RG 235 – Creating Your Own Investment Tribe From Scratch w/ Travis Smith

Travis is the founder and CEO of Tribevest. He started his career at Morgan Stanley but realised that the quickest way to earn money was in private markets. He’s now a partner in several investment groups that he calls his Tribes, and he works on single family rentals, multifamily and commercial real estate.

Travis wants to level the playing field and has realised that investment groups is the great equaliser, which is why he built Tribevest. This is a place where people can assemble their drive and run their investment group. Travis’ first dollar as a child was on a lemonade stand, but his first proper dollar came at 35 when he started a blog and made money through subscriptions and advertising.

Travis spent 20 years doing corporate America and was doing deals with his investment group on the side. While he was really successful other people approached him and asked him to share his tips. They said that they had friends who could form groups and could he help them. He realised that this was  gap in the market that he could help with. He did about 20 deals over 12 years before Tribevest started. He’s been doing this for 2.5 years and has written a book ‘Hacking the American Mind’.

Top tips

• Habit – 3 gratitudes each morning
• Person – Pete Kite
• tool – blogging
• tribevest.com
• also on FB
• Tribetrav on twitter

Travis Smith (00:34):

There is nothing more thrilling than real estate and taking ownership. And, uh, when you think about doing that with, with people you care about, it’s just 10 times better. I I’m reading a book called hacking the American mind and, uh, you know, pleasure, pleasure is something that you experience on your own. And happiness is something that you experience with others and try best as a great way to, to, uh, turn real estate investing into something that makes, makes you really happy.

Reed Goossens (01:18):

Welcome to investing in the U S a podcast for real estate investors, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into the U S market join Reed. As he interviews go getters risk takers and the best in the business about their journey towards financial freedom and the sheer joy of creating something from nothing

Reed Goossens (01:39):

Good day. Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another cracking edition of investing in the us podcast from Los Angeles. I’m your host, Rick, Goossens good as always every with us on the show. And I’m glad that you’ve all tuned into learn from my incredible guests and each and every one of them are the cream of the crop here in the United States. When it comes to real estate, investing, business, investing and entrepreneurship, each show, I try and tease out their incredible stories of how they have successfully created the businesses here in the U S how they’ve created financial freedom, massive amounts of cashflow, and ultimately create extraordinary lives for themselves and their families life by design. As I like to say, hopefully these guests will inspire all of my cracking listeners, which are you guys to get off the couch and go and take massive amounts of action.

Reed Goossens (02:26):

If these guys can do it. So can you now, as you know, I’m all about sharing the knowledge with my loyal listeners, which is you guys, and there’s absolutely no BS on this show, just straight into the nuts and bolts. Now, if you do like this show, the easiest way to give back is to give us a review on iTunes. And you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter by searching at Reed Goossens. You can find the show wherever you podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google play, but you can also find these episodes up on my YouTube channel. So head over to Reed goossens.com, click on the video link, and it will take you to the video recordings of these podcasts, where you can see ugly mug, but the beautiful faces of my guests each and every week. All right. And I’ve had a me, let’s get cracking in into today’s show [inaudible] during the show, the pleasure of speaking with Travis Smith, Travis is the founder and CEO of tribe best.

Reed Goossens (03:18):

He started his crew with Morgan Stanley, but realize the most direct path to true wealth and financial freedom is in the private markets. He is now a partner in several investment groups that he calls his tribes that invest in single family rentals multi-family and commercial real estate. However, his favorite part of the investment group is one that has enabled him to own vacation rentals and even own a race horse with his brothers. He’s now obsession is to level the playing field, and he knows firsthand that forming investment groups is the great equalizer as a result. He built tribe best and online platform where people can assemble their tribe, align form and operate their own investment group. I’m really pumped and excited to have him on the show today to share his incredible insight and knowledge, but enough to me, let’s get him out of here. Get out Travis, welcome to the show heading today, mate.

Travis Smith (04:03):

Great Reed. Thanks for having me glad to be here.

Reed Goossens (04:06):

My pleasure. Um, we’re just talking a little bit in the green room before we press record here. You spent a semester or a summer in Sydney when you were 21. Uh,

Travis Smith (04:15):

Oh, fantastic. I was a junior at the Ohio state university and came across, uh, opportunity to, to, uh, do an internship with a company called Godfrey Pembroke, which was a financial investment firm there. I don’t know if it’s still there or not, but still some of my best friends today are from Australia and in Sydney, just wonderful, a wonderful part of my, my life. It’s great.

Reed Goossens (04:43):

And a good part of that. You logged being 21, not a lot of strings attached, just going out there, throwing caution to the wind and giving it a go, right?

Travis Smith (04:49):

No doubt, no doubt. A good time to be there. And, uh, you know, everybody was super excited to make sure I was just having the best time possible. So I’m always feel indebted to anytime I meet another Aussie.

Reed Goossens (05:03):

Awesome man. Well, look, we’re not here to talk about Australian investing, but we are here to talk a little bit about you. So the first question I always ask my guests when they come on, the show is rewind the clock and tell me how you made your first ever dollar as a kid or a teenager.

Travis Smith (05:16):

You know, great question. And I’m going to probably going to Dodge the question just to teens. I think maybe the lemonade stand. Uh, and then I did work as a bus boy in, uh, for, for a restaurant, but really the first dollar I’ve made from nothing wasn’t until I was 35 years old. And, um, I, I knew I had an entrepreneurial spirit. I knew in order for me to be, to be, um, fulfilled, I was going to have to follow that spirit. And that’s when I, I, uh, built a, uh, online blog in community that targeted a very specific audience and ended up, um, getting a subscription base and making money in advertising. So now when I was a kid, but it took me a long time to really figure that out before that I was always dependent on the company I worked for.

Reed Goossens (06:13):

You say busboy because you’re working tables essentially. That’s, that’s a hard graft. And how old were you when you got that job? 17. Okay. Yeah. So you, you, you knew the Slugger I’ve been on your, on your feet for eight hours, nine hours a day, trying to work for your tips. Um, yeah, it really, it really instills the value of a dollar in, in when you grow up. And when you do make a little bit more money as a professional, you really do value that, that, that money, because you’ve had to grind doing some probably jobs that we’ve all done. I remember being a dish pig and just been absolutely hiding it, you know, just scrubbing pots and pans and in a hot sweaty kitchen, it was gross, but, you know, kept me, kept me on foot towards my goals. So you talk about a fulfilled, your entrepreneurial spirit. Was that something that your parents instilled in you and growing up? What, what, where did that come from?

Travis Smith (06:58):

No, not at all. Um, I was, I was supposed to be a doctor, I guess, you know, I come from a long line of, of, of doctors. Um, and, um, so, uh, but you know, I look back at it and I think, gosh, a couple generations ago it was a very entrepreneurial, uh, profession. So now I consider it, I do see that they were very entrepreneurial themselves. Um, but no, it was very much go to school, uh, go and get a good job, uh, you know, retire, gracefully and die gracefully kind of thing, you know, do it, do what you’re supposed to society tells you to do. And I was just unhappy. I was unhappy, there was something, um, telling me that I needed to go and, um, build something on my own. And, uh, so no, it was, it was one of these things I really had to find on my own. And I always joked that, um, you know, I was a 40 year old founder when I finally did launch what is tribe fast? And I look back, it was all in the making. It was all leading up to that, but it took me a while to make the punch.

Reed Goossens (08:07):

So talk to me about that. It sounds like a 20, nearly a 20 year career in corporate America. What was that like for you, knowing that you had that in a burn and in a desire to be moral, to, to build, pay for drone path, uh, be your own boss. Like it’s a lot of us, myself included have that sort of conflicting, like, gosh, I know I’m worth more. I know that I can build, make more money or build better wealth. And I’m now doing it for some other Schumacher at a W2 job. So talk to me about that sort of inner struggle and if it was even,

Travis Smith (08:41):

It absolutely was. Um, you know, I, and I look back at this and it’s funny. Um, there was such a stigma statism to this back when I was a kid, but, um, I didn’t even kind of diagnose myself footwear dyslexia or add ADHD add. Um, and I, I looked back at it and just how much I struggled in school. I, I still managed to get good grades and, and I don’t know if that has to do with how my mind is wired or just the fact that I had to learn how to work the system in order to get to the next stage in life. Uh, nonetheless, um, it taught me all sorts of, uh, how to get creative and to be successful. So in, in corporate America, that was very useful to a point. Um, I would come in and see new ways of doing things and, um, and then eventually would hit a ceiling and become very frustrated. And, uh, and this, this happened over years and years. And finally, um, I, I, uh, I realized that if I was going to make the leap, I kind of had to burn the ships, so to speak. And, um, and it’s funny, I, it’s not burning the ships all at one time. It was more of burn the ships over a four-year period to ultimately make the big.

Reed Goossens (10:09):

And, and you talk about a ceiling. I think that so many people out there who are trying to have a side hustle or have that inner desire, they don’t know what maybe it is today that they want to do. Um, but they have that, that in a burn and they can see that there’s going to be a ceiling, right. R I D I vividly remember joining a, um, I made a transition from being a structural engineer into, uh, working for a developer. And the first three years was great, you know, learnt so much in the business, but you only think it was less than, I think it was more like 18 to 24 months, but you get to that point where you can see the ceiling already, and you can see folks ahead of you that are going to be in line to take over manager or director or partner or whatever that is. And you just, you can see it pretty quick. Um, was that something prevalent that you were seeing a lot in your career before you made that jump and then ultimately seeing so many ceilings, like, screw it. I need to go to break that ceiling and do it myself.

Travis Smith (10:58):

You know, I did. And, and I think that was the frustration that I kept having, uh, that, that, um, that was difficult really. And, um, but it wasn’t that that motivated me. It, wasn’t all I’m going to go do this better than the company I’m working for. Um, I was in software, uh, working in FinTech and, um, and working in, uh, you know, financial working with banks and institutions. So I’ve definitely leveraged that. I saw ways of leveraging my partnerships and relationships that I had made in the industry, but, um, when it came to what drove me, uh, to, to building something from nothing, it was really in parallel in parallel to my professional career, which started at Morgan Stanley. Uh, I was trained in, you know, trading stocks and bonds and, and financial advising on the space. My, my really my passion was to help people build wealth.

Travis Smith (11:58):

And it didn’t take long that that was the wrong place to do it. And I say, I was saved by software. So most of my career, I was in enterprise sales and enterprise software where we were working with institution, bank, institutions, and other financial institutions. Um, and, and so while I was doing that throughout my career, uh, back in the, um, 2008, the last financial global crisis, the great recession, um, my brothers and I kind of saw what was up. We saw that having a good job and being dependent on the stock market was not going to be enough and to, to have lived the life we wanted to live, to have financial freedom that we needed to figure something out and do more and take ownership, take ownership in something. And we always saw real estate as a way to hack wealth, without having to give up our day jobs. You know, you mentioned side hustle, and that was what we wanted to do. Uh, but we,

Speaker 4 (12:58):

But we never, we had no

Travis Smith (13:01):

At real estate investment, we didn’t grow up in a house where, where we learned about real estate investing, but that was part of it. We said, listen, let’s learn and grow together. But we kept running into the same challenge, which was to break into the private markets to break into real estate. You need capital lump sums of money that we just didn’t have. And on a fishing trip and Patagonia, Chile on a, on a trip that we couldn’t afford. I mean, quite honestly, um, we had our breakthrough. We said, listen, let’s instead of talking about the deals, uh, that we can’t afford, let’s take care of the problem right in front of us, which was capital. And we each agreed to a manageable and monthly contribution of $500 each. And that was it. It was a stretch, but it was manageable in between the four of us that was $2,000 a month, $24,000 a year.

Travis Smith (13:56):

One investment led to another led to another. And by forming and funding, that investor group, that tribe we secured and unlocked a future, we could have never dreamed of. And, um, and so that was happening throughout my career. And people started to catch wind of the deals we were doing, which were incredible. And they said, how are you doing, how are you in these deals? And I told them, and they said, wait a minute. You know, I have a tribe of like-minded people that I know like, and trust, and we have shared financial dreams and aspirations. Can you help us for an investor group help us follow the tribe? And that was when we kind of realized that there was something missing out there in the world that I was uniquely positioned to help with.

Speaker 4 (14:49):

So how many deals you and your brothers do before

Reed Goossens (14:53):

The inception of the actual site website, which is now tribal?

Travis Smith (14:59):

Yeah, so probably 20 deals over 12, 12 years. So you can just, it’s a long time. If you think about it over time, we’re not, you know, I’m not, uh, I haven’t been invited onto your show as a, you know, incredible real estate investor. In fact, we, we just always wanted to do it as a side sidekick and, um, and even more important than the deal for us was learning the agency, learning the repertoire, you know, you can take all of our properties away and we’re still financially free because we have learned, we could do it all again. Right. We could do it all again. And to us, that was, that was the big freedom. So, um, we never, we never made it our full-time job to, to invest in real estate. Uh, and, but it did afford us to, you know, take the jobs that we wanted to take, you know, could afford me to, to start try best, if you could afford us to vacation together and live the life we’ve always wanted to live. And, uh, so anyway, I don’t have this awesome real estate empire to speak of, but it, it, it definitely, um, gave us the financial freedom that we wanted.

Reed Goossens (16:17):

And it’s interesting. You spoke about financial freedom and not the, not the essence of, well yes. The essence of having enough capital to be, you know, pay the bills and you don’t have to have a W2, but what you said that you said, you could take all the properties away and we’ve got the financial freedom and knowledge to then go and build it again. Right. So you could go do the same thing. Even those specific deals may not have worked out or whatever, like in a hypothetical scenario, they, they vanish into thin air. The financial freedom part you’re speaking about was the knowledge that you could go re repeat it. And I think that’s, that’s kind of key,

Travis Smith (16:50):

No doubt. And, and, and, and the tribe. So the knowledge and the tribe. And of course, when we talk about tribes, we’re talking about our intimate investor group of two to five people, or two to 10 people, but there’s also this extended tribe. That’s part of that knowledge, that’s part of that repertoire that we build up. We have people like you read that, you know, know this business inside and out. Um, and we have those contacts now. And, um, and so it’s, it’s also about the network that we’ve developed. Uh, that’s so valuable, again, more valuable than the assets.

Reed Goossens (17:28):

So how much did your, you mentioned in the beginning when I asked you the question about how you made your first of a dollar, and you, you said you had a blog and that came through, um, subscription-based, did that help you with the knowledge of online, the online platforms that you could build in the power of those online platforms to help you go and plant the seeds of tribe, tribe, vest, and start cultivating those online communities at all?

Travis Smith (17:52):

Yeah. You know, I, I said it before the burning of the, of the ships, if you want to take the Island burn the ships. And, um, I did it over five years and one of the first things I did was could I, could I go make money online? And, um, I was fortunate to have some people that were around me that were doing the same thing and I can learn from, but that was, uh, that was a huge step for me. And it also helped me realize just about scale and you know, what an incredible time we live in that, um, we could be in Columbus, Ohio, or Los Angeles or wherever, and really access to the world. Um, and so no doubt by, by doing that, um, unlocked all sorts of, um, you know, new ways of thinking and perspective, which ultimately led launching the try best business.

Reed Goossens (18:52):

So now let’s pivot and let’s talk about the business itself and how you help both operators and other people who want to get involved in real estate deals. And I think, uh, one thing that people missed you really focus on the sort of two to say, less than 10 cultivating of two to two to 10 investors in any one particular group. Do you want to walk us through the sort of ins and outs of how people meet each other and how do you form those relationships online? You know, they trust relationships to form that tribe in order to golf and then use the platform or the golf and then fund a deal.

Travis Smith (19:27):

Absolutely. So, you know, I always talk about the platform today, tomorrow, and in the future. And today it’s very much your, your tribe or our tribes are, are with people they already know, like, and trust. So people that are in their social network, uh, and my brother’s and I’s case, it was, we were, we were brothers, I always say brothers, but we were, there were a couple of cousins in there that we claim as brothers and, um, you know, for others, it’s the neighbor down the street that, you know, you want to buy a single family rental that’s around the corner. Cause it makes sense. And it’s smart and no one knows that deal better than you because you live in that neighborhood. Uh, so today it’s all about people you already know, like, and trust that have the same dreams or in the same kind of position as you to invest in things.

Travis Smith (20:24):

And, um, and our, our platform gives you a place to assemble. It gives you a place to, to build your dream and vision and invite, uh, your prospective members in. And you actually go through an alignment process, read where, uh, before you do go into business with them, before you actually start pulling capital, you want to qualify that that’s a good match. And we’re just as proud of the, of the groups that decide not to go on into business together as the ones that go on to do incredible things. And, uh, so you come in, you assemble, you align, uh, you propose the rules of the game, the how much, the, how long then what, and what if, and we always say, you know, more important than the rules are the rules upfront, right? Well, well it’s, well, it’s not emotional while we’ve all agreed, how are we going to handle these things when they do happen?

Travis Smith (21:22):

And if you and our platform helps you work through those things in a, in a, in a fun way, not an awkward way. And that’s, that’s like a huge part of what we do is we’re a neutral third party. So you’ve assembled, you’ve aligned, you’ve come up with the rules. And now on our platform, you can, uh, file your LLC, uh, get your operating agreement. Uh, you can open up a business bank account, FBIC insured all online and pull, start to pull capital and, and not just, Hey, let’s all throw in $20,000 to get to a hundred thousand dollars, but let’s why don’t we do $500 a month. Like my brothers and I did, right. We didn’t have the tens of thousands of dollars to all throw in. So we started with $500 a month and try best makes it super easy to set up that discipline an automatic ACH. Everybody comes in and sees a shared dashboard and it gets exciting. You know, you see a big number growing and start to think about the next deal. So it seems like

Reed Goossens (22:30):

It’s a little bit of a, um, a footnote of the camp of, of helping prep people for getting involved in real estate. But also the other side of the coin, which I want to maybe focus a little bit more on is, is once you have prepped people, you’ve got the LLC, you’ve got the funding that you’ve saved over a period of time. How do you make sure that you are partnering with the right operator? Because obviously a lot of things look good on paper. A lot of dreams can look great pitch decks. Um, but if you don’t have the right people who one found the deal who analyzed the deal to make sure it’s going to work, um, particularly like if a flip project, you know, make sure who’s going to look after the construction and make sure it’s done on time. So how do you deal with that part of making sure the tribe has a not necessarily leader, but someone who’s got the knowledge and the, um, the experience to make sure that the deal will go through as promised.

Travis Smith (23:23):

Yeah. Great, great question. And I can walk through my own tribes, hard lessons and experiences. Um, you know, initially it was us that she didn’t have any knowledge going out and doing single family rentals and stumbling along, and we really leaned on each other. Um, and so, you know, that was, that was one approach. And, um, but then we did get into, well, let’s get into bigger deals, ones that we wouldn’t be leading and, um, you know, looking into other syndications and other commercial deals and how do we make a decision on moving forward with the deal? And I think that’s one of the real powers of the tribe. Um, you know, you think about it pulling capital is kind of this obvious benefit, right? This opportunity to pull capital and, and get into a deal that you want to be able to get into on your own, getting into more deals as a result of, of being a tribe.

Travis Smith (24:26):

But the other benefits include, you know, spreading the risk across and then this, this, um, coming together to make a decision. And, and if, if four of us or five of us are all shaking our heads and saying guys, this is, this is a good deal. And here’s why, and we all, we all agree. It’s a good deal. Like, you know, fine, you know, reasonable people coming together, all looking at the same deal from different angles. And if you agree that you should go forward. So coming to a decision is another just fantastic benefit of, of, of investing with your tribe.

Reed Goossens (25:05):

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Travis Smith (26:14):

It’s not, uh, you know, and maybe someday it will be, uh, but we aren’t super deal agnostic. You know, we are just so focused on helping the investor group and keeping the relationships first, right? Like when you get, when you get those, you get, uh, people that are motivated entrepreneurs, they’re super driven and it’s fun. Like getting the deal is fun. And it’s a little bit of our job to say, you guys listen more and more valuable than anything is that is your relationships. And anybody that’s been in business long enough knows that. Uh, but you know, we forget. And so try best is that kind of constant reminder to make sure that the relationship is always a priority and then the deals they take care of themselves. It’s, it’s incredible. Um, you know, they, they, our customers find us after listening to your podcast or after working with you, right. And they are looking for a way to do this in a smart, uh, streamlined way. Uh, they, they found the deal down the road from their house, with their neighbor, uh, on the single family. So they’re coming with these deals already. They’re just trying to figure out how to do it, right.

Reed Goossens (27:26):

And then I guess that’s where the tribalist facilitates that sort of process, um, or pulling that together. And another element that I, and I don’t know if it’s part of, it seems like a very natural, organic growth is having an element of education on the front end with any particular, you know, buying a single family is completely different to buying a commercial building or buying a multifamily or buying a mobile home park. Like, I feel like there could be some element that you could have, um, some education in there too, to help facilitate those conversations and the existing customers on the platform can help, um, build knowledge themselves so they can, Oh, well now I didn’t even think about commercial. Oh, I know one down the street, you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve given them tools to then go out and nearly not bird dog, but think outside the box of just maybe a single family or whatever niche that they might be thinking.

Travis Smith (28:17):

Yeah. I read, you’re really kind of hitting on all the real exciting parts of, of tri vest and it just continues to evolve, but absolutely, uh, there’s an element of education here, and I think what’s so exciting is it’s really the community, the community, um, that’s educating and, you know, we’re, we’re big believers, as you might imagine, as an entrepreneur that, you know, the best education is, is, is experience and talking to people that have that experience or having that experience yourself, and you just have a ton of that going on on the platform. Uh, but yeah, you’re, you’re spot on a great place to come and kind of take a first step and then take a look up and see, you know, what, where else can we go? Where can I take this knowledge and take it to the next level?

Reed Goossens (29:10):

Where can, where can I talk to someone else who I know on the platform that could help bring, I know they know what they’re talking about. So maybe they could bring a little bit of education to the other folks on the platform who are interested to know a little bit more. So

Travis Smith (29:23):

Did you guys have country clubs in Australia?

Reed Goossens (29:26):

Yeah. No surf clubs night. We, uh, we have slightly different, but if you have a bit to Bondai the Bondo surf club, you would have seen it sort of a congregation of community, I think is what you’re talking.

Travis Smith (29:36):

Yeah. Well, and it’s, and of course in the States, the country is very exclusive, but you think about it had everything you needed, you had all your friends were there. One of them was an attorney. One of them was in real estate. One of them is insurance. One of them’s in property management and you kind of have like this built in community, but it’s exclusive. Like you have to have a lot of money to get into that type of club. And you can think of try best as this great equalizer and leveling the playing field. Now we all have a place to go and network and find people in your extended tribe that I referenced.

Reed Goossens (30:17):

Yeah. And I think that’s, yeah, because the reference to the country club is it’s stuffy and exclusive, and I can’t get in, but try vest is that opposite. And it’s, I know it can be accessible to everyone. The average Joe, who just wants to be in deals with his neighbors or his friends or his cousins or whatever it might be. So, Oh, he or she, I should say. And so, uh, I think it’s an incredible idea and, or not even idea credible business, uh, on the just, I know we spoke in the green room a little bit before pressing record the key element to try vessel is the fact that everyone is a partner and an active partner. You’re not actually selling securities in any of these deals. And I just wanna make sure that’s clear to the folks listening to this.

Travis Smith (30:56):

Yeah. I’m really glad you brought that up. Um, we have a ton of excitement right now, and registrations just continue to increase here. And when we’re getting all sorts of people curious and interested in, you know, what is this? And, um, you know, just to be clear, it’s, um, it’s not a place to form a syndicate or put a deal together and to assemble, uh, passive investors. Uh, if you come to try best, you’re forming a tribe where you all own this entity, this LLC, and, um, and you’re all active. In fact, our platform shows that you’re active because there’s usually a voting requirement for you to make a major transaction, which just by definition makes shows that you’re all active in the process and have skin in the game. So, no, it’s, if you think about it, um, you wouldn’t come here to form a syndicate, but you might come here to participate in a syndicate that you might not have done on your own, but together as a group, I can afford a hundred thousand dollars. And, um, and I wouldn’t do that on my own, but if I spread that around within my group, I will do that.

Reed Goossens (32:16):

And just to clarify for everyone listening, syndicate in syndication, very simple words. Um, but, but what Travis is saying is that essentially to JV, it’s a joint venture. Everyone has equal voting rights. And when you have equal voting rights, you don’t necessarily, you don’t need an sec attorney because it’s only when you’re selling limited partnership, voting rights that you’re selling security and thus you trigger the sec laws. So Travis is on the other side of that, where it’s all JVs coming to the, everyone is under understands. The deal has equal voting rights and can make decisions whether to paint the house purple or to refinance it or to sell it, whatever it might be. So it’s all, everyone has an equal share and just want to make that very, very clear for people before thinking they can jump on and start getting passive investors. Cause that’s not how it works. Um, but Travis, what is, what does 2020 got in store for you and beyond? It sounds like it’s growing. And I guess how many years have you been at this now?

Travis Smith (33:07):

We’ve been, uh, we’ve been a company for, uh, two and a half years and it’s, it’s been a process, you know, we’re, we are in a lot of ways we’ve just launched though. Um, initially it was with a very small segment of, of tribes and, um, and we’re now on our second version platform. In fact, we just released it, uh, this year earlier this year. And, um, so we’re, we’re in an incredible position to continue to scale and do this, um, you know, with a bigger, uh, population in a more value of a volume. Uh, so, uh, we’re just, we’re going to continue to, um, improve the platform and we’re listening to our customers, uh, what’s most important and we just continue to optimize. And it’s, it’s a little bit it’s, it’s leading us to, you know, what’s next for try best, but, um, you know, a lot of it has to do with that network that we brought that you’ve mentioned before that the network piece of this and the social aspect of this is kind of this unknown it’s it’s, uh, a lot of what’s bringing groups together is people are looking for things, more things to do more ways to connect with people.

Travis Smith (34:30):

They like with people they care about. And as your audience knows, there is nothing more thrilling than real estate and taking ownership. And, uh, when you think about doing that with, with people you care about, it’s just 10 times better. I I’m reading a book called hacking the American mind and, uh, you know, pleasure, pleasure is something that you experience on your own and happiness is something you experience with others and try best as a great way to, to, uh, turn real estate investing into something that makes, makes you really happy.

Reed Goossens (35:10):

Yeah, no, I can completely agree with it, but as you’re saying all that, my mind’s ticking for you of all the opportunities that, that, you know, I’m thinking, okay, first and foremost, you’ve got your pooling of people together, but then there’s also the services you provided, like the legal entities, the bank accounts, it’s really valuable, particularly even for like overseas investors that I’m even thinking about, but then you got the education piece on the front end that you could, you could bring in and some sort of education platform. Um, and then you’ve got these sort of the diversification into bigger, or not bigger deals, but different deals. You’re not just single family, but commercial, you know, retail. Um, but, but there’s just the, the, the plethora of options that you have in order to be an a, to Z type of shop. I forgot even thought.

Reed Goossens (35:51):

Um, we use an online platform for all our investors called investor deal room, but you could use have a secure login where people can see the transactions of, um, you know, where the passive income or the distributions or the K ones or the tax forms that you could use it as a, as a, as a portal. So, you know, there’s six things that I’ve just mentioned that are all different business plans in themselves. Um, but you know, it’s, it’s, it sounds like the world’s your oyster, and you’ve got a massive, massive future of growth ahead of you. So it’s a well done.

Travis Smith (36:18):

Yeah. You’re, you’re spot on. I mean, everybody quickly wants to go to the deal, right? Like, Oh, you need to have a need to have deals and be, it would be bringing your, your, your investors deals and, you know, maybe someday, but as you just detailed better than I could just, there’s so much, there’s so many services that we can offer. And we’re just beginning to do that. You know, there’s all sorts of things that we are, we’re partnered with realtors and insurance companies. Um, and, and that’s how we also keep the costs really low for our customers is, uh, when, you know, when they do need a service and they use our S our service partners, it’s a great opportunity and revenue, uh, opportunity for us and a great business model. And again, it keeps the cost out for, for our investors.

Reed Goossens (37:11):

Love it, love it, man. Well look, but I wanted to be very conscious of your time at the end of every show, we do wrap it up with the top five investing tips. You ready to get into it?

Travis Smith (37:19):

Let’s do it. [inaudible]

Reed Goossens (37:26):

What is a daily habit? You’ve practiced to keep on track

Travis Smith (37:28):

Towards your goals? You know, I, I wake up every morning and, um, I do three gratitudes that I actually keep this on a spreadsheet or three gratitudes. I’ll, uh, I’ll, I’ll document my vision for the day. And, um, and then I will meditate for, um, for 20 minutes thinking about the tasks ahead and how I want to achieve it.

Reed Goossens (37:55):

That’s great. How long have you been meditating for five years? Nice. I’m sure it would have been a huge change right in your life. I’ve only just started in the last year and a half, and it’s been game-changing for me from it from a mental point of view.

Travis Smith (38:08):

I don’t know how else to say it. Like there’s not everything, not everybody, not every thing. There’s very few things that work for everybody, but I find it really hard that meditating couldn’t help improve every one of your listeners lives.

Reed Goossens (38:23):

Awesome. Yeah. Some aspect of your life, right. That you’re maybe struggling with. So, yeah. Uh, second question is who’s the most influential person in your career?

Travis Smith (38:31):

Great question. I was fortunate around the same time. Uh, I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not, but I met a gentleman by the name of Pete kite. Pete was the founder and CEO of a company called CheckFree, which is essentially the rails and the process of what we know today as, uh, you know, uh, online bill pay. So if you can go on and pay, pay your bills, but Pete kite, um, build a multi-billion dollar business and, uh, exited for $4.5 billion about 10 years. Wow. And, uh, you know, I never thought about being able to, uh, build a billion dollar business until he took the time to talk to me.

Reed Goossens (39:18):

Nice. Is he still part of your address?

Travis Smith (39:21):

Yes. He’s part of the company, he’s our, he’s our chief advisor and a very important person. And again, it’s, it’s all about, you know, it’s easy to read about people. It’s easy to see them on TV or on YouTube, but until someone takes the time to meet you, uh, it’s hard. It’s hard to make that real. And that’s what he did for me.

Reed Goossens (39:43):

That’s awesome. That’s incredible. And probably showing you, giving you permission that there is, you could get to that point of a billion dollars. Like, you know, you may not, you might not ever dream of it, but that’s like the possibilities. Yeah.

Travis Smith (39:54):

Oh, we’re dreaming. We’re dreaming of it. Yeah. Yeah. We all have our self limited beliefs.

Reed Goossens (40:01):

Yes. A hundred percent. Yep. Now the rep the rep tall, Brian. Right. So my question, I’m three in your business. What is the most influential tool you use on a daily on the daily? Which means when I say tool, it could be a physical tool, like a phone or a journal, or it could be a software that you use that you just can’t run the business without. So what’s the number one tool that you use in the business?

Travis Smith (40:26):

You know, I would say, uh, blogging, you know, to be able to get the word out, the way that we do is, uh, is just so powerful. And it really, you know, new, new, like within the last 20 years, um, you know, w have not all of us had this incredible megaphone and opportunity to reach so many people through the written word.

Reed Goossens (40:53):

Right? No, I love the analogy of the megaphone. Yeah. Everyone does have the opportunity to have a megaphone, whether it’s through podcasting and blogging or videos. So, um, go out and go out and grab your own megaphone today. Uh, in, in one sentence, what has been the biggest failure in your career? And what’d you learn from that failure?

Travis Smith (41:14):

Gosh, I’m sorry, man. I’m drawing a blank,

Reed Goossens (41:18):

The dramatic

Travis Smith (41:19):

Dramatic, because it’s all part of it. Um, gosh, my biggest failure, uh, in my career, um, was, was not, uh, being afraid to being afraid to fail. That’s the biggest mistake of my career. It took me so long to figure out that that’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s supposed to go out and fail and take a risk and, and expect to fail and just think about all the wonderful learnings and perspectives and ultimately a foundation for your next chance to go out and fail. So my biggest, my biggest mistake by far is just being scared to fail

Reed Goossens (42:14):

Well, being okay to, you know, being okay with it, being a possibility, right. Whether, whether that comes to fruition or not, but being a K with, okay, the consequence could be X, but I’m okay with that consequence. So, yeah, but last question. Where can people reach you to continue the conversation they want to be in your sphere a little bit more? Where do they go?

Travis Smith (42:31):

Thanks for that. It’s um, you, you can, first of all, go to tribe vest, T R I B E V E S t.com. Try best.com. Uh, you can also find us at tri Bess on Facebook and you can follow me at tribe, Travis. Uh, that’s T R a V uh, on Twitter.

Reed Goossens (42:54):

Awesome, man. Well, look, I want to just repeat back some of the awesome learnings that I’ve been jotting down here on my piece of paper from today’s conversation. I think a, a good one that we’ve all gone through or people who are listening to the show probably are going through is the element of the ceiling, uh, in their day job. And, and, and realizing that there’s more, you need to break that ceiling. And if you want to go out and be an entrepreneur and, and being okay with taking those risks in that failure, you’re talking about the, the scared of failing, um, is really, uh, something that keeps us from fulfilling our, uh, ultimate potential. So I think that’s really, really important there, but I think the biggest thing is, is your passion to help other people grow and have at their fingertips, the ability to invest in deals that they might not necessarily have been able to invest in in the past, or didn’t even realize it was just next door or a person also thought the same way about them and really having the community first aspect of the platform leading with that.

Reed Goossens (43:46):

And when you have such a strong mission to lead with that first, the money is not the, the, the goal, the, the, the making a billion dollars. Isn’t the goal. It’s the community first, that is the most important thing of any fundamentals of a business. And I think that is going to ultimately set you up for success and your business up for success because you’re focused on the right things. So, um, don’t, don’t leave anything out.

Travis Smith (44:07):

Well, thanks. Thanks for that. And, um, I’ve been looking forward to this meeting and you just, you know, your, your summary there, um, is, is exactly why that you’re able to pick that up. Uh you’re you’re a wise man.

Reed Goossens (44:26):

Well, thank you. Well, I want to thank you for jumping on the show today. Enjoy your rest of your week. Stay safe, wash your hands, and we’ll catch up very, very soon. Thanks for you. Well, they have another cracking episode, DRAM jam-packed with some incredible advice from Travis, please do go onto his website, tribe, vest.com V E S T a and check it out because it’s a really powerful platform that could help you. If you’re wanting to get started in investing in real estate, and you want to maybe join forces with some other folks. I want to thank you all again for taking some time out of your day to tune in, to continue to grow your financial IQ, because that’s what we’re all about here on the show. And you want to give back the easiest way is just to jump on iTunes and give the show a five star review, and we’re going to do it all again next week. So Bebo Remote.