Axiom Alpha

Hosted by Ricky Nave

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Apr 2024

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About the show

A dogma-free podcast for unapologetic capitalists. I talk about how to build highly defensible businesses as fast as the laws of physics allow.

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10 recent

April 5, 202442 min

How to Start a $50 Million Trade Association | Jason Haber & Mauricio Umansky

There is a real estate business that is currently raising $50-100 million using the OpenAI playbook: combining non-profit and for-profit entities. This real estate business isn't a brokerage though. It's a trade association! A competitor to NAR, but without NAR's drama. In today's episode of Axiom Alpha, I interview Jason Haber about how he teamed up with a celebrity cofounder to launch the American Real Estate Association (AREA). We talk about his PR strategy, how he plans to overcome NAR's network effect, and how AREA is building a community to attract new members.

March 4, 20241 hr 1 min

How One Guy Built a 6-Figure Consulting Business in 5 Months (from 20k Twitter Followers)

Aleksey Chernobelskiy built a 6-figure consulting business for real estate investors in less than 5 months, using only his Twitter audience of 20k people. This is the story of how he did it.

February 21, 202457 min

Crowdfunding $1.3 Million to Start a Real Estate Brokerage

Charles Schwab has a market cap of $116 billion, but it was only created in 1974 when the SEC de-regulated stock trading commissions. Charles Schwab the man took advantage of that opportunity to create what is now the largest discount stock brokerage in the U.S. A few months ago, the real estate industry had an early warning signal that its SEC moment may be coming. The National Association of Realtors and all the largest brokerages lost a multi-billion commissions lawsuit. I started looking around for startups that were already positioned to take advantage of this lawsuit, and I found SimpleShowing -- a discount real estate brokerage which, unlike redfin, is actually profitable. So I interviewed SimpleShowing's founder & CEO, Fred McGill, about how he built his business, and especially about how he raised almost $1.3 million through crowdfunding when all the VCs turned him away.

February 14, 202446 min

Building a One-Man $50 Million Asset Management Company in Tennessee

Gabe Pincus was a not-so-successful entrepreneur when he got engaged. Ten years later, he is running a $50 million investment management business that is largely automated through software. He makes money while he sleeps, has 3 kids, and is looking for his next business opportunity. In this podcast, he talks about how he built his business, how he manages his own money, and how much he spends to maintain his lifestyle.

February 1, 20241 hr 15 min

From Flipping Homes to Flipping Websites to Building a Startup to Replace Realtors | Amanda Orson

Amanda Orson is "the most interesting woman in the world" -- She's flipped both websites and houses, built & sold multiple businesses, advised venture capitalists, lived on a Farm amongst Amish neighbors, and her entire latest startup rests on a bold bet against the entire real estate brokerage industry. Amanda's startup: https://galleon.io/ Read about more interesting companies: https://axiomalpha.com/

January 22, 202426 min

How He Went From $0 to $10s of Millions in AUM In Less Than 9 Months

Sean Meunier is a 2nd time business builder. The first company he co-built was a high-end fitness club which was eventually acquired. His second company is a wealth management company that has already grown incredibly rapidly, from 0 to 23 clients and tens of millions of dollars in assets under management in less than 1 year. In this interview, we talk about how he's building his business.

January 19, 202430 min

How a Solo Founder is Taking on the $12 Billion Medical Records Industry | Rachel Draelos

Rachel Draelos has an MD & a PhD in computer science from Duke, and she created an AI health-tech company with the ambitious goal of taking on the $12 billion U.S. medical records industry. In this interview, we talk about how Rachel got her first customers, her pricing strategy, what kind of technology she is using to build her core product, and possible partnership strategies that Rachel may use as distribution channels.

January 1, 20241 hr 11 min

How Giselle Abadi Built a Multi-Million Dollar Wordpress Plugin & Then Turned it Into a CoreLogic Competitor

Realtyna is a proptech (property technology) company that provides software that helps real estate brokers connect their websites to MLSs (multiple listing services). In this episode of Axiom Alpha, I interview Giselle Abadi, cofounder & CTO of Realtyna. Realtyna started as a simple Joomla plugin, which eventually became a Wordpress plugin. Now, Realtyna also provides a data subscription service to let brokers pull property listing data from over 200 MLSs in the U.S. And most recently, Realtyna built a competitor to CoreLogic's FlexMLS product that lets brokers in other countries create new MLSs.

November 16, 202357 min

Why the South Florida Housing Market Hasn't Collapsed Yet | Miami Chief Economist Interview

In this episode, I interview Gay Cororaton, Chief Economist of the Miami Realtor Association. The number of homes being sold each month in southeast Florida has fallen, but not as much as the national average. And the price of homes in southeast Florida has increased much more than the national average over the last year. Why is the Florida housing market not reacting to much higher interest rates in the same way that other major metros are? That's what Gay and I talk about in this interview. International buyers, a demographic wave of retirees moving to Florida, and a growing finance Miami finance sector all play a role.

November 1, 20231 hr 15 min

How Dave Hall Built a Billion Dollar Laboratory Nobody Knows About (in an Opportunity Zone)

Howard Tracy Hall invented man-made diamonds. He created Hall Labs to monetize his invention, and that company is now part industrial empire, part family office, and part venture studio. Today, Hall Labs owns a portfolio of almost 1,000 patents and has built and exited multiple $100+ million spin-offs. These spin-offs have large, patent-protected moats, and nearly all of them are also opportunity zone businesses which come with tax advantages for investors. Hall’s biggest portfolio company is Vanderhall, an EV powersports company that is profitable after only $25 million of funding. Vanderhall is considering an IPO soon. Hall’s biggest current bet is on built-to-rent apartment complexes that don’t have to connect to any public utilities. Hall Labs is currently run by Howard Tracy’s son, Dave Hall. In this episode, I interview Dave about how Hall Labs allocates money and people to different portfolio companies, how they raise money from opportunity zone investors, how they hire talented engineers on an hourly basis with no benefits, and why most startups purporting to solve the housing problem are bullshit.