Jack Berdan
@jackberdan
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Owner/Operator of 7 Express Car Washes // Active LP investor in RE, VC & Search // Passionate about investing, SMB, RE & getting a little better each day!
Joined May 2023
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In an effort to share more, I wanted to reintroduce myself! A little about me & my background:
PERSONAL:
- 36 years old.
- Married my wife in 2020. We got set up in Jan 2019 and I knew I wanted to marry her w/i a month. So smart and kind.
- 1.5 year old little boy. Best buddy.
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@gas_biz
I love this! Know a guy with a single wash that doesn’t look pretty from the outside. BUT he nets $1M/year from that store. Insanely good operator. Has run the store himself for decades. Nothing special from the outside but he puts out a damn near perfect car. Every time.
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@ParsleyETA
Some thoughts (opinions not advice)!
I'm admittedly not a self serve guy. I'm an express operator. That said, we have one location that has self serve bays, and I do like the business.
Some things to consider:
Motivation: What is your motivation for doing this? Are you
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Let’s do this 🙌🏼
But let’s not ask how long it took me to figure out how to tie the bow tie….
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@rohindhar
Incredible area! I rented a place right there on Big Rock beach for a month in 2019. Such a great location as you can get into LA way easier than other parts of Malibu. Moonshadows is right there w/ the best Miso Black Cod! Great listing!
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This happened to me!
It was 14 years ago, and I'm still thinking about the way one guy (who I just met) believed in me. Belief is powerful. Here's the story:
In 2010 I was leasing apartments in Chicago. Would mostly help college students find cheap crappy places. It was a
I’m convinced most people just need someone to believe in them, and they can change the trajectory of their life.
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Decided to drop Car Wash Jack and just be me - Jack Berdan :)
I don't post a lot, and would like to share more. For whatever reason it feels more comfortable engaging under my name rather than being so tied to an industry.
I created this account to try and put myself out
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@realEstateTrent
Another crazy part of the story is that he operated for a decade as Panda Inn before launching Panda Express. I think Panda Inn only had 1-2 locations. Compounding takes time!! Such a killer example of the power of laser focus on one thing for 50 years 🙌🏼
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Absolutely wild waves yesterday 🤯 Such insane power. Glad I got to get out on the pier and see these up close before they shut it down!
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@ParsleyETA
You can always reach out but I’ll never charge you! Just happy to share and help if I can. Many great people helped me along the way!
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Happy Mothers Day to all the Moms!
Grateful for this woman! It’s a real gift watching her be such a loving, patient & present Mom to our boy ❤️
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Walking away from an SMB that was making me $300k/year in net income was one of the best business decisions of my career.
I shared about this recently and it seemed to resonate w/ people so figured I'd share more.
My first business was a small residential real estate
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@realEstateTrent
As someone who owns property in CA and Cook County this is spot on.
Very clear on what my property taxes are/will be in CA.
On the other hand, one of our washes in Cook County was just reassessed and annual taxes jumped $25k. You have to underwrite extremely conservatively.
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Wife: So what do you do all week at the Car Wash Show?
Me: Oh you know, just tons of in depth research on new products & equipment.
The Research:
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@SMB_Attorney
I would be more concerned with DSCR than a fixed rule on LTV. I’d rather have debt at 95% LTV with 3x coverage than 70% LTV with 1.5x coverage. Everything is deal specific based on the price you’re paying. It’s a risk question and with a cash flow based SBA 7a loan you’re way
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Got into NYC last night! Man have I missed this city. So happy to be here.
Main event this week is the
@realEstateTrent
Gala of all Galas. Pumped to attend this year 🙌🏼
Also thrilled to spend the week catching up w/ old pals & surely making some new ones!
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Excited to start engaging in the amazing SMB & REtwit community.
Started out in RE Brokerage. In 2015, I bought a car wash as an investment w/ my best friend. That investment turned into a business spanning 2 states w/ 7 locations & 90 employees.
Here to share & keep learning.
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@noahkagan
Man that sucks. And they also messed up by driving your capital account negative. Shouldn’t have done that unless you had recourse on the debt to increase your basis beyond your capital commitment.
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A big equipment company is flying our head of operations and our director of maintenance to the East Coast on their private jet tomorrow to see their equipment in action.
Our head of opps just texted to see if I wanted to join. That's one hell of a sales trick!
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Chicago is my favorite city in the world.
Iman is a wealth of knowledge on the city and surrounding suburbs.
Genuine willingness to help from a good dude. I love it!
My offer to fellow Chicago area real estate owners/investors
My entire Rolodex is open to you
- Need a lender? Whether $2MM or $100MM, I’ve got great options
- Need high quality, but cost conscious cabinets? Been using two different local groups for years now
- Need a
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Opened the blinds this morning and this dude is looking right at me! What an insane job. I hope he gets paid well!!
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@realEstateTrent
Yes! As Peter Lynch said - if you can add 8+8 and get reasonably close to 16 you have the mathematical competency for investing 😂
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Merry Christmas! Sending extra love & support to everyone required to wear matching Christmas pajamas against their will today 🙏🏼❤️
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The RealEstateX Gala was first class in every way!
Incredible group of people, thoughtfully curated & a stunning venue.
Hats off to
@realEstateTrent
&
@BobKnakal
for making it happen! Loved meeting everyone & enjoying the energy of such a magical city & community together 🙌🏼
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@shawngorham
The thoughts on personal and work life disconnect feels like the right issue here. Appreciate your take.
I didn’t read the article and don’t listen to Huberman.
However, IF the allegations are true I agree that it seems to reveal he’s a dishonest and manipulative person in his
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First thing I did after closing on my first property when I was 26:
Called a lawyer who specialized in suing landlords. “Hi I’d like to pay you for an hour of your time to tell me what I should/shouldn’t do to ensure I never hear from you.” He laughed & agreed.
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Stopped by one of our Chicago stores this morning and snapped the bottom pic. Top is a google image from before we redeveloped it (I gotta get better at taking before pics 🤦🏻♂️).
Happy with how this one turned out!
We love deals like this. Wrong model + under managed & great
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Headed to Omaha on Friday for the Berkshire Shareholder meeting.
Any Twitter folks going?
This will be the third time attending. Has become something I really look forward to! Won’t be the same without Charlie this year. Curious to see what they do to honor his legacy!
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My friend Michael and I decided to host a series of dinner parties over the next year in different cities.
First one is in NYC this Wednesday! We have an open spot. If you’re interested in attending, please comment on Michael’s post or shoot one of us a DM!
We're hosting a 14-person dinner on Wednesday in NYC with investors and entrepreneurs across asset classes (real estate, PE, venture). 🥳
Unfortunately - one of our attendees can no longer come.
Fortunately - we now have one spot left.
If you're interested (and in town),
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@realEstateTrent
NAILED IT WITH THIS 🙌🏼 “We have reached a point where investors downplay risk so much that many have lost the ability to measure it.”
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Here’s to Oasis and my hair that I used to straighten everyday!
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Biggest mistake made by Express Wash Operators who scaled too fast:
Overestimating the importance of financial capital being the rocket fuel for rapid growth while underestimating the human capital needed.
Financial capital can get the stores built. Human capital runs them.
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My favorite aspect of the Express Car Wash business:
We can regularly and comfortably distribute the cash.
You’d be shocked at how many “good businesses” with sizable incomes do not afford their owners this luxury. They consume the cash rather than produce it. They get stuck
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Why does bonus depreciation seem to get bipartisan support historically? Isn't it just a tax loophole for folks who don't really need it?
The short answer: it incentivizes significant capital investment which is incredibly economically stimulative.
The longer answer goes like
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@shawngorham
Id go Landcruiser FJ62 or FJ80 instead! More expensive but a hell of a lot more reliable!
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Buying below replacement cost doesn't mean it's a good deal. But it's one heck of a competitive moat.
On several early car wash deals we were all in for under $2.5M.
Knowing that someone would have to spend $4.5M - $6M+ to compete w/ us sure helps you sleep easier.
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@antonia_mdprjct
Completely agree. Hunting for the right ones for our house right now. Small detail but makes a world of a difference.
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Can someone please make a coffee table book that is just screenshots of fights that break out in the comments of social media posts?
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@DallasAptGP
Love it Barrett. I celebrated 9 years sober in December. I say the same thing all the time. Not a chance I would have my wife, son & business if I hadn't quit drinking. Was a real blessing to figure out it was a problem so young & get the help I needed!
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I can tell you something with 100% certainty about rates in 2024.
No one knows what’s going to happen.
Including the Fed.
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In Omaha for Berkshire w/ my good bud. Article just hit the press on his new deal. Timber loft office at nearly 30% of the previous sale price. Perfect floor plan for residential conversion.
This is gonna be a good one! Happy to be an LP!
Congrats Mike & the Honore team!
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My approach to debt:
Only take on debt for new projects that can be entirely paid for by existing cash flow. And the new debt should be serviceable even if the existing cash low takes a meaningful hit.
This approach yields much slower growth, but greater peace of mind.
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Chasing dolphins off the coast of Southern California! Apparently they like hearing human voices. Not sure if that’s true but I did my best to encourage them 😂
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Twitter/X is amazing. Realized Tim was in NYC too. Reached out and we made a last min hang happen this morning. So many incredible folks hanging out on this platform 🙌🏼
Tim, awesome to meet in real life!! Enjoyed the chats!
What a trip. So fun to connect with
@neeleshmittal
,
@candrewclark
and with
@jackberdan
, along with many others not on Twitter in the last 24 hours. It’s so special meeting and connecting with world class people doing incredible work.
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My wife and I watched Leave The World Behind last night.
By far the most unbelievable part was that they rented that house for the weekend for $2k. Oh, and that it was a rehabbed property.
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People will tell you that being debt friendly is necessary for outsized results.
Buffet has been viewed as too conservative regarding his views on debt.
Berkshire is sitting on $190 billion in cash w/ an $862B market cap.
Seems like a cautious approach to debt worked out ok.
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Building a business is the ultimate science experiment.
You get endless opportunities to create a new hypothesis and throw it out there.
Then you scale the winners and discard the failures. Over and over and over. It’s so much fun.
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@EvanMouhalis
@tyleralley24
Congrats Evan! My partner and I ended up in car washes 9 years ago with a similar goal. Find a high ROIC business that could also allow us to own the RE. Has been a fun ride. If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend ‘6 Tires No Plan’ which is the founder of Discount
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@bhallcpa
Just when you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to these grifters. Enter God ordained crypto scams! Happy Sunday!
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Real Estate syndicators applying current interest rates to their underwriting models:
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@TripleNetInvest
20% corrections happen a lot more than a few times in a lifetime. More like once every 5 years. Think it’s worth noting the actual historical frequency which also isn’t predictive of the future. FWIW this isn’t a commentary on whether this is actually a good time to buy or not.
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Q2 Review & Q3 Planning FTW! Love getting the crew together to take inventory of our results and strategize for how to move the ball forward in the coming quarter. Some of my favorite days of the year 🚀
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@RobertMSterling
Im so happy you used his pic for this 😂 “It’s a pretty good view right? I mean out there. Not me.” - Cousin Greg
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@SMB_Attorney
Try and get the seller to do most of the talking.
Genuinely ask the seller to tell him the story of how they built the business. He will learn a lot from that.
Instead of asking how important the seller is to the business, ask the seller if the customers love them.
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@JulieChangRE
This is looking at corporate profits nominally. If you look at S&P 500 profit margins as a percentage it's very similar to 2019. Higher prices more connected to flooding they system w/ capital IMO!
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@moseskagan
They def pay interest for some overpayments (or did). Don’t know the rate. When Tax Cuts and Jobs originally passed NOL carry backs were still permissible. Had two deals with meaningful bonus depreciation that year. IRS paid me back two years of tax payments + interest. Best
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At the Car Wash Show in Nashville this week.
I can’t stop thinking about how much I want someone to make a Christopher Guest style mockumentary about this industry.
So many amazing characters.
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I believe exceptional results in most SMB’s are a function of excellent operators NOT exceptional businesses.
These aren’t Berkshire businesses.
If any moat exists it’s an excellent operator.
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@mhprvpmvp
Yes! If you didn’t have 2023 losses to shelter income it’s 80% of your taxable income for the year. And as
@DallasAptGP
said the balance of unused NOL moves forward to next year.
Here’s where the breakdown happens on the 1040.
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@SeanODowd15
That's frustrating to get lumped in w/ all hedge funds buying SFH's. Your whole strategy creates rental supply where it hardly exists. You're creating opportunity for those who can't/don't want to own to have access to the best education. Shame on you Sean lol!
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@imrichardfertig
@shawngorham
Gorgeous!! Love the 62’s! Almost bought one a few years ago & still kinda regret not doing it. Was a great deal. Ended up getting a late 90’s LX470 with 55k miles for the creature comforts. Check out Brian Corsetti’s work in LA! Does incredible frame off restorations!
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@gas_biz
It’s WILD! Was Creflo the one raising money years ago for the newest Gulfstream to replace his existing Gulfstream? I remember seeing something about that and his pitch was “we need your help to get the gospel out FASTER!”
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@gas_biz
Love this! Slow but powerful compounding. This has been my vision but with express washes. Bought my first wash at 28. Now, I’m 36 with 7. Hoping for 20 in 10 years 🙌🏼
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Most people think successful investing is all about predicting the future.
In reality, it’s all about understanding the value & durability of things.
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@investing_law
@Stealx
Second this! We reserved a new Land Cruiser which should be here in the next month. Have never bought a new car in my life but fell in love with that truck. Was torn between that and the new GX (Lexus version of new Land Cruiser). GX has 3rd row and peppier engine. Both great.
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@girdley
One of my fave Buffet maxims. This is a great visual to break it down and drive the point home.
I also love when he says “if you want to be known as a great businessperson, pick a great business!”
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Take me back to the good old days where the pinnacle of success was having a phone next to your toilet.
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@investing_law
100% US Treasury backed money market. Slightly lower than short term T Bill rates, but for your purpose easier liquidity and simpler than doing your own Ladder.
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@investing_law
@alfredoMRu
@TKyle
Seriously! Who woulda thought. Alfredo we will definitely connect. Flying in Friday morning and there until Sunday am. Will DM you ahead of time. Will be great to meet!
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@SMB_Attorney
People have no idea how beautiful Northern MI is! I grew up in Troy (outside of Detroit) and spent a ton of time in Northern MI growing up. Heading to a friends place on Burt Lake next weekend!
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@RobertMSterling
@investing_law
@KrissBergTweets
@courtstarr
@SeanODowd15
Thanks Robert!! Same to you 🙌🏼 And right back at you Michael!! Getting to know you (& Sean) this year has been wonderful. I always look forward to our chats! Many more to come in 2024!!
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@investing_law
What an incredible experience developing your skills at such reputable firms. Pumped for you in your next chapter. You're going to do so damn well!!
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Why Car Washes? I wanted to build financial independence not the next big thing. I didn't want to compete w/ blue chip MBA's for casino odds at becoming the next tech unicorn. I looked for a sandbox to play in where guys w/o college degrees were making millions.
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@moizali
Single google doc with multiple lists:
5 Year Goals (personal and professional)
1 Year Goals (personal and professional)
Quarterly Goals (personal and professional)
Weekly Tasks broken down by: big strategic, small strategic, maintenance/admin, emails & calls.
Daily Tasks
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@investing_law
What’s been most helpful for me is not being fit prior to the birth of my son. Has made maintenance a breeze!
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@investing_law
I just do it personally as we regularly distribute and all the tax is pass through in my situation (minus small amount of PTE tax). So I run my own ladder and keep shorter term cash in 100% US Treasury money market. You should be able to set up through your business as well!
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On March 30th 2024 in the year of our Lord I realized the melody for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC’s is the same.
Am I the only person to not know this until now?
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@Keith_Wasserman
Agree! This is exactly what I do now. Took some time to figure out this was a better path for me. I sold the two apartment buildings I owned in Chicago and started investing with great GP’s. I focus my energy on growing my main cash engine (my business) and allocate capital to
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Car washes are small businesses that utilize CRE and sometimes own it. They are not traditional CRE assets.
Multifamily investing is NOT a management business that utilizes CRE. It's CRE that has a management component.
Businesses will often present the opportunity for higher
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@TripleNetInvest
I didn’t say 10 times was a lot. Just that it’s more than a few. My comment has nothing to do with buying or not in these scenarios. It’s just about historical frequency! Not trying to be combative here. Just feels important!
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@gas_biz
Just landed in Nashville! The ICA show is one of the highlights of my year. I’ll comp your pass GBG!
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@JTMartingCRE
@realEstateTrent
@FarazUCheemaCRE
@kenashley
So great meeting you and
@WillHuebnerRE
🙌🏼 Loved chatting about what you two are up to. Rooting for both of you!
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@SeanODowd15
Very interesting! My Chicago car is a 2010 Lexus that I’ve had since 2012, & my California car is 1999 Lexus LX470. I’ve never thought of any correlation to risk tolerance with my investing. Has always been a function of being low on the totem pole for where I want to spend.
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Became a Dad 9 months ago and it’s been incredible. Coming home from traveling, and seeing him get so excited has to be one of the greatest feelings in the world.
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@CREAnonymous
I’m from the Midwest and have noticed the same thing since moving to CA. Def miss it but I’ll settle for not having six months of freezing temps and grey skies!
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@investing_law
@ReconveneLA
@moseskagan
@ReconveneLA
&
@moseskagan
FTW. Was such a high value conference. Pumped to attend again this year!
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In my mid 20's I asked a mentor of mine w/ a $40M net worth what he wishes he understood when he was my age.
He said he wishes he understood the power of picking a business where he could perfect a unit model & stamp it over & over.
Repeatable = compounding machine.
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@alfredoMRu
@dede_eyesan
@BrentBeshore
Great meeting & chatting Alfredo! Inspired by your drive & determination. You've got a bright future ahead of you!
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