People’s investing paths are almost never the same for each person because there are just too many ways to go about it. Expanding and broadening the show, Chris Seveney and Lauren Wells say goodbye to our dear Good Deeds Note Investing Podcast and say hello to Creating Wealth Simplified! Same voices, completely different and richer show! In this inaugural episode, Chris and Lauren discuss why they are rebranding, what changes they are making, and what to expect now that they have swung to full gear. If there is one thing that remains to be true in this ever-changing space, it is that there is no one-size-fits-all to investing. So grab your pen and a bigger paper and start taking notes and actions as you discover more about the investing space and start your journey towards creating wealth!

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Creating Wealth Simplified: Your New And Expanded Companion To The Investing Space

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the show. I’m with the glamorous and confident Lauren Wells. Lauren, how are you?

I’m doing pretty well. How are you doing, Chris?

I’m good. What we wanted to talk about in our inaugural episode is what we are trying to bring about with the show. We are transferring from the Good Deeds Note Investing over to Creating Wealth Simplified and talk a little bit about why and what our goals are, and go through that discussion. I’ll start first with a little bit of the why of the rebranding.

The note investing space is a very small space. A lot of the people who read the show also invest in all aspects of real estate and we also have a lot of people outside of real estate who sometimes will dip their toes in notes. The note investing space does touch upon so many other different aspects of real estate, from self-directed IRAs, infinite banking, and so many other ways to create passive income.

We want to expand and broaden the spectrum of investors that we were going to talk with. With our experience and the team we are building, including Lauren, who has joined our team, we want to offer people opportunities that weren’t provided through the Good Deeds Note Investing. Lauren, I’m curious if you have any comments on that and also why Creating Wealth Simplified.

You spoke well about why the shift and rebrand. Notes is such a small space, but as you said, it does touch on quite a few other areas in real estate. Even when you’re working within notes, you could end up doing a long-term rental or turn something into a short-term rental, expanding to real estate in a larger sense and investing in different ways to invest.

Why Creating Wealth Simplified? What I’ve realized and I’m sure Chris has already known as he’s been in this much longer than I have, is there are so many strategies and it’s not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to investing, whether in real estate or other types of investments, to create passive income. I speak with a lot of people who are always saying, “I am consuming a whole bunch of content. How do I go from consuming content to taking action?”

Creating Wealth Simplified is here to not talk about the different ideas and avenues for investing, but what are some actual action steps that someone can take to get started? Whether they’re interested in notes, fix and flips, new construction, or whatever it might be, we’re giving people action steps to take rather than another piece of content.

Also, try and assist people or give them some tools to poke them a little bit or push them into areas where they’re probably not comfortable. A perfect example is how are you feeling on your first episode as a host, Lauren? Are you nervous?

No, I’m not nervous. It was a good push. When you asked me, I think I said, “No, it’s not something I want to do, but I should do. It’ll be good for me.” It’ll be fun.

That’s also real estate and investing. When you look at it and break it down into that microcosm, it is people consume or think about, “This would be good for me. I’m a little bit nervous. I should be doing it,” but a lot of times, people will find an excuse of why they can’t do it. I’m famous for that. If I’m trying to go to the gym, I’ll always try and find a way why I don’t want to go to the gym because to me, it’s boring and plus weights are heavy, if you haven’t noticed. Everyone has something that is their kryptonite. One of the things we want to try and do is discuss avenues or ways somebody can relate with to continue to push and grow them, so they can get to the goals that they’re looking to get to.

When it comes to investing, there are so many strategies. It’s really not a one-size-fits-all. Click To Tweet

A lot of people who come to this are doing all the content consumption and are very analytical. When it comes to taking action, they might get stuck in the weeds, like, “Do I need a specific entity to get started? How do I set this up? What bank account do I need? How am I investing? Am I using retirement funds? Am I using cash? What’s the tax?”

Instead of getting started, they’re getting caught up in all of those questions. Another focus will be breaking down those pieces to get started in investing. What are the benefits of investing with a 401(k)? What are the different entities you can set up? What are the different types of structures that you can invest in? We are helping demystify and help people take to move forward in that journey of taking action.

While we speak about moving forward, I’m going to throw a question at you. You’ve invested in real estate and your family members have as well. What has been your defining moment in real estate that made you think, “I need to get involved in real estate?” If you want to share a little bit, you’re from the tech side, SaaS, and your background isn’t real estate where mine was. You’re more from a tech sales field. I’m curious what got you into real estate and what was that moment that made you push the envelope to continue.

It was a lot of moments. I grew up around my dad selling real estate and then investing in real estate. In a way, it was something I never wanted to do. I was like, “I’m not doing real estate. That’s what he says you should do. I’m going to go with the exact rebel and go the opposite route.” I’m the oldest child, so I do the exact opposite of what you’re told all the time. I went into tech sales and was in that for several years.

It wasn’t until I had my own children and realized, looking back, how available my parents were to coach soccer practices. They’re too available. Even in high school, they were always there, which now I’m looking at my kids thinking, “That’s the only way that I’m going to be able to buy my time is not to be working this 9:00 to 5:00 tech sales, hoping that one of the IPOs goes big is rather investing in other assets.” Having my son a couple of years ago started me being like, “Maybe my parents were right about this whole real estate thing.”

Another follow-up question to that is when you started getting interested in real estate and so forth, how did your husband take it? I know you much better, but you were the one, I believe, pushing the real estate. In most situations, it is the opposite. It’s the man pushing and sometimes, the woman being like, “Slow down a little bit,” but in your instance, you were pushing for it. How did your husband take that?

He’s always been interested in real estate. He was pushing harder to invest in a short-term rental and/or a long-term rental before I was. I was always the one who was like, “No, let’s not do that.” Now, I’m kicking myself for what we could have done several years ago and didn’t. He’s been super supportive. His words were like, “I’ve never seen you throw yourself into something so much and be so excited about it.” He also is working in the tech side of real estate, so it is we talk about it all the time. He’s been super supportive of the whole thing. Anyone who knows me as they’re reading this is like, “Probably, it’s Lauren. I don’t know.”

I’ve told this story in the past. I’m from real estate and my wife is the grounded one. As a joke, I’m like the greyhound chasing the squirrel or shiny object all around. As we got started, it was always about, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” It’s understanding because I was much more free-spirited and is probably the nicest way of her saying, “Don’t go blow all your money,” type of thing, which I’ve done pretty well over the years in the note space and in real estate. It was interesting.

My defining moments are a little different because of my background. I had been in real estate and I had worked my ass off for general contractors, making a lot of money for them, and then I started working for a developer. They were making a lot of money as well. My boss was laughing at me. He’s like, “What do you own for real estate?” I’m like, “Nothing.” He had two houses in San Diego and he sent pictures of one up on a hill overlooking the water, going surfing and so forth.

He was telling me, “You got to get in real estate and start buying stuff. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to retire. Your 401(k) is not going to get you where you need to get to.” I had a health issue as well. That also had me think, “If I have to had to work from home if something was to happen, what could I do? I could do real estate from home because you can do that anywhere and I don’t have to go meet people.” That’s what got the light bulb going off in my head.

In terms of Adam and your wife, I’ve always been like chasing the shiny object. He’s always been that constant, “Brace yourself. Here we go.” It’s worked well to have that trust.

 

In balance, again, be able to have that communication where you can talk and go through things and understand each other and make sure you’re making the right decisions.

Let’s talk about what we can expect from this show.

I’m sure it will be very entertaining and a lot of laughter involved. There’ll be a lot of open and honest discussions. I am an extremely straight shooter. Sometimes I say things that are on my mind, probably what I shouldn’t say, but sometimes they still come out and so I’ll apologize in advance for that. Lauren’s probably like, “Here we go.” Thankfully, you’re not our PR specialist having to always reply, but that is something we’re going to have as part of this episode is some laughter and entertainment. It’s not going to be a grab your notebook and be taking notes for 30 minutes during the entire episode.

We want it to be conversational and fun. It’s lots of laughter and some real talk. I’m good at telling you to break things down into simplistic terms for people who don’t understand engineer talk, but real talking means that you don’t sugarcoat things. You’re not selling this get-rich-quick scheme.

That’s clearly something you’re not going to hear from us.

That was what you won’t find, but it’s all good. We are hoping to bring you weekly episodes with different industry experts who can share their stories on what their defining moment was, how they got started, and maybe some of their fears and setbacks. What kept them going and got them to achieve whatever that goal was? Whether it was time freedom, more financial freedom, which essentially leads to time freedom, and actionable takeaways. We’re not just leaving you with some stories and some content but giving you steps that you can take to get started, no matter how small it is.

Also, we make it very relatable to people because a lot of people who try and achieve that financial freedom is working a W-2 job and trying to create that side hustle. There’s always going to become that tipping point where in order to continue to grow that side hustle, you’re at this, “I got to do something with my W-2, but also it’s scary to take that leap.”

It’s scary because you’re going to have to make a financial commitment. What is the best way to prepare for that process when you get there? You don’t want to see the people who make that leap too early, and you don’t want to be people who don’t take that leap either. There is that happy medium involved.

We touched on this. What won’t you find on this show? Who isn’t this for?

This is not an MLM scheme where we’re going to be selling off our training and taking commissions from it. That’s not something that you’re going to have. We want to have experts, but we don’t want to have what I would call the so-called educational gurus, people who spend their entire days teaching a product but not practicing what they preach. That is one aspect. As you mentioned, it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme either, so it’s not going to be that. What else do you think?

Those two are the main two that I was going to mention. If you’re looking for the next way to make a quick buck, this isn’t that. We’re also not going to be pitching you the next course, mentorship, or membership. It’s hoping to provide you with content and actions that you can take. If you don’t like laughter and fun, it’s probably not for you either.

Your 401k is not going to get you where you need to get to. Click To Tweet

If you don’t like laughter, real estate, and fun, then I’m sorry, this is not the episode for you.

I have a question for you along the lines as we’re going to be interviewing people on what their advice would be if they were to get started in real estate now. What steps would you recommend to someone who’s interested to get started in real estate investing?

Everybody has a different style of learning. First, you’ve got to understand who you are. Far too often, I see people try and replicate somebody else and that’s not who you are. You’ve got to stay true to yourself and then understand what makes you tick and what’s going to take you to go each step. For me, it was going back to consistency and doing the same thing over and over again and staying on top of it.

In the past, I’ve tried it with stocks where, “I’m going to go invest in stocks.” I do all this research and then I’m like, “I’m bored.” I didn’t have enough time to stay on them constantly. That’s like, “I have no clue what’s going on. Should I do this or that?” It became very confusing. I have an individual I know who wants to get involved in note investing, but they also have a lot of things going on outside of any type of investing and they’ll dip their toe in and they take their toe out. It makes it extremely difficult. It’s different for every single person. For me, it was consistency. What about yourself?

Actually, I have a question for you. I was talking to someone about this. They were asking about note investing. Do you feel like there was a point with your portfolio, whether it was a number of assets or amount invested, where you felt like it started to turn? What point do you think that was? Was it a timeframe or amount of assets hit?

It was a little bit of both. I was a little lucky.

That’s not true.

I come up with ideas for future planning and then put things on the shelf and when I need whatever that item is, I can pull it off the shelf. The instance I’m talking about is I was doing a bunch of JV deals. I was like, “This is way too much.” My favorite attorney, Brian, was like, “You should do a fund.” I’m like, “Start the paperwork or documents.” We had started the documents and that was February or March timeframe. We were working through what the fund would be and how it was going to be structured. We were structuring it similar to a JV.

Long story short, we had everything done and ready and then a note broker had a pool of 90 notes and wanted somebody to take them all down. At the time, I went to that somebody and I said, “We’re going to buy all 90.” They looked at me and like, “Are you back on shrooms or something?” By the way, I’ve never done shrooms. I’m like, “No. We’re going to go raise some $1 million and take this thing down.”

They’re like, “How are you going to do that?” I’m like, “By the way, I have these fund documents that I had created four months ago.” They’re like, “Nobody pulls like a fund out of there.” I’m like, “I had him starting it.” They’re like, “What gave you the forethought for that?” I’m like, “I thought we needed it someday, so here it is.”

In two weeks’ time, we got the assets under agreement and literally raised the money to pull all those assets down. For me, that was the turning point that got me committed but accelerated to be like, “Wow.” It’s also the fact that I was able to raise a significant amount of money in that short period of time and then take down and manage that many assets. I was like, “I felt like I won the Super Bowl or something. I got this.”

 

How many assets did you have before that?

It’s probably between 40 and 50.

How many years had you been doing it?

That was 2019. 

What I was telling this person was that I feel like it is a combination of time that you’re willing to stick with something and energy that you’re willing to invest, and also resources that you can invest to do something at scale. When people talk about notes, on paper, it sounds like a super simple thing. Buy at a discount and then foreclose or do a loan modification, and then you get paid off, and it’s great.

I have seen that happen a lot more with some of your assets, but knowing that there might be some of the ones that you’ve held for 2 or 3 years. People don’t see that behind the success of people who are saying, “It’s so easy to do notes, raise, and make a profit.” There was a lot of work, time and capital that went into the end game. I don’t think people talk about that enough.

I’m going to pose the question to you and upfront I know this answer. What caused you to reach out to me?

That leads to my action being intertwined with the action steps I would take and recommend people take is talking to everyone. Consuming and reading books is great, but for me, I like to talk or speak with people and pick their brains. I started in notes right when COVID hit. That was a little bit harder, but maybe a few months into it, I heard you speaking at some event online. You were talking about all the ways that you would lose money investing in notes. My brain was exhausted from listening to the number of speakers that day. I was like, “This is different. This is awesome.” It’s not like, “How I’m going to make money? These are the strategies you use.”

I found you on LinkedIn and sent you a message and no response. I sent you two messages. I’m a talker and I like meeting people. We had a mutual connection, Shante, who I had reached out to and I was asking her like, “If you were looking to get into this industry, who would you speak with? Who would you stay away from?” She knows everyone. She’s a talker.

She was like, “I have this one investor that would be so great to talk to. He’s awesome.” She brought up your name and I was like, “Funny, you should say that. I messaged him a few times and haven’t heard anything back. Can you message him for me and let him know that I’m not some crazy person? I want a moment of his time to ask a few questions.”

You reached out to me and you let me pick your brain. My action step is to talk to as many people as you can. Find someone you resonate with, which goes to your point of, “Not everyone’s the same.” What works for someone else might not work for you, whether it’s their model, what they invest in and how they invest. Finding someone that you resonate with and then someone whose model works for you and picking their brain on everything about whatever that industry is.

Knowing what can go wrong makes you a better investor. Click To Tweet

This comes from how I was taught finding all the things that could go wrong, like every possible thing that could go wrong with note investing, of which there are quite a few. If you’re still convinced that this is something you want to do, then go for it. On a level that you’re comfortable with, I’m not saying put all your savings into notes or whatever it might be. It’s putting an amount that you’re okay losing into an investment, whether that’s like $500 or $5,000.

It’s not only notes. It’s any real estate that you invest in. For example, I love reading articles where people will buy the Class C rentals and say, “I’m cashflowing $400 a month and all this goes on,” and stuff. You never hear the story like, “I’m working out right now where the tenants moved out after not paying for a few months, left a window open, froze a pipe, and $11,000 of damage later, I finally have gotten that resolved between that and everything. I haven’t been able to rent it for a few months because trying to find a worker is like trying to find baby formula right now. There’s not much out there.” It was toilet paper a few years ago. Now, we’re on baby formula, but it’s challenging.

Those are stories you don’t hear. “I had to cut a check for $11,000 which wipes out a year of rent. Now, I’m going to get back to the next year’s rent coming indoors to come back to pay off. By the way, I had renovated this place and put $20,000 into it before they moved in.” There are a lot of stories like that. We’re not here to tell anybody what they should or shouldn’t do or shouldn’t invest in, but we’re going to want to try and educate people, not only on what can go right but what can go wrong.

Far too often, you only hear the 30 for 30 stories of how everything was a happy ending, where there are things that can go wrong. Knowing what can go wrong makes you a better investor. By the way, you reached out to me and I ignored you. I believe Shante reached out and said, “You got to reach out to this person.”

It’s okay. I found out you don’t like people. I feel very honored. Eventually, you came around.

Here’s the interesting thing, though. The reason why also I say I came around was you’re very persistent. You’d reach out with questions and then it became a running joke between us where I got a text, I would say, “Zoom.” We would Zoom once a week and spend an hour talking notes. The thing that I say resonate with me was there are investors out there who will ask as much information and try and suck as much information out of you, but you were doing the research. You’re analyzing certain things and asking questions pertaining to very specific situations or “What if this or that happened?”

I could tell you had been doing a lot of that research and not understanding. For me, having those discussions and working with somebody who was taking that effort was enjoyable. Eventually, I liked you so much and I’m like, “Why don’t you come work for me?” “It’s not a no,” was your initial response.

Here we are.

I’ve hired you twice because it brought you on and then, for those that do not know, Lauren works for us full-time running our Investor Relations for our new venture. Before we wrap up, I want to briefly talk about what that venture is and what you’re working on.

It’s what we’re working on. You go for it.

The main thing we’re working on is what’s called the Regulation A+ Offering. A+ Offering is similar to a mini-IPO. I call it a step above a Regulation D Offering. If you’re not familiar with how funds operate, a brief description is most funds require accredited investors or somebody you have to know. Regulation A+ allows you to market to everybody.

 

Once we do release the offering and are qualified by the SEC, we’ll have a website where people can go online, read the offering, and learn more about it. Lauren and I and a group of several others are looking to raise $75 million to strategically invest in primarily real estate notes and other aspects of real estate, which will be a mix of performing and non-performing notes.

For those who haven’t read to other episodes, we’ve talked a lot about it in this episode. Over the years, we have acquired over 500 assets. We manage several funds and have roughly, at any point in time, about 250-plus assets under our portfolio. For me, bringing on Lauren was honestly a no-brainer because she hinted. We joke, “I don’t like people.” I’m an engineer. Do you want an engineer leading your marketing charge? No. Let’s be honest, people.

The interesting thing was I had known a little bit about what Lauren’s background was, but she was helping with notes. When we started talking about this and realized what her sales background was, I was like, “This is perfect because you love talking to people and you’re good at talking to people then you’ve got me, who’s awful at talking to people.” Case in point, one of our hires, and so forth, which I tried to sell and failed. I crashed and burned.

Lauren steps in and gets the deal done. Between the two of us, all your strengths, for me, are awesome to have because I am a guy who likes to sit behind a spreadsheet, punch a few numbers, and throw it on the dartboard to see what I’m going to bid on my assets and see if make money on them. I’m kidding. That’s not how it works.

You covered everything and said a lot of nice things.

I always say a lot of nice things about you. As we wrap up our inaugural episode, what are your final thoughts? What would you like to leave people with?

My final thoughts are if you’re doing a bunch of content consuming and looking for action items, tips on how to get started, and take steps towards investing, then this is the show that you should be reading.

I’ll add one more thing to that. It is all 100% correct. We touched upon this a little bit on why read this. We’ve all failed many times and a lot of people we’re going to bring on have also failed many times. We’re going to try and teach people what doesn’t work and what did work. I’ve been trying to provide a lot of knowledge. Is that all for your final thoughts?

That’s all I’ve got.

You’re going to make me wrap up this episode, which is fine. Thank you all for reading our inaugural episode. We hope you enjoy this episode. If you did, please make sure to leave us a review and tag us. Thank you.