In The Thick of It

Right now, I'm being challenged like I've never been

challenged to go from founder to CEO to, you

know, having it all in my head to having

a team in place that continues that growth.

Welcome to In the Thick of It.

I'm your host, Scott Hollrah.

In this episode, my guest Robert Ritzenthaler shares

his journey from being a young entrepreneur to

becoming the president and CEO of REM Capital.

He discusses the ups and downs of starting

a hedge fund during the dot-com bubble and the

lessons he learned from that experience.

Robert also shares how he transitioned into the real

estate industry in his role as an asset manager.

He highlights the importance of transparency,

taking personal responsibility, and being willing

to learn and adapt.

Welcome back to In the Thick of It.

Thanks so much for joining us on In the Thick of It.

I always like to start off

with just kind of some background.

So tell know where'd you grow up?

What was it like as a child for you?

Well, not too far from where

you guys are, in Plano, Texas.

That was my stomping grounds.

My dad was a home builder, so built a

lot of houses in that area and then moved

up to Fairview, which is just north of Allen.

You guys, I'm sure, know that, but up to Fairview, and

we were I don't know, I forget what it was.

I think it was in high school, something like that.

Try to get out of the metropolis that had

turned into Plano, because when we moved down, my

dad was from Chicago, my mom was from San

Francisco, so we had lived outside of Chicago.

That's where I was born.

And moved down here because the economy was growing.

And Dallas is a great market. Still is.

A lot of things happening there.

But it changed a lot over the

15 years that we lived in Plano.

So we decided to get out, move to the

country, which is no longer the country anymore.

No, it's not.

So my upbringing was great.

Had a lot of time on the construction site with my dad.

Learned a lot about the business, which ties

into where I'm at today, of course.

Learned a lot about how to run a business, how to run

it the right way, how to treat people well, how to pay

your bills on time, all that kind of good stuff.

And I joke about it today.

That one of my jobs, was to every Friday, I'd

take the big stack of checks, I'd stuff them in

the envelope, and I'd take them out to the little

box on the side of the mailbox where all the

subs would come pick up their check every Friday.

It was like clockwork every Friday.

So you kind of learn some of those

things when you're young, and it sticks with

you, surprisingly, as you get older.

So you would put checks in a place and

the subs would come and pick them up. Yeah.

Because in construction, it's like you want to get paid

every Friday and you get your check every Friday.

And if you do that, you build loyalty

because people know they're going to get paid.

It's part of the business when you're dealing with

small subs like that, they don't have float.

Well, I'm more fascinated by the fact did you say

you put it in a box and they just came

and selected their own check out of the pile? Yeah.

No way. Yeah.

Did you ever have a problem where somebody took

the wrong check either accidentally or on purpose?

Not that I know of.

And to your point, I thought about that today, and

I'm like, I guess it was a little bit more

trustworthy back then because I don't know if I do

that today, no way would I do that.

It's interesting, though, because I was talking to

a friend of mine who's a GC today,

and I think he operates in San Antonio.

I have to remember who it was that I was talking to.

Anyway, somehow the conversation came

up and he was laughing.

He's like, Dude, I have exactly the same

thing on the side of my mailbox.

I built a little box and I

put my checks in there every Friday.

And the subs combined, I'm like, Whoa, I

thought my dad was the only one.

Oh my gosh, wow, you are very trusting.

Yeah, but I mean, I think at the

end of the day, obviously the subs also

they're not trying to screw each other.

And they look through and say, okay, there's my check,

and I pull my check out, you go with it.

I think today, at least

in our business, everything's ACH.

We don't have any paper checks,

so it's more of a check.

Your bank account, the money's there. Right.

So talk about some other aspects

of growing up school wise.

Did you go to public school, private school?

Were you a good student?

Were you a great student?

Were you an okay student?

Yeah, well, I had a very interesting educational

journey, shall we say when I was six.

My parents were about ready to put me in kindergarten.

They're thinking, oh, you know,

follow the standard path.

And my dad read a book by I

think the guy's name was Waylon Moore.

Anyway, he was an educator, teacher, longtime, whatever, and

he had written a book called Homegrown Kids.

So my dad read it and he's huh, kind of interesting,

talked about how kids really aren't ready to go to school

when they're six and seven and that it's better for them

to stay home and learn from their parents.

And so talked to my mom about they said, all

right, well, you know what, let's try it out.

Let's try it for a year and we'll see what happens.

So didn't go into school, spent a lot of time with my

dad, kind of learning on the job, spent some time with my

mom, taught me a little bit about how to read.

Nothing super formal, honestly.

Went well, did it again the next year.

Went well again, did it again the next year.

By about the third year, I remember, obviously we went

to church, so I had friends that I knew.

Whatever, I said, hey, do I need books?

We just going to roll with it.

And they're like, yeah, sure.

Okay, here's the catalog.

Go order some books. So I sat down.

All right, I want to do math.

I want to do English, want to do this.

So ordered my books, and there you go.

That was third grade.

Wow.

Little different than I would say

most people's educational experience was.

But obviously at the time, I had no idea.

I didn't know any different.

I thought, well, yeah, some people

go to school, some people don't.

Okay, cool.

So in third grade, you set your own curriculum?

Yeah, for the most part.

I mean, I'm sure my parents were involved to some

degree, but for me in particular, and I had four

sisters that came after me, and it was a little

bit more structured with them, but I've always been a

very kind of self driven, self organized, self motivated.

That's just my personality.

And so I think it was kind of like, all right, great.

Well, here's the gist of it.

Go figure it out.

That was pretty much how we got rolling.

Did you home school all the way through high school?

Well, yeah.

So that's where things kind of got interesting.

So I kind of started with some books.

Third grade, 4th, fifth, and actually my mom to some

degree, I think, looking back and I didn't even really

realize this when I was younger, but I feel like

my mom probably had actually both my parents, honestly, they

probably had the biggest influence me in the area of

writing and how to write and how to clearly communicate.

And it's interesting because today one of the things that

I do with REM is I have a weekly CEO

blog, and I am blown away by the feedback that

I get from people that read it.

And they say, Robert, we read all kinds of blogs.

We read all kinds of updates from all kinds

of people, and you're literally on that one or

two shortlists that we read every single week.

Honestly, I don't think that my information

is so earth shattering or so amazing.

I really credit it to just being

able to communicate and write clearly.

Succinctly, cut out the nonsense.

Don't make it too formal.

Don't make it too stupid.

And I think I really learned that

in those early years at home.

I'd write some papers, book reports, et cetera, et cetera, and

I never forget my mom and dad would come back.

They're like, no, that's no good.

That doesn't make sense.

And I remember thinking, golly, what the heck?

What do I have to do to get in the heart.

They did, but it was good. And so it was kind

of an interesting different approach.

So anyway, so I did that third, 4th,

5th, went into a private school in 6th

grade that was a smaller private school.

And I remember being just ridiculously bored.

And I told my parents, I'm like, this

is just a complete waste of time.

I'm sitting here in a classroom for 6 hours a day.

It takes me 15 minutes, maybe 30

minutes to do all the work.

And then the other five and a half

hours I'm just what am I here for?

I could have been out having some fun, right?

Or working on the job, you know what I mean?

I don't remember all the things I used to do, but

I mean, my dad would pay me for working on the

job, sweep job sites or whatever, and I loved it.

So I did.

That was 6th grade.

And then they put me into public school in 7th grade.

So that was my first sort of

foray into the insanity of public school.

And it was pretty insane, but it's like, all right,

you got to kind of get used to the crazy

atmosphere of life at some point or another.

So did that for a couple of years.

Was that a better experience for

you than the private school was?

I think it was about the same.

There were more challenges,

there were more opportunities.

There were things that I couldn't do in the private school

that I felt like I could do in the public school.

The private school was a little bit there was

a lot of just a very small group.

It was a small private school too,

so public school, obviously there's hundreds of

people, lots of stuff going on.

So that was the good part.

The bad part, of course, is that you had a

lot of just garbage as you do in a public

school, from kids doing stupid stuff to people that are

just completely mean and ugly and nasty.

And it's middle school, I have a 7th

grader and we hear about it every day.

Yeah, exactly.

So I did that 7th, Eigth and 9th, went to high

school and then by 9th grade, kind of in the same

situation, I was back to just being frustrated, bored.

This is just ridiculous.

I'm not learning as much as I'd like to.

So I actually went to my parents, said,

hey, I'd like to pull myself out, but

obviously I need your blessing, your permission.

They said, okay, well, we don't necessarily think

that you should or shouldn't, so if you

feel like that's for you, sure.

So I actually pulled myself

out, taught myself sophomore year.

I needed one tutor in math

because that was the only thing.

I was kind of struggling with some things, but

taught myself sophomore year and then it was interesting.

Kind of had a little bit of a reset

and then felt like, okay, you know what?

I'm ready to go back in for my junior year.

I also felt like some of the classes,

again, probably were in a better situation.

And during that sophomore year, ironically enough, I

actually built some friendships with some people that,

to some degree, that helps you.

It's like, okay, I may not be getting

the most education, but I also appreciate the

relationships that I have with my fellow students.

And that's actually where Nathan and I

which he works for you guys now.

He and I kind know, developed a bit of relationship.

I mean, we'd known each other since junior high school,

but we kind of spent a little bit more time,

and I thought, okay, well, you know what?

Friends are good.

Let's go back to school. So we did.

And junior actually, my junior year

in high school was great.

Loved it, got a lot done, learned a lot.

I felt like it was a very useful year.

And then during my junior year, my dad felt

like so he'd been running this homebuilding business for

a long time, kind of slowed down.

He had actually built a couple of different cool

products, gotten some patents, and was thinking about developing

these patents into something, some sort of a business,

sold some stuff to Sharper Image.

And I forget the other way I

got to know, what did he like?

I can remember as a kid digging through the Sharper Image

catalog and being like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool.

That's so cool. What was it?

Were they I guess I should say yeah.

I mean, it was nothing particularly super complicated,

but he had developed a couple of products.

One was actually a bike lift that would

it was a spring tension bike lift.

And so you could actually put your

bike on it and with two fingers.

Like, a kid could lift their bike

up the wall without a problem.

And so it's kind of a cool he was just

trying to solve a problem in our garage, where it's

like we had five of us bikes all over the

place, like, Get these out of the way.

But my kids can't lift an 80 pound bike or I

don't know what they weigh, but you know what I'm saying?

I just remember him tinkering with it,

and he's like, yeah, you know what?

Might be able to sell this.

So he developed that and sold it.

And then he also had kind of a stationary

bike rack that had these arms that folded in

so they were completely flat against the wall.

When you weren't using it, you could walk by, and

then when you needed, you pulled it back out.

So again, you kind of look at it

and you're like, well, that's a duh.

But as we all know, who've tried

to invent anything, it's not a duh.

Anyway, it's amazing when you try to

solve a problem for yourself, how many

problems you might solve for other people. Yes.

We've got another guest who has developed a really unique way

for people to change their oil at home without a mess,

and it came out of him tinkering with his own car

and didn't want to deal with all this.

And now it's turned into an incredible business.

No kidding. That's awesome. Yeah.

So entrepreneurship has kind of been a part

of your life since you were a child.

You grew up around it, you exposed it. Yeah.

Is that kind of what launched you

into going off on your of? Kind of.

And just to add to that a little bit, my

grandfather, who grew up in Chicago, for the most part,

he was an electrician, had a top dance band in

the 40s, owned a chain of restaurants throughout the Midwest,

and owned a road building company at one point.

So, I mean, this guy was all over the place.

No joke. Wow.

And my dad actually managed for a short period of time.

For a time period, my dad actually managed the

restaurants for him, and they had a plane and

they were flying all over the place.

Yeah. We have a little bit of

an entrepreneurial vein, I guess.

I would say so, yeah.

Running at the education.

So sounds like you finished out at a public high

school and then did you go to college from there?

Well, yeah. So getting back to that.

So again, this story takes another turn.

So my dad had kind of gotten to

a point where he's like, hey, I've done

this, I've done that, I've been successful. It's great.

I can keep doing what I'm

doing, but maybe there's more.

And he really felt the call to

do something in terms of giving back

and doing charity work, mission work, whatever.

And so he decided, you know what?

We're going to sell everything.

We're going to shut it all down and decided to move

the entire family over to Germany where we were going to

be based at an international school, kind of as a launching

point for us to be in school, but then also to

be able to do some mission work throughout Eastern Germany, Poland,

Croatia, Bosnia, et cetera, et cetera.

So my senior year was in

Germany at an international school.

Wow.

Talking about another total change.

It's funny because looking back, I'm like, well, I

can see why I was a little bit I

don't know if I would say bitter, but it's

like, you don't really know what's going on.

I'm like, Well, I lost my job, my

car, my friends, all this stuff, whatever.

I mean, at the same time, you think

about what I gained, which was the experience

of living in Germany, going to school internationally,

meeting a lot of cool people, seeing Europe.

I mean, gee whiz, how often do you get to do

well, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it.

So when I lived there, I was barely OK.

I actually took four or five years of French

because my mom is fluent both German and French.

That was her major in college.

But you don't use it. Forget it.

You lose it.

I speak basically no German now.

I took, I don't know, three

years of Spanish in high school.

And you're absolutely right if you use it or lose

it, and I can navigate the menu at my local

Mexican restaurant, but that's about exactly exactly, yeah.

But one thing I was going to add to that too,

just kind of part of this educational experience for me during

that year when we were over there in Germany that was

kind of in the middle of the whole civil war that

was going on, Yugoslavia, if you may remember, and NATO was

involved and all this other stuff.

Anyway, so that Christmas, we actually took a

bunch of shoeboxes, which Samaritans Purse puts together.

You may be familiar, they still do

it today all over the world.

And so we took a truckload of shoeboxes, and we

distributed to kids in war torn parts of Croatia.

And again, just being able to have that

experience as part of just life, education, I

mean, I'll never forget that, driving through the

streets and know the bullet marks all over

the buildings and the schools and everything else.

And I mean, looking at Ukraine today, it's like

flashbacks to driving through those cities and know what

people are experiencing, and it's the same crazy it's

just it was a neat experience to be able

to do that and to give back.

And so, yeah, finished that year, came

back to the States, got a full

scholarship to a school up in Pittsburgh,

carnegie Mellon for electrical and mechanical engineering.

And that was kind of what I was planning to do,

do a double major in engineering and got started there.

And Carnegie Mellon's a great school, and I was used

to being top of my class without working very hard.

And you go to Carnegie Mellon, and everybody's

top of their class without working very hard.

And so it was a bit of a humbling experience.

Was it competitive? Very competitive. Yeah.

I mean, extremely competitive.

And it's one of those things where I remember

walking into one of my first classes, which was

my electrical engineering class, they're like, okay, we're going

to build a robot this semester.

And I think, wait, I thought I came here for

you to teach me how to build a robot.

Like, no, you're going to build a robot.

Figure it out. Exactly.

So I built my robot that semester, and you come

in at the end of semester, and everybody's got their

robot, and I was probably in the bottom quartile somewhere.

Not the bottom, but I was below halfway if

you looked at all the robots that people built.

And I just remember thinking, like, yeah, hmm, maybe

this isn't for mean, I could have stuck it

out and I'm sure I would have been again.

I mean, Carnegie Mellon turns out a lot

of really top notch folks, but fantastic school.

It's a good school.

But I think it was one of those things

where I thought, well, maybe there's something else that

I could do where I'm really good.

I'm sort of back in that

top quartile versus the bottom quartile.

So I switched to finance and business and it was kind

of like the lights just came on to some degree.

And really the only negative thing for

me was that I lost my scholarship

because my scholarship was for engineering.

And so I lost my scholarship, made a switch to

Liberty University, which is in Virginia and finished out my

education there, got my degree and that was know, Liberty

obviously isn't well, at least wasn't back then.

I think now the educational side is a little bit

more of a sturdy, if you will, at the know.

It's a good school but nothing fancy per se.

But I think it was also good for me to

just spend again a little bit more time on the

relational side of life because I tend to be very

hardworking performance, get stuff done, and I think sometimes a

good balance is important in life.

So finished out there and then went to New York, didn't

have a job and just kind of one of those guys.

Same thing.

I was like, well, I'm driving to New York.

I'm going to find a place to live

and we're going to make it happen.

So you did the actual like, I don't have

an apartment, I don't have a place to stay.

I've got a suitcase and the clothes on my

back and I'm just going to get there and

figure it out when I land in Manhattan.

Yep, pretty much. Yeah.

That's the Frank Sinatra song, right?

It's like, if you can make it

here, you can make it anywhere, right?

So what was that process like?

What was day one?

You set foot in New York.

What was the first thing you you know, again, just because

I had kind of grown up in the of that was

my networking know some people it's bars and friends and know

there wasn't really Facebook per se back then.

So I connected with a really large

church in the city, Redeemer Presbyterian.

They're still going there's. Huge church up there.

Tim Keller's, pastor. Great guy.

So I just connected with them and they had

a big kind of like a posting know, people

that were looking for roommates and whatnot.

Made some phone calls and found

a roommate, got moved in.

Cheap rent, middle of Brooklyn total.

I mean, when you're living on a dream, who cares?

Let's do it.

So did you find that roommate

the first day you were there?

Or were you like in a hotel for a

week or two while you were figuring that out?

Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, I

actually drove up there for like a week.

I knew a friend who had a friend that somebody

had an apartment that they weren't going to be at

for a few days or something like that.

So they let me stay at their apartment.

And that was kind of my launching out point.

Make some connections, got some phone numbers.

And then when I went back, which was

maybe two or three weeks later, I had

already made that arrangement with somebody to stay.

So, yeah, it was never like, oh, I'm staying in a

hotel, and I have no idea when I'm moving out.

There was some planning.

Again, you know, it could have been worse.

It actually looking back, I'm like, man, it worked

out amazing that I found a place, landed.

I mean, I didn't have a job, so obviously I

was kind of at the mercy of my savings account.

But obviously I knew.

Hey, it's New York.

There's lots of jobs here.

We'll figure it out.

Yeah, all right.

So we got the place to

live, which is Maslow's Hierarchy.

That's pretty foundational.

What was the job search like?

Well, I connected with recruiters in addition to

kind of doing my own job search.

But for me, it was kind of

like, hey, recruiters are my connection.

Because again, I knew that you got a

network, so whether it's with a church recruiters,

whatever job, place to live, et cetera.

So I connect with some recruiters, and

that was kind of my inroads.

Got some interviews, got a job with CIBC.

They're a pretty big banking investment firm.

And I started out as an equity trader right

down across the street from the Trade Center.

Actually in the financial center.

It's still there, but I was right across street from

the Trade Center, so I worked as a trader.

What year was that?

That was back in 99.

Pre 911.

Yeah, exactly.

So I did that for a little while.

And kind of funny, nobody would give me

the time of day because of my resume.

They're like, OK, you were engineering Carnegie Mellon.

Yeah, okay, Carnegie Mellon. But you were engineering.

You weren't finance.

And then you went to Liberty, and we

don't know anything about Liberty, so nobody would

give me the time of day.

And I remember going into an interview with and Lehman back

then was like one of the top Bear Stearns, Lehman.

I mean, these guys were the top of the top.

And I remember going to the interview, and the lady looked

at my resume and she said something to the effect of

she's like, I don't even know how you got in here.

You don't even have an Ivy League.

There's no way you'd ever make it at Lehman.

Wow.

It's kind of interesting because I'd never experienced

that kind of discrimination or just that level

of whatever you want to call it.

I grew up in a nice neighborhood, good people,

everybody kind of viewed each other as equal.

I never experienced that.

And so it's probably good for me to say, wow,

okay, so people actually treat other people this way.

I'm shocked, this is horrible, I can't believe it.

And of course I walked out of there thinking,

whatever, you guys have no idea what you're missing.

See, and then fast forward whatever it was nine

years later when Lehman filed bankruptcy, I thought, well,

you know what, good riddance, you jerk.

But it was an interesting process.

And so when I took that job as an

equity trader, that was not at all at what

I would say was my capability level.

And I was bored.

And so I didn't really last very long.

And I was trying to do other things and

trying to do something else and move up.

And everybody's like, you got to do this

for two, three, four or five years.

I'm thinking, yeah, I'm not going to make that.

That's just not me.

So I left there and started a hedge fund, my own hedge

fund, and said, you know what, I could do this myself.

I've been investing since I was twelve years old.

I'll start my own hedge fund. Great.

And so I did, and did great

until old were you at that point?

Well, 20, I don't know.

How old are you when you graduate college?

22, 21, 22 maybe?

Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, I remember hired a guy to put it together for

me and set it up with the whole 400 page Ppm

and got the Delaware filing and had to go down to

I don't know where I find all that stuff.

I mean, back then I was like,

whoa, what is all this stuff now?

We do it every day like the back of our hand.

Right.

But got it all set up, talked to some people

that I knew and said, hey, here's what I'm doing,

here's my track record and would love to take your

investment and try to make some money for you.

Things went pretty good.

You're 22, maybe 23 years old, and you're

asking people to trust you with large sums

of money, expecting a big return. Right.

What were those first couple of conversations like?

I don't remember 100%, but I do remember I'd obviously

done some work to do a little bit of marketing

material, kind of show people, hey, here's what I've done

with my money and here's what it looks like.

And I put together a nice brochure

and spent some time working on that.

But I think for the most part and again, it's

been a while, but I think for the most part

I just said, hey, I'm just going to be genuine

and tell people, hey, I really believe in this.

Here's why I think it makes sense.

Here's the opportunity that I see.

The part that I did not understand at

that time was the risk that I. Was taking.

So for me it was just, hey, this makes 100% sense.

I believe in 100%, I've got all

my money in it, I've done.

Well, come on, join me.

I had no idea about the risk that I was

taking, and that was the growth moment for me.

And part of the reason that where we're at

today versus where I was 20 some years ago

is just a better understanding of risk.

And again, when you're young, you

don't think about those things.

The world seems like it's rather everything

works so great, the money's coming in.

And I had some connections with companies

that were pre IPO technology companies.

So back in before the crash of 2000, if

you could get in with a pre IPO technology

company, you were making money hand over fist.

Yeah, I remember one day sitting in my office there,

right on Wall Street, I'd rented a little office.

It wasn't anything fancy, but it was on Wall Street.

And sitting there and made half

a million dollars in one day.

And I thought, this is unbelievable.

Life is going to be great.

And it's funny because now I look at the

most recent thing with this guy, Sam Bankman Fried,

or how do you say his last name? And FTX.

And I just know these people have

literally no clue what's going on.

They're completely naive to the

risks of the financial market.

And it's sad because in that case, you're

talking billions and billions of dollars of money

that was just blown away for no reason.

Yeah, evaporated.

So anyway, not to distract, but it's kind

of funny just thinking about my history.

In one way, I was fortunate in

the sense that I raised some money.

Not a lot, not as much as I

wanted to, but I thought, you know what?

Hey, modest beginning, this is a long game.

I'm here for 30 years.

I'm going to hone my craft.

I'm going to do really good at this.

And so that was okay.

And then March of 2000, when the

crash started with the technology shares, that's

when the whole thing started to unravel

because again, I had zero downside, protection.

I mean, everything was going up forever.

Why not, right?

So basically the whole thing fell

apart in a fairly short order.

And to compress sort of that piece of the story,

I returned a chunk of the money to my investors.

But then there was obviously a chunk that had gone.

There's nothing we could do about it.

And so for I believe, most of them, I don't

remember because it's been a while, but most of them,

I pretty much said, hey, listen, I'm sorry, I didn't

know that this was going to happen.

But at the same time, you trusted me.

So I'm going to do the best that I

can to pay you back out of pocket over

the next 510 years from whatever money I make.

So that's all I can do is just

try to make it up to you.

And so I did, and it was a good

learning experience, but I'm glad that I did that.

I didn't make them whole.

I don't think I made anybody whole, because

the losses were pretty significant, but I probably

got them double what they would have gotten

had they even invested themselves.

And so I thought, well, all right, if they would

have invested with anybody, they would have lost a lot

of money, but I'm going to get them a lot

more than what they would have, and that makes me

feel like I did the right thing.

You helped them half their losses. Yeah.

So, for instance, let's just say they had invested 100 grand

and had they just put it into an index fund, they

would have been left with 30,000 as an example.

I got them back to call it 60 as a reference point.

So I thought, well, hey, we all lost money.

We all got completely just.

Did you have anybody that was upset or ugly

or just had a visceral reaction towards you?

It was interesting, I really didn't.

But I think that was partly because the people that I

had talked with, I think they knew more about the risk

they were taking, even to some degree, than I did.

And I think they were like, OK, you know what good.

Like, he's not going to steal our money.

And so, actually, it's funny, some of them even said,

look, Robert, why are you feeling bad about this?

If we would have put this money with JPMorgan,

they would have lost 80% of our money.

So I think that transparency and just that

willingness to take personal responsibility and treat it

like, even better than my own money, I

think people really appreciated that and they were

like, you know what, hey, thank you.

It's not what we wanted. It's not.

We were hoping for.

We were hoping to ten X our money in five years.

We all were.

But that didn't happen.

And so I think that genuineness, that transparency.

I didn't try to hide anything.

I wasn't, you know, I wasn't funneling money to my

yacht in the Bahamas or some nonsense like that.

The funny thing is, I literally never took a penny.

I didn't have a fancy apartment, I didn't

get a new car, literally nothing, because, again,

I viewed it as a long game.

So I said, hey, yeah, I made a half

a million dollars today, but I could lose it.

I didn't think I'd lose that much, right.

But I always kept it through

will and I was always careful.

And again, I don't know, maybe that was partly

what helped, just to keep my head on straight.

And I don't know too many people that

come back to their investors and say, by

the way, the market crashed, so did we.

But I'm going to come out of pocket

as much as I can to do. You right.

I don't think too many people do that in our industry.

So yeah, I think that helps.

I myself am a very conflict averse person.

I really try to avoid conflict.

And you said something that really resonated with me,

and that is when you go into a conversation

that could potentially be heated, if you do take

personal responsibility and you approach it with a sense

of ownership and humility, people tend to respond much

more favorably than you would expect them to.

Absolutely, yeah.

And again, I think if you go into

the situation with transparency and openness, then you've

established a relationship based on a certain type

of communication, and that communication generally carries through.

If you go into a relationship establishing it based

on numbers, numbers, and you miss your numbers, well,

I don't have a lot of sympathy for you.

You're going to get hammered.

And I mean, again, the things that I learned

20 years ago, I'm applying today in REM very

specifically and very methodically because they work and they

work no matter what day and age it is.

And that's one of the things that I've continued to

push with our folks on the team, is, guys, we

are not going to become a marketing motivated company.

That is not who we are.

We are relationship based.

And if you can't allow somebody to make a

decision to invest with REM, because they believe in

us, they believe in our product, they believe in

our performance and our track record.

We do not want them.

If they're calling me, asking me,

well, can you get to 19%?

Because I thought it was 18.

No, just forget it.

That is not a good fit for us. It's just going to lead

to chaos, frustration, lawsuits.

We don't need it.

So it's funny how some of those early experiences can

really shape and give you wisdom for down the road.

And that's honestly one of the things I am glad

that I didn't succeed when I was 21 and 22.

I really am now.

At the time, I thought it was the end of the world.

I'm like, okay, well, life's over.

Everything I ever wanted to do, it's done.

60 years of misery awaits. Right?

Well, and that's the thing,

you don't have that perspective.

And I've told a lot of our investors today, I

said, hey, I am very glad that it took me

20 years of slogging through a lot of challenges and

adding a wife and kids and a family and responsibility.

And a couple of failures along the way before

I got to this point where I'm actually now

handling hundreds of millions of other people's money.

Because you need that.

You should not be doing that.

You should not be that fiduciary without experience.

You don't know the downside.

You don't know what you're doing.

And even for people like me, in my shoes that have been

at it for 20 years, you can still miss some stuff.

So I'm just a big advocate of the long

game, which I was even when I was younger,

but I didn't really understand what it meant.

It's interesting how failure can actually help

create credibility just as much as success. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's powerful.

So we've got the.com crash.

I take it that the hedge fund you

closed shop and went on to something else

from, and that's where was that next?

So that's where things kind of got exciting.

So because of that and shutting down the hedge fund and

really thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I'm in New York, the capital of the

world, for finance, and finance is gone.

So now what do we do?

And I had a friend of mine who

knew somebody at a real estate company that

was growing, and they basically said, hey, listen.

And I had put the word out, hey, I need something to do.

I need some work.

I don't want anything full time. I'm depressed.

It's the end of the world, blah, blah, blah.

And so I remember came and was like,

hey, listen, we need somebody to come over

here and help do some lease audits.

And I was like, I've never done a lease audit.

I don't know.

He's like, look, you're a smart guy. I know who you are.

You'll figure it out.

So I went over there, and these guys had just

bought a $90 million property, super nice property, and they

wanted somebody to just go through and audit the leases

for all the residents, the tenants that were there.

And so I did.

So, okay, we can figure this out.

And took me about a week.

Multifamily, not commercial.

Well, this was actually commercial office space,

commercial retail, kind of a mixed use

type product that they had bought.

And they did both multifamily and office, but this

was kind of a mixed use project they bought.

So I went over there, did the lease audit, and I

found $250,000 within about a week, I found about $250,000 that

had not been correctly billed on the rent roll.

So gave my report back to whoever

it was that I was reporting to.

And next week, the partners show up at the property,

and they were like, okay, who is this guy?

They kind of asked us some questions about, okay, well,

how'd you find it and what did you do?

What was your process?

And I explained the whole thing, and by the end

of the conversation, they said, okay, well, we own about

a half a billion dollars worth of stuff.

We'd like you to come to the

corporate office next week and audit every

single lease across the entire company.

Wow.

I don't want a full time job.

I just need something part time to hey,

audit half a billion dollars worth of assets. Yeah.

So it was kind of funny, but they were

good people, good hearted people, obviously business people, in

New York, you got to be pretty tough.

But they were good.

I thought, well, you know, kind of cool

I get to work with the CEO, like,

literally out of the gate kind of cool.

So went to New York and started doing some auditing

of these different leases and worked with the CFO.

And the people at the corporate office

didn't find nearly the same dollar amount.

There was some stuff that we found, but it

wasn't a lot anyway, but in that process, got

to know some of the partners, the company and

whatnot, and that was kind of cool.

So went back to working on this project.

They said, hey, you know what really like what you did?

We'd like to put you kind of in

charge of the accounting side of things.

And so I started really developing

that out, putting process and procedures

in place, getting billing correct, whatever.

I didn't have a whole lot of accounting

training, but again, I just kind of a

natural ability for doing the accounting.

And then it wasn't too long after that, they came

to me and said, well, the asset manager, we feel

like he's not a good fit, so we're going to

promote you to be the asset manager.

Now, mind you, this guy had been

in the industry for 2025 years.

He's like my age today, our age today.

And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I think you missed something here.

I do not have his experience, his knowledge.

There's no way.

And I just remember one of the partners,

he's like, robert, you're a really sharp guy.

You're going to do just fine.

Okay?

I will try to live up to that expectation.

We are pushing you into the deep end,

and we expect that you're going to swim. Yeah.

So there I am.

I don't know how long it took, maybe a few months.

And all of a sudden, now I'm the guy running

this $90 million asset, never having done it before.

But I will say that again, kind of

going back to the education side of things.

And one of the reasons that I really

like the homeschooling environment, and we actually homeschool

our kids, too, high school is a little

bit different, but when they're younger is I

think it really keeps that sense of curiosity,

that sense of learning, just incredibly strong.

And I've always been that way.

And so, I mean, I'll jump into anything and just

soak it up and take notes and ask people questions.

And when you do that, granted, I mean,

it helps to have a good mind, which

you can't really take credit for that.

But I think it is kind of

amazing when you combine those two.

And so that's kind of what happened with me, is

that I was jumping into property management and operations and

maintenance, and I was down in the basement with the

electrician talking to him about what he was doing, and

I was up trying to negotiate a legal clause with

one of the tenants that wanted to renew.

I mean, just all over the place doing all this

crazy stuff and just absolutely had a blast just right

in my so, you know, they over the course of

years, they really gave me more responsibility.

I worked know a huge, big billion dollar

deal we did in midtown New York City.

Worked on a renovation project downtown Manhattan, worked on

some whole bunch of multifamily properties, worked on a

hotel conversion, just all kinds of cool stuff.

And really learned a lot about the business.

Actually helped build out our construction division at that

initial asset, which was kind of fun too.

Kind of taking a little bit of my

construction background and helping to build that out.

So just a lot of cool stuff.

And I am super appreciative for their mentorship in

the business because I wouldn't be here today.

And so I did that for a while, and then at

some point, I kind of felt know, I was going to

be in New York City, but once I found somebody that

I was ready to get married with and have kids, I

was going to move out of the city.

And so met my wife and kind of

started planning that exit from New York City.

And I remember the partners were

like, you're not going anywhere.

Why would you walk away from this? That's crazy.

Like, we're ready to make you a partner at some

you know, again, it's kind of like Carnegie Mellon.

I could have stayed. I could have done it.

It would have been fine.

But at the time, I was like,

no, I'm moving out of New York.

I'm going to move somewhere else, start a family.

And it's I think, you know, looking

back, I probably would have been giving

myself the advice, like, dude, you're nuts.

You don't give this up.

This is something you hang on to, right?

And how old are you at this point?

What year is this?

This would have been back 2005 or six,

so I don't know, 27, 28, I guess

when we got married, right around there.

And again, I guess just that entrepreneurial spirit

where you're like, yeah, whatever, I'll start over.

It'll be fine.

So if you're talking 506, that was still a

few years before the whole mortgage collapse happened.

You talked about Bear Stearns and Lehman already.

Did that firm have any trouble in that period, or

were they really not affected by the mortgage crisis?

No, not at that point.

I mean, everybody was just going gangbusters back at

that point in time, and the real estate business

was doing good for the most part.

We were actually getting pension fund money from Germany

at I don't remember what the rate was, but

it was just like dirt cheap at the time. Crazy.

And so again, kind of like what we saw over

the last five to ten years with the really low

interest rates, particularly call it the last year and a

half when the rates were so low.

I mean, it's like free money.

So you hand out free money, people

are going to borrow it, right?

That's for sure.

But yes, there wasn't really too much of that going on.

I think a lot of people were lulled

into this sort of thinking that everything was

collateralized properly when really it wasn't.

And I even remember again, looking back on some of

the deals that I did in New York City, and

the leverage that we had was crazy high.

I mean, just crazy.

I wouldn't do that today.

And again, maybe if I was

back then today, maybe I would.

But if you asked me today, would you do that?

Absolutely not.

That's just insane.

Now, does it mean that our returns were crazy good?

Yeah.

On one property, I believe, if I remember

the math, we invested about somewhere between a

million and $2 million and made 30.

That's crazy.

But the risk was extremely high. Exactly.

That's my point.

So the type of shop we

run today is completely different.

And that's okay.

Again, it's more of a long game.

We're going to invest 10 million to make ten over five

years as an example, and that's a really good return.

I mean, if you can double your money in five

years, long term, you're actually doing really well as an

investor, as a passive investor who's not involved.

It's not a startup, it's not a technology.

I mean, that's a really solid return anyway.

But yeah, times change.

Okay, so 506 time frame, you meet your

wife, you get married, you leave the city.

Where'd you go and what did you do? Yeah.

So I looked at all of the kind of

what I thought would be the up and coming

secondary markets, if you will, in the country.

So raleigh Austin, tampa.

I looked at Atlanta, too.

Even know it's kind of becoming really is a

primary market in today's, you know, just markets that

were dynamic, that were growing all in the south.

So I knew I wanted warmer weather.

I was kind of tired of the cold, and I

ended up landing in Tampa because I liked the sunshine.

I still thought I might have some involvement

in the hedge fund world at some point.

I hadn't completely said, nope, I'm done with

a there was a growing, and there still

is a growing private equity world in Tampa.

Just a lot of guys that know, they moved to

Florida and they want to take their business with them,

so I thought it'd be a good opportunity.

The housing market was phenomenal in Tampa, so again,

kind of had that going for it as well.

So moved down here, took a job with the

REIT that was based out of Raleigh, North Carolina.

They had about 4 billion of in assets under management.

And kind of funny story, same scenario they looked at

my resume and they're, well, you know, you've done a

little bit, but you don't have a CPA, okay? Who cares?

Well, we don't know if you know anything

because you don't have a CPA, all right?

I said, Why don't you just give me a test?

So they gave me a test, and I really think

the HR lady thought I was going to fail.

And she got the test back.

She's like, you didn't miss anything.

So I bet you wish you could go back

to that Bear Stearns or Lehman and say, hey,

what do you think about them apples?

It was kind of funny.

And so anyway, so long story short, is came on

with them, and I had a great opportunity there.

Now, the funny thing is a $4 billion company,

after about six months, I was bored to tears

because everything was so structured and organized.

And I'm like, Guys, I could do ten of

these jobs and still squeeze it in 40 hours.

So the lady who I took over, who I'm sure was

very competent, very good person, they were kind of concerned.

They said, hey, she was here for ten years.

She was working 50, 60 hours.

She was kind of stressed out.

That's why she left.

I said, okay, well, give me a shot.

Let's see what happens.

So I took over, and about six months later,

I had it down to 15 hours a week.

And I'm like, hey, what do I do now?

So again, kind of like what I did in New

York, I was walking down the hall to talk to

the development team, like, hey, what are you guys doing?

What can I help you out? I'm walking down the property.

Hey, what can I help you guys out?

Flying to Raleigh.

Hey, can I help the guys in Kansas City?

And how about the guys in Nashville?

Maybe they need some maybe training on their, you

know, kind of bouncing all over the place.

And they were kind of at the point where they

know, maybe, maybe we want to start working people into

a know, VP, finance, CFO role, that kind of thing.

And we had a couple conversations about that, and

I thought, well, maybe that'd be a good opportunity.

But that would have required moving to again, you

know, I said, well, we could do that.

But at that point, a lot of my family actually moved

to Tampa from around the country so that we could all

kind of recongregate after spreading all over the world.

And so I said, yeah, you know what?

I think I'm going to stay in Tampa,

and this is going to be my home.

So I kind of knew that I

probably wasn't really going to go anywhere.

And so I left High Woods and I thought, well,

I did the hedge fund kind of like that.

So maybe I'll just look for a business to

buy and do some hedge fund, but more on

a bigger scale, kind of like Warren Buffett does.

So I partnered with a guy in a completely

unrelated business, nothing real estate at all, and dumped

a whole bunch of money into it.

He ended up embezzling funds.

We ended up in court.

He bankrupted the business.

And so literally in the space

of a month, I lost everything.

I was like, all right, well, here we go again.

You're married. Do you have kids? At this point?

We had one, maybe two at that.

I mean, looking back again, I think I would

say it was a bad decision to leave Highwoods.

It was very stable, very steady.

I mean, no stress, just exactly the right place

for a guy that wanted to prioritize his family,

had a young family, needed to spend.

So, you know, looking back, it

was like, yeah, that was stupid.

Yeah, I was bored, but that's

exactly where I should have been.

You live and learn.

I mean, I will say to some degree, again,

the experiences that my wife and I went through,

I went through in terms of the business failure

and the partnership and all that stuff.

Again, we did learn a lot.

I don't necessarily advise it to anybody.

It was extremely difficult, painful,

tough on our marriage.

I think we still have baggage that we're working

through from 15 years ago on that one.

And again, it's like, okay, would I

change things if I went back? Absolutely.

Am I thankful in one respect

for the learning lessons that occurred? Absolutely.

Probably wouldn't be here today if it wouldn't have

been for that, because those were some tough lessons.

And sometimes you got to smack your head a

few times before you're ready to really be prepared.

So anyway, did that tried to kind of salvage the

business, dig my way out, and that was stupid, too.

That just made it worse.

And then kind of said, you

lost everything at this point?

Yeah, I mean, lost everything.

We lost our house, obviously, and just everything. Wow.

I said, all right, well, because I'd literally taken

everything we had and dumped it in the business.

And again, I think I was still learning this

risk, reward, whatever you want to call it.

I was still taking too much risk.

But again, it's like, okay, I'd been recently

married, recently had a kid, and you're still

kind of operating like, hey, throw everything at

the wall and see what happens.

And if we have to start over, no big deal.

Well, yeah, not so much anymore, right? Wow.

It's not a good scenario.

But anyway, so what came after that?

So, like I said, I tried to salvage the business.

Didn't really work out.

And through that, I kind of said, well,

I don't really know what to do.

I mean, going back to the corporate world is

possible, but, I mean, for me to try to

make back what I've lost would take forever.

Working in the corporate world.

So at that point I thought, well, I

have learned a lot, certainly good and bad.

So I'll start up a

consulting, my own consulting company.

And so I started looking for clients, got

some business working with a few different clients,

advising them on business growth, development, investors, just

all the stuff that I'd learned.

Real estate, some of them had real estate

holdings, so I'd help them with that.

And so kind of grew that over the years.

Nothing big, it wasn't nearly what I thought it was, but

it was enough to pay the bills and that was great.

What kind of organizations were you consulting with?

At that time?

They were all, I would call them small and

medium sized businesses and nothing huge, broad, verticals.

Yeah, everything from real estate to manufacturing, to

financial services to trying to think what else?

Yeah, there was a pretty big range and it was basically

a lot of it was just in the consulting arena.

A lot of it is just problem solving.

So the CEO is really busy, doesn't necessarily

have a COO who's super problem solving.

Or maybe the CEO is really busy too, or maybe

he doesn't have the money to hire, I don't know.

And so I would just come in and say, hey,

if I'm here for a week, a month, six months,

whatever, use me and I'll solve your problems.

And I did, and people really appreciate it.

In fact, there was one lady that hired me, she

owned like eight different businesses and she brought me on.

We're still really good friends today.

She brought me on and about three months in I

said, hey, this business over here is making you nothing

and you need to get rid of it.

And she looked at me and she's like,

no, I can't do that, that's my baby.

And I said, well you need to get rid of it.

I'm just telling you, you need to get rid of it.

It took me six months of know, patiently telling

her, hey, you need to get rid of it.

And I'd say, hey, look at the P L, look at this.

Six months later she finally said, OK,

fine, I'll get rid of it.

To this day say, Robert, thank you, thank you, thank

you for convincing me to get so there's some kind

of cool experiences through that consulting time period.

And while I was doing that, I thought, well,

I'll go back and I'll get my Master's, I'll

get my CPA, and that'll make me smart not.

So I did that and that was great.

And then that was about, I

guess, five or six years ago.

And I was obviously looking

for clients, looking for people.

And I ended up meeting a former partner of

mine who was running several different businesses, same kind

of scenarios, like, hey, come on in. I need a CFO.

I need somebody to really help me put all this.

Stuff together.

So started working with him and I think it was maybe

three or six months after I started working with him.

He said, hey, I'm about ready to start

this podcast and I'm just going to tell

people about my experiences in real estate.

And I thought, dude, we got work to do over here.

I don't know what you think

you're smoking starting some silly podcast.

Obviously he had the last laugh, clearly.

And so he started the podcast and it just took

off and it was all real estate related and so

we were obviously talking and at the beginning we hadn't

talked a whole lot about real estate.

It was kind of just, hey, I'll come

in and help you with the business.

And so as we started talking more and more and

he realized I had an extensive real estate background, he's

like, hey, this could work out pretty well.

So I started taking calls from people

that were calling him from the podcast,

interested in investing with him.

We started building out a team, acquisitions and

kind of like putting the business together.

And in the start it was a little bit rough but it

was again, kind of back in that wheelhouse of real estate.

So the podcast gave him credibility such that people

who were listening were calling him saying, hey, I

want you to put my money to work. Exactly.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

Which I mean that's kind of the gist of a

podcast is you are a thought leader in that space

and that's the whole point of doing it.

And so, yeah, it was kind of an interesting

transition because then on top of that, he had

always wanted to build a coaching program for real

estate, and that was kind of his initial.

I don't know if it was his initial thought, but

I think that was part of the I say, hey,

I got this huge audience, so if I can provide

coaching services to them and build that out, great.

That would be awesome.

And to some degree it's a little

bit easier from a recurring revenue standpoint.

Running real estate is complicated. Right?

So I actually helped him to build that out

and we were flying all over the country and

speaking in front of hundreds, thousands of people, whatever

it was, and it was a lot of fun.

And at the same time I was building REM

on the back end and so that's kind of

where we are today to some degree.

And so are y'all partners in this

venture or is REM just you?

So we own a bunch of assets together and about a

year and a half, two years ago I went to him

and you know, hey, I am just completely slammed with REM.

It's blowing up and I want know, just focus on know.

So obviously we kind of had to figure things out.

Thankfully it was amicable great guy.

Again, I've kind of learned my lessons on who

to work with and who not to work with.

So yeah, we decided to go our separate ways.

He started his own real estate company and

he's running it and still doing the coaching

and phenomenally successful, great, just really cool business

that he's doing over there.

And I'm now focused on REM.

That's been my sole focus and

always will be going forward.

So it worked out good.

But obviously there's a lot of assets that

we own together because in the beginning we

were partnered on all of yeah.

Before we get too deep into REM, and I

definitely want to hear a lot about that.

You talked about how you were a consultant

to a lot of other businesses and you're

giving people advice and oftentimes telling people things

that they don't necessarily want to hear.

The lady that resisted for six months.

Have you had people in your life, mentors, coaches

that have kind of helped you navigate your career?

Not really.

I would say my dad's probably been the most influential,

but not necessarily from a career standpoint, more from a

personal spiritual standpoint, which, I mean, at the end of

the day, that's kind of your core anyway.

The guys in New York, I would

say from a professional standpoint, were great.

They were kind of more of a, hey, let's give

you the tools, let you run with it here's kind

of what we need and go for it.

But I never really had anybody that was super mentorship,

if you will, and to some degree that's been a

bit of a hole in my life, if you will.

And I think that's part of the reason I've kind of

fallen on my face a few times, because it's like we're

going 100 miles an hour, okay, yeah, let's do it.

But at the same time and again, who knows?

2020 hindsight, you never know.

But I feel like a lot of those experiences are

absolutely key to where we are today with REM.

Because when I tell somebody I am not

risking our capital, that's not just me saying

that, that is, I'm not risking my capital.

Now there's plenty of risk in the business just by

stepping out the door every morning and running a business.

So that's already there, period.

That's one thing for me.

It's like we are not starting over. Okay.

World War Three.

Sure, I get it.

That's unpredictable.

But outside of that, we are not starting over.

We're going to take this thing very

carefully and we've had plenty of bumps

along the way just being conservative.

But if we wouldn't have been

conservative, we wouldn't be here today.

Just simple as that.

So those principles work.

So let's go back to a minute, come to the founding

or the events that led up to the founding of REM.

You'd had the hedge fund in the early two thousand s.

You had this business partner that

embezzled and eventually lost everything.

Your wife obviously lived through one of those

situations and I'm sure she was aware of

the earlier situation before you guys had met.

So you come home and you say, hey

sweetheart, here's what I'm thinking about doing.

What is her reaction to that?

Yeah, well, it's funny you say that because that was

definitely a conversation because I think that was also one

of the reasons that I did the consulting for a

while because she's like, no more partners ever for the

rest of your life, don't even think about it.

And it was kind of like me saying, hey, working

in corporate, I'm going to have to start all over.

At least that's the way I felt at the time.

Because by that time it was 2008, nine, I

mean the economy was a mess, blah, blah, whatever.

Nobody was hiring.

It was just a disaster.

And then her saying you're not doing any

partners, I'm like, great, then I'll do consulting.

So yeah, we had that conversation and again,

it was one of those things where I

think she knew that I had changed.

So I wasn't the same person that I

was 15 years earlier, ten or whatever.

So she knew there were some differences there.

But I think she also understood, and

I'm appreciative for this, she also understood,

hey, this is partly who you are.

You are a risk taker, you are an entrepreneur.

And as long as we can try to find a balance

here that's not completely out of whack, okay, I get it.

That's been my challenge is to say, hey,

I really would like to do this.

I think this is an opportunity to finally do

something that is sustainable that I'm prepared for, but

I also have to balance that with my family

and the time that it takes there.

And that kind of brings us to where we're at today.

Because I basically told her, say, hey, normally

when you start a business, you need about

five years to get that thing going.

And not to say that I'm just going to disappear,

but it's going to weigh pretty heavily and that five

years is basically up at the end of this year.

And there's been some things just recently that kind of blew

up and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.

But I pretty much told her, I said, I am dead set that

we are going to get this to a point where I can balance

my life back out so that it works and it's doable.

It's just you have to make a

decision and say, okay, we're there.

Like we are no longer a startup.

I would call us kind of that post startup

phase where we've got some good cash flow, we

got some good working capital, we've got a great

network of investors and deals and people and employees.

It's there.

So it's just a matter of really

making a decision to do it.

But yeah, we definitely have those conversations and

I have more than one partner too.

I mean, I've got other minority partners as

well that are involved in the business.

But I think, again, so far I've been very

thankful that the partners that I've had and have,

they're really good people and they're good hearted.

We have our disagreements.

Of course that's done.

Of course, if everybody agreed, then I don't

think it'd be a very good partnership anyway.

But across the last five years, I've worked

some amazing people and very thankful for them,

and it's been a great experience.

So when you officially went off and started,

did you start with a couple of employees

or was it you doing all the work?

It was just me. Yeah.

I did about ten jobs for the first

year, as is the case with most founders.

So what was the first position that you hired for?

That's a good question.

I think I hired an analyst and found

out that was a waste of time.

Got rid of them.

I think I hired an accountant.

They were too slow, didn't know what

they were doing, got rid of them.

The first few hires were not good.

I mean, it was just like it took me more time

to deal with them than just to do it myself.

Not a good place to be, but I know

everybody's going to laugh at that, say, yeah, those

founders are all a bunch of jerks.

But for me, the first really good hire, oh,

and then I hired a couple of assistants.

Again, all these people were good people.

The pace that you're moving as a founder, it's insane.

Honestly, I look back and I'm like, I

have no idea how I did all that.

I have absolutely no clue how I was

organized enough, and I have no idea.

But you're also the guy that took that lady's job that

was taking her 50 to 60 hours a week, and you

were doing everything in 15 and looking for more work.

So I think that that speaks to how you're wired.

And I got to believe that you're

the kind of person very process oriented.

You find every efficiency that you can in the process.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's key, and I

think you have to be super disciplined.

Prioritized, and I will say this too, I have

never been challenged more in my life than I

am currently today, as the CEO of a call

it small post startup business, because even in the

startup phases, it was all in my head.

I mean, literally everything sat in my head.

I basically knew where the cash was coming in,

where it was going out, where it should be,

what deals, numbers, everything was in my head.

So to some degree, it's easier because

you don't have to go to anybody.

You don't have to ask anybody any questions.

You literally just know exactly where you're at.

Stressful too, like having that many thoughts going in your

mind at one time, does that create a stress?

Not for me.

When I'm in the zone going a

million miles a minute, I love it.

It's energizing, it's exciting.

And I don't have to wonder that's why

I'm saying right now is unbelievably stressful.

Because I'm wondering, do they know what they're doing?

And then I dig in and I'm like, no, you don't. Okay.

Do they know what they're doing?

And then I dig in and I'm like, no, they don't.

I'm like oh, gosh.

So right now I'm being challenged.

Like, I've never been challenged to go from founder to

CEO to having it all in my head, to having

a team in place that continues that growth.

And that right there, going from founder

to CEO, that's a real thing.

There are plenty of founders and owners

out there that are not CEOs. Right.

Have you kind of always had that mentality

or awareness that there is a distinction between

the two, or is that something that you

kind of came to realize more recently? Yeah.

No, and to be honest with you, I never

thought of myself as being a founder because I'd

worked in corporate and I was like, man, I'm

great at what they call corporate entrepreneurship, where you

come into a structure that's already existing and you

take it from level one to level ten.

I mean, that was right in my wheelhouse.

I could do that anywhere all day long.

I didn't think I was really the founder guy, and I think

it was kind of just a weird set of circumstances where all

of a sudden I'm sitting there doing it and it's like, okay,

I guess we're doing this, and here we go.

But that was never really something

I thought I could do.

In fact, same thing with raising capital.

Even though I'd raised that I had put some

money together to the hedge fund, because I did

okay, but I never really succeeded at it.

So I thought, well, I'm no good at it.

I'm average and kind of goes

back to being in engineering. Okay.

I was bottom quartile at a top school, so

I thought I was terrible at it, actually.

Was probably pretty decent, but it's

kind of in your head.

So I really didn't think I could raise capital.

And like I said, my former partner, he was the one.

He's like, hey, I need some help.

Can you just get on the phone

and start talking to these people?

And I'm like, I don't know,

that's not really my wheelhouse.

And all of a sudden, I start getting on

the phone and it's like people are just writing

checks and they love what I'm saying, and like,

oh, okay, well, that was weird.

Okay, I guess there's a skill there, right?

It's just second nature to me. Right.

So anyways, there's a lot of things that

I think we put in our head.

We put limits on ourselves to some degree, and

that's where a good mentor comes in too.

And I didn't really have that.

So, again, I'm very appreciative for the circumstances

and the people and just everything that brought

us to where we're at today.

But again, I think corporate entrepreneurship is

also very different than a CEO role.

A CEO role is, you know this because you're CEO.

It's like, you're the point, you're the lead on that

big, huge, whatever you want to call it behind you.

It's a totally different ballgame being in that role, and

you really have to adapt and grow into it.

And it's a good challenge.

I mean, I'm enjoying it, but like

I said, it's a good challenge.

How many employees are you at today?

We have about 100 and 2130 somewhere in that range.

Most of them are on site at

the properties that we own and manage.

And we've got about 30, 40

people at the corporate level.

We've got a 45, 50 people that are

flying into Sarasota next week for our second

annual leadership conference that we're going to have.

So we've got a two day, get everybody together.

It's get to know you, it's build rapport.

It's company culture, training, learning, you name it.

And so that's something that I'm really excited about.

We're going to do that every year in the

post COVID world that we are now in.

Are your corporate staff, are they in an

office or is everybody virtual, everybody's remote?

Yeah, and we were actually remote even before that.

So about four years ago, just decided, you know

what, we can get rid of this office.

We can save 120 grand a year.

And back then, it was a lot of money.

Now not as much, but it was a lot of money.

And it was kind of one of those things

where it's like, hey, I can save an hour

each way, spend more time with the family.

And looking back, I don't think I could have

run REM and got it to where we're at

if it wouldn't have been for working remote.

I mean, that was the saving grace, is that I could

take an hour off in the middle of the day, go

downstairs, join the family for lunch, take a few hours off

in the evening, be there for all the meals, be there.

I just couldn't have done that.

If I would have been in office, I

would have been gone 12 hours a day.

It wouldn't have worked.

So, yeah, we're 100% remote.

And the cool thing is, right now, you guys may have

the same situation, I don't know, but we are now as

we're hiring for people now, being remote is this huge bonus.

So a few years ago, it's like, oh, you're remote.

I don't know.

Now that everybody got a taste of it, oh, my goodness.

I mean, we're getting top notch executives that

are like, yeah, I was remote, now I'm

back in the office and I'm not happy.

I'm looking at you guys.

So it's actually worked out really well for us. Yeah.

All right, we've just got a few minutes

left, so let's do some lightning round.

What's next for REM Capital?

Well, we've got a lot on our plate right now.

We've been doubling every twelve to 18 months, so in

2023, I think we're going to see some good opportunities.

So our goal is to continue to take

advantage of the opportunities, grow the company.

I wouldn't be surprised in the next twelve to 18

months, if we're talking, we're at a billion dollars.

It just seems like everything's lined

up, so that's probably what's next.

But again, the big question is getting the right

people in the right seats on the bus.

So that's my focus right now.

And I think if we get that solved, then

the rest will come along behind it, because the

platform is just awesome, and it's super exciting.

What would you go back and do

different with REM or just in general? With REM.

With REM. Yeah.

I think the biggest thing for me is,

to your point, get mentorship, get coaching, get

some help earlier, earlier on in the business.

And it's kind of one of those things

where you don't know what you don't know.

And I did reach out a little bit,

but I'm not very good at it.

And I would definitely reach out,

and I would get some help.

And I've even thought about doing it now, and

I may, but just getting somebody to come alongside

and to say, hey, here's my years of experience.

I can help you with where you're at and really dig in.

I think that would have been very beneficial, because

in some areas of the business, we're about a

year behind of where we should be for personnel,

and we're playing catch up, and it'll be okay.

We'll get through it.

But we could have avoided that, and we

could have avoided some stress along the way

had we not taken that path.

What has been the biggest

surprise in running this business?

Oh, definitely the growth rate.

Oh, my goodness.

I thought, boy, if we got 100 million assets

under management in five years, that would be amazing.

And we five X, that's incredible.

So talk about mentorship from

kind of the opposite view.

If some young entrepreneur came to you and was

saying, hey, I'm thinking about starting a business, what

is the advice that you would give them?

I'm on the fence. I don't know.

Should I do this? Should I?

Well, I'll tell you one thing.

I ask everybody, even investors, when we talk to investors,

I like to get to know them and their situation.

First and foremost, where are you at in your

life, in your personal, where are you at?

Because I think a lot of the answers,

to some degree should if you really care

about somebody, they should take that into consideration,

kind of going back to my situation.

Hey, if you're 50 years old, kids are out of

the house, you want to go start a business?

Totally different situation than you're 28, you just got

married, and you got a kid on the way. Okay, hang on.

Let's think this through.

First of all, that's what I would ask

them, is, hey, let's talk about your personal

life, where you're at, goals, past experiences, everything.

Let's really dive into that and understand

who you are and where you're at.

And then I think from there.

If the answer is yes, you're ready to go, then you

got to ask the question, okay, so now what are we

going to do to get the support in that business?

Now, if it's real estate, I actually offered a lot of

people, and some of them take me up on it.

On real estate, they're smaller.

They own some quads, triplexes, whatever, and they'll

call me up and ask me some questions.

And that's one of the things that I actually enjoy.

Boy, with our investors, hey, put your IRA

money with REM, because obviously that's your savings.

You don't want to mess with it.

And if you want to go buy

some stuff on your own, guess what?

You just got access to me. You can set up a call.

We can chat.

And I have people that do that

all the time, and I enjoy it. It's fun.

So that's the twofold that I would tell them.

That was Robert Ritzenthaler, president

and CEO of REM Capital.

To learn more, visit remcapital.com.

If you or a founder you know, would like

to be a guest on In the Thick of It,

email us at intro@founderstory.us.