Raise Private Money Legally

Mastering the Raise with Jake Marmulstein

August 11, 2021 Kim Lisa Taylor Season 3 Episode 3
Raise Private Money Legally
Mastering the Raise with Jake Marmulstein
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Kim Lisa Taylor talks to Jake Marmulstein about mastering the raise. Jake's platform Groundbreaker enables real estate syndicators to find, manage and verify investors; receive payments; and show off property profiles.

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 Edited Transcript from the podcast episode ‘Mastering the Raise’

With Special Guest Jake Marmulstein


 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Welcome, everybody, to Syndication Attorneys, PLLC’s free monthly podcast, “Raise Private Money Legally.” We use this forum to talk about topics of interest to real estate syndicators, with the opportunity for live questions and answers at the end of the call. 

I'm attorney Kim Lisa Taylor. But before we get started, please note that all of our calls and podcasts will be recorded and may be used for future promotion, posted on a website, or broadcast in a podcast available to the public. 

If you don't wish to have your voice recorded, please schedule a one-on-one consultation instead of asking the questions during the live call. Information discussed during this free podcast is of a general educational nature and should not be construed as legal advice. 

Today, we're talking about “Mastering a Raise” with Jake Marmulstein of Groundbreaker. He is the founder and CEO of Groundbreaker. He's put together a really great team and he's been in business about as long as Syndication Attorneys has been around. When did you start, Jake?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Groundbreaker officially started in 2013 and we went into being a software in 2014.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Oh, wow. Well, you've been around a little longer than Syndication Attorneys. Of course, I've been doing syndication stuff for almost 13 years now, but we started Syndication Attorneys in 2016. So you guys were around even a little before that. And you were one of the original groundbreakers in this field of investor management platforms, right?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah. Back when I was working in a REIT, I saw the frustration that I had in the back office. And then I imagined, "Hey, is there a better solution out there?" And it didn't quickly come to me to do an investor management platform at that point. I wasn't quite there yet. But then in 2012, the JOBS Act passed. And I think that led to a ton of companies waking up and going out there and trying to fund-raise, and real estate was one of those areas that was raising capital through 506(c). There was some self-issue debt.

So we saw all of that. And then I kind of just connected the dots from there and said, "Well, if companies are raising capital and some of the innovative tech players are coming to market, then that's going to put pressure on really everybody else to have a more transparent system for raising money." Because the more that technology proliferates, the more it becomes kind of a standard in terms of the process for investors to be able to interact with alternatives. And it's funny that we saw that happen.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

That’s fantastic. Well, I'm glad that you guys actually saw that opportunity and seized it. And you've been one of the more successful players in this marketplace, I believe. I see you guys more than I do some of the others and I hear nothing but good things about your services. So, that's great. Today we want to talk about mastering a raise and some of the issues and challenges that you've seen your clients face during the years that you've been doing this. 

So, let's jump right into it. When does the raise begin?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

That's a great question. A lot of people get this wrong and think it's about the deal that they have and making sure that they've got the best deal that's going to “wow” investors and money is going to be pouring in. And it's really not like that at all. It's built on your personal brand, well before you even have a deal, especially when you're an early syndicator or an early fund manager, people are investing in you. So what you have to do in order to be able to set that foundation is think about selling your brand and attracting people to you first, your process, and what it's going to be like investing with you, and the kind of investors and the kind of audience that you're going to go after in order to set yourself up for that raise.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

I want to back up a little bit, because I want to make sure that everybody has a really good understanding of what an investor management platform is and what it isn't. So, can you just explain to us a little bit about what is an investor management platform and what sort of function does it serve?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah, it's kind of a loaded question. The platform … a lot of companies that do this promise kind of an all-in-one technology and overload you with different features and different bells and whistles, a lot of which you don't even need, or aren't even thinking about. It's really simple. An investor management platform is a presentation layer that allows you to be more professional with your investors, structure a process that's compliant and secure for you to be able to raise capital. And then manage your investors so that they're able to be engaged with you during your raise, after your raise, and be able to be serviced by you.

So the platform should serve as that first place, that first point of contact for you to get in touch with your investors, for you to warm them up. When you're raising capital for your deal, you can process the transaction through that. And when your investors are curious about how the investment is performing, it makes it easy and condenses a lot of complexity into a simple login that they can get into and be able to see how the investments are performing, download any documents and be able to know what's going on, without having to pick up the phone and call you in a one-to-one fashion.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

You said something that resonated with me. You said, "It's a place to structure a secure process that allows you to raise capital." And I actually had a client who tried to do this through his own website. So he put up a website for a fund and then posted his documents on the fund website. And somebody actually cloned his website and then changed the financial information in the documents and started trying to get investors to send them money. And one person actually did send $70,000 to this alternative place, which was somewhere overseas. And the client actually had to make good on it with that investor.

So I can't stress enough how important it is that you don't just go posting documents on your own website, even if you're doing a Reg D Rule 506(c) Offering that allows you to advertise and raise money from any verified accredited investor. You can advertise to everybody, but you can't just go posting your documents on an unsecure website where you don't have contact with those people and know that they're real before you give them access. And so I think that's one of the things that Groundbreaker does, right?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah. And it's something to be said when you have an investor portal, like Groundbreaker, your investors are going to take you a little bit more seriously because they see that you've invested in something that's going to protect them. A lot of people buy Groundbreaker for their investors. They do it because they want their investors to feel safe and that they want their investors to be impressed by their process and their transparency that they're offering. So you get both of those things by having a portal and it increases your legitimacy as a real estate sponsor. When it comes to raising capital for investing purposes, you really don't want to cut corners.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

So if you do a Reg D 506(b) offering, you don't have to verify the investors' financial information, but if you're doing a Reg D Rule 506(c) Ooffering, you do. You have to verify that they're accredited investors. So they may have to send you some of their critical and financial information, and you may have tax returns or employment receipts or something like that, K-1s. Things like that, that you have to safeguard. And so, again, that's not something you should be safeguarding in your Google account or your Dropbox account, or something like that. You really have to have a safe place to gather that information. And that is also something that Groundbreaker provides, right?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah. We just did a fantastic update in our system too. It makes it super easy to be able to log in. You click on a documents tab and you can see all of your K-1s, all of your statements, you can organize it by investment. It really looks like a professional and clean interface too, for people to go into. You don't need to know technology to be able to use the system. And it does kind of have that “wow” effect with investors. We hear that a lot when people get access to the system and they're just like, "Wow, you're really leveling up your game."

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

That's great. That's fantastic. So let me ask you the next question: How is what you do different than a crowdfunding platform?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

We looked at this many years ago, actually. We know that people want access to investors and they also want a system for raising money. What we saw in the way that crowdfunding platforms were operating was that as they continued to do deals, they would kind of pigeonhole themselves into a certain type of deal and sponsor that they could raise capital for because of the nature of their investors and the returns that they were offering. And so that eliminated a lot of really good deals and really good real estate sponsors from being able to raise capital with them. With Groundbreaker, we said, "Let's empower these real estate syndicators and fund managers who have great deals, and they have their own investors."

They want to be in control of their brand and their company. And they want to have the ability to have security over that investor database. They don't want to share that with other people. “So let's give them the tools so that they can efficiently raise money, but also that they can compete on that same level of transparency and professionalism as some of these crowdfunding platforms that are kind of raising the bar for everyone else.” And for a very small price, you can get a plug and play investment management software through Groundbreaker that'll make you compliant and secure and compete on that level. And then all you have to do is provide your deal and get your investors onboarded.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Well, so that's a really good question: What kind of deals do you have, or are people using your platform for?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

It ranges from really small deals that could be an emerging syndicator that's doing less than 50-unit multifamily acquisitions with a lot of value-add type stuff for people who are just starting, to folks that are doing core plus or core multifamily in emerging markets. And then there's a lot of self-storage as well. The other day, I was looking at a deal from one of my clients and one of the larger ones, it was a $30 million equity raise for nearly 400-unit multifamily deal in Texas, to looking at another deal from a client in Connecticut that was doing a $1 million raise for 18- to 20-unit multifamily.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

And do you do both specified offerings where people are buying one deal at a time, but can your platform also accommodate someone who has a fund?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Absolutely. Now, there's different things that you need to do in order to operate the fund, such as doing capital calls, if you're going to deploy the capital out of the fund on a rolling basis as opposed to all at once in a single-asset syndication that you need to be using in Groundbreaker in order to operate a fund. But everything else is pretty much the same when it comes to getting the capital in and then reporting to the investors and distributing funds. So you can use Groundbreaker both for single-asset and funds.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Okay. Then how does this work as far as ... Are there documents that are housed within Groundbreaker that are useful when somebody goes to do their year-end tax reporting, or is there some kind of synergy there, or are they kind of two separate things?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Typically, we are able to host whatever kind of documents that people want to have in the system. Typically their accountant is going to do their K-1s. And then they can log in and upload all the K-1s to each investor account. And the investors can log in and have all that information available in a secure way. There's one-to-one document where you can upload something really sensitive to a single individual, like a K-1, and then there's things that are generic, like a report that you can upload to all the investors.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Does it help when people are trying to determine how much distributions to make to investors? Is that kind of built into the software? Is that something they do independently with their bookkeeper?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Our software supports pro-rata distribution calculations. Typically companies never trust other programs to do all of the calculations. It kind of operates in a black box and they usually have an Excel model. So we'll just expect sponsors to be breaking that distribution down in their model and then entering the total amount that they need to send to their investors. And Groundbreaker would split it into the checks and the sizes that the investors need to receive. And then you can actually send the funds and push them electronically using our software. So instead of having to write checks and everything, and sending payments through your online banking, you can just click a button and it'll fund.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

That's a big deal so that you don't have to independently go in and one-by-one do all of that. That would save a lot of time. All right. So, I kind of deviated from some of the questions that you said to me, but just as we were talking, it seemed to me like these were questions that our audience would like to know.

So, when does it make sense for someone to engage Groundbreaker? On their first deal? On their second deal? If they're starting a fund?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

If we think about the way that you start the raise, you're going to want to build that personal brand, but also build that list of investors and identify who are the people that you're going to go out to, and what are you going to present to them? And so if you present to them your story and why you got into syndication, and you have kind of your list of investors that you're building over time for people that you know, to people that they know and you've met, that are interested in investing, you're going to need to come up with your pitch and sort of the “investment thesis” that you're going out with, the kinds of properties that you want to invest in. And then there's going to come a time where you're going to need to show a deal. But you never want to wait until you show that deal to be able to get an indication of interest from your investors.

So we have a really cool feature called a teaser and investment reservation that you can run with, even before you're ready to do your deal, where if you come across something that looks kind of like a deal that you would want to do, but it's not even under contract, maybe you won't even get it under contract. What you could do is have your investor database uploaded into Groundbreaker. As you're marketing and doing your branding, you're adding investors to the portal. They can log in, and they can see some of these case studies and representative deals that you might go after. 

And you can start to do things where you can hold a call, you can walk through a deal with these prospective investors, get them excited and start to show the kinds of deals that you are looking for, walking through your process and how you would due-diligence a deal. And then you can kind of see from there, maybe you do a dry run and start to use that reserve investment feature and see how much people would invest so that you can get the amount of capital that you have and the liquidity that your investor base would have toward the deal that you're going to eventually need to put under contract.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Wow, that's amazing. I didn't realize that your software would do that. And I think that's great. It really helps build the confidence of the syndicator that they can get that deal under contract and actually raise enough money to get it done. That's fantastic. 

We asked that question earlier about, when does the raise begin? I actually had a client that had a coach who said, "Oh, just get your deals under contract and the investors will come.” And that was just such the wrong advice because this person was able to get two really great deals under contract, but they didn't have a single investor to call and to talk to.

And so then they were scrambling around. And of course, what happens in that case is they ended up talking to all these people who were like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll do the whole deal," or, "I can raise all the money." And then they never come through, ever. That's 5% of the time, do they ever come through. So they end up wasting a lot of time and not getting the deal done. And ultimately, she lost the deal and she also lost $75,000.

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah. That sends shivers down my spine as you said that. I'm like, "No way, that's the worst advice you could ever give." You have to understand, even if the number is going to be inaccurate, mark it down, but get that number of how many investors, how much each investor is going to invest, have a process. Even before your deal, you should have a regimented process of how many investors are you going to talk to this week? How many investors are you going to talk to this month? And then have regular ways to follow up and keep them engaged and make them a part of the process, because they need to be able to know you, they need to be able to trust you, and then they need to be able to feel like they can help you.

And if you can master all of those three things before you actually have your deal, then you're much more likely to convert those investors. And if you also have a number in mind of how much each investor would invest, then you can say, "Okay, I'm going to get 20% of that." Maybe you have $5 million and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to get a million (dollars)." And you shoot for $800,000 in equity and you ended up oversubscribing. That's the best case you can be in. You have to hustle and put in the work.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Right, right. That fantastic advice. So what I'm hearing is that you really can use Groundbreaker in advance of even having a deal and using it like a CRM.

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah. It can be that system of record for you to be able to stay organized and keep track of your investors. And you can segment them into different groups, you can write notes on the investor, you have their contact information in the system, we have email capability, and your deal is living in there, too. So you're able to showcase whatever kind of information you need on that deal. Even being able to record video and kind of going through your process. And backing up from there though, what I would suggest is you start to do the raise — We went over building your personal brand. We talked about being very specific about targeting investors and having a plan on how you're doing that… — The other thing to add to that is having a process that's really laid out when you are talking to your investors and giving them a roadmap for how you're actually going to conduct business with them. And having Groundbreaker becomes an essential part of that.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Well, and it's also essential part of your securities compliance because if you're raising money under Reg D Rule 506(b), then you're not allowed to advertise. And the only people that you can invite into your deals are people that you've already pre-established, pre-existing substantive relationships with. So if you have the ability to put everybody that you meet into Groundbreaker, and then start segmenting them into groups that you’ve vetted, "This group is sophisticated. Not accredited, but sophisticated. This group is accredited," and maybe other notes about them that document that relationship, that documentation is a required element of your securities compliance to do establish that substantive relationship. So super-important that you do that. And I love the fact that your software is able to help people document that. 

So here's a question: How long does it take for somebody to set up Groundbreaker? If a new client comes to you and wants to set up maybe a deal…

 

Jake Marmulstein:

We force people to go through an onboarding process that at the most will take 30 days. For somebody who has no data and they're just getting onboard the solution for the first time, it'll be in a day that they can actually get access to the technology. But we have a training program. We have an onboarding call. We want to make sure that people who are getting into the solution for the first time will be able to be successful using it. So we have a structured training process that we'll go through. And if you're going to use our electronic payment system to accept investment, then you have to go through the, there's a KYC and AML. It's pretty simple. The process is straightforward and you can get on board pretty quickly with the ACH, but we just want to make sure that people go through the steps and don't just try to run before they actually learn. 

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

So do you actually do the KYC and the AML program?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yes, we do. 

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

That's amazing. And because that is so hard for people to do on their own. It's nearly impossible. So KYC for those that don't know is, know your customer, and AML is, anti-money-laundering laws. Both of those require that people that are dealing with money or that perhaps is coming in from other countries, but even from this country, that you're not dealing with people who appear on any of these anti-money-laundering lists. There's a list that's maintained by the U.S. Department of Treasury under the office of foreign assets control. And that list is 500 pages long of sanctioned people that you're not allowed to do business with as a U.S. person. So either as a citizen or a legal resident, or someone living in U.S., you're not allowed to do business with anybody who appears on that list, because they've been named as somebody who ... they're bad people. They're the money launderers, they're associated with terrorists or the drug kingpins, or something like that.

So you are obligated to check on all of your investors to make sure that they aren't on any of those lists. And that's just one of the lists. There's other lists maintained by other agencies, as well. And so that's something that's very difficult for you to do on your own, but you need to have gone through that step to make sure that the people that are investing with you aren't using you for any of those illicit purposes, because if you don't go through that step and later found out that they were doing that, then you're going to be held complicit with them and you could be in trouble for that. So that's fantastic. And I think that alone is a really great reason that everybody who's doing a syndicate should consider using a system like Groundbreaker's. 

So what kind of monthly maintenance is required? Is this something that a syndicator would need to hire somebody to maintain, or is it just going to take them just a few hours a month to keep everything up to date?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

It depends on what you want to do. The things that you're going to use Groundbreaker for ... there's going to be a heavy amount of usage when you're raising capital. We all know how stressful it can be to close a deal and get it done on time. After that, the raise isn't over though. So it's important that you keep your investors engaged and you can leverage Groundbreaker to do that. Being able to put updates into the portal for all your investors to be able to check and see, "Hey, we replaced the doors or we replaced the flooring, installed new fans in this asset." Those are kinds of things that investors are going to care about.

And when you're an emerging syndicator or a fund manager, you need to be able to renew a lot of brownie points to be able to have your investors engaged with you as you go through improving the asset. And you could post all of that to Groundbreaker, but I would say even take it a step further and start to post some of that stuff on social media. Build a content calendar for yourself, so that you're responsible for posting what you're doing on the asset on a regular basis, and then get your investors involved, build a community around that. 

If your investors are on social, if they're liking or commenting on that renovation that you just walked through in one of the units in the building that you just closed with them, that's going to start to create a ripple effect in other people who are tangential to their network, "I'm going to take a look." And that's going to help you to create more investor relationships down the road, while also keeping your investors engaged with what you're doing. So I think you can do that on Groundbreaker and post that information, but that's essential to continuing the raise process even after the deal's closed.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Yes, because you have to keep in contact with your investors. You have to have a way to... first you meet somebody, you have to have a way to follow up with them and document how you followed up with them. And then you have to keep them engaged until you have a deal, but then you have to keep them engaged even after they're in your deal, and after even beyond that deal, because what else are you doing? You really need to have a system in place where you can keep everybody engaged and understanding what you're doing. I've had clients before that have said, "I can't get ahold of my investors anymore. It's like they invested and then they forgot about the investment." You don't want that because you really want to have them.

First of all, some of them were like, "Hey, there were checks, keep getting returned to us." That's kind of a crazy situation. But you want to be able to stay engaged and know what your investors are doing, then they know what you're doing, so that they will invest with you in other deals. Some of my most successful clients have people investing with them again and again and again. And so you always want to keep your current investors abreast of what you're doing on your next deal, because either they may invest or they may know somebody that they'd like to introduce to you. And that's all a great way to network. So this is a really incredible system. 

So what are the biggest mistakes that you see?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

We've touched on a little bit earlier, starting too late in your raise. Imagine you got somebody who has a great deal, like your friend that you were talking about, and maybe she has the deal. It's under contract. She's got 60 days to raise the capital. And I've heard this happen from clients or prospective clients, because we talk to so many different syndicators on a weekly, monthly basis. But you get somebody who's put together a meetup or an event with a bunch of investors. And this is their first time talking to the investors. They present this fantastic deal, pass around a book during the presentation for people to mark down what their contribution would be. And at the end, they have nothing to show for it.

Why? Because the investors don't have a relationship with this person at all. They're just looking at the deal and evaluating it. You have to start with your brand first and then the property. So you have to start that relationship early. That's really the biggest mistake we see. Second to that is overwhelming your investors. Whether your investors are not very sophisticated or they are very sophisticated, you want to break things down to be really simple and high level, and then let them dig into the details and ask you questions and give you the opportunity to be able to answer them in a more personalized format. So you could use a system like Groundbreaker to get the information on the deal out there. You can record videos and walk them through the deal. You can add whatever documentation you need so that they can dig into the information. And then you can hold follow-up calls and presentations to be able to go through questions and answers with your investors.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Well, if my clients were doing that, they would be so much more successful with their deals. And I know a lot of them are, but a lot of people that are just starting out, this can be a little overwhelming for them. But I think with a system like yours, well, it's going to be less overwhelming, than trying to set up all the systems and figuring out how to organize all of this on their own.

 

Jake Marmulstein:

And the third thing that I would say is a lack of planning. And this kind of touches on the last two points that I made, but lay out your process. The more you can just figure out your plan before you start to raise capital or even lock down that deal and know what the expected timelines are going to be for everything, know what numbers you're going to need to hit for everything so that you are having these milestones and these check-in points, and that you've budgeted the time and resources so that you can hit those timelines and execute.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Hugely important. Right. So, how do people pitch to early investors? Is that something we've already kind of covered or is there something else you'd like to add to that?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah, we sort of touched on it. But one of the things that I would stress is storytelling. You want to build your brand, but in order to do that, you need to be able to tell stories. So talk about how you got into real estate syndication to begin with. What were you doing before that? Why are you doing multifamily, if that's the asset class you're doing? And it's like, give them a visual experience that they can latch onto and identify with in order to remember you and make the impact that you want to have. My story, for example, of when I was working at a REIT and how I was spending more hours in the office after midnight than sleeping in my own apartment was kind of the reason that drove me to start Groundbreaker and do the system to make the lives of real estate analysts and associates better for everyone, because it was such a painful experience for me. And I don't know, people gravitate toward that. So that's something that you should add to your pitch, for sure.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

I started my own business because I'm unemployable. I didn't do well. I didn't do well with bosses.

 

Jake Marmulstein:

It's a secret we don't want to tell anyone. Yeah.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Those are just secrets I don't know. No, I just preferred to be able to drive the ship and to let somebody else tell me how to run it. Anyway, well, so we talked about how to keep your investors engaged. How can someone use Groundbreaker to grow their investor database?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

I believe that it'll happen based on, at first, executing on what you say you're going to do and having the integrity to follow through that plan. So whatever that plan is that you guys outlined to your investors, when you tell them that story, and you tell them about your process, and how you're going to bring them onboard, make sure that you're doing all of those things regarding the updates to the deal, sending your distributions on time, if that's what you promised for quarterly distributions. Make sure that process actually happens. From that point, there's things that you can do, I would say, it's more of like promoting. And we kind of talked about this before, promoting the work that you are doing and then posting that into the system.

So those renovations onsite, or say there's a torrential rainstorm that's affecting the area around the property. Do a video update talking to all the investors about that and be able to release it to the portal. The more times you get them coming back to Groundbreaker to be engaged, the more times that they would have to be able to think about you. Imagine maybe the investor is with a bunch of their friends and they're getting this update, they're logging into the system and they're on their phone. And it's like, okay, that's a really cool way of accessing their investments and seeing everything. People are going to be curious about that. So I think it's a consequence of just being good, keeping your investors engaged.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

All right. Then so you have this last question. This could be a little can of worms, but let's go ahead and ask it: What if I'm raising capital for someone else's deal? How can Groundbreaker work with that?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

So actually everything can be set up in Groundbreaker, the subscription agreement, the LLC, your bank account. Whatever you would do for someone else, whatever the entity and setup is for someone else's deal, if you can just adapt that for your own purposes and put it in Groundbreaker, it's actually a more secure and private way to be able to raise capital for somebody else. Because if you're trying to find a way to raise capital with somebody else, you don't want to give them the access to your investors. So, I mean, why would you want to do that if you can maintain the anonymity and relationship with those investors yourself, to make sure that they stay with you? You can run all that stuff on Groundbreaker, have it be a closed system, and be able to run the process just the same.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

And the only thing I would caution about that is that there are some very specific roles that you do have to be part of that company that is issuing the securities in order to be entitled to the exemption from registering as a broker-dealer. You can't raise money for someone else's deal as a third party, unless you are a registered broker-dealer, which is a very difficult license to get. So you really do need to become part of their issuer and the amount that you're getting compensated for being part of their deal cannot be related to the amount of money that you've raised. You have to have other duties within their management team, that is what you're getting compensated for. And so there's no formula that says you raised a million dollars and therefore you get X percent of the management.

You can't use anything like that. That's just the securities world. There's some articles about that on our website. If you go to syndicationattorneys.com, there's an article called, “Can I Use a Consulting Agreement to Raise Money for Someone Else's Deal.” And there's another one, if you're a syndicator that's called, “Paying Finder's Fees And so you want to look at that. There actually was a proposal in 2020 that would have allowed finders to be compensated transactions for referring accredited investors, but that didn't get picked up by the new administration. So if you're interested in, I mean, that resurrected, contact your Congressman and senators, ask them to bring that back up because it has been brought up before several times in the federal legislature. It just hasn't ever passed. So it's out there, the proposals are there, just somebody needs to pick it up and run with it. 

All right. So we're going to go to a live Q&A in a few minutes. But we do have an important announcement that we want to make. And that is:Groundbreaker and Syndication Attorneys are teaming up to offer some discounted rates for some of our joint clients, or those who become joint clients. So if you become a client of Groundbreaker or you become a client of Syndication Attorneys, then you want to use the other service, then you can get a discount off the normal rates. And we decided to team with Groundbreaker, they approached us. We were really flattered that they did. And we're just super excited about this because I think it's a really good collaboration. We know we have a lot of common clients that need these services, that they have clients that need our services, we have clients that need their services. And we think it's a really great way to help everybody get access to those services that they need. So, Jake, anything else you want to add to what we've talked about today?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yeah, just to comment on that. We've been watching you guys grow for so many years and we've seen the work that you do. We've sent many people over and everyone has a great experience. So this is why we wanted to reach out. And we think that it's going to bolster the quality of what we offer to people because they start at that first deal, not knowing the regulations and roles. And we want to make sure that we put our clients into the right hands. And so we're thrilled to be able to partner with you guys.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Well, and likewise. We'll make sure that our clients have a good experience with the Groundbreaker. I've only ever heard good things about Groundbreaker, too. And one of the things is, one of our fortes is helping people that have never done this before. We'd love to help people that are doing big funds as well, but we really enjoy it when we can help people kind of launch a new career. I engaged in this Syndication Attorneys practice coming from a previous career. And a lot of the clients that we help are kind of in that same transition stage. So I can relate to that. So we want to make sure that they get all the information they need so that they can go out and do it confidently and legally. And that's one of the things that we like to promote. How do people contact Groundbreaker if they want to know more about your services or do a demo?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

The best way is to go to groundbreaker.co. It's not .com, it's .co. And you can email jake@groundbreaker.co. If you have any questions at all, feel free to email me and we can go on a demo, go over the product, answer any questions you guys might have to get you ready.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

And if you have any questions for us, you can get a lot of information off our website at syndicationattorneys.com. You can see the book that I wrote, a number one Amazon best seller called, “How to Legally Raise Private Money.” And you can get a free digital copy of that at our website. Or you can buy it on Amazon if you want the soft copy or the Kindle version, or if you really want a copy and you'd like me to sign it, well, you can send me an email and we can do that for you as well.

So let's see. Anything else, if you want to schedule an appointment with us, we offer free 30-minute initial consultations. So you're welcome to schedule an appointment on our website. There's a button here that you can click to schedule a call. 

So we do have a question. So let's go ahead. @Anatoly says, "Hey, thanks for this. It's funny. I was looking for something like it." So that's great. I'm so glad that you came. And then also asks, "Has there been anything that a consumer on your site has asked for that you think is important now and you're going to add?"

 

Jake Marmulstein:

All the time. We get requests and feedback from customers, and we listen to that feedback. So if you go to groundbreaker.co and you find our product updates, you can see video updates of all the new releases. We're typically working on a monthly cadence. Sometimes we do releases over two months. But there's a lot of exciting product updates that are in the hopper right now that we're currently working on that are directly feedback from customers. So please take a look at that and you can get an idea of some of the things that we're working on.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Another question: "Can this be used when creating a fund and not just syndications?

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Yes, absolutely. We have funds using Groundbreaker. So you'll be able to do that in the system. And it works all the same as you would ... The only major difference is that if you're doing a fund, you're going to be doing capital calls most likely as you invest in the assets that are in the fund.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

That's right. And we can certainly talk to you about different fund structures and some different ways that you can structure a fund. So lots of choices to make if you're going to go that route.

But Jake, this has been great. I think it's been super informative. It's probably one of the more important podcasts that we've done. I think that everybody needs to understand how a platform can make them more professional. And one of the things that we teach our clients all the time is that the more professional you look and the more you act like an established company, the more likely you are to attract investors and to be able to grow your business. 

We do have an affiliate company called investormarketingmaterials.com, where we employ professional editors and graphic designers that can create professionally designed marketing materials for you. So think about doing that in conjunction with working with Groundbreaker to start establishing those things right now, getting all of that set up. Then when you do have deals, then you're going to be in really good shape to promote those deals in the different fields. 

All right. Right. Jake, thank you so much for coming today. Thank you, attendees, for joining our podcast and we look forward to seeing you all on future podcasts. 

 

Jake Marmulstein:

Thank you, Kim.

 

Kim Lisa Taylor:

Thank you.