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The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick | Episode 18 | Supporting Small Business Through Micro Private Equity featuring Kyle Kuderewski
14 Plays4 months ago
Welcome to The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick. Banrion Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. Since education is such a big piece of the Banrion mission and business, we are excited to kick off this series to dive into the nits and grits of the alternatives space. Episode 18 "Supporting Small Business Through Micro Private Equity" features Kyle Kuderewski, Operations Manager with WebStreet (formerly Empire Flippers Capital).
Kyle blends expertise in passive investing, entrepreneurship, and alternative investments. With a background in engineering management and a master's in project management, Kyle offers a unique perspective. Transitioning from the corporate world to WebStreet, Kyle found his niche in online business investing, aligning his goals with the company's vision. As a key figure at WebStreet, he spearheads efforts to make online businesses a viable passive investment option for accredited investors.
Connect with Kyle:
Learn More About WebStreet: WebStreet
Follow WebStreet on 𝕏: @WebStreetLLC
Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn: Kyle KuderewskiLearn More About Banrion: Banrion Capital Management
Follow Brittany on 𝕏: @Brittany_Mason
Follow Banrion on 𝕏: @Banrion_Capital
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: @BanrionCapital
Important Disclosures:
The opinions expressed on the “The Alternative Mason Podcast” are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security.
It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results.
The guests featured on this program are participants on Banrion Capital Management’s platform. As such Banrion may receive payment for their participation as a platform partner.
Any indices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. As always please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital; please seek advice from a licensed professional.
Investments are not FDIC-insured, nor are they deposits of or guaranteed by a bank or any other entity, so they may lose value.
Investors should carefully consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This and other important information is contained in the fund prospectuses and summary prospectuses, which can be obtained from a financial professional and should be read carefully before investing.
Statements attributed to an individual represent the opinions of that individual as of the date published and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Banrion Capital Management or its affiliates. This information is intended to provide educational value, highlight issues and should not be considered advice, an endorsement or a recommendation.
All Banrion Capital trademarks mentioned are owned by Banrion Capital Management, Inc., an affiliated company or fund. All other company and product names mentioned are the property of their respective comp
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Transcript
Introduction to The Alternator's Mason Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Alternator's Mason Podcast with host Brittany Mason, Chief of Staff at Bonner & Capital Management. You'll learn how to build alternative knowledge brick by brick. Bonner & Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. Since education is such a good piece of what we do, we are excited to kick off the series and dive into the midst and midst of the alternative space.
Meet Kyle Keroski: From Engineering to Investing
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, everyone. I'm Brittany Mason, Chief of Staff of Bundering Capital and your host of The Alternative Mason. So excited to be back today with another episode of The Alternative Mason. We have a special guest, Kyle Keroski.
00:00:45
Speaker
from Web Street and he is a manager. So he's an operations manager at Web Street. He blends his expertise in passive investing, entrepreneurship and alternative investments with a background in engineering and a master's in project management.
00:01:00
Speaker
Kyle offers a unique perspective, and from transitioning from the corporate world to Web Street, Kyle has found his niche in online business investing, aligning his goals with the company's vision. As a key figure at Web Street, he spearheads the efforts to make online businesses a viable passive investment option for accredited investors. So thank you so much, Kyle, for joining the show. It's great to have you on today.
00:01:28
Speaker
Hey, Brittany, thanks. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here, excited to talk online businesses or investing. Anything else you want to cover? I appreciate the generous introduction. Yes, of course. Thank you. No, I really just want to get started, your background and your whole journey into what you're doing now. How did this all start?
00:01:47
Speaker
Sure. So I like to say I'm an engineer, maybe kind of a nerdy engineer turned investor. And yeah, I just went to school for engineering, got out, got into corporate America and had just kind of a pretty traditional stable path. I was in corporate America for about a decade.
00:02:09
Speaker
which gave me a really good start to life. Most people post undergrad, I didn't have much money to my name, so it was a nice start to life. But I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do forever. I had an entrepreneurial itch. My dad was an entrepreneur.
00:02:30
Speaker
took that time to do my master's degree and started learning about side hustles and things like that. So after about a decade, I had saved up enough money, you know, owned my own home and was ready to start making, take the leap into entrepreneurship. And I learned about online businesses, which we can obviously we'll talk about. That's where I'm at now. But before I got into that, I got into
Kyle's Real Estate Journey and Market Insights
00:02:52
Speaker
vacation rental and real estate investing as well, which I still do still own some vacation rentals here on the east coast of the United States and but most of that's pretty passive now and so now I've
00:03:04
Speaker
I learned about the online business world. I knew there was a big future there. Um, we're still very early in that game. And so that's kind of what brought me to web street and, um, and what we do. And I know we'll get into those details, but I just want to wrap it up with the, um, what street couples investing with online businesses and digital assets. So to me, it felt like a great fit. Yeah. Yeah. How old were you when you bought your first home?
00:03:30
Speaker
Good question. So it was in 2015, so I have to show off my age here, do some math, about 24. Wow. And actually, I guess one thing that is interesting about that, so same thing there. So that was after several years, saved up money for a down payment, of course bought about as much as I could afford with 20% down.
00:03:53
Speaker
But it wiped out most of my savings. And we have the garage is separate. It's connected by the porch, but there's a little mother-in-law suite up top. So to get my savings back up, I threw that up on Airbnb. And I literally had an air mattress in it to start with. Because there was not much effort put into it. There's a TV and air mattress. I was like, if I can get 100 bucks a weekend, 200 bucks a weekend, that'll help. And it just stayed sold out every single weekend
00:04:22
Speaker
to the point that it became a problem. The HOA started getting involved and I was like, you know what? I need to go find an actual, actual place. And so that's kind of how I got into that. It wasn't, wasn't on purpose. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So real estate is that, I mean, so why real estate? Why do you think real estate was a good place to start?
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, well I needed a place to live, for one. No but I live on the East Coast I live on a little place called St. Simon's Island which is between Savannah and Jacksonville it's a small little beach town so when I saw that demand for the little mother-in-law suite every weekend.
00:04:54
Speaker
I just followed the market trends. I always like to say, and you'll hear this with Web Street too, we weren't necessarily that smart in getting into the vacation rental business or creating Web Street. There was demand from the market. And so eventually, if you hear enough,
00:05:14
Speaker
from your customers or potential customers, you may just want to listen. But I will tell you why I like real estate as a whole. I mean, for obvious reasons, there's huge tax advantages, there's depreciation on your taxes, there's appreciation of the assets. Generally, there's a lot of people that shy away from vacation rental because of hassle. But
00:05:37
Speaker
Automation has come a long, long way. I have all of these, all of these, you know, it was a heavy lift at the beginning, but there's all these tools you can do to manage your pricing, set your locks, you know, just automated everything, automated reviews, automated messaging. And then if you have a good cleaning staff, you know, you can really, I mean, I traveled the world for months at a time, really without much issue. So I would say that fear is probably a bit outdated.
00:06:04
Speaker
We have so much corporate America buying up all these homes and properties and just, you know, it's such a crazy time in the market. What do you think?
00:06:15
Speaker
I actually was talking to someone from corporate America that's with a, I'm not gonna say what company, but that is part of that, buying up a lot of these properties and stuff. And he was discouraging, he was very discouraging of individuals purchasing. Do you think it's still a good idea to try and buy property?
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. A lot more people are opting to rent, to have more freedom rather than buy too. Yeah, I think it's a good question. I bought in 2015, it's 2024 now, so gosh, that feels like a long time ago. It was a long time ago. So is it definitely a different market now? There's a reason I haven't purchased more since then. Prices have gone up, obviously interest rates have gone up.
00:07:04
Speaker
So I'm lucky to still be sitting there with all my properties below 5% interest. So I think it really depends. I think aside from corporate, I should say, I should elaborate on depends.
00:07:20
Speaker
The market depends on if it's vacation rental on demand, if like a lot of different features or factors, but aside from just the large corporations purchasing so much stuff, I think SPVs and people pulling their money together, investor groups, all of that is playing a role as well.
00:07:38
Speaker
If I was going to be looking at doing more right now I would probably look to do it with some friends and a syndication type model or some, an investor club or something like that to kind of diversify and not have to own the property outright myself multi family interests me so
00:07:53
Speaker
A bit of a long-winded answer, but it's not an easy decision. No, that's very helpful. That's very helpful, actually, because I have been reading a lot more, you know, millennials are going in 50-50, you know, not with a romantic partner, but with friends. Well, it used to be a lot harder, I think. I think they're just
00:08:11
Speaker
you can spin up an LLC and start a partnership in a hurry. There's a lot of tools out there that make doing a fund model easier than it used to be. And I think people are more educated.
Birth and Growth of Web Street as a Business
00:08:24
Speaker
They used to be on the possibilities and the different ways you can do that. So yeah, I hope that answers your question a little bit. That was one of the reasons though, that I did kind of transition into online businesses and
00:08:37
Speaker
And there's different things to like and different things to dislike about them as well. But I don't think real estate is going anywhere, but I am more interested in different asset classes. I don't want to be all in on real estate or anything else for that matter. Of course, yeah. The importance of diversifying. And that's why alternatives are so important as part of the portfolio, as part of someone's portfolio. 100%. Yeah.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, so how did your engineering degree help you with creating Web Street? Sure. Yeah, that's a good question. The biggest part as an operations manager and what I do for Web Street is really putting systems in place that scale.
00:09:24
Speaker
I said my undergrad was really just a bunch of hoops and like you just had to persevere and get through all of that and like then you're not going to use like differential equations or heat transfer unless you're doing like specifically deep design roles or build, you know, designing bridges or whatever equipment.
00:09:40
Speaker
I never did any of that. I was always in the project management side of things. So it's really important when you're building a company or any type of organization to put systems in place. So you're not repeating things year after year or repeat learning things, right? When you're hiring people, you've already got your training manuals made.
00:09:55
Speaker
when you're doing investing like we are, you're running and we have our own engineering platform where people invest. And I know you guys work with a company called Mammoth as well. And they have a very slick platform. When I was doing the onboarding call with them, we were all just smiling and giggling because we knew all
00:10:16
Speaker
all the steps that it took to build a platform that people could invest through. So when you're running an engineering team, your systems are extremely, extremely important. And that's boring for people to hear, but it's super important. If you're relearning your mistakes year after year, or you're missing deadlines, or having to spend more time training people and onboarding people, you're just never going to be able to scale. So I'd say that's the biggest way it's helped me. Nice. And so when was Web Street established?
00:10:45
Speaker
about three years ago, so 2021. Prior to that, there was a company and still is a company that's thriving called Empire Flippers. They're a brokerage for online businesses. So yeah, it's just like any other physical business brokerage. If Kyle builds a website or an app or
00:11:02
Speaker
of software that he wants to sell. I would go to a company like Empire Flippers and they would help me find a buyer for that business. And maybe Brittany's the buyer, right? So they're kind of the middleman, there's a buyer side in that.
00:11:17
Speaker
But what we kept hearing and this goes back to the market trends that I talked about earlier. Yeah, we had people coming up to us at Empire flipper saying can I just give you money I know online businesses make a lot of money or can make a lot of money. Can I invest, can I give you money and you somebody on your team run it for me.
00:11:34
Speaker
And our answer was always no, it's not what we do. After hearing that hundreds and hundreds of times over the years, we're like, you know what, let's make a way to let's make a great way for people to do that. So that was about three years ago. 2021, we started our first fund and yeah.
00:11:51
Speaker
And what makes you guys unique to other types of, you know, fractional offering ownership types of cash flowing companies out there? Sure. Yeah. So we're very similar.
00:12:06
Speaker
in the fractional ownership world, you know, there's ways to invest in art, invest in wine, invest in real estate as well, collectibles, trading card shoes, whatever, in a fractional manner, but nobody was doing it for online businesses, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, right? Like every app on your phone and everything you do on your computer or a piece of technology is like, somebody's making money. Like you may not realize it, but somebody's making money on everything pretty much.
00:12:32
Speaker
So the fact that there was no way for us or regular people to take advantage of that was kind of crazy to us. And we can get into our track record. It's still very early for us. Three years in, we're still adjusting our models. Yeah, still scaling. And we don't have it perfect yet, but we've really worked hard to align incentives. And we think it can be just as big as any of these platforms that are out there for different asset classes.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. How do you foresee this space evolving?
AI's Impact on Online Business and Web Street's Strategy
00:13:06
Speaker
Well, right now the biggest thing on everybody's mind is, is AI, right? So yeah, so that's, um, I can't act like I know where that's going to go, but it's affecting all, you know, we do sites, we do Amazon businesses, we do.
00:13:21
Speaker
content sites. So these blogs that you read that are top 10 travel backpacks or whatever, whatever you're looking for. So affiliate marketing, we do software, SaaS, software as a service, which is a recurring revenue model. AI is going to, we do agencies as well. So marketing agencies, digital advertising, et cetera. How many do you have on the platform? So far we got
00:13:47
Speaker
about 40 businesses in our, in our portfolio, um, in all of those different monetizations that I just taught we, uh, that I just talked about, um, we've raised see around that same, same amount. Um,
00:14:02
Speaker
In millions of dollars. So they're, they're generally around 500 to $1.5 million businesses and we're starting to do some larger ones and we've done done some smaller as well. But those are all cash flowing. And that's one thing that's unique. I think compared to real estate or a piece of art where you're just waiting on it to appreciate
00:14:20
Speaker
Like art's not gonna spit off cash, right? You're making a bet, maybe a very educated, maybe that's not the right word, an educated decision, whatever it is, to invest in this piece of art or this collectible. It's not printing cash every month. These online businesses are. So the business that we acquire, as soon as you, once you invest and we acquire the businesses, you start getting cash flows as an investor. So we give two thirds of the profits to our investors every single quarter. And eventually we're gonna sell those businesses as well. So you're gonna,
00:14:50
Speaker
You're going to see the upside and the appreciation. Like if the business is a million dollar business in three years, it's worth 1.5 and we decide to sell it. You're going to get part of that upside as well. But that whole time while it's growing, you're getting cashflow. So it's a different, it's a different kind of play than an appreciation play. Um, so that's one thing that I think is really attractive for online businesses.
Web Street's Business Management and Investment Strategy
00:15:11
Speaker
Um, depending on your scenario, it's not for, for everybody, of course.
00:15:15
Speaker
How do you assess who's the right fit for your platform? And what are the requirements for those online businesses that are on your platform? Yeah, so it's pretty rigorous and it does kind of fall on the other side. So I run the operations side of things, which is legal taxes, marketing, engineering, all of that.
00:15:36
Speaker
We have a gentleman, Blago, who runs the investment side and it's very rigorous in who we allow to come on and run these businesses and acquire these businesses. So part of it is we got a nice head start with Empire Flippers. Empire Flippers has been around for a decade. So we are a completely separate company now, but we started out sharing resources and we still operate in that world, right?
00:16:01
Speaker
who the best people are that have bought and sold websites over the last 10, 15 years from conferences, from them actually doing it. So we had a nice pool of online business operators to start with. And then now that we're much more established, we have people applying to be operators all the time.
00:16:19
Speaker
But to answer your question completely, they apply and then they go through a thorough due diligence process. We make them go out and find businesses according to their track record, according to their strategy, do simulation due diligence. So they have to act like they're gonna buy the business. What would they do to grow it on and on? It's a very rigorous process. And we so far only have accepted 15 operators that we've brought onto the platform. So those 15 operators are running the,
00:16:47
Speaker
give or take 40 businesses that I just talked about earlier. And a lot of them come back and do repeat portfolios. So once they're building a track record with us, investors want to, if they're doing well, investors want to repeat invest. So we've had several of them. We just had one do his fourth fund with us, which is pretty cool to see. That's what we were hoping for in our model, but it's cool to see it actually happening. Yeah. And which ones tend to do best? Do you have any favorites?
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, well, the gentleman that's done, that's doing his fourth fund with us right now, he's in content and so which is affiliate marketing and display advertising, and he's done really, really well. It changes. That's one difference too, between online businesses and
00:17:36
Speaker
I would say like real estate is change is much more rapid in online business world, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's a good thing if you have the right operators that can adapt and change their strategies quickly that have been around for a long time and they're not spooked by one Google update or one Amazon change.
00:17:54
Speaker
So the reason I say it changes is, yeah, so he's done content has some really strong team of writers that write his content for him that know how to do SEO and end up on the top page of Google.
00:18:09
Speaker
with chat GPT and everything that came on board, a lot of people that didn't have those teams in place were, they were de-ranked pretty quickly. Maybe they've been on the front page for years, but Google caught on to the fact that they're doing automated content and not high quality and they de-ranked them. And so that's what you want to avoid is kind of like flashing the pan tactics. Similarly, the reason I said, another reason I say it's changing is
00:18:36
Speaker
Back during COVID, everybody thought they could win with Amazon, FBA, Fulfilled by Amazon, and a lot of them could, right? And that's not the case now. A lot of those people that were just throwing up masks or whatever they were doing are just not around anymore.
00:18:56
Speaker
It's another kind of long-winded answer. I get excited talking about these different monetizations. So we have some in content that are doing well. We have some in FBA that are doing really well. I'll tell you one last one that would surprise you is actually Amazon KDP, which is Kindle Direct Publishing. We only have one operator in the KDP space, but he does really well.
00:19:17
Speaker
It was a much less competitive space when you're making acquisitions than some of these others. Who do you think this is a proper fit? What type of investor is this best for?
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, first of all, you need to be credited. You need to be accredited investor, which, yeah, think everybody knows but over 200,000 in income or over a million in net worth is the most common way there's other ways.
00:19:50
Speaker
Other than that, I think it's good for people that are already heavily invested in S&P 500, maybe their 401ks and stuff like that are maxed out, Roth IRAs, and they want to get more exposure to different asset classes. If the real estate market drops, like
00:20:07
Speaker
One thing that's really good about online businesses is they're just uncorrelated to the stock market and other asset classes. So it's a really good way to diversify. But aside from just being accredited, we highly encourage you to have
00:20:23
Speaker
Um, plenty of money and savings. We don't want Timmy's college fund. We don't want you to, you know, give us your last dollar or anything like that. Cause it is very illiquid, like businesses, the holding periods generally two to four years. So it's not too, too long, but like, you can't just pull your money out. Um, and then somebody that that's looking for cashflow, if you're wanting cashflow every quarter, this is a, this is one nice way to do it. Um, and then the last thing is people that are interested in the space. So.
00:20:51
Speaker
Along with the cash flow, we give quarterly distributions where the operators show the websites that they've purchased. They show the strategies that they're using to grow the websites. And you don't have to be all that interested in it, but I think it makes it more fun. And most of our investors are really interested in what websites they own. Maybe they're telling people to talk to parties or whatever the case is. So that'd be the last, probably the least important requirement, but I do think it's nice to have
00:21:20
Speaker
I mean, passive investing sounds like a no brainer, but what are like the cons to that? What kind of hiccups do you have in attending counter? Yeah, I mean, the cons are...
00:21:34
Speaker
For one, particularly with us, it is illiquid for the holding period until the businesses are sold. For somebody that's a bit OCD, maybe that has a lot of knowledge in this space, you don't have the control. They're not your businesses.
00:21:53
Speaker
If you see something that's going on with one of the sites you're in, that's not to say that you can't come to us with suggestions and we may pass them on to the operators. But I could see that being frustrating if I'm an Amazon store expert and I invest in one of these and then I don't like what's going on for whatever reason.
00:22:08
Speaker
Maybe that person just has a different strategy than you do. It doesn't make it wrong. So if you're wanting control, then that could be maybe frustrating. Let me think of what else. So I mean, the other biggest thing is just by making it passive, you're giving up part of the profits, right? These operators, they get a portion of the profits operate. The investors get two thirds every quarter and two thirds on the sale. Web Street and the operators get the other thirds. So you are giving up part of the profit, but then you're not having to do any of the work.
00:22:39
Speaker
So yeah. So let's talk about the concept of buying and holding with passive investing. Can you explain what that means for our listeners? Yeah, so generally
00:22:53
Speaker
I'll talk about it in general, and then also with Web Street. So if you invest now, we usually, most of our fundraisers are about a quarter, so two to three months. You're investing at that point, then the operators have to go purchase the businesses, right? So you're still not making money at that point. Same thing in real estate. If you purchase, if you pull your money and go purchase an investment, an apartment complex, have an investment,
00:23:18
Speaker
that needs a bunch of work, right? Like they're going to go install a pool and rehab a bunch of it. You're not making money at that point, right? So there's a hold period before they start cash flowing. Um, then once you get renters in, or once these operators start selling the products on their businesses, uh, on their websites or whatever, that's when you start to cashflow. Um, which is great, but there was a period there where you weren't making money, um, where you're just investing in the business and waiting. Um, and then.
00:23:47
Speaker
then as those businesses grow or that apartment complex to keep both analogies going is starting to get renters in it, you're not going, you can't just kick those renters out. Like if you want to pull your money out, you either have to find somebody to buy you out, if you're even allowed to do that, or you just have to wait. So something changes with your personal life or whatever.
00:24:11
Speaker
You just need to be aware that that money is in, it's in a hold until the businesses are sold. Um, which is why the terms are really important for us. It's like I said, two to four years. That's a nice medium for a lot of people. Um, generally physical real estate is much, much longer. Um, but that's not always the case. So it's just really important to get educated on the terms of each investment. Do you have any success stories, uh, that you'd like to share?
00:24:38
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think we have a, so there's a few, um, that have been really interesting. Actually we have some case studies that people can check out, uh, on our website. Um, so we've had a few operators that came in, uh, purchased businesses in the content side of things. So they're, again, they need to rank on Google. Um, they're needing people to click their affiliate articles.
00:25:04
Speaker
And we had one in a pretty competitive niche that actually started declining right after it was purchased. And this was a turnaround story, so success in a turnaround nature. What he actually had to do was go out and get an expert in that field that wasn't originally on the team.
00:25:22
Speaker
to come in and just start coaching the entire team on like why their content wasn't good enough why people weren't clicking the links and then also go find more suppliers to link to so they only had two or three sites that they were linking to and it just wasn't enough and that that business did a complete 180 so that was one we've got a few other case studies up on our website that operator that i talked about that's been back for the fourth time we have a case study for him up that's about
00:25:49
Speaker
And that's not, doesn't really fall under my side of things. Again, that's on the investment acquisition side. So, um, uh, my teammate blog, I could talk in more detail about it, but, um, there's been, there's been a lot of success and, and a lot of turnaround stories. Like, like I said earlier, things change very quickly on the online business world. So how, what would you say was a pivotal moment in your career where you learned a major lesson?
00:26:17
Speaker
A financial career lesson, yeah. Yeah, I'll give you a there's a bunch, but there's one in particular that really stands out. And I don't want to sound like a corporate America is not right for for anybody, like there's a ton of perks there to stability and in having
Lessons from Corporate America and Personal Growth
00:26:40
Speaker
you know, large teams and things in place to get the job done. Just for me in particular, one moment was there was just a year where we absolutely crushed it at my previous job. And I mean, we had a bunch of down years as well, but there was one year where like all my projects went really well and just absolutely crushed it. And when it came time for our incentives after the year end review,
00:27:08
Speaker
there was none that year and it was simply because the economy wasn't doing as well as it had been previously. So to me, that was a big moment where it was like, look, if you want to control your own financial future, you need to kind of take matters into your own hand, whether that's investing passively or whether that's, you know, whatever way you want to do that. If you want to be able to have control
00:27:29
Speaker
Over your own success and and be financially rewarded for it. Then that's the kind of a leap of faith. You have to take because it doesn't matter in this corporate role. It doesn't matter how good of a year you had. It really mattered more how the economy did or how that, you know, how other people's projects went and that just that just struck me as like a
00:27:48
Speaker
I'm really, I'm going to fail at a bunch of things, but I wanted to because of my own decisions and like my own actions, not just because of what somebody else told me to do. Similarly in management, we had some cults of consulting come in one time, but major, major consulting, I'll leave out names.
00:28:04
Speaker
Everybody would know them. And I had to fire a bunch of people that just didn't deserve it. Just because there was quote unquote too many people at the job. And that one as well was like, this is just not something I want to do. So yeah. And the entrepreneur was born. There you go. So your father was an entrepreneur. He was. He owned almost, he owned over 30 restaurants at one point, various other things as well.
00:28:34
Speaker
vending machines, all kinds of different stuff. He was from New York City, you know, four brothers, four sisters, one bedroom apartment. So he was a natural hustler, New Yorker. Yeah, New York City back in the 40s, 50s, like, yeah, four brothers, four sisters, one bedroom apartment, like you're going to learn how to hustle.
00:28:49
Speaker
Um, but that being said, he would not let me go into the restaurant industry. But I hear, I hear it's a really tough industry to have to be in, you know, for sure. And even, you know, not that all of us did well, but you know, even with a lot of them doing well, it still was very, very tough and a lot of long hours and, and yeah. So, yeah. So did he, what kind of, uh, what, what kind of.
00:29:18
Speaker
values did he instill in you with your relationship to money? Our relationship to money starts in childhood. So I'm really curious to what your introduction to that was and how your entrepreneurial spirit, how that really was supported by your father.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's really insightful. I'd say two things. One is that your situation can change very quickly. So he really taught me the value of saving. You know, there's a bunch of silly things out there, but they're true. A dollar saved is a dollar earned.
00:29:55
Speaker
I saw, especially because of the restaurant business, how quickly things can change. We went from having some money at some points, and then a year or two later, it's like, no, this year's not a good year, kids.
00:30:09
Speaker
And it changed very quickly in the restaurant industry, even just particular restaurants or particular sites that were doing well. Just things change, people's preferences change. They've changed a lot since then, right? Like a lot of people don't like the big chain restaurants now. Everybody wants the boutique, brunchy type stuff. So things change quickly, savings are really important. And then the other part, which is pretty related is just like,
00:30:37
Speaker
Uh, I think this was a little more Jackson quote a few years ago, the football player was just like, nobody cares. Work harder. Like just don't comply. Yes. Yeah. Nobody cares. Work harder. Yes. I've seen that. Yeah.
Remote Work, Travel, and Entrepreneurial Advice
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah. I've seen it on a few t-shirts. I should, I should get one, but, um,
00:30:52
Speaker
I, I, that was very much the attitude he had for us. And it, you know, you kind of sound, um, a little cut throat when you say that, but it, but it, it's true, you know, to a certain extent, like just, you need to work harder, go solve the problem and figure it out. So I always, if I catch myself throwing, throw it in a pity party, that's kind of what I go back to. Nice. So do you have children? Do you have any kids?
00:31:16
Speaker
No, no kids at the moment. Just yeah, just me and my wife and we we travel. That's one thing too that was really nice about Web Street and Empire Flippers and remote culture is we travel a good bit.
00:31:31
Speaker
We meet our team. Should we just got back from a month in Columbia and Argentina? We get the team together once or twice a year somewhere fun in the world and we work on projects and strategize and do things that you can't really do well on Zoom. And those relationships matter. So we do that once or twice a year. And we keep saying kids maybe after one more big trip, but that was like 15 big trips ago. So I don't know.
00:31:57
Speaker
Everything has its own time. I was just wondering if you were passing anything along to your children, but our listeners, what kind of advice would you have for them who are looking to maybe perhaps start their own business, maybe take that leap of faith, maybe take that big risk and take more control over their financial future?
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So, but I will say, I mean, on the kids thing, if and when that happens, I would definitely pass on a lot of things.
00:32:30
Speaker
He kind of gets a bad rep as well, but I think the Dave Ramsey program is pretty good for people that are starting out. And I know he's very focused on educating kids on spend, save, give, you know, just envelope systems. So that would probably be where I would start for making a leap into entrepreneurship. And if that's what you want to do, I mean, you know, I don't think, I think the first thing is get really, really educated. You can, you can, you know, you can crawl before you walk or whatever the saying is like,
00:32:59
Speaker
You don't have to just go quit your job and jump all in. You should be willing to grind for a while. Do this on nights and weekends, get educated, save the money, and start earning before you actually just jump full force into whatever it is.
00:33:18
Speaker
There's a lot more time in the day than people realize. I mean, you can get started quite early. You can work at night after the kids are in bed. And I know our time's valuable and nobody wants to hear that, but like you, you can make it happen for a period of time and test the waters before you, before you jump in. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any recommendations of, you know, where people can start, you know, maybe some favorite books or podcasts? What are your favorite resources? Yeah. Yeah, sure. So, um,
00:33:48
Speaker
I think a lot of people will know Rich Dad, Poor Dad and all of those. I do recommend those for sure. I think there's some skills that people should really look into around asking good questions and storytelling and things like that because those are applicable across the board. Like sales skills and being able to
00:34:13
Speaker
to construct a good narrative and tell a good story is applicable almost in every industry. So I'm looking over here at my bookshelf. There's one called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. It's short, easy to read, and it's really about the power of phrasing different questions. And that's super important. There's another one called Storyworthy, which is all about being able to construct a narrative and tell a story, whether that's in selling or just in making friends and networking. So those two.
00:34:40
Speaker
Podcast, there's one called Invest Like a Boss that I was a guest on as well, but I was a listener long before I was a guest and it's all about different ways to passively invest or actively invest and it's all over the world and it's non-traditional. That would be one I would say is worth listening to as well. Wonderful. Well, where can our listeners find you if they want to follow you online?
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:35:07
Speaker
Yes. So webstreet.co is our homepage. I'm very active on there. Obviously you'll see a ton of insights there, blogs, case studies, podcast recordings. It's .co. I just want to call it out, not .com. And my email is Kyle at webstreet.co. So both of those and then LinkedIn. Last name is pretty long. I'm sure it'll be in the title or description somewhere. So look that up, but I stay very active on LinkedIn as well. So that's the best place.
00:35:36
Speaker
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in. I really enjoyed chatting with you and yeah, thank you. Webstreet.co. Check them out, everyone. Thank you so much again. And we will see you next time right here on the green couch. Sounds good. Thanks, Brittany.
00:35:57
Speaker
The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or any specific security.
00:36:24
Speaker
As always, please remember, investing involves risk, and possible loss of capital. Please take advice from the licensed investor.