Ep53: How To Reach Financial Freedom and A Secure Retirement with Damion Lupo

Join us as Damion Lupo shares his rollercoaster journey from building a $20 million portfolio to pioneering FrameTec, a company revolutionizing the construction industry. Discover actionable insights on taking control of your financial destiny through eQRP, and learn the importance of niche focus for monumental success. So, press play to transform your approach to finance and construction right now.

Key takeaways to listen for

• Importance of resilience and adaptability in entrepreneurship
• How facing financial setbacks can lead to personal and professional growth
• Insights into the innovation behind FrameTec and its potential impact on the construction industry
• The role of eQRP in empowering individuals toward financial freedom and retirement planning
•  Why you need to invest in businesses with a mission and purpose beyond profit

Resources mentioned in this episode
Mastery by George Leonard | Kindle, Hardcover, and Paperback

About Damion Lupo
Damion Lupo, serving on the Board of Advisors at FrameTec, brings a dynamic blend of experience in private equity real estate, entrepreneurship, and finance. His career is marked by a passion for innovation and a deep understanding of market dynamics. As an entrepreneur, Damion has a keen eye for identifying and capitalizing on investment opportunities, which is instrumental in guiding FrameTec's strategic decisions. His expertise in finance and real estate equips him with a unique perspective on sustainable growth and value creation. Damion's role at FrameTec is critical in providing strategic insights and fostering a culture of innovation and financial acumen, ensuring the company's continued success and leadership in the industry.

Connect with Damion

• Website: FrameTec | eQRP
• Podcast: Financial Underdogs
• LinkedIn: Damion Lupo

Connect with Us
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Damion Lupo
It's something to think about when you're considering investing. Does the team have enough bandwidth? Are they big enough to have people doing the things? Or is the managing partner also going to be the plumber? And that's a problem. Just because the deal is sexy doesn't mean the team is built out enough. And that's hard. Because when you're small, you don't have the money to be able to do it.

[00:00:16] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to Retire Wealthy and Happy. Let's dive in. 

[00:00:40] Roger Jacobsen
Hello, and welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy Podcast. Today. We have Damion Lupo was the CEO of FrameTec and the founder of eQRP®. How're you doing today? Damion?

[00:00:49] Damion Lupo
I'm good. Roger, it's good to be here.

[00:00:51] Roger Jacobsen
Thanks for being on the show. We're excited to hear about some of your stories. Why don't you start with giving some of your bio your history personal and business to us? 

[00:01:00] Damion Lupo
Yeah, absolutely. So I have a guy that has entrepreneur, veins, and I can't help it. It's one of those things, whenever your entrepreneurial blood, you just tend to go out there and find problems and start solving them with businesses wrapped around them. And that started when I was 11. My parents telling me that we didn't have any money. And I wanted to play Nintendo games. So I went out and said, Alright, I'm gonna go figure out a business to go buy and sell Nintendo games. And really just because I wanted to play the games. And that turned into me starting a bookstore in college that got me thrown out of college because I put the other bookstore out of business. They didn't really like that very much. They said, either shut it down, and we're kicking you out. And I said, Well, this is paying for school. So I'm not shutting it down. And they said goodbye. So I said, Well, this is probably not where I'm supposed to be and, and in college in a traditional become a cog in a system. 

[00:01:42]
A couple years later, I found real estate, I was selling insurance with an insurance agency in the late 90s. And I found one of those books. It's called Fast Cash and Quickstart Real Estate by Ron Legrand and read that same time I read, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I went and bought a house on a credit card. That's what got me started in real estate. And that turned into this amazing process where I became a multimillionaire and it was all good until 2008 When my ego took over and went from 20 million to negative 5 million in 12 months. And I thought I had the world by the tail was driving a Ferrari I had 150 houses and everything went away, like lost the money, lost my house, lost my girlfriend lost my dog. I mean, it sounds like a damn country song. But it really was I was like living the dream inside of Nashville, and then had to really understand go through a process that took four or five years to really understand what happened. Was it just me losing money? Or was it me being off purpose off mission. And what I realized was, I really didn't have a mission except for money. 

[00:02:33]
And I see a lot of people in that same space where they're, they're chasing money, they're not really chasing a purpose. I see other people chasing their passion and saying, I'm gonna go do the thing that I love. We hear that all the time people say go do what you love, and everything else will follow you. And I laugh and it's not true. You can't just do what you love. I mean, if that was the case, we'd all be eating lucky charms and watching cartoons, or at least that we think that because as a kid, that's what we'd like to do. And so I think that there's a big shift that I made. And I think it's useful for people to think about when they're deciding where they're going to spend their time. And is it chasing more money? Or is it chasing some type of mission or purpose and not just a passion? That's fun, because I can tell you, there's a lot of things that we do to build success and significance that are hard, there's a grind. And it's not just all fun, a lot of that stuff actually requires sweat and blood. And that's part of the process of deeply fulfilling.

[00:03:19] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. You said you started in real estate, what have you moved on to now?

[00:03:23] Damion Lupo
So, over the last 25 years, I've started and run over 70 companies and they've arranged to have precious metals company that's actually been originally started by my dad back in the early 70s. It's in its 51st year, I've had insurance agencies, lots of different real estate companies. A retirement company called eQRP® that I found it now is being run by Parker Purcell, who you've had on the show and have a private equity firm with my partner, David Morris. And we've gone out there and look at unique sort of off the norm type of opportunities. We had a fund that we started called m&m It was precious metals such as gold and silver and many storage. And that turned into a crypto fund. And we've done some other things in land development and in technology and software technology. And ultimately, that led us to finding the deal that I think will probably put us on the map and disrupt the entire construction industry called FrameTec. 

[00:04:07]
And that's the most exciting thing when you can go through all the things sometimes wondering why in the world am I doing this thing and realizing it was a stepping stone to the thing that you're probably meant to be doing. But you have to go through the other stuff first. Like you can't just start on third base, like you got to swing a bunch of times you got to strike out you gotta go to first and then you are taken out. And ultimately, FrameTec is the Grand Slam. And it's it's something that looks like an overnight success story two years ago, it was an idea on a napkin. And today it's an enterprise that's worth half a billion dollars and is a company that was based on a mission to disrupt the construction industry that really doesn't get innovated, and it's the last big innovation in construction was the nail gun 50 years ago. 

[00:04:44]
So we've created a process that with very, very talented people that takes the building a house, the framing of a house, instead of it being a two and a half month process. We've turned it into a two week process and we've done it we're doing it with virtually no waste. So if you think about a house that's being built, you see a big deal. Mr. Fuller have trees that are going to the landfill. And in our process, you have almost nothing going to the landfill. And so this is what happens when you go through a whole lot of things and you keep growing and you keep innovating and you keep falling on your face and not quitting eventually, I think it ultimately leads us to the thing that we're supposed to be doing. But we have to go through the things that don't make any sense for sometimes many years. 

[00:05:18] Roger Jacobsen
That's really cool. So on FrameTec, I've been in the construction industry for a long time, it sounds like you're basically going to be sending out parts that are already built. So people aren't like cutting the individual framing components. Am I on the right page on that? Yeah,

[00:05:35] Damion Lupo
So it's completely vertically integrated. So imagine you have a design for a house, whether you're an individual or your builder with 50, or 100 houses, and you say, Okay, next step is we want to build the frame. So that's the next thing he walls, your floors, your roofs, what we do is we take those plans, we convert them into our CAD system, and then we build all those pieces, the floors, the walls, these are custom, this is not a prefab like manufactured house, it's your stuff, whatever you want, and we're building it in our plant, and then our team takes it out and puts it up on your site. So when we bring it out, it takes us a day to two days to actually put the entire framing up and you're good to go. So instead of taking multiple months, it takes a couple of weeks for the entire process. And it's very predictable. So you get to know exactly when you're going to have it framed and done. You don't have to go try to find framers, which is really hard. Now, it's hard as hell to get people to swing a hammer and the heat and the rain and all the elements. And all of that is taken out of the equation.

[00:06:24]
So as a builder, you get to predict, here's the day that my house or my apartment is going to be done. And then you put all your electricians and plumbers and you put them on the schedule, and they're right behind it. So it takes the headache out. That's one of the biggest hassles is the trusses and all the framing. And we've taken out the entire thing so that people can build the house and focus on that and have predictability. And when you build something in a manufacturing facility, your tolerances are super slow or super, super tight. So you don't really have the deviation that you'd have. If you're building and swinging hammers on site where you have things that are often it's you're not 16 on center, you're literally having inspector saying, Why did you build it this way? 

[00:06:59]
And then you say, Well, I guess my framer was maybe a little hungover. And so none of that stuff happens with FrameTec. It's very predictable and the highest quality, there's almost virtually no waste. The entire plan is either leads gold or leads platinum, so virtually no energy, because it's all solar being taken off the grid. So it's just a really cool product and process. And thing that serves everybody, all the stakeholders win. So it's pretty cool to be a part of.

[00:07:22] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. I imagine it's growing like wildfire right now. But as of right now, where's the plant? And how far do you travel to do that.

[00:07:31] Damion Lupo
So the first two plants are in Arizona, the first one comes online this year 2024. And the second one comes online, about 18 months after that, and between the two of them, they will serve the entire state of Arizona plants. It's kinda like mattresses used to be they have about a 200 mile radius, because you can imagine shipping all of the trusses and walls and everything on a truck, you're not going to drive your stuff from Arizona to Maine, the cost and it would be crazy. So what that means is that we're going to the first two plants are here. And then we have our target markets in the middle of Texas and the Waco area. There's potentially other places, but we've got those main markets that will cover about 100 million Americans. 

[00:08:06] Roger Jacobsen
Very cool. I love it. And that's gonna be interesting and wish you luck with that and look forward to seeing FrameTec houses in our neighborhood here in Utah. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about eQRP®? Yeah, so

[00:08:19] Damion Lupo
eQRP® was this idea. About a decade ago, I was watching a lot of people, including my parents that were retiring, and they were retiring, basically afraid, they're afraid of what was going to happen in the stock market. And they played by the rules. Most people play by the rules and and they just hope they don't run out of money, which is really frustrating fact, I remember, even like a few weeks before my dad died, he just looked at me. And he said, you know, there are so many things that I wanted to do. And he didn't get to zoom. But a big part of that was he didn't have the resources. And he didn't have the trust that paid have resources.

[00:08:48]
So he just didn't do things. Most people I find, are hesitating to do the things. And it's primarily because they don't have the resources that would make them feel comfortable in going out and experiencing the life that they want. And seeing that all over the place. And realizing that money is really modern day slavery, people don't know how to work with it, they just are told handed over to somebody else, and they'll manage it. And I'm watching the whole population in large part being afraid of it. So eQRP® came up, it sort of bubbled up after I started studying the tax code and looking at retirement accounts, because most people have their house, their social security, and a 401 K and the 401 K ends up being what they're really going to stand on because Social Security is it's minimal, and they're not going to get their house. So ultimately, if they're going to do things, it's going to be out of their retirement account.

[00:09:31]
And there are different ways of doing it. I mean, you could literally hope that it all works and you hand your money to a financial advisor and they're going to see is a death and you're going to retire and you're gonna have less money than you really want it to. And probably you're going to start using it in the middle of a stock market correction. So it's not really a good plan for people and there's ways to use it that people aren't taught using Roth accounts that you and I've talked about before. And ultimately you can do things outside of Wall Street eQRP® gives people all these choices. It gives people that control to be able to invest the money and things like apartments. for Bitcoin or gold or FrameTec, or almost anything they can imagine, and you're not beholden to the Wall Street and the system there that feeds you and just basically eat you.

[00:10:09]
So that was what eQRP® was envisioned to be, it was a place for people to have real control, and ultimately a team that supports people breaking out of the ignorance, because quite frankly, we're not talking about money or investing in school. We're not talking about it from our parents, in most cases. And so the team is meant to educate people and bring people together, we just had a big party with a bunch of investors here in Arizona, this last week had 100 People coming out. And we're bringing people together, breeding community and teaching them and then empowering them so that they're not doing it by themselves. And they're not having somebody do it for them. We're literally doing it with them. That's what it's all about. It's about building a community and empowering people. And then ultimately helping them break their own financial shackles so that they can make those choices and not end up dying with regret. 

[00:10:48] Roger Jacobsen
It's awesome when you can partner up with other people, and you get the synergies that grow into other things. And sometimes you'll be busy, and you'll look up and somebody else did it. And sometimes somebody will come up with an idea that you never thought of, and you can really go out further and faster. So that's great. What would somebody do if they were going to invest in a business with their retirement funds to vet a business and know if that was good for their retirement funds? Well, ultimately,

[00:11:14] Damion Lupo
Whether it's your retirement funds or your personal funds, it's the vetting and investment, the business is really the same process, the great thing about a retirement account is that you can do it and you can invest and potentially pay zero tax on anything when you're growing your money. And when you spend your money. So the primary thing is the people that are executing the business, and that's one of the things that's missing, I think, in large part, when people are trying to figure out what to invest in, they're looking at the deal, instead of saying, okay, who's actually operating this deal. They look at the apartment, or they look at the business and they say this is a great idea. Well, ideas are only worth about one to 3% of the overall deal. It's the operators, it's the actual execution, that's where all the juice is. That's where all the value gets created.

[00:11:53]
And quite frankly, when you have the problems, that's who solves them, the deal doesn't solve its own problems. So you got to have people that have been through the wringer. One of the things that I think is really important right now is you got to have people that have been around a while at least some people on whatever team that's running a deal have got to have been around for more than five or 10 years because they haven't seen cycles. Like we're seeing that in real estate right now. You've got tons of people that have only experienced a bull market, all they've seen is low rates or rates going down. And so in reality things cycle, I've been investing and running businesses for a quarter of a century, I've been through multiple cycles. Right now we've got this one of the things that's happening, we've got this crypto thing going on in the world, and I've been through multiple winters. Most people don't even know what a winter means. They just think oh, look, Bitcoin has gone up 400% for months? Well, it's the same thing with anything. When you have the experience, you've got a wisdom and innate intelligence to where you can see what's coming, because you can feel it.

[00:12:43]
And that's the key to investing with people that can see things around the corner, because they've been through, that's what you're looking for when you're trying to figure out what deal to do. It's doing it with the people that can see around the corner, and they can anticipate things. That's what you should start with. The deal is secondary, which is crazy, because most people go well, this deal is great. I'm like, well, who's running it? I'm not sure. But the deal. It's real pretty. I mean, that's not the right question when a question is, who's going to make this thing work? And who's going to drive it and guide it, go roll it and get it to go where you needed to go and fix the problems?

[00:13:09] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, we are about to have another Best Ever Conference that's near local to Salt Lake City put on by Joe Fairless. And it's moved for Heartland syndicators. And last year, we started hearing what was happening from Neal Bawa. And he was talking about the billions of dollars of apartments that are going to be going into foreclosure. And that was kind of a news to us, then it was definitely more of a I wouldn't say crystal ball. But he definitely looked at it and saw where the problems are going to be. So when you say look at the deal. And that's only a small part right now we're about to see a bunch of foreclosures. And those of us that are syndicating have pivoted and done our best in operations to make sure that we're doing everything to keep the deal good, even though it would have just been a screaming homerun with everything being the same back in the day. So I definitely feel that.

[00:14:01] Damion Lupo
Yeah, I think that that's everybody's learning that there is gravity involved. And a lot of people didn't really experience gravity, when you have a bull market. It's like, everything works, everything doubles, everything goes up. And that's the nature of markets. And a lot of that has to do with psychology, there's greed and fear. And there's the stages of psychology that you can google and understand where we're at. And ultimately, you really want to be looking at things deeply. When there's a lot of fear. When everybody's excited when everything is going up. That's usually a pretty good sign that you're about to get smashed, spoken with Neil and as an advanced with him for years. And he's accurate in its predictions. And it's fairly obvious that when you have rates going up, you're going to have assets declining in value, because the cost to actually trade those assets gets really, really expensive. And ultimately your free cash flow that drives the value of the property goes way, way down.

[00:14:49]
So right at this point, we're seeing a ton of apartments and a lot of other assets that people have syndicated where the value of the thing is less than the debt. There's almost no way to fix that unless you have a lender that Let's you drive the thing and says, Okay, we're going to hold on for a few years. So ultimately, most operators don't know how to operate bad assets. And so lenders are gonna say forget it, and they are gonna foreclose just like predicted. I have friends that have syndicated and they're good operators, and they're dealing with their lenders. They're negotiating and they're working with the lenders, and they're keeping the assets and their investors are not screwed. But they also are very open and transparent, which is very unusual. Because usually when things go bad, everybody wants to hide. I mean, I know what that's like 15 years ago, things went off the cliff and I wanted to hide.

[00:15:27]
And that's not good for investors, it's not good for trust. So hopefully, people have syndicators that are communicating through the good and the bad, not just hey, we made money. But hey, we're getting hammered. And here's how we're working through it. That's one of the greatest things that anybody can do. Because reality is investments have risks. The truth, though, is that people, I think we respect the transparency and the openness and the honesty. And it's not just about making returns all the time, it's about knowing that somebody's going to work their ass off, even when things get hard.

[00:15:52] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. When you communicate, it's not just an operator needs to communicate with their investors. It's also they're openly communicating with their mortgage gates, their insurance people, their property managers. And when you look at the communications, we are doing a lot of asset management that people just don't often understand, I hired a property manager and they're doing their job. Well, if I look at your deal, you're not actually talking to him, the property manager is not actually doing anything, it's a 55%, they can see two years into the deal. And why like you're not calling them, I would have called them like every single week over that time period, you haven't even like complained, you're not getting any money out of the deal. It's falling on its face.

[00:16:38]
And nobody's even communicating to the property managers. And property managers are definitely more likely to oil the greasy wheel or squeaky wheel, excuse me, because if you complain and complain and complain, eventually they don't want to hear another complaint and they fix the problem. And we get quite a long ways with that.

[00:16:55] Damion Lupo
I think it's a really important point that you're making that when something doesn't seem right, it's important to voice your concern, and not just sit back and wait and watch and hope like smoking a bunch of opium is not a good strategy, whether it's fixing your problems are making money, when you get here have enough when you retire, like you've got to take responsibility for your money. And when I've seen Rogers, a lot of people abdicate responsibility, they just say, well, so and so is going to take care of it, or it'll all work out. Or I guess we'll just see, let's see what happens. And I go, that is the dumbest strategy I've ever heard of. And people do it all the time. They don't want to engage because it's work. And you know, it work is it's a four letter word. So nobody wants to do it.

[00:17:30] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah. And you get so busy. And when do you do the things that are on the back burner, the front thing you put out fires, and then the middle stuff, your work. And then the other stuff, it's like, even harder to take care of rental properties. If you're doing your own property management, it's even harder to go in there and actually do it right. If you're not in the trades. You can't go in there and necessarily know how to fix a toilet or a dishwasher or faucet or whatever. And then you start postponing it and pretty soon you're unhappy landlord that wants to get out of it.

[00:18:01] Damion Lupo
One thing that I saw and along those lines, I saw a video, it was the managing partner for syndications by a fairly well known syndicator nationally syndicated a lot of seminars and things and this is common, he was voicing his apologies around the messiness of basically he'd run the portfolio into the ground by cross pollinating all the cash into different accounts, it was a big mess. And one of the things he said that stuck out to me, and I think it's really important for people to think about, he said, I ran myself too thin, I took on too much I didn't have the time. And unfortunately, that's one of the problems with smaller operations. I remember going through it where I was like doing everything, and like trying to figure out how to replace a toilet and manage people's investments and all this other stuff. It's something to think about when you're considering investing, does the team have enough bandwidth?

[00:18:45]
Are they big enough to have people doing the things or is the managing partner also going to be the plumber. And that's a problem. So just because the deal is sexy, doesn't mean the team is built out enough. And that's hard, because when you're small, you don't have the money to be able to do it. So it's just something it's part of the risks. When you think about the risks involved in the deal. Having a very small team is a risk. small teams can move nimbly, but they also have limited capacity. And oftentimes you have people doing things that they're probably not very skilled at, whereas bigger team bigger operator, guys, like Grant Cardone, for example, that have $4 billion under management, they have massive teams, or K McRoy, there's a difference. It's something to consider. It doesn't mean you shouldn't invest with somebody that has a small team. There's just one of those risks. And we're seeing a lot of that risk play out right now. And the consequences of people that have built up bigger teams. 

[00:19:31] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, we've absolutely seen a lot of foreclosures that we can look from outside looking in on their deal and say, Oh, they don't actually have any boots on the ground. They don't have any pre-existing relationships with property managers. They don't actually know the city or the neighborhood that they're investing in. They've done a little bit of due diligence and yeah, that particular city looks like a great investment. But the people that actually know the city are like oh, you would never buy in that neighborhood or or cross this line or something like that.

[00:20:03] Damion Lupo
That reminds me of one of my investments back in 2005. Six, I bought an apartment in West Haven, Memphis, how bad could it be? It's across the street from Elvis's house at Graceland. And so I bought this thing, I wasn't living there, none of the partners were living there. And we would fly in about once every month or so. And we take a look at with our contractors, and then we'd send them money, we're sending millions of dollars over to them. And they were having a great old time spending the money party and doing and a year and a half later, we're in the middle of this building stuff, we have no units available, everything changed. Like they painted it, and they repainted it.

[00:20:33]
And it was just like the same stuff going on over and over again, one of the things that I learned there was that when you have a project you need, like you said boots on the ground, you gotta have somebody there that's got skin in the game that deeply cares, and is not going to tolerate the bullshit that happens when you have people that don't really have skin in the game. Like sometimes contractors say, Oh, look, a giant dummy outside of our area that's just gonna wire us money every time we ask for it. And that's what I was, I was the giant dummy. It's a critical piece. I've seen a lot of deals where people are pitching something, and I say, well, who's the operator and they're like, Oh, we got a property management company. And I see what your property management company is doing everything remote.

[00:21:05]
And who's actually there? Well, none of the general partners are actually in the area, they're all remote. And I don't like that model. It doesn't mean it can't work. It's just really frickin hard. And maybe I'm just not that good. But I also know that it's really valuable to have people that are sitting there every single day that are in the middle of whatever the messes are, and can pay attention to it. Otherwise, you burn a lot of money and a lot of time because people don't see what's actually going on. And by the time you do see it, it's much more expensive to fix the problems. So I think that's one of the most important questions who's actually going to be your operational on the ground person or persons? And what's their experience? And how committed are they?

[00:21:37] Roger Jacobsen
It's excellent. And I believe that and as we move forward, I'm constantly looking at what a good team for apartment syndication or other is whether somebody can actually like build a team with one person or two people are what a good team needs to be. And obviously, when you get into larger deals, you have to bring in more people to increase your bandwidth. But Aaron Marsh base, I'm like, pretty sure we need to have about four people in the size of deals that we've done stuff like that.

[00:22:05] Damion Lupo
Yep. And is always appropriate. You can build a too big of a team and it just chews up a whole lot of overhead. And then you end up burning through all your cash. I mean, I've done that, too. So there's this balancing act, the difference when you have an experienced operator, somebody that's run businesses, when they've been through it, they generally know how to build and how fast and who to have in early and what the gaps are. That's the problem with people that when they're brand new, they don't know what they don't know. And they have to go learn it. And unfortunately, they tend to learn it with other people's money, the investors money, and they're like, Oh, well, I learned a whole lot, but I lost all your money, well, that doesn't really help the investor. So you really want to have people that have already done it that are not hitting the ground, you know, with their first rodeo like they're hitting the ground running. You know,

[00:22:42] Roger Jacobsen
We see a lot of that where people are doing cash calls right now you're in quite a few doing that. And even if they aren't doing cash calls, there's deals that are going really horribly did it feel like on the socials, it's like, oh, looks like they're really not going out of the park. But when you sit down with some of these other operators, they'll whisper in your arrow, yeah, we're about to lose half a million million dollars. This is how we're gonna recover. This is how we're gonna keep it up. It's like, oh, so So you're looking pretty dang good, though.

[00:23:12] Damion Lupo
I'll tell you, there's an example of that what you're talking about. And there's an operator that's went from zero to hero, couple billion dollars of assets, and all over the country. And what I noticed happening is that they have assets that have dropped down to way under their actual debt. And so they're underwater, and they don't have a cash flow. They're losing money, the way that they're fixing their problem is they're going and doing additional deals, they're charging a bunch of fees for the asset when they're acquiring, under their management company is loaning money to the deals to try to pretend that they're not falling apart. So it's a giant Ponzi. And unfortunately, eventually it's going to collapse, I don't think that they're going to be remained solvent long enough, the market is going to be irrational longer. And it's really sad that it's their first go-round.

[00:23:51]
I mean, I know the operators personally, and this is the first time they've done this. They literally started doing things in 2018 2019 and just hit the literally like a rocket, but they did it based on quicksand. And they're realizing that they have a problem, but they're not sharing that. And they're pretending like they're whispering in the ears of certain people. Here's what's really going on, and we know what's going on. But they're still pitching. And so they're getting people more and more sucked in, which is really irritating. So I think that that's important to watch, too. When you're investing right now, are you investing in something that's covering up another mistake that somebody made? For sure.

[00:24:20] Roger Jacobsen
And that's just super unfortunate top Ponzi scheme is just a band aid at best. If somebody wanted to invest in a new company or company in general, is there a size that you would recommend that they start like not to put down FrameTec, but it's a newer company? Would you want to see like a two year profit loss to know what that company was doing and see whether it was going up or getting busier? What would you do to vet

[00:24:48] Damion Lupo
So it was more important than the company is who's running the company. So you can have a company that has two years or five years or 10 years? But if you have the wrong operators, you can have a department that has two or five or 10 years of track record doesn't matter if you have a bad operator, it's all about the operator. So what I'm looking at, I'm looking at operators, what's their track record, if there's no profit, if there's no income, like on FrameTec, it's a startup, its revenue starts this year, it actually started last month, when I'm looking at an investment, I want to know who I'm dealing with who is more important than what and that's the key because the who will drive the revenue. So there's different levels. Ideally, you've got who and what, but here's the thing that people don't realize, if you want asymmetric returns, if you want more than six, or eight or 10% on your money, you're going to have to have something that looks a little scary.

[00:25:31]
You're not going to get 15 20 25 30% on things that are turning like clockwork, because what happens whenever you have something that's truly like clockwork, you have tons of money that drives down the yield, it drives up the price drives down the yield FrameTec is a great example, because the investors are likely to see returns in excess of 30%. Why, because they were investing in something that wasn't a napkin, it was literally an idea. And it had to be built out by people. And it's incredibly complex. So it looks risky. But the operators, the execution, intelligence takes away the risk, but the market requires a return that's significantly higher than a stabilized department. So I think it's really important to get back to who is executing this thing.

[00:26:09]
And that's what I look for more than I've seen plenty of financials, and you can make financials look like anything you want. You can make a financial or performer, it can be amazing. And it really has nothing to do with whether it's amazing or not, it's the operators amazing. And they'll make the thing, they can turn chicken shit into chicken salad, because they've got that experience. But usually what you have is you have chicken salad turning into chicken shit. And that's the problem. 

[00:26:29] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome, I really appreciate that, I kind of want to go down the rabbit hole that is FrameTec, because it's fairly interesting to me, I love construction and everything else. And I've probably had similar thoughts at times, but not actually follow through and execute it. When you do something like that you're going to be needing a foundation and footing and everything else done and ready for you is there also a possibility of doing a 3D printer foundation, so that you can really vertically integrate that portion of it too.

[00:26:59] Damion Lupo
I think all these different technologies have the potential to be brought in. There's a lot of things that we're thinking about. And we also know that there are things that we're not going to likely do at all. What's really fun right now is there are a lot of companies that are doing things like 3d printing, and more and more interesting, Tiny House modular manufacturing. So all that stuff helps solve the problem, what we're being really mindful of is staying focused on the thing that we do really, really well at a world class level, and not getting over our skis. You see this all the time, companies are trying to do everything for everybody. Like you have a marketing company that says yeah, we do everything.

[00:27:31]
The reality is they probably do everything really, really shitty, instead of doing something really, really great. So we're not in a flooring or the floors themselves, but not like the foundation, we're not going to do metal studs, we're not going to be doing plumbing, at some point, some of these things could be integrated into the panels. But ultimately, we're being very careful and very narrow. You've heard the term the riches are in the niches. And when people say, Well, I'm doing all this stuff, it's like, well, yeah, you're probably going broke doing all that stuff.

[00:27:56] Roger Jacobsen
And I absolutely couldn't agree more if I grab like the lower level handyman and put him into doing stuff like roofing and electrical and plumbing and ah packed and we have a lot of problems. And it's not just them going broke, it's me going broke to pay in the next guy to come and fix their stuff, too. That's one of the themes of this particular Monday.

[00:28:21] Damion Lupo
It's always nice to have a handyman, you know, somebody that can do a lot of different things. But just understand that person is not going to give you the best quality product at the highest level. And and ultimately, when you're investing you want specialists, you want somebody that's a generalist that can organize overall. And then you want very, very intelligent specialists running the different things. That's the way to win. That's how you get a winning team, very, very smart people that do really, really narrow things. Awesome.

[00:28:43] Roger Jacobsen
That's great. So Damion, we really appreciated having you on the podcast. today. We're going to end with the Final Four. These are four questions, we ask everybody in the podcast to get an overview of what they do. So number one, what is your favorite business book? 

[00:28:59] Damion Lupo
I think other than my books, which I love, because they were so painful to do, I love the book Mastery by George Leonard, he passed away. But we're both martial artists. And that book is really about life about the pursuit and process of mastery. It's not about a moment in time where you cross the finish line. It's literally all the training in the process of being in the race and being in the thing. And I think that that's something that most people have lost because they think it's just about the success. But really the significance of being in that process and falling in love with the process versus the outcome is one of the greatest joys and shifts that most people can make middle of the night.

[00:29:27] Roger Jacobsen
I love that. I was thinking about the Tom Cruise movie, The Last Samurai over the weekend. And there's a quote in there that something to the effect of a life spent looking for a Perfect Cherry Blossom isn't a life wasted. And so we were actually up at the Utah State Capitol looking at the blossoms yesterday and I thought of that so I love mastery and all things. Number two, what brings you happiness?

[00:29:53] Damion Lupo
Being more connected to nature, which to me is being connected to God. And so I spend a lot of time outdoors being in things that are true. I think being in nature, there's an element of non-manipulation. And when you see a tree or you see an animal, it's just true. There's nothing there. There's no thinking into the future. There's no planning or scheming. People have agendas, animals, they're thinking about either fornicating or eating. And so it's pretty simple. And I just love being in that environment, because I think it helps ground me and it, it brings me back to a deep sense of truth. And I think that that's probably something useful for every human being that's alive.

[00:30:26] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. So you like to hike a lot. And you're one of my favorite things, too. So I can look out my window and see mountains. And I'm about 300 feet from the beautiful Wasatch Mountains and hiking and stuff. And I feel definitely like spiritual whenever I'm out, just doing that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Question number three, what ways do you give back?

[00:30:48] Damion Lupo
So, a lot of what I do is stay focused on my core thing, I think there can be an attraction towards going in, maybe you're investing or you're building a business. And then you say, Well, I'm gonna do something a nonprofit. And one of the things, one of the ways I can give is to build a business where I'm giving opportunity to people for work, and I'm creating opportunities for communities with like FrameTec, so staying focused on the thing that I actually have a genius in, and not getting derailed. And at the same time, the thing that I know needs financial support is this war on human trafficking. So I give a lot of money towards some organizations that fight that pretty hard. And it's a much bigger problem than most people realize. So that's got a lot of my attention today is fighting human trafficking.

[00:31:28] Roger Jacobsen
We love that. There's a lot of need for that right now, too. And then the final question, question number four, what does your future retirement look like?

[00:31:36] Damion Lupo
It's funny, because we talked about this a little offline, you've got a lot of people that are in love with what they do is that they say, Well, I've retire what I wake up, I'm excited. And that's generally true for me, too. There are phases. And so retirement is more of I can see transition, I can see more work that's really more of like gardening in different ways gardening human minds with mentoring and gardening, the outside dirt and tilling and it's slowing, there's just more stillness, it doesn't mean I'm not creating it doesn't mean I'm stopping building things. It's a different form of it. So it's less of maybe some of the stuff that I'm doing, and there's a quieting down. So my version of retirement, if you will, is more of a process of finding deeper stillness, and then continuing to have the impact that that God put me on this planet for. So that's probably more of what it looks like for me, there's never going to be a stop where I say, Okay, I'm sitting on a beach and drinking pina coladas every day. It's not really my thing. But there's definitely a different form of building and creating, and, and connecting. And so I think that's what will evolve over time for me. 

[00:32:34] Roger Jacobsen
Do you have any plans to travel out to do this? Are you just gonna stay more local? Do you think?

[00:32:39] Damion Lupo
What I found is, and I love traveling, I've traveled to 40 some odd countries, and I imagine I'll travel to maybe another 40 more, I enjoy being connected to more grounded space more, you can call it a homebody, like I enjoy being home, I enjoy being connected to the natural environment, I don't necessarily need to be out in every country to feel stimulated, I will still love it. Because I think we gain a lot of perspective, by being in different cultures and different environments. I love to eat the food and be confused by the language. And I'm out in different countries. So I appreciate that. I also really appreciate not getting on planes and dealing with TSA. So it's a mixed bag. I like being able to be home where I don't have to have somebody molesting me, because I want to go see some new country. And that's unfortunately the experience that you get more and more with TSA. So I tend to try to avoid those experiences. And

[00:33:23] Roger Jacobsen
It's funny you say that. The last trip I took to Belize, I went through TSA, and I have my passport in my pocket, put it in the thing was underneath my wallet. And when it went through the conveyor belt, it was gone. And I remembered specifically where I was and I'm like, where did they go and they had to go like climb underneath the conveyor belt, and it somehow got out of there could have ruined the trip in many different ways, but somehow made it and it was a fun trip. Well, thanks for being on the show today. Damion, where can people find you on social and internet? 

[00:33:55] Damion Lupo
Best place to find me on social is on LinkedIn. Just look up Damion Lupo. And the project that I think is just really useful and really fun to check out and be a part of maybe something you want to look at investing in. And at the very minimum, it's really a great way to understand investing in general, understand what a great world class deal looks like, go to FrameTec.com. Check out what we're doing here in Arizona, because you're likely going to bump into it across the country as we roll out. And so it's kind of cool to be early and see what's going on and maybe even be a part of it. So LinkedIn and FrameTec.com are the places to see me.

[00:34:26] Roger Jacobsen
Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll see everybody else in the next episode of the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. Have a good one. 

[00:34:33] Podcast Outro
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