Podcast appearances and mentions of ben fraser

Book a call to see if we can help you achieve your goals in less time with less risk:  http://bit.ly/iwc15podcast Could oil and gas be the key to diversifying your portfolio and generating passive income? In this episode, Cameron Christiansen and Anthony Faso interview Ben Fraser, Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds. Ben shares his unique approach to oil and gas investments and explains why this often-overlooked sector still presents significant opportunities for today's investors. He explains the macroeconomic factors that make oil and gas a key asset class, despite the common fear surrounding fossil fuels, and discusses the current limitations of renewable energy. Ben's insight provides a clear path for anyone seeking to diversify their portfolio with alternative investments that offer substantial passive income. Whether you're an accredited investor or just getting started, this insider knowledge will help you understand why oil and gas could be part of your investment strategy.   In This Episode: - Oil and gas: the often overlooked opportunity - Why fossil fuels are here to stay - Macro-driven investing: understanding the bigger picture - Aspen Funds' approach to investing - Ben's advice for new investors - Avoiding bad actors in oil and gas investments - What to look for before making an investment decision   Resources:  - Passive Income Operating System - https://infinitewealthconsultants.com/pios - Join the Infinite Wealth Study Group - https://www.facebook.com/share/g/qC3sAWg6PhHYpRAs/  - Check our Online Course - https://infinitewealthcourse.com/home - Buy Becoming Your Own Banker by R. Nelson Nash - http://bit.ly/BYOBbookIWC - Invest Like a Billionaire Book by Bob & Ben Fraser - https://www.thebillionairebook.org/   Connect with Ben Fraser: - Website - https://aspenfunds.us/ - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ - Invest Like a Billionaire Podcast - https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/   Connect with Anthony or Cameron: - Website - https://infinitewealthcourse.com/home - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/infinitewealthconsultants/   Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests and do not constitute financial advice. Always consult a licensed professional for financial decisions. A podcast show partner sponsors this episode. We may receive compensation if you use links or services mentioned in this episode. The hosts may have a financial interest in the programs or services mentioned in this episode.

Title: What They Don't Tell You About Raising Capital (Until It's Too Late) with Ben Fraser Summary: In this episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, host Ben Frasier interviews Seth Bradley, the Chief Legal Officer at TribeVest and an experienced securities attorney. They discuss Seth's transition from a big law background to becoming a passive investor and then an active capital raiser, detailing the steps involved in his journey. Seth shares insights on private placements and syndications, emphasizing the importance of understanding legal documents such as Private Placement Memorandums (PPMs) and operating agreements. The conversation also highlights key trends and shifts in capital raising, particularly the emergence of the fund-to-fund model, which allows passive investors to leverage their networks without taking an active role in deal management. Furthermore, Seth talks about the services provided by TribeVest to simplify the investment process for both passive investors and new fund managers. They touch upon the current state of the alternative investment market, discussing the advantages and opportunities available amid economic challenges. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/155-moving-from-passive-to-active-investor-feat-seth/id1587171662?i=1000652125962 Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s Bullet Point Highlights: Seth Bradley's Journey: Transitioned from big law to passive investing, and now to active capital raising. Understanding Legal Documents: Importance of critically reviewing PPMs and operating agreements as an investor. Red Flags in Investments: Identifying key terms and clauses in legal documents that can affect investor rights and returns. Fund-to-Fund Model: Insights into how new capital raisers can operate without needing to be actively involved in deals. TribeVest Services: Overview of how TribeVest supports fund managers with a streamlined legal and operational framework. Market Trends: Discussion on the evolution and current opportunities within the alternative investment space. Advice for Investors: Encouragement to dive into the market now to capitalize on upcoming opportunities as conditions stabilize. Transcript: hello future billionaires welcome back to another episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast today's guest is Seth Bradley very fun to talk with him he's friend of mine for several years and he's the chief legal officer at tribe vest which is a really cool company if you haven't heard of them we actually had their CEO and founder on about a year ago but they're kind of doing a really new cool push that I'm going to talk about in a sec but his background he's a big law Securities attorney spent a lot of time in kind of   corporate world transition really to kind of becoming a passive investor invest a lot of syndications so he talks a lot about his journey making that transition kind of going to generate passive income Financial Independence but then he's actually shifted back to becoming an active Capital Riser and he's seen a lot of people make this transition that been investing for a little bit and now want to kind of activate their Network and some of the stuff they're doing at Tri bestest is making this really really easy for   people so it's a really cool interview we kind of hit a lot of his journey from his perspective as a Securities attorney what are some of the big things you got to focus on when you're reviewing legal documents what are the red flags yellow flags Etc and then he kind of shares a little bit about some of the things and the trends going on in the kind of private placement syndication and capital raising worlds that if you haven't heard about some of these ideas you definitely want to tune in and listen because it's pretty cool I'm   seeing the same thing on my side of things so you're going to enjoy this episode he's a very very sharp guy and a lot of great insights that he shared I think you're going to love this episode please enjoy this is the invest like a billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investment and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth the tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build Legacy wealth join us as we dive into the world   of alternative Investments uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy discuss economics and interview successful investors looking for Passive Investments done for you with and funds we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market as a passive investor we do all the work for you making sure your money is working hard for you in alternative investments in fact our team invests alongside you in every deal so our interests are aligned we focus on macr   driven alternative Investments so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment get started and download your free economic report today welcome back to another episode episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast I am your host Ben Frasier and joined by a very exciting guest Seth Bradley I've know Seth for several years he is the managing partner at Ray's law and the chief legal officer at tribe vest and uh Seth and I have done some business over the years and different things he's an   attorney and uh a very experienced Securities attorney and even has his own podcast called the passive income attorney podcast and so he comes with a really unique perspective both being an entrepreneur investor as well as an attorney gives him some really unique insights in this space of kind of private placements alternative Investments and super excited to have on the show so Seth thanks for coming on man Ben appreciate it man we finally got around to to recording this really really appreciate it man yeah it was   kind of fun because we reached out a couple years ago and uh we're we're gonna do something that never worked out and then all of a sudden you're ready to do the podcast tour and Pops back up three years later so hey let's do good I'm I'm gay man so looking forward to doing this now so give a little bit of uh context for your background uh for those who maybe aren't familiar with you and just kind of what you do in kind of the areas of expertise that you focus on as an attorney sure man so I worked in   big law for about seven years um most recently at a top three globally ranked Law Firm um as a real estate started out as a real estate attorney made my way over to Securities um at that point um I started kind of getting that you know mo as most entrepreneurs do that feeling like you want to do something else you don't want to have all these bosses you want to get out there and do your own thing um but you know I'd worked pretty hard to get where I was so I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting   myself into um I'd already been working with Real Estate Investors and folks like that as my clients um started talking to them started talking to some of the partners in my in my firm about how they invest what they do um really Lear learned about you know passive investing um and making my way kind of to the equity side and that's really where I my journey began as a passive investor in in syndications so I invested in a number of those um and also invested actively you know I kind of did the the Bigger Pockets uh you   know path where I listened to Bigger Pockets I did a you know house hack I did fix and flips I did buy and hold single families things like that as well as past investing in larger Investments um and at that point I realized hey I've got this network of attorneys and other folks that I can raise capital from so I made my way from passive investor to active investor man so you've done done the the full circle here I love it so started Big Lot and your bio says you Clos billions of dollars in real estate   transactions over the past decade so you've you've seen a lot of deals um I'd be curious because you know a lot of people that maybe newer to real estate investing newer to Alternative investments in general and just the world of private placements they kind naturally think hey the only way I can do it is you know the Bigger Pockets path which is a great path if you want to go and you know do it actively and have a second job so to speak where you go and buy your own real estate and and fix it up or work with contractors to   fix it up but you went straight into syndications which in a lot of ways uh fits better for uh people that are working professionals and you know don't want to necessarily trade time for wealth building already have a great income uh generator through the their job or their business and they want to just redeploy that into syndications so what was kind of the journey for you understanding the world of syndications and really with your background um insecurities law and how did you kind of get comfortable with that and what was   the Journey For You diving head first into syndications early on yeah I mean you really have to have skills uh money or time that those are the three things you can really offer right so it depends on how much of each one of those you have as to what your investment profile should look like and what you should get started in um I was actively wanting to participate in deals from the get-go but I did already have exposure from my real estate uh real estate practice to syndications and and watching other   people raise Capital knowing that those types of Investments are out there so I think I had an advantage there because prior to that I had no idea the only thing I knew was kind of that Bigger Pockets path it's like okay well house hack into a single family or dup or a duplex and then rent the other side out and then Fix and Flip This or wholesale that um I didn't really know about syndications other than through um my my law practice so I think I had that Advantage um get getting that exposure   and being able to transition to that quicker yeah talk a little bit about I mean your podcast is called passive income attorney and your your big goal is passive income and what was really kind of the idea behind that or why was that your primary goal and what does that mean to you yeah I mean the idea behind that was to be passive and I think we kind of as entrepreneurs we go back and forth I think we all want to end up on the completely passive side eventually but sometimes you don't get there as quickly   if you don't go on the active side for a little bit and I think I'm I'm seeing that a lot myself I did that I started investing passively and now I went to the active side as an active syndicator as a fund manager raising capital and participating in deals even on the operational side um because you can accelerate quicker that way if you the more time and effort that you put in the faster you can accelerate now a lot of folks out there especially pive investors listening if their doctors dentist lawyers they don't have time for   that so they need to invest passively that's probably the best use of their time because their highest and best use of their time is in their career being a doctor a dentist a lawyer an engineer where they're making a lot of money in their active income it doesn't really make sense that for them to start a fix flip business or wholesale business or even a syndication business really out of the gate until you figure out what what you want to do it makes more sense to take that active income put it into   passive investment vehicles that don't take any time away from your practice Yeah I love that what' you say there's you you one of three things skills time or money right and so one of those you're going to be trading to generate more passive income or wealth and wherever you're at in the Spectrum and where you're willing to kind of trade for for that invest I love that it's very uh makes a lot of sense so talk a little bit you know I want to get to what you said this in the minute kind of transitioning kind of bluring the line   of going back and forth between passive and active I think this is really interesting I've seen the same Trend but before we get there you know a lot of a lot of our listeners you know that are maybe newer to syndications newer to passive investing they um get a little bit shell shocked when they see a PPM or a set of legal docs to review for a deal and they they don't know what should I be focusing on what should I be looking for what are potential red flags or yellow flags and you know from your perspective and   I'm sure you probably saw a lot of things early on they like okay that's interesting or um you know making that transition you already had a leg up uh given your background but what are some kind of key things that you know maybe even coming into it you already had a leg up but now even 10 years later down the road have learned and things that you said you know hey this is way more important than I thought it was originally from from a pure passive standpoint because I think that's a roadblock for a lot of people yeah yeah   and you know it's intimidating right when you get that first PPM which is going to have exhibits to it and the exhibits are going to be an operating agreement subscription agreement maybe um maybe some marketing materials a business plan things like that you're looking at at least a 100 page document maybe it's 200 pages and if you're not a lawyer and used to looking at 100 page documents that is intimidating you're like what am I supposed to do this is going to take me you know this is like a month's worth reading if I'm actually   going to read this thing and really most past investors don't read it um but you should I mean you should at least start reading them um because it gets it gets easier and easier to read because they're all going to be very similar they're all going to have a similar structure and similar pieces and things to look out for I think one really important thing and you might not be able to do this the first time but you can start um kind of thinking about it but just really matching the PPM to the oper room because the PPM should really   be um kind of a a summary so to speak of the operating agreement because the operating agreement is the meat of what's actually going to be the the terms uh within that LLC within that investment and at the end of the day if something goes wrong or not even goes wrong but if there if there's some sort of um agreement or disagreement that needs to be figured out you're going to look at the operating agreement not necessarily the PPM to figure out uh what the next step is what is the mechanism for fixing this problem so you   know just making sure that the people PM accurately reflects what the operating agreement says is very important and and then taking a step further that the operating agreement and the PPM match what the lead sponsors are telling you let's say in the marketing materials or the webinar like just making sure that there's a clear picture between all the marketing materials the webinar um and the legal documentation is really important and sometimes if it doesn't make sense or there are certain terms   that don't match up you know maybe they're not as meticulous as they should be and you need to look elsewhere that that's a really important thing to look out for um kind of coming back to your question you know when when you're first starting as a passive investor all you're really looking at is the returns right you're comparing kind of your projected returns in this deal to your projected returns in this other deal and you might get a 2% more irr return projected in this one than that one so   you're going to go with this one but at the end of the day those are just projections right those are just projections and those can be manipulated those are based on assumptions from the lead sponsor and those are not the most important things the most important things are the the sponsor and their track record what they've done how they've performed um and you know the market and the deal itself but just those projected returns can be manipulated so that's really you know it's important at the beginning or at   least you think it's important and then later on you become a more um wiy vet in passive investing you'll realize it's not as important as as as some other things like hey are your fees aligned things like that like what are the Voting Rights like how what if something happens and the manager is doing a terrible job how can you possibly get them out like what are those mechanisms um what are the mechanisms for a capital call when things go wrong what what happens those are the those are the more   detailed things and the nuances you need to look at as a past investor rather than just looking at the projected returns that's a lot of lot of good nuggets right there you just listen to that skip back a few minutes and listen to it again because that's really good I think you're so right right if it just it can feel intimidating to look at a 100 page 200 Page document and where do I start but just start at the beginning just start reading it it just got to skim read it skim read it and just the more   you get familiarized with um these different document sets the more they all kind of seem similar over time and you can kind of notice the the things that are common among different deals and then you also kind of notice the things that pop up as oh that's kind of unique or that that's kind of different than what I've seen in other deals and that's maybe outside of the norm um and just kind of getting familiarized with it you're going to pick up a lot on it but I think you hit a few of the sections that I think are really   important that a lot of people kind of glaze over because if you're getting just looking at the here's the irr projection here's where turns are going to be like you said there's uh a lot of assumptions that go into what those numbers are derived from and you know I always come back to my banking background you know risk adjusted returns right because every element of uh every deal you know whatever return you're projecting there's different levels of risk and if you're you know taking a lot more risk in a particular   deal or strategy or structure the same level of return it's it's not Apples to Apples right and so understanding what that is from a deal standpoint but there's also risks uh some of the points you made within the legal structure and so he's saying go straight to the operating agreement as a starting point because that's ultim timately what's going to govern the the deal and the mechanisms for potentially firing the sponsor as a manager or like you said the capital call and the waterfall section understanding how does do   profits flow through the entity and what are the splits between them what are some things that maybe 10 years down the road now invested I don't know how many deals you've invested in passively but you look back you're like oh man you know what I I read that section and you know I kind of knew that maybe was a little outside the norm but I was so excited about the deal didn't really wasn't too concerned about it now looking back like oh man now that was that was a good learning experience because now you know maybe I can't vote   out the manager or you know different things that you would say looking back are more important that maybe you put weight on in the front end and maybe some examples of um you know especially right now I think a lot of a lot of deals that people invested over the past few years you know unfortunately are requiring Capital calls or are kind of headed in a direction that may not be good and um you know maybe it's the fault of the operator maybe it's not but if it is a fault of the operator What mechanisms do you have and what voting   rights do you have as a passive investor and talk a little bit about that because I think that's going to be very relevant especially over the next few years is sure certain older deals are kind of not hitting the projections they thought originally yeah I mean I think I already touched on most of them from a high level but like for instance um voting out the manager like if the manager is doing something um fraudulent or misrepresented what they were doing or you know really just doing a terrible   job is probably not a reason enough to get them out but it could be um if it gets to a certain certain point um but that's really one thing to to look for to see like what the mechanism is like does it take a unanimous Vote or does it take a majority vote or does it take a majority or super majority of each share class each membership class within the LLC so it it and typically they're set up so it's really difficult to get the manager out right because the lead sponsor is going to be the manager and   they're the ones that are going to be making all the decisions and they don't want to lose control so they wanted to make it as hard as possible um and still make it legal um to stay in that seat and not get voted out so you know you will see some pretty onerous um Provisions within the operating agreement to be able to get them out but there should be a reasonable way to do it whether that's a super majority vote perhaps that's that's reasonable so super majority vote um in the event of a misrepresentation fraud you know any   sort of like bad boy act by the the manager or if their bad performance reaches the level of you know negligence or something like that there just needs to be a mechanism to get them out that's that's just one example when you had mentioned Capital calls as well so Capital calls it's like what is the mechanism when the LLC or or the syndication needs additional operating expenses to survive what what is the mechanism to do that like can is the first step to actually do a capital call and is that Capital Call Mandatory   meaning that the investors have to participate um on a proat a basis or that's not typical so if you that's one thing to look out for if it is mandatory that you do and and if you don't then you're basically out or you lose uh you know an unreasonable amount of your Equity if you don't participate then perhaps that's a red flag right like if you don't participate um well I should say the capital call should be optional and if you don't participate that's okay um but you will most likely be watered   down your Equity will get watered down on a prata basis rather than something above a pro basis right so that's an example you're saying of if it's required which is uncommon right that that's that's a red flag potentially um or if you get diluted a higher than the proat mount is another another negative and you're exactly right I mean I think you know part of this is when you're when you're investing passively you're you're giving up control of of operating the deal to the sponsor right is so that that's kind of   the the trade-off is you're hiring experts you're investing with experts that hopefully know what they're doing so that you don't have to be doing the day-to-day stuff and so it can be difficult to replace managers and and uh you know have uh impactful voting rights uh that can change the outcome unless there's fraudulence or negligence but I think it kind of goes to the point too of understanding what these kind of parameters are and what's normal and then also like I think you can pick up a lot of what you're saying and just the   congruence between PPM the operating agreement the the offering memorandum the webinars and um and then really the alignment of Interest right because if ultimately if the sponsor stands to lose alongside the investors if they're not just getting rich just off of fees and you know does they don't have a whole lot of skin in the game then ultimately it might not be you know a great deal but if they have a lot of lot skin in the game and even if it's written in these certain ways it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad a bad   investment so okay love it get a little bit in the weeds there for for some people and if this is you know um newer to you I I definitely encourage you um to just start this you know opening up the bpms or reading them and you're going to pick up a lot by doing that and then just ask questions right and I think it's a great thing too that if you're reading the PBM and reading operating agreement to ask questions of the sponsor and that's usually pretty indicative of one how well do they know their own documents and to how willing   are they uh to address certain questions that maybe maybe concerns to you right and I think you can actually get a really good sense of um how they and how they respond of of what that interaction is going to be so love that thanks for some of that Insight Seth I'd love to shift a little bit uh you mentioned something earlier I I wanted to come back to is you you kind of you have said before you the future of capital raising is kind of Shifting and evolving and I think a lot of people are realizing and   I've seeing the same thing too right I'm a a coach and you know masterminds for Capital risers and this fun to fund model is becoming very popularized and people that maybe think oh I'm not really a capital Riser or you know that's that's not my you know what I've learned to do went to school to do or whatever or realizing hey actually I've been investing passively for a while I have a pretty great Network because I'm around a lot of accredited investors I've done enough to kind of know a good amount and   I can actually turn this into a business right and so talk a little bit about what the fun to fund model means and maybe someone that's in that boat where what you said is I think I'm gonna go 100% passive but then you know you're also learning a lot along the way and you have a a network that maybe you can activate and also raise capital and get get paid to do it compliantly that's right and and you said it and I'm seeing it time after time where past investors they invest in a number of deals and and   you know folks that are investing in these deals typically have a little bit of money and they probably have friends that have money as well and their their friends start asking them about the deals that they're investing in um and they start thinking hey you know what what can I can I get paid can I have a is there a business here that I can develop that I can build um by bringing in all my friends and family that might also be wealthy might be able to put these These funds together um and invest   in the deal together um you can certainly do that but you start to run into lots of Securities lots of rules and regulations that some people know about and some people don't you'd be surprised uh um that you know you see people out there raising capital in ways that they shouldn't do it um but what's great about the fund of funds model is that you know you're not a what's called a CP so you're not an active partner with the lead sponsor that's kind of the I'll call it the old way and I you know   I've been saying that the CP model is dead just to kind of put it out there that um you know we shouldn't be raising Capital with lead sponsors and then not doing anything else not participating in deal and and having an active role if you're a true cgp you need to have an active role in in the deal and that's kind of what deters um passive investors and doctors and dentists and lawyers and people like that that already have a career they don't want to take an active role right like they don't want to do   the asset management or manage the property manager or talk to tenants or anything like that and that's where the fund of fund solution comes in the fund of fund solution is really creating another syndication or another fund um that invests into the lead sponsor syndication or fund and that's where the name fund of fund comes from now traditionally the issue with that is well it does come with responsibilities for the fund manager they they have to put the deal they have to put their own fund together they have to put their cap   table together open a business banking account form an LLC get a Securities attorney um you know manage their investors manage their distributions do taxes all those sorts of things and so it turns into an active business and on top of that it's expensive because we are creating a second syndication a second fund to invest in that uh lead sponsor Target Fund um so that's the the problem that's always been the solution the fund of fund has always been the right solution but those problems that I   just mentioned are why it hasn't been widely adopted but you're seeing a big shift in the market as we're able to provide a more affordable option and a and a solution to bringing all those different services that a fund manager would normally have to go out and get themselves and putting it into a package yeah that makes a lot of sense and so like we said we're seeing the same thing where people are um they've been investing they they like what they're doing they have their friends and their family asking about the different deals   they're doing and then they have thought well hey I mean that's I can make money doing this and what most people have done historically is cgp model and for those that are unfamiliar with that is basically you raise money directly into the lead sponsor syndication or entity and then you get uh granted certain General partner shares for doing that but and you're the you're the attorney so I'm I'm gonna say at a very high level as I understand it by by doing that you are um uh well you can't raise   money and get paid for it unless you're a registered broker dealer unless you're General partner and uh are continuing to operate the uh the deal the business and have an active role in it but most people that are just raising capital or just want to raise Capital as um you know on the side of what else they're doing that's not a realistic expectation so what what we've seen I'm sure you probably see a lot more than me is these different uh uh folks that are raising capitalist cgps and then you know this   this new SP has about 10 different CPS on the list on the roster here and it's pretty hard to make an argument that they're all actively participated in managing the deal because you just don't need that many people right if it's the same deal and so then you kind of run into compliance risk and you just you don't want to mess with that I mean that's that's just let's leave it there and so the fun of fund model has always been around it's basically you create your own fund and as your own fund manager you're exempt from um uh some of   these uh securities issues to basically raise capital from your investors into your fund then that fund invests into the uh kind of the mothership fund or the the lead sponsors fund and by doing that you um you know it's you're in the in the you're not in the gray area anymore where it can kind of be um maybe not great from a compliance standpoint and the challenge as you mentioned though is it can be expensive maybe it's a little complicated to know how toell up and I'm not really a professional fund manager   how what do I know um but that's that's what you're doing now at triest and we've had Travis Smith on the podcast before so if you haven't listened to that episode um it's probably a year or so ago we'll put the put the link in the show notes because it's a um a great episode talking about tribe vest and what what you guys are doing really trying to from my perspective simplify the access and the kind of backend back office functions of um both for Passive investors and for fund managers to continue to increase   access to more to more deals so talk a little bit about kind of what you guys do at at tribe vest and to kind of help people um you know both from a passive standpoint that's want to direct the investors past investors that don't really want to do it as a business but then also kind of the new fund manager programs that you guys are putting together to help people that want to kind of activate their Network want to you know use this as a way to make money and um do it without having to be an expert in all the the backend side of   things absolutely at at Trio I'm the chief legal officer for tri best I help create the fun to fun product that we have out there right now it makes it simple TurnKey and affordable for anyone to really start a capital raising business um all those things that I mentioned before opening your business bank account um starting your LLC drafting your offering documents um getting your EIN onboarding your investors creating your cap table doing your distributions doing your taxes all those things you normally have to put   together and find different uh platforms and different people like attorneys and CPAs to help you out and put those put the the fund of fund together we do that we put it in a fund of fund we call it a fund of Fund in a box it's really a Lego block that you can use and invest in a deal like with Aspen if Aspen has a fund you can create your own fund you try best bring in your five or 10 uh best friends that want to put in some money you can carve out a piece for yourself so you actually get paid a fee a front   maybe you get paid a fee um during the uh hold period and then perhaps you get a percentage of the equity on the back end so it can be a very lucrative business for someone to get started and because triest makes it so easy to do it meaning put all these different services and things together for you it it really anyone can do it yeah that's so cool and we we've worked with you guys and have seen it in action and you know to say f Fund in a box sounds almost uh trite because it sounds like can you really do   that but it's it's cool because you guys have have solved it and and not only have you solved it but it's also pretty cost- effective right I think one of the big challenges with the fun of fund is generally you can invest if you kind of pull Capital together in a fund you can invest at better terms with a sponsor so you can have a little more margin that you can kind of get paid from and your investors still make the same returns um but if you have a lot of legal costs a lot of ongoing um kind of portal and   back office expenses and tax returns everything else then it gets kind of expensive and eats away at the margins that you know you're hoping to to use to pay yourself so you guys have kind of Crea a really streamlined um kind of off-the-shelf product that can fit majority of of offerings and make it pretty easy right that's right it gets really difficult to make it work that's again the fund of fund like we've talked about it's always been a solution it's just really expensive and really hard to put   it together um especially for someone that that isn't a professional Capital Riser um that just wants to put together $500,000 a million a million5 something like that it it it doesn't even make sense cost wise in the old way of doing it you're going to pay a Securities attorney minimum of like let's say 15,000 maybe 20 maybe $25,000 to put one of these together maybe even more I used to work at a big Law Firm where it cost $75,000 it's crazy the expenses that add up and that's just the legal piece that   doesn't include all the back office administration things that we talked about doesn't include um engaging with a CPA to do your taxes it doesn't include all those things that's just the legal cost by itself and tribe best has made it super inexpensive to be able to do this and to be able to do it time and time again so it works with a $500,000 raise it works with a million dollar raise you don't have to raise $20 million to make it work from an affordability standpoint yeah that makes sense so do   you guys also have like any kind of education or different coursework to help people that are you may want to make the transition of like yeah I think that that sounds like something I could do I my friends are always asking me what what I'm investing in and it wouldn't be that hard to go get five 10 friends to go and invest and create a fund and you know but they just don't they've never done it before they never thought about it till just now so right you guys have I know you're really more given the solution but do you also have   like any kind of education or do you have resources you guys can point people to to learn more about what does it look like to you know what what's what's the process you have to go through to um kind of go from idea to actual uh you know making a fund yeah yeah I'll tell you we don't have any formal legal or sorry formal educational things out there at the moment but we are working on that um but we have made it so simple that we can jump on a zoom call with anyone that that's in is potentially   interested in being a capital raiser and putting together a fund of fun and walk you through a pitch deck and it should be pretty clear what you need to do because we handle basically everything you you put together your investors you put together your terms and how you're going to get paid and then we'll be able to do kind of all that back office all that legal all those things that you don't want to know or don't want to do we handle all it yeah makes sense awesome well kind last question I just   love to get your insights on just the market in general for Alternatives and and private placements and you've obvious been in this space for over a decade and we've been in the space for about 11 years now as as an operator and it just feels I mean it's it's already been the amount of capital that's kind of come into kind of private Equity into real estate into private placements in eneral it's totally shifted the game but it also feels like we're still kind of early Innings right it still feels like   people are just discovering this for the first time and and even the conversation we're having of you know um activating people to raise Capital right in a compliant way that's just an easy way because you guys are creating a system that just reduces friction to continue to increase more Capital to come into the space like do you feel the same thing are you seen I know there's kind of some potential proposed regulation to you know increase the requirements for accreditation and you know there's   always a battle going back and forth on on that but what's kind of your sentiment just at a broader level of just the alternative kind of private placement space in over the next 10 years yeah I mean I'm I'm bullish right like we're we're kind of in a little bit of a lull right now um you'll hear that capital's a little bit harder to come by investors are holding on a little bit tighter um but that's because there's actually deals out there right now I mean said right now is actually a great time to invest right now is a great time   to invest because prices are are depressed a little bit um investors are a little bit reluctant to invest um there are less buyers in the market because a lot of them are getting kind of washed out um but there are some properties coming online through foreclosures through things like that this is where you know when you talk about during good times you're like oh man I cannot wait until there's blood in the streets and I'm going to pounce on it I'm want to pounce on those opportunities that time is right now it   it's not it's not you're you can be waiting on the sideline for years and you're gonna you're gonna miss it it's right now right now is the time to to figure out how to invest how to raise Capital how to do deals how to make them work because right now it's difficult to make them work that's that's the truth of it right now is the time to act and you're going in five years from now for instance you're going to look back to this time and say man I wish I would have got started because we're we're   we're going to be in the upswing again very soon totally no I was just uh I was a one of the guys I follow who's been in real estate for a long time he was talking and reminiscing about he bought uh I think he said three dozen single family homes between uh 2009 and 2011 right and he's held on to them since then and you know looking back he's like the only thing he wishes he did was buy more right because it's but at that point it was you know everything was on sale everyone was like real estate's over and it's it's so hard to   be contrarian I think it's Warren Buffet this said be uh you know fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful right it it's it's a simple idiom that makes sense but it's really hard to do and right now we're kind of in that that time where investors are reticent there's a lot of pressure on deals right now that's kind of creating a great buy opportunity you know we're seeing I know you're seeing it and uh you know I think I agree with you I think it's a great time to be to   be jumping in right now and uh Seth thanks so much for coming on man what's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you and learn more about uh your law firm uh raise law and try vest if they want to learn more about what that looks like for sure uh the best place where I keep all my links is Seth Paul bradley.com um you'll have links to try best there links from my uh law firm and social media it's all posted on there okay we'll put that in the show notes and definitely appreciate you coming on   today set it awesome all right Ben appreciate it [Music] [Applause] [Music] man Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s https://www.instagram.com/p/C5mNnwsv2fs/  https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit- https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/   Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Title: What They Don't Tell You About Raising Capital (Until It's Too Late) with Ben Fraser Summary: In this episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, host Ben Frasier interviews Seth Bradley, the Chief Legal Officer at TribeVest and an experienced securities attorney. They discuss Seth's transition from a big law background to becoming a passive investor and then an active capital raiser, detailing the steps involved in his journey. Seth shares insights on private placements and syndications, emphasizing the importance of understanding legal documents such as Private Placement Memorandums (PPMs) and operating agreements. The conversation also highlights key trends and shifts in capital raising, particularly the emergence of the fund-to-fund model, which allows passive investors to leverage their networks without taking an active role in deal management. Furthermore, Seth talks about the services provided by TribeVest to simplify the investment process for both passive investors and new fund managers. They touch upon the current state of the alternative investment market, discussing the advantages and opportunities available amid economic challenges. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/155-moving-from-passive-to-active-investor-feat-seth/id1587171662?i=1000652125962 Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s Bullet Point Highlights: Seth Bradley's Journey: Transitioned from big law to passive investing, and now to active capital raising. Understanding Legal Documents: Importance of critically reviewing PPMs and operating agreements as an investor. Red Flags in Investments: Identifying key terms and clauses in legal documents that can affect investor rights and returns. Fund-to-Fund Model: Insights into how new capital raisers can operate without needing to be actively involved in deals. TribeVest Services: Overview of how TribeVest supports fund managers with a streamlined legal and operational framework. Market Trends: Discussion on the evolution and current opportunities within the alternative investment space. Advice for Investors: Encouragement to dive into the market now to capitalize on upcoming opportunities as conditions stabilize. Transcript: hello future billionaires welcome back to another episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast today's guest is Seth Bradley very fun to talk with him he's friend of mine for several years and he's the chief legal officer at tribe vest which is a really cool company if you haven't heard of them we actually had their CEO and founder on about a year ago but they're kind of doing a really new cool push that I'm going to talk about in a sec but his background he's a big law Securities attorney spent a lot of time in kind of   corporate world transition really to kind of becoming a passive investor invest a lot of syndications so he talks a lot about his journey making that transition kind of going to generate passive income Financial Independence but then he's actually shifted back to becoming an active Capital Riser and he's seen a lot of people make this transition that been investing for a little bit and now want to kind of activate their Network and some of the stuff they're doing at Tri bestest is making this really really easy for   people so it's a really cool interview we kind of hit a lot of his journey from his perspective as a Securities attorney what are some of the big things you got to focus on when you're reviewing legal documents what are the red flags yellow flags Etc and then he kind of shares a little bit about some of the things and the trends going on in the kind of private placement syndication and capital raising worlds that if you haven't heard about some of these ideas you definitely want to tune in and listen because it's pretty cool I'm   seeing the same thing on my side of things so you're going to enjoy this episode he's a very very sharp guy and a lot of great insights that he shared I think you're going to love this episode please enjoy this is the invest like a billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investment and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth the tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build Legacy wealth join us as we dive into the world   of alternative Investments uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy discuss economics and interview successful investors looking for Passive Investments done for you with and funds we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market as a passive investor we do all the work for you making sure your money is working hard for you in alternative investments in fact our team invests alongside you in every deal so our interests are aligned we focus on macr   driven alternative Investments so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment get started and download your free economic report today welcome back to another episode episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast I am your host Ben Frasier and joined by a very exciting guest Seth Bradley I've know Seth for several years he is the managing partner at Ray's law and the chief legal officer at tribe vest and uh Seth and I have done some business over the years and different things he's an   attorney and uh a very experienced Securities attorney and even has his own podcast called the passive income attorney podcast and so he comes with a really unique perspective both being an entrepreneur investor as well as an attorney gives him some really unique insights in this space of kind of private placements alternative Investments and super excited to have on the show so Seth thanks for coming on man Ben appreciate it man we finally got around to to recording this really really appreciate it man yeah it was   kind of fun because we reached out a couple years ago and uh we're we're gonna do something that never worked out and then all of a sudden you're ready to do the podcast tour and Pops back up three years later so hey let's do good I'm I'm gay man so looking forward to doing this now so give a little bit of uh context for your background uh for those who maybe aren't familiar with you and just kind of what you do in kind of the areas of expertise that you focus on as an attorney sure man so I worked in   big law for about seven years um most recently at a top three globally ranked Law Firm um as a real estate started out as a real estate attorney made my way over to Securities um at that point um I started kind of getting that you know mo as most entrepreneurs do that feeling like you want to do something else you don't want to have all these bosses you want to get out there and do your own thing um but you know I'd worked pretty hard to get where I was so I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting   myself into um I'd already been working with Real Estate Investors and folks like that as my clients um started talking to them started talking to some of the partners in my in my firm about how they invest what they do um really Lear learned about you know passive investing um and making my way kind of to the equity side and that's really where I my journey began as a passive investor in in syndications so I invested in a number of those um and also invested actively you know I kind of did the the Bigger Pockets uh you   know path where I listened to Bigger Pockets I did a you know house hack I did fix and flips I did buy and hold single families things like that as well as past investing in larger Investments um and at that point I realized hey I've got this network of attorneys and other folks that I can raise capital from so I made my way from passive investor to active investor man so you've done done the the full circle here I love it so started Big Lot and your bio says you Clos billions of dollars in real estate   transactions over the past decade so you've you've seen a lot of deals um I'd be curious because you know a lot of people that maybe newer to real estate investing newer to Alternative investments in general and just the world of private placements they kind naturally think hey the only way I can do it is you know the Bigger Pockets path which is a great path if you want to go and you know do it actively and have a second job so to speak where you go and buy your own real estate and and fix it up or work with contractors to   fix it up but you went straight into syndications which in a lot of ways uh fits better for uh people that are working professionals and you know don't want to necessarily trade time for wealth building already have a great income uh generator through the their job or their business and they want to just redeploy that into syndications so what was kind of the journey for you understanding the world of syndications and really with your background um insecurities law and how did you kind of get comfortable with that and what was   the Journey For You diving head first into syndications early on yeah I mean you really have to have skills uh money or time that those are the three things you can really offer right so it depends on how much of each one of those you have as to what your investment profile should look like and what you should get started in um I was actively wanting to participate in deals from the get-go but I did already have exposure from my real estate uh real estate practice to syndications and and watching other   people raise Capital knowing that those types of Investments are out there so I think I had an advantage there because prior to that I had no idea the only thing I knew was kind of that Bigger Pockets path it's like okay well house hack into a single family or dup or a duplex and then rent the other side out and then Fix and Flip This or wholesale that um I didn't really know about syndications other than through um my my law practice so I think I had that Advantage um get getting that exposure   and being able to transition to that quicker yeah talk a little bit about I mean your podcast is called passive income attorney and your your big goal is passive income and what was really kind of the idea behind that or why was that your primary goal and what does that mean to you yeah I mean the idea behind that was to be passive and I think we kind of as entrepreneurs we go back and forth I think we all want to end up on the completely passive side eventually but sometimes you don't get there as quickly   if you don't go on the active side for a little bit and I think I'm I'm seeing that a lot myself I did that I started investing passively and now I went to the active side as an active syndicator as a fund manager raising capital and participating in deals even on the operational side um because you can accelerate quicker that way if you the more time and effort that you put in the faster you can accelerate now a lot of folks out there especially pive investors listening if their doctors dentist lawyers they don't have time for   that so they need to invest passively that's probably the best use of their time because their highest and best use of their time is in their career being a doctor a dentist a lawyer an engineer where they're making a lot of money in their active income it doesn't really make sense that for them to start a fix flip business or wholesale business or even a syndication business really out of the gate until you figure out what what you want to do it makes more sense to take that active income put it into   passive investment vehicles that don't take any time away from your practice Yeah I love that what' you say there's you you one of three things skills time or money right and so one of those you're going to be trading to generate more passive income or wealth and wherever you're at in the Spectrum and where you're willing to kind of trade for for that invest I love that it's very uh makes a lot of sense so talk a little bit you know I want to get to what you said this in the minute kind of transitioning kind of bluring the line   of going back and forth between passive and active I think this is really interesting I've seen the same Trend but before we get there you know a lot of a lot of our listeners you know that are maybe newer to syndications newer to passive investing they um get a little bit shell shocked when they see a PPM or a set of legal docs to review for a deal and they they don't know what should I be focusing on what should I be looking for what are potential red flags or yellow flags and you know from your perspective and   I'm sure you probably saw a lot of things early on they like okay that's interesting or um you know making that transition you already had a leg up uh given your background but what are some kind of key things that you know maybe even coming into it you already had a leg up but now even 10 years later down the road have learned and things that you said you know hey this is way more important than I thought it was originally from from a pure passive standpoint because I think that's a roadblock for a lot of people yeah yeah   and you know it's intimidating right when you get that first PPM which is going to have exhibits to it and the exhibits are going to be an operating agreement subscription agreement maybe um maybe some marketing materials a business plan things like that you're looking at at least a 100 page document maybe it's 200 pages and if you're not a lawyer and used to looking at 100 page documents that is intimidating you're like what am I supposed to do this is going to take me you know this is like a month's worth reading if I'm actually   going to read this thing and really most past investors don't read it um but you should I mean you should at least start reading them um because it gets it gets easier and easier to read because they're all going to be very similar they're all going to have a similar structure and similar pieces and things to look out for I think one really important thing and you might not be able to do this the first time but you can start um kind of thinking about it but just really matching the PPM to the oper room because the PPM should really   be um kind of a a summary so to speak of the operating agreement because the operating agreement is the meat of what's actually going to be the the terms uh within that LLC within that investment and at the end of the day if something goes wrong or not even goes wrong but if there if there's some sort of um agreement or disagreement that needs to be figured out you're going to look at the operating agreement not necessarily the PPM to figure out uh what the next step is what is the mechanism for fixing this problem so you   know just making sure that the people PM accurately reflects what the operating agreement says is very important and and then taking a step further that the operating agreement and the PPM match what the lead sponsors are telling you let's say in the marketing materials or the webinar like just making sure that there's a clear picture between all the marketing materials the webinar um and the legal documentation is really important and sometimes if it doesn't make sense or there are certain terms   that don't match up you know maybe they're not as meticulous as they should be and you need to look elsewhere that that's a really important thing to look out for um kind of coming back to your question you know when when you're first starting as a passive investor all you're really looking at is the returns right you're comparing kind of your projected returns in this deal to your projected returns in this other deal and you might get a 2% more irr return projected in this one than that one so   you're going to go with this one but at the end of the day those are just projections right those are just projections and those can be manipulated those are based on assumptions from the lead sponsor and those are not the most important things the most important things are the the sponsor and their track record what they've done how they've performed um and you know the market and the deal itself but just those projected returns can be manipulated so that's really you know it's important at the beginning or at   least you think it's important and then later on you become a more um wiy vet in passive investing you'll realize it's not as important as as as some other things like hey are your fees aligned things like that like what are the Voting Rights like how what if something happens and the manager is doing a terrible job how can you possibly get them out like what are those mechanisms um what are the mechanisms for a capital call when things go wrong what what happens those are the those are the more   detailed things and the nuances you need to look at as a past investor rather than just looking at the projected returns that's a lot of lot of good nuggets right there you just listen to that skip back a few minutes and listen to it again because that's really good I think you're so right right if it just it can feel intimidating to look at a 100 page 200 Page document and where do I start but just start at the beginning just start reading it it just got to skim read it skim read it and just the more   you get familiarized with um these different document sets the more they all kind of seem similar over time and you can kind of notice the the things that are common among different deals and then you also kind of notice the things that pop up as oh that's kind of unique or that that's kind of different than what I've seen in other deals and that's maybe outside of the norm um and just kind of getting familiarized with it you're going to pick up a lot on it but I think you hit a few of the sections that I think are really   important that a lot of people kind of glaze over because if you're getting just looking at the here's the irr projection here's where turns are going to be like you said there's uh a lot of assumptions that go into what those numbers are derived from and you know I always come back to my banking background you know risk adjusted returns right because every element of uh every deal you know whatever return you're projecting there's different levels of risk and if you're you know taking a lot more risk in a particular   deal or strategy or structure the same level of return it's it's not Apples to Apples right and so understanding what that is from a deal standpoint but there's also risks uh some of the points you made within the legal structure and so he's saying go straight to the operating agreement as a starting point because that's ultim timately what's going to govern the the deal and the mechanisms for potentially firing the sponsor as a manager or like you said the capital call and the waterfall section understanding how does do   profits flow through the entity and what are the splits between them what are some things that maybe 10 years down the road now invested I don't know how many deals you've invested in passively but you look back you're like oh man you know what I I read that section and you know I kind of knew that maybe was a little outside the norm but I was so excited about the deal didn't really wasn't too concerned about it now looking back like oh man now that was that was a good learning experience because now you know maybe I can't vote   out the manager or you know different things that you would say looking back are more important that maybe you put weight on in the front end and maybe some examples of um you know especially right now I think a lot of a lot of deals that people invested over the past few years you know unfortunately are requiring Capital calls or are kind of headed in a direction that may not be good and um you know maybe it's the fault of the operator maybe it's not but if it is a fault of the operator What mechanisms do you have and what voting   rights do you have as a passive investor and talk a little bit about that because I think that's going to be very relevant especially over the next few years is sure certain older deals are kind of not hitting the projections they thought originally yeah I mean I think I already touched on most of them from a high level but like for instance um voting out the manager like if the manager is doing something um fraudulent or misrepresented what they were doing or you know really just doing a terrible   job is probably not a reason enough to get them out but it could be um if it gets to a certain certain point um but that's really one thing to to look for to see like what the mechanism is like does it take a unanimous Vote or does it take a majority vote or does it take a majority or super majority of each share class each membership class within the LLC so it it and typically they're set up so it's really difficult to get the manager out right because the lead sponsor is going to be the manager and   they're the ones that are going to be making all the decisions and they don't want to lose control so they wanted to make it as hard as possible um and still make it legal um to stay in that seat and not get voted out so you know you will see some pretty onerous um Provisions within the operating agreement to be able to get them out but there should be a reasonable way to do it whether that's a super majority vote perhaps that's that's reasonable so super majority vote um in the event of a misrepresentation fraud you know any   sort of like bad boy act by the the manager or if their bad performance reaches the level of you know negligence or something like that there just needs to be a mechanism to get them out that's that's just one example when you had mentioned Capital calls as well so Capital calls it's like what is the mechanism when the LLC or or the syndication needs additional operating expenses to survive what what is the mechanism to do that like can is the first step to actually do a capital call and is that Capital Call Mandatory   meaning that the investors have to participate um on a proat a basis or that's not typical so if you that's one thing to look out for if it is mandatory that you do and and if you don't then you're basically out or you lose uh you know an unreasonable amount of your Equity if you don't participate then perhaps that's a red flag right like if you don't participate um well I should say the capital call should be optional and if you don't participate that's okay um but you will most likely be watered   down your Equity will get watered down on a prata basis rather than something above a pro basis right so that's an example you're saying of if it's required which is uncommon right that that's that's a red flag potentially um or if you get diluted a higher than the proat mount is another another negative and you're exactly right I mean I think you know part of this is when you're when you're investing passively you're you're giving up control of of operating the deal to the sponsor right is so that that's kind of   the the trade-off is you're hiring experts you're investing with experts that hopefully know what they're doing so that you don't have to be doing the day-to-day stuff and so it can be difficult to replace managers and and uh you know have uh impactful voting rights uh that can change the outcome unless there's fraudulence or negligence but I think it kind of goes to the point too of understanding what these kind of parameters are and what's normal and then also like I think you can pick up a lot of what you're saying and just the   congruence between PPM the operating agreement the the offering memorandum the webinars and um and then really the alignment of Interest right because if ultimately if the sponsor stands to lose alongside the investors if they're not just getting rich just off of fees and you know does they don't have a whole lot of skin in the game then ultimately it might not be you know a great deal but if they have a lot of lot skin in the game and even if it's written in these certain ways it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad a bad   investment so okay love it get a little bit in the weeds there for for some people and if this is you know um newer to you I I definitely encourage you um to just start this you know opening up the bpms or reading them and you're going to pick up a lot by doing that and then just ask questions right and I think it's a great thing too that if you're reading the PBM and reading operating agreement to ask questions of the sponsor and that's usually pretty indicative of one how well do they know their own documents and to how willing   are they uh to address certain questions that maybe maybe concerns to you right and I think you can actually get a really good sense of um how they and how they respond of of what that interaction is going to be so love that thanks for some of that Insight Seth I'd love to shift a little bit uh you mentioned something earlier I I wanted to come back to is you you kind of you have said before you the future of capital raising is kind of Shifting and evolving and I think a lot of people are realizing and   I've seeing the same thing too right I'm a a coach and you know masterminds for Capital risers and this fun to fund model is becoming very popularized and people that maybe think oh I'm not really a capital Riser or you know that's that's not my you know what I've learned to do went to school to do or whatever or realizing hey actually I've been investing passively for a while I have a pretty great Network because I'm around a lot of accredited investors I've done enough to kind of know a good amount and   I can actually turn this into a business right and so talk a little bit about what the fun to fund model means and maybe someone that's in that boat where what you said is I think I'm gonna go 100% passive but then you know you're also learning a lot along the way and you have a a network that maybe you can activate and also raise capital and get get paid to do it compliantly that's right and and you said it and I'm seeing it time after time where past investors they invest in a number of deals and and   you know folks that are investing in these deals typically have a little bit of money and they probably have friends that have money as well and their their friends start asking them about the deals that they're investing in um and they start thinking hey you know what what can I can I get paid can I have a is there a business here that I can develop that I can build um by bringing in all my friends and family that might also be wealthy might be able to put these These funds together um and invest   in the deal together um you can certainly do that but you start to run into lots of Securities lots of rules and regulations that some people know about and some people don't you'd be surprised uh um that you know you see people out there raising capital in ways that they shouldn't do it um but what's great about the fund of funds model is that you know you're not a what's called a CP so you're not an active partner with the lead sponsor that's kind of the I'll call it the old way and I you know   I've been saying that the CP model is dead just to kind of put it out there that um you know we shouldn't be raising Capital with lead sponsors and then not doing anything else not participating in deal and and having an active role if you're a true cgp you need to have an active role in in the deal and that's kind of what deters um passive investors and doctors and dentists and lawyers and people like that that already have a career they don't want to take an active role right like they don't want to do   the asset management or manage the property manager or talk to tenants or anything like that and that's where the fund of fund solution comes in the fund of fund solution is really creating another syndication or another fund um that invests into the lead sponsor syndication or fund and that's where the name fund of fund comes from now traditionally the issue with that is well it does come with responsibilities for the fund manager they they have to put the deal they have to put their own fund together they have to put their cap   table together open a business banking account form an LLC get a Securities attorney um you know manage their investors manage their distributions do taxes all those sorts of things and so it turns into an active business and on top of that it's expensive because we are creating a second syndication a second fund to invest in that uh lead sponsor Target Fund um so that's the the problem that's always been the solution the fund of fund has always been the right solution but those problems that I   just mentioned are why it hasn't been widely adopted but you're seeing a big shift in the market as we're able to provide a more affordable option and a and a solution to bringing all those different services that a fund manager would normally have to go out and get themselves and putting it into a package yeah that makes a lot of sense and so like we said we're seeing the same thing where people are um they've been investing they they like what they're doing they have their friends and their family asking about the different deals   they're doing and then they have thought well hey I mean that's I can make money doing this and what most people have done historically is cgp model and for those that are unfamiliar with that is basically you raise money directly into the lead sponsor syndication or entity and then you get uh granted certain General partner shares for doing that but and you're the you're the attorney so I'm I'm gonna say at a very high level as I understand it by by doing that you are um uh well you can't raise   money and get paid for it unless you're a registered broker dealer unless you're General partner and uh are continuing to operate the uh the deal the business and have an active role in it but most people that are just raising capital or just want to raise Capital as um you know on the side of what else they're doing that's not a realistic expectation so what what we've seen I'm sure you probably see a lot more than me is these different uh uh folks that are raising capitalist cgps and then you know this   this new SP has about 10 different CPS on the list on the roster here and it's pretty hard to make an argument that they're all actively participated in managing the deal because you just don't need that many people right if it's the same deal and so then you kind of run into compliance risk and you just you don't want to mess with that I mean that's that's just let's leave it there and so the fun of fund model has always been around it's basically you create your own fund and as your own fund manager you're exempt from um uh some of   these uh securities issues to basically raise capital from your investors into your fund then that fund invests into the uh kind of the mothership fund or the the lead sponsors fund and by doing that you um you know it's you're in the in the you're not in the gray area anymore where it can kind of be um maybe not great from a compliance standpoint and the challenge as you mentioned though is it can be expensive maybe it's a little complicated to know how toell up and I'm not really a professional fund manager   how what do I know um but that's that's what you're doing now at triest and we've had Travis Smith on the podcast before so if you haven't listened to that episode um it's probably a year or so ago we'll put the put the link in the show notes because it's a um a great episode talking about tribe vest and what what you guys are doing really trying to from my perspective simplify the access and the kind of backend back office functions of um both for Passive investors and for fund managers to continue to increase   access to more to more deals so talk a little bit about kind of what you guys do at at tribe vest and to kind of help people um you know both from a passive standpoint that's want to direct the investors past investors that don't really want to do it as a business but then also kind of the new fund manager programs that you guys are putting together to help people that want to kind of activate their Network want to you know use this as a way to make money and um do it without having to be an expert in all the the backend side of   things absolutely at at Trio I'm the chief legal officer for tri best I help create the fun to fun product that we have out there right now it makes it simple TurnKey and affordable for anyone to really start a capital raising business um all those things that I mentioned before opening your business bank account um starting your LLC drafting your offering documents um getting your EIN onboarding your investors creating your cap table doing your distributions doing your taxes all those things you normally have to put   together and find different uh platforms and different people like attorneys and CPAs to help you out and put those put the the fund of fund together we do that we put it in a fund of fund we call it a fund of Fund in a box it's really a Lego block that you can use and invest in a deal like with Aspen if Aspen has a fund you can create your own fund you try best bring in your five or 10 uh best friends that want to put in some money you can carve out a piece for yourself so you actually get paid a fee a front   maybe you get paid a fee um during the uh hold period and then perhaps you get a percentage of the equity on the back end so it can be a very lucrative business for someone to get started and because triest makes it so easy to do it meaning put all these different services and things together for you it it really anyone can do it yeah that's so cool and we we've worked with you guys and have seen it in action and you know to say f Fund in a box sounds almost uh trite because it sounds like can you really do   that but it's it's cool because you guys have have solved it and and not only have you solved it but it's also pretty cost- effective right I think one of the big challenges with the fun of fund is generally you can invest if you kind of pull Capital together in a fund you can invest at better terms with a sponsor so you can have a little more margin that you can kind of get paid from and your investors still make the same returns um but if you have a lot of legal costs a lot of ongoing um kind of portal and   back office expenses and tax returns everything else then it gets kind of expensive and eats away at the margins that you know you're hoping to to use to pay yourself so you guys have kind of Crea a really streamlined um kind of off-the-shelf product that can fit majority of of offerings and make it pretty easy right that's right it gets really difficult to make it work that's again the fund of fund like we've talked about it's always been a solution it's just really expensive and really hard to put   it together um especially for someone that that isn't a professional Capital Riser um that just wants to put together $500,000 a million a million5 something like that it it it doesn't even make sense cost wise in the old way of doing it you're going to pay a Securities attorney minimum of like let's say 15,000 maybe 20 maybe $25,000 to put one of these together maybe even more I used to work at a big Law Firm where it cost $75,000 it's crazy the expenses that add up and that's just the legal piece that   doesn't include all the back office administration things that we talked about doesn't include um engaging with a CPA to do your taxes it doesn't include all those things that's just the legal cost by itself and tribe best has made it super inexpensive to be able to do this and to be able to do it time and time again so it works with a $500,000 raise it works with a million dollar raise you don't have to raise $20 million to make it work from an affordability standpoint yeah that makes sense so do   you guys also have like any kind of education or different coursework to help people that are you may want to make the transition of like yeah I think that that sounds like something I could do I my friends are always asking me what what I'm investing in and it wouldn't be that hard to go get five 10 friends to go and invest and create a fund and you know but they just don't they've never done it before they never thought about it till just now so right you guys have I know you're really more given the solution but do you also have   like any kind of education or do you have resources you guys can point people to to learn more about what does it look like to you know what what's what's the process you have to go through to um kind of go from idea to actual uh you know making a fund yeah yeah I'll tell you we don't have any formal legal or sorry formal educational things out there at the moment but we are working on that um but we have made it so simple that we can jump on a zoom call with anyone that that's in is potentially   interested in being a capital raiser and putting together a fund of fun and walk you through a pitch deck and it should be pretty clear what you need to do because we handle basically everything you you put together your investors you put together your terms and how you're going to get paid and then we'll be able to do kind of all that back office all that legal all those things that you don't want to know or don't want to do we handle all it yeah makes sense awesome well kind last question I just   love to get your insights on just the market in general for Alternatives and and private placements and you've obvious been in this space for over a decade and we've been in the space for about 11 years now as as an operator and it just feels I mean it's it's already been the amount of capital that's kind of come into kind of private Equity into real estate into private placements in eneral it's totally shifted the game but it also feels like we're still kind of early Innings right it still feels like   people are just discovering this for the first time and and even the conversation we're having of you know um activating people to raise Capital right in a compliant way that's just an easy way because you guys are creating a system that just reduces friction to continue to increase more Capital to come into the space like do you feel the same thing are you seen I know there's kind of some potential proposed regulation to you know increase the requirements for accreditation and you know there's   always a battle going back and forth on on that but what's kind of your sentiment just at a broader level of just the alternative kind of private placement space in over the next 10 years yeah I mean I'm I'm bullish right like we're we're kind of in a little bit of a lull right now um you'll hear that capital's a little bit harder to come by investors are holding on a little bit tighter um but that's because there's actually deals out there right now I mean said right now is actually a great time to invest right now is a great time   to invest because prices are are depressed a little bit um investors are a little bit reluctant to invest um there are less buyers in the market because a lot of them are getting kind of washed out um but there are some properties coming online through foreclosures through things like that this is where you know when you talk about during good times you're like oh man I cannot wait until there's blood in the streets and I'm going to pounce on it I'm want to pounce on those opportunities that time is right now it   it's not it's not you're you can be waiting on the sideline for years and you're gonna you're gonna miss it it's right now right now is the time to to figure out how to invest how to raise Capital how to do deals how to make them work because right now it's difficult to make them work that's that's the truth of it right now is the time to act and you're going in five years from now for instance you're going to look back to this time and say man I wish I would have got started because we're we're   we're going to be in the upswing again very soon totally no I was just uh I was a one of the guys I follow who's been in real estate for a long time he was talking and reminiscing about he bought uh I think he said three dozen single family homes between uh 2009 and 2011 right and he's held on to them since then and you know looking back he's like the only thing he wishes he did was buy more right because it's but at that point it was you know everything was on sale everyone was like real estate's over and it's it's so hard to   be contrarian I think it's Warren Buffet this said be uh you know fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful right it it's it's a simple idiom that makes sense but it's really hard to do and right now we're kind of in that that time where investors are reticent there's a lot of pressure on deals right now that's kind of creating a great buy opportunity you know we're seeing I know you're seeing it and uh you know I think I agree with you I think it's a great time to be to   be jumping in right now and uh Seth thanks so much for coming on man what's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you and learn more about uh your law firm uh raise law and try vest if they want to learn more about what that looks like for sure uh the best place where I keep all my links is Seth Paul bradley.com um you'll have links to try best there links from my uh law firm and social media it's all posted on there okay we'll put that in the show notes and definitely appreciate you coming on   today set it awesome all right Ben appreciate it [Music] [Applause] [Music] man Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s https://www.instagram.com/p/C5mNnwsv2fs/  https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit- https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/   Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

On this episode of Next Level CRE, Matt Faircloth interviews Ben Fraser, Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds and co-host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. They explore how billionaires think differently than millionaires—focusing on growing balance sheets through private market investments rather than just income. Ben explains the dangers of income creep, critiques the limitations of traditional financial planning, and advocates for strategic investing outside Wall Street. They also discuss reshoring trends driving industrial growth, the shifting meaning of retirement in a world of longer lifespans and AI, and what true financial freedom looks like. Ben Fraser Current Role: Chief Investment Officer, Aspen Funds Based in: Kansas City, MO Say hi to them at: https://thebillionairebook.org – Pre-order his upcoming book Invest Like a Billionaire https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com – Listen to his podcast LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/benwfraser Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale at ⁠https://www.stamps.com/cre⁠. Thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring the show! Post your job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/BRE. Terms and conditions apply. Join the Best Ever Community  The Best Ever Community is live and growing - and we want serious commercial real estate investors like you inside. It's free to join, but you must apply and meet the criteria.  Connect with top operators, LPs, GPs, and more, get real insights, and be part of a curated network built to help you grow. Apply now at ⁠www.bestevercommunity.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The oil & gas price has softened, but does that mean you should dump your investments, or double down? Bob and Ben Fraser discuss the headlines and the concerns they are hearing from their investors. They share their own perspectives, how oil & gas have fared in the past downturns, and where they're betting that investment is going next. Find out more about the podcast at https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/ and PREORDER the Invest Like a Billionaire book at www.thebillionairebook.org/ And check out Ben & Bob's company and invest along at https://aspenfunds.us/

A very special episode – Bob Fraser, co-founder of Aspen Funds (and father of Ben Fraser) is in the hot seat. Bob tells the story of how he has won it all, lost it all, and built it back up again. We go inside Bob's portfolio to hear what asset classes he's most excited about today, and what lessons he has learned from his decades of investing that are preparing him to weather the storms of the future.Find out more at https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/Check out Ben & Bob's company and invest along at https://aspenfunds.us/

You built the business. You cashed out. Now what?Most founders think they need to “reinvest everything” or go chase the next big thing. But in this episode of Beyond 8 Figures, I sit down with Ben Fraser of Aspen Funds to break down how to invest after selling a business — the right way.Ben's been inside this game since the last recession. He watched his father build Aspen Funds from scratch after the 2008 crash, and he's since helped scale it into a multi-million-dollar platform that helps entrepreneurs invest passively (and intelligently).We talk about why entrepreneurs make terrible investors, how billionaires actually diversify, and the overlooked tax strategy that could save you six figures. If you're still betting everything on your business — or worse, sitting on cash and hoping for the best — this episode will shift your mindset.Guest Introduction:Ben Fraser is the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds and co-host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, where he helps high-performing entrepreneurs grow and protect their wealth through smarter, passive investments. With a background in commercial lending and institutional asset management, Ben has overseen $125M+ in real estate and business loans. Today, he specializes in guiding business owners toward alternative investment strategies that prioritize stability, cash flow, and long-term growth—without adding complexity to their lives.Key Takeaways & Timestamps:[05:37] The One-Liner That Changes Everything – “Wealth is created through concentration, but preserved through diversification.”[06:38] How Billionaires Really Diversify – Ben reveals the Tiger 21 portfolio breakdown and how to use it.[14:35] Unlocking Tax Loopholes Most Entrepreneurs Miss – What happens when your spouse qualifies as a real estate professional.[15:36] Why One Founder Quit a 6-Figure Job to Save More – Ben shares a story that'll make you rethink W-2s.[19:47] Where the Smart Money Is Moving in 2025 – Ben's macro-driven view of real estate (and what KKR just did).The next big move in your business might start with a conversation.If you've been thinking about leveling up, shifting directions, or preparing for a future exit, A.J. offers strategic support for entrepreneurs at a crossroads. No pitch—just a chance to explore what's possible. 

On this week's episode of Inside Athletic Training, we sat down with tPadres' assistant athletic trainer Ben Fraser to talk about his career in baseball, Opening Day in Major League Baseball, the grind of Spring Training, building a successful sports medicine staff, career moves throughout baseball, advice for younger athletic trainers, and much more. For more information about PBATS and athletic training, visit pbats.com.

In this episode of the Addict II Athlete podcast, Coach Blu Robinson speaks with father, athlete, and coach of the Speed Freaks Ben Fraser, who shares his inspiring journey from addiction to recovery. Ben discusses the importance of community, the power of positive self-affirmations, and the transformative effects of movement and running. He reflects on the challenges of leaving behind old relationships and the significance of finding a supportive network in recovery. The conversation emphasizes the importance of self-identity and the journey of personal growth through connection and action. In this conversation, Ben Fraser and Coach Blu explore the transformative journey of recovery through community engagement, the power of gratitude, and the importance of visibility in addiction recovery. They discuss personal milestones in running, the significance of fatherhood, and the balance between pursuing personal goals and being present for loved ones. The dialogue emphasizes the strength of vulnerability and connection, showcasing how shared experiences can inspire hope and change in individuals and communities. Takeaways The 'I am' statements we use shape our identity. Finding a supportive community is crucial in recovery. Movement can be a powerful tool for healing. Small, achievable goals can lead to significant change. Isolation can be a significant barrier to recovery. Building new relationships can be challenging but rewarding. Reflecting on past struggles helps recognize progress. Recovery is a journey that involves both giving and receiving support. Positive self-talk can transform one's outlook on life. Choosing oneself is essential for personal growth.  Consistency is key to recovery and personal growth. Gratitude evolves from external to internal appreciation. Community support can transform perceptions of addiction. Visibility in recovery helps break down stigma. Personal milestones in the running can symbolize broader achievements. Fatherhood brings a new perspective on recovery and legacy. Chasing achievable goals fosters a balanced life. Vulnerability fosters deeper connections and understanding. Everyone has a unique story that can inspire others. Recovery is a journey best shared with others. Follow Ben: https://www.instagram.com/benny_b_fraser/profilecard/?igsh=a3A3Mm11OWk2a3Bt Follow the Speed Freaks: https://www.instagram.com/the_speed_freaks?igsh=MTBtb3c5dWd1dzBzeQ== Please join Addict to Athlete's Patreon support page and help us turn the mess of addiction into the message of sobriety! https://www.patreon.com/addicttoathlete Please visit our website for more information on Team Addict to Athlete and Addiction Recovery Podcasts. https://www.AddictToAthlete.org Join the Team! Circle, our new social support event, along with the team and athlete communication platform, is designed to help us break free from doom scrolling and shadow banning and foster stronger connections among us. Follow the link, download the app, and start this new chapter of Team AIIA! Join Circle https://a2a.circle.so/join?invitation_token=16daaa0d9ecd7421d384dd05a461464ce149cc9e-63d4aa30-1a67-4120-ae12-124791dfb519

In this episode, Thomas and Ryan are joined by Ben Fraser, Chief Investment Officer of Aspen Funds and host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, to explore strategies of the ultra-wealthy and how they invest differently. They cover: - The difference between ultra-high-net-worth investors and retail investors - Why private markets, including real estate and private equity, are the cornerstone of billionaire investment strategies - The trade-offs between active and passive real estate investing - Key insights on evaluating sponsors and deals to avoid common pitfalls - Emerging trends in the alternative investment space - And much more! If you're curious about how the wealthiest individuals protect and grow their capital—and how you can apply those strategies—this episode is full of actionable insights. To become a client, request a consultation from Hall CPA, PLLC at go.therealestatecpa.com/3KSEev6 Join the Tax Smart Insiders Community: go.therealestatecpa.com/3Xx1Cpd Visit PURE at: www.rentpure.com Check out Thomas's new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@thomascastelli The Tax Smart Real Estate Investors podcast is for general information purposes only and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Information on the podcast may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. No reader, user, or listener of this podcast should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this podcast without first seeking legal and tax advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney and tax advisor can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this podcast or any of the links or resources contained or mentioned within the podcast show and show notes do not create a relationship between the reader, user, or listener and podcast hosts, contributors, or guests.

Mark Kohler and Ben Fraser discuss tax strategies, asset protection, and the political landscape's impact on small businesses. They also touch on efficient business structures like the S corporation, the importance of revocable living trusts in estate planning, and the power of Roth IRAs for building tax-free wealth. Mark is the founder and board member at Direct IRA and Senior Partner at KKOS Lawyers. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: ⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠⁠ Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: ⁠⁠⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠⁠⁠ Explore our Private Credit fund: ⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠⁠⁠ Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Mark Kohler https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjkohler/

Steven Pesavento, Principal at Von Finch Capital, shares his journey in real estate, emphasizing mindset, financial strategy, and self-investment. We explore current market opportunities in multifamily real estate and private credit amidst economic shifts. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠ Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: ⁠⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠⁠ Explore our Private Credit fund: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠⁠ Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠ Connect with Steven Pesavento https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpesavento/

This conversation with Brett Swarts explores the numerous benefits of DSTs, their role in deferring capital gains taxes beyond real estate transactions, and practical examples of people who have successfully applied this strategy. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠ Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: ⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠ Explore our Private Credit fund: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠ Get in touch: ⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠ Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠ ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠ Connect with Brett Swarts https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-swarts/

We discuss how Ownify's model allows first-time buyers to gradually purchase homes through fractional ownership, bypassing traditional mortgage hurdles. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: https://aspenfunds.us/ Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a Explore our Private Credit fund: https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/ Get in touch: https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative- Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/ Connect with Ben Fraser https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ Connect with Frank Rohde https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankrohde/

Ryan Carriere, co-host of the Tax Smart REI podcast and a Real Estate Tax Strategist at Hall CPA, explains the advantages and intricacies of real estate professional status and the short-term rental 'loophole,' highlighting strategies for both active and passive investors to optimize tax efficiency. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠   Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: ⁠⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠⁠   Explore our Private Credit fund: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠⁠  Get in touch: ⁠⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠⁠  Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠  Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠ ⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠  Connect with Mark Miller https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryancarriere/

Mark Miller, President and CEO of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, shares insights on the wealth management strategies employed by the ultra-wealthy, including the famous Hilton family. He explains how these strategies can be now adopted by average investors. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠   Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: ⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠   Explore our Private Credit fund: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠  Get in touch: ⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠  Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ ⁠ ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠  Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/ ⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠  Connect with Mark Miller ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmiller-hiltonfo/⁠

Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today, we have Ben Fraser, CIO of Aspen Funds, discussing their unique approach to investing. Aspen Funds focuses on "Macro-Driven Alternative Investments," leveraging macro trends to identify opportunities across various asset classes. In this episode, we're discussing... Aspen Funds leverages macro trends: They analyze the big picture to identify long-term tailwinds and invest in asset classes positioned to benefit. Investment diversification: They invest in a variety of asset classes including real estate debt, private credit, industrial development, and oil & gas. Oil & Gas as an Opportunity: While the current administration prioritizes renewable energy, Ben Fraser argues that limited supply and increasing demand will drive oil prices higher in the coming years. Impact of Inflation & Interest Rates: Ben discusses the potential for higher interest rates for longer and the implications for commercial real estate. Investing During Uncertain Times: While the market may be volatile, downturns can present opportunities for investors with a long-term perspective. Resources from Ben LinkedIn | Aspen Funds | Invest Like A Billionaire Podcast Resources from Mike and Nichole Gateway Private Equity Group |  Nic's guide  

Have you ever wondered how billionaires are investing to grow their wealth in 2024? In this episode, Russ and Joey are joined by Ben Fraser of Aspen Funds to explore the world of alternative investments and the strategies that the ultra-wealthy use to stay ahead. From little-known opportunities to smart, risk-adjusted moves, this conversation will open your eyes to how the wealthy think and invest differently. If you want to elevate your financial game and tap into strategies beyond the traditional, today's episode is packed with insights that could transform your approach.Tune in to discover the secrets to growing wealth like the ultra-rich!Top three things you will learn: -Alternative investment opportunities to build passive income-The top two indicators that a deal is not as good as it seems-How the election can affect market trendsAbout Our Guest:Ben Fraser is the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds, where he combines his analytical nature with a passion for delivering outstanding client service and strong returns through out-of-the-box investments. With a professional background that spans over a decade, Ben has become an expert in the field of investment management and has worked for several reputable financial institutions.Ben is the co-host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, where he joins his father, Robert, co-founder and CFO of Aspen Funds, and co-founder Jim Maffuccio to discuss economic trends and best practices for alternative investing.Connect with Ben Fraser:-Website - https://aspenfunds.us/Wealth Without Wall Street New Book:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/newbookFree IBCA or Financial Freedom Discovery Calls:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/freecallJoin Our Next Inner Circle Live Event:https://www.wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/livePromo Code: PODCASTIBC Webinar:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/ibcApply to Join the Passive Income Mastermind:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/wwws-passive-income-mastermindJoin the Community:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/communityTurn Active Income Into Passive Income:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/pios Take the Financial Freedom Analyzer:https://wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/quizDiscover Your Path to Financial Freedom:

We discuss why you should strongly consider self-insuring your business by leveraging the often-overlooked 831(b) tax code. Van Carlson, a risk management expert with 30 years of experience and Founder of SRA 831(b) Admin. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds. Alternative investments in Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas: https://aspenfunds.us/   Check out our latest offering in industrial real estate: https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a   Explore our Private Credit fund: https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/  Get in touch: https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-  Download our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/  ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/  Connect with Ben Fraser https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/  Connect with Van Carlson https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancarlson/

Schedule a call with us: ⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠ Paul Svensen, CEO and Founder of UberJets, a platform designed to democratize private aviation access, explains how Uber Jets leverages advanced technology and empty-leg flights to offer a pay-as-you-fly model. This approach makes private jets more accessible to a wider audience. Paul discusses the business model, the benefits for aircraft owners, and how the platform is challenging traditional fractional ownership models. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds, focusing on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠ Explore our latest investment opportunity in industrial real estate: ⁠https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a⁠  Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠ ⁠⁠Get our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠  ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠  Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠  Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠ Connect with Paul Svensen on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-a-s-55b5008/

Schedule a call with us: https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative- Joey Mure, Co-Founder of Wealth Without Wall Street, discusses his journey from the corporate world to achieving financial freedom through passive income. He shares insights on the limitations of traditional investment strategies like 401(k)s and the benefits of creating cash flow through alternative investments. This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds, focusing on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: https://aspenfunds.us/ Explore our latest investment opportunity in industrial real estate: https://app.junipersquare.com/i/aspenfunds/offering/1bdbcf6a-da16-4e65-a675-31909415300a  Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/ Get our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/  ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/  Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠Connect with Joey Mure on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-mure-b376824/⁠

Schedule a call with us: ⁠https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative-⁠ Bob and Ben present compelling data from Newmark Zimmer showing significant increases in construction and job announcements in the US. They discuss the long-term mega trends affecting industrial assets, the shift towards secondary and tertiary markets, and the upcoming opportunities for investors. Get our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: ⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠ Interested in our upcoming industrial real estate offering? Get notified first: ⁠https://share.hsforms.com/1JdTr6KMMR0-YKumCXZEa4Adir9h⁠ Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠  Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠  ⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠  Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/⁠  Connect with Bob Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobfraser10/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠

Schedule a call with us: https://meetings.hubspot.com/mike-sullivant/ilab-speak-to-aspen-representative- Pat Zingarella, a former corporate tech business consultant and startup advisor and Founder of Invest Clearly, recounts his transition from corporate America to entrepreneurship, inspired by his own investment challenges. He discusses the key features of Invest Clearly, how it serves both LPs and GPs, and its mission to foster transparency and trust in the investment world. Get our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report Interested in our upcoming industrial real estate offering? Get notified first: https://share.hsforms.com/1JdTr6KMMR0-YKumCXZEa4Adir9h Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: https://aspenfunds.us/  Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/  ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/  Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ Connect with Pat Zingarella on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/pasqualezingarella/

Mike "C-Roc" engages in a fascinating conversation with Ben Fraser, the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds and co-host of the renowned podcast Invest Like a Billionaire. Ben delves into his journey from commercial banking to leading a successful investment firm, highlighting the critical role of personal branding in the financial industry. He sheds light on the challenges associated with raising capital, including overcoming trust barriers and navigating the complexities of traditional financial advising. Listeners will gain valuable insights into alternative investment opportunities and learn how Ben's experiences in commercial real estate, credit lending, and oil and gas have shaped his approach to investing. Ben emphasizes the significance of persistence and grit, offering practical advice on how to take control of one's financial future. With a robust background in commercial banking and asset management, Ben is dedicated to helping investors navigate the intricate world of finance. Website- https://aspenfunds.us/ Social Media Links/Handles- https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/ https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ https://www.youtube.com/@aspenfunds https://www.youtube.com/@investlikeabillionairepodcast

Investor, get notified first when our industrial deal launches: https://share.hsforms.com/1JdTr6KMMR0-YKumCXZEa4Adir9h This is not a commitment, just a way to give you exclusivity once we launch. This episode is a masterclass on industrial real estate with Ben Fraser, CIO of Aspen Funds and Brent Peterson, VP - Director of Industrial Brokerage at AREA. We discuss how to find the best industrial real estate investments in 2024, and much more. Interested in our upcoming industrial real estate deal? Get notified first: https://share.hsforms.com/1JdTr6KMMR0-YKumCXZEa4Adir9h Get our FREE 2024 Economic Forecast: https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: https://aspenfunds.us/ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Brent Peterson on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-peterson-6944a510/

Kathy Fettke, a renowned real estate investment expert and co-founder of the Real Wealth Network, shares her inspiring journey from being a housewife to becoming a successful investor. She highlights the crucial role of asset ownership, macroeconomic trends, the housing market, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies. Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠⁠ Access our FREE Economic Report: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ ⁠⁠ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenfunds/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Kathy Fettke on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathyfettke/

Travis Watts, an experienced full-time passive investor and the Director of Investor Development at Ashcroft Capital, discusses his path from single-family investments to syndications. With over 50 deals since 2015, he shares his expertise and key insights from his new book 'Passive Investor Tips'. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Travis Watts on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/traviswatts1234/ Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/⁠ Access our FREE Economic Report: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠

The real estate business is not entirely about the housing market. In this episode, we talk about industrial real estate, oil and gas, bringing US companies back home, or what's known as “reshoring,” and of course, the housing market. But the conversation goes beyond that with talk of economic trends, investment strategies, and our recent RealWealth property tour in San Antonio where investors can get a 4.25% interest rate from the builder. In this episode, you'll hear from investor and commercial lender Ben Fraser. He has more than a decade of experience in the mortgage business and is the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds, which was co-founded by his father. Before that, Ben served as a commercial lender at First Business Bank and a commercial credit underwriter for Crossfirst Bank. He's also a seasoned podcaster, and co-hosts the show “Invest Like a Billionaire” with his Dad and his Dad's Aspen co-founder. ~~~~ JOIN RealWealth® FOR FREE

With 15 years of experience in private syndications, Steve Suh, Founding Member of Left Field Investors, reveals lessons in his book, "Avoiding Rookie Errors as a Left Field Investor." He highlights the value of operator communication, thorough due diligence, and investing in reliable asset classes, providing essential tips for all investors. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Steve Suh on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-suh-m-d-77668347/ Explore our latest investment opportunity in Private Credit: https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-fund/ Access our FREE Economic Report: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠

Angelo Robles, the Founder & CEO of SFO Continuity, shares insights on the mindsets, investment strategies, and alternative investments favored by the ultra-wealthy and family offices. We also discuss the potential high-reward opportunities that billionaires are excited about in 2024. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Steve Woodruff on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-woodruff-cfp%C2%AE-9871288/ Connect with Angelo Robles on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelorobles/ Access our FREE training on How to Invest in Private Credit: ⁠⁠https://www.privatecreditmasterclass.com/sign-up⁠⁠ Access our FREE Economic Report: ⁠⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠

The more experience I have in being an entrepreneur, the more I see the importance of diversification in my investment strategies. It's not just about spreading your money across different stocks or sectors; it's about creating a safety net that can withstand market volatility and support your entrepreneurial efforts. My latest conversation with Ben Fraser from Aspen Funds is exactly about how spreading investments across different sectors can really protect your wealth and help you build a resilient portfolio. About Ben FraserBen Fraser is the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds, where he helps investors diversify investments beyond Wall Street. To date, Ben's firm has managed over $150 million in investor capital and achieved a strong track record of delivering outstanding client service and impressive returns through out-of-the-box investments. Ben is also the host of the popular podcast "Invest Like a Billionaire," where he shares valuable insights on building and preserving wealth. He emphasizes the importance of diversification, leveraging expertise, and understanding macroeconomic trends. One of his unique approaches includes offering tax benefits through real estate investments, which can significantly reduce taxable income for entrepreneurs.Key Insights:What are your investment goals? Think long and hard about what you want to do with your investments. Understanding what you want and need beforehand allows you to build for the long term and not scattershot your investments. Consider macro trends. Don't ignore larger economic trends. Identifying growing markets and macro-driven opportunities can help you make smarter investments and find unexpected opportunities.Diversify your investments. Instead of reinvesting all profits into the business, create diversified investments and income streams. This will build more external stability and preserve your wealth​ but also help you reduce stress if something goes wrong with your business. Educate yourself. Spend time learning how to grow, preserve, and invest money effectively. DIY investing is becoming more popular, and understanding investment basics can lead to better financial control and decision-making​.Leverage other people's expertise. When entering new investment areas like real estate, consider partnering with or investing through experienced firms to avoid a steep learning curve and mitigate risks​.Plan for the future. Teach financial principles and investment strategies to your children. Help them understand the importance of creating value and contributing to the economy rather than just consuming resources.Ben's best advice for entrepreneurs:“We believe that understanding the macro picture, the bigger term trends that are going on, is way more important in identifying your investment strategy than the actual deal itself.”Connect with Ben Fraser:LinkedInInstagramWebsiteInvest Like a Billionaire PodcastFollow Beyond 8 Figures:LinkedInXWebsite

Join host Ben Fraser as he sits down with Dr. Christopher H. Loo, MD-PhD, founder, CEO, and host of the Financial Freedom Podcast. In this compelling episode, Dr. Loo shares his remarkable journey from practicing medicine to achieving early retirement and financial independence through strategic real estate investments. Discover the key decisions and mindsets that propelled Dr. Loo to financial freedom, learn about his current investment portfolio, and explore the opportunities he sees in today's market. Whether you're a physician or an aspiring investor, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration from Dr. Christopher Loo's transformative path to financial success. Tune in to uncover the secrets to financial freedom and strategic investing! Note: Reproduced with permission. For original source link, visit: https://aspenfunds.us/podcast/passive-investor-spotlight-10-from-md-to-financial-freedom-feat-dr-christopher-loo/ Disclaimer: Not advice. Educational purposes only. Not an endorsement for or against. Results not vetted. Views of the guests do not represent those of the host or show. Do your due diligence. Click here to join PodMatch (the "AirBNB" of Podcasting): https://www.joinpodmatch.com/drchrisloomdphd We couldn't do it without the support of our listeners. To help support the show: CashApp- https://cash.app/$drchrisloomdphd Venmo- https://account.venmo.com/u/Chris-Loo-4 Buy Me a Coffee- https://www.buymeacoffee.com/chrisJx Click here to schedule a 1-on-1 private coaching call: https://www.drchrisloomdphd.com/book-online Click here to purchase my books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PaQn4p Follow our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/chL1357 Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drchrisloomdphd Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereal_drchrisloo Follow us on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@thereal_drchrisloo Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drchrisloomddphd Follow the podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3NkM6US7cjsiAYTBjWGdx6?si=1da9d0a17be14d18 Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https://substack.com/@drchrisloomdphd1 Subscribe to our Medium newsletter: https://medium.com/@drchrisloomdphd Subscribe to our email newsletter: ⁠https://financial-freedom-for-physicians.ck.page/b4622e816d⁠ Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6992935013231071233 Join our Patreon Community: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=87512799 Join our Spotify Community: ⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christopher-loo/subscribe⁠ Thank you to our advertisers on Spotify. Financial Freedom for Physicians, Copyright 2024

Neal Bawa, CEO & Founder of UGro and Grocapitus, explores the latest market trends, the repercussions of recent economic changes, and the future landscape and opportunities of multifamily investing. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Neal Bawa on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/neal-bawa/⁠ Access our FREE training on How to Invest in Private Credit: ⁠https://www.privatecreditmasterclass.com/sign-up⁠ Access our FREE Economic Report: ⁠https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report⁠ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/⁠ Follow Aspen Funds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠⁠⁠

Jeremy Hill, Founder and Managing Partner of JB Capital, shares his journey in the alternative investment space, focusing on private credit and corporate credit. This conversation with Ben Fraser covers the broader landscape of private credit, the shift from banks to private funding, and the growing opportunities in real estate and corporate lending. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠ Connect with Jeremy Hill on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-b-hill-a0350a3/ This podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on Private Credit, Industrial Real Estate, and Oil and Gas offerings for accredited investors: www.aspenfunds.us Explore our newest offering in Private Credit: https://www.privatecreditmasterclass.com/fund Follow Aspen Funds Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/

Walker Deibel, Founder of Acquisition Lab and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 'Buy Then Build', joins to discuss the world of entrepreneurship through acquisition, sharing insights on buying and growing small businesses. Discover his mastermind coaching program, Acquisition Lab, designed to help budding entrepreneurs succeed. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠ Connect with Walker Deibel on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/walkerdeibel/ Explore macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors www.aspenfunds.us Follow Aspen Funds Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/

Welcome to this recap of our top 5 episodes of the first half of the year. Watch the full episodes below. 1. Replicating Hedge Funds Using Machine Learning feat. Bob Elliott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U26-EZnV_7M 2. Private Credit Masterclass - Part 1 feat. Anton Mattli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRDGuxR76-Y 3. The Billion Dollar Mind feat. Rick Macci and Nivedita Uberoi Jerath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pydzGwfy6Lk 4. Niche Assets: Tax Receivable Agreements feat. Andy Lee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCRDJNnPv6E 5. How to Build and Protect Generational Wealth feat. Whitney Elkins-Hutten https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cJ2AZNfkvE Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/

Dr. Belinda Román, St. Mary's University associate professor, joins to discuss what led to her optimistic forecasts in 2023 and her outlook for 2024 & 2025. Connect with Bob Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobfraser10/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ Connect with Belinda Roman on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/belinda-roman-19726150/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/

Stay updated about the current trends and future opportunities in real estate in this episode with Ben Fraser!Ben walks us through his career, from the financing and lending side to investing and capital raising. He also provides some strategies for building trust with potential investors, data-driven market insights, and thriving amidst rising interest rates. Key Points & Relevant TopicsBen's background in the commercial space specifically as a Commercial Credit Underwriter and Commercial LenderBen's journey to the investing side and raising capital, his thought process, and mindset shiftHow to attract investors and gain their trustCurrent trends and opportunities in today's real estate marketBen's perspectives on what to expect in the market and the impact of interest rates on the current trendsInvestors' sentiments and how their decision is impacted by the distress in the marketResources & LinksApartment Syndication Due Diligence Checklist for Passive InvestorAbout Ben FraserBen Fraser is the Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds, where he combines his analytical nature with a passion for delivering outstanding client service and strong returns through out-of-the-box investments. With a professional background that spans over a decade, Ben has become an expert in the field of investment management and has worked for several reputable financial institutions. Ben is the co-host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, where he joins his father, Robert, co-founder and CFO of Aspen Funds, along with co-founder Jim Maffuccio, to discuss economic trends and best practices for alternative investing. Prior to joining Aspen, Ben served as a Commercial Lender at First Business Bank, one of the top SBA lenders in the nation. There, he specialized in government-backed loan originations, specifically SBA and USDA loans. Before that, he worked as a Commercial Credit Underwriter for Crossfirst Bank, where he personally underwrote over $125MM in C&I and CRE loans across various industries. Ben also has experience working in the asset management industry, having served as a key member of the team at Tortoise Capital Advisors. At Tortoise, he helped grow institutional managed accounts from ~$3BN AUM to ~$7BN AUM. Ben holds an MBA from Azusa Pacific University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Kansas, where he graduated magna cum laude. Ben's commitment to excellence and his ability to deliver strong returns for clients make him an invaluable asset to the Aspen Funds team.Get in Touch with BenWebsite: https://aspenfunds.us/ Podcast: https://aspenfunds.us/podcast/ To Connect With UsPlease visit our website www.bonavestcapital.com and click here to leave a rating and written review!

Can intuition make you a better investor? Hosted by Ben Fraser, guest Sunil Godse reveals how experiential, relational, situational, and creative intuition shape smart decisions and prevent costly mistakes. Tune in for practical insights on intuitive investing. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Sunil Godse on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilgodse/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/

In this episode we discuss strategies for buying and growing businesses, how to choose the best sell-side advisors, and actionable insights for all business owners and investors. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠ Connect with Nick McLean on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmcleanfpi/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/

Today's special episode isn't just about giving advice. It offers valuable insights into life's journey, including the highs and lows, shared by top professionals in private equity and investment banking. We've put together a video showcasing college photos of our speakers, linking their past experiences to the present. Join us as we explore their paths and discover what it takes to fulfill your dreams. Featured guests: Chris Sznewajs, Pacific Avenue Capital (4:57) Marc J. Leder, Sun Capital Partners (9:52) Neha Markle, Morgan Stanley (14:31) Michael Bego, Kline Hill Partners (17:54) Christiaan van der Kam, Schroders Capital (24:47) Mark Sotir, Equity Group Investments (26:27) Jeff Collins, Cloverlay (29:10) Chris Burbach, Fundamental Income (33:08) Rami Cassis, Parabellum Investments (34:40) Christopher Merrill, Harrison Street (36:50) Ross Jones, Berkshire Partners (39:58) Jeffrey Stevenson, VSS Capital Partners (44:34) Pardis Nasseri, Palm Tree LLC (46:40) Michael Butler, Cascadia Capital (49:12) Drew Maloney, American Investment Council (50:45) Ben Fraser, Aspen Funds (52:21) Anthony Maniscalco, Investcorp (54:43) John Garcia - Solyco Capital (59:33) John Block - Unity Partners (1:00:44) Jesse Serventi - Renovus Capital (1:01:47) Nate Wasson - Halbar Partners (1:03:20) Scott Reed, HighVista Strategies (1:06:19) Gregory Bondick - Windjammer Capital (1:07:28) Jeffrey Miehe - Windjammer Capital (1:11:16)      

Explore horse racing's new frontier with Jeff Seder of EQB. Discover his groundbreaking Moneyball-inspired tactics, challenging pedigree norms for investment success in this dynamic industry. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠ Connect with Jeff Seder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jseder/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ ⁠https://aspenfunds.us/

We discuss the use of machine learning to create products that replicate the index returns of alternative investments. We talk about the impact on hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity. Bob Elliott is the Co-founder and CIO of Unlimited Funds, a company dedicated to creating an Indexing revolution in the Alternative Investments space. Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ Connect with Bob Elliott on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ttoillebob/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.⁠ https://aspenfunds.us/

Legendary tennis coach Rick Macci and co-author Nivedita Uberoi Jerath discuss the mindset that separates regular individuals from world champions. From coaching Serena and Venus Williams, discover their winning strategies in this insightful episode. Connect with Rick Macci on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/rick-macci-tennis-academy/ Connect with Nivedita Uberoi Jerath on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nivedita-jerath-7097b044/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Get started and download your free economic report today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/report⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠

We discuss a niche in the alternative market, interval funds & closed-end funds. Kimberly Ann Flynn, Founder of XA Investments and a seasoned MBA from Harvard, shares her expertise in this market. We talk about her journey, how private credit and real estate interact with interval funds generating yields north of 10%, and the growing access for non-accredited investors. Connect with Kimberly Ann Flynn on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyannflynn/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠⁠ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Get started and download your free economic report today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/report⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠

In this episode, we have a very insight conversation on wealth-building and preservation with financial expert Whitney Elkins-Hutten. She shares invaluable tips and strategies honed from over 20 years of private investing, consulting, and leading companies. Connect with Whitney Elkins-Hutten on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneyelkinshutten/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠⁠ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Get started and download your free economic report today at ⁠⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/report⁠⁠⁠ Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/subscribe⁠⁠

In this episode, we have a fascinating conversation with Seth Bradley who is the Chief Legal Officer at TribeVest. We dive deep into the insights from someone who's seen both sides of the investment world - from passive strategies to active capital raising. We also discuss the red and yellow flags in legal documents, the skills required for syndications, and much more. Connect with Seth Bradley on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/⁠ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/⁠ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Get started and download your free economic report today at ⁠⁠https://aspenfunds.us/report⁠⁠ Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. ⁠⁠https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub⁠⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. ⁠⁠https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/subscribe⁠

Dive into the world of strategic capital raising with Ben Fraser, an expert in building momentum in the challenging arena of fundraising. Ben shares his journey from the initial struggles to mastering the art of attraction and trust. Discover the pivotal role of authenticity in forming meaningful connections and how shifting to a digital strategy revolutionized his approach. Gain insights on the power of podcasts in establishing credibility, the critical importance of testimonials, and the art of content creation and promotion, guided by principles from Gary Vaynerchuk. Ben also unveils his successful funnel strategy, focusing on expanding investor networks, increasing investment sizes, and nurturing existing relationships for sustainable growth. Tune in to transform your approach and achieve success in the art of fundraising.Key Takeaways to Listen ForAuthenticity is Key: Building genuine relationships is crucial in attracting like-minded individuals and establishing trust in the fundraising sector.Digital Strategy Success: Transitioning to a digital model can significantly enhance efficiency and scale in capital raising efforts.Podcasts as Credibility Tools: Featuring on podcasts can leverage host credibility, fostering trust and authority among potential investors.The Power of Testimonials: Utilizing third-party testimonials effectively validates claims and builds confidence in an investor's decision-making process.Effective Funnel Utilization: Essential for consistent capital raising, it involves expanding investor networks and nurturing existing relationships.About Tim MaiTim Mai is a real estate investor, fund manager, mentor, and founder of HERO Mastermind for REI coaches. He has helped many real estate investors and coaches become millionaires. Tim continues to help busy professionals earn income and build wealth through passive investing. He is also a creative marketer and promoter with incredible knowledge and experience, which he freely shares. He has lifted himself from the aftermath of war, achieving technical expertise in computers, followed by investment success in real estate, management skills, and a lofty position among real estate educators and internet marketers. Tim is an industry leader who has acquired and exited well over $50 million worth of real estate and is currently an investor in over 2700 units of multifamily apartments.Connect with TimWebsite: Capital Raising PartyFacebook: Tim Mai | Capital Raising Nation Instagram: @timmaicomTwitter: @timmaiLinkedin: Tim MaiYouTube: Tim MaiConnect with UsTo learn more about partnering with us, visit our website at https://javierhinojo.com/ and www.allstatescapitalgroup.com, or send an email to admin@allstateseg.com. Sign up to get our Free Apartment Due Diligence Checklist Template and Multifamily Calculator by visiting https://javierhinojo.com/free-tools/.To join Javier's Mastermind, go to https://javierhinojo.com/mastermind/ and to apply to his BDB Mastermind, see https://javierhinojo.com/mastermind/#apply_form and answer the form.

Discover helicopter financing with Thora Capital CEO, Matt Rothschild. Learn about its origins, mechanics, markets served, financial structures, risks, benefits, tax advantages, and future trends. Connect with Matt Rothschild on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattrothschild/ Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors.Get started and download your free economic report today at https://aspenfunds.us/reportJoin the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclubSubscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/subscribe

Today's guest is Ben Fraser    Ben Fraser is the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at Aspen Funds, where he combines his analytical nature with a passion for delivering outstanding client service and strong returns through out-of-the-box investments.   Show summary:  In this episode, Sam speaks with Ben Frazier from Aspen Funds. They delve into the complexities of raising capital and the strategic shifts Aspen Funds has made to adapt to the evolving market. Ben outlines three common scenarios they encounter: providing gap funding for urgent capital needs, facilitating loan assumptions to improve leverage, and offering rescue capital in distressed situations. He explains the intricacies of negotiating with senior lenders, emphasizing the importance of understanding their motivations and the power of being the last money in. Ben also candidly discusses the current challenges in the commercial real estate market, including rising interest rates and an influx of new supply, suggesting that survival through the next few years will be key for investors.   -------------------------------------------------------------- Intro (00:00:00)   Ben's Career Journey (00:01:14)   Evolution of Aspen Funds (00:02:00)   Challenges in Raising Capital (00:03:42)   Adapting to Market Changes (00:04:55)   Navigating Risks in Real Estate Investments (00:05:13)   Building Trust with Investors (00:07:13)   Attracting Capital through Thought Leadership (00:10:52)   Timeline for Capital Attraction (00:12:13)   Current State of Commercial Real Estate Market (00:14:05)   Future Opportunities in Real Estate Investments (00:17:57)   Conclusion of the Show (00:17:57)   Gap Funding (00:18:24)   Loan Assumption (00:19:56)   Distressed Rescue Capital (00:20:52)   Hope for Sponsors (00:23:32)   Negotiating with Lenders (00:26:15)   Conclusion and Contact Information (00:28:52)   -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Ben:    LikedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds   Web: aspenfunds.us   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Ben Fraser (00:00:00) - There's something like 9 million accredited investors just in the US, right? For any one of us to be successful, I only need like a couple hundred investors. You know, if I want to go big, a couple thousand investors, that's not that many in the sea of accredited investors. And so my mindset started to shift. We started to position ourselves as thought leaders,, to attract capital to us as authorities in our space, doing a lot more content,, getting in front of audiences virtual and in person and starting to kind of build a,, an attraction mechanism to bring capital to us.   Intro (00:00:36) - Welcome to the how to scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:49) - Ben Frazier is the chief investment officer at Aspen Funds. They're an inc 5000 company, and he's responsible for sourcing, vetting and capital formation of investments. He has prior experience as a commercial banker and underwriter, as well as working in a boutique asset management group.   Sam Wilson (00:01:05) - He's also the co-host of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. So if you haven't checked that out, go check that out as well. Ben, welcome to the show.   Ben Fraser (00:01:12) - Hey, thanks for having me, Sam. Absolutely.   Sam Wilson (00:01:14) - The pleasure's mine. Been there. Three questions. I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?   Ben Fraser (00:01:22) - Yeah. So you kind of said a little bit. I was,, spent some time in banking as a commercial banker, underwriter. Learned a lot. Got to look under the hood of ultra wealthy borrowers of the bank. And my favorite thing was going to look at their personal financial statements and tax returns. Learned a whole lot. Two biggest takeaways were the most wealthy,, borrowers were business owners and real estate investors. And I thought, hey, that's what I want to do. So an opportunity to join Aspen Funds about six years ago now, I've become a partner and,, helping scale and grow the business,, and running running my team.   Ben Fraser (00:01:55) - So it's it's been an amazing ride. And,, just kind of getting started to.   Sam Wilson (00:02:00) - That's really cool. What was the opportunity that you saw when you joined Aspen Funds? Like, what was the gap that you said, hey, man, this is something I can fill and this is the direction we can take the company.   Ben Fraser (00:02:09) - Yeah, well, I kind of got bait and switch that I like to say in a in a certain way, because I was coming on to be the VP of finance. So as a banker, you know, finance MBA. So I was like, I'm going to go kind of the CFO route, kind of help with the the finance side of the business. So I joined, you know, they'd been going about five years at that point, had only raised about 10 million bucks. So it was pretty small at that point. But so opportunity to help scale and grow something. But then very quickly they said, hey, you know, we actually need help raising capital because that's, you know, really we need to scale.   Ben Fraser (00:02:43) - And I'm like, okay, that's not what I really signed up to do. But hey, I want to just help out where I can and, and the and grow. So learned very quickly., I had no idea what I was doing and,, tried all the wrong things. Made a lot of mistakes., wasted a lot of money,, trying to do different campaigns. But fast forward to six years later. We've raised over $200 million in equity from investors. And,, continue doing to to scale up. So it's it's been a fun thing. I have an amazing team. It's not all me. I have about,, six different people that are on my marketing and investor relations team. So we just continue to be able to invest in good people. And I don't do any calls anymore. But still, you know, run that team, right?   Sam Wilson (00:03:27) - No, that's really cool. I'd love to hear a little bit more about those kind of mistakes and things that you say maybe you did wrong early on, but before we get there, let's talk maybe about what Aspen was doing then and maybe what it's doing now.   Sam Wilson (00:03:40) - Like, how has that changed?   Ben Fraser (00:03:42) - Yeah. You know, I think it's important to have an agile business model, especially in real estate and investing, because the tides can change. Right. And what you were doing before,, may not be a good place to be now. And what was really cool at the genesis of Aspen, it was really an opportunistic thing that our, our founders saw, and it was buying discounted distressed mortgages on, on homes. Right. And at that point, coming out of the great financial,, crisis, they saw this opportunity was a great opportunity., but it really launched us. We continue to operate those funds that continue to perform very well, but it's just not the same level of growth that we've seen in the past. And so several years ago, we started to take the same approach that we use to identify really good opportunity sets, really good, what we call macro driven themes. So we're looking at the macro economic picture, trying to find where we think these long term trends are going to kind of carry the next wave and, invest in those verticals.   Ben Fraser (00:04:45) - And so we have a few different verticals we kind of focus on and have expanded into a lot of different,, kind of asset classes from there. And, continue to, to grow those.   Sam Wilson (00:04:55) - Got it. What about the distressed mortgage business? What's that? I mean, what's that look like today? If you guys were I asked this this is kind of a leading question because I'm, I'm an investor in a distressed mortgage fund that is basically gone belly up at this point.   Ben Fraser (00:05:13) - Oh, no. Yeah.   Sam Wilson (00:05:14) - It's not good, man. It's not good. I could I got a front row seat on telling you the wrong things to invest in., but it's gone belly up and I'm looking at it going, and they made some mistakes, I think maybe 3 or 4 years ago where they ended up doing. They took these loans and they did worker work workouts. Work around.   Ben Fraser (00:05:29) - Workouts. Yeah. Workouts.   Sam Wilson (00:05:30) - Yep. Workout. Okay. I'm not in that business. You can tell,, with the borrowers, but they were resetting then, you know, the interest rates at that point in time, like, hey, Ben, cool, man.   Sam Wilson (00:05:40) - We can rework your loan. I know you had 100 grand. We bought the loan for 20 grand., you know, we'll reset it for 70, and you can,, you know, you can take the well and we'll, you know, set it at 3 or 4%. Well, now, nobody wants those. They can't resell them. Like the value of those loans is declined to almost nothing because nobody wants to take a 4% or 3% loan on their books because they're not worth anything, because now it's, what, 7% that's going rate something like that? How did how did you guys get around not getting caught holding the bag like that?   Ben Fraser (00:06:08) - Yeah. You know, again, being agile not both in a macro sense, but also a micro sense. So as the market kind of matured we had to shift strategy. And so, you know, we we saw that one of the biggest risks would be rising interest rates. And at that point we thought it was a pretty, pretty minimal risk because we'd have low rates for a long time.   Ben Fraser (00:06:28) - , but we always risk adjusted our pricing. And we just kind of held to that and, you know, missed out on some opportunities, but just felt like that's, you know, we're taking more risk working with a borrower that is,, you know, not as good credit quality as, you know, you or I. And so we risk price those to,, you know, much higher interest rates. So our yields, our gross yields are generally in the 13 to 15% range., and so we've been able to stay right sized in that fund and still pay our investors their full return and haven't missed in 11 years. And,, have, you know, still pretty good healthy portfolio. So it's, you know, call it some luck, call it a little bit of foresight and just good discipline. Throughout changing, changing times.   Sam Wilson (00:07:13) - Right. And I think a lot of people are afraid of that. One of the things that we hear a lot of people say is, you know, don't don't fall prey to shiny object syndrome, which is a real thing.   Sam Wilson (00:07:22) - You know, we're investors, they get involved. I'm I'm one of them. I'll be honest. It's, you know, early on, you're like, oh, hey, what about this? What about that? That's really cool. That's really cool. But yet at the same time, there's a right time and place to be like, no, we're pivoting. We're not doing that anymore. Because as you said, very at the beginning that, you know, times change and you got to have to have a, have to have an agile business model in order to adapt with the times. So really cool. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk a little bit about the early on days of raising capital. You said you spent a lot of money and made a lot of mistakes, did some wrong things. Give us some insight there.   Ben Fraser (00:07:52) - Yeah. You know, so I came in with pretty much no network. We didn't have a website that worked,, and no background and raising capital. I'd done some like sales jobs before, so I knew how to like, talk to people.   Ben Fraser (00:08:03) - But, you know, that was about it. So my initial thought was, hey, if I just. Go into rooms where there's wealthy people. We have a compelling product, compelling offer. I can convince them to invest with me, right? I mean, it's that simple. Money needs a place to land. We got a good place for it. You know, easy as pie. So we started doing. I mean, it's kind of funny because we go to this this,, conference, and there was this,, kind of service provider that mostly worked with financial advisors, which this is a very common lead generation tool where they go do dinner events, they send out mailers, they bring people to a fancy steakhouse. They do a whole, you know, dog and pony show and convert people to a,, an appointment where you kind of talk one on one and then you, you know, get the assets. So they tried to apply this to,, fundraising. And,, so we tried this and, you know, I went to like a whole week long training of how you do these seminars.   Ben Fraser (00:09:03) - And,, we went all all in on it and spend a lot of money and had a lot of success from people coming to their and people that were interested. And then we had a really high conversion rate to appointment. So I'm like, man, this is working. So we just keep doing this while we're working through the the lead pipeline. And then at the end of the day, we did, I think, 3 or 4 of these events, and they're costing us 15, 20 grand a pop. So, you know, we're dropping some change. And at the end of the day, I raised a big fat goose egg and I was like, what just happened? Because people came, they were interested, they wanted to learn more and I couldn't close them. And what was so interesting to me, you know, there's different reasons why people decide not to invest, but the ultimate one was they just didn't have enough trust in us. They didn't. There wasn't enough of a,, comfort level, knowing who we are, what we're doing.   Ben Fraser (00:09:57) - And, you know, we had a little bit of a track record, but, you know, this was these were called audience. And so very quickly learned, you know, the kind of idea of, of funnel,, marketing, but also in capital raising, building that trust is so important. And finding ways to shortcut that trust curve is like kind of really became my, my passion of learning how to do that. And so what really shifted was we instead of like my approach at that point was begging and groveling and just any dollar I could get I would take. But, you know, it created this scarcity mindset to where it was like, if I don't close this investor on the phone right now, I don't know when my next investor is going to come and I need the money to, you know, invest in this deal to an abundance mindset of, you know, I think I forget the number that changes all the time, but there's something like 9 million accredited investors just in the US, right? For any one of us to be successful, I only need like a couple hundred investors.   Ben Fraser (00:10:52) - You know, if I want to go big, a couple thousand investors, that's not that many in the sea of accredited investors. And so my mindset started to shift. We started to position ourselves as thought leaders,, to attract capital to us as authorities in our space, doing a lot more content,, getting in front of audiences virtual and in person and starting to kind of build a,, an attraction mechanism to bring capital to us. And,, then you build on momentum right where you, you find where the momentum's rolling and you just double down, triple down and,, and just keep, keep going. So it's fast forward. Now, we've raised, raised a lot of money and it's I'm not working any harder. Not necessarily any smarter is just doing the right things. Right.   Sam Wilson (00:11:36) - No, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. That's,, that's that's time intensive on the front end. I think putting in those, positioning yourself as thought leaders, putting out content, I mean, what was the,, it's like,.   Sam Wilson (00:11:50) - You know, Google ads or something like that. You know, they say on the front end, like you're going to spend the first 4 or 6 months and you're pouring in tons of money in an ad campaign in the first 4 to 6 months of that. There's just very little happening. You don't think, and then eventually, you know, you start to get traction with it. What would you say the timeline is for you? Or you said, hey, man, we put in the hard work that 12 months, 24 months, what was how long do you feel like before you start to really get your feet underneath you?   Ben Fraser (00:12:13) - Yeah. You know, I think it's just it has to be a mindset shift where we all want a silver bullet that if I just do X and I invest Y into it, I get out Z and I make all this money. Right. And it's it's never as simple as that. And I think I spent so long trying to find the formula that we could just pour money into that would just give us, you know, new capital.   Ben Fraser (00:12:34) - , but it's like the quick fix, right? And it's so much of what we're doing, you have to play the long game. And when you're doing content, when you're building a,, an audience, when you're building a platform, whatever mechanism you choose, whether that's, you know, blogs, whether that's YouTube, whether that's a podcast,, whatever it is, it takes time. And so for us, we started with SEO,, we had some skills internally of being able to,, rank high in Google. And so we started doing that, writing articles and, ranking high in Google for certain keywords and then doing layering on advertising on top of that. And then, you know, that became kind of the first,,, flywheel that we could kind of build off of into other, other things. And so it took some time. It's hard to say exactly when it really kicked off, but I would say we spent. Probably a good portion of a year or two, like with this mindset of we're just going to go hard.   Ben Fraser (00:13:25) - We're going to, you know, build this thought leadership platform with results along the way. But I would say at about that kind of 18 to 24 month mark. Everything. Just start taking off, right? Because you get a couple wins, you get on a couple stages and all of a sudden, you know, you just start to attract more and then it's,, this kind of snowball that picks up steam and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And, you know, you just kind of roll with it, right?   Sam Wilson (00:13:49) - I love it, love it. Thank you for sharing that. Certainly appreciate it. We've got about nine minutes left here on the show. I want to get cover. Two things. One, I want to get your thoughts on what the current,, commercial real estate market looks like. And then what you guys are really going along in right now.   Ben Fraser (00:14:05) - Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting as we stand today, beginning of 2024,, we're sitting on the back end of the fastest,, rate increases in history.   Ben Fraser (00:14:15) - And,, the market is still digesting. What does that mean? You know, how how long is this going to be? When can we get our first rate cut, please? Jerome Powell and it's from my perspective, caused a,, a misalignment of expectations to reality. And I think a lot of people are just wanting to go back to the old normal. Right? What we're used to really low interest rates, really cheap money. And I think we're entering into a new normal. And,, I think we're going to have rates higher for longer. What does that mean? I mean, anyone that knows, you know, some basic math and you have smart listeners, but, you know, higher interest rates put a lot of pressure on higher cap rates, which really puts, you know, downward pressure on value. So I think we're seeing,, values being taking a hit in the short term. But we also see a lot of capital on the sidelines looking for places to invest.   Ben Fraser (00:15:08) - Right. So I don't think we're going to see the next oh eight., you know, part of that was driven by a banking crisis. And we're not seeing the same level of a banking crisis. It's more idiosyncratic across different types of of lenders that have maturing portfolios., but what I do know is that, you know, coming from a banking background, when when the credit markets tighten and when investors get spooked, it's very difficult to form capital. It's very difficult to go get debt, very difficult to go get raises, raise equity. And investors, they see maybe opportunity or the kind of beginning stages of it as the market kind of resets and goes into another bull run. But I think we're still very early in that. I don't think we have fully reset number one. And number two, it's going to take some time for investors to have confidence coming back into, well, what is the new exit cap rate that we're projecting? You know, what is the economy going to do.   Ben Fraser (00:15:59) - And right now what we're seeing from a risk adjusted standpoint is kind of the private credit boom. Right? This is this is the time of the market when private credit, it goes through a really big,, boom cycle because senior lenders are pulling back., a lot of times if it's like agency or CMBS loans that you have on existing portfolios or acquiring new interest rate,, or not interest rate, interest reserves,, that you got to bolster your, your cash reserves that maybe you don't have enough capital to finish your business plan, you know. And so there's credit tightening there. It's difficult to raise capital from a capital call of investors. So you can kind of come in and preferred equity mezzanine debt lower part of the capital stack lower risk. You don't have the same exposure to cap rates continuing to go up or values to drop because you're usually cap out at, say, 70, 75% loan to value. And then on new acquisitions, we're seeing a lot of this loan assumptions are the hot thing right now, right where you can go and assume an agency loan,, at, you know, low rates of yesteryear and,, be able to ride out whatever maturity is left on there.   Ben Fraser (00:17:08) - But generally those are very low leveraged loans, especially, you know, at the values a couple of years later. So,, you can kind of come in at that part of the, of the capital stack. You can generally get really strong risk adjusted returns., you know, not quite equity like returns, but low double digits and,, on a net basis and you're way lower in the capital stack. So it's, it's from our standpoint, a very attractive place to be. We think it's going to be an opportunity for at least the next several years., as a lot of these maturing loans start to hit and,, the market has to digest an enormous amount of supply of new,, mostly housing and multifamily,, so there's going to be a lot of turbulence in the market for the next 24 months, and we want to be positioned to take advantage of that.   Sam Wilson (00:17:57) - So how does that work? Let's let's assume, I don't know, we're going to make up some fictional situation.   Sam Wilson (00:18:02) - Or maybe you can make up a,, change the names for,, identity. You know, no one knows who they are. But what's a situation that you guys have encountered where someone has come to you and kind of walk us through how you guys look at the opportunity, and then kind of how you help the borrower out in that situation, then how you protect your investors. Give me give me kind of some nitty gritty if you can, without obviously telling your stories.   Ben Fraser (00:18:24) - Yeah. So I mean, there's probably three situations that we generally see. One is gap funding. So I had a,, a borrower just the other day. They're closing on a deal., they, you know, leverages downs, have to raise more equity. It's really hard to raise equity right now. He had a big investor drop out there going to the closing table. And like 3 to 4 weeks I need a million bucks., so we're coming in. This is a 90 day loan. And, you know, we're charging high interest for this because it's, you know,, it's money that he needs, and we're coming quick.   Ben Fraser (00:18:57) - And it's an asset based loan. But in the course of the whole project, it's a very, very minimal cost versus not closing. So we kind of come and help gap fund., and then we get paid off in 90 days that that happens fairly regularly. Another case I mentioned is the loan assumption. And generally loan assumptions like what we're looking at right now, they have a 2.9% assumed rate with another I think it's 6 or 7 years and a really good submarket. You know, it's a I think a 90s vintage property. So it's just it's a great asset. But it's at like 45% leverage., so it's difficult to get your, their equity investors returns. They want at that leverage point. So we come in. We're more expensive than the senior debt. You know we're in the kind of mid double digits total cost standpoint. But it's still a creative to their equity investors who get all the upside. And we kind of get a contractual rate of return. And we bring the leverage up to a, a more normal scenario.   Ben Fraser (00:19:56) - , while they can still, you know, manage that a really good loan assumption., and the kind of third scenario is probably the more distressed rescue capital situation. This is,, these are a lot more challenging because a lot of times basis dictates the future, right? If you just bought it at the peak and you levered it up to 80%, and we've seen a lot of deals recently, there's there's there's just no way you're not going to sell it at a loss. I mean, I'm sorry I can't put any more money down at this deal because you're already at today's value. You're over over 100% leverage, right. So those are difficult situations. But there are situations where we're seeing where a lot of these senior lenders and bridge debt lenders are very, very desperate because they have a lot of issues in the portfolio. They get very aggressive. So we can actually go lower in the capital stack. They actually subordinate portions of their senior loan behind us. So they actually stand to lose significant amounts.   Ben Fraser (00:20:52) - , if,, you know, if there's a loss in the property before we ever get hit, even below the senior, not all the way below, but somewhere kind of in the, in the,, behind them. So those are kind of different situations we see,, in kind of the needs for the capital.   Sam Wilson (00:21:07) - Right. So just and I want to, I want to kind of pick that last deal apart a little bit and see if you can clarify some things on this. What you're finding is that there are bridge lenders out there because obviously a loan is a lender's asset. So they have a loan on a on a deal. And that for whatever that that deal is now in distress. And you guys come to them along with the borrower and say, hey, look, we can help bridge this gap. Yep. Or whatever. Not. I guess you use gap funding on the first deal, but we can we can come in and you in the, in the initial, senior debt holder will now subordinate part of their debt to what you guys are bringing to the table.   Sam Wilson (00:21:45) - So you guys are now in position one in order to keep this deal moving forward. Okay. Yeah. For those of you who are listening, he's shaking his head. Yes.   Ben Fraser (00:21:54) - I know that's the question.   Sam Wilson (00:21:57) - I am just yeah.   Ben Fraser (00:21:58) - So, so so the idea on this, this deal in particular, it's,, they. We're doing the renovation plan that a bad property manager drove. Occupancy was low, aided to a lot of cash reserves. They ran out of money to finish renovation plan. They're stuck at like 70% occupancy because they don't have the capital to finish renovation plan. They hit the business plan. They're hitting the market rents. They have a path to stabilization. They don't have any money to do it. The senior lender is saying, we're not putting any more money out because we're out. We're our whole portfolio is, you know, in trouble. And,, we're, you know, they don't want to take it back because they have other deals are taking back. And, you know, that's the last thing they want to do.   Ben Fraser (00:22:37) - So we could come in and say, hey, we'll provide the, the, the, the funding to finish the business plan. But lender we need you to subordinate to us in this scenario. It's, it's a almost a 2 to 1. So if we put $3 million out they're going to subordinate $6 million of their senior portion of their loan behind us. So they have to lose $6 million before we even lose a dime of our capital. And that's, you know, last money in dictate terms. Right. And that's just the reality is you can write the ticket and we have all the leverage, because if we don't like the deal, we just won't invest in it. We won't put the money out. And so that's that's where you get a lot of you know getting to cherry pick.   Sam Wilson (00:23:16) - Got it. That's really cool Ben I love that I mean that's that's I mean that's amazing one that you get to dictate those terms and come in in that position. I guess there's there's two further thoughts on that though is that what is the hope from the sponsors position.   Sam Wilson (00:23:32) - Like what's the hope for them as it pertains to their equity investors? Are they eventually just hoping to just not lose the farm on this deal and make their investors whole as kind of that? This is their this is their their Hail Mary to get out of the deal alive 100%.   Ben Fraser (00:23:47) - I think a lot of sponsors in these situations have realized, wow,, we're going to be lucky if we can get our capital back, because a lot of these deals were purchased at historically low cap rates. And when the interest rates have reset and they're higher now, you I mean, they can't even refinance because the refinance would require a huge capital injection rate. We all have cash out refinance, right. Most deals right now are cash in refinances. That's not the direction you want to see cash going. And so it's it's difficult because values have come down. We're kind of I think at the beginning stages of the worst part of this cycle. Right. I think it's over the next 20 or 12 months, it's going to get pretty, pretty gnarly and then hopefully kind of start to rebound up.   Ben Fraser (00:24:30) - But if you can just make it through the next couple of years, right, to where a lot of this,, distress of maturing loans is hit the market. I mean, the other kind of big wave that were they're fighting right now is new supply, especially in the Sunbelt markets. We're seeing record number of deliveries of new units because these were all started in the cheap money, you know, part of the end of the last cycle. And it's now all being delivered. And so we have 60% more new supply than the previous record hitting over the next two years. And so you're now competing not only with high interest rates, but now with a new tons of new properties. And they're getting very aggressive and leasing these up. So you just if you can make it through the next couple of years, you can hope to ride out the storm and hopefully values recover a little bit. Hopefully we do have some lower interest rates and all those factors that you can't control, but probably in a better position a couple of years down the road can hopefully at least return capital.   Ben Fraser (00:25:27) - And maybe you can squeeze out some profits too.   Sam Wilson (00:25:30) - Right? Right. And I think that's, that's I mean, one, I don't wish that on anybody, but it's also just an economic reality. I think a lot of sponsors probably need to take to heart, which is that, you know, the days of yester year of doubling our money in 18 months, which I was,, you know, part and parcel I was a participant in had lots of fun doing it. But I think those days are behind us for the foreseeable future., so, you know, getting being honest with your investors and saying, hey, look, if we do our, the best we might do here is get out alive. So if we can return your capital to you, I feel like we've hit a home run at that point. So that's that's a humbling conversation. But it's something I think we're just going to see more of. The last question I have for you on this, what's that conversation like with the,, bridge debt lender, the, the, the senior lien holder saying, hey guys, we're going to come in as rescue.   Sam Wilson (00:26:15) - Like, how do you even start that? I mean, I, I would imagine that that conversation I'm just projecting here. So tell me if I'm right or wrong or how it actually works, I guess is the real question. But that, I mean, it's going to begin with a lot of like no answers in the beginning because like, no, we're not subordinating our debt and like, why? Like, how does that even work out? Like, how do you work your way through the legal and technical challenges of getting this whole sort of a deal done?   Ben Fraser (00:26:39) - Yeah, attorneys definitely get get rich in this scenario. So there's a lot of negotiations, a lot of, you know, redlining of agreements. But,, yeah, I mean, it really starts with, you know, knowing where where our box is and knowing what we're not willing to capitulate on. And so it's really a matter of here's your options. I mean, one of the options of the sponsor is. If they don't get the scalpel, they give the keys back to the property.   Ben Fraser (00:27:05) - But from the lender's standpoint. What's their motivation. Right. And if there's like we're actually targeting certain bridge debt lenders, I'm not gonna say the names because it's proprietary knowledge. Right. But they have struggling portfolios and we know they they don't want to take back all their properties. Right. And so if they have a certain number of properties or a portfolio that's just struggling, they just want to kick the can down purely from an operational standpoint. Right. They can't take back as many properties because they're going to probably take losses in their capital. So it's understanding what their motivations are and the position they're in. Because in some deals we've seen with this lender, they're actually not in a negative equity position. There actually is a little bit of equity they sold right now. Now the sponsor would lose capital. And so but we don't have as much leverage to work with the the senior lender. And so you know we have to kind of understand the position. And then we've actually just walked away from the negotiating table like two times already on this one deal.   Ben Fraser (00:28:04) - And I'm not even sure if we're going to get there. Then just we're talking about a deal. In my head that's, you know, an act of negotiations., but. It's understanding what their motivations are. And because I, I write the last check, I have all the power and all the leverage because I just walk away if I don't, because there's a lot of other deals out there that are looking for capital. And so it's it's you kind of have all leverage in that position, right?   Sam Wilson (00:28:29) - No, that's really, really interesting. Ben, thank you for coming on the show today and kind of breaking down what it is you guys are doing currently where you've been in the past. You've given us all sorts of insight, everything from kind of the mistakes you made early on raising capital to,, you know, what you guys are doing now on the private credit side of things, where you guys see the market and just how you guys are positioning yourself for the foreseeable future. So certainly appreciated you coming on today and sharing your insights with us.   Sam Wilson (00:28:52) - If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?   Ben Fraser (00:28:57) - Yeah, you can check out our podcast, Invest Like a Billionaire., and then our private equity firm is Aspen funds at Aspen Funds us.   Sam Wilson (00:29:04) - Aspen funds us. We'll make sure we include that there in the show notes. Ben, thank you again for your time today. I do appreciate it.   Intro (00:29:10) - Thank you. Sam. Hey, thanks.   Sam Wilson (00:29:12) - For listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do.   Intro (00:29:15) - Me a favor.   Sam Wilson (00:29:16) - And subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.