Today, my guest is Rich Lee. Rich Lee is a top lawyer, or was a top lawyer for two companies, and richly experienced the reality that dispute resolution today is driven by pain due to legacy dispute resolution forums and courts. Rich set out to change this with New Era Alternative Dispute Resolution, or ADR, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with rich Lee about dispute resolution.
J Darrin Gross
I'd like to ask you Rich Lee, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Rich Lee
I'll answer that kind of in like two parts really quickly, right? The first is, I think, you know, in the real estate industry, and actually in business in general, I think the biggest risk, you know, in a lot of just kind of business dealings is the relationship, right, and and maintaining good relationships, whether it's with an existing, you know, Counterparty, or, you know, a future counterparty or a former Counterparty. Relationships are everything you know. And so all the things you do right to mitigate that you know both before, and then, of course, you know during a relationship. And then, God forbid, you know if something sours in that relationship, I think that's, you know, it's critical. And something that I think is is often overlooked for us as a business, right? The thing that I will think about all the time, and that we obsess about is, you know, frankly, and it's, it's still related to the relationship, it's the user experience, you know, both on the platform, you know, on our actual technology platform, but also just the experience overall, and the experience for all the people that would be involved in in, you know, in a dispute on our on our platform, which is both, you know, the plaintiff, the defendant, the two sides who are actually in a disagreement, their lawyers, Right? So that's two more parties, and then the arbitrators and mediators themselves, you know, and their experience, you know, administering and adjudicating a case on our platform. And so it's something that we obsess over a lot in terms of, you know, both the people we hire, you know, finding the best people who are smart, bias towards action empathetic, right? So even your interactions with us are positive. And then, of course, everything, every product we design, every feature we add, every additional process we create, even every new rule or any rule change we make right to to our arbitration rules, always with that kind of end user in mind, and like what the experience is going to be. And, of course, fairness above all else.
Today, my guest is Kelly Stratton. Kelly Stratton is the President and Chief Product Officer and founded Quire in 2010 to transform the manual, air prone Technical Report development process she experienced for more than the first 10 deck the first decade of her engineering career. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Kelly Stratton about three trends that will define technical report management for project driven businesses in 2025.
J Darrin Gross
I like, to ask my guests if they can look at their own situation. Could be your clients, the economy, you know, whatever it is that you, you identify and consider to be the BIGGEST RISK?
Kelly Stratton
Yeah. And when you ask, like, the first thing that pops in my head, because I, you know, as the chief product officer, and I kind of help drive like, what is our product going to be, you know, today, versus, you know, six months from now, a year from now, and you know, we have a really strong feedback loop with our users, and they have a mandate for us about, how can we make a difference in their work lives and in their work product? And both those things are really important to me, because this is a bit like our platform, is a space they spend a lot of time in. And, you know, so, so you have that, but then you also have this, this powerful energy around AI, and how do we incorporate that intelligently and effectively into our product? And again, the mandate from our customers is, you know, is pretty specific. They want to be able to access their past experience. They want to be able to interact with their and harvest their intellectual property, and it that that you know, you know, again, I use the phrase institutionalize that knowledge that's really important to them. You know, in the past, it's just, you know, write the report and put it in the file folder, and then it's on to the next one. But there's an awakening around this, like, hey, no, this isn't just an archive this that that we never look at again. How can we use this as a tool to make train our team and improve our reports and our process going forward? So I think just getting creating products where we give them access to their content, smart, yeah, powered searching, and we, we don't step outside of that too much, right? That we give them kind of the the access to their historical information, that that can really make a difference, and we deliver on it. So I think for me, is continuing to keep purpose built as our North Star, and we introduce risk if we spread ourselves too thin and are not incorporating kind of that feedback with our customer for things that they want, and then the things that we know how our product makes a big difference in how AI kind of supports both of those things. So. That's how I'd say that risk is getting AI right for our customers, helping lead them away being lead the way for them, being their innovation partner, and not spreading ourselves too thin.
Today, my guest is Steve Austin. Steve Austin is the founder and CEO of Revitalization Unlimited, where he focuses on structuring the company's investments to maximize value for the portfolio. He has a diverse entrepreneurial background and has started companies in several different sectors. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Steve Austin about preserving historically significant real estate.
J Darrin Gross
I'd like to ask you, Steve Austin, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Steve Austin
That's a good question, I think right now for specifically for us, there's a tremendous uncertainty around the future tax policy. There's a lot of talk about, you know, closing the IRS and putting in tariffs, and so there's a lot of speculation and and stuff swirling around right now. So I think that presents a significant risk to us, but, but just, you know, kind of getting away from, you know, the regulatory risk, you know, I think, for for anybody who's out there in business, in in particular, raising investor capital right now, the, I think the biggest risk is, is just, you know, are you able to build a repeatable, scalable process in your business, you know? So for us, that's, you know, how do we source deals? How do we underwrite deals? How do we close deals, you know, what? What are the right structures for the deals, you know, and kind of systematizing that is, is kind of my view of risk mitigation from from a business perspective, because, you know, at the end of the day, investors, you know, they have a lot of options with their money, and you know what, what you're asking them to do is to trust that you have the right process to consistently, you know, generate. Returns. And you know, my answer to that is often risk management. You know, to your point, you know you can, you can avoid a lot of risk just by being cautious in, you know, not using a lot of leverage and debt and things like that. So, you know, we while, while taxes are a component of what we do, you know, we're also trying to generate returns, you know, without a lot of risk. You know, a lot of lot of folks refer to that as risk adjusted returns, right? And you know, so when you're buying buildings debt free, it certainly gives you a much wider, you know, birth to operate in, in my opinion,
https://www.revitalizationunlimited.com/
Today, my guest is Tudor Vasiliu. Tudor is an architect turned architectural visualizer and the founder of Panopticon, an award winning high end architectural Visualization Studio serving clients globally. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Tudor Vasiliu about virtual storytelling, how narrative driven property marketing is replacing traditional showrooms.
J Darrin Gross
If you're willing, I'd like to ask you Tudor Vasiliu, what is the BIGEST RISK?
Tudor Vasiliu
Oh, that's that's a hard one. Um, I mean, I can speak about so many things, but at the end of the day, the base of of of how we how we interact with people and how people interact with each other. I believe, you know, from my standpoint, is empathy, empathizing with your with your family, with your friends, with your clients, with everyone around you. I think that's a great way to navigate life and the loss of empathy is when the bad things happen. And I think, you know, we can be seeing that across the world, and nowadays it's everywhere, and we're asking ourselves, why is that happening? I don't think there's a, there's a easy answer to that, but there, you know, the the answer for me is try to keep that, keep alive that old sense of of old time, empathy that we were educated with, you know, the values that our parents instilled in in us and the education instilled in us, and even if you know the world is so much faster nowadays and so much more selfish and so on. Why not? You know, stick into those. Um, good old love and appreciation for the other. And I think this is the way we can make a better place, or make the world a better place, not losing that empathy. If we do lose it, I don't know, just slap, slap out ourselves over the head and snap out of it. Because it's not by being selfish and by being self centered that we will, you know, make the world a better place or make an impact. So just caring for for the other next to you, and with that attitude, it's just you would probably achieve a lot in life. That's how I'd see it. Darrin
Today, my guest is Mike Cossette. Mike is a world traveler and a REMAX broker, owner in Central Texas. He has 20 years as an agent investor who owns and manages multi family, short term rentals, commercial assets, a Florida Island and recently has had four kids in less than four and a half years. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Mike Cossette about long term success with market volatility.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecossette/
YouTube: askmikecoss@gmail.com
J Darrin Gross
I'd like to ask you, Mike Cossette, what is the BIGGEST RISK?
Mike Cossette
Well, Darrin, I appreciate all your insight, and I really appreciate that that question. And I like the three phases that you just went through, because that is going to help me restructure how I think about my own risk. I really that that was a nice little light bulb you gave me my personal risk. And I think a lot of investors might be seeing this now, and if they're not, if they're new investors, this is something that is vitally important is over leveraging. I think everyone you know says, Keep X amount of dollars, six, nine months of you know, costs, you know, capex, or what have you in the account I want. I think everyone should increase that because, as you mentioned with the global warming and fires and hurricanes and those black swan events. Everything can be going perfect, but it's what you don't and can't expect or predict that can sink the ship. And we're experiencing that now. Everything you know, even tough, markets going fantastically, you know, fine, and then boom, hurricane hit, no money coming in six months before insurance can even lift a finger, and that can sink a lot of ships, and it almost sunk ours so, and we're still waiting, waiting to see if it will. So I think that is the biggest thing is for so long, we've been going fast, borrowing 232, and a half, three and a half percent interest. Then, why wouldn't you buy this? Cash Flows? Everything makes sense, and capital is available. Government's printing money. Everyone's got their hand out. People are moving fast and not stopping, and assessing their portfolios the way they should be, and really setting aside the emergency funds that are necessary. I think that is, in my opinion, the biggest risk and my biggest risk.