The Wins, Losses, And Lessons From Buying $1B of Real Estate ( What To Do / NOT Do) w/ Brandon Turner

Summary

---

Action Academy Podcast: "The Wins, Losses, And Lessons From Buying $1B of Real Estate (What To Do / NOT Do) w/ Brandon Turner"

Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Brandon Turner (Former host, BiggerPockets; Founder, Open Door Capital)
Date: December 29, 2025
Format: Live Interview (Part 1 – Main Interview and Lessons, Q&A follows in Part 2)

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Brian Luebben interviews Brandon Turner about his remarkable journey from buying cheap rentals in a rainy Washington town to leading Open Door Capital with over $1 billion in real estate. Unlike highlight reels, this candid conversation reveals Brandon’s biggest wins, painful mistakes, hard-won lessons, and the shifting business frameworks that helped him scale. The discussion covers key turning points, mindset shifts, business models, decision-making, and the realities of building a real estate empire—including regrets and advice that apply whether you're buying your first house or syndicating multimillion-dollar deals.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brandon’s Journey: Four Phases

• Phase 1: Early days (“Dumpy rentals” in Grays Harbor, WA; started with “$15–$40k” properties).
• Phase 2: BiggerPockets years (employee #1, grew with the company, eventual PE sale).
• Phase 3: Open Door Capital (from 30 units to 14,500+, $1B AUM in 5 years, mainly mobile home parks).
• Phase 4: The Better Life Tribe (giving back via a profit-donating group aimed at fighting human trafficking and building accountability/community).
• Quote:
  • "They all bleed into each other. But that's who I am in a nutshell. Oh, and I got a beautiful wife and three kids." – Brandon (03:41)

---

2. Imposter Syndrome as Fuel for Growth ([06:53])

• Brian prompts Brandon: How did you persist when you felt like an imposter on stage among “real” syndicators?
• Brandon’s approach:
  • “If you ever feel that imposter syndrome, don't fall back into what you were, lean forward into what you could be.” ([07:39])
  • Getting in rooms where you’re not the expert is key to leveling up.
  • The “Vivid Vision” book by Cameron Herold became pivotal; putting the vision on paper inspired others to join and created alignment.
• Notable quote:
  • “It is more important that you decide than what you decide.” (11:10)

---

3. The Power of Decision & Clarity ([10:13])

• Struggle: Constantly pulled in different directions, seduced by every new podcast guest or niche.
• Breakthrough:
  • Simply deciding on a clear path (e.g. “Let’s go all in on mobile home parks”) was what made things happen.
  • Decision is the “greatest currency”—most people’s problem is indecision, not lack of capital/network.
• Actionable advice:
  • “Set aside an hour of thinking time… What are you not deciding right now?” ([12:02])

---

4. Architect vs. CEO: Building the Business You Want ([14:39])

• The “Architect” Model:
  • Four types: DIY → Project Manager → CEO → Architect.
  • Architect: Build the business “from the outside in”—not at the center, but designing the structure and vision.
  • Hired a CEO for all new ventures immediately; gave significant equity to incentivize but learned hard lessons in equity allocation.
• Cautionary tale:
  • Gave away large equity stakes without deep planning; admits to making “eight-figure mistakes” early on.
• Lesson:
  • “The amount of equity you give out is a direct reflection of your belief in how big it's going to get.” ([19:10])

---

5. Handling Growth Pains, Mistakes, and Mindset ([22:26])

• Real Talk:
  • “Not a highlight reel.” Admits to “7 out of 68” deals struggling (“all apartments in Texas”), largely due to massive increases in taxes & insurance.
  • Big mistake: sloppy equity division, bad hires (“eight executive assistants”), and deals that didn’t pan out.
• Mindset Shift:
  • Embraces Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” concept—getting beat up is the price of growth.
  • Advice: Don’t shrink from setbacks. “The glory goes to the man who’s dusty and sweaty… at least he got on the field.” ([22:50])
• Key perspective:
  • “No great company is built without a near death experience.”
  • Reminds himself: “This is what I wanted. Suck it up, buttercup.” ([26:02])

---

6. Swing the Sword in Daylight ([26:06])

• Brian’s takeaway from Brandon:
  • Don’t just “struggle in the arena” in private—share your journey publicly so others are part of it.
• Notable quote:
  • “They care because they were following me when I was in Grays Harbor and they were with me on the journey to Hawaii, and that's why they care that I'm in Hawaii.” – Brandon (27:02)

---

7. Raising Capital: From "Needing to Be Liked" to $500M+ ([27:32])

• Brandon’s block:
  • Deep fear of rejection and a craving to be liked (traced to childhood, family dynamics).
  • Early failed capital raises (“crushed my soul”) and a vow to “never raise money again.”
• Breakthrough:
  • Identity reframe via coach ("I am a money machine/magnet”; resisted at first, but adopted).
  • Practical solution: Don't fix every weakness—design around them!
    • Hired an investor relations lead to handle calls and direct asks; focused on content and education.
    • “I've spoken on the phone to two [investors].”
• Lesson for listeners:
  • “At scale, you hire your weaknesses, you buy your weaknesses.” – Brian ([32:37])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Imposter Syndrome:
  • “You could shrink… or you could rise to the occasion. So, I challenge everybody—if you feel imposter syndrome, don’t fall back, lean forward.” – Brandon ([07:23])
• On Vision:
  • “Your team doesn’t know what you’re thinking. Your family doesn’t know what you’re thinking. It’s all up here. We’re entrepreneurs. We’re all crazy, right?” ([08:40])
• On Decision:
  • “It is more important that you decide than what you decide.” ([11:10])
• On Equity:
  • “The amount of equity you give out is a direct reflection of your belief in how big it's going to get.” ([19:12])
• Hard Lessons:
  • “If you put more time into planning your breakfast than planning out equity in your multi-million dollar business… shame on you. And shame on me, because that’s exactly what I did.” ([17:13])
• On Mistakes:
  • “You will figure it out when the time comes. I royally screwed it up in the beginning, like pretty badly… and then I figured it out and kept a good attitude about it.” – Brian ([21:14])
• Resilience:
  • “No great company is built without a near-death experience.” ([22:50])
  • “This is what I wanted. Suck it up, buttercup.” ([26:02])
• On Raising Capital:
  • “I never actually overcame the fear of rejection… I just found another way to get around that fear… I hired an investor relations guy… I’ve spoken on the phone to two [investors] ever.” ([31:30])
• On Strengths and Weaknesses:
  • “At scale, you hire your weaknesses, you buy your weaknesses.” – Brian ([32:37])

---

Important Timestamps

• 03:41 – Brandon’s Four Phases: Life & Career Recap
• 06:53 – Imposter syndrome at a real estate conference
• 08:30 – Discovering and using the Vivid Vision
• 11:10 – “It is more important that you decide than what you decide”
• 14:39 – Four business building models; the “Architect” approach
• 17:13 – The equity split mistakes (“multi-million dollar breakfast”)
• 19:10 – “Equity is belief in the future”
• 22:26 – Current business struggles, setbacks, and mental reframing
• 25:46 – “Man in the Arena,” and normalizing entrepreneurial struggle
• 27:02 – Building in public: Why sharing the journey matters
• 28:06 – Raising capital, rejection, and re-architecting your role
• 31:30 – “I've spoken on the phone to two [investors] ever”
• 32:37 – Buying/hiring for your weaknesses

---

Tone & Style

• Conversational, honest, and often humorous
• Candid sharing of failures alongside wins ("not a highlight reel")
• Motivational but steeped in tactical, real-world lessons
• Accessible – relatable anecdotes from early days to present scale

---

Takeaways for Listeners

• Success is messy: Even the pros make massive mistakes—what matters is learning, adapting, and moving forward.
• Clarity & decision-making: Deciding is the real barrier, not the tactical "how." Gain clarity on your vision, make a call, and refine as you go.
• Build for scale: Architect your business to work without you at the center; don’t be afraid to hire for your weaknesses.
• Leverage your story: Share your journey (“swing your sword in daylight”) and invite people into your growth, not just at the finish line.
• Mindset trumps tactics: The ability to reframe fear, embrace public mistakes, and persist through “near-death” challenges differentiates those who build great companies.

---

End of Episode 1 – Main Interview
(Part 2, a live Q&A, follows in the next released episode)

---

Transcript

[A]

What's up, Action Academy family? Today we have a super special episode for you. Today's episode is a live call that we did with Mr. Brandon Turner. For anybody that is unfamiliar, he was the former host of Biggerpockets. He was the voice that got a lot of us into real estate investing. And since leaving Biggerpockets a few years ago, Brandon started up his own fund, Open Door capital and raised $500 million to buy a billion dollars worth of real estate. So guys, if you are unfamiliar with Brandon, you may hear a billion and be like, whoa, that's ins. Remember back five, 10 years ago, he was just a guy living in Grays Harbor, Washington talking about real estate. He had 10 to 30 doors of his own. So you guys can do the same journey. Today's episode is so cool because it's very much so, not a highlight reel episode. He talks about how he messed up with his equity splits, with his capital raising, with his fund model. So many things that he did wrong in the journey from zero to a billion dollars of assets under management. It is a gold mine for whatever st of real estate investing that you're at. Whether you are buying your first property or you're syndicating your first deal, this show has everything for you. So much so that we are splitting it into two distinct sections. Section number one is both myself and Brandon talking almost interview style for about 30, 40 minutes for the first half of the call. Tomorrow's episode on Wednesday is going to be a Q and A session that our Action Academy members were able to have directly with Brandon, one on one. And the questions were so wonderful and that it went an entire 40 minutes extra. And with the permission of our members and of Brandon, I am sharing that on the episode tomorrow. Both episodes are equally valuable with so much good stuff in just completely different formats. So this way it's going to be so much more easily digestible for you guys on the way to work, from work, at the gym, on your walks, with your kids, wherever you're at. As always, over here at Action Academy we have a very simple business model. We just give you all the information for free and we sell the implementation so the money is made when you are in person doing the deals, shaking the hands, having the life changing coaching. That's what we're about to do in the Dominican Republic as we have 120 Action Academy members flying out today to our fourth international mastermind. Guys, if you're interested in membership to Action Academy, check out the show description. You can click the link, book a call Happy to speak with you or actionacademy.com now let's get to today's episode. So guys, how we're gonna go here is we'll do a quick intro for anybody that is unfamiliar with Brandon and then we will break down the simple, easy, completely painless journey from zero to a billion.

[B]

Easy?

[A]

No, it's the easiest.

[B]

And quick. Did you say quick? Very, very fast.

[A]

Yeah, quick, effortless, easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. We'll scale go through that journey and then we'll break at about probably 30, 40 minutes deep and we'll let you guys ask questions. So as we progress through this, just be thinking about what questions to ask Brandon and then first come, first serve, show of hands and we'll get to a good Q and A session. But first and foremost, we'll guide the conversation. Strategically. We're going to balance between motivation and also just hard knocks because there's been awesome times of his journey where he was able to sit down, create a vision and make big things happen in his life. But also the happening of the stuff and the happening of the vision. That's where all the friction comes in. You go on that hero's journey that we talk about. So Brandon, for people that are unfamiliar with you on the call tonight, of which we have almost 150. Who are you, dude? Who is this guy? Who is this beard? What do you do?

[B]

Yeah, what's up, man? Thank you for having me. This awesome. My story in a nutshell. I'll give you four phases. We're going to do it in under two minutes. Phase one, I got out of call. I got basically done with college and I decided to become a real estate investor. So my wife and I, we got married young. I think I was 20 when I got married. We started buying just cheap little crappy rental properties. Like we're talking like 30,000, 40,000, 15,000. That was my cheapest one. Just buying little dumpy rental properties out in Grays Harbor, Washington, which, if anybody's been out there, anybody know Grace Harbor, Washington, we know it. I'm sorry, it's not a, it's not a great place. It's beautiful. It rains 300 days a year. So I lived there for a decade. My wife's from there, bought a bunch of rentals because they were cheap. And yeah, that was phase one. Phase two, I ended up becoming friends with a guy named Josh Dorkin who had founded his little forum, a little blog online that was very small called Bigger Pockets. And I was an early member there. I found it because I was googling for information. And I became employee number one at the company. I was the very first person ever there. I helped the company grow. And then they sold the private equity good. Ten years later for a lot more than no money. And then, yeah, that's phase two. But toward the end of phase two, I decided to get back pretty heavily into real estate. And so I started a company called Open Door Capital. I was buying real estate along the way, but I had 30 units or so. I started Opendoor Capital. Over the past five years now here in phase three, we've gone from zero to a billion. A little over a billion dollars of real estate. 14,500 units, mostly mobile home parks, some multifamily and some self storage. And then phase four, I started a group called the Better Life Tribe after meeting Tim Tebow, learning all about the horrors of human trafficking and all the terrible stuff in the world. And so I started that as a not. It's not technically a nonprofit because they won't give me a nonprofit status. Little did you know, me all didn't probably know this. If you're a real estate syndicator, they won't give you a non profit because they're like, you're going to use that to raise capital and therefore they disallow nonprofits. So anyway, I have a for profit that donates 100% of profits away to charity called the Better Life Tribe. And we've got about a thousand members there learning about goals, accountability, real estate, all that. So that's the four phases of my life. They all bleed into each other. But that's. That's who I am in a nutshell. Oh, and I got a beautiful wife and three kids.

[A]

Super cool, man. Yeah, obviously, I think a lot of us on this call were brought into real estate from the sound of Mr. Brandon Turner's voice here. And yeah, show of hands, who listened to Brandon on Bigger Pockets back in the day? The artist, the program formerly known as Bigger Pockets. Yes, whatever's happening over there now, but it's all good. We digress. So man, there's a few different angles that I want to take on this. I want to go back to a moment where you were on stage keynoting at a conference and you look out at the room and you go, holy crap, why am I on this stage? Everyone else is beyond me financially. And you had that voice in your head, start talking. And for most people on this call and well, not on this call, but most people that listen, that voice would be the reason that they Stop. And for some reason, that voice instead was the thing that fueled you, that made you decide to go up to that next level. So what was that conversation going on in your head? And what is the difference between you using that to scale this open door fund versus you deciding, Deciding just not to get back on stage again?

[B]

Yeah, when you're. I never really thought about it this way, but yeah, when you're faced with, like, imposter syndrome, you have one of two options, right? Option one is you fall back into where you no longer have imposter syndrome. You say, okay, I don't deserve to be here. And so I'm going to pull myself back, I'm going to shrink, I'm going to get smaller. I'm going to listen to those people who maybe are negative against me or whatever. I'm going to shrink back. Or option two is I'm going to rise to the occasion. I'm going to deserve to be here. So, yeah, so I was on that stage and I looked out everyone, like, everybody was a syndicator. Everyone had hundreds of deals, if not thousands of properties. And I'm like, man, I just have a. I just have a big podcast. Like, I'm here to sell tickets. I'm just like, on stage, like, monkey dancing for. I don't know, it's just silly. I was like, I don't deserve to be here. But thankfully I didn't. Yeah, I didn't fall back into. I'm not going to do this because I'm too small. I just was like, I guess that's where I got to get to. I got to get to what these people are doing. And so, again, I. I challenge everybody. If you ever feel that imposter syndrome is don't fall back into what you were, lean forward into what you could be. I think it's actually super valuable to get into those rooms where you are feeling imposter syndrome, where you feel like you're not the best in the room. In fact, I think, Brian, you even put something on your. On your Instagram the other day about that. Girls hanging out with all these millionaires in this room, and here's where everyone's at. It was. That's super motivating when you're like, oh, I'm not the big guy. I'm not the big dog in this room. I'm. I don't like, I don't deserve to be here. And that's where you deserve to be, which is the irony of it. So, yeah, that was the kind of catalyst I On the flight home back to Maui. I just moved to Maui. I read a little book called the Vivid Vision from a guy named Cameron Herald. Anybody read that one? It's a great book.

[A]

Oh, they better have.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a good book.

[A]

I've probably given Cameron Harold 10,000 book sales by this point.

[B]

That. Yeah, me too. It's book changed my life. I was like, oh, if I don't have a clear vision on where I want to get to, how do I expect A, to get there and B, get people to follow me there? If you have a big vision, you need people to follow you there. And I'm happy to talk about that today if you guys want to talk vision and how to get people to follow you. But the primary thing is you got to have a very clear vision. Your team doesn't know what you're thinking. Your family doesn't know what you're thinking. Nobody knows what you're thinking. It's all up here. We're entrepreneurs. We're all crazy, right? Like, we're literally insane. And you got to get that insane chatter of everyone else sees in you and get on a piece of paper and visualize it in a way that inspires people. And so I did that. I wrote up my Vivid vision. It was like a, whatever, a 2,000 word article about my future. But I had a thousand units, I had seven employees, I had blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I took it home and I showed my buddy Ryan, who was there helping me move. He read it and he goes, dude, I want to be a part of that. And that was my founding of Open Door Capital. Was Ryan saying, dude, I want to be a part of that. And that's where. Yeah, that's where that came from. Was like, they're just giving that vision. And here's the thing, is it. Most people get stuck when it comes to vision because they say, I don't know what I want. Does anybody else ever feel that way? I don't know what the right path is. I don't know where I should go. Should I build the real estate business or should I build the whatever, like some other thing? Should I go and start an Amazon business or go be a personal trainer or male model like Brian? I don't know. There's a lot of options. And so what I finally, the curse of being on the podcast or of listening to podcasts is, is you guys know what I mean by I say this. It all sounds awesome, doesn't it? Like, you listen to somebody for an hour talking about like self storage. And you're like, yeah, that sounds great. I want to do that. And you hear somebody talking about mobile home parks. You're like, yeah, that sounds great. And then you hear them talking about multifamily and syndication and single family. And you hear a guy like Chad Car, who's, you only need five units and you can retire and just hang out with your kids. And you're like, yeah, you're right. And then you hear Grant Cardone who's like, if you have less than a thousand, you're an idiot. And you're like, you're right. So I'm constantly, like, battling, like, what's the right thing? And then I read a line in that book, Traction, and it said, it is usually more important that you decide than what you decide. It is more important that you decide than what you decide. And that was, like, such a trigger point for me. I was like, you know what? Who cares if it's assisted living or whatever, any of the things, right? There's a million things we were looking at doing that I thought would be cool. I finally just said, you know what? Let's just go all in a mobile home parks. And it was the simple act of deciding that then made everything else come true afterwards. In fact, I argue this all the time. I teach a lot of newbies how to buy real estate. I have a program called First Deal. It's literally buy your first deal. But I teach newbies this and I teach people in. I have a group called the 50. It's all multimillionaires who are all massive, like, titans of their real estate empires. I teach this exact concept to both groups. And I'll say it to you. The number one thing that holds us back in life is not lack of capital or lack of network or we didn't have the right education. It. We just haven't decided. Like, decision is the greatest currency you can have. If you are like, you decide and you're like, I'm in. Like, I've decided. I'm committing to it. And you go, you can accomplish almost anything, but most of us live in this. I'm not ready to go all in. I'm just going to tiptoe a little bit. I'm going to try this. What if I choose the wrong thing and you get lost in that forever? So, I don't know. I guess I would encourage. If you want an action step for today, if you take one thing away from today is ask yourself, what are you not deciding right now? What have you been sitting on for days, weeks, months, maybe even years. And you're just living in this oblivion because you haven't made the decision. And you might need to set aside an hour of thinking time later. Deal.

[A]

What?

[B]

Where am I not making a decision? And then put a date on the calendar and be like, I'm going to decide by this date, by tomorrow, by next week. What are you waiting? Or when I talk to people who are like, oh, I'm debating between this and this, I always ask this question and I push them. I say, what do you need to make that decision? Because they haven't even decided what they need to make the decision. Like, they need to go, like two levels deep here. I'm like, what are you deciding? If I should go into mobile home parks or apartments? Okay, what do you need to determine what to make the decision on? Oh, I don't know. Does that make sense? Like, they don't even know they haven't made a decision because they don't know what they need to decide upon. So I guess I need to know what's more profitable. Okay, that's getting somewhere. So how are you going to decide what's more profitable? What do you need to decide right now to know which is more profitable? Oh, I need to know. Cash on cash return. Okay, so now we have a plan. You're going to go research cash and cash return, figure out which one's better. If that's what you're making your decision on, you're going to find out which one's better and you're going to go with that option. You weigh your options, you make the best choice you can and you go. And you can always correct course later. But you can't change course if you're not on a course that makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. That's why we say everybody starts with how and instead is let's flip it on the equation on its head and start with where and why. So it's directional, sequential tactical clarity. So we start with the direction. Where are we going? You said, I hate Grays Harbor, I want sunshine. We're going to move to Maui. This is what's going to happen. This is what we're going to do. This is why we're going to do it. And then he said, this is when we're going to do it. So this is why. This is when. And then the how magically appears because now you have reasons to say no to things. To your point, you have no reason to say no to stuff. And the secret is it's all hard, all of it. Is hard.

[B]

All of it.

[A]

There's nothing that's easier. And the hardest thing of all is to get momentum and to stop and to go back. You have the quote about Success island where you're building bridge after bridge to Success island and finally you find the one. I want to take a slight pivot here and I want to go to your business frameworks because you had a rather interesting business framework that you used to talk about called like the architect role. And you did. You and I had a conversation on that back in 2021 or 2022, three or four years ago. Dude, this, this is crazy. We've been buddies for years now. That's insane.

[B]

A while now. And so gray hair.

[A]

Look, my first conversation with you, my first podcast with you was in the basement of my house. Hack. That's crazy to think about that. And you had this conversation about this architect role. How is, can you describe what that is and how has your perspective on that shifted now that you are three, four years later and you've gone through like the hard knocks of scale?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Let me give you the, the quick framework here is there's simply, there's four ways that I've seen people build businesses. There's like the DIY route, which is like, I'm just gonna do everything myself. So I mean, imagine you wanna start a dog walking business. Great. You're the one walking the dog. And then there's like the kind of. I call it project manager level. You can call whatever you want. So level two is I'm gonna hire my brother in law, I'm gonna hire that guy off Craigslist. I'm gonna figure this out with somebody else around me. But it's like kind of loosey goosey, right? We've all been there, we've all tried to do that in our businesses. Like you hire your buddy, whatever. That's like the project manager level. You just said you're not necessarily walking the dog, but you're involved in everything. You just, you've outsourced the actual task. Fine. You got a virtual assistant in the Philippines who's taking care of it for you. Cool. But you're still like running things. The third level, I call it the CEO level. Like you actually build a company now, you're still like in charge, you're running things. If you think of a, a picture, you're in the middle and it's like hub and spoke. You're the hub and you always spoke to people that are coming to you with their problems. And there's nothing Wrong with that. Most people never get beyond that level. People sometimes start diy, move up to project manager, move on to the CEO role. But there's a fourth level out there that very few actually get to. But when I look at people like Richard Branson or David Osborne, I like. I really like. David was probably. He's one of my big mentors from Austin. And I saw how he built businesses and he wasn't the CEO, he wasn't the DIYer, and he wasn't the project manager. Like he owns a company without doing those three things. And I started thinking it's more of an architect draws the plan. This is what I want to look like. But they build it from the outside looking in. They build a company outside looking in, not from the inside around them. That's the difference, Right? So you can build yourself into a machine. And now this engine runs because you're running it. You're the fuel, you're driving it. Or you can say, this is what I want the business to look like. And there's tactical ways to do that with business partners or using systems like eos or whatever. This is more of a theoretical idea rather than tactical. But you can build a business from the outside in. So when I built Opendoor Capital, I built it without myself being at the center of it. Now, I'm not saying I don't work in it. There's things I'm needed for all the time. And maybe I'm not the perfect architect in that way, but I built it without wanting to be part of it. When I built the Better Life Tribe, I did the same thing. I built this first deal company. I did the same thing. The first thing I did is hired a CEO for all those companies. I'm like, I don't want to do it. You do it. And now there's risk to it because you hire the wrong person. You can spend a lot of money and that's danger. But honestly, I didn't spend any money to build open or capital. I hired a CEO, but I just gave him equity. Now, did that cost me long term, millions of dollars. But that was going to be.

[A]

Do we want to go down that rabbit hole?

[B]

Yeah, we definitely can. Yeah, I didn't build it. I gave all. Like, I gave equity. It was Ryan Murdoch was my original CEO. And originally it was like third. Third. It was like me, Ryan and one other partner who didn't really work out, but it was like me, Ryan and this other guy. And I was like, let's just go third. Which can I just Tell you guys, if you put more time into planning your, like, breakfast than you do dishing out equity and your multi million dollar business idea, like, shame on you and shame on me, because that's exactly what I did. I'm like, oh, it's just. Yeah, just third. Third. Let's just do that. And then, like, later it was like, you're not really part of the company anymore. We'll just take your equity and, hey, you take it here.

[A]

What?

[B]

Let's just do this. And everything was just, like, willing. Did I ever call up David Osborne and ask him, hey, like, how should I divide up equity? No, I never called anybody and asked anybody anything. I'm not saying I did everything wrong there. I think I'm glad the way things went down. I only own 42% of open door capital.

[A]

That's better than it was.

[B]

What was that?

[A]

That's better than it was, though.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Better than the 33 that started with. And some of that is honestly. Let's go way back, right? Josh Dworkin. Like, I had equity in Bigger Pockets, but not immediately, but within a few years, I got some equity. And obviously I keep this internally. Not that it probably matters, but when I first got equity, Josh offered me 2% of bigger pockets. I was the only employee, maybe we had two or three at the time, but, like, basically the only employee, and he offered me like two, I think was two and a half percent. And at the time, like, it was hard to even. I didn't know if that was a lot or a little. Right. And the question is, what do you guys think? Give me a quick 2% of a company like BiggerPockets. Is that a lot? Give me a thumbs up if you think that's a little. Give me a thumbs down. What do you guys think? Just. What's your gut say in the.

[A]

Depends on what stage? In the beginning, I would say, nah.

[B]

Yeah. So a lot. So it depends on the stage. But I would argue even more than that depends on your belief on how big it could get. So in other words, if when I gave 30% of my company, technically, when I gave 66% of my company away from day one, what was that saying about my belief in my company? Because then I don't believe it's going to go anywhere.

[A]

It was small. Yeah. What did.

[B]

When Josh gave me 2% when the company was not even doing, I doubt we were doing 100 grand a year in profit, and he gave me 2%. And at the time, I was like, that doesn't seem very much. And everyone I had from friends that I told about it, and they're like, oh, he's taking advantage of. He's ripping you off. No. Josh just had a big vision for his company, which now today has come true. And it's a multi. I don't know how many hundreds of millions of dollars of value Bigger Pockets is. I couldn't tell you the exact number today, but it'll be a billion dollar company, like, easily be a billion dollar company someday, as long as they don't screw things up. And. Yeah. Anyway, so the amount of equity you give out is a direct reflection of your belief in how big it's going to get. So just something to consider is. If you're considering just. I'll just give a partner 50%. Hold on. Is it really worth that much? And if it's only going to be a lifestyle business, fine. So anyway, there's some lessons learned I learned in that. And again, I only own 42%. Do I. Does that matter to me? No. Because I can do twice as much by getting half as much equity. Does that make sense? And I'm doing 10 times more because I've got eight executives that all have equity in my company. And so again, a substantial amount. So are they ever going to leave me? No. Like, they've got millions of dollars of equity in my company. Like, they're in for the long haul, and that's been really beneficial. So I'm actually a big believer in giving equity. Just make sure you value it appropriately. That makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. I want to highlight a few different things here. And again, if we post this, like, we. You have full cutting room for, like, just tell me what to edit.

[B]

All of it's fine to go out. It's just.

[A]

No, just seriously, I've been out of.

[B]

Bigger Pockets for years now. Yeah.

[A]

Because you. You and I had that conversation. I was actually with you when you had your final exit. It's hilarious because we were, like, sitting across from each other and he goes, hey, I guess I'm out now.

[B]

Like, yeah.

[A]

Oh, okay. And we won't share that number. But the key thing. Yeah. Great day. Great podcast, too. You had a good guest. So the main thing that I want to highlight out of that was that there's this idea that I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. And it's like the question is, how do you know when you're ready? And. And it's a big thing that we just talked about at the Tony Robbins conference, which is, you know, that you're ready when you say I'm not. You know that you're ready when you say I'm not. Because you will figure it out when the time comes. So, like, my big takeaway from that story that you just shared is you royally screwed it up in the beginning, like pretty badly. That was like tune like eight figure kind of mistake in the beginning. And then I remember when I was interviewing one of the guys that left, we won't talk about, but he was just like, yeah, we're at a billion dollars of assets under management and I don't really care. And I was like, oh, that sounds like the worst thing that say as a person that is like leading that charge. But regardless, I digress. And you figured it out. You figured it out and you kept going and you kept a good attitude about it. And I want your perspective on that because this is another area that I think that we're kind of glossing over where you could have easily spiraled and self doubted again and been like, oh my God, why did I do that? What is going on here? But instead you're like, yo, like, I am choosing purposefully to focus on the positive side and the upside here. I've got eight executives in this company that are very invested, which means that I'm going to not be as involved mentally with this. I have support, things are good. We have a tendency to take even small things and go the complete polar opposite direction in our businesses. What's some advice that you can give on focusing on the positive?

[B]

Yeah, I've been actually not to go to the end of the story, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Opened her capital now with a billion dollars of real estate. We've done 70 deals, 7, 60, 68 deals, something like that.

[A]

Somebody knows it in the company.

[B]

Yeah, whatever. It's a bunch. But out of them, there's seven that are not going great. That they're just like. They're just not going. They're all apartments. They're all in Texas. If you own apartments in Texas, like taxes and insurance more than doubled. Every one of our properties went up by more than a million dollars. Taxes and insurance. How do you like when you're making a million a year in cash flow and you're distributing to your investors and all of a sudden tax and insurance go up by 1.5, like all of a sudden you're losing half a million dollars a year. You're like, how did this happen? How could we have controlled it? How could we see it? You can't see any of it. So that's a whole different problem that we're working through right now. And out of those seven, I think that four of them like what we've got good solutions. I'm not too worried about them. We'll figure it out. Three of them are like, this is just a show. Like it's just not, it's not going well. And it, it like when moments like that happen and this goes back to all the way to the beginning of opener capital. Oh, I gave equity wrong to bring in the wrong partners, hiring the wrong people. I went through eight executive assistants before I found the one I have today which is just world class. All that stuff. You have a tendency to then clam up. Is that a word? Close down to shrink and to say this is too hard, I don't like this anymore. And when I see my children doing that sometimes when things are hard, like my daughter, the math is really hard. I don't want to do it. And she starts shrinking like her soul shrinks. The advice I always give her and I'd give to anybody else is you have that option is yes, you could shrink or like I said with when it comes to the stuff we talked about earlier, you could rise to the occasion when you're faced with that. But I think of specifically, and I've been thinking of this a lot lately about that Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena. Do you guys all know what I'm talking about? If you don't look it up later, the Teddy Roosevelt man in the arena. But it's basically like the glory goes to the man who's dusty and sweaty and he's bleeding and he's miserable because he's on the field where everyone else is up in the stands. At least he got on the field. Yeah, like that. And that is the price of getting on the field or getting into the arena. The price is you get beat up. That's what you're asking for. And so in a way I tell myself, hey, I asked for this to get beat up a little bit. Things are never going to go always good. A guy the other day said to me, this really wise old, older real estate investor has been doing this for 30 years, doing what I'm doing. He said, hey, no great company is built without a near death experience. I thought that was such cool like wisdom, like just he's no great company has ever been built without a near death experience. So again, it's like changing the perspective when things suck, when things are hard to going, oh, Poor me. This sucks. It's hard. I'm gonna clam up and I'm gonna get quiet and get smaller, and that's what my soul wants to do. Or maybe that's the wrong word. Maybe it's not the soul. Maybe it's the weak human ego. Yeah, ego. Yeah. Because the ego gets bruised. What if people hear that Brandon Turner had a deal that lost money? Oh, my gosh, what's that? Due to this wound in my heart that's there since childhood of everyone needs to like me. Yeah. That's. That's a real thing. And it's like, how do I deal with that? So anyway, I'm learning to say, you know what? No, I'm on the. I'm in the arena and it hurts. It's bloody, but at least I'm here. Like, most people aren't here. Most people didn't rise when they could have. And so I'm not trying to, like, pat myself on the back. Like, I just. Because I'm. Every day is like a entrepreneurial bipolarism in all my companies. It's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Things great. This sucks. I hate this. This is awesome. Every day. But I just remind myself that perspective was like, hey, like, that's what I asked for. This is. I literally asked for this. Right? What's that famous. It's like a common quote is like.

[A]

The things you're showing, what you prayed for.

[B]

That's what you prayed for five years ago. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is what I wanted. So suck it up, buttercup.

[A]

Yeah. And something important that you just said there that we talked to everybody on this call of, if you guys think about me, I want you to think about the idea of just, like, swinging your sword in daylight. Like, it's so important because he just talked about man in the arena. And a lot of you guys know I've got it on the plaque behind me from Brandon as a birthday present. I've got it tattooed on me. Like, it matters that you're swinging. I really do. It matters that you're swinging the sword, but make sure that you're swinging the sword in daylight. Don't swing the sword at night when nobody's in the arena. Make sure that other people, while they're there, are seeing you swing the sword. And Brandon actually gave me advice that he doesn't even remember giving me. But it's the reason I started the podcast is I was at an event with him, and I was just like, man, I'm not at a hundred doors yet, because I thought I was going to be a Rootin Tootin, multifamily investor. And he goes, I'm like, I want to start this podcast, but I'm not at a hundred doors yet. And he goes, people don't care that I'm in Hawaii because I'm in Hawaii. They care because they were following me when I was in Grays harbor and they were with me on the journey to Hawaii, and that's why they care that I'm in Hawaii. And I was like, that is interesting.

[B]

And so I said that.

[A]

Yeah, I just made. I just polished it and made it way better in my voice, but it's okay. And so that's the advice I give to everyone here, is we all say man in the arena, but it's remember, like, to swing the sword in daylight. Because a lot of people are doing this privately and they're like, oh, I'm going through it. I'm the man in the arena. Nobody even knows. You're not posting about it, you're not talking about it. And then when you do, things happen. And also, that was that belief that you had in your head. We can hit on that really quickly and maybe some other beliefs and then we'll go into some Q and A. You had that belief in your head. I need everyone to like me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that was the reason that you did not raise capital for the longest time. Can you talk about that and overcoming that? Because you had a frame shift where you went from. I need everyone to like me. And I'm going to feel like a nuisance to raising. To. For me to raise capital to. I'm effortlessly raising millions and millions of dollars. And there's a lot of people in here that are going through that same pivot right now where they're like, I've got nine short term rentals and I want to do a boutique hotel. It's going to require a $2 million raise. Oh, my God. Like, I can imagine asking people for money. What's your frame shift on that?

[B]

Yeah. I'll give you a couple thoughts. Yeah. It starts with the. Like I said, I really do. That's not like a line. I really do have this deep fear of rejection and need to be liked. I think a lot of people have that. Not everybody, but, like, it's a. And where they come from, I don't know. My parents fought a lot when I was a kid. I was always a peacemaker. Like, I saw the way that my dad would yell at my mom or my mom would yell at my dad, and I always try to calm them down. I Just have this. We have to be at peace all the time. Thought so. Because of that. Yeah. I want people to like me. And I hate that idea of rejection. In fact, true story, I asked my wife out four times. Like when I met her, four. It took me four tries to actually get her to go out with me. And when I tell that story, it's always funny. But the reality is I didn't actually ask her ever until the fourth time. What I did is I hinted around it. I waited for her to pick up what I was putting down. Hey, I really hanging out with you. You're great. She can hang out more often. Yeah. You're such a good friend. I'm like, thanks. And I, because I didn't ask her because I didn't want to be rejected. So I put a little buffer there where it's. I'm not really getting rejected because I never really asked. And it wasn't until the fourth time where I, I basically. I don't know, blackmail is the wrong word. But I was like, hey, I'm done being friends with you. I can't even talk to you anymore. I like you so much that it's driving me nuts. And she's idiot, just ask me out then. What are you doing? And she had to tell me to ask her out because I was too weak to do it. And so like later on, I go to law. I'm gonna go to law school. I study for the LSAT for a whole summer, every day, all day, studying for the lsat. Took the test, scored pretty good. Not quite a good enough to be a shoe in to one of the top law schools. And I don't want to go law school if it wasn't going to be like a good one. Otherwise you're making 50k a year. What's the point? So I want to go to good law school. And I wasn't going to be like a shoe in. I had like a 50% chance maybe of getting accepted to one of the big five law schools. So I never applied to a single school. So I just want you to all to know, like, this runs deep in my soul, this fear of rejection. I'm glad I didn't go to law school. Like what a much better life I've had when God can use your weaknesses too. Just FYI. I'm a big believer in that. But okay, so fast forward. I do real estate. I did most of it on my own. I do some hard money, some like seller finance stuff, built up a little portfolio and then decided I'm Going to raise some capital from some rich friends of mine, and I'm going to go buy my very first mobile home park. And so I went and talked to two buddies of mine. We were in a mastermind group. We met every week for two years. We were tight. They're both rich. And I said, hey, like, you guys each want to toss in 100 grand and we'll buy this mobile home park? And they both turn me down flat. Like, awkwardly later was like, hey, I just, I'm not interested. And it just crushed my soul. And I remember calling up my performance coach. I had a coach at the time. I still talk to him. But Jason Drees and I, I was like, man, I'm so humiliated. I was rejected. It hurts so bad. I'm. And I said the words, I'm never raising capital. I don't want to raise capital. I'm not good at raising money. I never, ever will do this again. That was the worst experience ever. And he just encouraged me to sit with that, ask where that's coming from, try to identify that, and then to reframe it as no. I am a money machine. Like a new identity. Like, I am a money magnet. I remember saying those words, I'm a money magnet. And he made me say it like 10 times. And it was like super hokey and cheesy and I don't believe in that stuff. And then I raised $500 million. So did it work? I don't know. But like, it. It must. Was that the thing that worked? I don't know. It was a coincidental, but it worked. So now since then, I've raised, yeah, half a billion dollars for real estate. What changed? Yeah, one is just the confidence of being able to do it. And also, I learned to not fix my weakness. And this might sound like weird, but like, I never actually overcame the fear of rejection. I just figured another way out to get around that fear to still accomplish the goal that I wanted. And so, for example, I hired an investor relations guy right away and I made him ask everyone for money because I'm not afraid of putting out a social media post saying I'm buying some cool real estate deal as long as I don't have to pick up the phone. So I've got 2,600 investors. I've spoken on the phone to two of them ever. And that was only because, like, before they wired over a bunch of money. They want to make sure I was real and that this wasn't some scam. So I'm like, it was like, yeah, this is real. I'm Brandon. Nice to meet you. Who are your kids? Tell me about your family. It was just like a get to know them. But I've never asked anybody ever for money out of open door capital. I mean myself. So rather than fixing my weaknesses, I just found a way to overcome like to compensate for it and to rely on what I actually am good at. Where do I get energy and where am I excited? And that is in like content creation and education. So I just lean heavily into that. And that's worked out really well for me. I, I feel like a therapist might yell at me for that and say, you're doing it all wrong, Brandon. You gotta work on those issues. But I'm like, it's working out okay for me.

[A]

So you know, dude, I just had, I just had this exact conversation with people that like stuff that I'm going through where I'm not a great manager. And most of my team is on this call right now. They will tell you like Stephanie and we had this conversation and they're like, hey, you just set the vision and then you just tell us to do things and then you just disappear. I'm like, yeah, because you should just get them done. Of course you should just read my Brian. But now I've been asking the question over and over again and these are million dollar questions. These are really good, saucy questions for every single person on this call to think about. Because we all have God given strengths and we all have weaknesses and we're trained to fix the weaknesses. Yeah. But what I'm learning is at scale. You hire your weaknesses, you buy your weaknesses. Yep. And that's what you did. And if you had not done that, you wouldn't have raised $500 million of capital. Just like me with operations. I'm not an ops guy. I'm not going to be the person that's managing people and doing the reports and checking the KPIs. That's not me. I just want to freaking travel and hang out with you and put oil in your beard. Whatever we do, man, it's hey, what's up buddy? And so that's what I want to do. I want to hang out with cool people and make content. That's what I want to talk about. And make people believe in themselves. That's why I don't do multi family. So it's all about hiring your weaknesses to put a pin in that for the sake of time. I want to open up to questions now because you guys have been very patient and I'M sure a lot of you have questions that you've wanted to ask Brandon. I've got Tim on here. I've got Nathan on here. I'm specifically calling on you guys because you will have really good questions at scale, because you guys are exactly where he was before. So anybody that's at the, like, the kind of the precipice of scale, be sure to raise your hand. I think we can probably get through a solid maybe 10 to 15 and go from there. Show of hands and we'll go in order.