Episode #197 – Learning To Raise Funding and Manage Risk with Jeb Altonaga, Part 2

You're listening to the REI Marketing Nerds podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords Nerds, a high tech digital agency focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online, outsmart your competition and live a freer, more awesome life. And now your host Dan Barrett.

(00:41): Hey guys, welcome back. You're listening to the second part of last week's episode. Let's jump back in. One of the things that you said that really I think also really rings true is this idea of swimming in your lane, right? Which, correct me if I'm wrong, I'll kind of restate what you said. It's this idea of, if you're going to do anything other than something really stable and well known, like indexing or whatever, you want to take a swing in areas where you have some kind of competitive advantage, whether that's a little bit extra knowledge or some expertise or whatever. I am curious how do you view your competitive advantage? And we don't have to talk specifically picking stocks or anything like that, but yeah, what do you feel like is your domain of expertise? And if you could, how did you figure that out? Was it just trial and error? How did you land where you're currently at? Does that make sense?

(01:38): It does, and it's another great question and I feel it's tricky because like others that have swam in their lane and stayed in that lane from right out of university and knew what that lane was, I've mastered the jack of all traits, master of none cliche. And I think bringing that wide knowledge with probably the only thing that's been consistent through all of that was my ability to be personable, to be good with crowds, to be able to have great public speaking, to be articulate and really take complex things and try to break 'em down into simplistic delivery. That's probably been the consistent thing across all of the experience. But given the fact that I've been so unconventional, I think that's where my domain of expertise is. I've got a little bit of all these different things and for some reason it has allowed me to bring all of that experience together to do what I do now and have a different approach.

(02:48): A lot of the guys, girls, people that raise capital or work with funds and raising capital for fund management, whether that be a real estate project, a new venture capital fund, a new PE fund, whatever it is, a lot of them are makers from banks and they haven't done all these other things. They've just been bankers. They sat in a two or three year analyst program at one of the majors, then they went and got their mba, then they came back and they did deal flow again. Maybe they were a VP or they raised, went through the ranks and then maybe went to a big PE shop or something like that. Or they went from a sell side analyst role covering industrials or TMT or something like that into a public market buy side shop covering the same thing where I've ran the businesses, I've been, I've experimented in real estate, I've taken opportunities in multifamily, I've tried to launch small businesses.

(03:46): There's always been the side hustles. I mean the failures and the side hustles that brought all of that together in everything that has been consistent and all of those roles is always having to deal in a relationship management type of position, whether it was called relationship management or not, but dealing with those complex relationships and being able to navigate those complex relationships. And I think that breadth of experience that kind of trolls underneath all that has somehow forged together and brought me on this path. And so for that, I'm fortunate, but I think that's where my secret sauce is compared to somebody who's traditionally been in that lane and just done deals and continues to just be that deal maker within that one lane. Yeah, I mean it strikes me that kind of skill of breaking complex things down into simple pieces that can be well communicated.

(04:45): That's also what sort of lies at the core of what you do today in terms of raising capital and being able to communicate with people. So let's talk a little bit about that process. What do you think is broken, or Brooke's a bit dramatic, but what do you think is suboptimal about the way that most people go about raising capital for their funds today? What would you point to and say, look, there are things that people do today that are a waste of time or there are problem and can be done better. Is there something come to mind? Do you think there's sort of ways that the process could generally be improved? Yeah, well I think it's a mix. So if we barbell it, you have people that are say my age, our age, whatever and older that are just stuck in their old school ways or not good with technology, et cetera. And then you have on the other side of that barbell, you have the newbies that are just graduating very, very good with technology. Not so good socially aren't the types that would go outside, ride their bike, play in the park with their friends, drink water out of the hose when they were thirsty extent. That's probably why I never, I've haven't had covid through the pandemic. I think it's cause of the hoses drinking of the water's, all hos drinking. Yeah. There is nothing that's gonna kill me from a perspective that the hos wouldn't have done already.

(06:10): You take the people that sit on both sides of that that are stuck in their ways of one the younger ones maybe not having that personality where they're comfortable being in front of large groups of people and being able to mingle without a device or screen in front of them where they're completely comfortable to the other ones on the other side of that where they're not comfortable with doing this through a device and having a screen. And I think the world is blending now back to the pandemic. It's allowed and I really got a handle on this being in Sydney, Australia and far removed from the rest of the world. It was like a godsend to be able to now utilize technology and have a lot of meetings over zoom and build rapport and build relationships and start to build trust and then cementing that trust through the old school lens of when you finally come together, break bread, palm press, go out and actually meet in person and have that intimate experience of where you really validate what you've experienced with the people you're meeting through the virtual experiences that led up to that.

(07:23): And I think that is where people are getting it wrong on either side of that spectrum. And fortunate or unfortunately I've worked for companies that had a very for running or front running approach to technology. So I was always comfortable with it cause we developed a lot of our tools within the organization. We didn't buy it from the likes of Microsoft and all these other providers. We built it and hired it consultants and developers and built it in house. And so there was always that business tech kind of marriage that allows me to be comfortable with both sides. My wife is a little bit younger than me and she's from the generation that loves technology. And so she would rather fight with me over text message than face to face. And I'm old school, I'd rather come in and handle things first and I'm like, I'm gonna shut off the text and not talk to you about this.

(08:19): And I think that's a great example of the two sides and how you compromise and you kind of adopt and embrace both to come together and get the best of both worlds. And so rounding out your question is utilizing, and I hate to say funnel but whatever you're trying to do, getting your digital funnel in place so that you can suck people in from the world cuz it's so small now with the way that we can outreach using technology to bring them into that, bring them into where you're gonna be close and you're getting the true quality of the relationships and the people that you wanna either be friends with, do business with, hang out with whatever into that where it's the intimate personal setting of being with inside of a room or at dinner or within conferences, et cetera, where you are in the personal setting.

(09:19): But bringing from a digital and getting to that core group that you want. I think the marriage of those two is probably what is a winning combination as opposed to sitting on either side of that. Yeah, I think that's really fascinating. I hadn't really thought about it in that way before but, so let's kind get something that's at the root there and we'll kind of attack it a little bit through your background because I think a lot of what you are talking about and a lot of your skillset when we were talking about your competitive advantage, breaking down complex things, it's really about effective communication. And it strikes me that one of the cool things about you is you have lived all over the place. You were just in Australia, you're in the States now you, you've lived in Hong Kong so you've done a, and even within the states like jumping coasts.

(10:06): So you have done a lot of jumping between cultures and not just that but you have done business in those cultures, you've had relationships in those cultures. So I'm curious, how do you think about or go about learning to communicate effectively across cultural barriers? You've had some time to be in a place, is it a process of you really gotta be there, you gotta be immersed so you gotta really learn everything about it? Are there kind of universals to the way that people communicate? That's a broad question. You can take it wherever you want to go. But I'm curious how those experiences of being in so many different places with wildly differing cultural norms, how that's kind of informed what you do and that skillset that you've developed. I think it goes back to just young curiosity and being mischievous, also being a very mischievous kid, I always like to get myself into trouble because I would just do what I thought I wanted to do.

(11:13): Even if somebody said no, I was like, I went back and I think I said if somebody said no, I tried to make sure that I could prove to them that I could do it. But also the fact if somebody said No, you shouldn't be over here. No you shouldn't be over there. It wasn't necessarily that you were doing something wrong, it was just that they were used to putting, having things in a box and I don't like being in a box. And so I think that curiosity is the main thing. And when it comes to communication, it's trying not to take, I'm an American from the west coast, Los Angeles specifically and could even go down just into my hometown and taking that and going, this is who I am and that's what defines me and I'm going to take that personality to the world.

(11:59): It was always just being able to be curious and learn and listen. And I think it comes through and it's not necessarily has to be this way, but when I got to Hong Kong for instance, or even to the East coast initially to Chicago, much different way of doing things in Chicago than they do in LA And you start adopting that and you start learning why is some of the things that they do better than in why would it would not work in Los Angeles. I mean there's obviously a big weather factor that's different in Chicago to la, a different type of scene personalities, different types of neighborhoods, et cetera. And so that's a factor. Getting to Hong Kong now it's a melting pot of Brits, south Africans, Aussies, some Americans, mainland Chinese, Taiwans, et cetera. And you start sitting back and watching all the dynamics of this.

(12:57): And there's also the historical culture of Hong Kong and just exploring and being open to that culture. I stayed out of Hong Kong if anyone's familiar, there's Central, which is a central business district and that's where pretty much all the westerners kind of sit, stay, et cetera. And I purposely moved out of that into a very local area so that I was constantly surrounded by the local dialect of Cantonese, the food, the culture, the way that they went shopping, the way that they bought groceries, et cetera. And that gave me a great insight into how that culture thinks and why they operate in the manner that they do. And then learned a bit of the language, I don't think that's necessary, but it being open to embrace that comes through. And then to move away from that into Sydney, which I'd say Australia loves American pop culture, but they still adopt traditional British values and customs and things like that.

(13:55): So then you sit back and instead of me saying, Hey, where's the trash can? It's rubbish bin or the trunk of the car. Hey, can you get this out of the boot? And learning certain things like that. And not to offend anybody, but the first time I was in one of my offices and there was a big he, he's a fairly larger guy, six something maybe 250 pounds and not someone who worked out regularly and it was getting to be summer, so it was getting to be pretty warm. And we were in a casual setting and he goes, I think it's getting warm, I'm gonna start wearing my thongs. And so my eyes kind of turned around and I was like, I don't think anybody here wants to see you in any thongs. And everyone starts laughing cause they know what I'm referring to, right?

(14:43): Cause that's what we refer to them here in the states. In Australia, thongs are flip flops. So he was just gonna start wearing his flip flops to the office as opposed to wearing shoes. And so when you start embracing that and thinking about the different terms and why people do things, it just opens up your mindset And it goes again with the cliche, two ears, one mouth. If you listen more than you speak, you have two eyes for a reason. It's the same as your ears if you sit back and look and observe as opposed to just talking. I think you get so much more in than you're trying to put out. And when you do have, it's finally the chance to put out there's so much more quality because you've taken it in through the two eyes and two ears and delivered it through the one mouthpiece.

(15:34): Yeah, I love that. I also love the image of wearing fun underwear as a method of avoiding the heat. It's gonna be much cooler, I'm sure , but I, again, it's bring it back to marketing because ultimately whatever we talk about in the show, it's really always about marketing in some way. But that's ultimately what it comes down to is how well do you understand the person you are communicating with in order to communicate effectively. So I love that lens of seeing it through the process of immersing yourself in other cultures. It's just that on a whole higher level. So I'm curious because we were talking before the call, you've been back and forth, you just came over to the states just a couple days ago from Australia, is that what you're saying? Yeah, so for the last year, mid tail end of the pandemic Australia was still in lockdown.

(16:29): You needed a travel exemption to get out of the country. So last August I decided to focus on clear glass and build it. And so every say call it 10 to 12 weeks I'll be in the States and then 10 to 12 weeks in Sydney, 10 to 12 weeks here. So I've been going back and forth and this will be one of the last cross continental trips that I gotta make until the family and kids are coming across. So yeah. So I was curious. So we were talking about moving is such a pain and you're doing a lot of traveling. So I'm curious, you've been in all of these different places, but what for you stays consistent? What is the same for you? Could be your daily routine or just things that you do or people you talk to or the way you approach the date, but what stays the same between Australia and New York and LA and Hong Kong?

(17:19): How do you stay consistent? Cause it strikes me that you need some of that in order to have that stability. So how do you a hundred percent. I think I've always been, and I think it's just a function of career out of college and getting up early, beating the crowd, being up when nobody else is. So you can just sit back and let your thoughts originate and feel that passion and where you wanna be that day in organization. And so consistently, if it's an early or a late morning culture, Hong Kong was very late. Sydney I'd say is very early, don't really, they're not open late into the evenings in Australia. And so staying up early, having a mindset of organization and I think just grit. I love what I do so I don't mind putting in lots of hours. And also at the end of the day, no matter what's going on, taking time to come home and actually have dinner and spend that time with the family.

(18:24): So I get me time very early in the day, organization and then work, hobbies, whatever that person's main focus that takes them eight to 10 hours through the day. Back to family time for me it's obviously a wife and kids, maybe in-laws, cousins, aunts, uncles, stuff like that. And then back to personal time into the later part of the evening reading, stuff like that. So that I think schedule, regardless of where I am has always remained pretty consistent. And before it was wife and family and kids, it was maybe cousins or close members, friends. So there's always been at the end of that day that coming together to be able to share time with people that you loved and wanted to, that you considered family, not necessarily just relatives. And have that and then back to a little bit of me time to prepare for the next day when you got up in your focus to get you in ready for the game.

(19:22): I mean I love that. I think this is another commonality you really start to see across people. It's like some kind of consistency with your schedule. So you get this stuff that's most important to you in every day, no matter what's happening. We gotta start wrapping this up and we're, we're gonna run out time, but there's so much stuff I wanna ask about. I do wanna ask about. So trying to remember. Okay, so your trainer's killing you on the, trying to give you heart attack. He just wants to see at what point you're gonna keel over and die. Is this jujitsu that you were training or is this something else? I couldn't remember. We were in a we mma, so the trainer was black belt in jujitsu, Gracie from Brazil. And then another guy that we did Muay Thai. So in the same gym it was Muay Thai Jujitsu, so mma, mixed martial arts.

(20:10): And think of it, I've always done, I guess for the last 10 years, more functional training. So a lot of hit type workouts. I love maybe just the stress from the job that I have, taking it out on the bag and the pads, a little bit of sparring maybe once a week. And then now with age also creeping up, having to think about how to replace muscle atrophy, cuz that as we start getting older we lose muscle faster. So I'm also hitting the gym to lift weights more than I would have say 10 years ago. And so coming off a little bit of the hit and more into the traditional squats bench dead lifts and stuff like that that they had us do in high school when we were trying to make the thousand pound clubs so we could play varsity football. I just set that goal.

(20:59): That's my five year goal. Getting to the thousand pound club. I literally, I'm, I think I'm, I will someday in a couple months I'll be in the 600 pound club. So that feels like a big jump to me. It's so funny that you said that. I did. So that really tickles me. Well, I'm so curious cause I also want to do MMA lessons. It's not like the whatever, but just as a form of training that's outside the gym. So give me your advice. You would do this for a little bit, what do I need to know going into mixed martial arts class for the first time? What's your advice to me so that I come out of that mixed martial arts class for the first time, respect and humbleness. Know that regardless that you have training in any other discipline, if you think that you could box, if you think that you are a badass street fighter, whatever, you need to go in regardless of what your skill is and just be humble because there's always gonna be somebody else that's bigger, better, and better than you are and they will hand you your lunch.

(22:04): And so I think if you go in there with respect for whoever it is, even if they're weaker than you still respect them. I treat the guy that picks up my trash can, the same as the guy that owns the building. It makes no difference. So if you approach it with respect, no matter who you are, and you're always humbled in knowing that you'll learn something from no matter who you're talking to, they have life experience that you haven't experienced and being able to pick up on that. And I think those are the two things that get you in and get you out of any situation better than when you got there. I mean, I love that so much and it's a very good sort of summary of that kind of martial arts ethos that I like so much. Also, if you're listening to the podcast version, you can't see me.

(22:50): I look like a real badass. That's why he brought that up. I just, I'm very imposing. I'm gigantic. You can see yeah, that was a joke. That was a joke, right? That was a joke. Jeb, oh my god, I'm so sorry about your name, but I cannot tell you how much fun I've had on this. Now if you were listening to this, you need to go to clear glass cap.com, so clear glass cap.com. You can go see all the stuff that Jeb is up to. It's really interesting and I really want you to go check it out. However, for folks that, Jeb, are you on social media, places that people can look you up as well? Yeah. I mean Instagram, no, not so I am on Instagram, but I'm posting up more stuff about kids and family, so that'll be boring. I think LinkedIn is probably where from a professional meet storytelling and what we talked about today, it's gonna be front and center on LinkedIn, which you can get from the website or you can just state up Jeb Alga on LinkedIn and it should pop up.

(23:52): Yeah, thinkt a lt, O N A G A is how you spell that, right? Arent that right? That's it. Yes, definitely. Go check out Jeb. He's very active on LinkedIn. He's got a really good LinkedIn presence, unlike a lot of people. Well just, I won't throw anyone under the bus, but it's actually you do an awesome job. Clear glass cap.com is the website. Jeb Algo, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. This was a real blast and I really appreciate it, Dan. I had a great time. Thank you for having me on. I really had a good time. That is it. That's it for our interview this week. Hey, if you could do me a favor, go wherever you got this podcast, apple podcast, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, whatever thing, pod plan, do Reno, whatever you got, go and leave us a review. It really, really helps us out. I read every single one and helps other people find the show. So I would really appreciate it if you could go ahead and leave a review wherever you got this podcast. And as always, you can get show notes and links and all of our past episodes over@adwordsnerds.com. Just click on the word podcast in the menu and you'll get them. As always, this is Daniel Barrett signing off. I hope you have a great rest of your week and I'll be talking to you Soon.

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