And my idea, you know, was one where, you know, VCs and angels thought it didnt have a chance. And I realized that I was unhappy. Lets do it. Joshua Dorkin is a serial entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, publisher, and educator. Its not money, its not success, but its something that matters even more: fulfillment and family.Be sure to give Joshua a follow on Twitter at @jrdorkinCheck the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show421 $4%&'()*56789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz ? Find which one works best for you, your resources . Many of you may know him and he's someone who's going through a whole bunch of transitions in his life, both personally and professionally. Welcome to the Big Exit, where we discuss startup acquisitions with the founders who lived it. Many of you already know my story, but it is always a privilege to have the opportunity to share it with other entrepreneurs in person, at events, and of course, via podcast conversations. Is that true? many things and create so many threats, and theres got to be a better way. I want to, I listened to experts on it. Well, the reality is, we are all running out of time. But I just got caught up in the details, I got caught up in every little detail. So what I started doing, I was spending hours and hours on the phone every day, constantly and thats part of my job, right? Genealogy profile for Joshua Dorkin Joshua Dorkin (1843 - 1914) - Genealogy Genealogy for Joshua Dorkin (1843 - 1914) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. And instead of working on the business, I was working in the business exclusively. You got to deal with them. Dan Daugherty: And you have that almost daily and you have to have that type of growth mindset. Dan Daugherty: Yeah, theres no shortage of chaos in the startup world and those that cannot adapt to change will inevitably fail and close shop. The company is one that I founded almost 18 years ago and left back in November 2018 after undertaking a recapitalization via McCarthy Capital, a private equity shop out of Omaha. We engaged an investment bank, initiated a process, and ultimately found ourselves at a successful deal with our aforementioned partners. and what what happen if things went wrong. Most people do what they can to help others out, and I wanted to share a little tip along those lines that I dont think a lot of people are familiar with. He was wrong. Post close, I joined the board of directors, but no longer was involved in the day to day decision making at the company. I you know, I think another way of saying is, you know, putting yourself in a position to dot dot dot. And so I think for a very long time I ran my life, you know, moment to moment and its through conversations with folks like Brandon, you know, lots of, Ive got some good friends who think real deeply, to reading a lot, reading a lot, listening to some, you know, thought leaders in various spaces, you know, my transformation really, I think began from the moment of that I went to my wife, year eight of the company, and I was in tears. Dan Daugherty: You know, this is, as you were talking, all of the significant life changing moments that occurred not just in your life, but just in our own individual lives, tends to be even if its really, really bad, or really, really good, it tends to be a catalyst for something even bigger, and not all the time, but even from listening to you, it sounds like different things that happened within your life, almost had a purpose or a reason that got you to where you are today. And, you know, Ive been investing, you know, since my exit, in different things, looking for, you know, startups to get involved with, looking for boards to become a part of, looking to advise, Ive been advising some small companies kind of off the books. Thinker. So that hire, I really believe the business went from hobby to kind of this you know, call it Mom and Pop, you know, sole operator business and then it became a company and very quickly I had to learn how to deal with employees, how to scale and spent the next number of years doing that with Brandon as kind of my copilot. I choose to deal with them as they come using logic and working through like I would any game or problem. and they hold the #1 real estate podcast on iTunes. He convinced a slew of real estate players, such as veteran house-flippers and rental-property investors, to contribute their know-how to BiggerPockets educational blog; added a marketplace for lenders and others to pitch their services; and installed analytic tools such as a calculator that crunches everything from local property taxes to vacancy rates to determine whether that split-level ranch will make for a profitable rental investment. A lot of people can at least. Plus, he doesnt own any rental properties outright anymore, simply because BiggerPockets requires too much of his attention. %PDF-1.6 % I get to advise Scott and the current leadership team alongside some incredible partners. And I was helping other people get rich, and I was broke.\"\r\r Dorkin spent the next 8 years working mostly as a one-man operation as he tried to monetize a fledgling website.\r\r \"We were struggling and scrapping by on every AdSense check that we could collect,\" Dorkin says. Of course, this was an extremely difficult transition for me, but I believe that several years later, I have become a highly valued board member that contributes immensely to the business and Im hopeful that I can find other opportunities to do the same for other companies. Author. Mind you, in order to survive in business, the pivot is one of your most powerful tools. This caused a shift in Joshuas reality, so he dropped everything. Startup / real estate investor. There were books, but like, you know, the books were pretty general, they didnt really say, what do you do when your tenant is stealing electricity from the building next door? Thank you so much, Josh, I want to have you on again. As always, I charged on despite my body and subconscious screaming as loud as possible to stop. Where are you spending all of your money? Today, BiggerPockets is the premier real estate investing website online with . This book provides a comprehensive overview of real estate investing strategies whether buy and hold to short-term rental and everything in between. Looking back, Im reminded of the following from the incredible Hamilton. Here youll have a chance to follow me via this blog and to explore the ideas, products, services, books and many other things that influence me. After two years, I quit my teaching job, got married, moved to Colorado and began working full time on BiggerPockets. And so, for example, one of the core values of Bigger Pockets is family above all else. I got to be my own boss and although I worked absolutely crazy hours, I never felt the stress of a crappy boss or pressure to act under some artificial timeline. } !1AQa"q2#BR$3br And so what happened was little by little, I found myself running into some problems and I didnt quite know how to deal with those problems. Joshua Dorkin is the author of The Book on Investing In Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down (4.20 avg rating, 1854 ratings, 108 reviews, published 2. With over 100 million prime members, theres about a 1 in 3 chance you are one and if you are, theres a close to 50% change youre shopping there once a week. And so yeah, that becomes stressful. And, you know, between Brandon and Scott Trench, who was my second in command at the business at the time, and my management team, you know, I tasked those guys and gals to run the business and I had to focus on my family. . They suspected some kind of migraine, and cleared me of all the really scary stuff. What you may not know is Joshua's journey in founding, building, scaling, and finally leaving BiggerPockets. This keynote speech goes deep into what really matters most. Problems dont go away. Start shopping! Josh Dorkin: Man, so Ive started and stopped the book probably 50 times. Dan Daugherty: All right. Lets just do it. Im on the board. Josh is also host of the BiggerPockets Podcast (80 million . Not a magic formula. This caused a shift in Joshua's reality, so. But, you know, if anybody who tries to grasp these things, theyre so big and scary, well then break it down into little steps. All that really matters is our families, our health, and our happiness. Julie was in California and I was home alone with the girls. Podcaster. Like, dont do, keep doing things that make you miserable. Its fabulous. You know, these little things allowed me to continue to work, do my job and stay healthy at the exact same time. You know, dont keep doing things that keep you super stressed out. Joshua Dorkin is the founder of BiggerPockets, as well as a serial entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, publisher, educator, and co-author of How to Invest in Real Estate. It is always interesting to see what kind of things come up when you search for yourself online. While they sat in shocked silence, I wept for what seems like an hour as I tried to explain what we were dealing with - barely getting the words out mostly just crying out loud uncontrollably. 40.3K subscribers Thirteen years ago, Joshua Dorkin's friends teased him about starting a website that seemed to have no future. Fast forward to yesterday, I had some of those symptoms. k cG-t} Joshua Dorkin BiggerPockets Founder Maui, HI 28K FOLLOWERS 5 FOLLOWING 346K CONNECTIONS I am the Founder, former CEO (2004 - 2018), former podcast host, and current board member of BiggerPockets. Is this going to be, is this the prelude to a book? I mean, you know, super, super stressful periods. It was a blast, but by year 12, 13, 14 my job changed. You know, I felt like, something needed to change for me personally. I was teaching high school in Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah. \"The business really wasn't making serious money for probably getting close to a decade.\"\r\r The story has a happy ending. The days of building product, building community, marketing, growth hacking and being creative were replaced with days managing people. FHA Guidelines: How to Qualify for a 3.5% Down Loan . But the problem is, none of this goes away. JFIF ,, C But I, you know, theres so many books out there. A life-long adventurer, Brandon (along with his wife and daughter) splits his time between his home in Hawaii and various other destinations around the globe. Instead of getting my hands dirty building product or testing some new landing page or campaign, I was overssing someone else that was. Joshua Dorkin is the founder of BiggerPockets, as well as a serial entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, publisher, educator, and co-author of How to Invest in Real Estate. JoshuaDorkin.com linktr.ee/jrdorkin Posts Reels Videos Tagged Show More Posts from jrdorkin Just at the time when things were starting to go from big to bigger, Joshua had to take time off to take care of his daughters medical emergency. . I really enjoyed the conversation. But instead of sitting in my office talking on the phone, every phone call that I had was a walking call. BiggerPockets has grown quite a lot since Ive left, and Ive enjoyed watching it take on a life of its own without me steering the ship. Of course, it took many more months of work and ultimately several years for her to get back to 100%, but with time, energy, an amazing team, and unlimited love, she has since fully recovered from the incident. But Im not currently on it. I hope to share that journey with you all via this blog, and perhaps through other forms like video or a podcast. Why do you write like youre running out of time?Write day and night like youre running out of time?Evry day you fight, like youre running out of time. So hired a guy named Brandon Turner, he, some of you listening may know him, hes still the co-host of the Bigger Pockets podcast. As I sat there trying to relax, things didnt improve and I knew I needed to go in. And it can be significantly helpful, but I want to press upon anybody whos thinking about it to just recognize that its not something to take lightly. They live in Grays Harbor, Wash. be helpful, you know, seek out advisors in your field and you know, work towards it. BiggerPockets has also added a publishing arm, which released Set For Life on April 23just in time for the height of house-hunting season. We are all faced with challenges as we go through our lives and they can either break us or just be another thing we deal with. One final question. In the early 2000s, Dorkin bought rental property in St. Louis andafter adding up what he could charge for rent and subtracting his expected expensespredicted hed make a tidy profit. They have got a new book coming out this Thursday called How To Invest In Real Estate. Came to be ready to quit and like told my wife, hey, Im ready to sell the business. What lessons did he learn along the way? Where am I good in each of these things? Joshua Dorkin is the founder and former CEO of BiggerPockets, launched on October 22, 2004. Find which one works best for you, your resources, and your goals. He started BiggerPockets to help democratize the real estate investing landscape for himself and others, aiming to make it accessible for everyone, regardless of income or education. Knowing it wouldnt be wise to drive, I called 911 and a full squad of firemen and paramedics came to visit. Whether it is the struggle to communicate at checkout while you and the cashier are donning masks, or the untrusting looks from everyone around you, the entire experience is less pleasurable for all of us. Denver, Colorado, United States. So, the operating manual was, how do I go from unhappy to happy, and that was, it became not just like a. question, but it became a significant force within my life, whether its about you know, journaling about it, contemplating it, talking about it out loud, and making decisions around it. Josh tells his story of wanting to quit, having 3 nervous breakdowns, and eventually selling to a private equity company. Fear of change or of taking risks by changing course has sunk far too many businesses. You know, how do I make it so I could either scale this, get to an exit or just, you know, sell it and quit and be done and find something else. This terrifying situation broke us, but didnt defeat us. And that goes into to do lists. unit you let me know well do it whenever. You may fail, but at least you will have taken your shot.Good luck! I felt trapped. And Im, you know, Im trying to figure out whats next, you know, looking at ideas. Weve replaced iced teas, sodas and juices with water in the last decade, and rarely, if ever will I drink alcohol. %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz You know, theres just the, I mean, its everywhere, right? That was all I was allowed to do on Wednesday. But, you know, getting to exit, getting close to the finish line, so to speak is an absolutely incredible feeling and I wish it upon, you know, all the entrepreneurs out there. And anything thats stressing me out, you absolutely have to dissect it, and then figure out what the root cause is and that opens up everything else because then you figure out ways, again, Ill use the term operationalize it, is because then it allows you to leverage different tools, maybe you have to delegate more, maybe you dont have to respond within an hour of every single email that comes in, whatever it might be. I began to feel hopeful and knew at some point wed all be able to move on - no matter the outcome. October 22, 2022 Almost a lifetime ago - 18 years today - I officially marked the founding of BiggerPockets Starting a hobby website while working as a full time teacher was one thing. Check it out below and hopefully you learn not only a little more about me, but you also pick up some tidbits about business, entrepreneurship, work-life balance, family, and important time-management habits. So we made the decision that we would start and hire one person who could lighten the load for me. But just know that theres guys out there like me and Dan and, you know, countless other people whove tried it, whove been through it. I thought I was having a heart attack. You know, part of my job and one of the things that I pressed upon my staff was, you know, if youre not spending significant time every day learning, youre not going to grow, youre not going to get better, youre not going to be competitive with other people across your area of expertise. So, I thought there had to be a better way. The podcast has almost 250 episodes and the blog features more than 8,100 articles.\r\r In today's episode, I have a heart-to-heart with BiggerPockets founder Joshua Dorkin about the blood, sweat and tears that's required to start a successful online business. \"I was working a full-time job making no money as a teacher,\" Dorkin says, \" and then [I] quit that job, reliable income, to blindly create this platform for other people. For me, I realized that if Im going to run this company, Ive got these kids that I love and my wife and I had spent so long not taking vacations, not taking days off, I worked eight years without a single day off, which is incredibly stupid. A few months back I had the blurry thing, but without the other stuff, and of course, went to visit Dr. Google. I always wanted to kind of be here, be oh, I used to call bi-coastal, would be like New York and Cali. But you know, from a sheer depression, man in the year before my exit, in the year and a half before my exit I had, Id never had this before, but I had three like full on panic attacks. Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh. So I want the opposite. ChatGPT disagrees (see image) What say you? And from a bootstrap perspective, you know, bootstrapping, you have a lot less support than you do when you raise money. I recommend it to everyone. All you need to do is go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and youll have the option to select a non-profit of your choice to give to. Unlike most traditional real estate books, this one wont tell you there is one secret path to real estate success. And I did it without freaking out or getting stressed because doing so doesnt help. For those of you that are truly curious, wait no longer . But I got to this point where Id just run myself ragged, really, you know, stupidly worked way, way, way, way too hard. [j:^h%m-dm0 \G/#f?IXv\I:$W2i|IO]K}3R+_D_P{_zZ`uu I\bY]_|[ J'|#W} t_g%=5+nnsN@ W ~xSf&+|r i44u{]Im|0S>gX}^jK9$m0BR8Y]?\fry5l |E~x7~'&xa PE""X WHr;.7=1k And I realized that I was unhappy. And, you know, were in a position where we have an opportunity to do something like this, like, do it. Joshua Dorkin Public figure Father. Josh Dorkin: Well, if you put it that way, it sounds pretty good. We took power from those who made information inaccessable by opening the doors and making sure real estate investing knowledge was free.Over the years, the mission to democratize knowledge so anyone, anywhere, regardless of income, education, age, or any other demographic, could learn to build wealth, has resulted in countless lives being changed for the better.Not only have we helped individual investors around the country and work, but weve moved markets.Ive always wanted to calculate the actual economic impact of the business - Im sure the true number would blow everyones minds. Horrifying, scary. While teaching, I began to build a directory of resources and a forum which were the roots of todays community and platform. He started BiggerPockets to help democratize the real estate investing landscape for himself and others, aiming to make it accessible for everyone, regardless of income or education. Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turnerlongtime hosts of the world's #1 real estate podcast, The BiggerPockets Podcastgive you an insider's look at the many different niches and strategies that exist. q=q >s@U8F qNU +HrQ-&pp9Q#b5H8kz{04rs~PRdyC 14Z'= :O+OIQG{^[gFN28JR`9X, r cvhwc61@S*JL1M$d|H8v:Rp= sE) As a father, this is what Im excited to see happen for my kids soon, and as an entrepreneur, I cant imagine being more proud than building something amazing that can live on beyond me like BiggerPockets has done. So, in 2004, Dorkin launched BiggerPockets, a website for real estate investors to ask and answer each others questionslike a Reddit for property owners. I mean, nights, weekends, you name it, seven days a week.