This New Investor 10x’d His Business in One of the Toughest Markets — Here’s How w/ Alex Braich

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] This episode is sponsored by Sir Lenzalot LLC, also known as SLA Capital, which, if you didn't know, is Dan and I's private lending company. So, yes, we are sponsoring our own show, but what you gonna do about it? It is our private lending company that offers hard money and DSCR loans to real estate investors of all types. So you can be a new investor, an experienced investor. You can be buying flips. You can be buying rentals, whatever. We can do everything. And not only that, but the rates that we offer are just as competitive, if not cheaper, than pretty much every other company out there. So whatever big company you've been working with, bring us their term sheets, I guarantee that we can probably beat it. We have the same connections they do. We just don't have all the overhead and middlemen. So if you wanna come and check us out, go to slacapital.com/keys, and I will know that you came from the show. And by seeing that you came from here, when you get the closing, you will save $500 on your first loan with us. So slacapital.com/keys, we would love to fund your next deal.

Alex Braich: [0:53] There's no magic. Hey. Ask this question, and this will get you the contract. It's really a lot of grids. So much harder than all the gurus make it out to be overall.

Mike DeHaan: [1:04] I think that California might be the home to potentially the next president of The United States, Dylan. So you better used to it. She's gonna You

Dylan Koch: [1:11] think Newsome? You think that's the next president?

Mike DeHaan: [1:13] I do. I bet he will be the nominee. Whether or not he'll be the next president, I don't know because who knows what the actual country sort of like views. Because I feel like California is like the big bad brother of so many places in the country. Right? They're always like, oh, people from California move in here. Like, it's always kinda like the democratic everything even though it's a economic financial powerhouse. Right? But I bet that he'll be nominated though. I would be surprised if he wasn't. What's going on, guys? Welcome to today's episode of the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast. Don't worry, we're not talking about politics today. We're just wrapping up a pre show conversation there. I am Mike DeHaan here with my cohost Dylan Cook and we have a guest today, Alex Braich out of out of California. Alex is scale member and you have somebody that has been building your wholesaling flipping business out in Cali for a little while. And I thought you'd be a fun one to have on the show today because you are somebody that is newer to the space over the past couple of years. And what I thought would be a fun conversation would be to talk about what you are kind of seeing with the struggles, the trends, what gurus are trying to pitch to you out there that's working and what's not because you're the total target for all the real estate gurus right now. And just have like some grounded reality conversation around building a wholesaling and flipping business in twenty twenty four, twenty five has been your main focus, right? Which is such a different time than when Dan, myself and Dylan got started back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one because the industry has changed, the housing market has changed, the economy has changed.

Mike DeHaan: [2:47] And so you're just kind of going through it the different experience than we are. So anyways, man, thanks for, coming on the show with us. Want to give a really quick intro, kind of your background and what you're working on out there?

Alex Braich: [2:59] Yeah. Yeah. So we've been in the business for about a year and a half. Ultimately, we started with scale direct mail, everything like that. We recently pivoted to cold calling a bit more and, that's been super helpful. We're out here in the Bay Area. So we do every part of the Bay Area. Me and my wife started the business together. And then as we switched away from direct mail, she kinda went to just more paying the bills and making sure the lights are staying on here versus, having a fully active part of the business, you know. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [3:29] Yeah. But she used to just love being on the seller calls, dude. I remember when you guys came out to KeyesCon, that was like her favorite thing. When we did like the calling roulette hadn't she like never talked to a seller before?

Alex Braich: [3:39] Not once. Not once. Yeah. She, she was the data. Let me do all the backend stuff. And I was the personality, talk to sellers, on appointments, everything like that. So she wanted no part of it.

Mike DeHaan: [3:53] Yeah. Yeah, dude. So I guess with that your way you're working out there, you shifted to the cold calling, away from the direct mail. I know you've kind of tried a handful of different things. In your opinion right now, what do you think is the most challenging piece of trying to start and build this business in the modern era of this industry?

Alex Braich: [4:10] Yeah. So I think you kind of hit it pretty hard. YouTube, Instagram, everything's targeting me. That person starting the business that, hey, you don't have all the systems. You don't have all this. Like, the deal is gonna be so easy to get. You should be closing them in one phone call kind of thing. And it's it's all bullshit. It really is. Like, learning from you guys Yeah. Like, just throughout the last year, it's all in the follow-up. It's all in the there's no magic script. There's no magic. Hey. Ask this question, and this will get you the contract. It's really a lot of grids, so much harder than all the gurus make it out to be overall. You know? And I've heard you say it before. Like, it's a relatively simple business, but it's still hard overall.

Dylan Koch: [4:55] Mhmm.

Alex Braich: [4:55] And that's what everyone's trying to sell. It's like, hey. It's an easy get rich quick scheme overall.

Dylan Koch: [5:01] One thing I wanna emphasize what you just said, Alex, is a lot of them pitch. You said, I've heard you guys, you know, say this before and it's been true, but you've also learned that from your own experience. Now that you've been in in a year, you've done some of the marketing, the phone does ring every once in a like pretty consistently, but it doesn't mean that that you're gonna lock up deals. Right. Right? And all of the lists that people are that pull are pretty much the same, the cold call list. There is no special anything when it comes to this business. But I do wanna ask, you know, when you first got started versus now, is there anything that you changed that you found out that does work in today's market?

Alex Braich: [5:37] Yeah. So we started with direct mail, and that was our start with everything else. And this might be controversial on, with what you guys have to say because I know you guys are heavy on direct mail. You guys have had a lot of success. We haven't had the same success with direct mail that we have had with cold calling at this point and even cold calling myself. And I think a lot of it was I just was not getting the reps in that I needed to be getting in at a going from a physical therapist

Dylan Koch: [6:06] Mhmm.

Alex Braich: [6:06] Going to basically a sales and marketing job, essentially. I didn't know how much of a sales and marketing it business it was moving into it. Right? I didn't have to sell physical therapy for the most part. People are coming into me. They're like, hey. I'm hurting. What do I need to do? And, I needed to advocate and tell them, hey. This is why we're doing these things, but it's nowhere near sales and marketing that I'm doing for our business right now. Right? Yeah. And so switching away from direct mail and, going into cold calling, that really gave me the reps because I'm getting a ton more reps every day and they're so low cost as well. So if I mess up, I'm not burning 300, 200, $400 on a direct mail lead overall, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [6:49] For sure. I will say that it is something that I have pivoted on when I talk to new people around what my typical guidance for them is, especially if they don't have a lot of money or they don't have that experience is I almost always tell people to either cold call yourself even though it sucks because you're gonna get used to being told no and to be doing the monotony of talking to sellers, right? Or hire a cold calling company if you're willing to do that because you're gonna be getting those cheap reps. And then I think the new challenge that comes from that is you kind of get the opposite problem of direct mail whereas direct mail you don't necessarily have enough lead flow. You know, your cost per conversation is pretty high. When it comes to the cold calling, your cost per conversation is low but the quality also tends to be very low, right? And so what happens is people tend to get very discouraged very very early because they're having hundreds and hundreds if not more conversations and it isn't really going anywhere. And so there's always like a give or take, right? And like the, I think the crux of how I typically tell people to approach this is like, you don't have money, you're gonna need to be willing to put in a lot of time, right? And if you don't have a lot of time, you're gonna have to spend money.

Mike DeHaan: [7:56] But of course, most people come in and they don't have any time, don't have any money and they want like a magic pill, which is where the Instagram gurus come in and offer some paper lead bullshit service or some like done for you, whatever that just doesn't make any sense at all. And so I guess with that being said, if you're looking at your cold calling, so you started doing it yourself, you hired a company that does it for you. Are you completely done with every other kind of marketing right now?

Alex Braich: [8:20] I am.

Mike DeHaan: [8:21] Yeah. Like mixing it in and that's just like your primary.

Alex Braich: [8:24] Yeah. No. We're just cold calling at this point. Yeah. We stopped direct mail a few months ago. Gosh. It's been like six months ago. Mhmm. And we still have leads that we're following up with. Don't get me wrong. So those are still in the pipeline for sure and a lot of my follow-up still. But, cold calling is kinda filling the pipeline right now. But, yeah, I agree. There's a lot of useless conversations in there as well that you need to get really good at disqualifying people

Dylan Koch: [8:48] Yeah.

Alex Braich: [8:48] Overall and, just trying to make sure, hey. I'm focusing on the ones that actually there seems to be some motivation, but maybe it's not gonna be I sell my house today. It might be three, six, nine months down the road.

Dylan Koch: [9:00] One for the audience. I don't I don't know if he said this or not. Alex is in the California area, so it is probably a higher like, a more competitive market, definitely a higher price point than what I'm compared to. So there might be fewer deals, but those deals that you do get should be higher in revenue. And one thing I I think I've seen you do well, was just from talking to you and being on social media, is like almost getting the dispo side down before you even have the deals. Talking to the buyers, seeing what they want, and really connecting with the people who are gonna be on the back end of that transaction when the time comes.

Alex Braich: [9:34] Yeah. Totally, man. I think that's how I kind of frame the business at this point right now. I don't have a construction background. I I barely know anything about real estate. I know enough at this point after doing it so many transactions and everything like that. But in terms of construction costs, I really don't have a big clue. So rather than try to make up a price in my head, I'd rather find a few buyers I could trust, run it by them, and kind of figure out where they would need to be. And that just makes the conversation with the seller so much easier because I'm not second guessing myself overall. Like, oh, is this a great deal? Is this not a great deal? Yeah. It makes dispo so much easier for sure because I know exactly where they need it at ultimately, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [10:17] Yeah. How often have you run into sellers that have never talked to another home buying company?

Alex Braich: [10:22] I don't think I have. They're all talking to someone.

Mike DeHaan: [10:25] Exactly. That's one of the biggest things right now that's so different from like several years ago is we talked about this thing on the Hot Takes episode that we did a couple of weeks ago is that every single seller has talked to somebody at this point, right? Whether it's like currently or it's in the past, like they're familiar with the concept of a home buying company, they've already been lowballed by other people, even if they are motivated, right? They're already like defensive right out of the gates. Cause I believe it or not dude, if you go back in time, you used to be able to just like send people a letter and this is why response rates and stuff were so high and they'd be like, oh, apparently you wanna buy my house. I'm not sure why that place is a piece of shit. Right? And then you go walking like, it is a piece of shit. Do you wanna sell it to me for 50% off? And they would go, howdy doody, that sounds great. Sure. And they would just sign the contract. Like, this is awesome. And that's when Dan and I started but before that it was even easier. Right? Like I have a good buddy here who was doing this in 2017, 2018 and literally he said, last time I saw him, I haven't seen him for years. Last time I saw him, he said that they had a SMS like auto texter that they were using and their total monthly spend was like $4,000. Right? And they were getting two to three deals a week off of that. So their cost per deal was like nothing.

Mike DeHaan: [11:40] He's like, you said they were just raking in like $100,150,000 dollars a month just by texting people and like they're like, do you wanna upsell your house? And they would say, yeah, sure. And they would go and they would just, you know, wholesale it to whoever and make these 10 to $15,000 rips and it just cost them nothing. Right? But that's way before people were familiar with the industry, before all like the social media stuff really blew up. But now it's like impossible. Because like also too, all the different methods for lead generation, a lot of them don't even exist. You can't do the ringless voicemails anymore, you can't do the SMS blasts. Cold calling is getting more heavily regulated all the time. A lot of like the paper lead stuff doesn't work anymore. If you're gonna run any online ads, the problem is like the big big companies have come in and made that so unbelievably expensive.

Dylan Koch: [12:28] Expensive. I know someone's spending a $100 a month just on PPC. And, like Yeah. It's almost like it's a breakeven for them. But, like, with their thought processes, as long as no one else is at the top, it's worth it for us.

Mike DeHaan: [12:38] Totally. Yeah. And they're not wrong. Right? They just basically outbid everybody. And to make it worse, you just have so much, like, bad information that's being spewed out there by everyone.

Dylan Koch: [12:49] Well, and there's a reason that all of these people are switching to education because they can't do these deals themselves.

Mike DeHaan: [12:54] Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [12:54] And it's slowed down from what it was been. So like, we need another way to make money. Then like, this is their answer. Like, how to sell content?

Mike DeHaan: [13:00] Hell yeah, dude. If you can't do, teach. Right? So the funny thing about that is too is that the biggest red flag is when I would say like the higher production value that they are with their content, you know, the worst that their actual real estate businesses. Right? If it's a dude that's like, I don't know, just like filming a selfie walk in a property, they're actually probably doing okay. It's when they have like the camera crews, they have the editing, they have the transitions, they have all that sort of stuff that it gets real bad. It's getting

Dylan Koch: [13:31] I'd say the one caveat to that would be Dossie.

Mike DeHaan: [13:34] For sure.

Dylan Koch: [13:35] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:35] I would say yeah. Dossie. But even then, like, he himself isn't doing that many deals.

Dylan Koch: [13:40] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [13:40] Like, his company is doing pretty well.

Alex Braich: [13:42] Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like most of the personalities at this point are getting in trouble too. Like, I'm seeing some notice of defaults. I'm not gonna name names or anything like that that

Mike DeHaan: [13:51] Blast them.

Dylan Koch: [13:52] Let's do it.

Alex Braich: [13:53] I'm gonna do it, man.

Mike DeHaan: [13:55] Yeah. I'll do it. I think his downfall is pretty well known amongst a lot of people.

Alex Braich: [13:58] Okay. Yeah. So I pull notice of defaults from, our county out here, man. And one of the biggest names in, bigger pockets, David Green, his name's up on the, notice default, pulling his property, gonna cold call him later and, see if he wants to sell his property later sometime in the next three to six months.

Mike DeHaan: [14:17] Yeah.

Alex Braich: [14:18] But you're seeing some of these big personalities really, their downfall.

Mike DeHaan: [14:22] Oh, totally did. I mean, he's that Brandon Turner obviously is his whole collapse of all of his syndication with open door stuff is a big well known one. It's been several like class action things that have come out with different people. I feel like your market is like ripe for it Dylan. Have you had like three or four that were like big names that have been sued or even found guilty like indicted for like pretty major fraud over there?

Dylan Koch: [14:43] Yeah. I mean, a lot of it too is not even like the people that we'd recognize, but Yeah. International stuff. Like, honestly, like, not to this is not to point out any such country, but there's lot of Israeli, like, money that was over here that was very fraudulent. They done. Mhmm. And so it just goes to show the amount of, I guess, excess froth that was in the system. And there is some of personal vindication where I see some of these deals, and I'm like, how the hell are they paying these prices from these things? And now, like, it's just coming home to a roost where I'm like, I almost feel vindicated. I'm like, okay. I thought they were dumb and they were dumb.

Mike DeHaan: [15:16] For sure. And you I it just validates. And hindsight's always twenty twenty, but like when you look back and you knew from day one that you were right, it always feels so good. And then also too, you're like, I don't understand how they didn't see that. I remember going back to '21 and like the early early collecting key shows where Dan and I would talk about like the multifamily stuff these people were doing. And I was like, it does not fundamentally make sense. All these like syndications that are trying to do value add on value add on value add. And then we joined GoBundance and we're going to these meetups and there's a dude that's like 24 that's worth $2,000,000 because they work at Netflix and they make $600,000 a year and they bought a bunch of crypto and they don't do fucking anything, right? And they're like, I'm gonna syndicate 55 unit apartment complexes. I'm like, are you? Like there's no way you're successful. Like it doesn't make any fundamental sense. And then sure enough when they all go crashing down, what's shocking to me is on top of those, of course they failed, is there's people that are smart that actually gave them money. And I'm like, why are you that stupid? You just like wanna believe in the the dream or the kiddo, was it FOMO or what was that, man?

Mike DeHaan: [16:21] It doesn't make any sense.

Dylan Koch: [16:23] Well, in some of it, from personal experience, when I first got started, I was like, Alex, I didn't know shit about real estate. I didn't know shit about construction. And so, yeah, I guess I I can understand numbers a little bit. Like, I have an, you know, advanced degree. But I was just like, you second guessed a lot of your own underwriting. You second guessed a lot of your own opinions and tactics. And then then to see that they're like, okay. I wasn't as crazy what I thought. And as time goes, you get your own Hermosy is good at this saying, what is it? Basically create enough work that you could prove your own confidence. Butchered that. But something along those lines.

Mike DeHaan: [16:54] Yeah. So so you started this business dealing in '21. When did you actually start, like, studying real estate? So

Dylan Koch: [17:01] to make it short, I bought my first, like, house hack before I even knew what house hacking was in 2018.

Mike DeHaan: [17:06] Okay.

Dylan Koch: [17:07] And then I bought another duplex with a pharmacist friend of mine where we just did 25% down. That was off the MLS. Mhmm. Right? And we bought it for $90. So like even if we went over we could still afford it, right, with our own w twos. And then I guess I just kept studying real estate between that time in 2018 all the way till 2021 when I actually left my job. We sold everything. And then I I left my pharmacist job in November 2021. Didn't do my first deal until April 2022. So literally like four years ago is when I left my my job.

Mike DeHaan: [17:38] Yeah. Nice. That's awesome. But you were educated enough. You could like stuff wouldn't pass the sniff test with you just because it didn't sound right. Yes. Exactly. Because I'm similar. Because I started getting on like the bigger pockets train in 2017, bought my first properties in 2018. And anyone that knows me personally, know that when I get into something, I'm like all in on it. I'm the similar personality. It was my personality. And so I was consuming everything, real estate, all the podcasts, all the books. Like I have a whole like box of books that are just real estate books that I read. That's all I was doing for a long time. And so then when all like the fads started popping up in 2020 and 2021, it was so easy to just be like, this just doesn't fundamentally make sense. But the problem is over like a longer time horizon, when stuff like that sticks around for several years after a while you go, did it make sense? And I just like, didn't understand it. And then finally when it catches on fire, you're like, oh no, I was right there.

Dylan Koch: [18:34] It was stupid. To that point, not to, like, see this conversation a different way, but I also read all those same books. I read all the BiggerPockets books. I read some Ken McIlroy books. I digested all the podcasts. What I'm getting at is more long form content. You had to sit down, learn it, study it, maybe make examples in your own notebook. Now I feel like people just get the clips, the seven minute Vine clips of how to make money in on an Airbnb. It's income minus your mortgage, and that's your cash flow. And it was like, just the content that goes out there is so trash now. And this I don't know. It's not doing anyone any favors.

Mike DeHaan: [19:08] For sure, man. I mean, I remember back in 2018 after I'd left my job, was working at cross stitching was my main thing. And I was like that weirdo dude. I would go in and I would be doing like a, you know, squat deadlift session. So it's relatively long and I would just be listening to like bigger pockets like financial podcasts. Mhmm. And that's that's what I would do. So I was always just consuming content constantly. And when you do stuff like that, you start to hear parallels, you start to hear things. And I would say that when you listen to enough longer form content like that, it is harder for people to sell you bullshit because there's more room for them to leave gaps, right, in their story if things aren't correct. And there's also less chance for them to edit it on on an average basis for the average person. But

Dylan Koch: [19:51] And now you can have a conversation within two minutes, you know, if they're full of shit or not.

Mike DeHaan: [19:54] Totally, dude. Like, just based off their vibe alone. Like, Alex here, look at him. He's obviously full of shit. You need to sit over there with deer in the headlights with me and Dale to

Dylan Koch: [20:02] talk. I'm like,

Alex Braich: [20:03] what was real estate like?

Mike DeHaan: [20:06] Yeah. No. Or contrary for that. So like when you started learning stuff, know you you came through the collecting keys train, right? You ran a a mastermind beforehand.

Alex Braich: [20:16] I was. Yeah. So Where have

Mike DeHaan: [20:18] you found your your education and stuff from?

Alex Braich: [20:20] I think being in the trenches at this point. You know, I did hear the long form content and would listen to bigger pockets, all that good stuff, but it's more the kind of doing, you know, doing and failing over and over again. That's kind of given me the best lesson so far, like getting some under contract too high and like, oh, crap. Alright. I messed that up. So let's ask for a price reduction. Oh, that didn't work out. Alright. We're out of contract for this. Just learning by asking for help too. I have no shame in asking for help or letting people know I don't know what I'm doing in this sense. Help me have overall, you know, that's probably been the most helpful.

Mike DeHaan: [20:56] Yeah. Even like before that though.

Alex Braich: [20:58] Oh, gotcha.

Mike DeHaan: [20:59] Like, yeah, like like before you started, you made the decision to your own business when you were in like that other group and different stuff.

Alex Braich: [21:06] So, yeah, it was a it was a lot of bigger pockets at that point too, you know? So listening to bigger pockets, I was in the other group and they were more focused towards long term rentals. Now more syndication, it seems like everything like that. And so I did have a coach at that time and, you know, that was super helpful just having the one on one, someone who's done it before kinda teaching you. But before real estate, I always wanted to get into real estate, but I just didn't know how. I didn't know anyone doing it until I went to, like, a bachelor party actually. And, my buddy who was getting married, he introduced me to another guy that was in that mastermind who get real estate and was doing real estate investing. And that's when I started just consuming everything I could because I was heavy into stocks, maxing out my four zero one k and my IRA, Bitcoin Yeah. Everything like that. And, one thing I didn't have my hands in was real estate, and it just seemed too tough to get into or that I at least I thought so at that time. It seemed like a big cloud. Like, oh, man. I thought I had to put all this money down for a property. I thought I needed to have all this money have to who would sell it to me at a discount or anything like that. And then seeing you guys do it, I think that kinda turned on the light bulb of just getting around people who are doing stuff that you wanna be doing.

Alex Braich: [22:21] And I think that's where the light bulb kind of went on overall. That's I would say so at least, getting in the right rooms.

Dylan Koch: [22:29] I think anyone who understands math Mhmm. Eventually leads to real estate.

Alex Braich: [22:33] For

Dylan Koch: [22:33] sure. Because of the leverage aspect. That's the number one thing. You can't control a $100 worth of Apple stock for $20, but you can control real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [22:40] Totally, dude. And this is always like one of the biggest giveaways when you know someone doesn't know shit about real estate is when they post or they reshare these things that are like, if you bought a house in the Bay Area in 2015 for a million dollars, it'd be worth $2,500,000. And I was like, if you bought it in Apple stock, it'd be worth 7,000,000. I'm like, yeah, well that person didn't buy that house for cash. Yeah. Know, they probably bought it with like, probably honestly like a 5% down loan and they had to make payments and everything on it. But then what actually happened is their 50,000 or a $100,000 they put down on that house grew to a million and 0.5 in equity, right? Exactly. That's a much larger return than your million dollars that you had to park, that you had to go through the fluctuations of the market that you had no control over was Steve Cook, whatever the hell is that. Tim Cook, is that the guy's CEO? You're like messaging him to make sure that he's taking care of your money over there, right? So so he's gonna be bumping that stock up for you so that you get the seven x return over fifteen years. Like the leverage piece is, I would say the hardest one for people to grasp. But you're right. If they understand math at a basic level, that's what makes real estate ultimately a no brainer from an investment return standpoint.

Dylan Koch: [23:45] Yeah. That's how I got started. It's just like, wanted to be wealthy. I wanted to have financial freedom. And that's why the pitch of the $5,000 a month rentals were the first draw. Until you get into the active business, you're like, okay, I can make 5,000 a month or I can make a 100 fucking grand this month.

Mike DeHaan: [24:00] Yeah. The one that really stuck with me was like, where I would say like, I have my big light bulb moment. I know we just ripped on David Green, but his burr book when he the very beginning of it, he has a section where he talks about when you buy a discount and then you refinance all your money out and like this is what your return actually is on day one. I was like, you can do that. Cause up to that point, I had only looked at like houses on the market and I was like everyone else where I'm like, well the house is up for $300,000. If I get it for 280,000, that's a discount, that's great. Yeah. No, I need to get that bitch for 200. And then once I understood that, that's ultimately what took me to wholesaling. And that's when I learned to create that real value. But you can't do that with anything else. No. Right? Like not at like the same same sort of pace or like there isn't like the same marketplace that just like exists out there. You can tell me about anything at a discount, but not in such like a established sophisticated industry.

Dylan Koch: [24:49] I remember thinking in college that I was like, man, our rent combined is like $2,000 a month to this landlord, but he paid $2,200,000. It took me a long time to get my money back. And, like, not understanding a single aspect of the leverage piece or refinancing later on or getting some of that money back. So it just shows how naive a lot of people start. And to that end, Alex, I'd like your opinion on this, and I guess Mike too, but coming from a health care, you know, quote unquote white collar background, if I told some of the colleagues, my old colleagues what I do now, they'd be like, you left pharmacy to go walk shithouses in some ghetto ass areas? And I'm like, yeah. And so I just I don't know. I think it takes a special kind of person not to like, you know, flatter myself, but like just to leave that cushiness and and intention for a better life and for financial success.

Mike DeHaan: [25:39] I mean, was in engineering. Right? Like, it's not that different from pharmacy. And like I remember when I quit my job at Boeing, it was funny. There was this guy that he was my occasional like cube mate, but he switched offices. I don't see him so often. I hadn't seen him for a little bit. But the fruit of our conversation was always, how much does it fucking suck to work here? That it was such like a negative toxic thing. And I had literally gone in, it was like 06:30 in the morning, I just quit. I'm sitting on a meeting with my boss first thing to quit, it was a Friday. I'm walking out and I see him and he sees me and he goes, oh, get in trouble with Rick today? That's my boss name. And I was like, no, actually I just quit. And he laughed. He thought I was kidding. And I was like, no, seriously. He's like, He's like, what do you mean? He's like, what are you gonna do? I'm like, I will I'm moving to Spokane. I got a job out here. Was I like, yeah, I just can't do this dude. Like this is a horrible place to work. And he goes, well, man, I would totally do that, know, but I'm just too invested here. Like I'd never be able to start somewhere else. You know, talking about four zero one k, he had a pension, all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, that's sad, dude. But you're right. And I guarantee you that he's probably still there now ten years later. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [26:44] He was holding his fort. I guarantee he's still there, still miserable, still has another young new employee that he just talks about how much working there sucks every single day. You know? And I would also bet that he would look at what I'm doing right now and he'd like, well, that's risky. You could lose it all tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Economy. You

Dylan Koch: [26:58] know? Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [26:59] But Alex, I'm I'm sure you face the same thing though. At least somewhat similar.

Alex Braich: [27:02] Yeah, man. I just left my job a year ago. It's been pretty recent that Kaiser job I had, it was a cushy job. It was a golden handcuffs. That's what everyone called it there. Know, we had great benefits, a great retirement, great pay for physical therapy. And when I told people I was leaving, they looked at me like, what the hell are you doing? Mhmm. It wasn't that long ago that this was your dream job. This is what you wanted. And this is you wanted to just work your way up the ladder over there and be a physical therapist.

Dylan Koch: [27:32] And there I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars of schooling and time.

Mike DeHaan: [27:36] Yeah. Mhmm.

Alex Braich: [27:37] Yeah. So student loans up the ass. Absolutely.

Mike DeHaan: [27:40] People don't understand that though. I think that where it really gets you is, like you said, it's the the debt piece and then the sunk cost that people have getting into those kind of careers, right? Like I don't want an engineering piece, that's a big part of it is because when you go to school for engineering, you are so focused in school, you kind of miss out on a lot of college stuff because it is a hard degree to get. Then you get into like these very specific jobs that don't really translate to anything else and then so when you leave you kind of are having to reset regardless. I mean, healthcare I would say is somewhat similar to that, right? And a lot of it, the education is even longer. So I think that people, look in the rearview mirror and they're all saying, I really wish I hadn't done that, but because I did, I feel like I need to continue forward with what I was have been doing in the career path.

Dylan Koch: [28:21] Yeah. Definitely a stunt cost bias, but all three of us, at least I feel like if we wanted to go back to our w two jobs, we could probably do it within a month's time.

Alex Braich: [28:29] That's what I was gonna say too.

Mike DeHaan: [28:31] I couldn't. I'm too far removed. I don't have any of the relevant stuff anymore.

Dylan Koch: [28:35] So if you applied for an engineering job, you don't think you'd get another engineering job?

Mike DeHaan: [28:38] No. I don't.

Dylan Koch: [28:39] Now I would be worried about my patient's sake if I got another pharmacy job. I would definitely have to study and re up my like my education levels. But I think I could get another job. If I wanted to

Mike DeHaan: [28:49] go back into that field, I would be better off going and applying for like a business manager or like an exec job. Right? Like a higher level because I bet I could get that because I've run a company now for six years. My engineering stuff, I don't need like license or anything for that. But I'm so far removed from that field, I wouldn't have any relevant experience anymore. I'm not up to speed with like the new rules and regulations like code changes, stuff like that. Also too, you don't make dick as an engineer anymore. Thanks to Chad GPT coming out and then also the massive oversupply of engineers that came out of college like shortly, shortly after me. Because like when I first started applying for jobs in 2013, there's a shortage of engineers, right? And so it's so easy to get a job. In the ten years after that, they become a massive surplus, you know, because everyone pushed their kids into engineering hearing that. And so now there's so many of them out there that they can't find jobs anywhere. No one wants to hire them. If you do get hired, you're making like $55,000 a year. You know, making less than I got hired in at back, you know, twelve plus years ago.

Dylan Koch: [29:51] Inflation adjusted, that's a terrible number. That's a

Mike DeHaan: [29:54] terrible number, dude, that's the truth. And it's a weird sort of thing to like think about, but like, I would say if you've been an entrepreneur for a while unless you have something that's super specialized like in medicine, you will eventually outgrow that previous opportunity if you ever needed to fall back on it. So that's something to keep in mind.

Dylan Koch: [30:11] Yeah. Yeah. That's I would agree with that statement.

Mike DeHaan: [30:13] Cause the thing is too, that's kind of independent if you're successful or not, right? You can be unsuccessful for seven years trying to build your own business and then be like, well, guess I got to go back to the coal mines now. And they're gonna be like, well better be an actual coal mine because you're not working anywhere you used to work.

Alex Braich: [30:27] Yeah. Dylan, I have no doubt you would get a job. I have no doubt that I would still get a job at this point. Like, the only thing that's been what they're saying that we're losing jobs like crazy, but the only industry that's continuing to add jobs is health care right now at this point. And I have no doubt that we would be able to get a job at this point. And but would we wanna go back? Absolutely not. Like, I I've tasted freedom now and, damn, does it taste good?

Mike DeHaan: [30:52] Well, that's the other thing too, is you learn relatively quickly that you can make like enough money to get by. Mhmm. Right? And sure you're not gonna be wealthy, you're not gonna be saving for retirement or whatever. But also too when you're working for yourself, you really only need like one or two really good years and it makes up for all the ten, like the ten, fifteen years where you were kind of scraping by if you to. Right? Like in the go bunnies group that Dylan and I are in, they regularly do this like what's called seven to eight. And it's these presentations, somebody talks about what they did, they go from 7 figure to 8 figure net worth. And in almost every single one, there is some kind of like massive event that happens in one year where they make the vast majority of their wealth. That can be an economic event like 2021, they owned a bunch of properties and stuff just exploded in value. It can be a sale of a company where they were like paying this with a $150 a year and then they sold the company for $15,000,000, whatever. There's always something. The only times you see really linear growth is when the guy's like 70 years old and he's just been nose to the grindstone paying himself a decent wage out of his company for forty years. Right? But if it's anyone that's like younger population, they've almost always had a massive increase, but the years up to that are usually very rarely like incredibly fruitful.

Dylan Koch: [32:05] And it's usually I would just add to that. It's usually like a decade plus of just nose to the grind and then it's a hockey stick. Totally.

Mike DeHaan: [32:12] Right. You know, or it's not since I've been a freaking hockey stick, sometimes it's like a freaking was it like a stalagmite. Right? Just like straight up like in a fucking cave. So Alex, to kind of round this conversation, so like with what you know now, what's your advice for like other newbies that are trying to get into this space to get cut through like all the influencer sort of guru noise that they're pitched every single day without their knowledge?

Alex Braich: [32:35] Yeah. So I think the big first one is you're not gonna be able to do this without doing the hard work. You're gonna have to put in the hours regardless. There's no system. There's nothing that's gonna make this easy to where you don't have to do a ton of work. That's a lot of work.

Mike DeHaan: [32:49] And what do you think that work is like specifically?

Alex Braich: [32:52] So basically getting on the phone. So you need to talk to property owners. I think that's been the thing we were lacking is we would wait for leads to come in, but I wasn't proactive in the aspect of going out and finding my own leads, getting on the phones early, and trying to, you know, just build my day by talking to more and more folks. I think the more folks you talk to, the better you're gonna get at your sales. And by sheer volume alone, you're just gonna stumble into a deal. If you do enough volume, you're going to get a deal. It's just you have to actually put in the work and consistently too. That was a big issue early on too is I would start cold calling and then be going well for a week or two and then falling off because of some other life event. But now I'm just making it up. Basically, every day I have to be on the phones, cold calling, prospecting myself, and then calling my leads is how I'm kind of setting everything up. You're not gonna do well by avoiding the hard work.

Mike DeHaan: [33:46] For sure. And so if you look at the hard work piece, what about if somebody has four kids, full time job, they're focused on, you know, their hobbies, whatever else. What is that person supposed to do?

Alex Braich: [34:01] Yeah, man. When I was working full time, you know, it was one of those where I don't think I was gonna get as much traction as we're getting now because now I'm fully in the business. They can still be successful. It might take longer like it did with me right now. I'm not by no means am I saying we're super successful yet, but now that I'm being able to put in my full effort into our business and I'm all the way in our business, we have taken off considerably compared to the year prior. I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna keep the revenue numbers out of it because I want to. We've 10 x our revenue. Either that means we had a really bad first year or we had a really great this year. I'm not gonna tell you guys which one it is. But, yeah. So you have to be all into it. And if you are part time, it's gonna take longer, but you're gonna lose out on the deals to the folks that are full time and doing this nonstop every day.

Mike DeHaan: [34:54] Yeah. I think you're too kind. I would say that the people that are part time, they will never be successful over a long term time horizon.

Dylan Koch: [35:00] Sure.

Mike DeHaan: [35:00] They might have a successful month or successful quarter. If you look at it over like a year or several years, they will always fail 100%. I don't think that there is a way that you can do any business endeavor truly part time without having a period of your time where you are fully invested in it and nothing else. You just can't build a base. It's just not physically possible to make real money. If you wanna make like $1,020,000 dollars a year extra, totally different. If you wanna make like hundreds of thousands dollars a year, make full time wage, become actually wealthy, you have to be full time into it.

Dylan Koch: [35:29] I'd agree. Congrats on going from 300 to $3,000. There we go.

Mike DeHaan: [35:33] There we go.

Dylan Koch: [35:34] It's your 10 x. Yeah. 300

Mike DeHaan: [35:36] of revenue to 3,000 revenue. I'll say with 30 to 300. Yeah. I I I increased my revenue. I started picking up extra Uber shifts on Friday night. Yeah. So awesome. Well, Alex, thanks for hopping on with us, man.

Alex Braich: [35:52] Yeah. Of course.

Mike DeHaan: [35:52] Anything else to add before we head out, guys?

Dylan Koch: [35:54] To round out that last piece, I had a very successful mentor one time, and everyone gets wrapped up in cash on cash, ROIs, all this kind of stuff. You don't live in a percentage based world. You live in a nominal world. So even if it's a a 100 x return, but it's on $10, no one gives a shit. Right? Actually, look at your business from a how much money you are actually making. That's I'll leave it at that.

Mike DeHaan: [36:16] Absolutely, dude. I would much rather have 8% of $10,000,000 than a 100% of a thousand dollars.

Dylan Koch: [36:22] There you go.

Mike DeHaan: [36:23] Yeah. That's perfect. Awesome. Alright, guys. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you guys next week.

Dylan Koch: [36:28] See you.

Mike DeHaan: [36:30] Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.