Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #92!
Today, we have a special guest, Jason Balara, from Lark Capital. I recently had the pleasure of being on his podcast and now he's here to share his expertise with us. Jason is not only an experienced multifamily real estate investor, but also a veterinary surgeon.
In this episode,
Don't miss out on this opportunity to discover how Jason's fund can make a difference in your investment journey. To learn more about the fund and get in touch with Jason, reach out to him at jason@larkcapital or connect with him on social media through Instagram (@larkcapital) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbalara/).
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #92!
Today, we have a special guest, Jason Balara, from Lark Capital. I recently had the pleasure of being on his podcast and now he's here to share his expertise with us. Jason is not only an experienced multifamily real estate investor, but also a veterinary surgeon.
In this episode,
Don't miss out on this opportunity to discover how Jason's fund can make a difference in your investment journey. To learn more about the fund and get in touch with Jason, reach out to him at jason@larkcapital or connect with him on social media through Instagram (@larkcapital) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbalara/).
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Greetings and salutations. Real estate underground rathians with the real estate underground, Thank you so much for joining us today. Today I have a gentleman who I actually had the pleasure of being on his podcast not that long ago, Jason Balara of Lark Capital. Jason, nice to see you again, my friend. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I am good, it's great to see you, I think. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I'm always looking to get smarter about is raising capital right, and I understand that, in addition to your multifamily investments in your capital raising for other syndicators, I got a little bird told me that you also have a fund that's about to come out, and I'm eager to pick your brain about that, because that's something that we're looking at here at Clark Street as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely something I'm very excited about, I think for a couple of reasons. In terms of capital raising, it's interesting People when you think of the fund, I think outwardly people think that it's strictly for capital raisers because a lot of people think of it as maybe the fund-to-fund model.
Speaker 1:My fund.
Speaker 2:I think what's that? Not necessarily, and that's the thing is, what I'm realizing as I've dug in on this is you pretty much can structure it however you want. And I have gotten my mind how do I want to do a fund? Why do I want to do a fund? And then there had to be I wanted to do it, I guess, my way. So figuring out what I wanted in the fund and then figuring out almost the second step, which maybe some people think this is backwards. But then the second step is figure out how to do it. But ultimately it is mainly real estate based and some of these rules are SEC dictated in terms of the ratios within the fund. But the idea is it's going to be real estate based multifamily, but with a small component of it will also invest in cash flowing businesses. So my thought process here is and really I thought of this because it's what I was going to do for my own family, my own personal portfolio and I thought why don't we do that for investors too?
Speaker 2:But the idea is right now, not that you can't cash flow in real estate, but it's a little bit harder. It's becoming as much of, at least in the markets that I'm investing is becoming as much about appreciation and tax benefits as it is at pure cash flow play. And so I thought, okay, here we are in this market cycle. Call it a recession, call it whatever you want to call it. We're in this market cycle where a lot of operators, including us, have had to pause distributions, and so people that were counting on they're looking at this from a passive income cash flow perspective. It impacts your finances, right, has impacted my own finances, because I invested all my own deals and I invested in other people's deals, and that lack of cash flow right now started to become something I was really thinking about, and so what I did first is I ramped up my own business in order to generate cash flow, and there are a number of people and the first one that comes to mind is Cody Sanchez, but she's got a big presence online in social media and her whole thing is buying boring businesses, and I've been looking at that for a while now and really had it in the back burner. But then I thought, okay, if our real estate isn't cash flowing right now, what do we do? How do we balance that out? And so I started looking and she's she's spot on the cash flow. The boring businesses can be extremely highly cash flowing and so my thought process was okay, I'm going to mix the two together and that's what I decided to do in the fund. And then I said okay.
Speaker 2:I went to my SEC attorney and I was like, first of all, can I do this? Yeah. Second of all, how do I do it? What's right? Yeah, and it's just for if anybody's curious, you're limited to a 20% in the business components, so the ratio has to be 55% of the fund needs to be at least 55% of the fund needs to be invested in real estate on which I hold title. So my own deals, basically where I'm a part of the GP, and then up to 20% can be in businesses, and then the in between portion, which is 25, 25% could be fund to fund. And so there's a way to, I think, really diversify the fund in a lot of different ways here by we'll have our own deals. We can partner with others, so I have access to deals that maybe I wouldn't see myself. I can partner with people, big, bigger operators than myself. At this point I am partnering with one of my mentors on the first deal that's going to be in the fund is a very large deal out of Phoenix, and so in that instance we will be fun to fund. But there's a lot of ways when it doesn't have to be exactly those ratios right, it's just at least 55 in our own deals, up to 20% in businesses. But when you look at the numbers you can really juice the cash flow that's coming in through the fund. We can also take advantage of that diversity. It's just to me a whole lot of different ways where it's going to benefit investors.
Speaker 2:And then probably what I'm most excited about is the impact on the back end. A lot of people don't know this, but I'm a veterinarian, veterinary surgeon. Veterinarians have one of the highest suicide rates of all professions. Who is this Most striking? What's that? I didn't know that that's awful. Yeah, One of the most striking statistics, I think, is female veterinarians are three and a half times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. So it's substantial. And because of that, there's actually an organization devoted to providing resources mental health resources, sometimes financial resources called Not One More Vet, and so the plan is to take 25% of the profits of the fund and roll those back into donate to Not One More Vet so we will really have the ability to have an impact component to this fund. So I'm very excited about it.
Speaker 1:You get to do some good and do well also. Yeah, that's amazing, Congratulations. So when you're talking about a fund like this is there, is it like a traditional? There's a preferred rate and then the fund. You own the fund as an investor, as a limited or general partner, and then the fund owns a business or a property and so that you're able to participate on an equity basis as well, or like how does the bets and bolts work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the easier part is as the fund administrator myself. I am in charge of pulling the strings, deciding where the money goes, and when it comes to our own deals, I'm sourcing those deals. I'm acting as the general partner, I'm acting as the asset manager. When it comes to the fund-to-fund model, then what we're doing is I'm vetting other sponsors and frankly it's a very small list. There's about three people on it that I will invest with, but I know that the opportunities will be there with them. There's that part. And then the businesses. Same thing.
Speaker 2:I'm a business owner. I understand the mechanics of running a business and it's not going to be like we're going to buy 50 businesses. It's going to be probably two to five within the fund and again boring businesses with in-place operators. So I certainly am not trying to create a fund where I get 10 jobs. It's really more looking at existing businesses that are already having good and as far as modeling out returns, my expectation really is we'll model the businesses just on the cash flow basis and stack that on top of the real estate. I'm not even going to At least in projections I'm not going to look at the sale of the business.
Speaker 2:It's more going to be? What cash flow has it got right now? What can we maintain with annual increases, that kind of thing, and then the sale at the end will just be gravy to investors. So it really, from a number standpoint, we can underwrite it very conservatively and still make sure that we're having good cash flow along the way, and it won't be necessarily dependent on the performance of one particular asset. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:So that's from the yeah, that's from my perspective, my job. The limited partners yes, they're buying into the fund, they're buying shares of the fund. So it is a blind fund, so they won't be picking which investments they're in. They're putting their trust in me and our capital and what we're about, and so the idea is that we can provide what I think will be a great preferred return, with plenty of room for upside on top of that, and they still get to participate in the tax benefits all of the same stuff you would on a per deal basis on your standard syndication. You get through a fund.
Speaker 1:Excellent and carried interest, which is a beautiful thing as long as it still survives. So far, so good. And I'm curious when you talk about boring businesses. Right, and I'm a fan of Cody's as well. I follow her on Twitter and I've been intrigued by the business model. When you look at boring businesses, I think plumbing businesses, cleaning businesses and, I'm curious, laundromats what kind of businesses are you thinking of when you're talking about that kind of asset?
Speaker 2:Similar. You can think about the construction world and, to be honest with you, the construction world was where I thought I would go with this, because I've been doing construction since I was a teenager, so the idea of buying construction businesses makes a lot of sense to me. I can also, in theory, use them in my value of investing.
Speaker 2:However, the one thing that I see as if it's already. You really have to look at the numbers here, but the construction businesses can be pretty upfront cash heavy, so you've got to buy materials to get a job done. So if you have a well run construction business where you're ahead of the game, your cash flow is ahead of the game, so you can buy those materials without strapping yourself and being cash poor during each project, then great. If you see the opportunity to turn a business into that type of model, then great. But unfortunately a lot of construction businesses are almost on a job to job basis right, so they essentially can't afford to buy the supplies for the next job until they get paid for the one that they will ask one are currently working on. So that's how it currently exists. Now it doesn't say that potentially means there are opportunities to go into a construction business and flip that model around. But, like I said initially, construction businesses is what I really thought would be the way to go. However, as you mentioned, laundromats is another good one. Cleaning businesses, things with low overhead I would add to that list Car washes.
Speaker 2:Surprisingly to me, but maybe not to other people, nail salons or beauty salons tend to be extremely high cash flowing, which I was shocked by. So I spoke with a business broker Exactly, we have this nail salon that we're selling, if it be something, and I initially scoffed at it. I was like what am I going to do with a nail salon? But then I looked at the numbers and I was like, yes, nail salons are the way to go and it makes sense in the. If you look at it from a, from an overhead perspective, once you've done the initial investment of having a nice experience when people come in to get whatever nail salon I don't even know what manicures, pedicures, whatever happens in a nail salon my wife knows these things and when you create that experience now in terms of supplies and things like that, it's actually pretty inexpensive and you can. The employees can be paid on a essentially on a production model where it's 1099 and they get a portion, or the business gets a portion of whatever revenue they bring in. So it can be structured very beneficially to have a pretty high cash flowing component to it.
Speaker 2:That was one that you know and so I started looking in that space the sort of aesthetics and beauty space and, like almost everything in that space, cash flows high. There's med spas, things like that, and I was so certainly those are on the list. We talk about boring businesses. They're not boring to the people using them and I don't think that's necessarily what what Cody means when she refers to it that way. I think she mean boring in the sense that it's fairly easy to manage right. Really is what it comes down to, not so much like it's not a she's not advocating for buying the next Uber or something like that, like she's talking about in place already, cash flowing, like you make a few tweaks to modernize it and then just be happy.
Speaker 2:That complexity that money keeps rolling in the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I could talk about this because I am fascinated and I'm going to have to part of start paying more attention to Cody and and I'm certainly going to be paying close attention to your bond, but this podcast is called the real estate underground, so now I get to pick your bread. So, in terms of the the 55% that's going to target we'll get to this point. But as far as the properties that you're going to target, is it a direct acquisition and operation of the properties? Or are you lending money to other investors to then like a hard money situation where your your, your pref is 79% and you're loaning out for three points up front and 12% and then the arbitrage goes back into the fund? Is it like that? Or are you buying directly?
Speaker 2:No, we're looking looking for direct acquisition and and actually that's required as part of that 55%. So I have to be on title, essentially to satisfy the SEC requirements. So they really truly have to be a part of, I have to be a part of that general partnership. Now I don't have to be the majority stake in that general partnership. I can be bringing capital and helping with asset management where someone else maybe did the acquisition. So it doesn't necessarily have to be me start to finish doing everything. This is still very much a team sport but there are certain requirements.
Speaker 2:Even if you look at the business side, some businesses come with real estate, so in theory, those ones that come with real estate also satisfy that requirement on the 55%. So it's and again, this fund is really meant to be opportunistic, so it may be that we don't do a whole lot of fun to fund because we found a bunch of deals ourselves or we got to partner with people be on the general partnership. But the idea is there are minimums set up by the and with good reason. It makes sense and you want real estate and you want real estate, or I want real estate to be the foundation of this. I think that is, in terms of long-term wealth. The appreciation and the tax benefits that you're going to get are going to offset that cash flow that's coming through these businesses. So there's some real benefits to mixing the two, but yeah, real estate is certainly the foundation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so when you're looking at real estate, like with the business, it's interesting that you're very like me. You are very focused on cash flow. I love the idea on the business side business acquisition side that you're necessarily paying close attention to appreciation opportunities. That's the cherry on top On the real estate side. I'm curious how you view the mix in terms of your focus with regard to cash flow versus appreciation and what you're looking for in those properties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question and I think the answer to that question has probably changed, at least for me. It's changed in some ways. It has also probably changed for a lot of people, just based on where we are in the market cycle. So a couple of things are going to be driven by the debt market. Right, we're not going to get the same leverage that we were getting even a year ago when we go to acquire something. So our leverage is going to be much lower, which in turn actually pushes up the cash flow produced by the property in theory. But it also means in theory there's more equity going into the deal and so you may have, in theory again, lower returns because there's more equity within the deal.
Speaker 2:But all of this is hypothetical, on paper numbers, and so you really look at this from I want it to cash flow. That's great, but it's probably on the real estate side, but it's probably not my number one focus. My number one focus is going to be the overall return on those deals in the three to seven year hold time. To me, that's the most important thing. Now there are certainly cash flow focused investors, right, if you're I don't know maybe you're retirement age and you want to be in real estate, but you have to live off that income. Cash flow is going to be really important, and I think that's where we're bringing the businesses into this fund really, really make it beneficial all around, and so the idea on the real estate is let's find something that ultimately, at the end of the day, is going to end up as the best returns overall for our investors and that's likely means we're able to appreciate it a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a value add play, that kind of thing. But we'll be really looking at everything the debt structure, certainly the length of hold time, what is the opportunity within that deal and seeing how it all plays together, especially within the fund. How is that all going to play together with the rest of it? How is this particular real estate deal going to fit with the deal that's a fund to fund model that's going to fit with the businesses I'm actually having? It should be about that. I'm having a essentially custom made underwriting model for this so that I can easily model out exactly how it's going to go or not exactly how it's going to go, but how we project it to go and be able to show that to investors and what components are contributing where.
Speaker 1:So they'll be able to get a swath of information around across the various businesses that the fund is involved in. They'll be able to see cash flow in terms of like pillars, for instance, of we're here, we're seeing an 18% return. Over here, we're seeing a 2% return net, that's 10%, and life is died. Hypothetically, I mean, I know that math isn't real, but that's really good, that's brilliant. Okay, I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I'm dying to know who the three sponsors that you would do business with. What I'll ask you offline.
Speaker 2:You mentioned, there's only three, you would tell you, yeah, I'll tell you. If you, I think it's a really people have to be. I think partnerships in this business are one of the top two most important things, if not the most important thing, because you are not likely to do syndication by yourself, and so unless you already have a large company but even the people that have large companies, they're still partnering with others within their businesses and within their investments.
Speaker 2:But to me there's a funny thing about and I talked about this with. I've talked about this with people on my podcast. There's a funny thing where people talk about their mentors as if they're someone hypothetical. Right? They're like oh, I did a mentorship and they never mentioned names. And I'm very proud of my mentors and so the people that I would invest with is Ellie Perlman she was one of my mentors and Jay Scott and Ashley Wilson they are also my mentors and the reason is because I have a very first-hand look at how they run their businesses and how the expectations within their deals. So if I'm going to put my investor's capital into a deal, it's gonna be with someone that I trust 100% that it will be handled correctly and I invest alongside them myself. I don't yeah, I don't have a problem telling people that's no, if people invest in the fund, I'll tell them who it's going to be.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's not a secret and the 14 people that are listening to this podcast that you just now 15 with me. But so thank you. But I'm always interested in how people hit their partners right, because there's a dating process that you have to go through to figure out how good a fit you are, both operationally, value, system-wise, whatever and then there's the marriage right Of okay, when the marriage is some sort of general partnership document where we talk about not only do we talk about here's how we're gonna come together and here's what you're gonna do and here's what I'm gonna do, but also we're gonna break up someday, and it's a prenup as well. And I'm curious about your view on partnerships, and not necessarily the breakup part, but in terms of the dating, when you're evaluating potential partner, what are some of the things that you're looking for beyond the obvious? They've gotta be a high character and they have to be able to do math. Beyond that, I'm curious what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question and often, I think, overlooked process, including by myself, especially when you're starting out. As you just mentioned, the idea is to make sure that all of your values aligned and you wanna have complementary strengths and all this stuff. Like you can Google, what should I look for in a real estate partner? Right, and it'll list you off these four or five things that and it's not that they're not important, but the reality, I think, is that when people are getting started, they're so focused on I just need to get a deal right, I just need to figure out how to get a deal, and so people skip the dating phase and it's almost like a yeah, and I think it happens all the time and I think you have to almost, and maybe the reality is that you have to do that and then you figure out what you like, because I also don't know that a lot of people starting out know what their strengths are or what roles they wanna play in, and so being able to sit down with someone you just met and say this is what you're gonna do, this is what I'm gonna do, it's a little bit of a learning process around each other and I think, at the end of the day, if you're in that situation, one thing to keep front of mind is the most important thing is that deal to those investors.
Speaker 2:So, whatever your differences might be with your partners, whatever your problems might be with your partners, you gotta figure it out and get through that deal so that your investors come out whole. That's because if you let your feelings, your just disagreements, if you let that blow a deal up because you couldn't handle being in that relationship, that's your fault and you've hurt your investors for that reason. So you've gotta realize what the end goal is here. And everybody has the same end goal, whether you find out that you have alignment with those partners or not.
Speaker 2:And even if you don't like not aligning with someone doesn't mean that they're not a good investor or not a good real estate investor. It just means that maybe you do the same thing right and you don't need three people on the team doing acquisitions. You don't need three people on the team doing investor relations right, because then people are wasting time and not doing what really needs to be done. So it's figuring those dynamics out, and they can be figured out as you go, but you gotta be a real adult about it Cause it's sometimes hard and there's a lot of stress and money involved in this business. I think over time you can figure that out. Now it's been in the business for three plus years and so now I know like future deals, future partnerships, I have a much better sense of what I would be looking for in a partner. I would be much better about defining specific roles, that kind of thing, because it just makes your life easier down the road, so much easier.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I really answered that question. I think it comes down. So what I heard was needing to figure out everybody's highest and best use and where they can add value to the partnership. And a lot of times there's overlap because, especially with smaller somebody like me, a smaller operator who's graduating into larger projects, I've done acquisitions and the marketing to create inbound and, yeah, the asset management piece and all that, and opinions vary on how good I am at some role of those things.
Speaker 1:I think I'm pretty good at it, but the fact is that if I come into a partnership with you and I want to be the asset manager and that's your wheelhouse there's we've got to figure something out. And that is like you said. It's an adult conversation, right, it's just a okay, who's better at it? If it's Jason, that's fine. And where else can I add value? And if I can find another place where I can add equal value, then I'm a thing. If I can't, then I'm not, and that's okay, that's fine, you'll take my ball and go play on a different court, it's okay, no problem. But you've got to have those conversations and, like you said, I think very few people do and I am one of those people. I've had partnerships where I adored the human being and then figured out we'll figure it out as we go and you don't.
Speaker 2:And it's really stressful.
Speaker 1:And so you know you can be.
Speaker 2:This is why people say don't do business with family members, don't do business with friends, because these things can get hard. But you can do business with family and friends. If you can have those conversations and still say friend like, just because it's someone's your best friend. It may not be a good business, fit, just be friends, right. So it's just, or it could be, or it could be, the greatest partnership. But you got to be able to say who's going to do what and then stay out of each other's way too. It's even. Once those things are defined, you got to stick by it. So it's just having the tough conversations, yeah.
Speaker 1:I had one when we were going full time here at Clark Street with my wife, who was an accountant, and one of the reasons our relationship works well is we're personality wise. We're basically opposites, right, I'm the creative visionary and she's an accountant where everything she keeps the trains run. And I had asked her. I said I would really like it if you would join the company and we can figure out roles. And she thought about it for all of about nine seconds and said I don't think that's a good idea. I think you and I work very differently. Which she and she did it was. She did it.
Speaker 1:Well. She said I support you and I'm excited for you, but I think you need to find someone that's a better fit for you. And I went okay, I appreciate the candor and the last thing she said actually, the last thing she said was I like you more as my husband than my business partner, so I'm gonna pick the former, not the latter. That's good, that's fine and, yeah, no one who you are and what's important to you as you go into a partnership and this is, by the way, human being I've known for 34, going on 35 years, so she knows me really well and I like to think I know her well too, but the fact is that you've got a date, you've got to think through what's the highest and best use of each and every person in that business and, if there's overlap, you really need to explore whether your staffing up correctly in terms of a partnership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, we agree. One of my biggest pet peeves in almost the same business is probably, like almost. I hate inefficiency, me too, and there's nothing more inefficient than two partners, marriage, business, whatever you want to call it. It's focusing on the same thing, right, even if you end up with the same result. You're just wasting someone's time. So it's really figuring out where time should be spent, and it's not that hard to figure it out if you have the conversations Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's just a matter of having those conversations and then documenting them and then living up to it. So, jason, obviously you're an accomplished person and you're obviously very smart. So I'm curious. Leaders tend to be readers, right, and so I'm curious in terms of how you consume information, whether that's podcasts or audio books or physical books or webinars or whatever. I'm curious how you consume information when you want to sharpen the saw, so to speak. And then also I'm also curious about who you're paying attention to these days, or creators, yeah, I think, in terms of consuming, I love to listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2:I've been, lately, more focused on business podcasts than real estate. When I got started, I listened to literally every real estate podcast I could get my hands on, but I think the reality is that, as a real estate investor, you own a business and, in reality, with syndication, each one of those properties, each asset, is its own business. Yes, so learning how to run businesses more efficiently has been a big focus of mine in terms of what I listen to, what I watch from a podcast standpoint. In terms of reading, I have found that I much prefer reading an actual book than listening to an audio book. I know it's maybe not the most efficient way to do it, but I think the reality is, if I'm listening to an audio book while I'm doing something else, I'm probably not listening very closely. So if the book is really worth, I want to hold it and take notes and be able to read it again and again without having to figure out where in the audio book I have to go back to a specific section. I've done both, but I learned that just ultimately works better for me to have the book in my hand.
Speaker 2:Who I'm paying attention to. I already mentioned Cody Sanchez because she's in business. I also have been really heavy listening to the Hermoses, alex and Layla, and they're a couple and they do a lot of this together, but talk about people that have figured out their strengths and how to work their partnership together. It's really impressive to see. He's very much about marketing and sales and does a great job with it, and there's a lot of really useful tips in his podcast and his social media. And then she on the operational level is like what she puts out is literally better than anyone else I've seen. It's not even close Like the stuff that she puts out tactically how to handle difficult situations and they're both very candid as well and honest. So it's pretty cool to listen to them. I haven't gotten the opportunity to see them in a live situation yet, but I would love to, but that's who I've been excited about lately. As I said, I'm trying to figure out business management, business scaling, and real estate is part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. If I'm speaking in front of a crowd or I'm doing something, I'll ask what kind of business you think I'm in. What business do you think I'm in? The old Ray Kroc question, and invariably they say customer service or rental properties or real estate investing. They say the obvious things and the fact is we're in the, we're in the marketing business, right and when, alex Ramosi, I listen to Neil Patel every day, right, and it's really about how can and because. That's that my highest investment use is as a marketing guy here at the company. And but it's interesting. The fact is that operationally, I too listen to the Hormozies and Laila is someone that I admire greatly. It's interesting. I just discovered them like six, eight months ago, and I yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's. And I read a hundred million dollar, a hundred million dollar offers and got sucked into their vortex of the community and I've been paying attention ever since. But yeah, the two things, the two levers that make it the easiest to succeed in our business are getting really good at marketing, creating awareness of what you're doing and how you're doing it and why it's unique, and then, from an operational efficiency perspective, getting really good at lowering costs and, slowly but surely, increasing revenue. You do those three things. You're going to, you're going to do okay in this business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree, you said it, we're all we're in a marketing business, but I think that's absolutely true and I think the reality is that every business is a people business. Despite what you might think, every business is a people business. And how you can interact well and work with others and that's whether that's, as we talked about, partnerships, whether that's talking about employees, whether that's talking whether that's you work for someone and it's your employer relationship, like all of that stuff. If you can figure out how to be the person that people want to work with, you'll go far. It sounds stupidly simple, but I honestly believe that's it.
Speaker 2:But it's just that simple Be the person that people want to work with, and you will be successful if you can achieve that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, an old boss of mine, rob Bernstein at Coupa Software, told me once he said I look at the partnerships that we have and the people we employ as investments and there's got to be a return and it's bidirection. They've got to get value out. It's a value exchange. They've got to get value out of it. We've got to get value out of it, and when that works, it works great. When it doesn't work, it's time to move forward. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The bidirectional point of it is extremely important. I think my goal, my expectation of my businesses, is that no one will ever leave because they don't like working for me. And I don't mean you have to like me, like we don't have to be friends. I mean that you're in a working environment that is good for you and because I think that's how you get the most out of people and you don't have to worry about things like turnover and things like that. So I think it to me it's extremely important to keep that in mind. It's somewhat comical to me when you hear about all the people complaining about how they can't hire good people and so forth. I'm like you can hire good people. You just have to pay them, you have to treat them well, that's it.
Speaker 1:And that's the difference. Yeah, it's interesting. You read our HR, like surveys of why people leave their jobs, and money is almost never in the top three. Right, it's usually four or five on the list. And it's things like I felt appreciated. I felt like I added value. My manager respected me Right. The company was committed to helping me grow. Right, those are the things that are important to humans, right. They want to contribute, they want to feel like they're adding to the greater good of whatever they're doing, but also they want to be recognized as hey, I'm part of this, I'm helping you.
Speaker 2:And it's great.
Speaker 1:I admire your position that you don't want anyone to ever to leave because they didn't like working with you, they can leave.
Speaker 2:For if they can leave for other reasons If it's to build their own business, or it's because they have kids and want to stay home, or they whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'll be their biggest cheerleader. I don't know. Yeah, exactly, I will support you in that. I just don't want it. It shouldn't be because they were like this guy yells at me all the time or what you know doesn't appreciate me or whatever. The whatever the case may be, it's just as I said just be the person that people want to work with and it'll serve you in really any capacity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the flogging will be. Get will continue until the, until morale improves. That's no good. So, jason, I'm really excited for you in terms of the growth, the lodge of your fund. I'm really excited to hopefully, you know, maybe even play a role in being one of your investors at some point, and and in terms of your overall business. I'm fascinated by the by boring businesses part. So at some point you and I are going to I'm going to buy you a virtual cup of coffee because you're in.
Speaker 1:LA and I'm going to get I'd love to get you to bring that part too, Jason. Thank you so much. If people want to get in touch with you or learn more about the fund or your business, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, best way to reach me is generally email Jason at Lark Capital. That's the easiest thing. You can go to my social media. On Instagram it's at Lark Capital, jason Ballara on LinkedIn. Those are the easiest place. I'm on Facebook, I'll be honest, it's not my, like, most active spot. Yeah, we have a website, but I think really just email me. I'm happy to talk to people, happy to discuss what we're doing, discuss the fund. If someone's interested, it's all to me. These conversations are always interesting. Appreciate having them with you. I'm from the Northeast so I imagine next time I'm up there we can meet up somewhere and have that coffee in person. So I would love that.
Speaker 1:And I've got family in Southern California, so if I'm heading out that way I'll let you know. Perfect, yeah, perfect, hey, jason, thank you so much. It's good to see my friend and I wish you well with the launch and everything else. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Thank you.