S2E13 – Douglas Eze – How to earn consistent double-digit returns in the market

Transcription

[00:00:03.430] – Intro

Payback Time is a podcast about building businesses, wealth and financial freedom. We try to uncover the challenges our guests faced, the mistakes they made, and the steps they took to achieve their goals. The overall objective is to provide you with a roadmap that leads to your own success. Sean Tepper is your host. Are you ready? It’s Payback Time.  

[00:00:32.730] – Sean

From working at IHOP to owning eight.  

[00:00:35.260] – Sean

Businesses, most of the time as an investor or entrepreneur, your beginnings are quite humble.  

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It can take years to achieve your goals. But if you stick to a proven.  

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Plan and apply little patience, you can.  

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Design the life of your dreams. In this episode, we break down his.  

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Investment strategies and talk about the specific strategy he offers to his clients that.  

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Produces double digit returns.  

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Please welcome Douglas Eze.  

[00:01:01.620] – Sean

Douglas, welcome to the show.  

[00:01:03.140] – Douglas

Thank you so much. How are you doing?  

[00:01:05.110] – Sean

Hey. Doing pretty well. I’m excited to hear your backstory. So if you would, why don’t you take it away and tell us a little bit about your background?  

[00:01:12.250] – Douglas

Man, I’ve been in the financial services industry for over 20 years. I started waiting I was waiting for, I hope, when I got introduced to it, I was 24 years old, and I went ahead and got all my licenses securities. So I was pushing the mutual fund game and life insurance and all the other stuff. But today I own a financial service agency and we have over 1000 financial planners that we work with and train and inspire.  

[00:01:39.120] – Sean

Got it. I’m curious, are you affiliated with any kind of big, like, mutual fund or life insurance company or is this your own practice?  

[00:01:48.270] – Douglas

Yeah, this is my own practice, actually. So we are a like, broker. We had our own broker dealer where we offer new ones, but we had to get rid of it a while back.  

[00:01:58.410] – Sean

Sure. Well, we’ll get into your business and what you offer in a little bit. But first, our audience always likes to hear how you got started in the market. So first off, what year did you get started investing on your own?  

[00:02:12.810] – Douglas

I’d probably say I got my security license.  

[00:02:20.350] – Sean

Okay. Just before the.com bust, right? Yeah, that was fun. We’ll get into that in a second.  

[00:02:27.550] – Douglas

Right.  

[00:02:28.530] – Sean

All right. So how did you get started? Did you make your first investment like a mutual fund or individual stock?  

[00:02:35.560] – Douglas

Yeah, just mutual funds. I was putting away $100 a month. Just diversifying, just putting I think I did a lot more American funds, and it was safer funds then.  

[00:02:47.020] – Sean

Got it.  

[00:02:47.790] – Douglas

Okay.  

[00:02:48.340] – Sean

And then what kind of strategy did you start with? Did you just pick something that you thought was safe or was there a particular sector or industry you liked?  

[00:02:56.980] – Douglas

Yeah. So because I was young then I was 27, so I pretty much just did based on my risk tolerance, it’s a lot more aggressive. But I like using dollar cost averaging because it made it a lot easier for me to kind of not worry about how the market is flowing and just continue to buy every month.  

[00:03:18.690] – Sean

Sure. So it sounds like a little more risk, which I think is great, especially if you’re in your twenty s and thirty s. And then you just kept it small at first, $100 a month.  

[00:03:30.670] – Douglas

No rush, because I wasn’t making a whole lot of money then either. And I always saw the stock market as very volatile. So you don’t really want to dump all your money, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing.  

[00:03:46.350] – Sean

Right.  

[00:03:47.060] – Douglas

Even though I was a financial guy in the business, I was still learning. I definitely want to take those type of crazy risks. But I figure with the telecoms stockbroking and with the way my risk tolerance was at that time, it makes sense.  

[00:04:02.500] – Sean

Good to know. Let’s start diving into what you’re doing today. We’re going to deep dive into this a little bit. So what is your investment strategy today?  

[00:04:10.660] – Douglas

Well, now I’m older, so it’s a.  

[00:04:12.450] – Sean

Little bit I get it.  

[00:04:15.730] – Douglas

It’s a lot different from before. So today is more safer investments and allows me to get double digit returns, of course, outside of the traditional stocks and mutual funds, with other alternative investments that are a little bit more risk averse. And I’m thinking more the future. And I want to keep a lot of my money. Warren Buffett has a favorite quote. Rule number one, never lose your money.  

[00:04:46.270] – Sean

One of my favorite quotes, actually.  

[00:04:49.330] – Douglas

Rule number two, don’t forget rule number one. Very well, that’s it.  

[00:04:54.560] – Sean

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie Fight Club with Brad Pitt. First rule about Fight Club, don’t talk about fight Club. Second rule about Fight Club is don’t talk about it. You get it? Yeah. Don’t lose money. I like it. So you’re a little more risk averse today, and I just want to again talk about what you’re doing, not what you’re recommending to your customers. So you like to go into it? Sounds like more mutual funds. Is that correct or do you do some stocks?  

[00:05:23.480] – Douglas

Mutual funds is what I would touch on mostly, but very safe, very same funds I’ve had for years. And that’s pretty much it. Easy ones. I mean, the ones that I know, they’re stable companies. They’ve been around. I drive a Tesla, so I have their fund, their stock, actually. And then I also have some Facebook. So we are on Facebook. Why not? But I just put money there. That’s it. Pretty much I don’t really do anything too crazy with it.  

[00:05:53.190] – Sean

Sure. Got you. I want to talk about Tesla real quick. And I haven’t talked to Tesla in a while. I know the whole market is beat up pretty bad right now, especially tech stocks. Now Tesla. I recently did an article on Ford. Do you see any threats to Tesla over the next five to ten years? With other auto manufacturers like Ford?  

[00:06:15.490] – Douglas

No, not at all. They’re the pioneers in the world. They have their own unique situation and they capitalize the market with the charging station. So it’s a little bit different. And there’s always a market. Everybody has an audience, right? And everybody has a fan. So there’s two that love for that will always be a Ford fan. Like, I own a Test. I also own a Porsche, so I bought it. So it doesn’t matter. And five years from now, I’ll buy the next one. None of them. I don’t care.  

[00:06:50.290] – Sean

We’re going to do a quick segue, filling up your portion DC with where you’re based out of how much is a gallon of gas right now in DC? Is it north of town?  

[00:06:58.420] – Douglas

It’s a lot. I just passed through the gas station. I didn’t want to pay attention to that. That’s why I have electric cars, man.  

[00:07:09.130] – Sean

That’s right.  

[00:07:10.230] – Douglas

I just drive past everybody I’m like.  

[00:07:12.100] – Sean

Okay, keep raising the prices. Before we talk about more stock investing, I always like to look back in history, and I remember this back in 2008, 2009, I feel like the gas prices went from, I’m thinking Wisconsin here. I got to look at the statistics, but they went from one dollars somewhere in there to almost $4, almost doubled. And I feel like we’ve seen that recently. Like we went from, I don’t know if it was 299 or 250 or whatever. And I just passed a gas station this morning. It was $5, which is not. I mean, it’s pretty bad, but we’ve seen worse. Like, I’ve seen photos from California, I think around $10.  

[00:08:03.520] – Douglas

I know why they live there.  

[00:08:06.870] – Sean

No kidding, right? So you in this space, you are an adviser that’s seen these events last 20 years. You’ve seen the.com bust, you’ve seen the 2008 recession, and here we are, we’re kind of facing some major turmoil on the market. How do you feel things are going and where do you see them going?  

[00:08:26.670] – Douglas

One thing that I always say, it’s always going to happen. And I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years, and which is why I pivot away, putting a lot of money on my focus in the market where I now focus on investment that I lose, where there’s no risk, there’s risk in everything, right? Any investment, there’s risk, but the risks are very minimal. So you’re going to always have the ups and downs of the market for your investment. Of course, all I can say is just take your time. Don’t dump all your money in it. Of course, like everything, just take your time. Diversify, treat the market. Basically, I see you’re going to Vegas. You don’t want to take all your money to Vegas, just have it. It’s an asset class. Put money in there and then look for the stuff that allows you to still save and have money coming in where you can still earn double digit returns. And there’s a lot of opportunities like that on the marketplace.  

[00:09:25.260] – Sean

Sure. We’ll get to that in a little bit. And how to produce those double digit returns with what you’re talking about. Now, it sounds like the advice you’re giving is get into the market, don’t worry, because it’s going to recover. And at the same time, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, right?  

[00:09:41.650] – Douglas

Yes, definitely.  

[00:09:43.510] – Sean

Okay. Here at Tykr, we like to stay more focused. Ten to 15 stocks in our portfolio. We don’t get too much in the diversification, but we do respect the strategy there. You can minimize your downside, especially with realized losses. When you sell, if you do plan on selling, you won’t take as big of a loss. A lot of our investors are younger and they’re going to have unrealized gains, meaning they’re down, but they’re not selling. So you got to ride the roller coaster back up. In other words.  

[00:10:17.230] – Douglas

Yeah.  

[00:10:18.160] – Sean

Okay. I wanted to do that quick segue to get your opinion on the market, to circle back to stocks. You’ve got mutual funds, Tesla, Facebook, any other individual stocks you hold today?  

[00:10:27.690] – Douglas

Yeah, Amazon. Just large tops. Companies that are stable doing their thing because I’ve tapped in some and lost some money before. So I just stay with the ones that I know. They’re strong. They’ve been in business for a long time. They’re not really looking for tremendous amount of game. They’re just comfortable. I mean, they go deep sometimes, but they always come back up. Yes.  

[00:10:56.260] – Sean

You’ve got a really strong stock portfolio. I’m looking at those four. I think they’re all in our platform Tykr. I think they’re all on sale or pretty close. So really strong businesses. All right, here’s another question for you. When was your last investment?  

[00:11:13.970] – Douglas

Actually, it was not in the market, but of course, in real estate.  

[00:11:18.650] – Sean

Okay. You invest in real estate as well?  

[00:11:20.720] – Douglas

Yeah, definitely. Okay. All right.  

[00:11:23.700] – Sean

Well, that’s going to relate to your practice, I imagine. Your business.  

[00:11:27.890] – Douglas

Yeah. Actually, outside of my business, it’s something that I do because I’m well rounded when it comes to investing. So I diversify a lot of things. And I know you just talked about the oil price. I just opened up a business in Africa where I registered the oil company. So we won’t be doing that. So I’m going to stop paying more.  

[00:11:46.660] – Sean

Attention to oil capitalize on the rising prices. Yes. Good for you. This is cool. You’re more than just an investor. You’re an entrepreneur. You’ve got multiple streams of income, even outside the market. You’ve got your own practice. This is exciting. Again, we’ll get to some of your business revenue streams here in a moment. I’ll keep going with the stocks in the market. So last investment was in the last month, you could say.  

[00:12:17.240] – Douglas

Yeah. So I put some money in a crypto when it did a little bit.  

[00:12:24.810] – Sean

Okay.  

[00:12:25.500] – Douglas

I put some money in that. And my mutual fund, which I used was the e trade to put money in there. So I kind of dumped some money when the market went down a little bit and just put up some money in my three funds, Apple, Facebook, and Tesla, and that’s it good for you. One of the things that I just do quickly, I take the loan out of insurance, and then I put the money in there and just let it sit. And then I pay back to myself. So I’m using somebody else’s money to invest.  

[00:12:59.390] – Sean

Yeah. Opm, you are an entrepreneur, aren’t you? Right on, man. Right on. All right. What percentage of your income do you invest?  

[00:13:13.550] – Douglas

Well, I’ll say because investment in terms of I invest in a lot in my business. Right. So I’ll put about 70% of the money that we produce goes back to the business, especially the businesses that I currently own. I own, like eight companies, so I invest a lot in those companies. Wow. Yeah.  

[00:13:35.410] – Sean

Nice. Very nice. And then your average returns just in the stock market, that’s between your mutual funds and your stocks don’t include your real estate. But what are your average returns, would you say the last two years, man.  

[00:13:50.210] – Douglas

I don’t want to pay attention to that stuff, man, because I’ve had it for so long, and I can’t really put a number on it because I don’t look at it at all. Okay, that’s fine.  

[00:14:01.520] – Sean

You’ve got what I’m looking at. And this is good to note for the listeners out there. You’re building compound wealth in the stock market, not even paying attention to it because you also have multiple other businesses producing ongoing cash flow. Whereas in the stock market we talk about you’re mostly building this compounding wealth. You have a bigger sum waiting for you if you want to retire. Chief financial independence early. But in most cases, if you want that reoccurring revenue, that’s where I usually tell people, try to buy some real estate, collect some rent every month. Right. Or start an online business and get it moving and then get a few people to operate it for you, producing some ongoing residuals there. All right. Returns. We’ll get you with your portfolio and the double digit returns a little bit. Can you share with us your biggest investment mistake over your entire life?  

[00:15:02.370] – Douglas

I mean, when I got into the industry, and this is probably one of the reason why I started shying away from it, because I was heavily invested in the market. And until I get to do a withdrawal. And so I had a separate IRA that was dumping money as a business owner. And I need to pull out 30 grand to send my dad to India because I’m from West Africa, Nigeria. So I need to set him for medical treatment. He was in Nigeria, so I need to apply all that. So it was an emergency shopping cash out about 30 GS. And because of an IRA, you have 60 days to put the money back in. But I was thinking 60 business days, which is Monday to Friday. So I was counting it down by 60 calendar days. So when it was time, I was hit with putting the money back at the wrong time. Remember, all of our investors buy low, sell high. So if I put it back at the wrong time, I actually lost money. So I actually lost like 20 grand, put money back at the wrong time. But lesson learned. And I never made that mistake anymore after that.  

[00:16:13.480] – Sean

Right on. Yeah. Good. Thanks for sharing that. I know with some products out there, and this is good to know for more than just Sep IRAs, is there certain products that you can borrow against or take money out? But you better know when you have to put that money back in, otherwise you’re going to face penalty like you did.  

[00:16:31.580] – Douglas

Yeah. And it’s more like taking it out, putting it back in. So I think I put it back in at a high price.  

[00:16:39.810] – Sean

Got it.  

[00:16:41.130] – Douglas

The value of my money buying the stock was crazy. So it was just a lesson learned back then. And I don’t do that anymore right now.  

[00:16:50.900] – Sean

We’ll flip that equation. What was your biggest investment success, man?  

[00:16:56.910] – Douglas

I think just putting money in Tesla and Apple and Facebook and just investing heavily in them, actually, when I first bought my Tesla in 2014, when I got my car. So, yeah, I’ve always invested and I was able to take money against my mutual fund by then to buy the Tesla. So I use that money to do what I need to do.  

[00:17:23.310] – Sean

I’m looking back at Tesla’s price back in 2014. Do you know what? You bought Tesla at that point? We’re going to check real quick here. I’m going to a chart. I’m just going back to 2014. Let’s take a look here.  

[00:17:39.300] – Douglas

Actually take you back to 2000? Probably. Maybe because I know I started putting money in it before I purchased. Okay. Yeah. When they first started making noise.  

[00:17:52.270] – Sean

So here we go. Tesla’s price today, it’s at 710, highest price it’s ever gone to. What is that? I think 1200. Well, we’ll just use. Let’s use 2014. Just a nice rough number. It was about $30 in early 2014. Nice work. That’s good.  

[00:18:19.120] – Douglas

I do have a lot of cash there, and it’s still there. That’s a pain. I sum. But I always keep putting money back. It’s always good to take out your profit, you know, just take profit, keep your principal back, and just keep it moving.  

[00:18:34.400] – Sean

Or in that case, do you take profit and you reinvest back into the stock?  

[00:18:41.450] – Douglas

Yeah. So depending on what I’m trying to do at that moment when I need it, because I’ve used that to buy Apple and I used that to buy Facebook back then. So just allows me to invest, to use other people’s money and just invest because I don’t really count it as mine until it’s in my hands and I’m using it for something else.  

[00:19:01.280] – Sean

Right? Exactly. All right. Here’s a good one. How do you manage your emotions in the stock market? It sounds like you’re pretty calm and cool, especially through a time like this. How do you do that?  

[00:19:13.440] – Douglas

Yeah, because like I said, probably I probably have 5% of my money in the market and that’s it all the things that make me a lot more money where I don’t have to sweat myself and stress at night about it. So that’s more important because again, the market is like going to Vegas. That is equated to that. So I try not to focus on my energy. I use money that if I lose, I’m okay. If I don’t lose it, then we win, then that’s even great. So I’m not emotionally attached to it.  

[00:19:50.060] – Sean

Yes. That’s where I think a lot of people make a mistake, is they are emotionally attached to that dollar amount in their broker, and they can stare at it, they can dwell on it, they lose sleep on it. And it’s the psychology of separating yourself emotionally from your money that’s really hard for people. I’ll turn that question to you. How do you teach somebody to get to that position in life?  

[00:20:18.170] – Douglas

It’s something that you got to come to yourself and figure it out at the end of the day. Because I’m also in the insurance business, I understand that when we die, this money ain’t going nowhere with us.  

[00:20:32.500] – Sean

That’s right.  

[00:20:33.320] – Douglas

So I make money to do more for people and help. And so I don’t see money as a tool that I need to focus all my energy on because I could use it all today. So I make money so I could help someone that is in need. And while I continue to live the lifestyle that I have and don’t have to worry, I don’t have any debt or anything like that. So that’s pretty much the best way focus on just your health is more important than the money, right?  

[00:21:07.030] – Sean

Good call. You’re only on this Earth so long and you want to try to enjoy yourself but also help others enjoy life along the way, too, right?  

[00:21:15.970] – Douglas

That’s right.  

[00:21:18.470] – Sean

Well, let’s transition to your business. I want to talk about your business and how investors can get involved in some of the products you offer because you mentioned double digit returns. Why don’t you tell us about your company a little bit?  

[00:21:31.740] – Douglas

Yeah. So being in this industry for over 20 years, we’ve had the opportunity to just meet with companies that are doing great. For example, one of the companies I use when it comes to real estate, we invest with them because they’ve been in business for over 70 years. And we do bridge loans with them. We loan them money to buy land. They develop land in two parts of the country Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia. So they develop land, and then they sell those land to investors, to builders that build apartment complexes, shopping malls, and all the other stuff. So when we invest with them, we get a return, like 10% return every 90 days, every month. And it’s a loan. We’re lending them the money to do what they do, and we guarantee the loan with the collateral land for the loan. So it kind of works out for us. I’ve been using them for a while, and our clients love those accounts. And then the second one is basically life settlements where we have companies that buy policies that folks don’t want anymore because there’s a lot of people that don’t want life insurance anymore.  

[00:22:43.470] – Douglas

They want to just get rid of. And they’ve had it for years, for 50, 70 years. They having health issues or whatever the case might be, or they just want to sell and walk away. So there’s third parties that buy those things from them, which is just like buying real estate from the owner of a real estate, and then the company owns the deed and becomes a new owner of that property, and then they could flip it. So I’m on the other side where those investors, those buyers, the third party, after they dealt with the customers, they pay them off, they come to me and say, do you have an investor that might be interested in owning a life insurance policy as an asset class that they could have in their portfolio as well? So we invest in that. Then people could buy those and own it and they could sell it later if they want. Whatever.  

[00:23:26.600] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:23:27.100] – Sean

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[00:24:51.240] – Sean

But don’t take my word for it. Check out our trust pilot reviews to see what people are really saying. Get started today with a free trial. Visit Tykr.com. That’s Tykr.com again, Tykr.com.  

[00:25:11.170] – Sean

So your company, which is Largo Financial Services. Correct. So it’s considered an alternative investment firm. Would that be a high level way to describe it?  

[00:25:24.190] – Douglas

No, actually, it’s just the insurance firm where we focus a lot in life insurance, where we sell that. But what I do personally outside of that and for some of my very affluent clients, because they’re not looking to market, these are people that want to preserve their money, but they always look into investing something like a real estate or anything else. And some of them don’t want to be flipping properties. That’s not what they want to do. They just want to know, okay, I want to put my money. What am I getting out and am I going to lose my money? So a lot of them, I created investors, of course, for them, because a lot of times people ask me for stuff that they want to put money and we have to have a place for them to do it.  

[00:26:05.680] – Sean

Got it. So is that a separate company from Largo?  

[00:26:09.430] – Douglas

No, it’s still Largo. It’s just that when I say I do that because I have a lot of financial advisors in my organization. So I do that personally for a lot of private clients that come into my world, and then I have relationships with that I do business with on that one.  

[00:26:27.470] – Sean

What I’m trying to do is frame this in a way so the customer knows what they can get involved with. So every day people can take out life insurance. They can get access to that product. When it comes to the real estate side, that sounds like that’s more focused on the accredited investor.  

[00:26:43.460] – Douglas

Accredited investor. But we have a product for everyday people.  

[00:26:48.650] – Sean

Okay.  

[00:26:49.400] – Douglas

Put as little as $20,000 investment in and still get the same return. So we have that.  

[00:26:56.740] – Sean

And you were saying about 10% every 90 days. We’re talking about 40% a year.  

[00:27:03.080] – Douglas

That’s good math. Yes.  

[00:27:06.250] – Sean

Well, I’m looking at that. That’s quite impressive. 40% a year.  

[00:27:12.120] – Douglas

It is more like that’s why? It’s a bridge loan. Okay. It’s a bridge loan. So now the way it works is basically every 90 days they have an opportunity to reinvest the money or just pull out and walk away. So if they want to pull out, they walk away or they just reinvest. But we’ve never had anybody that pulled out. They always want to stay and continue if they want to. But it’s up to them because what happens is the company, the developer that we use, they use it for different projects. They’re not buying apartment companies. They’re not looking for renters. They have a ready made market because there’s all these builders. And what is the biggest problem builder have? If you buy a land right now, the biggest issue is that you got to go find good disability study, get the permits, the electricity. So our clients already have relationship, right. They have great relationship with the county, with the city developed. I mean, they’re able to get what they need pretty fast, faster than most people can. So they get it ready made for the builders to come in and build on it and do whatever they’re going to buy.  

[00:28:18.560] – Douglas

And you will be surprised. Some land, the profit they’re making is in six months, they make 200,000, right. They might invest 75 grand just using that as number. So they’re able to pay. But we’re charging them the bridge loan money so they will pay back and they use it for multiple projects. So it’s not just one project going on. It’s multiple projects at a time.  

[00:28:42.280] – Sean

Got it. Now, 10% is a little higher than what I’ve heard in the past. Why is that percentage as high as it is? Because of the higher risks there based on the locations or the type of properties? Forgive me, I’m not an expert in real estate, but I know enough to be dangerous. This is something I find very interesting is these loan rates.  

[00:29:03.460] – Douglas

Yeah. I mean, it’s the fact that, one, they give it to us because of relationship. Right. And two, the amount of profit that they’re making. And three, it’s not a loan that you have to keep forever. So we have folks that actually say, you know what, I just don’t dump the money in there for the first nine years and then walk away. And they could pull their money out and go send it to them. But they also get a promising note and everything. When they invest, we have the loans guaranteed as well. So even during covet, when a lot of stuff, we didn’t lose any beat.  

[00:29:42.760] – Sean

Got it. That’s great. What I like about real estate and you probably know this because you’re on the front line, is in 2008, the housing crash in the States, housing or construction slowed down. But one thing that did not slow down is people making more people. So where do you put people these days? You got to put them in homes. They got to live somewhere. Supply and demand demand.  

[00:30:08.630] – Douglas

I mean, right now I have a number of land that I’m looking to develop myself, but I’m looking at doing tiny homes and container homes. I was just talking to the company that’s going to do all the build up for me. So there’s other opportunities, especially now the rental income skyrocketing. Rent is high. People are looking for somewhere they could live and not pay a whole lot, but they have nice living space. So what’s happening to the container world? Because there’s a lot of opportunity there. So for your audience, that’s a good opportunity. Container homes. That’s something nobody’s looking into yet.  

[00:30:45.510] – Sean

Yes, I did read something on. And you’re talking sea containers, correct?  

[00:30:50.190] – Douglas

Yes.  

[00:30:50.800] – Sean

Converting these old sea containers into homes because I’m curious about this. What does that entail? What kind of timeline to take a sea container, an old metal container to make it livable? What kind of timeline are we looking at? Is this like a six month project or something?  

[00:31:06.880] – Douglas

Six months even? Like, actually, I just got off the phone yesterday with a gentleman that I’m going to work with their company and we could get stuff done in like four months. Everything will be done because they do everything. They built from scratch and they put everything in there. So it’s all done pretty fast.  

[00:31:26.500] – Sean

And then let’s say, is it like one C container or kind of multiple connected to make different rooms?  

[00:31:34.130] – Douglas

Yes. In some cases, it could be dependent on how you want the layout.  

[00:31:39.730] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:31:40.910] – Douglas

So you go through the same design like you go to buying a house. You want to know how many bedrooms you want, do you want one, two, three bedroom, how many living space do you want? All the regular stuff. So that determines the size of container you’re going to have and the square footage that you want. All those questions are important.  

[00:31:59.310] – Sean

And how much would like a new home based on a sea container? How much would it cost?  

[00:32:04.820] – Douglas

So the one I was looking at, it’s a one bedroom because I want to do multiple units. So I’m doing one bedroom price. So it will be about 60, $75,000.  

[00:32:16.130] – Sean

Nice. That’s right. And it’s got the bones where it can withstand some storms, right?  

[00:32:22.830] – Douglas

Yeah. It’s sweet. So I’m looking to do about 50 in the community and then just have.  

[00:32:31.480] – Sean

It just a quick segue here. I love stories like that when I read about the usage of these because they’re very sturdy. They can withdraw storms and they’ll hold up for nearly forever. When I heard about this, I’m like, oh, this is brilliant. And the price tag on these, I heard was going to be a lot less. It’s great.  

[00:32:53.670] – Douglas

It is. And there’s a lot of places that are using them now. It’s here with the way inflation is ridiculously high, so much stuff is going on. The income for people are not growing, especially folks that have full time jobs. So it’s an opportunity. And like everything I always say for an investor, just be patient. There’s always going to be opportunities for you to invest in. Don’t jump out there, especially if you don’t know anything about what you invest in. Do your research and be patient.  

[00:33:26.630] – Sean

Yes. Good advice to circle back to your comment earlier on in the podcast, the double digit returns that refers to this real estate vehicle. Got it. Okay.  

[00:33:38.530] – Douglas

Real estate life settlements. And of course, we do some Airbnbs as well. And then I also have companies like a tech company that I’m a part owner of. Basically, we do business globally in that. So that’s just something that I invested a lot of my money to just grow that. So that’s like a DPS tracking company.  

[00:34:03.590] – Sean

Logistics. It sounds like you have a trend for getting into things at the right place at the right time. Logistics, I can tell you right now is a hot place to be. A lot of room for improvement, you.  

[00:34:15.000] – Douglas

Could say, yes, big time. Big time.  

[00:34:17.880] – Sean

Is that state side or is that in Africa?  

[00:34:20.810] – Douglas

Actually, it’s global. So what happened was, this is a great story. I met a gentleman. He’s a coder. He cools. Very good version. He built the technology. And when I met him, he said, I don’t have any money, I don’t know nothing in marketing. And right now, I could tap into about 20 satellites. So he uses satellite technology. And so in Africa, the Internet is not as strong as here, right? So cars get messy. And he’s from a country called Camera. So there’s English and the French side. So the French side shut down Internet. Imagine this for 90 days on the English speaking side. And during the 90 days, a lot of cars got stolen. And this guy’s like, man, what can I do to make sure if this ever happens again, this doesn’t happen. And he just started thinking and dreamted and boom said, oh, I have to tap into the satellite and there’s a lot of free satellites. So he did that. And now today he was able to run out. Before I met him, he was able to tap into about maybe 30 countries. Now with us putting some money in it and back in.  

[00:35:26.160] – Douglas

And now we’re about to take it to a whole new level. Now we made an American company, rebranded it and everything. And boom, we have about 99 coverage worldwide.  

[00:35:36.230] – Sean

Got it. That’s awesome. I want to transition here shortly to what we call the Rapid Fire Round. But one quick comment on what you’re doing is it’s really exciting to see somebody who you built a practice that a wealth management practice, which is generating revenue. You’re investing in the stock market that’s producing wealth. You’ve got real estate, and then you’re also an angel investor. I’d classify you as in select businesses, including this tech startup. That’s quite inspiring.  

[00:36:07.030] – Douglas

Thank you.  

[00:36:07.770] – Sean

Yeah. Keep up the good work. Well, let’s transition here to the Rapid fire round. This is where we get to find out who Douglas really is. I got a few fun questions for you.  

[00:36:18.980] – Douglas

Okay.  

[00:36:19.630] – Sean

Alright. And if you can try to answer each in 15 seconds or less. Ready?  

[00:36:24.340] – Douglas

Yes. Let’s go.  

[00:36:25.520] – Sean

All right. What is your favorite podcast that you listen to?  

[00:36:31.550] – Douglas

Oh, man, that’s a good one. I don’t keep names. I just listen to them when I walk in and just go anywhere. But mostly more inspirational type of podcast, just. And then some educational ones. And now I’m going to start listening to yours for sure.  

[00:36:50.210] – Sean

Thank you. With the inspirational podcasts or education, any names jump out? Any podcast names.  

[00:36:58.130] – Douglas

I’m getting on Spotify. So I just go on, just pick stuff out while I’m walking because I work 2 hours every morning in the morning. Just get on the road and just walk.  

[00:37:08.670] – Sean

Good for you.  

[00:37:09.620] – Douglas

Yeah.  

[00:37:10.910] – Sean

All right, next question. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?  

[00:37:16.070] – Douglas

Well, there’s this book right here. They’re willing to get cocaine generational work out with the book. I like reading books that will help me help my customers as well. Just my retirement. Okay. And then the Audible, the Trevor Noah book, of course, Trevor Noah book. And so I listened to the Audible. Yeah.  

[00:37:43.550] – Sean

Few good recommendations in there. Thank you. All right, here’s one for you. What is the best investment advice you ever received? Well, for more on Buffet, going back to rule one. Yeah.  

[00:37:56.790] – Douglas

Never lose your mind because researching him, actually, he puts a lot of money in life settlement. He puts about 600 million every year in life settlement. So watching him the way they do and then just talking to one of my mentors and just reinvesting your company because my company is also an investment, he has a fluctuating business owner. So that.  

[00:38:17.680] – Sean

Yes, got it. And we’ll flip that equation. What is the worst investment advice you ever received?  

[00:38:25.630] – Douglas

Get a separate.  

[00:38:30.650] – Sean

See a friend. I’m at the door.  

[00:38:35.010] – Douglas

Yeah.  

[00:38:35.940] – Sean

Good one. All right, the last question here. This is the time machine question for those out there who own a DeLorean, get ready. All right. So if you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?  

[00:38:51.030] – Douglas

Wow, man, I don’t regret nothing. But I’ll say, you know, what, 22 before I come into America, basically because I left Africa at a young age and coming to America, I wish I understood more about finance when I first came into the country. But I don’t like the great alone. I don’t like going back the past because today is today and we’re just living the best life.  

[00:39:22.710] – Sean

Absolutely. You are. Well done. Well, I’ll turn it over to you. Where can the audience reach you?  

[00:39:27.880] – Douglas

Yeah. So I’m on social media. I’m on IG I am Douglas Aza. And then Logo Financial one. And then, of course, I’m tapping into the TikTok world that’s shared some knowledge there. But I have my YouTube page. So we have a lot of good videos on YouTube that I put out every day, just educational videos so they could learn. And then you can find me there. And then, of course, go to Logofinancialservices.com to learn more on what videos about different investments, topics and stuff like that.  

[00:40:00.020] – Sean

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time. Doubtless. This is great.  

[00:40:03.460] – Douglas

Yeah. Nice meeting. For sure. Thank you.  

[00:40:05.840] – Sean

Take it easy.  

[00:40:06.540] – Douglas

Yes. Bye.  

[00:40:14.210] – Sean

Hey, I just want to say thanks.  

[00:40:15.510] – Sean

For checking out this podcast. I know your time is valuable and there’s a lot of other podcasts out.  

[00:40:20.280] – Sean

There you could be listening to so.  

[00:40:21.640] – Sean

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my guest story. If you did enjoy this podcast episode could you head over to itunes and leave a five star review? That would be much appreciated. Thank you. And last but not least on this podcast some episodes we do talk about stocks and please keep in mind this podcast is for entertainment only so if you did hear any buy or sell recommendations please don’t make those decisions based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks a lot.  

[00:40:50.300] – Sean

See ya.