BillyShears
New Contributor
"I am not a bum. I'm a jerk. I once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things: my friends and... uh... my thermos. Huh? My story? Okay. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi."
- Navin R. Johnson (steve martin in "the jerk")
I joined the board earlier this week and finally found some time to put together an introduction. Truthfully, my story is not that exciting. I have worked my butt off in the slow-lane since kindergarten. I've pretty much done either (a) exactly what I'm expected to do or (b) what I want to do in exactly the way that I'm expected to do it. Anybody outside this forum would probably be impressed with my background, but it is really the perfect formula for getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic (so to speak).
I moved around a lot as a kid. A new city for each of my dad's job promotions or transfers. Watched him work his a$$ off to earn his degrees. One year I tought him algebra, the next my older sister taught him calculus. My mom got her degree sometime after that. Both of them heavily invested in their careers, doing what the love to do. I was conditioned to believe that's what i was supposed to do, too.
Moving sort of sucked as a kid, particularly when I had to move from Seattle to Savannah in the middle of high school. If you've been to both places . . . well, you'd know that in one place everybody is cool and in the other the Civil War (there it is known as "the War between the States") is going on, which is why I only go to Savannah for St. Patrick's day . . .
I ended up getting free tuition at the best engineering school in the country, graduated, started working (real estate & construction project management), got a fancy business degree from a top-25 school and started following in my parents footsteps by moving around the country for each new job promotion and transfer . . . and the cat's in the cradle . . .
I read Rich Dad Poor Dad once, thought it was too fluffy, but conceptually it made sense. It wasn't an "a-ha" for me; it was more of a "I could have told you that".
Anyway, I'm boring myself with this diatribe.
I'm here because I've "got the blinker on" and I'm working on a few ideas. First is a real estate investment company developing single-tenant net-leased properties on a build-to-suit basis for credit tenants. I'm starting to raise money from friends & family (which seems dreadful, but really isn't that bad). I've developed for retailers and developers using their money, made lots of people rich (and I suppose I helped lots of people like me meet their goals so their company can cut bonuses?), got exposed to everything I could, learned as much as I could and now I'm ready to go do it on my own. I can't say that it was a waste of time, because you cannot buy the education I got from it. Not a masters of real estate degree from anywhere nor any "how to develop a brazilian dollars of class A property from nothing" . . .
Oh, and the second idea (I wouldn't call it a business yet) is a niche-clone of peopleofwalmart.com. It's an entertaining concept, but nothing to retire on. I actually decided at one point to not do it at all (after my attorney suggested that there wasn't any way to avoid the residual liability issues), but I found that it was really fun to practice pitching that idea to my friends. Sort of a warmup or training for the eventual RE pitching I'm doing soon.
That's about enough about me and my "special purpose" for one night.
Sean
(PS. For the entire time I was writing this, I kept seeing this: :banana: and kept hearing "peanut butter jelly time" in my head. )
- Navin R. Johnson (steve martin in "the jerk")
I joined the board earlier this week and finally found some time to put together an introduction. Truthfully, my story is not that exciting. I have worked my butt off in the slow-lane since kindergarten. I've pretty much done either (a) exactly what I'm expected to do or (b) what I want to do in exactly the way that I'm expected to do it. Anybody outside this forum would probably be impressed with my background, but it is really the perfect formula for getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic (so to speak).
I moved around a lot as a kid. A new city for each of my dad's job promotions or transfers. Watched him work his a$$ off to earn his degrees. One year I tought him algebra, the next my older sister taught him calculus. My mom got her degree sometime after that. Both of them heavily invested in their careers, doing what the love to do. I was conditioned to believe that's what i was supposed to do, too.
Moving sort of sucked as a kid, particularly when I had to move from Seattle to Savannah in the middle of high school. If you've been to both places . . . well, you'd know that in one place everybody is cool and in the other the Civil War (there it is known as "the War between the States") is going on, which is why I only go to Savannah for St. Patrick's day . . .
I ended up getting free tuition at the best engineering school in the country, graduated, started working (real estate & construction project management), got a fancy business degree from a top-25 school and started following in my parents footsteps by moving around the country for each new job promotion and transfer . . . and the cat's in the cradle . . .
I read Rich Dad Poor Dad once, thought it was too fluffy, but conceptually it made sense. It wasn't an "a-ha" for me; it was more of a "I could have told you that".
Anyway, I'm boring myself with this diatribe.
I'm here because I've "got the blinker on" and I'm working on a few ideas. First is a real estate investment company developing single-tenant net-leased properties on a build-to-suit basis for credit tenants. I'm starting to raise money from friends & family (which seems dreadful, but really isn't that bad). I've developed for retailers and developers using their money, made lots of people rich (and I suppose I helped lots of people like me meet their goals so their company can cut bonuses?), got exposed to everything I could, learned as much as I could and now I'm ready to go do it on my own. I can't say that it was a waste of time, because you cannot buy the education I got from it. Not a masters of real estate degree from anywhere nor any "how to develop a brazilian dollars of class A property from nothing" . . .
Oh, and the second idea (I wouldn't call it a business yet) is a niche-clone of peopleofwalmart.com. It's an entertaining concept, but nothing to retire on. I actually decided at one point to not do it at all (after my attorney suggested that there wasn't any way to avoid the residual liability issues), but I found that it was really fun to practice pitching that idea to my friends. Sort of a warmup or training for the eventual RE pitching I'm doing soon.
That's about enough about me and my "special purpose" for one night.
Sean
(PS. For the entire time I was writing this, I kept seeing this: :banana: and kept hearing "peanut butter jelly time" in my head. )
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