In this episode, we have a fascinating conversation with Seth Bradley who is the Chief Legal Officer at Tribevest. We dive deep into the insights from someone who’s seen both sides of the investment world – from passive strategies to active capital raising. We also discuss the red and yellow flags in legal documents, the skills required for syndications, and much more.

 

Connect with Seth Bradley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/
Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/

 

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Transcription

Introduction and Welcome

Ben Fraser: Hello, Future Billionaires! Welcome back to another episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. 

Introducing Seth Bradley: From Securities Attorney to Passive Investor

Ben Fraser: Today’s guest is Seth Bradley. Very fun to talk with him. He’s been a friend of mine for several years and he’s the Chief Legal Officer at Tribevest, which is a really cool company. If you haven’t heard of them, we actually had their CEO founder on about a year ago, but they’re doing a really new cool push that I’m going to talk about in a sec.

The Journey of a Passive Investor to Active Capital Raiser

Ben Fraser: But his background, he’s a big law securities attorney, spent a lot of time And kind of the corporate world transition really to becoming a passive investor investing a lot of syndications. So he talks a lot about his journey, making that transition, going to generate passive income, and financial independence.

But then he’s actually shifted back to becoming an active capital raiser. And he’s seen a lot of people make this transition in investing for a little bit and now want to activate their network. And some of the stuff they’re doing at TribeVest is making this really easy for people.

So that’s a really cool interview. We hit a lot of. His journey from his perspective as a securities attorney. 

Insights on Legal Documents and Investment Red Flags

Ben Fraser: What are some of the big things you have to focus on when you’re reviewing legal documents? What are some of the red flags, yellow flags, et cetera? And then he shared a little bit about some of the things and the trends going on in the kind of private placement, syndication and capital raising worlds that if you haven’t heard about some of these ideas, you definitely want to tune in and listen because it’s pretty cool.

And I’m seeing the same thing on my side of things. So you’re going to enjoy this episode. He’s a very sharp guy and has a lot of great insights that he shared. I think you’re going to love this episode. Please enjoy. 

The Invest Like a Billionaire Podcast

Ben Fraser: This is the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investments and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth. The tools and tactics you’ll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build legacy wealth. Join us as we dive into the world of alternative investments, uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy, discuss economics and interview successful investors.

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Welcome back to another episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. I’m your host, Ben Fraser, and joined by a very exciting guest, Seth Bradley.

I’ve known Seth for several years. He is the managing partner at Ray’s Law and the chief legal officer at Tribevest. And Seth and I have done some business over the years and different things. He’s an attorney and a very experienced securities attorney and even has his own podcast called the Passive Income Attorney Podcast.

And so you come up with a really unique perspective, both being an entrepreneur investor as well as an attorney gives them some really unique insights in this space of kind of private placements, alternative investments, and super excited to have on the show. So Seth, thanks for coming on, man. 

Seth Bradley: Ben appreciate it, man.

We finally got around to recording this. Really appreciate it, man. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, it was fun because we reached out a couple of years ago and we’re going to do something that never worked out. And then all of a sudden you’re ready to do a podcast tour and pops back up three years later.

Hey, let’s do it. And I’m game, man. So we’re looking forward to doing this now. So give a little bit of context for your background for those that maybe aren’t familiar with you and just what you do. And the areas of expertise that you focus on as an attorney. 

Seth Bradley: Sure, man. So I worked in big law for about seven years.

Most recently at a top three globally ranked law firm. As a real estate agent, I started out as a real estate attorney, made my way over to securities. At that point I started getting that, as most entrepreneurs do that feeling like you want to do something else. You don’t want to have all these bosses.

You want to get out there and do your own thing. I’d worked pretty hard to get where I was. So I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting myself into. I’d already been working with real estate investors and folks like that. As my clients, I’ve started talking to them, started talking to some of the partners in my firm about how they invest, what they do.

Really learned about passive investing and making my way to the equity side. And that’s really where I am, my journey as a passive investor in syndications. So I invested in a number of those and also invested actively. I did the bigger pockets path where I listed the bigger pockets.

I did a house hack. I did fix and flips. I did buy and hold single families, things like that, as well as passive investing in larger investments. And at that point I realized, hey, I’ve got this network of attorneys and other folks that I can raise capital from. So I made my way from passive investor to active investor.

Ben Fraser: Man. So you’ve done the full circle here. I love it. So started in big law and your bio says you closed billions of dollars in real estate transactions over the past decade. So you’ve seen a lot of deals. I’d be curious because, a lot of people that maybe newer to real estate investing, newer to alternative investments in general.

And just the world of private placements, they naturally think, Hey, the only way I can do it is, the bigger pockets path, which is a great path if you want to go and, do it actively and have a second job, so to speak, where you go and buy your own real estate and fix it up or work with contractors to fix it up.

But you went straight into syndication, which in a lot of ways fits better for people that are working professionals and don’t necessarily want to trade time for. Wealth building already has a great income generator through their job or their business and they want to just redeploy that into syndication.

So what was the journey for you understanding the world of syndications and really with your background in securities law and how did you get comfortable with that and what was the journey for you diving headfirst into syndications early on? 

Seth Bradley: Yeah, you really have to have skills, money or time.

Those are the three things you can really offer, right? So it depends on how much of each one of those you have as to what your investment profile should look like and what you should get started in. I was Actively wanting to participate in deals from the get go, but I did already have exposure from my real estate real estate practice to syndications and watching other people raise capital, knowing that those types of investments are out there.

So I think I had an advantage there because prior to that, I had no idea. The only thing I knew was that bigger pockets path. It’s okay to house hack into a single family or a duplex or a duplex. And then right the other side out. And then fix and flip this or wholesale that I didn’t really know about syndications other than through my law practice.

So I think I had that advantage getting that exposure and being able to transition to that quicker. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah. Talk a little bit about, your podcast is called Passive Income Attorney and your big goal is passive income. What was it really? The idea behind that or why was that your primary goal and what does that mean to you?

Seth Bradley: Yeah, the idea behind that was to be passive and I think we as entrepreneurs go back and forth. I think we all want to end up on the completely passive side eventually. But sometimes you don’t get there as quickly if you don’t go on the active side for a little bit. And I think I’m seeing that a lot myself.

I did that. I started investing passively and now I went to the active side as an active syndicator, as a fund manager, raising capital and participating in deals, even on the operational side. Because you can accelerate quicker that way. If you, the more time and effort that you put in, the faster you can accelerate.

Now, a lot of folks out there, especially passive investors listening to their doctors, dentists, lawyers, don’t have time for that. So they need to invest passively. That’s probably the best use of their time because their highest and best use of their time is in their career. Being a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an engineer where they’re making a lot of money in their active income, it doesn’t really make sense for them to start a fix and flip business or wholesale business or even a syndication business really out of the gate until you figure out what you want to do.

So it makes more sense to take that active income. Put it into passive investment vehicles that don’t take any time away from your practice. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah. I love that. What’d you say? There’s one of three things, skills, time or money, right? So one of those, you’re going to be trading to generate more passive income or wealth and wherever you’re at in the spectrum and where you’re willing to trade for that investment.

I love that. It makes a lot of sense. So talk a little bit, I want to get to what you said in a minute, transitioning, blurring the line of going back and forth between passive and active. I think this is really interesting. I’ve seen the same trend, but before we get there, a lot of our listeners, that are maybe newer to syndications, newer to passive investing, they get a little bit shell shocked when they see a PPM or a set of legal docs to review for a deal.

And they don’t know. What should I be focusing on? What should I be looking for? What are potential red flags or yellow flags? And, from your perspective, and I’m sure you probably saw a lot of things early on, they’re like, okay, that’s interesting. Or making that transition, you already had a leg up giving your background, but what are some kind of key things that.

Maybe even coming into it, you already had a leg up, but now even 10 years later down the road have learned things that you said, Hey, this is way more important than I thought it was originally from a pure passive standpoint. Cause I think that’s a roadblock for a lot of people.

Seth Bradley: Yeah. And it’s intimidating, right? When you get that first PPM, which is going to have exhibits to it and the exhibits are going to be an operating agreement, subscription agreement, maybe. Maybe some marketing materials, a business plan, things like that. You’re looking at least a hundred page document, maybe 200 pages.

And if you’re not a lawyer and used to looking at a hundred page documents, that is intimidating. You’re like, what am I supposed to do? This is going to take me, this is like a month’s worth of reading if I’m actually going to read this thing. And really most past investors don’t read it. But you should, you should at least start reading them.

Because it gets easier and easier to read because they’re all going to be very similar. They’re all going to have a similar structure and similar pieces and things to look out for. I think one really important thing, and you might not be able to do this the first time, but you can start thinking about it, but just really matching the PPM to the operative room because the PPM should really be.

A summary, so to speak of the operating agreement, because the operating agreement is the meat of what’s actually going to be the terms within that LLC, within that investment. And at the end of the day, if something goes wrong or not even goes wrong, but if there’s some sort of agreement or disagreement that needs to be figured out, you’re going to look at the operating agreement, not necessarily the PPM to figure out what the next step is, what is the mechanism for fixing this problem?

Just making sure that the PPM accurately reflects what the operating agreement says is very important. And then taking a step further that the operating agreement and the PPM match what the lead sponsors are telling you, let’s say in the marketing materials or the webinar, like just making sure that there’s a clear picture between all the marketing materials, the webinar and the legal documentation is really important.

And then sometimes if it doesn’t make sense, or there are certain terms that don’t match up. Maybe they’re not as meticulous as they should be. And you need to look elsewhere. That’s a really important thing to look out for. I’m coming back to your question. When you’re first starting out as a passive investor, All you’re really looking at is the returns, right?

You’re comparing the kind of your projected returns in this deal to your projected returns in this other deal, and you might get a 2% more IRR return projected in this one than that one. So you’re going to go with this one, but at the end of the day. Those are just projections, right? Those are just projections and those can be manipulated.

Those are based on assumptions from the lead sponsor. And those are not the most important things. The most important things are the sponsor and their track record, what they’ve done, how they’ve performed and the market and the deal itself, but just those projected returns can be manipulated.

So that’s really, it’s important at the beginning or at least you think it’s important. And then later on, you become more. Wiley vet in passive investing, you’ll realize it’s not as important as some other things like, Hey, are your fees aligned, things like that? What are the voting rights?

If something happens and the manager is doing a terrible job, how can you possibly get them out? What are those mechanisms? What are the mechanisms for a capital call when things go wrong? What happens? Those are the more detailed things and the nuances you need to look at as a past investor rather than just looking at the projected returns.

Ben Fraser: That’s a lot of good nuggets right there. You just listen to that, skip back a few minutes and listen to it again. Cause that’s really good. I think. You’re so right? If it is just, it can feel intimidating to look at a hundred page, hundred page document and where do I start? But just start at the beginning, just start reading it.

It just got to skim read it. And just the more you get familiarized with these different document sets, the more they all seem similar. Over time you can notice the things that are common among different deals. And then you also notice the things that pop up as, Oh, that’s unique, or that’s different from what I’ve seen in other deals.

And that’s maybe outside of the norm. I’m just getting familiar with it. You’re going to pick up a lot on it, but I think you hit a few of the sections that I think are really important that a lot of people glaze over. Because if you’re getting, just looking at the, here’s the IRR projection, here’s what returns are going to be.

Like you said, There’s a lot of assumptions that go into what those numbers are derived from. And, I always come back to you for my banking background, risk adjusted returns, right? Because every element of every deal, whatever return you’re projecting, there’s different levels of risk.

And if You’re taking a lot more risk in a particular deal or strategy or structure the same level of return. It’s not apples to apples, right? And so understanding what that is from a deal standpoint, there’s also risks some of the points you made within the legal structure. And so you’re saying go straight to the operating agreement as a starting point, because that’s ultimately what’s going to govern the deal and the mechanisms for potentially firing the sponsor as a manager, or like you said, the capital call.

And the waterfall section, understanding how profits flow through the entity and what are the splits between them? What are some things that are maybe 10 years down the road now of investing? I don’t know how many deals you’ve invested in passively, but you look back and Oh man, you know what? I read that section and I knew that maybe it was a little outside the norm, but I was so excited about the deal.

Didn’t really, wasn’t too concerned about it. And now looking back like, Oh man, now that was a good learning experience because now. Maybe I can’t vote out the manager or, different things that you would say looking back are more important than maybe you put weight on in the front end and maybe some examples of especially right now are I think a lot of.

A lot of deals that people invested over the past few years, unfortunately are requiring capital calls or are headed in a direction that may not be good. And maybe it’s the fault of the operator, maybe it’s not, but if it is the fault of the operator, what mechanisms do we have?

Do you have and what voting rights do you have as a passive investor and talk a little bit about that because I think that’s going to be very relevant, especially over the next few years as sure as certain older deals are not hitting the projections they thought originally. 

Seth Bradley: Yeah, I think I already touched on most of them from a high level, but for instance voting out the manager, like if the manager is doing something.

Fraudulent or misrepresented what they were doing or, really just doing a terrible job is probably not a reason enough to get them out. But it could be if it gets to a certain point. But that’s really one thing to look for to see what the mechanism is. A unanimous vote, or does it take a majority vote or does it take a majority or supermajority of each share class, each membership class within the LLC.

So it, and typically they’re set up. So it’s really difficult to get the manager out, right? Because the lead sponsor is going to be the manager and they’re the ones that are going to be making all the decisions and they don’t want to lose control. So they wanted to make it as hard as possible. And still make it legal to stay in that seat and not get voted out.

You will see some pretty onerous provisions within the operating agreement to be able to get them out, but there should be a reasonable way to do it, whether that’s a super majority vote, perhaps that’s reasonable, so super majority vote in the event of a misrepresentation, fraud.

Any sort of bad boy act by the manager or if their bad performance reaches the level of negligence or something like that, there just needs to be a mechanism to get them out. That’s just one example. And you had mentioned capital calls as well. So capital calls, it’s like, what is the mechanism when the LLC or the syndication needs?

additional operating expenses to survive. What is the mechanism to do that? Can, is the first step to actually do a capital call? And is that capital call mandatory? Meaning that the investors have to participate on a pro rata basis or that’s not typical. So if you, that’s one thing to look out for.

If it is mandatory that you do, and if you don’t, then you’re basically out or you lose. An unreasonable amount of your equity if you don’t participate, then perhaps that’s a red flag, right? If you don’t participate I should say the capital call should be optional. And if you don’t participate, that’s okay.

But you will most likely be watered down. Your equity will get watered down on a pro rata basis rather than something above a pro rata. 

Ben Fraser: So that’s an example of what you’re saying. It is required, which is uncommon. 

That’s a red flag potentially. Or if you get diluted higher than the pro rata amount is another negative.

And you’re exactly right. I think part of this is when you’re investing passively, you’re. You’re giving up control of operating the deal to the sponsor, right? And so, that’s the trade off if you’re hiring experts. You’re investing with experts that hopefully know what they’re doing so that you don’t have to be doing the day to day stuff.

And so it can be difficult to replace managers and have impactful voting rights that can change the outcome unless there’s fraudulence or negligence. But I think it goes to the point of understanding what these kinds of parameters are and what’s normal. And then also I think you can pick up a lot of what you’re saying and just the congruence between PPM, the operating agreement, the offering memorandum, the webinars.

And then really the alignment of interest, right? Because if, ultimately, if the sponsor stands to lose alongside the investors, or if they’re not just getting rich just off of fees and, does, they don’t have a whole lot of skin in the game, then, Ultimately, it might not be, a great deal, but if they have a lot, the skin of the game, and even if it’s written in these certain ways, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad investment. Okay. Love it. Get a little bit in the weeds there for some people. And if this is newer to you, I definitely encourage you to just start this, open it up the BPM as a reading. You’re going to pick up a lot by doing that. And then just ask questions. And I think it’s a great thing too, that if you’re reading the PBM and read the operating agreement to ask questions of the sponsor, and that’s usually pretty indicative of one, how well do they know their own documents and how well are they to address certain questions that may concern you.

And I think you can actually get a really good sense of how they were and how they respond to what that interaction is going to be. Love that. Thanks for some of that insight, Seth. I’d love to shift a little bit. 

The Evolution of Capital Raising and the Fund to Fund Model

Ben Fraser: You mentioned something earlier I still wanted to come back to is you you just said before, the future of capital raising is shifting and evolving.

And I think a lot of people realize the same thing too, right? I’m a coach in several, masterminds for capital raisers and this fund to fund model. is becoming very popular and people may think, Oh, I’m not really a capital raiser or, that’s not my, what I’ve learned to do, went to school to do or whatever, or realizing, Hey, actually I’ve been investing passively for a while.

I have a pretty great network because I’m around a lot of accredited investors. I’ve done enough to know a good amount and I can actually turn this into a business. And so talk a little bit about what the fund to fund model means and maybe someone that’s. In that boat where what you said is I think I’m gonna go 100% passive, but then, You’re also learning a lot along the way and you have a network that maybe you can activate and also raise capital and get paid to do it compliantly.

Seth Bradley: That’s right. And you said it and I’m seeing it time after time where past investors, they invest in a number of deals. And, folks that are investing in these deals typically have a little bit of money and they probably have friends that have money as well. And their friends start asking them about the deals that they’re investing in.

And they started thinking, Hey, what can I get paid? Can I have, is there a business here that I can develop, that I can build? By bringing in all my friends and family that might also be wealthy, I might be able to put these funds together and invest in the deal together.

You can certainly do that, but you start to run into lots of securities, lots of rules and regulations that some people know about and some people don’t. You’d be surprised that people out there are raising capital in ways that they shouldn’t do. But what’s great about the fund to funds model is that you’re not.

What’s called a co GP. So you’re not an active partner with the lead sponsor. That’s the, I’ll call it the old way. And I, I’ve been saying that the co GP model is dead just to put it out there that we shouldn’t be raising capital with lead sponsors and then not doing anything else and not participating in the deal and having an active role.

If you’re a true co GP, you need to have an active role. In the deal and that’s what deters past investors and doctors and dentists and lawyers and people like that. They already have a career. They don’t want to take an active role, right? Like they don’t want to do the asset management or manage the property manager or talk to tenants or anything like that.

And that’s where the fund to fund solution comes in. The fund to fund solution is really creating another syndication or another fund that invests. into the lead sponsor syndication or fund. And that’s where the name fund of funds comes from. Now, traditionally, the issue with that is it does come with responsibilities for the fund manager.

They have to put the deal that they have to put their own fund together. They have to put their cap table together, open a business banking account, form an LLC, get a securities attorney, manage their investors, and manage their distributions. Do taxes, all those sorts of things. And so it turns into an active business.

And on top of that, it’s expensive because we are creating a second syndication, the second fund to invest in that lead sponsor target fund. So that’s the problem. That’s always been the solution. Fund to fund has always been the right solution, but those problems that I just mentioned are why it hasn’t been widely adopted.

But you’re seeing a big shift in the market as we’re able to provide a more affordable option and a solution to bringing all those different services that a fund manager would normally have to go out and get themselves and put it into a package. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like we said, we’re seeing the same thing where people are: they’ve been investing, they like what they’re doing, they have their friends and their family asking about the different deals they’re doing.

And then they have to think hey, I can make money doing this. And what most people have done historically is the CoGP model. And for those that are unfamiliar with that, basically you raise money directly into the lead sponsor’s syndication or entity, and then you get granted certain general partner shares for doing that.

And you’re the attorney, so I’m going to say at a very high level as I understand it by, by doing that you are you can’t raise money and get paid for it unless you’re a registered broker dealer, unless you’re a general partner and are continuing to operate the the deal, the business and have an active role in it.

But most people that are just raising capital or just want to raise capital as on the side of what else they’re doing. That’s not a realistic expectation. So what we’ve seen, and I’m sure you probably see a lot more than me, is these different folks that are raising capital as co GPs and then, this new sponsor has about.

10 different co GPs on the list, on the roster here. And it’s pretty hard to make an argument that they’re all actively participating in managing the deal. Cause you just don’t need that many people, right? If it’s a single deal. And so then you run into compliance risk and you just, you don’t want to mess with that.

That’s just, let’s leave it there. And so the fund to fund model has always been around. It’s basically you create your own fund and as your own fund manager, you’re exempt from some of these securities issues to basically raise capital from your investors into your fund, then that fund invests.

Into the kind of mothership fund or the lead sponsors fund and by doing that, you it’s, you’re in the, not in the gray area anymore where it can be maybe not great from a compliance standpoint in the challenges you mentioned though, is it can be expensive, maybe it’s a little complicated to know how to set it up and I’m not really a professional fund manager.

How, what do I know? But that’s what you’re doing now at Tribevest. And we’ve had Travis Smith on the podcast before. So if you haven’t listened to that episode. It’s probably a year or so ago. We’ll put the link in the show notes because it’s a great episode talking about tribe vest and what you guys are really trying to, from my perspective, simplify the access and the kind of back end, back office functions of both for past investors and for fund managers too.

Continue to increase access to more deals. 

TribeVest: Simplifying Fund Management for Capital Raisers

Ben Fraser: So talk a little bit about what you guys do as a tribe vest and to help people both from a passive standpoint. That’s why I direct the investors past investors. I don’t really want to do it as a business, but then also the new fund manager programs that you guys are putting together.

To help people that want to activate their network. Want to use this as a way to make money and do it without having to be an expert in all the backend side of things. 

Seth Bradley: Absolutely. At Tribevest, I’m the Chief Legal Officer for Tribevest. I helped create the fund to fund products that we have out there right now.

It makes it simple, turnkey and affordable for anyone to really start a capital raising business. All those things that I’ve mentioned before, opening your business bank, starting your LLC, drafting your offering documents, getting your EIN onboarding your investors, creating your cap table, doing your distributions, doing your taxes.

All those things you would normally have to put together and find different platforms and different people like attorneys and CPAs to help you out and put those, put the fund to fund together. We do that. We put it in a fund to fund. We call it a fund to fund in a box. It’s really a Lego block that you can use and invest in.

In a deal like with Aspen if Aspen has a fund you can create your own fund who tries best to bring in your five or ten best friends that want to put in some money. You can carve out a piece for yourself So you actually get paid a fee up front. Maybe you get paid a fee during the whole period And then perhaps you get a percentage of the equity on the back end.

So it can be a very lucrative business for someone to get started. And because Tribevest makes it so easy to do it, meaning put all these different services and things together for you. Really anyone can do it. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, that’s so cool. And we’ve worked with you guys and have seen it in action. And, to say fund in a box sounds almost trite because it sounds like, can you really do that?

But it’s cool because you guys have solved it. And not only have you solved it, but it’s also pretty cost effective, right? I think one of the big challenges with the fund to fund is generally you can invest, if you pool capital together in a fund, you can invest at better terms with the sponsor so you can have a little more margin that you can get paid from and your investors still make the same returns.

But if you have a lot of legal costs, a lot of ongoing portal and back office expenses and tax returns, everything else, then it gets expensive and eats away at the margins that you’re hoping to use to pay yourself. So you guys have created something really streamlined.

Off the shelf product that can fit the majority of offerings and make it pretty easy, right? 

Seth Bradley: That’s right. It gets really difficult to make it work. That’s again, the fund to fund, like we’ve talked about, it’s always been a solution. It’s just really expensive and really hard to put it together.

Especially for someone that isn’t a professional capital raiser that just wants to put together 500, 000, a million five, something like that. It doesn’t even make sense cost wise in the old way of doing it. You’re going to pay a securities attorney minimum of let’s say 15, 000, maybe 20, 000, maybe 25, 000 to put one of these together.

Maybe even more. I used to work at a big law firm where it cost 75, 000. It’s crazy the expenses that add up and that’s just the legal piece that does include All the back office administration things that we talked about doesn’t include Engaging with the cpa to do your taxes. It doesn’t include all those things. That’s just the legal cost by itself and tribe best has made it Super inexpensive to be able to do this and to be able to do it time and time again.

So it works with a 500, 000 raise. It works with a million dollar raise. You don’t have to raise 20 million to make it work from an affordability standpoint. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, that makes sense. So do you guys also have any kind of education or. Different coursework to help people that are, you may want to make the transition of yeah, I think that, that sounds like something I could do.

My friends are always asking me what I’m investing in and it wouldn’t be that hard to go get five, 10 friends to go and invest and create a fund. And they just don’t, they have never done it before. They never thought about it until just now. So you guys have, I know you’re really more given the solution, but do you also have any kind of education or do you have resources you guys can point people to, to learn more about?

Yeah. What does it look like, what’s the process you have to go through to go from idea to actual making a fund. 

Seth Bradley: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll tell you, we don’t have any formal legal or sorry, formal educational things out there at the moment, but we are working on that.

But we have made it so simple that we can jump on a zoom call with anyone that’s potentially interested in being a capital raiser and putting together a fund of fun and walk you through a pitch deck. And it should be pretty clear what you need to do because we handle basically everything you put together with your investors.

Put together your terms and how you’re going to get paid and then we’ll be able to do all of that back office, all that legal, all those things that you don’t want to know or don’t want to do, we handle all of it. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, makes sense. Awesome. 

Market Insights and the Future of Alternative Investments

Ben Fraser: Last question, I’d just love to get your insights on just the market in general for alternatives and private placements and you’ve obviously been in this space for over a decade.

And we’ve been in this space for about 11 years now as an operator, and it just feels, it’s already been the amount of capital that’s come into kind of private equity, into real estate, into private placements in general. It’s totally shifted the game, but it also feels like we’re still early innings, right?

It still feels like people are just discovering this for the first time. And even the conversation we’re having. Activating people to raise capital, in a compliant way, that’s just an easy way. You guys are creating a system that just reduces friction to continue to increase more capital to come into space.

Do you feel the same thing? Are you seeing, I know there’s some potential proposed regulations to increase the requirements for accreditation and, there’s always a battle going back and forth on, on that, but. What’s your sentiment just at a broader level of just the alternative kind of private placement space and over the next 10 years?

Seth Bradley: Yeah, I’m bullish, right? Like we’re in a little bit of a lull right now. You’ll hear that capital is a little bit harder to come by. Investors are holding on a little bit tighter but that’s because there’s actually deals out there right now. Right now is actually a great time to invest.

And right now is a great time to invest because prices are depressed a little bit. Investors are a little bit reluctant to invest. There are less buyers in the market because a lot of them are getting washed out. But there are some properties coming online through foreclosures through things like that.

This is where, when you talk about good times, you’re like, Oh man, I cannot wait until there’s blood in the streets and I’m going to pounce on it. I’m going to pounce on those opportunities. That time is right now. It’s not yours. You can be waiting on the sideline for years and you’re gonna, you’re gonna miss it.

It’s right now. Right now is the time to figure out how to invest, how to raise capital, how to do deals, how to make them work, because right now it’s difficult to make them work. That’s the truth of it. Right now is the time to act. And you’re gonna, in five years from now, For instance, you’re going to look back to this time and say, man, I wish I would’ve got started because we’re going to be in the upswing again very soon.

Ben Fraser: Totally. No, I was just one of the guys I follow who’s been in real estate for a long time. He was talking and reminiscing about, he bought I think he said three dozen single family homes between 2009 and 2011. And he’s held onto them since then. And, looking back, the only thing he wishes he did was buy more, right?

Because it’s at, but at that point it was, everything was on sale. Everyone’s real estate’s over. And it’s so hard to be contrarian, right? I think it’s, Warren Buffett has said, be fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful, right? And it’s a simple idiom that makes sense, but it’s really hard to do.

And right now we’re kind. In that time where investors are right as it is, there’s a lot of pressure on deals right now. It’s creating a great buying opportunity. We’re seeing it. I know you’re seeing it. And I think it’s, I agree with you. I think it’s a great time to be jumping in right now.

Closing Thoughts and How to Connect with Seth Bradley

Ben Fraser: And Seth, thanks so much for coming on, man. What’s. What’s the best way for folks to get a hold of you and learn more about your law firm RaiseLaw and Tribevest if they want to learn more about what that looks like? 

Seth Bradley: For sure. The best place where I keep all my links is https://sethpaulbradley.com/.

You’ll have links to Tribevest there, links for my law firm and social media. It’s all posted there. 

Ben Fraser: Okay. We’ll put that in the show notes and definitely appreciate you coming out today, Seth. It was awesome. 

Seth Bradley: All right, Ben. Appreciate it, man.