Truth of Launching a Fund from an $85M Private Equity Fund

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

Kelly is the CEO and founder of Alternative Wealth Partners, which manages an $85 million portfolio of alternative investments. She successfully raised nearly $1 billion in private capital focusing on providing access to institutional grade investments for a diversified, growing base of investors. 

So what does that even mean? Well, it just means that Kelly understands private funds, raising capital and making it into the winner's circle.

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[THE GUEST]: Kelly Winget is the CEO and founder of Alternative Wealth Partners.

[THE HOST]: Ryan Miller is an Angel investor in technology and energy.

Transcript

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years, I've 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  

Have you ever wanted to enter into alternative assets like private equity or venture capital, but just keep getting twisted up in all the nonsense that's out there? Well, I have a treat for you, my next guest is an asset manager that's raised a billion dollars and makes your journey to profitably launching investment vehicles super easy. Join us as we discuss how to break in raise capital and structure offers that investors will climb over themselves to invest in all this and more coming right now. Here we go.

Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Kelly Winget. Kelly is the CEO and founder of Alternative Wealth Partners, which manages an $85 million portfolio of alternative investments. She successfully raised nearly $1 billion in private capital focusing on providing access to institutional grade investments for a diversified, growing base of investors. So what does that even mean? Well, it just means that Kelly understands private funds, raising capital and making it into the winner's circle. So Kelly, welcome to the show. 

Kelly Winget  

Thank you for having me, Ryan, I love what you've built here, and there's not a lot of people that you can really jive with in the alternative space. So happy to have this conversation today. 

Ryan Miller  

It's an honor to have you, thank you. Yeah, we've been fortunate to be in the top three in the world for private equity, top two and a half percent overall, and it's all because of amazing guests, just like you, Kelly. So let's jump right into it. You've been in this industry for a while. You were born and raised in finance, we've known each other for a little bit, and you told me all about how you grew up, and it's hilarious story. But, you know, I think people really listen to beginners. We have a lot of investment bankers, a lot of family offices, a lot of people who follow the show. I'm just curious, let's get to the fundamentals. If you're starting out in the industry, from your experience, how do beginners put some points on the board? What would you say? 

Kelly Winget  

So, you know, I didn't come from traditional finance, so I kind of found my own lane in this space. And it's really about finding your niche. Like there, there's a lot of competition when it comes to fund management, when it comes to wealth management, and the thing that really sets people apart is that special little sauce that they create. So find something that you're passionate about, that you know a lot about, or maybe you don't know a lot about it, but it's something you would want to know a lot about, and find that lane, have that niche, and create that your that's your personality in your fund, and the way that you manage money and the things that you invest in. That's what I did, and it's been successful so far. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, that's a good point. And as they say, the riches are in the niches, or, you know, something that you really brought to the surface, and I couldn't agree more, is about, when you're in alternative assets and you're managing capital, you effectively become a leader, whether you know it or not. Maybe talk a little bit about, what did you mean by that? 

Kelly Winget  

So when you're managing money and you've decided, okay, I'm going to launch this fund, I'm going to invest in this asset class, like you become the thought leader in that space. And so when you connect with the niche that you're going to lean into, you have to be able to step into that leadership power, because people are going to be writing you checks, right? They're going to be investing in you to invest in this thing that you care a lot about, know a lot about, interested in investing in whatever. And so they're going to trust and lean into everything you have to say or think about that asset class or group of asset classes. So really leaning into you as a leader, you need to keep yourself educated and open minded to new ways to think about things, so that you keep your competitive edge. You can't have the same opinion about multi family as every other fund out there. You don't need to be the next Grant Cardone, there's only one Grant Cardone, so you have to lean into your own power as a leader. What does that leader mean? What does that leader know and be your own person, there's no one easier to be than yourself. 

Ryan Miller  

That's brilliant and very sound, authentic advice. We need a lot more authenticity and authentic people like you. I really appreciate that. I know our friends around the world do as well now. So we talk about find your niche, lean into that. Lean into your leadership, because people look at you like that. So you might as well behave like one, and who knows, eventually, you might actually be one if you don't feel like you are, I get it, I've been there. Imposter syndrome is real, I see you out there, we all feel it. It's all good. Now, when you're leaning into your leadership, you're trying to put points on the board, you found your niche, you're operating. And there always comes a time when you have to raise capital, right? So anyone in this industry, you gotta raise capital. A great place after friends, as I call quadruple F, friends, family, fools and followers, right? So after you went through all of that, you still got a big fund to raise. You're saying we got what we got. And often people go to family offices, and this is an area that I think you really understand well, and I'd love to just bring your expertise out a little bit. But when you're dealing with a family office, how does that, how does your niche, your leadership. How does that all play when you now try to enter raising from family offices? What have you found? 

Kelly Winget  

So there's a saying that once you've met one family office, you've met one family office, they're the most unique different you know you're dealing with, depending on which generation you're working with. You have to understand that, if you're working with the original generation, or, you know, an older generation, that there's the possibility that there might be a transition period while they're invested with you. So understanding a lot of different things that might go on with the relationship that you get start with a family office, and that's really what it is. They have literally all the money in the world, they could invest anywhere, but there's a couple things you have to know. One, they like to invest their vanity investors. They have all the smart strategies in place. So when they're looking at an alt strategy, an emerging manager, you know, something outside of the traditional stuff that they're most likely invested in, that holds the security of their wealth, they're really looking for somebody who's going to feed into, who can they brag about that they're invested in? Who can they learn from of something that they don't know? Especially if there's next gens involved, they're really looking for something where they can feed that creative and intellectual itch that most family offices have. Again, they have all the money in the world, they're the most educated, there's literally no barriers for them. And so they crave uniqueness, they crave information. So going back to being a leader, a thought leader, in your space, they want to know that they're investing in the best person in whatever you're telling them you do. You need to be interesting, engaging, and actually care about the relationship that you have with the family, because it opens up a lot of doors and also, again, this is a multi generational relationship. When you're dealing with family offices, it's a completely different relationship you're gonna have with them than you are an individual who's writing you a six figure check. 

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant that ties back into the authenticity where you're like, you don't have to be someone else that job's already taken, be you and show them what is it about you and your leadership and the things that you're building up that really would get them excited. We all got something, whether you see it or not, some of you do, some of you don't, but I think I stand with Kelly on this one is to say maybe you need to discover that, because I think we all have got that spark that some family offices are going to find fascinating, they would love to do business with you. So not financial advice, we're just saying, hey, you're a good human being to somebody. So find those people, and hopefully those people run family offices, and you can raise capital. 

Kelly Winget  

And being more curious. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah.

Kelly Winget  

So where families were kind of like this mystery thing that existed that you didn't really know how to get a hold of or know where they were or anything, because there is this big transition of wealth. I mean, we're talking, you know, the number changes every day. It started at 30 trillion, then it's 60 trillion and now I think it's like $84 trillion is going to transfer over the next decade, and a lot of that is very concentrated in this family office space. And because of that transition, you have people that are going to be somewhere between the ages of 35 and probably 50 taking over these family offices and they really like community. They like to be around each other. They go to family office events just see each other as an excuse. They like to be more involved in the decisions, they aren't as passive as the older generation was, once they've created the wealth, they kind of became very passive. The next gen wants to create their own legacy, and so they're becoming more out in the open, and also the idea of becoming a family office because of tech, where you had these big industrial families created, like, think the Rockefellers, for example. That's an obscene amount of money that you're not seeing in these like the Mark Zuckerberg isn't selling right? So you don't have somebody who's having a trillion dollar exit somewhere. You have somebody who's exiting a company they founded seven years ago, and by the time they actually exit, their ownership of that company might be 5% so when you see a big billion dollar exit for that founder, it's a couple 100 million dollars. Most family offices in the past were started at a billion dollars, now you're seeing family offices being created when they when you see a 50, 60, 100 million dollar exit. So it's becoming a more accessible space. And you're seeing to start to see those communities start to blend. Somebody who has, you know, 10s of millions of dollars partying and hanging out with and socializing with people that have multi billion dollar net worths.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. And you know that that really comes in, especially when you talk to these people like you said, some are passive, some are active. People are starting to build so passive is kind of the trusty, tried and true investments that they enjoy. But when you have that exchange of hands, and perhaps you're dealing with this next generation from a family office, a lot of due diligence goes into that, and that's some ways to not lose. I'm just curious. Like, what have you found, as far as, how does due diligence help people in our industry to not lose? Like, what's, what's your advice on,on how to treat that just high level.

Kelly Winget  

Yes. So I talked, we talked about this, but it's, you know, due diligence goes both ways. So it might be really exciting to partner with a family office. Like, maybe it's the first time that you've been able to get through that they really like you. You tick all their boxes, you know. But maybe you didn't, maybe you didn't meet one of the next Gens. Maybe, like, spend time to actually learn who's writing you this check. Because, you know, multiple times in my career, I've been in situations where I got really excited about an investor coming in, they they checked all my boxes, you know, but I didn't spend enough time on, like, the personal relationship side, so that, you know, when things got tough, or there were, you know, different decisions being made, that their reaction to that was something that was, like, very bad. And so I could have known that had I spent a little bit more time and took an apart, like, when the when you're talking about big checks, because typically your problem children are going to be your people who didn't meet your minimum, but you took their check anyways, and the people that write you really big checks. So those are the people that you really want to spend time with. Like, is it worth it to either accept a smaller check from somebody just to have them involved like, you better like them a lot, because it's a it's a big difference of somebody who's writing, who's got a $1 million net worth, who at least meets the minimum of being an accredited investor, but them writing $100,000 check is 10% of their net worth, whereas somebody who might be worth a couple, 10s of millions of dollars writing you a quarter of a million dollar check, that's 1% of their net worth, they don't care, there's gonna be a different relationship. So just make sure that you're spending time understanding where that's coming from, and push them like just like they push you. What are you gonna do under stress? Make sure that your investor you know if, if you need a liquidity event, like, are you okay with sustaining this until that can be provided or not? And what is, you know, let's actually have these conversations, and don't just get excited about someone investing in you. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, I've certainly had those investors that like to push me and watch me hustle and and deliver and I don't. I don't mind it at all, it's almost proven to yourself that you still got it, you know what I'm saying. So now, when it comes to due diligence, it goes both ways, and really trying to close the deal effectively, what we're doing is both parties, where you said, due diligence, goes both ways. Both parties are trying to arrive at a decision, and hopefully it's they arrive at the same decision, which is, let's do this. But if that doesn't happen, I'm just curious, like, what, what have you found as far as decision making and getting the deals done? What's, what's some advice on how to not lose when, when in that phase of due diligence is happening, we're trying to reach a decision? What's your advice in that moment? 

Kelly Winget  

I think there's been kind of the shifting power dynamic between funds and their LPs and I had this conversation, actually at a conference about, you know, what's happening with the GP LP relationship. And, you know, before there was a lot of value to the GP, we're talking 30-40 years ago, with them, being like, okay, here's the beacon of deals, and let's like, really support the GP. And then, kind of, as venture took over, and it kind of became more popular, the family offices and the large LPS were like, I don't want to pay a fee. You know, what's this carry about? They lost, like, the sense of the value of the GP, and and the GP is like, well, I'm creating all this value, right? Or they had one really successful fund, and then didn't continue building funds because they had a massive exit. They started their own family office or private equity firm and, like, we'll just invest with ourselves, right? And then that kind of, like, chugs the same thing down the road forever and ever. Like, it just keeps spinning off independent firms that just invest with themselves, and I think that that's starting to shift back into now they've outgrown themselves, and they now they need the GP help again. So I think it's like stepping into that ownership of I have a good strategy. Here's my window of opportunity. You're looking for opportunity. Here it is. I know you need to take time to do the due diligence to make a decision, but being upfront about, like, here's the deals that I've sourced or am I looking at, and this is my window to act on it, because if they take too long, the deal goes away, the deal changes. You don't have, you don't have that much control of the terms, unless it's, you know, an internal deal you're taking a majority of. But I think just being upfront and honest about the timelines and the reality of the situation helps, and I think that that's appreciated. I'm very upfront with my LPS about, like, here's my deadline for funding. You're either in or out, and if you're in, great, here's the benefit. But if you're going to take longer than that, like, that's also fine, I'll still welcome you in two months when you decide yes or no, but the deals changed. You know, we missed out an opportunity, or I gave it to somebody else, I do a lot of tax advantaged investing. So, you know, those things have timelines, and they have deadlines and cut off dates, and so we have to be very upfront about that with our investors, and sometimes it, sometimes it encourages them to come in, and sometimes it doesn't, and that's fine, but you have to be able to people are aware. 

Ryan Miller  

I love that, and I know when you're doing that, you're talking to these people, they're asking about your plan, you don't, you don't want to drag your feet, but you don't want to rush into decisions either. But when it comes to I know that a lot of investors, they want to know risk plans. How do you handle that part and when you're dealing with investors who are exploring that and you're getting ready to pitch a new asset class, whatever it might be, risk always comes to the surface as it should. How do you handle and prepare for that? 

Kelly Winget  

So the way that we invest, really, our biggest risk is time. You know, we're not looking at things where there's some sort of existential risk that's going to completely wipe out the opportunity. You know, we try to avoid those things that have a lot of like potential high risk, like shut it down type investments. Ours is like, okay, it might need a little bit more capital, a little bit more time, but there is this very clear path to success, and we offset those risks through different risk mitigation strategies like tax incentives and different things that we invest in. We have a very diversified portfolio so tying in tangible assets that have cash flow with tax incentives to offset the, you know, the downside risk of venture, which is long time, long horizons. So, you know, it's just about coming up with a risk mitigation plan with your strategy, whatever it is, when it comes to, like, if you're a real estate fund, like you really need to look back over the last 30 years and see what happened and what were the signs, different moments in time that affected people's real estate portfolios? And you just need to be able to have an answer for that and sometimes, yeah, it's going to be a little bit longer, we're going to have cash calls if this happens. But what are the things that you're doing that isn't just like waiting for it to fix itself? How do you pivot? And so having a pivot plan is really, like important.

Ryan Miller  

Love that and you know, this is such an interesting concept, and I know, and we've spoke before, in the past, you talked about one of the things that you like to do is a risk mitigation plan, but also a risk realization plan. Not that you want to have a risk, nobody wants that, but it is risk which just is a fancy way of saying probabilities even if it's a low probability, there still is a probability and a risk realization plan. So I think that's good, disman, we don't need to get too much and spill the tea on how you do that. But I think the wisdom here, something that I certainly love and cherish from the knowledge you've given me, is most people in this industry understands risk mitigation plans. But are enough of us talking about risk realization plans, which is the pivot that you're talking about. You're like, look, there's like, a point 1% chance that it happens, but if it does, we will be ready. And you stand on guard for the capital, for your limited partners, your investors so absolutely love that. So risk mitigation and risk realization, that's another great piece of advice on how not to lose. I love that. Now I'd love to just transition into the market. Let's talk about the market. What are you seeing out there right now? 

Kelly Winget  

You know, we have administration changes, which have been an exciting few days of new policy and so how do you if you have an active portfolio, how is that portfolio affected? But you know, my personal opinion is that we're headed into the next industrial revolution, and there's gonna be a lot of domestication of things, bringing things back to the United States. And this has been an ongoing thing that hasn't been like, oh, because Trump's in office now. This is something that I've been pretty bullish on for almost a decade, and when you started to see these kind of, like small little fires happening all over the world, about these global conflicts, and in my portfolio really shows that, I mean, I humbly call my funds the Mad Max funds. So it's, you know, I think that there's going to be a lot of explosive growth here in the United States, and there's going to be a lot of bringing things that were overseas, back here, and I think that we're going to do it bigger, better and faster than we ever had before, and it's to catch up with all the innovation that's happened in tech, and with tech being very involved in the government now you're going to see even more funding move from what is traditionally kind of put into the military. They're going to put a lot of military spending, but I think there's going to be a lot more money put into the right kind of infrastructure, again, less roads and bridges, more grids and data centers and energy storage and that kind of work, which is what we really need to be able to support the other infrastructure things and the community building that we're going to see, you know, probably with our next Democratic Party in office. 

Ryan Miller  

To echo your point with sometimes people call it the Trump trade, which, that's just a way of saying, we got a guy in office, these are his policies. How do we work with those? And then we saw the repatriation of a lot of capital on the first one, which brought in, like, a lot of these tax shelters that large corporations are holding hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, Ireland and all that stuff. And then bring it back at a tax holiday, let's get that money working instead of printing more. Let's just bring the stuff that's flooded out, let's bring it back in. Now we're starting to see another I don't know if you want to call the repatriation of manufacturing and which compliments your point. I think, I think we're aligned on this one is saying you're going to see a lot more in capital come back, you're going to see in prices might rise as a result, but I think the price whether they're right or wrong. I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but I think where I don't think pricing is the issue they're trying to solve right now, which may or may not present some inflation risk. This is just me guessing. 

Kelly Winget  

Inflation is an interesting thing. I personally believe inflation hasn't been correctly adjusted in two decades. So I think COVID, I think COVID really amplified that. You know, we haven't been at 2% inflation in 20 years. So, like my experience being a teenager today, like, I never experienced 2% inflation, and so, you know, COVID escalated that and like, oh no, it went really low and then really high. And now we're, like, playing catch up, and it's like, well, these things probably should have been priced this 15 years ago, and we should have been increasing wages 20 years ago. And so I think that there's just an acceleration of all of it, and it will eventually, it'll slow down. It'll slow down in the next half, you know, five years. But I think that there's catching up to do, and that includes, you know, you bringing things here, people are gonna get paid more, right, because we require it. The products are gonna be better, so we'll pay more for it. And there's the margins there, like, I'm big in the commodities space, the margins are there to pay everyone more, and people are still willing to pay like no one's slowed down, people are still buying stuff. And they'll never, they'll never stop buying stuff. This is America, this is what we do, we buy stuff.

Ryan Miller  

I love that. You know, I think, just to compliment that point, a lot of the stuff that's coming back with industrial the Industrial Revolution and data centers, you see a lot of infrastructure that's happening. Well, infrastructure are things that you build on top of. I remember an interview by Jeff Bezos, and he said the only reason why I was able to do so well at Amazon, he's being very humble, but he's like because I built on top of an infrastructure that existed. I didn't invent the internet, I didn't invent credit card processing, I didn't invent books, but I created a store that was able to do that. And then he says, I hope to build the infrastructure for space exploration. He was talking about Blue Origin. And so I think we're seeing a lot of these infrastructure investments to come, which tells me these are foundational investments for the next revolution that you're talking about. So I think that's a very bullish sign on manufacturing. So if you look where the infrastructure investments are, this is just my guess of how I would connect the dots in my opinion, if you look where the investment in investments are going on infrastructure, then you can start to extrapolate, to say, I think I know where they're going with this, right and that's what we do. That's what people hire us to do, is to look around corners as best as we can, no crystal ball. We say, great, if you're investing in data centers and heavy industrial okay, there's a lot of plays with that. So really exploring where the capital is going now, and if it's infrastructure, that means you're expecting to build on top of that, whether it's internet or data centers or AI or industrial manufacturing, whatever that is. I think we're at a very cool time to be able to see these infrastructure, the kind of infrastructure investments that are going through, and you can extrapolate the second and third order effects from that, would you, would you agree? 

Kelly Winget  

Oh, yeah. And, and, I think you're going to see any of these flash in the pan opportunities that big investors take advantage of. You know, they chased oil after, you know, while oil was climbing from $80 to $130 a barrel, which is the wrong time to get into oil, but they wanted it right, so that it's all exciting. And they invested in all these new, brand new oil and gas companies. Oil crashed, those companies disappeared, right, but Exxon's still standing right. And then you have an AI or, well, I guess we'll go to crypto first. So you have Bitcoin and all these different other coins that are out. And everybody was chasing the different cryptocurrencies, when the reality is like, you need to be building you need to be investing in the building blocks, the blockchain, right technology built on the system. And so that's where the shift happened. Everybody chased the cryptocurrency craze, they're trying to get all their money in there that blew up in everybody's face, and then now they're like, okay, we want to invest in the projects that are built on that. Are we looking at companies that are using that technology within them? The same thing in AI, when it first, like, got a lot of popularity, they were all chasing AI bots that people were building. Well, what was that built on top of, the system, right? So now we have more focus on who's creating the actual system that these things are being built on, and how can we invest there? And I go a step further, you know, we're looking at build all the AI bots you want, but if you can't turn the computer on or store the data, it doesn't matter. So that's where we're like, one level below that build all the AI. We look at company, we only look at companies that it doesn't matter if you're making a teddy bear or a rocket, if you're not using AI in your business, then that's not sustainable. So, you know, it's part of our due diligence when we're looking at opportunities, how are you using AI? Are you building it into the system you're creating? 

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant, yeah. And we're certainly bullish on that, and some of the projects and funds that we're standing up as well. Look, there's a lot of people out there, you and I both know it that have all kinds of opinions. There's no short supply opinions in finance, but I think yours is uniquely qualified for what you've been able to build is so impressive, and you've only just begun. But I'm curious now, out of experience, I mean, you've literally built something with your bare hands up to 85 million and you're just getting going. But now that you've been down the road for a while, now, I bet you've got some good, keen pieces of advice. There's a lot of noise, but people like you can get right to the signal. So avoiding the noise and getting our audience right to the signal. What would you say are two or three pieces of advice that can really help people level up really fast. What would you say? 

Kelly Winget  

Fund management isn't for everyone, and that should be okay. I don't think that people are born like, born like. You cannot create a leader like people are born leaders or they're not. And it's something that is something to be aspired to be. It can be built over time, but there's definitely people have a spark or don't, and it's and so don't try to force something. The other part is that it's very expensive to start a fund. It's like a million to 3 million bucks. So if you're raising 10 million really look internally and say, is this worth it for me to start something like that? If your intention is not to take this to 100, 500, a billion dollars. It's expensive to start up. If you don't have the capital or the network, it's very difficult, and you have to be able to sustain yourself through that. If you are raising from people you do not know and don't have a network of capital, a lot of founders struggle with this. Venture is very difficult, there's, I think real estate is probably the easiest thing to raise capital in, because it's very everyone knows and understands real estate for the most part. But if you're doing anything slightly more interesting, unless you have an established network, it's going to be very difficult to start from scratch. It is very important that you build community. So take the opportunity to connect with other fund managers, connect with LPs. Be an LP first like actually invest in something, even if maybe you don't have a lot of money, start small in something, and then, you know, understand what the experience is as an LP because you'll never be able to relate to your LPs if you don't and work for someone. 

Kelly Winget  

Intern or stock, you know, like something, go find somebody that's doing either something you think is interesting, something in the same space as you and really do some cold outreach and say, hey, I you know, I have this goal, I think that I want to start a fund and and follow somebody who's actually doing it. There are spaces that you can go and be around other fund managers that aren't just trying to sell you on being a fund manager, like we're actually out there actively looking for deals and LPs. So go to the actual conferences that are focused on fund management and asset allocation so that you can be around people who are actually doing the work and managing 10s of millions, hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, because it's those are the best people to be around, and for the most part, we're pretty open, like we're very collaborative. We might not tell you all the secrets of how we run our funds, but we are very helpful in that capacity, because we know that we're not managing 100% of our clients money. We're a portion of their net worth, because we are in this lane, and sometimes we talk to people that we don't even like, they don't want what we're invested in, but it doesn't mean that, oh, we have a friend that has a space fund or a deep tech fund that they are more interested in we will definitely make that introduction. So it's all about building that community first. Once you've established that, then you'll feel more comfortable, more confident starting a fund. 

Ryan Miller  

Great advice. Yeah, it's expensive in launching a fund. So my advice, I teach people in my community fundraisecapital.co, but at my community, what I teach, because I know a lot of people are like, I want to start a fund and to kind of compliment your point, and I hope everybody does, but only in specific scenarios. And what I mean is you got to at least get your stuff to 100 million, that's just my opinion. So you may agree or disagree, but I'm like, just do syndications. Get yourself the stuff up to 100 million under management, which I get it, If you're just, it's like standing at base camp looking at the summit like you're like, how am I ever gonna get there? The answer is just like climbing Everest one step at a time and so and hopefully legally, please. But that should not even need to be said, but yes, follow the rules and the laws, but one step at a time, then maybe at 100 million it makes sense. Funds are not a vehicle to launch. Funds are a vehicle to scale. Would you agree?

Kelly Winget  

Absolutely yes.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think we all agree, if it's one of those, if you know, you know. So, okay, so, so don't start a fund if you're just starting. Go work for someone, go do something else. But then, okay, so let's say we're good. We're launching a fund, even if you're not on this next question, but maybe talk about what's your opinion on deal structure? Because a lot of people focus on the asset, as you should, that's fine, of course, focus on the asset, real estate, great, whatever it is. But I always pump people full, and I know you and I have talked about this in the past, so I'd love to hear your opinion on when you're approaching a deal from an advice, how does structure fold into the overall offering? 

Kelly Winget  

So it goes back to like finding your niche, right? Everyone can look at a multi family deal. Anyone can look at maybe a partnership or a minority stake in something, or a safe agreement, or, you know, like, there's all these different things that are very template boiler plate terms, and the funds just follow suit. You have a lot of, like, if you're in the venture space, like, this is the space that I'm in my private equity venture. So we get a lot of, you know, there's a lot of interest in our company, and we have a $2 million investor sitting on the sideline, but they want to lead, right? They're going to come, they want to follow a lead and can you set the terms and they'll come in after you and I was like, I hate these situations. Because I'm like, one, if I'm going to do all the term work like, it's going to be 1,000% in my favor, and I don't want them in. So it sets you apart when you have a lot of control on deal structure, even your own fund structure. Because if someone's looking at just another LP, right, some partnership that they're going to invest in, how do you set yourself apart from that, they're looking for the uniqueness. So like for me, I'm a big tax nerd, so I try to look at where are the incentives out of the asset classes that we're going to be investing in, and how can I structure our investment into those companies to the benefit the best to my investors with their money coming in and out of the fund, and I get to have those really creative structure conversations with my LPs, because I understand, kind of like the holistic, big picture piece. That's what my niche is. There's not a lot of people that do that really well, because it's pretty gate kept in the family office space. This is how family office invests, but they're doing it internally for themselves, and I do it inside of a fund structure. So you have a lot of flexibility, because the fund world is really whatever kind of entity you want to set up, and you have a lot of control over what the terms are of that investment. Lean into that and disclose it, right, that's the difference between you and somebody that took a boiler plate fund document, an offering document, is that they're using a boilerplate that doesn't have disclosures, doesn't have risk disclosures, or anything that are relative relevant to you, when you can really custom build out that offering and bring something different to the table, to the LP. The only thing that that really complicates it's like, okay, now the LP that's used to looking at something is now looking at something different, so it might take a lot, little longer for them to understand. But if you can figure out how to create your own lane, it'll be very powerful, especially as you know, ventures gotten really popular, and so you know, how do you stand out from just another venture firm? 

Ryan Miller  

Earlier in this show, you mentioned you do a lot of tax advantaged investing. Again, we're not providing tax or any financial advice, just talking about what you're into. But I know and a lot of these things, when people start exploring structure, so they're like, I gotta know everything about real estate, if that's they are, or hedge funds, or whatever it is that you're doing, sure. Yeah, you should. You need to be confident in your asset class for sure. But the thing is, I've been there when I started, and you just like, I found the best one. And then you go to investor, and they're like, dude, everybody tells me they found the best one, and your like, I don't care and you're shocked, right? So in looking back now, I was like, that was the first giveaway that I was such a newbie in this area. Like, they're like, that's adorable, but not going to invest. But when you say, hey, I found the best one and here's how I wrapped it in a phenomenal structure to optimize tax treatment so you take home more of the capital, all of a sudden they're like, whoa. What? Kelly, who is this girl? This is amazing. And so providing that key structure to a great asset, that is exactly what I think, Kelly, you're saying, and I wholeheartedly agree, is saying it's not enough to be just good at finding good investments, it's not enough. Yes, you have to do that, but if you really want to be in the winner's circle with Kelly, you also need to be a good structure of great assets. Now we're talking, now we've really thought end to end on what your investors want. They want some tax incentives. They really want performance. And a lot of that comes from the asset, but a lot of that comes from the structure you've put that asset in. Is there anything else you can add to that? 

Kelly Winget  

You have to remember, again, most of these investors have all of the money in the world, okay, in their world. So for them, one you to be careful on like, how much you disclose to them as far as, like, your secret sauce, right? And I deal with this a lot, because when I'm doing when I'm working with a family office or talking to a family office or a colleague in the space that my competitive edge keeps them out of my world, they might think like, okay, though that's a really good deal. They can go out and they have way more money than me, they can go do a deal. They can close on a deal. They can go, you know, start up their own company and pay for everything, and compete with me, but because I have this extra component right now, I'm the expert, and they want me, because they can't do it without me. They, it would take them a while. They would eventually find somebody who could figure it out, but they wouldn't be able to find somebody to figure it out without then having a conversation with me. And so that's where I've created my lane. So just make sure that doing the deals you create that little that little wall that makes them want to choose you and work with you instead of going out and doing it on their own, because they can.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. Well said, as we wrap things up. Is there anything else, ways people can reach out to you or learn more? Any, anything at all? Any closing thoughts?

Kelly Winget  

Sure. So I wrote a book, it's more for the investor, but it's a fun thing if you're talking to investors that are thinking about alternatives, because I've been exclusively in this space for 15 years. So it's called, Pitch the Bitch: Grab your Financial Future by the Bags. You buy it on wherever and wherever they sell books. You can find me online, alternativewealthpartners.com, I'm very active on LinkedIn, so if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, it's Kelly Ann Winget. I think I'm the only one, and I like to post a lot of opinions on there, I have an incredible network. So if you're, if you're just starting out, you don't know anybody. Like, follow me on LinkedIn, and then if you see anybody in my network, I personally manage my LinkedIn messages so you can shoot me a message on there, if, if it's in a data, just wait, I promise I get through them. And, yeah, I just open my network up to whoever needs it and, you know, follow along for more, I guess. 

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. So just to summarize everything we talked about, don't launch a fund if you're just starting out. The second one is the structure of the deal matters just as much as the deal itself, so really learn structuring, however you need to get great people around you, whatever that is, but you gotta be more than just picking good assets. And then the third one is, look, if you're just starting out a real hack, if you want to put it that way, go work for a fund manager, or at least be an investor in a private fund. 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.