the biggest marketing channel that I believe is better than all of'em is just word of mouth. Welcome back to The Art of Connecting Podcast. This is your host here, Haydynn, back with another episode for you guys. And today I have Brett Burkey joining me with the Paper Stack Crew. I'm super excited to have these guys on because. I listened to a show that they did on their podcast, and I immediately was like, we gotta have these guys on the show, because they were dropping straight knowledge bombs about how to network with people, how to grow a business, how to do conferences the right way and utilize conferences to grow your network and your net worth. So I'm super excited to have you on the show today. How are you doing, Brett? Good. I good. Thanks. Good, man. Well, as usual, I wanna start with a, just an introduction. If you could introduce yourself to the audience, tell people who Brett is. Sure. My name's Brett Burkey. I am over here at paper sec, head of strategic partnerships. I've been here since the creation. I'm one of the founders, so we're going on 10 years now, which was kind of cool as a. May was 10 years when we founded Paper Stack. And so yeah, we just I've, you know, my background's in marketing, so I, I've been doing online marketing since 2005. Always was like into computers and just marketing and messing with the internet. And so that was kind of what I did for, and then I had other co other companies, other startups try to take something public on a pink sheet imploded and, you know, just had some. So a couple years where I, I didn't have anything to market and so I, you know, I, I was I'm still a professor, so I actually say they people contacted me to become a professor of paid search and online marketing for full sail. So paid search and SEO and affiliate marketing. So I did, did that. And then this, this kind of was something I stumbled into with Rick. So I've known Rick since college and I just happened to run him to him at the grocery store. And he had a huge problem with this, the whole mortgage note space, and I saw an opportunity to be to market it. And here we are 10 years later. That's awesome. Can you, can you give us a little high level of what Papert Stack is and how it works? Sure. Papert Stack is a platform for buying and selling mortgage debt. So in all, we're kind of moving into different verticals as well. So we started with mortgage debt, single family homes, and so we digitize the process. There's a lot of things out there, especially when we were just getting started. It was very wild west where, you know, this was a. 2000, I think 2012, I think when Obama was in office. He said, you know, I don't wanna be the president foreclosing a nation, get rid of this bad debt. We got, you know, we gotta clean up the zombie neighborhoods. And so what happened was, is it all just flooded the market, but it was a wild west. Like, you know, I have, I have the paper and you wanna buy it. And I'm like, well, send me the$50,000. You are like, send me the paper. Like, well, I don't, I don't know you. You know, so like, that's kind of how the. Whole market even happened to it. It was going, it was kinda like a old boys club you had, oh, I'll vouch for him, you know, type thing. And so that's unscalable. And so Rick and tj, the other two that would come from the mortgage note space they had a terrible trade. Sent$200,000 to somebody. It went sour. Not sour. It it, they said they put everything in Dropbox, but it was actually something called Box, which I don't even think it's still around. And they thought they lost all their money. They thought, you know, friends and family money, they're just sweating bullets. And they got everything eventually, but it was all just, just garbage. They had to work through it. It wasn't what they said it was. It was a mess. And so. That's when they were like, this industry is awesome. We can make a ton of money, but this process sucks. And so then that's where, you know, I kind of came in and, and then our fourth founder, Mike, we actually made the process digital. So you can go from looking on a for sale page, sorting, finding what you want to all the way to the end of it. We have built in escrow audits. The transfer docs everything's there. So it's all there. And it's, that's pretty much the gist of what it is. We, we've gone into d different verticals now, so we have a lot of land notes. We have mortgage debt, commercial debt, business notes. We sometimes it's home improvement debt. So so, you know, apartment complex right now, I'm, I just was working on it right before we got here. That's non-performing apartment in Daytona. So it's, it's all over the board. That's awesome. I stumbled across you guys because I'm working on building kind of my own internal marketplace for selling the notes that we originate in my hard money lending fund. Something that I found, I. And I guess, I guess you should never be share, afraid to share your ideas.'cause ideas are worthless. Execution is, is everything executing? So I will share my idea here. But we're creating a marketplace to sell our, our hard money lending notes as soon as they're originated. And I've had people tell me it's kind of dumb to do that because it's not, you know, there's no track record yet, but I've already sold one. And you know, we're selling these loans, 50, 30, 40, 50% loan to value, and they're paying out 11%. And so. I'm creating a marketplace and we've already been really successful with that. I, I was just looking into the process and Paper stack just kept coming up over and over and over, and I started listening to your podcast and learning more about the process. And then a friend of mine, Sierra, who you've met before at a conference, she's in Action Academy with me and she's all in on note buying and selling. So it's just such a really cool little niche community mm-hmm. That not a lot of people I feel like really know about, but I mean. What else can you buy that's backed by a first position, real estate asset that's gonna yield you 11% on your money. Right. Or sometimes even more, you know, sometimes the yields are 15, 20%. Mm-hmm. It's just, it's such a incredible investment, in my opinion. Of course. Well, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're so right. My brother's a financial guy works for, you know, fidelity and when I told him I got a a 20% yield on something that's gonna pay me out for the next, i, I think it's 2031. He is like, that's, that's not possible. Like it is possible. And he is like, no, it's, you're doing something illegal. I'm like, I'm not doing anything illegal, man. This, this, this is what it is. This is, I, the guy needed to get it off his books. And he's like, he just like, you can get really, really sweet deals when people are winding down a fund. So when they're winding down their fund, they have to legally sell it or they're, they go to the next year and have to pay taxes on it. It's a mess. So usually in December. You think it would be quiet around here? It's, it's not. It's, it's, it's wild because people are like, you know, dropping deals and I, you know, it's one of the guys' like, look, you know, I, I know him. So it's kinda like one of those things where he's like, he's like, I need this gone. I was like, well, well if you put it here, I'll take it. And he is like. Come on. I was like, I don't, I, you know, I had an offer, you know, like, and he is like, all right, fine, whatever. Just take it. Get off my hands. I was like, perfect. So like, wow. Yeah, you can get sweet deals like that in this space. You know? It's, it's, it's, it's neat. We do have we'll have to talk afterwards, but the hard money space, we have somebody that's, came from a pretty big company in the hard money space that's on our board. So he's he is helping us with the hard money side. You know, it's, it's, it's a different world. They'll break into.'cause lot people, they want the forward flow and so that's the most important, having that forward flow. But yeah, he's, he's on our board now, so I don't think it's the secret. I mean, you can go, his name's Dan Graham, so he was, you know. Like they had a trading at Pierce Street. So he, you know, in terms of hard money, he's got a lot of knowledge. So that's, it's not that we don't sell much because it's hard to take us as a platform, which might be different for you'cause you are the owner of it, you know, so like and they're, you're no. So for us it's hard to take a fee when it's like, I put all my money into it, I need a hundred percent back. You know, like, so that's the hard part with the hard money. We worked in like a, a strip for the buyer when the buyer buys, as long as they keep a service with like FCI or one of the big servicers that we could take a strip over the lifetime of it, because you don't know hard money. Someone might, you know, you might originate it and then someone buys it and then they paid a, a, a fee and then like next month they had to pay off and like, well, crap, I just lost money. You know, so there's this. Right, right. That was a hard one to figure out, but with, I think we've got a, a viable solution for that. But yeah, just it's something to think about. That's exciting to hear. Yeah. I'm just kind of building it myself because. I couldn't find it. And that's what I, that's what I continually do in my entrepreneurial life is if you're, if you're looking for something that you're like, this makes sense, right? Mm-hmm. I'm sure like you guys wrote a paper sack, it's like, this just makes sense. Why doesn't this exist? Yeah. And then whenever that happens for me, I just go build it. And I'm like, yeah, because if, if I have the problem, I guarantee you someone else does. This isn't just a, a crazy idea that I have. This is a product that should exist. So I'm like, may as well just build a marketplace. And so I'm just starting with the internal, you know? Mm-hmm. Just building out my CRM an extra list. But who knows? Maybe eventually it would become an actual like, marketplace where other people can plug into and all that type of stuff. But I, I don't really have any desire to do what you guys do. Like you guys do marketplace really well. I'm just like, I wanna sell my notes. And so it's, it really cool to hear like what you guys are doing and, and see how Paper Stack is changing the industry. We'll have to, we'll have to definitely when enterprise is done. So one of the main things that we are doing with Enterprise is, is making it white labelable. White labelable, if that's a word. Like where, you know, you could just have your own, you know, you're just like, here's yours. We are, I mean, they've already designed like, you know, uploading your color schemes, uploading your logo, you know, the emails come out, they have your branding. So all that stuff's in the works. And that'll be out probably, I. You know, I can't say,'cause developers, you know, that they're supposed to be out like last month and you know, it might be maybe more fall, but there will be that ability to have a white label. So you, you know, if you don't want to go through all the, it's hard man to build a platform. It, there's a, a lot to it. I mean, I, I get jealous of some things like, like slack or something or something simple. I'm like, oh my God, these guys paid billions on something so, so simple. Just it's, it's really like a wrapper around a website. People don't know. It's like ELE electron app, that's what it is. And it's just an JavaScript electron app. And they created all this stuff for themselves internally and now it's worth billions. And it's like, ah, yeah. You know, the app we we're building is, and that's what my, my, I have a mentor and he's also a software owner and he is always, you know, always gets on me. He is like, what is taking you guys so long? So me and him went we did this, this retreat, and I. Busted out my computer and I was like, this is what's taken so long, man. This isn't a simple app. Look at all this stuff it has to do. And he was like, whoa, that's, that's a big app. So yeah, that's but once it's done, it's gonna be really, really cool. And so it's we're, we're doing a, a funding round right now to kind of. Those enterprise, you know, it's, it's a different, it's a different ball of wax. You go to a conference, you can, you know, it's single note buyers enterprise, you're going to, you're going up to Wall Street or you're going, so it's like in those conferences, holy crap. I was like, that's a lot of money. Like, just to be there. Like, and that if, if you're spending that much on a conference, you better get something out of it. You know?'cause that's, they're like, you're talking 20 Gs to 50 to a hundred. You better walk away with something of value or that's a giant waste of time, you know? Wow. That's a perfect segue'cause I wanna talk about conferences. This is really what drew me to you guys. So say there's that$50,000 conference. Mm-hmm. You know what time it's gonna be at and you know where it's gonna be at. What do you do if you don't wanna spend that 50 grand to go to the conference? That's a good question. That's what I've been planning actually. So a lot of times when we like first started. I would target people, which sounds kind of creepy, but it's not. It's like, you know, I, like, I, I get the, my goal is to get the roster list of who's site, who's going, and if I can get the, the HOVA app or whatever ahead of time and have enough time, you know, wait, what is that called? Figure out ways to Hova eight W-H-O-O-V-A. And, and then a lot of, a lot of conferences will have that. And then with that you can kind of see who's who. And then I just do some background research on people. I use tools like hunter.io to get their email address. And you know, it's basically, Hey, I, I'm gonna be at this conference, da da da. But then I, I used to make like a, like a, a dossier kind of like, you know, I, I kind of go look at what they, what they're into, you know, what's, you know, what's their hobbies, you know, where they go to college, you know, kind of things like that. And then I would hand it off to. Each one of us like, all right, so tj, you know, TJ was he was like a professional golfer before, and so it's like, all right, tj, this guy loves golf. This is your, this is, this is your people. You gotta not start talking to, you know, Hey, you know, these, these guys are, he's a, he, this guy's an avid hunter or something like that. That's Rick's guy. So there's that thing to where they have something that's not about, Hey, let's do business together. It's about let's, let's get to know each other first and have some common ground. Like what can we talk about that's like. Oh yeah, we're, we're getting along just fine. Like, we have a, it's funny, like, like, like I have a guy, I haven't talked, I haven't talked to him like a year, maybe almost two. But for business notes, we just, we just really started working together again to start listing business notes because there's a, it's called the, silver tsunami. So basically it's this what it's called. There's a lot of people get to that age in their life where they're like a business owner and they're selling off their laundromats. Well, a lot of times if you can't get an SBA loan, you're doing seller financing. Well, there's no option for. Where the heck do I want my money now? What do I sell to seller finances in? So these guys are doing something like that, and we're kind of working together, all that to say my background's in music. So I was a professional musician for Disney and I've played my entire life. And so so he was too, you know, not a, not for Disney, but professional musician. So me and him are, you know. I hadn't talked to him in two years. I was like, you still got the wall full of guitars, man. What? He still on Spotify. So it was that relationship before it was ever business. You know, it was like, you know, we, he's like, oh, what's up dude? So I was like, yeah, I mean, this guy is, he's a buddy. You know? Like I could text him, you know, whatever. But it be it, it wasn't because I. It wasn't a, it wasn't business first. It was, Hey, look, these are things that we have common ground on. As long as you can kind of get that, people kind of, the, the wall comes down a little bit and they're like, oh, this guy's cool. I like this guy. I mean, so yeah. You're, you're utilizing a lot of strategies from this book that I read. Have you ever read Never Eat Alone by Keith? Oh, yeah. Razzi. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you ripped his playbook off, like one for one. Super cool. Yo, he ripped off someone else's playbook called, it was called Dig Your, dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. And that was a playbook. Ah, there you go. Back in the nineties. And that, and that was, I used to read that one. I don't know if that was a Brian Tree. It was somebody who. Talked about this. Like you, if, if you, if you eventually wanna do business with people, you take'em out, you ask their, their advice, their, you know, you get to know people. No one likes the, you know, cold approach. You know, you dig your well before you're thirsty. The idea is when, when time comes at you, Hey, look, I got this thing. Oh, I know who to call. You know, it's like, you know, like even my, my friends are always, like, it's, it is funny'cause I realized eventually, this was years ago, my wife was like, you gotta stop being so nice and just like hooking everyone up, you know, like, you're, you're too nice, you know, everybody. And I was like, well, I mean, what goes around comes around, I guess karma. I mean, if I'm good to other people, hopefully it'll be good to me. Like, but it's funny, she was like, you know, it was, it was a very true thing. Like one of, one of our friends, she, you know, unfortunately, she, she, she's passed it, but she had, she had cancer, so she had breast cancer and stuff like that, so she had to get a wig. And so she's like, I went downtown to the, you know, and then she's like, I'm not finding wigs for people like with my hair. And we're sitting there in her living room and she's like, I bet you know somebody that like sells wigs, don't you? And I was like, I. Yeah, I actually do. Yeah, I do. I really do. And so I was like, you want me to call her? And she's like, yeah, can you call her? And I was like, sure. And so we went and met her that Saturday at my friend's warehouse, and he's like, she's like, how do you know all these different people? I'm like, well, first off, I grew up around here. You know, I, I moved away. I came back, but I also have two brothers. So my brothers are just as. Talkative and you know, you know, extroverted as I am. So we just, we just know a lot of people, you know, like, yeah, I just know if I need this, I go here. But it's all because I built relationships over time. I never knew I was gonna need a wig, you know, for her, you know? But like Got it. You know, it was, it was, you know, it was simple, but it was just, I realized that then I was like, man, I networking is like. Something I like to do, and then I realize some people don't like to do it. Some people get exhausted. It'll take all the energy out of'em. They'll be just like, spent we'll, you know, talk about there's, they're spent, they're tired by like, you know, the end of the first part of the day, like, whatever, man, I'm changing my shoes, taking a shower, I'm going back out. Whatcha talking about I'm having fun? Right. So I think it's just, it's just people, the way they give energy back and forth. Some people just, it drains them. For me, I'm like, yeah, I love it. You know, it's, it's, you're a connector. Yeah. It's just kinda what I like to do. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm the same way, but I do have limits. I learned I have limits. I was at Race Fest last year at Capital Raising Conference and okay, man, by five o'clock I went to my room and I go lay down for two hours and came back. So I was like, man, after two days of yapping. I was spent. Even me was, even me. I was spent. That usually doesn't happen, but I can see that, that, especially if you have a booth. So when we, when we get booths, it'll, it'll tire you out.'cause a lot of times you're standing on your feet. You're standing on your feet, you know, for hours. And if nobody comes by, then it just drags out. You know, if, you know, so we've been to a couple, couple conferences, which, you know, just, you're just kind of standing there. It's like. Oh, this is dumb. You're just kinda standing there and no one's walking by, or we got a crappy location in the corner or something. We, we, that happened to us at one conference or there's not enough people at the conference, not enough people signed up. So it's just, but it is what it is. Sometimes. It's interesting though, those conferences where there's half the amount of people that you expect. Mm-hmm. I feel like it's about your outlook of how you look at that. You can be like, Ugh, this sucks, this blows. There's like 200 people's conference, there's supposed to be 500. Mm-hmm. Then it's if your mindset is that there's no one good there because there's less people, then you may miss out on that one person that was there. That could be a huge client. It could be a huge connection for you. And you actually have an amazing opportunity because now there's 300 less people in the room to distract them from talking to you. Yeah, man. You're, you're, you, you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. I mean, like, we, we've done that before when you know, like we've done, well just recently we went to a conference. We didn't get a booth'cause we knew it was gonna have a smaller turnout, but we were very strategic with what we did. So it's like, okay, well we got a couple nights here. Who are we taking to dinner anyway? We're and then there I was saying, I was like, well, we could spend five Gs on a booth and talk to, you know, you know, a lot of people and, and, and some people might be brand new. Some people, well, we probably will know some of the experienced folks, you know, but it's like, you know, I, why don't we just spin 1500 bucks and just get a group of like the solid solids in here. And that's just make it like a bonding experience. Like, you know, like, you know, bring a couple that we don't know'cause then like around dinner and you know, get a couple drinks and people, information starts flying and you start really getting the nuggets. I mean I learned all kinds. We just did it just I didn't, we didn't know it was this one, but the last one we were at, we at the aquarium. It was really cool. It was actually really cool fish everywhere and stuff like that. But, but you know, sitting there next to the people, people I've, I might've said hi to, but I'd never, I never got to know. But, but then sitting there, I was like, man, I, first off, they, they're all, they were all very smart. A couple of'em owned a servicing company. They're, they're just smart people. So just letting them roll. And that's the other thing is I'm, I like to ask questions. Like, a lot of times I'll just, just keep asking like, you know, just to learn and, you know, it's, i, I don't know. I think it's, it's the fastest way to learn. You know, I've, I've done that before when I was at a, my wife hates it, but I was at a a kid's birthday party. One of my, my youngest or oldest was like four. So, you know, so I'm like, I'm, I'm show up there. I'm like, God, I don't wanna be here. It's like, I don't know anybody sitting here, there's a pool party. I'm just sitting around carrots and celery dipping it, you know, just eating stuff. But I, you know, I like to like garden and do things. And so. I, I, this one guy, like he, he said, he said the wrong thing. He's oh no, I have a whole big farm and this and that. I do hydroponics and da da da. I was like, and aeroponics. And I was like, no way. And so the next thing you know, I just have Evernote open. I mean, it was like a straight up interview. I just had this guy corner for like, probably like the entire party, but it made, you know, and my wife afterwards, she's like. You annoyed the crap outta that guy. I was like, I'll never see that guy again. So I got months and months of education, but I was like, she's like, that's, you were so annoying to him. I was like, I don't think you get it. People like to talk about what they love's. I was like, so, so they liked to talk and, and, and the, and then I bet you a a hundred bucks and guy left and he didn't realize why he liked me'cause I didn't say anything. You know, like, it's like I didn't talk the entire time, but he's like, I like that guy. Probably. Yeah. Most likely. Yeah. You know, because he's, as a business guy, I would so much rather I. Meet a business person at a birthday party, then shoot the shit about something that I do not care about, right? Mm-hmm.'Cause then, you know, if you're talking about something that you have no interest in, or the other person, you know, it's just like small talk, right? It's like, oh, so you've got kids? Oh, that's cool. Mm-hmm. You, you know what I'm talking about. You just, it goes nowhere. So if you meet somebody, you know, if I go to a party, it's like, yeah, I am, I own a startup company and we do this, and then I'm like, oh, no way. How do you do this, this, this, this, this. They're gonna be like. They're gonna be locked into that conversation. Mm-hmm. And they're gonna enjoy it. Oh no. I enjoy too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same wife. Yeah. She's always like, you stop talking about business. You know, we're here to have fun. I'm like. I am having fun. This is fun for me. I, I love these conversations. I have a, a buddy and, and we'll go out to lunch and, you know, he is, I've known him forever, but we'll talk, you know, just real estate stuff, what he's doing, you know, just strategies and, you know, you go in and you think, like, your head's toasted, but you're like, man, all those nuggets. And you're like, yeah. I'm like, man, I could just do this one thing. And oh, it's like little things and that's a problem. It's like there's so much information to, to like to go over that. It's like. I'd rather I called it like sponging is what, like when I used to play guitar professionally, they would, they would call me the sponge because I would walk, because I would sit in the, the break room. These guys were older and they were in their fifties. I was I was in my twenties. And so they're really good musicians though. They're like, you know, I thought I was good, but these guys were pros. They're like, you know, awesome. So I had a little recorder and I would just sit there and like, they would be doing riffs and different things and stuff like that. And I would just listen and I'd watch their hands. And then, you know, I'd go home that night and sit in my room and I'd play the recorder. I could do it and I'd show back up like the next day or something. What? How'd you learn that riff? I was like, well, you played it. I was watching you. I listened. And they're like, dang, sponge. And so after that I was like, you know, it was called sponging. Just like let somebody talk on a topic they love and then just let'em roll. And it's like that would've taken me, I. Trial and error books, podcasts things that you just wouldn't know unless you did it. The hard knocks way, like the lessons they learned along the way, well, I don't wanna do all that. I want to hear this person talk for an hour and I want to take it all in. And it's like, wow. I just kind of like almost kneel myself in the Matrix. I just downloaded all their information. You know what I mean? It's not, now I got it. You know? So that's, there's a quote that I wrote down as you're talking,'cause I wanted to say this. I was just at book club. I was telling you about before this, and one of the co-founders of the fund that I work in, he's wildly successful, I mean, has had multiple billion dollar exits outta companies. Wow. And I asked him, because we were a book club, we just finished this book, and I was like, Ted, do you have any recommendations on books for me to read about capital raising? And he is like, he, he said this, he said, if you, if you're raising capital. If you ask for money, you'll get advice. So if you wanna raise capital, ask for. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And if you ask for money, you're gonna get advice. Right. So that there's those two things. And I was like, it really clicked for me at that point. I was like, why am I looking? I'm looking at this total wrong way. And then he mm-hmm. Then he went on and I was like, oh, I'm kind of stealing your advice here already. And he started asking me questions about my fund. Right. Because I asked him for advice on how to raise capital as someone who's successfully done it. Yeah. So that's such a hack. To mm-hmm. You're talking about the download, right? Mm-hmm. Like go to someone that's raised, you know, a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars, or whatever the number is, and the number doesn't matter. That's been successful in capital raising. Mm-hmm. Go and ask them for advice on how you raise capital and. That's, I'm about to implement that strategy to the max.'cause whenever someone gives me advice like that, I take it. I don't just sit there with it, especially if you act on it. So, I mean, it's more for them to like say it and then you don't act, but like Yeah. You're, you're, I just, I kind of, I wasn't trying to do that just recently, but I stumbled into it. So I, I my, my oldest daughter, she's now, she's 15, so we're trying to get her job. She couldn't find a job. And I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I've been like this my entire life. And you know, I think, I think there's value in working for somebody else and kind of going through understanding, having mentors and, and all that, you know, but I also want her to have a little bit of the, the bug so she at least could catch it and kinda understand how to, what a p and l is, how to, what a balance sheet is. You know, all these different things. How she could learn. But I was like, you know, you know, I get I get killed in taxes'cause it's just, you know, we are our C corp here, so I just get hammered. So I'm like, I need write-offs. I need write-offs. My daughter to be an entrepreneur, and I've done e-commerce a lot in the past. I was like, maybe let's do e-commerce again. But I was like, Ugh, e-commerce man. Someone rips it off. It's so competitive. Just a pain warehousing, you know, FBA, all this. I was like, that's so much. I was like, what is something she can do? I was like, I need to have the write offs. I wanna have, you know. Like, what about a vending machine business? And so I started looking up that, and I started was like, man, this is the 91% success rate. I was like, huh. And so I found one and I was like, shoot, there's already one done. So as I got the course on it, I was gonna learn and start calling. I was like, this is a lot of work. I don't have time for this. I got, you know, I gotta focus on Paper Stack. But I was like, I'm at cold calling schools and stuff, so, but I, I, I, well I was like, lemme just go to biz Buy, sell. Lemme just see what's on there. I went to Biz Buy Sell. I was like, what? Whoa, for real. It's like one like 20 minutes away with two routes right next to each other. I was like. Interesting. So I just, you know, emailed the guy and da, da da da. Point being is like, you know, I, you know, I always try to trust my gut. Am I doing the right thing? You know, I pray about it. Is, is this the right thing? Should I do this? You know, sh does she wanna do it? Da da da. And then, so I was calling one of the guys that I respect, you know, he is, he's younger than me, he is retired. He is just a smart guy. And so you know, and asked him, I was like, what do you think, man? You, do you think I'm doing the right thing? You know, like, I, I appreciate your opinion. It's like, yeah, no, everything seems to number out correctly. He's like, as long as it works, even at this level and below, you'll be making money. And I was like, yeah, I just want her to make enough to have money and then I wanna have the child tax credit so I could write it all off. You know? So, so, and I was like, yeah, okay. I'm just gonna have to go. They have a, a loan option, I guess I'll go try just, I'll check out their loans and I'll just, I guess, get a loan with them just for the rest of it.'cause I don't wanna buy it out. Right. That's a poor placement of money, I think. And so he. How much you need. I, I told him, I was like, he's like, I'll give it to you. You're good for it. I was like, fuck you. What? Really? He's like, yeah, man. I was like, so I gave him the, he said, just tell me what they got. And so I gave him the rates and he is like, just, just, just write up something that you want and I'll just, I'll fund it. I was like, I'll write up something that I want as a 2% interest rate for 30 years, you know? And I was like, I was like, oh, okay. I gotta make it like something where he's making money and I can, you know, so I was like, oh, 8%, 10 years. He was like, sure. I was like. Dang, I could have gone to seven you, but like, you know, I know. I was like, I, I was saying like 6%. Yeah. I, I had to make it worth as well, you know, I was like, you know, it's like, hey, hey, you know, here's 8%, 10 years, you know, this is, and so, but it was the same concept. I came to him for advice just because I, I trust his opinion, I respect his opinion. And then in turn, instead of me going and getting a, along with these people, which would have an origination cost, which was gonna have the underwriting, which was gonna, you know, ding my credit, I got, you know, went to him and he is like, yeah. Send me, tell me what it money, where's, where's it go? Yeah, where's the wiring? Where am I wiring it this way? And so it's like, and the cool thing is, is he has a fund, right? And so I invest in this fund, so I'm like, it, it's this funny thing where like, well, I'm investing every couple months into your fund and you're paying me back, and now you owe my notes. So I'm investing into your fund and you're paying me back. But I. I'm paying you like, yeah, like, it's just weird. I'm like, it's, it's a little funny. Entanglement a little bit, you know, it's like, but it's a, it's a fun and it's, you know, it makes the most sense to me. Instead of buying like, you know, hundreds and hundreds of notes, they buy hundreds and hundreds of notes and I go, here you go, here's that. Pay me three 50 every month. Great. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's exactly what we do with Acadia too. Yeah. Oh, do you? Yeah, we, so we're a fund exactly like that. You know, you. Instead of you trying to become a private lender and learn all about how to make three points and 13% interest on great loans. Mm-hmm. We already know how to do that. So invest in our fund and we give you eight to 10% on your money. Mm-hmm. Completely passively. And then we do a 50 50 split at the end of the year for our investors. Yeah. I mean, that's what's, yeah. That's awesome. It's, it's, yeah, you can invest and you're investing, like the fund holds the notes, right? Mm-hmm. And then now we're selling the notes and making a spread on our notes. So I sell a note premium, so we make a 2% spread when we have no cost basis in the log. That's awesome. On each note that we sell. So yeah, it's, that's, we do the exact same model. Oh, hey there. It's me again. I know you expected Morgan Freeman to come on and talk about the biggest company in the world. Well, I'm sorry, but you get the next best thing. This show is sponsored by the company that I co founded, Acadia Capital, and acadia is a hard money lending fund originating loans in Southeast Tennessee and Northern Georgia on residential one to four unit renovation properties. We are regulation D five Oh six C fund and are actively seeking accredited investors. We provide fantastic first position real estate back returns. If you're ready to get your tired and lazy capital to work with a minimum 8 percent return, go to Acadia loans. com backslash invest. Not only do we accept standard investments, but we can also accept self directed IRAs and other self directed retirement accounts to take advantage of tax advantage investing. Thank you so much for listening to Art of Connecting now back to the show. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's funny when you start to learn how. Know, it's a, it's a blessing.'cause I, I, you know, my background being in marketing wasn't real estate at all. You know, like I had, you know, before this, it was e-commerce. I did e-commerce we owned candles.com, a couple other a couple other companies. And, you know, I was kind of running a warehouse full of candles. And, you know, I did EI did like a click bank with a lot of, so I, real estate wasn't in my. Path and that it wasn't I just never thought about it. But the more and more I hang around with people in this space, I more and more I realized if you're running a fund and, and you have a lot of money to manage, there's a high likelihood that you're not an idiot. Like you're, you're a pretty smart person. So like, you know, we go hang out with these dinners, you know, I'm hanging out with these guys that are, you know, there's dinners where we go to, I'm like. Wonder if we're splitting this or somebody picking this up because there's you know, seafood towers, it's like, you know, you're in Miami at the fountain blue and it's like, it's like this is gonna be a$5,000 meal. They're ordering bottles. It was and I'm over here like. I'll have a Caesar salad you, that was a long time ago, but I remember that night I was like, God dang, I should have gotten something better than that. Because you know, some, one of the, someone just, I got it and I was like, wow, that's, that's a lot of money. But they say this is the people that you know are running funds doing big deals, you know, making big moves. And it's like one of the guys is like, you put your cars in LLCs, you know, and this is what's new to me. Yeah, like so you, all your cars are separate LLCs. It's, yeah, but when you have a, a Porsche, you know, Carrera, you know, nine 11 and a, a Bentley, like you get in a car wreck, you look like a walking bank. Of course I have'em protecting their own little LLCs. I don't want that tied to rest of my stuff. And then just learning, I. All the different ways of, you know, IB, c and storing money in life insurance and, and just understanding the difference between amortized debt versus simple interest versus interest only. You know, like you're like, you know, understanding how to like move money to where you know, me and you can have this conversation, we could probably go on for hours. Like, but like when I try to talk to my friends, I'm like, just feel like nobody cares. I'm like, this is, this is the keys to how people become wealthy. Why are you guys not listening? You're like, this is what you need to do. Yeah, but people just don't, they'd rather just go watch Netflix. Right. That's crazy. Like, you know, like understanding, like, you know, I was talk, who was it that I was talking to one of my friends and I was like, I mean he, he had, you know, he got a little bit of money and instead of like, I, you know, to each his own, if this is what he felt safer doing fine, but he bought a house cash,$650,000. I was. Why, why did you do that? Like, you know, you only needed at most 20% down. You like, and he was like, oh, I just know I have no mortgage. I'm like, yeah, okay. But you know, what do you think your is gonna appreciate every year and how, you know, you know what you could have done with the difference of that capital, right? Like, and you could have put that to work and been making, you know, 15, 20, I don't know, whatever. A lot more than the appreciation on your house. Especially if there's a downturn, you know, then you, you just. So it's just one of those things where it's like, but you don't know what you don't know until you're in it. You know? Like until you're in it and you're like hanging around these people and you're like, ah. And it's cool because you, I realized after a while I'm like, you know, these, they're definitely, you know, further along, definitely smarter, but like, not, not smartness. It's like they just know things. I don't, I'm like, I can figure that out. You know? It's like I can figure that out. If you can figure out, they're not smarter. They just gain more knowledge. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not smarter than you. Yeah. No, you're totally right. More knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. Something that you talked about that really stood out to me, that I wrote down here. You were go, going back to the dinners you said, who are we taking to dinner? Right? Like, that was your immediate thought going into this conference of like. Who are we taking to dinner? And I thought about something, it's like, what if you asked the event organizer if you could put together a, a dinner for the speakers or sponsors? Because most of these events mm-hmm. They like want to take the speakers to dinner or whatever, but it's like their budget is tight. They don't make any money on the event. So what if you approach the event organizer and said, Hey, why don't I host an event for the all the speakers. I'll take'em to dinner to a nice restaurant. You can come too. And we're not even gonna, it's not even a sponsorship thing. Just let me come. Right? Yeah. So you just bought yourself a dinner with all the speakers, all these people that flew in, on their private jets or came in, they own these big companies. They're speaking at the conference and just by you offering a$2,000 dinner, you just got the ticket to sit with every single one of them, and you're the one paying the tab. I like that. Yeah. I haven't, I haven't done that yet, but that's gotta be on the list of things to do. I like that. I'm gonna have to borrow that one. Hey, take it. Take it, man. That's what we're here for. That's, that's why we're here. That's a one why the show exists. Yeah. That's awesome. And even, even like thinking about the sponsors of the event too. What if you did an event for the sponsors? All these people are dropping big money. Yeah. They sponsoring these events, right? Mm-hmm. So a, a big a video I made that was really successful on my social media was talking about collaboration versus competition. Mm-hmm. Right? A lot of sponsors, they're like, oh, this is our competition over here. You know, we need to fight against them to win the business. And it's like, mm-hmm. Why don't you collaborate with these people? Because I guarantee you there's some overlap where you can pick up customers that they can't handle. And likewise for them, customers, you're turning away, they can handle. You're already in a room with them, right? Yeah. Why not collaborate with them instead of compete? That's exactly what I did with the the last con dude, three conferences back now, and then I'm thinking about that was all the way back in. Late October, but it was a, the MBA conference, mortgage Bankers Association conference. And so we're there, and then there was different like platforms, you know, so, you know, I was like, hmm. So I mean, I walk the floor always just to kind of get a lay of the land, who's here, what's going on? And just checking out booths. So I always like to, we got a pretty cool booth, but I'll always oh, that's a cool idea. You know, something like that. And, but you know, as I, you know, was reading the PE a person's one of their pamphlets and I was like, oh wow, okay, so you guys are in the debt space too, and you, and they're like, yeah, we, we, we trade DS DSCR loans. So I was like DSCR loans. Okay, we don't really do that. You know, DSCR R loans. And they had a couple other things where I was like, I. You know, then I was like, well, let me get the, the, one of the people person's card that would run that. And then so we had meetings and I, I, I still have inside my CRM system platform partners, and it's all the other kind of people that have platforms. For example, there's a, a group that are kind of similar to what you're, what you're doing. They're they, they do hard money. They, they came from P Street. So they came from P Street and after Pier Street dissolved they kind of went out on their own and they trade hard money pools. So we had, I had one recently. I don't know where that's at. I'm not taking that. I'm not the, other business partner, TJ's running the trade desk, but he, he's, I'm like, oh. He's like, well, we got this hard money pool, da da da. I was like, oh, I got it here. Send it to them, see what they wanna do. And it's like, yeah, whatever. We'll split the fee, whatever, who cares? You know, like, you know, it's just, but it's like, you know, if we can do business back and forth, it's clients, you know, the only thing that gets really kind of hairy is how you work the NDAs. You know, like, you know, making sure you don't overlap and start talking to other people. Like, it just really, I think it's about a matter of respect, you know, like if I have a, you know, DSCR loan. Product that comes to us I'm going to'em and saying, look, here it is. Let's set it up and then we'll just make sure we both make money. I mean, it's, it's the difference between an abundance mentality or like a scarcity. It's just, just, that's just way it is. And if they think like a scarcity mentality, I don't think you're ever gonna concede, succeed you. It just, if you like, again, like you pay it forward, we help others out. I mean, I mean, karma's real, like, karma's legit, like it's, it's, it's a thing and I think it's as long as you. Always leave with your heart and your mind and, and, and actually having some integrity. I think you're, you can just, you can go very far. What I mean Yeah. What also do unto others, right. Do un others yourself. Also do un to others. Yes. Yourself. Yeah. I, I mean it's, this is, this is the core of everything. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. So I wanna, I wanna ask a question because it sounds like you've had a really interesting career, right? If you own candles.com at one point, that's really cool. Lemme rephrase that so it doesn't sound like I, we, we. Back then used to be able, when, when exact match domains were like the hottest thing in the world. When those would rank at the top of Google, you could, you could contact the people via something called who is whatever, and you could find them. And so we would call business owners or people who I totally missed out on that. My dad said it was, I remember he told me, oh, you can't do that. Well, yeah, you could like back in like, you know. Early two thousands, you could buy like candles.com or like you could buy, I was gonna say I was gonna buy his company.com because they didn't have a website. It's like, that's legal. I don't think it's illegal. I mean, I shouldn't have listened to you because it wasn't illegal. I could have bought like his company.com and you know, then Yeah. But, so yeah, I was all, we were kind in that domain space, so we bought candles.com. You, it's a 10 year lease. You can like lease it. So we owned candles.com, but eventually we'd have to give it back. So like it was, hmm. Just for clarification. So it's not, doesn't sound like I'm lying, but we def technically owned it. Kinda like how you'd own a car, like a lease. Yeah. We leased it. You, I mean, you own a business, right? Yeah, yeah. You leased an asset, you still own the business, right? So yeah, that one, yeah, the, the warehouse melted. That was one of the reasons why we kind of went on on that one. Oh, your warehouse caught on fire? No, no. The air conditioner, we had it on top of a roof at one point for a lot of our stuff. And, somehow the air conditioner had gone off. We hadn't checked it for a while and it, I don't know if it was what was going on, but I was like, oh my gosh, we've lost so much product. Just, it's kinda like,'cause once it's kind of, kind of like melts a little, you can't sell it. You know, it's like, so what am I gonna do with all these freaking candles? I mean, for everyone's birthday and Christmas they're getting kind of, you know, ugly candle checked candles. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. So you mentioned you're a connector and I, I wanna, I want to talk and ask about like. What are some cool stories that you've had in building your businesses that could have only been through connections, like there's no other way it could have happened without the right people being in play. I mean, there's a lot of things I mean, I. For example, just recently we have a trade that's, you know, rang it closed real soon, I think it will this week, and it's a really big trade. But because of my connections with the people that are the buying entity other people that I'm working with on the selling side, they sent it to them. They sent it to them. My, one of my business partners sent it to him and they never got any responses. And then I, I'm on text. I mean, I go to their Christmas parties, I text'em, Hey, I got this stuff for you. Immediate, they responded, but it's because of that connection. You know, we've been on, I've been on their boats, you know, I've done all these things. I've taken my family to meet, you know, meet them. I, I was down in Sarasota for. I can't remember what I was down there for, but I was down there and, you know, as soon as I get there, I'm like, who do I know in this area? I'm like, oh, I'm taking him out to lunch. So I took him out to lunch. Hey man, just wanted to see how you're doing. How's your office? You know, you know, how are things going? Seeing how much they've grown, you know, super excited for'em, you know, you know, given'em praise. You've done it, you've done a great job. This is awesome. I, I really want to see you succeed even more. But I think it was just the fact of that connection, you know? It's a solid one because it's, you know, it's because I really do hope he succeeds in everything he does, you know, so, and I was really looking forward to seeing him, you know, I like to have a conversation with him. So I think, but because of that, now we're having a really big deal go down that other people that are close to me also sent him, but just didn't get the, the door open. Yeah, I, I have similar thing with that too.'cause I, I refer a lot of big deals, like I go to conferences and I'll find people that are doing. 30, 40, 50,$120 million deals. Mm-hmm. And we get'em onto the platform. And I work really closely with the CEO of our company, like the company that I do the commercial finance stuff for. Mm-hmm. And whenever they hit a wall, he's like, Haydynn, can you just shoot him a little, shoot him a little text. I'll text him, be like, Hey, how's that deal going with gumption? Like, oh man, I've been so busy. I haven't been able plug it in. They respond like that, you know?'cause it's like I've built the relationship with them. I've put in the work. I spent two hours, three hours, five hours talking with them. We had dinner together, we created that bond. And when you bring somebody else in that doesn't have that, you don't get the response. You don't get the same, it's like a mental ranking almost that we do in our heads of like, oh, Haydynn, like I need to get back to him. Mm-hmm. You know? Whereas it's like, oh, this random guy Jerry, like. You know, Jerry can wait. Well, there's also that saying that like, we could only keep about 150 people relevant in our, our head, I guess. Like, you know, if maintaining that relevancy, it takes, it takes commitment and time. Like I have, I have friends that like, even like, like business partners and, you know, acquaintances in the industry that like, if I'm stuck in traffic, I'm on the phone, like I'm, I'm not gonna waste that time. Like I, you know, like I, and even if it's just to reach out, you know. Something simple, you know, okay, what's up? You know, how you doing? You know, like just, you know, how's the fun? Did you guys close that deal? Da da da. And you know, I don't, they don't need to get on the phone with me'cause, you know, whatever. But they, you know, they can just say, yeah. And the, and the thing is, is just one more point, point of reference, you know, if I, you know, I say it in that 150. I'm not trying to, you know, add some manipulation or something, but it, it's true. Like if, you know every couple months, you know, they, you know, or the conference is coming up, Hey, I text all my, you know, guys in the industry, Hey, you going to this one, da, da, da. Where are you staying? What are you doing? Da da, da. You know, things like that. Instead of just getting there and just talk to'em, to'em, it's like, I have friends in the industry where, you know, if there's gonna be, oh, here's another good one. Especially if you're gonna be selling notes. Like, I will get. Debt in, and it's like, look, I, I just did it like a second ago. Like before I, I came here, I, I sent it to one, one of my guys that likes commercial stuff. I said, you're the only one who's seen this so far. This is just for you. I'm giving you first right of refusal to get, you know, look at it. If you don't want it, then you know, I'll pass it on the other people. But I wanted to, I wanted to have you see it first that I haven't done that with him, but now it's like that. Okay. You know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like I gave it to him first. It's like, you know, I want, it's like a. It's, it's a sign of respect because I know this guy can close on this. He's like, well, I'm gonna give it to 10 people and have all 10 of'em bidding against each other. When, if this guy can close on it first, I'd rather give it to him because he'll be, he'd be thankful. Like, wow, dang. Right. Thank you for bringing that to me.'cause nowadays, you know, stuff comes across our desks. I guess our, just the names out and we're not looking for it. Here it is. You know, it's just, it just, it just happens. Like, it just, you know, just, it just shows up and. We'll get a, a pool of 30 notes here, or, or, my one friend who owns he buys like strictly land notes'cause he's a land note investor. You know, I got a, a pool of I think 16 that are supposed to be here today. And it's, it's, it comes from my email to his email. Like, you know, I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna get it in. It doesn't even hit the platform. Hey, do you want these? Look at'em. You want'em? If you do, they're gonna be here. I'm gonna make a private transaction. So we make a PR transaction before between him and the seller. Seller's super, super happy.'cause he's like, golly, you've already got my stuff in a transaction. And I'm like, well, I know who's the players. You know, I don't want, you know, if you're bringing me something big like, I don't know, 50 notes, I don't want you to have, when you upload it to our platform, we've got thousands upon thousands of people I you are answering questions. It, it becomes. Bearable, not unbearable, but it's like, it's hard. You know, you got 50 notes, five or six different bids on each one. You're jumping all around. But if I'm like, if I could just take it to these couple guys that I know, orals that I know are players, I'm like, I'll just show it to them. If they can take the whole thing down, they're not gonna give'em a BS offer. I know they're not gonna, they're not gonna waste any time, but. They like it as a buyer.'cause I'm like, Mike, look, I respect you. You as a professional, you, you do perform and I want you to see this first. And then the sellers of course, dude, this guy sold my stuff within a week. You know, it's, it's, that's where I think, you know, just having those connections can go a long way because when someone else is like, Hey, they did right by me. You know, they were help able to help me move this like. My, I, of course, my background's in marketing. I know how to do SEO, paid search, all, all, all this stuff. We have social media. We have our own Facebook group, over 5,000 something people in it. It's, we have, we have our hands in everything, right? Podcasts, everything. But the biggest marketing channel that I believe is better than all of'em is just word of mouth. Like I've, I, I kind of gave up on asking when we were first getting going for the first couple years, because I was always trying to understand what's my best marketing channel? Where, where am I, where do I put more money? And so, and then I gave up when I talked to somebody on the phone and they're like, I was like, so how'd you hear about us? They're like, my Uber driver told me about you. I was like, your Uber driver, freaking Uber driver. Really? I was like, that's, that's, so that's kind of cool. And that's another thing too that, a lot of people like get surprised on and, but like, is that I still answer the phone. Like, I don't know, I I, in terms of like like the customer support line, like, they'll get on, they'll be like, wait, is this, you're the guy in the video, like your Brett, like you're, you're one of the founders, aren't you? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, what are you doing? You answer the phone like, well, what? I don't know. We had, we had a great conversation, man. I learned so much about you and you know, I know what you want. And or. They have a complaint. Well, I wanna hear it first. I want, I want to, I don't want a telephone thing. Well, I think they said this or did this. It's like, no, I, I wanna answer the phone. And granted, sometimes you get, you know, you get people that are like, I think this guy's punking me. This can't be a real conversation. Like, I've had people, like, can you just mail me the notes? I'm like, no, you can't mail you the notes. They're on the, you gotta go to the website. Well just, just print it off and put in an envelope and let, and then mail it to me and let me look at it. I'm like, you've got it. Are you joking? But you'll get that if you answer the phone, but you also get those wonderful conversations where I can think of a couple people in my head right now where it's like, all right, that guy came from the real estate space is in notes. Now I know what he wants. I could send that guy a$500,000 deal and he'll perform tomorrow. But I wouldn't have got that had I not answered the phone. Right. Is that what you mean? Yeah. And and the person that you hired to answer the phone may have not even realized it was an opportunity, right? Because you're just paying them to do their job. Yep. Just paying it from, yeah, so, and then you'll get those people that like, I've, you know, just, just little things that I wouldn't have thought of, like how to, just dumb stuff. Like I had a guy that bought a piece of land for 500 bucks, turned around and sold it for like 30,000, like, like two weeks later. I was like, how the hell did you do that? He's like, I changed the zoning. I was like. What do you mean? What's that mean? And so like you just changed the zoning to where like, it was in a place that could have been commercial, could be built out for commercial. This person didn't know that. They, they just, they, it was like a family in their family. They didn't want it. Stop, didn't wanna pay the taxes on it. I bought it for that much and flipped in a couple. I was like. Zoning. Huh? You know, like, like thinking, I'm like going, I'm gonna never figured that out. You know? I mean, so much. So that's that, that conversation happened years ago, but if I'm ever, you know, I'm ever thinking like, oh yeah, just, maybe that's another thing to try, see if that will work. You know? Right. Maybe there's a, an opportunity that's, you know, it's an easement or you know, maybe there's a, a land bank that wants it, or, you know, just, I mean, that's how the whole land notes even started. Some guy called in and he said, turn this land notes. And I said, sure. Put'em as other. He's like, he, he called me back again. He is like, how's, how do they look? I was like, I'm just, I'll be honest, man, it just looks like a bunch of rocks. I, there's nothing special about it. And he's like, okay. I was like, well, best of luck. And so then I, you know, hung up the phone and called me back like an hour later. He is like, Hey, I already a transaction. I was like, someone bought that. You know, because I'm shocked. It's just, just rocks and dirt. Like, no, no, I sold, I'm selling all of them. Like you're selling all those in within it. What is so special about this that I don't know. And then that's where I was like going down the land note path. And that's where we started attending, getting that world. And now that's probably half our business because, you know, they're smaller, so they're great for like entry level. You know, someone wants to get in the note space. They don't wanna buy a 200,000 note, they wanna buy a$10,000 note with her s self-directed IRA. They're like, well, I'll look at this land stuff. It's, you know, it took us on a whole different trajectory, but that just came from a simple, me answering the phone. Otherwise, it, it might have never happened. I mean, so, wow. Yeah. That's so awesome. Well, it's time to ask my final question. Sure. And that is, what is a connection to a person or group of people that changed the trajectory of your life or business? I ask this to each of my guests at the end of the show. Hmm. I mean, the guys I'm with now, I mean, you know, it's, some of these, you know, it's, it was just a random happenstance that I was at. I went to college with Rick, so, and, and Rick and me were friends, but not like sup super buds, you know, like, you know, they weren't, you know, we all had a group and Rick was always working, so we always had a job. So I never really saw Rick, but he lived a couple doors down, so, you know, but I knew of him. Yeah, we'd hang out and you'd have some beers and chill, but then I just ran into him. I would see him at things and he was, I knew he was in real estate and I'd see him at different events and, and then I just ran into him. I wasn't even on that supposed to be on that side of town. I was wearing my daughter's little froggy backpack and some guy comes up behind me and goes. Nice backpack and I was like, who the hell is that? I turned around and it's like, Rick Alan. I was like, what are you doing man? And then so that was it. That was a happened just crazy thing. I was kind of in that limbo stage where, you know, if you're good at marketing, I'm. It's great, but if you don't have anything to market that's your own, it kind of sucks. You know, I was very good at this, I'm very good at, you know, paid search marketing and having thi but I need the somebody else who has the problem. You know, I need a problem to solve. I'm guy with a whack-a-mole thing with no whack-a-mole. I need, I need something to hit. You know, like I need to go after something. That's when you know, thank God we, we met up again.'cause this was a huge problem. And so that was the most serendipitous. Kind of running into him.'cause I wasn't supposed to be on that side of town because it wasn't where I lived. And I usually didn't take my daughter to her dance class. And I probably would've never been wearing a, a little froggy backpack. And he probably wouldn't have noticed me. But, you know, like it was just one of those weird things that happened. And, you know, it's going on 10 years, you know, so it's, you know, and you know, I, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm very thankful for it.'cause it's like, you know. I like these guys. So, you know, it would suck to have to work with somebody I didn't like. But we all get along. We still hang out. I live in Nick's Rick's neighborhood. Our kids hang out. It it, we pass recipes all the time. We just have a good time. And so it's, I'm most thankful for that running into these guys to be where I am.'cause now I'm happy with what I'm doing in life, you know, and this is this is, I'm, I look forward to the future where people are saying like. You know, someone's like, let's, you know, they, they've given us offers to buy paper tech and I'm always like, not yet. Not yet. Like this is, the story is not done yet. We have to see it through. We are going through enterprise, we are getting to the end of enterprise and we're gonna build this out to be, you know, a hundred million billion dollar company. Then maybe the story's, but I would feel regretful and, you know. Whatever, if we sold for a smaller amount and then of what could have been, I wanna see what can be that, you know, I think we can do it. So that's the, that's the the best thing that's happened to me, running into somebody that changed the trajectory in my life. That's awesome, man. What a great story. Well, Brett, thanks so much for coming on the show today. How can people follow you, guys, reach you learn more about Paper Stack and what you guys are doing over there. I mean, just paper stack.com. You can, you can send a email to either me Reddit, Papert stack, or hello at Papert Stack, or just come and look at some notes. We have the podcast we need to get some more episodes. We did over 160. It's, it gets tough unless you're doing like these, the interview kind, but it's when it's just me and him, like in a room, like, like, what the hell are we gonna talk about? Now? You kind of run outta like, ideas to go off, you know? So it's like we have to get back on it and then we, we move to studio around. That's why we're not, it's not even all fully set up, but. We have the podcast, we have a, we have an academy. So it's a very well taught academy about notes taught by Rick. Mostly so we can get people that are more, we're not trying to be like super educators. We're not trying to, that's not our path, but we just want, wanna, we want educated buyers on our site. We don't want people asking, we crazy outland this questions and understand how to actually buy a note. So we, we price it. It's the cheapest thing out there. I think it's like 1 47. The only reason why is because I, I'd rather you've gone through this, got something instead of getting on there and asking like, am I buying the house? No, no, you're not buying the house, you're buying the, no, you're buying. So like, we're trying to keep that at bay. Like, hey, you, you, you, if you, if you really want to pursue this, this is the cheapest route to do it. Learn this, come back, then bid. You know, so, and that's pretty much it. So you, we got all those things, social medias the, the Facebook group is buying and selling mortgage notes. And it's got thousands of people in there and it's kind of noisy. It's kinda hard to control that. But best thing to do is just come say hi. Awesome man. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It has been so fun. This time has flown by, it always does on podcasts, it's like mm-hmm. You look up and you're like, holy crap. I've been talking for a long time. So thanks again for coming. And guys, if you're still listening, just wanna tell you a huge thank you for listening to the show. Without my listeners. It's literally me just like talking with some of my friends and new friends that I've made, so, mm-hmm. Thank you for being here, listening to the show. If you can just leave a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast and share the episode with someone if you got something out of it. Those are the two best ways to help a podcast grow organically. So with that being said, thanks for listening to Art of Connecting. We will see you on the next episode.