So there you go. ChatGPT disagrees (see image) What say you? . Over the months and months that I spent caring for her, I had something I had never previously had in my adult life - time. Thats a really weird thing to say, especially since I loved the company. Let me know what you think and please share this if you find it valuable! And, you know, so I take those moments when they come to me and I try and take bold steps when they come. \\ + endstream endobj 99 0 obj <>stream Im 43 and I know Im not a kid anymore. Shopping these days is just a little less fun. Not a magic formula. Dont get me wrong - I used to stress about EVERYTHING. Purchases from the BiggerPockets Bookstore can only ship within the United States. She went through something called conversion disorder, which basically the brain kind of shuts the body down. Second phase was when I took it serious, quit my job and really spent all my time on it. Josh Dorkin: So you know, weve always wanted to come to Hawaii. Suite 675 A thought experiment My daughter posed the following question: It is raining outside at a constant rate. Joshua Dorkin Public figure Father. I put on my headset and Id walk around the neighborhood and I easily got my 10,000 steps. As of February 2019, Amazon has raised $124,651,081.04 for charities through this program (Source Amazon). Why I left BiggerPockets is a little more complicated. Be there for your families. And in that time, I realized that I wasnt as happy as I wanted to be running the business. I mean, you know, you want me to just take it from the beginning or? And so, back in 04 I was living in Los Angeles, I was teaching special ED high school. Was it 2009? First, for those who arent sure how to do the math, in order to determine someones net worth, you need to take into consideration all assets and liabilities and put together a balance sheet.. How to Invest in Real Estate: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Getting Started is written by Brandon Turner; Joshua Dorkin and published by BiggerPockets. So, you know, being willing and open to change and being dynamic, I think is one of the most important things. Today, I think its a sign of necessity and strength, to be self-aware enough to know. Thanks, Josh. Josh Dorkin: Absolutely. 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. Cool. Do I hire? But I just got caught up in the details, I got caught up in every little detail. And in that time, I realized that I wasnt as happy as I wanted to be running the business, that I went to my wife, year eight of the company, and I was in tears. And but yeah, thats what Ive been up to. 28 Jan 2023 08:21:40 As Founder and CEO of BiggerPockets, I created the vision and strategy for the business and bootstrapped the company until . Lets just do it. I was happy to have three amazing children, food on the table, and a safe place to live. You know, I couldnt breathe. I want to, I listened to experts on it. Josh Dorkin: Absolutely. And, you know, Ive, you know, when I get back into it, you know, occasionally I give it a kick start. I remember you and I met, it must have been like, what, when did you found bigger pockets? After spending an amazing day with my girls, out of the blue one of my eyes went blurry. Dan Daugherty: All right. Im your host, Dan Daugherty and today I have a good friend, Josh Dorkin, who is the founder and former CEO of Bigger Pockets. %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz Yesterday that reality came a little too close for comfort for me. 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. Problems dont go away. $4%&'()*56789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz ? I always wanted to kind of be here, be oh, I used to call bi-coastal, would be like New York and Cali. But that's OK. Overnighted packages might take a week or so if youre lucky, standard mail might take weeks, and trying to get a package from the mainland - well, hold on - that might be 2-3 months. Like any 18 year old, it has continued to mature and to life a life of its own.While my personal contributions to the business are today marked by occasional phone calls and quarterly board meetings, I hope my personal stamp will continue to last for the next 18 years and beyond.Thank you to everyone who believed in me. I created this site in 2004 to create a place where investors could learn, network, market and make deals in a safe online environment. Josh tells his story of wanting to quit, having 3 nervous breakdowns, and eventually selling to a private equity company. Josh Dorkin: No, thanks, man, I appreciate it. We launched a book business. And so we spent weeks going through the business, realize that we had, you know, created a product that was a little overly bloated, there was you know, wed built too much, too many features. And, you know, I think theres a lot of people who are willing to. 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. w !1AQaq"2B #3Rbr Dan Daugherty: Welcome to this episode of The Big exit. . And so as we were going through this situation with my daughter, little by little she was getting better. You need to change your diet, you need to do some exercise. Josh Dorkin Bootstrapped BiggerPockets to a Big Exit October 13, 2020 00:00:00 Dan Daugherty interviews Josh Dorkin who founded BiggerPockets in his living room with $12 bucks. 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 I LOVED the first few years of hiring and scaling. I move daily and if not for some nagging injuries, try to get in intensive workouts 5 days a week. I was in tears, I was just miserable. What are the things that I need to do to be better within all these personal domains? One final question. Stop making excuses and focus on those things as your priority because in an instant it can all be over. (BTW - Ill certainly talk more about working on a business at another time). This was not like, something that everybodys like, Oh, this is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. How do we do this better than everybody else? hbbd`b`ab`gb`\ '11d; Z endstream endobj startxref 0 %%EOF 101 0 obj <>stream But, you know, I think the key was just persevering through those in order to come out at the end. What regrets does he hold? Like you cant find that and all that was out there were communities, forums, but they were all kind of tied to or in cahoots with I call them the gurus, the get rich quick crowd. COVID you know, your kid gets sick. 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. And so we said, hey. 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 mean, you know, would somebody have diagnosed me with clinical depression? And I ran across a blog, and they talked about they called it serendipitous mindset, where you leave your mind open and as you see these different things that happen to you serendipitously, whether its the people that you have met five years ago, just like how you and I met many, many years back. 1065 episodes totalling 1002 hours, 17 minutes. Doing so otherwise would leave me a nervous wreck. Came to be ready to quit and like told my wife, hey, Im ready to sell the business. He tried to solve his problems by reading real estate how-to manuals, but they made no mention of the real-life issues landlords facelike what to do when someone cuts a three-foot hole in the kitchen floor. [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 FHA Guidelines: How to Qualify for a 3.5% Down Loan . What do you do when somebody is ripping the copper piping out of your vacant unit? You know, I didnt know if I needed to take an ambulance to the hospital. Days and weeks of not knowing what was to come with my daughter eventually led to glimmers of hope that wed see a recovery. . I realized that like, thats not healthy. x337R0 B],s@(PH(Y And if you want to grow and thrive, you have to become seriously adept at it. Of course I was happy to have an amazing loving family and a successful business. We build tools, our content, our social presence. They have got a new book coming out this Thursday called How To Invest In Real Estate. Is it impressing other people? The company is one that I founded almost 18 years ago and left back in November 2018. 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. I mean, I literally started this company with the, you know, like 12 bucks a month that it cost me to host and the whatever four or five bucks it cost to register the domain name back then, and that was it. +TYKqXLfsid| Josh Dorkin: Man, so Ive started and stopped the book probably 50 times. And so yeah, that becomes stressful. There are few things worse than seeing your child suffer and this period was easily the worst of my life. Wednesday was about thinking, networking and not doing. We launched amazing products like the podcast, which today is still one of the top 10 business shows in the world. I built at my own pace and designed a business with a mission and values that were important to me. You know, these little things allowed me to continue to work, do my job and stay healthy at the exact same time. Today, BiggerPockets boasts more than 725,000 members, produces the top-rated real estate podcast on iTunes, and last year raked in $7 million in revenue through advertising, premium memberships, and partnerships with companies like credit-rating agency TransUnion. I mean, nights, weekends, you name it, seven days a week. All rights reserved. In all three cases, my wife was able to kind of talk me down and calm me and you know, but it was like, you know, stress, right, stress and I think we humans just internalize so. Quotes "I believe 100% in putting all my eggs in one basket. Leaving BiggerPockets was very difficult - probably similar to sending your child off to college, but I did so both because it is was I had to do, but also because it was what was best for the company. And you know, continue to love Bigger Pockets and love how its impacting peoples lives. Josh Dorkin started BiggerPockets.com from scratch 10 years ago and now has over 435K members. When I founded the company I was teaching full time at a special ed high school in the Los Angeles area. Is it all the material stuff? I began to feel hopeful and knew at some point wed all be able to move on - no matter the outcome. k cG-t} Thank you for the stories and the insights and the tips. They really wanted to take me, but without Julie around, I worried about the girls, and passed the initial neurological tests, so I decided to play it by ear. This caused a shift in Joshuas reality, so he dropped everything. We needed to get this done and time was not on our side. Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turnerlongtime hosts of the worlds #1 real estate podcast, The BiggerPockets Podcastgive you an insiders look at the many different niches and strategies that exist. Dan Daugherty: Thats right. And so thinking about the things you go through, look, we all go through good stuff and we all go through bad stuff. 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. But I look at the cycle as a multi stage cycle. 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. What lessons did he learn along the way? And, you know, the issue I had with those, which led me to founding Bigger Pockets was I, you know, I didnt like the idea of getting caught up in this funnel where, you know, its like, hey, come to our free course, and the free course is just an ad for a free boot camp, you know, some kind of boot camp, which is an ad for a course, which is an ad for, you know, training, and, you know, by the time youre done, and you look up, youve just spent $50, $75,000, to train with some, you know, self-anointed guru and, you know, youve got nothing to show for it a lot, you know, high failure rates and things like that. That's why two of the biggest names in the real estate world teamed up to write the most comprehensive manual ever written on getting started in the lucrative business of real estate investing. Plus, he doesn't own any rental properties outright anymore, simply because BiggerPockets requires too much of his attention. But its so easy for us to try and ignore things and hopefully itll go away. And I had to step away, I had to step away from the company, in order to take care of my family. %PDF-1.6 % Sign up today! ). And instead of working on the business, I was working in the business exclusively. You are also, obviously Bigger Pockets continues to grow, still the top everything, the community, the podcast. I eat well - seriously cutting back on sugars, eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Horrifyingly scary, where I was in my, in the office and I broke down and just I was in tears. They live in Grays Harbor, Wash. Ive used that technique, and that has helped me dramatically. And look, we get to go and you know, go out on the beach and not be near people. We grew the platform and its offerings. Is that a good statement to say? Why I left BiggerPockets is a little more complicated. This caused a shift in Joshua's reality, so he dropped everything. But, you know, if anybody who tries to grasp these things, theyre so big and scary, well then break it down into little steps. Sarahbeth Maney is a Washington, D.C.-based photojournalist and a photography fellow for The New York Times. I mean, we were able to do that in Colorado, but you know, youre on a trail youre, you know, running across people without masks, you know, its just the, you know, the whole debate, were not going to get into it, but either way, it you know, it presented an opportunity for us to find some kind of, to find some peace and to find a place where everybody just could feel good. Joshua Dorkin Dec 2015 Mar 2021. But he came in and was instrumental to advancing the business. It became more than a website - it became a brand and an ideal. Once I realized this, I instantly knew what I had to do. Dan Daugherty: Ah, I love that. Josh Dorkin's Blog BiggerPockets Turns 18 Years Old! Founder BiggerPockets. And everybodys at each others throats and stressed and tense. My excitement for the company and brand never waned, but I really stopped loving going in to work, but didnt know it. I need to move more, cool. Many avid members of the BiggerPockets forum, listeners to the podcast, or readers of our articles may know our founder, Joshua Dorkin. JOSH DORKIN: But it gave me the time to really think about life. And inevitably, you know, I really struggled through those difficult times. Dan Daugherty: And well, first off, Im so happy that your daughter is healthy now. We were thinking about picking it up and mailing it to you.\"\r\r At the time, Dorkin had just launched BiggerPockets, a then-nascent website about real estate investing. And from a bootstrap perspective, you know, bootstrapping, you have a lot less support than you do when you raise money. . But I think from a mindset perspective, you really, I think, if you have a learning mindset, a mindset where Hey, I always want to learn, I always want to get better. I was making money. And most people, I didnt know really anyone who, I had very few friends, you, Scott Yates, and some other guys who, you know, were creating companies locally that I knew that I could talk to. And, you know, were in a position where we have an opportunity to do something like this, like, do it. Right? And I immediately thought of you, because youve bootstrapped Bigger Pockets from I remember your Washington Park house where we met to really a multi-million dollar organization. It was a hard decision for Joshua to leave, but thanks to his amazing team, he was able to (even during a time of tribulation in his personal life).Youll hear how Joshua was cranking out 100 hour weeks, working 7 straight days, for the first 6 years of BiggerPockets existence. Last month I had the opportunity to speak at the Denver Founders event for Colorado entrepreneurs and had a fantastic Q&A with my friend Chris Franks. And then I go through and Im like, all right, where am I crappy in each one of these things? Because, man 2020, nobody feels good anymore, man, we dont feel good anymore. You know, with. Or just shut it down. But I, you know, theres so many books out there. Explorer. Instead, Joshua and I focus on the harsh realities of growing an digital empire.\r\r Enjoy!\r\r \u0026nbsp;\r\r You can find more information in the show notes at http://podcast.affordanything.com/episode99 Dorkin failed to account for costly evictions, irresponsible tenants, inattentive property managers, and unforeseen repairs, such as mending a three-foot-wide hole cut through a kitchen floor. And the company was profitable. 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. Joshua Dorkin Oct 2016 Mar 2021. I was, I went to college, you know, all these things, and bought property thousands of miles away, which would normally be a challenge, but I didnt really do my homework. Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turner - longtime hosts of the world's number-one real estate podcast, The BiggerPockets Podcast - give you an insider's look at the many different niches and strategies that exist. The political upheaval, the COVID chaos. Right? So you know, whether its that or, hey, Im stressed about money, well, you know, you got to then go and break down your budget, and you got to figure out why youre stressed about money. But you know, looking to make that a little more official. Josh Dorkin: Yeah, yeah, I think for me, the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, was one of the most impactful in just, you know, helping me kind of break things down. 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. Joshua Dorkin is the founder of BiggerPockets, as well as a serial entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, publisher, and educator. Brett Jurgens Talks About Building and Selling Notion to Comcast. I take care of myself. After two years, I quit my teaching job, got married, moved to Colorado and began working full time on BiggerPockets. Keep in mind that full time in this case means 80-100 hours a week, with no days off, no vacations, no respit. And particularly, I think the most stressful part was, I was by myself, to your point. They have grown to be one of the largest and most reputable real estate community on the Internet with a forum that has over 900,000 posts! 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. and they hold the #1 real estate podcast on iTunes. No. And I suppose if I had enough people saying, Yeah, Josh, you should do it, for sure, I might jump at it. Thirteen years ago, Joshua Dorkin's friends teased him about starting a website that seemed to have no future.\r\r \"I would get calls from my buddies who would literally call me on my cell phone [and say] 'Hey Josh, we just walked past a penny on the ground. That was all I was allowed to do on Wednesday. So Ive got a book journal where Ive literally broken my life down into segments, physical fitness, health, I separate them, physical fitness and health, business and work, wife and love, my kids and you know, some people may put faith in there, whatever it is. 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. It was a very unpleasant experience, very scary again, you know, I was fairly uncertain I would get through it. A few months back I had the blurry thing, but without the other stuff, and of course, went to visit Dr. Google. You know, I want to learn how to be happy. What are you waiting for? I bought a bunch of property as a result of my brother encouraging me to do so, and you know, I thought I was a smart guy. Almost everyone that builds a business wants some kind of growth, but as much as I loved seeing my brainchild thrive and grow, I was having less and less fun doing it. Its, instead of drinking soda and orange juice, and, you know, coffees and energy drinks, Im just going to drink water, because water is healthy, water cleanses you, water does this, you know, thats not that big a step. This ultimately led to me having several panic attacks which really should have been a sign to step back. And my quick advice on that is this, this has absolutely worked for me over and again, it may not work for you, but its definitely worked for me. Like, I mean, you wouldnt know the difference between her and any other kid. We all KNOW what we need to do, but more often than not we let our fear of the unkno. The real estate industry is huge, and often complicated, but this book clears away the fog and uncertainty in a fun, easy-to-read manner. There were personality clashes, bad hires, and everything else you could imagine. I kept this pace up for over 8 years . But yeah, what else you got? 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.