Forged In Fire
Hosted by Nate Pharmer-Eden and Cole Farrell, Forged In Fire is where real entrepreneurship meets raw, unfiltered stories. This isn’t your typical business podcast—we skip the fluff and dive straight into the heat of what it really takes to build, run, and grow a business. From late-night doubts to game-changing wins, we explore the trials, setbacks, and breakthroughs that entrepreneurs experience at every stage of their journey.
Whether you’re a seasoned business owner navigating new challenges or someone with a burning desire to launch your first venture, this podcast offers powerful insights and practical lessons for everyone. No sugarcoating—just honest conversations about what it takes to forge success through the fire.
Get ready to be inspired, learn from real-world struggles, and gain the tools you need to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality. This is your front-row seat to the highs, lows, and everything in between. Are you ready to step into the fire? 🔥
Forged In Fire
Episode 48: What happens when you trade security for possibility?
What does it take to trade a dream tech career for a life of financial freedom and purpose?
On this episode of the Forge In Fire Podcast, we sit down with Georgy Marrero, founder of Equis Capital, whose journey spans from coding as a kid in the Dominican Republic to managing a $28M multifamily real estate portfolio.
After teaching himself to code at age 9, Georgy left his home country at 18 with just $1,000 and a dream. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a computer science degree and landed roles at Amazon and Meta, eventually earning $800k a year. But despite his success in tech, Georgy felt a deeper calling.
A single “accidental investment” — buying a home for his grandmother that later returned 20% in just seven months — sparked his passion for real estate. What began as a side project grew into Equis Capital, where Georgy has since raised $9M from investors and scaled to $28M AUM through multifamily acquisitions and syndications.
In this episode, Georgy shares:
- The mindset shift it took to walk away from stability and pursue entrepreneurship.
- How he built Equis Capital through partnerships, discipline, and systems.
- Lessons learned in leadership, investor trust, and scaling without burnout.
- Why financial freedom is about more than money — it’s about impact and purpose.
Georgy Marrero’s story is a powerful reminder that forging your path often means stepping into discomfort, betting on yourself, and building something bigger than a paycheck.
Forget what you've heard. Forged in Fire is where real entrepreneurs come to share the untold truths of success the late nights, the crushing setbacks, the moments that change everything. No fluff, just fire, ready to step into the heat and unlock what it really takes to build a business. This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2:Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. How we doing. This is another exciting episode of Forged in Fire. I am your co-host, nate Farmer Eden, and I'm going to be running the show today. My counterpart is unable to make it for today, but that's just fine. We're going to keep wrapping and rolling. But what we've got today is an amazing guest. We've got Georgie coming in and just to tell you a little bit about him not to dive all the way in, but this gentleman, he is the founder and CEO of Akees Capital. They've done over $28 million with real estate within his portfolio. I'm sure it's more than that. When it comes to transactions, he walked away from well over a six-figure tech job that he was rocking with. I'm not going to tell you all about it. He's going to tell you about it, but without further ado, georgie, come on stage, brother. How are we doing, man?
Speaker 3:I'm doing well. Thank you so much. Nate, Happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Dude, no pleasure is all ours man, so please tell us a little bit about yourself, man.
Speaker 3:What got you here? What brought you here? Oh, man, like you said, I had a career in tech and now I'm more in the entrepreneurship side and on the real estate side. But I'm originally from the Dominican Republic and I grew up in a very humble household and I started to code when I was about 10 or nine years old, so that's a little different than most people, but I was just a very curious kid in the Dominican Republic and, very honestly, I was very bored. So I just stumbled upon programming and software. Didn't know what I was doing, but I just went with it.
Speaker 3:Now, when I was 17, I read two of the most popular books there are, that entrepreneurs read those books and something changed inside of them. One was Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, poor Dad, and the other one was Napoleon Hale's Think and Grow Rich. So, retrospecting a little bit from that moment, I remember that Rich Dad, poor Dad taught me that time is worth more than money. That's the real currency that we should strive for, and how we spend our time does matter. And from Napoleon Hill, from his book, I learned that you can achieve anything that you want to do if you put your heart, mind and soul to it, want to do if you put your heart, mind and soul to it. So that's a moment where I made a drastic change. I knew how to code and I had a lot of scholarships in the Dominican Republic and I decided to leave everything. Leave everything in the Dominican Republic.
Speaker 3:As soon as I was 18 years old, I told my family that I was going to move to California, that I was going to go as close to Silicon Valley as I could. They weren't able to support me financially, so I had to figure that out and I think at the time I had about a thousand dollars to my name. I packed two suitcases, moved to California, spent six months living in my aunt's couch and started community college and, long story short, I went to the University of California in Berkeley. I studied computer science and I got into Amazon. I started my own company in the intersection of blockchain and ai something very, very nascent at the time and then I got into meta as a ai engineer.
Speaker 3:But at the same time I got into meta, I pulled the book from uh, robert kiyosaki back again. It's like you know, you're here for for for a little time. You're not here forever. So I started investing in real estate. So that's what I did. I started investing in real estate and one single family led me to a duplex. A duplex led me to a land for a new construction, then that led me to multifamily and now X Capital has a portfolio. You mentioned $28 million. Right now we're at $35 million, but we have some heavy hitters that are going to cross us across the 100 million mark pretty soon. But that's where I am right now just buying real estate and then doing tech. But the tech that I do and the AI that I do, it's related to real estate.
Speaker 2:Holy cow, brother, holy cow, I mean, there's so much that I want to dive into man. First and foremost, your story is remarkable, man. Thank you so much for sharing Just the fact that you were young, not even double digits, and you found an interest in some type of IT, right, and you're just like you know what. I want to go go deeper and then thousand dollars to your name. You're like you know what we're gonna move. We're gonna figure this stuff out and you did literally definition of forging fire, definition of bootstrapping from the ground, man, and there's a lot of commonalities, a lot of similarities that you get more into this. But I was going to move, um, and so I'm.
Speaker 2:So I came from Haiti. My very first internship was actually at the age of 12 years old. I built my first computer. I have a huge background when it comes to IT. Now, if you ask me to do a computer program, or you're talking C++ or any of these kinds of things, well above my pay grade, don't ask me to do any of that stuff. If you want to put it together, I can do that for you. But enough about me.
Speaker 2:Now let me dive a little bit deeper into this man. So talk to me a little bit about some of the journey. A lot of our listeners. They're on the couch right now. They're working the nine to five. They're doing the W-2. But they have in the back of their minds this inkling where they would like to be able to do some entrepreneurship. But where the hell is that next paycheck going to come from? What am I doing? How do I get started, man? So talk to me about some of the trials and tribulations from taking stuff from Meta, which is a huge accomplishment in and of itself, but going from where you were to a single family, to the duplex, to literally. You spent all the way up to 28 mil plus. Now we're about to break a hundred million. There's gotta be some stories in there that I would love for you to share, brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Um, I think, for for most people it it's worthwhile to dip your your toes into the water first, and that's what I did when I started at Meta and I was getting the paycheck, I was investing in real estate and there were smaller deals. So it was a way of me understanding okay, how is this going to work? Can I scale? Can I continue getting these deals that are on their market, that will continue giving me cashflow or refinances that I can use as income? And you know, there's a parallel reality where probably that didn't work. Maybe if I, let's say, if I started two years, three years later, when the economy wasn't going on the right direction, probably I would have thought, okay, this doesn't work, let me try something else. But I think I was in a good position where the economy was going up and it was going better, that I could have that learning there and I wasn't discouraged. So that did help. But at some point, once you have your nine to five giving you the income, and you're nine to five giving you the income and you're stacking these cash flowing assets, you realize, okay, rather than replacing my total income, what if I just replace my expenses? So that's what I did. I started replacing expense items. It wasn't really and obviously the fixed cost that I had, not the variable cost. So that's how I approached it and at one point, with enough runway, with enough deals in the pipeline that we're getting under contract and with enough cashflow covering my fixed expenses, then that's the moment where I could take the leap.
Speaker 3:Another idea, because it's also very scary to take the leap even if you have all these things, it's very scary, especially when you have an income that continues to grow. It is very scary. So first thing for me is that alignment right. Is it going to make me happier to continue increasing my income under this environment? The answer for me was a maybe. Or this environment? The answer for me was a maybe, not what wasn't a resounding yes. And the other one is what is the worst that can happen? So if I leave and I have to come back, what's the worst that can happen? And it looked like six figures again.
Speaker 2:So that was that. That was. It was an obvious choice for me. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, dude, I love it. Okay, I am infamous for this, but anybody that's listening.
Speaker 2:I need you to pause, I need you to rewind. I need to play this whole thing back from the top, because Georgie's dropping so many golden nuggets that I'm hoping that you guys are picking up on, one of which, which is, to me, one of the most important, is the fact that he was able to see a few steps ahead and say you know what Things might not go well, and if they don't, this is what we can do. What's the worst that's going to happen? Right, but on the flip to that, the worst that can happen is if you don't actually decide, you're going to make that next step. To me, the fear of wondering what if I would have not made that actual move it hurts way more than if I'm trying to do something and I approach it and it doesn't go according to plan, and I'm hoping that you guys are driving that point home.
Speaker 2:So, george, with that being said, going from the single family, the duplexes, to now where you guys are, a couple of things. One, what is the strategy now? What does it look like? Buy and hold, are we doing value add or syndication? Fill me in on that play. And then two, talk to me a little bit about the team structure, because what we did was we went from you getting over to the States to jumping in, moving all the way up to Meta, to now you're a solo entrepreneur, solopreneur, as we call them buying single families, a little residential here and there, and then all of a sudden now we're going to big stuff. And one of the things that I pride myself on and I lost tens of thousands of dollars in the very beginning was I thought real estate was all about a me, me, me, I, I, I, not a team, not a we, not a us. So what does the team structure look like and how did you go about developing that?
Speaker 3:then that's a great question, Nate. So the way that I used to do single family is completely different to the way that I do commercial and the other type of real estate that I do today. I feel like my understanding of real estate has completely changed, but it has also made me a better business person. So I like to dissect businesses and sometimes I'm doing real estate, Sometimes I'm doing tech, Sometimes I'm doing more of a private equity type of deal. But I've learned that they all look the same.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, a business is trying to get revenue in the door and it's trying to make their operations more efficient, which is proportionally. It affects valuation as well. If your operation is more efficient, it means another buyer can take it, can take it and extract value from it and, of course, decreasing the cost. So it's always about that. There's always some type of marketing, there's always some type of sales and some types of operations. So with arm with that, you realize you need a team, because you cannot do it all right. If you want to continue doing it as a as a hobby or a side job, then it's going to remain small, as a hobby, as a side job. So the first leap is thinking of yourself as a professional, Like this is what you do and you, if, if you put a lot of love and you're a nine to five, well, you better put a lot of love in this empire that you're trying to build. So that's a mindset shift that first goes in, but there's also a lot of, like you said, going from I to we. A great book for that is who, not how, which probably a lot of the listeners have read it, which probably a lot of the listeners have read it, but I love that book. It's another mindset shift and nowadays, Nate, almost nothing that I do I keep 100%. I don't even want to. Even if I can, I don't want to. When I structure, usually a new business, a new company, I'm already allocating percentages for other people. I don't keep a hundred percent of everything, because that's that's not again another mindset shift, from that who, not how, and understanding where my strengths lie, and they're a bit fluid as well, because I think your strength is not only what you're good at, but also what energizes you, and that changes with time, especially if you're all over the place, like a lot of entrepreneurs are. So in terms of team and in terms of the real estate that we do today.
Speaker 3:We operate in the US and we operate also in the Caribbean, in the Dominican Republic and in the US we've built alliances and partnerships with people whose strengths are in the operations side of things and we also have developed our systems and alliances for the acquisition side of things. So, for instance, right now we're sitting on between five I think five or six of acquisitions that are post-PSA purchase and sell agreement. So that's huge because it means we have deal flow for the next probably six months already. So that's part of the acquisition system and alliances that we built and they're already vetted. We have already underwritten those deals multiple people, so they're good. Now, in the operations we also have very vetted operators.
Speaker 3:Right now the model is a bit of we're going to partner rather than bring in in-house in the US.
Speaker 3:In the Dominican Republic it's a little bit different. We also have the same acquisitions pipeline but we're building vertical integration pipeline. But we're building vertical integration. So we're building all the way from the management, so the property management, whether it is long-term or short-term, whether it is residential or industrial, we're building vertically there and then construction. Right now we're building the alliances with the idea of either purchasing and bringing them in-house, so more vertical integration, or, you know, time will tell what happens there, but the goal it is vertical integration in the Dominican Republic, In the US, we are working towards that, but right now the alliances are with operators who are in part vertically integrated, which achieves a similar goal. So it's a little bit more professional and where we focus mostly is on the capital allocation. Right now that's the thing that's our strength. With our connections and the trust that we've built with our investors, we can place capital and get very good terms for our investors and then we can just take those deals from A to B.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, I love it. I love the breakdown. I appreciate the fact that you were kind of diving in a little bit and then also making it enough simplistic enough for us to be able to follow and explaining what some of these terms are, especially with the vertical integration. And so I got started back in 2017. I did house hacking, duplexes, worked my way up. We just closed past October, a 54 unit syndication style. We got another 12 unit. Now I'm investing out of state as well.
Speaker 2:So that's always been our bread and butter and we're continuing to trend upward and continue to move forward. And all that that's great. But for us, our buy box is we're trying to be too small for some of the big heavy hitters, but also too big for somebody that wants to just come in and be like, hey, I'm just going to buy it in cash. So that works for us. But what about with you guys in terms of finding partners?
Speaker 2:And then, of course, when it comes to the acquisition, as you guys say, you guys have that faucet turned on to our inside of the pipeline. You've got, you know, four or five or six deals already lined up, past purchase and sale agreements, where you're like you know what we don't really need to worry about it. But what happens once that's done? What does that look like? What is your buy box? How? And then also, how are you splitting your time? Because me I mentioned investing out of state. That's just a couple of states away. You are investing all around and still keeping a handle on things and still driving and moving the needle forward. That is epic man.
Speaker 3:Fill us in on that. Yes, yes, our buy box has changed a little bit. When there are macro market dynamics, especially with supply and demand, sometimes you have to slow down the acquisition in certain areas, for example Sunbelt and Florida and Texas. Sometimes we move from development probably to acquiring something that's a little bit more turnkey or value add, and and then away as well, depending on how the supply and demand balance is going, so that that's more on the general economic side. But the answer is the partnerships that we have. That's how we can achieve that.
Speaker 3:So right right now I am in the Dominican Republic and the reason is because we're building that vertical integration. I have to be here, I have to be the one hiring the people, monitoring, implementing the systems, and that's okay, because I have a vision and I know that it takes hard work to get there. I cannot expect everything to be like passive income all the time to get there. I cannot expect everything to be like passive income all the time. So in the US I already did that work over the years. So we already built the systems and the partnerships and it's just roughly the same, the same and the same, over and over and over. So that is working very well and now we're really at a point where the systems are in place and we really need to get the right talent in the system and continue growing that while we focus on you know, on the new sector in the Dominican Republic, where we're working there.
Speaker 3:When it comes to buy box nate, we love multi-family, but we also like industrial and development. So buying land and taking it from you know, this is just land. So this is something that is helping the community, something that is at its maximum point of value creation. That is at its maximum point of value creation. That is our cup of tea right now. That's what we like doing, and the majority of those projects that I said are under contract, majority are development right now.
Speaker 2:Oh man, again, so many golden nuggets, so many gems dropped. This is amazing. Now talk to me about I've got something we're going to do here in a little bit, but before we get there, talk to me about some of the early stages of, like your first, like one to two, maybe third deal, third deals, maybe pushing it. But where I want to go with this is what was it like coming from IT tech, coming from medic, coming from that kind of a background to, hey, I'm getting into real estate, you guys should come with me. You guys got to know, like and trust me. Hey, now we're going to also raise a little bit of capital and I think you should put it with me so like, did it just happen overnight that people were just like you know what? It's cool, man, I'm going to give you like 6 million or what was that? Like building that, coming from two separate industries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a great question, that transition from the first few deals the single family to where it's getting bigger and also taking capital. It was a fun transition, I'll say, but I started like you mentioned. It was I, I'm going to buy this property and it's going to be in my portfolio and it's going to give me cash. That's it, that's what I thought. And in the first active investment that I did wasn't actually an investment Nate, I'm a geek. You know I love coding and if I'm going to do real estate, I want to understand all the numbers. I really want to understand all the numbers and I'm I was one of those technical people that engage in analysis, paralysis, and and and wanted to get so much information that they didn't do anything. But you know, I gathered all the tools to run an investment or or to analyze an investment, and I ran that deal, that property that I bought, which it was actually a house for my grandmother, so there's a story behind it. That was the first time that I saw a few thousand, tens of thousands of dollars stacked virtually on the phone, but stacked right Mental picture, and the first thing I thought about was like my grandmother needs a new house, because when I used to live with her, you know it's an okay house but it's a little old. Nobody has fixed it in a while. So I bought a house in the same hometown, three blocks away, and it was unfinished because the owners ran out of money while they were finishing it. So I put an offer and it was a creative offer. I just listened to some podcasts and I put some pieces together and I put a creative offer and they accepted it and it was well below market value because I ran some comps, because I listened to some podcasts and I ran some comps. So I knew I was getting on a low enough basis. I knew I was squeezing out my return, not decapitalizing myself too much, and I was getting in a good position, a good entry position, much. And I was getting in in a good position, a good entry position.
Speaker 3:So I got three quotes, three bids to finish the property, because I heard that on a podcast and and I got the one in the middle. Well, I negotiated the middle down to the bottom one and I got that one Right. And then I made the contract with penalties and bonus structures, because I listened to that on a podcast and off we went and it was all cash. It was an all cash purchase. I financed everything. I didn't want to use that because I understood at that moment that it was a clock and I didn't have experience. I needed to do it this way.
Speaker 3:And when I finished the property and I got the certificate of occupancy and I fly out to see my grandmother and I hand her the keys, she decided that she didn't want to move in. She didn't want the house. I called my mother and I told her please call grandmother and convince her, because we've worked very hard for this. And she doesn't want to. She didn't want to, she didn't want to, she didn't want to. So and I try again, we try for like a month, and well, I put the house, I underwrote it. So I look at what was my ARV and I validated and I put it out in the market and somebody gives me, offers me almost ARV, but it was all cash me almost ARV, but it was all cash.
Speaker 3:And this was on a Friday. I had to go back on a Monday and I told him that we don't have a lot of time and he says I'm ready. I'm ready right now, you can just come over. So I do it. I go in the car, I drive all the way to where this gentleman is. I do some due diligence, understanding who the person is happens to be someone who studied with my mom in school very respectable entrepreneur in the area and we finalized the transition and I realized that I made 20% in seven months. Again, while I'm driving there, I'm asking my grandmother again are you sure, are you sure? She doesn't want it? So I proceeded with the transaction and I made 20%. So that was my first deal. I just stumbled upon an investment that wasn't really an investment but that I underwrote like it was an investment. And this is similar to how people start house hacking as an accident, they buy their first house and they realize oh, what if I do this? That I heard on a podcast. So I sort of the same for me. And as soon as I got the money, I put it in another, in a condo near the beach, and I put it on Airbnb. So I just go on. So I continue doing these deals.
Speaker 3:But there's one key thing that I did at Meta with my colleagues. I was telling them the stories. I told them the stories of what was happening and they just thought it was the coolest thing ever. They wanted to do the same. I was telling them the numbers and at some point people asked me how can I do this with you?
Speaker 3:At the beginning I thought, why would I share my profits? But then I realized that at this pace it probably was going to be one deal a year and I understood that wasn't going to be that fast. So that's when I shifted my mind again and I figured out the structure to accept capital and do this a little bit more fluid where it doesn't have to be. If the bottleneck is my capital, how can I remove the bottleneck? Well, if you structure it where you can accept other people's capital, right. But then if somebody is giving you capital, there's a reason that they're not doing it themselves. It's either because they don't have the knowledge or they don't have the time. So that became the pitch Okay, because I had the time and I had the knowledge. What I didn't have is more capital as quick as I wanted it. So that was the slow transition into it.
Speaker 2:OMGs, holy cow, there is so much to unpack here and this was so freaking good. First and foremost, oh my gosh, worked seven months, tirelessly Decided. I love the fact that you were listening to so many podcasts and got educated Like, hey, get three bids, don't accept the lowest, don't necessarily go with the highest, but the fact that you thought outside of the box, took the middle down to the lowest, was like you know what We'll go with you guys Genius.
Speaker 2:And I also want to make sure that we're honing in. For everybody that's listening, just how analytical and out of the box the thinking is with Georgie right now. This is amazing, and it ties all the way back to the very beginning and to the middle of where we were talking on this podcast and to what he just mentioned, to where he looked for a need, figured out, where it is Thought about kind of like a triangle, said, hey, I got two pieces of the puzzle. This is what I'm lacking over here, but the two things that I'm holding are two things that other people cannot get their hands on without me. So what I'm going to do is utilize what I have, my gift over here and say, hey, if you guys do want to join me, that's cool, because now I'm going to bridge the gap and the other piece to it, one of the situations that we keep talking about mindset guys. I'm hoping that you guys are figuring out that this is very key and one of the most essential things that will help you drive forward and move the needle forward.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things that just hurts my stories time and time again, where I've lost tens of thousands because I thought me, me, me, I, I, I. Jordan had the same situation where he's like, hey, I got a pie right here and right now I have all of the pie. We call that 100% and I'm full. Why would I give anybody a slice of my pie? And then, all of a sudden, it changed. Because when you realize that there is also a huge power in doing things, one for velocity and two, an abundance, to where you're able to do more things way faster than everybody eats and that's an abundance mindset that we keep talking about.
Speaker 2:So, georgie, I appreciate you. I'm crazy that your grandmother did not want to move in, but hey, it also is a life lesson for you and it worked out, dude, so that's awesome, yep. So at this point there's so much more I want to dive into, but I know we're running low on time, so this is what I want to do for you. I've got a set of six questions that I want to ask you, and I'm going to ask you back to back to back and I'm going to do the best I can to not respond, but I want you to give me the first answer that comes to your mind, and you can answer it as succinctly as you like to, or make it as long as you want to, but I just want honest, truthful answers, shot right from the cuff.
Speaker 3:Cool with that, let's do it All right. So my very first question, man what separates top performing entrepreneurs from the rest of the crowd, taking action and not being scared of taking action?
Speaker 2:Moving the needle forward, taking action, not sitting on the. I failed already, guys. I'm just reiterating like this will be the guy's theme of this. This is amazing. I love it. Ok, number two what is a daily habit that's contributed to your success?
Speaker 3:Never stop learning. I I never stopped learning. I'm always learning new things, even the things I'm not supposed to be learning. I'm learning just so, I know just so.
Speaker 2:I know, oh, I love that, I love it, I love it. Okay, what's a piece of advice that you give yourself if you were to start?
Speaker 3:over again. Think bigger earlier and don't be afraid of bringing other people so good.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, um, can we talk a little bit about books? We mentioned it, we talked about who, not how. Uh, dan sullivan, benjamin hardy amazing book, one of my top three of all time. Um, but what is your favorite business book doesn't have to be real estate related.
Speaker 3:I liked the Alchemist and the Little Prince. Those have very good teachings about alignment and values. I think I gift the Little Prince to a lot of younger folks. I mentor a few software engineers and people interested in tech and entrepreneurship back in the Dominican Republic and that's one of the books that I typically give them.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it, I love it. Okay, what's your favorite part of owning your own business?
Speaker 3:The autonomy and the, the freedom and the autonomy that you have it's. It can be a double-edged sword, but I think that somebody creative and ambitious can flourish. It will, it will. It will take a lot of chaos, but at the end you come up victorious.
Speaker 2:So good. Okay, I lied. There's a few more questions, because you are going in so many amazing directions. What is something new that you've implemented in your business that's helped drive success?
Speaker 3:AI automations and AI agents. That has been a game-changing implementation that I've done, and the framework of delegating, automating, but also eliminating and simplifying. I find myself going in and saying this should not be delegated, this shouldn't be a role for anyone. This shouldn't even be an automation. This should just be delegated. This shouldn't be a role for anyone. There shouldn't even be an automation. This should just not exist. So, first eliminating, then automating with AI automations and agents and finally delegating to A players.
Speaker 2:So okay, so you take the whole thing Again. I like the analogy. Maybe it's close to lunch, I don't know. We'll use the pie again. You look at the pie and you're like you know what? Hey, moving this business forward, let's just focus on the 20 or the 10% that's actually moving. We don't need the rest of it. So you eliminate, and then from there you're like you know what, out of this 20%, that's remaining a lot. And then from there, what we can't do to be able to keep your mind sharp, to be able to continue to move forward and continue to be able to set that vision, we'll go ahead and we'll delegate whatever we can from there.
Speaker 3:If I'm following correctly. Yes, yes, I don't want to put a little a piece of knowledge. There's something after eliminating, before automating or before delegating, it's very important to try manually yourself to document and systematize. So what I mean is you try it, you write down every single step, you find out what are the stuff that can be automated or cannot be automated? The stuff inside of the process is that stuff that can be automated or cannot be automated? The stuff inside of the processes, that, because everything can be divided by sub steps and document that into an SOP, for instance, or even a diagram, using Figma Miro, one of these apps, and just doing the flow chart and then color coding what can be automated, what can be delegated. If you do that work I did it this weekend on one of the processes it's game changing because you have this understanding of your business, this new understanding that you can go ahead and delegate, even the automation, for instance.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you and I need to talk about this offline, man. I think that is amazing. I love the way that you're able to simplify it, and on top of simplifying it, the simplicity also comes more of a deeper understanding and more knowledge behind all the intricacies of what your business is, and I want to say, dude, hats off to you, be able to be able to mirror that with your initial strength of IT and being able to be in meta and all of that, and you're like you know what. This is not something that's completely new to me, but now what we're going to be able to do is make this better and figure out how we can get this to work for me. Dude, hats off to you, man. This is awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Nate.
Speaker 2:Yes, Now, this is a bonus question. You flew through that with flying colors. But this is just one of the bonus questions here where I want to say what are some of the KPIs that you track? And because you mentioned being able to take, you know, one aspect of your career, one aspect of your job, one aspect of entrepreneurship, and let's just look at your business, You're, like you know what, let's dissect it Very similar to the pie reference we just made. But at what point do you know that you're moving the needle forward? At what point do you know that you're actually going in the direction that you would like to go?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I will say one thing I stopped tracking. I think that's going to be even more more useful, and I'll tell you the ones that I'm currently tracking. So I don't track any more number of acquisitions before there was. I wanted to do three acquisitions this quarter, but whenever there's a metric that it's not 100% sure that if you do that acquisition your life will be better, your business will be better, because maybe you can get a low-quality acquisition that becomes a headache for everybody in your company. So whenever there's a KPI like that, I rather remove it because I don't want to have a KPI and then an entire decision tree Is it this or not? Is it this or not? This one doesn't count. I don't want to do that, so I don't track that anymore.
Speaker 3:But what I would track, for instance, is how much capital our investors have entrusted us, because that means a lot more. It means the trust that we've built Right. It also implies the size of the deals that we're doing, which is, for example, the number asset under management does not, it doesn't say that much, but the capital that we have placed from our investors into the deal. That encapsulates everything right. Capital distributed back to the investors. That one means a lot, right, right, and as well as sometimes, number of automations that we have running or number of steps in some parts of the organization where it's very ai heavy. We have the number of tokens that we are sending to the ai and getting back from the AI. This can get a little bit outside of real estate, but that means that's the amount of dependency that we have with the AI, which is a good thing, or utilization, and then how much value is it creating to the organization?
Speaker 3:Back again, and, of course, revenue. Revenue is very important. Then your, your margins, are very important. So every every month I'm I'm looking for, there's always new software that comes out. I have this rule that if it's 50 50 dollars, just go ahead and spend it and use it and try it out, and you can kill it by the next month, but it can add up right. So every single month is coming up and saying, okay, do we really need this? So simplifying, do we really need this Right? Are these? You know, sometimes are these departments talking to each other and these employees talking to each other? Is it adding more complexity or is it simplifying our lives? So let's remove this person who's an, a player and put them into the other seat, so that I don't track that as a kpi that much. But it's a recurring habit that I do, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:so many jeff again. Pause, play this whole thing back. This is amazing, holy cow, dude. All right, so two last points before we get out of here. I know I've held you way longer than I told you that we were initially going to. But, number one, where can people find you? I want to be able to have this kind of be a catalyst, or at least added to your tool belt, to be able to say, hey, this is a platform that I was on and I can be able to have folks that might want to invest with you, get to know, like and trust you. So where can people find you? Number one, and then number two any final thoughts, any pieces of advice that you want to leave for somebody that's still out there chilling on the couch and is like you know what? I've got this killer idea, but I just have not yet sold on the fact that I should just take that leap of faith.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I'll start with the idea and then I'll I'll I'll mention where to find me. The key idea would be if you had dreams when you were growing up and every so often it doesn't matter if it's every six months, every year, every five years and they come back to your head, listen to that very carefully, write it down. Maybe have a page in one of your notebooks and just write down when and what came out, because there's something out there Universe, god, is telling you that there's something for you, but they're doing their part and you have to do your part, and your part is to take action. So, if you have dreams, if you had any dreams, and they keep coming back, listen to them, because you're only getting older and your dreams grow in weight. So don't wait until the very end of your life to say I wish I had done that thing, what would life look like? And don't be scared to fail. If it's not catastrophic, you will end up learning something. So that would be my advice to just follow your dreams. Listen and follow your dreams.
Speaker 3:And to find me Nate and I love this podcast, by the way to find me, linkedin is a great place. So, georgie Marrero, g-e-o-r-g-y-m-a-r-r-e-r-o, or you can see the details on the pod or also on Instagram. Those are the two places that you can find me. Just go DM me directly, say you listen to this podcast and I'll respond to you directly. We can take it from there.
Speaker 2:Oh, this has been amazing. Sometimes you jump in a podcast. You don't know, you know, you, you, you hope for the best thing. You kind of one of those situations where you shoot for the moon, land upon star. Dude, you are all that bag of chips. I'm sure my age right now, cause I'm using like old vernacular, that probably no one is like my son's looking at me crazy, but it's fine, it doesn't matter. Dude, this has been amazing.
Speaker 2:Your stories behind it, the way that you took us on your journey from coming from overseas to, you know, showing up in the United States for $1,000 in your pocket, like we're just going to figure this thing out. And then, after reading a couple of books and then listen to some podcasts, You're like we're going to take this leap of faith, we are going to do this for a grandmother because she deserves it. Did it, nine months or less, got it done. I was like, hey, here's the key. She's like I'm going to do it. You're like, okay, now we've got to figure out the next plan.
Speaker 2:Figured out the next plan, realized the back of the numbers made 20% on it, what? This is not bad. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep growing and I'm going to tell and document my story. Talk to everybody within Meta and all the other places that you're. Why don't you like, hey, this is what I've got going, this is what I'm doing. And then initially, people are like how can I get in on your pipeline to well over $100 million worth of AUM? And dude, that is no easy feat, man. Salute to you, salute to Akees Kappa, salute to everybody that you're working with and all of the amazing support you're doing. Man, thank you so much for being here on FIRED. This is awesome. It's an honor, a pleasure and a privilege.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me Nate and thank you for listening as well.
Speaker 2:Of course, dude, my pleasure man. So for those that are out there, those that are listening, those that are driving to work or on your daily commute, get home safe. Thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you guys grabbed something from this. This is the point of the show again where I say stop this, play this, rewind it, take it from the top, write it down, make sure that this stuff marinates with you. It's all about the mindset. It's all about especially what George was just talking about. We've got an idea that keeps coming back to me week after week, month after month, and it just all of a sudden hits you kind of like lightning bolt. It's like, hey, document, write it down, so that way you can go back, you can sort of reflect upon what it was and then take action on it. It's all about taking action, moving the needle forward. But with that, guys, you all take care, you all have an amazing time.
Speaker 1:We'll see you guys in the next episode of Forged in Fire. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forged in Fire. If you enjoyed today's raw, unfiltered stories, don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us bring more real world insights to entrepreneurs like you. Be sure to join us next time for even more lessons, struggles and breakthroughs on the road to success. Keep forging ahead.