Ryan Miller  
My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Let's get into it. 

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Craig Cecilio, Craig is the founder and CEO of an estimated $100 million fund known as DiversyFund.com. Join Craig and me as we cover how he is bringing those juicy private investments traditionally reserved for the mega rich, out of obscurity and into the mainstream for all investors to enjoy, including me and you, you don't want to miss it. Plus, Craig walks you through his deep wisdom on starting a business and scaling it while still making sure you take care of yourself along the way, giving us all the discipline and insights we need in our pursuit of making billions. Here we go. 

Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. Today I have my dear friend Craig Cecilio, Craig is the founder and CEO of DiversyFund.com. It's an estimated $100 million network of funds that brings real estate investing to the everyday investor, for a little as 500 bucks, this is this guy is breaking through, he's smashing barriers for investments that are traditionally reserved for the highly profitable, mega rich people. He's now bringing those through DiversyFund, he's bringing these investments to the everyday investor. So we're going to bring him on the show. He's going to talk about everything that he's done, how he's gotten to where he's gotten to, and then we're gonna we're gonna finish off on some of those, those tasty tips that he's gonna give us the the end, man. So, Craig, man, welcome to the show, brother.

Craig Cecellio  
Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan. Appreciate it

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, thanks for being here, man. So, you know, we've gotten to know each other a little bit. And man, I am so impressed in what you're doing. You and I are certainly kindred spirits, we're very antipoverty. We're trying to kind of break down those walls that, you know, traditionally compliance, this is that I know Wall Street and investors kind of get the bad rap. But it's really we're just following the rules that have been set out. And based on those rules, traditionally, it's kept a lot of people out of these highly profitable investments. Some of these people, the people that need them, the most can't get into these things. In fact, even worse, you don't even know about them. But you're changing all that. So before we get into how you're changing that, which you're going to want to hang in there, everybody. This is this is a really cool thing that that he's building, I think of hands around the world, just want to know, like, how did you start like you're a regular guy, middle class home, and then you just boom, you took off, and you're really making waves in the investor market. So where did it all begin for you?

Craig Cecellio  
Well, obviously, it kind of began in childhood way, way, way back. And it kind of just kind of grown up. It's really a working class family mother was a school teacher father was in retail, like dinner table talk, and then supply a frustration that came from my father. We lived in a very affluent area, but we were kind of working class. So maybe he felt insecure about the fact that he wasn't had as good as everyone else. We always talked about these dreams, but he never did anything. And as being a kid, I was kind of a little bit aware of things. So where things and I remember one day, we had this kind of argument at the table. He was complaining about money and his job and his bosses again, and I'm just like, why don't you do something about it? I don't get it. And luckily, he sat at the other end the tables to come strangle me like The Simpsons, you know? My mom was right next to me. So yeah, unfortunate. My brother was to the other side. So but that's another story. And so I would say one day, it's like, he's like, What do you think money grows on trees? And so I kind of buried it all built in the backyard. I watered it in a couple nights. And I said, I guess not. And I could just see him like the fumes coming out of his face when I'm when I did that. But it was kind of like, that was kind of really sat with me. It's like, why didn't he take any action? Why didn't he do anything about it. And at an early age, I took it. That's the way I took us. Like, I took it as like, I'm going to do something about it, whether it was Freudian in some manner. It's like, hey, my dad got bullied by the world. And I'm going to go and go attack the world, the big bully and do something about it. But I think that was ingrained at a very early age. And that was the first kind of steps that I kind of took him to that direction. And the rest is just kind of the journey I took him also I think all circumstances always knew this is what I was supposed to do in life was kind of really be an entrepreneur and do something different.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah. And you went to so so then you grew up as a kid and you're like, add some few things that you look back now and say I didn't agree with it. But I you know, I honored that moment because it gave me kind of the marbles you needed to move your career in the direction that you have now but you know, during that time as you started to kind of come into your own, I think you mentioned that you were you came into real estate your first exposure was like, you felt like I think you're about 18 You wanted to buy a condo. Tell me about a little bit about how that went for you.

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, I think I kind of got aware of it when I left went to college and so I was fortunate that my parents were able to put me into a school they worked hard to do that put me into a good nice high school or a private school, the schools that you see kind of online how it was or see in the movies, that's how it was it was kind of strange stuff, but gave me a really good foundation with things taught me how to be a good test taker and learn and keep those me those basic skills. So I evidently I went, I wanted to go west and so I got as far as Colorado. I really wanted to go farther, but I got them to get me to go to University of Colorado Boulder and ones out there. I was kind of I don't know what came to me. I'm not sure what I knew about it. But I was like, Man, I could just buy a condo for 90 grand on Broadway and Broadway. If you know, if you play Monopoly or any town, it's kind of like Broadway is always a good area to buy property usually. And, you know, today that thing's probably worth like $3 million. And I was like, Hey, Dad, I ran the numbers like I could get a roommate, you could pay it, you could cover the mortgage, and hey, this is gonna be worse than the one day it's kind of already knew the answer. He was very risk averse. And he never took chances. He was like, no, no, you are not going to do is too risky, yada yada yada, all every excuse. And that's how he was, you know, that's the type of person he was. But I was like, man, you know, to today, if you have a condo and Broadway, it's probably worth two and a half to 3 million. So I'm like here sitting here, like, oh my god, you know, I wish we did it back then. But Hindsight is one thing is is kind of the lesson in that to me was just for me, I had to like separate myself from my family a little bit and have my own path in life. That's where it kind of started out. And when I eventually kind of graduated from college, and I decided to move out to California, I went out there kind of in search, okay, I know what I'm gonna do, I know what path I'm gonna take, I know real estate's gonna be there in some form, or manner. And how I was going to learn what's going to happen, I just knew was going to happen, it wasn't like a plan, I'm going to go to business school, or I was going to go work for a particular company, I just kind of knew I was gonna make it happen. And when I eventually moved out there, within my first year, I just kind of do an odd jobs and stuff. And I was very personable, and, and also respectful. At that time period, I believe California was more of a like kind of surfer area where I lived and kind of the parts of San Diego is very much local. And if you weren't part of the crew, like you would get if you went surfing, and you'd get punched or something. And actually, there's something amused about that last week, they're still doing the same thing, the same surf spot, but that I first went out to it's got to kind of funny, it's still going around. But they're very kind of, you know, the tribal in that area. And I kind of was non intrusive. And I was being I'll make friends with those guys for other things we had in common. And slowly but surely building relationships. And I found a couple of mentors that really kind of taught me some things. And really, it was like two of them. One was a real estate developer. Another one was, I think his background started as a solvency attorney, and he was into debt structuring and the capital raising side of things. And eventually, they met the godfather of real estate funds. And his name was Frank Shaffer. And so through that, I learned a lot. And I'm like 23, 24 years old. And these are things you don't really learn about until you're 40 or 50, especially on the side of capital raise, and they really want to talk to people that have are high net worth accredited individuals, institutions, and who's just a vast amount of information given to me at an early age of this kind of world like I did the Shadow World they didn't know existed before. And it was it was it was awesome, was great.

Ryan Miller  
Wow, that's phenomenal. So So you moved out to California when you were young after college? I think you mentioned before that you just you knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur that kind of tied into you saying, you know, I had my breakaway moments where I had to, to carve my own path. And you did that you always knew entrepreneurship was your path. So you moved out to California, I think you said San Diego. Yeah. What made you pick San Diego?

Craig Cecellio  
I always said San Diego. I said that back in high school and I remember one of my old high school friends saying you always wanted to go to San Diego. And I remember saying something I want them to see Diego because it's like LA but doesn't have the materialism of LA I don't know what I was thinking like 14 years old, 15 years old. And I kind of that's the way I viewed San Diego at the time. And also where I live in East Coast. We had a beach and I enjoyed the summer times and I was like why can I live like this is how I am like what why can't do an area where I have a beach every single day of the year all 365 days so I don't have to join 90 days between Memorial Day and Labor Day. So that's another reason I wanted to get out there for the beach, learn how to surf and do all that stuff which I'm still haven't done yet. But there's some digital a lot of reasons why I wanted to go out there. Yeah, it was it was fascinating in and the energy that I had was, this was I had my car which was a Jeep at the time. It had a kind of a soft tarp on it I love telling the story is because I went to kind of U haul to get a trailer and they said I couldn't get a trailer because I had a soft top and like, most people be like devastated. I'm like, okay, whatever, I'll stuff as much stuff as I can in a jeep, put some tough paper on it and drive cross country, Olson driving. In the middle the night my soft top was flying off somewhere in the desert in Nevada, and 30% of my stuff is gone. I'm like, okay, whatever, I'm almost to California. So you get out there, shut off the jeep. And I'm gonna break just Jimmy's. I'm just down yet. I'm there. And I'm excited to get going. So yeah, so started the journey.

Ryan Miller  
And then so you know, you mentioned before that Frank Schaeffer, the the godfather of real estate investment funds. In San Diego, he kind of he, he helped you a little bit to help you dodge the proverbial bullet, maybe you can walk us through a little bit about, you know, what did what did to having that mentor like that do for you in the early days, kind of signaled to our fans around the world that yeah, mentors are a good idea. And, boy, did he provide you a lot of value? I just wonder if you can, maybe, yeah,

Craig Cecellio  
so the early days as doing a lot of syndication. So that's bringing a bunch of people together to kind of finance a project, whether it's mezzanine or equity, or debt, or whatever. And I was raising money for my projects and other people's projects went off my own after it's gonna work for other people around 2003. And so I was doing that. And a normal course of evolution with anything is kind of to build your own fund. And I remember being introduced to Frank, probably a few years before that. And remember kind of always going to him and showing him some deals at war complex. And he had a huge construction background. So he was very, very insightful for me looking at deals understand what's what, how to underwrite them, look at the ins and outs as all those questions. So I start talking to him, it's like, Hey, Frank, I'm ready to start my first fund here. And I believe it was like November 2005, we sat down, and he said, Hey, Craig, I think the markets pretty the word I use today would use this word back then it was pretty overheated and frothy, and I don't think it's good time. Just go look at all the stuff how we, in iOS, always use the word we because that's how it was back then, as we, we do things and there's always like, we do things, this is how we do things. It's not the same. It's like we the way we underwrite is not being done, all these deals are getting funded, and all this stuff is happening. Without this basic one on one underwriting stuff. It's just I think things are kind of gonna really go down pretty fast and pretty hard. And so I was like, okay, you know, maybe it's not the best time to do it. And I kind of, you know, the decision I made was not to create a fund at that time period is probably one of the best decisions I made, because we know what happened within a couple of years in that time period. And, and everyone around me who started these funds started imploding across income across locally and across nationally. And so it was it was crazy time period.

Ryan Miller  
So Frank Schaefer, kind of brought back the discipline of underwriting a deal. And it sounds like you did okay. In the 08 recession, all these like you said, funds were imploding. Yeah, but the lessons your mentor gave you goes back to the basics, and really underwrite the deal properly. And then from that, you ended up being just fine. Was my understanding in 08, is that right? Yeah,

Craig Cecellio  
yeah, I was good. I was really good. I mean, from a point of view of a business employee uploading and having unhappy customers, which are investors at the time period, I really it was, it was minimal was let's, let's almost nobody at the end of the day, it does have that. And to come out of that with that. What that reputation was big at the time, so when I kind of went back in the market and had a new plan, it was it was not easy, but it was it was something that I could do. And I'm thankful I'm thankful for that decision. I'm thankful for that conversation. And especially seeing all the people around me implode and seeing people lose a lot of money. That was a tough time period. And it was hard because like I had investors and people who invest with me you lose money in these other funds, because if you live back then everyone was kind of best in a multiple instruments and funds. And they got hammered. So it was tough. People were in a tough situation that point in time.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. And then, you know, after we started coming out of the tail end of the Great Recession, I think they came out with the job acts in like 2012, 2013. And there was something that kind of sparked your plan. Maybe you walk us through Yeah. How do you fit into the job act?

Craig Cecellio  
 So as in I did a little bit before that is I had a fortunate circumstance to start. I had a former employee come to me with an idea about buying distressed assets. And then all sudden I just like to have a ha moments. God I get stuff for so cheap. Let's let's go out and do it. And then I finally started my first fund in about 12. Right and so I got that going and raise money for that and Then 13, I hear about this thing called crowdfunding and real estate crowdfunding for the jobs act, and I got hooked, I read this thing about, okay, you could solicit investments from non-accredited investors, that's pretty much and anyone that you can, I was like, Oh, I gotta get into this, I gotta figure this out. I was buiding websites. Before I knew about marketing, I know about a little bit about automation, this is kind of this is this is something that I was really passionate about, I could get someone who doesn't have that financial acumen or experience or that access, and I could provide them with service. And I was just hooked. And I was I dove into it and started learning about that. And, you know, it's kind of crazy. When you pass the laws in 2012, the actual code or regulation didn't really get approved to the market until I think it was July of 2015. And the first one, I think, got active sometime and 16, just the way the government works four years later, right, let's create this great, this thing called the Jobs Act, but you know, most of things you can't do to four or five years down the road, which makes no sense whatsoever. So I did have a bunch of time to kind of put my ducks in a row and understand what I had to build. And that was where the diversity plan came from. That's where the idea started. And the rest was just kind of putting that together.

Ryan Miller  
Wow. And so yeah, you you found some, I wouldn't call them loopholes, but you found some updates to allowing certain investors to come in. And then from that point, you got to you, you met your co founder, Alan and yeah, walked in, and then you formed DiversyFund, DiversyFund.Com

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, you haven't you have this idea. And you're like, Okay, now now, what do I do? It's like, what, what was my strength? What am I good at? Right? And it's like, what am I not good at? And what I don't like to do, so it's like, you know, what, I don't like, you know, the lawyer part of stuff. It's like, okay, lawyers cost me so much money. It's always like, I remember doing a deal cost me like 60,000 attorney fees, and I made 50,000. on that. I was like, What the hell, that doesn't make any sense. So I'm gonna get hammered with what the legal fees, then also the compliance side, the security side, and how that works on like, okay, that's, again, that's mainly attorneys and vendors there, which you get hammered with accountants and all that stuff, doing something else, like, okay, so I'm kind of thinking of what I got to do here to get this thing going. And then I started kind of looking out and reaching out to people and developing relationships. So it took me about a year, year and a half for me to meet Alan to get him on board. And to in, he read about a little bit too, and he was kind of sold on that together. So we think 15, he started kind of conversing with each other. And I had a previous business because I had to kind of take care of that business and wind that down. So he agreed to help me to wind that down. And then we launched officially launched DiversyFund in late 2016. And so we launched and started putting those steps together. And I'm gonna kind of fast forward a little bit a few years, and it was fully took us to about the end of 18, to get our first non accredited, everyday Investment Fund was called qualified to the SEC, it was still slower back then it took months most some some cases a year, and some people, even 18 months to get it going. And then we really got to the technology improvements. And the product improvements really kind of kicked in, I would say in 19 in the middle of 19, which was. And that's really the day that the amount of investments came in were in the double digits through automation without salespeople. And that's what the dream was to do this whole thing just with automation, especially if you're using micro investors as your as your customers.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So, you know, you mentioned to me offline that diversity fund.com Provides access to wealth building opportunities, like, walk us through a little bit through some of that some of the features of that, and kind of some of the everyday investors around the world, specifically in the United States, but around the world, maybe walk us through a little bit about like, what's up with that? Why is it different? What's going on? What can they expect, by investing through diversity fund versus say, a regular traditional investment?

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I always like to talk about awareness and education. And that stuff and party feels like it's a little bit of Ed Tech with it, because there's so much education, so you have a whole group of people in the US. And if you look at it, it's what between 18 and 65, and a percentage of the population that is not, you know, non accredited, or about 11 that is less than 12% they're accredited. So that's like 90% of everyone else, you're talking about 100 to 200 million people out there. So that's your addressable market. And then you have different stages there you got some people some some some high knowledge and some people will like some basic knowledge and some people with no knowledge whatsoever, so you have to design this product that they can all understand. So first of all, it's like in the early stages, you're you're kind of marketing to people who kind of understand that a little bit so you just want to so they're the ones who could convert a little bit more and and and come across your platform level and a little easy to get them aboard your platform because they understand the asset itself and how it works. And as you kind of grow it out, you're you're adding a lot of components and adding a lot of a lot of education. And there's also not just the education is the awareness how to get that kind of word out there. And what is this? You know, investing into what it's private markets? What's what's a growth investment, how's this work? In, there's a lot of kind of moving parts there. And, yeah, we went out and we started doing that, putting all those pieces together. It was a pretty amazing journey. And you know, you start out with one, two, and then you get 100. And then all sudden, you know, we're pre pandemic for like a 2000. And post pandemic was like, close to 30,000. Right now,

Ryan Miller  
with our Yes. 30,000 accounts. Yeah, third thing,

Craig Cecellio  
these are 30,000 customers, we have had over half a million accounts people that okay accounts with us. So these are people actually invested dollars into it. So yeah, it's been a it's, it's quite so we obviously have product market fit here. And going back to what I was saying of how it kind of built it out, which is a little bit of a leap of faith to get there is put putting some money in in the marketing side to get there, and really kind of learning and how we create a narrative to people so they can really understand what this investments about how it works, what's the asset class we're putting their money into? And in unfortunately, for us, it's been working out pretty well.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, no, I would agree. Right. So, you know, when you're when you're pushing around when you're skating around 100 million, AUM, Yeah, I would say you're doing just fine. And you're just getting started, man. So you know, so you're saying, you know, some of the things that differ from just a traditional investment, or syndication or whatever, is it a lot of education, right. And again, there's been such a walled garden on these high yield investments that are reserved just for the mega rich, just to help them get wealthier. I mean, I'm overly simplifying, but kind of, I mean, that would be the experience of the non accredited investor standing on the outside of the walled garden and say, Well, what about me? So you're saying, Well, no, you haven't been forgot about at least that DiversyFund you have not been forgotten about. In fact, not only do we provide access for as little as 500 bucks to get into these things, but we also provide education to help you understand it, so that you can be right in lockstep with a lot of the I would argue, really putting words in your mouth, but a lot of the the mega wealthy will say the accredited investors and beyond you help to bring that world down to the everyday investor. So and then the assets that people are investing in, is it to, maybe, is it real estate only? Is it like, what is it that people's?

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, so I'll get all those back. Like, I like to say, the what the 1% does, the 99% should have the same opportunity, because that's the kind of American dream is about, it's about having the opportunity to build wealth. So let's read about role playing field, and so to the asset itself, so we're like, Okay, what should we choose to how should we choose that and all that stuff. And going in, I think this is where our background with my co founders background, my background, we we almost got distracted, but we chose right asset, we want to do something that was like, institutional quality, but something that we could purchase, and be able to kind of get those assets. So we chose multifamily kind of value, add real estate as our primary product. Let's just go for sake of this conversation, I'll be very kind of narrow about 200 units, we're looking at more of a kind of a b, where you can do light renovations, not heavy, there's always kind of great shades of gray with stuff. But light renovations are quick turnarounds, mostly filled with one or two year leases that we're going in, we're buying them distressed under stress for many reasons, we could dig into that. And in looking at where you are in America, and what markets are hot, and not really kind of chasing yield in those markets. And historically, these assets outperform the stock market in the s&p. And that's where we wanted to be doing something that hey, give giving people a private market as a class that they could kind of understand that's tangible. That's the whole that was kind of like one of the big things going in, because a lot of things like you talked about private equity, that I talked about oil and gas and all these things, this is like way over people's heads. And we want to get something tangible that they can really understand to get them involved with this. And this is kind of like the entry level kind of investment for alternative investments, and and then kind of building out getting a lot of going back for the customer so we can really improve their journey. And I call it their financial journey. At the end of the day. It's like, hey, everyone wants to come something that's specific to themselves. So how do we create this journey for our customers, this financial journey for the customers to help them their own wealth building journey, their own financial journey for themselves? So around that we started building tools, and we're constantly always building tools for them.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, incredible. So high yield investments. And you know, they get access to deals that normally they would have been kept out of. You get flooded with education resources. I mean, you guys already have like, I think what did you say 30,000. Early, you're close to

Craig Cecellio  
30,000 Close to 70,000 transactions. Since Yeah, counting.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah. And so, you know, you told me a funny story about Your worst performing investment, which is still pretty freakin awesome.

Craig Cecellio  
I don't know if we got it in 2020 or 2019. So whatever, let's play 19 or 2020. Let's just call it good. And and so we had I remember it was like kind of three units and not not three units like close a couple 100 doors. There was there was a fire. There was like frozen pipes. There was a, this was in Texas, because I think yeah, I think everyone remembers a winter storm a few years back, remember that? Right? And as the front of ice became a flood, right, remember that? You know, maybe I shouldn't be saying this. But since we saw the can there's a triple homicide on one on one. Oh, they're at the property. And yeah, you had your hand said, yeah, that Oh, yeah. You know, by the way, there's this thing called COVID that came around to so you know, then you had rents kind of just not people paying their bills right there during that time period, with rental assistance. So you have a full property with like half of them only paying rent at that time period. And we're still able to sell that thing and get close to I think it turned out to the LP level, about 8.9% return so close to almost a 10% return on something that was that horrible. One of those things should take you down, just one. And we had four or five things happen. And we still were able to perform. So we can say that we actually got that return so that for compliance people out there, I hope I'm in compliant, because this is crazy.

Ryan Miller  
But it's fact,

Craig Cecellio  
I just give up and cause the compliant world is crazy.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, gotcha. So your worst deal, you got nearly 10% when everything goes wrong. So that gives you a sense of the floor of Craig's ability. Everybody is just saying even in the deals that he does when everything goes wrong, you got frozen pipes, and fires and homicides and all these different things. Like yeah, next we gotta get pandemics. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, like we only got like, almost 10% investment off of like, when it's crashing and burning. So that tells you how good you are. At least it tells me how good you are at writing a good deal to cover your downside, but also the downside for your investors. Would you attribute some of that, that moment that success to the early lessons you learned from your mentor Frank Shaffer?

Craig Cecellio  
Oh, God, I hate the pressure barons to do their I think that's something that maybe came from from childhood and from myself, I don't know where that came from. It probably came from perseverance I think probably came from my mother at the end the day, but the the skills and the underwriting stuff. Yeah, they've taught me how to underwrite a deal, but really how to get through those obstacles. It's something that think was like my journey throughout my life and how I kind of went to the next stages with things. And that's how I approach things. It's more of my mind always, because how do I solve something? It doesn't look like Oh, my God and freak out. And it's more like, how do I solve it? How do we attack this issue? And I just, this is kind of how I'm wired. If something goes wrong, I'm like, Okay, what are we gonna do about it? Maybe too much, maybe too, you know, what's the same type day and there's type G, I think my friend said, Hey, we're more like type G, which is the type gorilla. So it's a little higher. So I like to dive in and just try to figure out a way how to solve things all the time. And constantly when you're not only manage this is managing real estate. But also I have a tech company, a startup at the same time, you know, you got employee and all this stuff going on. You're always like, how am I gonna pay my next bill? It's you have to persevere through all that stuff. So every day something's being thrown at you. And even at this stage stuff is still being thrown at you now. It's like, whatever. It's like, I'm so used to it. So I'm just like, it's like walking. It's like, yeah, at the water, you know, at the walk. I have to overcome adversity all the time. So it just kind of just comes normal and set and you know, yeah,

Ryan Miller  
For our fans listening, I would assume CrossFit probably helped you to break through walls. Craig Craig is unbelievably jacked. So you can't tell if you're listening to an audio but on YouTube, you can tell pretty healthy guy, right? health matters, it matters to be I mean, all jokes aside is pretty important. But you know what, we'll get into those. So as we round third base, and we're just kind of wrapping it up. You know, what are some of those takeaways for our fans around the world that I mean, we literally are in every country around the planet. What are some of those takeaways? I mean, you know, people, there's some people that are praying to God to talk to a guy like you and this is their moment. Someone like that. What would you tell them about some of the takeaways that you've learned on your journey towards making billions? What can you share with people around the world?

Craig Cecellio  
I am it's it was talked about as a kid it's like your dreams like going big. And for some reason, I think society naturally just least where I grew up was was kind of like you can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do that. So by my saying is go big. If you only have one life to live, you might as well go big. And so go big go try that dream out, what's the worst thing that could happen, and then, but by doing that, you, I don't consider it failing, you're doing something. And so by doing something, what happens, you get the feedback. And that's where the learning comes in. And then if you really look at that as learning, that's where the growth comes. So it's like do and I could have the same do, learn, and grow is caught, and then repeat, rinse to it again, and again. And again, that's what that's where it happens. So we all a lot of people have great ideas. And I've talked to so many people, and they just don't, you know, they're like, well, I should do this, or you know, that person who's like, goes and he puts together like, like, every which way, something's gonna go wrong and puts this elaborate spreadsheet together. And before they do it, it's like, hey, just do it. Just get out there, start doing it, right, you got to get out there and start doing things. So you can learn. And that's what I say to people is, hey, you know, you have a great idea. Just just you, you have that power within yourself to make it happen. So take that first step and just just do it, it really kind of looking in, it's not the external world, because it's kind of crazy out there. But internal worlds, like, Hey, have that belief in yourself that you can do it, and understand the stories of how everyone has done it before, that can motivate you. So I always like hey, listen to your podcast, or read this book, because you'll hear stories of people who have maybe a worse condition than you had in life, and they are able to do it. So that means you have the potential to do it as well.

Ryan Miller  
Awesome. So go big, go for that and do something about it. What else man? What else are what are some other tips that you've learned along the way that you can share with our fans around the world?

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, the doing is going is the failing as part of it doing and I want to just talk about like, you always hear about failing, it's okay to fail you like you want it but it's good to fail, the faster you fail, it's against the better because it's salary at the process. Yeah, within reason, right, you gotta be reasonable about that stuff. So that's good. And it really, I mean, the last tip I learned was doing things and really improving things like, like launching things that are MVPs, minimum viable product, so don't be too too perfect on things, you really want to understand. If you're gonna get that product market fit, or people gonna like what you sell. If you spend too much time or too much money, or too many resources on trying to make it too perfect, you're not really kind of testing the stuff and getting that feedback to see people really want it. It's kind of living in your head almost at times, because I've noticed a lot of people, not advisors, some groups, there's all these great ideas, and phenomenal ideas. And then I asked them how many customers they have like one none this or that. So you got to kind of get it out there and you can test it, and then you can improve it too, right? Everyone has a different type of runway. And some people just do it. And they're doing it themselves. And they're one way to be as long as they want to do the project and stuff. Other people have money that's given to them or partners and doing stuff and you have set amount of time to do things. The other thing I was like, if you're very customer centric is really kind of reducing the friction for the customers at the end the day make that process very easy for them. We have an app now you can click the button and we use plaid, it connects to your bank account, it's really, it's under a minute to do the whole transaction, make it simple. So morning, their compliance was tough nowadays. So you want to get too simple. I think Robin is a great one that's made it super simple. Now they have a lot of issues out there. But you want to make it easy for people, you want to make it very easy for them to transact. And also what I always talked about the educational component is how do you communicate that stuff to people too. And so we're working on things that okay, maybe it's just not a long form, comment, maybe it's better charts and graphs and just trying to give them information in a manner where they would like to receive it. And that's kind of a saying that I've heard, gosh, I don't know where I heard this one from. It says, treat other people like they want to be treated. And so I look at that and a variety of different ways. One is that, okay, this is their journey, how have they taken information? How could I give them to the way that they like it, and always constantly improve that. And then a big huge component to do any of this stuff is yourself is you got to be balanced, you got to put yourself in a place where you are you You are kind of on your ageing, that you're kind of you're calm, you're you're not getting stressed out all the time. The anxiety, it does things are normal, we are well come from it. So it's really big mental health. But nowadays, there's so many tools out there that you could use. So if you're going to do this and try to burn the midnight oil, it's going to catch up to you you need to kind of incorporate that balance, whether it's like kind of going into event. I think you were saying something earlier about stuff in the daytime and go into it. If you need to go somewhere or go to an event. That's good. That's a good thing to do. Incorporate that it's the social part of your life into your daily schedule. It's exercise, something I love to do is exercise I make sure to incorporate that my daily schedule. There's other stuff out there to people could do but figure out what works for yourself. Work on yourself because if you don't then you're just not going to work. Kelly's gonna affect you in all areas of your life.

Ryan Miller  
Awesome, perfect. And so, you know, as we wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like fans around the world to know any last minute thoughts or connections? Or?

Craig Cecellio  
Yeah, I mean, a lot of things is, you know, this is, I believe, like doing things like this and trading something that hasn't been done for people before, is something that I really like to see people like, take the step and have all this innovation come out. Today, we live in this kind of world where all the stuff that's going on at the end of the day, we can't lose the fact of what makes this kind of a great place to live a great country to live as the innovators the entrepreneurship and stuff. So I say go for your dreams, hey, don't let all this distraction get in your way. Whether the markets great, the markets sour, there's always opportunities for everyone out there. Don't be distracted by that. And a couple other things tidbits is I always like to say, you try enough time to get the timing right. But as I kind of go My ageless is wisdom is your time and means a lot to things. And I always felt I used to think like, we're in real estate worlds like Location, location, location, but recently, it's been more timing, timing, timing. And if you stay in long enough, the timing will be yours where one of your ideas may take off. So

Ryan Miller  
yeah, I absolutely love that man. And and so you know, as we wrap things up, I hope everybody you enjoyed our conversation with Craig and I together. So, you know, learn about product market fit, which is really just saying, have you convinced anybody to do anything with your product, and use that to validate it? You know, another one that Craig said was, you know, learn to plan for the timing. Yes, location is good, but so is timing. You do these things, and you too, will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions