Own the Outcome with Tyler Deveraux
Breaking Barriers in Multifamily Real Estate with Veena Jetti | Ep. 24
Ever wondered how to break into multifamily real estate without being a millionaire? Veena Jetti joins m3 to shatter the myth that these investments are exclusively for the ultra-wealthy. In this riveting conversation, Veena walks us through her journey from single-family homes to managing expansive multifamily portfolios, highlighting the challenges and triumphs along the way. Whether you're an aspiring investor or a seasoned professional, Veena’s insights will leave you motivated and equipped to take the next step.
Learn from Veena
Follow Veena on Instagram
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
Interested in multifamily investing? Attend one of our events!
Ever wondered how to break into multifamily real estate without being a millionaire? Veena Jetti joins m3 to shatter the myth that these investments are exclusively for the ultra-wealthy. In this riveting conversation, Veena walks us through her journey from single-family homes to managing expansive multifamily portfolios, highlighting the challenges and triumphs along the way. Whether you're an aspiring investor or a seasoned professional, Veena’s insights will leave you motivated and equipped to take the next step.
Learn from Veena
Follow Veena on Instagram
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
Interested in multifamily investing? Attend one of our events!
All right, aloha, y'all welcome. My name is Tyler Devereaux and today's guest Dude. I'm excited for today's guest man. She is an absolute Powerhouse in the multifamily space. She's a powerhouse period. I'm excited to be able to connect with her and for y'all to learn from her. She's the founding member of Vive. It's her investment fund. We'll certainly get into some of that. She has over a decade of real estate experience and am I reading this right? A billion in real estate assets. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:So we'll have transacted on just over a billion as of next month.
Speaker 1:Dude, huge numbers, those are huge numbers. She's a Forbes Council member. She's an amazing public speaker. Like if you've never heard her speak. You need to get to an event where she's speaking because she's very, very good. She's a philanthropist, is that how you say it? Shit dude that word?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Philanthro-something, philanthro-word. And then she's one of only three women to receive the Political Woman of the Year Award, which is that's amazing. So, once again, dude, veena Jetty is who we have on the show today, and Veena is an absolute powerhouse. Veena, welcome to the Multifamily Mindset Podcast. Thank you, thanks.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to finally do this with you. I feel like this has been a long time coming.
Speaker 1:It has been. It has been. I'm glad we're able to make it work out and I know that you will provide massive value, because it's who you are, man, it's who you are.
Speaker 2:It's the goal. It's always the goal.
Speaker 1:So I know that I want to get into some capital raising because you are phenomenal at that, but I want to let's lead into this first. Okay, well, baby step it. Tell me about who like. Who is Vina Jetty and how did you become Vina Jetty?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, well, I don't know how I became Vina Jetty. All I know is I woke up one day and here I am and I look back on my career and I'm like I think about this all the time. I'm like if I had told myself 10 years ago that I would have bought and sold over a billion dollars of assets, I've been like, nah, that makes no sense, right. But what's crazy is where I am today. I'm around people who talk about trading on 10 billion dollars and I'm like, ok, when, when is that going to be? Like five years or 10 years or two years? Like when's the horizon? And it's so crazy how your mindset changes when you get into better rooms, around better people who are just trying to grow themselves, and it's like all of a sudden, limitations kind of disappear, right. And so I think that's maybe how I got here is I just kept getting into better rooms.
Speaker 2:I also always say the like secret to my success is I find people that are way smarter than me, and then I trick them into partnering with me and it works really well, cause then I don't have to be the smartest person ever in whatever I do. Oh, that's the actually the secret sauce. Right, but who is Veena Jetty? I am, like you said, a multifamily investor. I absolutely love the capital raising side of what we do. It's the favorite, my favorite thing that I touch in my business. Um, my favorite title that I have is mom, um. So I have twin, three almost four-year-old daughters like three, going on 30 and so you know they're always keeping me on my toes. And I also have a Facebook community that I've been building called Mastering Multifamily with Veena Jetty, and it's easily my favorite corner of the internet and I spend way more time in there than I should for someone running a company.
Speaker 1:That's so good though I can tell you you love it and you enjoy it Like it's just palpable. Yeah, it's palpable. You can't fake that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:No, you really can't, because which is interesting, because I thought maybe we could in the beginning I think a lot of people make this mistake when they're trying to build community is they're like, okay, we're going to hire a VA and they're going to put these prompts in there every day and it's going to get people excited. And we did that for a while and, oh my gosh, it fell flat on its face because there's no authenticity behind it. It's not genuine, and people can sense the disingenuity on the internet, even though it's not like face to face, and so we really changed that and now I just I just hang out there all the time, and you know, my team probably needs me more than I spent time with them.
Speaker 1:So it's awesome, though I love that, it's actually a huge separator. You know, with all the technology and the AI and all that stuff, that is amazing, dude, and we leverage that for a ton. But people, I believe, try to leverage it for the wrong reasons. But that's an amazing thing because it it's this like niche that we can open up with like, hey man, I actually enjoy connecting.
Speaker 2:It's a huge separator, I can tell it's a separator for you, for sure.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate that. I it's what I want, that's my goal. Yeah, and you have, so you have. I did not know that. I knew you had kids, but I didn't know that they were twins. And you said did you say four or three? Almost four in july I'll be four oh my gosh, that's such a fun age too and full yeah it's great.
Speaker 2:I love the toddler age. I was not meant to be a newborn mom, because I'm like all you do is take and take and take and take and you don't give me anything in return, right, but now they're like funny and it's so incredible.
Speaker 2:It's magical to watch and this is what I love about the Facebook community, too is like it's magical to watch somebody learn and discover something for the first time that you already knew yes it's you, because you get to enjoy it in a way that you didn't like, for example, when I was raising capital on my first deal and I was like finding myself to sleep every single night. It's like now I get to watch someone else go through those struggles and I'm like that's so far in the distance now that now I'm looking at someone else go through those struggles and I'm like this is so exciting because I know what's on the other side of this struggle for you and it's going to change your life. And they don't know it, but I know it now, and so it's like magical watching somebody kind of grow in that way.
Speaker 1:And I get the same thing with my kids at this age, which I love. Oh, I love that you just drew that comparison, because that is. I always say that the most rewarding thing that I've ever done past parenthood is start the education business that we have, because of exactly what you just said watching somebody come in nervous, scared, green, honestly shitty at what they're trying to learn because they're brand new.
Speaker 2:Obviously we all were.
Speaker 1:And then seeing that progress into just this well-oiled machine, it's like come on the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's incredible, I and you get to enjoy it because you're not the one crying because your deal may or may not close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny, cause I just saw one of your posts Uh, I was scrolling through some of your posts today and it was actually from one of the ones from the Spurber episode but you said you referenced it. You're like, yeah, but cry myself to sleep on that first deal. Now I just do that at a bigger scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just cry more over bigger numbers.
Speaker 1:I literally laughed out loud because it's like oh my hell, dude, I'm glad I'm not the only one. That's exactly how it is. Solidarity, that's it. So let's dive into that, okay, let's how, yeah, when did you start raising funds? How did that progress? Let's, let's talk about that process. I know that's a very broad, open-ended question, but let's dive into it okay.
Speaker 2:So I think it's important to know I started in single family like pretty much everybody else, and I did it because I didn't know what I know today. I didn't know people could just start in multifamily and you didn't actually have to start with single family. I literally thought multifamily investments were for rich people, like really rich people, like Oprah and Elon Musk, like that's, who I thought could only buy multifamily. I didn't know that the Vina Jetties of the world could own multifamily, especially at the size and scale that we own today as well. So what happened was I.
Speaker 2:There was a week where I bought five homes in one week and I was like, oh my gosh one. I hate this right, because I hated like interacting with residents and like calling them to have to collect rent, like it wasn't comfortable for me. I didn't like doing that. I don't want to answer your phone call at 2am because I do not want to send a plumber out to fix the leaky toilet, like I just don't want to. And in order to avoid those problems, you have to get to scale so you can have a property manager. It's very tough to get to scale, even at five houses a week, like I'm under contract right now on a 400 plus unit apartment complex that I'm going to add 400 plus units to my portfolio in one transaction. It would take me a whole year of having five houses a week that are worth buying to buy and actually successfully close on just to get that one deal across the finish line. It would be the same net result of doors. So I was was like, okay, there's got to be a better way. And that's when I really learned about multifamily and I love the residential side because I like the idea of providing housing for somebody. I think it's really important that we invest into our communities, we revitalize our communities, we support school systems with our property taxes, like all those things are important to me. And then you get the scale of commercial which is like the best of both worlds.
Speaker 2:So what happened was when I started buying multifamily, my first deal was a 200 unit deal. It was $15.9 million and that deal I didn't have $15.9 million to buy. Buy it like I needed to raise the capital from somewhere, and so that's how that was the first time I ever raised capital. Like you said, I cried myself to sleep every single day for the six weeks I had to raise the money. I had to raise 1.2 million dollars and I cried myself to sleep every day because nobody wanted to invest with me. Because what people tell you when you start is call me when you do your second or your third right Like, and I was someone that had a lot of real estate experience and they still would say that to me and it was like what kind of financial ruin did I put my family into? I didn't know, and so the for me that was easily the hardest deal I've ever done.
Speaker 1:Dude. The first one is I call it the law of the first deal because of exactly what you just said First off finding it, but then and landing it.
Speaker 2:But then just that.
Speaker 1:it's just difficult, man, Like you're learning, you know yes.
Speaker 2:Don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it right there. If I really would have known.
Speaker 1:I really would have known. Dude, you know I'll get people. They'll be like man, I didn't know. I wish that you guys would have told me that it would have taken this as like. Well, how are we ever going to tell you that all the steps that it takes, because you still figure out stuff on every single deal? And secondly, aren't you glad that we didn't like, because you would have never know if I I would have really known, I would have never done it, cause it's like it would have been too terrifying, upfront, you know too much work, too overwhelming, too difficult, but it's like.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like trying to like keep a boulder from rolling downhill Right, like once it has momentum.
Speaker 2:You just have to stay ahead of it Otherwise you'll get run over, and so I feel like that's constantly what we've done, and now the boulders are just getting bigger and bigger, and you know we're learning more and more, but we're leveling up with our teams and our partners and the people that we interact with and who we're learning from and the rooms we're in, and you know I always say this it doesn't get easier, it really doesn't, you just get better. That's all that changes.
Speaker 2:So the things that, yeah, the things you didn't know you're that you know now that you didn't know on your first deal make you better at doing whatever it is. And now you know it's like add a couple more zeros.
Speaker 1:That's it, dude. The process doesn't get easier, you just get better. You get easier, you just get better, you get stronger. Like man stamp that cut it like that's a clip, dude, because that is just a fact. That's a fact. Yeah, either eats you up or you just get better, man, and it's like I. I listened to what, I can't remember what. I've listened to a bunch of your stuff, but you had said something about like people I think you called it god, but tourist investors, or something like this.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh yeah, real estate tourists.
Speaker 1:There we go, people who are just coming in like dabbling and it's like, well, no man, it is full-time, all in and that is how you've been able to get to where you've been able to get. It doesn't just happen magically. It happens because of dedication, commitment, struggle and a lot of freaking tears, right?
Speaker 2:You have so many tears. Blood, sweat and tears all went into every single one of our deals, that's it okay.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your first investor, uh, or your that, that your first raise, you said, was 1.3, is that we said 1.2 1.2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay it's interesting.
Speaker 1:My first one was 1.6 and but but I'll never forget is like the most challenging thing. So like hearing you talk about it is, I can relate to it a ton.
Speaker 2:But that one point or one.
Speaker 1:You know that that first raise. Where did you source your first investors from? How did those investor conversations go? And then, how have you scaled it from there? Cause you raise, let's just, let's just give them a little hook right here, a little teaser.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How much of you, how much, how much capital do you raise now?
Speaker 2:Well, right now I'm in the middle of a $65 million raise. So and that's our largest phrase today Last year we raised I think it was around 75 million was our total, which actually was supposed to be 118, but we had a deal that didn't make it past PSA or due diligence. It didn't make it past due diligence. So, um, yeah, we've, we've scaled up a little bit.
Speaker 1:Uh, what is up y'all? If this podcast has brought joy or value at some point as you're listening to it, we would love it If you would be so kind as to leave us a review down below. That is how we keep this thing moving and finding individuals just like you to pour value into. Now let's get back to the show yeah, that first raise was it.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was hard. There's there's no other way to say it, like that's the easiest way to say it was hard were those people that you knew.
Speaker 1:Did you meet these?
Speaker 2:people. Yeah, so the first investment. I forgot the question you asked me by the time I was like thinking back to all of the things I like I was having ptsd in real time right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the first investors so we raised. We used to raise on a 506b raise, which means that we have to use only pre-existing substantial relationships prior to the deal being being on the table. So the people that we have to use only preexisting substantial relationships prior to the deal being on the table. So the people that we raised funds from were all people that we knew. Right, and I always joke and I'm like I was kind of like you know people that are in like MLM companies and they, like you, were in high school with them and they reach out to you and they're like hey, you would be a great entrepreneur, do you want to like join my team and let me show you how to make money? It was like kind of like that. But for multifamily, where I was like hey, we haven't talked in like five years or we went to high school together. It's really great to reconnect. By the way, I also have this deal that I'm working on and I'd love to run it by you and it was.
Speaker 2:It was really tough because I had some amount of the money raised. I don't even remember how much it was, but maybe the last few hundred thousand was the hardest, right. And then it becomes this thing where it's like I thought my well was dry and I didn't have anywhere else to go, cause it's a five or six B rates. And so I was like have anywhere else to go because it's a 506B raise. And so I was like what do I do?
Speaker 2:And then I was like no, veena, you have a lot of relationships that you just haven't maintained over the years, and you have a lot of substantial or substantive relationships and pre-existing relationships, and you have to go and you have to rekindle those. And I'll tell you that's one of the things I learned is you should always be networking with your network so that when the time comes to do this, it's not this awkward conversation of like, hey, susie, it's been 20 years since we've spoken, but we ate lunch every day together in the cafeteria all through high school, right? So it's a different conversation then when you are in this position. And so I think that's like something that I've learned since then, and I've made it a point now to keep in touch and keep in contact. Now, of course, we do 506 C raises, so it's a little bit different in terms of what the rules are, but that's how we've, kind of like, changed our processes a little bit.
Speaker 1:Do you just said something that I, uh, I haven't thought about, but it just it's a fact. Like when I went to go talk to and raise from uh for my first raise, I would reach out to once again same thing 506 B. So I had to, we had to have had that relationship but I started to reach out to people that I knew within my network of people, cause that's what you do within that type of a raise. But I'll tell you what I did do a good job at. I was very active on social media with like commenting on stuff. Like I would comment on people's posts, I would talk about their family and not with any purpose behind it, but I just that's how I stayed in connection and I like I would know about my wife's friends more about my wife's friends than Britt would ever know about her friends, right?
Speaker 1:And I would update her for whatever reason, I don't know why, like I, just I ever know about her friends. Right now an updater for whatever reason, I don't know why. Like I, just I love people and so that's what I would do and I've never really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never really like thought about how that really impacted the beginning stages, but hearing you say that it was like shit dude, that actually probably did impact the beginning stages probably because it was really hard for me, because I was like you know, I it's funny I was called like a power user on facebook because I'd like like so many people's posts but I never really commented and it'd be kind of like the same 250, 500 people. And it's what I did a bad job of was telling people what I was doing. So when I would reach out, people would be like no, you don't, you work for this commercial real estate firm Like that. No, you don't, that's not what you do. So I did a really bad job of that too in the beginning also.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about this now, cause you do a great job at it now. On social, I mean dude, everywhere you are, I see you everywhere. And I'm sure that everybody listens to this too Like I can't tell you how many how many of my students like through my mentorship program, being like man you got to connect with, with Vena, you got to connect with Vena. She's amazing, she's amazing. It's like dude, I know.
Speaker 2:Okay, good Then it's working, Cause I actually you know, here's a secret creating social media content is like the bane of my existence. If nobody forced me to do it, I would literally never do this you know what I don't know?
Speaker 1:I just I love you for saying that because, first off, you would never be able to tell, because you do a great job at it, but second, being an amen like it's so hard, I'm so glad. So just it is, and I am just so grateful for a team that like pushes me to, force me to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, because they are smarter than me. That is how I do social media is. I have people that are way smarter than me telling me what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and forcing me to do it.
Speaker 1:It's a hundred percent Okay. So let's talk about like those. When somebody asks you right now, right, they're like hey, man, what do you do? What's your good? And then we'll kind of progress into this Like what's your go-to elevator pitch, if you will.
Speaker 2:I generate double digit returns for passive investors by investing in multifamily assets.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love it. That's your hook, right, yeah, this hook, cause who doesn't want the?
Speaker 2:double digit returns.
Speaker 1:What's the most common response back to that.
Speaker 2:Double digit returns. How do you do that? I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you more.
Speaker 1:Love it. So one takeaway that you don't talk about apartments at that point, Because most people, what I've found is and this is through a lot of trial and error if you do that, they don't even think that they can participate. They're like, okay, I can't do that, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, what happens is so. I think a lot of people have a misconception about what an elevator pitch is. An elevator pitch is a very short snippet of information that is supposed to trigger follow-up questions or intrigue so that you can then get to a longer conversation. That's more meaningful If you go and try to word vomit on somebody, right? I buy multifamily assets that are class B value add in the Sunbelt and I generate 12 to 15% IRRs for our investors that are accredited investors across the country. You are going to look at me and go what?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, Great. So what I do is you know I work for Amazon or whatever it is Right, and so Amazon's at the top of my mind because I'm like mad at them today. So I've been using Amazon all day on all these recordings anyway, but like that's what they're going to say in response, and then you're not going to have any kind of opportunity to really explain what it is that you do or what it is that you can do to help them where you are helping somebody else.
Speaker 2:Every single thing I do and this is something that I've recently kind of tried to like manifest is everything I do. Every stage I speak on, every comment I make on in our Facebook community, every Zoom call I do, every podcast I go to every investor I speak to every person I interact with. I have one goal in mind, and that's service. How can I serve you? Right?
Speaker 2:So it is a responsibility that I don't take lightly, it is a responsibility that I focus on, and so, when I'm talking to an investor, my goal is not to word vomit on you everything I know about multifamily, or even like the five most exciting things, because the reality is is when I'm talking to you, let's say you're a stranger, right? I don't know what you care about. I don't know if you care about generation wealth. I don't know if you care about tax efficiency. I don't know if you care about a asset backed investment. I don't know if you care about cashflow. So, without knowing that, how can I give you something that's going to be valuable for you to understand what I do?
Speaker 1:Dude. There are so many actionables. I say dude a lot, so bear with me, that's okay, I'm the first, so many actionables with what you just went through, because I'll tell you what I learned.
Speaker 1:I learned that even the first bit, because we're excited about it, we love multifamily and I am I'm passionate about it. It's changed my whole direction and portfolio a ton. But it's like how you explained it, you said it's not. You're not trying to regurgitate everything you know. You're trying to hook information, like get them interested to have a longer form conversation. So I believe that I naturally go into a longer version and I do. I just I feel like I do.
Speaker 1:So it was an eye opener to me of like no, I need to. I need to really dial in the hooks more and then get into longer, the longer form, the other side of that and this, this I want everyone listening to this to just take this away, because there's it's not by accident that Vina has raised the amount of money that she has and the money that she's talking about, these 70 something million, 70, 80. What was it again? 65 is the equity component. Yeah, and that's the deal you're doing right now. But last year how much did you raise? Oh, 75.
Speaker 1:That is not how much she's raised total, that's how much she raised last year and she's raising 65 million right now on a deal that doesn't happen by accident, that happens by design, and that design is the key component. I believe and just so you know the content that you put out, this is what resonates with, or this is what the vibe that I get from it is that service component that you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot to me. That's really what I want.
Speaker 1:But it's intentional. That's what I love about it is it's like I that's what I feel, but it's I feel that because you make sure that those who are consuming the content feel it Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I'll say like I took a page out of Pace Morby's playbook, like everyone's like.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's like the best human on the face of the planet. And I everyone asks me. They're like oh, how did you like figure this out? How did you learn this? Like, do you like where did this come from? I'm like my playbook is really easy. I go wake up in the morning, I go to see what pace Marby has done in the last 24 hours and then I'm like okay, I know what I'm doing today and I literally copy it Like there's no secret sauce here. So what I tell people is, when you're trying to do the same thing, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Go find someone that you resonate with, whatever their message is Like it might not be my message, it might not be Pace's message, it might not be the way we function or operate deals, it might be yours or it might be somebody else's. Go find that person and then just copy them.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then just copy them. Yeah, Dude, that nobody more successful than you is going to ever tell you you cannot copy what they do. In fact, those are the people that are going to be like why are you reinventing this wheel? Copy everything I have. Go, do it, Be great alongside of me.
Speaker 1:That's it and that is. I think that that's where people miss it. It's like dude and when you mentioned somebody who is more successful than you Isn't going to be angry you copy no dude, that's an honor. And it's like they're always like they want to be a step ahead and they want to be a step ahead so that they can provide it back down, not hoard it from Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I love that this is is an abundance mindset, right like the epitome of before I knew Pace.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I used to everyone says like, oh, I have an abundance mindset, right, like I was thinking abundance. I said that too, like a million times. And then I remember like it was very early on, when I first met Pace and I didn't have this Facebook community yet, right, like I hadn't built it. I didn't know we needed, I didn't know I could do it. Quite frankly, I was scared. If I'm being like totally transparent and Pace would pour into me like every week we would talk and be like, when you have your Facebook community, I'm like, pace, I see what you're doing, nice try, it's not going to happen. Spoiler alert it did happen and I'm so glad it did happen. And I'm so glad it did Cause it's like the best thing that I've done after having children. Um, and so what it would be like is it would just be like this moment where I would be like hey, so people want, like they want my roles and responsibilities template. What should I do? Like do I have to like charge for it or what Cause?
Speaker 1:like I never charged for anything and he was like give it all away for free. And I was like what do you?
Speaker 2:what do you mean? Because, like you know, then you have Cody Sperber, who's like the goat at marketing and product and funnels, right. Who's like one of my other very close friends and mentors, and I know if I had asked Cody the same question, he'd be like okay, here's how we build a lead funnel and here's what it leads to, and like he's just a genius in this regard. And I was like this is so counterintuitive to everything that I've ever been told or seen done. And Pace is like, if you think in abundance, what's the problem? And I was like like mind blowing, right Cause. I was like, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2:He's like are you scared that someone's going to be better than you? And I was like many people are better than me. That's not what I care about. Right, like many people, most people could be better than me if they're not already. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for impact. I'm I truly believe a rising tide lifts all boats and I want everybody to be really great at this and I think everybody who has like the right tools can actually do this. And so, and then I was like, okay, no, you're right, if I'm holding my cards close to the vest then, yeah, it's not really it's. I'm saying I'm an abundant mindset, but I'm really only thinking about abundance for myself, not abundance for everybody or as like a general rule of thumb. And so that's what really changed my way of thinking and why I do what I do now.
Speaker 1:I love that man. How does that so? How is that? Because I believe people feel your intention far more than they hear what you say. Right and so, but by continually saying those things you're literally selling yourself on that mindset, on that belief, and so is there? Is there something, as you're chatting with investors, as you're going through this with investors, because you don't mention that to your investors? Like man, I have an abundant mindset and I want everyone to win. Maybe you do a little bit, but the everyone win thing, but it's like how?
Speaker 1:do you, what's your intention when you're going into an investor call or an investor presentation or, you know, we maybe even get into how you raise the bulk of your capital. Now, yeah, what's your intention going into that?
Speaker 2:So my first intention? It goes back to service again. What does that investor need? What are their pain points? Can I even help them?
Speaker 2:Because the reality is and I tell this to our investors all of my deals are not going to be a good fit for everybody. And that's just the reality of it. And it's called personal finance for a reason because it's personal to you, like your investment goals might be different than mine, your risk tolerance might be different than mine. So I go into it saying like listen, this is not for everybody and it might not be for you, and that's okay. If it's not for you, that's not a problem, but if it is for you, then, and I tell them, I'm like don't just stop at interviewing me, don't just stop at vetting me.
Speaker 2:There's a million sponsors out there and a lot of them are really great, a lot of them are our colleagues, a lot of them buy and sell assets to us and from us, right? So go out, interview like five, ten different people. All you really need is like one or two sponsors that you really really trust and like working with, and then work with them. And it it might not be me. It might be me but it might not be, and I will refer them to. You know other people in the industry to say like, hey, go, go, check these people out. I can't speak to their deals, I'm not in the weeds of them, I don't know, I haven't vetted them, I can't endorse them, but you will see like a million other people doing this.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that is the abundance mindset as well, because when I talk, I get hit up, for you know to invest in deals all the time. And listen, I invest, I'm one of the biggest investors, if not the biggest investor, in our own personal funds. But, dude, I'm a big investor in a lot of other people's deals too, cause I I love doing that too, and so I get hit up all the time. But it's so interesting to me to see how people go about it, cause they dive right into all these, like, before asking me even what I'm looking for, they are trying to, like lamb, blast me with info, which is what you said in the very beginning with your elevator pitch. It's like I don't know what this person's interested in or what they care about. Like, why am I going to land? Blast them with that.
Speaker 1:That's what they lead with and I believe there is nothing more repelling than somebody who needs it, like when you need it, even if I want it, it's repelling to me.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, well, and I think that's what made my first race so challenging. Right Is like it's kind of lonely. I think that's what made my first race so challenging. Right is like it's kind of lonely. People don't talk about that as much, but it's lonely because I remember, like I said, I was crying myself to sleep and I could only talk to, like, my husband about it and he's not in this space so he didn't really understand it and I'm like crying, and every time I talk to a new person I can't tell, tell them like nobody wants to invest with me, nobody believes in me, cause. Then I'm like do you want to invest in me? And they're like no, if no one else believes in you, I don't either, right, and so it's very isolating in that way and it's it's very stressful because you can't always talk about it, cause the people you want to talk to about it are people that are your potential investors.
Speaker 1:So how did you overcome that? I love that you just let in with that. That's amazing and I want to drill home on it, because how did you overcome that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think actually kind of moving to a more abundant mindset, right, I stopped trying to. I stopped feeling so thirsty and desperate for the investors to come in, and because I truly believe they could sense that right now I'm like, okay, no, I've had investors that I've brought into deals that it was such a nightmare to even like I felt like I was convincing them to get into the deal. I no longer feel like I'm selling you or convincing you to invest with me. I am presenting you with a phenomenal opportunity, and if you want to make money with me, I am presenting you with a phenomenal opportunity. And if you want to make money with me, great. If you don't, that's fine too.
Speaker 2:But I also, especially at this point in the market cycle, I actually lead with a lot of the risks.
Speaker 2:I talk about the risks first, because I think if you are investing in these deals, you have to have a certain risk tolerance and you have to know what you're investing into. And so I'm really clear about like, hey, this is not a zero risk endeavor, and right now we're seeing a major portfolio crumble in Houston, right, and I've been sent this article like 800 times, so I'm kind of like leading with that a little bit and I addressed the elephant in the room right away. So I'm like listen, you may or may not have seen there's a massive 200 plus million dollar portfolio that just went under in multifamily. I love reading about that because it helps me understand what not to do. Here is what went wrong and here's what we have done to mitigate that risk. So I address it pretty head on Like we were very transparent with our investors and I think, just like being more confident in the ability to do that has really changed our ability to raise capital.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is another huge actionable I asked you. The question that I asked you was how did you overcome that? Like it was this challenge of like mentally challenging that people don't want to invest with me, and it's like, how did you overcome it? And you overcame it through abundance. You overcame it by, like, gearing yourself in an abundant mindset. And people think of sales and they think of push, push, push.
Speaker 1:It's not like that, man, and especially in this space, but a lot of people come into that space with that thought, and one of the things that has had the biggest impact for me as I've been raising capital is this I call them response blocks, and I don't know why I'm trying to block someone's response, but what I'm trying, that's what I call it, though I want to. I want to bring the concern up or cover the question or or overcome the concern for them before, without them even having to bring it up, so like if I know in today's market that people are worried about this risk.
Speaker 1:people are worried about, you know, this portfolio that just went down in Houston, which is crazy. It's like I want to bring that up. I don't want to run from it, I want to go head on into that and let them know that. No, I'm very aware of it. Here is the risk. Here's how we plan on mitigating it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:Yeah that those, those actionable, those takeaways are are are absolutely huge. And it is also a way to practice abundance, like it's one thing to say, hey, I have an abundant mindset. The other way is like, okay, hey, do you want to know how you really practice it by bringing up the stuff and talking about the stuff that other people don't want to talk about knowing that everything will be okay and that you're not trying to attract everyone. You're trying to attract the people that are right for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's exactly it is. You know, sometimes you got to kiss some frogs to get to your prince, and this is exactly true with lp investors, because the investors that you're convincing to be in your deal, trust me, it is not worth it. You do not want them in the deal. I have many investors that I've blacklisted over the years that they just I want them to eat.
Speaker 1:They just can't eat at my table yeah, same, 100, same, and if anybody who's been raising capital long enough, you'll have them because dude yeah life is too damn short, man, life's too short, yeah, yeah, I'm like oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Our investment is no longer accepting investors. I'd love to introduce you to somebody, so, like when I don't like another sponsor, I'll introduce it to them. I'm just kidding, I'm totally joking.
Speaker 1:Hey, I respect it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Hey, tyler, meet this investor I have.
Speaker 1:Vina you, son of a bitch. Have Vina, you, son of a bitch. So how are you raising more Cause you? Are you still doing individual phone?
Speaker 2:calls, or are you? Yeah, how are you doing it now? Yeah, so, uh, anyone starting out raising capital, get to one to many format as quickly as possible. It will change your life. Uh, when we first started raising, we had to raise one toto-one. There's no other way around it, because there's so many things you just don't know. You don't have processes and systems in place. You need processes and systems before you think you need processes and systems. So if you think you need them, you are already too late. Get going on that. Set up your systems to be scalable in the future, because it may not be plausible that you'll raise 50 million dollars one day, but if you want to, you will thank your early version of yourself, when you had more time and you had more ability to set those up correctly out of the gate. But so now we're in a one-to-many format. We send an email, we record a conference call and that's really the bulk of our outreach to investors at this point. Every now and then, you know, you'll have a couple of one-off questions. We have investment teams now that handle investor relations calls like they're employees on our payroll and they'll handle investor calls. They'll, you know, do follow up, make sure that it's a smooth experience for our investors.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, every now and then I have, like I have an investor man. He's invested in like a dozen deals with me, maybe more, I don't know, but a lot of deals, and he invests in every single deal and yet, without fail, every single time he wants to talk to me and I'm like no problem because I know him so well, right, like he trusted me when I didn't really know as much as I know today and he, I have a relationship with him. So whenever he calls me and he's not a major investor, he'll invest like a hundred or 200 grand in every deal. Um, but it's a relationship I really care about. So, like you know, those every now and then will come to me. But generally speaking, I'm dealing with like really large investors or investors like this that you know it's just like kind of tradition on our deals that we talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is uh. So this one to many format is. It's funny. I'll tell you where my mind goes real quick before I go into this next, because my mind goes to. We absolutely have those investors, those, those investors that have been with us from the get. Who dude? If they call, we're going to answer it, Cause it's like man, God bless you for trusting us back then. I love you for that, you know, like geez, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can't forget it.
Speaker 1:No, and.
Speaker 2:I think you it's also. You know we answer every investor that reaches out to us. But like I, just I, I would love if I could, if everything could be up to me, I would talk to every single investor at least like once a month, because I love our investors. Like I am, of such a people, person, like I think I would describe me as like a human golden retriever. You know I'm like this extreme extrovert and all I want to do is like be around people and play catch with them and you know I want to be like in all of the action, all the time, right and like.
Speaker 2:So if it were up to me, I would talk to our investors every single month. I would talk to every single investor. It's not practical because it's not a scalable model, and so I do a lot of text communication with our investors that I actually send the text myself, which you know sometimes I'll get them respond back like stop in all caps and I'm like hey, it's Vina. And they're like oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't have enough for sage, I didn't know it was you, it's like no, just me.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny, man. I love the golden retriever stat and dude, it is it's. I would say it's probably that you can't scale that way, so what?
Speaker 2:is your? What does your team look like? How many team members do you guys have at this point? Yeah, so on all of our deals, we JV with blue lake capital. You maybe know Ellie Perlman and she's she's one of the smart people I tricked into partnering with me on everything, um, but she's incredible. And so between both of us, we we JV on everything. So we split roles and responsibilities and between us, our team is 13 people.
Speaker 2:Right now we're hired. We're basically constantly hiring. I feel like, cause, we find someone really great and we're like, oh, what can you do? Okay, amazing, we're going to create a position for that. And like, we ended up continuing to hire. But we have in-house asset management, we have in-house investor relations, we have, obviously, our admin staff, we have marketing in-house, and then we also consider our ancillary services as part of our core team because they're rinse and repeat. So, for example, our securities attorney I don't know who you use we use Nick McGrew out of LA Polymath Legal. He's my first call every single time we do a deal. He does all of our documents, everything like that. We use Larry West, who you heard on my podcast with Cody Larry D West III. He's an amazing tax strategist, and so those are people that aren't in-house for us but we consider them really strong parts of the team because we've been working with them for so long 100%.
Speaker 1:They almost feel like in-househouse. In fact, what's crazy is those, those ancillary members that you talk about, say we even invite them to our christmas parties at the end of the year I love it yeah same, because they are, they're like, yeah we, they are in it family, yeah, with everything we do love it, yep, yep, absolutely, oh good no go they hang out in my Facebook community.
Speaker 2:They'll hang out and they'll give people answers to things I'm like I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a tax person, I don't know. So it's like they're very deeply integrated into our spaces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same, I love that. I love that it's very similar on our side. So this one-to-many thing, this is kind of where I want to. I want to be respectful of your time and I want to wrap up with this, but how did you start to transition to one to many and are you doing, how often are you doing, those webinars, conference calls, whatever you, you know, whatever you call?
Speaker 2:them? Um, not often enough is the answer. For how often I am I? It's. I'm one of those people it's like do what I say, not what I do, type person, because I know we could be infinitely better at what we do if this was something I could like increase the outbound communication on. So we do one conference call whenever we release a deal. We buy very, very, very few deals, like pretty much no deals. So I'm closing on our first deal in July of this year, first deal of the whole entire year, seven months this year. Last year I closed on two deals the year before that, two year before that one. So it's like once a year, twice a year, maybe three times a year I'm going to be sending out the one to many format Now I do think a little bit of the cheat code is the one to many format on social media.
Speaker 2:So I do a lot of social media education, a lot of social media content which is inherently one-to-many. You know I have like tens of thousands of people following me on Instagram and TikTok and whatever Facebook, all the places right and so I think that inherently is a lot of outbound and it's these like snippets of webinars, not like some big long webinar recording. But I think when we transitioned, what we did initially was we're like okay, now we're gonna do email conference call, follow up phone call for everybody, so they kind of got both. Then the next deal after that we were like okay, email conference call, do you need a follow-up call?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it became email, conference call, nothing. And then, when they proactively reached out to us, that's when we start handling the more outbound communication.
Speaker 1:That's. You just simplified that process. I just want everyone to just clap on your freaking car, wherever you're listening to it, cause you just simplified the scaling process. You just you just explained it and simplified it in such a beautiful way and that is. It's done it a time or two, but that's it. It's like you don't just go from like what they and it's all it's expectations of your investors, right, so you wean them off into what you do. The other thing that I want people to recognize, because I'll be honest with you, even though I know this subconsciously, it was not even part of my thought with the question that I asked you with the one to many, and you brought up social media, because social media is absolutely the one to many. Do you know what that does? Do you want to know why? I feel like I know you, like before we've chatted here, like before, like I see, cause I see you I mentioned this I see you everywhere.
Speaker 2:So it's like yeah right, I'm omnipresent.
Speaker 1:That's it, that's it and you build trust by that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's intimidating for people to be on social media and, like I said, it's the bane of my existence. It's intimidating for me, right Cause, especially if you're like a woman in this space, cause it's like okay, how does my hair look? Is my makeup right? Like, oh, am I, does this outfit look okay? Is it? Is my house messy in the background? Right Like? All these things go through your mind, but it's like, once you just start doing it, it gets. It's kind of addictive, right Cause now you get to start interacting with people, like I see the people that like my stuff over and over and over again, or they'll like reach out to me and I respond to my own DMS on Instagram and people always think it's like a VA and I'm like no, it's not, it's me. And they're like no, but I want your number, I want to text you. I'm like I promise, promise you. You will never get through to me on a text message.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god, I hate the same thing. Dude me too. I literally say the same thing.
Speaker 2:I love it I have over a thousand unread text messages. I just deleted 2700. I never read them. I just deleted them like a month ago, two months ago.
Speaker 1:You're making me feel so much better because I have probably 150, the constant, 150 it's like constant. But yeah, I G, I'm good at it, like I'm like, and I say my reply and I'm good, but the tech, but dude, I'm not even close to where you're at, so I'm killing it in the text message game right now.
Speaker 2:You are Cause you're like. But I'll tell you as you continue to grow your brand and as more people try to reach out to you, it's very hard to have them reaching out on like LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook and email and text and call it's like it's too much noise. So I tell people I'm like really Instagram and message me. I respond back and then people will be like I don't really believe this has been a prove it.
Speaker 2:And then I'll be like it's really me on a voice text and they're like it's really you, but it's such a fun way to connect with people who are appreciative of all of the effort you put in to put this content out there, amen, and you know.
Speaker 1:So this is another actionable cause I was going to ask you I'm curious, cause I was going to ask you how cause you have a frigging powerful network? You have a great network of people that you surround yourself with, and I was going to ask you how you connect with them. And I'm curious did you connect with them via social media and did you connect with them, or was it events, or was it a combo of both?
Speaker 2:um, it was a combo. What happens and it's actually like this weird thing that I didn't know happened until, like, I started being in these circles. But what happens is like you'll be around one person, so cody sperber is probably the person I can point to as a single, most like pivotal person as far as this network goes of, like social media and like influencers or whatever you want to call it. And he, I actually met him on clubhouse. So I did meet him on social media and he introduced me to like Pace Morby and Jamel Damji and like all these people, right, I met through him, jerry Norton, me to like Pace Morby and Jamel Damji and, like all these people, right, I met through him, jerry Norton. I met through Pace Morby, you know, jen Gottlieb. I met from speaking on a stage with her. So, like it's all these people, but like we all, like it's how you and I, like we, we know who each other is. We may not have connected yet, but it's just like that one thing, like that stage or that conference or that podcast or whatever, for us to actually connect and like form these relationships. So I, I met them through, like, if you point it back to a single point in time is through social media.
Speaker 2:Now, a fun fact is I had my most viral video I've ever had was a video it has right now. It has like almost 3 million views on Instagram and it's like such a silly video because it's a video talking about like how we use Starbucks as a determining factor of whether it's a neighborhood that can, you know, afford our rents, because if residents can afford, if the demographic can afford, like a seven dollar cup of coffee, they probably can afford our rents. It's probably like a area that we want to be in. And so I'm like talking about this and I'll tell you, getting having a video go viral is the most intimidating, vulnerable experience you will ever go through, because people are mean online, so mean and, um, the way my video went viral is this girl found it from a video I put out and her name's Isla Isla Talks is her name on Instagram. So she found it and she did a reaction video to it and she has like one hundred and sixty five thousand followers two hundred thousand followers and she put it out to her audience and it just like took off and went super viral and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like this person I don't know just shared a video she came across of me. So I send her a DM, right, and I'm like hey, I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing my video. It really means a lot. Would love to connect with you.
Speaker 2:I get no response from her, right, because, like most people with hundreds of thousands of followers, they have like hundreds of messages and it's hard to keep up with that. And she wasn't following me. She just shared my video. She didn't follow me. So I was like okay, so I went to her Linktree link and she had a consulting link, so I booked a consulting call with her.
Speaker 2:I paid her for her hour, consulting call with her. I paid her for her hour and I went, I got on a zoom like this, and she's like hey, she's like I can't believe that you booked a call with me and you paid me. She's like I would have just taken this call for free, like I would have loved to connect with you. I'm like thanks, isla, but you don't answer your DMS because you probably have so many of them. And she's like oh, my gosh. She's like I'll refund you. I'm like please do not refund me.
Speaker 2:I, I pay for things I find value in. I find your time extremely valuable. What I really want is to deepen our relationship. How can we collab together again? And so then what happened is she's like hey, I want to speak on more stages. I'm like amazing, let me help you. So now we text each other all the time. She's like one of my good friends and I spoke at fun launch live in Miami and I invited her as my guest and she came and we met in person and like we'll just text each other. And she's like hey, I'm going on maternity leave soon. I need a bunch of content. Can we record some stuff together? And so that's how you cross, collaborate with these people and you deepen the relationship. Don't be afraid to pay for value.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's so good. Like the the, I can chat with you for hours because the stuff that you drop is just it is golden, Like that is how you connect.
Speaker 2:That is literally how you connect.
Speaker 1:Like I've been recently. I've been like I literally. It's super simple, but I'll block off 30 minutes and I will go and I will comment or comment, and I have a list of people that I'm, that I'm connecting with and I will comment or send them messages.
Speaker 1:Comment on their posts or send them messages, cause I know that, that I know who those people are, cause I see them. And it's the same thing here and it's crazy the traction that that starts to build. So same thing, dude, I pay for things that I feel valuable, and you know what, and unapologetically, and it's big and I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that you just said that too, cause it's like, dude, that is, people are valuable, man, you're valuable. And what's crazy? Here's what's crazy about this. We've been chatting now for an hour, almost close to an hour. And people are listening to this for free and I got to do this for free, I feel. Send me your Venmo link so I can Venmo you for the hour.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about? How about, instead, when we finally meet in person, you buy me a beer instead?
Speaker 1:Done, so two.
Speaker 2:Done Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I really came out on top here then.
Speaker 1:So you're a beast. Thank you so much for taking the time for real, like you were just a wealth of knowledge, but even more than that you're just a great person, Like, and you can tell that I'm not just saying that to just I'm saying that because it's like real, it's crazy, because I meet and I know you do too. You meet a ton of people and you see the content they produce.
Speaker 2:But then you meet them behind the scenes and it's not always what you had hoped, right? That's so true. You know, it's actually funny. You say that because the number one comment I get when I speak at conferences and then meet everybody after because you know, when I go to conferences like I don't really care about speaking on stage that much. What I really like is like being in the hall afterward or hanging out with the people who like bought vip because they're like my people right, and the number one comment I get is oh my gosh, you're nothing like I thought you would be based on your social media. I'm like oh my gosh, do I just come off as like a huge on social media, like what is happening and they're like no, no, they're like I just I thought you weren't going to approachable.
Speaker 2:I thought you weren't going to be someone that would like take the time and talk to me. I'm like, I'm like just a regular person. I promise you that, like, I am probably more of a dork than you actually see on social media, so trust me on this, but it's about connecting with people. I love people and I love meeting people and helping people and learning from other people and I think if you go in with that mindset, it's just, it's life-changing.
Speaker 1:That's it and that's the mindset, Like if, if it's some of my biggest key takeaways that I hope everybody took away from this, or keep it simple this mindset of abundance, go in with service like you do those and don't try to sell, sell, sell just like. Know that if you're being you and you have the right intentions in mind which is service dude the right people will come to collaborate with you as powerful they will it's powerful they will.
Speaker 2:Is there any?
Speaker 1:last bits of advice as we wrap this up.
Speaker 2:Any last bits of advice and also how people can get a hold of you um, yeah, so you can get a hold of me on social media, uh, vina jetty, on all social media platforms and then, uh, my facebook community, mastering multifamily with vina jetty. Answer the questions. It'll automatically let you in, um, but I'll leave, like, one act, one more actionable piece of advice. That's like a very low bar. When, like, when you watch this, for example, right Like, this is a free podcast and you watch this, if you learn something from it, right, take whatever you've learned, go and share it on Instagram. Right, like, go put it in your stories and be like hey, I was watching a podcast with Tyler and Vina and this is what I learned from it. You can literally regurgitate what we said here. That's something new. Or you would say, my favorite tip I got, or the best thing that was said, or whatever. It is right.
Speaker 2:You draw out one thing you've learned. Go put it on your Instagram story and tag Tyler and myself, and tag Tyler and myself. And here's what happens is, when you do that and we see it and it's like valuable content. Guess what we're going to do? We're going to share it with our audiences. So now the tens of thousands of I don't know how many followers you have, but tens of thousands of followers between both of us are now going to see that Susie Smith is now affiliated with Veena and Tyler, and it's going to add credibility to your social media and you're going to be providing value to somebody else, because for us, we can't reach everybody alone.
Speaker 2:We need you to help us reach people, and so I think that's like a very low hanging fruit, especially if social media intimidates you. It's a very easy way to take an actionable item and turn it into something that will help you leverage someone else's audience, because this is how we all have grown our social media accounts is we've been leveraging everybody else's. So, like when Pace and I are together, or when Cody, who has like over a million followers, when we're together, I'm tagging everything I'm doing with him because I want him to reshare it, because I want his million people to be like oh, vina and Cody know each other. Let me go follow Vina, because they can follow a hundred people and it doesn't change anything, but you're just one account, so you need them to also help you and you guys can cross collaborate that way. So that's like an actionable item that I would use today.
Speaker 1:And such a good actionable item. Such a good actionable item because number one, it's also abundance share. But the other side, the tagging side, it's crazy Cause. Like I'll be flipping through a story or something and I'll see somebody has reshared something of mine, but they didn't tag me and immediately I'm like man. First off, I want to know that you reshared, because I want to be like dude. Thank you, but also you tagged me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to reshare. I love it and that is that exposure, you know, not only the exposure forward but also, like, the exposure internally here. Right, it was powerful. So that actionable is awesome and you should do that regularly, not just with us, but with people that you want to connect with and that you find value from which obviously they found value from us today and want to connect because we're bad ass people, vina for sure 100%.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you so much for being on here Once again. Y'all rate, share, review, all those kinds of things. Go follow Vina on social, go connect with her, learn from her and live always with Aloha Peace.