How Eric and Chase are Building and Scaling Their Fund

Boom, people! Welcome back to the show. Today, we've got a special interview with Chase Kelly and Eric Slott. They're the founder of Converge Capital Partners. They've done very well. They're actually, in this interview, you'll hear their startup story, how they started with syndications, how they got them started and going inside in southern Utah of all places, got a few real estate deals going, and how they raised money from their first investors and have grown since then. They are in the process right now. These guys are by no means on top of the mountain of a billion-dollar fund. These guys are in the thick of it right now. raising capital, building their fund. So you'll be able to hear their story, and I think you guys will really enjoy it. Boom, people! Welcome back to the show. Today we've got 2 guests with us, Eric and Chase with Converge Capital Partners. Um, you guys have just heard their intro and bio. Impressive what these guys have done. Um, also in our mastermind program. So we've, you know, we've known each other for a little bit now. We've actually met and all stuff, and I wanted to bring them on the show today to, uh, to have them share their story with you guys. So welcome on, Eric and Chase. How you guys doing today?

Doing really good. Thank you. Yeah.

How about you? Doing pretty well?

Yeah, doing good. I'm excited to chat today. So, um, so you guys, I first, I want to hear your story. How did you get into the space? How did you meet each other? Give us your startup story of your fund and Converge Capital Partners.

Sure. So, uh, so way back when I, uh, well, I've always been an entrepreneur my whole life. I ended up getting married in 2010. And we had a door-to-door sales company.

Hmm.

And my business partner's father invested money into us. He was entitled, his underwriter invested a bunch of money into him. Long story short, in one year's time, 2011, the president at the time came out and said, hey, no more refinancing till we figure out what's going on in the housing market. And as a result of which, his title company ended up filing bankruptcy. And so, uh, we kept working, kept, you know, everything was fine for about 2 months until we got a call from an attorney from the underwriter. Long story short, the money that had been invested, uh, were actually, uh, funds from the underwriter and the company was tanked.

So I went home to my wife. Were they requesting the money back or trying to get it back?

Yeah.

Yeah. Gotcha.

But it was all, it was all seed money. So I went back home to my wife, right? For, we'd been married for just about 1 year almost to the day. And she says, well, you're home early, what's going on? And I said, oh, well, we lost the company today. It's kind of the life of an entrepreneur, right?

Wow.

And she just struggled with it. And so, you know, after a couple of days, couple of weeks, she said, look, I just can't handle this. you gotta go and be a— you gotta go and be an employee somewhere. I need more security in my life.

Hmm.

Which for most of us entrepreneurs, right, like that is a complete death sentence, right? And I remember waking up through the next 6 years, waking up in the middle of the night thinking, man, I hate this. I feel like my soul is just dying on the crop. And so, um, I would hop around about every year. I'd go to a job and then I would feel like I'm claustrophobic and I'd get out of the job. And the last job that I worked at was down in Lehigh, and that's where I met Eric. And I always, through that time, I'd always talked about, you know, getting into real estate, getting into investments, figuring out how to help people get funded, building a fund, stuff like that, making sure that other people didn't have the same problems that I, that I'd gone through.

And so, and what year is, what year is that when you guys met?

2016.

'16.

Okay.

So I was finishing up school and started working at a startup in Lehigh, and conveniently Chase was one of the first people that I met there. And, you know, we hit it off very well. So from there, you know, after working together, both being on the sales side of the company, you know, really working together extremely well and producing some good, you know, results, we talked about it, you know, at some point how we'd love to do our own thing.

Right.

And so, I, at that point, got an opportunity to go work at a satellite office for Qualtrics down in Dallas. And we've kind of thought that maybe that was a little bit, you know, less likely to happen given my move and everything, but we kept in touch very, very frequently and eventually actually started our first business together with me commuting, leaving Qualtrics and commuting to and from Texas back up to Utah every week. Built up our initial company, um, things started just to pivot slightly, and eventually we got into the—

But what was that first company? What were you guys doing?

So it was 2 sidecarrying companies. Uh, the first was a— we partnered with an attorney to actually do legal intervention credit repair. So we worked with a lot of solar companies and loan officers and realtors to help their clients qualify for, you know, whatever it is that they were selling. But as a byproduct of it, you know, about a third of those individuals needed capital for— to start up a business. And so, we actually started brokering, you know, startup capital from whether it was institutional sources or private sources. We started brokering that just to kind of, you know, take advantage or to ensure that those people that had their improved credit got intelligent capital, then go get some payday loan that was 200% interest or something like that.

So you were generating the leads and then you were brokering them to other places for those, that side of things?

We did our own leads for both companies and both, yeah, conveniently they fed each other quite a bit.

Gotcha. Okay.

My background, that was super important to help people get the right type of funding and make sure that they weren't in a spot where, you know, in a year's time their company could be lost like that.

Right. Yeah. So, as we kept those companies growing, we hit a point where we essentially kind of leaned things out a little bit. And at that point, I was introduced to a general contractor down in southern Utah. Really, really good guy. And he had several single-family builds that he wanted to do down Down in the Washington County area. And this was kind of different from anything that we'd, you know, done. We'd done a couple real estate things where we just kind of sent them out to other people. But at the time, we had a consultant that was, you know, working with us on some stuff. And it was there that he said, hey, you know, this is actually a really good opportunity to have a very solid, solid project with a general contractor that has a lot of experience, you know, but just has kind of these unique projects that they're looking for financing on. And essentially, he, you know, kind of planted the idea of what if we raised funds for these projects instead of, you know, throwing it to whether it be an institution or other private lender. And that was really what started Converge, was that first wave of single-family homes that we did down in southern Utah. And so, you know, for us—

Interesting.

The initial raise was very, very project-focused.

Right.

And then, you know, as soon as that first wave of houses was finished, we just immediately cycled it into another round with, you know, a friend of this general contractor's. And so, it's just, you know—

These were all construction homes, is that right?

Construction.

They're construction. So, and you, and your role was, and he, did he come to you and approach you like, I need help on this, or did you approach him? Like, how did that, how'd that conversation go? And they were looking for partners and money, or?

Yeah, so we had a part with the 2 companies that we had built. We have a pretty— we had a pretty large just network of affiliates.

Mm-hmm.

And so this was simply from an affiliate of ours, um, who was part of a company that did something similar to us up in Salt Lake. And they just, you know, simply made the introduction, just said, hey, you know, I'd like to introduce you to this guy. They have some cool projects that they're looking for financing on. And so it really just, um, I mean, honestly, He came to us looking for some sort of financing, and this was just a unique situation where it was very opportune to raise some funds.

And where were you getting the funds from? Just private investors, or were you using your own strategies to get credit and to get lending from other places?

What were you guys doing previously? We were doing a sort of underwriting consultation and then, you know, basically matching up business owners with whatever capital made the most sense.

Yeah. Yeah. But as far as our actual fund, we got that from a private investor.

Gotcha. So, for the construction in Washington, Utah though, you were— that was from private investors?

From private investors.

Yeah.

Okay.

That makes sense. That was our—

that was what flipped us over to the capital raise, you know, approach instead of brokering things out.

So, at that point, so you guys had syndicated some money together for those deals and did it like a light bulb go off? Like, we gotta do this? Is that what kind of turned you guys into this world or what?

Well, one of the things that's really good about Eric, and I think that anybody who runs a fund has to have kind of 2 different sides of the table. One of the best things about Eric is that he's super good at analyzing things and looking at the numbers and saying, hey, does this make sense? Doesn't it? And so when we looked and started looking at the numbers of, hey, if we can get this guy funded, what does that mean for him? What does that mean for us? Is it a win-win? We only ever wanted to do deals that was, you know, going to benefit everybody at the table. And we looked at the numbers and it just made total, total sense. So we went out and started looking at that. There's an age-old adage that says, you know, your network is your net worth. So we went and hit our network and just said, hey, you know, we've got this deal. It's a, it's pretty unique. And it's a, it's a great situation to be in. And found a guy that was able to come to the table with those Awesome. Okay.

Okay. So, you did those first couple deals, then what? What happened next?

After that, to be honest, I mean, it was pretty straightforward from there. Our main goal with that initial round was just to build up track record, you know, to ensure that for, you know, a larger raise and to start doing more projects, we wanted to make sure that we had hard numbers behind what we were doing. And so, with that, we simply rolled in to purchase several lots in a different neighborhood down in the same county. And then, you know, got investment capital from a few new investors who were already familiar with the real estate space. So, they could see, they could see the track record we had built and, you know, it made sense to them. And so, from there, I mean, still, still always wanting to build a solid track record, we've really stayed pretty specific with what our investments are, and that is that single-family build space.

We definitely don't want to be jack of all trades, right? What we found is that investors who look at that and say, oh, you guys are doing too many different things. So, we try to stay in our lane.

So, yeah. So, you just stuck to single-family home construction. Is that right? And still this day, is that what you guys are doing or what are you guys doing now? So, what happened?

Yeah. Well, as luck would have it, of course, right? We've had more investors come to us since then and say, you know, I know you guys are killing it in single-family homes, you know, I'd like my money managed differently. You know, if you guys have looked at this or looked at that. And so we are branching out a little bit, but it's for specific investors because we've been asked to.

Yeah, it's a little bit different where instead of, you know, like for this second round of houses where we pulled together investor capital from a couple investors, this is where— this is a situation where we have a much you know, larger, a much more liquid investor who was interested in doing a, you know, a much larger project together. And so, a little bit different structure, but I mean, as far as us really, you know, getting, you know, building momentum with the fund, we've tried to make sure that our projects are always kind of speaking the correct language for our investors. And so, with a couple of the new With a couple conversations that we're having right now, it just simply makes sense where working with them on different things is just, you know, it'll, it will wind up boding well for everyone. And, and it, and what we currently have been doing translates well enough into, you know, slightly different variations in the, in the real estate space.

Gotcha. Okay. Are most of these, are most, are most of these construction people approaching you? Are they coming to you, hey, we're in a bind, we need some quick cash? Or are you partnered up with a few construction, like they're your, your, they're the go-to finance And you do a lot of projects with the same companies, or is it more of special circumstances they come to you or you come to them and say, hey, we'll, we'll bail you out of a, you know, bad deal or other financing options? Um, so, or is it totally different? Am I off? No, you're good.

You're good. That's, that's a good question. So, we primarily work with 2 general contractors. Um, we have a couple other ones that we have, you know, good relationships with but haven't done any work with them. And as far as the Southern Utah space goes, it's very— the market is very hot right now. And so, they actually are able to, you know, after the first couple houses that we did with our primary general contractor, essentially he just said, look, you know, there are so many, whether it's, you know, like an infill lot where it's just like a, you know, an available lot within an established neighborhood to build homes, or whether there are plots of land that can be developed into you know, lots and sold to other builders or, you know, turned into complete neighborhoods. The 2 contractors we primarily work with are very flexible as far as capital we have and projects that can be done with those funds. And so, essentially, as far as, you know, deal flow or project flow is concerned, it's kind of a nice situation where we could raise, you know, triple what we anticipated or we could, you know, wind up only having half of what we committed raised, and our, our, you know, our general contractor we work with, we can, we can figure something out to make sure that all of those funds are utilized, but we're also not, you know, we're not, we're not inappropriately using those funds. So, we can be pretty flexible with that, if that makes sense.

Gotcha. Okay, cool. Well, that's awesome. Congrats, you guys. That's, that's huge. Um, and is— and today, as of today, I think it's August 2020, is that still— you guys are primarily in southern Utah, is that most of your portfolios there, or have you guys since branched out and done other things, or is this kind of where we're at today?

We've done— we've branched up into the Utah Salt Lake County area for our first project, um, and we may be shifting more into this Salt Lake, Utah County area, um, just because of the, you know, the pandemic that we're currently in. We do feel like if there were to be any softening of the real estate market, there's a chance that a lot of vacation homes or second homes down in southern Utah would go up for sale, kind of flooding the market with properties that we'd be building and selling. And so, as of right now, the, you know, the whole southern Utah area is super, super hot market-wise. But in, you know, just to make sure that investor capital is placed as strategically as possible, we are going to be moving things up more into this, you know, kind of northern Utah area.

The other thing that we found is that investors oftentimes are more likely to invest in something that they can go and touch, that they know is very close to them. You know, investors got to drive from here to southern Utah, it's a 4-hour, 5-hour drive. They're more likely to invest something here where, you know, on an afternoon they've got free, they can go look at the project and make sure things are going well. It just seems more, um, more tangible for them, more real. And so, they're more likely to invest into that.

Gotcha. And, um, sorry, I keep, I keep, I just want to understand your guys' model if you're okay with that. Currently, are you guys doing, do you guys syndicate money for deals or do you have an actual full fund like a, you know, Reg D 506 type of fund? What do you got? How's your current structure internally?

Um, so, it's a Reg D just captive fund. And I mean, everything that we're doing currently is pretty simple. Our, I mean, our attorney that we work with, he's thankfully kept everything pretty simple, but it's primarily been a captive fund with just one special purpose vehicle that we've done for a specific project.

Okay, interesting.

Everything on it has been pretty simple. We just operate on a carried interest split. And so, no pref, no management fee or anything like that. And again, you know, with us, Primarily in this first year looking to build that track record, you know, we've, we've, uh, it's, it's worked out very well for us. And so—

Awesome.

It is incredible how the contractors and other people that are needing money will talk, right? It's much better to have a contractor go to another contractor and say, hey, you know, I'm in this situation, what did you do? Or have you ever been in a situation, how'd you handle it? And for them to refer us than it is for us to go out there and start So, so I would say for, for the other listeners out there, if they're looking to grow theirs, first things first, focus on the track record because they're a mutual company.

Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. So let's talk about raising money, investors, track record, all that kind of stuff. So how did you guys go out and find and pitch your first investors to put money into deals? Well, how did that look? And are one of you— do you guys both go on pitches? Is one of you more like, I pitch and that, you know, they do the internal stuff? How do you guys work together as well?

Well, thankfully Eric and I work super well as a team. I mean, outside of work we're still best friends, things like that, so we're pretty good about balancing off of each other. So we typically want to go on those meetings just because we both bring different, you know, strengths to those meetings. We typically go on those together. As far as, you know, how did we find the capital, things like that, again, it was It's all about the network that we went to and going there. And it was actually something that you taught us a lot of, right? From our initial conversations, we just started taking the project to people that we knew. We'd buy them lunch and say, hey, there's this— we know that you dabble in real estate, you know, you're looking for some other, you know, to diversify your portfolio. Here's a really cool project, you know, you might want to take a peek at it.

But to dive into a little bit more, if You know, just to give a little more insight on that, as far as first investment was concerned, it was a private investor that had reviewed other projects that we've been doing.

Hmm.

But these were equity plays. And so, with this project strictly being, you know, debt with a pretty fast, you know, return on investment, our payouts are project-based right now, right? As soon as the house is completed and sold, then, you know, payment's given to the investor. And so, With this, we simply had spoken with this investor on several other projects and just noticed that equity deals weren't of as much interest to them, but getting some sort of return on the capital that they had come into possession with was their top priority. And so, for this, it was simply just, look, here's the cost breakdown, here's this particular general contractor's track record, this is the anticipated return that you'll be getting. And, you know, here are kind of the mile markers to ensure that this project will, you know, will, you know, be completed on time. And then, as far as the Southern Utah market's concerned, we did, you know, quite a bit of research with a couple people that we have, a couple contacts that we have down there. And so, the first project was really just something where numbers-wise it made absolute sense.

Mm-hmm.

And then, from there, from that first investor, we started to dive more into individuals that had generated a lot of liquidity from the real estate space. And so, at that point, it was much easier to say, here's our track record, but it wasn't, you know, someone who may not have understood. Not that it's rocket science, we wanted to make sure that we were speaking with people from there saying, hey, we've done our first round of houses, here's the next round, and they understood the space.

I think the other really important thing on it was that there was no question that he asked that we didn't know the answer to. We've really done our homework. Number one. Number two, we had been in constant contact with this individual for a long, long time, and because we were always talking about, you know, what was going on in their life, what was going on in our life, opportunities that had come, they had known that we had— we didn't just take every opportunity that came at us, right? We weren't always trying to chase multiple rabbits. So when we came to him with an opportunity, he knew that the opportunity was real. You know, I think that a lot of times people get into Trouble because they take every single thing that comes to them and they end up missing out on, you know, what's— what the best opportunities— they try to take so many that they can't just focus on the best. And so we made sure to do a really good job of, again, going back to Eric, you know, does this make sense to do this? Is this something we really want to do? Is this something we're even passionate about? Answers came back with no, we would let those opportunities go. Yeah. And because he saw that, when we came to him with a real opportunity, he was quicker to invest.

I love that. I love, uh, I think it's very interesting. Um, a lot of, like myself included, there's that one founding investor that gives you confidence and gives you like, yes, I can do this, right? Like, and then we have the money to do it, right? And that, that one first yes cascades into a lot of yeses in the future and, I don't know, gives yourself, gives you, it gave me confidence in, yeah, I can actually do this. I can raise money. People will say yes, you know. And sometimes getting to that first yes investor, it's maybe it's 8 pitches, maybe it's 10, maybe it's 15 pitches, right? Maybe it's just one. I was thankful. I think it was like my second or third pitch, I was, I got a yes and I was like, okay, like we got something here, right? It was a small yes, but it was still a yes and it And it cascaded into a lot. Um, something I love about you guys as well is you guys have just done this just kind of scrappy, just kind of figured it out. And, um, I know we've talked before and stuff, but you guys have done a lot of this on your own. And, and I love you guys don't charge management. I, I preach that like all day. Don't charge management fees. Just, just treat your investors right, especially at the beginning. Treat them right, get them good returns, and that'll cascade into a lot of good returns in the future for, uh, For yourself and for your investors. Um, what did— so how did I— you talked about cultivating that relationship with that one investor. Is that— has that one person been your main investor, or now how many, how many investors do you guys branch out to? Do you have a bigger pool? What does that look like, and what's the plans for the future?

We have currently— we've got about 5 investors now, um, just, just simply expanding to, to more builds, but I mean, we still work with that initial investor. And I mean, kind of like you were saying, you know, the hardest thing you'll do is get that first investor. But honestly, you know, expanding out, you know, our second, third investors were people that were familiar with the real estate space, and the next 2 were actually contacts of theirs. So, I mean, that's, that's kind of how it started to grow a little bit. And, and, you know, it really is just Maybe partially validates them putting their capital into these specific projects to have, you know, friends come in and do the same. But I mean, that's— it's been, it's been pretty simple as of right now. And then, you know, we do also have 2 more liquid investors that we're exploring larger projects with. So still, still just doing, you know, still kind of doing what we know we can just plug and play with and cycle capital through builds. But, you know, while that's going, while that's You know, working pretty smoothly, we're going into a couple bigger things.

But going back to your point, as far as, you know, not charging management fee, I, you know, I think it's brilliant. One of— I think that because we don't charge management fee, it feels more like we're all on the same team instead of, hey, we're going to utilize your money, we're going to give you a smaller return than we could, and we're going to take, you know, whatever it is. But I feel like it's much more of a team mentality. The conversations that we have with the investors, it feels more like family, feels more like one solid team. And therefore they're trying to help us grow just as much as we're trying to grow. And, and that's why they brought these other individuals to the table, these other contacts. So we love that type of structure.

And well, and to be honest, I mean, ultimately there is a factor of trust with whether it's your first investor or even, you know, multiple investors in. There's a factor of trust. And so, you know, Chase being very complimentary to me, I have to say Chase is also extremely good at just Establishing trust and really showing that he cares, you know, about every single person that he's in contact with. Everybody hates me, but everybody loves Chase. So there you go.

That's awesome. I— back to the point you made earlier, I think, uh, uh, something, um, somebody taught— I can't remember how— there was a mentor or somebody that spoke. I just heard this guy. I think, I think I heard him speak. I can't— I'm trying to remember, but I remember the point he made. It stuck with me forever. He says, um, don't underestimate the value of your reputation. Um, there's a lot of people in the business world that will, you know, screw that partner, clients, or whatever, and just, I'm just gonna move on. I'll just, you know, there's so many people in the world, it doesn't matter. And he said that is a dangerous mentality to have because your reputation will follow you wherever you go. Even when you think you've moved across the country, your reputation will follow you. The business world is, it's a small world. Um, and people talk, and I think that's a lot to be said about You mentioned trust. I actually want to ask you that in a second. How do you get investors to trust you? But, uh, to get, to get partners, get people around you that trust you and your reputation, to build it over time and to be a trust— trustworthy person. And, and, um, I think that starts right with your first investors and doing them well and doing your second group of them and third and group, fourth group. And that's how big firms grow. Um, so Chase, how, you know— oh, go ahead.

One of the things that I want to talk about with that is Going back to my story with the very first company, one of the things that that investor taught me, and it was, it was, we had it in print, you know, just about everywhere in the office, was the phrase, first do what's right, then do good business. And that gentleman taught me so much about that, that any company that I worked for back in the day, and even now with the companies that we have, you know, that's always been something that we've talked about. First do what's right, then do Good business. And so it's interesting how what could be seen as a failure of the first company, right, has really kind of morphed into helping springboard this company. So for the other listeners out there who are just feeling like they're slogging through and they're, you know, continuing to hit wall after wall after wall, you know, the walls mean something later on, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so take the lessons that you can from the bruises and the knee scrapes. But you got to keep looking forward. Yeah.

Um, to, to kind of— I don't, I don't mean to assumptively answer a question you haven't asked yet, but I'm just so smart that I figure I can do that. So—

Yeah, Aaron, let's hear it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Anyway, what are the questions? Yeah.

Oh, so what you're gonna say is how do you establish that trust with investors?

Yeah.

Um, so one, one book that we absolutely love and, and believe in strongly is called Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play. I don't know if you've read it, but it has some extremely good, very actionable content regarding when you are looking into a higher involvement, you know, call it a sale because you really are kind of selling. In our case, it was our first project. You're really selling that.

You—

the one of the biggest things is if you come across any metaphorical yellow lights, there are 2 things you can do. One is speed up, the other one is slow down and stop. And this And that book really teaches that if you do come across any yellow lights, make sure that you are slowing down. Make sure you're not, you know, putting some deadline and trying to pressure some investor to wire capital over, you know, when maybe not every duck seems like it's in a row. I mean, as an example, with this initial investor, um, he was taking funds from a different— a different place where he had them held and then rolled them into to, you know, our captive fund. And so, through that whole process, we made sure that this was all about the investor on, hey, does this amount work for you? Are you covered as far as taxes, as far as everything goes? We wanna make sure that this is as smart for you as possible. And it was never a, hey, we've gotta get these funds in, can you wire them over today or tomorrow? Like, hey, any update on all this? It was very much more focused on them and saying, is this the smartest thing that you can be doing with these funds? You know, are you Are you in a position where that's okay? And to— and also just making sure, you know, hey, what metrics are most important to you? Making sure that they feel very heard instead of just, you know, having been monologued to for a few minutes and then, you know, saying, hey, so will you invest? If that makes sense.

I love that. I, I've actually read— I love to study sales and marketing.

I think it's—

I just think it's fun to study. And a lot of sales books will mention different types of customers, right? Some of those tactics, you know, urgency, scarcity, they work. And they actually work on all levels, but they have— there's different tactics for, I guess, a smaller investment, you know, maybe $200 or $100 or something versus, you know, half a million dollars type of purchasing. And you have to market or sell completely different to someone in that realm. And I think you hit it right on the head of being more of a consultant, being more of What's— is this the right fit for you? Is this a good thing? You see, most sales calls I get on now, people are trying to sell me on, you know, high-ticket softwares, high-ticket something to use my company. Most of those sales pitches are, hey, I just want to make sure this is a good fit for you. I'm going to serve as a business consultant for you. I'm going to try to help just see if this is good. If our software isn't a good fit, we're not trying to take any money from anybody. And that works on me. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's sit down. And I think it works on other people as well. There's a lot of mental triggers you can use, but I think directly to your point, I think being a consultant figure— and not every investor is going to fit your fund perfectly. And sometimes you're gonna have to— I've actually turned away investors because they weren't a good fit for my fund. I just said, hey, this— I just don't think this is going to be a good fit for your portfolio where you're at right now in life. This is not a right fit. You need to do something a little more simple and more basic than my fund. And I've actually turned away investors and And I don't know, I think if you think about as a consultant that way, it, it helps, I think, take a little weight off your shoulders too. It's like you're not pitching, you're not selling, you're just a consultant. You're there helping what's in the best interest for them. And right to your point, Eric, I think that's, that's spot on.

I think one of the best phrases that goes with what you're saying, I think what we're, what we're feeling also, is people love to buy, they hate to be sold. And when we go to our investors, we talk about a buying opportunity. We don't talk Hey, how can we sell you on this? That's a good way to put it.

That's spot on. I love that. Um, Eric, Chase, yeah, this has been awesome so far. I want to hear now, each one of you, I know you've had an entrepreneurial journey and a lot of different things, and we got 2 people on today, so I usually ask people this, but I want to hear from both of you. Um, and whoever wants to go first can go first, but what is, uh, something inside, an advice or advice you would give to listeners looking to get in this world, looking to start a business, whether it's a fund or not? What entrepreneurial advice would you give to your earlier self or someone on this show listening and wanting to start a business? Maybe Eric, we'll start with you.

Go at the exact same time and I'm just—

Yeah, there you go.

First thing that comes to mind, I don't mean— I'll try to not make this just a random monologue, but the first thing that comes to mind is when I left Qualtrics and posted on my LinkedIn, hey, You know, Eric is now a co-founder of this, you know, new business. I got so many messages on LinkedIn where people were saying, hey, congratulations. And the overwhelming message that I got from everyone was, hey, congratulations, I wish I could do something like that.

Hmm.

And, you know, so my wife and I did, you know, we very much planned out strategically how we were going to shift from you know, having a stable salary moving into starting our own business up together, Chase and myself. And it's very important to make sure that you do have a game plan for that. But I think, you know, there is inevitably going to be a sort of leap of faith factor in hopping out and doing your own thing. But what I will say is the amount of When you make that leap of faith, it's just amazing how your own creative mind and, you know, network that you have— it's just amazing how things will fall into place. And so, um, what I'd probably say is a lot of people are afraid to make that leap, you know, quitting their job and starting up something. But aside from really, really having a good plan with it, it's just amazing how once you make that leap, it really opens your mind. And Chase's story is kind of a good example, the way he even called me when he was still, right before he left the company that we met at, he would call me up every so often and be like, man, I like my— he's like, my soul just hurts almost, you know, because it's one of those things where instead of, hey, you know, what, like, how can I be of the most benefit to people? Or how can I, you know, help our investors, you know, get even better returns or whatever it is? It's more just, hey, you know, I am very confined to whatever, you know, small portion of this company that I'm supposed to be a part of. And so, I think I would just say, you know, if you are on the edge of exploring something entrepreneurial, it is the most— it's the most self-progressing thing you can ever do. And it's just so cool to really learn more about yourself than, you know, the business world. You really learn more about yourself by doing that, making that transition than anything.

I think that's spot on. The growth curve of being an entrepreneur is so huge and it's fun. And it's, it's yes, you a lot of people oh I can't believe entrepreneurs work like sixty hours a week whatever. It's not because they sometimes they have to, but a lot of times they want to. Like it's that much fun. Like it's it just something inside of you just sparks this. I I love that. Um and I the other thing I had a great a great entrepreneur tell me one time he said everyone says you know you step in entrepreneurship it's like jumping out of an airplane. You got to build a parachute while you hit before you hit the ground or something right? He goes the funny thing is about that though the ground really never. It doesn't come, and it doesn't come as fast as you think. And if it does come, like worst case scenario, you just go get a job, right? And, you know, especially in America with so many safety nets for entrepreneurs, it's very asymmetrical risk to do that. I think that's spot on, Eric. Chase, I wanna hear yours.

Yeah, well, let me first piggyback off what Eric was saying. You know, one of the things that took me 6 years to be able to jump back into this space was is that my wife put a lot of conditions, right? One of her biggest conditions was I need to make sure that we can pay the mortgage. And so I had to get very, very creative on how I was gonna be able to do that, that I could make a promise to the people that I love and to my kids and say, look, regardless of what happens, right, the necessities of life, the mortgage, the food, stuff like that is gonna be taken care of. And this is my game plan on how that's gonna happen. And so what we did is we actually sold our home and we actually bought another house and we rented out the basement. And by doing that, it made that our mortgage— it made it so that our mortgage is only $300 a month. So once my wife could see that I could go and flip burgers, right, and pay the mortgage and get the food on the table, all of a sudden her security was met and she knew that regardless, I could come Home and make sure that everything was, was done. And at that point in 2016, that's finally when she said, okay, go in, go and be— that and the fact that she hated waking up at 2, 3 AM because I felt like I couldn't breathe, right? So yeah.

I rent out my basement right now, by the way, and it's awesome. Yeah, I pay like $300 a month on my mortgage. Yeah, it's great.

And it takes away all the risk. It takes away all the fear and things like that.

Yep.

And it makes total sense. So sometimes you just got to get creative in order to make it so that, you know, you can, you can take that leap of faith logically, right? So many people talk about fake it till you make it, things like that. You don't have to do that. Just do it smart and it should come. My advice to myself would have been, so many people think that they work hard And they compare that to a 9 to 5. 9 to 5 is not working hard, right? Ask Eric. There's times where we're up until 2, 3 in the morning. There's sometimes where we literally do 24-hour shifts between the two of us where we are working all the way through the day. You know, he'll wake up, wake up early, I'll go to bed late, but we basically do shifts in the night and just working on projects, getting things done. If you're, if you're like me where, you know, I know that I have gaps with my personality. I know that I have gaps with my talents and abilities. You know, find somebody like Eric who is— it's very, very tough. It took me 6 years to find him, right? But it was totally worth it. So if you're feeling like, hey, I really want to do this, but I just feel like I'm missing some things, or really don't want to take that journey by myself. Go out there and start networking, finding the people that are going to help fill those gaps, and then walk before you run as far as the business relationship goes. That would be my— if I could go back and talk to myself 10 years ago, that would be what I would say.

For the record, I'm very grateful to have found Chase as a business partner as well. He's just so complimentary. I have to send some back to him because he's the best.

Yeah, I can, I can tell that you guys work well together. That's awesome. Um, Chase, I love that.

And—

oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say, we typically joke when people ask how we met because we do operate pretty complementary. We always use the Tinder joke on how we met and everything. Our wives of course love that. But anyway, no, thankfully we operate pretty well. But no, it's strictly professional.

That's great. Um, Chase and Eric, thank you guys so much for coming on today. Um, I love to hear about your story. I will probably need to do a follow-up interview, I'm guessing, maybe 6 months, a year from now. I know you guys are growing and doing lots of stuff. So, um, all right, is there a good way for people to connect with you or to learn more about you guys, what you guys are doing?

Um, so you can go on our fund's website. It's Converge CP for Capital Partners. So convergecp.com. Um, you can contact us there. I've got my email on there. That's probably gonna be the best way, to be honest. We're pretty affiliate-based, so our internet presence isn't very large. And I mean, that's, you know, for us, that keeps things nice and simple. But I would just say go on our website. You can see my eric@convergecp email from there. And, you know, we'd be happy to, you know, if we can, whether it's hear people's story and throw some advice out or, you know, anything, we're happy to speak with whoever.

Great. Okay. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes below too in the description so people can click on the link. Okay, Eric, Chase, thank you guys so much for coming on today.

Thanks so much, Bridger. We, we're so appreciative of you and we're grateful to be on.