CPI Capital - Real Estate Private Equity的动态

Transcript

Right. OK, Gillian, now Gillian, what was like the crowdfunding landscape looked like when you first entered the space back in the day? Was was was the real estate crowdfunding environment? What was it like when you started, especially in in terms of competition, right. Because you've been in this space for a while now. How did the landscape of democratizing access to real estate investments look like, particularly when they introduced the JOBS Act in 2012? Yeah, I mean, it didn't exist, right? Like we were one of the very first companies, you know, to even attempt this, right. So there, there, there was no industry. Umm, you know, we were so early that there really was no industry. We spent millions and millions and millions of dollars. Turning crowdfunding into a verb, right? So like familiarizing people with the industry. And, you know, I think at the peak there were probably like 100 companies doing what we do. We're probably back down to like 5 or 6 now. In today's world, you know, there's a lot of real estate companies who will advertise digitally on their own, right? So they're running their own digital marketing and they're building their own sort of databases of individual investors. But as far as, you know, platforms and online investing platforms, there's really only a handful now. So it's kind of this industry that grew out of nothing, had a huge boom and then. Likely, you know, had somewhat of a boss when, you know, companies didn't build the right businesses or didn't focus on the right business models or grew too fast. I mean, there's, you know, any number of mistakes, obviously, that entrepreneurs make and we made plenty on our own as well. But it, it, it's now, I think stabilized quite a bit with, you know, 5 or 6 players in the industry. Wow, that's, that's incredible. And like, obviously when you first started, there was probably so many challenges. So how did you first attract being one of the first companies out there and trying to educate everybody what crowdfunding meant? How did you attract your first? Letters into the and investors into the platform when crowdfunding really wasn't, it was just this new concept. Yeah, it was very grassroots. So like, why was I was raising capital for the company? I was raising our think our seed round. So like wanted to raise $1,000,000 of seed capital for the company. And I did like any pitch event that I could get into. And it was not only to raise capital for the corporate entity, but, you know, the folks that are at all these, you know, venture pitches and Angel investor pitches, they're all credited investors. And so, you know, my ulterior motive, if you will, was could they also invest in real estate? A platform and could I go to these events and get people to sign up with real turmoil because interested in what we're doing? And then they, you know, subsequently turned into sort of real estate investors. So that was one way that was very sort of grassroots free, right? I mean, these Angel networks typically don't pay you to pitch. They just want, you know, good companies or the opportunity for good companies. So that was one way. Another way I, I would call personally everybody who joined the platform. So the first like 2000 signups, I would call personally, you know, thank you for joining the platform. It was very much a, a very high touch sort of approach. But it was, you know, grassroots and high touch and in the early stages of being an entrepreneur, you know, you do a bunch of stuff that doesn't scale, right? Because it's not about scaling. It's about, you know, getting your first 1000 raving fans. So can you find 1000 people who love you and want to buy your product and want to do subsequent business with you? That's what it's all about. And sort of those early days of entrepreneurship. Yeah. I love to hear that actually, because, you know, when I show up to some investor calls over the years, people are like, we just saying you're the CEO. Why are you? I didn't realize it was going to be on the call. And it was just, you know, it's a connection that you make. And I say, hey. And like really focused on the equity side of the business as well. And this is a relationship of business, it's a trust business. So I love that you took that path years and years ago because as we have have started CI capital as well, we're we went through that same kind of.