundation

43:02 - Expedite the process

46:47 - Where curiosity leads you

49:41 - Favorite Book - Key Person of Influence

51:27 - Best Habit - meditation

51:42 - Best Application - Slack

52:00 - 3 100 unit apartments

52:13 - Why Class A?

52:52 - Self manage or outsourced

NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS):

"We're all standing on a mountain of value, we just have to understand what that value is and then go surround yourself with people you aspire to be because that's the other key takeaways"

"Through my curiosity, I was able to learn other skill sets, and being curious is really important. Don't forget about it"

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Website: https://reedgoossens.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reed-goossens/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reed.goossens?ref=bookmarks

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reedgoossens/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuFEo0AYNmKTM4Fx3zbfQAw

GUEST SUMMARY

This week in the lab we have a short term rental a.k.a airbnb specialist & social media creator & influencer who has been able to achieve financial freedom at a very young age. Michael achieved financial freedom at the age of 27 and hung his corporate hat at 28 all through the power of utilizing airbnbs as a means to achieve such a respectable feat without owning 1,000, 100 or even 10 properties at the time of this recording. Mike does this in one of the most humbling ways by teaching others online on his many platforms — from his courses to all his free content on social media that have received millions of views collectively.

As a short term rental operator & educator, Mike has built & executed systems so effectively be able to afford the freedom to travel across the world with his wife. Mike has done this in a unique way, while some investors are busy accumulating hundreds or even thousands of units in their real estate portfolios, Mike is able to achieve more with less, including months that exceed $50,000 in cash flow with less than half a dozen properties to date.

But being able to generate five figure months in cash flow wasn't easy. Mike displays these tips and hacks to his growing community and to his followers by educating them with methods and tools that will save them time from doing it the hard way as he did in the beginning of his young journey. He delivers his systematized lean models & techniques on social media with full transparency making him one of the largest real estate social media influencers in the space while reaching and engaging thousands of his followers across the world.

In this episode, Micheal stayed on brand and continued to over-deliver in the lab once again on the deep topic of short-term rentals, from finding and knowing your niche, to leveraging social media, to branding, to picking the right systems, to scaling the business to feeding the Airbnb algorithm, the list goes on and on. As the constant learner and educator that he is, you’ll have to make sure you keep your notepads out for this one! Let’s Build!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE:

02:40 - Knowledge is power

04:38 - Social media content

06:48 - Background of the guest

09:21 - Introduced to Short Term Rentals

KEEPING IT REAL:

15:33 - Finding/Knowing your niche

17:34 - Investing something that increases your ROI

20:27 - Creating moments - (photo and video memories)

24:29 - Leveraging platforms to get booking

27:47 - Direct booking

29:25 - Airbnb Insurance Policy

35:16 - Overcoming Risks (Gas Leak)

38:10 - Right systems to scale the business

44:21 - Avoiding spending too much time

50:03 - End goal - Online Education

54:43 - Increasing occupancy rate

59:29 - Boosting your Airbnb search results

1:04:00 - Receiving good reviews from guests

1:07:54 - Toggle auto book on and off

1:10:08 - STR vs Vacation Rentals

1:11:11 - Why Vacation Rentals is better?

1:14:15 - Favorite Book - Cashflow Quadrants

1:18:15 - Connect more about the guest

CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melefante6

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melefante6/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMEeFhOETOsVm65fh1rKhEQ