ATE-Adding Value with Jenny Gou and Natalie Teramoto

A discussion on how to add value to a mentor and what steps you should take before quitting your W2 with Jenny Gou and Natalie Teramoto.

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This episode originally aired on October 21st, 2021

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Jenny Gou
Jenny is a Managing Partner at Vertical Street Ventures, which was established to help individuals achieve their financial goals through passive investing in real estate. As one of the Founders, she currently oversees Asset Management and Investor Relations. She focuses on Business Strategy and execution of the business plan as well as managing relationships and communications with investors. To date, Jenny has acquired a portfolio of over 1400+ units across AZ, TX, and GA. Prior to becoming a full-time Operator and Investor, Jenny was a Sales Director at Procter & Gamble for 13 years working on brands like Dawn, Cascade and Swiffer. She managed cross- functional teams on top accounts which included Costco, Walmart, Target, and more. Her overall experience in leading teams, strategy and project management enables Vertical Street Ventures to be the best in industry and make our communities a better place to live. Jenny graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Business Management and received her MBA from the University of Minnesota. She is married to her husband Ronnie and has 2.5 kids (furry one included).
Visit her website https://verticalstreetventures.com/

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Natalie Teramoto
Natalie Teramoto is a part time investor and began investing in real estate in 2018. She began by purchasing out of state single family homes. She currently owns two long term rentals and two short term rental Airbnbs in CA, AZ, and NV. She also recently acquired an 8plex in Mesa, AZ. Natalie is a limited partner in 110 multifamily units in Savannah, Georgia and 426 multifamily units in Kansas City, Missouri. Natalie’s full time job is Underwriting Counsel for a title insurance company. She provides legal and underwriting support to her team of insurance underwriters. Natalie earned her Juris Doctor from Chapman Law School in Orange in 2006, and her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002.
Email natalieteramoto@gmail.com 

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Your host, Brian Briscoe, is a co-founder and principal in the real estate investing firm Four Oaks Capital.  He and his team currently have 629 units worth $36 million in assets under management and are continuing to grow.  He will retire as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps in 2021. Learn more about him and the Four Oaks team at www.fouroakscapital.com  or contact him at brianbriscoe@fouroakscapital.com - be sure to let him know where you found him.

Connect with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Transcript

Brian Briscoe: 0:00

Natalie, we got Jenny on the line. What do you want to ask her?

Natalie Teramoto: 0:03

What kind of value would you suggest bringing to your mentor?

Jenny Gou: 0:06

When you find somebody who you align with, from a value standpoint, operational style, see how you can add value with certain skill sets. So if you can bring capital, could you bring your time or sweat equity, find what you're good at, align it with your mentor who is who has a gap in that specific area. And the worst thing you can do is come up to somebody and say, Hey, you know, I'd love for you to be my mentor, like what can I help with you? That's not very helpful. target your audience and be very strategic about how you approach people.

Brian Briscoe: 0:48

Welcome to the diary of an apartment investor podcast with your host Brian Briscoe. In this podcast we bring some of the top professionals in the apartment investment field to discuss various aspects of the apartment investing journey with the sole purpose of educating listeners to make wise investment decisions. The Diary of an apartment investor podcast is sponsored by four oaks capital bringing you high yield returns through apartment complex investing. Welcome to the direct property investor podcast. I'm your host Brian Briscoe with porlex. Catherine, very excited for today's show. I'm excited for every show. But I'm especially excited for this show, because we have our first three time guests with us Jenny Gu. And we have aspiring apartment investor, Natalie terremoto. And incidentally, Jenny came on about a year ago as an aspiring investor a couple months later as a first deal episode. And now she's got a couple of deals under her belt and you know, is coming full circle and is now the experienced investor on the podcast. So that said, Jenny, welcome to the show. Again,

Jenny Gou: 1:49

thanks for having me, Brian. Super excited.

Brian Briscoe: 1:52

Yeah, yeah, a lot of fun. So let's talk about you. What's, what's new. And tell us a little bit about your background and history and kind of where you've where you've come at least in the last 612 months since last time we had you on?

Jenny Gou: 2:06

Yeah, absolutely. So just real brief. For those who I haven't met before. Know, I spent my corporate years 13 years at a company called Procter and Gamble, started investing in the single family space and then quickly migrated over to multifamily. Really to the point where I, I believe in the model so much, I left my job before purchasing a single unit. And over the course of a year was able to go from zero to over 1000 doors. So that was really exciting to do. And, you know, since my very first podcast with Brian a year ago, exactly. I've acquired more. We started a company called vertical street ventures with my mentor now partner, Steve Louis. And you know, our goal was to acquire about 25 million in assets this year, and we are on track to close about 80 million by the end of the year. So we're enrolling? Yeah, no big deal.

Brian Briscoe: 3:04

A million dollars. No big deal. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a definitely you know, what a difference a year makes, you know, a year ago, you know, if you looked at our numbers, I mean, we were at, I think, 35 million in total assets. You know, how quickly somebody can grow from, you know, zero to 80 million this year? What's your total assets under management once you close on that full 80? Or is everything? Yeah,

Jenny Gou: 3:31

well, just on our Arizona properties at between Steve and I, we have 100 million under management. We'll add 25 million Texas and then another call it 30 million in Arizona soon.

Brian Briscoe: 3:44

Okay. So the answer is a lot you know, your math I'm not gonna do math in public the answers a lot. So you know, congratulations on all your success. You know, I was able to meet you know, you, your husband, who's also involved with this, I've met your business partners as well, I think you guys have a fabulous team. So super excited to see what what happens, or something I want to go back to you said you quit your job before getting your first apartment building under contract. Can you talk about that decision process? You know, What went through your mind? And you know what, what it took for you to make that decision?

Jenny Gou: 4:22

Yeah, it was really it was, I would say it's a hard and an easy decision. The hard decision was actually taking the leap, right to go from a steady, good paying corporate job with benefits and stability, that currently being that was hard and the people that I left, you know, in the world that I had before. the easy part was actually just figuring out and realizing why I had to leave and why I wanted to spend my time differently. So my husband and I, Ronnie, we just sat down and prioritized our lives had tough decisions and conversations. But the End result made it an easy decision to do what I wanted to do. And then the hard part was jumping ship.

Brian Briscoe: 5:07

Yeah, well since I always ask everybody about their big burning why, you know, what was your WHY? And has it changed in the last year year and a half?

Jenny Gou: 5:16

No, it hasn't changed in fact I think it's if anything this last year and a half it's been reinforced so are burning Why am I burning? Why was really family so on our, you know, short time on this earth? How do we want to spend our time and every minute of our lives, it's, you know, really our family, whether it's close family, close friends, and what really solidified this actually happened recently. So Ronnie is actually joining our team. He's starting officially in October, as well. So he's leaving the corporate world. And the day that we told our kids we said, Hey, guys, you know, Daddy's leaving to join Mommy, you know, in in her job. And the first thing our son said was, and he's eight, okay, the first thing he said was, yay, does that mean you'll get to spend more time with me like mommy does? So I mean, that alone, obviously, we just looked at each other and had you know, a special moment with the kids too. But that just so reinforces why we're doing what we do.

Brian Briscoe: 6:14

Yeah, and I just left my WTF behind wasn't corporate IT WAS government but you know, it's it's nice working from home. I mean, obviously, you have to still work. You know, I wish I was to the point where I didn't have to work yet. But you know, it's it's one of those things where I take my kids to their gymnastics class, I take them to the swim, swim practices, you know, and those are things that I wasn't was very rarely able to do with with a W two job. I mean, the classes are starting at four o'clock. And normally I wouldn't get home till you know, 536 at the earliest. So it is a very nice thing to be disconnected from you that w two and a lot of ways. So yes, congratulate Ronnie for me, please. And you know, I'm excited for that. That's awesome. And I really hope you guys get to spend a whole lot more time with your kids. So let's talk about some of the deals that you guys have done. You know, pick, pick a recent one. Let's see, we already we talked about one specific on the first deal episode. So the only thing I'll ask is you don't pick that one to talk about because you know, you already talked about it in depth.

Jenny Gou: 7:17

Yeah, yeah. So let's say since we last did that episode. So the next few deals we've acquired this year. I don't recall if we talk this one, but I purchased we purchased a building I used to live in my senior year of college. So that one we purchased back in February of 2021. That was a property it's a 93 unit in Tucson, Arizona. So the fun story with that one is yes, I did live there my senior year of college. So that whole due diligence, yo experience was kind of surreal to stay on that unit. And then also in this past July, we purchased two other properties combined. So that was a unique one. It was a same seller who was selling both properties and what we did, instead of separating them out as a syndication we combined them. So you purchased into two properties as part of the syndication. So that one's really unique. Yep, yeah. And were

Brian Briscoe: 8:12

they were they located close together? Or? I mean, what what made it? What made it a good idea to combine them as a syndication?

Jenny Gou: 8:20

Yeah, great question. So they're both in Arizona, ones in Mesa, Arizona, and one is in Phoenix. So they're about 20 minute drive apart. So not terribly far, because we closed on them the same time, it just didn't make sense for us to separate them, and have our investors pick and choose, you know, which deal they wanted to invest in. Instead, you can diversify, by combining them, you know, reduce your risk and increase our scalability, because we use the same property management, so it just made more sense to keep it together.

Brian Briscoe: 8:51

And in a lot of cases, I agree with you 100%. I mean, we had to under contract at the same time. And we asked ourselves the same question, if we're marketing to properties that are in close together, you know, what do we say if an investor asked us and they inevitably will, which one's the better deal? You know, it's just like, you know, what, we're trying to fill both of them, you know, so, you know, you never, you never really know, but there's a lot of good reasons to combine two properties, especially from the same seller. Yeah, we like I said, we've done the same thing. And so far, it's worked out. And the diversification, you know, I'm not sure about your experience, but in our experience, and one of them is they're about two miles apart. One of them's in a downtown area that's going to appreciate more, and one of them cash flows better. So we kind of look at the diversification you actually can start diversifying with with too. So anyway, that's my two cents.

Jenny Gou: 9:43

Really? Yeah, well then two for your investors. It's a little bit more of a simple process also. So they do at one time, paperwork, wiring, like all that stuff versus having to do it twice. So

Brian Briscoe: 9:57

one day, he did one operating green, check Should we have any agreements the way we set it up? But yeah, it was all it was all one and done and just go in once, click a couple buttons and wire some money and you're done. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. So all right. So how are those how those

Jenny Gou: 10:14

performed so far? Excellent. The one in Tucson, we used to be a student housing property. So even when I lived on the property, it was student housing, which means it was rented by bed. And we've changed the news back to low traditional multifamily where you rent by unit instead, the whole apartment versus the bed. And that's been going phenomenal. And we're working on adding a few more units as well. And then the ones in Mesa Phoenix also phenomenal. We actually, the fun story about that one we actually secured and locked on the price back in January. But we didn't close until July because we had to wait till the seller 1031 into a different property. So that we were able to benefit from six months of appreciation. Oh, yeah. If you think about that, how hot that market is in Arizona. So we've already we're, you know, over the overvalued versus what we purchased that because we lost that pricing back in January. Yeah,

Brian Briscoe: 11:15

I mean, there there's a lot of things that have happened I mean, rents have gone off the chart in the Phoenix area so that six months that's the biggest six months as far as rent growth like the march through June timeframe. So you've benefited from rent growth, you've benefited from cap rate compression, and you know, I'll just throw a number out there, your your property probably appreciated 10 to 15%. Just net 16 months. I mean, I'm spitballing but I'm probably not far off, I'm guessing. But we had a similar property. Exact same scenario the owner wanted a 1031 it and we ended up with we were in escrow for nine months. It was in South Carolina, and it definitely appreciated quite a bit over that time. I just wish it was, you know, like Arizona appreciation but yeah, so cool. Cool. So what are you guys looking for now? what's what's next for you guys?

Jenny Gou: 12:09

You know, we're still underwriting deals, you know, about quality over quantity, right? So we want to make sure we're always getting the right deals, and then we're expanding so we're looking at properties in Texas, no focusing on Arizona, of course, because there's so much room to grow there. And then continually expanding and planning for growth. So I mentioned we're adding Ronnie to the mix to the company shortly. We're starting to hire more vas, we just want to plan for what 135 years look like. Because we we plan on doubling what we did this year, you know, wow,

Brian Briscoe: 12:44

that's that's aggressive. You guys have a really good team. I mean, you have a you have an amazing team as far as who's involved. So now how do you guys split up duties inside there? I mean, are you guys all raising capital? You guys all deal finding these split things up? Yeah, so from

Jenny Gou: 12:59

a vertical street standpoint, see focuses a lot on acquisitions. He's really great at relationships and brokers and lenders, I am awesome. And I really, really enjoy asset management. So that's what I do once we take on the property. It's just the skill set I bring over from project management and managing people in my old world. Just made sense. In this new world. Ronnie will be coming in as a marketing and brand equity for the team and be our point person for Investor Relations. Okay, and we all raise capital so we're all three of us as the leads are talking to investors going to meetups, it is everyone's job to be capital raising.

Brian Briscoe: 13:45

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Now was Ronnie in marketing prior to

Jenny Gou: 13:50

at p&g, we're both sales but we work cross functionally against all other folks in the company. But he has a passion for marketing and so this will be his great you know, dabble into that space. And you know, we have a great background because Procter and Gamble is the world's largest marketing firm so we have a lot of insight to how it's been done at a big firm.

Brian Briscoe: 14:15

Yeah, well you know, like I said, I've met him talk to him several times he's extremely talented so I'm sure he'll make this you know, slight transition from one to another very, very quickly. So anyway, that's awesome. You know, congrats gratulations on success and excited to see you guys you know, probably 10x that in the next two to three years. So anyway, that's it. Let's shift gears a little bit and bring Natalie on the show. So Natalie, welcome. And thanks for coming on.

Natalie Teramoto: 14:40

Welcome. Thank you for having me.

Brian Briscoe: 14:42

So do us a favor and tell us about yourself.

Natalie Teramoto: 14:44

Sure. So I live in Southern California, born and raised here married and have two young kids nine and six. By day I work as an underwriting attorney at a title insurance company. So I'm analyzing insurance risks. And I'm coming up with solutions on how we can get comfortable with some of those risks so that deals can move forward. So as far as real estate investing and entrepreneurial spirit, I've been around entrepreneurs all my life, my parents were both small business owners, they had a retail business, they worked very hard and worked seven days a week. And they did some investing on the side as well, some rental properties. And I really didn't pay too much attention to what they were doing. And I didn't really didn't realize the impact, though, of that investing until 2017, when my father passed away, suddenly, from sudden heart failure. sorry to hear that. Thank you. And so what happened and it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks after he passed away, because I realized then the power of real estate, and that was through the rental properties that were still providing income for my mom, and was able to kind of sustain and keep her lifestyle, and that she didn't have to suddenly up and move or, you know, sell a home or anything like that, it really provided a lot of stability, and the whole family, and just, you know, realizing that generational wealth and the legacy that he left behind. And so after that happened, that was when you know, my husband and I had some really long serious talks about you know, we really need to be investing, we really need to be working on building a legacy for our own family. And so that's when we started investing, we picked up a couple single family homes in 2018. And then after that, we realized that we still wanted to do more, we wanted to be more active and grow faster. And so we had looked into some airbnbs really tried to educate ourselves on that model. And then in March COVID hit so he kind of went okay, let's press pause on that. And we started looking into traditional multifamily and we really, really liked it and that's kind of how the multifamily interest was born. So we really looked at different markets we really liked Arizona. We're from Southern California so it was an easy drive to Arizona and we just really liked the diversity of the market there. So we were able to pick up a four Plex off market nice and four months after that we were able to close on the four Plex next door which was also off market and that was just building relationship with the

Brian Briscoe: 18:03

owner was the same seller similar on both of them.

Natalie Teramoto: 18:06

No it was not same seller it was different seller different owner Yeah, so we just got to know the owner of the one next door and built a relationship with him to let him know that we were interested Yeah. So you know we we've got that but we're still really looking to invest more. So we also became limited partners in a couple different syndications to get that experience and multifamily syndications and now you know we're just focused on being more active and looking at more into multifamily syndications as take an active role

Brian Briscoe: 18:43

Yeah, well I love it I love the story I mean you had a really good you know really good reason for doing it I mean unfortunate timing you know, unfortunately your father passed away but very fortunate that he had purchased real estate and your your mother had that extra stream that extra streams of income. And also I mean, you guys have gotten 10 units, you know, two four plexes to single families you know, since then, and that's, that's a lot more than most people will ever get as far as you know, total total rental unit. So you're definitely on your way and I'm excited to see what the future holds. Now you kind of talked with it. I think I kind of know what you're looking to say here but I'm going to still ask the question anyway. What's your big burning? Why?

Natalie Teramoto: 19:28

My big burning? Why is my family similar to you know, Jenny, it's spending more time with my family and being able to spend more time with the kids. It honestly goes by so quickly. I mentioned that we have a nine year old and a six year old and you know, those nine years just in the blink of an eye I just I can't believe he's almost 10

Brian Briscoe: 19:50

Yeah, I've got I've got an eight year old boy who turns nine and let's see what day is it a month from today. a six year old girl. Those are my two youngest. I've also got a 10 year old, a 19 year old and 22 year old. Yeah, so I mean that 19 year old 22 year old for the most part take care of themselves. But anyway, yeah, so definitely family's always something and you're absolutely right. The kids grew up really fast. You know, it seems like it was just, you know, last week I was running around with a little two year old who's my only child, you know, kicking leaves, you know, dry leaves in a park. But yeah, Time Time goes by quickly, you can't get it back. So now. Yeah. But anyway, let's Here comes my favorite part of the show where I get to say, Natalie, we got Jenny on the line, what do you want to ask her?

Natalie Teramoto: 20:41

Hi, Jenny. So one of my questions for you is, you know, you I love that you decided that this is what you wanted to do, and took the steps to leave the W two and make this your full time. So I'd love to know, kind of what you had in place when you made that decision. It's, it's, it's a big decision to make. So when you decided that's what you wanted to do? What did you haven't placed to be ready for that?

Jenny Gou: 21:15

Yeah, that's, it's a hard decision, as I mentioned earlier, to jump and actually do it. But really what made us comfortable totally making up this acronym right now, but it makes sense is your financials and a little bit of faith, right. So what I mean by that is, you know, obviously, you have to do some math to make sure that you are able to sustain some level of your expenses, right. And when we sat down and did that, we were fortunate enough to have, you know, our portfolio of single family homes. So we have about 10 that we still have today. So that passive income generated from those properties was able to offset a lot of my income from Procter and Gamble, okay. So with that being said, and we said, Ronnie, you will stay and maintain the other benefits, you know, insurance, and you know, all that other good stuff. We were comfortable with me leaving to accelerate what I could do in multifamily. So on the flip side of that, is we did some rough math to say, What do I need to go do and purchase this year to make up the balance? And that was kind of my goal setting for last year, what did I have to go purchase, how big of a size property so on and so forth. And then the second part of that was the faith part. So really, you know, we left when I left when I didn't even buy a single unit multifamily yet, but because I believed in it so much, I had faith in myself, and, you know, my mentor and my partner, that we could go do big things right together. And so the faith that we put in that accelerated what we could do, we had the right infrastructure, we had the right systems. And so if you have both of those plans, you can't just can't just leave just because you don't like your job, maybe or, you know, you're not happy doing what you have to so plan for what that exit looks like, and be smart about it. So those two things kind of helped shape. How we thought about our exit.

Brian Briscoe: 23:23

Yeah, yeah, I love that financials and faith and just reflecting on what I did, you know, financials for us, I'm getting a pension for I just retired from the military, I'm getting a pension, which is, you know, 1/3 of what my take home pay was, you know, a month ago, and that that was enough, enough of a safety net for me, that I knew I could go all in as well. And I just recently left my w two. So part of me wishes I could have left, three or four years ago, but I kind of had a binding contract, which didn't really let you out of those very frequently, but I echo exactly that, you know, a little bit of financials and a lot of faith, and you keep on pushing forward. Yeah,

Natalie Teramoto: 24:06

no, that's great. What one of the other things I wanted to touch on was you had mentioned the mentorship. Did you have the mentor before you made that decision? And then how did that mentorship kind of term evolved into the partnership and what kind of value would you suggest bringing to your mentor? Yeah,

Jenny Gou: 24:27

it actually happened close in timing. So I actually met Steve before I left Procter and Gamble, but we hadn't, you know, it wasn't been solidified our mentee mentor relationship. It was more of kind of a meet and greet and get to know you. But I had the intention of leaving p&g and then 100% to see what I could go do. You know my first year as a full time real estate investor. just coincidentally, as I started to get to know Steve, he happened to have a few properties in Arizona. On that he managed on top of his full time w two job. And then here I was now free of a full time job and had more flexibility and had the skill set to offer somebody like Steve, my help great. And so it was a win win situation, it kind of turned into an informal mentee mentor relationship. And you know, for those of you looking for a mentor that's that's very important to do is when you find somebody who you align with, from a value standpoint, operational style, see how you can add value with certain skill sets. So if you can bring capital, could you bring your time or sweat equity, find what you're good at and can add to and then align it with your mentor who is who has a gap in that specific area. So for C, for example, he was busy, he's got a busy director, full time job, he just didn't have time. Right. And here, I was just leaving my job and had all the time in the world. So it lined up pretty, pretty nicely.

Natalie Teramoto: 26:09

Now that worked out that seemed to work out very nice. I think everything happens for a reason there. So even though that wasn't your intent, it really just evolved, which is amazing. Exactly.

Brian Briscoe: 26:22

Yeah, I thought it was fun. You're talking I mean, we talked about that same story a couple of times, and it's still fun to hear just how everything lined up perfectly. You know, you had a lot of time you had the skill set, and you know, you basically filled his need. And Natalie, I'll say that it's not very often that magical. You know, I see what I see, I think the secret of success is where people just do a lot of networking, there's a lot of people out there who are willing to take you know, a new, you know, protege on or helps help the newer people out, you just got to find the right connection. And sometimes it takes a lot of networking calls. And I know I've seen you in lots of networking calls. So I'm sure you're you know, you've done a whole lot of that before, but that that's definitely the start. Yeah, that's

Jenny Gou: 27:13

a great thing that I mean, people we see all the time networking, sharing information. But I think a lot of people don't realize how much work it is to be a mentor. It's a lot of work and time and energy. So if you're not providing value back, you know, you get what you put in, there's not going to be a lot of help coming your way. And the worst thing you can do is come up to somebody and say, Hey, you know, I'd love for you to be my mentor, like what can I help with? Like, don't you that's not very helpful, right? You have to know, target your audience and be very strategic about how you approach people.

Brian Briscoe: 27:49

And getting to know people, it's the relationship aspect, getting to know somebody, well, you know, if you have several calls with the same person, or you know, talk to the same person in a different, you know, meetups or whatever, you'll get to know what their friction points are. And, you know, once you get to know what somebody's friction points are, and you know that you like that person, that's usually where these relationships begin.

Natalie Teramoto: 28:14

Now, that's great advice. Yeah, I think it's definitely having to get to know them and figure out how you can provide that value to them. Without them telling you. Yeah. So I wanted to ask another question, kind of back to when you decided that you wanted to do multifamily. And, you know, in addition to the getting the financials ready, and then the leap of faith, from kind of the business perspective, what did you have in place? Like, did you feel like you had to have kind of a website up? And did you have to have, you know, your name, and one of the struggles is, you know, wanting everything to be perfect before you kind of go out there, but

Jenny Gou: 28:57

did you just kind of jump into it? Or were there certain things that you did? Before, you know, you put yourself out there, it's so so important to set your structure in your systems, especially if you know, you're going to grow fast, right? And I always tell folks, this that whatever you can do up front, right, you can save a lot of time in the back end, because you don't want to do rework or fix it. Right. So yes, so what we did was even our first deal that we took down as a syndication was our first syndication. One of the questions we noodle with was, do we need a professional portal to manage our investors? It was a small syndication, technically, we probably could have just used Excel spreadsheets to manage everything. But no, we made a very strategic decision to say we are going to come out the gates with a professional portal, so that we look and feel like somebody who's been around for many years, and then from there, you know when Steve and I Created vertical Street, we wanted everything I would say, you know, 80 for the 20, right? It doesn't need to be perfect, we got 80% just right. And before we launched, so we said, okay, in December of last year, create all of our information docs, or bank accounts or websites or emails, come Jan, one we're going to launch. And that's what we did. So we spent a whole month just hammering all the details out to launch effective again, one of this year, so you want to, you want to obviously set up your infrastructure I, I think it just comes off, especially for investors, as someone professional, they're giving you a lot of their hard earned money right to to manage, you want to make sure they feel comfortable with someone who is professional looking.

Natalie Teramoto: 30:50

No, thank you, that's great. Sometimes, you know, you want to just jump into it. But sometimes I think that you do need to take a step back and make sure that you know, you have some things in place so that you are ready to move faster, because you don't want to jump into it, get it and then be completely unprepared.

Brian Briscoe: 31:10

I'd also say depends on how long of a runway you have, you know, so if you have like your living expenses taken care of for a full year, you have, you may have a little bit of time to spend up front setting some of that stuff up, you know, but you know that the longer the runway you have, the less important it is to have everything ready before you quit, you know, so it kind of a give and take a little bit here or there. And if you have a short runway, you probably want to hold on to that w two job, you know, as long as possible. Like if you're in a position where you don't have a lot of savings to hold you for very long after you quit your W two, you know, work nights and weekends and, you know, keep on pushing. But on our side, we had a lot of this stuff set up. And I like what Jenny said about the portal, you know, we have a small investment, you don't need a portal, but think think long term with all the decisions you make.

Jenny Gou: 32:01

Yeah, and if I had to prioritize, obviously, you know it to start any business, you need to invest funds into that business, right. So not everyone will have funds available to invest. But if I had to prioritize, to start what you're doing as a syndicator, I would say prioritize a website, I would prioritize your database that you're tracking, so some sort of CRM that could automate emails and systems for you and connect right with your website. And then I would I would invest in the investor portal. So those three things because those are touch points that every investor is going to see when they work with you. Yeah.

Natalie Teramoto: 32:45

Anyone needs to be ready. Yep, I agree.

Brian Briscoe: 32:49

You know, those are definitely three things that you know, most people are going to see you know, so and the CRM people might not see the CRM but that's, that's vital to you keep an eye, you know, your ducks in a row. And it's vital to you organizing your communications with everybody.

Natalie Teramoto: 33:06

Now how has it felt now that you've, you know, been full force into this, I think that one of the other things that I love about your story is that it's something that you're able to do with Ronnie your husband as well. And I have to say, that's one of the things that has been really enjoyable for Scott and Nye is, you know, to,when we have that talk about wanting to start investing, it's been something that we've been doing together that we talked about all the time, and something that we've grown together with So how has you know, doing that together with Ronnie then for you?

Jenny Gou: 33:43

It's been wonderful. We've actually fortunately worked together in the past. So at p&g, we've been on the same team a handful times not direct reporting just to be clear, nobody reported to each other but we've been on the same team a few times and so we're we've we're familiar with how we work and how we communicate. So that has helped in the real estate world but for for you guys and for many other folks who haven't worked together I mean I could do it hopefully makes you stronger as a couple right as a unit. But I also think it's so much it just makes you be more hands on with your finances together. Whereas in the past one spouse might have been more in charge or are leading the financial aspect of the of the unit of the family unit. In this scenario. I think it's fabulous when both people are super involved in Super hands on together and it just makes you stronger. So love it. Yes, it's been great so far.

Brian Briscoe: 34:46

Yeah, I wish in a way I wish that this was like a husband wife duo for us too. But as far as my wife and I we couldn't be more opposite as far as what we what we enjoy. So, her dream has always been teaching school. And that's what she's doing. So

Natalie Teramoto: 35:05

what works? Yeah, it works. Yeah. And yeah,

Jenny Gou: 35:09

I mean, not, it's not for everybody, right? In fact, I will even tell you, Ronnie had to kick me in the butt first to get me started in real estate investing, right? So it's not always easy at the get go. But, you know in for some folks, it's probably not the best idea to work with your spouse so it could be a win win and everything in either situation.

Natalie Teramoto: 35:31

Yeah, we didn't know how it was going to turn out so far it's going to go.

Brian Briscoe: 35:37

Nice. Nice. Well, we got time for probably one more question. If you have another question, Natalie.

Natalie Teramoto: 35:42

sI'd like t know more Jenny about, you know partnerships in this business It's it's definitely a peopl business. And it's all abou partnerships. So what kinds o things I mean, when you an Steve evolved into a partnershi kind of was there a pivota moment that that happened, an because it really is like dating period, it you know, i takes a while to get to kno each other. And so, you know, w meet so many people, and you're it's hard to get to know the just trying out a couple o calls. So when did you kno that? You know, you and Stev could have a successfu partnership, first of all, an what other things do you loo for in partnerships? Yeah

Jenny Gou: 36:28

there wasn't a definitive time where I set up. That's, that's my future partner. We had spent probably 678 months underwriting deals together, I was helping him manage his properties in Arizona. So we're on calls every single day talking at night as well. So that was the dating period of Okay, do I like how this person operates? You went both ways did he like how I operated, we got to know each other from a family standpoint to his girls, his older girls babysat my kids at some point in summer. So that was that aspect to that we kind of vet it out as well. So I can't pinpoint for you exactly a specific time. But I will tell you, it took that long for us to really get to know each other and finally say, okay, we found a deal. We like let's partner, okay? It's so important. It's a really good question. Because I see a lot of times people partner so easily, and have gone through the heartbreak of a breakup, right, a divorce, essentially. And it's so messy. It Well, it's messy in any divorce, I guess. But it's messy with business, because you're, you have accounts together and investors and maybe you wrote a book, I don't know, like, there's so many things that you do together with your team, that it's hard to delineate that later on. So really take time to interview your partner. understand their values, their styles, it's good to go through something that you disagree on. Right, just like a fight in a relationship, you want to see how you guys react to problems and issues, and then proceed with caution. And I would say also don't feel like you need to form a company with them, do one deal, do two deals, see how it goes and then decide later on if it's more of a long term relationship?

Brian Briscoe: 38:27

I agree with that one, that's almost my partners and I started collaborating first, you know, and it was just a, you know, let's let's look at your underwriting you look at my underwriting, you know, look at your numbers, you look at my numbers, hey, let's let's put in a joint Li together, you know, and we have ello eyes went in with three different logos on there, you know, three different company names, three different logos. And when we finally got a property under contract, it was still, you know, three different companies coming together. And it wasn't until, you know, six, you know, four to six months after that when we actually formed the company for x capital. So we definitely did the dating, we definitely did, you know, a lot of collaboration first, a lot of, yeah, I can see myself working with these guys for a long term. You know, I can see myself, you know, I like him, you know, I work well with them. So I think what Jenny said, has exactly the same route we took, were using the marriage analogy. You know, we spent a lot a lot of time dating first, you know, and now that we're married, we're doing everything we can to stay married. It's kind of weird talking about my partners in marriage together, but all right, yeah. But anyway, okay, we're about out of time. So thank you both for coming on the show. And one question for each of you to finish things up. And that's how can our listeners learn more about you, Jenny, you go first.

Jenny Gou: 39:54

Sure, you can find us at vertical street ventures.com. We're on all the social media platforms. We love meeting new people so reached out set up time with me and love to chat and connect.

Brian Briscoe: 40:05

Alright, and Natalie, same question for you.

Natalie Teramoto: 40:08

You can reach me through email, it's the best way and it's Natalie terremoto just first and last name@gmail.com love talking about real estate. So please feel please reach out.

Brian Briscoe: 40:20

And if you're listening to the show, we're going to put that information in the show notes. So don't worry about writing it down, just, you know, tap, swipe and tap again. And that magical internet will whisk you away to contacting these ladies. So once again, thank you very much. And you know, Jenny, especially thank you for being you know, first third time guests on the show very much appreciate your time.

Jenny Gou: 40:43

I'm honored. Thank you, Brian.

Natalie Teramoto: 40:45

Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Jenny.

Brian Briscoe: 40:52

Thank you for listening to the Diary of a apartment investor podcast toda brought to you by four oak capital. If you'd like to kno more about how to invest i apartment buildings or want t be a guest on our show, visi our website at four oaks capita comm slash podcast or email u directly. If you're stil listening, you obviously lik the show. So pull out you phone, tap subscribe, and leav us a five star rating on you favorite podcast app. And we'l see you again next week