Past, current & future business

Hey Cashflow Hackers,

Warm welcome to our 46 new members this week! If you think someone would enjoy reading this, please forward to them so they can sign up.

Today, I’ll share a few stories about my recent trip to New York my reflections from that trip and do a bit more of building in public.

The “I’m still learning” trap

This week, I went back to New York, a city that still feels like my “hometown” to give a talk at the New York Real Estate Expo. The talk was my second public speaking attempt and it was great meeting old and new investor friends over the event.

In the middle of that…

I ran into this one guy and realized he was at the Pennsylvania Real Estate Expo last month as well.

I totally recognized him. He’s been going to these events since at least 2018, which is when I went for the first time.

So I asked him what he is doing now in real estate. He avoided eye contact and said…. “I’m still trying to learn and see how things work.”

I was speechless… 😳 

That’s exactly what he told me when we first met at this real estate event 6 years ago!! 😱 

He’s been giving himself an excuse of “learning” for the past 6 years.

For the part 6 years, I learned then tried, I failed some, succeed some and then learned some more and tried some more. 😅

I grew out of many strategies, grew out of many mentors, many networking groups, I am always on to the next thing that would benefit my growth while also putting my family and lifestyle into consideration. 🥹 Eventually I found what I wanted to do in real estate for the next 10 years: investing in syndications.

Lesson learned: It’s good to learn and educate yourself but you have to take action. Learning by doing is the best way to learn: If you want to invest in commercial real estate, investing passively is the best way to start! Then if you want to participate actively, learn how to become a fund manager!

Spouse and Family Approval

Many real estate investors I’ve met told me that they struggle with onboarding their spouses to the idea of real estate investing.

Some feel like they can’t move forward in investing because their spouse does not understand or care about it so they do not have the “approval” to pursue it.

Waiting for your spouse’s approval is kind of pushing the responsibility on them instead of being in charge and leading. It’s another type of excuse for not doing things.

Instead, there are actions that you can take right away:

• Bring them to real estate events with you

• Let them hang out with your real estate investor friends

• Read and watch with them the same educational content you are consuming

Most importantly:

• Slow down and work on understanding them and where they are coming from. Most likely they are just trying to protect you.

• Listen and ask thousands of questions and share thousands of thoughts from your heart. 💚 

At the end of the day, real estate or any kind of investing is just a tool to build a happy life together. Sharing knowledge and reflections on life and investing as equal partners are the keys to form understandings and sympathy. 🤗

I’ve been through that struggle myself since my husband did not know anything about real estate when we started dating. It was a few years pushing back and forth working together to get to accumulating 10 houses under our names.

Even then, when we went to Brad Sumrok’s event a year ago, in March 2023, I wanted to sign up for the mentorship and my husband did not. I knew that if my husband can’t understand what I am doing and he is not onboard with it, I will feel so miserable. So I told him I will wait until he is ready then we will join and venture into multifamily investing together. Go fast go alone, go far go together, right?

And because I wanted to slow down and wait for him, he wanted to keep up with me and push forward to open his mind. The next day, he decided to sign up and that big commitment we made, opened up our world into multifamily syndication.

It’s like we both committed and decided to take the highway instead of following a trail in real estate investing. 🤣 

For my mom to understand me, I also want to have a Vietnamese version of this newsletter for her to read. She understands I was buying houses and rent them out, but she can’t comprehend the fact that I am buying 35 million dollars apartment complex with other people, and worries that I will make mistakes and ruin my life reputation doing something big and mysterious. 🤗 

Lesson learned: When your whole family understands what you are doing and is supporting you, you will feel like you are the most empowered person in the world, ready to conquer whatever obstacles you meet on your way. 😄🚀 

New York, New York…

Visiting New York this past weekend with my husband, it was fun to visit our friend’s spots, Mam, Sen Saigon, Le Phin and Vietspot. The owners of these restaurants are people who are close to our hearts.

My husband and I reflected on our 3 years journey away from New York and feel so grateful for how much we grew during that time. New York is always a comfort zone but we now know that there are so many opportunities outside of that little bubble we had.

Cashflow Hackers now has a Meetup group where I host educational and networking events. The first event happened at Mam restaurant last Sunday, shout out to Nhung and Jerald for letting us use the space.

Some investors during the Meetup asked me what’s the criteria when I invest into commercial real estate. My criteria are quite simple:

1. I have to understand the business and the business plan completely like value-add apartment complex.

2. The operator has a great track record of delivering excellent returns to passive investors doing the same kind of deals.

3. Location is in big metroplexes with a growing population, prefer class A or B properties in class A or B locations.

Build in public: past, current and future business

I visited the Lone Star Capital office inside the Freedom Tower in Manhatan to build a relationship for future collaboration but also to contemplate the idea of running a private equity firm specializing in multifamily, just like them or like Rise48 Equity.

Tony Robbins said there are two businesses that you have to worry about, it’s your current business and your future business.

I’m happy with my current Fund business reaching $1M raised very soon since I started out 6 month ago.

To be like Lone Star Capital or Rise48 Equity, my potential future business, I would need to raise $20M every month to do deals and not just raise money. Not just raising from friends and family like now but from other fund managers who can write a check of $1M or more.

It’s crazy to know that people I talked to at Lonestar Capital order food from the little restaurant Vietspot - my past business located around the corner from their office.

I was that immigrant restaurant owner serving food to Fund owners, Private Equity firms, Investment Bankers on Wall street without knowing what they were doing.

Lesson learned: The law of exposure: now everything in investing makes way more sense to me. Because once I’ve exposed myself to the knowledge I can’t un-expose myself anymore.

Cheers to another powerful week ahead, Cashflow Hackers! 🥂 

Sophie

Disclaimer: I am not a CPA, attorney, or insurance advisor. Nothing contained within my website, emails, videos, or other content from me constitutes financial, investment, tax, legal, insurance, or other advice, nor should anything contained within this website, emails, videos, or other content from me be relied upon for making an investment or other decision. You should consider obtaining relevant and specific professional advice before making any investment or other decision. If you need such advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, or financial advisor. Linked items may create a financial benefit for Sophie Nguyen.