(upbeat music) I'm Rachel Horgan. Join me each episode as I sit down with a guest co-host covering the latest business stories in the Seattle area. We'll read the news so you don't have to. This is The Weekly. Okay, hey everybody. If you missed it on the socials, Zillow posted about the podcast on their LinkedIn, which was just so wild to see they have 400,000 followers. I just am blown away 'cause this is such a fun, I did this podcast project for Funzies in my living room and to see a company like Zillow posting about it has been really validating. So thank you to everyone that's listening and sharing and talking about it. I started it to make business news more approachable and accessible and fun. So hopefully that's happening. And again, it just felt really cool to see. So check it out on the socials. And then my personal life for work, I don't know if you guys are interested in that and this kind of stuff. Like I messaged me on Instagram on The Weekly Seattle. What do you guys wanna hear at the top of these programs? I've kind of been doing a mix of personal life updates and podcast updates, but if you have something specific, let me know. I do wanna say that I'm doing freelance corporate event planning, so I had a June client that just wrapped up and then I have another client July to November. So I'll be joining their team, helping them plan a user conference. And then I have a few one-offs in addition to that. So like street fairs and sales meetings and things like that. So that's my life. Yeah, what else do you guys wanna hear at the top? I am here in post alley by the gum wall with our guests today, Jebediah Gardner. Hello. - Hey, how you doing Rachel? - Doing well. So you are the CEO and founder of Gardener Global. I'm gonna read a little bit more about you and we'll kind of learn about why you got into this business. But Jebediah is an African-American, Mexican-American businessman, multifamily real estate developer, fund manager, author, and then the founder, like I said founder and CEO of Gardener Global, a privately held holding company here in Seattle. Prior to development, Jebediah worked for Turner Construction, building commercial high rises in downtown. And he, I don't know if actually this is current, I pulled this from your website, so you can correct me. Currently I had a pipeline of 800 plus units and over 210 million in total projects costs on urban infill sites and Seattle's most gentrified neighborhoods. Is that still true or is there updated? - What about 250? - 250 now. - We love to hear that. Okay. All right, well, so clearly you're passionate about, well, it seems like you're passionate a lot, but it appears like multifamily real estate is kind of your focus right now. Why is that? - Yeah, this is year 15 of business for me and the team, Gardener Global. I'm super passionate about it because once I learned how wealth is created and maintained, I realized quickly that that was something that didn't exist in my world and my family. So I set out to create a business plan to do just that, and I realized that real estate is a wealth center in this country. It's a couple of pockets that do that. Healthcare is crazy if you're on that side of the table, big pharma, right? And real estate is obviously one of them. So I was close to it as a project engineer, as a builder, I'm working for Turner, so I got to learn the business and I was like, okay, well, how does somebody have $150 million to just pay somebody else to build? Like, how do they even do that? So I just started asking questions like crazy, and then got to the center of it and was like, oh, that's a developer who cuts those checks. Well, who's a developer? How does a developer get that? So I just got really obsessed and I'm still obsessed and just been on a rampage ever since to help not just ourselves but other folks in my community to learn how to maintain it, build it, and then maintain it. - Yeah. Yeah, well, we're gonna get more into your story and your advice here on some of these stories. So we've got five for you today. New project in Central District. Our first story, our second story, is there's a Washington program for first-time homebuyers of color. Third story is a plastic surgeon office. Fakes reviews. Fourth story is Idaho Investment Company buys a first-till tower, and our fifth story is what's happening with Warren Buffett's money after he dies. So you ready to get into it? - I'm ready. - Okay. So this first article, I'm gonna do my best to explain it, but really I pulled it. I'm kind of experimenting with a new format here in that I use one article that is about my guest. So this one is all about you. Well, your company. Gardener Global acquired a property on 23rd and Union. It will have 112 new apartment homes above street-level commercial spaces with underground parking, and then you also received a $4.5 million grant from Amazon to boost this project. So that's what I gathered from this article. I know it's a little bit older. Is there new information that you wanna add to this? - Or is there new information? - Yeah, when was that dated? 'Cause there was one that just came out maybe three weeks ago. - I think it was. - Set to rise. It might have been the same one, let me see. Yeah, me. I think this is the latest one. Yeah, there's a couple nuances there. So the first thing is we have to get the ball rolling. So the article says 112 units, but we might be closer to 120. - Oh, wow. - So we'll see how that goes. We're literally in design now. So we're configuring unit types, shapes, all the things to make sure that the design lends itself to a building that is amazing, but also like financially works. - Right, yeah. - Those things need to marry. And then secondly, the Amazon grant was not used to purchase or wasn't used for this site. So a lot of people get confused. So I bought two pieces of property on the same street. So Mount Calgary Christian Center owned the church itself and then they owned the property across the street, which is known as the Joshua Teen Center. We call it the Teen Center for short. So I was in contract to purchase both with Bishop. So I was able to close out the Sarah Queen. We call the Sarah Queen. We'll talk about that later, what that means. In partnership with Heartland and Laird Norton, which is a family office, local family office here in Seattle. And then the project across the street, Amazon grant a garden global four and a half million. And I use that to buy out the remaining church's property across the street. And the next door to the Teen Center was a property owned by Ian or Uncle Ike. And so he was gracious enough to say, "Hey, I'll sell you this piece of property "and I can assemble it." So I used his purchase his property and the Teen Center property with Amazon's four and a half million dollar grant. So we got about four and a half, 14,000 plus square feet of land for that. - Take it over, take it over Central District. - Is about a half a block total, 28,000 or sorry, half an acre total, total about 28, 29,000 square feet for both combined. So about half an acre. - And why was that location so important too? Why were you looking over there? - Yeah, it's just interesting how it happens. This isn't my first deal, or first deal I've chased. I've chased like 80 deals and then finally one hits, right? And so this was interesting because I had a friend of mine in my network who was like, "Hey, I think the bishop "was getting ready to sell his property." So I didn't really think about it. I wasn't really, it wasn't on my radar until I connected with a friend and then I reached out to the bishop and the church and he was like, "Yeah, I'm about to sell this thing." I was like, "Well, wait a minute." - Yeah, I'm in. And I think I can get you some money for that. - Yeah. - And shout out to the bishop because none of this would have happened if it wasn't for him. He had an opportunity to sell to anybody he wanted to in the market. He was getting letters and phone calls galore from every developer in the city wanting to purchase his property and he chose to allow Gardner Global the opportunity to purchase. So he didn't have to work with us, right? - Why do you think that was? - I mean, I think in the spirit of trying to create generational wealth within the black community. I think it was important for him. I think he knew too that there's some responsibility there. The central district's been gentrified, et cetera, there's a lot of issues there. And he took a leap of faith and gave me an opportunity to step up and acquire it and to begin that chain reaction of wealth building, right? Passing down assets within the community. I still had to cut him a fat check or it wasn't like he was just like, here you go. But he didn't even have to, you know, do that. So shout out to the bishop. You know, that's my guy. - Yeah, that's awesome. So we've briefly mentioned, but the project is called Sarah Queen. Is it the whole project? Or is it one building is called Sarah Queen? - Yeah, just one building is the Sarah Queen. - So why did you name it though? - Sarah Queen building is named after my late grandmother. She passed in '87. She was taken from us. And there's just so many lines of synergy that it just made sense. So number one, like my grandmother was a church going woman. Like Monday through Monday, she was in church. She was from Spokane, not from Spokane, but you know, settled roots in Spokane. So for me buying a church meant something there. And when she passed, she was buried at a church in Spokane called Calvary. And so that was kind of like, whoa, like I'm purchasing a church called Mount Calvary. She was laid the rest in a church called Calvary in Spokane. She was known to be a church going woman. I'm buying a church like what is happening here? So I kind of felt like in a like weird spiritual way, she was like speaking to me. And she was like, this is my building. You just like, you better name it up to me. - I looked, do you believe in like the universe and like getting signs or things like that? - Yeah, I'm big on the universe. I mean, I mean, you see what I have playing. Like it's nothing but stars and universal images and videos in my office. 'Cause I think the universe is massively important in how we maneuver through the world. So yeah, I think that had a lot to do with it for sure. But I'm naming the building after her. She just an amazing, she was considered a pioneer in Spokane. She was one of the earliest, one of the first few black women who owned a business, like had several businesses in Spokane, like brick and mortar. And so I think for me to be an entrepreneur and businessman and whatnot and kind of carry that legacy, it just only was right to name the building after her. And then again, like wealth is more to me than just like assets and monetary wealth. It's like, you know, legacies. Well, like what kind of legacies are we carrying to the future, you know? And so I wanna begin that process with naming the building after her. - That's fantastic. Before we go to the next story, do opening date, do we have an opening date for this building or estimated or we're not gonna say publicly because-- - We got some time. We have to get through the city's permitting process. That's gonna take, you know, maybe a year and a half. And then we gotta build, which will probably take a couple years. So we got about two and a half years, maybe three before we're done, done. But, you know, we'll be dripping out some news, you know, as things progress. And so we're keeping people updated 'cause we plan on having a really, you know, amazing turnout for a ribbon cutting and all that fun stuff. - Yeah, give me a holler, I'll be there. Okay, our next story, we're staying kind of in line with Homebuying, that's the theme of today's episode a little bit, but Washington is trying to address decades of housing discrimination. So they launched what's called Covenant Homeownership Program last week. So qualifying homebuyers can apply for zero interest loans and those loans don't need to be repaid until the home in our cells or refinances. Qualifying means that they lived in the state before April of 1968 or a descendant of someone who did. They're looking at their income. I mean, there's a lot of things that they have to do to qualify. I don't need to get into all of that. And then the way that they're funding that is that there's a $100 fee on recorded documents fee. So I had to look that up and you probably know well about this, but every time you sell a property or buy a property, you have to have a document that solidifies that and there's a fee on it, right? That's my understanding. - Pretty much. - Yeah, so they added this $100 fee, which will go to fund it. They've raised $20 million so far and that could fund 130 down payments. Towards the end of the article, you see that California launched a similar program and they ran through $300 million in 11 days. So there's some concern about whether this is going to last long enough. I mean, maybe it still does some good. Anyway, I kind of wanted to get your take. What are your initial thoughts about this program? - Shout out to the Washington State Finance Housing Commission, Steve Walker and his team for taking these steps. It's a big elephant, one bite at a time. So I think it's amazing that we have a program in our state that is beginning to nip away or chip away at this wealth gap issue through homeownership. Obviously, it's not enough, but we got to start somewhere. So I'm excited that there is something, at least, like on the books that is going to start in practice, being in practice, and then ideally it builds from there. So they get to 100, 200 million in the next five or 10 years or something. But I think it's, I mean, without going into crazy detail about it, if you don't have a mechanism to address disenfranchisement from several groups of people, then how do you expect your economy locally to thrive if those folks continue to be suffering? And so for me, it's like, if you want the economy locally within our state to thrive and get to the next level and be competitive globally, then you got to give everybody the opportunity to win, period. And if that means creating a path lane to homeownership, then that's what it is. It's funny, though, I'll just say this one little piece. It's like, it was so easy for folks back then to discriminate and to put in practice ways to keep people from owning homes. It was so easy for them to do that. They put that in a covenant, and it was done, or they put it on the books, and it was done. But when we try to go back and address it, it's like the hardest thing in the world to try to, like-- Oh, for sure, that's not fair, like, OK. It's like, so why is it so hard for us to go back and address it? It was so easy for them to be racist, but when we're trying to, like, rectify the racism, it's like, everyone has a-- oh, we got-- we don't know if it's legal to do with-- now we're going about the legality of creating home ownership for people of color. But so for me, it's just kind of like the, like, are you kidding me? Like, just get it done, stop talking. We know what the issue is. For sure, I think-- I don't believe this, but I think to the counter is like, well, that's not fair. Like, we should treat everybody, regardless of their race. Everyone should-- all first-time buyers should have help, whatever, but they do have those programs. They do have programs to help first-time buyers, and the disparity with race is still there. So-- and it's also-- we're ignoring history, if you do that. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's just kind of like-- it's a no-brainer conversation for me. It's like those folks came from a place of privilege, and they have the power to create laws, to literally disenfranchise folks economically. And all we're trying to do is get those same folks back to a level where they can just float and not drown, and it's like an issue. It's like, you weren't worried about equality back then, so why are you worrying about it now? Yeah, so true. I agree. Yeah, I'm with you. So it's a good thing for Washington. I'm glad they're doing it. Is there anything you wanted to share about this program? Any thoughts on that? No, I just-- I'm excited. I'm excited that it's going, and I hope that they get the word out so people-- Black and brown people get on top of it. Like, I hope they market it directly to our community so that way folks know about it, and it's not a miss. So yeah, so I'm here for it. Yeah, same. OK, our third story. Well, a little juicy one. I got to throw one in every once in a while here. Allure aesthetic is owned by Dr. Javed Sajan, and he must pay $5 million to the state attorney general's office and thousands to Washingtonians after being accused of lots of things, like manipulating customer reviews, making patients sign NDA agreements, altering before and after pictures, keeping rebates that were supposed to go to patients. He sued patients. He's threatened to sue patients. If they did negative reviews, he's paid them to take them down. I mean, this is just-- it's not just faking reviews. There's a lot more that he's done here, or his company. So $1.5 million of that $5 million is going to go to Washington state residents who were impacted by this, and then the rest goes to Ferguson's office for attorney fees and enforcing what they agreed to of not doing it again, basically. So if you were affected, you could get $50 or $120. OK, so I'm going to say, obviously, this was wrong. But let's talk about ethics in business and ethical challenges. Do you feel like you are faced with ethical decisions in residential real estate? Have you seen other companies do some shady shit? Yeah, no. Every day is an opportunity to not make the right decision. Clearly, let's do too thirsty, too thirsty for business. You can't substitute hard work. Put it in the hard work, and you don't have to worry about having to post fake reviews. Like, what are you talking about? I also think it's indicative of our broader culture these days is people want immediate gratification, and they turn to social media and try to get that there. And they falsely market and advertise their services because they're so thirsty. And they think it's easy. And it is easy because people these days don't really like take the time to do research on certain things. So they just go, oh, yes. This place got five star review, let's just go. Versus doing some digging, doing some little research. But in real estate in general, there's always an opportunity to do something fucked up. It is what it is, from brokerage, from home buying and selling through lenders, developers. I mean, there's always an opportunity to do it. But we push to maintain the highest levels of morality and ethics, A, because I'm a black-owned business. And I'm always under a microscope. I'm in a space where it's very, very few of me here in Seattle buying up swaths of land and building buildings. And so people are always trying to pay attention. So I have to make sure that teas are crossed and eyes are dotted. And also, I wasn't raised to take shortcuts. I was raised to take the stairs, not the elevator, put in the work. I couldn't leave the dinner table without doing my homework. I just couldn't do-- like, they wouldn't-- my grandkids would not let me get off the table until I finished my homework. And so for me, it's like, I don't play. I don't enjoy life until the work is done. And I think a lot of people don't do that. They shortchange themselves. And they put in half the work, and then go outside and play. And then half the work is still left to be done. And then they come back and they go, how am I going to make up that half of the work? Then they do some shady shit. And then they make fake reviews. Versus, like, staying at the table and getting it done. So yeah, like, I don't know. And the social media doesn't help, you know? Yeah, I mean, a couple of things come up for me on this one. I think that there's always going to be a little bit of white lies in selling and running a business. I think I kind of both talked about that. But those are like-- those don't feel like they're crossing a line, like, "He crossed here," obviously. I think you're really taking advantage of people and deceiving people. Yeah. Yeah, this deception is a totally other ballgame. You know, honesty is the best policy and you've got to take your lumps. You know, take your lumps, get through it. And then you learn. That's how you learn. And then you get to do it right. And then when you do it right, then people just notice. And then it's word of mouth. And then all of a sudden, the business is booming. You don't even have to shortchange anybody. Well, let's talk about that. Because this is, obviously, we're dealing with marketing here. And I think more and more people aren't doing the traditional marketer. I think more and more people are using social media and influencers and things like that. You've done a great job of, I think, of marketing yourself and positioning yourself as this real estate giant here. And you are also a speaker and you're just kind of out there a lot. Do you have advice for people on wanting to market their business or themselves? Interesting. Well, number one, I'm not a giant. I am a guppy and a pond of giants. Okay. I'm more like a baby shark. That's what I consider myself. Okay. I'm like a baby shark amongst bigger sharks. Because there's so much more to learn in the game. Thank you to all my mentors and folks who supported. You know, you are. Yeah. I mean, that's such an interesting question. So I feel like if you don't know your product, if you don't know your services, if you don't know yourself, you're going to have a very tough time marketing yourself or marketing anything. And, you know, I know my mission. I know the vision. I know the goal. And I know myself. And I know what I'm passionate about. I know what I'm hungry about. I know what I want to do. I know what the mirror looks like that I've been painting. And that really, really, really has been helpful to marketing myself in the business. If you don't know those things, you're going to market yourself in ways that might not be aligned with what you thought. And so I think a lot of people have products and ideas. And they think that they can pay for advertising online, which you can. That's a thing. But people see right through that. If it's not real and it's not organic. And I think a lot of people should spend more time trying to figure themselves out in their business and their product before they jump to like, oh, I'm going to just, I'm going to pay Facebook $100 this month and see how many likes I can get. Like, if you have more followers than money in your bank account, you should probably take a step back and rewind and think about what you're doing. Like, yeah, I have 80,000 followers. Do you have 80 grand in your bank account? And then it doesn't matter. Or are those 80,000 people giving you a dollar every month? That's 80 grand a month. Like, where's that business plan? I'm here for that. But if you're not doing that, then what are you doing? So for me, I just feel like you got to really know yourself, know your product, and then be honest about what you're good at, what you're not good at. I think a lot of people in business, you know, especially like founders, a little bit of like founder syndrome is like, I founded the company. It's my company and my vision. But that might not jive with the market. It might not jive with your clients. And you got to be open to having a team to tell you that. And then you need to be open-minded enough to like, go with that and say, it's not all about my vision. Like, I have a vision, but like, that vision isn't really creating business. So what vision will, you know? Yeah, definitely. No, that's good. I agree. I watched a couple of your interviews before this and I got really fired up about. Uh-oh. I got fired up about like, you know, just doing the hard work like you said, and founding a company. And yeah, so I appreciate those words. Okay, our fourth story is an Idaho investment company scoops up first-till tower at a discount. So a 17-story first-till apartment tower sold for $20 million less than it did five years ago. It was bought by an Idaho based company. Like I said, it's called Roundhouse Central. We'll still operate it though. So Roundhouse owns it, but Central operates it and that's a Denver based company. Uh, to give you a sense of what type of apartments that is, um, unfinished one bedroom, year leases are between 2300 and 2700. So not a huge story, but I think it gives you an opportunity. I want to hear a little bit more from you about kind of the market in general. So we're hearing that housing prices are going up. Why do you think this is $20 million less to buy an apartment complex? Uh, you know, residential housing and commercial real estate, there are definitely two different beasts. There's a lot of interconnectedness there. Um, but when housing prices go up, that usually means there's a shortage in supply, um, or a rise in interest rates that prevents people from wanting to buy a home. Um, so I think, I think there's a lot of factors that contribute into rising home prices. And, um, and commercial real estate, it's like the wall while west. Like it's literally like anything goes. It's totally different from residential. So who knows what the underlying deal markers were for that situation, right? Um, I think market for sure, um, is, is a driver. Um, but you never know, like a, a lot of these, um, a lot of developers and, and owners of commercial business, commercial offices and, and, and multifamily buildings like their back might be against the wall. You know, they might have some debt coming up soon and they typically like these groups have massive portfolios. And for them taking a $20 million haircut isn't the worst thing in the world to plug a whole somewhere else. Right? Um, so I think there's some market forces that play also just individually. Um, like within each company, they all have their own strategies. Like the folks roadhouse, I think they, they're long-term holders. So for their, their vision going into this is like, we're going to get a really good deal and we're going to hold it. Right? I don't know what the selling groups idea was. Maybe their idea was to hold for seven years and then be out. Um, obviously their deals, your deal going into is never to lose $20 million. Right? Um, but I, I just think that, you know, interest rates is an issue for a lot of folks, like trying to refinance could be a problem. So, you know, um, so yeah, I, I, yeah, I think there's several factors that, you know, that they're looking at their portfolio of different properties. Whereas an individual buying a home is typically just looking at their one home. Yeah, it's totally different. And like the way you think about it is totally different as well. It's like, like this is an investment tool vehicle. This is an investment vehicle. Um, and it's just one vehicle amongst probably hundreds. Yeah. When a single family home is like, for most people, they're in the family, it's the vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. It's the one and only for sure. So this article talks about an Idaho based company purchasing it. Would you purchase property outside of Seattle? And if so, I mean, where would you even begin to look? Is that important to you? Absolutely. It's Gardner Global for a reason. Do you currently have stuff outside of Washington or are you looking to do that in the future? Yeah, I know. We definitely have our eyes open to very specific markets outside of Washington state for sure that we're excited about. But the great thing is like we have so much work here, like our body of work here is plentiful. And so we want to make sure that we execute at a high level here on all of our deals and all of our projects. And then leveraging all that comes with that to enter into those markets. There's no rush, like there's no rush for us to jump into any, any place that we want to go. Um, we just like to do things right before we move on. And so, I mean, those cities aren't going anywhere for us last. I check. There's so many choices I'd be overwhelmed. Yeah. I mean, like, I love, I love Atlanta. Um, I love Vancouver, British Columbia. I like Chicago a lot. DC's interesting. Um, so for like domestic American cities, those, those cities are on our radar for sure, for sure. Okay. Well, yeah, keep us posted. Okay. Moving on to our last story, Warren Buffett's financial plan. So he's 93 years old and he has been a massive funder of the Gates Foundation. We're talking $40 billion between 2006 and last year. So the article says that nearly all of his wealth will go to a newly created trust overseen by his three children. So they, and they each run their own foundation in addition to this trust that they'll be getting. The quote he told the Wall Street Journal was the Gates Foundation has no money coming after my death. I, I'm curious your thoughts, but I feel like the article is a little misleading because he's giving his three kids all his money. So there is a chance that the Gates Foundation will get the money from the kids. So I feel like I should have maybe read a little bit different. What did you gather from the article? Uncle Warren, if you're not going to pass that down to the Gates Foundation after you pass, Gardner Global is here to help administer that situation. Yeah. Right. We'll help you out. Um, yeah, that's, I mean, it's interesting. Um, again, like what an example of what it means to have wealth to be able to even like make a decision like that. Like, whoa, that's, that's almost, can't even fathom that. So I am like, before I even can even get to like what I make, think about the situation, I'm like, could you imagine sitting in your living room and be like, well, I'm going to give away the rest of this hundred billion dollars. Like, that's crazy to me. Also, like, that's what we're shooting for, right? Um, I like that he's giving it to his kids and his kids can decide what to do. Like, hopefully his kids care about the Gates Foundation, but maybe they're their own project that they really want to care about. And so, yeah, we'll find out. I mean, you know, I don't even know. I just, I just know that like, there's a lot of groups out there, a lot of foundations and a lot of nonprofits that do really incredible work. And, you know, hopefully they're looking outside of the Gates Foundation because there's some really amazing groups doing some boots on the ground that work, helping the world in different ways. And maybe, maybe it was that. Maybe it was like, look, we've had our tenure together. We've had our run together Gates Foundation. Maybe we're going to give our, a chance to other groups to flourish and help the world. They're getting divorced. Your tagline on your brand on your website says, let's build wealth. What do you commonly find yourself telling people on advice on how to do that? Let's build wealth. I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out myself. Yeah. Relatable. Like, what is wealth? Where does it come from? What? Like, I literally like, I don't come from wealth, so I'm learning about it. And I just make sure I surround my people, surround myself around people who have in-depth experience and knowledge with it. Right? And so, you know, when I say it is really like, when I say let's build wealth, hey, I'm saying that in a collective manner. Like, let's do it together. Like, let's go Rachel. Yeah. Let's build some wealth. Right? And there's many ways to do that. And then secondly, I say it because it's like, I believe in the universe and I believe in the power of, like, manifestation. And when you put something out there, it's going to come back. So, when I say let's build wealth, like, I'm putting that out in the universe. And I'm putting it out there for folks that kind of, like, tune in. Like, yeah, let's collectively do this. I can't do it by myself. Mm-hmm. Like, I can't. Just, like, nobody can. Yeah. Unless you were one of those folks who have been lucky enough to be part of a family who trusted you. Unless you're Warren Buffett's kids. Unless you're Warren Buffett's kids. That's all. That's basically what I was going to say. I guess, maybe one more question before you wrap. But speaking of investments, what was your first investment? And, or do you want to talk about an investment mistake? Man, tons of this investment mistakes. My first investment, that's such a great question. I thought about that when you sent it in the email. I was like, what was my first investment? And I started thinking about the properties that I, the first properties that I purchased. And I was like, no, that wasn't it. I bought this 311 square foot studio in First Hill in, like, 2006. And I was going to say, oh, that was my first investment. But it wasn't. My first investment was me. I was just going to say that I, because you have, we're here in your office and it says believe in yourself back there. So I was, I was wondering if you were going to say that. Yeah, no, like I invested in myself. Yeah. I had an idea and I had to fund that idea. And that idea was a belief in myself that I can create a real estate development firm that would create wealth and also impact others in a positive way. So I had to, like, fund myself and figure out how to do that. And also I had to, like, get an education and I went to law school. And so I continued to feed myself intellectually, educationally. And then I didn't have any resources as far as money goes. So the little bit that I had, I would just put that into building the business. Like, I needed business cards. I needed a website. I needed a Gmail account. Like, so first investment is myself and I will never read it. Yeah. Now it's working for you. And as far as, like, investments that, like, hasn't, haven't gone the way that I would hope is in my book, actually, which is believing yourself business essentials for the millennial entrepreneur. Believing yourself business essentials for the millennial, millennial entrepreneur found on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and everywhere else, anywhere else online. In that book, I described one of the first real kind of gut punches I took when I purchased a duplex in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my first kind of technical real estate investment. And bought it and renovated it and cash-flowed it for a little bit. And then it burned down. Oh. All when I was in law school. Oh, my God. Okay. So, like, you know, when they, when they, the, the saying of like, oh, you know, that investment went up in flames or might do literally, literally went up in flames. Like, are you kidding me? This is crazy. I thought it was over. I thought everything was over. I was like, I'm not, I'm not a developer. I'm not a business person. Like, this is not for me. What are you telling me? And definitely was depressed for a while, but I had to work through it. So that was an example of me making an investment into real estate and it literally just blew up. Wow. Oh, my God. So for all the folks out there who are like, you know, second guessing whether you can make it through it. I just want to let you know that you can and let, let me be an example of like, you can take, take those hard punches, but just get back up. I love that. I think that's a great way to end it. Is there anything else you want the audience to know or to plug? No, I just really want to thank everybody who supported Gardener Global, everybody who's been, you know, our cheerleaders, you know, just as folks who are out there and folks who are kind of behind the scenes for us. My team, I appreciate my team so much to keep the engine going. And then just for anybody out there who doesn't come from a place of wealth, who doesn't come from a household, two parent household, for those who like knows what hunger feels like when you wake up in the morning. There's nothing in the fridge. Just keep going. Just keep believing in yourself and make sure you put the work before play. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Jebediah. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This has been The Weekly. Make sure to check back next Sunday for the latest local business news. We love listener feedback, so if you have any story suggestions, comments, or complaints, email us at theweeklyseattle@gmail.com. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. (keyboard clicking) [ Silence ]
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About guest co-host Jaebadiah Gardner - Founder & CEO, Gardner Global:
Jaebadiah is an African-American, Mexican-American businessman, multi-family real estate developer, fund manager, author and is the Founder & CEO of GardnerGlobal, Inc. a privately held holding company here in Seattle. Prior to development, Jaebadiah worked for Turner Construction building commercial high-rises in downtown Seattle.
Host Rachel Horgan:
Rachel is an independent event producer, emcee and entrepreneur. She worked for the Business Journal for 5 years as their Director of Events interviewing business leaders on stage before launching the weekly podcast. She earned her communication degree from the University of San Diego.
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