Gotta be honest. Sharing my track record today was/is terrifying. Including the 2008 losses in a document now seen by over 40,000 people ranks up there on the emotional intensity scale for me. It’s hard not to feel like deals that went south define you.
Biggest lesson for me is be wary of deals that don’t generate cashflow. I had $40M in land dev properties at the same time, in 2008… In Northern California…
It doesn’t matter that I’ve done 160M in equity raises since that time and that those investments have done well.
Emotional intensity aside, I stick by my strategy to always be up front and clear about deals that went south. When I’m 80 I’m still going to be listing those, and talking about the lessons learned.
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That project that isn’t in your wheelhouse but you are considering taking on because it’s a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, you should probably pass on it. 👇
I spent more of my life than I care to admit thinking that I could make any type of deal work if I just pushed hard enough. I got lucky a bunch of times but didn’t know it was luck. I thought it was me. 🤦♂️
Turns out the best way to consistently build wealth isn’t by getting lucky, it’s by getting really freaking, better-than-the-rest, good at one type of market.
14 Undisputable rules for building a strong fundraising pipeline
After 20 years and more than $200M raised for real estate investments around the 🌎 I created a simple set of rules that we use to raise money. These aren't hacks or cheat codes, just the right way to do things.
Before we start, I need to address the 🐘: Not all GPs have the same starting line for raising 💸. Some have connections that help them go big out of the gate. Over time, however, track records win out, and a GP will have access to the capital flow they deserve.
1 Operate with integrity - A GP has many opportunities to hide little facts or make things sound better than they really are. Don’t go down that dark road, even if it makes life easier in the short term. ALWAYS operate with integrity down to the penny in everything you do.
Interesting new industrial tenant we started working with to lease space from us. Business model is a new twist on the 3PL model, this time for corporate clients. 👇
They are basically the WeWork of industrial space. They lease (or buy) 20-200k square foot warehouses all over the city and set them up with racks and digital inventory management systems. They operate a full fleet of trucks and do all of their own stock movement.
Their customers are mostly manufacturers or large distributors who need to store a massive amount of product and to be able to pull it into their sites within a few hours notice.
I like to keep around a list of things that I don't need more of, but often spend time chasing for one reason or another. 1.Small deals 2.Followers on Twitter 3. More investors for Harbor Capital.
I find myself chasing the items on this list because bring those lovely little dopamine hits when in reality we don't need more of them.
The theory of constraints is a great way to run a business, focus energy on the bottlenecks that are slowing you down.
I often think about how to structure our real estate buys so that we can own them for the proverbial forever. 👇
When we sit down to set goals for the future none of them include rolling around in a bunch of cash on a mattress, but they all include owning billions worth of great cash flow generating real estate. 👇
I’ve been contemplating the best debt structures to use in order to achieve that goal. 👇
Posted a while back about our hiring funnel. -> Website says we aren’t hiring but for the right person we might consider it. 500 word essay to explain why we should talk to you.
Over 100 essays so far, most are trashed immediately as they just aren’t interesting. 3 have been very good and got to round two.
Round two is a model with one question. “What’s wrong with this model”. Most don’t respond.