Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Fund Managers, Alternative Asset Managers, and Venture Capital Investors

$700M AUM: New Secrets of Money & Markets

Ryan Miller Episode 125

Send us a text

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Kim Flynn.

Kim is the president of XA Investments, a $700 million AUM asset manager that specializes in providing investors with access to institutional caliber alternative investments.

So what does this mean? This means that Kim is changing the game in alternative asset sectors, and is about to teach you and I the keys of being an effective allocator.

Subscribe on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QQ

Connect with Ryan Miller:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makingbillionspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_MakingBillons
Website: https://making-billions.com/

[THE GUEST]: Kim is the president of XA Investments, a $700 million AUM asset manager that specializes in providing investors with access to institutional caliber alternative investments.

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel

Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
Can't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening or viewing our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax, or other licensed person in the recipient’s state, country, or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered a solicitation for investment in any way. All views expressed in any way by guests are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the show or its host(s). The host and/or its guests may own some of the assets discussed in this or other episodes, including compensation for advertisements, sponsorships, and/or endorsements. This show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as financial, tax, legal, or any advice whatsoever.

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds, and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 


Ryan Miller  

Fund managers come to my show to learn about the best practices of asset allocation, leadership, team building, and more. Join me and my next guest is we chop it up on how running a $700 million fund affects the market and your ability to make money. All this and more coming right now. Let's get into it. 


Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Kim Flynn. Kim is the president of XA Investments, a $700 million AUM asset manager that specializes in providing investors with access to institutional caliber alternative investments. So what does this mean? This means that Kim is changing the game in alternative asset sectors, and is about to teach you and I the keys of being an effective allocator. So Kim, welcome to the show. 


Kim Flynn  

Thanks, Ryan. It's great to be here.


Ryan Miller  

Yeah, it's great to have you. And it's certainly an honor to have someone with your background on the show. So let's jump right into it. Tell me a little bit about XA Advisors and some of the things that you guys do. 


Kim Flynn  

Sure, we actually advise entrepreneurs and founders of asset management firms on how to launch their own investment funds, typically focused around alternative investment strategies. And so, you know, when I became familiar with you and your community, it was around, I think the first one was how to launch a hedge fund. And I'm often asked that same question about how to launch a private fund, how to launch a registered fund. And so we're typically advising those asset managers on how to get to the retail customer. And that usually means that they're going down a registered fun pathway. And they've got to figure out the ins and outs of getting SEC registered.


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant man. So you guys are busy, it's a big market, and a lot of people love to jump into funds, whether they're emerging or seasoned either way, this is a wonderful vehicle, and I think you and I are big fans, and so it's great, I'm looking forward to the conversation we're gonna have. So let's jump right into it hit him right between the eyes. So for the beginners out there, we're gonna get into advanced stuff. But for the beginners, I wonder if you could share some advice with someone starting out in this path of alternative investments, launching a fund or any of these things? What advice can you give to someone who's just looking to put some early points on the board?


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I think if you're just starting out, investing in alternative investments, and you're trying to evaluate between one manager and another, you know, I always start first, with examining the track record, you want an experienced, firm and experienced team, a firm that's been, you know, cycled tested. And so I think that it starts there and when you're examining the track record, you want to look deeper into the people on the process and make sure that the process is one that they've used and applied consistently. I mean, manager skill is acutely important in alternative investments, in some ways with, you know, large cap equity investing, you know, that's a secondary point, it's important. But with alternatives, when you're evaluating a hedge fund, or you're evaluating a private infrastructure manager, you really need to think long and hard about is this, the team of people that I can trust that can manage my money through market cycles, and you want to understand what they've done in good markets and bad, because it's just as important to think about your return expectations, as it is to think about your your downside or your risk tolerance.


Ryan Miller  

So it's essentially you're almost hiring somebody, and I know you have a strategy that I'd love for you to explain a little bit. But you talk about competition, and you ask everybody who's either that you're talking to or you're having a discussion, you say not only is it good for investors, but you also use this. So you say tell me about your competition? Can you open up a little bit and talk about why you find that question so important in this industry?


Kim Flynn  

It's a surprising answer that you get when you ask asset manager, and who they compete with either directly or indirectly. And so many times when we're working with these alternative managers, they say they don't have any competition. And so it's a little surprising, I don't know if they have blinders on, or if they really don't think they have any competitors. And so when we're analyzing a new investment opportunity, or a new asset manager, we actually start first about how are they positioned relative to their competitors. Because we want to understand, do they have a better yield? Do they have a better total return? You know, are they, have they been in business longer? And surprisingly, if you go to the manager, oftentimes they, they I, you know, they say that they don't have good direct competitors. But we find that that's actually not the case. So you can always ask them the question, but sometimes you have to do your own homework and do the diligence on, you know, because there may be other alternatives firms that are a better a better selection, but just even I think the honest firms, the ones that are direct with you, and they say, Hey, we've got, you know, two competitors that we we meet in institutional bake offs all the time, or, you know, here's who we think we're similar to. I think that's the freshness and the awareness that we really appreciate. Appreciate it, sort of the direct honesty that you know, they understand their standing in the market and they understand that they of course, will have a couple of competitors. And then they can help you understand what their competitive edge is relative to them. And that's really so important, because you want to get to that conversation about how they are different. 


Ryan Miller  

It sounds like if you want to put some early points on the board, according to the gospel of Kim, it's really just examine the track record of people that you're getting involved with. So if you're an allocator, and you're looking to invest in a fund manager, make sure you follow that track record, understand their response. And maybe it might even show a little self awareness. But you're saying if you want to put some points on the board, and you keep me honest on this sounds like what you're saying here is really it people matter. And the people that you work with matter and the people that you invest with matter, or the people investing in, you matter. And so there, you really take that seriously and think that through of how are you going to go about attracting the right people, the right allocators, and really just making sure you're working with people that not only have a good track record, but a good sense of where they fit in their industry. 


Kim Flynn  

That's right and I think with private investments, where we're talking about here, you have to almost unearth some of that, you know, with mutual funds, or ETFs, it's very easy to find out performance and relative performance. But with private managers and strategies, you do have to dig a little bit, you might have to ask for related performance. Or if you're investing with a new team, often there's, you know, teams that lift out or start new firms. And that's fine, you can still evaluate that opportunity, if you're asking about their own personal track record, as long as the strategy is the same, or substantially the same. 


Ryan Miller  

Oh, I love it. So you know, when you're starting out, putting some early points on the board, it's great, it feels good to get those early wins, I love it as much as the next person. But when you're starting out, there's also the other side of that equation is to say that's also the time you can make some really silly decisions. And as I like to say bad decisions are so obvious, none of them, none of us would ever make one. And so sometimes we make a decision, it's a bad decision. It's not obvious. And so from all of your experience, I'm curious if you can just talk about what are some of the pitfalls that are out there for beginners in this industry, whether there'll be an emerging fund manager looking to allocate, or there's someone looking to raise it. Either side of that equation is fair game. But I'm curious, what would you tell someone who's starting out from your advice? How to avoid getting knocked out too soon? 


Kim Flynn  

Yes, I think that you really have to be careful with respect to trend following. And make sure that, you know, you've done your fundamental research and you're comfortable that there's some long term growth in a trend. So be very sort of wary of some of the chasing the latest or greatest new, new thing. Right now, obviously, a lot of press around AI and potential implications for private companies that are in that space or entering that space. And so while it does seem to be going to drive near term performance, I think that as you're evaluating some of the newer companies entering that space, you do have to think about once again, going back to the the first rule, which is evaluating teams of people, their prior experience and their track record, it'll serve you well, and sort of help you defend against, because the challenge with some of these new trends is that there aren't established track records to go look at. And so you've got to dig into the fundamentals, and understand if these people are equipped to, you know, deploy capital, and invest in that opportunity. So it does take additional like, frankly, there's a lot of opportunities at the edge of some of these spaces, like digital currencies and things of that nature. And it takes an extra sort of focus to make sure that you're comfortable making a first investment in some of these trendy or trendier, or parts of the market.


Ryan Miller  

You know, I love the trend chasing and admittedly venture capitalists and I consider myself part of that crew were the absolute worst at trend chasing, that doesn't mean they're reckless in investing, but they got their move so fast. And these are small checks, and really quick and all. And there's always a joke about, you know, let's take three or four years ago, everything's Web3 is gonna change the world and all these VCs and startups and everybody's just there's blood in the waters in a lot of activity. And then all of a sudden, open AI releases, ChatGPT and everyone's like, Web3 what's that? And it's like, the VCs just dropped everything it would seem and now everything's like, no, I'm always AI. Every VC out there is like, I mean, I was, I'm always been about AI, we're like, sure dude. And same thing, ESG was like this big buzzword and now we're like, oh, we don't say history. It's now clean tech, you're like, okay, sure. So even though those are great, all of those web three AI, clean tech, ESG, those are all wonderful industries. But the common thing is, is I think what you're saying, sure, I mean, yes, to some degree, you have a responsibility to invest in what works and help your investors to place into things that work. But don't get too carried away, where you're constantly just chasing the new shiny object every single time, build some depth, build some routes, build some expertise in an area, if you want big check writers to take you seriously, is that a fair summary?


Kim Flynn  

Absolutely and I think you know, as an allocator, I think there's a place for that in the portfolio. Like it should be, particularly if you're excited or energized by that and you have some industry expertise, but we would advise that, you know, you want to complement that with something else that maybe, you know, maybe it fits alongside other private equity investments that you've made, that are a little less trendy and a little bit more, maybe they're leveraged buyouts or things of that nature. So I think you have to, you know, in isolation, you know, there's a concern, but in combination, some of these things, the risks will level out. So I do like to think about, I wouldn't discourage somebody entirely. And that's why I think that the fund sponsors who begin dedicated funds focused in particular areas, you know, as long as they have flexibility to sort of shift as the trend shifts, I think you would, we always, when we're drafting certain documents, and building new funds, we want to give the investors maximum flexibility to do what they can to drive returns for shareholders, the same would be true to the extent that you're focused on a very narrow part of the market, maybe give yourself some wiggle to broaden out the mandate, to the extent that that that's something that shareholders are comfortable with. 


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant, let's move past the big gainers, and really start punching it up a little bit. You've been quite busy, quite active. I mean, you're running a big company in high finance. And so it's really hard to do your job without seeing a few things about the market. So I'm really curious from what you're seeing out there. What do you what's going on in the market right now, and maybe talk a little bit about some of the trends we're seeing? 


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I mean, my research team is really focused on the credit, private credit, they're gathering assets at a particularly rapid pace, you know, two years ago, three years ago, it was really private real estate, and that has shifted in the last 18 months. So we're seeing a lot of unique offerings in private credit. You know, it started with a lot of new fund offerings around direct lending. Now we're seeing a lot in asset backed lending, we're seeing real estate debt, we're seeing structured credit, you name it, there's such a demand for yield right now. And you know, rates are high and these funds are more attractive than maybe a high yield or senior loan type portfolio. So I, you know, private credit is really the door opener, or the sort of gateway drug for effectively other types of alternatives. And so I think it's bringing a lot of new investors into private markets into larger allocations to alternatives. And so what we're gonna see in the years to come, though, because there's a lot of fund formation and some exciting areas. Right now, there's a lot of new infrastructure products, some of them, some of them are energy transition infrastructure, some of them are venture capital focused. So I think flows will shift over time into private equity, and to private infrastructure. But right now, it's kind of the heyday for private credit, you know, you've got many of these products, yielding, you know, anywhere from 10-15%. So really attractive current yields and frankly, it allows you to offer a product, if it's paying monthly distributions, it gets investors into the product right away, if you can communicate what the yield expectations are. And so therefore, in some ways, you don't have to wait for a track record, in more of a total return strategy, like private equity or venture capital, it's going to take a little while for people to understand, you know, where, where total returns are going to come in, because many of those investments will be held at historical costs for a period of time.


Ryan Miller  

There's so many flavors of debt funds and debt products and debt offerings. I'm curious on what you're seeing out there as far as duration because you have the short term bridge loans you have all I mean, they're their stuff I probably don't. I haven't even heard of the credit market, believe it or not, is actually very exciting, but they vary wildly in offering. So what are you seeing out there? Is it all kinds of credit? Is it long duration, short duration, some midterm, what do you see? 


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I think that two of the categories within credit, specifically structured credit, that tend to have floating rate securities that are adjusted based on the LIBOR or SOFR and then also direct lending, most of those loans are floating. And so I think that we're in an environment where rates have rapidly risen, you know, over the last two years, and now the expectation is rates may start to come down later in the fall. So you want to be the advantage of being in floating rate assets is that you can sort of ride those ups and downs in terms of rates. If you're investing in more, you know, traditional type fixed income, you're gonna get hurt when rates adjust. And so a lot of the private credit alternatives that have been attracting new capital are these floating rate and so effectively, they're short duration because they float. You know, the duration is probably somewhere between three to six months, which is what investors are looking for, because they don't want their, you know, their cash flow, particularly retirees, they don't want that cash flow that they're receiving to vary too much, regardless of where the macro economy is, is moving.


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. Now, that's what we're seeing right now, maybe you could talk about where you think just an opinion, not financial advice, but where you think in your opinion, of where you see the market going?


Kim Flynn  

I think because of some concerns around valuation, you know, there were significant capital raised and deployed and in 2021, and so we've seen valuation concerns people who might otherwise be investing in real estate or venture capital for example have been on on the sidelines, there's a lot of dry powder that's yet to be deployed. One area where we are seeing deployment, and we're expecting to see quite a bit this year in 2024, is secondaries. So part of what the secondary market does is it allows institutional investors who have large positions, potentially in private equity or venture capital, for example, to sell into the secondary market getting the liquidity that they need to reallocate their portfolio. But it's an opportunity for family offices, it's an opportunity for investors to step in and so we're seeing it in secondary credit, secondary real estate, secondary infrastructure. And in the space that we focus in terms of us interval funds, we're actually seeing a lot of funds form just around these secondary opportunities. Some of the older funds would invest both in new private equity deals, particularly in the private equity category, and many of them would have the flexibility, as we talked about, when opportunities existed to buy secondary deals. So we've already seen those established funds expand their allocation to secondary. So what's unique now is there's just dedicated funds where all of the exposure is secondary. So I think when we're in this, this is an opportunity to benefit as valuations do start to improve over time.


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant, now you mentioned about 6 trillion in dry powder out there. In your opinion, what do you think are some of those catalysts that will unlock and release that tsunami of cash back into the economy?


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I mean, we can start with some of the geopolitical risks there. The election is on this year, we've got the debates starting tomorrow and so I think that there's a lot of concerns around trouble in the Middle East and in Europe. And I think that when we start to see some of that calm down, I think the markets will also, there's still people speculating as to when the US economy is going to slow sufficiently that we'll start to see the Fed bring down interest rates. I think the markets are hopeful that we'll see some rate cuts, which might stimulate the equity, the equity market. I think there still are plenty of folks who think that will be in sort of a higher rate environment for a bit of a longer period, maybe a bit of a plateau in the near term. So I think that if, if in fact, rates don't start to come down, people will be waiting to see that happen. So there's enough uncertainty there with some of the geopolitical, you know, the November elections, we may start to see movement in the beginning of next year.


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant in both elections and geopolitical one, I think you and I were talking. I was joking about this year is kind of an odd year where I think it was like 100 presidential or the equivalent 100 countries are having those federal elections all this year. So I said, I was like this is the equivalent of triple witching just in politics. So we got some more certainty once elections start to wrap up this year, we get more certainty on geopolitical risks, more specifically, not only what they are, but they start to cool down and obviously interest rates cool down I think. Did I get that?


Kim Flynn  

That's right. You know, the the funny thing is, we have the Olympics coming up in in Paris, and I think a lot of people, given some of the political volatility of recent weeks with the left and the right in France, I think the worry is that it will spill over on to the world stage come the Olympics, because there have been a lot of protests. So we may all have a view from our couches if, if this in fact does sort of, hopefully, it doesn't dampen the spirit of the Olympic Games, but we'll see. But yeah, but to your point, yeah, there's a lot of a lot of as those elections come about, yeah, I think that there's then ripple effects from them.


Ryan Miller  

Yeah, exactly. So well, we'll get a front row seat of France and their efforts to clean up the river. If you haven't followed that, folks and by the time you read this, maybe there's more. But it's quite a funny story of how that whole thing is playing out of how they're going to clean the river and how some people are protesting it by timing certain deliveries at the right time, so we'll let y'all figure that out as well, we'll keep it PG. But well, that's great, so private credit, it's hard to see that there's 6 trillion on the sidelines, that's probably gonna get released when there's a little more certainty from interest rates, geopolitical risks and elections and what the heck secondary sooner, this is awesome. 


Ryan Miller  

So now, as we turn the corner, you're wildly experienced, and very well respected in your industry, especially by me when someone comes to you. And they said, hey, from your experience, can you just cut through the noise because you hear all these influencers, and you were just inundated with information? Or at least it feels like that sometimes. And it is such a breath of fresh air to have someone like yourself who says, look, I've done it, I've made it to where I've made it to learn a few lessons along the way, wondering if you could talk about maybe two or three of those lessons, that you can really help people leapfrog in the areas that you wish you could, what would you say?


Kim Flynn  

For me, it always starts with communication, in particular, written communication. As a young person, you have an opportunity to sort of shine and set yourself apart from others, particularly in finance and asset management. You know, we recruited a lot of young people out of college, we're typically hiring finance or econ majors. I love a good history major though or maybe a journalism student, because I know that they can write. I know that they've had their essays, you know, critiqued and torn apart and that's really important because, you know, I can teach you finance. If you're pretty good at math, I can teach you the finance. But it's very, very challenging to teach somebody how to be a better communicator, you know, and this comes with this comes with practice, it comes with reading, and I do find that having really a strong sense of where your strengths are. You can always work on building it to a strength, and I think figuring out if that's going to, that's going to give you an advantage. For me, at least in my career, it has, and I did write for the high school paper and the college magazine. But, you know, my degree was in finance and so having that be helped me distinguish myself from other students or, you know, other young people in the field has definitely been an advantage. And every day, you know, you flex that, you know, every time you send an email, you write an article or you write a white paper, you're able to demonstrate that and I think it's, it's not you don't have to be a good writer, maybe your skill is something a bit different, but you do have to try to set yourself apart from from the rest.


Ryan Miller  

You know, I absolutely love that advice and I couldn't agree more. When I was in college, I managed to twist my professor's rubber arm. He came from Wall Street, ran a very impressive private equity fund. And I asked him, I said, do you know Warren Buffett? He said, no, and but I know people that do and through conversation. I'll fast forward we were able to actually hang out with him. So I got to hang out with Warren Buffett in Omaha. One of my classmates got up and he said, is it worth it to get an MBA? And what Warren Buffett said, just to complement your point, he said, well, the two things you need to be successful in business as far as skill set and understanding. Number one, you need to understand accounting, it's the language of business, so make sure you're fluent in it. And number two, you need to be an effective communicator, just like you said, both written and verbal. So I took that very personal and not only did I go to grad school, not for that reason, but one of my first startups, I didn't tell you about this one of my first startups, I actually owned a magazine. And so I actually I wrote magazines on Show homes, and all these wild things. I would write articles and sell ad space and all this stuff, I was executor, publisher of a magazine, all and all because, I never forgot this all because Warren Buffett said, if you want to be successful in business and finance, one of those key elements from his experiences, you need to be effective communicator. So you heard it here first, folks, both Kim and Warren Buffett, both pros that are advising you to say, yeah, I mean, obviously, finance, economics, that's important, you need to understand that. But coming out of almost seemingly nowhere until you do it and then you realize how important it is communication, I absolutely love that. What other pieces of advice can you give to people to just rise up in their careers allocators? Or just hiring people? What would you say? 


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I mean, because we advise on asset allocation and are looking to hire the best, you know, developing your own personal expertise, you know, having having, even if it's an a niche area, being the one person you know, that knows more about that topic than the rest is really, really helpful. And then using your communication skills, to share what you know. So that expertise is really important and then it carries over in terms of the investment decisions you make, you know, manager skill is so important, we talked about that, in terms of the best are going to outperform. And so you want to hire experts, and you know, there are firms, large asset managers that do a little bit of everything and that's perfectly fine. But I think when we're talking about in private markets, some of the best private markets firms, they specialize, and so you're looking for a dedicated team and a dedicated specialists in a particular part of the world. And I had the pleasure of working with a farmland manager and you know, not everybody invests in farmland, it may not be appropriate. But if you do, you know, if you look at like the top farmland managers in the world, there's only most farmland is held by individuals. So this is an example of like, if you want that specialized knowledge, you've got to go to one of the very few people that understands how to do it, and evaluate the purchase and sale of parcels of farmland. So I think that expertise is really important in alternative investment decision making. 


Ryan Miller  

Yeah, so working with professionals insists on it. I absolutely agree, I've hired people as well and I'm very picky. And I think after a while in business, you know, you've if you've ever had maybe through luck, or whatever, but you've had that one employee that you're getting 101 return on their skill set, it changes everything, absolutely changes everything. So being an expert and working with experts, I mean, I can think of no faster way to level up than just having the right crew around you, so absolutely solid advice. And what about a third thing? So maybe talk about a little bit on building alternatives, maybe building your portfolio of alternatives? What would you say to that? 


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, I think that a lot of people when they're starting to invest in alternatives are thinking well, where does this fit? You know, is this a bond substitute? Maybe that's true for direct lending or real estate. Is this a total return of substitute, am I over? Many Americans are overexposed or over allocated to large cap growth equity, and so taking some of that capital and investing in venture capital or private equity, you know, may be appropriate. So I think that we've thrown the 60-40 traditional model out the window, and you have to think about what it, what's your goal, and what's your time horizon. And so if it's income, there's a whole array of private credit and private real estate and infrastructure options that deliver that income. And so you kind of think about these substitutes for what your traditional exposures are. And you think about whether or not you have the risk tolerance or the liquidity profile to put together a portfolio that's going to work for your immediate and your sort of near term needs. And so I like alternatives that potentially complement themselves. And I think that you have to think about if you're investing in venture capital, you know, are you comfortable with that risk? What would be a good complement, if you're trying to maybe de risk the overall portfolio? And so we do, like, you know, adding any single investment in isolation is actually harder than thinking about it from an overall model, or portfolio perspective. And so, you know, I think that it'll help you think about what's the goal? What's the purpose? And what's it going to do for my yield and total return objectives. And so if you think about alternatives as substitutes for those traditional exposures, it will make that asset allocation exercise easier.


Ryan Miller  

Alright, so neutralizing the sector risk, how about that for college work? I love it and so really just planning out your allocation, not only on what are the wins, but also the sectors that you want to play in the risks that you talked about? I absolutely love it. Before we wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like our fans around the world to know, maybe ways to reach out, ways to learn more, anything at all? 


Kim Flynn  

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're here to help folks, if they're thinking about fund formation, and if they're thinking about getting into alternatives. And so, you know, we have a wealth of resources that are meant to just be simply educational on our knowledge bank, at xainvestments.com. You know, we just have partnerships with Grade GPS, and alternative asset managers and so, you know, I think we give a lot of advice. We say, we always talk to everybody, but we ended up, you know, partnering with just a few, and that's fine, you know, because, you know, knowledge comes from these conversations. So we welcome the conversation and if we can help you on your capital raising pathway, that's what we're here to do. 


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant, I love it. So just to summarize everything that we talked about, get good at communicating, whatever you got to do, you don't have to launch a magazine like some nutcase I just described earlier like me, but you don't. But either way, you want to make sure that you understand how to communicate both written and verbal. If that means you got to start writing a blog and try to speak on stages, whatever it is you need to do, but this is key to follow Kim's advice. The second thing that she mentioned, as far as the secret sauce giving you an uncompetitive advantage is not only should you insist on working with experts, but you should insist on becoming one as well. So figure out what that niche is and just like someone told me, my mother told me at a young age is be the person you want to marry. Well, how about you be the person you want to work with, when you meet that person, you meet that expert, what would convince them to want to work with you probably because you're a rockstar too. And so if you want to attract these people, and really get an unfair advantage, be really good at something, and then work at finding those equivalents in those complementary areas. And finally, when you're building your portfolio, consider the adjacent sectors as well. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of Making Billions.


Ryan Miller  

Wow, what a show, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry, focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of Making Billions.



People on this episode

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.