The Rebellion: Episode 16 | W/Veena Jetti : Multi-Family Queen

Welcome back, everybody, to episode 16 of The Rebellion. I'm your host, Tyson Smith. And today I have somebody who I have been trying to get to interview to be able to learn all of the things that they have to show me. We have Veena Jetti. And real quick, I want to say, as for the last time I looked at your Instagram bio, you are currently at $800 million worth of multifamily real estate.

Yeah, well, actually, I think we're above that now.

We're above $800 million.

Yeah, we're like just under $1 billion in transactions.

Holy shit.

I know.

So when is it going to be a billion? Is it— are we talking this month? Next month?

I was hoping it would be last year, but clearly that didn't happen. So I actually— I don't think it'll be even this quarter because multifamily has such a long lead time that if I don't have something like under contract right now, yeah, it won't close until next quarter. So probably be Q2.

Okay.

I hope.

I want to ask you a question. When you first got into all of this, With the idea of $1 billion in real estate, would that, is that like mind shattering or is it something where you knew for the entire time?

No, I had no idea. I like, I still don't believe it sometimes.

Really?

Yeah. 'Cause who does that?

Yeah.

Like it's crazy.

It is crazy.

Yeah.

But I, something I've been really working on recently just with myself is I want to shatter all limiting beliefs I have.

Mm-hmm.

So like anything I think I want to do, like for instance, this podcast.

Yeah.

Is it's like I was talking to my girlfriend and she was saying, she was like, oh, like, like, you're gonna, you're gonna be the number one podcast. You're gonna knock Joe Rogan off. And right, so sweet. She's the best cheerleader.

That kind of support is like priceless.

Oh, absolutely.

It's amazing.

Well, and, and that's one thing that I can't thank her enough for. But I realized when she said that, that I didn't initially think that myself. I didn't believe that I could do it. And I was like, fuck that, dude. I need to get rid of that, that mindset right away. Why can't I go to do that? Like, if there's anything I'm gonna do and I'm gonna seriously pursue, yep, It's worth trying to get to the very top.

Someone has to do it. So why can't it be you?

Yes. That's it. It's exactly what I say. Somebody is going to go be number one.

Yeah.

Why not me?

Why not?

Yeah. We're all the same.

I love it.

So can you please give me a story? Because I have no idea of where you started, how you got to where you are now. How do, how did you start to build this, this massive real estate portfolio?

Yeah. So I come from a real estate family. My mom is actually a really successful real estate investor. But she was entirely residential. She never invested in multifamily. Spoiler alert, now she does, but she didn't growing up. And so my parents are immigrants. They both came here in the '80s. Okay. And they had my sister. From where? From India.

Okay.

And so they had my sister and I, and my dad was working for a company where he was traveling 45 weeks outta the year.

Oh wow.

And so he wasn't physically present for like 30 years. He did this. And so my mom, she's like very entrepreneurial and she's like, I want to contribute to the household, but I can't go to a job because I have these two little girls that I'm the solo parent for. Right. Right. Like, mom, you know, I forgot my lunch. I have to go to dance or ballet or whatever. You know, like all those things. My mom was the only one and we didn't have nannies and au pairs like I, I do now for my kids. And so she kind of discovered real estate 30+ years ago and started investing in real estate and understood the power of leveraging. And this was back when you were buying single-family homes and they were like stated income. There was like no verification process. And I think the first time she really realized that she could buy a lot of houses instead of one is when they they went to go apply for a loan to buy a house. Like, I think it was either the first or second house that we were going to live in. And they were like, okay, you can have a million dollars. And she's like, what? That— that— how would— how would we pay for this? Like, this makes no sense. And at that time, you could get 110% of the house value because they were like, redecoration costs or decoration costs.

No kidding.

10%. Yeah, it was It was a wild time. It was crazy back then. And so she said, okay, well, can I take that million dollars and buy like 5 houses instead of 1? And they're like, yeah, sure, whatever you wanna do. And so that was how she got started. And so I grew up around it and, you know, I went to college, I graduated with my degree in finance. I was 20 years old, so I had like no experience being an adult, but I was like, oh, you know, I'm an adult now and I have a college degree. And my mom's like, great. Come work for the family business. I was like, no, I, I have a degree. I'm an adult. I'm doing my own thing. And so she's like, okay, you know, like go fly outta the nest, you know, whatever. And so I worked in corporate real estate for a few years and I made a lot of money for other companies. But what I really did there was I learned how some of the largest institutions in the world operate.

What, what, what were you doing? Was it like, were you an analyst or?

I was actually on the management side.

Oh, gotcha.

Um, and so I, I left in 2012 after I married my husband and we paid taxes jointly for the first time. And I was a W-2, he was a W-2, and we paid like hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. And I was like, what just happened right now?

Awful.

Yeah. So I call my mom and I'm like, Mom, this is what just happened.

Can you believe the check I just had to send to those guys over at DirecTV?

Yes. Yes. And she was like, You should just quit your job and you should be a full-time real estate professional. And I was like, okay, that seems legitimate. So I did. Um, and I ended up starting to invest for myself. I started in single family because that was what I grew up with.

Yeah.

That's what I knew. I thought everyone kind of had to start there. And I also had the misconception that multifamily was for like institutions or like the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. I didn't think it was for like, the Vinas of the world, right? But then as I got deeper and deeper into it, there was a week where I bought 5 houses in a week, and I was like, this is not scalable even a little bit.

Yeah.

And I was like, I, one, I hate dealing with tenant issues, I hate managing the assets, I hate going to all these different places, I haven't looked at like 100 homes for like 2, 3, 5 to work out. So I was like, I need a better way. And that's when like kind of I fell down the rabbit hole of multifamily and started doing deals. And then as we started doing more and more deals, you know, you get a little bit more comfortable and then you kind of move to the next level and then you get uncomfortable again and then you rinse and repeat. And so now our deal size is, you know, significantly bigger than where I started in the single-family world.

Right. So where, what was the first multifamily property you got?

So I bought a deal in Dallas and it was, we bought it for $15.9 million and we sold it 3.5 years later for $24 million.

Oh my God.

And so that was the first multifamily that I ever did.

And I bet that was pretty addicting.

It really was. I mean, once you get bitten by, I always tell people when they're like, oh, I wanna learn about multifamily, I'm like, be careful.

Yeah.

'Cause like once you learn about multifamily, it's very hard to stop.

Oh, well, I mean, I had that exact same experience myself.

Yeah.

So we actually met at Grant Cardone's office.

Yep.

And you're telling me about multifamily, Cody's telling me about multifamily, Pace is telling me about multifamily, everybody is.

Yeah.

And then I get back and I get hooked up with your course that you've done with Cody Sperber, which by the way, guys, if you're looking to learn and get an introduction into multifamily real estate, I could not, recommend this course any bit higher. Where do they go if they want to get that?

To Cody. Okay. No idea.

If you guys want to get the education where I just really took that, I was like literally floored. I had everybody in my office take it. I was like, we— this is what we need to do. Go to Clever Investor and then you'll be able to find it there. It's the multifamily course.

Yeah, it's in the online learning center community.

He's got all kinds of different stuff.

I recorded it actually just for Cody. Yeah, like, I— it's not a thing that I have anywhere in my vault or my world or anything like that. Like, I literally recorded it.

Well, you got him into it too, right? He was saying that he picked up at like, what, 80-something units over here in Tempe?

Yep. Yeah, really. I'm, I'm like so excited whenever any of my single family friends are like, wait, this is like the next level of the game. And like, it, it makes me so excited to see like that kind of impact.

Well, that was my whole thing was I've been just wholesaling real estate and we were like, okay, this is going to be the year we're going to buy some real estate. And the first thing, the way I was going with it is, okay, I was looking at like big, like cash flowing single family real estate in Midwest, Southern markets, pick up for like $50,000 to $60,000, $70,000 a door. And then, you know, maybe have to put $10,000 or $20,000 into it and cash flow $1,000 or rent it out for $1,000 a month, something like that. Right. And that was kind of the idea we were going for.

Right.

And then started learning about this multifamily thing and it just flipped my head around. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was like, okay, so I would have to come through and we pick up like, you know, 50, 60 of these, or I could do it all at once.

Right. It's so much easier. That's what I'm saying. Like, the power of scale is really the secret of multifamily, right? Absolutely. And so I love that you're looking because, because I didn't know when I started 10 years ago, almost 11 years 10 years ago now, these types of like podcasts and masterminds and networking groups and conference, they didn't exist.

Right.

I didn't know. And I'm, I always think about it now and I'm like, if I had like these environments around me 10 years ago, like what, what could I have done and how quickly could I have done it?

Yeah. So, so for, for people who are listening right now and they're asking, well, okay, Veena, well, let's say I want to get into multifamily. Where do I need to start?

Yeah, so I think the first, the very first thing before you're even like looking for deals or anything like that, right, is to start understanding multifamily because it's very different than single family, right? And you watch me talk for hours and hours on end and now you kind of know that there's some differences in the language we use, right? Like hard money lending, like that's not really a thing we do in multifamily as much. But so I think first start learning about it, right? Like start watching podcasts like this or you know, talking to people that are in these networks and start your— at your local networking events. So you just start learning at a baseline what multifamily entails, which that is what your course did such a great job of learning.

Like, so I got a degree in finance and real estate, and when I got my degree, they taught me about IRR and MOIC and cap rates and all of these things. And I thought I understood them.

Yeah.

But then when you talked about it and you explained it, I was like, Oh, that actually makes sense. Like in college I took tests on what, you know, waterfall models were for and stuff like that. And I— all I was doing was just figuring out how to do it so I could pass the test.

Where did you go to college?

I went to the University of Alabama because that's like very impressive.

You learned that because I did not learn that in college at all.

I mean, look, it's, it's my alumni or whatever, but I'm not going to go here and praise that the University of Alabama had some top-notch real estate program.

Well, I mean, it's more impressive than my school because we— I never learned about like waterfall structures, but my my degree was purely finance. It wasn't— there was no— I had like one real estate course in it and that's it. But we didn't learn about like MOIC or anything like that. Maybe we did.

Well, and that's another thing, it's way different when you're like learning to get a grade and to get a degree than when it's like, oh, I can use this and I can go make a shitload of money.

Right, right. Totally different mindset. Because like now I'm interested in IRRs. I don't really care about— I remember like having to calculate like and PV and stuff like that for exams. I was like, oh, this is so boring. When am I ever going to use this?

Right.

Turns out every day, literally.

And that was a big thing for me, especially with IRR, is all of a sudden I found myself— you explained, I was like, I need to understand this deeper because like I can get on a surface level what's going on here, but I need to come through. And then all of a sudden I realized I spent like an hour researching this and I was like, damn, this shit's just fascinating.

Makes sense. Yeah, now it makes sense, right? So that's why I say like, just start by like learning about it, right? And then I think the next thing is really narrowing down who you are as an investor, right? Because I buy large Class B value-add assets in the Sunbelt and like, that's all I do. I have one trick and I try to do that trick really well.

Let me rewind. Large Class B assets in the Sunbelt.

Yes.

Okay.

What's Class B?

Tell me about Class B.

Should I tell you what Class B is? Yes. Okay. So Class B is going to be— okay, your Class A assets are going to be your like really nice assets. Maybe you have like a door person, you're in maybe like Manhattan or think about those like really nice areas where rent is significantly more expensive.

Super nice area, nice amenities, new construction, maybe.

Okay. That's going to be like your Class A asset and that's going to be your lowest returning asset because there's theoretically less risk in those assets. Then you're going to have your Class B assets, which is where we play. That's going to be— today we're looking at 1990s vintage and newer, maybe 1980s depending, but like really 1990s, early 2000s construction. And we look for 200+ units and those are in areas that are nice areas. You know, they have great school districts. We're generally like the last stop on the way to homeownership is really what we try to look for.

Okay. So you're talking like the people who are living there? Yeah, the people in the deals you're targeting is where it's like a very nice place still, but it's going to be like when they move out of this place, they're probably going to buy a house.

They're going to go buy a house. Yeah. They're not really they're not going to live in apartments probably their whole life. Right. And then you have your Class C, which is your workforce housing. Right. So that's like both people in the household are probably working. They're maybe making like somewhere $60-ish, maybe $70,000. So those tenants are going to be a little bit more risky because they generally don't have savings.

Yeah.

And something like COVID happens and they miss a paycheck all of a sudden. Your bad debt on the property is going to go up, your delinquency is going to go up, etc. So but the return metric is a little bit better on those as investors because it's a risk-adjusted return.

Yes.

See, you did learn all these words. I love it. Yeah, it's a risk-adjusted return. The more risk you take, the more return you need to have. And then you have your Class D, which is, you know, more your Section 8. You're going to have lower income tenants, you're going to have a lot more delinquency and bad debt. But again, your return is higher because you're taking on more risk to take those tenants in.

Right. So what is it about these Class B properties that you like?

Yeah, so I like them because the risk-adjusted return makes sense to me. I like having like kind of easy assets to manage, quite honestly. Like, I don't want to chase my rent every month. I don't want to like go and find out that, you know, there's been a string of crime happening. Like, we want nicer assets. We want residents and tenants that care about where they're living because we care a lot about where they're living. You know, we, for us, we're very resident-focused and that's important to us to build that community. And, you know, our, we do resident events every month and we have, we create a community around our assets as well because when you have a good paying tenant, who, what do you want them to do? You want them to go to work and be like, hey guys, you should live at this community because it's amazing and management cares and they renovate and they put money into the pool and they restripe the parking lot and they power wash. You know, like all those things are important to someone living there because that's their home. So, and you want them to go out and talk to their referral sources so that you get better and better tenants every time.

Absolutely. You know, I need everybody— I've seen a lot of like discourse on social media that like landlords are terrible people and all of this. I need every single one of them to just go listen to what you just said.

I'm the evil landlord. No, but you know, here Yeah. And here's what I say to that because, and I understand that discourse because the reality is affordable housing is the next housing crisis, right? Like, yeah, we're kind of in the middle of that right now. And I know it's like counterintuitive to what I do to be saying this. And but homeownership is now out of reach for a lot of people.

Yeah.

But that's why I think it's so important that people like you are amplifying the how-tos of getting into the space because this makes it more accessible to people that it wasn't accessible to before there were podcasts.

Yeah.

Right. And so I think that that's what's really important here is there's gonna be people that listen to this and go, okay, they're evil landlords and they're the problem. And then there's gonna be people that listen to this and go, oh my gosh, if they can do it, I can do this too.

Absolutely.

And so, you know, those are, those are our people. Those are the people we wanna be talking to because someone once told me that I could do it. And when I believed that, that's when I started moving forward.

You can be a victim of the situation or you can be a victor.

Exactly. Exactly. I love it. I love that. I've never heard someone say that. I like that.

I'm sure I heard it from somebody else.

I mean, isn't that like everything? Mostly.

Yeah. Nothing's original anymore. But I mean, it makes such a good point. I think that looking at the asset and taking like one of my biggest things is especially when you're talking about buying these houses or that my original plan of, you know, really getting into being a real estate investor instead of just a wholesaler was I want to buy these houses. But that's not something I would be proud of if I own a bunch of these houses. I mean, yeah, sure, you can make them nice. And I'm not saying that like all people who own houses like that are slumlords or anything. No, but I like it. It fits my personal vision of myself more to go look at, you know, a very nice apartment building and know that I'm housing hundreds of families and that it's like, look what this community I've built and then I manage and I give these people a safe, clean place to live their lives.

That's exactly— and that's what I think matters is when you're a landlord, at least for our philosophy, right, is like we really care about our communities. We invest into the community, we revitalize communities that we go into. And, you know, we create a lot of jobs and we pay more in property taxes than most people will pay in their lifetimes. Right. Which support school districts. Right. And so like those things are important to us. And, you know, we take our responsibilities to our tenants very seriously. We want them to be proud of where they live. We want to be proud of the assets that we have. And that's important to us. But not everybody thinks like that. I get that.

Yeah.

But I think too, like, what's the alternative, right? Is if people like you and I who actually care weren't doing this, who is it going to leave behind to be doing this? Yeah, right.

I see that. So when you want to get into multifamily, I mean, I had this, I had this perception that, okay, I'm going to need a whole bunch of money myself to put into the deal.

Yeah.

What do you say about that?

That's what I thought too. That's why I didn't start it. I didn't know you couldn't— you could do it without having like $8 million lying around, right? So we raise our capital. So when people talk about other people's money, this is what they mean. They mean like raising capital. When I first heard that term, other people's money, I must have been like a teenager when I heard it. And I thought, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. It's like you go and you get a credit card from Chase and that's Chase's money, and then you go buy things and then you have to pay it back and That's what they mean. And I thought debt was other people's money. And then, and so when I was buying single-family homes, I was funding all the equity myself. I was the one that was putting the down payment on everything. I was putting up construction costs and I had, you know, leverage on the asset cuz I had, you know, bank give me a loan or line of credit, whatever. But then when I got into the world of private equity in the multifamily space, it changed everything. Now, once you start raising capital from someone else, you will never sleep the same ever again because the responsibility changes, right? But now I can go out and I can buy a $100 million asset and I can raise $50 million without having to put my own money in. Now, of course, we do invest into our own assets. I'm one of the largest LPs in my own assets because I believe in the deals. That's how I tell investors to believe in it too, is I put my money where my mouth is. But a lot of people start without doing that or putting very little into it. And so I think it's when you understand the power of private equity and other people's money, like truly understand it, and then you take that and you go and you safely— I guess safely is not the right word— responsibly leverage that, you can create multiples based just on that in the multifamily space because of the scale.

Right. So how would somebody get in front of this private equity?

Yeah. So I think first and foremost, you know, I was telling you earlier, you have to call your securities attorney, right? So we use Nick McGrew from Polymath Legal. He's phenomenal. If you're looking to get into the space and you need someone, I cannot recommend him enough. He's just great. He understands securities and he's really good with first-time funds, which I think is really important because when you first start out, there's so much information. It's like drinking from a fire hose. You cannot— you can't digest any of it. You can take like 1% of it.

Gotcha.

So you need people around you who do understand it because it is dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. And if you don't have the right attorney, it's a problem for you.

And that's part of— I mean, that person, especially like your securities attorney, that's someone who's— that's a main player on your team?

He is my first call. Yeah, him. And then like my tax guy is my second.

Gotcha.

So and sometimes and now like so I work with a guy named— do you know Larry West? I don't know if you know him.

I don't.

Oh, so I work with him. He's a tax strategist. And like now Nick and Larry, they have so many clients that overlap that like, yeah, now I— it's— there's like a whole joke between them. Like, who do I call first? My securities attorney. Don't tell Larry I said that, but I call Nick first. So I call a securities attorney. I say, hey, here's what I want to do. I want to go raise, you know, $10 million, whatever it is, right? Then he's going to ask you a series of questions. So he's going to say, okay, are you going to raise it from people you know, people you don't know? Tell me, are they accredited? Are they not accredited? Are they sophisticated? He's going to ask you a whole series of questions.

And what is an accredited—

accredited investor?

Yeah.

So the SEC puts out a definition of this. There's many ways to meet it, but the two ways that like 99% of your investors are going to meet it are going to be either through net worth, which is $1 million in net worth excluding your primary home.

Okay.

So like if you live in California, you cannot count any of that equity in your home or you're going to meet it through income. So if you're a single person, in your case you're unmarried, so $200,000 or more in income for the last two years with a reasonable expectation of maintaining that.

Okay.

Or if you're married like me, it would be $300,000 or more for the last year. Gotcha.

But you don't actually have to go anywhere. Like, you don't go to the SEC and you'd be like, oh, here's my pin that says I'm an accredited investor.

They should do that, right? Yeah.

Kind of cool. It'd be a flex.

It would be a flex. No, there's no official, like, registration. But depending on the exemption you're using, you have to take reasonable steps to verify the status of the investor as a sponsor. So let's say you come to me, you're like, Veena, I want to put, you know, $1,000,000 into your next deal. And I go, okay, great. I'd love to have you, Tyson. Are you accredited? And you go, yeah, I'm accredited. I do a 506(c) raise under Regulation D, which means that I can only have accredited investors. And the SEC has specifically said that self-attestation from the investor is not enough to meet the standard.

So me just saying I'm an accredited investor is not enough for me. Okay.

So in my deals, what I do is I'm going to say, okay, great, go to either your attorney, your FINRA-licensed broker dealer, your CPA, somebody who has intimate knowledge of your finances. Have them write me a letter certifying that you are accredited.

Gotcha.

So we always get it from a third party. Now, there are websites. There's a site called VerifyInvestor.com that some of our investors will go to, and then you submit everything to them. They'll generate a letter and then you can give me that. But I can't verify it. The liability is too high for me to lie.

But that covers your base when somebody goes in and does that.

Yes. So we always require third-party verification. There's many ways to do it, but, um, you're gonna— that, that's what your securities attorney will also help advise you on, right? If they're good, they're gonna tell you how to do this. And so then you're gonna go, you're gonna say, okay, great, um, I'm gonna do Reg D 506(c), right? That's what we do. Whatever your exemption is and your attorney is going to lay out kind of the rules because there's rules around how you can solicit and advertise.

Right.

You want to make sure you understand these. And this is why it's the first call, because if you go out and you generally solicit, you may not be able to rely on the 506(b) exemption then. So you want to do it before you even like have a deal, right? Or you do anything.

So this is the first step. And so we'll like, for instance, we'll— Nick, if I call him and I'm like, hey, here's the way I plan to be raising money, he'll probably make a recommendation. Okay, you're going to want to do the 506(b) or whatever. Whatever it may be.

Right, right, that's exactly what he's gonna do. And, and you want— people don't realize this, but your securities attorney's like core team. Yeah, like I have— I call him and talk to him about like what we're doing, what we're planning on doing, what I want to be doing, like forward-looking. And I'll talk to him like at least once a week, maybe once every other week. Um, I'm at least like following up on the content he's putting out because I want to stay on top of it so that I know where I'm going in the future.

Gotcha.

So that's your first step is really to reach out to your securities attorney because then you get the structure correct.

All right.

Right.

So, so I reach out to securities attorney and they say, okay, based on what you told me, here's what you're going to go ahead and do. You're ready to start raising money, get into a deal. What's, what's step number 2?

Okay, so step number 2. And now this is the capital side, right? Like there's 3 pillars of multifamily. There's acquisitions, there's capital like your debt and your equity, and then there's operations or execution of the deal, right? So we're right now we're talking about like capital stack. So when you're going out to raise that private equity, you want to be creating a database of investors. So I assume you already have a database of investors because they're actually probably your buyers of your wholesale deals. That's where I would go first if I were you. And what I tell new investors is start where you have a network, start where you already have relationships and credibility. You don't have to go out and reinvent the wheel.

Right.

Start talking about what you're doing. And this is probably— this is actually some of the secret sauce, Tyson. I'm going to tell you. All right. Okay.

We're getting the good stuff.

You're getting the good stuff. Raise your capital when you don't even have a deal on the table.

Yeah.

Like, go out right now. You're like, I want to be in multifamily. Great. Go out to your investors right now and say, hey, this year the strategy is multifamily. Here's what we're going to target. Here's the strategy, here's how we're acquiring our deals, here's the markets we're in. Okay? You don't have a deal. It doesn't matter. You're not— you're telling people what you're doing.

Here's the thing is I don't think that I'm going to sell anybody to give me, you know, X millions of dollars based on what are the deals. They're going to believe in me. I'm selling myself.

That's exactly right. I mean, people invest with people they know, like, and trust. That's what investment is, right? When you're investing in these types of assets. So you're going to go out and you need to start telling people that because what'll happen is let's say you get a deal under contract and you have to go out and you have to raise that capital. What's going to happen is let's say you need $5 million, right? I'm making up numbers, but let's say you need $5 million. So you're buying like a roughly a $10 million asset, right? So you need $5 million. You're going to go to your list and be like, hey, I'm raising for this deal. I'm in multifamily and this is a strategy and this is why you should believe in me and trust me with this. And they're going to go, but aren't you a wholesaler?

Mm-hmm. But we haven't made that distinction yet. Yes, because you're going up and you're meeting them and you're moving along the whole process way too soon.

Right, exactly. And so what you need to do is you need to have your investors primed and ready to go. You need them excited about multifamily, right? So you're educating your investors, your relationships about what you're doing. What your company does, how you're going to mitigate risk, what your strategy is, why you are like the man at multifamily, right?

Gotcha.

And then you're going to go to them maybe like a month later or whatever in the future and you're going to say, hey, remember we were talking about multifamily?

Guess what?

I have a deal. Do you want to look at it? And then they're going to be like, okay, yeah, I'll look at it. Now, the other thing I like to do too is when I first started— now it's a little bit different because you build momentum and it like snowballs and there's a lot of things I don't have to do anymore, right? But when I was first starting out, one of the things I started doing very early on was I'd say I'd reach out to somebody that I thought was a potential investor. Sometimes it's awkward to like ask people you, you know, hang out with and play basketball with on the weekends or go to church with or whatever. It's sometimes weird to kind of blur those lines. And so a lot of people go, I'm uncomfortable asking, you know, my neighbor for money. And first of all, if you're doing something really great and you're making a bunch of money and you can help other people get financial freedom earlier, you have a responsibility to tell the people in your network about it.

Absolutely right.

Like they deserve to at least know what you're doing, whether or not they invest. You have to tell them about it. Mm-hmm. And secondly, what I like to do is I'll go, hey, um, Susie Smith, right? Like you're whatever, a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, whatever she does. You're somebody I've always really admired and I think you're really smart. This is what I'm doing. I'm in multifamily now. I'm buying deals. This is my strategy, this is my asset class, etc., etc. I would really love if you would help me out by giving me feedback on this deal because you're the type of investor that I'm talking to. Ooh, right. So now you're immediately taking away the pressure of like, Hey Susie, we're best friends. Yeah, we're best friends and I want you to like invest in this deal, right? Like now you're taking that away. You're just saying, can you just help me by giving me feedback so that I can talk to other investors?

That's some sales ninja magic right there, right?

It kind of is.

It cuts the pressure. Whenever— I love what you say, but you got to shift your perspective because it's not— you're not asking for their money. You're saying, I want to help you make some more.

Here's an opportunity, right?

But then— but I love the way of taking the pressure off it by it's a third party.

Yeah. Like, yeah, you're just, you're helping Veena Jetty be better with this other person over here. Yeah. Not you.

Oh, and, and if you just so happen, yeah.

Well, one of three things is gonna happen, right? Either she's gonna see and she's gonna be like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. I wanna invest. Like, how can I, why aren't you asking me? And you're like, oh, I'm so sorry. I, I, I didn't mean to exclude you. I would love to have you. Right? So that's the easy one. The second one's gonna be, Okay, this is interesting, but I don't really understand it, or I'm not clear, or I have these questions. And that's really a great answer for you because it tells you where you're missing your marketing and your messaging, right? So you're going to say, thank you so much for this feedback. And then you're going to go back and you're going to educate her on all of those points, right? So now Susie understands what it is, and then she's— they're going to say, yes, I want to invest and be involved. And that's likely going to be the outcome if you've done a good job and it is a good deal. Or she's going to say no. And that's the third response is like, no, this isn't something I would ever be interested in. The no is the most important answer you can get because like when someone says yes to my deal, I know why they like the deal. I liked the deal enough to do it. I know that. But when they say no to me, I can understand better why they're saying no. Right. Never let someone say no without giving you a why.

Well, you're getting in it. You're getting a perspective of Like, yeah, where are you scared about this? Because maybe they are going to see something that you don't—

that you don't see. Or maybe more often than not, it is a lack of education. And that's on me. That's my fault, right? For not educating you properly and conveying the message correctly to you.

Yeah.

And so when they say no, I'll say, hey, thank you so much for that. Would you mind giving me some feedback about this? Right? Like, and I even to this day, like, I give investors a very easy out to say no to me. I'm like, hey, If you say no, no problem. Tell me why. You can tell me like, I hate multifamily. I don't like you, Veena. I don't like the market. I don't have cash. I'm saving up for something else. Whatever it is, just tell me. But I won't be offended. But it will help me and it lets me get to know you as an investor, right? Because now when Tyson says, no, I don't like this deal in North Carolina because I hate that market. Well, guess what? When I have my next deal come out in Atlanta, I'm going to say, hey, Tyson, you hated North Carolina. But I think you said you loved Atlanta, right? Here's why you should love Atlanta. If you don't, what do you think of this deal?

I love it.

Right. And it creates that personal relationship and long-lasting relationship.

Well, everybody should be doing this for all things. It doesn't matter what you're selling. Like, I know for us, when we're selling our wholesale deals, if a buyer passes on it or anything, it's always, hey, totally understand. Let me know what about this is not interesting to you. Yeah, because then it— one, it gives you a chance because maybe it's something that's out there that's an easy thing for you to solve, right? Or maybe they see something that you didn't see that's like, oh shit, maybe, maybe I should be looking at that, right?

No, that's exactly what it is. So the no is the most important answer you can get.

But it's as long as you can take that feedback and actually apply it to getting better of whatever.

And I'll tell you, in multifamily, because it's like speaking a foreign language, like 80 to 90% of the time it's going to be a lack of education when someone presents an actual objection outside of like, I just don't have the capital.

Right, right.

Like it's usually it's that or they're scared. That's another common objection. And so that's where the education of, okay, multifamily has the highest Sharpe ratio, which is the risk-adjusted return calculation, right, of any asset class. Like that's where those discussions come into place. And you don't have to have a deal to be talking to people about this.

Right. Well, and that's where I can see it's super beneficial is you yourself need to understand all of these things.

Yes.

Because it's super important that you're able to take something that may seem complex and explain it to somebody in a way that they're going to understand it.

I love that you just said that because I feel like so many people miss that. It's not just about you understanding it. You have to be able to regurgitate it to someone who has no idea about anything in this space.

So if you were, if you were going to explain to me and you were going to, you were going to tell me about a deal because you wanted me to invest into it, what are you going to tell me about? Like some of these, like, how would you explain to me? You're like, hey, we're getting a 25% IRR. Like, that's great. And I'm like, Bina, what the hell does that mean?

So I actually really hate focusing on IRR with retail investors because usually what they're actually asking about is average annualized return. Yeah, right. So really they want to know if I give you $100,000, how much are you going to give me back?

Right.

So what I'm going to say to you is, and obviously it varies by deal, but if I had a deal, let's say it's going to— it has a projection of a 1.8x over I'll say 4 years to make the mental math easier, right? So what I'm going to say to you is I'm going to say that means that if you give me $100,000, by the time we exit this deal, it means I'm going to have given you back $180,000 tax efficiently, too, by the way. And so I'm going to talk about the tax efficiency there and I'm going to talk about the benefits there. And then I'm going to say, so over a 4-year period, if I give you $180,000 back, we take out the $100,000 of principal. You've made $80,000 in profit over 4 years. Means you got a $20,000 return, which per year, which is a 20% return per year. And it was tax efficient, which will blow anything that's in the stock market out of the water.

Right. You just said, hey, I know you hate paying taxes.

Yeah.

Oh, and also, guess what? We'll beat the stock market by double.

Right, exactly.

Want to learn more?

That's exactly it. Right. Like, so when I talk to investors out of the gate, I say, you know, we help investors, passive investors generate double-digit returns for their portfolio. And, you know, that is generally true of multifamily. And if you buy it right and you actually underwrite the deal properly, then you are probably going to generate that.

So I can see why focusing on like your equity multiple and your average annualized return is so much better than some of these other that only like real estate people are going to care about.

Yeah, because like what IRR is for is for people who are looking at many opportunities, right? It's— it tells us the opportunity cost of our dollars. Yeah. And So you might look at 10 deals in a month, but it's rare that a retail investor is going to see that many deals in their exact buy box in a month. So for us, it helps us prioritize which deals we're investing into. If we have 10 deals to look at, we can only do 1 or 2 of them.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm also really curious about once you actually get the deal. Yeah, right now you have a whole business plan you got to go execute.

Yeah.

So what is it that you guys are doing? And it's— is it Vive? Yeah, that's the name of your firm.

My company.

Gotcha. So what are you guys doing there at Vive?

So we do value-add. We're, you know, like I said, we're pretty vanilla investors. We do one thing. So we'll go in, usually we'll bring it— we'll bring the unit up to the market. So a lot of times that's like granite or stainless steel. Usually we'll change the flooring out to like some kind of LVT. We will repaint, change lighting fixtures. We do a lot of green efficiency on properties, which, you know, is another thing that we do that a lot— some landlords will, but a lot of landlords do this. And we put in like low-flow showerheads and low-flow toilets and aerators in the sink. We'll insulate water heaters, right? So we actually increase the green efficiency of the property. So it depends on the asset what the business plan exactly is, because each asset requires slightly different business plans. But what you really want to do before you even close on the asset, when you're still in the underwriting phase, is you want to look at the comps in the market. You want to see what are all the other apartment complexes around the same size and the same year of construction. What do they have now?

Right. You don't want to over— under—

you don't want to over-renovate.

You need to renovate to the market.

To the market. Yeah, to the market. Because— and that actually happens a lot. I see that very often on especially like smaller deals in tertiary markets where there's not a ton of like big institutional money there, or it's like a mom-and-pop investor. It's very, very, very common to see where they'll go in to an area where they have like a $50,000 median income and then they'll put like granite or quartz in. And I'm like, no, you're not going to see the ROI on that.

Right. So how much does that cost? Like, I know if I'm underwriting a deal, right? Because, you know, as wholesalers, we're underwriting single family, even though I'm not planning on doing any renovations.

Oh, bless you. Excuse me, I'm sorry.

Good?

Yes.

All right. Like, how are you estimating? Like, what, like, are you looking at it? Is it like, oh, it typically costs us X amount of money per door? Is it price per square foot?

Like, yeah. Oh, that's such a single family thing to ask. Is it price per square foot? No, we don't. Well, okay, we'll use very, very broad rule of thumb paintbrushes to kind of get to that. But generally we have, you know, open lines of communication directly with our contractors, right? So like your dad would be a great resource for you in this space. Because he knows and understands construction so well, right?

Yeah.

So he would be, if I were you, he would be my first call. But if you don't have a dad who's just well-versed in construction, then you need to be developing your relationships with your vendors, right? So you need a contractor that's going to manage the construction, right? A lot of times your property management company will be able to do that in-house. So always go to them, use them as a resource to test your numbers and whatever your assumptions you're making are, your property manager should have a very good, finger on the pulse about if that's possible.

I'm starting— I feel like I'm starting to understand that a lot of like a really big key to success in this is you have this great team of people around you and then you're just constantly relying on their expertise.

Yeah, basically. You're the quarterback.

Yeah, exactly. But you're the con— and it's just like, hey, what do I do here? And it's like, hey, can you give me advice on this? And it's— but it's you connecting all these people in order to—

that's what it is. I'm like, I— like I say, I just I just find really more successful, smarter people and I put them on my team and then I just like ride their coattails to success. Gotcha. That's actually the key. That's how you do multifamily. That's all you need to know.

All right. All right. So, so you're looking in, 'cause one, one of the biggest questions I had is like, all right, so I understand these, some of these things. And also immediately after I started taking that, I started calling brokers. I started—

Did you?

Oh, absolutely. I started, start taking things. I started underwriting. I, I like, like went crazy into the underwriting. I bought a bunch of different courses and I was like having fun with all of it. Oh yeah.

Oh, I love that. You know, I have, um, it's not a course, but like I do Zoom calls. So I have a Facebook community, right? And then I'll do like a Zoom call because I love teaching. Like education is so fun for me. I didn't think I would, but I totally love it.

Yeah.

And so I started doing these like Zoom calls. And so now I have like Veena's Vault is what it's called. And I just, I put all of the Zoom recordings in there. And every call we go over like one topic in depth, right? So like how to reach out to a broker and kind of like fake it till you make it, right? Like how to develop those relationships. But I'll give you— remind me after this, I'll give you a login for it.

I'm stoked. Do you do like— like, will you like underwrite deals on these calls, things like that?

Or— Yeah, so I actually just— so we have a separate masterclass now that's like an underwriting masterclass, which will go through like, here's what you need, here's how you underwrite it, here's a spreadsheet, like step by step by step on the Veena's Vault calls. It's more the like intangibles, right? It's not, it's not like we do math stuff. So I do, I have like a call in there that's like value-add math. So it's just how to calculate the value-add component of any one deal. And then, you know, we have one like on goal setting and one on securities. Like, so there's different topics every time and, you know, changes based on like where kind of we've already spoken, but I put all of them in the vault so you can always go back and watch them.

Well, I mean, just to have the tactical advice of exactly what you're saying, because I'm calling brokers and I'm like, I, I don't know what I'm doing. But either way, I've been— I know how to cold call people and talk and build a relationship.

You have a little bit of a step ahead from someone who's like done no real estate, right? And so you have like a little bit of a foundation beyond that.

Well, my biggest thing was I do not want to be the person that just learns and learns and learns and never does anything.

Yeah, no, don't do that.

So I was like, I need to I need to start looking at deals. I need to start making some offers. I didn't make any offers because I didn't find anything.

Well, I'm actually gonna— getting ready to do a how to structure an LOI. Oh, so you'll like that one.

So if somebody wants to join this community, how do they— how to become a part of it?

It's just like a free Facebook group. It's called Mastering Multifamily with Vino Jetty. And then there's like some questions you give me, like your email and what you're looking for and like where you are in the journey, and then you can join the community.

And there you go.

Yeah.

Okay, so can they— can like I get to this link on your Instagram or it's just on Facebook? I just have to search. Okay.

I mean, I actually really bad with social media.

We gotta, we gotta get you— yeah, I need to figure out— we need to be able to funnel.

I know, I know. Everyone's like, oh, okay, you could set up like this funnel.

I'm like, I don't know, like I'm just trying to buy some apartment complex, right?

I was like, I don't know about all this. This is a group on Facebook. And then my vault— so my— I do my Zoom recordings for anybody in my group Everybody gets invited, but it's limited to the first 100 people. And because that's all my Zoom lets me have right now. And so you have— I have the first 100 people and then the vault, there's— it's a subscription, it's a membership, but it's $37 a month. So it's like not anything crazy. I'm not going to ask someone for like $100,000 to get these, these recordings.

But one day they're going to be—

well, you know what? It's interesting you say that because everyone keeps asking me, they're like, why are you only charging $37 a month? And I'm going to have to increase it soon because my costs are more than I actually am bringing in from it. But the reason I put the cost in there is, one, I don't want tire kickers. I don't want a bunch of people that want to do it for free and then aren't going to do anything.

You need to— they need to put some skin in the game.

Right. They put skin in the game. Right. But two, I also struggle with— there's not a lot of women in this space and there's not a lot of minorities in this space. and I wanted to make sure that this was accessible for everybody. Right.

Gotcha.

So like at $37 a month and it'll, it'll eventually go up, but even at, let's call it $100 a month, right? That to me feels like a reasonable investment to get the information that I put in there because like I give everybody like all of my stuff.

Yeah.

So like my worksheets are in there, my templates are in there.

And so I'm like, which, this is stuff that people are charging tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars for.

I know those people probably hate me now. I don't know.

Well, I mean, and also I want to go back to a point that you just made there is there aren't a lot of women or minorities in commercial real estate in general. Like when I think of that, I think of like old white dudes.

Yeah, because that's like mostly who it is.

So has it been challenging for you because you're a woman, because you're a minority, or—

I mean, yeah, I think that it is harder than if I was like an old white man, but You know, I've learned to overcome adversity pretty significant. I mean, I still have like the craziest things happen because I'm a woman in this space. Like I was at a conference I was speaking at, it was like a couple years ago, and this guy came up to me after I delivered my keynote and he was like, I have to apologize to you. And I was like, okay, do we know each other? Like, why? He was like, I really judged you based on your looks. And I was like, okay. And he's like, I didn't think you were gonna be this smart. It was like, this is a weird thing to say to somebody, sir. And he was like, we could have literally gone our whole lives without this interaction. And then it was really funny cuz I think I was like, okay. And I was like, I think I maybe made this face where I was like, this is a weird thing. Um, and then he kept finding me through the rest of the weekend and he was was like, I hope you weren't offended by what I said. Well, it was like, well, I'm not offended.

It says a lot about you, right?

I was like, it's just weird. And so it was like, it was— but things like that happen to me all the time. Um, even now I still get like these, oh, are you the realtor? I'm like, no, I have no real estate license at all. But that's like the default, right? When I tell someone I'm in real estate or you know, I'm a real estate investor. They're like, oh, you're a realtor. That's immediately what they think, which there's a lot of women in real estate that are realtors, but not on the private equity side. And so I'm really excited though, because I see so many more women.

Yeah.

In my community, in my sphere. Like when I speak at a conference, I see so many more women and that makes me so excited.

Well, I can't even imagine of how good it is too, that there are young women and other minorities that can look up and they can see you killing it and they can be like, oh shit, like, she can do it.

Like, no, that makes me very— that actually is like what fills up my cup.

Well, that's why you owe it to yourself. You have to do things like this where you're gonna go out there because, like, you know, you gotta show people.

It was really vulnerable for me to start a community because— and you'll probably find this especially as you dive deeper into multifamily, but like, it's like very elitist. Yeah, like, we— ever since I've been in this space, I've always been taught like hold your cards like right here and never let anyone else see them, right? Really? So yeah, so the— this is like a very common mentality in this world. And so the idea of just like abundantly being like, opening up everything, right, was like intensely scary for me. Yeah, because I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go ahead and create a bunch of competitors. And then I kept thinking about it and it's like this is not even a little bit in line with what you say about yourself, which is that you have an abundance mindset. And you can't do both, right? Like, you can't simultaneously say, like, you have an abundance mindset and then be like, no, no, I'm not going to teach you how to do this because I don't want you to come and take from me, right? Right. And so when I actually— Pace Morby is the one who really shifted my mindset on this.

Yeah.

And he's actually the reason that started this community because his community is incredible. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. And he would like call me, like, you know, we talk like a couple times a week and every time I'd call him, he'd be like, um, yeah, so you know when you have your Facebook community, I'm like, Pace, nice try. I'm not gonna do this. I'm like, okay, so when you have your Facebook community, and he'd like just continue on as if I didn't even say I wasn't gonna do it. And then like he planted the seed and watered it. For like months and months and months. Oh, he's so good. He's so good in so many ways. Um, and he's like, Veena, when you have your community— and I'm like, I see what you're doing, Pace, and it's not gonna work. And then one day I woke up and it was like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. And I literally opened the Facebook group, and then I just went from like 0 to 100.

I love it.

And like, that's— I mean, it's still newish.

I've only had it for like 3 months and you're out there just pumping out the most valuable stuff that, like I said, people are charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for.

Yeah, that is kind of it. And like, but what I love about it is just it's a community. Yeah. You know, it's like we win together. I can like celebrate someone else's wins. I can help other people win. And like, that's the next level for me. Mm-hmm.

So that's something I wanted to ask you about is one thing I talk about is that I think people really overestimate how much they can do in a year, but underestimate how much they can do in 5 years.

Oh, true. So that's great. Yes.

So I'd like to know, what do you think the next 5 years are going to look like for you?

It's interesting you're asking me this now because I feel like this is like a pivotal moment, not just in real estate, but also like just me personally, because I've been thinking a lot about, you know, what is the next move, right? Like, obviously I have to get to $1 billion because I was like, so close. I need to get there and I will this year. So after that box is kind of checked, I thought maybe it'd be like, okay, I need to get to like $2 billion or $5 billion or $10 billion or whatever. But actually I'm like, not even that excited about that. What I'm actually excited about is the impact piece of it. Like, that's the next move for me is because now I've built the resume, I've done enough to have the experience to feel like I have something valuable to contribute to someone else. Right?

Absolutely.

And so now I think it's like, how many people can I impact? And what I absolutely love about like the education side and the teaching side is like, I have people who come up to me and they're like, you changed my whole entire life because I was going to do this or I didn't want to do this, or I didn't think this was for people like me. And now I do. And now I'm like calling brokers or making offers or I'm buying an asset. I bought my first multifamily. Like I just had someone come up to me at a conference I spoke at and They told me that one of my passive investors, so someone who wrote me a check many years ago, is now buying multifamily.

No kidding.

Because she was like, I just didn't know. And then, you know, I found you and then I saw what you were doing. And if you could do it, then I could do it too. And it's true. Like, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

I think, I think it's something that's just something where you're incredibly talented is you make it look and you explain it in such an easy way.

Thank you.

I think that's like a superpower is that I appreciate Like, that's what I'm coming down to, is that you know how to, like, take this thing that seems big and scary and— yeah, no, it's really not. Let's check it out.

Like, that's the thing, it's like the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And like, that's what I'm really aiming for, is to like teach on these like small slivers that are like, okay, acquiring an asset, I have no idea how to do that. Okay, but let's talk about talking to brokers. Okay, now let's talk about how do we put together the LOI? How do we back the napkin, underwrite it? How do we comp shop? Right? Like, and those are slivers that are digestible.

Mm-hmm.

And over a period of time, you'll start gaining that knowledge and that insight, and then eventually you have to make a leap of faith.

Yeah.

You gotta do it. So that's my goal there. But I think that, that for me over the next 5 years, and I, you know, what I'm working on right now behind the scenes is I'm trying to like really nail down a number as a goal of people I want to impact.

Okay.

So like, I hear a lot of people say like, I want to impact like 1,000 people or 10,000 people or whatever, and none of those numbers just like naturally jump out to me. So I'm trying to like figure out what is that number.

Yeah, okay, I got you.

So someone told me the other day at a conference I was at, um, You know, they came up and they were speaking to me at lunch and he said, at 2%, if you could get 2% of the population to do something, it creates like a movement.

Mm-hmm.

And so I was like, okay, there's, you know, 8 billion people. So if you get 160 million people to have any kind of movement or change or mindset shift, then it can actually make like really great impact. And I was like, oh, I love that. Now, do I think I can reach 160 million people on my own? No. So what I think like for me is I need to continue like working that backward to like, I need to create X amount of Veena Jettis who are then gonna go and create, right? Because like leaders create more leaders. Gotcha. Yeah. And so I need to impact people and then I need to have you feel so excited and motivated that you have to go out and impact impact 10 more people, right? And then they have to go out and impact 10 more people. And that's the ripple effect.

And that's how you get to the 160 million.

I think so.

Well, so it's funny because you said 2%. I'm like, okay, yeah, like you could get like 2% of all the real estate investors.

No, you're— people in the world. Literally everybody.

All right.

Think bigger.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying is I need to shatter all of these beliefs.

We've come full cycle.

So I want to end off and I want to tell everybody right now that you have far and away the most valuable content anybody can follow on Instagram.

Really?

Oh, 100%. When it comes to like actual actionable advice.

Yeah.

Like, and also you're good at making complicated things easy.

Thank you.

So when it comes to actual actionable advice, learning all things real estate.

Yeah.

You guys need to look at what it's— it's @veena_jetty.

Yeah.

And how you spell that?

Okay. V-E-E-N-A-J-E-T-T-I.

Awesome. And then we're going to have that tag below and everything else where you guys can go check that out. Because I'm telling you, I'm being 100% honest with you that you have the best content.

Thank you.

And number 2, I'm going to say is, of the people I've interviewed and I've had the chance to talk to, you know, amazing people who have helped change my life, that this has been, out of all the episodes, the number 1 piece of like the most amount of tactical advice that I know that I'm going to be able to take and it's going to helped me transform my business, my life. So everybody else that's listening, I really encourage you, one, to not get stuck in this analysis paralysis and start taking action. And I think a great way to start that is by, number one, going and following Veena on Instagram.

And number two is to join your, your Facebook group, which is Mastering Multifamily with Veena Jetty.

Mastering Multifamily with Veena Jetty. I know I'm going to be a part of it. When are the calls?

Okay, so I am like so bad at scheduling things because I'm always on planes, so I schedule them ad hoc, but I post them into the group so that everyone can kind of see.

Well, I love that. Look, I mean, you're doing, you're doing some boss shit. Like, we can't just have a regular—

I'm trying, I'm trying. Yeah, no, I, I put my calendar up. It's like a new thing I'm doing where I like put my calendar up so people know like where I'm speaking and what— check that out. Yeah, so I, I'm doing all the technology things. Gotcha.

Well, hey, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for pouring in and just being so so good at what you do, good at teaching and being so open to help people. I really do appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Well, absolutely.

This is fun. I told you before we started, I don't get to do a lot of in-person podcasts and it's so much better in person. Night and day difference.

Well, I mean, there's been a ton of people that I really look up to, people I really admire, people I really wanted to learn from and I want the chance to interview, but it's Dude, if you're going to do this on Zoom, like, that's just— that's half-assed, you know?

Yeah, it's, it's just not as good.

Well, no. And people also, like, for me myself, I know I'm not going to get as much out of it. And I think so much gets lost for everybody else that's listening when it's like on a platform like that. It's just, it's not the same.

Well, and also like in-person connections, they're just deeper, right? Like we met in person. And so when my admin reached out to me and said Tyson wants you, I was like, oh yeah, tell him, you know, whenever I'm there next, I'll definitely come through. And like, that's the thing is if you just messaged me and we didn't really meet in person, like, I might not remember, right? It's like a different relationship. That's why it's so important to be in these rooms, and it's so important to have that face-to-face.