Long Time Dreamer

Murcie,
I am glad you are doing well. I must agree that you are running before you walk. You are basing your decisions on new businesses in the best economy in 50 years. That is a formula for disaster. You cannot assume that because things are great today that they will be great tomorrow. I have seen and lived through many booms and crashes in my lifetime. They WILL happen. If for example the other party wins in November and tries to impeach the President, the stock market and economy could tumble. Markets are driven with consumer confidence. Take that away and people start hoarding money. Once that starts , the fall begins. You should always plan for the worst case and be in a position financially to weather a storm. If you are not then you should not buy. If you are putting 50% down on the lambo then ok if it falls you can get out alive. 10% down and you could be in a heap of trouble. Right now I have several million dollars in land contracts to close over the next 3 to 4 months.I want to buy another Lambo but will not untill they actually close and fund and I can walk in with cash and buy without remorse.Once you have been broke once or twice you learn just how fragile things really are. Be conservative and you will be safe and happy. Lee PS I have been reinvesting my cash into 2 more new developments that will make even more money instead of buying the lambo now. Make hay while the sun is shining.

There are real estate investor groups in most major cities. You might try that first.2. Look up hard money lenders on the internet. 3.Run an ad. 4. Listen to talk radio on the weekend when they are talking investing or real estate. They usually promote these groups. 5. Go to some real estate forclosure auctions and start making contacts. Many of them may know someone. Be advised however that they are very protective of good investor money. That is a pretty big project for someone without much net worth. You are going to have a hard time selling that to a money guy with little personal experience. You better expect to give up a large chunk of it. I would start with something more manageable like 10 or 20 units. Get that profitable, establish a track record and then jump to something larger. The question is not whether you can but whether you should. Are you in a financial position to support the debt service on the complex and the property taxes? If not then you should not do it. Remember that important risk assessment criteria. Only take risks you can afford to lose. Also it is better to own 80% of a million dollar deal than 20% of a 4 million dollar deal. In one you have control, in the other you are a pawn. Most of these guys are or were successful businessmen and will probably try to take advantage of you. (Because they can) If I was investing in a deal like that , I would take the lions share since you could not do it without me. I think most investors will be the same. If it is a smaller deal that you need them but have other options, your deal will be much better. If they know they are the only game in town be ready to bend over. Lee

Last post on Oct 14th 2018... so it has been a while. What has changed?
I have been focusing on learning high income skills along side going part time to University. The 243 unit I ended up letting another buyer take my place due to lack of experience when talking to investors. I am still very interested in real estate investing, however, I probably will get myself a smaller property first.

As for my businesses - the car restoration is going along decently. It has a 1 year waitlist but I am short-staffed and it is difficult to find those who are passion able about getting their hands dirty and doing metal repair on classic cars.
I have put the floor plan on hold temporary, until I can get the funds to delegate out and hire two employee's for it.
In Oct. last year, I did open a consulting business - to do B2B consulting to educate and grow other businesses. It is however on hold temporary (If I would get work or businesses interested - I could bring it back fairly quickly).

Also has of Q4 2018 I have my eye on my dream Murcielago - I know exactly how much it is going to cost including taxes, shipping and insurance. I have the picture of the exact car on my vision board.

One problem I want to address in the world is to help other inventors, visionaries and dreamers make their ideas reality so it can help impact billions of people. I have reached out to both companies which I will need their services to bring this business to life - so I get tie down the budget.
With this one problem - Where can you find businesses or people interested in investing in Business idea's?

A couple of thoughts. First in the resto business it is difficult to find skilled labor that either does not want a ton of money, has criminal history or has a drug or alcohol problem. Most really good guys already have a high paying job. So your choices are too pay really good wages, offer some equity position or deal with the drama. Do not hire ex felons. Leopards do not often change their spots. Most with criminal history usually repeat the behavior. It is sad but true and often causes more trouble than it is worth. The best option is to pay really good, give good benefits and take really good care of them. I give all my guys a week off paid at Christmas, Christmas bonus, and a week paid off in the Summer. I even pay the vacation expenses of my lead man in the Summer. I have fierce loyalty. It costs a little but in the end pays off.
Secondly it seems as if you are going in many different directions at once. Contrary to popular belief, adding more business ventures does not usually make more money unless they are related to your primary business. It is often better to focus on 1 thing and get really good at it. If your resto business is profitable, why not focus on it and build it up to be really profitable. You can then sell it in a year or two and have the seed capital for real estate. I am building up my fourth company that I will sell at some point.This one will give me enough to do anything I want. Each company has been worth 4 to 10 times the previous one. It is just climbing a ladder. If you sold the resto biz for 100K , you can parlay that into a million dollar real estate co. Once you become successful, banks will throw money at you. Bankers are more interested in successful businessmen than successful businesses. Once you prove you are good at making money , they will loan you money for anything you want to do. My bankers call regularly asking when I am going to bring them another deal. When I got a loan for a new 10k sf warehouse they said lets do the loan for 2 and you can build another. I said ok but will finish the first one, get the tenant in then put up the second. You can play it safe even while building lots of income. Lee

I totally agree with you on the first point! My current employee loves the job - as it is his dream job and understand the growing pains of a new business. I spoke to another shop owner I know, who took on an employee for several months who had a alcohol problem - long story short - the employee was let go. I also have no intention to hire ex felons.

True it sounds and looks like I am going many directions at the same time. I have a grand vision of having a large business portfolio ranging from 7-10 figure businesses in 5-10 years from now. To have that, I plan on launching majority of those businesses myself and then acquiring the remaining. I do not want to be stuck in start-up for 25 years and would rather dig down and push to create the portfolio this year and next (before I am 30). I don't see myself selling any of businesses - if anything - I would increase the size of the portfolio.
With all my businesses, I am going to built them out to be delegated and turn key, with Intrepreneurs as managers and C-level. I know it sounds audacious but, if anything, the lamborghini is the baby-step in my big picture.

I like your drive but building even an 8 figure business with 7 figure net income is a lot of work. Very few individuals are in the million dollar income group. After you achieve that, it is much easier to go up from there since you have access to capital and a proven track history. There is a big difference between grossing a million and netting a million. Most businesses net between 5 and 10 %.( Mine does substantially better than that) When you start showing big fat net profit margins and high sales it shows lenders you have a very sound business model. Get your small shop netting 3 or 400k a year then use that as a springboard. Trying to make multiple companies successful without first making one successful is like trying to go to the Olympics without winning even a local track meet. You will probably lose your [email protected]#. Once you have a business successful and the bugs worked out then a manager can run it and you can build another.My exception to this rule are related businesses. Trying to run a chain or hair salons while managing a car restoration business is a formula for disaster. The biggest mistake I made as a younger man was trying to run before I could walk. I ran and I fell because I had not learned to run yet. Once you learn to run then doing multiple things while running is much easier. Lee

I agree with that philosophy as long as they are related and you have made one successful first. I have multiple related ventures under the same umbrella. I have 4 residential land developments underway, am building warehouses (for myself as long term income) , have several rent houses(have sold most of those and put into commercial), am planning a shopping center for me on land I have with commercial frontage that was left from a development, and buy land on speculation. All of these ventures are stand alone businesses in themselves but have a lot of commonality. I use revenue from the developments to pay for buildings that I rent out and create long term income. I repurpose land to commercial anytime I can find tracts with good frontage on busy roads and can be flipped to commercial usage. If you buy a residential property for say 300K with an old house on it in an up and coming area, you can repurpose it to commercial and double the value overnight. I wlll not however start a motorcycle salvage business for example in one of my warehouses. It is completely unrelated and would require a huge investment of time and dedicated personnel. Having multiple projects is ok if they are somewhat related . If they are all totally different, you do not have enough time or experience to juggle multiple balls successfully. Learn to juggle 2 then 3 then 4 etc, Trying to climb Mt Everest on your first mountaineering expedition is a sure formula for failure. Everyone should learn how to manage 1 business successfully before branching out into others. The most common cause for failure in small business in too rapid growth and too much diversification before a strong base is built. Trees grow roots first then trunks. If you build one successful business then it will support some failures on other fronts without killing you. No matter how driven or talented you are ,you will have failures. I bet any billionaire today can tell lots of stories. Murphy will work very hard to stop you. You must just be strong enough to withstand unexpected hits. In Business, unexpected should be the expected because it WILL happen. Lee