39: How to Start a Profitable Investment Fund

Zach Smith: (00:00) Funded Today Nation, welcome back to The Funded Today podcast. Today, we are venturing briefly beyond crowdfunding to talk about investing. Specifically, how you can start your own profitable investment fund. And for that, we’re going to interview our very special guest, Bridger Pennington a Serial Entrepreneur, I always like to say that about myself, probably like many of you as well who became a highly successful Investment Fund Manager. His story is incredible you’re going to love it. I personally invest in depth on full disclosure there, which is currently yielding monthly returns of over 2.5%. So, today, I want to talk about how you can replicate that success and apply some of the lessons that Bridger has learned in his life to whatever you’re trying to do. So, let’s get started.

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Zach Smith: (01:09) All right, welcome back to the podcast. I am Zack Smith.

Thomas Alvord: (01:12) And, I’m Thomas Alvord.

Zach Smith: (01:14) And today we have a very special guest. Now, before I introduce him I just want to bring up a couple things, lo and behold the day has come “Funded Today, The Book” is completely finished it has nearly 400 pages, but it is gold. I will stand behind this book, and say it is the best book ever written on Rewards Based Crowdfunding. It might be one of the best business books ever read. I’m sorry I’m going to stand behind it. Taken as nearly three years, four years or so, it is done. It is in the press. We’re putting the ISBN on it today kind of thing, so get ready for that. One more thing, and Thomas can talk about this briefly we have actually began a partnership with the guest on this podcast today to put together our first crowdfunding course it’s called “Crowdfunding Secrets” Thomas, you want to tease that.

Thomas Alvord: (02:00) For the last few months I have worked internally with our own video crew, we have been putting together a course on how to crowdfund “A through Z” so not only do you get so much of the content that you also get in the book, but also we take a deep dive and go over marketing, product ideation, launching, etcetera. So, if you want to know the crowdfunding secrets from the crowdfunding kings keep an eye out for our new course coming out “The Crowdfunding Secrets”.

Zach Smith: (02:35) Really excited for that if you’re interested and you want to get on the early bird you can send us an email support@funded.today, leave a comment on the podcast, let us know there’s a lot of ways to get in touch with us, that’s going to be launching here pretty soon. All right, now with no further ado, I want to introduce today’s special guest “Bridger Pennington”. Here’s a little bit about Bridger. Bridger knew from his freshman year at BYU in 2016 that he wanted to be an investor, but he needed money to invest. So, he tried a series of seven business ventures with mixed success, until a mentor finally taught him how to start an investment fund. So, he founded Black Bridge Holdings, and then launched his first fund in 2016, raising $46,000 to invest, and earning a 64% return on it. He’s since started a second fund and is working on a third. Over these last two years, he’s done 290 deals in 38 states. As 2019 ended, he founded Investment Fund Secrets to help teach others exactly what he did to start build, and scale investment funds without having an Ivy League degree or working on Wall Street for 15 plus years, and since then, he’s attracted 250 students who have raised millions of dollars launching their own funds. He’s making a lot of money too. And today, we’ve had him on this podcast to teach you some of those secrets as well. So, Bridger, welcome to the show, glad to have you.

Bridger Pennington: (03:47) Zack, Thomas, it’s good to be here. How’re you guys doing?

Zach Smith: (03:49) Doing, going very well.

Thomas Alvord: (03:51) Doing great.

Zach Smith: (03:53) So Bridger, we don’t like to mess around here. Tell us your story. How’d you get started?

Bridger Pennington: (03:56) Yes, so I started out like he’s mentioned, I was at BYU. I knew I wanted to start a business be like you one day, have some successful businesses. And you guys are a few years older than me, and so I went to work, I started on these business ideas and I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Not just so I could have a cool Lamborghini or something, which would also be cool. I don’t have a Lamborghini yet but I also wanted to have money that I can pay for like family medical bills, or I don’t know if that be cool like buy a car for someone or just be that type person that could hire family members, which I’m sure you guys have felt that after running a business. And so I went on this journey, I set up six businesses in my first two years of school. And these weren’t like business ideas. These were legit businesses up and running, making money. We had a Chinese Tutoring Business, I had a landscaping business. I had a business selling essential oils. We were building websites for people. I did real estate wholesaling. I mean, like, any business under the sun, I was going after just I was just doing stuff.

Zach Smith: (04:50) And you dropped out of school, right?

Bridger Pennington: (04:52) Well, I was in school at the time. So, I was taking -- I was taking classes.

Thomas Alvord: (04:55) Well, I know how do you, how do you run so many businesses while you’re still in school?

Bridger Pennington: (04:59) So, those were actually about six months a piece, so I would spend like six months doing the online marketing things.

Thomas Alvord: (05:03) Got you.

Bridger Pennington: (05:04) And well didn’t work out, let’s try another one I went like and they kind of overlapped a little bit, and it was school and business like all day every day that’s what I did.

Zach Smith: (05:13) Man, you put the whole idea of like, pivot fail fast on its head. It’s freaking beautiful. I thought I was crazy.

Bridger Pennington: (05:20) Like Fail Fast, do you have like all these different entrepreneur books, I tried to live that as best as I couldn’t just go after models and finally.

Zach Smith: (05:29) Weren’t even failing necessarily, right? I mean, you just, want to go on market then?

Bridger Pennington: (05:34) No, yes, I wouldn’t say failing I mean, the, -- like the Chinese Tutoring Business was great. I had 11 tutors working for me, all college students and but I was making like six bucks a lesson, because our margins were just so thin, and I was like, well, this isn’t worth it. You know? I mean, like all 11 teach one lesson a day okay, I made like $60, $70 $80 bucks, maybe you know, and it just.

Thomas Alvord: (05:54) Yes but what if what if you scale it up because that’s just one count there. What if you scale it and you have 100,000 people teaching all types of languages. And yes, you have a $6 margin, let’s call it a $5 margin, and you’re making half a million dollar.

Zach Smith: (06:09) Your saying you got a good business idea here Thomas?

Bridger Pennington: (06:14) No, it’s a good question.

Zach Smith: (06:15) I like it, I like it.

Bridger Pennington: (06:16) The reason I, and I kind of into my story is I started to look at vehicles, way more than I did before, because I was just doing anything to make me money. And I started to realize there are, as you guys know, different business models and vehicles that are some of them are can make you a lot more money than other, like if I was for instance, the best concrete layer in all of Utah, right? Number one, like I worked for 30 years became this incredible concrete layer. There’s only so much money I could make right there’s a cap somewhere, right? And it’s still a decent salary decent wage, but there’s some kind of cap versus if I did a different vehicle like you guys, you know, raising money for Kickstarter campaigns like that’s the margins are a lot bigger, it’s easier to get just a different vehicle, and that’s where I eventually stumbled upon running a fund. And, so anyways Thomas that’s kind of my, I was just shopping vehicles essentially dating you would say dating vehicles, yes.

Thomas Alvord: (07:07) And what I hear you saying is, is it’s the TAM right as some people call it the “Total Addressable Market” or the “Total Available Market” right? Here is your revenue opportunity, how big is it, how big is the market right and so looking at yes concrete laying or landscaping or teaching another language what’s that market size? What’s the TAM address “Total Addressable Market” and so it sounds like you had bigger ambitions?

Bridger Pennington: (07:33) Yes, and, and, I thought if I picked a better vehicle I can even be worse I can be you know, just okay at it and still make more money than someone who’s you know, the best concrete layer pack that example. So, my dad I have this incredible father, I’ll talk about him in a minute, but credible mentor for my life. He finally great, he’s been an entrepreneur his whole life. We lived in kind of just an average household. I mean, he drove a crappy car. We I mean, we just and that’s what gave me an entrepreneurial spirit was from him, and he finally grabbed it was Bridger, you got to go meet with one my business partners, this guy he can help you. I said, okay, he says you’re kind of like a chicken with your head cutoff, because I really was. And so I set up this meeting, I drove up to this guy’s house, and I put it in my phone. I never been there before I pull up to this gated community on my car, and I pull in, and there’s these beautiful homes, I start driving up, and I pull up to the top of this hill, and there’s this beautiful, gorgeous white home, and almost encompasses the entire cul-de-sac. I mean it was just huge, and I parked my car, and I double-check the addresses like is this is this really this, it is my dad’s business partner like who is this guy? And I get out of my car, and I remember walking up to the big door they’re like he’s 18 foot oak doors and I was a little bit nervous, I kind of knocked, you know, and I didn’t know if like a butler was going to come, and be gone peasant get out of here kind of thing a little bit nervous. And thankfully my dad’s partner though answers the door. He said Bridger come on in, and we come and I sit down on these massive white couches, they’re just like, encompassing right, like huge is beautiful home. We’re trying to chat about business, and life and things and I finally get to the point I go, honestly, how did you get all of this? And I kind of pointed his house like this, you know? And he kind of laughed because Bridger actually, you know, a lot of people don’t really ask me that question like ever. And I go really like I would think, and I’m just young. I’m like, 20, 21 22 I just I was like, “oh, I thought everyone would ask you that question” it’s not appropriate. And he said, well, he goes I was a lot like you I know why your dad said he sent you to meet with me. I was in my 20s I started a handful of businesses okay, until I figured out the secrets of the wealthy. I was like, what do you mean? He was this is what the some of the wealthiest families in the world, this is what they do. They all run “Investment Funds”, and I was intrigued, what’s an Investment Fund? He goes, this is the way I learned about it was I was actually I was running these businesses. I met a guy and he had this unique job where he did kind of a tax and accounting for different clientele, and his clientele he had done very well. And he had on the one of the wealthiest streets in Utah. He had there was like 15 houses, he did 11 of the 15 houses. He knew all of their taxes, accounting, everything. And he goes, you know, what’s funny in these houses were huge I mean 15,000 20,000 square foot houses and he goes, what’s funny is, there’s a guy on that street he doesn’t live in the biggest house, he’s about four houses down, well, you know, a little bit smaller, still massive house, and he goes that guy makes about 10 times more money than everybody else on that street. I -- was just intrigued. What does he do? He goes, well, he runs a fund and investment fund, and basic terms and investment fund, what that is, is a pool of money that investors put money into and someone is the Fund Manager gets to manage that pool of money and make investment choices, and when those investments make money back the Fund Manager and the investors take a split. And that’s why some of the wealthiest people on the planet run funds. You see, like Ray Dalio took home $2 billion last year in 2019 alone, right? These fund managers taking on huge amounts of money, and so my dad’s partner said, I don’t care how long it takes me I’m going to figure out what a fund is and how they work and how they run? Because I -- it could take me two years, five years, 10 years, I don’t care I’m going to figure it out and do it, he goes right now, me and your dad launched a fund at the time they managed about $8 billion of real estate, which was huge, right? If you if you fall like Grant Cardone line “Cardone Capital” they manage about $1.1 billion okay? So, they’re about at the time we’re seven times bigger than Cardone Capital. Now they’re up to in 2020 the data is growing, they’re up to about $20 billion dollars assets under management, and I was like, I was like, my dad like this is what we’re doing. He’s like, yes, and so we started to chat. And I’m like, hey, you know can you could you be my mentor? Can you teach me more about funds? I’m so intrigued I would love to do this. He goes well, you should go talk to your dad, your dad knows way more about this than I do. And I go, well, hold on. You know, my dad drives a crappy car. We live in a small house like you know I want to learn from you, right? You’re like the you know, you’re really rich and exactly it was actually me and your dad make about the same amount of money, and my job out drop the floor. I was like what? He goes yes, me and your dad both kind of started this we were both about equal partners in the business. And I left that dude’s house, I drove straight to my dad’s house I was like, dad what the heck? Like what is going on? Like we, we’ve been living like this, you drive a crappy car, like I can’t order a soda at dinner for the last five years because it’s too expensive, right?

Thomas Alvord: (12:31) That’s so funny Bridger that’s not funny because that’s how I was growing up, no joke. I would go out, we would go to Taco Bell because it was the cheapest place to eat we’d go there like three times a week. And we could only get stuff on the 59 cent menu item and we would buy two drinks to share with like eight or nine of us, right? Because you get the free refills, right? I totally I adminrly get what your sauing 

Bridger Pennington: (12:51) And did your parents had money and they just kind of hit it?

Thomas Alvord: (12:54) Yes, I mean, my dad’s done well, but, but, then again, it’s always like this. Well has he done well, because he knows how to be frugal, right? That’s one of the things I learned about that. And other people complain oh, you guys are tightwads? Why don’t you spend money? It’s like, well, unless you know how to be super frugal, you’ll just go spend money everywhere. And one principle I’ve really learned and appreciated from Zack, is that how you operate in the small things, you operate in the big things, right? And so you got to be frugal in the small things. Otherwise, you’re not going to be frugal in the big things. And if you’re not frugal in the big things, your money could go poof, and be out, you know, be gone. I mean, I’ve had people, even my neighbor where I used to live, “hey why do you live in such a, you know, a small house” I mean, it was, what, 3,200 square feet but he’s like, I know you make way more money, blah, blah, blah, but it’s like, I don’t want to overextend myself. I don’t need to, and you know, it’ll happen if it happens, right. But anyways, I find that I mean, obviously, as we chatted before this, I know your dad and that’s kind of humorous, right, but

Zach Smith: (13:52) You touched my heart Thomas.

Bridger Pennington: (13:56) And I am looking back I really respect him for that, and I mean, he said “hey, I want to raise kids that understood the value of money, I didn’t want to overextend myself and, and that’s what I found with most successful entrepreneurs. I mean, you see the guys on Instagram that flow all their stuff, but I’d say the majority of people that have money are tend to be more frugal, and save money like both you guys, I know you guys aren’t that, you know, don’t live these extravagant lifestyles, even though you could and, and it’s funny those principles are I think, what helps people launch good businesses.

Thomas Alvord: (14:27) And what’s interesting too, and I like to just kind of piggyback off some of the ideas and share some thoughts as people are listening to maybe have some additional, valuable take homes, potentially. One thing if you look at wealth, most wealth is first generation or second generation, right? Especially, if you have like these foreigners who come here to the United States or I suppose it could apply to other countries but from what I’ve read and seen, like, you know, you have somebody from overseas, you have someone from Russia, they come they live here in the States right, they start up a business they become wealthy, and once you get to the second or the third generation, they lose that, and because there’s this mentality of work ethic and frugality that you don’t get, and I find it interesting, because your dad has been astronomically successful and he started his fund 12 years ago, right? So, he was doing other stuff, I don’t know to what degree of success but it seems like a lot of you know, he’s really hit his stride in the last five, ten years, and their funds are just done phenomenal. And so looking at that in the sense it’s like when you don’t inherit it, when you work toward it, it’s going to be different. You’re going to value it different you’re going to treat it different, so.

Bridger Pennington: (15:42) Yes, exactly.

Zach Smith: (15:43) Lot of pressure on Bridger now to live up to.

Bridger Pennington: (15:48) Which is which is great and it’s been it’s been awesome, and I’ve I actually really appreciate my dad for what he’s done, and so I kind of back to the story. I go meet with my dad and I you know, I talked about his, you know, his funds and everything and he has a list you know, is hidden money right? And he lives the millionaire next door kind of lifestyle, but we started talking about investment funds and he sat down and taught me how investment funds work this is this is venture capital private equity hedge funds, how they’re structured? How they file the SEC? How they raise money, the whole nine yards? And I was super intrigued, and this is how the some of the wealthiest people on the planet make money. So, I said, Well, I’m going to go after this book, I’m going to start looking through this book and figure out a way that I can start a fund, and I lo and behold, I thought about one of the previous companies I worked at that their some of their clients needed the short-term financing loans and I worked I thought these were relatively safe they would they would do well we get good returns. I went and talked to the owners of that business they love the idea. And I said oh my gosh, I think I have a fund on my hand on my hands. I could do this I wouldn’t know if my dad we sat down planned out the entire fund. He, you know, helped me structure it get things together. Legal docs are expensive. We did a few things there to get around that and we got everything ready to set up my fund, and I was excited, but the one thing you need for a fund is money, right? I think the definition of a fund is you need investors. And so I was thinking about I said, oh my like, aha, my dad is rich he doesn’t spend his money, he likes to invest, I’m his son, he loves this idea. My dad will be the best investor ever for my funds. And so I’m 22 years old I it was late Sunday night. And I remember deciding I’m going to go pitch my dad to invest in my fund. So, I went into his office that his home office late Sunday night, we sat down, and in my best pitch voice possible I’m like, hey dad, like “how would you like to be our first investor in our fund”? And he kind of laughs at me he goes, Bridger he goes, “I have the money to invest, but if I invest in your fund right now, I will ruin the experience of you raising money on your own”. He goes, every fund manager needs to learn how to raise money, if I give you money now it’ll give you a crutch, and it’ll give you that step first initial investments usually the hardest, and he goes it’ll, it’ll be detrimental to your growth, and he kicks me out. And it’s kind of a tough love moment to me my dad, but I took him up on the challenge. I hit the streets and I talked to anybody I knew I was me, his former bosses, college professors, anybody and I was able to raise my first fund was a whopping $49,000, I raised my first fund, but it was enough to get started. We were doing short these loans are about five to seven grand apiece, they were small, and we started to flip these loans, and our first initial investors was six investors I got them a 64% return on their investment. And it did really well and since then, we launched our second fund we’ve grown a lot since then we’ve gained a lot of investors and a lot of traction and I’ve hired team.

Zach Smith: (18:44) Your dad still not in your fund right from what I’ve seen?

Bridger Pennington: (18:47) And, and yes, to this date my dad has never invest in any of my funds, any project never my dad has never, and I’ve pitched him a few more times, and but I’m looking back I’m so grateful he did that because it’s taught me principles of how to raise money, how to find investors how to negotiate all those things, there’s life lessons. And I respect my dad I’d tell he is my greatest mentor. He’s really only given me advice and mentorship, which has been incredibly valuable and useful to go out and launch our funds. We’re actually looking at launching our third fund here pretty soon.

Thomas Alvord: (19:19) Bridger, what you ever say is what your dad has done is provided such good mentoring, and I’m sure he would have loved to put money in whether your fund worked or didn’t, it would have made no difference to him if he lost the money or doubles his money probably didn’t matter at all. But he was doing what was best right and pushing you forward. And it’s so important, it’s so important for people to have a mentor. Whether it’s a friend, whether it’s a family member, whether it’s somebody else you go and reach out to, I know somebody who literally talked to people found somebody said, “hey, I want to shadow you for a month, and literally just shadow them” or help you their secretary right? You got to find a mentor I mean you’ve had a great mentor there, Bridger, so that’s.

Bridger Pennington: (20:02) I totally agree. Yes, that has been crucial until this day. My dad is he is amazing at strategy and how to negotiate. I mean, he’s just incredible. He’ll answer anytime I call to be a mentor, never will put money behind it, but always will give his I respect him a lot for that, and he’s done very well.

Zach Smith: (20:17) Now, Bridger, our podcast is all about making money. The name is Funded Today.

Bridger Pennington: (20:21) Yes.

Zach Smith: (20:22) Get your next big idea at Funded Today? So, I think a lot of people would love to know how to make money. We talk about it all the time. How -- do you have a story one of the you know, from all the money that you’ve raised of what you did, or some cool little tidbit that you could share about, “hey, I want to raise money”. I mean, a lot of people on our podcast want to know how to raise money for a product idea that they’ve invented, it might still be in their head, it might be written down on a napkin or a piece of paper or something. Or maybe it’s a little further along, and they have a prototype and they have some product and they want to know how to sell it. What advice would you give to them?

Bridger Pennington: (20:54) Yes, for on the on the how to raise money side of things?

Zach Smith: (20:55) Sure.

Bridger Pennington: (20:58) Yes, great question. I get us a lot and now we have you know podcasts that we share this with a lot of people, and I’ve actually been able to see a lot of entrepreneur tryout different model and techniques how to raise money this is what we found is has been very useful. First thing I would say is don’t do it alone. With anything in life it’s and you can kind of you can either work your way in or buy your way in with things, and with money raising if you are just and this is I’m talking about you know, going on raising money from accredited investors, very wealthy people, high net worth people, you got to raise millions of dollars. If you are naturally just introverted don’t like to talk to people, you don’t have a network, that’s okay. You don’t need to do everything inside the fund. Like my dad’s funds, for instance, great example and most funds I would say have three distinct circles. So, circle number one or position number one is your expert investor person. This person is amazing at you know, real estate loans or for me as loans or you know, trading on Wall Street, right. Typically, those people have no clue how to manage a fund? How to file the SEC, do legal docs, I would say that that’s bubble number two is the fund management. And then the third bubble is the money raiser for funds. And so my dad, he realized he said, “hey, I’m very good operations”. “I’m very good at fund management”. I do not have the network. Let me say I can raise some money. I can’t raise big money, though. So, he went and found a partner and his partners, the guy went to his big house that was his partner, original partner. And he’s been able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for them from high net worth people, because he already has built a network and just doesn’t know who to connect it with. So, that’s the first thing I would say if you’re not naturally connect, there are people out there right now, begging, like looking anywhere they can for yield, they are looking for you, they’re looking for good investments they just need someone to connect them to right. So, I would say that’s the first thing there is there’s plenty of people looking for you, there’s plenty of money in the world, and then finally, I would say this is and this is one of the biggest problems I had was I’m too young right? I was at the time I was 22 years old. And I just kept telling myself, well, I’m too young, no one will be believe me, I don’t have a track record. I don’t have the stuff it takes to be a fund manager, no one will believe in me. And, I had a mentor sit me down once, and he said, Bridger, you need to lean into your constraints, and use your constraints to your advantage, because your whole life, someone’s going to tell you, you’re too tall, you’re too skinny, you’re fat, you’re too old, you’re young, whatever it is, they’re going to tell you what’s wrong with you. You have to figure out why that actually leads to your advantage. So, for my investors, what I did was I knew they would they were thinking I was too young. So, I would be in a pitch room, I’d be sitting down and Zack your one of my investors right you probably heard this pitch. I would sit down with Zach and say Zack “hey, here’s my fund idea I’ve got this great idea, blah, blah, blah, here’s my pitch deck we’re going to make so much money and I would stop” and say, I know, you think I’m way too young to be sitting in front of you right now. And nine times out of 10 they’d kind of nod like “yep, yes, that’s exactly right” and I would go let’s, let’s talk about that for a second. Because I’m young let me explain to you why that helps me in this fund. They’re kind of a trick. What do you mean? I said, Well, if I was, let’s say, I’m 55 years old, and I’ve done well in my career, and I want to start a fund, okay? My fund, I’m going to try to take as many fees as I can from you. I’m going to try to nickel and dime it because I’m older I got to make money for myself. Also, I like to take my family to Hawaii twice a year, I don’t I don’t work late nights because I like to watch Netflix. I’ve got this lifestyle, I’m an old dog and I’m stuck in my weights. And I go because I’m young, I can wake up early, I can work harder. I live in a $300 apartment, my car’s paid off. I have no reason to commit fraud against you. As long as I can cover my $300 apartment rent. Like there’s no reason for me to steal money from you. If I was 55, I had a big mortgage payment a car payment I might want to steal money from you. And then finally, because I’m young, I’m trying to build a track record for myself. I say the purpose of my fund is not for me to be a multi-millionaire billionaire on my first fund. My goal is to get my investors the highest return possible because I know you are going to go tell all your friends how great of investment you’ve had with Bridger.

Zach Smith: (25:10) And Bridger.

Bridger Pennington: (25:12) Yes.

Zach Smith: (25:13) Literally on that point, what did I do? I talked to the people in your fund, and I asked him, and the one that I talked to specifically that I remember very distinctly was exactly that. He’s like, I’m like, so are you happy with these? He’s like what do you think, Zack? I’m like what do you mean, he’s like, have you ever heard of this amount of a return on anything you’ve ever done before? I’d be happy with a percent you know, and I was like, that you absolutely under promised and over delivered essentially you know exactly the way you needed to do, and you created that great track record, and now you’re attracting capital all over the place for future ideas, and that’s.

Bridger Pennington: (25:49) Yes, that was the, that was the original strategy, we’re launching our third fund here pretty soon we already have I would say probably $7 to $8 million of soft commitments to come into this new fund, once we you know once we have it launched everything, and we’re hoping to raise $75 to $100 million dollars for this fund. And so that’s what I told investors I leaned to my constraint of being too young, and that’s that goes not just for raising money, but for I think anything in entrepreneurship is lean into those constraints. I have one friend she’s she I grew up, we grew up together whole life. She has two million followers on Instagram for fitness, done one of the top fitness girls on internet she’s done very well. And her story is, it’s not oh, I was born with a six pack. I’ve always been ripped. Her story was I had two kids, I was overweight, I tried diets they didn’t work. I lost five pounds, I looked the same. And then I finally said, I’m going to put on muscle. And she put on I think, 20 pounds of muscle and looks way better than she did before it’s the same way. Like she has two pictures like she weighed 145 and then a year later weighed 145 but like the pictures, she looks just ripped and just completely different. And so that’s her story.

Zach Smith: (26:53) Can we give her a shout out, who is it?

Bridger Pennington: (26:55) It’s “Kelsey Wells” that’s her name on Instagram.

Zach Smith: (26:56) Okay.

Bridger Pennington: (26:57) Yes, she’s down there and you can go see your store. It’s incredible, she’s been on all these shows around the world and all this stuff and women attracted that story like, I’ve tried the diet, it doesn’t losing weight doesn’t work, let’s put on muscle and actually have healthy bodies instead of trying to, you know, starve ourselves to death. And it’s a pretty, pretty cool thing. And so she did the same thing. She leaned into her constraint of, well, I’m overweight. I’m a mom with two kids. Like she leaned into that and used that to her advantage. I say the same thing for raising money you lean into your constraints.

Zach Smith: (27:25) Yes, that’s powerful. I love it. Now, Bridger I think a lot of people this point listening would say okay, great this is awesome I think I can raise some money, but what do I raise money for? How do I even know what to create a fund for? I mean, real estate quickly comes up, obviously, what Ray Dalio has done in terms of the stock market, and hedge funds come up but what exactly can you create a hedge fund? What exactly can you create a fund for? Or somebody come up with an idea.

Bridger Pennington: (27:48) Yes. I actually when I first kind of dove in it, I didn’t know the possibilities for funds just to give you a few ideas of different funds that I actually work with and know about right now. So, obviously, you have to traditional you see like a like a Shark Tank show. There are funds that do that exact same thing. Their Venture Capital or Seed Fund is what they’re called, and they’ll do the small investments, you see real estate funds they buy and sell real estate like Cardone Capital is great example my dad’s fund you see these hedge fund traders, they trade commodities or futures or bonds, whatever they’re doing, there’s forex funds, there’s funds that do cryptocurrency, there are funds. I have one friend he runs an almond farm fund.

Zach Smith: (28:26) Almond farm?

Bridger Pennington: (28:26) All they do is buy and sell almond farms. They said we can we found this great yield. We can do very well on almond farms. I have another friend all he does literally this is all he does, he goes around to funeral homes, mom-and-pop funeral homes, and he talks to them and he buys up these funeral homes 10, 15, 20 funeral homes groups them together and he found that he can sell those companies to a bigger firm for about two x what he purchased it. So, if he spent $10 million acquiring the companies, he can sell them for about $20 million on the public markets. Just, that’s all he does and then he sells them and he goes and restarts and he buys new a bunch of these mom-and-pop shows, puts them under one roof and package it together and sells them for more. Funds are useful for pretty much any idea. You believe you can scale, but just don’t have money to do it, and if you think.

Thomas Alvord: (29:24) Bridger is you didn’t share this in your pitch, but there is something I think that is valuable for all of the listeners to know and understand here. And it’s this, the larger the fund, the market that a fund is able to play in changes, right? And so your friend who’s able to go up and buy these small funeral homes, well, there’s no reason that other companies on the public market couldn’t do that, right? It’s just not worth their time, because it’s such small potatoes, so to speak. And so somebody who’s starting out can be more lean, can do activities and investments in markets that other players might not be able to do a lot of funds, real estate funds, big funds, billion dollar funds they’re only going in the largest metro areas, right? Whereas if you’re starting off, you could do different areas, you could do smaller deals. And you’re not necessarily always going to be competing with the big dogs with the people with the big funds right? There’s different exactly in an overall market that people can operate in, and that is actually one of the advantages getting started getting started because you could have a fun for half a million or a million, and it would be a small fund, and some big fund manager wouldn’t even look at it, but for you, it could get your feet wet and be the beginning.

Zach Smith: (30:46) Now Thomas, you make an exceptional point. And to kind of follow Bridger’s journey that he’s just shared on this podcast, what was it $46,000 to $49,000, and then you have your fund. Now, now you’re raising six to ten million soft commitment potential getting up to $75 million so, look at the progression there? It’s baby steps, you know, it’s daily improvement leading to eventual something bigger and bigger and bigger, and then kind of to bring this back to crowdfunding, you have a project, you launch that project. Now, you go find similar projects in that niche. You buy out all those companies for probably, you know, a couple thousand dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars max. And now you have all of these companies that support your existing product, and you bundle that together and you continue to attract the investor. So, I really like that idea of kind of, you know, buying up your market. Thomas and I even know this a little bit with crowdfunding I mean, truly, we own quite a few different entities within the crowdfunding circle, and we started with Funded Today, and now we have a lot of different referral agreements or partnerships or ownership interests and lots of other different companies in the sphere that we play, we’ve never sold, we had a pretty good offer, but we turned it down. And I love that I think that’s a perfect way to kind of approach anything. Don’t worry about raising $100 million dollars, go raise your first $50,000 for something and then move on from there. I love it.

Bridger Pennington: (31:54) Yes, last thing I’ll add on that Thomas, what you were saying about the different markets, you could have a fund in the same city as Ray Dalio, right and doing the same things, and you wouldn’t even compete against each other for investors. You got Ray Dalio funds, you have to have a $5 billion, billion with a B billion dollar net worth to even talk to them, and minimum commitment is $100 million dollars for their funds, which is wild right? So, as funds grow, they move out of markets, and then they are replaced by entrepreneurs like us that fill those markets over time. Same with my funds, my first fund is done while we were growing out of that market and somebody else actually has the opportunity to come in and just replace that same niche. It’s not like Facebook, Facebook has dominated their market and it’s you can’t really repeat a Facebook right but in funds actually you can a lot of times repeat someone’s model just because they have moved on to bigger and better deals. And you can replace that with investors and deal size. It’s a pretty it’s a pretty fun place to be at in a space to play in with different market ideas and funds. 

Zach Smith: (32:56) Make the point hit home even more with your dad’s fund, that’s the case as well, right? He used to take minimum commitments of a couple hundred grand, and now he’s probably a couple million.

Bridger Pennington: (33:06) Uh-huh. Yes, and now all those guys that want to put 100 grand in oh, shoot, where do I go? Well, hey, come to my funds, right? Hey, I’ll take your money, you know?

Zach Smith: (33:12) It’s awesome.

Bridger Pennington: (33:13) And yes, it’s a great way to do it.

Zach Smith: (33:17) I love it. All right, now, here comes the next roadblock, Bridger and I’m sure you got an answer for us. Okay, I know how to raise the money. Okay, I’ve got a really good idea for a fun I’m going to go do the next almond farm. How the heck do I do this? What licenses do I need? How do I start a fund? I don’t want to go to jail, Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, come on you know what I mean? Let’s do with the elephant in the room, how do we avoid that and make we’re running something legitimate, honest, fair, but then also make sure we have all the compliance dialed in. And I know you’re not an attorney, so you can’t necessarily give legal advice but give us what you know.

Bridger Pennington: (33:47) Yes, not legal advice, thanks for disclaimer, but it is interesting with funds. It’s usually the biggest question I get is what about Licenses Regulation, which is I have been in I’m in a perfect position to understand as my dad is the Chief Compliance Officer at his fund now that’s the kind of the role he’s of and he’s actually retiring here pretty soon. So, he understands the SEC better than most people on the planet. My brother, you know, well is also a Securities Attorney out of New York they’re at he’s at a $300 million fund right now. So, I have securities law from him and my dad SEC Compliance, and so at dinner we talk about like Sunday dinner we talk about funds and SEC Compliance and rule as me it’s like it’s a fun, it’s a fun conversation to be at, but pretty unique setting. And so but yes, back to what license do I need to get to start a fund. So, every not every fund, but most funds have two different types of fees that they charge? Now there’s more but just to put them in two buckets. And on a timeline of returns, I’ll kind of give you an example. If we got for instance, we’re targeting a 22% return for our fund okay. So, you give me 100 grand, I’m going to try to get you back $22,000 as profit as a return. So, how that’s broken up, A lot of people will say, “oh, well, there’s 2 in 20 funds”, right? And that means 2% management fee and 20% carried interest. It’s a little bit more complex than that. So, I wish I had like a whiteboard in front, but well, I’ll try to explain over voice here. But typically in funds, they have what’s called your “PREF”, or “Preferred Rate of Return”. So, for my fund with you Zack, it’s an 8% PREF. So, I say the first 8% of all returns, go to my investors, and that’s called my pref. So if I if this year, we make a 7% return, I take home zero, and Zach, you would take home all 7%, and then I say, so the first 8% is called your PREF. Next 2% for my funds ninth and tenth percentile is called your “Ketchup”, and that goes to me the fund manager, so the ninth, so ninth to tenth percentile come to me as a fund manager, and then anything above 10% we split 80%-20%. 80% to the investor 20% to the fund manager. So, if this year, we got a 22% return first 8% to the investors, next 2% to me as the fund manager, then at 80% 20% from 10 percentile to the 22 percentile okay? And those are called “Performance Fees” performance based fees, because I only get paid if I perform right? I have to perform get a good return for me to make money. Now, does that make sense so far? You guys with me?

Zach Smith: (36:19) Yes, so breaking down the math 22%, you lose the first eight, and then you take 80% so, I will get 9.6 invest, you would get 2.4 and in total, you would have made 4.4% on that.

Bridger Pennington: (36:31) Yes.

Zach Smith: (36:32) Exactly.

Bridger Pennington: (36:33) And you would have made 17 point was it 17.8 somewhere in there.

Zach Smith: (36:36) Yes, your math is better than mine.

Bridger Pennington: (36:38) So, that’s how that’s how the split happens. Now a lot of you asked about management fees, right? A lot of and I know a lot of funds charge these fees. Now, a lot of funds will charge upfront 2% management fee that they take off the top. So, in that scenario, you would take the, so the timeline it’d be 2% to me first, and then you would take 8% now refunds a little bit differently, do that, but just be simplistic that’s how they have a think about it. So, my dad told me this said Bridger if you’re going to charge a management fee, you need to have a license and set up a Registered Investment Advisor what it’s called. So, you have to have a series 65 or series 7, because you are giving investing advice to the fund, because there’s a little kind of a loophole here if you don’t charge management fees, and you only charge performance fees, meaning you only make money if the fund makes money. You don’t need to have a license to setup a fund. You don’t need to have a 65 or a 7 to set up a fund. And I was like, a-ha like that like that was like the coolest moment ever for me. So, right now I actually I do not hold any licenses currently I don’t have the 65 I hold a 7, and I don’t plan to the anytime in the future because I don’t charge man if he’s in my investors love that I say “hey, mister investor, Zack”, you’re an investor, I say hey, “I do -- I don’t make any money until you make at least 8% first”, not like nothing that’s all I make is just performance fees and infringement.

Thomas Alvord: (37:59) Hey Bridger I just have to jump in that is so awesome because you get into these other funds and you really don’t know what the return is. Or even if you’re looking at somebody else’s case studies and their prior funds and how much they made, it’s so hard to know what exactly happened. I mean, you run into issues with dry powder was the money deployed or not, because they usually track the IRR just on the deployed money, even though the money might have just been sitting there. But then you also run into these issues with fees, and they can hide stuff, and that is actually so powerful that you don’t have to get the license at any licensing and that you can just go and you do it on performance, and that’s how we actually started.

Zach Smith: (38:36) Yes, Thomas exactly what I was saying. I mean, that’s Funded Today. I didn’t even think of it that way but literally Funded Today. Let us run your project 25 to 35% and we’ll take a piece of it if we’re successful we’ll take nothing if we’re not.

Bridger Pennington: (38:47) Yes, I think it’s a great way to run a business, and it just you put your money where your mouth is and I was able to gain money from investors I would say relatively easily and I’m actually I’ve had too much money in her in our funds actually been sending money back to investors, because they love that’s just such an honest upfront deal to them, and they love it.

Zach Smith: (39:05) And now I’m going to keep my money in there forever, right?

Bridger Pennington: (39:10) Yes. And then another thing just to caveat with this though, let me just clarify some things. So, that’s on the fund side, you don’t need a license on the fund decide if you run it that way. Now, if you are doing commercial real estate, you someone on your team or you need a needs a commercial real estate license to buy and sell real estate, or if you’re going to be trading securities on the New York Stock Exchange, you need a license to be able to trade, but on the fund side of things you do not need license so just a caveat for those you know people running out there you know, have a license to trade but you can have you don’t have a license on the fund side of things, which is pretty cool and the way that I was able to start my fund relatively quickly, and that’s where we help a lot of our students or people I work with now to launch their funds and get them off the ground like you mentioned, or they just do it right, just get stuff done, That’s a fast way to just get moving and get in the process of launching starting a fund.

Zach Smith: (39:59) Now, that’s perfect, that’s great. Well, Bridger how to start a proper investment fund? Parting final wisdom advice and maybe a little bit of how to get in touch with you, I’m sure a lot of our listeners are going to be very interested and they maybe want to sign up for your course, or they want to connect with you or they got different questions what’s the -- what kind of advice or wisdom do you have both from a business level a personal level and then just anything that you’ve learned from your dad, from your mentors and then running your proper investment funds?

Bridger Pennington: (40:31) Yes, I’ll say this and this is something my dad has drilled into me since I was, I don’t know, four years old. It was this concept, and he said, Bridger, and he goes I think you guys probably agree most people know someone who has moved here from Thailand or Mongolia or Korea, okay, or Cuba, and they barely speak English, right? They can, they can barely even speak English. They move to the United States, and within four, five six years they have a laundromat, they have a restaurant and have another business they’re running, right they have three businesses, and they can’t even speak English, but because they move the United States they saw the opportunity they were able to flourish, and do actually better than most Americans who have lived here their entire lives. And he’s -- and my dad just drills my brain forever is a Bridger. It is almost academic In America, if you wake up every day, and you try, and you stay healthy, eventually you will succeed in America, and he there’s the analogy of getting up to the plate and swinging right? There are plenty of people on this planet that sit on the sidelines on the bench. They’re on Twitter, they like to make comments, or make fun of people or chat about the game, but they aren’t in the game themselves. And I knew if I just got up to the plate enough times and swing, the bat swing, just got up, I knew I would hit a single eventually and a double and maybe I’m going to hit a home run. And yes, I’m going to strike out a few times but at least I’m at the plate swinging, and most people in their life they never step out of the plate and if they do, they never actually take a full swing. They take a little half swing or a check, and they don’t go all in and you interview people on their deathbed when their 90 year old they regret, man I should have taken that chance or I should have started that business. And there is so much value in going and doing and especially since we live in such an amazing country of for entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurs are praised here right and rewarded for what they do. I-- my dad just he drills my brain I’ve just internalize it and use it just like there is there’s no reason I shouldn’t take a chance on myself, because if the last thing I’ll say too Is it is so hard to truly fail in America. Meaning, if you’re if it all goes to crap, right, you lose all your money, whatever there’s bankruptcy, right? It wipes all your debts clean right? Okay, that’s the first thing that you go even worse, right? You have Medicare, you have all these unemployment. You have so many safety nets to really truly hit rock bottom in America, meaning like you’re on the street, you’re homeless like it is hard to when you’re young.

Zach Smith: (43:13) You’re young, like someone like Bridger almost everybody listen this podcast is young. If you’re under, if you’re under 50 maybe if you’re under 60 you’re still young, in today’s economy.

Bridger Pennington: (43:22) Exactly.

Zach Smith: (43:22) You can make millions within five years like you have to you have to have that patience, you have to have that mindset, but you can take an incredible amount of risk and, and still be okay. And I love your baseball analogy. I just did a little bit of research. I’m cheating. I’m not the smartest baseball. So, all of you stat nerds, -- sorry the Ty Cobb is the best person in the history of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, and his batting average is a 366, 3662 36% of the time, he got on nearly set what 63% of the time he struck out or got, you know, builder’s choice got out, walked in count, right, whatever it is, I mean, and he’s the best person in the whole thing. So, think about that.

Bridger Pennington: (44:06) Yes, it’s incredible.

Zach Smith: (44:07) It’s incredible.

Bridger Pennington: (44:09) And I think in America just it’s low risk, high return, and most people don’t think about that, but it is really truly asymmetrical risk of you can go risk and you could be a multimillionaire or billionaire, it depends on how well you and you know the worst case scenario, it’s not that bad, right? Okay, you get a job working, you know, at some restaurant for and you can still pay rent like my rents been $300 to $600 a month for my pretty much still till now right there my entire life I just keep very low. I keep my expenses low so that I can take risks so that I can keep getting up to the plate, and guess what if I swing and miss Well, okay, you know, it’s not that much money to cover rent for the month and groceries. Now I know.

Zach Smith: (44:54) That’s a good mindset, because so many people are so scared of entrepreneurship. I think you’ve instilled a lot of faith in them that they can go and do something that maybe they’ve been terrified about doing for 10 years. So, take action. Take advice listen to Bridger. It’s true. It’s true for me. It’s true for Thomas it’s true for everybody we talked to I mean, you’re hearing these stories repeat and repeat as we bring on different guests to the Funded Today podcast. So, I love that that’s powerful Bridger.

Bridger Pennington: (45:14) Yes.

Zach Smith: (45:15) Thomas any other parting final words commentary?

Thomas Alvord: (45:20) I would add this comment. I was going to say it earlier I don’t want to be contrarian, but my viewpoints a little different. So, I’ll just share another viewpoint.

Zach Smith: (45:28) Perfect.

Thomas Alvord: (45:30) Bridger, you said when you met with your dad’s business partner at his house that he said he looked around and he said the people who have funds are wealthy I believe that’s true, especially if you grow a fund and in my opinion, how I understand it and I’ve never heard anyone else really share this or say this, but to me, the way somebody gets wealth, right, where their wealth can grow beyond what they just built hourly is you have to have equity in a business. Now, for an investment fund you have exposure or equity in those returns that are above the PREF that are above what the investors get and above your operating costs. So as a funds grows, as the business grows, as the profits grow, and you take dividends, you take home money, either yourself or with other business partners. You’re making money. And so you are able to make money based off of the collective work of other people or technology or whatever the case might be. And so while it’s true that Ray Dalio I don’t know the number you shared, it’s like, hey, he made or took home $2 billion, it’s like, well, if you compare it to say, Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon well, $2 billion is a good day for him, what he might make. You know, so I kind of looked and it’s like but again that doesn’t mean like “oh, you go start an e-commerce business, and you’re going to be wealthy” right? Because on the same token, it’s not just go start a fund and you’ll be wealthy obviously, like Zach Well, actually, this was on a different call. But as I was sharing, “the secret to work is work” if you keep working, if it’s not working, then you pivot, you try something different, but you keep working it’s the persistence. And so if you do that, but at the end of the day its owning a business is having equity in a fund, whatever it might be, and I went to law school, and it’s like, okay, yeah, attorneys make a lot of money, but it’s like, well, wait a second. Actually, you don’t make a lot of money. Because yes, you might go bill $300 an hour, but you’re only going to take home one-third of that. So really, when you bill you’re going to be taking home $100 per hour, it’s well, and it’s like okay well, if you were to build 40 hours a week, and to actually bill 40 hours would mean you would need to be working 45 or 50 or more hours per week, you’re only making 200,000. Now, I’m not saying that’s not a lot because that’s a lot of money by any measure, but relative to the partners who are making $3 million or $6 million, or whatever the case might be, it’s because they’ve grown a firm, they have a whole bunch of associates who are working under them, and they’re making money off of all of the off of all of their billable right? Again, it’s having equity in a business. And that’s why, why do you invest in real estate? Why do you invest in stocks, you’re getting equity in those assets. And as those grow, you make more money. But with a business owner, if the business takes off or with the fund, if the fund takes off, if it grows and continues to grow, your exposure, the amount of equity you have relative to the value is just going to be so big so.

Zach Smith: (49:03) And Thomas my argument there is, is --

Bridger Pennington: (49:06) No I agree with you too, and I when I was looking at the vehicles right and I agree with you owning a business is how most people create wealth, but I was looking at what type of business do I want to own I would say I reply that usually says my webinars but fund managers and tech founders, I at least you see are the on the top like Forbes there hundred people that’s who’s making all the money, right?

Thomas Alvord: (49:28) Exactly.

Bridger Pennington: (49:29) And so my idea was, well if I’m going to run a business I’m if I’m going to go all out if I’m going to swing for the fence, I don’t want to swing for the fence on like a restaurant, because restaurants have, you know, they don’t even if you’re doing very well, you’re not making that much money on one restaurant or two or five or, you know, I’d have to really, you know, scale this to a huge massive level, maybe IPO day to do anything like that. So, that was like picking a vehicle it’s easier to make money was kind of what I say, but I totally agree with you, with the and it doesn’t matter I don’t care if you own a fund or not, or run a tech company just I think just owning a business in general is the best place to start. Just get in the game and start, start, swinging.

Zach Smith: (50:03) All right, Thomas, Bridger. I’m going to make you both happy. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but this is from Episode 11 of the Funded Today podcast “Markets Matter Most” let’s just give a different definition of a fund, essentially, when you participate in the market you’re essentially part of a fund, like Funded Today is part of this crowdfunding fund. And that’s where we draw all of the revenue from Funded Today from. If you’re part of the stock market, you’re part of the larger S&P 500 or the NASDAQ, or the DOW essentially, we’re all we’re all participating in these markets for these funds, indirectly or directly depending on how you formalize things and so I don’t know, what do you think?

Bridger Pennington: (50:43) Not bad, yes. I mean, yes, that’s the I use it as a broad definition as well in there, so.

Zach Smith: (50:51) All right, well, this is awesome any other final words or commentary?

Bridger Pennington: (50:54) You mentioned before how to kind of reach out to us if you want to learn more, we have Investment Funds Secrets is our podcast solely as well unmanaged we specifically talk about how to launch and scale a fund. I have a live you know, webinar, hour training we go through all of this, how I launched my fund and how you know, you guys can do the same we have different programs I have a mastermind programme with all these different mentors that come on and teach and they give back essentially to help you launch and scale of fund. So, anyways, you can find me www.investmentfundssecrets.com or bridger_ pennington on Instagram is a great way to find me just shoot me a DM I usually respond to most I think almost all DM’s right now so anyways that’s a good way to find me and then also be watching I think Zack and Thomas we got some fun stuff coming out with you guys little partnership we got going on with your guys new programme and book and course and stuff so that should be fun to watch.

Zach Smith: (51:43) Absolutely, which leads us perfectly into our favorite segment of the show, this is the funded today, products of the week. Bridger give us a pitch on Investment Fund Secrets, I love it. I’m a part of it, obviously I joined your fund. Tell us a little bit about what it is why it’s great. What they can do to learn a little bit more about you, this is your chance to shine, give us the elevator pitch.

Bridger Pennington: (52:03) Yes, so like I mentioned before I have my dad who runs you know co-founder of a $20 billion family of funds, my brother securities attorney $300 million fund he works at and my last two funds. So, we thought we’ve been hit up by a lot of people asking how did you guys do this, none of you guys went worked on Wall Street. None of us have worked on Wall Street. None of us went to an Ivy League school. We’re just regular cause that have just figured out how funds work so what we decided to do is put together a programme and content online to help people launch and scale a fund without going to Harvard or you know, Ivy League School to with the entrepreneurial way, so what we’ve done in our in our high level mastermind programme I have six mastermind mentors, some of them running 100 million hundred million and even billion dollar funds currently right now and they want to give back to the next generation kind of like you guys with you know, your stuff want to give back to the next generation entrepreneurs want to help them so they come on and mentor our select group of people in our Mastermind Programme. To help them launch and scale funds. We had a handful people already launch multimillion dollar funds already, some of them in the $10 even $20 million range right now. And it’s been pretty cool to be a part of and launch and so that’s the quick elevator pitch, that’s in our Mastermind Programme. We have other smaller programme you can reach out and you know, learn more about but we just try it. We want to expose this secret world of funds. Not a lot of people talk about i. Nobody mentions how to structure it. I can’t even find content or books online. To do this we are having to build the whole bottle and process.

Zach Smith: (53:31) Are you saying books coming Bridger you’re going to be in person.

Bridger Pennington: (53:35) I, you know, give me a give me a year or two.

Zach Smith: (53:36) All right.

Bridger Pennington: (53:36) Books are hard to write as I’ve heard.

Zach Smith: (53:39) That’s what Thomas and I said, and spent three years now, awesome.

Bridger Pennington: (53:41) So, I’m going to spend my efforts doing other things first, and yes, we’ll put the book eventually, but yeah, that’s kind of the.

Zach Smith: (53:47) We’ll link to that in the show notes. Investment Fund Secrets, thank you Bridger, which leads us perfectly into my product of the week, Funded Today The Book, how to raise big money for your next big idea. This baby is finished. It is nearly 400 pages, but it’s good. It’s like a story you’re going to love it. It has been going through the wringer the last three years we’ve been in editing the last six months. I think it’s going to be the most incredible book ever written on crowdfunding. I know that sounds a little audacious to say, but I wrote it, I can say it right? It really is amazing. It’s not going cost you very much. Maybe $20 $30 bucks Let me know if you want to get on the early bird list that we will be launching probably within 30 days. So Bridger is going to hold me to it “Funded Today, The Book”, more details coming soon on that. And that segues perfectly to Thomas his product. Thomas, tell us about the video course that we’re actually partnering with Bridger on. It’s also going to include eight weeks of kind of like what Bridger doesn’t fit product, we’re going to bring in the experts. We’re going bring people that we’ve worked with to raise millions of dollars, Thomas, and I are going to come on once per week, we’re going to have a live session, kind of like on Zoom or a Webinar, or we’re going to talk with the experts we’re going to share secrets. We’re going to get in everything. We’re calling it Crowdfunding Secrets, Thomas, anything else you want to add on that?

Thomas Alvord: (54:52) I think you just set it off for me. But check it out.

Zach Smith: (54:55) I was too excited.

Thomas Alvord: (54:56) If you’re looking at launching a Crowdfunding Campaign, or exploring your idea more, check it out, because this will be super valuable.

Zach Smith: (55:04) Awesome, thank you. All right, Bridger. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. This was awesome. I think Funded Today Nation is going to absolutely love this podcast. Appreciate you coming on man.

Bridger Pennington: (55:13) Thank you, so much.

Zach Smith: (55:14) Till next time, everybody, don’t wait until tomorrow get Funded Today.

Announcer: (55:20) Funded today is the worldwide leader in rewards based Crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Combined, they have raised over $200 million and counting for thousands of new ideas and inventions worldwide. If you’ve got, an idea for a new product or invention visit fundedtoday.com to speak with one of their experts.