Starting an Investment Fund – Bridger Pennington

Welcome to another episode. Today, we’re thrilled to have Bridger Pennington, Co-Founder of Fund Launch and GP at Ugly Unicorn. Bridger, who founded Black Bridge Holdings at the age of 22, has completed over 225 deals and is dedicated to empowering aspiring fund managers through Fund Launch.

Full Transcript:

Bronson Hill: This is the Mailbox Money Podcast and I am Bronson Hill. As a busy professional, I wrestled with how to grow my income without taking up more of my precious time.

I learned that managing real estate, actively trading stocks, or being unable to scale up investments is not passive investing. This is the place where you’ll discover new asset classes, develop investing skills, and learn from experts how to become financially free with less work than you thought possible. And now, get ready for truly passive income.

Okay, so Bridger Pennington, Fund Launch Live also runs a crypto hedge fund. Super bright guide, all kinds of stuff he’s doing in the space. If you know Bridger, he’s very smart, he approaches things very well, and he creates a lot of value for a lot of people.

In this episode, we talk about basically playing a different game. Obviously, it’s about starting a fund is really his business, but how do we play different games? Some questions around real estate, around as an investor, if it’s hard to buy a home right now, and he gives a stat in there that one in three homes are being purchased by Wall Street right now, which is crazy, right?

So, if you had trouble buying a home or would like to buy a home, and it’s like it just doesn’t make sense right now, some of this, they’re trying to pass some laws to change that. But this interview, we get into a lot of different things. Really a lot of value.

Let’s jump in. I think you’re really going to do this one with Bridger. All right, Bridger Pennington, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show.

How are you doing today, brother?

Bridger Pennington: Very good. Happy to be on here. Happy to be on again.

I’ve been on your panels, other stuff. I love what you guys do. And just anyways, always a pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

Bronson Hill: Well, I love what you bring up. And in this, we’re going to talk about, we’re not going to have a debate, but we’re going to talk about, maybe we’ll have a debate, but syndication versus starting a fund. I know you have strong opinions why everybody and their grandma should start a fund.

So why should I start a fund? Why should somebody listening start a fund over another way such as syndication or crowdfunding or something else?

Bridger Pennington: Well, it’s funny enough. I actually, I’m good either way. So, I think funds are amazing.

I also think syndications are amazing. I’ll kind of explain why. And I can explain both sides of the argument.

Actually, our event, our last event, we had people come on stage and argued back syndications and funds. Both are good. Both are good because they just serve different purposes.

Sure. I think less people have considered funds and that’s why I kind of preach funds more, but both are good. So, syndication and fund, just to lay the groundwork of what these even mean, what these words mean.

So, syndication in my vernacular means a deal-by-deal basis. So, I’m syndicating for one deal at a time, meaning, hey, me and Bronson, we’re going to go flip a 30-unit apartment complex. Here it is on 123 Main Street.

Put money in. We’re going to syndicate one deal at a time. A fund is, hey, we’re going to go, me and Bronson together, we’re going to go launch a fund and we’re going to, yes, we’re going to buy 123 Main Street, but we’re also going to buy 27 of the other properties that look just like this.

And over the next 18 to 24 months, we’re going to acquire these properties all over the country in a fund. So, a fund has multiple deals in them. A syndication has just one deal at a time to just kind of set the groundwork.

So, tell you, want me to go in like pros and cons of each one?

Bronson Hill: We have, let’s say, well, we’ve done both and we have, we have funds that we’ve done and we’ve raised over 40 million from different investors. And that’s kind of small from some folks. It’s a lot for some other ones, but, um, you know, we’ve, yeah, we can kind of talk a little bit, I think syndication for some, at least I’ve seen it’s, when you have a deal, it can be, there’s benefits to it, you know, obviously to start off, to start a syndication, but a fund in a way, they’re kind of, there’s a lot of similarities.

But yeah, I’d love, I’d love to hear like when someone’s starting out, um, you know, why is a fund easier? Why is the syndicate? Like what are some, maybe you can kind of contrast those a little bit for us.

Bridger Pennington: Yeah. So, this is fun to get into getting to my favorite topics right here.

Bronson Hill: Oh yeah.

Bridger Pennington: So, you’re a geek. I’m like, I know you get on funds all day. So, the best example is like house flippers.

So, a house flipper, and actually I was speaking to a group of like 300 real estate investors, I’m like, who’s flipped a house here? Like the whole, whole place raised their handles. Okay.

Let me describe your job in 20 seconds. When you flip a house, what do you do? You find a house.

You put together bank money, your own money, investor money, or hard money together. You set up some kind of LLC. The money flows into that LLC.

You go flip the house, you renovate carpet, paint the burr method, whatever you’re going to do. You then sell the house and make a bunch of money. I’m like, how’d I do?

And everyone’s like, that’s pretty good. So just summarize a huge complex job in about 10 seconds. That’s kind of what you’re doing.

You’re just setting up that kind of capital. Uh, we had a guy join our group. He was doing about four syndications a year flipping houses.

So, the average house flip makes roughly, I think on Google, it’s like $55,000 per flip, so he’s making roughly 200,000 a year on house flipping, which is a great income, good, like good job to him. I said, Hey, what if we set up a fund and instead of every time you got to flip a house, you got to pop the phones, get more people in. You got to set up a new entity.

You just had a bucket of money ready to go and you could flip houses as many times as you want, because that’d be pretty cool. So, we, we set up a fund for him the next year. So, he went from, again, flipping four houses a year.

The next year he flipped 72 homes in one year, which is insane. That is incredible. Speaking of the screw, but I said, you know, if you, this real estate investors, if you guys had a fund ready to go right now and you’re flipping houses, do you think you could close faster or slower on deals?

Everyone’s like faster. I’m like, do you think you could, so you’re at the courthouse, there’s auctions going on. Are you more likely or less likely to win a deal if you had a fund?

We’ll probably more likely have cash ready to go. You can have a cash offer. You don’t have to have 30 or 45 days of due diligence, whatever.

You can close like on the spot. I said, if you go to a bank, do you think you’re going to get worse or better interest rates from a bank with a fund? And everyone’s like probably better, right?

Because you’re a repeat client. You’re doing multiple deals with a bank. So, you’re getting better.

Usually with banks, you’ll get better interest rates when you’re doing a fund. I said, additionally, do you think your cost to flip a house, an average cost would go up or down with a fund? Probably down.

You have the same paint guy going to every, you’re flipping 72 homes a year. You have the same paint guy going to each home. Your average cost to paint the interior of a home goes down because you’re a volume player.

That’s just stacking just a few items. So, for example, in this case scenario here with flipping a house, you can close faster on deals. You can, um, your average cost per flip goes down.

It’s cheaper to flip a house on average. You get better debt, better interest rates. Interesting.

When you stack those together, it’s a pretty compelling pitch. And oh, and by the way, for an investor that’s coming in, instead of just investing in one house, they’re diversified across 72 different homes. So if, you know, in 72 homes, yeah, three houses are going to do amazing.

Maybe three are going to do bad. And the other, you know, mix of 60, what is that? 66 or 67 houses will do pretty well in the middle and have a blended return.

So, you’re diversified across the portfolio. And I go, this is why I was speaking to this group. And I’m like, how many people in this group have been, have bid on a project and someone outbid you and then you, you lost the deal and you turn to somebody else like, oh, they totally overpaid for that.

They’re going to lose their shorts on that deal. They’re idiots. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Anybody done that before in the whole room, like raise their hand. And I’m like, I’ve done that too. Like all of us have done that.

Like, oh, they’re idiots. And I go, what if they’re not idiots? What if they’re just playing a different game than me?

Or you are playing, we’re playing the syndication game and yeah, it doesn’t pencil for us, but they are getting better interest rates. They can close fast. They’re getting better cost per capital or better cost on average flip and it actually does pencil for them.

And I said, additionally, what if they are buying a hundred million dollars of single-family homes as a pool and they’re selling it to a nether bigger group for a hundred and 25 million dollars and making a 25 million dollars spread. Yeah. I said, they’re not playing the same game that me and you are playing.

So maybe they aren’t losing money. Maybe usually upgrade the game. You’re playing the whole room was like, oh shoot.

And I said, right now, 2020, I believe it was 2021 one in seven homes were purchased by wall street, 2022 one in five homes were purchased by big funds on wall street, 2023 last year, they estimate it was roughly one in three homes were purchased by big funds on wall street. That’s insane overpaying their cash buyers. They are playing a different game than me.

And you are playing at a syndication level. This is why the most successful people in the world of finance end up running funds because it is the way of scalability. It’s the way you get out of the small game into the big game.

So, I’ll stop there, but that’s a few examples of syndications and funds.

Bronson Hill: Well, you know, it really makes sense because, um, and I think there’s a lot of application to private equity as well. We started doing some private equity buying or looking at buying smaller businesses and, uh, you know, it’s interesting, like a, uh, from what I’ve seen from private equity friends or people that are in new work for black rock or whatever, like they, they can pay like a 10-equity multiple, everybody else is paying a five, right? Because they know that they’re going to increase revenue by 22% a year.

They know they’re going to package these up and they know they’re going to be able to sell it or sell it as a whole to somebody else. So, like you said, it’s a different game. So, I think that’s, that’s really awesome.

And I think it goes back to the question of whatever you’re trying to do is not just, you know, I can’t do that as well. How can I do, is there a way I could pay more and get more deals done. But that’s actually a really kind of a side note here.

I love to talk about that. I know you’re also like your dad runs a hedge fund. You have a crypto fund that you do or on a panel tomorrow that, uh, is going to be a lot of fun about, uh, by the time this comes out, it will already be out, but, um, but let’s talk for a minute.

Like just what you said about one in three houses is being purchased by wall street. I, that was something I wasn’t worried was that high. So that means that’s significantly impacting the real estate market, or particularly single family.

Um, do you know, do you have any more data about that? Do you know more of it? Is that just like, are they paying cash for these?

Is this funny?

Bridger Pennington: They, there’s actually legislation right now being proposed to stop this company.

Bronson Hill: Yeah.

Bridger Pennington: Uh, they’ve stopped publishing the numbers. So, we don’t really know. They’re guessing, uh, 2021 they published it in 2022.

They published it and a bunch of people revolted and now they aren’t publishing the numbers. So, we don’t know. Um, the housing market, the United States, we have, you know, I mean, interest rates have been the hike to the fastest rate in history right now.

Sitting between five and a quarter, five and five and a quarter. Um, the affordability of a home has pretty much been cut in the cost for affordability, double or cut in half, whether, whatever way you look at it, it is twice as expensive to buy a home today as it was in 2020. Yes.

Home prices have only really fallen in the United States, what? 4%, 5%. Nothing really.

Bronson Hill: And I know they’ve gone up, they’ve actually gone up slightly in certain areas that some areas they’re still going up.

Bridger Pennington: So how does that even, how does that pencil, how does that make sense? And a few, this is kind of a different tangent, but a few reasons behind that. Um, you can look at number one, people that have locked in low mortgage rates are not selling their homes.

If we’re at my house right now is a 2.6% interest rate.

Bronson Hill: Yeah, you can’t sell.

Bridger Pennington: That’s an asset. I’m not, I just bought another home. We are, I’m like, I will never sell that house.

I have a 2.6% interest rate. I will rent that out forever. Um, so there’s that segment of the market.

They estimate about 25 to 30% of the market is locked in at those rates. Additionally, they estimate, if I remember right, it was about 45% of homes are paid off. Don’t quote me on that.

Bronson Hill: 40%, 40% it’s 40%. Yeah, yeah. 40% figure I’ve heard, but yeah, yeah.

Bridger Pennington: So, then you add those two together. So, you really only have, I don’t know, let’s call it 30 to 40% of homes that can actually trade and how many people are actually moving homes. And then you have this, uh, house, uh, housing shortage as well on top of that.

So, you have not as many units being produced. And so, if you look at all those things, you could say, oh, that makes a little more sense. And then you couple that with big funds and big wall street players now buying up single family homes in droves and they get cheaper cost of capital.

They can play a long game. They believe they can refinance. They can pull that lower.

They’re playing a long-term game of the real estate in America. And so you go, well, shoot, that’s why house prices haven’t moved. And my opinion is, uh, you know, when they lower interest rates, we’re going to have a housing boom in the United States house prices.

I mean, cause again, a four-wheeler would go up like crazy. They’re going to be bit up even more than we are currently seeing at the interest rates where we’re at. So, um, and that’s a whole different tangent on, on housing states, but that’s kind of where we’re looking.

Bronson Hill: So, so, you know, really, I love the term, um, you know, they’re playing a different game. Um, I just, I love that concept of playing a different game and we, you know, on this show, the mailbox money show, we look at all different assets. I just interviewed somebody on hotel investing, looking at your private equity, different types of things as well.

So, when you look at all of the things out there, you have a lot of people managing a lot of different funds. You have a lot of insight into what people are doing and what sort of returns people are getting and how they’re managing it. What do you think as a small, you know, a high net worth individual, you know, net worth one to 5 million, what’s a game that we can play that we can win at if somebody wants to be either passive or active and like what sort of asset would you say, here’s some things we’re seeing that are compelling right now.

Bridger Pennington: Uh, well, first off, not financial advice, not legal advice. I’ll just share my opinion on what I just see. We, we run fund launch and then I have a GP stakes fund raising 50 million for it now it’s, it’s, it’s takes GP stakes in fund managers.

We’ve already written four checks this year into fund managers. And we actually get a piece of what they’re doing. We’re looking to write about 20, we’re getting about 25 fund managers in this portfolio of this fund.

And so, we get to see a lot of fund managers, what they’re doing, what’s successful, what’s not working, especially for, and then most of these are emerging small fund managers, which is very fun. It’s kind of our space that we plan. We’ve incubated over 220 funds out of one of our groups, just black card in our group in the last two years, which has been really cool.

So, I get to see a lot of different funds, what’s working, what’s not working. So, um, number one, what I say is there’s a, there actually is a lot of opportunity right now for people that want to play, want to be in the game, a few opportunities that are very compelling right now. Number one is baby boomer businesses that are transitioning to younger entrepreneurs.

There are many baby boomers that have an accounting shop, a print shop, or whatever the shop is, they want to retire. They are willing to sell. They’re willing to sell with seller financing.

Really zero dollars down. Just come run the business for me and pay me from the profits over the next five, 10, 15 years. I’ve seen a ton of those deals.

We’ve seen some buyouts and some more strategic plays, but anyways, very, very cool industry right there. Additionally, I am, I am seeing a lot of on the same thread. I’ll call it micro private equity where you are seeing these small businesses that are being acquired or pooled together.

And there, these businesses are doing one, five, 10 million a year in that range. Cooling them together, somewhat scaling them and then getting a higher exit multiple, I’ll give you an example. We have seen car washes right now, at least the area I live in Salt Lake city, Utah, we are, we are having a car wash infestation.

Meaning there’s all these subscription-based car washes coming. Wiggy wash, misters, quick quack, whatever the name is for the car wash. And they’re like, you pay a $20 a month subscription.

You can go to these car washes. The guy in our group, at least this is what he told me. He’s like, we can buy these at about a five to six X multiple on these, on these car washes, because if we buy 30 of them, they sell for a 20 to 25 X multiple.

So just by aggregating these together, we get a huge step up and our, and our exit and our multiple, and we can sell these for a good cost. So, I’m seeing a huge opportunities there. Um, so micro private equity, baby boomer businesses.

I mean, obviously I’m in crypto. I think there’s a massive opportunity in crypto right now, um, in blockchain, in emerging technologies. And so, I mean, we’re, we’re seeing a, uh, convergence of technologies, what you’d call it.

So, AI blockchain, quantum computing, robotics, nano tech, um, healthcare, they’re all trying to converge together and longevity. Like, and so what happens when they start converging, they start having incredible, you know, a multiplier effective, I guess what you could call it. So, we’re seeing a lot of companies investing in that space or building companies that space that are doing extremely well.

So, I’ll stop there. But those are things that I just have seen things that, you know, perk my interest, not investment advice, not financial advice, but that’s just stuff that I’m looking at.

Bronson Hill: Yeah, I know. That’s great. We love the rollup strategy as well of, you know, having 10 gas stations or car washes.

And one question I’ve had with the car wash and we’ve actually done some car wash investing where we’ve had a franchise of car washes and scaled them up and then, you know, like the whole thing is get 50 of these and sell them at a 20 X or higher. Um, I just, my concern is if it gets oversaturated or if there’s, I guess people just have to wash their cars. That’s the only risk there is everybody knows it’s a good strategy.

And there’s a, so you just hope when you’re ready to sell, there’s going to be the right kind of buyers there.

Bridger Pennington: But, um, yeah, I haven’t invested in that space. I’m just, I just think it’s interesting. So, we’ll see.

Bronson Hill: Yeah. And I think it’s so interesting as an investor that, um, which is really our ideas is, you know, you have choice, you know, you could be a one trick pony and all you do is flip or all you do is this certain type of business or whatever. But if you, if you just can look and kind of step back, sometimes things can be really, um, I mean, there’s just so many options out there that you can go for.

And usually it’s, you know, one of the benefits, uh, cashflow appreciation, tax benefits, things like that. Um, what are, what are some of the things that you’re working on in your business? I know you’re, you’re a big, let’s talk a little bit.

You shared about kind of where things are converging. So, I want to talk about AI. I want to talk about nanotechnologies and some of this, like, what are you, what are some of the developments you’re seeing there?

Maybe some investment opportunities that you think might be happening in the next, you know, next few years, or even that are available now. I think it’s sometimes we see these large companies that are putting tons of billions of dollars into this, but for retail investor or a small fund manager, what are ways that you’re seeing, Oh, I could start a fund. We’ve, actually done a fund, a VC deal around, uh, oil and gas technology that’s going to do some work there.

We’ve got presented some other stuff with data collection and it’s just, there are some unique things there, but what are like, I mean, if I’m somebody who’s in that space, like, how do you find out about deals that are kind of these cutting-edge things? And why would they want a small fund manager that can raise a small amount of money or as a retail investor, why is that coming to you versus going to some big wall street firm?

Bridger Pennington: I guess, um, yeah, a couple of questions that I just, I’ll unpack that. The first thing I’ll say for people that listen, I, um, my opinion is if you’re going to do angel or venture investing, you have to be committed to doing 20 investments, like minimum. I, in my opinion, I would not say just try to do one or two little venture deals here and there, because you have to be committed to play the power law of I’m going to do 20 to 30 deals.

And so, um, yeah, so be involved. And that’s why I, I like partnering with venture capitalists that do this full time, I put money into a fund that then they invest in a 20, or 30 deals. Um, I know a lot of friends that like, Oh I, for whatever reason, I feel like I can choose the best three deals.

And it’s just like, okay, you gotta, you gotta play the power law of you’re going to do a lot of deals. Um, so I, I personally, I’m a big fan of venture capital. I like investing.

We have a partner, a portfolio company that’s a venture capital. They do early stage seed. And actually, I’ll give you one example though.

They’re, they’re unique edge. They do very early seed. They do a lot of the validation pre-investment with the entrepreneur and they’ll go to universities and actually validate one example.

They found a deal. Um, it was at a local university. These, these kids that come with this incredible patent, it was this brand new technology and literally the founder of the fund.

He said, Hey, you guys okay. If I try to sell this over the next, this weekend, they said, sure. And he goes, okay.

So, he took the idea, got on a plane, went to Dallas. There was a trade show and then he set up a booth for like $2,000 and sold. Sold this thing for two days at a convention.

And he, he had like 25 orders for, he got like $50,000 of purchase orders on this deal. And then he came back home and was like, all right, we should build this. Like this is legit.

Bronson Hill: And so that’s the way to do it though. Go sell it first and then figure out if people, then they obviously want to buy it, which is great.

Bridger Pennington: That company now, uh, they invested very early. They’ve done a 4,000 X on that company and they got him very early. That company last I heard is supposed to exit for about a hundred to 130 million right now.

Bronson Hill: And what is the, can you talk about what it is actually? I didn’t make me a mess.

Bridger Pennington: That was that, oh, I didn’t, I didn’t mention it’s a, um, it’s called sign glasses. There’s a, for sign language, they have a, it’s a like, think about like visual glasses you have in universities where you could have a, uh, a visualization to like sign language translation. It’s hard for kids that, you know, can’t hear.

You have to look at the person doing ASL and then also look at the whiteboard. And so, they said, what if we transposed it on top of the lens as like a heads up display, um, they came up with this three or four years ago and patented it. And then they went out and launched it and scaled it.

And they don’t extremely well with it.

Bronson Hill: That’s amazing. It’s awesome to hear the stories. And that’s why you said like 20, like of those 20, maybe one or two will do one will do extremely well.

One will, you know, do okay. And then the rest might bail or just to struggle along a little bit. Maybe, right?

Bridger Pennington: Yeah. But I, I think that’s, I mean, that’s the advice I ever see. I think it’s good advice is, um, you know, be committed.

If you’re going to do venture capital, you got to commit, you know, say, I’m going to write 20 checks just like this because you got to play the power law and the power law, meaning you got to, you got to bid enough times to give yourself a chance to have multiple hits. And that’s personally, I don’t have the patience for that. And so, I like to invest into funds that do that for me.

Bronson Hill: So, I have an unrelated question here. Um, it’s about networking. So, I know you come, your family, you have your dad managed one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

Bridger Pennington: Um, you’ve been a clarify out related to real estate fund. Deca billion-dollar real estate fund. Um, they’ve been really well.

My dad since retired now and out of that. So just to clarify, yeah.

Bronson Hill: Right. Just clarify. But you, you’ve been around people of influence around.

And actually, for a while you said you didn’t really know your dad was like doing all this. And so maybe you weren’t around that, but I mean, you, you’ve done, you’ve been very, very successful in your business. I was telling you, you’ve done a great job of networking with really great people have been to your event at fund launch.

And it’s just been phenomenal. You’ve had your Jim Rogers, all these amazing people there. Uh, what have, what have you found when it comes to networking?

I’m thinking in terms of, you know, it could be in a business or just if I’m starting a fund or if I’m looking to get on a podcast or bring value to people, what are some things that you’re seeing or you’ve, you’ve seen that’s been really valuable for you to get connected to really valuable people.

Bridger Pennington: When thinking about networking, there’s a ton of different conversation around this. My opinion is the easiest way in the sense of dating, if you want to date a 10, like a girl or a guy that’s a 10, zero out of 10, they’re a 10 like, oh my gosh, they’re super hot, 10 out of 10. The easiest way to date a 10 is to also be a 10.

Now there’s people that bat out of their leagues. They’re like a six and they date a 10 or they, you know, you’ve seen people like that. That’s it’s more rare.

The easiest way to date a 10 is to also be a 10. So, when I think about networking or who I meet and who I get to hang out with and be around, and some people construe in my, and I’ve done this before is like networking with like, I’m getting someone’s business card or meeting them. Like a lot of times that goes nowhere, unless there is real utility or value add to each other’s lives, whether that’s, you know, this person just makes me laugh.

They’re just funny to be around. So, they add value to my life. I want to be around them more.

They add money to my life. They add a sexual interest. I’m going to date this person, right?

Whatever it is. We, whenever we go to networking functions, we’re looking usually, and I hate to say this, but we are always looking for what’s the value add to my life. And so if we can figure out how can we add a level 10 to other people’s lives, they will reciprocate and you’ll be able to hang out.

Maybe if you’re a level six, you’re going to probably network and hang out and have connections with other people that are level sixes or level sevens or level eights or level nines or level tens. And so, and that’s, that’s the reason like literally today, if I, if, if you walk had Elon Musk walk into my office right now and we network together for 30 minutes, to be honest, I personally, I have nothing to offer Elon Musk and that would, I’d probably meet him once. And we probably wouldn’t ever talk again to be frank.

Like that’s the reality because Elon Musk, I have nothing to offer him. Right. And he’s a level a hundred entrepreneur, you know, and I’m somewhere below that and, but if Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk together, they might have something to add to each other, maybe fight over rockets or something, but if you get up saying it, the best way to be to data 10 is to be a 10.

And so, I’ve even seen people and myself include, I get into a room that I’m out of my league, but I have nothing to offer that room. And what happens is it’s just a nice event. I went to, I met some people and they’re probably never going to remember my name and we’re never going to do business together.

And so, I’ve, I’ve thought drastically, like, how can I sharpen my acts where someone meets me or I meet them and we, I have something incredible to give and offer them. And, and so, sorry, that’s more the theory around what I’m saying. I’ll give you like actual tangible things that I’ve used at least.

And this is just my experience that have worked for me. Number one is events. I throw a number of events.

People generally like to speak on stage. You’ve done this to me, Bronson, you’ve thrown panels, right? Oh, I’m going to put you in front of an audience.

You want to have exposure. And I’m like, oh yeah, like Bronson adds value to my life. Cause I get to come and be in front of his audience and listen to his investors or his people like, great.

I love you. And also, Bronson is just an awesome dude and I like talking to him. And he’s like, funny.

He pulls questions out of me that are unique, right? It’s a unique conversation to have with him rather than just some random Joe. I’ve thought, so events have been massive.

I think having a podcast, a show is a great like networking tool just to, cause people, again, want exposure. They like giving advice, like what I’m doing right now. Right.

Other things too, having great deals or great investment opportunities for people. If you’re in this space, um, everyone likes a good deal. Everyone loves a great investment opportunity, not a scam, like a really good one that’s vetted, that’s done the right way that they can make money on.

Um, people love to laugh. So, if you’re funny that someone that’s can just, I’ve seen people that are, they have nothing else to offer besides they’re just fun to be around and that person has a great network just because people are like, Oh, let’s invite, let’s invite Joe over. Cause Joe just makes us all laugh.

Let’s just have them around, you know? And so, you can think about it in different ways of networking or adding value to people’s lives, but that’s, I’ll, I’ll stop there. That’s, that’s how I think though, about this whole conversation that way.

I hate the, all the hate, a lot of the semantics around networking and what to do and stuff really comes down to those core principles. And really for me, it’s how can I become a nine or a 10? So that other, I attract from people that are nine or 10s that want to be around me.

Bronson Hill: That’s a great way to look at it, man. Really love it. Um, one last question for you, Bridger.

I want to be sensitive to your time. Uh, wrote this book behind me, a fire yourself, become an Amazon bestseller. Really excited.

I made a commitment recently to write a second book. So, this is the cover here. It’s rich brain, how wealthy people change their brain to change their bank account.

Um, can you give maybe as you’ve encountered people that are wealthy and successful, can you get maybe one or two wealth habits that you’ve incorporated? Or you’ve seen wealthy people that they just do differently than people that are not well, congrats on the books.

Bridger Pennington: That’s very, I want to see the new book that’s coming out. It sounds awesome. Um, very, very cool.

Uh, you know, I, it’s, what’s funny is I’ve tried to think through what are actual habits that are actual math because people have a lot of different things that work for different people. For example, I have seen people that are very fit and in shape that make a lot of money. I’ve also seen people that are fat that make a lot of money.

You know what I mean? And like, personally, I believe in working out and I believe it helps my brain, but I, it’s like, it’s not a universal truth. And so, I’ve tried to look for things that are universal truths because there are a lot of exceptions.

And if there’s an exception to the rule, then maybe it’s not a rule, right? Maybe it’s just that work for them and it’s going to work for somebody else a different way. And so, there’s a lot of, there’s been libraries have been written on how to make money and wealth.

And whenever I read or listen to things, I try to find things that are actually like eternally true and it, it’s somewhat tries to help cut through the noise and to be honest, there’s a lot of in-betweens, but I’ll just share a few things that have stuck with me that have helped my life. And I would love to hear your, your comment on this question. Um, one that helped my life.

I, I started six businesses in my first year of college. I was very, I got had shiny object syndrome every two months. There was a shiny object, serial entrepreneur there.

Oh dude. And I thought it was cool. I would go on dates with girls.

Like, yeah, like I I’m running three companies right now in call. And like, I thought it was so cool in reality. That’s so idiotic.

Like this is the dumbest thing to do. Like nobody starts three companies at once, you know, like, but I thought, Oh yeah, I run a website business and I do this other little side hustle. And then I do another thing.

Like nobody like smart does that, you know, sounds cool when you’re dating a girl and like, wow. Okay. So anyways, just stupid.

Um, finally, I think you grow rich. I remember two things in there. Number one was wealthy people make decisions quickly and they stick to their decisions, those two things coupled together, absolutely changed my life.

Now that worked well for me. And maybe it’s not true for other people. And maybe you find exceptions to the rule, but I, but I remember him talking through that of make a decision.

And he gave an example of this, this general that got put into a position for five years, they debated the, these two sub commanders had come in and given different ideas and proposals for what to do in this new general got put in. And the first day he just said, yeah, let’s go with option A. And the other commander came back and said, Oh my, you don’t know what we’re talking about, you didn’t get enough data, blah, blah, blah.

You went through the whole thing. And he goes, the general just said the cost of indecision is much greater than the cost of decision. Both these options are probably good.

You debated them for years. They are. I could have gone with your option or they’re, they’re both good.

But if we don’t make a decision, that’ll do more harm than making one of these choices. So, I’m sorry. I didn’t choose you.

I just chose option A. I didn’t choose option B, but we need to start moving in a direction. And, and then we are going to stick to that direction and see it through.

And for me at the time, I had jumped around a lot of different ideas and businesses and I still, I always get crazy ideas and I keep happy reminders of like, no. And I would set actually timetables in my brain. Like I’m doing this for the next seven months.

I am all in on this idea. I’ve actually set a three-week time. And if I pass the three weeks, then I would go to a seven month time.

And then from seven months, I’d go beyond, but I had any business idea was very, I’m like, I’m going to go all in. I’m going to focus. I’m going to follow on the, see this through.

And if it’s not worth three weeks of testing, then I shouldn’t do it at the beginning and if it’s only a side hustle, I was like, I don’t believe in side hustle, if it’s really a good side hustle, it should become your full hustle.

Bronson Hill: Yeah.

Bridger Pennington: And so yes, you can test it on the side or date it, but there comes a point after three weeks was my opinion, three weeks, I’m going to go all in for the next seven months to really see and vet this thing out. And the moment I did that, um, actually the next business we did was fun launch, which has done over 30 million sales and roughly four, four years, something like that and growing rapidly, done incredibly well is crazy. What, and for me, what can happen when you re follow those two things, make choices and stick to those choices for at least a decent period of time to see things out.

Bronson Hill: Love it, man. That’s, that’s really good. Being decisive is so important.

Um, yeah, the few things I’ve interviewed, 2,500 millionaires, just three different calls that I’ve had. And one thing I’ve realized is a big thing is mindset, you know, just getting your mindset, right? A lot of people and Bernie Brown talks about in her research that you’re being worthy of something.

So, the people that were, you know, do great things or receive great things, let them, it’s a worthiness thing. They feel like they’re worthy of it. And so, of that piece, there’s really the, kind of the affirmations around that.

So, like the thinking grow rich talks about like how you think and how you talk about yourself, those kinds of things. And then, um, really the learning, you look at the never-ending learning that, uh, Warren Buffett and some of these guys do, they read hours a day, um, which a lot of wealthy people do. They ever CEO read 60 books a year.

The average American reads 12 books a year or less than half of Americans read four books or less a year. And then, uh, the last one is the networking getting in, you know, the, the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So that’s a little sneak peek on the book, but, um, yeah, man, I really love what you said too about being decisive.

I think that’s wonderful. Um, Bridger, I have so much respect for you, what you’ve created. You’ve really empowered a lot of people to change their lives, to change other people’s lives through creating funds.

I encourage everybody to check you out, hear about your crypto fund and all of the things you’re involved with. And you have, even though you have kind of one major thing, you’ve got all these other things to kind of surrounding it that you’re doing as well. How can people connect with you, reach out and connect with you?

Bridger Pennington: Yeah, it was a pleasure being on today. Um, thank you so much. And we’ll see on the panel tomorrow.

It should be fun. Yeah, we, uh, we have a free course on funds. I, our goal is to democratize wall street, to democratize funds.

We have a full free course. We’ve literally built out. It’s, we could probably charge hundreds of dollars for this course.

It’s literally for free. If you go to fund launch.com, um, right on the top, you’ll see our practice click on, it’s called the accelerator. It’s totally free right now.

At least we might raise the price later, but it’s totally free. And he’d get 20 plus videos all on fund management, how funds are built. The syndications versus funding we talked about at the beginning, how to raise capital, how to structure your fund, all that kind of stuff is included, which is pretty fun.

So, fundlaunch.com, you can go there. We have tons of free content. We just put out, we try to put out a lot of free content to just, I believe more people need to understand what funds are, how they’re built, how they’re put together, because if we don’t, we might be slaves to just a handful of funds that run the entire world.

We need more people to understand this game and what this game is. So Bronson, thank you for having me on. It’s just incredible.

I love what you’re doing and I’m excited to see the new books come out.

Bronson Hill: Thanks brother. Appreciate you, man. Okay.

So, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Bridger. Um, again, lots of great conversation. We jumped around to some different things, but, uh, when it comes down to it, really finding solutions to problems.

And that’s why I look at Bridger is he’s found a way to help solve problems. And when he explains something, he’s got examples that follow, Hey, this specific thing, and it’s, you know, what kind of investments are out here. Well, here’s some different options.

Here’s some things that I’m doing. I’m looking at, I’m finding interesting. And I think that as an investor, um, just that that’s a great principle, right?

That you’re not limited to only multifamily. You’re not limited, even though I love multifamily, right? You’re not limited to doing only flipping or only gold or only other things.

You have, there’s all these options here and it may make sense at certain times versus other times to do a certain type of investment. So, uh, I hope this was valuable for you. If you haven’t joined our investment club, uh, bronsonequity.com, we’re doing some unique deals outside of real estate, inside of real estate, some really cool stuff that you really can’t find anywhere else. Uh, super, I talk about it a lot cause I’m really excited, but it’s bronze and equity.com slash join. We have our vetted partners, the deals that are very unique. They provide cashflow, appreciation and tax benefits.

So, if you haven’t joined, please join. And we’ll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Mailbox Money Show!

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