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Real(ty) Talk
Real(ty) Talk
Highs and Lows of Balancing Life and Business
Join us as we dive into the wild ride of balancing personal chaos with entrepreneurial drive. One minute you're rescuing a dog with a medical crisis, and the next you're wrangling kids at Disneyland in a heatwave. Join us as we share the wild ride of balancing personal chaos with entrepreneurial dreams. We'll talk about sky-high vet bills, sleepless nights, and the joy of celebrating family birthdays amidst the madness.
But that's not all. Let's dive into the rollercoaster of building a groundbreaking platform in a tough market. Hear how we turned a vision into reality, growing from zero to 175 agents in just one year. We'll talk about the challenges, the risks, and the incredible satisfaction of overcoming obstacles. You'll learn about the importance of partnerships and alignment, which have been key to our success.
It's a story of resilience, collaboration, and the unexpected twists and turns that life throws our way. Tune in to hear how we've navigated the highs and lows of both personal and professional life.
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Stephen Couig:
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I think that if you're not feeling uncomfortable with you know the way you're operating in your business, there's probably something wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I feel like you should always be pushing the limits of what you can do.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back Realty Talk podcast, your favorite podcast on the planet. We are excited. Episode number 16.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That is a and for episode 16,.
Speaker 1:We look really official now.
Speaker 2:We have lights.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to note that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything. How are you feeling?
Speaker 1:I am feeling good. It's been a crazy morning, crazy day so far. Should we jump right in?
Speaker 2:Let's jump in. Yeah, so today the topic is the kind of risk that we've taken as entrepreneurs to be in the positions that we're in. Yeah, clearly, when I asked how you're doing, there's a story there, so I don't know if that has anything to do with our topic, but we can dive in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's actually. No, it has nothing to do with our topic. Um, I have just had a crazy day today already.
Speaker 2:Um, I feel like it's been a pretty crazy week or so, but yesterday, you may remember, I talked about my dog, gigi, that I rescued from Skid Row.
Speaker 1:Skid Row is like for those people that are listening in non-California areas. I love that you do this for me, by the way, because I just get right to the point.
Speaker 2:It is a really rough part of South Central Los Angeles and, like hundreds of homeless people or thousands of homeless people, it's almost like you know businesses aren't there, They've like taken over the area. Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, and my dog. We found her last year. This time, actually, it's almost been exactly a year and she just wasn't doing great, didn't have food and water and had a really bad infection. At the time when we ended up rescuing her, or when they took her off the streets, they found out that she had spinal meningitis. So she has an autoimmune disease that can potentially flare up at any time. So we've had a couple of flare-ups that we've dealt with, and her last flare-up was when she went into heat. So we just got her spayed yesterday. So that was an incident, but I was a little concerned because she's on a bunch of medicines for the meningitis and it was a whole thing.
Speaker 1:And then, sure enough, today one of the medications didn't work with another.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:And so this morning I took her to the vet at like 5 am because her face was super swollen and red and she didn't have the greatest time, but on the bright side she's doing great now. But yeah, it's just so many little details that. I think it's very random to say, oh, my dog has spinal meningitis and I understand how that sounds, but she's overall super healthy. But it was kind of a rough, rough morning.
Speaker 2:And vet bill coming in hot.
Speaker 1:Vet bill always coming in hot with her. Yeah, I signed up for that. I often think about like man, I don't. It's hard. Like that is like a child. That is the cost of a child there for sure.
Speaker 2:I think puppies are maybe harder than kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I mean they chew stuff. Kids don't chew stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so you never know when they're going to eat something crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're just wild, yeah, you know, right out of the gate they're running. It's like you know babies, they just lay there for you know, six months or nine months or whatever. Yeah, yeah, she's keeping me on my toes for sure, yeah, you also have another dog, though.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:How are they?
Speaker 1:doing. They're doing great. It's kind of ironic that I'm like I have a 16-year-old and you know this puppy and the 16-year-old is like living her best life right now. She is running around the house, she is doing fantastic, and then the puppy's the one that's struggling health-wise, so it's very strange, but everyone's good, it's all going to be okay. It's just a little crazy morning.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:How was your week though?
Speaker 2:It's been crazy Busy Okay.
Speaker 1:So common theme yes it has been been wild.
Speaker 2:So I have two kids, two little, two little girls. I'm a girl dad, um and uh, I would have loved a boy and I, but I don't think we have a third one in the mix, but, uh, birthdays are always a big to do.
Speaker 2:So our oldest uh just turned four on wednesday, so we were in southern ut, utah with my family last weekend. My dad's birthday is right around the same time. He turned 70, so we had a big thing there. And then we came back and Remy is her name, our oldest daughter. She really wanted to go to Disneyland for her fourth birthday and my wife has set it up where we kind of do that every year yeah. So I think that's going to be my destiny for the next 18 years.
Speaker 1:And it just happened to fall on 100 degrees in Southern California, I think it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it was like so we're driving back from Southern Utah on Sunday and we're looking at the weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I asked my wife like hey, can we just maybe go another? Day yeah, I, I mean, this is the hottest day the day, yeah and this is the first time we're taking our younger daughter, who's not two yet. Oh yeah, it's all my. I don't know how she's gonna deal with the heat, naps, the whole thing. And we're, you know, we're pretty. I guess militant is the right word about our schedule so like naps are at the same time, foods at the same time, I'm like I don't know how this is gonna work yeah uh, but it went fine.
Speaker 2:Oh good, we did the pro tip. I don't think we waited in a line more than 10 minutes, oh. So I don't know what my wife set up, but I have no idea how much it was. So what's the?
Speaker 1:pro tip. You're like talk to my wife? Yeah, call her.
Speaker 2:I don't know how much it was the total bill, but it was awesome. The experience was great. It was great. Both of them took a little nap Actually, Remy did not nap, but our youngest one napped and we went on rides and saw everything, so it was a good experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but.
Speaker 2:I'm tired. Yeah, we, you know, running the businesses, and then also, you know, I did her little school celebration this morning, oh yeah, and then tomorrow we have family coming over.
Speaker 1:So it's just, it's like a birthday week, day week. Well, I think that's actually something we can talk about. Is you know the balance between personal life and work life Like? I think, both you and I pretty much work every day of our lives from like the second we wake up till the second we go to bed. But yes, but I think in between there there have been some healthy boundaries I know that you've set. So what's kind of your schedule on that?
Speaker 2:I mean it's a good question. I think it's also like a moving target to a certain degree. But for everybody that's listening that doesn't know, we've got a few different businesses, so there's a lot of demand. I guess, on time right now, before before kids, I I, you know, I have a very set routine. I get up at five or five 30, every morning, depending on the day. I work out. I, you know, same same kind of thing. I run every morning, basically Um, and then after, you know, I work out, I'm usually on email and doing this stuff, but you know, and then right into the office and working until dark After kids. You know a lot has changed, so you know what's changed for me and I'm a creature of habit, like I, really like organization and things being.
Speaker 2:You know where I need them or want them to be Right. So, you know, I think the balance for me, what I've created, is kind of a list of non-negotiables, regardless of business. So to me, you know, there's three areas that I focus on on a daily basis, which is personal, because I don't believe you can really take care of anybody in your business or your family if you don't take care of yourself. First, you know I take care of family. That's definitely more important than business. And then business. Third, so, personally, you know I take care of family. That's definitely more important than business. And then and then business. Third, um, so, personally, you know, my workout is kind of like that's it.
Speaker 1:That's my religion.
Speaker 2:I'm not a very religious person. I wake up and I get a workout in before anything else. It's my only time where I'm alone. Yeah, you know. So I run. People think I'm crazy. I don't listen to music. Uh, you know're just in silence. Yeah, either complete silence and just thinking for the day, or sometimes I'll listen to a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But after my workout. You know I get a lot of value out of being with my girls when I'm not distracted. So from seven to eight, when they wake up, you know I make breakfast and I make their lunches and I drop my daughter off at school. I just will not schedule anything during that window as long as I'm here. And then I try to have a hard stop at the office at 5.30-ish so I can get home and do dinner and bedtime. But then I'm plugging back in every night at 8 o'clock until last night was maybe 12.30 or 1. So I don't know if it's really like a balance.
Speaker 2:I would say it's more probably imbalanced, um, you know, than anything else, but I'm, you know it's. It's so important, you know, for the family to for me to be there, I guess.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and I think weekends right you do, you take a little more time with them on the weekends and try and balance that out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I usually get four to you know. Call it four to five hours on Saturday and Sunday of work. Yeah, and that's before they get up and then when they're napping. Right but outside of that, I try to be focused on them. Yeah, it's not easy, I think that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's uh. There's always something pulling us in another direction. I don't have little ones.
Speaker 2:I have two dogs.
Speaker 1:But no, I do so I would say I'm more of the, I'm on the same exact page with mornings, Mornings are like my thing where I can't understand sometimes when people tell me, like when they don't wake up early, I'm like you are literally losing your day. I get up really early, that's my workout time, but also it's just like my time. I think once everyone else wakes up, then you're giving your time away to them. And I mean, just at the brokerage alone, there's 170 real estate agents and you know. And then not to mention what's going on with our other businesses. So you know it's easy to get pulled in a lot of directions and then the you know the day gets past you. But I always take that morning time and then I, unlike you, I guess I just squeeze it all in and then go to bed because I I mean there are nights where I'm like it's eight o'clock, I think it's, I think it's time to call it.
Speaker 1:Um but again I feel like if I have that morning time I don't need much else. You know, that's kind of my um, my time for me.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think I mean most nights I we're, we're getting to bed by 10. That's like the ideal time. Yeah, it's just if there's other stuff.
Speaker 1:So I get like a two-hour window after the girls Are you guys scheduling your date nights Got some date nights in there.
Speaker 2:No oh.
Speaker 1:I am the worst at that.
Speaker 2:So we have traveled a fair bit. So, like date nights are, you know, we want to do it. We're striving to improve. We're unbalanced there, but we I mean we take usually four or five trips a year, even if it's like a weekend thing. Or you know, a couple of weekends ago we went to Aspen, uh, which was awesome. If you haven't been there, it is literally the most expensive place on the planet, I think a cocktail is like 30 bucks anywhere, even at a dive bar.
Speaker 1:I I was like 30 bucks, yeah, anywhere, even at a dive bar. I know I thought that about Vail too when I was there. It felt very similar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we have it good in Southern California.
Speaker 1:I usually think it's bad here.
Speaker 2:But you know it's not so bad. But yeah, we blend that in. What about you and Sal?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think same. I think that's probably something I should elaborate on, because I do think that's a big part of it. I don't mind, you know, working from when I wake up to when I go to bed, because I know I do schedule those trips and not that I'm not working when I'm on those trips, because that's half of the day there too, but I am. That is kind of my outlet and something that I really enjoy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. I think so much of it too, though, is what you're creating. If we didn't have a vision of this platform that we're building, and we weren't all very excited about it, then it just wouldn't be worth it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, and I wouldn't be engaged in that time. But you know, for me at least, I don't know what your experience is like, but I, you know, for me at least, I don't know what your experience is like. But at the end of the day, a lot of days I'm like, oh my gosh. I mean I don't know where the time went because I was so engaged and focused and it was. You know, sometimes it's not fun stuff, but in the end we're building something that's really interesting and unique and, um, obviously there's a lot of problems and issues and challenges or whatnot, but uh, it's engaging and fun.
Speaker 2:I actually enjoy those challenges Not in the moment. Sometimes but, once you get through it, that's really the rewarding part.
Speaker 1:Right, I totally agree, and I think we've probably been through some changes recently in both of our businesses especially. I mean we didn't go into market talk, but just the market as a whole, for this year has been probably a little more challenging than others, but coming out on the other side is, you know, that much more rewarding Rates are down I think 635 today so moving in the right direction for buyers and sellers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if you look back over the last 50 years, there was probably only one other time that would have been worse to start a brokerage In reality, 2008, 2009.
Speaker 2:Totally Because of just the complete collapse of value. But that's one perspective, I think, at least from my vantage point, and we talked through this. But it's like when we, when we launched, it's like, ok, this is really hard, if we do it, then we're going to have a lot of momentum. You know the bigger shops right now are pulling back and you know the smaller shops, like us, are, either are succeeding or failing. The ones that are failing, those agents are going somewhere, succeeding or failing. The ones that are failing, those agents are going somewhere. And so you know, it's kind of like a workout, it's like that last, you know, couple miles of a run or whatnot are the hardest, but that's actually where you get the most value. And I feel like that's kind of where we're at.
Speaker 2:You know, in our brokerage venture, which is that you know when we launch, you know May of 23, you know we have, you know we think, somewhere between 50 and 80 people that are going to come into the brokerage. And then you fast forward today and there's 175 or 170, 175 agents. They're full time. You know they're not doing other things, they're working in the business and that's obviously just a testament to. You know it feels unbalanced, but your efforts and but it's crazy to think back. I mean, that's probably the hardest time to go and do those things, but you've done a great job. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Thanks, yeah, I mean, well, we were going to talk about risk. I actually think that's a perfect segue into that, because when we were forming the brokerage and having these conversations, I mean we kind of knew that the market wasn't great at the time, so it wasn't like we were surprised that things slowed down this year and you know rates were up and everything else. I think that was to be expected. So you know, what is that healthy balance for you? As far as you know, like that kind of helped you make that decision and I can speak to you, know me as well but of you know, crossing that line basically and moving forward.
Speaker 2:I think at least you know the way that I've consolidated all of that thinking and in the moment too, is really that you know we're not. We're not set out at Innovate to build another brokerage At Bye Bye House and at CSL and these other ventures that we have. They're not set out to become the best investor, flipper or the best lender. We want to do those things, but I think what our interest is is to build a platform and I feel like we're aligned, all the partnerships are aligned in doing so and if you look at it from that vantage point, there is no such thing as a good or bad time. I mean, there's going to be ebbs and flows where things are difficult or challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then there's going to be windows of time where it's like, oh my gosh, we're just really lucky and things are going amazing, and so the timing of launch is probably less important. In fact, in the moment it was irrelevant because, the vision was so much bigger than any individual cycle. I think we probably could have done a better job understanding, you know, the capital requirements or the financial risks that we're going to take to to build the platform we're building.
Speaker 2:But I mean I think if, if you know, I'm not the smartest person on the planet. If you're this Harvard MBA looking at all the market dynamics and running an analysis on this, they would have done the same thing with what we've been able to do. I don't know if they would have made that decision, because it probably would have looked a little scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's better. We didn't know the capital requirements when we were jumping in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean to a certain degree. I just think that also the way that we've grown, I mean we could have made decisions along the way to slow down, you know, capital requirements but to get to a place from zero to 175 agents in a year. I mean, obviously that requires capital and time and middle management layers and all sorts of things, and so I just personally believe the platform we've built is so in line with the long-term vision that it was a no-brainer yeah, if you look back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way. I think number one was the partnership with the right people. That's number one. Like three people that are completely aligned on a long-term vision is super important and I think that that's just it is. We were focused on a long-term vision instead of in the moment. Like you said, it really didn't matter what month we we ended up launching and obviously we want to, you know, get things done sooner than later, but at the same time, it was more about it's always been more about the long term term and we're just excited to get to that place, you know.
Speaker 1:And so everything that we're building now is for that. So for me, you know, when it comes to risk, it's a risk not moving forward. That would be the only risk, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not making a decision is making a decision.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that was more the risk to me. It's, you know, I had obviously a network of agents that wanted to come to innovate and if we decided not to move forward with that, we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in now or wouldn't have the opportunity to create the long-term vision and platform that we can create, opportunity to create the long-term vision and platform that we can create. So, yeah, I think, more importantly, we did just take the plunge. No regrets, things are moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2:None at all for me. I'm so excited about our foundation future. I mean the changes. We've briefly talked about it in other episodes, but, at you know, when we at least when I, you know, when I interface with agents that are not in our brokerage, I hear all sorts of fears about market and, you know, regulatory changes and NAR and all this other stuff. You know, and if you have the right mentality, all of that is just an opportunity.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:For people to innovate and create something new. And you know, I think that's really our mindset, yeah, which has allowed us to to gain some speed, you know, versus being stagnant. But and you know I guess we'll time will tell yeah, but you know, if the market does what we think it will do over the next call it 10 years, I think we're positioned to do some really interesting stuff at Innovate, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all around.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Stay tuned for that. On that note, yeah.
Speaker 2:So risk? I guess the conversation circling back to risk is that we both just kind of looked at it from a long-term perspective versus short.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That could be good or bad, depending on if you have the resources to execute, which, you know, we've been lucky enough to do yeah anything else on the risk side that you can think of?
Speaker 1:no, I mean, I think that if you're not feeling uncomfortable with uh, you know the way you're operating in your business, there's probably something wrong. Yeah, because I feel like you should always be pushing the limits of what you can do, and so I think that that is a natural feeling to have, but it's something that you know in all the businesses I've created as well. It's you know, that's always been there. That feeling's always going to be there, and you'd have to get comfortable with that uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker 2:You know, the book Good to Great that's really what it kind of focuses in, which is the way that the people are managed and the leadership at the top and their ability to be tied to that long-term vision versus the short-term moment, you know, with like unlingering focus is really what creates a great business versus a good one. So I'm in complete alignment. I think that's really, you know, a positive, I guess, attribute or function or action of what we've been able to do at Innovate. So I'm sure there's a bunch of mistakes we've made too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we can talk. That's for another episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest mistake we ever made was the dessert at the holiday party last year.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't that good.
Speaker 2:Everything else was great. I won't say where it was, I don't know who made the decision, but the dessert was like just okay, all right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Good to know, noted.
Speaker 2:That's episode 16. If you haven't, please follow us. If you have not subscribed, please subscribe. Check back every week for a new episode. We like to talk about real estate, all other things, personal entrepreneurship, and we love all of you. Bye.