Summary

Renan Cortez, known as the unicorn guy, shares his journey of buying an $8 million Restore Pro Franchise business with 100% seller financing and his subsequent launch of Syndicate Venture Group. He discusses the importance of building relationships with sellers, using a virtual assistant to find off-market deals, and evaluating financing options. Renan emphasizes the benefits of seller financing and explains how he calculates the net profit for the seller. He also shares his strategy of targeting larger acquisitions in the capital improvements and restoration niche. Renan highlights the importance of networking, raising capital, and staying focused on niche markets for higher multiples. Renan Cortez shares his experiences and insights in building a successful investment fund. He emphasizes the importance of networking and being in the right room to meet influential people. Through his connections, he was able to meet Joe Williams of Keller Williams and Harry Doblinski, a prominent figure in private equity. Renan also discusses the process of building a legal team and the importance of having reputable professionals. He explains his fund structure and offering, focusing on simplicity and realistic return expectations. Renan highlights the challenge of growing too fast and the need for a strong team to support the growth. He also emphasizes the importance of checking ego and surrounding oneself with the right people. Renan's wife is a significant source of support in his journey. He encourages listeners to reach out to him for networking opportunities.

Takeaways

Building relationships with sellers is crucial in acquiring businesses.
Using a virtual assistant can help find off-market deals and save time.
Seller financing can be a viable option for acquiring businesses.
Calculating the net profit for the seller and presenting the benefits of seller financing can help secure deals.
Focusing on niche markets and targeting larger acquisitions can lead to higher multiples. Networking and being in the right room can lead to valuable connections and opportunities.
Building a reputable legal team is crucial for an investment fund.
Simplicity and realistic return expectations are important in fund structure and offering.
Growing too fast can be a challenge and requires careful planning and a strong team.
Checking ego and surrounding oneself with the right people is essential for success.
Having a supportive spouse can make a significant difference in one's journey.
Reach out and network with others to expand opportunities.

 

Watch the Interview:

 

Transcript: 

Jon Stoddard (00:00.646)
Welcome to top M&A entrepreneurs. Today, my guest is Renan Cortez. He's a 12 year army veteran. He bought Restore Pro back in January, 2023. It's an $8 million business, 100% seller financing. He's now known as the unicorn guy. And he's gonna explain that. And now he's raised in front called the Syndicate Venture Group to buy more stuff. Welcome to the show, Renan.

Renan Cortez (00:28.778)
Thank you, John. I appreciate it. Yeah, weird to be called the unicorn guy, but it is. It's a unicorn deal. It's not something you really base a business model off of, but it's something that happened and it's launched me into outer space in a good way.

Jon Stoddard (00:30.634)
Alright!

Jon Stoddard (00:42.602)
That's crazy. And I want to hear how this came about. So tell me about this story. Now, what were you doing before you started looking for businesses to buy?

Renan Cortez (00:54.166)
Yeah, so like you said, I was 12 years in the military. I was a combat medic, you know, infantry medic, sleeping in the mud, rain, all that good stuff out of Fort Lewis, became a cardiology specialist in the military, and after 12 years got out and used that cardiology background to become a pacemaker rep with Medtronic, Abbott. So I did another 15 or 16 years in corporate America, Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies, did some medical startups, and it was some of the best and worst times of my life.

I don't come from that pedigree, I don't come from that world, and I thought I had done it, very corporate America, this is me, six figures, I'm doing it. And then it cost me my health, my weight, my mental, I just kinda, I went off the rails. And so I started hearing about starting your own business, or just getting that financial freedom, and I was trying to find the path that was best for me. I tried opening up my own cannabis facility in Puerto Rico, failed at that, but.

the silver lining is I met Cody Sanchez and got into the unconventional acquisitions group community. And I started hearing about all these things about people buying businesses. And at the young age of 45 years old, I changed my whole mindset on things and sought to buy a business. So that's how my, my journey has gone. And now we could start talking about that, you know? So, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (02:15.774)
Yeah, so I got to circle back. I met Cody Sanchez five, six years ago. I pitched her a cannabis deal to her private equity fund and she would, she passed on. She says, it's not there. I go, Cody, it's doing $8 million and 3 million bottom line. It wasn't a cannabis deal. It was a manufacturing that built machines that process the cannabis. Yeah, and she passed on it.

Renan Cortez (02:25.634)
Yes.

Renan Cortez (02:35.658)
Yes. OK. Yeah, I was vertically integrated. I was going to manufacture, grow, dispense, just have a dispensary. It was a really well-thought-out model. And it was actually, I used my GI bill to get my MBA at University of Maryland. And my entrepreneurship professor told me, go reach out to Cody Sanchez. She has a cannabis fund and all this. And so that's how I ended up in her ecosystem. And um.

Jon Stoddard (02:59.327)
Yeah.

Renan Cortez (02:59.998)
Through that, I just met some really, you know, like you said, you get in the room that you're supposed to be in or that you want to be in, and you start hearing these wild different strategies for financial freedom, how to make money, how to be successful at life. And I, after three years, I scrapped the cannabis thing and sought out to buy a business.

Jon Stoddard (03:18.93)
Yeah, like you and a hundred thousand other people, forget that cannabis. It's like, it's not federally approved. It's hard to get funding, how to raise money for it. You can't move money across state lines still. So like it's too difficult. Just move on. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (03:23.414)
That's right.

Renan Cortez (03:30.614)
That's right.

Renan Cortez (03:35.962)
That's right. Yeah, so now I'm in her cohort, I'm in her community and I'm listening to a lot of people. I'm looking at the simple things that everybody looks for in the beginning. I want a laundromat, I want a car wash, I want all the things, right?

I was looking at frozen yogurt. I was looking at a dry cleaner. I got SBA approved for a dry cleaner. It was $700,000 a deal, came with real estate. Top line, 600,000. And after debt service, net-net, it would clear 230,000. It was after COVID. But it, yeah, it was in a very affluent. Yeah, go ahead.

Jon Stoddard (04:05.906)
Was that way of if you were looking at before covert or after covert?

Oh, it was after COVID. Oh, okay. Because I had a buddy that bought one of these and took it in the shorts during COVID. He's now a W-2 employee at somewhere, another company.

Renan Cortez (04:19.894)
Yep.

Yeah, this is post COVID. And the reason I like this one so much is because it's in a very affluent area in New Jersey and COVID really didn't touch it because it wasn't the business suits or the working uniforms that they were dry cleaning. It was the housewives cashmere. It was things, you know, the linens from the house and that stuff didn't stop. If you know, if anything, it kind of increased. So they were a rock solid through the entire. So it was a really good business. The only reason I didn't do that is because I, in the meantime, I hired a virtual assistant, um, group.

Jon Stoddard (04:28.479)
Yeah.

Renan Cortez (04:52.338)
and they would do call calling on my behalf to find businesses off market deals for me. And my deal box was 500,000 EBITDA, service-based business, recession resistant in New Jersey. I live in New Jersey, so New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland area.

And one of the first things they found was this big business, two million in EBITDA, eight million dollar acquisition. I'm like, what are you guys doing? I have dry cleaner money. I don't have money to buy an eight million dollar business. But curiosity got me. I said, hey, let me take a look at this. I wanna see what doing diligence on a big business looks like. That way I could frame, I wanna see what that looks like. And I went in, I saw the profit margins were strong. I saw opportunity up, down.

Jon Stoddard (05:30.102)
Get the reps in. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (05:38.14)
left and right and then I kind of fell in love with the whole premise and how do I take down this company so it's gonna be either I raise funds or do something right yeah

Jon Stoddard (05:47.158)
So let me stop you right there because I want to find out. So your virtual assistant's reaching out. She's asking these guys questions. Hey, are you interested in selling? And the guy says, yes. So great, I'll set up a call with you and the buyer. And then what do you do? What are you asking him? Like, why are you selling? What's the reason?

Renan Cortez (06:08.742)
Well, in the very beginning, in all honesty, so my 15, 16 years in corporate, I was sales, and I was the sales coach, and then I went all the way up to strategy and all that. So there isn't gonna be a hard push on the very first phone call. Very first phone call, we're just learning each other. Learning how to pronounce each other's names, and where are you, so are you thinking about selling? What has your business been up to? What does the future look for you? Who am I, where do I come from? And then if that vibe is good, then it's like, hey, you know what?

Jon Stoddard (06:15.629)
Oh yeah.

Renan Cortez (06:38.776)
This is kind of cool. I can do business with you. Let's grab coffee and talk about this further Let's get offline meet in person and so then That was the next step. So now we're sitting there talking and then once again, i'm picking his brain Why are you selling? What are you looking to achieve? What do you want to do? so

Jon Stoddard (06:54.578)
Yeah. Let me, let me go back to the VA. How many phone calls did they make and how long did that take?

Renan Cortez (06:59.322)
Oh, they probably made, you know, 50 to 100 phone calls. They say per day, but I don't know. I don't have the actual metrics on how much they did, but I will say after the first two weeks, I had seven tangible targets, like real meaty targets. At the end of three months, I had 55 off-market listings, hot leads of, with all the information.

Jon Stoddard (07:21.75)
to just to make conversations with to start with. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (07:25.438)
And so it kind of, as everything unfolded, I didn't even need to go past the first one because the first one is the one I took down. And so all the others kind of got stale because it took me like four, five, six months to do the deal. And I don't wanna just have too much information coming in at the same time. So I just concentrated on the one deal and we were successful.

Jon Stoddard (07:48.126)
Yeah. I would just try to, if I, if any of my listeners heard that, it goes, can I set my expectations of what that looked like? I know to me that sounds a little, you know, two weeks, couple of weeks, that's kind of crazy, but could happen. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (07:59.818)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, yeah, two weeks, like I said, one to five, it was about five listings after the first two weeks, and then, yeah, after three months, 55. So it's a VA service that I use, and I kept in touch with him for the last year and a half, and he's doing good work for a lot of other people as well. You know, people all the time.

Jon Stoddard (08:18.418)
Yeah, let's, what's the name of it? Cause I know people want to hear it and we'll just get a referral. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (08:23.414)
Yeah, no, his name is David Collinson. Dave Collinson, I could share his link. You could put the link there. I get absolutely nothing for that. It's just, I truly believe in what his services do and what he does. Now, he won't close the deal for you. He's not a broker. It's not like that. He's purely, he's really good at having that interview with you, finding out what you want. He manages your expectations. He's agnostic to any business sector. So if you want like a sewing business, yeah, he'll go look for it. He has a team in the Philippines.

that expertly trained, he's been doing this for years, and he has really good success. So yeah, there's a lot of business that we work together on. He still looks for off-market deals for me, but yeah, I highly recommend his services. Okay.

Jon Stoddard (09:07.758)
Yeah. So let's get back to your story. You arrange a meeting with this guy. You meet at a coffee shop or some neutral location and what's, you're just trying to develop a relationship with this guy first.

Renan Cortez (09:13.55)
Okay.

Renan Cortez (09:18.198)
That's it, trying to develop a relationship. Why do you want to sell? He's late 40s or a brother is early 50s. So the thing is that they've been entrepreneurs their whole life. They have multiple businesses and they wanted to buy back their time. So they wanted to sell one of their assets. That was the biggest time suck. And this is not a knock on them by any, by no means, right? But the thing was the reason it was a time suck is because they were running it very, very inefficient. They had

like folders for each job all over the, nothing was cloud-based, nothing was centralized. It's the old adage, you find a business that's operating on a fax machine, you implement a computer, profits go up 30%, right? So like there, there are accounts receivables.

I remember this, so 9,500 rows of accounts receivables on one continuous Excel spreadsheet. So that's the kind of operation. So that's why it was a lot of time to maintain. They were making a lot of money. See, that's what I'm saying, I don't wanna make, because my thing is I know that they probably hear me talk about this on podcasts or whatever. It's not, I'm not making fun of them. Yeah, I'm not gonna.

Jon Stoddard (10:15.038)
They didn't know that there's software out there for that? Hahaha.

Jon Stoddard (10:26.306)
Yeah, yeah, you're not griping on these guys and something, yeah, yeah.

Renan Cortez (10:30.246)
It just, it is what it is. You know, some people, they were making a lot of money in spite of the processes that they had put in there. I come from, you know, like 15, 60 years corporate. I've worked with all the, you know, the CRMs and the systems and I've seen how things can go so immediately I was like, we could make this super efficient. And that's what I'm basing my entire fund on.

Cause you know, so the whole story goes, I buy this business for $8 million, a hundred percent seller financing. Um, and we could go into the details on that. Like how, how did I get, you know,

Jon Stoddard (11:01.266)
Yeah, let's do this. Let's, cause a lot of the people that watch this show goes, oh my God, you know, things are going to happen. They get impatient, right? No, there's a process of developing a relationship to make sure that they want to sell, you know, peers sell to peers, right? They want to make sure you're confident that you can run the business. I'm going to sell to you and build the developer. I trust Renault and Cortez before I'm going to sell it to them.

Renan Cortez (11:12.342)
Oh yeah.

Renan Cortez (11:27.327)
Yeah, that's exactly where, that's the point I want to drive home because this past year a lot of people reach out and they say, look, I have this deal on the hook, but they don't want to give me seller financing. What words do I use to make them? First of all, you're not going to make anybody do anything. That's not how this works. And the other thing is, and I really try to manage expectations, you're not going to do this. You know, the chances of success are not like through the roof.

You know, I actually had to put out like a public service announcement. You know, I talk a lot about the 8 million business that I took down, but I don't talk about the 20 businesses that I couldn't get off the ground with that kind of structure. There were a lot of no's that I had to go through to get to that. There were a lot of off market, on market, a lot of no's. So that's where I refined this whole thing on what drives the person to sell. And what it comes down to is if you show them that by holding the note,

they get to amortize their payment. So they're not getting a lump sum, eight million, where the IRS is gonna come and take 37% or 35, wherever you live. You get to manage it in manageable chunks over five, 10, 15 years. It's all.

Jon Stoddard (12:36.05)
Yeah, it's an installment plan. It's used to get the, uh, you know, full amount of the sale, the payment, but it's in over installments, which the IRS includes that as a lower capital games versus ordinary income. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (12:45.428)
And then on top of that...

Renan Cortez (12:49.966)
That's right. That's exactly right. And then on top of that, I tell them, I'm not paying you 8 million for your business. I'm actually paying you 11.8. And they kind of look and say, because you're getting interest payments. I'm not paying JP Morgan. I'm not paying Bank of America or Live Oak that interest payment. I'm paying you the interest payment. So I'm gonna advertise over 12 years at 7%. That's an additional 3.8 million that you're getting on top of the 8 million purchase price.

That's when it, and then going back to your earlier point, the two questions I had for them, after I presented that and everything, I was like.

Do you think your company is strong enough? The cash flows are strong enough to support that debt service. Of course, they're like, yeah, it's like 40% margins, even at margins. You're right, absolutely. And two, do you think I could do this? Do you think I'm gonna fail? Or they're like, no, because now we're two and a half months into this, they know my track history, they know what I've done in the military, they know what I've done in corporate America, they get a feel for me as a father, a husband, my family life, what my intent is with the company. They feel like,

a guy that could do this. So they're like, yeah, you could run this business. You're not going to fail at this. So basically, you know, by doing no down payment and doing this deal, I'm paying you 3.8 million for taking a risk on this whole situation. Now we're a month and a year and a month into it and we're doing just fine. Everything's good. Yeah. You know,

Jon Stoddard (14:15.474)
Yeah. Let me ask you that when you first presented to him, did you originally think, I'll just take this down with an SBA loan? Cause it's definitely eligible. Were you eligible and you didn't go that direction or?

Renan Cortez (14:28.042)
Well, it's kind of tough because it was 8 million, so it would have been a hybrid type deal, because SBA only goes up to 5 million, but there's ways to do that. You still need to come in with a pretty good down payment to kind of de-risk it for the banks. And a lot of banks were saying, no, you need like 1.4 or $2 million down payment, and then you can leverage the rest. So.

Jon Stoddard (14:33.534)
Yeah.

Renan Cortez (14:51.178)
We didn't really have those discussions. Anytime we approached the discussion, okay, so how much or how are you gonna finance this? The first month, I always pushed back. I'm like, look, to be honest, I don't even know if I want this yet. Let's keep doing diligence. Once I get very comfortable with the financials, with the structure, with the business in general, then we can talk about how are we gonna do this together. And that was just all me just building the relationship. That's all it was.

Jon Stoddard (15:15.87)
Yeah. And you, when you asked for the financial report cards, the income statements, three to five years, balance sheets, cashflow statements, they were receptive to that. They were ready to put it in a data room and give it to you. Okay.

Renan Cortez (15:28.406)
Yep, we did NDA and we just from day one started sharing information. It was not a problem. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (15:33.27)
And now why did they go, let's go back to the, why did they sell this one caused them the most time? Was there other business making more money or taking less time? Is that what I'm gonna.

Renan Cortez (15:41.034)
Yes.

Renan Cortez (15:47.138)
The other businesses took less time from them. Yes. Yeah, they have real estate. They have a couple franchises They you know, they have a labor division So those were infinitely less time intensive than what this is So in their minds if they could get a good consistent payment or one big payment for this and Just kind of put it in real estate or other ventures that would they just bought back, you know 12 hours of their day

Jon Stoddard (16:11.294)
Yeah. How did you, what kind of questions you ask them to understand, you know, a seller finance, 100% seller finance deal was really better for them than do an SBA about what their needs were. You know, like, hey man, you're gonna get like $11 million in installment plan over, what was the term of the loan or the installment? 12 years, okay. Who made that up? 12 years.

Renan Cortez (16:27.816)
Mm-hmm.

Renan Cortez (16:35.279)
It's 7% over 12 years. Yeah.

So there's another thing that I have, and Aubrey will tell you about it. I call it the dumb calculator, right? So it's basically this Excel spreadsheet that I put together, it's real simple. It's basically a payment function. And what I have built in, there's three variables that I look at. How much am I gonna acquire a business for? What is the net profit that I could expect from it?

Jon Stoddard (16:47.614)
Yeah, yeah.

Renan Cortez (17:02.722)
and what are the financing terms, right? If I plug all that in, it'll tell me what my net looks like. And that'll get me to the second point of, do I even wanna do the deal or is this gonna be too tight? So this one had a lot of meat on the bone. And so when I took that and I added an amortization table to it, now I have this thing that I could show them. We sat down at the coffee shop, sat down at the diner and I was like, hey, look, I wanna buy this business.

I'm getting pushback from the bank because they say I need like one and a half million to put down and I don't have that. And so of course, the immediate reaction, a little bit of disappointment like, oh man, you know, did we just waste the last month and a half, two months? I'm like, no, absolutely not. I'm just telling you, I'm just sharing what I'm finding. I find that I really like this business. You have a strong business model going on. We're going to do a quality of earnings. Now let's figure out how can we do this.

Well, if you say you don't have a million and a half, how are we gonna do this? Have you ever considered holding a note, being the bank? You're like, what are you talking about? Education, so that's where I go into educating them on, as long as we agree to terms. So they're like, okay, so I'm like, just humor me. Let's sit down and play with this. So we've changed the APRs, we changed the years, and then we, and this is something, I put it at worst case scenario for me. Like I put it, we landed at 7% APR,

because this was a year and a half ago and SBA rates were going about six and a half. So part of my incentive, I said, yeah, so part of my incentive was I'm gonna go higher than SBA. So I'm gonna give you 7% APR. He was like, okay. So we put it at 7%. I said, let's get you out of five years. Okay, we put it in five years. It calculates everything and the net is $99,000. This is a $2 million EBIT of business and a net 99,000.

Jon Stoddard (18:32.942)
Yikes, right?

Renan Cortez (18:53.494)
I'm like, there you go. And he goes, and this is, I love him for this. He's like, there's no way in my good conscience can I sell you this business with these terms and know that you're only making 100,000? Because, you know, if you just have the little bit of a hiccup or variance in cash flows, you're done. And then on top of that, he goes, I know that this business will bring in a little bit more than that. So, you know, he has a good heart also. I'm like, I'm glad you said that. I said, let's put it out to 20 years. He goes, I don't wanna be on the hook for 20. I'm like, no, let's, we're playing right now.

Put it out to 20.

Jon Stoddard (19:23.25)
Yeah, I don't want to know if I want to be your friend for 20 years.

Renan Cortez (19:26.366)
Well, that's the thing, but I just, so we went all the way up to 20 and then it showed that it cleared 1.2, 1.3 million. And we're like, that's too long. Okay. I get it. So we went back to seven, eight, you know, then we had landed at 12 years. And it was, it was like the perfect point. 7% at 12 years, it cleared over a million dollars. He had his debt service. It's like a monthly payment of $80,000. And it was like, okay. And then I said, here's the best part.

give me two years, because after two years, if you're really tired of holding the note, I could refinance this 100% from a bank, because the number one question they're gonna ask if I go to refinance, how long have you been in the business and are you profitable? If I've been profitable for two years, showing, you know, then they'll refinance it. They're like, yeah, sure. Now the problem now.

Jon Stoddard (20:11.722)
Yeah, it's a piece of cake. Your balance sheet's a heck of a lot bigger today, you know, two years from now than it is today. So happy to do that.

Renan Cortez (20:15.03)
Yeah, that's the thing. That's it. And so right now it's kind of funny. I talked to branch managers and they're like, they're never gonna refinance me out because the interest rates are too high. They're not gonna ethically put me in a worse position than I'm in right now, but it's okay because they're fine with it. They're getting their payments. They've already told me, they said, look, if you ever think about refinancing, come to us first. Well, because it's easy money for them.

Jon Stoddard (20:39.102)
Yeah, let me, how much disclosure do you give them? They already know what the cash flow of the business is, everything. How much, you know, how many, what kind of eyeballs do you give them the business? Like, yeah.

Renan Cortez (20:50.946)
Quarterly financials. We sit down, we do a quarterly meeting, we go over financials, this is showing the strength. Because the recourse here, and this is another thing, this is why it's another unicorn thing. The recourse is if we show we can't make our payments and we take heroic measures, you know, like business loans or emergency loans and we just can't keep it afloat, we get the keys back and we say, damn, sorry, you know?

Jon Stoddard (21:00.262)
What is the real?

Renan Cortez (21:14.154)
I mean, they've gotten a payment all the way. So it's not like they're not getting payments all the way through that. I think last year they made 500,000 in interest alone.

Jon Stoddard (21:18.856)
Is that...

Jon Stoddard (21:22.762)
So you would give the keybacks, is there a term on that? Like two to five years of giving the keys back or at some point, you know.

Renan Cortez (21:30.426)
No, that's part of our quarterly meeting. You know, it's the quarterly discussion of, are we doing good, are we doing bad? And then it becomes a sense of, can they leverage any of their relationships to help our cashflow? And if it gets to the point where we just are...

Jon Stoddard (21:32.244)
Yeah.

Renan Cortez (21:43.186)
be on the shadow of a doubt, we cannot run this business, then we have to make the determination. But it's quite the opposite. We're actually doing very good. So thankfully we didn't have to have those conversations, but that is the recourse. It becomes an arbitration, talking about the financials, you haven't been able to pay the next amount of months, and that's the doomsday scenario.

Jon Stoddard (22:04.094)
Yeah. Did they have a general manager running that business or were they running it themselves? And what are you doing? Yeah. And did you put somebody in place to run that or are you running it? Yeah.

Renan Cortez (22:09.418)
It was them. They were owner operators.

Renan Cortez (22:14.826)
I didn't. I didn't know I went back into my network and there was a gentleman, Nick, that, um, we got our MBA together. And I remember he was a controller for, um, like $700 million construction company in the area. And, uh, so he knows this space, he knows the accounting, financials, he knows construction. And so I asked him, I say, Hey, look, do you want to do this for real? Put our MBAs to work for real. He's like, hell yeah, let's go. So.

He now since then, he's now the CFO for the fund and he's stepping out and we have management in place in the company. So. I gave him, I gave him 49%.

Jon Stoddard (22:46.578)
Yeah. Did he ask for any equity in the business? The three store pro 49%. Lovely. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (22:53.002)
Yeah. And a lot of people, you know, I've heard a lot of, you know, criticisms. They're like, oh, you know, you gave too much equity. You did that. Well, you know what? I did what I felt was appropriate because that's a, that's my first time I ever took down a business, I trusted him and that's how I show my trust and gratitude. I don't want there to ever be a rift on that. So the only reason I kept 51% is so I could throw a veteran status onto the business. And, um, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (23:18.058)
Does that get you business, being veteran status? Yeah, yeah. Oh, so you're doing government contracting, so, yeah.

Renan Cortez (23:19.698)
Oh yeah, Set-Aside, there's a lot of Set-Aside, there's a lot of networks. Oh yeah, GSA, No Bits, yeah, there's a lot, a lot that we're gonna do for that, for sure.

Jon Stoddard (23:30.886)
Yeah. What, what is it? I'm very curious. What does that look like? Uh, what's your commercial versus gov contract? What were they doing when they were running the business? And what does it look like now? What's the split in customer concentration?

Renan Cortez (23:39.96)
Mm-hmm.

Renan Cortez (23:43.266)
So the split for them is 20% commercial, 80% residential. Since I took it over and I've been looking at other businesses to add to the portfolio, I've really taken to the business philosophy of doing more commercial, right? Because commercial is less headaches. You know, it's.

Jon Stoddard (23:48.895)
Uh-huh.

Renan Cortez (24:03.258)
Not guaranteed money, but it's contracted money over three to five years. And we're talking about million dollar contracts. Residential, you're talking about 5,000, 10,000. You're in, you're out two days. You're doing about 40 to 50 jobs a month versus four big ones in a year. You know?

So I'm gravitating more towards commercial. So now we're looking at 30 to 40% commercial, the rest residential, and we're finalizing our GSA no bid contracts now. It took almost a year to get that done, but we're finalizing all that stuff now.

Jon Stoddard (24:33.255)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It sounds to me like this Restore Pro is definitely higher than the average, United States average of revenue.

Renan Cortez (24:43.882)
Of what? Yeah, for restoration companies. So it's the weird, there's probably 20% market share that belongs to the big boys in this industry. 80% is all mom and pop. And out of the mom and pop, I would say that Restore Pro was on a higher level of that. It really was. Because a lot of the ones that, I've been to Florida, California, Seattle, I'm looking nationally and it's really good profit margins.

Jon Stoddard (24:47.219)
Yeah.

Renan Cortez (25:11.394)
But unless they're organized in a way, you rarely see like bigger businesses, you know, they just kind of stagnate. So that's why I see the opportunity of, you know, aggravating.

Jon Stoddard (25:16.862)
Yeah, to hit $6 million in revenue. Yeah.

That's not what the franchise sells it at. They sell it like at about a million dollars. That's what you'll see. Yeah, but it's a 50% net, which is what they brag about too. Yeah. Interesting. So you're doing this one year, one month later. Now, when did you launch the fund? Syndicate Venture Group, and now you're doing a road show to raise capital to buy companies.

Renan Cortez (25:26.05)
I'll try it. That's better.

That's right. Yep, that's exactly right.

Renan Cortez (25:44.766)
Yeah, so once we were able to take down that deal, I was like, hey, we just took down an $8 million business with no money. It's not a repeatable business model. Because people are like, why don't you just keep doing that? Well, it's not repeatable, it's not, it's a unicorn thing. It's gonna possibly could do it, but I don't wanna predicate a business model on it. So I figured if I could raise capital and put down 30% and get the rest seller finance, I'm in business.

Jon Stoddard (25:53.868)
Look at, I, yeah.

Renan Cortez (26:12.274)
And sure enough, that's what we're doing. So I started the, I actually started Syndicate Venture Group in 21, just as a holding company, just to write off the expenses of looking for businesses and stuff, right? That was my LLC taking losses the first year and a half. But now it's turning into a holding company and a Reg D 506C where we're raising a hundred million dollars to acquire more businesses. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jon Stoddard (26:36.982)
All right, so those are big check writers. And you say, where do we find $100 million because maybe these guys are gonna write checks for 5 million to $10 million, something like that. And you go out and you start talking to private equity, maybe some hedge funds, maybe some family offices, wealthy investors. What's the reaction? What do you do?

Renan Cortez (26:59.234)
So in order, I'm gonna backtrack just a little bit, in order to prepare for all of that, I enrolled in Columbia Business School for Private Equity and Venture Capital. So I'm in New York City now, and I'm learning from Columbia professors, you know, learning Warren Buffett value investing. I'm in the same room as other high level fund managers and GPs, and I'm really in it.

And I put this thesis together and I show it to my classmates. I show it to the professors and they're like, yeah, you're building a baby Berkshire Hathaway. It's almost kind of like a common sense model. I'm like, so I was validated there. And then I'm like, well, if this is that, how come not everybody's doing it? And they're like, well, there are a lot of people doing it, but people get attracted to AI, you know, all the sexy stuff, you know, the VCs.

Jon Stoddard (27:43.582)
Cybersecurity.

Renan Cortez (27:44.534)
Yeah, the stuff that's gonna get you 100x return on your money, which is cool. There's definitely a place for that, but I'm trying to hit singles and doubles. I'm trying to get 90% consistent revenues coming through the door. And so we're doing the service based roll up. Um, so yeah, that's now I prepared myself there so that I could get the, the fundamental, the infrastructure, the thesis built up.

Jon Stoddard (27:47.411)
Yeah, yeah.

Renan Cortez (28:07.786)
Now it's time to go on the road show and I came across a bite through my network family office club Richard C. Wilson Okay Yep So I go to the very first one in Los Angeles earlier last year and I think it was March

Jon Stoddard (28:14.782)
Yep, yep, he's in Florida. I know him well. He's got big, yep.

Renan Cortez (28:23.882)
And it was just his investor summit. I go down there not knowing anything about anything. I just want to take it in because once again, be in the room, right? Take action, be in the room, and then you'll just learn. After the third day there, Richard Wilson's like, there's two people here that are gonna be wildly successful and you're one of them.

with or without us. So he's like, congratulations on that. And because of that, you know, I was able to become, you know, get into their network, meet a ton of people through that network. I've had an exhibit booth there. And fast forward a year later, through Family Office Club, I'd met a group where we're talking about $110 million commitment. You know, we're doing all the finalizing of the paperwork now. We've already been approved for 17.5 million from another group that specializes

So they're anchoring our fund at 17.5 and we're finalizing the paperwork on that. They've already signed some subscription, we're just transferring funds right now. So once again, it's not quick and I never thought I was like, when is this going to happen? And I'm still kind of feeling that way because until I see it in the account, I'm still like, I'm waiting. But it's... I know.

Jon Stoddard (29:33.962)
Dude, from army medic to doing this, this is like the Patrick McDavid story, man.

Renan Cortez (29:41.112)
I, it's been wild. And that's what I'm saying. That's why, you know, I sit with Aubrey. We were down there in Austin and it's.

Jon Stoddard (29:48.118)
Well, by the way, that wasn't when we talked about Aubrey, Arias, it wasn't being recorded. So we're talking about a mutual buddy of ours.

Renan Cortez (29:55.454)
Yes. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So, yeah. So, um, we're down there in Austin. And the thing that it's kind of weird about what I'm doing, it's not classic venture capital. It's not classic private equity. It's more of a hybrid. So I'm sitting there with Aubrey and we came up with this thing, venture equity, because it's a hybrid of both. There is something called venture equity, but we're going to call this venture equity 2.0, but it has the best, um, pieces of both, I believe in the offering.

And once I explain it to investors, they're like, oh wow, yes, we want in all of this, let's go. So it's a cool thing.

Jon Stoddard (30:30.027)
Yeah, let me kind of recircle back to something where you're talking about sexy and stuff. When you offered 11 million over 12 years, that's a 5.5X on the EBITDA, by the way. It's so...

Renan Cortez (30:43.746)
So it's a Forex, that's what we agreed to the acquisition. 8 million, it's a Forex multiple of two, but once you advertise it, include the interest payments. Yes, 11.8, yes, that's exactly right, yes.

Jon Stoddard (30:54.878)
It goes to five more. Yeah. So, yeah. So let me go back to the, you got a five Oh six B, which is allows you 50 invest investors at Oh, five Oh six C. So.

Renan Cortez (31:03.118)
506c, which allows me to publicly market the offering. Cause that's right. Cause a year ago I had zero for ultra high net worth or any high net worth people in my circle. It was like me and a couple of Jiu-Jitsu guys. And I didn't have that high net worth network. So I had to market. I have to be able to put it on social media. I have to put it on whatever outlet. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (31:09.684)
General solicitation, yes. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (31:25.919)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (31:29.542)
Yeah, I'm raising X checks, minimum check sizes, X amount. What, now is that when they say committed, we're gonna commit $17 million. They're actually putting money in your bank or are they saying, you know, when you get the deal, we're gonna syndicate it.

Renan Cortez (31:44.418)
So the 17 point, originally it was, you know, once you commit, you're putting the money in because we, I have another 30 million in businesses that I'm taking down over the next quarter. And so it's gonna be deployed right then and there. So there is no capital call, right? But now that we're in the realm of this 110 million dollar play, that's gonna be where it's committed. And once we have the deal, then we'll do a capital call. But for the first 20 to 30 million, it's gonna be immediate transfer of funds.

Jon Stoddard (32:14.654)
Yeah. And now you're going back to David Tomlinson with his VA and goes, Hey, I'm not looking for these SMBs anymore because it doesn't move the needle. I'm looking for what minimum 2 million net.

Renan Cortez (32:27.274)
Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at two to eight million EBITDA. Looking for bigger, you know, so typical acquisition from now on is gonna be anywhere between 15 to 30 million. I just signed an NDA for another business. This is a big one. It's a holding company of itself over on the West Coast. And it's going for 130 million. And it's a big one. It's a holding company that they're looking to exit.

Jon Stoddard (32:50.038)
So why are they selling?

Jon Stoddard (32:54.546)
Oh, okay.

Renan Cortez (32:55.426)
That's really what it is. So I came across my radar. I've been fortunate now to be on podcasts and just get the word out so people know what I'm looking for. And so I get a lot of incoming deals. And so this one actually piqued my interest because my final goal is to get to 100 million EBITDA across the portfolio. So we can exit 15 to 20 X multiples. So that's a 1.5 to $2 billion. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (33:15.986)
Yeah, let me ask you that or may bring a point though, because if you have a Restore Pro and then you buy a completely different business, it may add onto the cashflow, but it doesn't give you the unique advantages of buying another Restore Pro and adding to the multiple because you have more cashflow.

Renan Cortez (33:38.21)
Oh, it's all within the same niche. They're all capital improvement restoration companies. Yeah. Yep.

Jon Stoddard (33:42.962)
Okay, that will change your multiples. Yes. Yeah, you know, it's funny. It was like, uh, I did an interview with Walker Diebel and he said that one of the business biggest mistakes he's made over the last couple of years is buying different businesses in different niches. It doesn't add to the multiples. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (34:01.278)
I got to sit right next to him at one of Cody's masterminds. I had his book. It was crazy to meet him in person. And yeah, we had that conversation about the $8 million deal that I did and all that. But that's where I formed.

Jon Stoddard (34:12.931)
We'll call Walker DeBolt, buy then hold, great hair guy. Ha ha ha.

Renan Cortez (34:19.406)
But yeah, but that's what formed because originally I was all over the place. I was like, yeah, electrical, HVAC, this and, but now I'm really niching into capital improvements, restoration, reconstruction niche because there's so much opportunity. Like I said, there's only 20% of the market held by the big companies. 80% is wide open. So I'm going to aggregate a lot of these companies, bring it into the portfolio. Economies to scale, shared services.

and we will still.

Jon Stoddard (34:46.666)
So you got to up level a lot of things like your legal, your accounting, what did you do there? I mean, did you go, hey, you're a great accountant, appreciate this, but we're moving to $120 million business. I need one of the big accounting firms.

Renan Cortez (35:01.922)
So yeah, and once again, being in the room. So now I'm in family office club. Richard Wilson and his staff, I have an exhibit booth and they strategically placed my booth next to another booth that was bringing in a lot of attention. So the guy there, he's like, so what do you have going on here? I'm like, we're buying businesses, what's your name? He goes, I'm Joe Williams. We're doing a big real estate fund and everything. I'm like, real estate? He goes, it's gonna be fine.

Jon Stoddard (35:27.034)
right now. Yeah, definitely.

Renan Cortez (35:28.646)
He's like, it's gonna be fine. I'm like, yeah, I get it. He goes, no, it's gonna be fine. I'm like, okay. He goes, I'm Joe Williams. I was like, I get it. So he walks away. The other guy at his booth is laughing at me. He goes, you don't know who he is, do you? I'm like, he's Joe Williams. He goes, yeah, you ever heard of Keller Williams? I was like, oh. I was like, yeah, he's like, he's the Williams of Keller Williams. And so, so I was super embarrassed.

Jon Stoddard (35:46.838)
Oh my God, are you serious? Have you ever heard of Cortez?

Renan Cortez (35:56.758)
But now the guy that's laughing at me, he's like, what's your story, kid? What's going on here? So this is an event we're doing in Brooklyn. And he's like, what's your story? So I tell him I'm doing this fun. I was in New York. He goes, we're in New York, Queens. I leave for the army. And turns out this guy grew up three blocks from me. His name is Harry Doblinski. And he's like, look at us, two Queens kids sitting here in a suit in Brooklyn at this wonderful, but Harry has been in private equity for about.

35 to 45 years. Like he hangs out with the mayor, you know, the governor Hokel, and he's big time private equity. He's like, look, here's my card, let's talk. I wanna see how we can help each other. Cool. So fast forward, I actually called him. Long story short, he does the fund administration for Joe Williams and that fund.

And he's also doing the fund administration for us because he's like, you're an emerging manager. If people are wondering who's doing your fund administration, it can't be, you know, Joe Blow down the block. It has to be somebody reputable. So he's handling the fund administration, the books, just everything. We actually have a strategy meeting on that tomorrow where we're using AppFolio for all the administration. I'm moving away from the system I'm using. Anyway, so he's guiding us in that way. And the only reason I even got to meet him is because I was in the room.

Jon Stoddard (37:13.414)
Yeah. Sitting next to Keller Williams, the Williams of Keller Williams.

Renan Cortez (37:13.482)
you know, the family office club room. It really catapulted us. Yeah, I know, I know. It's, it's, it's great. I was so embarrassed.

Jon Stoddard (37:23.166)
Yeah. What about your legal team? Is that the same thing? You'd have to up level on that too.

Renan Cortez (37:27.542)
So legal team, not yet. Legal team, there's a group that I'm using that they're in the Grand Cardon circle. So within my network, I'm a part of GoBundance also. That happened last year. So it's a network called GoBundance. And yeah.

Jon Stoddard (37:36.031)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (37:41.802)
You're part of who?

Jon Stoddard (37:45.51)
Oh, go Bandits, yeah.

Renan Cortez (37:47.658)
So David Osborne is one of the founders there. They're a big color wheel. It's mainly real estate, but it's all walks of life. And it's a really cool group to be part of. But within that network, one of the guys there said, hey, here's an SEC lawyer that you could talk to. So SEC lawyer is good, mergers and acquisition attorney is fantastic. He worked for one of the top 20 firms and I met him through unconventional acquisitions. So it's all the networks that I've been part of that I didn't get in the yellow pages.

old thing to say, yellow pages. You know, I didn't get online. I didn't do all that, right?

Jon Stoddard (38:21.641)
Renan, you're like, I don't know anybody today knows what that is anymore.

Renan Cortez (38:25.01)
Yeah, I just said, oh yeah. So I didn't get online, I didn't search for it. It was all recommended by a network of people that I trust. And so that's how I built it out, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (38:34.206)
Being in your network. Yeah. You connected with JT Fox.

Renan Cortez (38:41.696)
No.

Jon Stoddard (38:42.706)
Yeah, he's got a great network of investors. Yeah, there's a way to do that. If you're still raising money, that is, unless you're not committed, 100%.

Renan Cortez (38:52.706)
So like I said, we'll see how that goes. Because the way the vision is going, 100 million, we set it because that seemed to be a good round number, a respectable number. We do see ourselves in about three to five years doing a half a billion or a billion dollar fund for the assets we're bringing in.

Jon Stoddard (39:12.102)
Yeah. So what are you offering investors? What, what, what do they get? They put in money for three to five years and what are your like participating preferred, some kind of step up.

Renan Cortez (39:24.662)
So I kept it very simple because I didn't want all these really crazy waterfalls and anything. It's a very simple structure. The first 10 million, because I needed to incentivize people to invest because I'm an emerging manager, no track record, they get a 10% preferred return from day one based on the invested capital. So you put a million dollars in, you're getting $100,000 a year paid quarterly from day one because I'm buying businesses that have strong cash flows. I actually figured that out. Yes.

Jon Stoddard (39:51.562)
You get $100,000 a year paid quarterly. OK, so $25,000. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (39:54.73)
Yes. Yeah. And it's based on whatever you invest. So whatever you invest, it's going to be 10% of that you're getting back paid quarterly. So that way you start getting that. And then when we have an exit event.

Jon Stoddard (40:02.431)
Okay.

Renan Cortez (40:07.13)
or refinance event or whatever, when we exit the asset, they're part of the 75% LP pool. So they get 75% of that and the other 25% goes to the GP or the fund management. And the way that works out, we did a lot of models. It turns out to be like a 35 to 45% IRR and a multiple of invested capital of like three to three and a half. So it's a very strong model. Go ahead.

Jon Stoddard (40:31.55)
Yeah, this is something I need to bring up, bring it to your attention, because if you get on SearchFunder and a lot of these guys are looking for investors, and they go seeking these very sophisticated, vulture capitalist kind of ventures with the waterfalls and the 30% IRR requirements, but they wanna buy this $2 million HVAC that's only growing five to 10% a year.

that small thinking, that's not gonna happen. You're not gonna be able to get somebody 30%. You've got to grow organically and through acquisition faster.

Renan Cortez (41:03.902)
Right. And to be perfectly honest...

That's right. And I've been actually spanked by some of the family office guys because I show them the model that I have and I'm like, we can hit 30% easily. They say, OK, but on your PPM, on your marketing materials, 18 to 22. Don't go higher than that on what you're telling investors. I'm like, what? They're like, look, if you, let's say you promote 35% IRR and you come in at 32%.

Is that good? I'm like 32% is fantastic. No, you failed because you said 35.

Jon Stoddard (41:38.846)
You failed. Do you see what happens to stock markets that even Apple, if you don't ship enough iPods or iPad, yeah.

Renan Cortez (41:44.526)
That's right. That's exactly right. But if you say 18 to 22 and you get that 32% IRR, you're a rock star. And people will just invest and write those checks because you're giving a really good return. So on our documentation, we show 18 to 22% and a 2x multiple of invested capital at the end. But the real deal on the back end, it's a lot stronger than that. And it's an exciting model.

Jon Stoddard (42:11.806)
Yeah, which means you have to grow your cashflow by what per year if you did it backwards. So yeah.

Renan Cortez (42:17.622)
So, yep. We don't say that we're gonna double our revenues or our EBITDA. So we usually give, you know, if we add 50% to that and then we get a higher multiple, that's where the exponential, it's multiple arbitrage. That's where that comes into. And I give a bad, better and best scenario. Like if I don't grow at one penny from what I acquire, but I do all these things, I put management in, I put efficiencies, SOPs, EOS, all that good stuff.

Jon Stoddard (42:33.619)
Right.

Renan Cortez (42:47.058)
and we sell it at a higher multiple, this is how we win. If we sell it at a higher multiple and a moderately higher EBITDA, maybe another 500,000, this is how it shakes out. And if we really do well and we get another million or 2 million in EBITDA at a higher multiple, this is when we're doing like 45% IRR and really returning the big money.

Jon Stoddard (43:08.402)
Yeah, you're going up the multiple pyramid. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (43:11.574)
Yes, that's exactly right. So, and then especially growth by acquisition, we get some of this private equity money and now we have these other assets and we have shared back office, shared estimating services. And now, the California asset now has a restore pro attached to it. There's a lot of things that we could do to make this a national presence. And then...

Jon Stoddard (43:34.175)
What kind of challenges have been in your face? Like, hey, like forces of the universe going, I don't want you to do this or not.

Renan Cortez (43:41.558)
No, it's actually the opposite. And it's, and I've been told this, and I'm feeling it also. Our big, my biggest concern, our biggest worry is growing too fast. Cause the opportunity is there. We could just go out and just go crazy and start doing this, but we have to do it responsibly. We can't get too big too fast. Cause then that's when it falls off the rails also. So I'm putting together a team.

Jon Stoddard (44:03.006)
getting in front of your skis. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (44:04.758)
Exactly, that's exactly that is the biggest challenge right now getting too big too fast It sounds like it's a good problem. It kind of is But that could hurt you just as bad as not having enough business, you know

Jon Stoddard (44:17.95)
Yeah. Who have you put in your kind of mastermind Napoleon Hill mastermind group together?

Renan Cortez (44:25.378)
So I have a chief operating officer, a CFO, a director of strategy, a chief compliance officer and an executive assistant. So there's six of us, you know, right now in the C-suite and, you know, we're looking to build around them.

Jon Stoddard (44:43.634)
Yeah. And what do you do when you feel like your ego's getting too big? Checks. You can't, yeah. When you're, yeah, you, checks, you can't write. Let me give you an example. I just, I just like mentioned this earlier. Uh, I had an old, uh, a friend who was a Bob bro. He had bro research corporation. He used to fly F 100s in Vietnam. Uh, and, but he started riding.

Renan Cortez (44:49.834)
My ego?

Jon Stoddard (45:09.258)
checks his body couldn't cash as far as the business count. And I just got the bankruptcy check that where he owed money. It's $20 of the thousands he owed me. It's only worth $20 right now. So his ego got too big, right? There's old pilots, there's bull pilots, and then there's no old bull pilots, right?

Renan Cortez (45:26.954)
Yeah. So, and it's a weird thing. So one of the reasons Richard C. Wilson kind of gravitates towards me, and to a lot of the people that's in his ecosystem, and it's a weird thing, martial arts, high level martial arts, that'll humble the hell out of a human being. So I've been doing Jiu-Jitsu for 18 years. I honestly don't think I have that ego because I go and I get my butt smashed, I get put in, I tap const,

You have to check your ego at the door. You truly do in order to do this. So the people that are around me, they know I don't have, I actually place them higher than I place myself. And that's just something that I intrinsically do.

Jon Stoddard (46:10.45)
And what, is that spirituality from a religion or just Buddha or what? Yeah.

Renan Cortez (46:15.919)
I think just from, yeah, I don't know where that comes from. It's just in order to be successful, you have to learn how to fail over and over and over again. And so I've done that.

in corporate and jujitsu and just a lot of aspects of my life. So I don't wanna ever get, like he said, get ahead of my skis. And that's how I keep myself in check. And I also surround myself with people that, cause I am pie in the sky. I'm very optimistic. I'm like, oh, this is what we could do. I surround myself like my CFO. He's very, no, we don't have the money. We don't have this. We can't do this. So that's how we even each other out. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (46:51.386)
Yeah, I watched that movie about Howard Hughes, where, what's his name? The, the, yeah, Aviator, when he's just like sitting there and the, uh, the CFO says we don't have the money. Bye. And he goes like, buy it. And he turns out to be one of the first billionaires and you know, he's like, well,

Renan Cortez (46:56.838)
Was it Aviator?

Renan Cortez (47:10.291)
Yeah. So, you know, I'm the vision guy and then I have people that kind of ground me and then say, okay, this is what we could really realistically do. And then, you know, that to me is what makes a good team. You know, it's.

Jon Stoddard (47:22.302)
Yeah. What about your wife? Is she's like a biggest cheerleader or a critic or friend or yeah.

Renan Cortez (47:27.41)
She is my rider diamond. She supported me when I was in the military and I was getting, you know, change of duty station, deployed and all that stuff. So she handled the home then, corporate America, when I'm out there doing the dinners and wining and dining and business things. So she is, yeah, a huge support system, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (47:45.09)
Yeah, it's kind of funny, but like my daughter is like 16. We've lived here in Tucson for all our life. And I go, well, and she says like, complaining she doesn't have any friends. I go, well, Jesus, try being a kid of a dad that moves around every two years. You say hi and goodbye real fast. You learn how to do that, right?

Renan Cortez (47:58.582)
Yeah, exactly. It's tough. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, yeah, she's a strong support system. She is my biggest cheerleader. And a lot of I couldn't do any of this without that kind of support and understanding for sure.

Jon Stoddard (48:14.886)
Yeah. I think that's just like the base, man. You have to have that pyramid built up of a great foundation. Spirituality, you know, great friends, you know, minimal ego to put that in place.

Renan Cortez (48:28.034)
Yeah, absolutely.

day.

Jon Stoddard (48:44.67)
People reach out to you on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Renan Cortez (48:46.634)
Absolutely. So, you know, our website is synd or svgpe.com for short. We have that domain through there. You know, the socials are there. Renan Cortez on LinkedIn. You'll see me, you know, one of the first people that pops up. Renan isn't a very common name here, right? But yeah, I have a big, I have a big, what's that?

Jon Stoddard (49:09.018)
It's not. Where's that name from? Where's that name from? Where's that name from?

Renan Cortez (49:15.25)
It was my dad's name actually, and he's from the Philippines. Yeah. So, I heard that it's like French origin, but you know, because they were colonized by France and Spain and you know, so I have all kinds. My 23andMe is ridiculous. I have all kinds of stuff floating around.

Jon Stoddard (49:18.538)
Oh cool.

Jon Stoddard (49:32.202)
We're a mutz. We're all mutz.

Renan Cortez (49:35.554)
But yeah, so run on Cortez on LinkedIn or our website. And yeah, I do like to meet people through outreach and stuff like that. That's a big part of what I do. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Jon Stoddard (49:43.734)
That's your network, is your net worth, which is obviously on display right here on this interview, right here.

Renan Cortez (49:49.55)
That's it. That's exactly right.

Jon Stoddard (49:52.67)
Renan, this is fantastic. And if you guys like this show, make sure you subscribe to it. Thanks.

Renan Cortez (49:58.69)
Thank you.

Jon Stoddard (50:00.266)
me okay.