February 10, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode, Katherine Martín-Fisher welcomes Igor Schultenov, who shares his journey from post-communist Russia to the bustling city of Los Angeles. Igor recounts his early life, the importance of asking questions, and the pivotal career transitions that led him to the real estate industry. He delves into his experiences with the Avista Fund, discussing syndication, investment choices, and educating clients on passive investment potentials. Igor reflects on overcoming challenges during COVID-19, the art of delegation, and focusing on high-value activities. The conversation highlights the influence of mentors, the importance of coaching, and specialization, concluding with gratitude and a look ahead to future episodes.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
I am Catherine Martin Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture, by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in ninety days, and this allowing them toreignite the passion and that big dream that
(00:27):
they started with.
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Catherine with the Beyond Businesspodcast.
(00:47):
And I am so excited because we have IgorSchultenov with us here today.
And he is an entrepreneur and investor, formerpro athlete.
Igor is a former professional athlete whobecame a successful entrepreneur and real
estate investor.
He founded a Vista Fund, a company that investsin income generating multifamily properties.
(01:12):
They focus on providing high returns toinvestors and improving the quality of lives of
residents in their communities.
Alright.
I am so excited to have this conversation.
Igor, thank you for being here.
Thank you, Catherine.
Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure to be on the show andshare as much as I can.
So let's you know, we you know, as we try toget to know each other, I loved your story, and
(01:39):
I would love for our audience that to just getto know you just a little bit.
And so what I'd like to ask you is, how didyour early life experiences help you with your
aspirations and your career choices as youmoved along in your journey?
That's a great question.
Thank you.
And then, just trying to think how my earlyexperiences shaped my future.
(02:01):
And it was, I remember it was I'll I'll try toput you in the story first.
I'll tell you that story because, again, justimagine nineteen nineteen ninety ninety five.
So I'm in Russia, And, we just went through thecivil war, I would say.
Right?
It's a civil revolution.
Right?
We went through the communism into the brightfuture of democracy.
(02:23):
And then, I got my friend.
He was a couple of years younger.
And we stayed in, just imagine we stayed in themiddle of the, two buildings, two apartment
buildings.
And then my my friend saying, listen, I'm goingto pick up the money from people.
I was like, what do you mean?
So, and again, I'm maybe 12, 14 and I was likeexcited about going into the future.
(02:46):
What profession?
How do you earn money?
And he was, oh, yeah.
I'm gonna pick up cash because we rent in theplace.
I I don't even know the term.
I'm saying renting right now, but because we'regiven the place to leave some other people, I
was like, wow.
That's that's a fascinating exchange.
I never heard about that.
So and, again, I just let it go.
(03:07):
So that was the information.
Nothing beyond that.
And, maybe about ten, fifteen years after, Iwas like, oh my goodness.
Let's reflect on where the first time I heardthat you can exchange the place to the money.
So if you give somebody the place to leave,they're gonna give you money.
And that was the actually first time ever Iheard it.
And then, it just, you know, put the bug intomy mind, into my body.
(03:31):
Right?
And that was just, you know, the humblebeginnings, right, of the business.
Okay.
So so you were living in Russia at the time.
Right?
Yes.
So tell us a little bit about how you came tolive in The United States.
The story was because, again, I was we werenot, you know, financially savvy family.
(03:53):
Right?
My my dad was police officer.
My mom was the doctor.
And they were working nine to five every singleday, super busy, and then barely, barely have a
time to spend with us, I would say.
My mom had always trouble to cook for usbecause, again, I show up after school at
three.
Right?
She only comes back at five, and it was alwaysa challenge.
But for myself, I saw a couple ways out.
(04:17):
One was the sports.
I was playing sports.
I was, I would I would say gifted, right,coordinated enough to play different sports
with a ball.
I left every single sport with a ball and itwas given to me.
It was like natural thing to play any type likea soccer, right, volleyball, basketball,
anything.
So, basically, because I was six three as well,my my mom first said, you're gonna be swimming
(04:41):
first as a, you know, early development.
And then if you like something else, so we'regonna think about that.
Basically, at the age of 12, 14, I just got sobored with swimming and then I started to do
water polo.
She said, let's do something similar.
So you're not going to lose that ad trait overthe people because you were a really good
swimmer.
So, but we're going to give you ball finally.
So and and then the passion connected because Iloved the game with balls, and I became water
(05:06):
polo player.
When I was looking through the future because,again, I was always reflecting on myself into
the future.
So what I'm gonna be doing, right, and how I'mgonna look like twenty years from now.
And I said to myself when I was young, I said,if I'm gonna focus on the sport, number one, I
can travel the world.
And that was my always curiosity, internal,right, internal bug of my cell, how the other
(05:28):
people live on the other side of the country,right, or the other side of the world, right,
at the ocean.
Like, there's different things that was goingaround in my mind.
And then because I was good enough, right,invited to the Russian national team and
different level of competition, right, than theclub level.
And we started to travel the world.
And it was my first travel was to Bulgaria and,I was by the beach and I said, oh, my goodness.
(05:51):
So you can actually experience the life withoutwinter?
It's like because, again, I was young.
And, again, I would probably put you into thestory.
So I'm always coming back from the training,and it was about one hour and fifteen minutes
on the subway.
Right?
And if you go on as a minus 20 Celsius, right,and you're going through the subway and it's
(06:13):
open windows, it's so cold.
Right?
I can't even imagine.
I just remember my emotions.
And you just, you know, going on that train.
So about forty minutes in the open.
Right?
You're going through the nature and stuff.
Right?
It's super cold.
You're very humid.
Right?
And that was I wouldn't say hated, but it was,like, very challenging for me every single time
when I go to training.
(06:34):
And when I landed in Bulgaria First time, I waslike, oh my goodness.
You don't need to suffer.
Like, if you wanna be, you know, if you wannabe in the warm temperatures, right, you can
live in Bulgaria.
Like, you can live in I don't know.
We start to travel different countries.
Right?
In Croatia, it's beautiful as well.
Just going back to the sports and how we madeit to United States, I was playing water polo.
(06:56):
My wife was playing professional basketball,and it was Turkey, right, when we we were part
of the national team.
She was for basketball team.
I was for a water polo team.
And then at the delegation meetings, likebecause every single day, we're gonna have a
meeting because it's a 200 people of thedelegation right from the country, and then
there's different sports.
(07:17):
And it was kind of a KPI meeting.
So, okay, how you guys did, how was itcompeting right, and then how many medals we
got today, blah blah blah.
So our coach, we had a just an amazing coach.
He was like a Olympic athlete as well in thepast, and he made us sing in front of the
people.
So because we were singing, all the all thegirls from the delegation, they spit us out
(07:38):
right away.
Right?
And then for us, it was amazing because we werealways tanned because we were practicing in
open water all the time, right, in differentcountries.
It was a warm weather.
So we're always tanned and we got the bleachhair.
Right?
The long bleach hair.
So which is kind of like a surface style.
And the girls really liked that.
It was very attractive for them.
(07:59):
Basically, so we spot out each other.
So I'm talking about my wife, my future wife.
Right?
And then we start to talk and we will start tocheer for different teams who were go out and
cheer for basketball, team, right, for girls.
And then they come back and cheer for us.
So we started that connection and then we gotwe moved back after the competition.
Let's say the competition is over in Turkey.
(08:19):
And because we were from the same city fromMoscow, so we can basically extend the
relationship and it's gonna be easier for us.
Because a lot of people, they were fromdifferent parts of the country.
Right?
And it's like a thousands of hours to get themto reach to that place.
So we got lucky.
We're from the same city, so we start to meet.
Right?
And then we start to talk to each other andstuff like that.
That's how it's all started.
(08:40):
And then in 02/2005, my wife brother wasdrafted by, Flippers team.
So in United States, and it was just for thefamily, it was just a mind boggling experience.
Because, again, you live in Moscow.
Right?
And you train hard.
You put in all of your sweat and tears rightinto your work, and all of a sudden, boom, you
(09:00):
got drafted by NBA team.
So which is probably like a equivalent of womenwinning Powerball, maybe even more than that.
Because because the change was huge, and thenthey moved from Moscow, Russia to United
States, and they passed away for us.
Why?
I'm gonna explain a little bit later because Iwas after my career in sports, I I I stopped
(09:22):
working right then I finished a law degree.
I started to work as a assistant judge incourt.
And within the one year, I understand it's notmaybe my passion.
I don't really like what happened in there.
So, because I was thinking about protectingpeople and law, But then when I faced the
reality and it was just more about, okay, ifyou're powerful enough, if you get enough
(09:44):
money, so we're gonna help you to make theright decision.
The, I start to kind of project myself into thefuture.
Do I want it for my children?
Do I want it for my experience twenty yearsfrom now?
Do I want to leave like that?
So, and I said no.
And then I quit my job.
My wife just delivered the baby and she said,you know what?
(10:04):
Let's go and visit my family in The UnitedStates.
I was like, okay, that's fine.
So we got again, Russia, the financial systemis different back then, so there's no leverage.
You don't you don't mortgage the house.
You don't, you know, credit the car.
Right?
It's all cash, so it's all paid.
So we got car.
We got house.
We got apartment to leave.
So we don't need to do a lot of investments,right, in in the comfortable lifestyle.
(10:28):
So it's already been taken care of.
Basically, from the place of comfort, we said,okay.
Let's go visit your family.
We're not going to stay there.
We're going to come back right in Russia.
And then we started the business.
We had a couple of ideas how to start thebusiness.
Basically in 02/2009, in November, we landed inLos Angeles.
And in November again, it's already, like,minus 10, I would say, in Moscow.
(10:50):
So it's a snowy.
Right?
And then, we landed in California, ManhattanBeach.
So I'm going out by the pier.
So it's beautiful weather.
Everybody in the flip flops.
Right?
Very slow pace.
Everybody enjoying and smiling.
I was like, oh my goodness.
Nobody told me you can actually experience andlive like that.
Like, it's it's not like a two months or threemonths.
(11:12):
We wanna give our audience perspective here.
So you have you were used to living in Russia,and what are your temperatures in Russia?
Because this is the first time you come, andnow you experience this warm weather.
Yeah.
And then again.
Year round.
So let's save so what were the temperatures inRussia?
So the summer is beautiful.
(11:33):
It's nice.
But then once you get to October, November,it's just cold.
So at November, it's usually snowy.
It's covered with snow, and it's about minus 10Celsius.
Minus 10.
Yes.
So, and that's why I'm saying so from one placeof the cold and winter, you're going into the
same, basically same month, right November, butyou're going into the sun and it's beautiful.
(11:56):
Right?
And it's ocean and you can swim, actually.
So it was just a big difference.
And then for me, it was one of the mostimportant things so you can experience, like,
the life.
Because we start to think through, like, how doyou experience your life.
Right?
Not even the not even the weather or stuff likethat.
I'm glad you said that because this is what Iwant our audience to understand.
(12:17):
So from your early start in life and you youhave an intuitive knowing, you ask yourself
good question.
Right?
So once we have knowledge, you don't unlearnsomething.
You just you're you you already have thisknowledge.
So now you have an experience in your youngeryears that, you know, you've noticed that
(12:37):
there's an exchange of money for an apartment.
You ask yourself questions as you'reexperiencing.
You're like, oh, okay.
Mom and dad, you know, this is what we makehere, but there's another way.
And then you find that you're good at sports,and you, you know, so you make that transition
into going into sports, which gives youexperiences.
(12:59):
So now your mind is expanding.
And as you're expanding, you're you startthinking there's another way.
Right?
And so I I like our audience to understand thisbecause, you know, we have lots of people who
own businesses.
And as they own businesses, we go throughadversity, and sometimes we need to pivot to
get to the other side.
(13:20):
So through asking ourself good questions sowhat I'm hearing you say that throughout your
journey, you do ask yourself questions.
So we must all be in the habit of askingourself the right questions.
Right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And No.
There was a lot of questions back then that Iwas asking myself as well.
Asking the questions, I think, is one of thepowerful things because as you remove yourself
(13:41):
from the day to day, I would say, the lifeexperiences, right, then you start to think on
top of that.
So, okay, how's that gonna look like twentyyears from now?
And then for me, great example was let's lookat the peers or the peer group, right, who's
doing that twenty years right ahead of me.
So how they how they live, how they experiencethat, how they feel themselves.
(14:02):
Do they smile and do they stubbornly that wasthe huge part of it.
And, again, going into court system, right, andexperience, and I was looking at the guys who,
like, twenty years ahead of me.
I was like, I don't wanna experience that life.
I wanna be different.
Right?
And that was the choice back then.
So I love that you just added that because,yes, you are so right.
(14:22):
Through perspective, you're seeing and you'relooking what that looks like through the court
system.
You're able to actually project forward whatthat looks like and where where the end game on
that is.
Right?
Correct.
Yeah.
And so but I love what you've said that yourealized even then that that wasn't for you,
that this didn't align with who you were.
(14:43):
Yeah.
Because what
did Yeah.
It didn't align with me.
And I said, I can't, like because when I feelthe misalignment and I'm I'm asking the
feelings, right, I'm probably talking aboutfeelings right now.
And if you wake up and it's like, and it'ssomething you don't wanna do, it doesn't mean
you need to be stuck.
Right?
And, yes, it's scary.
(15:03):
So and it was scary for me and it's still scaryuntil today.
Right?
But but again, but you you're trying to makethat change and you do go step by step and all
of a sudden, like, one year or two years fromthen, you're like, oh my goodness.
I made that pivot, and I made that change.
And I changed my, the work.
Right?
Or I changed my whatever the education andstuff like that because it's never too late.
(15:26):
You're so right.
What would you say that through that, what didthat through those life experiences, what did
that help you learn?
Was there something specific that you'velearned?
Because I know that you had another careerafter that when you came here to The United
States.
So tell me just once maybe one or two thingsthat you feel like you've learned.
(15:49):
Yeah.
There's a couple things I learned through that,experience.
Right?
One is, like I said, like listening to my cardbecause when I finished the school and my first
degree was PE teacher and coach.
When I finished the school and I went throughthe couple of, internships, right, I really
liked working with children, with kids.
(16:12):
And the magic was you can pass on theknowledge, right?
It's not really about working with students.
It's like passing on the knowledge and it'shelpful.
And you see them growing with that powerfulknowledge.
Because again, the knowledge was make a bigdifference in my, well, my life.
Right?
I would read the book, right?
I was like, Oh my goodness.
And your mind expanding.
So, and I was looking at the perspective ofcoaching, right?
(16:35):
And then teaching kids, it's like you're reallyexpanding their mind.
You're really saying there's a, it could belike this.
My experience was like that and you can choosethe path.
And that was like super magical for me.
And then, I said, again, go back to what Ilearned.
So I said, listen to what it's actuallyresonates with you, right, with your body, with
(16:55):
your mind, because you're gonna do a lot betterjob, right, if it resonates with you.
If it's not, so it's gonna be very hard tosucceed.
And I said to myself, if you wanna be the courtsystem guy, right, then come in.
Even so you make all the money in the world, soyou're not gonna be happy.
So because you don't like to do that.
And then I made a change, right?
And then when we landed to United States, weopened the academy, basketball academy, because
(17:20):
all of us was, was professional background.
There's a lot of different educationalbackgrounds, but professional sports
background.
So I started to work with kids and then I neverworked for five days.
Oh, sorry.
For five years, I never worked.
Why?
Because I enjoy every single day.
And then when the one child will show up,right?
And was it in the gym, right?
(17:40):
I'll give my 20% every time.
When 25 kids will show up, I'll give the sameenergy.
People feel it.
And that was the same for every single personwho was engaged in our company with kids.
And then that was just a higher frame for thefuture.
People fill it and the business start to grow.
Like the business start to expand like crazybecause people start to exchange the great
(18:04):
experience.
They say, Oh, go there because they do a reallygood job.
So that was the big lesson for me.
So basically listening to your emotional state.
Like, do you like doing this?
And if you do, it's a lot more chances.
For me, it was that like that.
A lot more chances for you to succeed.
You're gonna be a lot more successful thansomething you don't like and you don't put the
energy into.
(18:25):
Well, people feel that.
When you're doing something that you arebegrudging every single day, you get up and
you're just like, another day.
You actually don't even recall the days of theweek when you're loving and you're so
passionate about what you're doing.
It's like, you know, I'm ready to rock androll.
Every single day I get up and I'm ready to go.
So that being said, let's talk a little bitabout what you do now and, you know, and and
(18:51):
how you're able to help our audience.
Absolutely.
So what we do now, how we're able to help theaudience, it's there there's couple more
learning lessons came through because, like Isaid, five years, I didn't work, but then it's
became a business.
Like, it was growing bigger.
Right?
And the cash flow was coming in.
And one of the challenges I had, what do you dowith your money?
(19:13):
So I start to go into the direction of, okay,research and think and learn and ask people,
what did they actually do with the money?
So, and there's different avenues.
There's a lot of different things.
There's no right way and the wrong way, butthere's the if you have a high risk tolerance,
you can do one thing.
Right?
If you have a lower risk tolerance, but I wasI'm the little bit more like for sure guy.
(19:36):
How do you get, you know, results for sure?
And I started to analyze myself, analyze myportfolio because again, we hired the financial
advisors.
We did like a stock market.
We did this.
We did different, you know, equity investmentsand stuff.
And there's one thing was for sure, I neverlost the principle of my investment in the real
estate.
(19:56):
And that's got me thinking.
I was like, okay, I got spread too wide and toothin, meaning I'm testing the market of
investments.
And I would say it was February when I first II got the $300,000 by selling real estate.
I sold one of the apartments.
Right?
And I got all the money, but the cash flow fromthe business was coming in.
I don't need that money.
(20:17):
Like, I don't I don't wanna buy it, forexample, like a car or something like that.
I don't need that.
So but I wanna invest it for the future.
I wanna feel myself more.
I would say, I wanna feel myself I can make achoice based on what I want to do, not based
what I need to do for the money or somethinglike that.
So, and that was my future again, projection.
(20:38):
And I said to do that, I need to cover mybasis, right?
With a cashflow, which is going to be passive,not from the business beginning.
Because again, for the business, it's it wassuper, super active and aggressive.
Right?
When you need to make a decision every day, youneed to wake up, you need to manage, you need
to hire people, you need to, you know, set theKPIs.
(20:58):
Right?
And, you know, go through the results all thetime.
So it's very, intensive, right, thing as to donumber one.
Number two, it's very risky as well becauseyes, for sure you can get very, very successful
with business and then the COVID comes andyou're going to be like absolutely, you know,
ground up.
Right?
So what I'm saying is when you have aninvestment portfolio, right, it gives you a lot
(21:21):
more sense of, okay, I'm protected.
I'm secured.
Right?
I can make my own feelings, decisions, whateverI want to do today.
So anyways, I went through the real estatecycle, meaning I invested in multiple different
deals.
I test them out.
And then I said, okay, it works.
The real estate does work.
So because everybody was saying, go invest inreal estate, go invest in real estate.
(21:43):
And remember that conversation of little metalking to my friend.
I was like, Oh my goodness.
I heard that long, long time ago.
Right?
I took connection.
So yes, it takes time.
It's not like people saying it's not get richquick.
It's get rich for sure.
Right?
So it's it's for sure.
I like that.
Wait.
Let's reiterate that.
Yeah.
What is it that people say?
(22:03):
It's not get rich quick.
Because a lot of times, again, when you'regoing through the cycle, so you got the money
first time, so you wanna multiply that byinsane amounts, right, by two times, five times
and stuff.
And you take in that risk.
You inherit in that risk.
But then the real estate, it's a little bitslower gain, but you get rich for sure.
It's not about
For sure.
It's about It's
(22:25):
not about if.
It's about when.
And I I like that risk, but that's that is amore sure game to play for sure.
Yeah.
Because because that's another I'm going to theanother lesson I learned for myself, and maybe
it's gonna be helpful for a lot of people.
So it's it's a longer time frame for sure.
That's a long the real estate, it's not like aBitcoin.
(22:47):
Right?
It's not gonna get you rich tomorrow.
So but at the same time, there's a riskinherited.
Right?
You're not gonna lose it.
You might not make as much, but you're notgoing to lose it.
It's going to be very hard for you to causeyou've got hard asset behind that investment.
So, and basically I focus myself on real estateand I focus myself and dedicate myself to real
(23:08):
estate.
So I found a way to remove myself fromoperations of the company business.
Right?
Because it was the step number one.
If I was engaged every single day in myoperations and the business, right, And my wife
was working in that company.
I said, I'm not gonna be successful by anymeans.
Why?
Because 80% of my time going into the companyoperations, like, in company, like, functions.
(23:31):
And then, we hire the people.
So my wife took over, and then she's the CEO ofthe company.
And she's completely, like, handling that witha lot of people underneath meetings.
So they they doing those functions every day.
And then the second second step was, okay.
So we need to form the company.
It's not I'm talking about not a bit fine, butthe company where we can invest through into
(23:53):
the real estate.
And my % focus was into that company.
Okay.
I was going through the deals, and I'm talkingabout myself or my self investment and my
partner.
We said we're gonna test investments byourselves first.
Before we give it to the public, we're gonnatest it ourselves.
So that way, we're gonna be absolutely unlockedto give it to give that opportunity to others.
(24:17):
Why?
Because we tested with our own money.
Because a lot of times, you know, we go onsomewhere and then people telling you, okay.
Let's go invest in this and that.
So I was like, have you ever tried that?
Have you invested your own money?
No.
But I know it works.
I was like, how do you know it works?
Love that.
So you tested and tried it yourself firstbefore you took that out into the marketplace.
(24:39):
Yes.
And then the the idea was because thesyndication I'm talking about syndication right
now.
The general syndication when the big apartmentcomplex owned by multiple people.
The reason why, because there's there's threedifferent groups.
One is the bank who wants to be part of itbecause they lend the money.
The second group, it's operator who actuallydoing the deal.
(25:01):
And then the third group is the people who'sinvestors.
Right.
So they just put the capital.
They don't they it's their conscious decision.
We don't wanna we don't wanna take on ourselvesresponsibilities of managing this thing.
We wanna be capital involved, but not bephysical and operational and mentally involved.
(25:22):
And that's a conscious decision.
And for me was very, very important.
Like, because again, a lot of people saying wewanna do passive investment and then they start
to buy real estate and then it becomes thework.
So from one work, now you get two differentjobs.
I do have a question for you.
Yes.
When you first started doing this and you soyou do multifamily investing.
(25:46):
So Correct.
What make you made you decide that it wasn't sothere's a lot of people when they start to
invest in real estate, they do buy a house, Youfix the house up.
You flip the house.
You know, you keep it for a certain amount oftime.
What made you decide that multifamily was thedirection to go in?
So what made me just what made me decide themultifamily's direction to go in?
(26:10):
So I did own the house, not just one, it's amultiple of them.
And then, like I said before, so you buying thehouse, you start the management, right?
You start to manage because it's one house.
You probably not in good position and you'llleverage that.
You're not in good position to hire propertymanagement.
Why?
Because, you know, you already leveraged thethe money, right, to buy that house.
(26:31):
Right.
It's very minimal, return from that house.
And now you need to pay for a property.
Because it's one property, they usually chargeyou a lot more than just the 20 properties.
And then, again, you start to replicate itmodel.
You say from one house, you get to 20 houses.
How's it gonna look like?
Right?
So it's gonna look like you got 20 differentbusinesses to manage.
(26:53):
Right?
So you gotta be paying every single time.
Was you I'm talking about your time right now.
You're gonna be paying attention every singletime on every single request and fixing that,
or you need to be paying to the propertymanagement to do that.
So and the question is if you sit in thathouse, my question was to myself.
So how long time is gonna get you when theequity growth?
(27:14):
Like, because equity, the price of that houseshould grow.
Right?
So you can really start to make money.
Otherwise, it's gonna be such a minimalpercentage.
Right?
And then you compare the syndication when yougive, let's say, a hundred thousand dollar
check to somebody and they manage and they dothat and you get, let's say, 15% return on
that, Or you do it yourself and you get twelve,fifty percent.
(27:37):
But now you start to count the time put intothat work.
And then all of a sudden you make, like, $5 anhour, ten dollars an hour to do all of that
work and then, you know, look into thisinvestment.
Well, again, I'm talking about passive.
Again, I'm gonna stress that passive incomething.
Right.
When you find physical real estate and youscale in that portfolio, by any means, it's not
(28:00):
passive.
It's like a full time job income.
It's not a passive income.
So I wanna ask you, you now have the AvistaFund, and and that's and that's that's the
company the name of your company.
So what would you say that the clients that youwork with, what would you say is something that
they don't know that they don't know?
It's a good question.
(28:20):
Maybe I don't know even what I don't know.
What would I say to the client?
Because most people, there's it's really not.
It's just not knowing, but sometimes youactually don't know that you don't know
something.
So when you're working with clients and they'reasking you questions and they're wanting to
work with you, there's always something thatthey don't know that they themselves don't
(28:42):
know, but you can help them learn that.
I can give you my personal experienceperspective.
And for me, it was back in the days, I wasgoing in the California.
Right?
Because I live in California.
So I was like, I wanna own apartment complex.
And my idea was, again, thinking of, like, oldbrain and all ideas.
(29:04):
I need to get this cash for the down paymentand be part of that game.
And this is the only way to do that.
Like, I need to accumulate $10,000,000, right,in one chunk of cash to become a owner of the
apartment building.
And that was my idea.
Why?
Because it's not scalable to own one, two,three, four houses, but it's super scalable,
(29:25):
have one roof and then hundreds of units.
Right?
And hundreds of families paying to you.
Right?
And then I didn't know what I didn't knowbecause you can be part of it as little as
hundred thousand dollars, and you can leveragethat professional team who's managing that
building.
Mhmm.
And you can get a lot higher return than youown direct real estate, and you can get the tax
(29:51):
benefits off of it.
And I didn't know that it's possible.
But then once I, you know, once I found out,once I just explore that model, my first idea
was, oh, it's scam.
It's not it's not gonna work.
So it's it's too good to be true.
But then I was like, okay.
Let's test it.
How do you test?
I mean, how do you know, how do you check that?
So you could just put the money into that thingand then make it work.
(30:14):
Right.
And then I was like, okay, the dividends comingin.
And I was like, Oh, Oh my goodness.
I don't need to open the company to ownapartment building.
I don't need to hire 25 people to propertymanagement and this and that and then asset
management and then manage them altogether.
I could be the passive investor into that deal.
I didn't know that it's possible because myidea was I need to own that outright and have
(30:36):
all of that income coming into me, but then itis possible.
And then my plan was I was like, I'm gonna puta hundred thousand in.
It's gonna grow to 200,000.
If I wanna own it myself, I'll buy.
But if I like it and then I wanna be in thepassive income right stage, I wanna be passive
in investing in that deal and next to so Ididn't know it's possible basically to own the
(30:58):
apartments in portion.
What would what would you say is your bestclient?
Like, what what kinds of clients come to you?
What kind of people are you able to help the,you know, in the industry?
That that's a great question.
So the what is the perfect client?
I call them the perfect client.
And then, it usually people who own, like yousaid, one, two, three houses.
(31:22):
Because what you don't know is you don't knowagain.
Back to my I'm talking about myself always.
Like, you think it's passive, and then all of asudden you understand it's a full time work.
And then you got because, again, it's usually abusiness owner who has a cash flow.
Right?
And they got residual, they got some more cashthat they need every single day.
(31:43):
They usually go on the path of buying the firsthouse and then the second house.
Alright?
Because everybody's telling, oh, you go intothe real estate.
Why?
Because it's a passive investment.
And then all of a sudden you get one businessand you get two businesses.
Right?
And then the question is here, do you grow twobusinesses at the same time?
You're gonna kill yourself in twenty yearsbecause you get so much on the portfolio side
(32:06):
and you get so much on your business side.
Right?
Or your business start to suffer.
Right?
Because you start to pay more and moreattention into your real estate portfolio.
Why?
Because it's growing.
Right?
Because, you know, you bought a house, youknow, it's just increased the equity.
You sell it by another two or three or five,and then you start to pay less attention
because, you know, you need to focus on thatmore now.
(32:28):
Basically, they start to understand it's notpassive.
And those are usually people saying, okay.
Listen.
I wanna focus on my business and you be passiveinvestor.
And they usually sell all the portfolio andinvest in syndication when it's like a true
passive income when you get the reports.
You know, not getting the request formaintenance, but reports.
So as you were learning that this was thedirection you wanna go, there had to have been
(32:52):
I would love to for you to give me maybe justan example of a set a setback that you might
have gone through as you were learning that,all right, I'm going from having homes to going
to multifamily, but then was there ever asetback that happened along the way as you were
learning through this?
(33:12):
Absolutely.
Again, one of the setbacks was COVID nineteen,which is a great example.
The there's a couple things.
One it's, it's absolutely like, I would saykilled the business.
Right.
Which is again, the idea of the basketballacademy and kids coming together.
Right.
It just wiped out the business completely.
Right.
(33:32):
Cause of COVID, you can't get together thepeople and stuff like that.
But for me, it was a setback slash opportunitybecause I'm thinking always through the
setback, it's given for you to rethink themodel, right, to go deeper, to have that time
to really understand, to analyze.
Right?
And the setback was, okay.
If if that could just evaporate in one second,right, what could be the other really, really
(34:00):
tangible thing to do?
And the real estate business side wasabsolutely booming.
And I said to myself, okay, there's always arisk of gain inside of the business.
And there was a huge setback.
Why?
Because you build a company, it was in tenyears, for example, right?
It's huge, like millions of dollars of revenue.
And then you got like, absolutely zero.
And, like, in three to three months, you godown to zero.
(34:23):
So and it starts to thank me.
Like, the the business itself, it's superopportunistic.
It's it's like it's it's amazing opportunity tomake a income, right, and to grow.
And there is no basically limit.
Right?
You're gonna grow to as much as you want to dothat.
Right?
But then at the same time, this is a very, veryrisky, right, place to just bet on one thing.
(34:47):
So and I said to myself, okay.
The real estate works.
It does not disappear.
It worked two thousand years ago, and it'sgonna work next two thousand years.
Because the one thing we didn't find where toleave and how to spend, like, where to spend
overnight, where you're gonna be overnight.
So you need a place to leave, and people willbe paying for that place.
(35:07):
But anyway, so that for me was, again, it's thebusiness has evaporated right in one second.
But because I was doing a lot of investmentsand work in an investment fund, so, you know, I
was super stable, and it makes me thinking,okay.
You gotta pay more attention, more focused onthat business, which is, you know, tangible.
Love that.
So tell me alright.
(35:28):
What I'd like to know is was there one of theor is there a challenging situation that you've
helped a client navigate through?
So, yeah, it was, the challenging situationwhen I was, able to navigate the client, it's
again, if you can tell that's a challenge.
Because when you get I had a couple of clientswhen they had a capital event.
(35:49):
For example, you sold a portion of yourbusiness.
Right?
So you're, you know, somebody buy you out rightfrom business.
Because we have again, I'm going back to I havea lot of business owners.
Right?
There's a lot of different capital eventspossible when you're doing the business.
And having the chunk of cash, that's achallenge.
And not maybe you don't really realize thatuntil you get it.
(36:10):
Right?
Because, again, if you got a bunch of cash,right, sitting on your bank account, right,
it's constantly asking you, what are you gonnado with me?
What are you gonna do?
You wanna buy a car?
You wanna buy jewelry?
You wanna buy a house?
You wanna buy, you know, a plane?
Whatever.
You name it.
Right?
Whatever the person is.
So but it's a challenge because you wanna putit into work.
You wanna employ your money.
You want your money work very hard foryourself.
(36:33):
And and, again, sometimes, we sit down and wereally talk to okay.
So you had again, let's put the random number$5,000,000.
Right?
Where you wanna put it into.
Right?
And and people start to ask, oh, you guys doingthe real estate?
I would love to be a part of the real estate.
I was a business owner.
I never had an experience doing real estate.
Right?
(36:54):
Where do you wanna start?
And then the challenge is you can start withbuying one house.
Right?
And you're gonna spend the next five years ofmanaging and doing it, and then you understand
this maybe not scalable as much, right, themodel.
We can start with syndication, right, and gointo, like, hundred units apartment building.
Right?
In any scale, you can put 1,000,000, 5 million.
You can be the owner of that thing.
But what I'm saying is that was the bigchallenge for, like, I'm not gonna say the
(37:18):
name.
The guy, he got the capital event.
We sit down together and he said, listen.
I wanna do two things.
I wanna invest passively, and I wanna buy theproperty.
And we sit down and really understood what typeof property they want, how many units.
And, they were they were thinking about goingbig, like, hundred units.
I said, listen.
Maybe it's not a good idea.
Test yourself in 20 units.
(37:39):
If you like it, if it works, because it was thefirst time ever they buying real estate and
we're managing.
And I said, if you like it, if your heart likeit, if you like that business, you might keep
it.
Right?
But if you don't like it, you've got hundredunits.
That mistake could be, like, a lot more bigger,right, for yourself.
Like, get into the smaller building, get intothe more opportunities.
Maybe you can add some units there.
(38:00):
So, basically, that was just the help weprovided to the client.
Right?
And then so we build the portfolio the way theygot their own, whatever they can play with.
I would say the playground, you know, realestate.
Yes.
And they got absolutely passive investing, andhe got both sides.
Basically, he, you know, he managed hisemotions voice way.
(38:20):
So his wife is managing that building, and thenhimself, he's passively in in involved in a
couple hundred units as well.
Awesome.
Awesome.
So you actually help to navigate the clientthrough through the process.
They're making right choices for themselves.
Absolutely.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So that being said, I am just so excited.
(38:42):
How do people do business with you?
What what would you have as an offer to like,how do they find you on your website on you
know, throughout what the social media links?
How would they do that?
How do people find us?
We've got, ebook.
So they can download ebook.
They go to winrealestategame.com.
(39:04):
So it's a website, and they can just downloadebook there.
Or they can go just, directly to ibisstafon.comwebsite and find out the portfolio and then a
little bit about us.
Right?
It's my partner and me.
So, or just shoot me email, Igor@avisofund.com,and I'm gonna be happy to respond.
And so let's just say they do that.
(39:26):
And what is their process once they reach outto you?
Do you do you do maybe, you know, a a call withthem?
Is there, you know, is there an intake?
Just so that they have an idea of what thatlooks like.
Yeah.
They usually fill out the intake form.
Right?
Because we work with, like, accreditedinvestors only.
And then once they go through the intake form,there's a fifteen minute call.
(39:47):
They can just schedule a call with us.
Okay.
Alright.
Great.
So I just wanna say thank you so much forhaving us.
I wanna add one thing because I don't feel likewe dove into this, but I just wanna take, you
know, three minutes or so.
You had started to say about you know, you didthis business that, you know, you were so
passionate about because you were passionateabout teaching and coaching children.
(40:09):
And I love that story because one thing that Idid not, make a point of was when you said that
you realized that if you were working in thebusiness, like, that you a lot of business
owners, they spend so much time working in thebusiness that they cannot work on the business.
Right?
And so you actually saw that at one point.
(40:32):
You're like, wait a minute.
You kind of extracted yourself from theequation so that you can work more on the
business instead of being in the business.
Because one thing I I just had a conversationwith someone yesterday, and and it made so much
sense.
Sometimes as a business owner, there's lots ofways in which we can create a prison for
(40:53):
ourselves where you can't get out because youare it.
You're everything.
And I love that you always evaluate.
You look at something and you ask yourself theright questions, and then you know when it's
your time and point in which to pull yourselfout and and delegate.
Right?
And so that sounds like you eloquently didthat, and I love for our audience to be able to
(41:16):
unfold that piece of it as business owners.
Yeah.
That's that's a great question.
I I feel like I'm still learning.
Like, every single day, I'm still learning.
But in my experience, how I would say somebodyput the bug into my mind.
Right?
So speaking of, are you into the business?
What are you actually doing?
(41:36):
And then what are your functions on daily?
Right?
What are you actually doing in inside of yourbusiness?
And then, I think we paid, like, $50,000.
It was just a mastermind as we were goingthrough.
So we're just teaching you how and it was,like, specific must how to remove yourself from
business operations.
Like they're gonna build the departments ofyour business and then all of a sudden it's not
(42:00):
and again, you don't know what you don't know,but it's not new.
It's been like around fifty years andeverybody's doing this.
But, but again, going back to how it's just themind expansion, Like you expand your mind, you
do something which is you absolutely notsupposed to do that.
And one of the things was and I'm talking aboutfor myself.
Right?
You sit down, you break that list down in themorning and and you start to put the number.
(42:26):
So what is the actually tangible money numberof the task you're doing?
And you go through one through, let's say,seven or 10, and you find, like, a thousand
dollar task, $2,000.
Consciously, I was saying to myself, I'm notdoing thousand dollar tasks.
This is not mine.
That's gotta be delegated to people.
How can you focus on 10,000?
(42:47):
And and again, that number start to grow.
You say, I'm not like, negotiation was newcontract.
That's easily 20,000, like, 50, a hundredthousand dollars because it's a one year
contract.
Right?
Okay.
That's my beyond my table.
My be.
But and and then you start to reallyconsciously analyzing this thing.
And then you got all the departments and youstart to hire people and say, I'm not doing
(43:08):
this.
This has gotta be to somebody.
Boom.
This person.
Right?
And you start to delegate that.
Again, you need obviously, you need the cashflow, right, to be able to do that because
otherwise, who's gonna be doing that?
Right?
If you have nobody in the company by default,you're gonna be doing this.
But at the same time, my thought was, okay.
I'm doing this by default for the last fiveyears, and I never analyze what I'm doing.
(43:33):
That that's another problem that was with me.
Like, I never analyzed it.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
Why?
Why do why in the world are you gonna do that?
Because it's gotta be on a counter.
You will never do accounting because it's only,like, reflects 10% of your, you know, effort
and ability and stuff like that.
You always delegate this thing.
So what I'm saying is it was just a bug in mymind to really start to analyze and do things
(43:57):
consciously of saying, okay.
Do I need to do it?
It's like super small, nothing.
There's no attention to that and go focus onthe big things.
And did you ever have, mentors or coaches alongthe way?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It was it was a huge part of it.
And always mentors, always coaches, always onthe business side, on the investing side, going
(44:19):
to a lot of different events.
And, again, expanding your mind, expanding yourvision, expanding the different options.
Right?
Always.
Do you think that your early years of sportshelped you understand that coaches were
important in your life?
I think there's early not about a coaching, butit was like very there was two things.
(44:40):
And again, I'm analyzing right now today, evenwith you.
So there's two things.
One, it was discipline.
If you focus on one thing, because like thefocus is huge thing, even in the business,
right?
Because you can focus on growing your business,right?
And then easily, like, losing the quality ofyour product and operations and the company as
a as a result.
Right?
(45:00):
Or you can focus on on just, again, just thesales and income and stuff.
Right?
And and there's sometimes you need to focus onone thing, but then on the other thing.
But then you need to have a focus.
The end of the question is you need to havethat focus.
In the sports, you you learn to focus on onething at a time and really give it results.
(45:23):
For example, you need to get the physicalperformance.
Okay.
Focus on that, right, for next month or two orthree, and then we need the results.
So that's one.
And then the discipline again, you can dosomething for, like, couple days and then give
up for, like, three, four days, But then youcan do something for two, three years.
Right?
And, again, one business, one thing, something,and it's gonna be successful.
(45:45):
Why?
Because you put a lot more energy, a lot moreeffort, a lot more time, and there's no choice
unless to be successful because you put so muchenergy and and time into that thing.
Right?
Because some people I see a lot of times,again, some people, they just focus on one
thing, and then they go, oh, there's anothershiny object.
Let me try this.
(46:06):
Oh, Oh, and then there's another thing pop up.
Oh, this is a beautiful trend.
Let's focus there.
And then they just keep going zigzag way.
Not a straight path, just set it, but justzigzag like this.
And then at the end of ten years, you're like,oh, sorry, but you're on the same spot.
Why?
Because you were focused on one thing and thenyou jump to another and then this one and then
that one just pop up.
The catch who says it, if you did one thingreally well for a whole year, like, literally,
(46:33):
if you just stayed at the one thing and youpracticed it over and over and over and over
again, in one year, I mean, you're gonna have acombustion.
Like, it really does take doing that thing overand over again.
And they they were saying, it's like tenthousand hours of doing something to get so
(46:54):
good at it, to get to that place where you're,yeah, where where you're just you're an expert
at it is what my point was.
So I wanna thank you so much, Igor.
Thank you for your time today.
You know, again, I just, I wish you safetravels and thank you so much for being here on
the Beyond Business podcast.
(47:15):
Catherine, thank you very much.
Yes.
For having me.
And then, like I said, it's always pleasure toshare and then, thank you for being a great
host.
Thank you.
And again, everyone, this is Catherine with theBeyond Business Podcast, and so excited to see
you on our next recording.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
(47:38):
And I just wanna thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify, and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
(48:00):
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or in RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for all for a all newepisode.
I am Catherine Martin Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture, by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in ninety days, and this allowing them toreignite the passion and that big dream that
(00:27):
they started with.
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Catherine with the Beyond Businesspodcast.
(00:47):
And I am so excited because we have IgorSchultenov with us here today.
And he is an entrepreneur and investor, formerpro athlete.
Igor is a former professional athlete whobecame a successful entrepreneur and real
estate investor.
He founded a Vista Fund, a company that investsin income generating multifamily properties.
(01:12):
They focus on providing high returns toinvestors and improving the quality of lives of
residents in their communities.
Alright.
I am so excited to have this conversation.
Igor, thank you for being here.
Thank you, Catherine.
Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure to be on the show andshare as much as I can.
So let's you know, we you know, as we try toget to know each other, I loved your story, and
(01:39):
I would love for our audience that to just getto know you just a little bit.
And so what I'd like to ask you is, how didyour early life experiences help you with your
aspirations and your career choices as youmoved along in your journey?
That's a great question.
Thank you.
And then, just trying to think how my earlyexperiences shaped my future.
(02:01):
And it was, I remember it was I'll I'll try toput you in the story first.
I'll tell you that story because, again, justimagine nineteen nineteen ninety ninety five.
So I'm in Russia, And, we just went through thecivil war, I would say.
Right?
It's a civil revolution.
Right?
We went through the communism into the brightfuture of democracy.
(02:23):
And then, I got my friend.
He was a couple of years younger.
And we stayed in, just imagine we stayed in themiddle of the, two buildings, two apartment
buildings.
And then my my friend saying, listen, I'm goingto pick up the money from people.
I was like, what do you mean?
So, and again, I'm maybe 12, 14 and I was likeexcited about going into the future.
(02:46):
What profession?
How do you earn money?
And he was, oh, yeah.
I'm gonna pick up cash because we rent in theplace.
I I don't even know the term.
I'm saying renting right now, but because we'regiven the place to leave some other people, I
was like, wow.
That's that's a fascinating exchange.
I never heard about that.
So and, again, I just let it go.
(03:07):
So that was the information.
Nothing beyond that.
And, maybe about ten, fifteen years after, Iwas like, oh my goodness.
Let's reflect on where the first time I heardthat you can exchange the place to the money.
So if you give somebody the place to leave,they're gonna give you money.
And that was the actually first time ever Iheard it.
And then, it just, you know, put the bug intomy mind, into my body.
(03:31):
Right?
And that was just, you know, the humblebeginnings, right, of the business.
Okay.
So so you were living in Russia at the time.
Right?
Yes.
So tell us a little bit about how you came tolive in The United States.
The story was because, again, I was we werenot, you know, financially savvy family.
(03:53):
Right?
My my dad was police officer.
My mom was the doctor.
And they were working nine to five every singleday, super busy, and then barely, barely have a
time to spend with us, I would say.
My mom had always trouble to cook for usbecause, again, I show up after school at
three.
Right?
She only comes back at five, and it was alwaysa challenge.
But for myself, I saw a couple ways out.
(04:17):
One was the sports.
I was playing sports.
I was, I would I would say gifted, right,coordinated enough to play different sports
with a ball.
I left every single sport with a ball and itwas given to me.
It was like natural thing to play any type likea soccer, right, volleyball, basketball,
anything.
So, basically, because I was six three as well,my my mom first said, you're gonna be swimming
(04:41):
first as a, you know, early development.
And then if you like something else, so we'regonna think about that.
Basically, at the age of 12, 14, I just got sobored with swimming and then I started to do
water polo.
She said, let's do something similar.
So you're not going to lose that ad trait overthe people because you were a really good
swimmer.
So, but we're going to give you ball finally.
So and and then the passion connected because Iloved the game with balls, and I became water
(05:06):
polo player.
When I was looking through the future because,again, I was always reflecting on myself into
the future.
So what I'm gonna be doing, right, and how I'mgonna look like twenty years from now.
And I said to myself when I was young, I said,if I'm gonna focus on the sport, number one, I
can travel the world.
And that was my always curiosity, internal,right, internal bug of my cell, how the other
(05:28):
people live on the other side of the country,right, or the other side of the world, right,
at the ocean.
Like, there's different things that was goingaround in my mind.
And then because I was good enough, right,invited to the Russian national team and
different level of competition, right, than theclub level.
And we started to travel the world.
And it was my first travel was to Bulgaria and,I was by the beach and I said, oh, my goodness.
(05:51):
So you can actually experience the life withoutwinter?
It's like because, again, I was young.
And, again, I would probably put you into thestory.
So I'm always coming back from the training,and it was about one hour and fifteen minutes
on the subway.
Right?
And if you go on as a minus 20 Celsius, right,and you're going through the subway and it's
(06:13):
open windows, it's so cold.
Right?
I can't even imagine.
I just remember my emotions.
And you just, you know, going on that train.
So about forty minutes in the open.
Right?
You're going through the nature and stuff.
Right?
It's super cold.
You're very humid.
Right?
And that was I wouldn't say hated, but it was,like, very challenging for me every single time
when I go to training.
(06:34):
And when I landed in Bulgaria First time, I waslike, oh my goodness.
You don't need to suffer.
Like, if you wanna be, you know, if you wannabe in the warm temperatures, right, you can
live in Bulgaria.
Like, you can live in I don't know.
We start to travel different countries.
Right?
In Croatia, it's beautiful as well.
Just going back to the sports and how we madeit to United States, I was playing water polo.
(06:56):
My wife was playing professional basketball,and it was Turkey, right, when we we were part
of the national team.
She was for basketball team.
I was for a water polo team.
And then at the delegation meetings, likebecause every single day, we're gonna have a
meeting because it's a 200 people of thedelegation right from the country, and then
there's different sports.
(07:17):
And it was kind of a KPI meeting.
So, okay, how you guys did, how was itcompeting right, and then how many medals we
got today, blah blah blah.
So our coach, we had a just an amazing coach.
He was like a Olympic athlete as well in thepast, and he made us sing in front of the
people.
So because we were singing, all the all thegirls from the delegation, they spit us out
(07:38):
right away.
Right?
And then for us, it was amazing because we werealways tanned because we were practicing in
open water all the time, right, in differentcountries.
It was a warm weather.
So we're always tanned and we got the bleachhair.
Right?
The long bleach hair.
So which is kind of like a surface style.
And the girls really liked that.
It was very attractive for them.
(07:59):
Basically, so we spot out each other.
So I'm talking about my wife, my future wife.
Right?
And then we start to talk and we will start tocheer for different teams who were go out and
cheer for basketball, team, right, for girls.
And then they come back and cheer for us.
So we started that connection and then we gotwe moved back after the competition.
Let's say the competition is over in Turkey.
(08:19):
And because we were from the same city fromMoscow, so we can basically extend the
relationship and it's gonna be easier for us.
Because a lot of people, they were fromdifferent parts of the country.
Right?
And it's like a thousands of hours to get themto reach to that place.
So we got lucky.
We're from the same city, so we start to meet.
Right?
And then we start to talk to each other andstuff like that.
That's how it's all started.
(08:40):
And then in 02/2005, my wife brother wasdrafted by, Flippers team.
So in United States, and it was just for thefamily, it was just a mind boggling experience.
Because, again, you live in Moscow.
Right?
And you train hard.
You put in all of your sweat and tears rightinto your work, and all of a sudden, boom, you
(09:00):
got drafted by NBA team.
So which is probably like a equivalent of womenwinning Powerball, maybe even more than that.
Because because the change was huge, and thenthey moved from Moscow, Russia to United
States, and they passed away for us.
Why?
I'm gonna explain a little bit later because Iwas after my career in sports, I I I stopped
(09:22):
working right then I finished a law degree.
I started to work as a assistant judge incourt.
And within the one year, I understand it's notmaybe my passion.
I don't really like what happened in there.
So, because I was thinking about protectingpeople and law, But then when I faced the
reality and it was just more about, okay, ifyou're powerful enough, if you get enough
(09:44):
money, so we're gonna help you to make theright decision.
The, I start to kind of project myself into thefuture.
Do I want it for my children?
Do I want it for my experience twenty yearsfrom now?
Do I want to leave like that?
So, and I said no.
And then I quit my job.
My wife just delivered the baby and she said,you know what?
(10:04):
Let's go and visit my family in The UnitedStates.
I was like, okay, that's fine.
So we got again, Russia, the financial systemis different back then, so there's no leverage.
You don't you don't mortgage the house.
You don't, you know, credit the car.
Right?
It's all cash, so it's all paid.
So we got car.
We got house.
We got apartment to leave.
So we don't need to do a lot of investments,right, in in the comfortable lifestyle.
(10:28):
So it's already been taken care of.
Basically, from the place of comfort, we said,okay.
Let's go visit your family.
We're not going to stay there.
We're going to come back right in Russia.
And then we started the business.
We had a couple of ideas how to start thebusiness.
Basically in 02/2009, in November, we landed inLos Angeles.
And in November again, it's already, like,minus 10, I would say, in Moscow.
(10:50):
So it's a snowy.
Right?
And then, we landed in California, ManhattanBeach.
So I'm going out by the pier.
So it's beautiful weather.
Everybody in the flip flops.
Right?
Very slow pace.
Everybody enjoying and smiling.
I was like, oh my goodness.
Nobody told me you can actually experience andlive like that.
Like, it's it's not like a two months or threemonths.
(11:12):
We wanna give our audience perspective here.
So you have you were used to living in Russia,and what are your temperatures in Russia?
Because this is the first time you come, andnow you experience this warm weather.
Yeah.
And then again.
Year round.
So let's save so what were the temperatures inRussia?
So the summer is beautiful.
(11:33):
It's nice.
But then once you get to October, November,it's just cold.
So at November, it's usually snowy.
It's covered with snow, and it's about minus 10Celsius.
Minus 10.
Yes.
So, and that's why I'm saying so from one placeof the cold and winter, you're going into the
same, basically same month, right November, butyou're going into the sun and it's beautiful.
(11:56):
Right?
And it's ocean and you can swim, actually.
So it was just a big difference.
And then for me, it was one of the mostimportant things so you can experience, like,
the life.
Because we start to think through, like, how doyou experience your life.
Right?
Not even the not even the weather or stuff likethat.
I'm glad you said that because this is what Iwant our audience to understand.
(12:17):
So from your early start in life and you youhave an intuitive knowing, you ask yourself
good question.
Right?
So once we have knowledge, you don't unlearnsomething.
You just you're you you already have thisknowledge.
So now you have an experience in your youngeryears that, you know, you've noticed that
(12:37):
there's an exchange of money for an apartment.
You ask yourself questions as you'reexperiencing.
You're like, oh, okay.
Mom and dad, you know, this is what we makehere, but there's another way.
And then you find that you're good at sports,and you, you know, so you make that transition
into going into sports, which gives youexperiences.
(12:59):
So now your mind is expanding.
And as you're expanding, you're you startthinking there's another way.
Right?
And so I I like our audience to understand thisbecause, you know, we have lots of people who
own businesses.
And as they own businesses, we go throughadversity, and sometimes we need to pivot to
get to the other side.
(13:20):
So through asking ourself good questions sowhat I'm hearing you say that throughout your
journey, you do ask yourself questions.
So we must all be in the habit of askingourself the right questions.
Right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And No.
There was a lot of questions back then that Iwas asking myself as well.
Asking the questions, I think, is one of thepowerful things because as you remove yourself
(13:41):
from the day to day, I would say, the lifeexperiences, right, then you start to think on
top of that.
So, okay, how's that gonna look like twentyyears from now?
And then for me, great example was let's lookat the peers or the peer group, right, who's
doing that twenty years right ahead of me.
So how they how they live, how they experiencethat, how they feel themselves.
(14:02):
Do they smile and do they stubbornly that wasthe huge part of it.
And, again, going into court system, right, andexperience, and I was looking at the guys who,
like, twenty years ahead of me.
I was like, I don't wanna experience that life.
I wanna be different.
Right?
And that was the choice back then.
So I love that you just added that because,yes, you are so right.
(14:22):
Through perspective, you're seeing and you'relooking what that looks like through the court
system.
You're able to actually project forward whatthat looks like and where where the end game on
that is.
Right?
Correct.
Yeah.
And so but I love what you've said that yourealized even then that that wasn't for you,
that this didn't align with who you were.
(14:43):
Yeah.
Because what
did Yeah.
It didn't align with me.
And I said, I can't, like because when I feelthe misalignment and I'm I'm asking the
feelings, right, I'm probably talking aboutfeelings right now.
And if you wake up and it's like, and it'ssomething you don't wanna do, it doesn't mean
you need to be stuck.
Right?
And, yes, it's scary.
(15:03):
So and it was scary for me and it's still scaryuntil today.
Right?
But but again, but you you're trying to makethat change and you do go step by step and all
of a sudden, like, one year or two years fromthen, you're like, oh my goodness.
I made that pivot, and I made that change.
And I changed my, the work.
Right?
Or I changed my whatever the education andstuff like that because it's never too late.
(15:26):
You're so right.
What would you say that through that, what didthat through those life experiences, what did
that help you learn?
Was there something specific that you'velearned?
Because I know that you had another careerafter that when you came here to The United
States.
So tell me just once maybe one or two thingsthat you feel like you've learned.
(15:49):
Yeah.
There's a couple things I learned through that,experience.
Right?
One is, like I said, like listening to my cardbecause when I finished the school and my first
degree was PE teacher and coach.
When I finished the school and I went throughthe couple of, internships, right, I really
liked working with children, with kids.
(16:12):
And the magic was you can pass on theknowledge, right?
It's not really about working with students.
It's like passing on the knowledge and it'shelpful.
And you see them growing with that powerfulknowledge.
Because again, the knowledge was make a bigdifference in my, well, my life.
Right?
I would read the book, right?
I was like, Oh my goodness.
And your mind expanding.
So, and I was looking at the perspective ofcoaching, right?
(16:35):
And then teaching kids, it's like you're reallyexpanding their mind.
You're really saying there's a, it could belike this.
My experience was like that and you can choosethe path.
And that was like super magical for me.
And then, I said, again, go back to what Ilearned.
So I said, listen to what it's actuallyresonates with you, right, with your body, with
(16:55):
your mind, because you're gonna do a lot betterjob, right, if it resonates with you.
If it's not, so it's gonna be very hard tosucceed.
And I said to myself, if you wanna be the courtsystem guy, right, then come in.
Even so you make all the money in the world, soyou're not gonna be happy.
So because you don't like to do that.
And then I made a change, right?
And then when we landed to United States, weopened the academy, basketball academy, because
(17:20):
all of us was, was professional background.
There's a lot of different educationalbackgrounds, but professional sports
background.
So I started to work with kids and then I neverworked for five days.
Oh, sorry.
For five years, I never worked.
Why?
Because I enjoy every single day.
And then when the one child will show up,right?
And was it in the gym, right?
(17:40):
I'll give my 20% every time.
When 25 kids will show up, I'll give the sameenergy.
People feel it.
And that was the same for every single personwho was engaged in our company with kids.
And then that was just a higher frame for thefuture.
People fill it and the business start to grow.
Like the business start to expand like crazybecause people start to exchange the great
(18:04):
experience.
They say, Oh, go there because they do a reallygood job.
So that was the big lesson for me.
So basically listening to your emotional state.
Like, do you like doing this?
And if you do, it's a lot more chances.
For me, it was that like that.
A lot more chances for you to succeed.
You're gonna be a lot more successful thansomething you don't like and you don't put the
energy into.
(18:25):
Well, people feel that.
When you're doing something that you arebegrudging every single day, you get up and
you're just like, another day.
You actually don't even recall the days of theweek when you're loving and you're so
passionate about what you're doing.
It's like, you know, I'm ready to rock androll.
Every single day I get up and I'm ready to go.
So that being said, let's talk a little bitabout what you do now and, you know, and and
(18:51):
how you're able to help our audience.
Absolutely.
So what we do now, how we're able to help theaudience, it's there there's couple more
learning lessons came through because, like Isaid, five years, I didn't work, but then it's
became a business.
Like, it was growing bigger.
Right?
And the cash flow was coming in.
And one of the challenges I had, what do you dowith your money?
(19:13):
So I start to go into the direction of, okay,research and think and learn and ask people,
what did they actually do with the money?
So, and there's different avenues.
There's a lot of different things.
There's no right way and the wrong way, butthere's the if you have a high risk tolerance,
you can do one thing.
Right?
If you have a lower risk tolerance, but I wasI'm the little bit more like for sure guy.
(19:36):
How do you get, you know, results for sure?
And I started to analyze myself, analyze myportfolio because again, we hired the financial
advisors.
We did like a stock market.
We did this.
We did different, you know, equity investmentsand stuff.
And there's one thing was for sure, I neverlost the principle of my investment in the real
estate.
(19:56):
And that's got me thinking.
I was like, okay, I got spread too wide and toothin, meaning I'm testing the market of
investments.
And I would say it was February when I first II got the $300,000 by selling real estate.
I sold one of the apartments.
Right?
And I got all the money, but the cash flow fromthe business was coming in.
I don't need that money.
(20:17):
Like, I don't I don't wanna buy it, forexample, like a car or something like that.
I don't need that.
So but I wanna invest it for the future.
I wanna feel myself more.
I would say, I wanna feel myself I can make achoice based on what I want to do, not based
what I need to do for the money or somethinglike that.
So, and that was my future again, projection.
(20:38):
And I said to do that, I need to cover mybasis, right?
With a cashflow, which is going to be passive,not from the business beginning.
Because again, for the business, it's it wassuper, super active and aggressive.
Right?
When you need to make a decision every day, youneed to wake up, you need to manage, you need
to hire people, you need to, you know, set theKPIs.
(20:58):
Right?
And, you know, go through the results all thetime.
So it's very, intensive, right, thing as to donumber one.
Number two, it's very risky as well becauseyes, for sure you can get very, very successful
with business and then the COVID comes andyou're going to be like absolutely, you know,
ground up.
Right?
So what I'm saying is when you have aninvestment portfolio, right, it gives you a lot
(21:21):
more sense of, okay, I'm protected.
I'm secured.
Right?
I can make my own feelings, decisions, whateverI want to do today.
So anyways, I went through the real estatecycle, meaning I invested in multiple different
deals.
I test them out.
And then I said, okay, it works.
The real estate does work.
So because everybody was saying, go invest inreal estate, go invest in real estate.
(21:43):
And remember that conversation of little metalking to my friend.
I was like, Oh my goodness.
I heard that long, long time ago.
Right?
I took connection.
So yes, it takes time.
It's not like people saying it's not get richquick.
It's get rich for sure.
Right?
So it's it's for sure.
I like that.
Wait.
Let's reiterate that.
Yeah.
What is it that people say?
(22:03):
It's not get rich quick.
Because a lot of times, again, when you'regoing through the cycle, so you got the money
first time, so you wanna multiply that byinsane amounts, right, by two times, five times
and stuff.
And you take in that risk.
You inherit in that risk.
But then the real estate, it's a little bitslower gain, but you get rich for sure.
It's not about
For sure.
It's about It's
(22:25):
not about if.
It's about when.
And I I like that risk, but that's that is amore sure game to play for sure.
Yeah.
Because because that's another I'm going to theanother lesson I learned for myself, and maybe
it's gonna be helpful for a lot of people.
So it's it's a longer time frame for sure.
That's a long the real estate, it's not like aBitcoin.
(22:47):
Right?
It's not gonna get you rich tomorrow.
So but at the same time, there's a riskinherited.
Right?
You're not gonna lose it.
You might not make as much, but you're notgoing to lose it.
It's going to be very hard for you to causeyou've got hard asset behind that investment.
So, and basically I focus myself on real estateand I focus myself and dedicate myself to real
(23:08):
estate.
So I found a way to remove myself fromoperations of the company business.
Right?
Because it was the step number one.
If I was engaged every single day in myoperations and the business, right, And my wife
was working in that company.
I said, I'm not gonna be successful by anymeans.
Why?
Because 80% of my time going into the companyoperations, like, in company, like, functions.
(23:31):
And then, we hire the people.
So my wife took over, and then she's the CEO ofthe company.
And she's completely, like, handling that witha lot of people underneath meetings.
So they they doing those functions every day.
And then the second second step was, okay.
So we need to form the company.
It's not I'm talking about not a bit fine, butthe company where we can invest through into
(23:53):
the real estate.
And my % focus was into that company.
Okay.
I was going through the deals, and I'm talkingabout myself or my self investment and my
partner.
We said we're gonna test investments byourselves first.
Before we give it to the public, we're gonnatest it ourselves.
So that way, we're gonna be absolutely unlockedto give it to give that opportunity to others.
(24:17):
Why?
Because we tested with our own money.
Because a lot of times, you know, we go onsomewhere and then people telling you, okay.
Let's go invest in this and that.
So I was like, have you ever tried that?
Have you invested your own money?
No.
But I know it works.
I was like, how do you know it works?
Love that.
So you tested and tried it yourself firstbefore you took that out into the marketplace.
(24:39):
Yes.
And then the the idea was because thesyndication I'm talking about syndication right
now.
The general syndication when the big apartmentcomplex owned by multiple people.
The reason why, because there's there's threedifferent groups.
One is the bank who wants to be part of itbecause they lend the money.
The second group, it's operator who actuallydoing the deal.
(25:01):
And then the third group is the people who'sinvestors.
Right.
So they just put the capital.
They don't they it's their conscious decision.
We don't wanna we don't wanna take on ourselvesresponsibilities of managing this thing.
We wanna be capital involved, but not bephysical and operational and mentally involved.
(25:22):
And that's a conscious decision.
And for me was very, very important.
Like, because again, a lot of people saying wewanna do passive investment and then they start
to buy real estate and then it becomes thework.
So from one work, now you get two differentjobs.
I do have a question for you.
Yes.
When you first started doing this and you soyou do multifamily investing.
(25:46):
So Correct.
What make you made you decide that it wasn't sothere's a lot of people when they start to
invest in real estate, they do buy a house, Youfix the house up.
You flip the house.
You know, you keep it for a certain amount oftime.
What made you decide that multifamily was thedirection to go in?
So what made me just what made me decide themultifamily's direction to go in?
(26:10):
So I did own the house, not just one, it's amultiple of them.
And then, like I said before, so you buying thehouse, you start the management, right?
You start to manage because it's one house.
You probably not in good position and you'llleverage that.
You're not in good position to hire propertymanagement.
Why?
Because, you know, you already leveraged thethe money, right, to buy that house.
(26:31):
Right.
It's very minimal, return from that house.
And now you need to pay for a property.
Because it's one property, they usually chargeyou a lot more than just the 20 properties.
And then, again, you start to replicate itmodel.
You say from one house, you get to 20 houses.
How's it gonna look like?
Right?
So it's gonna look like you got 20 differentbusinesses to manage.
(26:53):
Right?
So you gotta be paying every single time.
Was you I'm talking about your time right now.
You're gonna be paying attention every singletime on every single request and fixing that,
or you need to be paying to the propertymanagement to do that.
So and the question is if you sit in thathouse, my question was to myself.
So how long time is gonna get you when theequity growth?
(27:14):
Like, because equity, the price of that houseshould grow.
Right?
So you can really start to make money.
Otherwise, it's gonna be such a minimalpercentage.
Right?
And then you compare the syndication when yougive, let's say, a hundred thousand dollar
check to somebody and they manage and they dothat and you get, let's say, 15% return on
that, Or you do it yourself and you get twelve,fifty percent.
(27:37):
But now you start to count the time put intothat work.
And then all of a sudden you make, like, $5 anhour, ten dollars an hour to do all of that
work and then, you know, look into thisinvestment.
Well, again, I'm talking about passive.
Again, I'm gonna stress that passive incomething.
Right.
When you find physical real estate and youscale in that portfolio, by any means, it's not
(28:00):
passive.
It's like a full time job income.
It's not a passive income.
So I wanna ask you, you now have the AvistaFund, and and that's and that's that's the
company the name of your company.
So what would you say that the clients that youwork with, what would you say is something that
they don't know that they don't know?
It's a good question.
(28:20):
Maybe I don't know even what I don't know.
What would I say to the client?
Because most people, there's it's really not.
It's just not knowing, but sometimes youactually don't know that you don't know
something.
So when you're working with clients and they'reasking you questions and they're wanting to
work with you, there's always something thatthey don't know that they themselves don't
(28:42):
know, but you can help them learn that.
I can give you my personal experienceperspective.
And for me, it was back in the days, I wasgoing in the California.
Right?
Because I live in California.
So I was like, I wanna own apartment complex.
And my idea was, again, thinking of, like, oldbrain and all ideas.
(29:04):
I need to get this cash for the down paymentand be part of that game.
And this is the only way to do that.
Like, I need to accumulate $10,000,000, right,in one chunk of cash to become a owner of the
apartment building.
And that was my idea.
Why?
Because it's not scalable to own one, two,three, four houses, but it's super scalable,
(29:25):
have one roof and then hundreds of units.
Right?
And hundreds of families paying to you.
Right?
And then I didn't know what I didn't knowbecause you can be part of it as little as
hundred thousand dollars, and you can leveragethat professional team who's managing that
building.
Mhmm.
And you can get a lot higher return than youown direct real estate, and you can get the tax
(29:51):
benefits off of it.
And I didn't know that it's possible.
But then once I, you know, once I found out,once I just explore that model, my first idea
was, oh, it's scam.
It's not it's not gonna work.
So it's it's too good to be true.
But then I was like, okay.
Let's test it.
How do you test?
I mean, how do you know, how do you check that?
So you could just put the money into that thingand then make it work.
(30:14):
Right.
And then I was like, okay, the dividends comingin.
And I was like, Oh, Oh my goodness.
I don't need to open the company to ownapartment building.
I don't need to hire 25 people to propertymanagement and this and that and then asset
management and then manage them altogether.
I could be the passive investor into that deal.
I didn't know that it's possible because myidea was I need to own that outright and have
(30:36):
all of that income coming into me, but then itis possible.
And then my plan was I was like, I'm gonna puta hundred thousand in.
It's gonna grow to 200,000.
If I wanna own it myself, I'll buy.
But if I like it and then I wanna be in thepassive income right stage, I wanna be passive
in investing in that deal and next to so Ididn't know it's possible basically to own the
(30:58):
apartments in portion.
What would what would you say is your bestclient?
Like, what what kinds of clients come to you?
What kind of people are you able to help the,you know, in the industry?
That that's a great question.
So the what is the perfect client?
I call them the perfect client.
And then, it usually people who own, like yousaid, one, two, three houses.
(31:22):
Because what you don't know is you don't knowagain.
Back to my I'm talking about myself always.
Like, you think it's passive, and then all of asudden you understand it's a full time work.
And then you got because, again, it's usually abusiness owner who has a cash flow.
Right?
And they got residual, they got some more cashthat they need every single day.
(31:43):
They usually go on the path of buying the firsthouse and then the second house.
Alright?
Because everybody's telling, oh, you go intothe real estate.
Why?
Because it's a passive investment.
And then all of a sudden you get one businessand you get two businesses.
Right?
And then the question is here, do you grow twobusinesses at the same time?
You're gonna kill yourself in twenty yearsbecause you get so much on the portfolio side
(32:06):
and you get so much on your business side.
Right?
Or your business start to suffer.
Right?
Because you start to pay more and moreattention into your real estate portfolio.
Why?
Because it's growing.
Right?
Because, you know, you bought a house, youknow, it's just increased the equity.
You sell it by another two or three or five,and then you start to pay less attention
because, you know, you need to focus on thatmore now.
(32:28):
Basically, they start to understand it's notpassive.
And those are usually people saying, okay.
Listen.
I wanna focus on my business and you be passiveinvestor.
And they usually sell all the portfolio andinvest in syndication when it's like a true
passive income when you get the reports.
You know, not getting the request formaintenance, but reports.
So as you were learning that this was thedirection you wanna go, there had to have been
(32:52):
I would love to for you to give me maybe justan example of a set a setback that you might
have gone through as you were learning that,all right, I'm going from having homes to going
to multifamily, but then was there ever asetback that happened along the way as you were
learning through this?
(33:12):
Absolutely.
Again, one of the setbacks was COVID nineteen,which is a great example.
The there's a couple things.
One it's, it's absolutely like, I would saykilled the business.
Right.
Which is again, the idea of the basketballacademy and kids coming together.
Right.
It just wiped out the business completely.
Right.
(33:32):
Cause of COVID, you can't get together thepeople and stuff like that.
But for me, it was a setback slash opportunitybecause I'm thinking always through the
setback, it's given for you to rethink themodel, right, to go deeper, to have that time
to really understand, to analyze.
Right?
And the setback was, okay.
If if that could just evaporate in one second,right, what could be the other really, really
(34:00):
tangible thing to do?
And the real estate business side wasabsolutely booming.
And I said to myself, okay, there's always arisk of gain inside of the business.
And there was a huge setback.
Why?
Because you build a company, it was in tenyears, for example, right?
It's huge, like millions of dollars of revenue.
And then you got like, absolutely zero.
And, like, in three to three months, you godown to zero.
(34:23):
So and it starts to thank me.
Like, the the business itself, it's superopportunistic.
It's it's like it's it's amazing opportunity tomake a income, right, and to grow.
And there is no basically limit.
Right?
You're gonna grow to as much as you want to dothat.
Right?
But then at the same time, this is a very, veryrisky, right, place to just bet on one thing.
(34:47):
So and I said to myself, okay.
The real estate works.
It does not disappear.
It worked two thousand years ago, and it'sgonna work next two thousand years.
Because the one thing we didn't find where toleave and how to spend, like, where to spend
overnight, where you're gonna be overnight.
So you need a place to leave, and people willbe paying for that place.
(35:07):
But anyway, so that for me was, again, it's thebusiness has evaporated right in one second.
But because I was doing a lot of investmentsand work in an investment fund, so, you know, I
was super stable, and it makes me thinking,okay.
You gotta pay more attention, more focused onthat business, which is, you know, tangible.
Love that.
So tell me alright.
(35:28):
What I'd like to know is was there one of theor is there a challenging situation that you've
helped a client navigate through?
So, yeah, it was, the challenging situationwhen I was, able to navigate the client, it's
again, if you can tell that's a challenge.
Because when you get I had a couple of clientswhen they had a capital event.
(35:49):
For example, you sold a portion of yourbusiness.
Right?
So you're, you know, somebody buy you out rightfrom business.
Because we have again, I'm going back to I havea lot of business owners.
Right?
There's a lot of different capital eventspossible when you're doing the business.
And having the chunk of cash, that's achallenge.
And not maybe you don't really realize thatuntil you get it.
(36:10):
Right?
Because, again, if you got a bunch of cash,right, sitting on your bank account, right,
it's constantly asking you, what are you gonnado with me?
What are you gonna do?
You wanna buy a car?
You wanna buy jewelry?
You wanna buy a house?
You wanna buy, you know, a plane?
Whatever.
You name it.
Right?
Whatever the person is.
So but it's a challenge because you wanna putit into work.
You wanna employ your money.
You want your money work very hard foryourself.
(36:33):
And and, again, sometimes, we sit down and wereally talk to okay.
So you had again, let's put the random number$5,000,000.
Right?
Where you wanna put it into.
Right?
And and people start to ask, oh, you guys doingthe real estate?
I would love to be a part of the real estate.
I was a business owner.
I never had an experience doing real estate.
Right?
(36:54):
Where do you wanna start?
And then the challenge is you can start withbuying one house.
Right?
And you're gonna spend the next five years ofmanaging and doing it, and then you understand
this maybe not scalable as much, right, themodel.
We can start with syndication, right, and gointo, like, hundred units apartment building.
Right?
In any scale, you can put 1,000,000, 5 million.
You can be the owner of that thing.
But what I'm saying is that was the bigchallenge for, like, I'm not gonna say the
(37:18):
name.
The guy, he got the capital event.
We sit down together and he said, listen.
I wanna do two things.
I wanna invest passively, and I wanna buy theproperty.
And we sit down and really understood what typeof property they want, how many units.
And, they were they were thinking about goingbig, like, hundred units.
I said, listen.
Maybe it's not a good idea.
Test yourself in 20 units.
(37:39):
If you like it, if it works, because it was thefirst time ever they buying real estate and
we're managing.
And I said, if you like it, if your heart likeit, if you like that business, you might keep
it.
Right?
But if you don't like it, you've got hundredunits.
That mistake could be, like, a lot more bigger,right, for yourself.
Like, get into the smaller building, get intothe more opportunities.
Maybe you can add some units there.
(38:00):
So, basically, that was just the help weprovided to the client.
Right?
And then so we build the portfolio the way theygot their own, whatever they can play with.
I would say the playground, you know, realestate.
Yes.
And they got absolutely passive investing, andhe got both sides.
Basically, he, you know, he managed hisemotions voice way.
(38:20):
So his wife is managing that building, and thenhimself, he's passively in in involved in a
couple hundred units as well.
Awesome.
Awesome.
So you actually help to navigate the clientthrough through the process.
They're making right choices for themselves.
Absolutely.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So that being said, I am just so excited.
(38:42):
How do people do business with you?
What what would you have as an offer to like,how do they find you on your website on you
know, throughout what the social media links?
How would they do that?
How do people find us?
We've got, ebook.
So they can download ebook.
They go to winrealestategame.com.
(39:04):
So it's a website, and they can just downloadebook there.
Or they can go just, directly to ibisstafon.comwebsite and find out the portfolio and then a
little bit about us.
Right?
It's my partner and me.
So, or just shoot me email, Igor@avisofund.com,and I'm gonna be happy to respond.
And so let's just say they do that.
(39:26):
And what is their process once they reach outto you?
Do you do you do maybe, you know, a a call withthem?
Is there, you know, is there an intake?
Just so that they have an idea of what thatlooks like.
Yeah.
They usually fill out the intake form.
Right?
Because we work with, like, accreditedinvestors only.
And then once they go through the intake form,there's a fifteen minute call.
(39:47):
They can just schedule a call with us.
Okay.
Alright.
Great.
So I just wanna say thank you so much forhaving us.
I wanna add one thing because I don't feel likewe dove into this, but I just wanna take, you
know, three minutes or so.
You had started to say about you know, you didthis business that, you know, you were so
passionate about because you were passionateabout teaching and coaching children.
(40:09):
And I love that story because one thing that Idid not, make a point of was when you said that
you realized that if you were working in thebusiness, like, that you a lot of business
owners, they spend so much time working in thebusiness that they cannot work on the business.
Right?
And so you actually saw that at one point.
(40:32):
You're like, wait a minute.
You kind of extracted yourself from theequation so that you can work more on the
business instead of being in the business.
Because one thing I I just had a conversationwith someone yesterday, and and it made so much
sense.
Sometimes as a business owner, there's lots ofways in which we can create a prison for
(40:53):
ourselves where you can't get out because youare it.
You're everything.
And I love that you always evaluate.
You look at something and you ask yourself theright questions, and then you know when it's
your time and point in which to pull yourselfout and and delegate.
Right?
And so that sounds like you eloquently didthat, and I love for our audience to be able to
(41:16):
unfold that piece of it as business owners.
Yeah.
That's that's a great question.
I I feel like I'm still learning.
Like, every single day, I'm still learning.
But in my experience, how I would say somebodyput the bug into my mind.
Right?
So speaking of, are you into the business?
What are you actually doing?
(41:36):
And then what are your functions on daily?
Right?
What are you actually doing in inside of yourbusiness?
And then, I think we paid, like, $50,000.
It was just a mastermind as we were goingthrough.
So we're just teaching you how and it was,like, specific must how to remove yourself from
business operations.
Like they're gonna build the departments ofyour business and then all of a sudden it's not
(42:00):
and again, you don't know what you don't know,but it's not new.
It's been like around fifty years andeverybody's doing this.
But, but again, going back to how it's just themind expansion, Like you expand your mind, you
do something which is you absolutely notsupposed to do that.
And one of the things was and I'm talking aboutfor myself.
Right?
You sit down, you break that list down in themorning and and you start to put the number.
(42:26):
So what is the actually tangible money numberof the task you're doing?
And you go through one through, let's say,seven or 10, and you find, like, a thousand
dollar task, $2,000.
Consciously, I was saying to myself, I'm notdoing thousand dollar tasks.
This is not mine.
That's gotta be delegated to people.
How can you focus on 10,000?
(42:47):
And and again, that number start to grow.
You say, I'm not like, negotiation was newcontract.
That's easily 20,000, like, 50, a hundredthousand dollars because it's a one year
contract.
Right?
Okay.
That's my beyond my table.
My be.
But and and then you start to reallyconsciously analyzing this thing.
And then you got all the departments and youstart to hire people and say, I'm not doing
(43:08):
this.
This has gotta be to somebody.
Boom.
This person.
Right?
And you start to delegate that.
Again, you need obviously, you need the cashflow, right, to be able to do that because
otherwise, who's gonna be doing that?
Right?
If you have nobody in the company by default,you're gonna be doing this.
But at the same time, my thought was, okay.
I'm doing this by default for the last fiveyears, and I never analyze what I'm doing.
(43:33):
That that's another problem that was with me.
Like, I never analyzed it.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
Why?
Why do why in the world are you gonna do that?
Because it's gotta be on a counter.
You will never do accounting because it's only,like, reflects 10% of your, you know, effort
and ability and stuff like that.
You always delegate this thing.
So what I'm saying is it was just a bug in mymind to really start to analyze and do things
(43:57):
consciously of saying, okay.
Do I need to do it?
It's like super small, nothing.
There's no attention to that and go focus onthe big things.
And did you ever have, mentors or coaches alongthe way?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It was it was a huge part of it.
And always mentors, always coaches, always onthe business side, on the investing side, going
(44:19):
to a lot of different events.
And, again, expanding your mind, expanding yourvision, expanding the different options.
Right?
Always.
Do you think that your early years of sportshelped you understand that coaches were
important in your life?
I think there's early not about a coaching, butit was like very there was two things.
(44:40):
And again, I'm analyzing right now today, evenwith you.
So there's two things.
One, it was discipline.
If you focus on one thing, because like thefocus is huge thing, even in the business,
right?
Because you can focus on growing your business,right?
And then easily, like, losing the quality ofyour product and operations and the company as
a as a result.
Right?
(45:00):
Or you can focus on on just, again, just thesales and income and stuff.
Right?
And and there's sometimes you need to focus onone thing, but then on the other thing.
But then you need to have a focus.
The end of the question is you need to havethat focus.
In the sports, you you learn to focus on onething at a time and really give it results.
(45:23):
For example, you need to get the physicalperformance.
Okay.
Focus on that, right, for next month or two orthree, and then we need the results.
So that's one.
And then the discipline again, you can dosomething for, like, couple days and then give
up for, like, three, four days, But then youcan do something for two, three years.
Right?
And, again, one business, one thing, something,and it's gonna be successful.
(45:45):
Why?
Because you put a lot more energy, a lot moreeffort, a lot more time, and there's no choice
unless to be successful because you put so muchenergy and and time into that thing.
Right?
Because some people I see a lot of times,again, some people, they just focus on one
thing, and then they go, oh, there's anothershiny object.
Let me try this.
(46:06):
Oh, Oh, and then there's another thing pop up.
Oh, this is a beautiful trend.
Let's focus there.
And then they just keep going zigzag way.
Not a straight path, just set it, but justzigzag like this.
And then at the end of ten years, you're like,oh, sorry, but you're on the same spot.
Why?
Because you were focused on one thing and thenyou jump to another and then this one and then
that one just pop up.
The catch who says it, if you did one thingreally well for a whole year, like, literally,
(46:33):
if you just stayed at the one thing and youpracticed it over and over and over and over
again, in one year, I mean, you're gonna have acombustion.
Like, it really does take doing that thing overand over again.
And they they were saying, it's like tenthousand hours of doing something to get so
(46:54):
good at it, to get to that place where you're,yeah, where where you're just you're an expert
at it is what my point was.
So I wanna thank you so much, Igor.
Thank you for your time today.
You know, again, I just, I wish you safetravels and thank you so much for being here on
the Beyond Business podcast.
(47:15):
Catherine, thank you very much.
Yes.
For having me.
And then, like I said, it's always pleasure toshare and then, thank you for being a great
host.
Thank you.
And again, everyone, this is Catherine with theBeyond Business Podcast, and so excited to see
you on our next recording.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
(47:38):
And I just wanna thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify, and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
(48:00):
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or in RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for all for a all newepisode.
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