The Everyday Millionaire Show
Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalfas are two Maryland based business owners and investors. Ryan and Nick discuss topics such as basics of financial literacy, building businesses, investing, and real estate. This podcast is for people looking to achieve financial freedom.
The Everyday Millionaire Show
Kevin Cooney and ‘PE GUY’ Johnny Hilbrant meet The Everyday Millionaires (Full Episode)
Today we’re joined by Kevin Cooney and Johnny Hilbrant (aka “PE GUY”) for a conversation that’s equal parts hilarious and surprisingly insightful—covering content, brand-building, and what it takes to turn internet momentum into a real business.
Kevin breaks down how he and Ashley built The Cooney’s Show, a long-form podcast filmed at TD Garden in Boston interviewing entrepreneurs, entertainers, and athletes.
Johnny shares the origin story behind “PE GUY,” the deadpan private-equity parody that blew up online in 2025 and quickly grew to 250K Instagram followers
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Galvest. What's up guys? We are here. It's just before 6 a.m. We have a new sponsor for the podcast, Sup Dog Supplements. They just sent us some pre-workout, some creatine. I've been taking this every day before the gym. About to do a about a mile and a quarter swim workout this morning and then chest and chest and biceps. This has always been a great pump for the last couple weeks. Hasn't been too jittery. A lot of pre-workouts I take gives me the jitters. This has been good. It's pretty tasty. I have the blue, blue raspberry. It's definitely strong tasting, but it's pretty delicious. And then we have our creatine here as well. So I'm gonna take one scoop of the creatine with my pre-workout. Unflavored creatine. I like it better that way. If you uh looking for new supplements, try something out. Stuff dog, they are local to Maryland, so they hooked us up and look forward to a long-term sponsorship with them. Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We are here with a bunch of people. Kevin Cooney from the Cooneys. The Cooney Show? There it is. Cooney Show. And um Johnny Hilbrent, also known as the PE guy, big private equity guy over here. Yes, regular face Johnny. Regular face today. Regular face Johnny and obviously Nick and Chase. Um thank you guys so much for coming, and Kevin's setting all this stuff up in this fancy studio. Thanks enough. It's real nice. Pretty cool. Pumped to be on. So I got originally in touch with Kevin because I saw you started posting stuff about um real estate. And we were follow- I think I was just following you because your wife's funny. Yep. First question Does she really is it is she playing that at all?
SPEAKER_01:Unfortunately, real. Our second date was right across the street here at my apartment, and it was just us two. And I was like, you can you can drop the whole act thing. She was like, What are you a knack? And I was like, Oh, it's real.
unknown:Perfect!
SPEAKER_01:Are you from here? No, I'm from Southern New Hampshire originally. And I moved in after college, so like 2017, 2018, I moved across the street there.
SPEAKER_05:So how did that how do some people get that? Like, oh, you're from Chicago anyway. So yeah. Chicago's got the accent, though.
SPEAKER_01:Chicago Chicago's accent, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But how do people end up with that accent?
SPEAKER_05:Like, is it just parts of Boston? Because we've talked to other people around here and they don't sound like that.
SPEAKER_01:Now it's a lot of like transplants or like yuppies is like the city calls. Like I was a yuppie. So like I come in and like I was in the tech space, so all the all the old timers that lived here, but longer this yuppie, you know. And uh, but if you're born and raised here, like we'll see. I got a 10-month-old daughter, we'll see if it's hereditary. I don't know. Maybe it's so the jury's still out on that.
SPEAKER_02:She might be like bilingual. She might I have some friends whose kids speak Spanish and English, and she might just pick like one different.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna say two languages, you know. We go to her appointments, I'm gonna be like, she is she's bilingual. She does the Boston accent. I think when the British were here, they taxed T and the letter R, I think. And then it just kind of stuck, you know.
SPEAKER_03:People were like, fine, we won't use it. Yeah, you know? Well, that's like my wife, my wife's from Long Island, and Ryan's from Long Island, but you would never tell because they've like dropped their accent.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I've been out of New York for a long time. Right. But my parents are not. Like they sound they sound the New York version of your wife. Right. I'm like, that's a little Jewish guy with like the the rat that water. Yeah, yeah. But now I've been gone uh since like 2009, 2009, and now I talk to my parents, and I'm like, you guys sound ridiculous. Right. You guys sound absolutely ridiculous. Right. Oh my mom's like, she sounds like Trump sometimes. She's like, uh Ryan, you wouldn't believe it. It was huge. It was huge. I'm like, all right, the dog Trump. It's huge.
SPEAKER_04:This is Trump, relax.
SPEAKER_05:But I think I've been made fun of so much by my wife's family and like everybody else that I had to just like figure out how to not have the accent anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But if you're stuck there for so long, oh well, you culturally, you like we'll go over like her family's spot for Christmas Eve. That's like the big Italian thing to do. You go over there, I'm they're looking at me like he just said refrigerator. Like he said, every cell is like Louis, idiot, you know. Everyone's like chain smoking inside, you know.
SPEAKER_03:What do you call the thing that you put your underwear in? Uh a drawer? Yeah, what do you call it, Ron? Now I call it a drawer. Yeah, but I used to say draw because that's just what we called it. It's just draw. We just hammer them away.
SPEAKER_05:We're like, dude, you just totally cannot do it right now. Now some people just think I'm stupid because they asked me to say certain words and I have to wait, I have to like process it on how to say it the right way so they don't make fun of me for it.
SPEAKER_01:Translating in his head, like then Bostonians will add Rs like uh pizza. They'll or uh pizza and uh well you do that too with Rs.
SPEAKER_05:Um Baltimore people do the war wash. You're gonna wash your clothes. Have you ever heard anybody say it like that? Yeah, that's shocking.
SPEAKER_01:Baltimore's accent's crazy though, because of where did the the two come from?
SPEAKER_05:It's just white trash. No, I just trash.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, wasn't it because of like uh it was a British kind of descended thing, wasn't it? But like no, man.
SPEAKER_05:No, I I think the Baltimore accent is is a just like kind of like a uneducated, like they don't know how to spell wash. They think it's W-A-R-S-H. Or S. Or like if they say we're gonna we're gonna go to DC, we're gonna go to Washington, D.C. Whoa. Yeah, right? That's shocking. Yeah, that's you just can you say that into the mic? Washington. That's fucking weird. That is crazy. That was how you normally would say you're not doing a bit.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, that's actually. Washington wash. I like to wash my clothes. People get up uh they always try to come at me sideways when I say water. Like I I feel like I'm saying it right. Warsh is not right.
SPEAKER_02:Water water is I I could deal with that. Wash? Yeah. What was that show with um it was Mayor of Easton with um what's her face? And she did Kate Winslet, maybe, and she did it. She was uh it was a Philly accent. It kind of sounds similar. Where they do another Philly has a similar accent to Boston, uh to Baltimore if you're water or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, above my pay grade. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_05:New York, Philly, they all have it is interesting. You drive like two hours and you have like a completely different thing.
SPEAKER_00:Pittsburgh, the the Oh, that copy that cop yesterday. That was deep. Yeah, we got pulled over yesterday. Ryan almost hit a pedestrian in the middle of a crosswalk. Allegedly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. That was a stop sign, except he didn't say it like that. Sorry, I'm from Baltimore, we don't do that.
SPEAKER_05:And then I was just trying to start small talk, so I was like, I'm not from here, I'm lost, shot at park. He's like, You're gonna have to take your chances in a garage. I'm like, You were like, All right, got it. Like the vowel? Yeah, yeah. Like, what letter are we missing maybe?
SPEAKER_02:Like, oh, we're playing solitaire on ball back. Okay. How fun the Boston experience.
SPEAKER_05:I do love the comebacks that you have because some of them don't make sense when she she says something, you're like, Marlboro Red, it's like what?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, those all originated when we the first like month in a dating, anything like uh the first one was like uh we're out to dinner, it's late. She's like, Did you order an Uber? And I was like, But she says it fast, and I'm like, you know, when you're first dating someone and you're not close enough to be like, now you can be like, what the fuck are you saying? But you're still on like you know, like almost best behavior. Yeah, so I'd be like, I'm I'm sorry, uh what was it? Just uh she's like, Did you order an Uber? And I was like, Yeah, we can type it. There's probably climp late night climp show. I can find that. I could probably facilitate that. Let me just look around here, and she would look at me like an idiot. I'm like, uh uh.
SPEAKER_05:So at what point did you start like saying, Okay, we need to we need to film you saying these things because it's so ridiculous?
SPEAKER_01:We met April of 2020, so it's like peak of COVID. Uh I was working at Toast in the tech space. Uh they just laid off 50% of the company, so I was recently laid off, and I was like, oh shit. I was like, you're still trying to like impress, you know, uh the lady, you're you no income coming in at the time. And then uh I just went hard on uh I posted 10 videos a day every day for the first year, and that's what like set the base. Similar to building, I always give it like you guys know this way better than I. The foundation takes the longest. Once the foundation's dry and it's perfect, and the inspectors come out and they're out of your hair. Framing's like quick, depending on the size of the building, like a day, two days, maybe three days to frame it all out. Yeah, same with contents like you pour enough of the concrete and rebar in and let it dry and test and test and test. You can build story two, three, four, five, six super fast.
SPEAKER_05:Did you approach her and you're like, hey, you sound crazy, so we should film it.
SPEAKER_01:No, she hated, she didn't want to be on camera, she hated it, very introverted. Uh wanted no part of it. She's like, hey, we weren't at the time we weren't monetizing. So she was like, This is like no one was watching and we weren't monetizing. She's like, Why are we doing this? That was that's for three years. So it was like, there's no team yet, there was no anyone.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like you're just embarrassing me in front of like 400 followers. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Your aunt just commented and said, boo. She's like, there's no, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That's uh that's hysterical. So how long into your relationship were were you like, okay, let's start, let's start filming.
SPEAKER_01:It took probably like a it was probably like 2022. She first got on camera. So it was like two years of like, like it was just me posting every day. There was no, there's no we, you know. Uh and then slowly, like almost probably similar to you guys, like uh like when you started work with him, like you, you you're close every day, and then naturally you're slowly probably going on the path that he went down, you know? Exactly. Same with her. She was like close enough to me every day where she's like, Oh, let me let me like I'll try to jump on this one. Like, you know. What was your content from the beginning when she wasn't involved in it yet? Yeah, I would do like hype up morning alarms. It was like I'd be in the gym like fresh off of Celsius, and I'd be like, Good morning, you bad beautiful bitches, you here. We only talk about subdog supplements. Sorry.
SPEAKER_05:Uh yeah, there you go. Subdog supplements code millionaire. Yeah, right, perfect. No Celsius. She was drinking subdoglings. Yeah, that's exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Sorry to interrupt and then uh but it was nothing of substance, it was like complete tests. Like I call it like buffet style. Like you you post a video, and then I was like, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try the shrimp, I'm gonna try the lobster, I'm gonna try this. Like, let me try posting it was it was not office skits, anchor man, you know, movie quotes. That's kind of what I mean.
SPEAKER_02:You started with random like wedding videos, right? Yeah, well, it's just the guy you get stuck talking to at a wedding. And and that, and because I'm a nice guy from the Midwest, so I would get stuck talking to the guy at a wedding no one wants to talk to. Right. And I get cornered and he, you know, they hone in on the person who's the weakest in the room. And so I would just get like cornered and backed into a wall, and it and it was just like a guy who's like, Yeah, my bonus is gonna be huge this year. And I'm like, uh, then he's like, What do you do? And I'm like, I'm a spin instructor. And he's like, Oh, well, do you have a the is the company backed by private equity, or what's the and I'm I just be like, I don't really know. And he's like, Do you have benefits at that job or how do you pay your bills?
SPEAKER_05:And I, you know, that kept happening to me. Is that a is that a thing that happens up here? Because I feel like I've never been asked or told anybody how much money I make at a wedding.
SPEAKER_02:Well, like probably you have a backbone, probably. This month, yeah, this month we did really well. Yeah. I I see that you're a school teacher. No, yeah. You didn't do well. What do you do after taxes? I just I just kept getting, I don't know. I it kept happening to me, and then it's it started as the guy you get stuck talking to at a wedding, and then I gave him a job. And I was like, all right, he's gonna be in private equity. And everyone's like, you're nailing the private equity guy. And I was like, am I? And they're like, Are you in private equity? I was like, super not, totally super not in private equity.
SPEAKER_05:It's you're friends with Austin, but I feel like you could do a tech guy too. Oh, you would crush a Patagonia vest. Yes, yes, yes. Well, that's the I feel like it's the same attire, tech and finance bros. Oh, yeah, the same people.
SPEAKER_02:Yep almost. Throw a vest on, yeah. It's really that's all I make cameos for people, and all I have to do is put a vest on. I can wear anything under it. It's just like there. And if I don't, people are like, Can you redo it and put a vest on? I'm like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So when you created the P guy, do you have that memory in your head where like the wedding before that? Or like, you know, I was cornered and this guy, do you remember that conversation? You were like, I have to post something about so annoying.
SPEAKER_02:The wedding. There were multiple, but the wedding was one in New York, and it was in like February. I posted my first video in March this year. And but in February, I was at a wedding, and it was at the welcome party, and this girl cornered me. It was a girl, actually, and she cornered me and she was like, So I'm on garden leave. And I was like, I don't, I don't know if you guys know what that is. I have no idea. That's for like people in like high-paying jobs at like finance institutions, and you get like a I think it's like a sabbatical of some sort. Oh, I thought she like planted seeds. Garden leave. No, that's what I thought. I was like, that's so nice. Finally, we're talking about something, and she's like, no, no, garden leave. Um, and she's like, So I'm gonna be an aspen this year this month, and then I'm gonna be, I'm gonna go to Italy with my and I was like, and she literally backed me. We were in a tiny like welcome party bar, and she literally backed me into a like a corner. And I was physically, my friends were like, Are you okay? Like, you got really stuck talking to her. I was like, Yeah, thank you. You all, you know, known to me then. So I remember that was kind of like the last I was like, all right, like I should, I'm gonna, I'm gonna like post something. But I was inspired by that.
SPEAKER_05:That's a wild trajectory from March of this year to where you're at now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like I we've literally been doing this for four years now. I got super lucky, so don't ask me what my strategy is because there is none. I got my strategy was I got lucky.
SPEAKER_00:But I was like, Well, the strategy after March was consistency, right? Like if you if you would have got one viral video and didn't do anything after that, then it would have just been that one.
SPEAKER_02:Like after the first one, a couple days later, I did another similar one and it did well. And I was like, okay, we're doing things here, and then it kept going. And I I I never thought about it as like a okay, I'll make cameos for people and do ads, but cameos an interesting.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, that's an easy thing to do. Like you're just people just send you something to say to their friend, and then you just say it and they pay you for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, kinda, yeah. I mean, it pretty much. And I I can do like I do between like two and ten of them a day, and they and I will but I the thing is I put my whole body into it. So I literally when I'm done, I am panting. I'm like, and then I send it and they're like, Can you do that again and be like even worse? And I'm just like, oh, I can. I will, you know, like request lines like this long. Yeah, yeah. I'm just like, okay, all right, and then they're like, Oh, you forgot to mention like our golden doodle, and I'm like, okay, I'll do it again. Um, it's a good thing, though. It's a good problem to have.
SPEAKER_05:That's I mean, that's pretty cool. That's an awesome job to just talk like you're basically just talking shit for a living, which is exactly fun, which I'm great at. So yeah, phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's I just have to, you know, I I should start taking care of my voice like a like a singer, though. Because I, you know, it's that's all I got. The voice. Hot honey tea at night. Exactly. I'm on Volcanrest, actually. I'm done. This podcast has been 20 minutes. I I'm on Volcan.
SPEAKER_05:I I had a hot tea before this. Now I have to pee for the second time since we started this podcast. Uh 16 minutes ago. So that's uh that's a that I had a tea. That's lovely. I don't drink coffee.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. See, that yeah, that's like a that's a nice that's a nice thing. I wish I had never started.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. I just don't like the taste of it. I'm not a big coffee guy.
SPEAKER_02:I thought you were like protecting your own.
SPEAKER_05:No, no, no. Nothing to do with the heart. Certainly not. No.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_05:Just ridiculous. Just taste. Yeah. Um, so Kevin, how long into content creation did you start then getting into real estate investing? Because that's why we reached out to you originally.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. Uh it wasn't until uh last year we bought 10 units. Okay. So I was just like, uh, we we have a team of six. So it's uh it's me, and then behind me is our videographer Kyle. We have a couple agents, uh, a PM, a project manager to keep you on task, a couple editors. So we were just horse blinders on, all content, no other, you know, slowly putting money in like Fidelity and other little small bets here and there. And then uh uh this templex came up, and I was like, ooh, I was like, this is this this could be a score. It's two separate properties, but basically right down the street from each other. And uh everyone thought I was nuts. Like my dad's like old school Irish, and he's like, you know, he's like, uh comes from like the fidelity world, and he was like, you're way better putting all that cash into fidelity. It's like uh he's like, no, you don't have to manage it, no termites, toilets, tenants, the whole nine, you know. Uh yeah, trust me.
SPEAKER_05:I was a huge disappointment to my parents. Yeah, yeah, huge disappointment. When I stopped, like when I told my mom I was gonna quit my job, she was like, You spent so much time and effort going to college, and you're just gonna throw it all away. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, that's what I'm gonna do. Like, that's exactly what I'm gonna do, and it's gonna work out, it's gonna be okay. And she's like, No, no, you gotta keep your job. You gotta stay. The year we quit, we doubled the business. Yeah, hell yeah. And I was like, We're good, we're good.
SPEAKER_01:We're good now. It's just a different, like, you know, like when I start first started working at Toast, my parents are like, You're gonna have this job for the next 50 years. Like, how cool are we?
SPEAKER_05:But that's what our parent generation did.
SPEAKER_01:They're just awful. Exactly right.
SPEAKER_02:I did get into real estate, and I'm I'm a disappointment to my family. So you you know you don't even have to get in the, you know, like is this a bit? No, this is real. Yeah, don't mean to get snapchat filters.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Snapchat filter.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Um, no, that's that's cool though.
SPEAKER_05:That yeah, they they were like you you kind of prove them wrong. Well, they were they were my both my parents like were super super conservative, like they worked blue collar, like super hard, put me through college, like paid for my college, which was like a blessing. Yeah, and so they're like, What are you doing? Yeah, and I went like away, they paid for the room and board, like it was a lot of money they invested in me. Yeah, but then I got a job, I was a PE teacher making thirty thousand dollars a year. I was like, fucking crazy, right? And then the money sh my parents stopped paying my rent and stuff after college or whatever, and I'm like, I can't survive on this. Right. So we started buying a couple rental properties here and there, and then it turned into something else, property management company, then a construction company, and then the month I quit, we were just talking about not saying how much you make, but the month I quit, I made like$165,000 or something like that. And my mom, when I told my mom, like, I'm quitting, and she's like, You're gonna you're gonna lose everything, like this is such a risk. Like, I'm like, Mom, I I literally made more money this month than I did in the last four years teaching. I can go be a barista and make the same money like that I'm making as a teacher. It's gonna be okay. Yep. And if not, I will go work at Burger King. Right. I will go selling the same.
SPEAKER_01:Well, now there's like so much, so much more opportunities than what our parents had, you know, in their generation. Like to pick up a phone, like we don't have to leave the house. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ever. And you can make way more than you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like uh you could literally do it. You don't even need a computer either. From like a closet and I stay at home, yeah, work on my phone.
SPEAKER_05:The no computer thing is crazy. Oh wait, let's do that. Let's let's do a segment shitting on Nick for not having a computer. And uh we love doing this. That's so so Nick is we've been doing this for four years, right? Almost four years now. Uh just about four years. We ex we traveled together. So we've traveled like, you know, Brandon Turner from Bigger Pockets. So we've we put we got him on. We actually flew to Hawaii for him. Hell yeah. Um we stayed at his Airbnb and like we we've done, like, you know, and we just shit on Nick because we have to keep him out of the group chats. Right. So like we're in these group chats when we're traveling around, and we have to exclude him, and then he doesn't know what's going on. Right. Like, when's dinner? When's this? I'm like, well, if you had an iPhone, you would know. And then he manages, self-manages a hundred. How many houses do you have? A hundred houses? Hundred units, yeah. And all from the cell phone. Yep. All from a cell phone.
SPEAKER_01:Do you run you you mentioned you guys have um property management? Is it I own a property management company. Oh, okay, gotcha. And then I just manage all of mine. Do you self manage or do you have a you self manage a hundred units? Holy shit. Like that's his job.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Like. Because it's not a passive investment at that point.
SPEAKER_01:We self managed for six months and I was like never again. Cannot.
SPEAKER_05:But I will say property management in general is like the worst business in the world. Horrible. It's a horrible business. I hate it. If it if it wasn't a necessary evil of me like holding, we could talk about he when he first started working, he wasn't working for me. I would say this. He he came to one of my events and he was like, I just want to like learn what you're doing. And he rolled around what'd you roll around with me for like two months without getting paid or anything.
SPEAKER_03:Like Yeah, so like my backstory was I I was just a small kid from Virginia who was doing like construction with his dad, living in the basement type thing. And I was like, dude, I really want to learn about investing in real estate. So I listened to this one guy, um, I I forget his name, but he's from Virginia Beach. He was a Navy SEAL investing in real estate using the VA loan. And I was like, wow, the military, you can you can do that. And so I joined the Air Force, wow, did my thing four years, got stationed in Maryland, linked up with Ryan at one of his events. And uh from there, I was like, dude, I I like I was already in the process of like listening to Cody Sanchez tell me how great a property management company was. I'm like, that's my next, that's my next thing.
SPEAKER_01:Buy a laundromat, getting a break, getting a yeah, exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:So like I'm like telling Ryan, I'm like, dude, I want to be in property management already, like got my thing. He's like, oh dude, come roll around with me for two weeks and you won't even want to look at a property management company again.
SPEAKER_05:Every single problem in my day is because of something with property management. Right. And I have a full team, a full staff of people. I only get the things that come to me are like big problems now. But I was explaining this to I think we were talking about it. It's like nobody's ever happy. Like, if the if you do your job and you collect the rent and you pay the owners, you just did your baseline. Right. That's it. That's like, okay, great, thanks. But then when a toilet breaks, the tenant's pissed because they don't have a toilet. Yep. And then the owner's also pissed because they have to pay to fix the toilet. Right. And then you got to get the maintenance guy out there. It's like to make 10% or something like that. It's like in insane. And then he'll he'll he'll sit in my car and it's just call after call after call after call. Just problems and problems and problems.
SPEAKER_01:We used to have a lady call uh pre-snowstorm. Like if there's gonna be a snowstorm like tonight, she'd call. This is before we had management, she'd be like, I just want to know when the plows are coming. I was like, you know, per state law when there's two inches or more on the ground, like we'll roll the trucks. She's like, we don't know what we're gonna up here. It's like you either get hammered or nothing happens. So it's like, you know, we'll see how tonight goes, but we will be there. She's like, okay, so that's not really, I need a definitive time. And I was like, I'll talk to Mother Nature and see what they're thinking, you know, and get back to you.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, I tell people all the time because I I had I do some like business coaching, like private consulting, and somebody had caught they literally called me, they were gonna be a client of mine because they wanted to build a property management company. I was like, I'm gonna stop you right there. I'm gonna save you a lot of money by not paying me to coach you because you do not want to start this business. Right, right. I currently manage two of his units and he was buying other units, and he was like, I'm gonna start a property management company. Actually, up he lives in in Boston somewhere, and I was like, dude, don't do it. Right, do anything else besides property management. Do not do it.
SPEAKER_01:I have so much respect for and hats off to you for being uh we use um this guy, Pierce uh management, and I always say the same thing. I was like, I don't know how you got it. And they we got hooked up. Uh we I'm about to cut this, but we pay four percent of gross rents, which I was like insane. That's insane. Like that's like unheard. I don't know how it is downward by yeah. Ten percent is it ten percent?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. And we don't and that doesn't make any money. Like ten percent does that we make money on maintenance and placement, tenant placement. Right. Like the the ten percent barely covers our staff. Right. It's it's a very thin margin business, but owning your own properties and controlling them is is I I did have a property manager for a short period of time, then we fire them and did it ourselves because you just people start complaining and you know, things not getting done, and you I don't know. Totally to me, I was like, I need to control it. And then we got an offer to buy the company.
SPEAKER_01:Oh shit.
SPEAKER_05:And I was like, shh, do I sell it? And then what do I do with my own? Because then my own portfolio of a couple dozen houses is too small for me to like hire my own like full-time person. Right. So then I have to rely on this other person to manage my stuff. I was like, nah, yeah, not not do that. No, but it's a job, like it's a full definitely a job. Yep. But the construction world is way better. Like, I was we were meeting with a client the other day and we finished their kitchen. They're like, You guys nailed the vision, like, we're so happy, like, thank you so much. And in property management, it's just like, yeah, charging me$110 to go out and fix a toilet. Like, what like who's what who's making all this money?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, Jesus Christ. What do you like better? The uh being in real estate on the investor side or developing?
SPEAKER_03:Ooh, that's a good one. Because we're we're actually right now, we're building two new construction houses, one in Glen Burney and one in Annapolis.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I'm building so I'm building a bunch of stuff also for other people, too. Yep. Um, I like that process a lot. It's just a long, it's long.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_05:So like our rentals that we typically do, you know, like we'll buy a house, renovate it in a month or two, refinance it, get your money back, right, rinse and repeat. In the development world, like these houses that we're or the lots that we're buying, you know, you're you're in it for a couple hundred thousand before the bank will step in because they don't like banks don't like land. Right. 100%. So you gotta buy the land in cash, put the foundation down, and then they'll start lending you. Right. So it's a bigger I like it, I like the process better. There's less variables, but it's a long, it's a longer haul.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So more money, but longer haul. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Are you are you doing any flipping or like what's your you're primarily just buying multiple kind of for me?
SPEAKER_01:It's like uh, I don't want to say that I'm I try to like remove myself as much as possible. I'm really just like the cash, you know. Uh second one. So it's like for us, it's like social is like our whole team is like hyper focused on social. Uh and then um second of that is franchising. So we franchise this company called Sweathouse, and then third is is the real estate side. So uh depending on when this airs, we got uh uh LOI accepted for 10 for an another 10 units. We'll have 20 units, hopefully in the next probably first week of Jan one, we still have through like inspections and stuff.
SPEAKER_03:So are those turnkey or are you buying them, doing any renovations?
SPEAKER_01:They're all um uh we have one vacancy of the we own 10 now. We have one that's vacant at the moment, and then this 10 we're buying is fully, fully occupied.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. I was we were telling Johnny last night, Nick was telling us this story about how he got started at Keller Williams, and uh he met this guy, and and the guy had 18 properties, right? Now Nick has 18 vacancies. So I mean he's he's gone from you know, hey, I I really want to be in that space to now it's now I have 18 vacancies I gotta figure out how to fill. A hundred percent. So it's it's a wild game. Um, do you have somebody kind of running the back end for real estate where you're like they're bringing you the deals and they're like looking at the type of thing?
SPEAKER_01:All uh all on Instagram. So I uh the the templates we're buying came as a DM. So I put a video out of um uh of our building in Concord and uh just gave similar what you guys do, gave all the numbers, uh left nothing on the table, no secrets, gave exactly what we're making cash flow-wise. Um this guy DM'd me, he's like, Hey, I have a ident, almost identical property uh if you guys want it. Uh and he he's he's rolling, he's getting into development. He's got a couple hundred units, he's liquefying like half of his portfolio to then roll over into developing. Yeah. And um, yeah, we'll close probably first week in January. And then uh yeah, that all came from from Instagram. Wow.
SPEAKER_03:It and it's super cool. Like we were talking about this earlier too, but how the internet is just so vast and it can bring you so many opportunities that you saw it like were never possible. 100%. And then all of a sudden you're getting DMs for cameos, and you know, celebrities are hitting you up, and I mean it's just it's super cool. So in in your eyes, is the franchise thing is that cooler than real estate, or do you have a favorite?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I like I like real estate uh social first and then real estate second terms, like what I like. The franchising's like so much fun. Like and that's a quick uh you know, we're hoping to exit in uh you know, probably the next 36 months. We have 10, we're trying to build to 10 locations as fast as possible. So we have the licensing to do 10. Okay. Are you backed by private equity at all? Uh we're not. We're here we go. Right into my right into the basement.
SPEAKER_04:I'm like, oh shoot, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's when you pick over the door. We do have the the P guy, a professional private equity guy here. Yeah, I'd love to talk to you, honestly, about you know we're backed by a local bank here, but maybe we, you know, we could wrap it up.
SPEAKER_05:Is it that's a term, right? Wrap it up, right? Roll it up. Roll it up. We're gonna roll it up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn't know that sweat house, sweat houses with two Z, right? Uh well, yeah, I guess the plurals that I would do that, probably. No, just one Z.
SPEAKER_01:Uh yes, one Z. One Z. Okay, yeah. I didn't suppose that was that was you. Oh, so I partnered with uh Nico. So Nico's like the mastermind behind it. And then I was like, how do I I started as their spokesperson? So you know like Flow from Progressive, yeah, yeah. Their headquartered out of Atlanta. So we went down there, filmed a ton of ads. Uh and then a year later, uh, we were up to renew, and I was like, hey, instead of paying me, like, could I roll capital into the next deal? And that's when Nico's like, Do you just want to team up? And I was like, Oh my god, that'd be a gift. Um, so it's fun. It's like a totally different beast, you know, it's a whole different game to learn. But yeah, um there's so much money in that space now, though.
SPEAKER_05:It's fun. It's like the med spa slash like well in this space is absolutely insane.
SPEAKER_01:It's in it's cool seeing. Um, and we know like it's a moment in time where it's like everyone is in the wellness kick right now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh a couple buddies in the city that own restaurants, so they're like, uh, hospitality's way down, no one's drinking as much. Everyone's on Ozempic and no one drinks. Yeah. So if you're in the hospitality industry, you're getting crushed. I have a couple buddies that are like, how do I let's what's the next deal you're doing with the sweat house? Like, how do I get involved? Uh wellness is having this like moment right now where it's like, whether it's like run clubs or I know you get you rent an Iron Man, like, um, what's it called? It's in uh most cities. Um not sip and strut. It's like, oh, coffee and chill.
SPEAKER_03:Coffee and chill, yes. They're taking off. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:You can we're a partner locally here with this uh this small little fitness group, uh Batista Bootcamp, which is like we do these like fitness events. So it's all these people like waking up, want to wake up early on a Saturday, Sunday. Yeah, you know, they're not staying out late as much as they used to. But it's like uh, you know, uh, we're not naive enough to think that like it's a moment in time. We know like, you know, it's not forever. You know, it uh the boomer generation was like highest sales for for alcohol, it's dipped in the millennial, you know, it'll go back up.
SPEAKER_00:You know what's forever though? Real estate. 100% buy and hold. 100%.
SPEAKER_03:Well, so the other thing cool about the wellness phase, though, is you're seeing a lot of people buying land and and developing, you know, wellness spaces in that land. So there's a kid down in uh Virginia who I don't know if you guys have seen him on Instagram, but he absolutely blew up um because he bought he's he's a UVA grad, bought land, him and his buddy, and they developed an Airbnb around health and wellness. Yeah. And it was just like, hey, come with me on my journey. I have no idea what I'm doing. Right, but we're gonna build this really awesome thing. And and I think you're right, man, like it's just absolutely taking off, and it's so cool to see.
SPEAKER_01:Even in uh one of our uh partners is Marriott, we were talking to those guys, and they're like, every one of our local like the hotel. The hotel, they're like, We are we are hyper focusing on our offerings of not just the room anymore, but what's what's the wellness offering while you're there? Right. Yeah, every hotel has a gym, but like could we make it like an equinox level gym with saunas, cold plunges, you know, red light therapy. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02:Uh it used to the okay, good. No, sorry. The Batista boot camp thing, they just was it was that like last week they did the thing with like a thousand people? Yeah, like that is crazy. That's so in Boston there's just this this like move. I mean, I think it's everywhere, but the whole wellness movement is crazy. And they they gathered like I don't know, it was over a thousand people in it might have been 2,500 people in, I don't even know where that was.
SPEAKER_01:It's uh right in um in the south end, it's where they do um like the Titanic exhibits, yeah. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:Uh like and people came to like it just like rolled out mats and worked out, and there were like juices and stuff. And I was it's the kind of thing like even three years ago, if you said like, oh, we're gonna try to get that number of people, and I'd be like, There's no way. Right. Like, and maybe they paid to be there, maybe they didn't. I think there's a place shocked in Tullo.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Have you heard of this place? The place in Tulum. That's like a it's literally like a wooden gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a full retreat for like wellness. Like they don't serve alcohol. It's like you go there, you go to a juice bar, you like there's like yoga areas, there's like a swimming area, there's a like wooden gym, like natural kind of gym area. Like those places are popping off. I mean, it's I think it's a good thing overall. Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's like the aftermath of like depending on how your parents were, like, you either liked how mom and dad raised you, or you're like, oh, I saw what happened, you know, when they got into booze. Like, I want nothing to do with that. And now you're becoming a parent, and you're like, all right, well, what do I do here? Do I, you know, stick to the same? Like, I kind of saw what played out in their generation, you know. Yeah, and not not my parents were never like that, but like we had neighbors and stuff were like divorces and all that because of like alcohol being a major factor of you know, drinking, then making bad decisions, and yeah, and I think, yeah, I think the newer age is like like we don't need that, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, especially I I feel like a lot of people are leaning into like which is kind of crazy too. Like, people are randomly going places like in I forget where I was at a conference in uh Orlando at a real estate conference, and we were with this guy who owns a bank, literally owns a bank, like he's like 40% owner in a bank, and we were it was a bigger pockets event, and they rented out um Orle was it or it was Orlando? San Diego? No, no, no, it was uh in Florida. You know the guy I'm talking about? The um Elizabeth Lee's like guy or whatever. I don't want to say any. I know I shouldn't have said any names. Shouldn't be saying names, but anyway, this guy is like a fucking serious guy, suit, everything, you know. We're at um Universal about to go on like one of the rides, and he's like, You want a mushroom chocolate? And I'm like, what? We're doing mushrooms? We're at a real estate conference, Mr. JP Morgan.
SPEAKER_02:You're wearing a dog suit. Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Dude, we have we have a suit, we have a classy event in a very, very nice law firm. The booze are down, like nobody's drinking booze, but they're finding cocaine in the bathroom. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05:We are at a law firm. Yeah, yeah. So at our law firm, I hold an event, like uh, we we all hold an event once a quarter. The last one that we did there, this is the second time we did it. We used to do it at this like restaurant that we'd rent out. And we have a couple hundred people that come, and yeah, you know, it's all real estate investors and or aspiring real estate investors, and we moved it to our law firm. It's like it's like the if you imagine like Har Harvey Spector's law firm, like that's what this is. And it's got this giant like event space in the middle. And I'm friends with a local politician, a state delegate, and he is a business developer for them. And he called me after the last event. He's like, hey, we got to talk about a couple things. Like, we're really happy to have you guys. We really want to host you again. But we've yeah, we found some cocaine. One bug of booze. We found a little cocaine. We found open used condoms in the parking garage. We found a bunch of booze sitting outside in the parking garage. Like, people were like, because it was all you we do, like all you can drink, all you can eat. So people are like stealing booze and having an after party and like fucking in the in the parking garage. That was like this is why we need infrared spas and the morning.
SPEAKER_02:Nobody's well.
SPEAKER_05:So he's like, Yeah, so for this one, we hired a police officer to come and kind of uh make sure that this doesn't happen again. Oh my god, that's wild. This was like a a professional event where people are going to really network and like build their businesses and just like, yeah, that's ripping line.
SPEAKER_00:It's funny because the cop is actually the father of a boy that Lucia goes to school with. One of your daughter's friends. Yeah. That's so funny. The same class and everything.
SPEAKER_05:The cop who you hired to come to the thing. That's funny. Yeah. That's insane. I mean, people get down. Now it's not booze. Why not cook? Like, we'll just just switch it up. Yeah. We're not drinking. I parking line. I didn't drink.
SPEAKER_02:It's like way better than drinking. But yeah, that's nobody's well. Um we know that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. That that's true. So, Kevin, how many um how many units do you have now? Just 10 still?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, by the time that depending on when this dropped, we just uh got an LOI accepted on 10 more. So we'll have 20 by first week of January.
SPEAKER_00:How are you underwriting them? Like the first one and the second one now that you're getting?
SPEAKER_01:It it's easy. So deal flow-wise comes from IG. We put 25% down on basically just the cash. Uh we do a 30-year fixed mortgage and we call it a day. Oh, so you're not doing any kind of like value add stuff? Uh on some. Like we have a five plex in Pembroke. We added like new roof, new deck. Uh, you know, a lot of these though are like somewhat turnky, you know. I always like to provide a little bit of CapEx going into it. Like we passed on 19 units because it was it was perfect. It was like we're in like uh C class, you know, housing. There was one that was like gorgeous. Uh 19 units, uh 3.8 million, which up for up here is like you get a uh if you buy anything in the city that's like one unit, you're talking 600, 700,000 for just the the one. Uh insane.
SPEAKER_00:How much other units rented for uh 1650 a door?
SPEAKER_01:1650? Yep. Yeah, you're put so first one was seven hundred and fifty thousand for um uh for the first five plecks we bought. The second we got was seven hundred and twenty thousand for another five units. This one will be um one point eight seven five for ten. Um here is like that's why we mostly do like Southern New Hampshire. Uh you can't get in the door in mass for any, you know. We've looked at uh unless you're backed by private equity. Unless you know a guy.
SPEAKER_02:Unless you know a guy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, who could who could assist?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. So maybe seriously though, I have heard I know nothing about private equity, but I've learned that um I've learned that like Blackstone, for example, owns so much real estate. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So like you guys and I'm sure you know that, like like banks and like you feel like you're competing with like private equity.
SPEAKER_05:Like so that's a good question. Part of Chase and I's strategy on what we're doing is that we're kind of um we're doing like one to four houses at a time as far as like building and development goes. So we're kind of like too big for the everyday flipper that's just trying to like saw a TikTok trend or saw HGTV show, and they just want to try to get into it. Like they can't just start at development, but we're too small for like the Lenar homes or the Ryan homes or the big private equity firms that are doing all the role. I feel like you're competing with they're not they don't want the one or two units, they want a hundred, they want to build a hundred townhomes where we can build one or two and make good money. They don't that doesn't like interest them, so we're kind of like sneaking in this like niche of being too big for some and too small for some. And I feel like that's been like a good spot to be in. Yeah. But most of our rentals and stuff, we try to buy like we try to do full renovations, like we want to do the whole thing. Right. Um like we we bought a duplex last year, and I actually just bought the the next duplex next door. We're closing in a couple weeks, but we bought it for f$550. Right.$550, we put$75 into it and appraised at 1.15. Nice, as is or after you guys. After renovation. Yep. So we used private money first and then we refinanced it. Yep. And we pulled out like a boatload of tax free money. Right, totally. So smart. So for we were talking about this. Last night, about like 1099s versus W2s. Obviously, all your content stuff is 1099 based. Yep. So real estate's a good way to shelter some money.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly right. I'm twofold. Like I'm a cash flow guy at heart, but the tax benefits are like, you know, it's better than anyone. Like the tax breaks are phenomenal. Yeah. Um the agency we're with is is Canadian based, so it's even worse because you're going from CAD to USD by the time it hits my bank account. Uh so there's there's a few other laws in there of like getting funds, but um Why Canada? It's it's I'm with an agency called Del Seto. So they're they're they're the big um they compete with like the CAAs of the world. Uh they now have an office in LA, but um Montreal's where they're headquartered out of. Do you guys pay self-employment tax? No, uh uh not how in that's why I moved to New Hampshire. There's not that.
SPEAKER_00:So you're just set up as like an LLC or S Corp?
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Are you on payroll? Nope.
SPEAKER_01:Nope, yeah, you don't have to do any of that.
SPEAKER_05:Um, S Corp you have to run payroll for yourself. Uh like a livable wage. Or maybe not in New Hampshire. No, we've got Maryland.
SPEAKER_01:I I take nothing. Everything sits in in, you know, I have like the the Kevin Cooney bank account separate from my personal. And yeah, that's that's that's why I fell in love with uh New Hampshire because it's it's somewhat of like a lawless, it's like a Florida. Like there's you know, whatever however you want things to be structured, it's kind of like a for better or worse, uh like a pay-to-play. Like it's really your point. If you lived up here and knew those same politicians, like, well, it's now at your discretion. What's you know?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh but we have like a killer, killer tax team. Uh shout out Casas. He's like, he's like a tax advisor you'd see it, like he reminds me of uh Jonah Hill from War Dogs. You know, comes out with just like he pulls up in this insane car license plate says right off. We did like a whole bit with him for for YouTube. Uh but he's just so smart. Like, there's I think there's what 88,000 pages to the tax code.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so we were literally saying the tax code's this big, right? And the real estate piece of it's like this big, and then there's like you know, like sections of it, and no single CPA knows everything. So you gotta find the guy.
SPEAKER_01:You guys know this better than anyone. Like, I'm I'm great at uh social. Like social, I know top to bottom, back to front. Like, there's nothing, you know, we have all the ins at Meta and TikTok and Snap. Uh it's so important to build a team in your blind spots. Gotta get it, gotta get a killer CPA, gotta have a killer real estate attorney. You know, it just like keeps you so safe.
SPEAKER_00:Like there's you know well that's in all all aspects of of business, just delegating. Like 100%. I do manage my properties, but my it's me and my wife who manage them, and she basically runs it. I don't want any communication with tenants, I don't want to get any type of calls, like it's all ran through a property management system software, rather. And it's just much more easier that way to delegate what you can't do or what you don't want to do.
SPEAKER_01:Do you guys take on clients outside of the hundred you own for management? Just all self.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That changes the whole thing, like that makes the business so much harder. Right. When you're not doing it just for yourself, when you have to we're basically like managing people's biggest assets that they own. 100%. So, like and some of these people, unfortunately, they didn't get into real estate purposely. Like they got married and they wanted to keep the house because they had a good interest rate, so they rubbed it in together and had the extra house. Right. So they don't have just an extra ton of capital sitting around in case something goes wrong or whatever. So like as a like we're we have a fiduciary duty to like get these people the money and make sure the books are right and the taxes are right and all that stuff. Like, if Nick messes up, it's just himself. Right. Nobody's he's not gonna sue himself. People are gonna sue us with you. Oh 2025. People are going to sue me. Idiot. That's what makes my business so difficult. It's like the the point. Yeah. Like he doesn't have to deal with he only has to deal with the tenants. Right. But I have to deal with that's the other thing too. I was like, we were talking about Google reviews the other day. Like when I call an owner, oh I don't like my maintenance guy was in town yesterday because we had our company um Christmas party on on uh what was it Wednesday night or Thursday night? And he was basically like uh telling me like how shitty his job, like how shitty his job is, like about okay, so these people called me and said that their you know their toilet's broken or whatever. Then I called the owners and the owner's like saying, okay, it's gonna be like a hundred dollars. And then the owner's like, oh, actually, I know a plumber, I'm gonna give them a call. Right. And see if I can get it for cheaper. Then it delays the tenant still out the toilet. So now the tenant's out of toilet, and now the tenant's only blaming me because they don't even know who the owner is. Right. So then the we call the owner back three hours later. Oh, they're calling me back, they're probably gonna get there tomorrow. I'm like, this is this is their only toilet. Like we we have this isn't this is an emergency. We need a toilet. So your toilet needed. So what's gonna happen is is like the tenants are gonna be leaving bad reviews on my business. Right. And now you're gonna be mad at me because that I'm gonna be mad at you.
SPEAKER_01:And you're just the middle guy, and then you're just stuck in the middle.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and then your Google reviews are like your ten, you get Google reviews from tenants and from the owners.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So it's have you ever stepped in and been like, all right, like to the owner, give me a hundred bucks and I'll and I'll just cover like if it's a difference of like if my guy's gonna be 150, but you're comfortable with 100.
SPEAKER_05:Have you ever just done that just to like be like I have like a couple of times recently, like I when in the beginning I was just like kind of a pushover because I just wanted to get clients and keep them happy. Yeah. Now I'm more like, nah. Like we're we're gonna do it and we're gonna charge you because we our reputation's on the line. And now locally, like we are a well-known like brand. Right, right. So like I'm gonna just do it. And if you if you're that mad that I charge you, most everybody has like a threshold in our program, like our software. It'll say, like, if it's gonna be over$250, call them and get approval or whatever. Um, but anything else, like we're just if it's an emergency, we're just gonna do it and bill them, and then if they fire us, they fire us. Right, right. So I'm not taking the risk of first of all, like I actually care about the tenants too. Like, they're people that are living in these houses. Like, our job is to make them have a nice place to live. And when the owner is just being too cheap to get something fixed, it makes me only look back.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good point. Like, it that should be in the contract, I guess, with the owner when you're managing properties for others. Like, if it's an emergency, we have the right to go ahead and get it done.
SPEAKER_05:We do have that in there, but people still naturally were gonna they're gonna get upset. They're gonna get mad. They just get mad.
SPEAKER_01:What's your goal? You have a hundred units now.
SPEAKER_00:100 units. Um, the goal was always to get to 100. Yeah. Um, when I bought my first property in 2018, it was just an addiction. I just wanted to keep buying and buying. Um, this past year and some of last year, I started flipping more. Yeah. Uh, because of largely because of the higher interest rates and it made a little bit more sense. People still want to top dollar for the property and to refinance out on the back end because I would buy it with private or hard money, uh, renovate it, and then refinance out. And the cash flow started to get thinner and thinner with the higher interest rates, so I started flipping more. So just you know, stay consistent basically. You know, I had it, you know, just as many closings this year as it did last year, but it just transitioned from a little bit more flips this year than it did last year, and still bought my fair share of rentals this year.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. What's what's like the next stretch look like? Like, is it you you went from zero to a hundred? Is it now like a hundred to a thousand?
SPEAKER_05:Can I interject with Nick's planning techniques here? Nick bought a million dollar waterfront house before he knew he was approved for the loan.
SPEAKER_00:Wait, how much did you put down on that auction? So it was an auction property. I was living in a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar condo, and um the only reason I bought that condo was because I was living at my parents' house um somewhere around like 2019, 2020. And my girlfriend at the time was like, Hey, I want to move out of my parents to get an apartment. I said, Well, let me just see if I can find something cheap to buy, and then we can just move in together. So I did, I found that I lived in there for like four years, and then I saw this property come up on the water because I'm always on the auction websites as an investor. I just buy, you know, a fair share of my properties from auction websites. I saw a property on the water, wasn't an investment property, it was a nice, you know, primary residence, in my opinion. And I went there, I took a look at the property the day before, and then I went online and registered to bid. So it was like an online only auction. And you just have to like put down like a credit card deposit of like maybe a thousand or two dollars, just the bid. If you win the bid, you have to put down a 10% deposit within 24 hours, right? Or most of the time that before 4 p.m. that day. And I won the bid, it was like a 906,000. So I had to put down nine ninety thousand uh within twenty four hours, and I wasn't pre-approved yet. So I didn't go to a lender or anything. I wasn't even in the market to buy a house. That's okay. And I put the$90,000 down. I called a lender that I bought my condo with. I was like, hey, I just don't forget.
SPEAKER_01:I just how's your day going before we get into it? Yeah, I'm like, right?
SPEAKER_00:I'm like, hey, I just put a deposit down on this house. You think you can uh you know run everything for me, get all my documents to see if I can get approved. He's like, Yeah, sure, no problem. And uh I was like, Oh, thank you. And then like I knew that was just kind of just you know him saying, like, okay, yeah, I'll do what I can for you. But then at the end of the day, luckily it worked out. However, I had to bring a lot more of the closing because the loan capped at like 766,000 and then it went to like a jumbo loan. Right. Like I guess I wasn't like eligible for that, wherever the case may have been. So I had to put down like a lot more than I thought I had to put down. Right, right. But it still worked out. He was able to get me the loan and I was able to settle on it, but it was a huge risk because I could have lost 90 grand. Totally. I didn't go into it with the mentality like I'm gonna lose them, went into it like, how can I make this work? Because I I will make it work. I'm not gonna let somebody take 90 grand from me.
SPEAKER_05:Right, right. Yeah, totally. That's crazy. But that's the yeah, that that's the balls. That's yeah, I I don't have that. I don't have that same uh no, I don't have that same mentality. I love that. I'm a little more conservative, a little more scared.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's wild. But it worked out, yeah, yeah. So I mean, back to your question, I just want to, you know, just steadily grow and remain consistent. Similar to like, you know, in the uh um online space and creating content, just you know, like you guys do, just remaining consistent. Yep, yep. That's basically what I want to do.
SPEAKER_05:I love it. I love that. The the real estate thing though, what what I'm fine, what I've found out the hard way, when we're when you're just like in real estate and when construction and stuff, you're not a very bankable because we write off so much stuff that like the banks, like I was it was easier for me to get a loan for something when I was making like 40 grand a year as a teacher because it's like consistent. Yep. And when you Yeah, now you have like unique income. Yeah, it's like coming from all over the place. It's you know, depreciation. We're writing this off, writing that off, and like a lot of the stuff that you you know would would normally count as income isn't really income. Right. So the bank doesn't really like like us. So we just bought a studio and uh an office for the real estate team, and and we put a podcast studio in there. It was like 330,000 bucks or 350,000 bucks or something like that. And it they dragged me through the mud. Really? Like dragged me like commercial, it was a commercial loan through a bank. And I'm used to like the single family space where it's like the wild west, like they're just like as long as the rent's good, like you're good, like here's the money. This was like I was sending them multiple bank accounts with more money in it than the place was worth. Right. And I was like, this is what and they were like, Well, you don't make any money. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I I promise I do actually do make money. It's just this is what real estate does. Like, this is the whole point of what we're doing. Like, and next year, I hope to show you less money. Right. And the year after you're gonna go. I want to get a return from you guys. I want to show even less than that. That's what I'm that's what my goal is to show you. And your little underwriter who's like sitting there telling you that this that I don't make any money is fucking wrong. Totally. Like it's they're wrong.
SPEAKER_01:But that's what I've realized at all levels, is like I always thought once you once you reach, let's say whether it's a small business loan from a bank, uh, I was like, oh, they they're professionals, they know where you're and now that I know that like at every stage, at every level, clueless across the board. Yeah. And even on the brand side, like, and that includes us, like everyone's still learning, you know. Uh we work with like the Fortune 500s all the way to the small, like mon paws. Every uh major league football, all the way to the like right here, like at all levels, there's so much uh disorganization, and everyone's like, uh, it's a lot of like, oh, that's a good question. Let me uh get back to you on that. Like, you know what I mean? You think it's there's a threshold of like, all right, it's some level, PE level, maybe. Like you go and meet a guy and you're like, okay, he just got his duck somewhere. But no one does, you know?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's true.
SPEAKER_03:Johnny, you met Ryan Sirhan, and I think something that's crazy is like you just said, like, people would be like, oh, like, let me get back to you next week. Well, something I learned from Ryan is what he installed in his company is it's not let me get back to you next week, it's let me get back to you today. Yeah. And there's no advantage with Ryan Sirhan, too. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I I they reach out to me like right the week before the Owning Manhattan season two dropped. Yeah. And it was like another founding uh realtor at their agent, whatever. And she was like, I want to get you with Ryan and we'll make a fun video. And I was like, Okay, I will be there um tomorrow, yeah, Tuesday. And she's like, How's Tuesday work? And I was like, I'll be there. And I and and then we emailed back and forth, and he was on the email and he was responding. Right. And I was like, I'm so sorry, what? Right, like and I I'm not like a fanboy for him, but I was like so impressed because I was like, Do you know who I am? Because I you shouldn't, and I know who you are, right? Right. Um, and he's actually responding and he's like talking about the script that I wrote, yeah. And then I came in and he was like, like it was not like I I was expecting it to be like a long thing, like, all right, let's do this in next year. And he literally responded, and that's I think probably why he is where he is today, because he is just like, you know, and if it's something he didn't want to do, he wouldn't have responded, which I would have also respected. Right. It's not he didn't like let's do this immediately. Yeah, an opening on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 1017 a.m. Right. You can it's yours, right? And I was like, I'm on the train at five in the morning. I'll be there, no problem. He's like, Is he there for this? I was like, Yeah, yeah, it was like wrong answer, Johnny. Tell him you have a meeting at Morgan Stanley, you know, like um, but yeah, that's hilarious. That's probably why he is where he is, because he ch he takes every opportunity. He probably he swings a lot, like, and he's not afraid to miss.
SPEAKER_01:And he squeezes every he came here to Boston, yeah, and he was here for a speaking gig, and it was the day prior, shot me a DM, and it was the next morning like 9 a.m. He's in my living room. Yeah. I have this is pre um Oni Manhattan. This is when like there's only old episodes of um million dollar listing. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And it's like he's like, Yeah, I have about uh like 17 minutes, 18 minutes before we had Uber over to the speaking gig. And I was like, wow, I was like, he's 17 minutes. Hit a city, figure out who's in town, creator-wise. Yeah, do a video of them, post it, and then he's like, Well, see you later. It's incredible. Oh, it's fun.
SPEAKER_02:Let's do it again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So speaking of uh million-dollar listing, I have a concept for a show in in Boston specifically. Like, who see the million dollar listing? Show it, let me see it. Like a million-dollar listing back in the day was like, Whoa, this is gonna be in Boston. Let's go ahead and look at the million-dollar listing in Boston. It's a 1200 square foot range. This is actually a parking spot in Back Bay. Um walking distance to Contessa, but it's just a parking spot. So you're on Route One, yeah. Uh but it's gorgeous. Yeah, yeah. It has an outhouse, it's got no real plumbing. Well, it's the ground, you'll be you'll be fine. So, anyway, sorry, that's a tangent, but I just whenever someone's at the end of the day. That's a good concept. Great, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You see that million dollar listening. We see like million dollar stuff like down south, and it's like a castle. Yeah, like in parts of like in Texas, Texas. Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Look how can we build for$250,000?
SPEAKER_02:It's like, what? Yeah, like it's deeply offensive.
SPEAKER_01:My brain always goes like logistically, obviously impossible, but can we build it there? And then can we put it on a big old truck? Yeah, and can we just slowly inch it up this way, you know? Yeah, and drop it, just drop and sell it piece by piece.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. So for you guys, how much of your like content? Like, we were obviously inbound for you guys. Like, how much do you guys get inbound versus outbound to get guests and like brand deals and like Muggsy, for example? They just like reach out to you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like a 60-40 split. 60% is uh is outbound, 40% is inbound. But we have um uh KP and Georgina, there are agents, there are like bridge to connect us with the brands. Okay. So even like all you know, all day long they're on email or calling and texting these brands to they they uh there's a um filter in your inbox where you can just have it do uh just to brands, like you can store brands in one. You know, you go to like primary, general, uh store replies and whatever the next one is. So they'll play in that sandbox all day long. So they're just DMing brands left and right. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Kevin obviously Kevin's the expert at this. I just started. No, no, no, you're private equity. Don't let intrigues. Okay, this is what he does. Big deal. Um no, I right now I'm like I am like luckily everything is most I don't have like an agency yet that I work with, so it's pretty much all like I have a couple pathetic attempts at reaching out to brands on my own, and they're they're on read or they go red, and um, but anything that I've done has pretty much been inbound, which is cool, except for the Anna Delvey, which I did reach out to Anna Delvey as soon as you want to come on my podcast. But no, most of it is um or like uh someone will follow me and then I'll follow them back and be like, thanks for the follow, and then gauge the conversation level, and then be like, would you want to do like a collab or um just imagine if you got an agency though? Right. What they know.
SPEAKER_01:Del Cell would welcome you with open arms. Perfect here's here's what I've realized about the brand deal stuff. Yeah, it's if you're gonna DM up this is from like trial and error on my side. Uh I still do the same thing. I'll I'll DM brands directly. Like I love, I I come from like the sales world, so I love like you know, door knocking, virtual door knocking and DMs. Uh it's like flirting. Like, too often, at least what I see from other creators, like they'll copy and paste this like paragraph. Yeah, they'll be like, here's my rates, here's what I want to do. That's like going to a bar and seeing a girl and be like, wanna go home and do unspeakable things together? It's like, oh, you look lovely. Like, and in brand form, that's like really fuck with your brand. And that's it.
SPEAKER_05:No clothes. That's how we got this guy, Eric, um, who does our YouTube. He's an 18-year-old. I didn't even know how old he was until I invited him. We had like literally invited him down to uh one of my events. Well, our events keep saying my. I know, you got it. Um and he he hit so my my virtual assistant does all of uh our Instagram stuff, and he does like this goes through all the spam, and and this kid hit us up, and he basically like said he he lit he really watched our podcast because he like mentioned specific things that's how he got Carl's attention. And then Carl like texts me and he's like, Hey, like this guy actually seems like he might be legit to help grow the YouTube channel or whatever. And I got on a conversation, like a Zoom call with him and signed a contract and paying like 700 bucks, 750 bucks a month or something. Yep. Found out when he came down and he was still in high school, or just wasn't he just still? He just graduated high school like a month or two ago, and he had like 10 or 12 clients that are like he's making good money as like an 18-year-old kid, and he's not on YouTube himself, like he's just doing it for like other podcasts and people, and like that's freaking off. That's like hit and then his mom's like he's telling him he's like, My mom, he still lives at his parents' house. Yeah, he's like, My mom keeps telling me to go to community college, like I have to go to college. I'm like, don't do it, dude. Yeah, yeah, don't do it, dude. Just lean into what you're doing, it's like it's gonna work. Yeah, it's gonna work for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't college such a racket? I don't know who went to college, but like, isn't it such a racket? It is, it is a racket.
SPEAKER_05:Well, now I I'm hoping that like the cost of it. Comes down with the student loan like crisis that's happening. But I didn't learn anything about my real job until I actually just started doing the real job. Yep. That's how I felt.
SPEAKER_03:Well, Kevin, I mean, you have a daughter, right? So like I was thinking about this because I have a young sister, she's uh 13. If they start on social media at 13, 10, younger, I mean you're starting them out. Brielle's on salary right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So she's tax deductible in New Hampshire, uh, a little over 15,000 15,500 bucks you pay her a year to a minor, and it just sits in her fidelity account.
SPEAKER_03:You know, and and how how fast can she just absolutely explode on social media and never have to go to school again? Totally. You know what I mean? I was just thinking about that the other day. I was like, if my sister, even if she doesn't do anything like very cool with school or whatever, she could just be on TikTok or Instagram or anything and just keep posting.
SPEAKER_05:But what's your thoughts on that being like kind of dangerous too at the same time? For a girl, especially.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. It like, you know, uh you're so right. For girls, it's the you know what it is, the hate comments, and maybe different with the line of work you guys are in, but guys rarely are in my DMs or comment section being like, boo, it's other girls, two girls. Right. That it's like the most caddy, like girl bully stuff. Oh my god. It's like uh, but I don't know. I think it's like we've opened like uh we're working with this group right now called Junkbox, and they um this is gonna sound crazy. They're making a uh it's me, but it's AI. So we're doing ads now with it looks like me, it sounds like me, but it's 100% computer made. So I think that AI influencers will will replace us. Like that'll you know, influencers put celebrities out of business. Yeah. Uh AI influencers will put us out of business. So we were like, all right, let's build an avatar to do. We've done like Tito's a lot of the mugsy ads, it's not even me, it's all it's all AI. Wow, it looks and feels like me. That's wild. Because that looks so real. Now you save time because I don't have to physically read a script, it's whatever the brand wants to type. Ding ding ding ding ding. So you weren't really holding on to the deck? Uh deck shot was real. So there's a couple like the in more of the in-store stuff is all is all computer generated. But it's amazing. It's actually, you guys would you guys could build it out in two seconds because you have the audio from all your podcasts. You need you need like 12 hours of you speaking for to really learn your because that way, because now I could I could do a par type of paragraph that you've never said, and it'll catch all your tonalities from those same words. Does it do it for your wife? It does it for Ashley, yep.
SPEAKER_05:And she does it do the the accent.
SPEAKER_01:It does the accent. Audio is way easier. It's the face that's really hard. It's really hard to um to nail, like, you know, because you're you basically get in a room similar to this, but inside of the lights, it's all cameras, and it just like so it's getting like every zit ingrown hair. Uh and then once that's built out, like uh Tito's or Muggsy or whatever the Marion, whoever you're working with, you give it a prompt and then hit enter and the ad's made, you know? And they pay you the same. And we so we're testing it now with brands where it's like, do you create a separate channel? Like I think uh Flow from Progressive or Um Mayhem from I think it's Allstate, you know, the guy that's like in this in the Sioux with the butterfly stitch. I think brands like that, instead of paying him or or Flo will build their own avatar for free, and and they'll have that avatar build up a following of a couple million people. Uh Jake from State Farm. Jake from State Farm doesn't need to be a real guy in 10 years. Uh the the hard part is though, like the brand is paying for the platform we're on. You know, they're paying to get in front of our audience on Meta or on Snap or on YouTube or LinkedIn or on Instagram. That's what they're still paying for. Uh so we charge them the same rate because it it looks and feels the same. And where where that video is gonna live, like their ROI is who who from our audience physically views the ad, yeah, or clicks on the thing or signs up for the program. Yeah, that's what they're paying for, not necessarily like the the production. Um that's wild. Yeah, so it's really interesting. It's like I think I we're not there yet to like we're like really in bed with some of these brands, so they're like, yeah, like let's test it, like let's do it. I you know, uh we work with like Cumberland Farm, like we did like a music video with Cumberland Farms. Like we would we're still showing up for the music video, you know. Uh but I by the time Brielle's my age, she's third, like I don't think it's her on camera, I think it's Brielle's avatar.
SPEAKER_05:But I've heard of people making, I don't know where I saw this, don't ask me why this is in my algorithm, but people make fake OnlyFans girls on an A with AI. Yep. Like there'll be like some fat dude sitting behind a computer making an AI girl, and the girl is on OnlyFans making crazy money, but she's not a real person.
SPEAKER_01:Alleged the junk box guys do that, but allegedly the platforms have have banned them. Oh, really? So like OF's platform, that crew allegedly has banned the how they tell what's real, what's fake, I have no idea, but that it is nuts.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that is crazy. Cameo is involved in some sort of like lawsuit, I think, with with some with AI in general, because they they're losing business to like like AI is like, all right, you want this real housewife to wish you happy birthday, like we can make her do it. Right. You know, and so they're involved in some sort of lawsuit and trying to get some like protection of because they're like, this is our entire business. Right. If you remove that, like the person actually at home making the video, we have no business.
SPEAKER_05:So if you're stealing someone's actual face, then I get that, but they can't get mad at them making another random, not real person, right? Have you ever played with uh the app Sora? No, I've seen it, but I haven't.
SPEAKER_01:Sora's crazy. So I was like toying around with it, and uh you can you can make it do anything, and then to your point, if I'm um the big ones right now are like Jake Paul, Gary Vee. There's a couple others that I might not be familiar with. This app is all AI. So, like, you know, I did like me DJing. It's all AI. None of that's me. Uh hands in the air, keep them there, you know, and then I was like, oh, let's like flip couches with Gary Vee. You mean Gary Vee. And it creates in two seconds. It's not the junk box crew.
SPEAKER_05:Or like I did like those ones I feel like you could tell a little bit more though, that they're actually made by AI.
SPEAKER_01:You guys see this? Got arrested. I assaulted a PE guy. That's all AI. That's amazing. And that's the tech now. Yeah, as we live and breathe right now. Never mind tomorrow, the next five years.
SPEAKER_02:It's a little terrifying, but yeah. Damn.
SPEAKER_05:But you guys here, you gotta you gotta embrace it, you gotta learn how to use it.
SPEAKER_03:Or are you guys having to like build out your legal team for that? Because like what happens, like Jake Paul? I mean, he gets ripped with these Sora videos.
SPEAKER_01:So he's a genius because he's an investor in Sora.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So when he granted Sora permission to use his avatar, uh everyone did the makeup videos of him doing makeup and like shit on Jake Paul, the Sora stock just went boom. Yeah. Uh Gary V same deal. He's also an investor in Sora. So it's like interesting. There's gotta be something, and I've heard like different strategies with like you tie real videos in with in with the blockchain to figure out what's real. Like, we're gonna get into like deep fakes, or it's like yeah, well, that's what I'm worried about.
SPEAKER_05:It's like you could make uh somebody do something that they're totally not done.
SPEAKER_01:Totally said or run. Yeah, you know, really. So there's gotta be, and I don't know what that is. I don't know the answer. I like there's gotta be some like justice system on all right, that's a deep fake, you know. Yeah, yeah. But we're still so early on the AI thing, I think. That's they had uh um a congressman in here when TikTok is up for the ban. He was talking about how behind Congress is on just um like global agreements with platforms. He's like, we can't even get that straight. He's like, never mind tackling this AI thing. Like their beef was we can't have Byte Dance be run the algorithm of TikTok. And he's like, we're just figuring that out now. This app's been around since you know 2017. He's like, we're just figuring out 2017's problem. Oh my god. He's like, if we can't get agreements, paper, stuff that's typed out, yeah. How are we gonna, you know, how are we gonna get behind AI? Like, we're still he's like on the government level, we're so far behind. Oh, the government's so they're gonna continue to be so far behind.
SPEAKER_05:It's like forget it. But that's what I think another problem too. That's what gives all the private equity firms and everybody so much power because they have all the money and they could stay on top of it like way faster and way better, way more efficient. Like NVIDIA has more money than most countries have. They can control the narrative and all that. Where the where the government's like, we need to borrow money from them. Right.
SPEAKER_01:And you with all your units and you guys like uh when you acquire a new building, it's in the back of my head, I'm like, snuck one away from you know the big guys from from uh you know the big groups.
SPEAKER_05:And to your point, like we'll just hold them forever unless you know that's what when you're saying like the BlackRock thing, they're doing it also in the single family space where they're buying up, overpaying in neighborhoods and like redoing the comps, basically.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so they're they're setting the price in their face. Like, yeah. It's like a weird, like I'm just like, is this okay? Is this normal? Like, yeah, and I and I think of like the private equity thing, them being involved in a lot of businesses. I just my DMs are full of people being like, this is actually really like scary and and bad, and no one's really talking about it. Are you are people pitching you like business ideas? You should do a shark tank. That's another that's that's what I was just gonna ask. Like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, that's not enough stake in your company. Um yeah, no, no, I don't think so. I know I have a lot of weird DMs. I don't know if that if um business ideas come to me. People no, I don't think so. No. Because what I thought I when I first saw you, I thought you were in private, like actually in private equity.
SPEAKER_05:So I was like, this would be a cool podcast. Like we're gonna get Kevin talking about real estate, or we'll get this guy talk about rolling up rolling up. That would be so much better. Like what a great trip to Boston. You're gonna learn about private equity.
SPEAKER_02:We've never had a private equity guy on. No, I love that so much. Yeah, no, it's it turns out it's just me. No. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're gonna be in private equity though, because of all this at some point, a decade from now.
SPEAKER_02:No, I was just saying last night there's a company that wanted me to um they wanted uh there's a firm PE firm in Minnesota and they wanted me to help them raise a fund. And I was like, yes, I don't know what that means. For sure. They sent me a contract, and I'm just like ChatGPT and ChatGPT is like, there are 900 red flags in this. Like, absolutely not. Like, you couldn't even, if you did this, you couldn't even like if BlackRock wanted you to come to a breakfast at their office, you couldn't like compete. Yeah, so I was like, okay, this is probably not worth the squeeze, but um, a couple PE firms have been like, maybe you could be like our spokesperson for like a round of whatever, and we'll give you a percentage of our fee.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm just like, you're like, is a fund the past tense of the word fund?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I'm just like, I have you no idea. But I'm like, that sounds good. And they're you know, because it's a very unique set of eyes on the content, you know? It's a lot of PE guys and a lot of business people, so it's it's there are like some businesses are like these are valuable eyeballs on your stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_05:So let's get Kevin's opinion on what we were talking about last night about making multiple accounts. Oh yeah. Does does he make a PE guy specific account and then make another character with a different account? Or does he just go by because we're we're having the same kind of issues with all of our different content that that we're putting out? Go lean into one Instagram and have it just be Johnny Hilbrand who does Adam Ray, who does Biden, who does this and does that, or do you do it separate where you have characters have their own.
SPEAKER_01:I I've followed what folks have done historically, like we were talking about earlier, MTV didn't make a sep MTV didn't air cribs on E, you know, or Fox, and Pit My Ride wasn't on ABC. It's you are the network, like yeah, your name is the network, Fox, CNN, whatever, whatever follows under that. You guys just graze anatomy. It's just a B Custom. Yeah, you're just tuning into the you know, the morning news here, but then at night we got the murder mystery stuff. It's I love murder mystery would be a good another go in, too. Yeah, he wasn't really a good guy. Almost deserved it. After reading all the facts, yeah, we're gonna stop investigating this one, actually. Like, yeah, I would leave it one channel. It's like because it takes you know that's what I was thinking, too. It takes so much effort and time to get eyeballs on your channel, yeah. And then it's like you strike gold, and now you're like, well, uh, come over here, guys. That's what I said.
SPEAKER_02:I was like, I don't think I can strike oil twice. I definitely got lucky and I'm not gonna be able to make the 200 and whatever thousand people who followed me over the last 10 months be like, yes, for sure, we'll follow you over here to this.
SPEAKER_01:You know, they're gonna be like, No, you're just a network, you're you know, and not just like you're you're MTV, and there's you know, in the morning there's uh there's ridiculousness, and then blah blah blah blah blah during the midday, and at nights we got new stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so Chase, why isn't yours working? Why isn't what working? Your TikTok. Uh yeah, I mean I I guess Kevin, we could do we should do a live segment, and I'll pull up my TikTok. How often do you post? Uh not often at all, and that's why. Not anymore. But you were so so I I was doing a lot of like military like thank you for service, by the way, because that's I appreciate it, man.
SPEAKER_01:Way more than I've ever uh accomplished right there.
SPEAKER_03:So I was I was doing a lot of like fuck boy shit. That's what I was doing, and that's how me and my wife met. We met uh via TikTok. She was in uh West Palm, I was up here in Maryland, and um, you know, she found one of my videos and DM'd me, and just like you guys scroll through your DMs every now and then, you're like, oh look, hey, cool. Yeah, and then we started messaging the rest is history. But um, I kind of once I found her, none of the 13-year-old girls liked me anymore. Uh, you know, there was not 13. Whoa, like you made 18 plus. 18 plus his demographic is all over the place. Yeah, that's a long demographic, okay. Is that a problem? This is a really big problem. Um, but no, so like, you know, that's what TikTok was for me. And then um you stopped dancing and talking about real life, and then yeah, everything went to shit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, you like back to the like I have I've never been able to like see around corners. I always go historically. It would literally be like, like, what was your favorite network growing up? Probably MTV, honestly. It'd be like MTV the next morning when you met your girl, no more ridiculousness, cribs, and uh uh any of those shows, Pit My Ride. We're now doing like house tours. HD TV. You'd be like, all right, well, I'm going to VH1. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm out of here. You know what I mean? You you uh you cut like if you're Ron Burgundy, like you cut the biggest segment that was bringing the most eyes, and people were like, Well, I gotta go get my entertainment from you know someone else, you know?
SPEAKER_03:No, 100%.
SPEAKER_01:But I I also like when I first post Ashley, I lost um 2022. I probably had maybe just two, uh maybe like 150,000 followers. I lost uh 40,000 followers almost overnight when I went from like uh uh like not single guy, but like similar, like you're putting out, I would do like the Michael Scott, like, where are all the hot people? Yeah, posted and uh lost 40,000 people almost overnight. Called my twin sister, and I was like, was this a mistake? Should I should I delete the pod? Like if I delete it, Ashley's gonna be really mad, but I'm losing all my like. And now if I post Jessate, people are like, Where's Ashley? Where's Ashley? It's like it's like moving a ship, like if if a cruise ship's going this way, or you in the, you know, when you were in the service, like aircraft carriers going this way. Like, if I want to go back, it's gonna take some time to swing the boat around. Like, and in content terms, that's like, okay, I post Ashley, I lost 40,000 followers. I post a second video with her the next day, losing more people, losing, losing, losing. Two followed, 10 followed, 100 followed in a day. Yeah, you know what I mean? And now it's whatever it is, uh, 1.7 million across platforms, like all from just like totally rebranding.
SPEAKER_03:Uh so you never never thought about like, hey, should I just delete this account and start over? No, God no. Yeah, right, right. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I it just needs like uh uh you need yeah, you you're like uh whatever they call the shock things.
SPEAKER_05:You just need like the pfft defibrillator to like what do you got, 150k on there?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think like 140. So it's very similar situation. I was at like 160 and just like rapidly growing at that time. Yep. And then as soon as I introduced one video, or I I even think I just posted her on Instagram, but because my click through on TikTok was straight to Instagram, right? That's where the funnel was going. Right. Everybody just stopped. It was like 20K just off the rip. And I was just like, You should do you do relationship content now?
SPEAKER_01:No, we don't actually. So you like as the it's thinking of and I haven't seen the videos, but like as a viewer, I got like uh the taste of a relationship, and then we never saw it again. Yeah. So I'm like, what's going on behind like I would whatever you're comfortable with sharing, but like yeah, we live in like a glass house literally and figuratively, where it's like we show everything. Right. You know what I mean? There are no uh we show like baby blowouts and nighttime routines and getting dressed in the morning, like my wife absolutely hates being on camera.
SPEAKER_05:Like whenever I try to get her on, like I've been doing this like just like a daily vlog, you know, just like kind of like showing what everybody asks, like, what do you do? Like, I just drive around different houses and shit, and I don't, you know, I don't know. So I've just been recording it and I've been like putting her on to things that she absolutely hates and she's like, I do not want to be honest, I don't want people to know who I am.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's definitely a balance. Like, look at Gary Vee. Gary Vee shares nothing about his personal life, kids, wife, wives, nothing. Uh so it's like, you know, you find your yeah, I would argue like it's like going to the gym, like you've done the one push-up, you know. If you want to like really bent, it's like, all right, well, if if we're posting once, how often do you post now? Like a day.
SPEAKER_03:So so I have a videographer. We post 12 pieces uh a month.
SPEAKER_01:So it's not similar to like we were talking about how fast Ryan Sir Hemp moves, like you should post 12, try to try to do 12 a day and watch how fast the channel goes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's like doing if I was like, oh, I want to I want to bench 225, but I'm gonna do 12 push-ups a month. It's like it's gonna take you years to but if I'm gonna do 100 push-ups a day and then get on bench, like I could probably do it and you know, I could condense the timeline to get there way faster though.
SPEAKER_03:You think the volume is more important than the quality, or is it like there's a balance there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh we were talking about earlier, like quality clearly, like Johnny's doing it on fucking snap.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's why it's like it doesn't like you Well, quality and like the actual value of the content.
SPEAKER_01:When I say quality, I don't really mean like physical picture. It's like what is the what's the hook? Like what is I would say this when you post, every time we post, it's less about like what do I want out of it? It's like when someone sees this, what are they gonna get from it? Exactly. Is it learning about real estate? Are they gonna learn a little hack? Is it is it a funny moment? They're someone's you know, someone's sitting home depressed, they're gonna laugh for two seconds, you know. Like, what's what are they gonna extract from that?
SPEAKER_05:Do you guys still get um like big you both of you guys, do you guys still get like big pops from videos for followers? Like one video will get you like a bunch of followers. Because that's what we find. We find like a slow creep of increasing followers, and then like one video will do really well and we'll like pop off. And we we got like we gained like 20,000 Facebook subscribers in like a couple of weeks, and then since then we've gained like 15. You should take that.
SPEAKER_01:Have you reposted that video?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I have a couple times.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, like you know, quarterly or monthly, you could recycle like most viral moments and put them back. Meta specifically is like a uh I call it like the Polar Express, like it's this giant freight engine, and each video is one shovel's worth of coal. So it's like, how far do you want to go? Like, do you want to where where do you want to where is it a million followers? Is it a million subs? Like, it's a lot of coal, it's a lot of content to get there. If it's 12 posts a month, like there's just no way, you know, there's no way we Can get there, but if it's 12 posts a day, we get there probably in a couple months.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I found about TikTok is like you don't have to post as much on TikTok because it's just like one video hits and then okay, now I know what I need to post. Yeah, same thing with what you were saying earlier, is once you did that face and it was just like, Oh, that's it. All right, I'm gonna do that again, again, again. Yeah, and so that's what I found on TikTok. But then Instagram, I struggle. I mean, so I I did a really big abrupt switch to like real estate content. So I try to be more in like the humor phase.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But then, like, like you were saying, it's for me, it's okay, where is the value on the other side? I cannot stand the hey, let me break down the real estate numbers for you here on this video. Like, no one waits.
SPEAKER_01:Or like go like click on that video again, go to the comments. So that this is the biggest one. So, like okay, yeah, you're in there a bit. Every comment should get a comment from you. Um right away. You know, like even these laughing ones, like I would reply right now, yeah, and do like there's another one.
SPEAKER_02:I'll try to comment on a couple of every video, but it's hard to do that. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:I should be doing that if I, you know, even if it's something silly, someone does like three emojis, they're getting laughed right back. Yeah, hammering it. Like sometimes I'll have my wife drive because I'll just be like, I'll do this over and you drive. Because granted, this was posted two weeks ago, but if this is fresh, we've just added like six comments.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I've noticed on Facebook, it doesn't matter when you comment back. As soon as you comment, it pops back up in people's feet. Totally. Because they see the comment. Yeah, and like that. Facebook's good about that.
SPEAKER_01:The one thing too is like that, so this was posted two weeks ago, December 2nd. Yep. And then the very next post is three days ago. So it's like back to the MTV thing. If Cribs only airs, you know, last episode was four days ago. I can't, I'm not just gonna sit on the channel with a screen that says like, you know, uh, your next television program will kick off in two weeks from now, it's like I'm out, right?
SPEAKER_05:How much time like it takes because I do actually run like companies and stuff, like how much time do you dedicate both of you guys to like just sitting there and making the content? Because I feel like that's gonna be that would be the hardest part. Like, I don't know how I'd come up with 12 videos a day when I actually like between like wife, you know, family obligations and and actually running the companies and making trying to make a living. Like, how much time are you spending?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you're like a full-time like content guy, like obnoxious, obnoxious levels of but it seems authentic. I mean, it's like authentically your day. So it's totally yeah, it doesn't seem like you're necessary. I mean, some of your videos, but I feel like it's not like you're like sitting there, like, let me script all of these out. You're like, hey, it looks like this just happened with with our baby.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, similar to like like you think of like from coffee to now, whatever the big like laugh moments are in my personal life. If we had a good like pop, like wife and I were like dying laughing, I'm like, let's do that again. Yeah, right now, you know? And then we have, you know, you're it's less to your point, you're spot on. It's less about like creating and just documenting what you're doing. You know, you should have like a videographer with you from the moment you wake up to go to bed. And then what we do is we have this guy, Mal, who's in the Philippines. Yeah, they're 12 hours ahead. Yeah. So they could film with you all day US time, and you know, eight, nine o'clock, whenever you shut it down, that file gets exported to the Philippines. It's eight, nine a.m. their time. They're editing all day. By the time they go to bed, it's eight, nine a.m. in the morning here. You're getting a fresh batch of new files.
SPEAKER_05:You know, my full-time, like we have a couple full-time VAs from the Philippines. I actually went out to the Philippines and met him this year. It was really cool. Uh he was working for me for two years.
SPEAKER_01:It was the wet season when we went. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But it wasn't, it wasn't bad. Like one day we got like pretty bad like rain. Two days maybe we got really bad rain, but besides that. But I got to like meet him for the first two years. He was like running my he runs my emails, so he answers all my emails. He does all my like he'll answer my calls when I'm not when I'm not around. And like he knows he's got my credit card. Like he knows everything about me. Oh, yeah. Like he is like the CEO.
SPEAKER_01:Philip, they have guys that are just like machines.
SPEAKER_05:And he's great. They're like the the money goes a lot further out there. So you totally you you know it's a lot cheaper than having a video editor here, and the quality is like the same. 100%. So couldn't couldn't agree more. It's that's that's the way to do it. I have all of my VAs, we have well now, two of the three of them work their nights, so it's our days. Yep. And then the other one works their days, so it's our nights. Right, right. So we have like full-time coverage. But yeah, that's that's a hack. But the time that it does take to to film, like how much time are you taking to film?
SPEAKER_02:Uh uh I don't I don't know like number of hours or minutes, but I think it's it depends on how many cameos I have to make. Well, enough to stop doing Soul Cycle. Yeah, no more Soul Cycle. God bless. I mean, I teach one class a week, but that's not really a thing. And then two berries classes a week. But um, but no, it's it's like it depends on the number of cameos I have because I have to take the information that I get from the cameo, and some people do it as like a they'll email me instead of going through cameos, so I have to break down all the stuff that they say. It's my dad's birthday, he's a general contractor, he loves your stuff, you know, and then I have to break it down into a script, put it up on my computer stand with the thing, and then film it, edit it, send it to them. So it's like, I mean, I I probably work like five or six hours a day, like at minimum. Like if I'm like, I'm gonna try to not work very much today, it's probably five or six hours a day. And you're editing it too? Mm-hmm. Wow. But I I mean that's really just remove background on CapCut and throw a throw a mansion in the background, maybe a couple birds tweeting and then and then export the file. CapCut's incredible. Yeah, I love Capcut. Austin Nasso told me about that. And because I was using um some like thing that actual video people use, and it took forever to export the thing. Capcut's like, here one second is your 90-second video.
SPEAKER_03:Are you guys using edits at all to edit videos?
SPEAKER_01:Edits is great. If you use edits, at least on meta, they will push your video even further. Sorry, what's that? Instagram edits? Uh it's there in Instagram? It's a separate, it's owned by the same platform. It's it's a separate app. It looks and feels kind of like CapCut. Okay. It's like it's a competitor to CapCut. Okay, got it. But Instagram owns it? Yeah. Instagram owns it.
SPEAKER_03:You have Gander. We don't use it.
SPEAKER_01:Peru's around. Yeah. You know?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know if Carl uses it. I use it um for my my Instagram stuff. Um if you film on the meta glasses too, uh Instagram and Facebook will push it even further.
SPEAKER_05:Really? It's like a percentage. I want to get the meta. It's nuts. I'm waiting for the meta display ones to actually come out with like the normal band and stuff. That looks kind of sick. The other ones are a little under I feel like underwhelming the what they do.
SPEAKER_01:We went out to their headquarters to play with those. If you were like across the street, I could say uh hey meta subtitles. And if I look at you, it'll pick up your audio and it'll show me your the subtitles of what you show. Oh shit. And then if I'm traveling, if I'm in uh Philippines, China, wherever, something talking, I could say, uh, hey Meta, add subtitles and translate. It would get their audio and then in your speaker, translate, and you could read it on your glasses. It's free. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:So I have to talk shit very quietly. We're gonna be one of those. Yeah, the meta glasses are picking me up.
SPEAKER_01:She sucks. I hate her. It's those things are banana. The ones that that uh phase one can do that now. Like, if you look at a menu, you can be like, hey meta, like what's not spicy on this menu, or like if it's a Chinese menu, you can be like, hey Meta, like translate this. It'll the old ones do it now, but the new ones, like the live stuff is crazy. The new one has that band. Did you play with the band? It has the band, yep. Bandit, you like do like little that's how you like toggle. So like when you like do your password on your phone, it's all with the band. Or then like you can take your, you can say, like, hey Meta, open camera, you open it, and then uh to zoom, you just twist your fingers, like you're turning up the volume, and it like it'll punch in or punch out.
SPEAKER_05:It's crazy. Do you guys remember when when the Bluetooth like headsets started coming out when people started when you're just walking around talking to people and you didn't realize that they were actually on the phone? Yeah. Now everybody's gonna be just walking around like looking and like twisting their arms and stuff up and like it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:We were at a table sitting with this, and it was like they split the room in half, and somehow it ended up being like an eighth-grade dance. There's like girls on one side, guys on the other, and I'm at the glasses, and like you're looking at what's on the glasses, but you're basically staring at some girl's chest, and you're like, you're like, no, no, this unreal. I'm uh it's like, wait a second. I swear. We were everyone was like zoning out. We had Kyle, my videographer, he's like, dude, it was the spookiest thing because you're all you're there, but no one's there, no one's like looking at the room. Yeah, you're like possessed. He can do street views, you can open up maps and do like, oh, I want to go out to dinner here. Like, what does it look like on the outside? And you're like toward around. Wow. It's crazy. That is wild. That is terrifying.
SPEAKER_05:I have a cool one of my coaching clients, Jet, shout out to Dreamers Event Rentals down in Maryland. But uh wonderful. Very subtle ad read. Yeah, really loved on that. I'm not even uh swing by uh subdog. He's not even an advertiser, he's just a coach. Uh I just coach him, but he um has virtual real so he he does like event rentals, so like tents, weddings, you know, sweets and scenes, stuff like that. He has a virtual reality headset that his clients can come into his warehouse and walk around, like he'll he'll put in their wedding, like all the table settings, the you know, all the little accessories and everything. And you can put on this headset and walk and like look around at your actual wedding venue before you like it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:It's like that's a pretty cool that's a nice use of it. Yeah, that's a good use of it. I don't need people listening to my conversation from it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:There's good and evil, I guess, that will come from all of this uh from all of this stuff. Yep, yeah, 100%. But so we have to um we'll I'm gonna wrap this podcast up and figure out how we can have Johnny as the PE guy and make fun of all of us. Certainly. At least make fun of me because that's how we get all of our followers.
SPEAKER_02:Like I quote making fun of you.
SPEAKER_05:Like, yeah, yeah, I only get engagement because people hate me. So please like shit on me as much as possible. Um, but no, seriously, Kevin, thank you guys for doing thank you for having us. This is your stuff anytime for your place. Um do you own this place?
SPEAKER_01:You don't own this place, right? No, this is so this is where we started. This used to be in a coat closet in Seaport, and then we got like grandfathered in, we did the show in this coat closet, and they're like, We're gonna build this like beautiful studio, you're gonna love it. Like, stick with us. We're like, okay, and then that boom, they unveil this. So legit, yeah, yeah, good spot.
SPEAKER_05:Legitess spot. Yeah, thank and thanks for like answering. Like that was uh and I said to Chase, I was like, Yeah, we're gonna go to Boston, we're gonna go do Kevin Cooney and and the PE guy. And he's like, How? Did you get like, I don't know, I just hit him up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, DMs is it's so powerful. DM.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Just DM I'm in there every day. I'll I'll you know. Yeah. So no, thank you for each comment.
SPEAKER_05:It's been a blast. And thank thank you, Johnny, again. Had fun at dinner last night, it's been uh great hospitality. Thank you. But yeah, ra and you uh you guys have anything else before we uh wrap up here? Good.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Appreciate it. Absolutely. Anytime.
