Funds on Fire
Welcome to Funds on Fire, hosted by Devin Robinson—a seasoned fund manager with years of experience launching, managing, and scaling multiple successful investment funds. Devin has also helped numerous entrepreneurs ignite their own fund ventures. This podcast is your go-to guide for mastering the world of investment funds and capital raising.
In each episode, Devin dives deep into the essential aspects of fund management, SEC compliance, and strategic capital raising, sharing the insights that have powered his own success. Alongside solo episodes filled with practical advice, you’ll hear from top fund managers whose funds are truly on fire. These industry leaders reveal the strategies, tactics, and stories behind their remarkable success.
Whether you’re an emerging fund manager or a seasoned professional aiming for greater heights, Funds on Fire delivers the knowledge and inspiration you need to take your funds to the next level. Subscribe today and turn your financial ambitions into a blazing success!
Funds on Fire
Clarity Before Capital: A Tech Sales VP's $85M Journey w/ Sam Silverman | Ep. 16.
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What happens when a high-performing tech sales executive decides to leverage his skills to build a capital raising machine? Sam Silverman's story reveals how clarity and strategic focus can outperform decades of financial industry experience.
After watching 55-year-old executives earn seven-figure salaries while still chained to their corporate desks, Sam knew there had to be a better way. He walked away from a lucrative sales career to build a capital raising ecosystem that's now surpassed $85 million. But what makes his approach truly remarkable isn't just the numbers—it's the precision with which he's identified his investor avatar and crafted solutions to meet their specific needs.
Sam shares how he used LinkedIn to build his entire investor base by targeting tech sales executives who understand commission-based income and its inherent instability. These high-earners (often making $400,000+) are constantly balancing lucrative compensation with job insecurity—"one good quarter away from a $100K check, one bad quarter away from being fired." By offering investments uncorrelated to both tech stocks and their employment, Sam provides these professionals with both psychological comfort and mathematical pathways to financial independence.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Sam explains his transition from real estate to private equity roll-ups and income funds. He reveals how he's acquiring paving companies at 2.5-4x EBITDA with plans to exit at 8-9x after operational improvements—creating substantial multiple arbitrage. His new income fund aims to solve a critical industry problem: how fund managers can generate immediate income while building their long-term wealth vehicles.
What truly distinguishes Sam's approach is his Freedom Framework, which helps high-income earners understand exactly what they need to achieve true freedom. Unlike many who promote passive income fantasies, Sam provides a realistic roadmap combining active and passive strategies tailored to each investor's time horizon and goals.
Whether you're just starting your capital-raising journey or looking to scale beyond real estate into new asset classes, this episode will transform how you think about investor psychology, capital raising strategy, and the true meaning of financial freedom.
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Sam Silverman's Capital Raising Success
Speaker 1Now today's episode is fire, not just because Sam Silverman's story is incredible, but because it's proof that if you combine clarity, conviction and tactical execution, you don't need 20 years on Wall Street to raise eight figures. Sam raised over $25 million in his first 16 months and now he's passed $85 million in total capital raise. But what really got me it wasn't the numbers, it was his clarity total capital raise. But what really got me it wasn't the numbers, it was his clarity Clarity on his investor, clarity on his offer, clarity on what freedom actually looks like and how to reverse engineer a fund around it. You'll hear how Sam left a multi six-figure corporate sales role to build a capital raising ecosystem that helps other fund managers and operators actually replace their income, not just chase a theoretical back-end check. And somewhere in the middle of this conversation it hit me Every new fund manager should listen to this episode before they ever pitch an investor, because what Sam breaks down is the difference between hustling for capital and designing a system that attracts it, which is, by the way, exactly what we do inside of Fund Founders. Let me break it down this way If you're listening to this right now and you've launched or you're trying to launch a fund, you know how hard it can be to figure it all out. You're trying to be a fund manager and a capital raiser, and a marketer and a legal expert and a systems builder all at once. That's why we built Fund Founders the only complete ecosystem to help you legally launch and structure your fund, with full docs, sec compliance and attorney support. Automate your capital raising with an AI-powered CRM. Get step-by-step support to build your investor avatar, pitch deck, talk tracks and funnel. Plug into a network of active fund managers doing deals and raising money every day. We don't just give you the education, we give you the execution tools. And if you're further along, we've got the Founders Circle, our high-ticket mastermind, where we help you raise your first or even your next million dollars with a concierge, legal and capital strategy built in. If you want to stop winging it and start raising capital like pros, this is your chance to get out of the guessing game and into growth. So head to wearefunfounderscom, slash, apply or click the link in the show notes. Let's help you launch, scale and grow your fund with clarity and confidence. Now back to Sam, because this episode will show you why clarity of your avatar is everything in capital raising how he used LinkedIn to build $85 million investor base, why tech sales taught him everything he needed to know about investor psychology and why private equity is the next mountain for most fund managers after real estate. We also dive into the difference between passive income fantasy and real financial freedom, and why Sam's community freedom framework is helping high income earners break free of the W-2 grind, and we're going to talk about some really interesting things like why paving companies and income funds may be the next big thing for high yield fund managers. If you've ever wondered what it really looks like to raise capital at scale without losing your mind or your mission, this conversation will change how you think. Let's get into it.
From Corporate Sales to Real Estate
Speaker 1Here's my interview with Sam Silverman. What's up? Welcome to another episode of Funds on Fire. I'm excited because today I feel like it's cool because I get to actually meet a guy that I've talked to online a good bit. We've gotten to know each other over some time and it's really cool to see where he's the trajectory of his growth.
Speaker 1I think we started, and I started in Raise Masters, and that's where I kind of got to see you and get to started following you and getting acquainted to who you are and what you're doing, and then seeing you come up and start even your own community that has a very specific niche and goal behind it, is been really, really cool to see and encouraging to me, man. So just know that, like I've enjoyed watching you from afar, I'm excited to get to know you today and excited for our listeners to know who you are as well. And so, sam, I would love if you could go ahead and give the listeners a little bit of idea of who you are, where you're from and what you do. Man, I'm really excited and we'll dive in, just so you know. We'll dive in a little bit because you've got a really cool corporate background that you've transitioned to and then to where you are today.
Speaker 2Yeah, thanks, devin, super excited to be here. So my background right coming out of college, I had no clue what I wanted to go do. I knew I wanted to work myself at some point, but again, had no clue what that was. So in the interim my thought was let me go get some tangible skills, let me go figure out how to make some money and that way in the future, when I actually do figure out what I want to go do, I can go a lot bigger, a lot more quickly. So naturally I end up in sales and I end up in the sales that you are cold calling right, leveraging LinkedIn to go book meetings, like doing the low level work where you learn a ton about human psychology, about speaking about money, about how to go prospect. And those skills had then helped me massively going forward.
Speaker 2So I was in corporate for six or so years, climbed the ladder really aggressively, really quickly, and I got to a place where each stop in that corporate journey, my eyes were open to what was possible, and primarily that was making more money. But what I saw in a big way was that there are people around making a million dollars plus a year, and they were 55 years old in their corporate desk job, right away from their family, working 50, 60-hour weeks, commuting two hours to work, and their whole life was at the whim of someone else. Right in terms of dictating hey, this job is no longer for you and you're out. So for me, I wanted a lot more control over what it was that I did, in terms of my travel, in terms of who I work with, in terms of what I do with my time, and, in turn, started investing in single family houses. Right, I'm like this is the quickest path to passive income. It was all I knew and I was wrong entirely. Yeah, I was totally wrong.
Speaker 2So started buying homes, then got like 10 homes and when I look at business, there's two things I look at right. One is can I grow this big enough where it's worthwhile? And two, if it grows that big, do I want to manage this business? And the answer was maybe over time, likely not, and absolutely not to the single family business. So I sold all those homes off and started investing as an LP. Right, and I was truly passive because for me at the time, the opportunity cost of, you know, getting a new home for $200 a month of cashflow and the time it took to do so was costing me tens of thousands about $100,000 a year in my corporate role in terms of performance and freedom. So I sold those off, started investing as an LP and started from there realizing that, hey, there's value in pulling together funds from your network and investing with operators that you enjoyed. So I'll stop there so I don't keep rambling. But that's been my first foray into the real estate and the capital raising space itself.
Speaker 1No, that's great man and I love to talk about because it seems like one. It seems like you're a young guy. I don't know how old you are, but I would almost imagine you're younger than me. I and I can almost see cause like I follow you on Instagram too and I see like you're doing cool things, like you're out on the yacht, you're doing this thing, and I'm like look at this guy partying it up, it's so cool. And so you're a young guy that seemed to have gone through this really quick progression to do a lot of research before.
Speaker 1This is one thing I know about you, too, is you started also really young, like I think, at 14,. You started businesses and even sold a business at 14. And I think there's so there's another part to it too. I also think you have a separate mindset that a lot of people don't understand. So you and I both played baseball in college which I'd like to hear more about and I um. So I played D1 baseball and my coach said Devin, it doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter any of these things. The only thing that matters is how you compete, if you can compete, and I think there's a different mindset for athletes that I'm very curious on how one your early experience in business, to being an athlete, to even crushing it in sales, has led and grown and cultivated to how successful you are in capital raising. Do you see any of that influence in your entrepreneurial style today?
Speaker 2Yeah. So to cover the baseball piece first, I'm super grateful I wasn't a little bit better in baseball, right? I'm 30 years old now. I have a lot of friends who played minor league ball for six, seven, eight years and they're starting their life over at 30, totally from scratch. So I'm really grateful I wasn't just a little bit better. Where I could have hung around longer and not made it. If I was a lot better, different story, right, but I was not going to go play after where it was a career.
LinkedIn as a Capital Raising Goldmine
Speaker 2But I think you learn a lot about yourself too, right, when you go out on a field or I still pick up basketball all the time right, super competitive in that sense where you go out in the field. I mean, every injury I have now comes from there. But you go in the field, the court, you have no assets, you have no standing, just every person for themselves. I think that really ties a lot to the business, the sales world, when you first get started In a sense of you've got nothing, go out and work for it, and it's a mentality that you start building and a competency then have where you can go outwork your learning curve in a lot of ways right, like in my first sales roles, I can go do more volume, right, because it's an equation what's your output times, what your conversion percentage is, and when your conversion percentage sucks at first, do a lot more. This will get better, right. So in turn you can go outwork that learning curve and go outwork other people too. Better, right. So in turn you can go outwork that learning curve and go outwork other people too.
Speaker 2So in my corporate days five, six years, like I was locked in an office for 70, 80, 90 hours a week right, no social life. But I knew that, hey, if I can go build this in a certain way, I can then leave and not have to ever go back. So I viewed it as that short-term, six-year sacrifice of being very dedicated, isolating myself in certain ways. Then it allowed me to go have the capital, time and resources to go do my own thing and allow me to keep doing that in perpetuity as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, and even and that's really good I actually love when you talked about you're kind of your own, you started over it and then you got to make a name for yourself, even out there on the court with new guys, because you have to earn the trust for them to pass you the ball to be able to take that shot, type thing. So really cool, man. And now I'm curious. I'm just curious just for the sake of me and who I am. I've been working since 14 as well, but I didn't sell a business since 14. What was that like even that early entrepreneur experience like for you? Because it makes sense that you know you'd work in corporate, you'd crush it as sales because that's your own, like almost your own entrepreneur within a company, a company within a company, and then you start your own thing. What, what was I mean? What was that like for you at 14?
Speaker 2Yeah. So we did teen nightclubs in New York where I'd go rent out a big event venue. We'd get a DJ to go there, right, no alcohol, nothing like that and I'd get a kid in each school to go sell tickets on purely commission. So when you look at demand, right, One of the biggest things you have with like social life is FOMO, right, If you're missing out. And we'd go build teams of kids in each school to go sell tickets right, so you had a presence. Right, you find something that was popular in each school to go sell tickets right, so you had a presence. Right, you find something that was popular in each school to go sell tickets. They were paid a commission on it right, From the tickets they sold and then in turn at the door we'd get to a level of profitability and we cut it off and you can then go charge four or five, six, 10 times as much at the door because you have the demand for it, right, and you cut off the supply.
Speaker 2So we ended up doing called six or seven events and actually sold the company. I was moving out of the city for a couple of years my dad at the time and just kind of needed to be done with it, but it was a really, really good, high earning type experience where you learn a lot about how to go build demand, how to market and also how to go managing teams of 15 year olds. You know teams of 15 year olds on the sales side. You learn a lot about how people act and a lot of patience too.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's no doubt. And I'm curious was your dad? Did your dad help you a lot with that at the time? Like that he was this person Really. It just was your own idea of you and some friends and got together and just kind of learned about it.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it was more. So we saw things like it and we're like, okay, this is really repeatable. To go do Like all that is is how to go drive demand right. Like you look at a nightclub, a restaurant, most are pretty similar in a lot of ways. You just have to go figure out and get people there and you go solve that problem. That's the biggest thing you have. That's good man.
Speaker 1Okay, cool. So this is really cool, man, because I think it sounds like you've had these and you know it's funny because this has come up on like every podcast so far but we've got these early life experiences that have prepared us for who we are right now and so it sounds like for you, right, you've had this, this almost like this sales experience from coming from leading 15 year old sales team commission only kids to leading a sales team and managing, I think, what I've seen like a company that did 50 million in revenue. What direct sales tactics translated best from like from what you did then, from what you did in your corporate company to what you do now as you raise capital. Can you share some like specific things that helped as far as sales are really translated well, like sales philosophies or things like that for raising capital?
Speaker 2So it's funny when you look at the sales world you go two different directions right. One direction is you keep selling bigger deals right as an individual rep, or second you work internally and you can move with the latter in leadership. And I've had two bigger stops in corporate right, both two plus years. The first one, I built a team from scratch from zero about 120 people globally and started the ground floor, grew the team really aggressively public companies. So there I learned a lot about hiring, interviewing, how to get the most out of people, how to go manage different types of personalities.
Speaker 2If you're raising capital and going to work with investors, you may have people who fit very different profiles that you work with. So understanding how to go interact and find common ground with each person is huge. You also learn a lot about how to go deal with corporate bureaucracy. The higher you go up on the sales side internally, the more you deal with things internally versus externally. So, for example, if you're a VP of sales, you're likely dealing far more with your finance operations product team than you are with actual customers at times. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but just a different type of interaction. So you learn a lot about how to go deal with high pressure conversations with people who are quote unquote above you. Right, you learn how to go manage a budget in a meaningful way, but I'd say in the sales side myself, when I was actually doing the work, you learn a ton about psychology but how people interact, how people think, how people make decisions, and you learn how to go prospect.
Speaker 2I think one of the biggest values of sales is the ability to go hunt right, to go understand who is your buyer profile or investor profile, for example, how do they think, how do they operate? Right, I think, to be able to go build a very in-depth analysis on who they are, how they think, how they operate, what they do, what they feel right, how different things affect them, and that way you can go be really aligned to them. So for on my end, I've almost all my investors started with people who were in tech sales or software sales, because I get in the head of that buyer investor extremely well because it was myself, so it becomes much more translatable. So I'd say the ability to go hunt, to go get meetings with those people, to get in front of the right people, is hugely valuable.
Speaker 1I think I'm trying to think, because I know one of the things that you talked about specifically was the ability to know people and who they are, because I think we talk about the target avatar a lot and people are like, oh, that's like woo-woo all this thing, but it really is important to hone down on that person Because, like, if you can go and hunt, like you talked about, and you can understand that, how to talk to that person, their psychological predispositions, right, because if you're talking to somebody, that's and do you, do you do like any of the personality profiles? Do you understand? Like, do you do like Enneagram or disc assessments or things like that?
Speaker 2Yeah. So disc I've done a handful of times. Culture index I've done. I haven't done the Enneagram myself, but I've kind of run my other stuff through it again. It's given me a good idea of where I'd fall.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that stuff's important too because, like, talking to somebody who has a high D is going to be a little bit different than talking to somebody who isn't, and so it's good to understand those things.
Speaker 1So I read and I think you posted this that you've raised over. Like when you first started, you raised over 25 million in the first 16 months and now you've crossed probably like over 85 million raised. I think is what I saw. What were some of like habits for you, specifically like systems or tactics that made for I mean, that's kind of like explosive growth and what? The thing I'm even a little bit more curious is what broke along the way for you that you had to figure out like okay, this is a little bit different. When you're getting to this much, I've got to adjust this thing.
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The Freedom Framework Explained
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Speaker 2Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things I've used is just LinkedIn. Linkedin is an absolute gold mine If your people and your target investor avatar uses LinkedIn right. So, for example, if you're targeting doctors, they may have a LinkedIn profile but they likely don't use it right Because it doesn't actually tie to their role.
Speaker 2For me, I can go on LinkedIn and build a really comprehensive list of people who are VPs of sales, stretchers of sales in tech, in software right, they've been in their company for a handful of years. And for me, I can go make a really quick list of those people and go target them very efficiently. And in turn, if you're in sales and you're in tech and LinkedIn dings, you think money is there, right, because your clients may not communicate with them. Right, your prospects. So in turn, I know they're going to see what I'm sharing. Right. It's become harder in the last while. There's all of the AI and bots on LinkedIn right. In terms of the, it's become a lot less organic, but there's still a lot of value there if you can go target the right people and create content that aligns them. So I think something that people may get stuck with is that they feel as though let's actually play it on you. For example, who's your target investor avatar? Walk us through who that person is.
Speaker 1Ooh, good question. So my target investor avatar is somebody that's in 30 to 55 and is actually more interested in making an impact in the world with their money. So I don't have a specific doctor, because I don't relate super well to doctors, but I do have a target avatar that's more interested in making a massive impact in the world, and so most of my stuff. When I talk about raising capital, it's like sure, your money can, your money can make money. That's going to be the easy, easy part, but this is the impact that your money is making. And so our target avatar is 30 to 55 is what I have. Typically, there's somebody who has the money to be able to invest but also really cares about a little bit more of like philanthropy what's going on in the world and then how they can make an impact in the world. So most of my marketing when it comes to raising capital is towards the impact that money is making. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2Yeah, sure so, but on your own. Again, like that's easy to go speak to right, where you can be very intentional as to the kind of people that you write to and you attract right. If you're writing content, if you're creating videos, whatever it may be, you can speak to that impact piece. If people don't care about it, they're not going to go have a good feeling about it, but if they do care about it, it helps pull them in right. So what you want to have is you want to have points of view and you want to have really clear intentions of who that person is. At times I'll talk to people and they're like.
Speaker 2My target, mr Avatar, is they're accredited, right. I'm like, oh, so you have no clue and you want to be. The more specific you can be, the more you ice other people out, which is something you want to go do, right. For example, even on my end, if you're looking at VPs of sales in tech or directors of sales in tech or CROs, right, seems very niche. There's over a half million of them in the United States. Right, I think I've crossed $100 million with 300 or so investors, and what people don't realize is that you can go really deep and you still have a massive amount of market to cover. In that sense, great.
Speaker 1Yeah, I've heard the quote. If you're talking to everybody, you're talking to nobody, correct? We have to make sure that we are very niched down to who we're talking to. Okay, so I love this because it sounds like.
Speaker 1Now I wanna transition to this, because I know one thing that I've seen you do really well in and I think it's so cool is target that niche, and then you even niche down a little bit more to a specific type of person who's looking for and I'll let you explain it a little bit more but then who's looking for that freedom. Hence the name of what you do is like you guys are. You have the freedom framework and I believe you have the three parts of it cashflow, strategic growth and long-term equity. That's the last thing I saw when I was doing some research, and so I would I'd love for you to clarify, like, what does freedom mean for you and how do you implement a lot of that stuff? Because true freedom means, I think you said, true freedom means you decide what to prioritize. Freedom isn't given, it's built, and I'd love for you to expand on that.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I can view freedom in two main buckets. Right, we have our mess norm. Right, people who want the freedom side more passively. And we have our community or people who are looking to be more active, whether it be raising capital, whether it be buying a business, whether it be buying real estate. Right, we want to help people on both sides of the equation, whether you want to be active or passive or usually a combination of both.
Speaker 2And I think freedom for me like I saw that big pivot myself when I'm like okay, first it's make more money, right, to allow yourself those options. Then it becomes the ability to be really intentional in how you want to spend your time. So I think people at times, like the exercise I always do, is what do I want my life to go? Look like right In terms of how much do I need to go cover that right On a monthly expense? Where am I? What am I working on? Who am I spending time with? What am I doing? Right, all of those things are really important. So when you look at you kind of build back intentionally of if I want my life to look like this, what do I say no to to get it there? What do I say yes to? It helps give you a lot of clarity.
Speaker 1So for me it's been really intentional with what those things are, to go backtrack into that, nice Okay. So, as you're doing that then, so you've got this really good idea of freedom, how are you then attracting the type of investors? So you're saying you're going on LinkedIn, so I'm trying to connect, like your vision and your purpose with your tactical and strategy right? So like, how then are you communicating that freedom aspect of? Hey, you work this nine to five, you're probably really successful making this money. Let me help you to build this passive income level, as in being an LP with me. So then, how do you actively market that on Instagram to grow your you know like to grow your investor?
Speaker 2list, so we actually probably have never had an investor from Instagram.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, I meant LinkedIn, I'm sorry, instagram too.
Speaker 2I've just found we're working a little more now.
Speaker 1That's funny. I get a ton of investors from Instagram, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's just from my niche. It's like tougher in the sense or at least I found it more tough where it's hard to go tell who has money on Instagram as well, right, you see a lot of people who appear very different there, right? So I've ended up harder to go target people in organic sense On LinkedIn. Right, when you look at that VP of sales making $400,000 a year plus, it's a really common story for them, right, because you understand how they think and, for example, they may have part or two as a safety piece for them. Right, if you can go sell, you have massive career stability. You have very low job stability, job security, and the reason I say that is that you're one good quarter away from getting a 100k check. You're one bad quarter away from being fired, and I've been in both those seats and for them, it helps balance out that piece of it.
Speaker 2They may as well that person who's in tech.
Speaker 2They may have their base salary, their commission, their RSUs or options, their employee stock program, meaning they have a massive amount of their money tied up in their company.
Speaker 2This ability to have things that are non-correlated to the stock market, that are non-correlated to their day job, helps that feeling of comfort. Also, this relates to cash flow. Right, if you're earning really well and you can go plug away into, say, a debt fund and make yourself 12% per year on it, right, you see a quicker path to go start replacing certain bills. Right, to go, start building those things up and then allowing yourself okay, maybe instead of working till 55, I can cut it down to 45, or cut it down to 38, right, you start thinking that way too, of how much I have to go park here to go get to that path. So part of it is the math behind it, right, and part of it is to just help them understand. You know, I was in your spot, this is how I did it, this is the kind of how I think about it, and just presenting optionality to them, too, I think is super helpful.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's good, ian, and I love the way you're talking about presenting it, because I think you've talked about before that passive investing alone often isn't enough for real freedom. Where do most people misunderstand the passive income game Because it sounds like you're educating them along the way and how do you recommend combining it with the kind of the things that you're doing, the strategies and the way that you're reaching out to them to explain that to them, if that makes sense?
Speaker 2Yeah. So I think the numbers are really simple, right, when, if someone's like, hey, I need to replace $200K a year to actually live off of, and you're like, okay, if you make 8% a year on your money, you need $2.5 million, People start seeing this okay, what's my path to getting those numbers? Some people already have it, some people don't. And just seeing, okay, can that be a good supplement? Can that go buy us more again, optionality in how we do things right, Take some pressure off. But I think a lot of it too, is going to help them understand what their options actually are and the impact behind those things too.
Speaker 2It's also telling someone too hey, I have 50K, can this get me to retire early? I'm like, likely, not right. So it's being really honest with someone, too, as to you need to have these numbers play out. If you look at stacking right, it can get you here. But it's also being really transparent too that if, hey, if you want to shave more years off your career, you may have to go the active route. Unless you're making $500,000 plus $1 million, plus investing passively really quickly to get there, is really tough to do so in terms of yield, but it's a great compliment to the day job Terminably. If you're like, hey, I only have 100K, 200K, how can I go retire early? There's a lot better routes in the more active side to get into that place where you can go, you know, really shape meaningful years off your career. Oh, that's good man.
Private Equity and The Paving Roll-Up
Speaker 1Now I'm, I'm, I'm curious. Now I think this has been, this has been so fantastic, just talking about the capital raising side of it, engaging with people, helping them to helping people, especially our listeners, to see, like, how can they begin engaging with other people, finding the right avatars and the people to raise from. But for you personally, man, how, what, what type of deals do you specialize in? I know that you started with single family properties. Quickly realized as many do not passive, not great, not the best asset class, unless you are a heck of an operator. So what have you transitioned to mostly in doing and it sounds like you've got a pretty sizable portfolio in the short period of time that you've been doing it.
Speaker 2Yeah, so now we still hold things in real estate. I think going forward, we'll primarily focus in three main areas right, one being more the roll-up space in business. Right. So right now we're working on a paving roll-up where we're acquiring paving companies. We're merging together all back-end operations. Right, we're looking to grow the companies through synergies there and looking to go exit the companies there's synergies there and looking to go exit the entire portfolio to a more institutional type buyer.
Speaker 1That's one I was going to say really quickly. I think this is such a unique not a unique thing. I think this is cool for people to understand and think of, because what you're doing is you're leveraging economy of scales by just by going Correct, because correct me and you'll have to let me know, I guess, but a paving company, I mean, I don't know what that sells at like a 3, 6x EBITDA.
Speaker 2Yeah. So right now we're buying them between two and a half and four, and when you hit a level of scale EBITDA wise, call it $20 million that can go as high as eight or nine X. So you're really creating a massive arbitrage in multiples. So, for example, it's like real estate buying a deal at a 10 cap and you can go sell it in the future at a four or five right in structures. So you're getting this energy across the companies in terms of labor, in terms of subbing out different work right. But then you also have the future eggs potential, where you're getting multiple expansion in industry too. And there's all these bigger productivity firms that are willing to go pay a premium for groups like ours to go do the legwork for them to acquire these smaller companies. So they have to deploy a check let's say 50, 100, $200 million into actually buying a group of companies as well.
Speaker 1Now, are you doing that mostly Because I know you're in Tampa? Are you doing that? I don't know if you're still in Tampa, but are you I'm in Miami, yeah, okay. Are you doing that mostly locally or are these in different states and different cities?
Speaker 2So we're building our platform in the Southwest, so right now, namely Texas and Arizona. So we're going to have a geographic focus there as well.
Speaker 1Fantastic. Okay, so that's number one. You're doing essentially PE roll-ups. What's the second one that you're doing?
Debt Funds and Income Strategies
Speaker 2Yeah. So second is a debt fund. We're rolling out here soon too, on the income side, right, and the reason why I think it's so powerful is that you know there's been a big rise to the fund manager right, the person who raises capital through SPV for other people's deals, and what we found is that the fund manager makes a little money up front and hopefully a little money on the back end, in the middle. They're SOL, right, and what we've Correct. So what we've found is that there's a huge opportunity for both investors and fund managers to have more yield in the short term. So we've created an income fund around this where we can go pay investors 15%, 16%, right Monthly payments and structure targeting that where they go pay their investors 11 or 12. There's that four to five percent spread.
Speaker 2So, for example, if a fund manager goes out and raises five million dollars, they can build themselves essentially a quarter million dollar salary per year in structure around that, which then helps to go. One, leave your job and go full time. But two, it really helps you go find projects in the future that may give you bigger upside or that window is further out for gratification. So it allows you to go focus on those things and make sure you can go eat in that interim period where we've seen it be a huge issue across the board. So, the former number one being a big equity growth play, number two being a really good cash flow play that also allows fund managers to have the arbitrage there too. And third, I still invest personally into small businesses and companies for either growth capital or a client with a partner, with the intention of we'll hold on to these companies, likely forever.
Speaker 1So you're not actually investing into any multifamily anymore, Because I think at one point you're a multifamily self-storage, you kind of just have the do you still have those properties that you have positions in, and then now you're just focusing more on it sounds like more on PE and debt side of things.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we still have a lot of positions in a lot of real estate assets. Depending on how things go, I also myself reallocating that capital once it comes back into deals like that, with the only caveat being mobile home parks. I still love mobile home parks for the reason that the tax benefits are huge and the sense that you look at those in the long-term hold play, your land will keep going up in value. There's less and less of them, so I like those long-term hold. But besides that, very, very selective on the real estate we get involved in.
Speaker 1Okay, so mostly you're looking to exit on most of your multifamily, reinvest them into private equity, because you know what they say real estate creates the most millionaires, but private equity I think the quote was like 96% of millionaires are made through real estate, but 100% of billionaires are made through private equity, or something like that.
Speaker 2Something along those lines. Yeah, but the real estate thing is a really good play for some people, depending on where you are in life, right, like if your goal is preserving, it can make a lot of sense. But if your goal is growing, right, actually building. So take about it. Think multifamily, for example. Say you've got a hundred deal in Dallas, texas, right, and there's only so many things you can go do. You can go change the roof, you can go put new finishes in, you can go do the floors over, you can go add some amenities, but what will happen is that you're capped out on what you can go charge for rent based on what your neighbor is charging.
Speaker 2The market will only support so much. So if your unit's getting 1,300, you deck it out entirely and the market maxes 1,500, you're not going to get more than that. The market won't support it. In business there's more other levers you can go pull for growth, for efficiencies, for scale that you're not capped on that sense at all either. So BVU does a much more opportunity in that sense right now.
Speaker 1Well, I also think that real estate is almost like the first natural progression into funds. Right, you go into some of these funds specifically you and I know them well, a lot of these different fund masterminds. It's mostly geared towards real estate because that's like the almost the easiest entry for most people. They go out, they find a deal, they raise capital for the deal. The deal makes sense because it pencils, it's an asset, it's appreciating. Everybody wants to invest into real estate in America. But I think also because even for me right now, I'm like I hate real estate. I really do. I just there's something about it. So I'm like very excited for us to be starting up the lending fund. And then I'm like, yeah, I definitely want to move into PE because I love business. I've got really good partners that understand culture, understand leadership, understand growth, business growth, and I'm like that's. It just feels like that makes more sense than continuing to real estate.
Speaker 2If I want tax advantages, then that's good, but go ahead. Yeah, it's also too. The real estate market is just so tight to the treasuries. Right In the debt market where in a business, if you're buying a business at a 4X multiple right, that's 25 times earnings, and if that's at six or eight or 10, sure it impacts it, but not as much as you think. Right, Like that's spread over your debt at two and a half to five X right, Like you've got a lot of margin to go play with in that room versus being, you know, 25, 50 bps plus or minus your debt right, which is really tough in multifamily right now. So it's nice having something that, yes, there are other macro factors that can impact the business, but you're not tied to the debt market as much as in real estate.
Speaker 1Well, and I think it's, and what you mentioned earlier too, I just think it's too easier to pivot. You can only do so much with a property. You can only add a roof or add a certain amount of amenities, which is only going to do a certain things. But you can, in a business, completely pivot at a whole new service, at a whole new product. But then, especially if you're adapting to AI which, like I, can't adapt AI to a multifamily unit really, but I can come in and completely change the profit margins on a company by adapting with artificial intelligence as it becomes better and better. So there's so much more you can do in a business with time and with technology than you can with real estate, and so you're just almost handcuffed in a sense with real estate.
Speaker 2Interesting. Yeah, no, it makes a ton of sense and um sorry, I was just sorry.
Speaker 1It wasn't a. That wasn't a, that was more of like hey, we're having a conversation now about this.
Speaker 2Cause yeah, no, no, I, I agree, like that's there. Agree, there's more you can go do. And also, too, it's about finding where you have an advantage. Right now I have no advantage going to buy multifamily. I have no competitive advantage versus someone else, so it's just figuring out where you have a level of edge. That's good.
Speaker 1Do you find, because I know. So, just even going back to the Freedom Framework, because I want people if they're listening to this podcast and that's where they are, I'm like, yes, go talk to Sam. So what are some of the main things that, even in your Freedom Framework community that you do? Do you find that it's a lot of PE people looking or people wanting to get into PE, or do you find it's more real estate people? And then what are the type of things that you guys dive into in there? I'd just love to even talk about that, because I think you serve people at a really high level. I've seen some of your awesome meetups. I actually know some people that have gone to some of the events that you've done, and I think it's or the, and I think you've done one or maybe two, but I know some people that have gone to it and said just great things about it, man, and so I would love to hear I'd love to hear a little bit more about your Freedom Framework community, man.
Speaker 2Yes, Originally we started from the lens of raising capital and that was it. And in turn, raising capital and that was it. And in turn, we found was that most people who were fund managers or operators they were interested in all these other areas right, and most people, when it comes down to it, their focus is how can I go do things that I enjoy with good people that pays for the life I want to go have? And we found was a lot of our audience now are people who are saying, hey, I'm a $200,000 a year plus earner in corporate and I want this next 30 years. I want to potentially go have a really quick path to getting the cash needs to go replace my income. So a lot of people are focused on buying their own deals and buying their own companies and we see now as long people looking to go acquire small businesses where you can go that 200k, for example right, Go back to the earlier in the conversation you can go buy a business that's $2 million or even $4 million with the right SBA structure Business that's $4 million, $5 million of free cash, maybe $1.2 million right, that can go pay you a few hundred thousand dollars a year after your debt service, after your taxes, after your insurance, after you're hiring a leadership team if there's not one in place.
Speaker 2So that's a much quicker path in terms of number of transactions needed to go replace your income. Where being a fund manager is a longer term play, right, we're trying to help solve that with the income fund, right, In terms of that middle ground, right, but a lot of it becomes. Can these deals perform to a certain point? Right, Can I have that big pop exit and go reallocate capital eventually to myself? So what I'd say is it's a lot of people in the corporate world looking to go break free and have that optionality by buying businesses, by raising capital, by buying deals themselves too.
Breaking Free from Corporate Life
Speaker 1Well, that's awesome, man, and you and I will have to talk too, because as we help people to start funds, they may need income along the way, and so that would be really good. I think there's been also a really unique emergence because of, like Cody Sanchez and other people along the way that have almost ignited this desire for people to own companies, and, depending on how you structure them too like seller financing them they could be very lucrative. Do you find that? Do you teach mostly, hey, this is how the SBA go structure it with an SBA loan, or are you guys talking?
Speaker 2do you find a lot of people are trying to do seller finance deals and things like that? Because I think that's a really unique play as well. Yeah, I think we see a lot of like there's always a little seller finance or seller carry in a deal like you need that right To protect yourself. So, for example, if someone you know, if there are any issues in the company that seller carry is usually forgettable, right, you have that. That is, you know, collateral where you don't have to go see that person, you can go just kind of take it off the seller carry. So there's a huge value in that too.
Speaker 2But the best leverage you'll get is from SBA financing in terms of lowest capital down, usually a level of seller carry. On top of that too, to go, your capital can go really far in deals like that too. What I'd say is that if deals are on market, think of a broker too. They don't want so much in seller carry or seller rollover right At the same point that that's how they get paid too. So if you're going off market right, true, true, direct to owner, you have a lot better luck at getting a more creative type deal structure as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's good and that's, and that's, that's, that's the stuff that gets me the most excited. I do a ton of creative deals in real estate and so I'm like, yes, I think it's fantastic to be able to do that in that area. Okay, so this podcast is called Funds on Fire. What is something currently that you're doing, that your fund is doing, that Freedom Framework is doing, that really fires you up.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I'd say it's the two funds we're working on right now. One, the paving space. I think we're super early there in a good way. There's a lot of interest from the institutional side of it. So I think that's a very new take on a very boring space, right, very dated space where, for example, we bought a company that was doing $12 million a year of revenue with no website, right. So, he'll have to go bring in a level of modern marketing and systems and stuff. So we see a huge upside there.
Speaker 1I mean, if you're on our ad and even just your systems and processes, probably at that point, and even just like your systems and processes, probably at that point.
Speaker 2For sure. So we see a huge opportunity there. And then on the income fund side for small business lending, right when it's myself and a few partners. They're big brokers in the business lending space and now they're saying, hey, we've seen what a good deal looks like, we've brokered nearly a billion dollars of loans and now we want to keep that top portion of loans on our own paper and go fund them ourselves. So we see it as a huge opportunity for both us, but also investors, to go see really high yield really consistently over a long period of time and provide liquidity.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's great. How much are you looking to raise for both of those funds?
Speaker 2So, on the paving side of the house, we're doing our first $15 million raise right now, and then we're looking to go likely back with a few hundred million dollars from an institution.
Speaker 1Therefore, after how do you?
Speaker 2go ahead. Yeah, so I was saying kind of getting our platform to a place for early investors. Right, we can give them a big step up as we go into, you know, an institutional round of equity and have them give the option to go roll in their capital as we go look to go expand aggressively, but giving the investors a great win for being early in that space too.
Speaker 1Do you find it difficult to raise for two different funds right now, or are they just your same conversation, two options.
Speaker 2Well, I think the type of capital that goes into them is totally different. Even take yourself, for example. I'm sure you have your allocations broken out in different things where, myself, I have so many long-term stuff, I have so many stuff that pays me in terms of cashflow and I have something that's also somewhat liquid. So I think they accomplish very different things. So that same person may invest in both right, because that money is taught for different purposes. So I think it gets. They're very non-competing in structure and actually really complimentary. It's also great as a you know fund manager, to say hey, you know what, devin, based on what I know about you and your family, this deal isn't for you at all, but we have this coming in a pipeline. This can make a lot of sense for you based on what I know, and we have a cool if I give you a call, yeah that's good.
Speaker 1Have you looked at I'm curious, even just like we're just talking about structures right now have you looked at a customizable fund model that allows you to do all of that within, like one with one PPM, and you're just doing a different? Because there's really interesting models Not one that does leave you to a little bit more risk for your investors, liability wise, but it does allow you them to have one PPM, one set of docs, and then they're investing into multiple diversifying their investments with you. It's a really interesting thing that's becoming more popular.
Speaker 2Yeah, I won't likely use that. I think there are potentially some risks to it right in structure and we want to avoid that, right. So they're all just two very different things and they're both big enough where they support having you know your legal fees tied to it, right. So it's not a huge issue. In that sense I think if we're doing seven, eight, ten different kinds of deals totally can make sense. But for us we have two potentially large, really separate type funds that are not tied or correlated in any way.
Speaker 1Yeah, that makes sense. I just know a lot of people are starting to move into that direction of the customizable fund. It's becoming more popular, and so there are definitely pros to it, but there are definitely cons to it, yeah.
Speaker 2And we've had a lot of fund managers who worked with us as well in the past, who've invested with us, use customizable funds. We've had no issues there. I don't know the people at the company you're likely referring to, who are all great people, but yeah, just us personally, kind of at the gp level, hasn't made sense to do that where it gives you that total separation yeah, well, well, good man, man, this has been fantastic.
Speaker 1Um, I've enjoyed our conversation and, uh, you've got so much to say. Just even about that, I'm like, like man, I want to dive more into that LinkedIn model that you're doing, because I have done so well on Instagram.
Closing Thoughts and Contact Information
Speaker 1I'm like I'm going to dive into LinkedIn and so, man, I love that. I'm excited. I'm excited for us to get together and hang out at some point in the future and enjoy keeping up with you along the way. Where can people find you? Where can people come in, either invest with you or join the Freedom Framework with you? I'd love to be able. If you could, you can send them your way.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we're most active on LinkedIn. So Sam Silverman on LinkedIn. Our podcast is the Freedom Framework Show or our YouTube is Sam Silverman Official.
Speaker 1Nice man. Well cool, sam, I appreciate you, thankful for you, and I appreciate you being on man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yes, sir, wow, I hope you enjoyed that. I have a quick favor. If you've been enjoying the show, there's one simple way you can support us and it's by hitting that follow button or that subscribe button on the app you're listening to. I want to level this podcast up in every single way possible, bringing you more value, incredible content and guests and new strategies. Following the show and leaving a quick review goes a really long way in helping Peace.