Real Estate Underground

From Oil Fields to Real Estate Empires with Casey Gregersen

• Ed Mathews • Season 4 • Episode 176

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  • YouTube: @CaseyGregersen
  • Instagram: @CaseyGregersen
  • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/caseygregersen
  • Mobile:  307-317-2494


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Introduction to Real Estate Underground

Ed Mathews

It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground . Thank you so much for making us a part of your day . I'm really excited because I discovered him when he was flipping houses in Wyoming and elsewhere , and now that company has grown into three companies plus . So with that , I'd love to welcome Casey Gregersen to the show . These days we're talking about the Bighorn Capital Fund , but we can also talk about Weill Homes and Gregersen Proper the show . These days we're talking about a Bighorn Capital Fund , but we can also talk about Weill Homes and Gregersen Properties and anything else you want to talk about . Welcome , Casey , it's good to finally meet you .

Casey Gregersen

You bet Ed Pleasure man Appreciate the kind words , yeah of course , yeah , I can't remember .

Ed Mathews

I think I discovered you on LinkedIn . That's usually where I find folks to have conversations with and pick their brains , and every once in a while they're kind enough to come on the show and have a conversation with me . So thank you

From Petroleum Engineer to Real Estate

Ed Mathews

for that . So , for those folks who haven't discovered you , why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do ?

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , absolutely so . Just everybody right . You got your where you came from , where you're at now , where you're going , which I think everybody can relate to . I worked the W2 job for a long time . So I started in 2012 for Shell as a petroleum engineer . So I grew up in Wyoming and I still invest there today . So something you'll probably ask later why Wyoming ? Well , it's where I grew up . It's where I went to grad school , but I had a great opportunity to go work in Houston for Shell Shell Oil Company as a petroleum engineer .

Casey Gregersen

I went to Shell and I worked there for 12 years , but I had a really unique gig , which was good and bad . It also led to my true purpose , but one of the best parts about that gig is I would go out to the field for two weeks and I'd work on a drilling rig and I'd actually work nights or be the guy in charge or I'd be like a field engineer driving around locations , but for two weeks I'd be on a rig . Then for two weeks after that I would be off and I wouldn't even have to open a work computer or cell phone . I had zero work responsibilities . So that's when I started buying houses . I was buying my first rental , doing my first house hack , started fixing and flipping and eventually grew and scaled that company where just three years ago almost three years , it'll be three years in October I left my W2 at Shell to go do this full time and to leave a an oil and gas job you must be doing very well .

Ed Mathews

So I'm curious about that journey from being the engineer to flipping houses and while you were keeping your W2 , that man . That had to be one heck of a juggling act . I know you had time off , but still you've got family and other responsibilities as well . What's that one soft skill or habit that you learned in the oil field town that that is now like your secret powers in a real estate world ?

Casey Gregersen

Man , there's a lot of little ones right and I always there's lots of little jabs . I'll take it my old W2 job and there was like the one thing was there was so much red tape . It was like I was literally living two lives right . I would work for Shell where it was very slow , methodical . So much red tape to just get a simple basic decision , have to get it approved by all these different people , go through all these processes and it would drive you nuts and it was really . It became demotivating because you're just like I could do all this work and bring all this value and then if I can't get five sign-offs , it doesn't even matter . So it was frustrating for sure . But the positive was I learned a lot about building processes and building out SLBs and after action reviews right , like I feel like that's a very common thing in today's entrepreneurial world . But 10 years ago it wasn't entrepreneurial world . But 10 years ago it wasn't and we , ever since early days with Shell , after we finished drilling a well or whatever project we did , we got together and did an AR and went back and reiterated our SOP . So that was a really good thing . That's helped me build processes and , for example , the way I put this into play was when I built out my property management team and operations was .

Casey Gregersen

I literally was actually during COVID when everybody's locked down had nothing to do and we were actually all post . We actually it's crazy Shell laid off 40% of my company that I was in at the time . They laid off 40% Because , if you remember , it's actually when oil went negative , so it was a really rough time . We were cutting 40% , so we were waiting and we didn't know if we had a job . So what I did is rather than just sit around and I don't know what everyone else did maybe watch Netflix I went and I was managing my rental properties at the time . So I was managing probably 10 to 15 units up in somewhere in Fort Worth , somewhere up in Wyoming , but I was in Houston .

Casey Gregersen

I read a book that some of you guys maybe your listeners have read and it's four-hour workweek . So I read four-hour workweek and they talk about hiring virtual assistants and that's when the light bulb goes off . I'm like , wait , if I can manage these properties from Houston and I don't even live in Wyoming or in Dallas-Fort Worth where I have properties why can I not train a VA ? So that's what I did during COVID is I buckled down , used some of those shell corporate America skills , wrote out everything on a Google doc and recording myself doing everything everything from getting a property , getting photos , creating the marketing , creating the Zillow post , the Facebook post to tenant screening , everything literally wrote it all down . And then I hired a virtual assistant and I trained him . I'm like all right , here's the SOPs , go follow them .

Ed Mathews

And now they own the SOPs and they're the ones To translate just in case you're not in corporate America out there , ar after action report , it's the constant loop of hey , we did something , hey , we broke some stuff , here's how we fix it , here's what worked and here's what we're going to do going forward , basically . And here's what we're going to do going forward . Basically , an SOP is the standard operating procedure that comes out of , typically , an after action report , or at least it's the doc that gets refined . So if you've seen any of our videos or attended a training or anything like that , we talk about this all the time and it's really how the big players have scaled their businesses , because they don't rely on a guy named Casey to do everything . They've got a team that understands exactly what their role is within the machine , and so if Casey decides that he would love to go on vacation with his beautiful family for a week or two , turns out the machine continues to roll and when he gets back , everything's fine . Yep , yeah , right on . It's something that it's a common thing that I see in all of the businesses that have figured out how to scale , and that is how to create operational leverage . Right . It's how to build that team and slowly but surely remove the president , founder , ceo , whatever your title you want to wear out of the day-to-day .

Ed Mathews

A friend of mine , charlie Mills he was my business coach for years always talked about the sovereign right . So you want to be the king , not the warrior . The king is the person who works on the business . The warrior is the person who executes . And it was revolutionary for me because I come from a similar business culture , but not your business . I'm a Silicon Valley techie guy .

Ed Mathews

The interesting part about it is the early stages of particularly when I went full-time . I had to really fight , doing it myself right and really because I came from environments where people were so off the charts smart and so competent and so accomplished . If we gathered three or four people in a conference room , came up with a game plan and left , everybody knew exactly what to do . Here I had to take the virtual assistants and train them step by step . We're going to break it down . I know you've done this before and I get that , but here's how I want it done right . And then the next step is something that I think you just alluded to , which was not only that , but also , now that you understand what the standard operating procedure is , you now own it Right . So you're the one who's going to execute this . My way doesn't have to be the way . I don't care about being right , I care about getting it right , and so if you come up with a better way , then let's rewrite the SOP and let's do it your way .

Casey Gregersen

Exactly , that's exactly how I built it . Same fundamentals .

Ed Mathews

Part of this is that I'm literally writing a presentation for a group of folks that I'm mentoring in October , and I'm literally writing about standard operating procedures right now and why they're so important . So , in terms of the business , we started off flipping houses . Obviously , that went extremely well . It sounds like you evolved that into a rental business and now we're into private equity . Talk me through that maturation cycle , and it seems like you talk about going full-time three years ago , but that's not when you started the business , right ? Let's talk about where you

Building Business Systems & SOPs

Ed Mathews

started and the journey to get to where you are today ?

Casey Gregersen

Absolutely yeah . So I'll give you in a nutshell how I built the property management company and , as I mentioned , that had been like 2020 COVID , right . The other one that I built a couple of years before that was direct to seller . So up until about 2019 , I was finding deals like on market . I could go find a distressed property , fix it up . I was doing just commercial loans and I could go a lot of different ways today , but that's been one I'll give you in 30 seconds .

Casey Gregersen

But one of the best things I did early on was I started working in small banks and , instead of going to big mortgage brokers , I went to a small bank locally in the town I was investing in and I did a deal with them . They got to know me . So I did a lot of deals like that where I'd buy it on the market , fix it up , rent it out or buy it , fix it and flip it Right . But I started building that . But then , as the market started to heat up , I realized I was buying from wholesalers . Actually , this is how it started . So I'm buying from wholesalers in DFW and I'm like man , there's deals that I'm actually losing money on a flip and those guys still made money on the front end , right . I'm like , how do I figure out how to do that ? This group out in Midland they were called the REI Game Changers . At the time I met them presenting on the strategy back in like 2017 in Midland in the little cafe presenting on the burst strategy . But I got to know them . They built out this training course for wholesaling . So I went and took their course the best $11,000 I've ever invested because I literally had to close one single deal to pay for that course . So , anyway , I started doing direct mail , texting , facebook ads , paper lead . We've even done radio . A ton of direct mail has been one of our best ones and yeah , so we built that company out . So that was in 2019 .

Casey Gregersen

And I built it out in a market like Wyoming where there was nobody doing any marketing right . There weren't any wholesalers back in 29th Louis and even today there's not a whole lot . So that started leading up my deal funnel right . So again , now I feel like I can find the deal . I can manage it long-term Now .

Casey Gregersen

The one in the middle , which I think was one of the biggest problems I had to solve , was instructing . I mean , everyone struggles with contractors everywhere , but in Wyoming especially , they're just not enough . And honestly , that's why I love the market so much because the construction can't keep up with the demand . Right , there's not enough contractors and there's still a lot of people that want to live up there , especially since post COVID . Right , they want to be up there but they can't keep up with the demand .

Casey Gregersen

So I had to figure out how do I make my business more predictable . And again it came down to as soon as I can get enough rental properties and enough flips going on , I can afford a full-time person . I'm going to hire him , cause then at least I got one guy I can rely upon . So that's what I did . I hired the first one , he hired some just kind of laborers and subs , and then I hired the second one and third one , fourth one . So now today I have four to five different breweries working on all of our four pipes . They're spread out throughout the region . That way I can be getting .

Casey Gregersen

If I got a rental property that needs a quick little handyman , I send a guy over there , like I can move quick . And the biggest thing is on my fix-it clips . Now I bring so much more predictability across the business , right , even in my buy-in holds that I know I got to fix up or rent out . I've added so much more predictability on timelines , right and budgets . So now when I actually go look at a deal , I'm sure you'd probably agree , ed , one of the biggest risks , like when you're doing construction or value add , is like are you going to be on target ? Are you going to hit your scope ? Are you going to hit your timelines ? Carrying costs , sir , and it was continually like the only when we were like doing after action reviews , we're looking back , we're like this is where we're missing , because we were working with a GC , or we missed this or missed that , or we are over timeline . So anyway , it was one I iterated and fixed .

Casey Gregersen

But to answer your question of like how it goes full circle , I found in Wyoming it was really hard and then I fought it for a long time just trying to be like I want to wholesale , like all my peers that I'm learning from are they're just finding deals , locking them up and wholesaling them and not doing any work and they're making whatever 20 , 30 , $40,000 a pop . And in my market it was just hard for me to find in cash buyers . But then I realized , wait , I don't get to have a bulk ways right because I have way less competition . There's not a bunch of wholesalers competing with , but there's also not a whole lot of buyers like investor buyers .

Casey Gregersen

So my solution to that was raise more money , take more deals down myself , because if I could find a deal I could do the construction , I can manage the property . Now it just becomes my solvable problem was we need to raise enough capital to take down these deals , because the retail market in our markets in Wyoming and Montana there's still plenty of people buying . You just got to be the guy that fixes it up and gets it there . So that's where kind of Bitcoin Capital Fund came into play . It's like I got to have a way to scale , keep growing and deploy more money on deals because it gets expensive , right ?

Ed Mathews

You've mentioned a couple of things along the way here that I want to unpack . One of them was predictability in terms of your construction , so tell me more about that . I think I have a preconceived notion of what you're talking about but I'm going to make you explain it instead .

Casey Gregersen

So when a deal comes in my pipeline , my acquisitions team gets a deal and they're bringing it to me and we're trying to figure out okay , how much is this going to cost ? What's the timeline ? We now know that I'm talking to the guy that's going to do the work and he's quoting it and I know his schedule , I control his schedule and that's probably the biggest thing I'm going to get at is I get to control the schedule . Versus most fixing flippers , or even if it's your first one , you find a deal that on paper , it looks like you're buying it at the right price . Let's just say you got a good price for the rehab budget and you know the ARV . You're like , okay , this deal makes sense , but who's going to come do the work and when are they going to go do the work ?

Casey Gregersen

And you just talked about holding costs . Right , I can time these things out and it just brings so much more predictability to my investors , right . And the guys I partner with , I'm like , hey , guys , when I say this is our timeline , this

Evolution From Flipping to Capital Fund

Casey Gregersen

is our budget and I know we can actually hit it because it's not a third party . I'm relying upon those guys . They got to make money , they got to appease , I don't know , four or five , maybe 10 different clients . I just like the control and the predictability that they're in-house guys . It's just so valuable , Even if you just purely timeline , even if it's not cost . Fortunately I get cost and timeline or control .

Ed Mathews

Yeah , some of the other things that we've also done . I've done both . I've done the captive contractor relationship , where they're pretty much working for us , although they're separate they're in a 1099 , not a W-2 . And we've also brought people on and I'll tell you that was a dream for the exact reason you just laid out Because between balancing the flips and the rental properties , we could always keep them busy and there was always an expert hand that we could throw at a problem and get it solved very quickly with somebody that we knew and trusted . The other things that we have done over the years is , you know , having the same labor is huge , but also we use the same materials everywhere same cabinets , same flooring , same paint , all of that and I'm curious , is that something that you do as well ?

Casey Gregersen

We have not taken the time to completely like . We have same general paint and flooring , same paint , all of that and I'm curious is that something that you do as well ? We have not taken the time to completely like . We have same general paint and flooring , but our deals are so diverse . Right , every remodel and new construction is very tempting and exciting for me , and we want to do more of it for that exact reason .

Ed Mathews

But remodels are .

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , they're so different and I even like our like , like even my guys , I love they finally think like me , right , Like it was so cool we were at . We have every year we have base camp and we bring all our teams together . This last year we were right outside Park City in Evansville , Wyoming , had everybody there and it was cool hearing those guys talk about they're like we got a fix and they're they've just I've just trained these guys . They budget everything and they know they get rewarded in there . They just and they're just principally rewarded .

Casey Gregersen

We created a competition right , we're being on budget right and be able to keep our costs down . So ultimately they just I give them really full autonomy . They'll work with an agent to make sure they don't go do something crazy or ridiculous thing and sell right , but yeah , I give them a lot of autonomy to go figure out , like , what is going to make sense , Because the other thing is sourcing right , Wyoming it's a lot harder to sort materials , so it's like we got to put together what's available and I give them the freedom .

Ed Mathews

And so how far out are you in terms of ordering materials and things like that ? Is it just in time , or are you building inventory , or how do ?

Casey Gregersen

you do that we would love . We're eventually going to get to that point . So I did a 66 unit value add and we probably touched almost 30 to 40 of those units . So on that one we were able to order a bunch of cabinets , order countertops , order appliances , order windows , right flooring and we had enough space to where we could do it . We're doing it now on a hotel conversion up in Wheatland , wyoming , where I was just visiting a couple of weeks ago , and one of the units is all loaded up . When you can do it right , it does save them a lot of time . But we work with Home Depot . They're probably a pretty good distributor to get stuff , but the majority of the time if it's a fix and flip , they just they go get what they need at Home Depot or whatever else and they go .

Ed Mathews

Yeah , it's interesting . I was just talking to a buddy of mine down in New Jersey who does this and he was doing so many flips and converting so many apartments over the last five , six years . He ended up buying a kitchen cabinet distributorship . He's his own biggest customer , so it's , but he's getting them at manufactured direct prices . I was like , wow , that's really smart . But he's a lot bigger than me , so maybe I'll just buy from him instead , which is actually what he was trying to do . That's tempting . It is right Because it actually , in terms of cash outlay , as long as you can commit to a specific amount of sales which you have access to , because you know what your sales were in terms of your material costs last year , In the last two , three years , you know exactly what they were and you know what your pipeline looks like , so you know what it's going to look like more or less in the future . All you have to do is commit to a certain level of purchases from the manufacturer and they'll approve you for distributorship .

Casey Gregersen

Wow , you just gave me a new project for one of my one of my project .

Ed Mathews

All right . So let's move on to the lightning round here , and I'm always curious about folks that have reached a certain level of success . The mortgage is paid , the car payments are taken care of , the kid's , college education is all lined up , things are good , right , and nevertheless you get out of bed on Monday morning and dive right back into the office , and so for me that comes down to purpose , because it's not money that's driving you anymore , it's something else , and I'm curious what that is in your life .

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , it's two parts , right it's . I still am driven by still having even more freedom , like I'm still in the building phase and building out different attorneys . The latest thing and I'll explain it with the latest thing I'm building , but I'm building . But I'm really excited for the day where I can do a lot more public speaking and help more people , which I guess that's the purpose , and I'll explain a little bit more . Back to that

Purpose & Helping Others Find Freedom

Casey Gregersen

COVID scenario .

Casey Gregersen

I told you about where I was at home . 40% of our team was getting laid off . I'll never forget the conversations I was having with my colleagues . They're about like , oh man , what's going to happen if they call my number ? What am I going to do ? Obviously , no one's hiring right now , or not . There's not many jobs right now in oil and gas . What are we going to do ? And they weren't building this off ramp to go right into real estate . They had given everything . They just had their 401k and maybe their severance and they were going to have to figure it out . So I just realized at that time that while it was really fun building out these companies , building out my direct-to-seller company , building out construction , building out property management , what I found was those conversations .

Casey Gregersen

And now since then , like anytime , like right now , I'll give you an example . Last night I went and did a presentation here in North Houston and I was presenting on the revive method and if anybody's interested later I'll share a link . It's a way we structure our fix and flips and we're able to de-risk almost every fix and flip because we partner with a seller . All right , but anyway , I'm giving the presentation and I'm sharing my story , and there's several other oil and gas folks in there that are still working 12-hour shifts , like I am . They're still in the grind and being able to connect with them afterward . So my next workshop is in October . It's in Houston and I'm like come to the workshop Because what I built this workshop around was helping families achieve financial freedom .

Casey Gregersen

So they're like my perfect avatar of folks that are still working their W-2 . They're doing well , right , but they want something more . But a lot of times they don't have time and I had to get older and more mature and realize and more self-awareness to realize not everybody's like me . On their off days they want to maybe chill out and go to the lake . You guys want to throw a hook in the water . That's right , exactly . They're not all built , like me , but I still want to be able to help those folks to where they could still . They're still doing really well and they still have an opportunity if they just knew how .

Casey Gregersen

And I'm telling you like I'm lighting up right now , just thinking about the first workshop , because there were so many things to be covered . First off , we helped them like what is your 10-year vision ? Let's actually get together , get around the right people , take some time and think about that vision . Where are you going ? That was the first core thing we did , and the second thing was now how do we start to get there ? What do we do over the next 90 days ?

Casey Gregersen

And this is where I get lighted up , because I'm like I've just been through it . I know what banks they should be talking to , how they should be leveraging their credit , zero percentage credit cards , leveraging self-directed IRAs , all these different ways that they can deploy money that they already have that they probably don't even realize they have , and deploy it into real estate or other avenues . So that's a cup I really like , because I've been doing it forever and I'm like I know your position . I've been doing it forever and I'm like I know your position . I've been there . Let me help you start to create financial freedom . I want people to be able to make the decision I made . I finally , after 12 years or whatever , decided I was going to choose family over my work . Right , and I want everyone even if now's not the right time , I'm not at all proponent about everyone burn the ships , quit your W-2 . I just want you to be able to have that choice Right on .

Ed Mathews

Yeah , it's the whole concept of time freedom . You don't realize how amazing and important it is . I have kids , you have kids , but even a spouse or a life partner or whatever . My grandfather said it best , and that was you only get 18 summers with them . I was like , oh yeah , you're right . And I'm at the end of that cycle where my youngest is starting her senior year of high school on Tuesday , so she's gone . And the older one is graduating from college in four months , so she's gone .

Ed Mathews

And so now my wife and I are looking at each other Okay , we still like each other , so that's cool . But now what ? Having that time freedom to be able to go to that parent-teacher conference or the soccer game or go on vacation and not have to sweat or even ask a boss ? Hey , I'm going to take 10 days off and we're going to go to Hawaii , is that okay ? There is no , is that okay ? That conversation is happening at your dinner table , not in a conference room , right , that's right . So and that is probably the most valuable thing that I got out of this whole experience and sounds like you're similar is that time freedom is just immeasurably valuable .

Casey Gregersen

Oh yeah , exactly so if I can wake up every morning helping more people feel that same feeling , because a lot of people don't even know what it feels like yeah , they think in future state , when I'm 65 , this is going to be awesome .

Ed Mathews

No , you can do it when you're 40 , if you want . Yeah , you can only affect today and tomorrow . So I'm also curious about the mentors that you've had in your life . You mentioned the wholesaling training that you got , but I'm sure there have been other really important people in your life that have guided you along the way or kicked you in the pants when you needed it . I'm curious what's the best advice you ever ?

Casey Gregersen

got and who gave it to you . I'll give you a unique one . It was in a tough time where I was doing a bunch of fixed flips and we were using hard money and we were combining with private money and it was going really well . But all of a sudden , we hit some bumps in the road and properties wouldn't sell . I literally had to call my hard money lenders and I had two of them . One of them was like a shark and they were absolutely terrible as well , but one was really good to me and he's the one I want to share . He gave me good advice . He goes Casey , because I called him up . I'm like John . His name's John . I'm like John , we're in trouble . I can't get these properties sold and we got to get properties moved and I need some flexibility on our payments . He goes all right , casey , that sucks . I'm sorry . I wish I could say I haven't , but I've been there and he's like all you can do now is drop price . You need all those properties on the market . You need to drop them 10,000 every week until you get it sold and could keep dropping . So that's what we did . We dropped them After three or four weeks . It just keep dropping . So that's what we did . We dropped them . After three or four weeks it finally sold and to this day I've just learned that whenever I go and I list the flip , and it's actually why back to that revive method .

Casey Gregersen

The revive method is a strategy I do now to fix some flip properties and it's again I'll share . I can share a video , maybe in the notes of more about it . But I was thinking about that the other day when I was doing this property where I'm partnering with the seller , to where now the house isn't selling . And I'll tell you , as a fixed flipper and those of you guys have done it , the worst feeling ever is when you've got a property that you just finished flipping right . You've got through all the contractor stuff and fixed it up .

Casey Gregersen

It's on the market and you're all excited and guess what ? You don't get any offers . One week , next week , no offers . Now all you're showing start going away and you're just sitting there stagnant , like , oh my gosh . I got to go back to John's advice . I just got to drop 10,000 . Keep dropping . But the revive method helps me . We can drop price because we're doing a profit share with a seller and we could still make our money . Anyway , that's the advice I always think about . Is that guy could have been like the other lenders , have been like I'm foreclosing on you tomorrow and been really difficult . But he's no you , I underwrote this deal correctly . I'm still going to make money . So Casey dropped this house until you could sell it , and then you got paid back . Yep Good advice .

Ed Mathews

So , from a , I fundamentally believe and I've learned this in the years and years that I've been in the actually probably teenage years where I made the most mistakes , but over the course of my career , I fundamentally believe that we learn way

Learning From Mistakes & Exit Strategies

Ed Mathews

more from the mistakes we make than from the successes that we have . And so I'm curious about a decision that you've , professional decision that you've made over the years , that you look back and go man , I'd love to have that back and what'd you do ?

Casey Gregersen

about it . I'll tie it to that kind of same story . Right , we were buying properties in and around like Fort Worth , around like the campus , like TCU , and we were buying them at a good price . We had a good GC . It was actually doing a really good job for us , so we would buy them cheap , fix them up , and we were refinancing , getting all our money back . And we did it on four or five properties and we got this sort of false sense of wow , what do you do ? It's not easy , but let's nail it .

Casey Gregersen

Here we go and again I'm like path leading my W-2 . But we started going and we're like , all right , let's now go do some fix and flips at higher price points , which again got away from exactly what we were doing . Well , and let's go hire a project manager to put these together , cause now our current GC is probably not there . He was doing these houses that were buying for a hundred , putting in 80 and selling an ARB was like two , 40 , right , low price points . But now we're going in some houses that were like five , six , 700,000 , completely different animal . And so new crews knew everything . And that's where it started to unwind is now new contractors and they weren't following through and the biggest wine is now new contractors and they weren't following through . And the biggest here's .

Casey Gregersen

The biggest decision is like when those properties wouldn't sell , I had no choice but to do what John said drop 10,000 , drop 10 and lose money . What I learned was in Wyoming I was having the opposite right . I was still able to buy houses at maybe 150,000 , put 50 into it and sell it for 300 . But those houses , if you're fixing and flipping things are inherently you're going to miss stuff , especially when you work with GC and you don't have your own . But on those houses I didn't have to take a bath , I just refinanced , put a tenant in there and I could cover the debt .

Casey Gregersen

So this is a long way of saying I wish I would've told myself back then Casey , always have two exit strategies , right . Don't go do a fixing float where your only exit is to sell at that ARV , because if you miss the ARV you miss the contractors , all these things that happen , and you only have one out right . So I always try to have the two exit strategies . Or I do that other thing , which is the revive method , where I'm not taking all the risk . The seller is going to , they're going to make a little bit less on a deal like that Every single one has a curve ball , every single one .

Ed Mathews

If I find the one that doesn't have a curve ball , it goes exactly as planned . You're going to be able to hear me . All you have to do is open your window , because I'll be shouting from the hills because I've yet to find one , and I've been doing it a while Plan A , plan B , sometimes plan C and plan D as well , sometimes plan C and plan D as well . So , yeah , that's excellent advice . So how do you take in information Like what is the proverbial book on your nightstand and who , specifically are you paying attention to these days ?

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , I've been really fortunate . I joined the sub two community a couple of years ago . I just started diving in and I was already doing deals . I got into it and I was surprised at how much content there was out there , and I've since joined Pace Owners Club . So there's about three or 400 people that have joined that and it's all the higher level people from the Sub2 community . That's where I like listening in .

Casey Gregersen

Pace spends a little bit more time with that group and he's able to give us access to his resources and , like his marketing guys , he just brings a lot of other people in so they just have weekly calls and blend , so they just have weekly calls . And that's where I just listened to one last night . He's done a lot of good things , but one thing he's great at is vision and marketing , and those are two things that get me excited and just hearing that . I've always just loved listening to webinars or workshops or whatever , or books and learning and implementing , because I'm like , hey , all right , I can hear something and I could see it and I can go do it .

Casey Gregersen

It could be a flaw too , cause if I go to like here , in a couple of weeks I'll get a collective genius , which is a high level mastermind . I'm in and I'm going to get 50 ideas that I want to do and I'm going to be like we're going to do all these and I'll go back to my team and they're like all right , casey , my COO , like what he can filter them . But I just love being able to bring in information like that , adapt being always course correcting , right , yeah , and adapt or die right yeah .

Casey Gregersen

I couldn't agree more .

Ed Mathews

I'm a similar personality . When I go on vacation , it's the most dangerous thing ever when I come back , because I come back with 30 different ideas . My operations person would be like time out . Let's pick one , all right .

Ed Mathews

Like all right , that's her big mantra . Let's pick one . I don't know which one to pick , so I'll let you . Eventually I get around to it . Last question in the lightning round I'm always interested in learning about how people define the pillars of their life . Right , I'm curious how you define . I suspect I actually know thinking about it , but how do you define success in your life ?

Casey Gregersen

Think about this for my kids . I think about what I don't think is successful and what drives me nuts , and it's when people won't just move forward , take action

Keys to Success & Personal Fulfillment

Casey Gregersen

and go with it . To me , if you are constantly pushing forward , iterating , going for it even if you aren't successful originally , I love it , and I heard this from Chip Gaines years ago in his book everything I go out and do , it's a win-win . Either way , I either go and crush it and I do well and I'm excited and successful , or I do it and I'm not as successful , but I learn something and then iterate and get better .

Casey Gregersen

You don't have to win every single one of them , but to me , success is getting up every day and going for it , trying something new right and giving it everything you got . I always tell my kids love sports and more athletic than most . There's always going to be somebody faster , bigger , stronger than you , but you control how hard you work and if you outwork everyone , that's the one thing you control right . Outwork every single person out there , and that's going to apply on the sports field , that's going to apply in business and in life . So I would say it's a combination of taking action and failing forward , but also everything you have needs to be followed .

Ed Mathews

Yeah , jay Wright , who's the retired basketball coach of Villanova , always talks about you can control two things on the athletic field , and 100% . I couldn't agree with you more is that everything else is a reaction , but those two things you bring to the athletic field , the business scenario , whatever , even relationships . I couldn't agree more . Difference between and I tell my kids difference between good and great is hard work . It's all it is . You get on some of these athletic fields or swimming pools or whatever sport your kids are into , and there's a lot of talented kids , but you can tell the ones that work and the ones that just rely on the talent . It becomes obvious . So when you're not conquering the real estate world , what do you like to do for fun ?

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , this is an easy one . I'm in the middle of it right now and I wish I could do it all the time , but it's coaching my son's football team or any sports . I love coaching the kids all four boys and that's why I love keep having boys , since I just get more and more boys sports to coach . But yeah , my favorite is football . Right Right now I'm coaching tackle football . I've got a sixth grader and being able to like break down , film and go to practice . People get paid to do that . I would do that If everything would just be covering . I could spend half of my day getting ready for football and in practice and prepping . You can't beat it . There's so much fun .

Ed Mathews

You have to talk to your wife one more and you get a starting five for basketball , too , working . Yeah , there you go . I'm working on her , all right , man ? Hey , I've really enjoyed the conversation and getting to know you a little bit . If people want to get in touch with you and learn more about you , or a Bitcoin capital fund or any of your other businesses , what's the best way to do that ?

Casey Gregersen

Yeah , I'll give you guys a couple options depending on where you're at . If you're on Instagram or YouTube or anything , it's really easy . I'm just , you'll be able to find me . Just make sure you spell my last name with all E and you'll find me . Also LinkedIn If you guys are on LinkedIn , just search my name . If you guys are just like , hey , I want to like directly reach out to Casey because I'm interested in his summit , or interested in Big Horn Capital , or just hey , I want to talk to you about the revive method , how you start to be able to whatever it , I'll just give you my number it's 307-317-2494 .

Casey Gregersen

And you mentioned your summit real quick . Why don't you tell us about that real quick before we sign off ? You bet yeah . So our next one . We do them every quarter , but the next one's here in Houston October 23rd and it's a two-day workshop . So if anybody wants to come down , it's actually incredibly affordable . Now , eventually , we want to grow and scale these things , but right now I just want to get the right people in the room . I just want to cover my costs to do the events , because to me it's like I want to have the right people in there and then I want to see what grows after that , because right now our first one . I've stayed in contact with all those people that came to the first summit . You guys could swing it and make it to Houston . The first group loved it and I would love to have some of your audience there . Houston's real nice in the fall , that's right . We'll come in July , so I'm like this end of the fall will be great All right , casey , thank you so much .

Ed Mathews

It's really good to see you and I wish you nothing but continued success . Be well

Casey Gregersen

Awesome .

Ed Mathews

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Ed Mathews

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