Speaker 1: 0:20

Hey guys, Ryan Garland here, founder and chairman of Paradigm, and, as you guys know, I'm excited to always bring good and the best guests on and I'm always honored to have the CEO of Paradigm and we haven't really had him on much and it's because he's my secret weapon.

Speaker 1: 0:35

He's back there just making things happen and taking my vision and monetizing it, but also figuring out a way to make it work for the world and our investors and clients. But I think I want to really highlight his background during this podcast and I think that'll kind of give you guys some more color on what it is that we do and kind of the pedigree of people that are involved here. And obviously you guys have listened to some of our past podcasts with the people that are involved in the development side, but there isn't any reality TV shows that talk about how is the capital raised and how do these deals actually get done, when does the money come from, and if you don't have the right guys back that understand the language of money, you're never going to get a deal done. So, Mike, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Buddy, I appreciate it and thank you for being part of my company.

Speaker 1: 1:17

I love it.

Speaker 2: 1:17

It's been an honor to be associated with Paradigm and I was excited. You know, our first meeting, I was like I was sold. Oh well, yeah, within, like well, by the second bottle of wine I was sold for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:28

At Europa Village.

Speaker 2: 1:28

At Europa Village. Good wine too. It was good wine.

Speaker 1: 1:31

For a California, southern California wine. They do some pretty good. They do have pretty good wine.

Speaker 2: 1:36

It's hard to believe that was less than three years ago. Right. Right from where we were. One's basically Paradigm Storage. I fell in love with Paradigm Storage and obviously the Security and Income Fund. Security and Income Fund for me was like I understand that completely, We'll go rip the cover off the ball on that one, right. Then I'm like Ryan, I haven't done real estate before. That's not my gig man. I'm private equity, I'm investing in big institutional money, but not a real estate guy. You're like doesn't matter, Doesn't matter, no, Doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 2:03

If you know how to move, if you know how to manage money and can be compliant, you can continue to raise more money, yeah, and we can target the right clientele to really get to where we're trying to go. I know, and that's always been kind of my model is you know, I think there's a lot mindset going into any project for real estate, not just to make a bunch of returns right off the gate. But how can we maximize returns and then keep the money right?

Speaker 1: 2:33

It's one thing to make the money. How do you keep the money?

Speaker 2: 2:35

It's a real different gig. So my gig prior to German Paradigm was like I had a very short my investors were all very, very short term. It's like month, basically 30 days. How'd you do this month? That's basically what a hedge fund looks like. It's like if you don't make me money month in and month out, regardless of where the world's going, then you're not going to make it. Coming from that where I started a trade and basically it's a 50-50 bet. On day one, I don't think it's 50-50 because I'm not in it, unless I think it's 80-20. There's a skew to that outcome, but in reality it's 50-50, right? You just don't know. There's too many variables in the world, right? So the timeframe when you and I started talking and from my perspective, the timeframe and the head start that we have right just in the security account, was like okay, we got 25 or 30 equity ahead of us. That's a huge head start from us. From our perspective, in in making money, I'm like okay, so stable, we got equity in.

Speaker 2: 3:37

I get that you're taking out at 12 percent yeah right, we're lending at 12 percent on average, right With a short duration, asset of three, six, nine months, maybe 12 months, 18 months, maximum right. To me that was slam dunk. That's where I fell in love with it. And then we started talking about storage, and I love that. I mean, I'm sort of a boat nerd too.

Speaker 1: 3:57

You know that right Sort of grew up. Well, you got your foil here.

Speaker 2: 4:05

We're going to go wakeboard, so I love spending time on the water. So you're like, wow, wow, he's got a storage thing going. I'm like, okay, that's something we can scale. Yep, and so that from my perspective, you knew your cost. Like, yeah, I know how many screws go in my storage units. I can, I can do this across the country. Right, totally, and and your vision has come to pass. Right, we got goldman putting in a half a billion dollars in and I I don't really love what they're doing. Right, because we can build 50,000 square feet every 100 days. Right, goldman's going to come in there with their people and they're going to go for C type of buildings and put money into it. Try to up it. Right, but that takes a lot more work and, by the way, you know, I don't know what those lease rates are going to be after they're done. Right, so we have a clean product which we can build very quickly. I think that's the way to go From my perspective that's the way to go.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Well, you know so. By the way, we haven't even told everybody yet. On the podcast we're literally live on McCulloch during Desert Storm. We are sitting on a trailer with the podcast table why there's a race simulator going on behind us.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Yeah, that's the noise, and there's 300,000 people walking by.

Speaker 1: 5:07

I mean, how cool is that right?

Speaker 2: 5:08

That's cool. So 3.30 in the morning, we had our guys here at 3.30, scouting out where we are. We got 110 feet right along McCullough Boulevard with guys loving it. I mean this is amazing.

Speaker 1: 5:19

We didn't. I felt like we missed the opportunity. Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2: 5:22

Yeah, no for sure. But you know, we're talking about the amount of people here and obviously we're highlighting what we're doing out here Havasu, the barn caves and the Family Ops Society and you announced things that I didn't even know. You announced yesterday, right.

Speaker 1: 5:36

I kind of tested the waters. Yeah, yeah, for sure We'll talk about them too.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yeah for sure. I mean that was amazing. I mean just today I think we probably had a million dollars that came in from deposits in the barn caves Plus what?

Speaker 1: 5:49

20 more buyers for the barn?

Speaker 2: 5:50

caves. Yeah, I think we're probably up to 20, right, but 100,000 guys we had at least that I talked to 10 $100,000 guys today, right.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Yeah, and I probably talked to four or five. A lot of the people have been wanting to meet us.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Yes.

Speaker 1: 6:00

So this was a good call just to kind of create the exposure and show people that we're the real deal. You're not just talking to somebody over the phone and writing a check.

Speaker 2: 6:07

Well, I think your vision was let's get the model of the barn caves out here so people can see it. That was a disaster. If they haven't seen the video, they need to go see the video.

Speaker 1: 6:17

I'll post it more online, but for those of you that don't follow me on social media, I posted a video. So we have a 4d rendering being made and it's a. It's a, it's a. It's a private practice. That is kind of a dying breed. And now having people custom build every piece for a 4d rendering so people can actually see what this thing is made and how it's built, so it looks more realistic for what it is you're doing. So it's actually a certain scale, but it's about 19 inches tall, about 4 feet to 2 feet wide, and it was shipped in UPS. Oh sorry, fedex.

Speaker 2: 6:51

No, ups, was it.

Speaker 1: 6:52

UPS and that came from North Carolina, and when we opened the box it was absolutely destroyed. I mean plastic was broken. I mean it wasn't like it fell apart, I mean it was like someone literally threw it off the plane and it just destroyed all the ground it was it looked like a tornado in a trailer park. The wood box was broken enough. There were pieces were falling out of the box.

Speaker 2: 7:14

After you know, they dropped it off with footprints on three of the sides of the box.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Gosh. And so I, at that point man, I was frustrated, I was like I'm done, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:22

Yeah, you're like Rev, I'm just going to call this thing off. You're like that's it.

Speaker 1: 7:25

It was done. We're done, because the whole idea behind this was to create the awareness of the barclays, and so we ended up getting down to it and we come back from lunch and all the rest exactly what this was with a bunch of adults doing it Exactly right and they did a great job.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Within three hours they had it basically rebuilt. It was amazing. So it was great Teamwork.

Speaker 1: 7:55

So let's go back to a little bit about your pedigree about your background, because we don't highlight a lot of you, but I think it's important that people really get to see you know you really are dealing more on the fund management, portfolio management, dealing with compliance. You're talking about I don't know how many attorneys that bill us every hour.

Speaker 2: 8:10

Yeah, a lot Every single day. Yeah, as we get bigger, I told you, Ryan, you're going to have more bills.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Oh, yeah, well, our attorney's fees are more than our payroll Accountants attorneys yeah. So and that's how you know. Let's talk a little bit about your Wall Street days. Let's talk about kind of how you manage money, really, kind of the nature of why you even shifted from that to more of the family office, more private operator fund management side and just kind of doing exactly that.

Speaker 2: 8:39

Yeah, I did what a lot of people do when they come out of college, like what am I going to do now? Do you have a thing Right? Where am I going to go? Got to create finance from USC? It's like, okay, what's the next step? So I ended up basically at a bank City National Bank in Beverly Hills and I was at one point I was slinging boatloads down in Newport Like I can't do I can't do this anymore, I'm not going to.

Speaker 2: 8:59

You know, I'm like nah, next opportunity I got to get out of here. Right Ended up. Basically a buddy of mine was at First Interstate Bank and was in the derivatives group, so that's a real great entry. At that point, derivatives were new, so I was able to sort of shimmy my way into that group. I was actually started out as the boss's typist. I was his secretary and I'm like okay, I'm going to do as good as I can, but I'm not too good, so I want to, basically as soon as I can get to the trading floor. That's ultimately what I want. So in about six months the guy's like Doug's, like, yeah, it's time for you to go to the trading floor, your typing is good, but it's not that good. So, yeah, I ended up on the trading floor and then I was basically trading derivatives at that time. And then we had a group. It was AIG Financial Products. Most people will know who they are, but big. They were huge in derivatives at the time. They stole our entire New York group.

Speaker 2: 9:59

Oh wow, the entire sales team, yeah, the entire sales team in New York. And so Doug came out and said, look, I just lost the entire sales team to AIG. Who wants to go to New York? And everybody else sort of dove underneath our desk as quickly as they could. I'm like I was standing up with a phone in my hand going, yeah, that sounds good, I'll do that. Right, never been to New York. So that was really my first move to New York and I was going to go back. I'm like, hey, new York, that's a better education, let me go to New York, right. So that started me on the path really from.

Speaker 2: 10:31

I was there for 10 years, saw the advent of the big hedge funds. They were just this is 86 to 96, that sort of time frame, right. So the big hedge funds were getting going and I covered some of those I was doing. Of those I was, I was doing a lot. So it was sort of in in in the inside pocket for a lot of that activity. So I saw it and I'm like, yeah, that's really great. But I was from a derivative perspective. I made a transition. I went from just pure sales to really I'm like, okay, let me go look, just on the debt side, let me go work with the biggest CEOs in the country, the chief financial officer CEOs, and bring them creative financing opportunities right. Swiss Bank had a great Eurobond desk and I was the guy talking to Coke and Pepsi and Ford and GM, the provinces up in Canada, bringing them billion-dollar bond deals right, HSBC, that type of stuff, yeah, yeah all the big bars in the US.

Speaker 2: 11:26

I was covering them for the bank at the time, but then I got bored it's not really what I want to do at the end of the day and I sort of had this idea that I'm going to start my own asset management company. And that brought me back to the West Coast and then transition, you know. Then it became okay who are the family offices, who are the institutional players in this market? How do we break in? And it was a really interesting transition because we managed money for the Central Bank of China when we first started up, right.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Which is relevant for what's going on right now.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Oh, yeah, I had a. I was. I had a first class you know ticket into china from about 96 to 2010 wow, right. So before china really organized itself to a great extent, I was working with the central bankers in China, basically to help them write their securities laws. Right, it was an amazing time to be there. But, like everything else, we ended up starting a broker you and I talked to do. We need a broker dealer. I had a broker dealer. They were coming in through my broker dealer to do bond transactions. So not only were we managing money, but we're also getting some of those transactions coming through my broker deal. So really a great window into the development of China. But, to be totally honest with you, I'm like we've created an asset management group for the central bank of China. That's what we've done and I'm figuring, you know, by the time we teach them how to do this it'll be over.

Speaker 1: 12:59

They take it. They did it for everything.

Speaker 2: 13:01

And that's exactly what they did, yeah. And you saw that ahead of time, you saw it actually.

Speaker 2: 13:05

Saw it had to come and so we ended up and one of the things partnership went sort of this way you take the China stuff, I'll take a global macro strategy to more private equity, because these are late stage private equity deals that we're doing inside of China, so you're infusing in growth, yeah, so that got me really into the private equity side as well, which is really relevant to what you're trying to build right. So, managing money, sort of high test. I was dealing with the biggest banks in the world, the biggest issuers, the corporate side, so dealing all that at the same time, raising capital like we're doing now from some of the same names that we're going after now as an organization. So, yeah, that was a really, really interesting time.

Speaker 2: 13:57

So that whole thing from when I was sitting down with you, I mean, okay, what's Ryan's needs he's going to need? How do you scale the company? Yeah, and the last, before I joined Paradigm that's the last thing I was doing was scaling multiple companies, primarily in Australia, taking those with very like two employees, brought it to 120 employees, brought the capital, the debt, the equity to it. So scaling those companies and bringing the right people into the right slots and that's a real art in and of itself right.

Speaker 1: 14:28

It really is, and I don't think a lot of people understand how difficult that really is. It's hard.

Speaker 2: 14:32

I mean, that's what we do.

Speaker 1: 14:33

It's hard and it's really two kind of departments, if you will, two different paths. It's raising capital and being compliant and building something that's truly right for the environment and then obviously then building it. It's like, okay, cool, we got the money but how? Do we actually park that money? And so that's the idea. It's how do we go from raising the capital to now developing? The project.

Speaker 1: 15:00

And then obviously there's compliance inside that department. So that's where I knew I have the vision of the development, I have the vision of where I want to take the company. But then now we're building something like, for example, the barn caves. It's so innovative. Nobody's seen anything like that yet. Don't get me wrong, we're not inventing the wheels. I've just kind of taken five or six different.

Speaker 2: 15:20

You don't want to invent the wheel.

Speaker 1: 15:21

That's what you don't want to do, but we're just ultimately taking proven models and we're just bolting it all together and creating our own brand and marketing it to that.

Speaker 1: 15:28

So we just we understand marketing and PR and that's how we. Let's say, all the fires in LA. We all know about the insurance on stick-built houses that are going through the roof. Now if you look at policies for still-built homes, some of the town homes policies are significantly lower. So from an affordable side, that's important. It's huge. So, depending on the demographics and location that we're building these, that's one of the most important things to do Now I always tell everybody.

Speaker 1: 15:58

One of the other things is that we wanted to create a model that is scalable, but we can white label where other builders and developers across the country can now buy our buildings, put their name on it and they can build them anywhere they want in the country.

Speaker 2: 16:11

This is really an interesting point, right, because what we're really saying is we're going to build up a whole bunch of IP in what we're doing From an engineering perspective, the way we design these and, obviously, steven Beagle fantastic. So there's going to be a lot of very, very embedded IP, which you talk about businesses creating moats. That moat for us is going to be our IP surrounding how we deliver 700 of these things to somebody else doing another project, but we're delivering the units or one right so that I think exactly I think, I think we're we're.

Speaker 2: 16:48

You know, the barn caves is providing that for us. So a lot of you know, yeah, it's an established product we've engineered it down to, but there'll be second and third generation engineering aspects for this and that embedded IP is going to be very valuable for us. I see that as being that's almost the killer app in a way right.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Well, and now you're focused on the manufacturing side.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Yes.

Speaker 1: 17:11

So that's additional revenue for the brand. And that creates sustainability. So ultimately, the takeaway for investors is to say look, they really are a private equity. They're rolling in multiple revenue streams that all kind of feed each other.

Speaker 2: 17:22

Well, and we're seeing. I mean, look the conversations I'm having I don't know if we should say the name, but the conversations that we're having with the big New York banks, they see that. Yeah. I had a meeting head of credit for the entire bank, the biggest bank in the US. I took him through the business model, what we're doing, because I love it, I love it. That's not normal either. That's not normal. No, it's not. This is not normal, not at all. He's like I love it.

Speaker 2: 17:48

I want to do something. He bought into our vision in terms of what we're doing and the segment, whether it's barn caves or storage, that sort of thing. He loves the idea. And then the strange thing is he's like I love the secondary markets totally. That's where you guys are.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I love that idea right he loves the fact that we're focused on health care, retirement, baby boomers and spending habits. Yeah, the list goes on, and then we're catering to almost every demographic in essence, just depending on what kind of finishes we want, how big the units are so forth. But I think he saw the value in kind of our target market and was like that is right up the income stream for mass production and that is kind of that forward-thinking design, knowing what needs to be in place that we were able to implement.

Speaker 2: 18:32

But this is the most conservative bank in a lot of ways, the most conservative bank in the US. The other thing they did that was super smart is they went on our website so they got a very good picture very quickly of who you are. The second guy the guy in charge, put me to another guy and then he did his. He said I really like Ryan, I love what you're doing, the way you put yourself out there and you market, and that's incredibly important. And he bought into that. From that perspective, I understand your marketing right.

Speaker 2: 19:02

So for them it's going to be a numbers thing. Okay, well, you know where are we in this and what's the cost per square foot of a junior product and we're going to be at, you know, x, whatever leverage they're going to be at. So, yes, ultimately it'll be a numbers game. But the fact is I haven't seen that before where they literally just say I haven't seen that before where they literally just say and I told you, I like Ryan I downplayed it because I didn't like Ryan doesn't believe me. Ryan's not going to believe that they're going to jump over three hoops on this one, but they did, yeah, they did 100%.

Speaker 2: 19:30

And then, yeah, we've got another family office looking to do the same thing, but that's the next generation, that really, from our perspective, we bring the right debt piece and the right equity piece to this. And we've got, you know, from that discussion, another discussion with the family office in orange county. They're like I love it, let's go out to three of my other family offices and we'll be the first loss position. So that's where that goes. And then also, we got 100 million dollars with the debt and we got the equity and then off, we do right now our pipeline pipeline is 300. Well, it's more now.

Speaker 2: 20:02

It was $365 million worth of projects. That's actually fine Before this weekend.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yeah right, yeah Well, I didn't tell you about that meeting I had with the city. I was just going to feel them out. I asked for everything under the stars, yeah, but they bit down.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:17

We would be the first mid-rise. That doesn't change subjects too much, but I pitched a 550-unit project that's 100 feet tall, seven stories, podium, parking, retail at the bottom, trying to anchor with some sort of grocery store, health store, sprouts, trader Joe's, that type of thing and that's what people want around here. But we need that type of. They're 12,000 units short here, based on the last market study, so there needs to be more housing.

Speaker 1: 20:43

They're 12,000 units short here, based on the last market study. So there needs to be more housing. There needs to be more housing in that attainable level, but we can design a product that just supersedes anything else that's out here. And because of how much energy is going to the north side, they were like this is impressive, especially when 600 acres just got sold yesterday for $10 million, right next to us. That's a big deal, but the reason why I think they approved it or are interested to approve it, is the fact that there's no other homes in the area to to complain about the height or yeah, product we're building what's the right spot yeah, and it's inside the same parameters of the mall and retail feeds off body count and foot traffic correct so to see that mall thrive, bringing in that much, that many bodies, that many souls, really creates a buzz around town.

Speaker 1: 21:27

And you know, some of the guys were just walking there. Hey, buddy, what's going on? Were you really serious? I'm like, how did you know? I pitched that. Nobody even I'm so the city's so small city was talking about.

Speaker 2: 21:36

They're going out talking about. Yeah, yeah, for sure, city talked.

Speaker 1: 21:39

So I mean it's kind of impressive to hear we have a good reputation. That goes a long way.

Speaker 2: 21:44

Well, I think that's a lot of it too. They've seen our product, They've seen what we're doing out here and they love the Barn Caves project number one. So I think that goes a long way.

Speaker 1: 21:55

And, let's face it, it does go a long way, and they underwrite their underwriting guidelines is rather it's strict.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Yeah, and they do care about culture. They want to know how many people have been in your company and how long it's been with your company and they want to just kind of understand your culture. They want to look at your longevity, they want to look at your sustainability, they want to just kind of get a better feel of who we are as well. So, even though, yes, they're a numbers game, they do. Yes, they're a numbers game. They do care about a lot of other things like what's your relationship to the city? How are your approval process?

Speaker 1: 22:21

Oh yeah, how many projects have you done with them? For sure, do you have any political relationships? It does matter. Yeah, and a lot of people don't know that, but it's true. And that's where I see a lot of guys out there trying to get into the game, and I try to tell everybody it's 100, here's your staff employees. You know, with the city, the community, you have to play that card too. So if you're not playing, if you're not doing all of the things that it takes, they're going to see that, and so that's why family office does, and they understand they're not dumb.

Speaker 2: 22:50

These are very sophisticated people, no very smart guys, but at the end of the day, I think everybody underestimates the amount of energy and time and commitment it takes to build a business.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Oh it takes to build a business.

Speaker 2: 22:58

Oh yeah, and that's. I think it's literally the hardest thing in the world to do is to take something from nothing and build a successful business around it. It doesn't happen. It never happens with one guy. No, Right, it just can't. You've got to have a visionary and you've well, energy and vision, right, that's what it takes. And sustainability.

Speaker 1: 23:18

And tenacity.

Speaker 2: 23:18

You've got to wake up every morning and think about what you're going to do, how we build it.

Speaker 1: 23:22

It's a 24-7 process and you've got to be patient. And you've got to dream about it.

Speaker 2: 23:25

You've got to be patient and you've got to dream about it. How many times in conversations we've had it's like Ryan was in the shower and something came to him.

Speaker 1: 23:34

It's like, okay, this guy's thinking about it all the time On a.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Exactly so. That's what it takes, and I don't think they're, and that's why people give up. They don't have that. They don't have that drive to be able to, and they you know people you fail, right. So I think that's a big part of it. You just have to have the mindset that I'm going to make this work, and then you have to bring people around you that can elevate what you're doing, and that's where I'm really looking forward to sort of taking this from where we are now and really sitting down with you. Okay, now we've got another two or three huge projects out here we're going to have, so we're going to take this company and we're going to turn it over again.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Oh, yeah, Right oh 100% and we're just going to grow, keep growing, getting the right people in and develop. Our development side of our business is incredible right now. It's incredible we development side of our business is incredible.

Speaker 1: 24:21

right now it's incredible. We have an amazing team. I mean everybody that's on our downline from architects, engineers, and our engineer did the, you know, the Dallas Cowboy Stadium you know down to you, know our architect. Pentagon. I mean it's just wild.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Yeah, we do have the right pedigree and it was funny.

Speaker 1: 24:38

I was talking to a guy earlier just kind of, hey, where did you get the idea? How did you? Because maybe he had listened to a couple of podcasts previously. And I said, look, I think a lot of operators, guys like me, they don't understand the importance of hiring a really good architect. So, yeah, they may cost you more money on the design side up front, but they're going to get things done on time normally and then they're going to come to you with different building methods that will actually save you millions.

Speaker 2: 25:00

Yes, in the long run yes, because they've done it before.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Yeah, they've seen all the things that are wrong and they've worked with so many different contractors and everyone kind of has them. They're like, they're like artists, they're tattoo artists. Almost everyone kind of has their own way of doing things and and when you have an architect's been in business since the 70s, yeah, and he has.

Speaker 1: 25:15

He's bought multiple companies and seen different you know brands around the country and certain areas work and things don't work and he's bringing all of that knowledge to the forefront and going hey, this is what you're paying me to do is create something that you want to see be done, but here are other ways that you can build it and save money, and in this environment, that is absolutely key. And so people go well, man, you're spending a lot of money on the front end. Yeah, planning is where you make your money. And so people go well, man, you're spending a lot of money on the front end.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Yeah, yeah, planning is where you make your money, yeah, your acquisition and your planning is where you make money.

Speaker 1: 25:45

If you aren't planned well, you're going to have a problem, correct? So, yeah, I think. At the end of the day, I think, our support, though you know all the people that come by.

Speaker 2: 25:56

I mean, our tent has been busy all day, all day long, for 12 hours this thing has not been stopped or slowed down.

Speaker 1: 26:00

So I think, ultimately, you know, we're not only getting a ton of support, community support, the people that have seen us wanted to see it live in real time.

Speaker 2: 26:08

People that are like, oh my gosh, now I can see what the vision is and I'm interested to dive in, but I think also the way that we've we and you're thinking about things in in which I think is the correct way, you're building an ecosystem around Paradigm, right. So you've got the storage, you've got the barn caves, which is housing. You're going to do the family office society, which is a private membership club. We're going to have an amazing 32,000 square foot gym that's going to bring in outside people private membership gym, right. All those people become part of your ecosystem, the Paradigm ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 26:40

And they feed on one another. You're in the family office society. It's going to be. You know the wealthy people out here and there's a lot of money in Havasu that want to have a place to go. Hang out, put an office there. Hang out with our golf simulators, the F1 simulators. So you're creating basically like Apple would call it, ecosystem, where you stay within the Apple system and you're doing the same thing and we're doing the same thing here, with Paradigm in terms of our projects right.

Speaker 1: 27:07

I don't know if I ever told you this. Maybe I have. But one of the reasons why I think the gym's close to my heart. No, I love health and wellness.

Speaker 1: 27:13

I've been working out my whole life? Yes, and so in 2008, when the market crashed to this day, I tell everybody, the reason why I was able to put food on the table is because I had built relationships at the gym, where I would go to the gym and all of us would talk and they would send me a deal here and there, and I was literally surviving on deals. I was making fun of tips. Well, you're hilarious at the gym.

Speaker 2: 27:33

by the way, you're hilarious. You can spend. You know I work out whether it's back in Tennessee or out here. Literally you're on the phone the entire time oh yeah, the entire time. Or people are interrupting you, wanting to talk to you. I'm like he's got less workout that I've ever seen anybody spend an hour and a half at a gym. He's done like four exercises, been on the phone the entire time, right?

Speaker 1: 27:56

I just throw in the towel. I'm like, okay, I'm out of here.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Yeah, it's a relationship builder for you.

Speaker 1: 27:59

The only thing I can get 100% of is people overhear my conversations, yeah, or people know who I am and they're kind of wanting to listen.

Speaker 2: 28:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:06

And then it gives them an in to have a conversation. It's crazy because a lot of people they can relate when they're in the same, similar business, and so I couldn't tell you how many people were like hey, ryan, I'm a framer or I'm through this, you know what, send a bid marketing side of you.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Where did you develop?

Speaker 1: 28:29

is that something?

Speaker 2: 28:29

you develop. It's something you already have. So you're, you're a guy that people well, first of all people are attracted to you anyway, naturally, right. So that's great, okay, you've got the charisma and you, you're open. Yeah, you have sort of that openness about you, right. But but you develop, you develop relationships very quickly. People trust you and and of course, they've seen you but where did that come from? I mean, is that something that you've had?

Speaker 1: 28:50

uh, I think I, I, I, I genuinely uh, enjoy marketing. Yeah, I, I love that. I love getting behind a camera. I like deep goofing off, I like to build memories yes so that was kind of. I'll kind of give you maybe a deeper dive background, but as my mother, my mother left when I was six months old. I reconnected with her in 2017. And I documented that that was really. I really started truly loving marketing as I documented this journey of mine.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Why did you, why, why would you document that?

Speaker 1: 29:23

At that time I was flying back and forth a lot to Santa Monica because I was doing a lot of stuff in Beverly Hills. So instead of drive three hours from Temecula to Beverly Hills and then come back like three days a week. I had a guy who worked for me that also was and this was in the real estate lending space he also was a pilot for Virgin, so he's like hey, dude, I've been flying forever, I can do sticks and we all actually help you get your license and we'll do all of our flights and we'll do all of our stuff and kill two birds with one stone right like perfect yeah so I was flying from Temecula 12 minute flight.

Speaker 1: 29:53

From Temecula to Santa Monica 12 minutes, and so this is.

Speaker 1: 29:56

I love you so yeah the point is is that when I I I was having my, my second son yeah and I kind of have this kind of Jesus kind of thing and I just thought like if I'm traveling all the time in a little plane and I die, I want my kids to know what forgiveness is. At that time I was kind of going through this forgiveness thing. Okay, yeah. And I wanted my kids to know that, and so what I did is I reached out to my mother and I documented the whole entire kind of story of me reconnecting with my mother. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:24

And I had her come out and I picked her up at the airport. When I picked her up, I mean I had the whole camera following me, the whole thing. Yeah, what happened was it was such a cool video that the way it was edited it came out better than my memory of the actual event.

Speaker 2: 30:41

Okay, interesting, and so.

Speaker 1: 30:42

I can look back at that and I can feel that memory. Yeah, you know just like wedding videos or photos.

Speaker 2: 30:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:47

You look back and it's so impactful, you know.

Speaker 2: 30:50

You put yourself back in those pictures, you put those in your memories and it's very.

Speaker 1: 30:54

it's very fragile yet, so it's very.

Speaker 2: 30:58

But from an emotional level that's a really deep place to be emotionally Right.

Speaker 1: 31:02

So even having that a lot of times, there's a purity, to that humbleness, and to that brokenness right and what happened was when I went live with it and I put it out in the world to see, it took root and I got like 20 million views in like four days. But the amount of responses and messages that I got I tried to read all of them it was I inspired people to go do that for themselves. Whether it's a brother, their father it's completely authentic.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Yeah, it was just inspired and I so that the the ending part was I'm so glad that I did it. Yeah, regardless of the outcome, I wanted to know.

Speaker 2: 31:42

I'd rather know than not know, you know and that put you in front of the camera for the first time?

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah, it did, and so being vulnerable is very hard. Yeah, because you know marketing and being vulnerable it's just hard, no matter what Right, but you've got your best friends. It's hard to be vulnerable in front of your best friends. Yes, so to do that to the world, knowing I'm going to be judged from every which way on Sunday, but it was really for me and ultimately it was for my kids.

Speaker 1: 32:05

But I did put it on social media because I knew I had a lot of people that I think would appreciate it and it just took root. But I never got negative feedback, it was just such all positive feedback. So that's when I knew my business exploded from that personal side.

Speaker 2: 32:19

And.

Speaker 1: 32:19

I was like wow. I mean I got probably 30 or 40 loans. I built real estate relationships across the country.

Speaker 2: 32:24

So what year was that? I've built real estate relationships across the country, so what year was that? Let's put it up that was in 2017. 2017.

Speaker 1: 32:28

Okay. So, and then I'm like cool, and now I start raising capital. People are like I really like this guy as a person. Yeah, I want to invest. And that's what happens People invest into you. That's trust. You know people invest into you, but they ultimately invest into the operator. You can invest into anything.

Speaker 1: 32:47

There's so many things on social media. You can find a guy invest in these departments, invest into this, invest into that, but what you realize is these people are investing into us. So I knew that by being vulnerable and being okay with the negative impact of some people negative responses.

Speaker 1: 33:02

It's because people are bad, horrible sometimes, but I get more positive than negative. So, knowing the impact of my business exploded. I mean, I made a million dollars that year, yeah, you know, and that was really awesome and that really kind of helped me jumpstart the growth of the company, because I'm like, well, shoot man, if I just keep this up, where am I going to grow? And that's what I did. Okay.

Speaker 1: 33:24

And so it really started with my relationship with my mother, yes, and then being okay with putting it out there, but really kind of making it set up for my kids. So if I were to again, if I were to pass away, die in an airplane, they're like this is who dad was. So the documentary was longer than just my connection with my mom. It was about who I am, you know, and so I have a longer version. But then when I did that and it was so, it really changed the way I looked at how to scale my business and it was free. Yes.

Speaker 1: 33:52

You know that was a post on social media. The power behind social media is undeniable.

Speaker 2: 33:59

Well, that's what you said when we first met. Yeah, You're like Wall Street hasn't caught on to the chat.

Speaker 2: 34:03

They are now though Street hasn't caught on to the chat. The crowdfunding side they don't quite get it and that's an opportunity. It's an opportunity. Then I'm like, okay, because that wasn't part of my world, right. And you said, no, this is important. This is how I built the business, how I scaled and no matter what happens globally, whatever, this is another source of capital for the company. It's not going to go up and down. It's not a numbers thing as much. I think people see through the camera lens to you and it's an authentic thing and that's the way they build trust with you. You go to Wall Street and they're going to say, oh, where are the numbers here? They'll bust it down nine ways to Sunday and then they won't invest. That's typically what happens.

Speaker 3: 34:48

You're going to have to have 18 or 20 or 30 of those meetings. Yeah, and you're going to go through the attorneys and the CFOs and this and that right.

Speaker 2: 34:54

So that's a whole other sales pitch. Okay, they're bigger chaps, right, and at some point the pipeline just gets you there. They can't say no anymore because you're pipeline and you've delivered for your clients. So that becomes a transition. Right, it's, we're going to go through this, you're going to raise your money and then, ultimately, from there these are 10, 15, 20, $30 million checks. You'll come from there, right? So that's where we are right now as an organization. Right, we've made that transition to something different and we are getting bigger checks.

Speaker 1: 35:25

Oh yeah, but we're never going to stop building relationships in the way we would.

Speaker 2: 35:29

I don't think you can stop yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:32

I don't want to say a lifeline, it's like our DNA, you know really our business has been around the smaller retail investor that doesn't really know what to do and doesn't really trust a lot of people, people. But they can reach out and touch us and they know Lake Havasu and you know, and so they believe in the community and so on, and so forth. So my family's here, my dad's on site, all the time we call him the Karen right, he cares too much.

Speaker 1: 35:52

He's out there picking up cigarette, butts and so forth. It's making the place look good. Honestly, my dad is great. Yeah, he's awesome and my dad raised me, so it's always nice and that's the best part is like. It's also a family-oriented business and I think a lot of people connect with that too. So but again, you know, going back to the you know smaller retail investor, the family office, it is again in our DNA and I don't think I would ever want to get away from that because I dedicated people Just because it was a smaller dollar amount doesn't mean anything really, these, but they're our biggest sales team.

Speaker 1: 36:28

These guys are out there pitching paradigm and hey, you got to buy one of these barn caves, or hey, you got to buy a storage unit, and then it's just like you nailed it, it's created an economy. Now we're creating a military of people that are protecting their money by referring people to our product when we're on the exit, and now you just have a huge. I mean, think about it. Any company that has 400 employees is pretty sustainable.

Speaker 1: 36:50

That's what we have is 400 people that love what we're doing and have supported us and we create a high level of transparency so it makes them trust us. So you know, I think.

Speaker 2: 37:00

But also the cool thing too, ryan, and I think you hit on this earlier on it's like they're also sort of our family.

Speaker 1: 37:06

Oh, yeah, for sure, from a trust perspective. Well, we say in every email we're like welcome to the family.

Speaker 2: 37:10

Yeah, no, we know everything about these.

Speaker 2: 37:12

Well, not every one of our investors, because we have way more now than we had previously. But a good percentage of these investors we really know pretty well. We're having multiple conversations a year how many kids, what year, how many kids, what's the wife's name, all this stuff. Basically, we know which you know is great from from that perspective, right, if it's a, if it's a 15 million dollar or 20 million dollar, check out of wall street, yeah, who cares? Right, that those aren't the discussions that you have. It's like how did you do last quarter?

Speaker 1: 37:39

well, you know and I you know, so that's another part of the conversation. I don't think I've ever brought up on a podcast. I think we do it internally. So you know what's happening is because our I would say our our team is so involved in the day-to-day, even from the investor relations side they're having conversations with these investors and building relationships and you can't help if we've all.

Speaker 1: 38:01

We've all have our hardships and when these investors open up to you, you can connect to them, especially if you've had similar hardships divorces, death in the family illnesses, cancer, scares, cancer you know, it's just really hard not to connect and have compassion for people's hardships and everybody has hardships and I think what's happening is the team is waking up every morning with a purpose. It's not just about you getting up and going to a job and making a salary and going home. There's no real meaning to that anymore. People want more and our team definitely is not that team.

Speaker 1: 38:38

These people want to elevate their lives. They are go-getters in their own personal lives, they work hard, they build businesses. I mean, these are all truly top-notch people. Yeah, and there is nothing better than that in my opinion. Yeah, and I think right now, ultimately, what we need to do is just continue to build awareness on all the stuff that we have cooking and, and just continue to build these relationships and tell people who we are, what we're doing, and just welcome people with family and and these and again, our team's just waking up every morning with a purpose and with that, that in essence, bulletproof vest, we've got to fight for our people every day.

Speaker 2: 39:10

Well, you're right. Even here we saw it with an investor that we've been. You know. He's like I just don't. I had to come here and see it. Yeah, totally, I don't want to be on a phone call, I don't want to be on an email, I and see it. So he shows up, he takes a look at the barn caves he's got it. It's like I'll get it, I get it now, I'm going to get. I won't say the number, but he's like I'm in, and then his buddies standing right behind him and say wait, you're in.

Speaker 2: 39:36

What is this? Okay, I'm in too. Right, police firefighters, you know that's and that's amazing, right, those, those and, like you said, those are your best advocates Once they truly understand what we're trying to do. And it's not a cookie cutter. We're not building 1,900 homes in Ontario or something like that. We're building something that has a personality, it has a presence. It's really cutting-edge stuff, which is what I love too. I love being at the sort of cutting edge of what we're doing. If we're not innovating, we're going to fall behind.

Speaker 1: 40:10

Yeah, exactly, we have to be innovating. The world's moving too fast. I use that as an example In 2020, look how fast the world moved. Yeah, if we aren't moving that from our business side. If you look at politics in general, they're moving mountains Right, mountains every day.

Speaker 2: 40:22

we're going to fall behind and I I think too, if you look at the geopolitical landscape and this is what I do I mean I did that, for I spent all my career looking at 24, 7, what's happening around the globe and where the risks are I mean, I don't know how many times we wrote in our sif write-ups about hey, this is going to be about hard assets. You know these you're going to. If you got to transition away from financial assets, they're expensive. You've got to go back to the basics. Let's get real estate. It's got to be whether it's creating income from it or investing in it, putting your money there.

Speaker 2: 40:55

We were pushing this pretty early on, seeing sort of where this was going to go, and we're seeing it now, right, so people have come to us and said look, I just don't want the volatility man. I can't take it anymore. I just don't want the volatility man. I can't take it anymore. Yep, oh, you're going to give me 10% per annum on security income fund. I like that idea. Tell me more about it. Yep, you're going to 2.2 times your capital in the barn caves. That's a four-year investment. You know what I like that? Because I don't have to deal with the volatility. A track record. I get it right, yep, so they don't have to worry about this stuff, right? It doesn't matter what's happening between the US and China, right, right, and I think that's the way. From my perspective, that's smart investing.

Speaker 1: 41:36

Right, yeah, agreed.

Speaker 2: 41:37

Right.

Speaker 1: 41:38

So all right, buddy.

Speaker 2: 41:44

Well, let's good.

Speaker 1: 41:45

We'll get some feedback from all of our followers and go from there. But hey guys, if you guys want, you know. First of all, thanks for listening. Thank you for all the support. If any of you guys want to hear anything specific that you want us to talk on, we can dive into any type of weeds you want, whether it's tariffs, politics. You know there's ways. Things maybe a little different, but we are data nerds in reality. So thank you guys all for your support. We love you very much. Welcome to the family if you're new to the team, and I hope to see you guys soon.