Building A Business In The Sky

Listen to the audio-version here: DC102: Tait Duryea - Building A Business In The Sky

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Building A Business In The Sky

Speaker 1: Hello, this is Mo Bina of High Rise Capital, and you're tuned into Dream Chasers. Interviews with the future.

Tait: You want to be really sure that you're an expert in a field before you start telling somebody else about something, right? I don't want to start teaching someone how to fly an airplane, unless I'm really good at flying that airplane.

Adam: This is Dream Chasers, Episode 102 with Tait Duryea. Hey guys, what's going on? I'm Adam Carswell and welcome to Dream Chasers interviews with the future. On Dream Chasers, we bring next level talent to the light. Thank you for tuning in now. Let's get straight to the interview. Hey guys, this is Adam Carswell and today I'm joined by Tait Duryea. Tait is the Founder of Turbine Capital. He was born in Manhattan, New York, raised in Bozeman, Montana. Went to high school in Hawaii. College in Los Angeles and San Diego. And now he lives back in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, where he's been for 10 years. Tait, thank you so much for joining us here on Dream Chasers. Do you have any opening remarks for my listeners?

Tait: Adam, thank you so much. That was quite the residential resume. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

Adam: Absolutely really happy to have you here. For everyone listening, you know, this is one of our early episodes bringing Dream Chasers back, you know, the past couple months, I've taken some time off to reevaluate the show and figure out how to make it bigger, better and better. And you know, Tait along with Hunter who was just on Episode 101 where guys who just kind of fell in my lap as we're getting ready to bring it back. So, I know Tait through the Cash Flow Connections Mentorship Program, as I've mentioned many times on this show and other places as well. You know, that's a program that I took about two years ago that streamlined me into commercial real estate investing. I now help facilitate that course. And Tait is one of our current students and not only just a student, I mean, Tait is really a standout entrepreneur. He's also a pilot. He's a bunch of things that actually I'm just going to, as I continue to build him up, I actually just want to switch it back over to you real quick here to Tait. And tell us a little bit about your background before real estate and then I guess a little bit of how you got into connecting with Hunter and I?

Tait: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. I'm absolutely humbled to be your second guest of the revise show. Certainly, I have some big shoes to fill a following Hunter. But yeah, so I'm an airline pilot by profession. I got into that because it was kind of in the family. I've got two uncles who were airline pilots. My grandfather was an airline pilot, so definitely had pilots growing up. And when I was 11-years-old my uncle who was a Captain in American at the time, flew me down to Fort Lauderdale and we got to fly around in some small airplanes. And I remember at 11 years old, not just being enamored by the flying itself, you know, flying in these small airplanes and stuff, but just observing his lifestyle. I mean, the guy had big old house with a pool and a boat on the canal, all the toys, you know, a couple of hot rods and I'm just like, man, this guy has living life. You know, he'd work maybe half the month, he's getting paid a bunch of money. And, you know, he gets to travel all over the world for free, not only when he was working, but also on his off time. And so, it was something that really caught me at a young age.

So, when I went to college often in Southern California, I immediately jumped into flight school, but I was kind of teetering back and forth between, do I want to go business? Do I want to go flight school and ended up going the flying route, which I'm really happy I did, but the entrepreneurial itch never really went away? And I bought my first property when I was 24, 25, which was in gosh, 2012, I think. And that was right after I got hired by a major airline and moved back here to Honolulu, Hawaii, where I live now been at that airline for 10 years and yeah, bought that house, rented it out and kind of wanted to keep the steam rolling on real estate. But, you know, as a kid in mid to late twenties with a great job and a lot of time off and free travel anywhere in the world, there were obviously some distractors. And as I see with really all of the professionals in my world, there was a cartoon that I really liked. That was a mother looking at this little boy and the boy goes, mom, when I grow up, I want to be a pilot. And the mom says, I'm sorry, sound but you can't do both. And I think that really speaks to just kind of the lifestyle of being an aviator where, you know, there's a lot of 50-year-old who just have pretty carefree lifestyles, you know, they fly. And then when they're home, they're there on mountain biking trips with their friends or their kids and it's a pretty good lifestyle. So, I found a Turbine Capital just to sort of fill a little bit of a void in financial responsibility by some pretty well-paid professionals and to sort of educate on the passive investing space and share what I know.

Adam: I love it. And thank you, I already told you this before, but I love the I don't know why the name Turbine Capital is just a sick name. It's a good name.

Tait: I appreciate it.

Adam: So, Tait we're now going to step into the Next Level Chamber.

Adam: As the topic of this interview is titled. Tell us what is it like, because this is basically what you're doing, especially, you know, I remember when you and I had our first call you said a lot of your investor database and network is from people that you've met through fly. So, you're building this business around your aviation business. What is it like building a business in the sky?

Tait: Well, that's a good question. I mean, the biggest plus of having, you know, this career is number one the time off. So, the fact that I have a lot of time off that I can on, on entrepreneurial endeavors or hobbies or whatever, whatever else may be is really great, it's really conducive to entrepreneurship. And in fact, most pilots have something else going on. Either they fly small airplanes or they volunteer with community groups or they run some sort of entrepreneurial business. So, there's a lot of building that goes on outside the cockpit. The one thing that is nice as well is if you think about it like sailing a boat or actually my friend who's an anesthesiologist is kind of the same way, right? It's very busy towards the beginning of the end of the flight but in the middle, as long as the weather's good and as long as there's no things that are going on or systems that are malfunctioning, it's pretty relaxed. You know, you're kind of sitting there just monitoring everything and there's time to contemplate and be pensive. And so, there's definitely time, which is nice in this career where you can just kind of sit back and stare out the window at some clouds and think about a hundred different things.

Adam: And would you say, was there a light bulb moment? I mean, I know you said you bought your first property when you were 24, 25 but do you feel like in a more recent timeframe, there was something that made you go, wow alright, wow it's time to get going?

Tait: Absolutely. So it was, you know between that first property and now there's been a couple of different rental properties that I've traded up to. I'm currently doing a bird deal in South Carolina on a six-plex, but really it was last year, 2019 Best Ever Conference. I had never been to a real estate conference before Hawaii is just not a great place to invest in real estate. It's extremely expensive. The rent to value ratios are very, very low. So out of state has always been my necessity. It's always, you've had to go out of state if you want to find cash flowing real estate. So, I finally just sucked it up and booked a ticket to Best Ever Conference, which is Joe Fairless has conference in Denver, this year it was in Keystone. We had a great time there and you and I. And it was the first time that I met Hunter and Jeremy Roll and those two were on stage debating, passive versus active investing. And that was actually the first time that I had been introduced to the concept of syndication and the fact that passive investing was actually a thing. And it was an absolute Eureka moment because I feel that most professionals, whether they're pilots, doctors, lawyers, engineers, whatever, they're really busy in their professional life. And they're also really good at what they do in their professional life. They don't want to, you know, spend hundreds of hours listening to podcasts, reading books, figuring out how to invest successfully in real estate. And it was like, wow, there's this whole other world where you can put, you know, your resources in the hands of professionals and get a really nice return on your investment and they don't know about it. And it was the idea to create this company that can sort of spread the gospel of how to passively invest in real estate. First of all, it's actually a thing second that, you know, it's really easy to do. It's literally set it and forget it. And third, just sort of like to provide some sort of baseline knowledge around it. That was the Eureka moment and actually the name for it popped into my head as I was exiting the theater into the hallway and I knew I wanted to do it.

Adam: I love it. I love it. And I love how you tied in, you know, spreading the gospel there. I know you're working on your podcasts as well, and that ripple effect is only going to continue. And you're going to see it come back to you in some really cool ways here, probably even sooner than later.

Tait: Thanks man. I appreciate it.

Adam: But yeah, so Tait. Thank you, guys. We are now roughly halfway through our interview so it's about that time. Here's a quick sample from your next level track of the week On The Attack by Late London, featuring Born I.

[Music by Late London ft Born-I].

Adam: And as we just said before, the song we're talking about spreading the gospel of passive real estate investing, it's something where I've had even within the past week two or three individuals who never heard of the concept before reach out to me and say, you know, it's a huge blessing also. Tait, I don't know if you've been able to help anyone out so far that's never heard of it. Let's actually talk about that. Have you been able to help point anyone in the right direction since learning what you've learned?

Tait: Yeah. And I've come at it with a bit of restraint because until I felt about 10 times more confident than investing my own money, you want to be really sure that you're an expert in a field before you start telling somebody else about something, right. I don't want to start teaching someone how to fly an airplane, unless I'm really good at flying that airplane. It's one of the reasons I'm in the CFC Mentorship Program to make sure I sort of solidify the knowledge that I already have and the skillset that I already have so that I can confidently, you know, direct people and confidently teach on the subject. But yeah, I've brought a couple people into passive syndications that I'm an investor in and we've invested as a group. And one of the nice things that you can do is for some of these indications that have fairly high minimum investment amounts, you can pull your capital and invest as an investment group. So, I did that with one of the syndications that I'm invested in as an LP. And really right now, the focus is building the infrastructure, building the platform, building the podcast and creating a full infrastructure so that when we launch it can be plug and play for everyone.

Adam: Awesome. And I think, you know, you kind of mentioned Best Ever Conference. Last year was a huge momentum swing forward. Taking the Cash Flow Connection...

Tait: Big time.

Adam: ...Membership Program has been a huge help. Is there anything else within the past year that you really felt like help push Turbine Capital forward into that next level?

Tait: The quarantine. I'll tell you what, when you're forced to stay at home and you can't go outside except for exercise. And you're not working that frees up a lot of time. And for someone who's as driven as I am, if I'm not traveling skiing, mountain biking, skydiving, scuba, diving, surfing, whatever, I need something to sink my teeth into, and this just could not have come at a more perfect time.

Adam: I couldn't agree more and I hope you know, granted this interview gets out while some quarantine restrictions are still in place. It's just another reminder to everyone out there now is really the time to act. Now is the time to start getting your face out there if you've never done it before, or if your face is already out there to just keep pushing it. Because when things kind of come back to normal, that's when, if you're a creator, that's when the consumers really remember you is when things get back to normal. And so now is just the time to invest in yourself and build those relationships.

Tait: And while you have the time, I mean, if you're out of work, God forbid or if you're working from home and you have some more time to focus on this stuff, it's a huge win to just have this time where we have so few distractions. So, use it wisely.

Adam: Completely agree. Alright so, Tate got some fun questions for you here to start winding this one down. And I know one of them are really excited to hear because I'm sure you've seen a lot of places around the world. I'm going to shoot them off one, two, three, right here. Feel free to answer them in whatever order you like. The first question is, what is your favorite day of the week? I know right now it feels like every day is the same day, but...

Tait: It's just day. It's not Friday, Saturday, Sunday it's just day, day, day.

Adam: Okay. So, your favorite day of the week, two favorite country to visit, I'm really excited to hear that one. And then I know Turbine Capital is still relatively young, but we'll just say, you know, over your entire real estate career, what has your favorite deal that you've done the?

Tait: Alright. So favorite day of the week? I honestly, that's hard to answer. I mean, I would say Saturday but at the same time, my entire career, I've never had a Monday through Friday gig. It's like I might fly for 10 days straight and then have a week off. I was telling Lucy because she's my girlfriend, Lucy, who's very structured Monday through Friday. If I want to go pick up and just go surf on a Tuesday, she said, it's Tuesday, wait, what are you thinking? And if I want to work through a Saturday, she, you know, it's hard for her to wrap her head around that. But there were years when I was flying internationally when I had no idea what day of the week it was, I knew that it was the 17th of the month or the 18th, and that I would have had to fly on the 21st. But I had no idea whether it was Saturday or Monday. So that's a tough one to answer. That's my answer around.

Adam: Alright. Like, I mean, I can kind of relate to there just working remotely all the time. And I think for me, I like Saturday just because it is the one day where at least, you know, everyone else's, if you're going to be off, then most of the world is also off that day too. You can have some fun.

Tait: For sure. You can have some fun and there's that great Elton John song. Yeah.

Adam: You can sing it?

Tait: "It's Saturday". Oh no, no.

Adam: That's good song.

Tait: Alright. What was the favorite country to visit? I'd have to say Greece. We do quite a bit of sailing. We do charter sailboats and we go for at least a few weeks. A few times a year, we'll take a charter boat for a week and do some sailing and Greece is just magical.

Adam: Love it. And lastly, favorite deal you've done. We don't need to go into context. Just tell us briefly about it?

Tait: That was probably the one that I've got going on right now the six units bird deal in Columbia, South Carolina.

Adam: Cool. Keep me posted on that. And then hopefully if anyone follows up with you on this, they can learn more.

Tait: Absolutely.

Adam: Great. And so, as I mentioned, you know, we're bringing the show back here better than ever and one thing we've never done before, but a little bonus question at the end. Tait, can you give a shout out to someone that you've never given a public shout out to before?

Tait: I don't think I've ever given a public shout out, Gavin Woodman.

Adam: Gavin Woodman. We hope you're listening and please share this interview with your network.

Tait: Thanks Adam.

Adam: Alright, here we go. It's time to close it out.

Tait: Tait, what's the single best way for my listeners to follow up and get in touch with you?

Tait: Yeah, really through the new company, it's a turbinecap.com T U R B I N E C A P.com. You can absolutely email me. It's Tait spelled a little differently. [email protected] and that's how you can find me.

Adam: Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for investing your time with us here Tait. Looking forward to following you and the rest of your journey.

Tait: Thanks Adam. I really appreciate it. Hope to have you on the Turbine Capital podcast sometime soon.

Adam: Just let me know.

Tait: Awesome.

Adam: Guys thank you for tuning in to Dream Chasers interviews with the future. We will catch you in the next episode. Remember, and all you think, say and do take it to the next level.

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