Grow Your Cashflow Podcast

Pascal Wagner:
All right. Welcome to another episode of the Legacy Wealth Podcast. I'm your host Pascal Wagner and we teach accredited business owners how to invest in private investments. And today we have on the show Kamil Maras who is an immigrant entrepreneur who migrated over from Poland to the United States when he was just 13 years old in 1993. He started a company called B&B Siding Contractors grew that over 7 million. and then acquired and grew a roofing company that grew to 12 million a year and a real estate development company in Florida up to 10 million a year in revenue. So I'm really excited to have Camille on the show. I know him from GoBundance. I've known him for a couple years now. He's invested over one million into different funds as an LP and thanks for coming

Kamil Maras:
Thank

Pascal Wagner:
on the

Kamil Maras:
you

Pascal Wagner:
show,

Kamil Maras:
so

Pascal Wagner:
Camille.

Kamil Maras:
much Pascal. It's great to be here, man

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, man. So to get us started, what I want to do is always share a story of how did you start investing in funds? What's your story?

Kamil Maras:
For sure. Okay. So, you know, everything starts with making, making that, that bank, you know, creating that capital, that investable capital that you can then leverage for, for compounded interest and returns. Right. So for me, it all starts in 2005. I get into the roofing and siding residential business back then, not knowing any better. I'm in it. I'm working all the functions throughout the years. And fast forward 10 years when I have a realization that, man, this isn't really working out. Like I'm not saving any money. I'm not going on vacations. You know, I'm always stressed. The bank account's always low. Something's off, right? So I get on this whole journey of rediscovering what it is to have a business. And I realize, you know, business is something you work on and not in, right? That whole thing. and then the self-development journey, that's a huge part of everything. You can't forget about dreaming about investing if you're not investing in yourself first, right? So that's the basis. So fast forward another two years, I'm in a position where all of a sudden I see that the business has some structure around it, it has some systems, I hired one or two people, I can delegate a little bit more. Now I'm noticing that even though I... added overhead, I'm actually like making money, saving money. And, um, and that's where it started. I wasn't thinking so much at that. Well, actually, let me rephrase. I was going to say that I wasn't thinking about investing that much, but I remember it was 2014, 15 that I bought my first duplex. Right. So there was my, my mindset was around real estate already, uh, just because my mom was in it already and I kind of followed her coattails and and I bought that first property. But then like I said, with building on what I started with the business and the scale, I get to a year of 2017 where I joined Gold Abundance. And there, the concept of proximity is power. The influence effect really just becomes wide. My eyes are wide open. It's such a blast of... just realism of where you could be, what you could achieve. And that's why I started hearing all the concepts about syndication, investing in other people's deals, uh, you know, being an LP, a KKP, a GPM deals. And I was, I was like a kid in a candy store, right? Just, just eating everything up like a sponge learning, going to every single meetup, every single event, just learning, learning, learning. And at the same time, I'm scaling my business. I'm adding people, I'm adding processes. We're ramping up marketing and there's more and more cash invested on the side, not invested, put away on the side for future investments. So about a year into Go Abundance, I start talking to guys about investing in their deals because real estate was already my thing. And the first thing I started doing is real estate syndications. And then came the other type of investments.

Pascal Wagner:
Got it, okay, so to recapture the story, so you moved to the US, you, you know, as you got older, you started a business and then you started acquiring other businesses and, you know, as your business started to grow, you started having extra cash on the side, you joined a new, like a new mastermind group, this one happened to be GoBundance, and from there you just learned everything around investing in other deals. So was, because I know GoBundance well, was this spurred by the idea of being 100% or this idea of having all of your expenses covered by passive income or was it that you wanted diversification away from what you were doing or you just met some guys and you thought that what they were working on

Kamil Maras:
I love that question.

Pascal Wagner:
was cool?

Kamil Maras:
It was actually the first, right? So in Go Abundance, there's this concept called the one sheet where you share your numbers with your brothers. And one of the numbers talks about financial freedom and a freedom percentage that covers your everyday expenses. And it was simple as a thought that I basically grasped onto was, if I wanna be in this tribe, and I'm gonna show up a year after year, I gotta have that number go up. And it wasn't even something I really wanted

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah

Kamil Maras:
to do. Like I was still kinda a business owner. And I even thought about having that number go up, but in my own deals, like buying my own duplexes or single families. But that was the defining moment where I said, yep, I gotta start investing in passive income in order to... you know, level up and that's where that idea came from. And again, the initial thought was buying my own properties, but then I realized that you could actually do it way more passively even than that by investing in other people's deals.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, I think a lot of people think that, so one of the first things I think people do when they start investing is they're like, oh, like by real estate, like real estate's a great investment and it's like, you don't realize how much work it is and it's everything but passive if you're gonna manage it properly. What was the, so you had this, you were in abundance. Everyone's talking about raising their financial freedom number out of all the different ways that you could increase your passive income. Why focus on alternative investments?

Kamil Maras:
I think you just hit the nail on the head right a few seconds ago. It was for me, it was I, you know, I'm already focused on my lane. Uh, I tried real estate with a few duplexes and like you said, it's a headache and a half, uh, it's a full-time job in addition to what I was already doing, even though I had a lot of support down in Florida, but it's still, you got to manage financial, you gotta, you gotta, you know, pick up the, the, the, the, the phone and you gotta be on top

Pascal Wagner:
You gotta

Kamil Maras:
of it.

Pascal Wagner:
be

Kamil Maras:
You

Pascal Wagner:
on

Kamil Maras:
can't

Pascal Wagner:
top

Kamil Maras:
just,

Pascal Wagner:
of it.

Kamil Maras:
you can't just. layoff. So I realized that investing in syndications at the moment, because that was the first type of investment that I did, was the passive thing to do. It was a way to multiply my capital without being involved at all. You just look at the statements every month, you wait for the cash flow, and that was something that really, I really gravitated to that in the beginning. I felt it was a huge opportunity to basically diversify one away from my business and to start building that cashflow. Not sure if that was what you were asking, but sorry.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, no, no, no, good. Okay, and then so walk me through your process, right? I think as a prospective investor or someone who's thinking about getting into funds or maybe has invested in their first one, the thought is how do you pick, how do you, are you investing for cash flow, are you investing for equity growth, how do you pick the asset class, how do you pick the fund, how do you find deals? Like walk us through that

Kamil Maras:
Yeah,

Pascal Wagner:
process.

Kamil Maras:
it's a very interesting process and unfortunately there's no shortcut. You have to learn it from one perspective to grow into seeing it from another perspective, right? When I started for me, it was about cashflow. Uh, I was my most important metric that I gauge the first metric that I gauge every deal was who it was the operator, right? The experience, the track record, what deals they have done, what's it, you know, What's the reputation? Can I verify these things with other members, with people who've done business with that person? That was the first, right? Then you look at the deal, obviously, and the projection, and you measure that up to against your criteria at the time. And where I'm going with this is when I was, at that time in my life, it was all about cashflow. And that's how I looked at deals. That's how I... qualify them and there was there were my metrics my cap rate needed to be eight and a half my debt ratio needed to one be 1.6 and above my cash on cash 12% and above those were my criteria back then right now having built up enough. vehicle creation perspective, generational wealth, right? So not so much around cash flow, cash on cash returns, although it all has to be positive. So it's pretty cool how that whole perception changes over time as you gain experience. And it basically comes down to where you are in life, how old are you, what your risk assessment is, and how much money you got.

Pascal Wagner:
So what I'm hearing here is it's not that, oh, you started out cash flow and you were young and naive and now you're focused on equity growth and that's what you should have been focused all along. It's more that it's based on where you are in life, what your needs are. Hey, now that you have X percent of your cash flow needs met, now it's like, why would I get extra cash flow that's taxed at a higher rate than maybe capital gains? and and let me focus more on equity growth.

Kamil Maras:
100%,

Pascal Wagner:
Is that

Kamil Maras:
that's

Pascal Wagner:
what

Kamil Maras:
exactly

Pascal Wagner:
I'm hearing? No.

Kamil Maras:
it.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah. Well, when when you think about that transition, is it like, Oh, man, I hit my 100% or, you know, 100% of my expenses, personal expenses are covered by my passive income is that when you started the transition? Or is it was it kind of like, you know, I just feels good or I have 20% more cash flow than I need. I imagine, you know, it's like, okay, you make two, 300K a year in passive and, you know, walk me through that.

Kamil Maras:
Yeah, I wish it was so black and white. It's it's it's a little tricky The number is important, right? You want to hit certain numbers in order to sit down and restrategize your approach to anything in life Whether it's business or investments So it's it's important to have data and metrics that you can rely on it So, you know, I wouldn't just make all the decision on gut feeling for sure For me, it was that it was the numbers in combination with what my businesses were making at the time where I knew my investment return on my, on reinvesting my businesses way supersede anything else. Uh, and at that moment I figured, and it also goes back to the taxable income. I figured that if I parked my money in a bigger deals, huge deals, and because really I don't, I don't, I didn't need the money at that moment because my businesses were covering a lot of expenses and, and even left investible capital. So I use the big deals and not equity play like long-term investments as my next vehicle. So it's hard to say what one thing made that pivot, but it's a combination of few, but data and numbers are important, right? So you definitely wanna be a certain financial position for you to make that pivot.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah. So now walk me through your first fund. You eventually got into go-bundance. You got excited about investing in syndications. What different types of deals did you look at? What got you really excited? What was the final one that you invested

Kamil Maras:
Yeah,

Pascal Wagner:
into?

Kamil Maras:
I mean, it was all so super exciting. It was all a learning curve for me at the same time as I was investing. So I started off with, I think it was a 40 or 50 unit apartment syndication. I knew the guy, actually the sponsor on the deal was a dude that was all over, it still is on bigger pocket. So I listened to him for years. I was even a little bit starstruck. I'm like, damn, you know, I'm on with this guy. So that was pretty cool. Everything worked out amazing. It was a great deal. But it was sort of where I'm going with this, it was a certain safe deal. I knew the sponsor. I looked at the numbers. It was what I was familiar with because by that time I had a bunch of duplexes. So I knew the rehab component. I was very comfortable with the whole structure, right? And obviously we were in a good market anyway, so that helped. So I dipped my toes in, and then I started investing in another one of those similar deals. I probably did three or four of those deals that then eventually paid out over time, and you know, it's a mix. So those were my first type of deals, syndications on the smaller scales with guys that I've... somehow came across and were able to vet and make sure that they're good operators.

Pascal Wagner:
Totally. So just for the audience, for those listening, if you keep hearing the words funds or syndications thrown around, they are two separate things. Funds are an investment in an operator that might buy multiple assets, whereas a syndication is you're investing in an operator that's buying one particular asset. So in this case, what Camille is talking about is there is one 44 unit apartment building and so that is a that he's investing in the operator that's outlined this one very particular deal, which I feel like I'd be interested to hear your take. I don't know how much it matters, but I think about funds for diversification in an asset class, whereas I think about syndications or if you want to really understand one deal really well, that you can look at all the numbers and really go deep and figure out is this... Does

Kamil Maras:
So,

Pascal Wagner:
everything make sense here to me? How do you think

Kamil Maras:
sorry.

Pascal Wagner:
about Fonz vs.

Kamil Maras:
So

Pascal Wagner:
Indications?

Kamil Maras:
yes, I appreciate you said that because I forgot to clarify. I did not invest in funds still way down the road. For me, it was syndications in the beginning because I was very much focused on making sure the deal is tied to the operator and I'm investing in a particular deal because of my lack of experience. I wanted to learn from the deal, from vetting that deal. It's only till later that I started investing in funds. And that whole concept is strictly tied into the operator and the guy that owns the fund, that leads the fund, right? Because he's investing in deals that you don't even know what he's investing in. So, and that

Pascal Wagner:
Right.

Kamil Maras:
gets developed over time. I mean, you have to, you know, either a solid recommendation or a relationship that you develop from my perspective, right? I mean, everybody's got their own risk assessment.

Pascal Wagner:
Yes, are you saying that you felt maybe funds were a little bit more risky and so that's why you started with syndications?

Kamil Maras:
Looking back at it, yes, I would consider them more risky, but the truth is I didn't even know you could have done that early on. I didn't even, the fun concept wasn't as prevalent in Go Bunder's Den. Like I think the only guy that had a fun was the elder, you know, David Osborne was probably one of the only guys who really had a fun in the tribe. And it just wasn't a concept that I had enough courage to... to talk about or dive into without knowing the syndication level stuff and just more be more elaborate around investing as a whole before I got into funds.

Pascal Wagner:
Why do you think funds are riskier? That's interesting tech.

Kamil Maras:
Again, it's so varies on the risk assessment of each person and their journey, right? For me, it was just because it was unknown and it wasn't my world. I knew nothing about it. Knowing what funds are now, it's way more of a comfortable conversation. It's way more of a comfortable investment for me. I mean, I'm investing in funds. that don't even know the operators, right? They're VC funds, venture capital funds. So, you know the company, right? But you don't know who the guy is behind the shield there, two levels down that's actually operating the fund. So you're investing in thesis on the fund in a lot of instances. So why was I thinking? It's just lack of knowledge, I think. That's really all it was, right? Yeah.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah. Yeah, but okay. So before the show, we talked about all of the different types of funds that you've invested into or syndications in general. And you said you've invested in a venture capital fund. Kind of as the first one, let's dive into that one. What interested you about this venture capital fund? What's its thesis? How'd

Kamil Maras:
Yeah,

Pascal Wagner:
you get

Kamil Maras:
so there's

Pascal Wagner:
introduced

Kamil Maras:
a

Pascal Wagner:
to

Kamil Maras:
few,

Pascal Wagner:
it?

Kamil Maras:
probably about three or four. Usually they all come about by somebody else recommending it to you, right? You're not out there. I'm not an, I'm not an active investor anymore. So I only invest in deals that somebody shares with me. That's a trusted source. Um, so there's a whole, the whole conversation around how you probably vet and source deals and stuff like that. But for me, it's. Right. It comes from the right source. That was big. And I looked at the thesis and I wanted to recognize if it's something that I could get excited about. I know a lot of investors talk about, I'm only investing in things I can explain. I know or I would use or stuff like that. I get it. And I would love to do so as well. But I also have this little side of me, even though I'm not a gambler, I hate going to the casino, but I have this side of me where I want to invest in something that's really going to get me excited. And I might not know everything about what the intricacies of the company's undertaking is. Like there's some fine details, I don't know, but the overall concept is exciting to me, right? So I have money in a technology play where this fund buys up small SaaS companies. and they roll them up together and they service bigger, huge technology companies with their services and they take companies public. So I'm excited about having one of my investments ring the bell on the stock exchange. That's fun stuff. But I only allocate up to 5% max of those type of deals in terms of my whole portfolio value. So there's that component of it all. Fund investor, there goes a lot, a lot more has to go into it and you have to do a lot more due diligence because you're investing a lot of your capital, right? But it's not me, so I can afford to take a lot of risk because it's more of a, of a just, you know, let's start diversify and put some bets on this here.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, so the SAS rollup thesis is super interesting. What are the other ones? You mentioned that there were two, three, or four

Kamil Maras:
Uh,

Pascal Wagner:
that

Kamil Maras:
yeah.

Pascal Wagner:
you did?

Kamil Maras:
So we have, yeah, no worries.

Pascal Wagner:
I'm putting you

Kamil Maras:
I

Pascal Wagner:
on

Kamil Maras:
have,

Pascal Wagner:
the spot.

Kamil Maras:
I, I, we invested in sign wave, uh, which is a, also a technology company. That company, uh, specializes in connecting, uh, the Silicon Valley tech world with the government. Through.

Pascal Wagner:
So is this a private company or is this

Kamil Maras:
This

Pascal Wagner:
a

Kamil Maras:
is

Pascal Wagner:
VC

Kamil Maras:
a VC

Pascal Wagner:
firm?

Kamil Maras:
firm. Yeah.

Pascal Wagner:
Okay, sweet.

Kamil Maras:
So they have multiple companies rolled up and they only specialize in that area of, call it business, right? So that was interesting to me. I thought to myself, you know, government's got all the money in the world. Technology is where it's at right now. If you married the two, that's probably a pretty good bet. Uh, what else

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah,

Kamil Maras:
do we have?

Pascal Wagner:
totally.

Kamil Maras:
Um, I, we invested in a company that this is a little bit more in my wheelhouse that buys up, uh, small service companies and creates a huge back office component for them. And then basically just scale that out of this world. Uh, so that was pretty cool and they do it all over the world. So it's not just one market. So I was excited about the diversification idea of it, of them having companies. in all different countries, right? So that sounded to me like a pretty cool and interesting concept. Yeah, those are the three fun ones.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, so you basically had these companies kind of introduced you through trusted people you know, and that's how you, you know, it wasn't like you looked at the top 100 VC firms and then went through and said, oh, I want to pick

Kamil Maras:
No,

Pascal Wagner:
that one.

Kamil Maras:
not at all. Not at all.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, okay, no, it's interesting to hear, just the different way everyone gets deals. You also talked about that you had three other investments that were pretty interesting. You mentioned a private equity investment. Well, walk us through what that fun thesis is, why you like that one, and

Kamil Maras:
Well, private

Pascal Wagner:
let's go there.

Kamil Maras:
equity, I think the only one... The only one I have is where... Hold on, which one is... It's a single family home. Come to think that's a font, not a private equity play. Yeah.

Pascal Wagner:
Both work? Tell us

Kamil Maras:
It's

Pascal Wagner:
about

Kamil Maras:
just

Pascal Wagner:
it.

Kamil Maras:
a portfolio of single family homes that they buy up and buy and hold. And nothing too exciting, nothing too sexy about it.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you've also invested in some unique deals. So you invested in this Renault Resort. Like, walk

Kamil Maras:
Uh,

Pascal Wagner:
us through that

Kamil Maras:
yeah,

Pascal Wagner:
one.

Kamil Maras:
that's a cool one. Right. Okay. So, uh, again, a go-bro connection and, uh, he bought a wedding venue with a golf course with a hotel in Jersey where I live. So I figured, man, I can drive down, check it out for real. And I did. And then my God, it was, it was not good. It was a dilapidated venue that was caving in on itself, but Uh, he sold me the vision and there was obviously a bunch of other investors and it was a beautiful vision. Fast forward four years later. It is stunning. It's a stunning place. Uh, I've actually had my company Christmas parties there and everything. And the play was, uh, also very interesting to me because it had those three, actually four components. It had the winery, had the golf course, had the hotel, had the wedding venue. So a lot of income sources, income sources from that. And, um, And again, the sponsor had proven track record. They've done deal like that in the past. I was very confident with that. And since then they've done probably about four or five other similar concepts all over the country. So it's really cool. It's one of those where you can talk about your owner in a resort, in a golf course, you're an owner in a winery. So it's a cool one to talk about, but that one has worked out very well.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, do any of these deals have additional perks like discounts

Kamil Maras:
This

Pascal Wagner:
if you invest

Kamil Maras:
one kind of does, this

Pascal Wagner:
or

Kamil Maras:
one

Pascal Wagner:
is

Kamil Maras:
kind

Pascal Wagner:
that

Kamil Maras:
of

Pascal Wagner:
not

Kamil Maras:
does.

Pascal Wagner:
part of the

Kamil Maras:
Nothing

Pascal Wagner:
game?

Kamil Maras:
too crazy, but yeah, it's fun also when you walk into the resort and they tell you welcome home, but they probably say it to everybody, but still feels good.

Pascal Wagner:
Oh, okay. I love these. You've also had a deal that went sideways, and I feel like there's a lot that you could, to share the learnings that you had, walk us through this RV deal that you've invested in. When did you make it? What was going through your mind when you made the investment?

Kamil Maras:
Yes, I

Pascal Wagner:
Talk

Kamil Maras:
mean,

Pascal Wagner:
to

Kamil Maras:
I'll

Pascal Wagner:
us

Kamil Maras:
start

Pascal Wagner:
about it.

Kamil Maras:
off by saying that it went sideways, but not because of any ill intent or mismanagement. I guess maybe, yeah, well, not really, not really. No, I was going to say everything in life could be mismanaged, right? Even if you have the best intentions, if you make a mistake, it could be considered mismanagement. But anyway, so it was a very exciting deal. because it was a exclusive RV. And I'm not actually really, well, I know what it is. I just don't know the terminology for it in that industry, but it's basically a high end, call it small homes with a little lot, little parking lot where you have people, they could rent them out. They could buy them and all them and use them as vacation spots. And the whole resort was beautifully created. The concept was just amazing. high end, everything was in the location, your Tampa was amazing, well, still is. But unfortunately, halfway through the GC passed away, I think during COVID, if I'm not mistaken, maybe even due to COVID, the

Pascal Wagner:
GC,

Kamil Maras:
general contractor

Pascal Wagner:
General Contractor.

Kamil Maras:
passed away and that's where everything started falling apart, right? There were some general contractors brought in to pick up the pieces but couldn't. stay within the budget and basically that whole trickle down effect to let us to where we are today where we're looking to offload it and hopefully just recoup investment capital or maybe at least certain percentage of it. But again, it happens. It's nobody's fault and it's just the risk that you take and it's all good, man. You move on.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah, this is one of the first deals that I've heard go sideways that wasn't real mismanagement. That's pretty uncommon, but also why there's key man insurance in place and to make sure that, I mean, I don't know if

Kamil Maras:
Good

Pascal Wagner:
they had

Kamil Maras:
point.

Pascal Wagner:
any of that with your deal,

Kamil Maras:
I

Pascal Wagner:
but.

Kamil Maras:
don't know. That might be it.

Pascal Wagner:
Yeah. Yeah. Camille, this was awesome. I loved having you on the show. Great to, great to share your experience and expertise and just how all the different types of things you're investing in is pretty interesting. So thank you for coming

Kamil Maras:
No

Pascal Wagner:
on

Kamil Maras:
worries,

Pascal Wagner:
and sharing

Kamil Maras:
I appreciate

Pascal Wagner:
your story, man.

Kamil Maras:
the time. Thank you so much.

Pascal Wagner:
Oh yeah.

Kamil Maras:
All right,

Pascal Wagner:
Thanks

Kamil Maras:
peace.

Pascal Wagner:
man. Bye.