Aaron Norris is filling in for Bruce Norris again this week as he is joined once again by Joshua Dorkin, founder and CEO of BiggerPockets, arguably the largest forum and social media network dedicated to real estate investors online, possibly internationally. He is a native New Yorker with a very interesting background in entrepreneurship and education. He is best known for his no b.s. approach to real estate education and an unapologetic anti-guru philosophy that has attracted over 180,000 subscribers. His site has garnered attention from major media outlets, and it is not unusual to see BiggerPockets teams content picked up on sites such as the National Association of Realtors and the Huffington Post. Joshua lives in Denver with his wife Julie and three girls.
Bruce asked Josh if he has noticed a lot more international participants on the site, to which he said absolutely. From day one they have had a pretty fair international contingent. Ultimately we are going to have people who will be looking at U.S. real estate, and as a result more of an international market. Last month they had visitors from 180 or more countries, the big ones being English-speaking countries such as the U.K., India, and Australia. There are foreigners who are interested in buying here, so they have folks from pretty much everywhere on the planet at this point. Aaron said he is so impressed with the culture he has been able to create with the site, having been able to keep people there and consistently grow in a market that is so noisy. Online is really difficult to get people to stay put. Aaron said one of his favorite things they do is the radio show, and it makes him laugh when people say they read it. They transcribe the shows because some people just won’t listen; they don’t want to sit down for a 25 minute podcast.
At BiggerPockets they have been very busy. Last time Aaron looked they were the #7 investment podcast, and they are competing with some major brands. Aaron asked when they started the podcast and about their journey on why they started it. The podcast was something they had wanted to do for a while. Since Aaron looked, they actually moved up to the #5 investing forecast. He is honored and shocked at how well it has done, but the podcast was something he thought about doing years ago and never quite had the time, energy, or know-how. It was when Brandon Turner, his co-host, brought it up to him that he decided to give it a go. At the time they really didn’t think it was going to become anything.
What they do is talk to real people who are telling their real stories. They are not talking to people who are billionaires who people cannot grasp. They are talking to people who are your neighbor who just bought his second rental property or your cousin who just flipped another house. They talk to those who are just getting started as well as those who have done tens of millions of dollars in deals. The key is there is no bs, no fluff. The show is not about trying to sell them anything, but rather they are asking them questions they want to know. Even when they are talking to somebody who just did their first deal, there is always something to learn from everybody. If you take that philosophy and believe in it, it is appealing to the audience.
They just put out their 76th show and average about 27,000 listeners per show. Technology has made it much easier since you can download it to your phone, and it is getting people to stay and listen. This is testament to what they have created. It is not only the podcast, but they have also gotten into the publishing business. Last year they decided to open a publishing division and did so extremely cautiously. The challenge he faced on a regular basis was they could go make money by doing A, B, and C. They question is if A, B, and C stick to the morals and values of BiggerPockets. Because the foundation of BiggerPockets was about democratizing information from people and bypassing the upsell stream, the question is if they are violating this by selling some kind of educational content. It was really hard to overcome that they were, but they were able to do this by saying they are not taking people to the bank here. They were putting together a top quality book, and if they were going to publish something they were only going to publish the best. It was up to the consumer whether or not they want to buy the book; and he will flat out tell people anything they buy from the book can also be obtained from BiggerPockets 100% free.
Joshua jokingly said his job right now is a therapist since he has so many people complain to him. A lot of people go through a business and want to do something, but they don’t want to spend even $1 on it. They realize they want to go on BiggerPockets and advertise, but they don’t want to spend anything. Aaron belongs to so many professional organizations just to stay on top of PR, let alone continuing education in the mortgage industry and real estate. It makes him laugh when people won’t invest in themselves, not even $29. Joshua said he cannot explain what people’s motivations are. They sell the books, have a 100% money back guarantee, and they will have people who read the book and don’t want to be an investor. They will ask for their money back and get it with no trouble at all.
Joshua said he cannot do this. If he goes and buys something and uses it, he does not really see himself returning it. The first two books they put out were by Jay Scott, an investor who is formerly from Atlanta. Jay was a big tech person, very smart, and really got into the flipping business. He has a website called 1.2.3 Flip where he details all his flips down to the dollar. He has been part of BiggerPockets forever and has become friends with Joshua. Jay came to him with the idea for a book and asked him what he thought. When he put the book together, it was absolutely astounding. It was at this point they decided it was going to be the first book they would publish. The people at BiggerPockets said that the book on flipping houses was a top ten book on Amazon for real estate since its inception, which was good since they were competing against others who were big in the industry.
Aaron asked if some of the larger publishers had reached out to them at all and seen opportunity. Joshua said that surprisingly they have not, which is fine. They bottom line is they are selling a lot of books and providing a lot of value to people. They have another book that is going to be coming out in the next 1-2 months on different kinds of creative techniques in real estate. This will be authored by Brandon Turner at BiggerPockets and is a really good book. Aaron said as a real estate investor there is always something to learn. As soon as you think you know everything, it is amazing how many different ways there is to slice and dice this business. It depends on the market you are in, creative real estate strategies to standard REO and short sale. This business is so flexible, and there is always something to cover.
Jay put out the book on flipping houses and estimating rehab costs, which was a companion book. The newest book coming out will be their third. The culture of real estate investor clubs has really changed over the last five years. The Fibi model has become very popular, where it is for investors by investors. The Norris Group attended the first BiggerPockets forum out in Denver. Aaron asked if he was surprised that almost 300 showed up, to which he said he would like to say he had some impact on what is happening with real estate clubs. As BiggerPockets has grown, they have been more outspoken against the clubs being modeled to where they are essentially inviting sales people who only give half a lesson. In this model, you learn through buying their $5,000 course, and the club earns 50% on everything sold and their incentive to sell is high. Joshua has never been a fan of this model since he believes information should be honest and not come with a pitch. This is the purest kind of information. In order to have this, they have to have a different monetization model besides just the seminar. Unfortunately, a lot of people got stuck in just this.
Things have really changed, even from when Aaron first started working. He had been working for his father since 2005, and there has been a definitive shift in the model. He asked Joshua if he was ever planning on branding the BiggerPockets clubs. He said he has thought about it, but the issue comes down to a sense of control. For BiggerPockets, their brand is extremely important. In order to manage and protect the brand across a set of clubs, it would require a sizeable infrastructure. This is not something they are interested in at this point. They reached a summit in 2012 and are now having people, through BiggerPockets, creating these local clubs. There are now dozens and dozens of clubs across the country, possibly 50-60 that are informal and geared toward those who don’t want to be involved in a big club but want to be the master of their own destiny. They see who is local and get together with only a few to talk shop. Darin Saiger in New Jersey plans meetups in New Jersey and New York, and at their last meeting they had 150 people.
A lot of it comes down to the mentality. It is all about the mentality and the beliefs that they can help each other without taking advantage of each other. Joshua is very careful about who he lets advertise on his site, and has actually turned away quite a few people. This aggravates people, but in the end it is not only about advertising but also comes down to being the people with whom you associate. He does not necessarily want to be associated with folks who have a completely opposite philosophy that he has. By being on stage with people like this, he said he could potentially do damage. He is usually stand-offish and guarded about a lot of business.
Joshua goes by the better-safe-than-sorry model. If he is unfamiliar with something at an event, he would rather be safe and not appear until he knows more. Aaron said they go by the shopper model where they have somebody drop in on every meeting to see how it is really run. Bruce is semi-retirement, so he does not like to speak quite as often. This is a good model; and during the downturn some of the clubs found themselves in trouble because a lot of the content they were pitching went south. When people lost money, they were going after whoever they could to try to get their money back. Aaron appreciates Joshua’s model because he is elevating the industry at the same time. Aaron said through I Survived Real Estate it has taken them years, but they have relationships with the Mortgage Bankers Association and National Association of Realtors. Joshua has relationships with these people as well, but these were not easy relationships to form. If he was not providing value and being a stalwart in the industry, he would not have been invited in the first place.
Aaron respects Joshua because investors are typically seen as the shark and come in and out of favor depending on the market. Four the last four years the attitude was that investors were coming to the rescue, then suddenly you see headlines in the media such as “Cash buyers push out first-time buyer.” It is not simply enough being in good standing with some of these other organizations. Aaron said they do not have a really strong national organization that represents them, specifically lobbyists. It’s like they are twisting in the wind and have to lead by example, and this is what Aaron really appreciates about Joshua Dorkin and BiggerPockets.
Aaron asked him if he is seeing more opportunities and being asked to speak at more of their conferences as well. He said he gets invited to speak by different groups. For realtors they were invited last year to the industry conference by a man named Brandon Turner. They are building their brand, and it really comes down to keeping his head down and staying out of everybody else’s business. He does not really care what everyone else is doing, but he knows the direction he wants to bring the company. He is setting a course and focusing on what he wants to do and executing it. There is drama in every industry, and ultimately they try to not get caught up in this and stay above the fray where and when they can. They really try to focus on establishing a credible brand and business that is trusted.
Just last week they put out their first syndicated article with money magazine. All these magazines are in dire need of great content, and at BiggerPockets they have about 6,000 articles from which they can pull. They get asked all the time from people if they can use their content at BiggerPockets, something of which they are very protective. You are who you associate with, so if he had a choice of letting them use the content, then they are going with the company who will help them elevate their brand and where they can do the most good.
Aaron asked what is next for BiggerPockets. Joshua said they had just gone through a major site transformation and rebuild, which has been ten months in the building. This is something of which they are extremely pleased. They are continuing to grow their platform, content, community, and build their podcast. They are finding that their users want more access to more and better tools. They are investigating what this means, what they can provide, and who they can partner with to provide tools they may not necessarily want to build but will improve the state of what they offer. This will add more value so that in the end if they build a place where people can learn, network, do business, get access to tools to deal with the discounts that will be helpful. They are creating the one-stop shop that is a credible place where people don’t have to worry that somebody is always going to be upselling them with something else. They are going to become integral to the businesses of real estate investors around the country. They want to be the homepage for real estate investors, and he feels they are getting there.
Aaron asked Joshua what his top three favorite tools on his website are. He said the forums are pretty strong since there are well over 1,000 posts a day on the forums. One of the tools that helps people navigate the forums are the keyword alerts. If someone uses the keyword hard money, then Aaron or someone can chime in to answer the questions and use BiggerPockets to build your business. If it is somebody who is a house-flipper in Fresno, then he would set a keyword alert for Fresno or flipper. Instead of going to the site and trying to find something, the site will come to you. If you are a paid member you can even set up text alerts where if you do not get a text message if the content does not apply to your business, then it’s posted and you can jump on it. There are also ways people can talk about market deals, and if it meets the criteria and you are the first one to know about it then you can jump on it. Joshua said they try to be good at asking the right questions, but it is also good that they know to whom they are talking.
Joshua said they are talking to people in the trenches right now who are successful right now and not afraid to share their failures and learning experiences. We all learn by learning from one another. This is why the podcasts are so incredible. The site is very comprehensive and there is a lot to do. For more information on Joshua Dorkin and BiggerPockets, check out www.biggerpockets.com. You can also find him on iTunes.
Happy Fourth of July!
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