Own the Outcome with Tyler Deveraux

From College to $100M: How David Toupin Built a Multifamily Empire by 26

• Tyler Deveraux

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In this episode of Own the Outcome, Tyler Deveraux sits down with multifamily investor, tech founder, and entrepreneur David Toupin for a conversation packed with game-changing insight.

David has amassed over $100M in assets under management—and he breaks down exactly how he did it. From buying his first apartment complex in college to creating a cutting-edge underwriting software now used by top operators, David shares how mastering the numbers built his confidence—and his empire.

You’ll learn:

  • Why knowing your numbers is non-negotiable as an operator or capital raiser
  • A clear, 4-part framework for underwriting multifamily deals
  • The #1 mistake new investors make when analyzing opportunities
  • How David’s personal grit, focus, and sacrifice set him apart
  • Why joy, curiosity, and internal work are essential tools for building wealth
  • And how he’s now buying an airport as part of his latest venture

If you want to think bigger, act bolder, and become a true pro in this space—this is the episode for you.

Connect with David Toupin HERE

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Thank you for listening to today's episode. If this podcast has brought a smile to your face or sparked some new ideas, I'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review would mean the world to me. Appreciate you!

Connect with Tyler on Instagram: @tyler_deveraux

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Tyler Deveraux:

All right, aloha and welcome to Own the Outcome. My name is Tyler Devereaux and we got David Tupin and bro, I am so freaking excited to be able to get a chance to chat with you on here. We just had you at Peak Partnership. You crushed at Peak Partnership, provided so much value. So, bro, thank you for being here. Welcome to Only Outcome Podcast.

David Toupin:

Thank you for having me man Excited. Good to see you, I guess, twice in like a 10-day period.

Tyler Deveraux:

I'm glad that you're excited about that. Not too many people are excited about that multiple visit thing, so God bless you.

David Toupin:

I agree, sometimes they're like you know what You're a little too much, dave. I once a month is plenty.

Tyler Deveraux:

I get plenty of that. Yeah, um, man, for those of you who don't know David, dude, learning more about your story is so impressive to me and what you've done at such a young age and from the very beginning, and so we. So we'll get into some of this and I want to go through your story. But those of you who don't know David, you're going to be blown away with the value of today's episode. We'll get into some actionable underwriting tips, for sure. Uh, but go follow this dude. And we just formed a partnership with David and his cause. His AI underwriting process and software is unbelievable. We will talk about it. Um, but let's talk about your journey first, bro. Like cause, you had what? Over a thousand units and a hundred million in asset center management by like what? 25, 26 or something like that, correct?

David Toupin:

Yeah, yeah, I started buying young man.

Tyler Deveraux:

Go ahead Sorry.

David Toupin:

Yeah, no, you're good. Yeah, I started buying young. I was, I think, my first deal I bought when I was 20, I was in college and, uh, you know, I I knew I wanted to do real estate and I I wanted to go big. So I I started right with apartments.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, that's what was going to be my question. Like, how did that happen in college and this is a loaded question but like, what were those things that you did to put yourself in a position, bro, to own a hundred million in real estate by 26? Like, what were those pivotal moments for you and decisions that you made?

David Toupin:

I know that's a loaded question, but yeah, it's a loaded question, but no, it's a good question. Well, I, I like I said I I got hooked on real estate very early on read Rich Dad, poor Dad and I just had to set my mind to real estate. I'm like, no matter what I'm doing, real estate it's my full time. I had a couple opportunities to go work for private equity and just decided that wasn't what I wanted to do, and so I pretty much dialed in 100% on apartment investing, and really the core of that to me was finding deals. How do I get a deal under contract? It sounds so obvious, but what's the most actionable step to being able to buy an apartment building is you have to go find a good deal. That's the start of it all, and so, for me, what gave me the confidence to do that was knowing the numbers, and what has, to this day, led to the software is my superpower was always knowing the numbers, and what has, to this day, led to the software is my superpower was always knowing the financials and understanding the financials. I wasn't an expert at it from the start, but I also had the confidence to know you really aren't going to know anything until you try it and learn it and I just dialed in and focused on practicing underwriting deals. And you know what happens if I pay this price? What are what's my projected you know net income look like and all that good stuff. So, yeah, I, I really just heavily leaned into the numbers and it led to me buying my first apartment complex.

David Toupin:

Uh, kind of ended my junior year of college and and from there I was just hooked. I'm like you know, the first deal. You always say the first deal is the hardest, right? You probably teach your folks this. And once I did the first one, I'm like, oh, this makes sense. It's just a puzzle, right? All I have to do is line up the money, line up the bank, find a good deal, come up with a business plan and then after that, it's it. All it is is work, you know.

Tyler Deveraux:

I love how you simplify it, but literally. That is so true, though, because so many people complicate it in their minds when, in reality, if they could just simplify and understand that it. I love how you say I've never heard it said that way, but it's just a puzzle, and there are pieces of the puzzle that you're just putting together, and I got to drill home on the confidence side of it, man, because underwriting isn't my, that's not my specialty, my background. But I will tell you, in order to raise capital, which I would say, if I have a superpower, it is finding the deals, structuring the deals, but then raising capital.

Tyler Deveraux:

But how I've been able to raise capital, it's not just communication, that's a big piece of it, but it's you can only transfer something that you believe like belief, you know, like truth, vibrates at the highest frequency. It's how you communicate with the lenders, it's how you know how to communicate and negotiate with the seller. It's like it really is that foundational, pivotal piece. And it is your superpower, bro, it's seeing you teach about underwriting, and obviously your software is unbelievable, and I've looked at a ton of them. I know you, you have two. Your software is incredible.

David Toupin:

Well, I appreciate that and what you just said is so important because, in my opinion, anyone could go out and raise capital, but anyone could go and pitch a deal to a bank. But when you really get down to it and you put reps in this and you start to think about it, it took me a while to figure this out. But as the investor, the operator, you're putting this deal together. At the end of the day, you know the numbers better than the bank and you know the numbers better than the investor, or you're supposed to know the numbers better than the investors. A lot of times I've worked with bankers that really don't even know the numbers. They're just great loan originators and they see a deal, they can understand the numbers and they can pitch it to their higher ups and get the deal approved. And I've raised money from over 150 investors and most of the time, I would say a small, small percentage of them actually understand the financials of this stuff. Most of them are just investing because they trust you and because they're you know, they're intelligent, they could see if it's a good or bad business plan, but you know the numbers better than anyone else. So I think a lot of people are scared and they think that it's not maybe their skill set and so there may be there may be scared to kind of take ownership of that and take that challenge on, when really it's not that much of a hurdle to become knowledgeable at the number side of things and then you can do anything. Sky's the limit at that point. I mean just being able to rattle off the fundamentals of a deal financially will hook an investor into trusting that you know what you're talking about. You know what you're doing. We'll hook a bank into trusting that you have done your research and you know what you're talking about. You know what you're doing. We'll hook a bank into trusting that you have done your research and you know what you're talking about. So the hurdle's not that high and really, again it's.

David Toupin:

In my opinion it's the simplest of math. We're not doing discounted cash flows and like M&A type of stuff where it's like extremely complex you know financials. It's really just what's your income, what's your expenses, what's your NOI, and then the only factor that's a variable really is is the price that you pay for a property determines how much debt you have and what the debt payments are and how much cash outlay you have to put in to buy the deal and between those couple factors you're going to figure out what's your ROI going to be. And again, it's simple math, and that's what the software makes it even easier, because we created the freaking tool that all you do is just plug and play and figure out what price to offer on a property. So, anyways, it is such an important skill set. Could talk about it for hours, but I'll leave it there.

Tyler Deveraux:

No, you're so right. Like I remember my first time trying to raise capital for a deal and, dude, it's your first time. I don't know what to expect. I started talking to investors. Investors asked me questions and I'm like, about the numbers and I didn't know the numbers. I didn't know the numbers, like I should know the numbers, and I was embarrassed. Honestly, I was embarrassed.

David Toupin:

Do you remember what they asked you? Or they like said, were they just it?

Tyler Deveraux:

was just, it was something with my I don't remember the exact, but it was something with my projections, like how you know you are projecting this return. And how did you you're my assumption, Sorry. How did you assume? What did you assume for rent growth? How did it affect your vacancy? How did you determine what those assumptions were? And I didn't even know what those things were, because I was handed the numbers from the, you know, a partner that I had, and then I didn't truly know it. And so then for me and I really believe it was a separator, one of my I don't want to look dumb and I don't want to, you know, go and have this conversation that I don't know the ins and outs of. So I dove into the details of it and anything that I'm going to go speak about I need to know it. And so, bro, and that's how I was able to raise capital and then start to scale and grow.

David Toupin:

And think of how easy it is when, if somebody asks you a question like that, what's your rent growth assumption?

David Toupin:

And you could say, oh, it's 1% in the first year and then it's 3% going forward Such an easy thing to remember if you looked at the numbers, and that immediately gives them confidence that at least you know what you're talking about. They're not going to be like fine tooth combing these numbers. Most investors don't and again, I've raised, I think, $25, $30 million from over 150 people and I, literally I could guarantee you less than 10%, less than 15 of those folks have ever looked at a spreadsheet with the numbers on it. Most of that I agree Correct, and most of them is because if they ask a question about the property, the numbers, I can rattle it off right Because I've looked through them and I've done it. So whether you're the lead person operating a deal, or you're just raising money, or you're just communicating with the bank as a transaction manager, or you're the underwriter, no matter what position you find yourself in, you do have to know the numbers. It's very fun to this business.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, my framework now, like when I communicate, I'll have the community. So I'd love to know some actionable tips and underwriting tips that you have. But I'll tell you from my my like communication point of it, like the things that I want to have prepared when I'm communicating. The numbers is okay, this is what the number is. I use what, why, how. So this is what the number is. This is why that's the number of the assumption and this is how we're going to get it done Right. So what it is why that is the assumption.

Tyler Deveraux:

Like, why did it? Why is it 1%? Why isn't it 2%? Why is it 3%? After that, why does it scale down? And I give the wise and then this is how we're going to get there. So, like, that's how I think about it in my, in my mind. But when you go into an underwriting, this is and you know, I don't know how detailed we want to get on this, but I would love to know your thoughts on it Like when you come in first thing with you know, looking at the underwriting or putting in the underwriting, what are? Like, what's your system of? Okay, I'm going to start here, I'm going to look at this and then I'm going to go here. Do you kind of have like a, a journey that you follow with that?

David Toupin:

I do. Yeah, I think you just segmented out into like a couple of different things. It's, I would say it's probably four things. One is your rents. So, and you and this is one thing that you really can't mess up on you have to be conservative and realistic with your rents, because I think the one thing I've seen that's killed more deals than any, besides putting too aggressive of an exit cap rate, is probably over projecting rents. You know you can only push rents so high in any market, no matter what you're doing to the property, and if you're overestimating on rents then you're never going to hit your business plan and again it throws all your other numbers off. So your rent projections set your top line revenue. That's your revenue. So I'd say that's part one.

David Toupin:

Part two is your I call it your pro forma, which is going to be your kind of your operating expenses over the next couple of years and once you have your rents, after you set your expenses, that's what's going to get you to your NOI, which is the number one, most important factor in all this. And then the next part is going to be your renovation budget, construction budget, which again, I think is something that is a lot of times really overlooked, and you don't know until you've actually bought a property how important it is to have a good construction renovation budget, because even today I'm about 25 assets. Even today there's things I'll miss. I'll go in and I'll do a million or $2 million renovation and I'll come up short. I'll be like man, I wish I budgeted for this. And it's the things you don't think about the, the rotting, softening or fascia on a on a building, or you know, or a third of the HVAC units were old and when you walk through or drove through you saw a couple and they looked good and you thought they're okay. But in that first year you have like 20 of them go out, right, and that costs you a hundred thousand dollars. You didn't expect, um, you know, maybe the foundation issues are underground, uh, sewer problems, um, just the little things that you really don't think about. Deferred maintenance, I guess. So your renovation budgets third piece.

David Toupin:

The last piece is your I call it like your deal structure, your financing structure. It's what's your debt and what are your terms of your debt, your interest rate, your interest only period? What kind of debt are you going with? Are you going with short-term bridge debt? Are you going with long-term debt and then your purchase price is kind of the last factor of.

David Toupin:

So I basically will account for every, and our model and our software just walks you through this. It's so seamless you just literally input all those assumptions and then you back into a purchase price and and that's the last thing you do you back into a purchase price based on the returns you want to hit. So again, it's not. It's not a very difficult process once you get it down. But those are some of the most important things. Again, the other thing I mentioned was the exit cap rate. I see a lot of people get overly aggressive with that and, you know, putting a six cap may may sound great and may make the numbers look great, but you know, in today's market maybe you should be doing a seven and a quarter cap and and that might lead you to an outcome that you don't like in terms of the numbers, but what's realistic?

Tyler Deveraux:

So you know you have a general rule of thumb of what you like. If you're buying at a certain cap, that what you, you know what you move your exit cap to do you have a general art, have a general rule of thumb there?

David Toupin:

I mean, I think a couple of years ago, before things got real volatile, it was like what's the market cap? And then I'd add like three quarters of a percent or a percent on top of that. Nowadays, I'm going to be honest, I really don't know the answer to that question. It's a very deal by deal basis. I look at multiple things. So I look at what is what you know. I do something similar to that.

David Toupin:

I'll say what do I think today's cap rate is? And I'll be a little conservative. On top of that, taking into account, like where rates are at today, I do think rates have more of a likelihood of coming down than going up at this point. So maybe I'm doing today's cap plus half a percent. So today's at seven, I'm exiting at seven and a half projected. But then I'm also going to look at that projected sale price and say does that sound like a reasonable sale price?

David Toupin:

If I'm in San Antonio and I'm, you know, I'm buying a deal for 70 a door and I'm going to be all in at 95 a door, do I think a five-year exit at 160,000 a unit sounds reasonable in five years from now. Does it mean knowing we're around the market? No, so even if I put a reasonable cap rate on and that's the outcome I'm going to say I think that sounds a little bit too much. I'm probably going to back that, you know, back that down, that exit valuation down. So I think it's like a little bit more of a holistic view.

Tyler Deveraux:

Oh good, so good. Yeah, yep, I agreed, I totally agree, because I actually really liked that question that you asked of, okay, deal by deal. But, okay, looking at the exit, okay, let's look at five years from now, like you said, okay, maybe that, maybe that does seem conservative, like it's not crazy, but like does that seem realistic at that point, from 90 to 160? And then question it, truly question your numbers. That's what your investors are trusting you to do. Your investors are trusting you to really vet your numbers and ask the hard questions. Right, ask the hard questions that maybe they don't even know to ask, and that's how you become a good fiduciary right.

David Toupin:

Yeah, that's 100% right and one of the most common things I see, because I've taught people how to underwrite for years now almost a decade and one of the most common things I see early on is like hey, I'm way off, like I'm not even close to their asking price, and you know, sometimes it's because when you start off you're being a little bit too conservative.

David Toupin:

But I think in general what my response to people after looking over their numbers, their underwriting, is trust the numbers. If they're asking six million and you're at three and a half and your numbers all make sense and your assumptions are realistic and you believe that your rents are accurate, then you know they, their asking price doesn't really matter. What matters is the valuation you put on it because that's what you believe is realistic for you to hit. So offer three and a half and if they say no, on to the next. I had to underwrite probably 40, 50 deals to get my first one under and you know, out of 24 deals I've bought, we've definitely underwritten 2,000 deals in the last 10 years at least.

Tyler Deveraux:

I love that. I want people to really hear that and understand that, because I believe one of the biggest problems people have is they don't look at enough deals. They just don't.

David Toupin:

You're not looking at enough deals and you're looking at the wrong deals. You're only looking at on-market deals. You're only looking at loop net deals and stuff through one broker, like you have to look at a lot of deals in a variety of deals. So people mail and cold call wholesaling right, you hear that people do that when they wholesale. Well, I started. One of my first mentors was a wholesaler and a house flipper, so he was a big mailer guy. He sent out mailers and he cold called every day and that's how he got his deals to flip houses. Now, I had no interest in flipping houses, but it's a strategy that works to find deals.

David Toupin:

Two of the best deals I've ever done were found through mailers. One of them I told the story at your event briefly. I sent a mailer to a guy who owned almost a billion dollars in real estate, most of it free and clear, with zero partners, and he called me off of a mailer, a generic mailer. I sent his penthouse at Miami. That dude had no reason to call someone like me, no clue who I was. Um, but that was one of my first great deals. Another deal I got off a mailer. I ended up wholesaling it for $1.4 million markup.

David Toupin:

No way that was. Yeah, wholesale it was, it was uh 11 property portfolio. I bought the four best properties out of that portfolio. The other seven I marked up to two separate buyers, two to one guy and five of the deals to another guy, and my total markup between those seven deals was $1.4 million.

Tyler Deveraux:

Bro home run. That's incredible.

David Toupin:

Gangster Wholesale. It took me eight months it was during COVID Retraded the deal down and I resold it at the original price essentially. And yeah, so that was from a mailer and it hit a family who had owned these properties for 50 years. They built them 50 years ago and so, yeah, I mean this kind of things work, but you have to look at a lot of deals because you're not going to find your first 10 properties you look at are probably not going to be deals, because you don't. You don't yet know how to find the good deals right, or you haven't, you haven't put enough presence out there to attract the good deals either.

Tyler Deveraux:

So but this is what I love about your software too, is that it allows you to maybe I'll just ask the question how does your software allow you to look at more deals? It's not there to source the deals. You still got to build those relationships and source the deals. But when you look at looking at the deals, how does your software allow you to speed that process up, to actually well, to speed the process up?

David Toupin:

Yeah, well, two things. One it's like I would say, like a CRM for tracking all your deals, so it has like a pipeline where you can visualize where all your deals are, what part of the, what stage of the process they're in, so it keeps it organized for you. You can look at a map and see all your deals all over and click into one and then go underwrite it. But then the second thing that helps speed up the process is we provide property data, so we give you rent comps, we provide public record data, but then we also allow you to upload the properties, financials, the rent roll and T12 into the software. It'll extract the data and just load it directly into the model for you automatically and that saves you a ton of time.

David Toupin:

So it's a time saver and it's an organizational tool that I think most people need, because if I just hand you a spreadsheet and say, hey, go start underwriting deals, you don't have like the systems down yet to start really cranking through multiple deals and underwriting them, where this is kind of like a business in a box. It helps you give a system to your business and gives you a place to work out of every day online where you can go in and you can look at the deals here, underwriting, shoot your offers out and kind of move through that workflow. So it just gives you that, that system that I think a lot of people need you know to follow in the beginning, instead of just going in Google drive and create folders for all the properties and blah, blah, blah.

Tyler Deveraux:

Right, so, yes, some people will then easy to to get some. Listen, I'm going through a process right now where I have to pull a bunch of old underwritings from deals the initial underwritings and the business plans. I have all the business plans because I put all those things together for the most part from the underwriting, but the initial underwriting some of that stuff was from a past partner who he has those stuff. He has those things, and so for me to now get them has been very, very, very challenging. And so when you people don't understand when you just said a CRM, it's one of the biggest things I'm telling you when I saw your software is that you did it. It helps you create organization and structures to make sure that you know where the different things are. It's not all over the board, it's right here and that's huge bro 100% huge.

David Toupin:

I literally built it, for I originally built this for my own business because we look at a lot of deals and I needed a solution to track and manage that and speed up the process, and so I just took you know, I used to do Dropbox folders Now I'd create folders, now I'd move them around and drop. It was just a pain in the butt and my old team couldn't work out of it. And so I mean it literally is like it's the first software you need to get when you're buying multifamily commercial real estate, right. Like you don't need to worry about an investor management software, yet you haven't even raised any capital. You don't really need to worry about CoStar, yet it's super expensive. Like you don't need CoStar to find your first deal. You need something to help you underwrite deals. That's the number one first thing that everyone should focus on Hands down. You cannot convince me otherwise, because it's the first skill set anyone should learn coming into this business.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, yeah, it is Once again. It's the foundational element of everything that we do on literally all frontspin. I completely agree with that.

David Toupin:

Even if you're just a capital raiser. And last thing, I won't harp on it too much, but even if you're just a capital I don't say just a capital raiser but even if that is your sole focus, is capital raising you need to run numbers on every deal you look at. Never, ever, ever, just get a deal from someone and go raise money and put your friends and family's money into someone else's deal that you do not know, because that's how it mostly goes. Is people you meet online or at these events into someone you do not know without doing your own underwriting on a deal? I have seen too many times where people will go and raise money but it do a deal and the deal doesn't go well and it could have all been solved by them looking at the numbers and running it on their own and confirming and verifying right. You're not going to invest in a business or buy a business without doing your research. I wouldn't. I would not raise capital for an apartment deal without doing your research either.

Tyler Deveraux:

A hundred percent, dude, a hundred percent. Once again, you're going to have a hard time doing it, Even if you tried to do it that way. You're just going to have a hard time because you don't know the data. Yeah, that's right, you got to, you got to run it. What's your like? Like when you look at your separator, because you, dude, how old are you, by the way? I don't even know if I know that I'm 29 right now bro.

Tyler Deveraux:

So the things that you've done and created in the short amount is unbelievable, bro. Like what do you believe has been your separator in business and just growth? And what you've done, like what? What are those things for you?

David Toupin:

I think that one I'm maybe a little bit psychotic, uh, I think that it's so. It's so like foundational and silly, but I think hustle is one of them. Like I just I I work a lot and I do focused, intense work. Like I, when I have a goal, I'm extremely focused on it and I will sit down and put in the time, even if it's uncomfortable, even if I don't want to, even if it's late nights, even if it's early mornings, even if it's on Saturdays and Sundays, seven days a week for five months straight. If I want to do something, I'm going to do it, and so I think that's the first thing that any entrepreneur needs to understand is like you cannot write a goal down or put a picture on your vision board and expect that plane to show up, or expect that Ferrari to show up in your garage, or expect to set your family up for life or buy your mom a house or whatever it is that you want out of financial freedom.

David Toupin:

That shit is not going to just happen by thinking about it or talking about it or daydreaming about it. You have to force it to happen. You have to actually force it to happen. I tell people about that all the time Going to an event, showing up, reading the books, doing this, and that it is all great and you got to do that, it's so important. But you have to force your first purchase of your first apartment building. You have to force buying that first business or earning that first million dollars right, it will not just happen. So I think that's one thing is I force it to happen If I want to. You know, I started a um asphalt and concrete business. Uh, seven months ago we just hit almost 2 million in revenue in the first seven months.

Tyler Deveraux:

Right, congrats. Well, that's huge, that's amazing.

David Toupin:

Thank you. I appreciate that and and and it's literally it's a factor of I, it's a goal of mine, and I wake up every day and I do the really difficult things that nobody else wants to do. I drain my bank account to go and buy you know three or $400,000 in paving equipment, right, that's a risk that a lot of people maybe wouldn't want to take, but I went and did it and now we paid them off, right. So it's it's, it's it's. That's one thing.

David Toupin:

Is the grit, um, I think I think the second thing is having confidence to. It's not just confidence, confidence to ask the right questions of people. A lot of times, people are very, I would say, maybe reserved or afraid to ask the right questions. But one thing that I think is really powerful is asking the right questions will lead you a lot of times to the right conclusions and the right outcomes. And I've always been a curious mind and I always ask people questions and by doing that and having that kind of curious mind, I think it's led me to a lot of great connections with people and a lot of great mentors and a lot of great business partnerships, mentors that I had no business having when I was in my early 20s guys that are way too busy to take the time out of their day to help me out, showing them curiosity and a great level of ambition. I was able to attract some really good mentors and folks that helped me along the way, and I think that's probably a good second one so good question, sorry, no, that's so.

Tyler Deveraux:

So good, bro. Grit like relentless focus on on the pursuit and then just being curious like what a beautiful that's so great man like yes, I know nothing concrete.

David Toupin:

I mean, I do now, but I didn't knew absolutely nothing when I decided to start this company and with my business partner and um. But you just ask a lot of questions, you know.

Tyler Deveraux:

What drives you? What motivates you to do that kind of stuff Like why not just cash it in, why not just be like I'm good and I got it?

David Toupin:

I just I always want more. I literally can't describe it, and I love how Grant Cardone says this and calls people out. A lot of people are like it's not just about money, it's not. I want to make a boatload of fucking money because I know what you, the lifestyle you can live with it, the freedom you can have from it. I could take care of all the people around me, all my friends and family, you know, and I can. I can live a very free lifestyle with it.

David Toupin:

But I also love the process of making money. For me it's like a fun, it's like a, and I'm not a very materialistic person either. I think a lot of people around me my closest friends know that it's not really about the money itself, but I love the pursuit of making money and building businesses. I think it's fun. I love I don't know, I just love everything about it. I think it's great and I love what I can, what I can do by having financial freedom. Uh, you know, this weekend it's mother's day and it's my dad's birthday and I'm going to fly myself in my own little plane up to Michigan and spend the weekend with them. You know, amidst all the busyness, I'm going to go and take time to do that, and then I'm gonna fly myself back down here and and I love that the fact that I've worked my ass off for the last almost decade now is allowing me to do stuff like that, you know.

Tyler Deveraux:

Absolutely, absolutely dude. And it really is like I'm not very materialistic either. I'm really not like I have, I like some shoes.

David Toupin:

Heck yeah.

Tyler Deveraux:

It's like you know, but I will tell you, I love experiences and the pursuit of it challenges you to do things and find out and learn more about yourself than well, than I could ever describe it Like. It's just challenging and those challenges really like force you to do internal work and I truly believe it's a spiritual game. I believe money is a spiritual game because the more that you truly go after you have to tap in the spiritual side which, whatever you look at as spiritual, it's that internal work to really unlock new levels which is super, super powerful, you know.

David Toupin:

I learned. Every single year I learned something new about myself and about my capabilities, limitations and what I'm good at, what I'm not. I mean, I think one of the biggest things today, eight years later into business, is is I know more about what I'm not good at now and what I shouldn't be focusing on and shouldn't be doing, whereas in the beginning I'm like I could do it all. I'm smart, I could do everything I love. My favorite thing is telling people I'm dumb. Nowadays, I tell everyone I'm dumb and I'm broke, like you know. And honestly, walking into the room acting like you know, I don't. I don't know everything, and having good people that I could surround myself with to to take up the burden on those things that I'm not good at is one of my favorite things. Uh, so, yeah, I love that shit.

Tyler Deveraux:

But that's that's that's how you know you're confident, bro. That's where the that's how you know you're confident, Cause you don't have to go into a room and feel like you're that person, that that dude all the time, Like you go into looking at who is that person, you can learn from. That's ultimate confidence, bro. I respect that a ton.

David Toupin:

Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, I was going to ask you what's your favorite. What's your favorite kind of shoes?

Tyler Deveraux:

Oh, jordans, bro. I'm a jordan fan, so I have too many jordans. I have them on my wall back there I have some spinning. I have them in bins. I have them on the shelves I have them.

David Toupin:

It's like, bro, how many pairs?

Tyler Deveraux:

I don't know, probably. I don't know. That's a good question. I should probably count them up like 100, um. No, I don't think I have that many less than that. Probably probably 50 to 75 range is what I would guess.

David Toupin:

Yeah, I have a buddy, one of my good friends is like that, that's his thing, he's a shoe guy. And uh, he's also um, he's a real cool dude. He is, uh, runs us, it's like 35 and he is the president of one of the biggest student housing companies in the country and he is same way as ultra operational, like workaholic mind, like brilliant when it comes to the apartment side of things, and he's a shoe guy.

Tyler Deveraux:

So yeah, so you've got to figure out what you know, what motivates you and what that, what that excitement is. And, bro, one of the things that and I don't know if this is your excitement you just mentioned planes. So I wonder about this, because you had talked about at peak. You just did, you just buy, or you're buying currently, an airport.

David Toupin:

I am currently buying an airport.

Tyler Deveraux:

I'm under contract on an airport, so sick, okay, so like. Is that like one of your passions?

David Toupin:

I yes A flying. I'll tell you this I don't think I've had many serious passions in my lifetime outside of business, especially like in the last 10 years. I was flying yesterday. I went up for a little flight in the evening and I was flying around some clouds and it's one of the coolest feelings. Just going up in the air and flying around clouds and they're like these big fluffy pillows that you think you can just jump into and but you can't uh around them is the coolest feeling. And I was thinking to myself I'm like if something ever happened to me where I couldn't fly again, I would be so depressed, like if I ever got injured or lost my eyesight or something, and I'm like that's how I know this is something I really love doing. So, yes, it is something I'm extremely passionate about.

David Toupin:

And the airport deal, just I mean it's a crazy long story of how it all came together over the last four years, but I'm basically partnering with the owners of an airport. I'm buying over 100 acres of adjacent land and we're going to extend the runway to be even longer. We're going to build an FBO fixed base operator which is like a little clubhouse for the pilots, like Palace Lounge. We're going to add a fuel service at the airport. It's a small airport, they don't have fuel here and then I'm going to basically create a community of hangar homes and we're going to sell the lots. I'm not going to build the homes themselves, but we're going to sell the lots to pilots and aviation folks who want to live at an airport and have their own hangar and home, which isn't very niche, but it's a high demand and it's a big thing in the aviation community.

Tyler Deveraux:

So yeah, where's that? That's so sick. I didn't know the last part of that they just mentioned so their home. So you're gonna sell the lot and the whole thing is they'll have their home and then the hangar on their property that's exactly right.

David Toupin:

they had a big all over actually. Like you wouldn't even believe how many airports there are most people don't. Until you start flying you're like, wow, there's like an airport every 30 minutes. I mean there are a lot of small aviation communities around the country, uh, where, like they've got one in daytona, uh, they've got one in wellington over West Palm beach. Uh, they got a couple here in central Texas. I mean there, those are just some that I personally know about.

David Toupin:

But they're all over where they have little private airports and people, uh, either just build a hangar to put their plane or they build a hangar with a little apartment up in it, like a barn, dominium or what we're doing, which is technically the second phase of the airport. They're already completely sold out the first phase. This is going to be the second phase and we're selling 75 lots that are all half acres, so they're like estate lots, so you can build a really nice home and then a attached or detached hangar garage where your plane is. You literally just walk into your garage, get in your plane and go up and fly. So sick, come on. It's so cool, it gets me so excited. The economics of the deal are really good. It's got some really good highway, frontage road, great location, cool little town nearby. It's like small town Texas, but it's.

Tyler Deveraux:

Where's it at, by the way?

David Toupin:

It's in central Texas, it's near the. It's like 45 minutes north of Austin would be the best way to describe it to people.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, what's the place called the city?

David Toupin:

The city's called Salado.

Tyler Deveraux:

Salado okay sweet, I lived out in Austin, but I still don't know where slato is. I gotta think I'm gonna look at where that's at yeah, most people wouldn't.

David Toupin:

It's a small town, man, it's uh, it's about 45 minutes north of austin, but it's a cute little town. It's it's got. They still have buildings there that look that like they're from the 1800s, when people would drive in stagecoaches and riding horses and um, but it's a really lively little country town and it's right on the main highway that goes all the way from San Antonio to Dallas through Austin. So it's in a great location and it's it's totally booming around here. So it's a good, good, good market to be in.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, yeah, Bro, that's so cool man. I'm excited to uh to hear more and to see, see more about that. And then, what kind of plane do you have?

David Toupin:

I have a. It's called a Cirrus, and I didn't even grow up thinking I wanted to fly but hold on one sec.

Tyler Deveraux:

Sorry, my camera just died out. Sorry, brother.

David Toupin:

No, you're good.

Tyler Deveraux:

I just took a little water break. Okay, so we'll pick up. Where did we?

David Toupin:

We said what kind of plane?

Tyler Deveraux:

Okay, yeah, we'll just pick up there, is that cool? Yeah, oh yeah, no, it's totally fine, i'm'm gonna clap us in so he has a transition. What are we good strat? I think I lost your camera again yeah, he's changing out the battery on it, so we should be good on this one.

David Toupin:

I like your shoes in the background. That thing is sick how they're floating.

Tyler Deveraux:

Dude. So his wife got it for me. Her name's Nico. I love that thing so much. I love it.

David Toupin:

That's badass. That looks so cool. I need a better backdrop. I just bought this office and I already have no decorations in here. Oh, and I already have no decorations in here.

Tyler Deveraux:

But oh dude, I've played around with this thing so much because the backdrop I don't know, and I literally just recorded a video, like with this backdrop. At one point I was like, oh shit, this is the one, this is sick.

David Toupin:

Yeah, awesome, I love it.

Tyler Deveraux:

Good to go. Okay, sweet, I'll clap us in and then I'll ask the question again, okay.

David Toupin:

So what kind of plane do you have? By the way, it's called a cirrus and it's a little five-seater single engine airplane. The cool thing about it is it has a uh, a built-in parachute, so it's the safest plane you can buy. If the engine fails, something goes wrong, you literally can pull a lever in the ceiling of the light inside of the plane and a parachute rockets out the back and the entire plane will float to the ground and you'll the entire plane the entire plane.

David Toupin:

Yeah, it's not like you don't throw a parachute out and jump. The entire plane has a built-in parachute, so that oh, wow oh, we'll perish, we'll float to the ground in the case of an emergency, but it's a really cool. It's like a small little in terms of small planes like Cessnas. It's like a. It's like a Ferrari. It's fast, high performance, it's got high high tech. It's all autopilot you could push a couple buttons and it'll fly you wherever you want. You don't even have to do anything.

Tyler Deveraux:

It's so awesome, bro, like so wherever you want, you don't you have to do it. It's so awesome, bro, like so how far can it go?

David Toupin:

like what's the distance, like how far could you travel on it? You go about a thousand miles, um, so I can go from austin to tampa, uh bro, that's geez.

Tyler Deveraux:

You said a thousand. I didn't even put that together. That's a long ways oh, it's a long.

David Toupin:

Yeah, it's got great range. You go 200 and I'll cruise like 220 miles an hour. I can go from austin to colorado in three hours. Um, I get to phoenix three and a half hours. California I'd have to take a stop to get to, like, san diego, but I'd probably be like six and a half hours of total flying.

Tyler Deveraux:

So yeah, it's so sick all plane yeah that's awesome.

Tyler Deveraux:

You know what I love, man? Anybody listening to this has to just thinking, be thinking to themselves on how to dream bigger. Because you know what you've been able to accomplish in such a young age, at any age what you've been able to accomplish is incredible. But then you know just like, hey, man, I'm just gonna I was just flying around the other day and I'm gonna fly up to to Michigan and see my parents. It's like, bro, it's so beautiful, this was so great about like truly going after. I'm being relentless. And you know your pursuit is just by living, bro, you enhance people's belief. That's awesome.

David Toupin:

I hope so. I think that's one of my purposes is showing people what's possible. I also just like to be really realistic with people Like getting. I made my first million dollars like liquid million dollars when I was 23 years old and I've made my first $10 million, I think a little bit last year, 27, 28 years old. What that took was losing a girl I was in love with in college. I lost all my friends. I moved back home with my parents. I lived off of like $1,200 a month. I said I made my first million at 23. That's three years into my business. The first two years I made maybe $15,000 the first year and lived at home with parents. The second year I made maybe like $40,000 on acquisition fees on my first two little deals and it took that third year to really pop. But again, it took all that sacrifice a hundred hour weeks.

David Toupin:

Even today I still work, you know, 70, 80 hours every week. Like I work an immense amount of hours. I have very few friends. I have a small, small circle of close friends and most of my friends are employees of mine and people I work with Right, and so we talk about all this stuff.

David Toupin:

Sounds really great, but I think it's important to understand that takes a hell of a lot of sacrifice too, and if people really want that level of craziness and success which, again, to me, I'm still just getting started To me, I'm not even close to where I want to be yet. I'm still going just as hard as I was when I started to get to that next level. It is going to take a lot, of, a lot of hustle and sacrifice and and a lot of you know, missing out on maybe a lot of things, but it just depends on what you want. Yeah, so that's what was going to be my follow-up. Is it worth it? Has it been worth it? I think it is. There is nothing more fulfilling or worth it, and it and and you can ask me that on days when I have $0 in my bank account and days where I have a million dollars in my bank and I'll tell you what eight years in the business, there are days where you still will have both of those.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, totally bro yes.

David Toupin:

There are days where I'm 100%, completely broke, because I'm always and Cardone says this all the time you go broke to get rich. I'm always taking all my money and I'm putting it into the next thing I'm buying construction equipment or I found a new good deal. Let me take every dollar I have and put it in to buy this new deal right, Because I want to own as much of it as I can, or whatever it may be right, it is so worth it. On the good days and the bad days, I'm as happy as I've ever been.

David Toupin:

The last two years of my life are probably the two hardest years I've ever had to go through.

David Toupin:

Interest rates almost triple on us. I had, out of the 14 or 15 deals I had at the time, I had three deals not do well at all, and last year I had to come personally out of pocket almost $700,000 to float those deals so that I didn't have to capital call my investors. So I put up $700,000 of my own cash out of my own pocket as personal money so that I didn't cap call my investors, and so I didn't lose a deal and that fucking hurts. That's hard, and I don't have unlimited money either, right, so that's it's a significant portion, but through all that, I still wouldn't trade any of it for going and working for someone else and having a W2 and not having opportunities that I feel like I have, no matter how big of a setback all that was. You know we're on the tail end ofathed right the last couple of years, but still I'm happy as can be and doing what I love, so I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Tyler Deveraux:

So good man, what a beautiful answer. Man. I had it somebody tell me recently and I'll, you know, spare some of the details, but you know I was having a hard conversation with a group of people and that hard conversation I wasn't like mopey, you know, I wasn't like, I was just having a hard conversation. I was just like kind of speaking, like we're speaking now, and somebody literally said on there they said I don't like to see, it bothers me to see you happy amongst the challenge. And I go well, tough shit, yeah, Like, I've chosen to live in joy period, no matter what's going on. I choose joy, like and listen. Being mopey and sad is it hard? Oh my gosh bro, same thing. I can tell you the same thing, man. It's the most challenging years, the last couple of years, but I'm not going to be sad and mopey. That doesn't get me anywhere. I know where I'm going and what I'm leaning toward, what I'm working towards and what's there.

Tyler Deveraux:

You know, and I had I just interaction where I or experience, where I did this visualization essentially, and they had me visualize this like the future version of myself essentially, and they were asking me it's like a guided visualization. They're like okay, so like how you know, they're just asking me the questions, I'm answering them to myself, I'm visualizing. I'm not answering it out loud, but it was, you know, like how does this person live and how do they act and are they joyful, are they whatever? And it was like this person had the future version of myself, had just ultimate confidence and just peace is what I would say Peace and joy and confidence. And then the question posed was okay, so like how come? And then I started like really visualizing that and I like to almost start having this.

Tyler Deveraux:

I haven't shared this with anybody, but like I started having this conversation with this future version of myself and it was this future version of myself just being like, bro, there's. I live this way because I understand that you have some fears and that you have some challenges, but like I've already went through them and all of those things are where the joy is. Like that is where the beauty is. You're worried about it because you're going through stuff, but like on the other end of it, it's like, dude, I still have stuff today, but I know I'll get through it because it's beautiful and it was such an amazing experience, dude.

David Toupin:

A hundred percent. I love that. And you, you just know, on the other end, you can already see that on the other other end of it you're going to look back and be like, hey, I went through this for a reason, but you can see that while you're going through it, even Right, yeah, it's, it's, but I think there's, there is a power in being a joyful person. I've added relationships with girls before where they're like you know, they're like why don't, why are you not never like depressed or this? I'm like I, literally the second I think about being depressed.

David Toupin:

It and I'm not saying I don't have bad days, I have a lot of bad days but the second I think about, you know, being depressed or getting too overly emotional about something I'm like that is not going to get me anywhere. Like, get back to it, like be, be happy at the end of the day when I, if I'm going through something like that, no matter how much you know money we're making or losing, I have food on my table. You know, god blesses me every day. I'm, you know, love my friends and family and that's enough for me to be happy. Everything else is just a fucking bonus. Dude, I can walk, I can see I have both my hands work. You know my legs work. Uh, you know I'm not in immense pain, I'm not sitting in the hospital, like life is. That is a baseline for being me, being happy. Everything else is a absolute blessing, and so so, yeah, I love that you say that and thanks for sharing that.

Tyler Deveraux:

Bro, I love your comment and response to it. It's so beautiful and you're a handsome son of a bitch bro, so you got lots to be grateful for.

David Toupin:

I appreciate it.

Tyler Deveraux:

Thank you.

David Toupin:

God gave you the beard. He didn't give me the beard, he gave me the hair, but he gave you the beard.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, there we go. There we go. Thank goodness, man, because I will say like I was bald with no beard for a while, and that's too much bald, you know it's too much bald, that's hilarious.

David Toupin:

Well, I can't grow one, so it's it's good bro.

Tyler Deveraux:

Thank you so much. Man, I'm gonna put links and everything what's. I'll put the links, I'll communicate with you off off um camera and get the links to put in the show notes. But I y'all got to go connect with David, Obviously. If you don't already follow him and connect with him, you've got to go do that. I'm sure that you've already done that in the midst of listening to the conversation.

Tyler Deveraux:

He's a wealth of knowledge and I'm so excited for the future partnership, man, that we have and the value that I know you'll bring to the network with your software, because it's already happening. And once again, man, I've looked at a ton of them, a ton of them, and I'm so impressed with what you put together. But, more importantly, I'm impressed with the person that you are and the way that you carry yourself through everything. And I noticed that our very first call I'll never forget it I was at my in-laws house and I was off camera everybody else is on camera because I just got on a flight or in from a flight or something, but how you carry yourself spoke volumes to me and ultimately, bro, it's why I decided to move forward with you, know the partnership and everything that we're doing so. I'm excited about it, bro, so thank you for being you and being willing to share all that with us.

David Toupin:

Those are very kind words. I appreciate that. I'm excited too, man, and yeah, hopefully, hopefully this helps inspire some people. That's the goal, right, and appreciate you having me on 100% man.

Tyler Deveraux:

We'll have to do it again, for sure, and everybody else out there listen, go share this episode, because I know you found value from it. And then always, always, always. Man live always with Aloha Peace.