Prepare to embark on a stimulating journey into the fascinating realm of tokenization and real estate investments with our accomplished guest, Joshua Kagan. Josh brings his wealth of knowledge in real estate and fintech to the table, with valuable nuggets from his illustrious career, including opportunities to work with the likes of Richard Branson, and a venture capital firm. Discover how a humble side gig of buying foreclosures made way for Bonfire, the company which Josh proudly labels as the Robinhood of real estate. Stay tuned as we learn how Bonfire is shaking things up, by tokenizing a hefty allocation into a $60 million hotel repositioning project.
Let's unravel the intricacies of venture capital, private equity, and institutional real estate investing, while spotlighting the challenges that stem from the SEC's accreditation rules. Embrace a refreshing perspective as we explore how platforms like Bonfire are democratizing access to real estate assets, an industry that has been an enduring source of wealth generation. We then dive into the potential threats the crypto revolution and the rise of Central Bank Digital Currency pose to governmental control, setting the stage for an enlightening discussion.
As we conclude, you'll get a chance to hear about the challenges and opportunities in blockchain interoperability, from Josh's unique viewpoint. Gain a clearer understanding of how this revolutionary technology can be implemented in real-world applications. Revel in the benefits of a highly curated platform with low fees and the compelling advantage of creating wealth through strategic asset acquisition. Finally, we discuss the complex relationship between financial success and personal fulfillment, and how tokenization can open doors for those previously barred from the market. This episode is a must-listen for those eager to familiarize themselves with the changing landscape of the real estate investment world.
To find out more about how they can elevate your side hustle, visit www.reversedout.com today and start your journey towards success. Our blog is also full of great information that we work hard on to provide you with a leg up on the competition. We also recently launched our YouTube Channel, Marketing Pro Trends, which summarizes all of our blog posts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for
joining us.
Our goal is to help you connectto real people who found
success turning their sidehustle into a main hustle, and
we hope you can too.
I'm Adam Kaler.
I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, myco-host.
Let's get started.
All right, welcome backeverybody to the Side Hustle
(00:34):
City podcast, with Kyle Steviein the building guys.
Yeah, buddy, once again to myright side here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
One day we'll televised these things and
everybody's gonna be like Goddamn, it's a good looking man.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I know they don't even know what you look like.
It's all mystery right now.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I know well, you turn a good lighting on instead of
that lighting that they put onyou ever like.
Try and close, and one of thosestalls or whatever at the mall
they had the worst lighting ever.
Every little bit of cellulitethat you possibly have ever had.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh any wrinkle?
Yeah Like oh my God, it's allbad.
Well, we got Josh Kagan today.
Josh, how you doing man.
I'm doing well, man, how areyou doing?
I'm doing really really good.
It's glad to have you on thepodcast here.
Where are you from right now?
Where you at.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I live in Denver, Colorado.
I've been here a couple ofyears and loving to hear so,
josh, what are we here to talkabout?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
We're talking about tokenization and crypto, and we
were talking about banks.
We're talking about thegovernment, we're talking about
all kinds of stuff before theshow, but all the world's
problems.
All the world's problems andhow we can fix them Now we did.
Yeah, fix them all withtokenization.
How about that?
So tell us a little bit aboutyour background and everything.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yeah, so I spent the last 12, 13 years kind of in
real estate and fintech.
I worked at a venture capitalfirm where I focused on the
internet of things and sort oftechnology buildings, and then
went to go work for RichardBranson.
He started a company called theCarbon War Room and I was asked
to basically he asked themanaging part of our fund to be
(01:58):
the CEO of it.
I migrated over, I ran theenergy efficiency and building
division for four years.
We were investing inmultifamily office and
hospitality projects withspecifically energy efficiency
projects within those assets.
And then we got acquired.
I went to a sort of clean fundthat was providing capital for
energy efficiency and renewableenergy projects and buildings.
So basically working withbuilding owners to source
(02:21):
capital to reduce operatingexpenses and improve their NOI
and then parallel my side hustle.
In 2011, I bought my firstforeclosure.
It was in the Berkeley Hills ofSan Francisco Really lucky
timing, but I had never done areal estate project before and
had to figure out how to be theGC and the property, lease it up
(02:43):
and etc.
And did another one.
Then started doing fix andflips and started doing the burn
method of buy, rehab, rent,refinance and built out a
portfolio of single familyrentals.
And Bonfire, the company Ifounded or co-founded and I'm
the CEO of, was born out oftalking to my friends who are in
their 30s and 40s.
They have good jobs, they makegood money and they want to own
(03:04):
a house and they can't becausethey still have student debt or
interest rates have doubled inthe last year.
They want to own real estate,their portfolio.
Maybe they own stocks, crypto,and you know REITs are not a
good option for them, becauseREITs are effectively a mutual
fund and you're paying all theoverhead of the corporation
before you're getting any sortof distribution right With a
REIT.
(03:24):
And so my co-founder and Iasked ourselves why can't we?
Why doesn't there exist?
You know the Robinhood of realestate, and that was the sort of
impetus to start Bonfire.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Interesting.
Okay, so the Robinhood of realestate, that's really
interesting.
So talk a little bit more aboutthat, like how does that, how
does that model work?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, and we're sort of moving.
You know, we're really earlystage company, I should say.
Like my co-founder, vi, he camefrom India 10 years ago.
He's super impressive guy.
He started and sold threecompanies in that time,
including one for $200 million.
So just like a brilliantentrepreneur technologist and he
he's the camp of.
Like you know, the mostimportant thing of an early
stage startup is to stay closeto our customers and get product
(04:04):
market fit.
So we started out as wanting tobe the Robinhood of real estate
and basically build a platformwhere any real estate asset on
earth could be on our platform.
And we're evolving.
You know, we just tokenized anallocation into a $60 million
hotel repositioning project inNorthern California where
basically it's an A plussponsored someone I've invested
(04:26):
in with in the past and he wasbuying a two star, four points
hotel.
He got married out to be theflag and he's repositioning into
a four star hotel and we putthat out to our community.
We didn't know, you know, wedidn't know if people would have
appetite for this kind ofproject.
It's, you know, repositioningthis construction risk.
It's going to take three tofive years to season and we were
(04:49):
three and a half timesoversubscribed within five days.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Wow, the difference between raising money with
California people and raisingmoney with Ohio people.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You're oversubscribed in three to five days here
you've got to walk on brokenglass and nails and everything
else to get them to until you'veproven throughout, like 16
properties, that you've actuallyreturned to profit.
The difference of mindset inthis country.
This country is amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We got a bunch of cheap Germans here.
That's what it is.
They came over from Europe.
The cheapness followed them.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I get that and I think we have a lot of customers
who are reticent to try out ourplatform too.
And I think, you know, by token, tokenization enables us to
bring the upfront cost down fromlike.
With this sponsor, you normallyneed to invest what a minimum
of $100,000.
In one of his deals we broughtit down to $2,000.
So $2,000, you know, is not, Imean, it is a lot of money for a
(05:45):
lot of people.
I don't want to discount that.
But for some who want to trybuying real estate for the first
time and not, you know, overlycommit, it could be a more
bite-sized, you know,opportunity for people.
And so we had people from Idon't know how many states I
don't remember off the top of myhead, but in the sunbelt, in
the middle of the country, thecode international people, who
(06:08):
bought in as well.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So when you say $2,000, you're, so you're,
you're got the bonfire, boughtthe $100,000 buy-in and then you
tokenized it into $2,000 ofsegments or the general partner
said no, you guys can get, theycan get in for $2,000.
How did that work?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So the sponsor, you know, wouldnormally, on a deal like this,
perhaps have a $100,000 minimumbuy-in.
So bonfire says great, we'regonna, we're gonna come in like
worst case scenario.
I mean, I like this deal somuch that my co-founder and I
were like, if no one in ournetwork wants to buy this, we'll
come in right.
So we then went to ourcommunity and we're like, hey,
(06:49):
you know who want, like we'regoing to sell these tokens for
$2,000 a pop.
And then you know, and thatthat you know ended up being way
, way, way more than $100,000.
And then we were one LLC thatsits on the sponsors cap stack.
We wired from one account intotheir escrow and so the sponsors
only ever dealing with bonfire,not with our, you know dozens
(07:12):
and dozens and dozens ofinvestors.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Totally makes sense.
So how do you do these peoplehave to be accredited?
I mean, there's a lot of peopleout there don't understand how
tokenization works.
They don't understand howinvesting in real estate works.
You know we talked a little bitabout accredited investors and
that they're being like agatekeeper, the government that
keeps most people who are notaccredited from investing in.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I guess for your own good.
It's for your own good, yeah,but just going out of the casino
.
Why would you want to bewealthy?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Invest in lottery tickets, invest in the lottery,
you know, or whatever.
But yeah, you can invest insomething that has like a one in
10 chance of success, like astartup fund, but you can invest
in something that has a one ina trillion dollar chance, like
the lottery.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So everybody gets.
People are getting struck bylightning every day.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Every day, every day is that one guy, and then he
just spends it on cocaine, butso it's a hell of a drug.
It's a hell of a drug.
So so, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,
josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,
josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh.
Yeah, tell us how that works.
How'd that work with your fund?
What were some of thechallenges that you, you, came
up with?
Do you have unaccredited peoplethat are able to invest?
If they don't invest a certainamount, how does that work?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, it's a total cluster.
You know, because you know theSEC.
As your point the SEC is is,we'll publicly say that they're
trying to protect people bysaying, oh, you have to be
accredited to invest in thesekinds of investments.
Accredited meaning you make$300,000 a year with your spouse
, or $200,000 individually, oryou have a million dollars of
(08:41):
liquid network outside of yourprimary residence, which is 9.4%
of the US population, right?
So 90% of people in thiscountry cannot invest in venture
capital, private equity orinstitutional real estate, right
?
And we look at the last 20, 30years, what has enabled people
to make fuck you money, right,venture, private equity, in
(09:01):
institutional real estate,whereas the rest?
And so what?
We have this massive wealthdivide in this country.
I would argue a big aspect ofit is these accreditation rules,
right?
We're not allowing people toinvest in things based upon
their financial literacy, butjust some bullshit arbitrary
number of how much they make ina year, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Crazy, because you can make $250,000 in San
Francisco and I just read this.
Bloomberg put this out you canmake $250,000, I think it's
$250,000 in San Francisco and ithas the buying power of $80,000
in like Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, I had that.
I mean, I lived in SanFrancisco and I made six figures
and it was like what can youbuy?
It's unbelievable.
And so we, basically ourmission, is to democratize
access to real world assets andenable anyone on earth to get.
Let's back up for a second.
Why real estate?
Right?
(09:55):
For most of us, for most people,the home that they live in,
they own, is the single biggestsource of wealth generation
they'll ever have.
Why?
Because they own it.
They put 20 or 30% down and therest they lever, and the thing
goes up on average six, seven,8% a year, compounded every year
.
And so that's the power ofleveraged compound equity, right
(10:16):
?
And that's how our parents mademoney and their parents made
money, right?
This is the American dream andthis is something that many of
us are told that we're going togrow up, we're going to get.
You know, go to college, getmarried, buy a house and, you
know, have a nest egg.
Well, unfortunately, thisAmerican, this American dream,
is now American myth.
Why?
Because many of us go tocollege and we have, we take on
(10:39):
huge student debt and we leavecollege with hundreds of
thousands of dollars of debt now, or we go to graduate school
and we do not have the means toqualify to buy a house, right?
So where are people going togenerate wealth if they cannot
own their own house?
So that's why being able tohave access to real-world assets
becomes really important, andthat's what the heart of the
(10:59):
Bonfire platform is.
Now we're encountering majorresistance from these arcane SEC
laws, and let me just clarifyBonfire is completely compliant
with all regulations and laws.
We adhere to anti-moneylaundering, we adhere to the SEC
laws.
But I'm also saying that theselaws suck and they're antiquated
and they aren't doing whatthey're intended to.
(11:22):
They're pretending to do, whichis to protect people.
They're really holding peopleback.
But yes, to answer, sorry tomore directly answer your
question.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well, you forgot the good one that they just decided
that they're going to throw lobthe grenade into the development
with.
Was they really pushed in onthe Bank Secrecy Act?
So now all the nodes on theLair 1 blockchain have to be
publicly known.
They can't be, they can't.
You can no longer have privatenodes on the blockchain too.
That the nodes that say, yeah,this, this transaction was good,
(11:52):
let's put, let's store it intothe chain, that they're put it
in the block.
It's.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I mean so they can come confiscate your computers.
Is that what the idea is there?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
No, you get.
You get fucked up financiallyLike the SEC brings down like
cease and desist and all thisother crap.
It was what it sounds like.
You get fined heavily If you'reusing, if you cannot verify who
each node is on your, on yourblockchain.
Even if it's a privateblockchain, it doesn't matter If
you can't verify who the nodeis, where they.
If the node I take this back ifthe node's getting gas like
(12:24):
Ethereum nodes, they all get,they all get paid gas for
verification.
If you're paying someone toverify, if you're paying a node
to verify a transaction Incrypto or whatever, it is Right,
yeah, and you can't verifywho's behind that node, you're
running a rye of the law.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
That's literally every blockchain, yep.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Like what, Guys?
It's all moving towards adirection of these.
What are they called CentralCBTC?
What are they called thecentral bank?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh, digital currency Central bank digital currency.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Where all of our transactions, everything we do,
is going to be stored on agovernment ledger.
So when I go buy, you know, mycoffee, uncle Sam knows about it
, right, and it's all.
That's where it's all going,man.
But you know crypto threatens,you know the big, the big state,
the big nanny government man.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, big brother is always watching and that's the
scary thing.
And yeah, let's just talk alittle bit about like real
estate too.
I mean the a lot of peopledon't understand, like Miami,
you know, new York, sanFrancisco, recent years, I guess
, cincinnati.
Well, cincinnati nodes.
The thing about Cincinnati is,in a lot of cities, when you buy
(13:35):
real estate, you're notnecessarily generating wealth,
you're preserving wealth in away, because your property
values really just going up withinflation.
So when you think you made$100,000 or $200,000 over the
last 20 years, no, your moneyjust essentially stayed with
inflation that entire time,because the cost to build a new
(13:58):
home, those materials to buildsomething brand new, those go up
with inflation.
So a lot of times your propertyvalue is tied to what it would
cost to build a new property ina lot of cases.
So, and then whatever inflationis, so you're really preserving
your wealth.
If you don't want to lose money, in a lot of cases you need to
buy property.
If you don't own a home, a lotof your money is just it's
(14:24):
depreciating every single year.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Unless you take that big down payment and put it
towards something thatappreciates the value, but not
everybody does that.
They don't put it towardsanother asset that's going to
accrue wealth.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, what if you can't buy a house, like what
Josh was saying?
What if interest rates are soout of hand and your income
isn't where the bank wants itand you can't afford to buy a
house?
You have no other options toinvest in real estate unless you
go to a place like Bonfire.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, that's why it's going to be so powerful.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Exactly.
I mean right now there's a,it's going to burn.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, it's going to burn like a bonfire.
It's going to burn hot.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
But I mean, there's fund rise there's here which
invests in short-term rentalsand you can invest, I think, as
little as $100 and things likethat.
But I feel like a lot of timesthey're jacking up the prices on
those properties to paythemselves or whatever.
They're taking a huge cut ofthe equity or something like
that.
How do you guys work?
How do you see yourselvesdifferent from some of these
(15:21):
other options that are out hereand then talk a little bit about
why you guys are here?
I mean, you're not just.
You're, in a way, you're doinga community service right now,
the way these prices are inthese houses.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of threats there.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know Welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Take your time, go wherever you want.
This is a meandering stream offailbillies.
This is what we do this?
Speaker 4 (15:46):
is it Good?
So I think a lot of ourcompetitors there's entities
like CrowdStreet and Fundriseand RealtyMocal primarily focus
on being a fund.
I need to give credit wherecredit is due.
If I want to buy an office read, which I never would, but
(16:06):
Vernado is the gold standardright.
Or malls or Simon PropertyGroup right.
But some of these entities thathave come out that I just
referenced their names.
If I wanted to buy multi-familyin the Northeast of the US,
they'll create a strategy aroundthat right.
So it's kind of like amicro-read in some ways what a
(16:27):
lot of them have been able to doand I give them credit where
credit is due.
But a lot of those platformsthey're charging two and 20.
They have their own waterfallsand they become a sponsor to I
mean Bonfire.
What we're doing, we'refacilitating direct access into
really good real estate dealsand we're charging a little bit
(16:48):
up front and we might take apercent under management to deal
with all the K1s and all thelegal.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh yeah, that's terrible.
Yeah, those things are soexpensive.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
But our whole mission is to get as many people in as
possible.
We don't do that if we're justbaking fee upon fee upon fee.
So I think we're going to behighly curated with the assets
that we're putting on ourplatform and, rather than the
shift away from being theRobinhood of real estate, is
more being like the rare bowls,which I know, that is, in the
common platform.
But instead of maybe doing1,000 deals a year like some of
(17:22):
our competitors, maybe we onlydo 10.
But they're fucking trophy highquality, bad ass deals that I
personally want to invest in.
Right?
Maybe that's the criteria.
Right Is Joshua Kagan puttinghis own money into the deal and
it's like, if I'm willing to putmy own money in the deal, then
I can stand for it.
So that's a little bit howdifferent we are.
(17:43):
We're not trying to boil theocean, we're just trying to give
anyone access to deals with aslow a fees as possible.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I went to a fund conference in Miami two weeks
ago and I was also.
I just got my real estatelicense, so I was down there the
next week for a real estateconference and so I'm just real
estate the last two weeks, right, and I'm at this fund
conference and you've got PaceMorby and all those guys are up
there talking about differentstrategies that they use and
(18:14):
there's a ton of wholesalers inthe room and people that are
trying to work.
I mean, there's people thatwork.
They say I work for GrantCardone, but really you're just
one of thousands of peoplearound the country that go out
and try to find him deals.
So it's really just a big.
It is a big group ofsyndicators and wholesalers.
Is really what it was.
(18:34):
And when people would explain Italked to people.
They're explaining me theirthesis and stuff Everybody was
doing the exact same thing,except for a couple people that
were doing land deals.
This woman, she was 23.
She was making.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I don't know hundreds of thousands a month doing land
deals.
The guy who popularized thatwas at Joe Fairless's event a
couple years ago at Denver.
He wrote a book Land Rich orLand Poor, whatever the hell, it
is Dirt Rich.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Dirt Rich, yeah, yeah , yeah, I saw that book.
I'd love to have him on thepodcast too.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That guy was yeah, that guy was, that guy presented
.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And then I bought the book and then I read like 10
pages and didn't read it, yeah,and nobody's doing tokenization,
believe it or not, like Ididn't hear one thing about
tokenization the whole time.
Nobody understands it, theydon't, they don't understand it.
But they're all doing the exactsame thing down there.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Here's.
The thing is that he didn't saythis.
I don't want to put the wordsin his mouth, but his investors,
eventually, are going to beable to take the holdings that
they have potentially at somepoint, if they or he can.
However, he wants to do it andthey can sell it before they
sell out the whole group.
So like.
(19:39):
So if you've got 500 shares andthe 500 shares of $2,000 a share
, is that right?
$100,000?
Something like that?
Yeah, I think people know whereyou were going.
Yeah, whatever, anyway, masssucks.
But if you do that, if youdon't want to divest yourself
completely, you can just do apercentage and cash out and
(20:03):
makes it so much easier, likebecause it's already going to be
recorded, it's going to be alayer two that's going to make
sure that the stack table is upto date and ready to rock so
that you can do all the pro-ratashit for your taxes to show
what you earned, what you lost,for your K1.
And I think that's a hugecompetitive advantage as opposed
to crowd street and a lot ofwhat those guys are doing.
(20:24):
I mean, I don't think you can.
I don't.
I've only invested in a coupleof those guys the Reg A+ or the
Reg CF guys but I don't think Icould get my money back until
they decided to exit theirposition as oh yes, yeah, you're
stuck, your money's stuck there, yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
And what I would say to both your points, adam.
You went to that conference.
Someone was talking abouttokenization.
No one's talking abouttokenization because it's a bit
blockchain, crypto.
This stuff confuses.
Tokenization confuses people,right, and I just got to give
some big props to Kyle because Iordered his book off of Amazon
a couple of days ago and I'vebeen reading it and I've now, I
(21:03):
swear to God, I bought twocopies today for two people in
my life, including my co-founder, because I think it does such
an excellent job of verifyingand just contextualizing and
just making it simple for anyoneto understand what blockchain
is, how it relates to real-worldassets, what tokenization is,
what are some of theopportunities and also what are
some of the challenges, right,why this isn't.
(21:24):
It's very, very nuanced,accessible book that I think
everyone needs to read ifthey're interested in real
estate and where it's going.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yep, one thing Kyle agrees.
The one thing I didn't do forthe book was put my picture on
the cover because I feel likethat would have fucking sold it.
I mean in New York Times bestseller New York.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Times has number one baby.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
They tell my wife that LinkedIn picture, that Kyle
LinkedIn picture where he'skind of like three-quarters
turned and he's looking at thecamera.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Oh man, my cousin.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
That's broken so many hearts out there, kyle, yes, my
cousin Everyone wanted to knowdid you guys ever see the
original Batman with JackNicholson?
Oh, yes, Right, and he's withKim Bessinger and he's like,
he's like.
We're beauty and a beast.
But if anyone else calls youbeast, I'll fucking kill them.
That's it.
Well, that's my wife all thetime, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That's a great.
I'm co-opping that one.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So, joshua, so explain a little bit more.
What's the website people go toto learn about this, like
what's, what's some moreinformation?
I mean, do you guys provideinformation on the website about
how this works, how thisstructure works, for people that
maybe didn't read Kyle's book?
They've never even.
They don't even know whattokenization is Like?
(22:41):
You know, the challenge atthese conferences of people
talking about crypto, blockchain, tokenization is they have to
go through a whole thing.
You know, you got two, threeminutes.
You're going to talk to thisperson you just met.
You don't want to have to spendthat explaining blockchain,
explaining tokenization,explaining all that stuff to
them, because at that pointthey've already lost interest
and they don't care anymore andthey're ready to move on.
(23:02):
So you know how do you overcomethat when you're talking about
what you guys are doing.
And then is there moreinformation for people, like on
the site and things like that?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Great questions.
So when I was at Clean Fund,you know we were the first
commercial PACE company could?
Pace stands for property access, clean energy.
It's a way to finance energyimprovements and buildings and
repay from the property taxes ofthe building.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Now, we did two buildings.
Sorry, I'd sorry to interruptyou, but I didn't before.
We did two.
We did the first two buildingsin Kentucky using PACE.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
No way In the state.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
In the state and for Thomas yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Wow, petros, who did you work with?
And Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I want to say it was Chris Thomas, as I think it was
his name.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Got it.
I used to come to Cincinnatiand meet with the graders.
What is it called the GreaterCincinnati Authority?
There was another Chris there,really nice guy who ran that
program.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And then I was at Clean Fund.
He's like 62 a shift of ourmember, correct?
He was tall, he was tall.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
He was a military right.
Yeah, Was that Air Force pilot?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah, we're talking about the same guy.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Good dude, really good dude, and I bring that up
because what Clean Fund did iswe had to invest heavily in
education and just get it anddemystify explaining what this
is.
And we did, you know, we and Ithink that there's a lot of
different things that have tohappen, like, like you know, me
appearing on these, you knowpodcasts like this, and we're
doing webinars and content ofvalue, blogs, etc.
(24:22):
Like we just need to, you know,really demystify this
technology, because it's not,you know, like anything new is
going to be threatening topeople, right?
Oh, I don't understand that I'mnot going to pursue.
All it takes is some casestudies and logos of people.
You know, people in real estateare oftentimes in a race to be
second right.
They don't want to stick theirneck out to do a strategy, but
they see someone else doing itsuccessfully and like fuck, I
(24:44):
want to do that right.
So I think it's incumbent uponBonfire to continue to invest in
education and I'm willing to doone-on-one calls I know this is
like totally non-scalable likepotential customers.
You know, like anything we cando to sort of empower people to
get their head around it andthen tell other people about it.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, I'm sorry, I was just going to say.
When it comes to that, I thinka major paradigm shift in this
is going to be when people arespeaking about this to you who
aren't accredited investors andthat they know that they can do
it, cause a lot of people rightnow feel like they don't have
the money or they don't have theaccess to good deals anyway.
(25:26):
So what's the difference?
I'll just I got a guy that doesit, I, my 401k does that.
I think that when you talk aboutthe education and
demystification, I think also isthe ability that it's going to
bring to you to like expand yourclient list is going to be
enormous, because people arejust going to start to realize
oh, I can get in on this dealsix months in because the
(25:48):
original investor had to, youknow, they had emergency or
whatever.
They had to sell $35,000 worthof their original investment.
I can get in at the groundfloor, as opposed to
particularly private companies.
When we were talking aboutprivate companies, um, when you
do do an IPO now there havealready been through series, at
least series D, through series,oh, yeah, uh, who was it?
(26:11):
Uh, uber was like series H orsomething, so they actually lost
value after their IPO and nowpeople are going to be able to
do it, but they don't.
Like you said, you got.
You got to demystify andunderstand.
Help people understand thatthis is going to help your
wealth grow exponentially, ifyou're willing to learn about it
.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And we got to find our killer app too.
Um, because you know, you lookback at the internet and you
know there was so many differentpotentials, the ways that the
internet could have gone, andemail was really the killer app
to begin with, right, and thenit was the worldwide web, you
know, and then internet browsing, and then you know, it was born
, it was porn.
(26:50):
It was really into porn back inthe day.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Dial up porn is what it was, I think that shit was
slow.
You wouldn't know anythingabout that, though.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
But to answer your question.
So we're re, re, re re doingour website right now, but you
know, people want to learn more.
They could go to bonfirecapital, um, and I'm very accessible.
I'm on LinkedIn.
You know, josh, you can.
I'm on Twitter, joshua Kaganone.
We have a discord with about3000 people in it.
You know, we're here to empowerpeople.
That's what.
That is our mission.
So anything we can do, and iffolks have, if you guys have,
(27:28):
feedback on how we can do abetter job telling this story,
please tear us in the assholeLike we only learned from
learning from others, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I definitely see there's a huge opportunity with
technology in this space.
There's a lot of people thatstill do things the old way, you
know, and I mean our technologycompany, dot loop.
You know when we did that, wehad to eliminate the freaking
fax machine which every realestate agent that was doing any
kind of deals you know theyalready had this huge process
that involved the fax machine.
So we had to overcome that.
(27:58):
And you know, changing people'shabits is really hard to do.
And when you are, you know, theone of the first ones in the
pool and you're in this industry, first of all, you've got the
blockchain technology stuffright.
You're tokenizing assets.
That's one big thing hurtled,overcome.
Then you're creating atechnology.
You sounds like you've got anunbelievable co-founder on your
(28:21):
team, a technology co-founderthat you know he's going to want
to disrupt.
You know the status quo with.
You know some kind ofgroundbreaking technology which
is probably going to actuallysimplify the process but explain
some of the challenges you guyshave had and then some of the
kind of forward looking thingsthat you guys want to do to
(28:43):
change the industry and to kindof be the technology leader in
the space.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Well, kyle kind of talks about in this book and you
know, again, I haven't finishedit all, so apologies if I'm
misphrasing any of it, but wehave an interoperability
challenge in our industry rightnow.
So, for instance, bonfire, weuse polygon as our, as our token
, as our blockchain polygonsbuilt off of, you know, Ethereum
, erc 20.
We have a competitor calledlofty.
(29:10):
They use the Algorandblockchain.
Right, there's a bunch of.
There's every day a newstandard coming out, a new, a
new company saying oh, our, ourstandard is the best, right, and
the real holy grail is when aBonfire token can be sold
anywhere and vice versa, right,where there's true
(29:30):
interoperability among theplatforms and not just between
them.
And that's a huge challengebecause there's a lot of ego in
this space and and whatnot.
And it takes someone, you know,kind of bringing the file.
You know, it reminds me of theGodfather when the file, you
know, the heads of the familycome together, michael Corlean
ends up killing all of them, butthey at least tried to
cooperate together, you know.
(29:51):
And so that that's definitely achallenge.
I mean, there's, you knowthere's, there's a, there's a
risk that you have a bunch ofgeeks who are leading this
industry.
You know and like speaking geeklanguage and and don't like.
I went to the to the Ethereumwhat is it called?
The Denver ETH conference acouple of months back.
Oh, like I don't understandfucking 90% of the presentations
(30:12):
I saw.
I was like I don't see whythey're using blockchain.
I don't see any real worldapplication.
They don't?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
they're just doing it because it's a buzzword Like
it's literally the only reason.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Or they're geeking out on some piece of technology
that like, like academics willgeek out on something but it's
never going to see the light ofday in the real world, you know.
And so I think my, my strengthas a founder is I'm really dumb,
I'm not smart at all.
Like I'm like if it doesn'tmake sense in like common sense
to me, then like I don't get it,you know.
And so that's the opportunity,and the challenge is like taking
(30:47):
all this really cool, geekytechnology and translating it
into how it actually impact,positively impacts people's
lives.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, nobody cares how the iPhone works, like they
don't care about the technologyin there, they don't care about
you.
Know you, if you're going totalk about the processor, are
you going to talk about, like,how the technology and the
processor is different?
No, you're going to say, no,this processor is five times
faster than our last processor.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That's all you need to know, hey the iPhone's five
times faster, or this processorenables me to film a studio
movie on this device.
You know I can go to space withit or whatever.
Like right, like it's the endresult.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
It's the outcome that people are concerned about.
What do I get to do with this?
Why would I invest in atokenized syndication instead of
a typical syndication?
Well, are you accredited?
No, well, here you go.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Now, you can Now you can build wealth.
And this is what I've tried toexplain to everybody is that
this isn't reinventing the wheel.
This is an extra tool in yourtool belt as an, as a general
part, as a general partner, as alimited partner, whatever you
know, I guess, are you guys getpart of the GP when you do, when
you bring your investors, soyou're still a limited part
you're an LP right, yes, yeah,so this is an extra tool to
(31:59):
provide to his investors.
You know you're still when this,when this property is sold,
you're still getting paid incash, it's, or whatever.
You're getting the wire to yourbank account.
It's not like you're gettingpaid and extra tokens that
you've now got to convert toEthereum so that you can now pay
$20 in gas fees.
If you're lucky to get the cashput into your bank account,
(32:21):
where they're going to chargeyou for there, where they're
going to hit you there too.
This is it's traditional.
So when the when the buildingsold, whatever tokens you're
selling at that time, they'regoing to get burned, they're
going to go away and thatproduct, that cap stack, just
like any other business in theworld that's compliant with the
SEC, is going to say how muchvalue you had, how much equity
(32:42):
you had after the sale.
This is your percentage of theprofit, and then it's just going
to get rolled into your bankaccount.
So that's that's the part thatI try to explain everybody's
like.
This is just an extra tool withlots of like trendy lingo and
fun buzzwords, but all it is isa tool.
It gives you.
It gives you access to yourmoney earlier should you need it
(33:03):
, should an emergency pop up,you can get your 30.
You get 30 out of your $100,000out and you can take care of
the emergency and you don't haveto worry about destroying like
a legal entity in the process.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Wait, or you don't roll it into your bank account,
you roll it into your lifeinsurance plan.
That's earning 3.5% and thenyou bargain to your life
insurance plan.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I talked to him.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
This is not financial advice.
I talked to him in a couple ofweeks.
This is yeah, there you go.
We learned some things on thispodcast.
We have some smart people onthis podcast and, josh, you said
oh, I'm not the.
You know you're being modest,but you're a smart guy and it
sounds like you've had anillustrious career and you've
been around some really smartpeople.
You're smart enough to know whatyou don't know the smart people
(33:47):
that, yeah, what you don't know, and then who you need to be
around.
That's.
That's the trick, guys.
That is the trick Be around a.
You don't feel like you'resmart.
Actually, some of the smartestpeople have the biggest imposter
syndrome.
They said some of the mostsuccessful people that they all
have the hugest impostersyndromes, and that may be
(34:07):
something that helps themsucceed.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
We had that Susie Leigh on.
She talked about that, shetalked about it, she talked
about coaching, did you?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
guys read the book a shoe dog by Phil Knight.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
No the Nike book.
I did watch air.
That's about as much of Philthat as I got, and so forth.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I haven't seen air yet, but shoe dog is one of the
best business books I've everread and it talks about the
early days of Nike, when Nikewas floundering almost one out
of business.
And at the end of it I'm goingto stick to a little bit of a
spoiler is he's a few years ago,five years, I don't know how
many years ago the book came out, but he's in Palm Springs in a
movie theater and he's walkingout and he runs into Bill Gates
(34:44):
and Warren Buffett and they wantto talk to him and he's like,
at this point he's worth $10billion and he's like, why would
they want to talk to me?
Like, like they're Bill Gatesand Warren Buffett, right, Like
even he has fucking impostersyndrome and he created Nike.
Right, Like we all have it andso much of our society is about
(35:06):
bravado and pumping our chestsand showing how big we are.
You know our yellow Lambos, butI think, if you talk to, like
most of my friends who arefounders we all deal with this
shit on a daily basis of likeyou know this, you know who am I
to think that I could do that,you know that I could do this
right, and that humility, Ithink, is really, you know, it
(35:27):
will take us far, because Ithink, for me at least, it makes
me curious, it makes me reallybecause I have how little I
think I really know, it makes mewant to, you know, absorb all,
like and surround myself withamazing people so that I can
learn, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Well, and I think also with people that you're
helping the investors that youknow right now they're investing
in lottery tickets.
You know they have an impostersyndrome too, around being an
investor.
They don't think that there's afear, maybe, that it's not
going to work out, becausenothing in their lives ever
works out right.
That's the mentality oh, thiscan't work out for me, this
(36:05):
isn't going to work for me.
I'm not smart enough to investin something like this.
I'm not going to be able towrap my head around this kind of
stuff, you know.
So I'm just going to go back tothe casino and, you know, put
100 bucks on black and that'sgoing to be my investment for
the week.
So I mean there's those peopletoo.
I mean there's those situationsand I think the more you can
(36:25):
help them get over that and themore people you can help and the
more case studies people cansee from folks that have
successfully invested with you,you know, the better it's going
to be.
I mean, you've already got agreat track record.
Your co-founder obviously has agreat track record.
People can go on there and onyour website, look at that and
see how successful you guys havebeen.
(36:46):
And you know you're essentially, in a way, giving back.
I mean, obviously you want thisthing to do good.
You guys are going to do welloff of it.
You know it's fun for youprobably to go out here and find
these houses or theseinvestments, but you know
there's an overlooked factor andthat is that you guys are
actually helping people and youknow, kyle, you too with what
(37:08):
you've written, because it'sdemystified a lot of this stuff
for people and help themunderstand the alternative
investments that are out therefor them.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
If you're not accredited, I want to add this
to um, he was on Joe's podcast.
Did Osh interview you?
Yeah, so Osh interviewed him onthe best ever real estate
investing advice show ever,mm-hmm.
Um, so if, if, you guys couldcheck that episode out too.
What do you remember?
What episode number it is bychance, I doubt it.
I don't remember mine either.
(37:38):
They're like 14,000 episodes orwhatever there is.
But, yeah, so it'll give peoplea different perspective with
different questions on the sameon this topic, because we tend
to get lost in the weeds when weask questions and all that.
Osh has 30 minutes to get itall out, but that's another.
That's another place that youcan find out what Josh has to
(37:58):
say about this show.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Thanks, guys.
The last thing I'll say toAdams, to both your points, you
know, look, I think that I, I,in college, I spent six months
living in Nepal, okay, and atthe time Nepal was the second
poorest country on earth.
I lived with a family with noelectricity, no running water,
and yet they had, um, they wereamong the kindest and happiest
(38:22):
people I've ever met in my life.
And they had family, they hadcommunity, right, they had, they
had something that oftentimeswe lack in the West, despite our
financial abundance.
But one thing that they didn'thave is real opportunity.
You know, my, my, my brotherfrom my host family had the went
to the only law school in Nepal, and what does he do now?
He escaped Nepal and he drivesan Uber and he works at Dunkin'
(38:45):
Donut.
Okay, now, owning assets, Ireally, truly believe, gives
people an opportunity to climbthe Maslow, maslow's hierarchy
of needs.
Yes, and so, if we can, as acompany, as an industry, empower
people who have to wake up atthree o'clock in the morning to
take a bus to go to Walmart youknow, two hours away and in
stock shelves all day and comehome and not be with their kids,
(39:08):
and, and, you know, and, andand live this life of
subsistence and living paycheckto paycheck but actually have
resources for the first time andthe choices that they get to
make with with having resources,then we can have a transform
world and to me that's that'swhat drives me.
You know, like sure this isgoing to make a lot of money,
but you know, being the richestperson in the cemetery is not,
(39:31):
has never been my calling so umyeah.
I'm really grateful for you guys.
You know and and the you knowthe work you're doing in the
world and just you know, keep,keep up.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Man there's a reason the podcast is here, man to
bring folks like you on OpenPeople's idea, open People's
minds to opportunities that areout there.
Squash this narrative thatthere's this like a finite
amount of money in the world andthat the billionaires are
hogging it all.
I mean there is unlimited moneyIf the government printing
money doesn't show that to you.
(40:02):
There, there, you know, youcreate something and money will
come to you.
You create wealth, you dosomething, you buy assets,
whatever it is, it will come toyou.
And this is just one example ofhow that works and how that's
possible for people.
And it's it's.
You know.
Oh, that's for them, that's forthe wealthy.
I don't, I'm not going to getthose opportunities.
(40:22):
Well, here's an opportunitystaring you in the face.
You can research it, do yourown research, look into stuff
like this.
Just get over that hump.
Get over that hump and justlook at something and decide for
yourself if this is for you.
But you have to do it, you justhave to.
You just have to read about it,just have to learn about it,
for God's sake.
And and that's the problem Ithink with a lot of people is,
(40:44):
it's like oh, they just blow itoff for you.
Oh, they just blow it off rightaway instead of actually
looking into it deeper anddeciding for themselves if it
works for them.
I mean, it's not going to workfor everybody, but for some
people it will.
You got a hundred 200,000 extradollars laying around, you know
.
Start putting that money towork.
Well, you just got to sit incash.
It's losing money every day.
So well, josh, I reallyappreciate it.
(41:07):
Man, thanks for being on theshow.
We've taken up a lot of yourtime, but hopefully this
resonates with some folks andwish you all the success with
your fund here, and I'd love tolove to hear some case studies
in the future of who's this hashelped, and see that new website
up and running it and give usthe URL for the website again
wwwbondfirecapital Don Bonfire,I can be reached out, and I can
(41:30):
be reached out to Joshua atbonfirecapital, adam Kyle.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Thank you so much.
This has been so fun.
No problem, looking forward tocontinuing the conversation in
the future.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, buddy, love it.
Josh, Thanks for your weekend.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side
Hustle City.
Well, you've heard from ourguests, Now let's hear from you.
Join our community on Facebook,Side Hustle City.
It's a group where people shareideas, share their
inspirational stories andmotivate each other to be
successful and turn their sidehustle into their main hustle.
We'll see you there and we'llsee you next week on the show.
(42:02):
Thank you.
Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for
joining us.
Our goal is to help you connectto real people who found
success turning their sidehustle into a main hustle, and
we hope you can too.
I'm Adam Kaler.
I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, myco-host.
Let's get started.
All right, welcome backeverybody to the Side Hustle
(00:34):
City podcast, with Kyle Steviein the building guys.
Yeah, buddy, once again to myright side here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
One day we'll televised these things and
everybody's gonna be like Goddamn, it's a good looking man.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I know they don't even know what you look like.
It's all mystery right now.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I know well, you turn a good lighting on instead of
that lighting that they put onyou ever like.
Try and close, and one of thosestalls or whatever at the mall
they had the worst lighting ever.
Every little bit of cellulitethat you possibly have ever had.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh any wrinkle?
Yeah Like oh my God, it's allbad.
Well, we got Josh Kagan today.
Josh, how you doing man.
I'm doing well, man, how areyou doing?
I'm doing really really good.
It's glad to have you on thepodcast here.
Where are you from right now?
Where you at.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I live in Denver, Colorado.
I've been here a couple ofyears and loving to hear so,
josh, what are we here to talkabout?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
We're talking about tokenization and crypto, and we
were talking about banks.
We're talking about thegovernment, we're talking about
all kinds of stuff before theshow, but all the world's
problems.
All the world's problems andhow we can fix them Now we did.
Yeah, fix them all withtokenization.
How about that?
So tell us a little bit aboutyour background and everything.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yeah, so I spent the last 12, 13 years kind of in
real estate and fintech.
I worked at a venture capitalfirm where I focused on the
internet of things and sort oftechnology buildings, and then
went to go work for RichardBranson.
He started a company called theCarbon War Room and I was asked
to basically he asked themanaging part of our fund to be
(01:58):
the CEO of it.
I migrated over, I ran theenergy efficiency and building
division for four years.
We were investing inmultifamily office and
hospitality projects withspecifically energy efficiency
projects within those assets.
And then we got acquired.
I went to a sort of clean fundthat was providing capital for
energy efficiency and renewableenergy projects and buildings.
So basically working withbuilding owners to source
(02:21):
capital to reduce operatingexpenses and improve their NOI
and then parallel my side hustle.
In 2011, I bought my firstforeclosure.
It was in the Berkeley Hills ofSan Francisco Really lucky
timing, but I had never done areal estate project before and
had to figure out how to be theGC and the property, lease it up
(02:43):
and etc.
And did another one.
Then started doing fix andflips and started doing the burn
method of buy, rehab, rent,refinance and built out a
portfolio of single familyrentals.
And Bonfire, the company Ifounded or co-founded and I'm
the CEO of, was born out oftalking to my friends who are in
their 30s and 40s.
They have good jobs, they makegood money and they want to own
(03:04):
a house and they can't becausethey still have student debt or
interest rates have doubled inthe last year.
They want to own real estate,their portfolio.
Maybe they own stocks, crypto,and you know REITs are not a
good option for them, becauseREITs are effectively a mutual
fund and you're paying all theoverhead of the corporation
before you're getting any sortof distribution right With a
REIT.
(03:24):
And so my co-founder and Iasked ourselves why can't we?
Why doesn't there exist?
You know the Robinhood of realestate, and that was the sort of
impetus to start Bonfire.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Interesting.
Okay, so the Robinhood of realestate, that's really
interesting.
So talk a little bit more aboutthat, like how does that, how
does that model work?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, and we're sort of moving.
You know, we're really earlystage company, I should say.
Like my co-founder, vi, he camefrom India 10 years ago.
He's super impressive guy.
He started and sold threecompanies in that time,
including one for $200 million.
So just like a brilliantentrepreneur technologist and he
he's the camp of.
Like you know, the mostimportant thing of an early
stage startup is to stay closeto our customers and get product
(04:04):
market fit.
So we started out as wanting tobe the Robinhood of real estate
and basically build a platformwhere any real estate asset on
earth could be on our platform.
And we're evolving.
You know, we just tokenized anallocation into a $60 million
hotel repositioning project inNorthern California where
basically it's an A plussponsored someone I've invested
(04:26):
in with in the past and he wasbuying a two star, four points
hotel.
He got married out to be theflag and he's repositioning into
a four star hotel and we putthat out to our community.
We didn't know, you know, wedidn't know if people would have
appetite for this kind ofproject.
It's, you know, repositioningthis construction risk.
It's going to take three tofive years to season and we were
(04:49):
three and a half timesoversubscribed within five days.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Wow, the difference between raising money with
California people and raisingmoney with Ohio people.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You're oversubscribed in three to five days here
you've got to walk on brokenglass and nails and everything
else to get them to until you'veproven throughout, like 16
properties, that you've actuallyreturned to profit.
The difference of mindset inthis country.
This country is amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We got a bunch of cheap Germans here.
That's what it is.
They came over from Europe.
The cheapness followed them.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I get that and I think we have a lot of customers
who are reticent to try out ourplatform too.
And I think, you know, by token, tokenization enables us to
bring the upfront cost down fromlike.
With this sponsor, you normallyneed to invest what a minimum
of $100,000.
In one of his deals we broughtit down to $2,000.
So $2,000, you know, is not, Imean, it is a lot of money for a
(05:45):
lot of people.
I don't want to discount that.
But for some who want to trybuying real estate for the first
time and not, you know, overlycommit, it could be a more
bite-sized, you know,opportunity for people.
And so we had people from Idon't know how many states I
don't remember off the top of myhead, but in the sunbelt, in
the middle of the country, thecode international people, who
(06:08):
bought in as well.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So when you say $2,000, you're, so you're,
you're got the bonfire, boughtthe $100,000 buy-in and then you
tokenized it into $2,000 ofsegments or the general partner
said no, you guys can get, theycan get in for $2,000.
How did that work?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So the sponsor, you know, wouldnormally, on a deal like this,
perhaps have a $100,000 minimumbuy-in.
So bonfire says great, we'regonna, we're gonna come in like
worst case scenario.
I mean, I like this deal somuch that my co-founder and I
were like, if no one in ournetwork wants to buy this, we'll
come in right.
So we then went to ourcommunity and we're like, hey,
(06:49):
you know who want, like we'regoing to sell these tokens for
$2,000 a pop.
And then you know, and thatthat you know ended up being way
, way, way more than $100,000.
And then we were one LLC thatsits on the sponsors cap stack.
We wired from one account intotheir escrow and so the sponsors
only ever dealing with bonfire,not with our, you know dozens
(07:12):
and dozens and dozens ofinvestors.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Totally makes sense.
So how do you do these peoplehave to be accredited?
I mean, there's a lot of peopleout there don't understand how
tokenization works.
They don't understand howinvesting in real estate works.
You know we talked a little bitabout accredited investors and
that they're being like agatekeeper, the government that
keeps most people who are notaccredited from investing in.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I guess for your own good.
It's for your own good, yeah,but just going out of the casino
.
Why would you want to bewealthy?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Invest in lottery tickets, invest in the lottery,
you know, or whatever.
But yeah, you can invest insomething that has like a one in
10 chance of success, like astartup fund, but you can invest
in something that has a one ina trillion dollar chance, like
the lottery.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So everybody gets.
People are getting struck bylightning every day.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Every day, every day is that one guy, and then he
just spends it on cocaine, butso it's a hell of a drug.
It's a hell of a drug.
So so, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,
josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,
josh, josh, josh, josh, josh,josh.
Yeah, tell us how that works.
How'd that work with your fund?
What were some of thechallenges that you, you, came
up with?
Do you have unaccredited peoplethat are able to invest?
If they don't invest a certainamount, how does that work?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, it's a total cluster.
You know, because you know theSEC.
As your point the SEC is is,we'll publicly say that they're
trying to protect people bysaying, oh, you have to be
accredited to invest in thesekinds of investments.
Accredited meaning you make$300,000 a year with your spouse
, or $200,000 individually, oryou have a million dollars of
(08:41):
liquid network outside of yourprimary residence, which is 9.4%
of the US population, right?
So 90% of people in thiscountry cannot invest in venture
capital, private equity orinstitutional real estate, right
?
And we look at the last 20, 30years, what has enabled people
to make fuck you money, right,venture, private equity, in
(09:01):
institutional real estate,whereas the rest?
And so what?
We have this massive wealthdivide in this country.
I would argue a big aspect ofit is these accreditation rules,
right?
We're not allowing people toinvest in things based upon
their financial literacy, butjust some bullshit arbitrary
number of how much they make ina year, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Crazy, because you can make $250,000 in San
Francisco and I just read this.
Bloomberg put this out you canmake $250,000, I think it's
$250,000 in San Francisco and ithas the buying power of $80,000
in like Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, I had that.
I mean, I lived in SanFrancisco and I made six figures
and it was like what can youbuy?
It's unbelievable.
And so we, basically ourmission, is to democratize
access to real world assets andenable anyone on earth to get.
Let's back up for a second.
Why real estate?
Right?
(09:55):
For most of us, for most people,the home that they live in,
they own, is the single biggestsource of wealth generation
they'll ever have.
Why?
Because they own it.
They put 20 or 30% down and therest they lever, and the thing
goes up on average six, seven,8% a year, compounded every year
.
And so that's the power ofleveraged compound equity, right
(10:16):
?
And that's how our parents mademoney and their parents made
money, right?
This is the American dream andthis is something that many of
us are told that we're going togrow up, we're going to get.
You know, go to college, getmarried, buy a house and, you
know, have a nest egg.
Well, unfortunately, thisAmerican, this American dream,
is now American myth.
Why?
Because many of us go tocollege and we have, we take on
(10:39):
huge student debt and we leavecollege with hundreds of
thousands of dollars of debt now, or we go to graduate school
and we do not have the means toqualify to buy a house, right?
So where are people going togenerate wealth if they cannot
own their own house?
So that's why being able tohave access to real-world assets
becomes really important, andthat's what the heart of the
(10:59):
Bonfire platform is.
Now we're encountering majorresistance from these arcane SEC
laws, and let me just clarifyBonfire is completely compliant
with all regulations and laws.
We adhere to anti-moneylaundering, we adhere to the SEC
laws.
But I'm also saying that theselaws suck and they're antiquated
and they aren't doing whatthey're intended to.
(11:22):
They're pretending to do, whichis to protect people.
They're really holding peopleback.
But yes, to answer, sorry tomore directly answer your
question.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well, you forgot the good one that they just decided
that they're going to throw lobthe grenade into the development
with.
Was they really pushed in onthe Bank Secrecy Act?
So now all the nodes on theLair 1 blockchain have to be
publicly known.
They can't be, they can't.
You can no longer have privatenodes on the blockchain too.
That the nodes that say, yeah,this, this transaction was good,
(11:52):
let's put, let's store it intothe chain, that they're put it
in the block.
It's.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I mean so they can come confiscate your computers.
Is that what the idea is there?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
No, you get.
You get fucked up financiallyLike the SEC brings down like
cease and desist and all thisother crap.
It was what it sounds like.
You get fined heavily If you'reusing, if you cannot verify who
each node is on your, on yourblockchain.
Even if it's a privateblockchain, it doesn't matter If
you can't verify who the nodeis, where they.
If the node I take this back ifthe node's getting gas like
(12:24):
Ethereum nodes, they all get,they all get paid gas for
verification.
If you're paying someone toverify, if you're paying a node
to verify a transaction Incrypto or whatever, it is Right,
yeah, and you can't verifywho's behind that node, you're
running a rye of the law.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
That's literally every blockchain, yep.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Like what, Guys?
It's all moving towards adirection of these.
What are they called CentralCBTC?
What are they called thecentral bank?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh, digital currency Central bank digital currency.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Where all of our transactions, everything we do,
is going to be stored on agovernment ledger.
So when I go buy, you know, mycoffee, uncle Sam knows about it
, right, and it's all.
That's where it's all going,man.
But you know crypto threatens,you know the big, the big state,
the big nanny government man.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, big brother is always watching and that's the
scary thing.
And yeah, let's just talk alittle bit about like real
estate too.
I mean the a lot of peopledon't understand, like Miami,
you know, new York, sanFrancisco, recent years, I guess
, cincinnati.
Well, cincinnati nodes.
The thing about Cincinnati is,in a lot of cities, when you buy
(13:35):
real estate, you're notnecessarily generating wealth,
you're preserving wealth in away, because your property
values really just going up withinflation.
So when you think you made$100,000 or $200,000 over the
last 20 years, no, your moneyjust essentially stayed with
inflation that entire time,because the cost to build a new
(13:58):
home, those materials to buildsomething brand new, those go up
with inflation.
So a lot of times your propertyvalue is tied to what it would
cost to build a new property ina lot of cases.
So, and then whatever inflationis, so you're really preserving
your wealth.
If you don't want to lose money, in a lot of cases you need to
buy property.
If you don't own a home, a lotof your money is just it's
(14:24):
depreciating every single year.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Unless you take that big down payment and put it
towards something thatappreciates the value, but not
everybody does that.
They don't put it towardsanother asset that's going to
accrue wealth.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, what if you can't buy a house, like what
Josh was saying?
What if interest rates are soout of hand and your income
isn't where the bank wants itand you can't afford to buy a
house?
You have no other options toinvest in real estate unless you
go to a place like Bonfire.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, that's why it's going to be so powerful.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Exactly.
I mean right now there's a,it's going to burn.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, it's going to burn like a bonfire.
It's going to burn hot.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
But I mean, there's fund rise there's here which
invests in short-term rentalsand you can invest, I think, as
little as $100 and things likethat.
But I feel like a lot of timesthey're jacking up the prices on
those properties to paythemselves or whatever.
They're taking a huge cut ofthe equity or something like
that.
How do you guys work?
How do you see yourselvesdifferent from some of these
(15:21):
other options that are out hereand then talk a little bit about
why you guys are here?
I mean, you're not just.
You're, in a way, you're doinga community service right now,
the way these prices are inthese houses.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of threats there.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know Welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Take your time, go wherever you want.
This is a meandering stream offailbillies.
This is what we do this?
Speaker 4 (15:46):
is it Good?
So I think a lot of ourcompetitors there's entities
like CrowdStreet and Fundriseand RealtyMocal primarily focus
on being a fund.
I need to give credit wherecredit is due.
If I want to buy an office read, which I never would, but
(16:06):
Vernado is the gold standardright.
Or malls or Simon PropertyGroup right.
But some of these entities thathave come out that I just
referenced their names.
If I wanted to buy multi-familyin the Northeast of the US,
they'll create a strategy aroundthat right.
So it's kind of like amicro-read in some ways what a
(16:27):
lot of them have been able to doand I give them credit where
credit is due.
But a lot of those platformsthey're charging two and 20.
They have their own waterfallsand they become a sponsor to I
mean Bonfire.
What we're doing, we'refacilitating direct access into
really good real estate dealsand we're charging a little bit
(16:48):
up front and we might take apercent under management to deal
with all the K1s and all thelegal.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh yeah, that's terrible.
Yeah, those things are soexpensive.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
But our whole mission is to get as many people in as
possible.
We don't do that if we're justbaking fee upon fee upon fee.
So I think we're going to behighly curated with the assets
that we're putting on ourplatform and, rather than the
shift away from being theRobinhood of real estate, is
more being like the rare bowls,which I know, that is, in the
common platform.
But instead of maybe doing1,000 deals a year like some of
(17:22):
our competitors, maybe we onlydo 10.
But they're fucking trophy highquality, bad ass deals that I
personally want to invest in.
Right?
Maybe that's the criteria.
Right Is Joshua Kagan puttinghis own money into the deal and
it's like, if I'm willing to putmy own money in the deal, then
I can stand for it.
So that's a little bit howdifferent we are.
(17:43):
We're not trying to boil theocean, we're just trying to give
anyone access to deals with aslow a fees as possible.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I went to a fund conference in Miami two weeks
ago and I was also.
I just got my real estatelicense, so I was down there the
next week for a real estateconference and so I'm just real
estate the last two weeks, right, and I'm at this fund
conference and you've got PaceMorby and all those guys are up
there talking about differentstrategies that they use and
(18:14):
there's a ton of wholesalers inthe room and people that are
trying to work.
I mean, there's people thatwork.
They say I work for GrantCardone, but really you're just
one of thousands of peoplearound the country that go out
and try to find him deals.
So it's really just a big.
It is a big group ofsyndicators and wholesalers.
Is really what it was.
(18:34):
And when people would explain Italked to people.
They're explaining me theirthesis and stuff Everybody was
doing the exact same thing,except for a couple people that
were doing land deals.
This woman, she was 23.
She was making.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I don't know hundreds of thousands a month doing land
deals.
The guy who popularized thatwas at Joe Fairless's event a
couple years ago at Denver.
He wrote a book Land Rich orLand Poor, whatever the hell, it
is Dirt Rich.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Dirt Rich, yeah, yeah , yeah, I saw that book.
I'd love to have him on thepodcast too.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That guy was yeah, that guy was, that guy presented
.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And then I bought the book and then I read like 10
pages and didn't read it, yeah,and nobody's doing tokenization,
believe it or not, like Ididn't hear one thing about
tokenization the whole time.
Nobody understands it, theydon't, they don't understand it.
But they're all doing the exactsame thing down there.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Here's.
The thing is that he didn't saythis.
I don't want to put the wordsin his mouth, but his investors,
eventually, are going to beable to take the holdings that
they have potentially at somepoint, if they or he can.
However, he wants to do it andthey can sell it before they
sell out the whole group.
So like.
(19:39):
So if you've got 500 shares andthe 500 shares of $2,000 a share
, is that right?
$100,000?
Something like that?
Yeah, I think people know whereyou were going.
Yeah, whatever, anyway, masssucks.
But if you do that, if youdon't want to divest yourself
completely, you can just do apercentage and cash out and
(20:03):
makes it so much easier, likebecause it's already going to be
recorded, it's going to be alayer two that's going to make
sure that the stack table is upto date and ready to rock so
that you can do all the pro-ratashit for your taxes to show
what you earned, what you lost,for your K1.
And I think that's a hugecompetitive advantage as opposed
to crowd street and a lot ofwhat those guys are doing.
(20:24):
I mean, I don't think you can.
I don't.
I've only invested in a coupleof those guys the Reg A+ or the
Reg CF guys but I don't think Icould get my money back until
they decided to exit theirposition as oh yes, yeah, you're
stuck, your money's stuck there, yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
And what I would say to both your points, adam.
You went to that conference.
Someone was talking abouttokenization.
No one's talking abouttokenization because it's a bit
blockchain, crypto.
This stuff confuses.
Tokenization confuses people,right, and I just got to give
some big props to Kyle because Iordered his book off of Amazon
a couple of days ago and I'vebeen reading it and I've now, I
(21:03):
swear to God, I bought twocopies today for two people in
my life, including my co-founder, because I think it does such
an excellent job of verifyingand just contextualizing and
just making it simple for anyoneto understand what blockchain
is, how it relates to real-worldassets, what tokenization is,
what are some of theopportunities and also what are
some of the challenges, right,why this isn't.
(21:24):
It's very, very nuanced,accessible book that I think
everyone needs to read ifthey're interested in real
estate and where it's going.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yep, one thing Kyle agrees.
The one thing I didn't do forthe book was put my picture on
the cover because I feel likethat would have fucking sold it.
I mean in New York Times bestseller New York.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Times has number one baby.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
They tell my wife that LinkedIn picture, that Kyle
LinkedIn picture where he'skind of like three-quarters
turned and he's looking at thecamera.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Oh man, my cousin.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
That's broken so many hearts out there, kyle, yes, my
cousin Everyone wanted to knowdid you guys ever see the
original Batman with JackNicholson?
Oh, yes, Right, and he's withKim Bessinger and he's like,
he's like.
We're beauty and a beast.
But if anyone else calls youbeast, I'll fucking kill them.
That's it.
Well, that's my wife all thetime, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That's a great.
I'm co-opping that one.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So, joshua, so explain a little bit more.
What's the website people go toto learn about this, like
what's, what's some moreinformation?
I mean, do you guys provideinformation on the website about
how this works, how thisstructure works, for people that
maybe didn't read Kyle's book?
They've never even.
They don't even know whattokenization is Like?
(22:41):
You know, the challenge atthese conferences of people
talking about crypto, blockchain, tokenization is they have to
go through a whole thing.
You know, you got two, threeminutes.
You're going to talk to thisperson you just met.
You don't want to have to spendthat explaining blockchain,
explaining tokenization,explaining all that stuff to
them, because at that pointthey've already lost interest
and they don't care anymore andthey're ready to move on.
(23:02):
So you know how do you overcomethat when you're talking about
what you guys are doing.
And then is there moreinformation for people, like on
the site and things like that?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Great questions.
So when I was at Clean Fund,you know we were the first
commercial PACE company could?
Pace stands for property access, clean energy.
It's a way to finance energyimprovements and buildings and
repay from the property taxes ofthe building.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Now, we did two buildings.
Sorry, I'd sorry to interruptyou, but I didn't before.
We did two.
We did the first two buildingsin Kentucky using PACE.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
No way In the state.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
In the state and for Thomas yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Wow, petros, who did you work with?
And Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I want to say it was Chris Thomas, as I think it was
his name.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Got it.
I used to come to Cincinnatiand meet with the graders.
What is it called the GreaterCincinnati Authority?
There was another Chris there,really nice guy who ran that
program.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And then I was at Clean Fund.
He's like 62 a shift of ourmember, correct?
He was tall, he was tall.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
He was a military right.
Yeah, Was that Air Force pilot?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah, we're talking about the same guy.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Good dude, really good dude, and I bring that up
because what Clean Fund did iswe had to invest heavily in
education and just get it anddemystify explaining what this
is.
And we did, you know, we and Ithink that there's a lot of
different things that have tohappen, like, like you know, me
appearing on these, you knowpodcasts like this, and we're
doing webinars and content ofvalue, blogs, etc.
(24:22):
Like we just need to, you know,really demystify this
technology, because it's not,you know, like anything new is
going to be threatening topeople, right?
Oh, I don't understand that I'mnot going to pursue.
All it takes is some casestudies and logos of people.
You know, people in real estateare oftentimes in a race to be
second right.
They don't want to stick theirneck out to do a strategy, but
they see someone else doing itsuccessfully and like fuck, I
(24:44):
want to do that right.
So I think it's incumbent uponBonfire to continue to invest in
education and I'm willing to doone-on-one calls I know this is
like totally non-scalable likepotential customers.
You know, like anything we cando to sort of empower people to
get their head around it andthen tell other people about it.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, I'm sorry, I was just going to say.
When it comes to that, I thinka major paradigm shift in this
is going to be when people arespeaking about this to you who
aren't accredited investors andthat they know that they can do
it, cause a lot of people rightnow feel like they don't have
the money or they don't have theaccess to good deals anyway.
(25:26):
So what's the difference?
I'll just I got a guy that doesit, I, my 401k does that.
I think that when you talk aboutthe education and
demystification, I think also isthe ability that it's going to
bring to you to like expand yourclient list is going to be
enormous, because people arejust going to start to realize
oh, I can get in on this dealsix months in because the
(25:48):
original investor had to, youknow, they had emergency or
whatever.
They had to sell $35,000 worthof their original investment.
I can get in at the groundfloor, as opposed to
particularly private companies.
When we were talking aboutprivate companies, um, when you
do do an IPO now there havealready been through series, at
least series D, through series,oh, yeah, uh, who was it?
(26:11):
Uh, uber was like series H orsomething, so they actually lost
value after their IPO and nowpeople are going to be able to
do it, but they don't.
Like you said, you got.
You got to demystify andunderstand.
Help people understand thatthis is going to help your
wealth grow exponentially, ifyou're willing to learn about it
.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And we got to find our killer app too.
Um, because you know, you lookback at the internet and you
know there was so many differentpotentials, the ways that the
internet could have gone, andemail was really the killer app
to begin with, right, and thenit was the worldwide web, you
know, and then internet browsing, and then you know, it was born
, it was porn.
(26:50):
It was really into porn back inthe day.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Dial up porn is what it was, I think that shit was
slow.
You wouldn't know anythingabout that, though.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
But to answer your question.
So we're re, re, re re doingour website right now, but you
know, people want to learn more.
They could go to bonfirecapital, um, and I'm very accessible.
I'm on LinkedIn.
You know, josh, you can.
I'm on Twitter, joshua Kaganone.
We have a discord with about3000 people in it.
You know, we're here to empowerpeople.
That's what.
That is our mission.
So anything we can do, and iffolks have, if you guys have,
(27:28):
feedback on how we can do abetter job telling this story,
please tear us in the assholeLike we only learned from
learning from others, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I definitely see there's a huge opportunity with
technology in this space.
There's a lot of people thatstill do things the old way, you
know, and I mean our technologycompany, dot loop.
You know when we did that, wehad to eliminate the freaking
fax machine which every realestate agent that was doing any
kind of deals you know theyalready had this huge process
that involved the fax machine.
So we had to overcome that.
(27:58):
And you know, changing people'shabits is really hard to do.
And when you are, you know, theone of the first ones in the
pool and you're in this industry, first of all, you've got the
blockchain technology stuffright.
You're tokenizing assets.
That's one big thing hurtled,overcome.
Then you're creating atechnology.
You sounds like you've got anunbelievable co-founder on your
(28:21):
team, a technology co-founderthat you know he's going to want
to disrupt.
You know the status quo with.
You know some kind ofgroundbreaking technology which
is probably going to actuallysimplify the process but explain
some of the challenges you guyshave had and then some of the
kind of forward looking thingsthat you guys want to do to
(28:43):
change the industry and to kindof be the technology leader in
the space.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Well, kyle kind of talks about in this book and you
know, again, I haven't finishedit all, so apologies if I'm
misphrasing any of it, but wehave an interoperability
challenge in our industry rightnow.
So, for instance, bonfire, weuse polygon as our, as our token
, as our blockchain polygonsbuilt off of, you know, Ethereum
, erc 20.
We have a competitor calledlofty.
(29:10):
They use the Algorandblockchain.
Right, there's a bunch of.
There's every day a newstandard coming out, a new, a
new company saying oh, our, ourstandard is the best, right, and
the real holy grail is when aBonfire token can be sold
anywhere and vice versa, right,where there's true
(29:30):
interoperability among theplatforms and not just between
them.
And that's a huge challengebecause there's a lot of ego in
this space and and whatnot.
And it takes someone, you know,kind of bringing the file.
You know, it reminds me of theGodfather when the file, you
know, the heads of the familycome together, michael Corlean
ends up killing all of them, butthey at least tried to
cooperate together, you know.
(29:51):
And so that that's definitely achallenge.
I mean, there's, you knowthere's, there's a, there's a
risk that you have a bunch ofgeeks who are leading this
industry.
You know and like speaking geeklanguage and and don't like.
I went to the to the Ethereumwhat is it called?
The Denver ETH conference acouple of months back.
Oh, like I don't understandfucking 90% of the presentations
(30:12):
I saw.
I was like I don't see whythey're using blockchain.
I don't see any real worldapplication.
They don't?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
they're just doing it because it's a buzzword Like
it's literally the only reason.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Or they're geeking out on some piece of technology
that like, like academics willgeek out on something but it's
never going to see the light ofday in the real world, you know.
And so I think my, my strengthas a founder is I'm really dumb,
I'm not smart at all.
Like I'm like if it doesn'tmake sense in like common sense
to me, then like I don't get it,you know.
And so that's the opportunity,and the challenge is like taking
(30:47):
all this really cool, geekytechnology and translating it
into how it actually impact,positively impacts people's
lives.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, nobody cares how the iPhone works, like they
don't care about the technologyin there, they don't care about
you.
Know you, if you're going totalk about the processor, are
you going to talk about, like,how the technology and the
processor is different?
No, you're going to say, no,this processor is five times
faster than our last processor.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
That's all you need to know, hey the iPhone's five
times faster, or this processorenables me to film a studio
movie on this device.
You know I can go to space withit or whatever.
Like right, like it's the endresult.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
It's the outcome that people are concerned about.
What do I get to do with this?
Why would I invest in atokenized syndication instead of
a typical syndication?
Well, are you accredited?
No, well, here you go.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Now, you can Now you can build wealth.
And this is what I've tried toexplain to everybody is that
this isn't reinventing the wheel.
This is an extra tool in yourtool belt as an, as a general
part, as a general partner, as alimited partner, whatever you
know, I guess, are you guys getpart of the GP when you do, when
you bring your investors, soyou're still a limited part
you're an LP right, yes, yeah,so this is an extra tool to
(31:59):
provide to his investors.
You know you're still when this,when this property is sold,
you're still getting paid incash, it's, or whatever.
You're getting the wire to yourbank account.
It's not like you're gettingpaid and extra tokens that
you've now got to convert toEthereum so that you can now pay
$20 in gas fees.
If you're lucky to get the cashput into your bank account,
(32:21):
where they're going to chargeyou for there, where they're
going to hit you there too.
This is it's traditional.
So when the when the buildingsold, whatever tokens you're
selling at that time, they'regoing to get burned, they're
going to go away and thatproduct, that cap stack, just
like any other business in theworld that's compliant with the
SEC, is going to say how muchvalue you had, how much equity
(32:42):
you had after the sale.
This is your percentage of theprofit, and then it's just going
to get rolled into your bankaccount.
So that's that's the part thatI try to explain everybody's
like.
This is just an extra tool withlots of like trendy lingo and
fun buzzwords, but all it is isa tool.
It gives you.
It gives you access to yourmoney earlier should you need it
(33:03):
, should an emergency pop up,you can get your 30.
You get 30 out of your $100,000out and you can take care of
the emergency and you don't haveto worry about destroying like
a legal entity in the process.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Wait, or you don't roll it into your bank account,
you roll it into your lifeinsurance plan.
That's earning 3.5% and thenyou bargain to your life
insurance plan.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I talked to him.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
This is not financial advice.
I talked to him in a couple ofweeks.
This is yeah, there you go.
We learned some things on thispodcast.
We have some smart people onthis podcast and, josh, you said
oh, I'm not the.
You know you're being modest,but you're a smart guy and it
sounds like you've had anillustrious career and you've
been around some really smartpeople.
You're smart enough to know whatyou don't know the smart people
(33:47):
that, yeah, what you don't know, and then who you need to be
around.
That's.
That's the trick, guys.
That is the trick Be around a.
You don't feel like you'resmart.
Actually, some of the smartestpeople have the biggest imposter
syndrome.
They said some of the mostsuccessful people that they all
have the hugest impostersyndromes, and that may be
(34:07):
something that helps themsucceed.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
We had that Susie Leigh on.
She talked about that, shetalked about it, she talked
about coaching, did you?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
guys read the book a shoe dog by Phil Knight.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
No the Nike book.
I did watch air.
That's about as much of Philthat as I got, and so forth.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I haven't seen air yet, but shoe dog is one of the
best business books I've everread and it talks about the
early days of Nike, when Nikewas floundering almost one out
of business.
And at the end of it I'm goingto stick to a little bit of a
spoiler is he's a few years ago,five years, I don't know how
many years ago the book came out, but he's in Palm Springs in a
movie theater and he's walkingout and he runs into Bill Gates
(34:44):
and Warren Buffett and they wantto talk to him and he's like,
at this point he's worth $10billion and he's like, why would
they want to talk to me?
Like, like they're Bill Gatesand Warren Buffett, right, Like
even he has fucking impostersyndrome and he created Nike.
Right, Like we all have it andso much of our society is about
(35:06):
bravado and pumping our chestsand showing how big we are.
You know our yellow Lambos, butI think, if you talk to, like
most of my friends who arefounders we all deal with this
shit on a daily basis of likeyou know this, you know who am I
to think that I could do that,you know that I could do this
right, and that humility, Ithink, is really, you know, it
(35:27):
will take us far, because Ithink, for me at least, it makes
me curious, it makes me reallybecause I have how little I
think I really know, it makes mewant to, you know, absorb all,
like and surround myself withamazing people so that I can
learn, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Well, and I think also with people that you're
helping the investors that youknow right now they're investing
in lottery tickets.
You know they have an impostersyndrome too, around being an
investor.
They don't think that there's afear, maybe, that it's not
going to work out, becausenothing in their lives ever
works out right.
That's the mentality oh, thiscan't work out for me, this
(36:05):
isn't going to work for me.
I'm not smart enough to investin something like this.
I'm not going to be able towrap my head around this kind of
stuff, you know.
So I'm just going to go back tothe casino and, you know, put
100 bucks on black and that'sgoing to be my investment for
the week.
So I mean there's those peopletoo.
I mean there's those situationsand I think the more you can
(36:25):
help them get over that and themore people you can help and the
more case studies people cansee from folks that have
successfully invested with you,you know, the better it's going
to be.
I mean, you've already got agreat track record.
Your co-founder obviously has agreat track record.
People can go on there and onyour website, look at that and
see how successful you guys havebeen.
(36:46):
And you know you're essentially, in a way, giving back.
I mean, obviously you want thisthing to do good.
You guys are going to do welloff of it.
You know it's fun for youprobably to go out here and find
these houses or theseinvestments, but you know
there's an overlooked factor andthat is that you guys are
actually helping people and youknow, kyle, you too with what
(37:08):
you've written, because it'sdemystified a lot of this stuff
for people and help themunderstand the alternative
investments that are out therefor them.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
If you're not accredited, I want to add this
to um, he was on Joe's podcast.
Did Osh interview you?
Yeah, so Osh interviewed him onthe best ever real estate
investing advice show ever,mm-hmm.
Um, so if, if, you guys couldcheck that episode out too.
What do you remember?
What episode number it is bychance, I doubt it.
I don't remember mine either.
(37:38):
They're like 14,000 episodes orwhatever there is.
But, yeah, so it'll give peoplea different perspective with
different questions on the sameon this topic, because we tend
to get lost in the weeds when weask questions and all that.
Osh has 30 minutes to get itall out, but that's another.
That's another place that youcan find out what Josh has to
(37:58):
say about this show.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Thanks, guys.
The last thing I'll say toAdams, to both your points, you
know, look, I think that I, I,in college, I spent six months
living in Nepal, okay, and atthe time Nepal was the second
poorest country on earth.
I lived with a family with noelectricity, no running water,
and yet they had, um, they wereamong the kindest and happiest
(38:22):
people I've ever met in my life.
And they had family, they hadcommunity, right, they had, they
had something that oftentimeswe lack in the West, despite our
financial abundance.
But one thing that they didn'thave is real opportunity.
You know, my, my, my brotherfrom my host family had the went
to the only law school in Nepal, and what does he do now?
He escaped Nepal and he drivesan Uber and he works at Dunkin'
(38:45):
Donut.
Okay, now, owning assets, Ireally, truly believe, gives
people an opportunity to climbthe Maslow, maslow's hierarchy
of needs.
Yes, and so, if we can, as acompany, as an industry, empower
people who have to wake up atthree o'clock in the morning to
take a bus to go to Walmart youknow, two hours away and in
stock shelves all day and comehome and not be with their kids,
(39:08):
and, and, you know, and, andand live this life of
subsistence and living paycheckto paycheck but actually have
resources for the first time andthe choices that they get to
make with with having resources,then we can have a transform
world and to me that's that'swhat drives me.
You know, like sure this isgoing to make a lot of money,
but you know, being the richestperson in the cemetery is not,
(39:31):
has never been my calling so umyeah.
I'm really grateful for you guys.
You know and and the you knowthe work you're doing in the
world and just you know, keep,keep up.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Man there's a reason the podcast is here, man to
bring folks like you on OpenPeople's idea, open People's
minds to opportunities that areout there.
Squash this narrative thatthere's this like a finite
amount of money in the world andthat the billionaires are
hogging it all.
I mean there is unlimited moneyIf the government printing
money doesn't show that to you.
(40:02):
There, there, you know, youcreate something and money will
come to you.
You create wealth, you dosomething, you buy assets,
whatever it is, it will come toyou.
And this is just one example ofhow that works and how that's
possible for people.
And it's it's.
You know.
Oh, that's for them, that's forthe wealthy.
I don't, I'm not going to getthose opportunities.
(40:22):
Well, here's an opportunitystaring you in the face.
You can research it, do yourown research, look into stuff
like this.
Just get over that hump.
Get over that hump and justlook at something and decide for
yourself if this is for you.
But you have to do it, you justhave to.
You just have to read about it,just have to learn about it,
for God's sake.
And and that's the problem Ithink with a lot of people is,
(40:44):
it's like oh, they just blow itoff for you.
Oh, they just blow it off rightaway instead of actually
looking into it deeper anddeciding for themselves if it
works for them.
I mean, it's not going to workfor everybody, but for some
people it will.
You got a hundred 200,000 extradollars laying around, you know
.
Start putting that money towork.
Well, you just got to sit incash.
It's losing money every day.
So well, josh, I reallyappreciate it.
(41:07):
Man, thanks for being on theshow.
We've taken up a lot of yourtime, but hopefully this
resonates with some folks andwish you all the success with
your fund here, and I'd love tolove to hear some case studies
in the future of who's this hashelped, and see that new website
up and running it and give usthe URL for the website again
wwwbondfirecapital Don Bonfire,I can be reached out, and I can
(41:30):
be reached out to Joshua atbonfirecapital, adam Kyle.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Thank you so much.
This has been so fun.
No problem, looking forward tocontinuing the conversation in
the future.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, buddy, love it.
Josh, Thanks for your weekend.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side
Hustle City.
Well, you've heard from ourguests, Now let's hear from you.
Join our community on Facebook,Side Hustle City.
It's a group where people shareideas, share their
inspirational stories andmotivate each other to be
successful and turn their sidehustle into their main hustle.
We'll see you there and we'llsee you next week on the show.
(42:02):
Thank you.
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