Scott Steps Down as CEO: A New Age for BiggerPockets Money

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Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast. This is a special edition and uh today I’m going to share a bitter sweet announcement. What’s going on everybody? I’m Scott Trench, CEO of Bigger Pockets, here today with a very special guest for a very special episode and my last episode as CEO of Bigger Pockets here. Um and that’s the big announcement I wanted to make today is after a decade of leading this incredible organization, I’ve made the decision to step down as CEO and refocus my energy full-time on Bigger Pockets money alongside Mindy Jensen. And as part of that, I’m welcoming the next leader of Bigger Pockets here, Ole Iesterron. So how’d I do? Did I pronounce that right, Ole? Yes. Well, welcome to Bigger Pockets. Welcome our uh uh as the as the new CEO. Thank you, Scott. I’m super excited to be here. I actually don’t formally start until next week, but of course, you know, this is a big milestone for the company and I I’m really pumped that we’re doing this this way, you know, actually letting the community know first. Obviously lots to to discuss, but I’m I’m really excited to to be here with you today. Awesome. Well, we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome you and in a few minutes, we’ll get into your background and all those kinds of things. Before we get to that point, I did want to share with the Bigger Pockets community some of the reasons why I made this decision and kind of the context behind it. So, we’ll jump right into that. The first reason is that this company, Bigger Pockets, has been more than a job. It’s been my passion, my purpose, and maybe to an unhealthy degree, a little bit of an obsession here for the last decade. Um I’ve spent the entire time helping people retire early. A little time, time to take a little of that for myself here and practice what I preach. So I’m going to take a step back doing the Bigger Pockets money podcast even foolish time, I think that’s the right word, foolish time. Um will be a much more sustainable workload for me and my family. And uh I’m looking forward to spending Tuesday afternoons maybe on the mountain bike or on a hike uh and those types of things. That that’s the first part of this. The second um reason is is I think that folks who have been following Bigger Pockets money and uh me on the podcast here, know that, while I love real estate, I have a even greater passion for just the concept of early retirement and I really want to focus on studying a lot more depth into broader portfolio theory, different tactics for financial planning, preparing for, you know, college, savings, all of those different aspects of personal finance that I really want to add to my my skill set here. And take that theory for traditional financial planning and and perfect it or apply it to the pursuit of early retirement. And then the last reason, and this one’s really important here, is I think that the next phase of Bigger Pockets’ growth here calls for a leader with a different and evolved skill set here to take bigger pockets as a business, as a platform, and as a community to that next level. And I think there are three areas that will really emphasize here, um going forward. Um those those three areas are are first building a world-class technology experience, especially on biggerpockets.com and particularly as it relates to personalizing the experience. I think people need to come to bigger pockets and if you are a rookie, here’s a rookie experience. If you’re an experienced investor, here’s an experienced uh system for that. Second, on that point, um I think we’ve done a really good job here at Bigger Pockets in helping new investors buy their first, second or third investment property. Um and I think we have an opportunity to do a much better job of helping more experienced investors, build larger portfolios, raise capital or operate much larger businesses, the real the business of real estate um on that front. And then last, I think there’s an opportunity to develop a lo a lot more of a broad partnership strategy with many of the technology and services firms in the real estate ecosystem here. Um we we’ve had plenty of partners that are wonderful here and I think there’s a lot more we can do with a more sophisticated partnership approach. So this this, those three reasons and the, you know, uh are for what I think Bigger Pockets needs in addition to my personal passions and pursuits um were the reasons behind this decision. And uh we actually began the process of looking for our next leader uh in December 2024 when I notified uh the board of my decision to to take a step back uh and and uh and and and end my time as CEO of of Bigger Pockets here. And we worked this entire time period to find the next leader. I’m excited to, again, welcome Ale to the team here um as our as our next leader. I think his experience that fits all three of those needs that I just described so perfectly. I mean, he’s he’s got a background in technology and and building great technology products and technology enabled real estate services. His whole background is in helping these more experienced investors and build and building the operations for huge real estate portfolios over at Mine where he was the chief business officer and chief operating operating officer. So, with that, Ole, one more time, welcome again to Bigger Pockets and maybe you could round out a little bit more of that experience uh uh that that that background for folks um wondering where what who you are and what your your background and skill set are. Thank you. and absolutely. But before I talk about myself, I first want to for sure, uh appreciate, you know, recognize and congratulate you, starting with Josh and the team at Bigger Pockets, past and present on the amazing company and business and community platform that you’ve built. Really the envy of the real estate industry, especially for individual and, you know, what we we used to call at mind, the retail real estate investors in contrast to the larger institutional players, it is just an amazing company and you should feel very proud of everything that you’ve uh I really mean that and, you know, I wouldn’t have taken this opportunity if there wasn’t a very, very strong foundation to build upon. Well thank you and I’m I’m so glad you mentioned Josh Dorkin. I mean, Josh, you, if you’re if you’re listening to this, built um um in there. it has been a true pleasure to join as a early member of that. um building off of what you and and I I’ll call out Brandon Turner here and many of the other content creators really really built uh over the years and and push that flywheel forward to, you know, we’ll talk about a little bit about later about the the aggregate impact we think we’ve had here at Bigger Pockets, but it’s just a it’s just an an astounding um outcome here. Really the privilege and honor of my career. So, super lucky for the to to to have that start foundation poured by by those folks. and then and then to work with everybody else, all the stakeholders, the community members, the sponsors, the team here at Bigger Pockets, um our investors, everybody um has just come together to really build a really special company, I think here. I’m really incredibly excited. Let’s see, about myself. I am originally from Argentina, if you can tell from my accent is not uh I’m not a native English speaker. Grew up uh actually in the very south of Argentina in a region called Patagonia, in a small town. So, a very idyllic uh upbringing I would say. And and the reason I even start as far back as my childhood is, I really cherish and remember fondly those moments when I was growing up because it really was about community. This is a small town in the most remote part of Argentina, which makes it one of the most remote remote parts of the world. You would know everybody. Your neighbors, the principal at school, the mayor, the owners of the businesses, the farmers. we were really a strong knit community and I think that has really shaped, you know, who I am and what I value. Um because I only wish for my kids now, I I formed a family here in the US with my wife that they get to experience just even a little bit of what it is to be part of a an amazing and tightknit community. I moved to Buenos Aires right before my university years. Um I studied engineering there. That’s something you all should know. I’m a I’m a geek, I’m a technologist, I’m a builder at heart and I I just was and forever will be an an engineer in that sense. I love problem solving, specifically with with technology. And after a few years working in Argentina, I actually started to have an international career with the Boston Consulting Group, which is a leading strategy consultant firm, working elsewhere in Latin America. I spent some time in Europe based out of Paris, which was an amazing chapter, and ultimately came to the US in 2010 to pursue a master’s in business administration, an MBA at Stanford University. And that was an amazing inflection point sort of literally landing in Silicon Valley, you land 15 minutes off campus. I knew right away that I would want to, you know, spend the rest of my career and life here. I was fortunate to meet my now wife on campus. Uh she is Mexican and had moved also to start her her program. And so upon graduation, we decided to, uh, you know, stay in in the Bay Area. We married a couple of years after. We currently live in San Francisco. We have three kids and both her and I I have had careers specifically in technology companies since. Now, as I, you know, look forward, my last chapter was at mind and I would say so far that has been one of the most one of the richest chapters in my career because I really got to flex all the things that I’m super passionate about all my muscles if you will. You know, Mind is one of the largest property management companies in in the world, right? Um could you tell us a little bit about your experience there and what what you what you did? What what what was the secret sauce behind mind? Might be a known fact to some of you, but maybe not widely understood that mind as a third-party property manager, meaning as a company that doesn’t own the assets and like an invitation homes, you know, think one of the larger owner operator of single family rentals, Mine manages on behalf of of of other investors, both retail, individual investors, even, you know, single unit landlords to large institutional players that own hundreds if not thousands of units. And they currently manage very close to 20,000 single- family rentals all across the US, which is an incredible feat given the variation in geographies, unit types, investor buy boxes and preferences, makes it quite challenging to account for all those differences. But the secrets source there really to scale at that level and do it with great outcomes for the investors and with good profitability for the company is with technology. So, I learned a great deal through that chapter, but I’m even more excited to in a way continue the mission, which is, you know, Mine’s mission is to help individuals achieve their dreams and achieve financial freedom through real estate, which I’m almost shocked, it almost matches one to one to bigger pockets mission, which is to help, you know, individuals achieve their dreams, create wealth through real state and other means, certainly real estate a big, big aspect of the mission, um but it is actually doing it at a scale that even though mine is one of the larger property management companies out there. Um we’re talking thousands, tens of of tens of thousands of investors, whereas Bigger Pockets really plays a part in shaping that journey for millions of of of members of our community and but I think that’s just the beginning. I think the potential that bigger pockets has that we have ahead of us in terms of reaching, you know, the next million and the next 10 million of uh aspiring and existing investors, both domestically and internationally, because by the way, I think this is this is very much a universal thesis, I think is is unparalleled and unmatched. So I’m just really excited to in a way continue the mission but at a much bigger level of scale and and impact. I feel like there’s a lot of things I’m super proud of and that opportunity on the scaling property management and operations and helping people again, turn these these small mom and pop portfolios. That’s, you know, the retail investor, the small investor. That’s who we serve here, right? I mean, most people in this country who own real estate own 10 or fewer properties and I think it’s something like 70 or 80% of the single family rentals in this country are owned by people with just one or two rentals, um outside their primary residents. So it’s a huge, that’s the population, but how do we help those folks in that next phase, you know, determine which properties to sell, which properties to keep, how to generate much more operating income from those properties and actually have those properties finish that play and make them feel financially free. And that’s why I’m so excited about uh your arrival here at the helm here at at Bigger Pockets. So, well but what what are some of the things that uh um maybe you most appreciate about Bigger Pockets today? And what are some of the opportunities you see coming up. There’s so many things that I’m really excited about. So, the business is incredible, but I think it starts because of its community. I think community is really hard to create or recreate or replicate. You earn, you earn community through a lot of hard work, really being there for each other, for the members, I’m just thinking, if I were to start a company, and many companies, many founders out there are trying to launch businesses in different verticals, and the only wish they could have a community to build upon. It’s it’s almost impossible to there’s no playbook that would tell you how to create community. It’s through the many years of hard work and just being there for the customers, for the members and for each other that you create that. So, the fact that that is bigger pockets starting point, it’s as I say, is the envy of the industry and one thing I’m going to be very focused on building from is that community, which I think is is incredible, the power of of the brand. Uh second, of course, bigger pockets has been affected by the macro in in real estate. There is no one company. I have I’ve yet to find a company in prop tech or real state that hasn’t been massively affected by the macro in the last few years. and bigger pockets is part of this industry, but it has been incredibly resistant, resilient and resistant actually to to that macro. and that just shows to me again, how much value bigger focus continue to continue to create for its members and customers, right? Where the business despite challenges, continues to thrive. The early inroads, you know, some of them actually you know, we we have real evidence that there’s a big opportunity to continue to lean in as you said on on technology, right? The launch recently of the mobile app. Uh of course, the forum is at the core of the experience for many members, but I think there’s a lot more that um bigger pokers we can do with technology to improve the experience and add even more value for our members and our partners. So there’s definitely success to build from but way more to do and that gets me obviously excited. Well, you you you talked about that that macro impact and and I think I think, you know, the way I this’s the way I can articulate that is is transaction volume, right? So the number of of investors who bought rental properties in 2021 was 1.4 million per our estimations. there’ll be different variations of that out there. And we believe that number dropped to 760,000 um by in 2023 and is stayed about the same in 2024 and is within a couple one or one to three percentage points of that in terms of pacing here in 2025. Is that the problem you’re talking about with from a macro perspective in terms of that? And and what do you think is the biggest challenge for investors that’s causing that drop off in transaction volume? You know, first and foremost, if you’re a real estate investor, you are an investor. And I think so some challenges that we’re facing in the industry are challenges that we’re facing just because of macro conditions that affect everybody. Volatility, we had the pandemic, crazy supply chain, you know, backslashes, right? The rate environment and how rates not only move, but move at a pace that was basically unprecedented. And so there those all those micro, you know, uncertainty on the on the economy and like some years of high cumulative inflation, those affect all asset classes, all investors. And so we just are in that backdrop. Now specifically for real estate, I think rates and what that means for cut rates and yields just has meant that there has been fewer transactions, which is, you know, for us one reason why members, customers, you know, come come to to the community to learn from each other, you know, to get that content and expertise. So there’s less demand for that for sure. I’m also thinking like what happens when those winds change from headwinds into headwinds? As I was sharing the news of this next chapter for me and talking catching up with with some friends and mentors, they were like, oh my god, I love bigger pockets. I used to, you know, listen to the podcast, I would go in, I was learning and and I was like, okay, you said you used to, what why are you not doing it now? Well, I was more actively buying then, not so much right now. So I think the demand is still there. Of course, we are being affected by as you said, the transaction volume. To me, that’s opportunity because those those, you know, headwinds will turn into headwinds, but it also makes me wonder, how might we continue to help investors even when the conditions for buying are maybe not as favorable. Might we help them with thinking through how to optimize NOI, how to, you know, think through OPE, you know, are there opportunities there? And so I think there’s a lot we are doing and we can continue to do even in an environment where investor, you know, so transaction volume is depressed and more about like managing and optimizing an existing portfolio, right? Because there’s always opportunities to do that more effectively. What are some of those like as you said, tail winds that you kind of think might might manifest over the next few years for for for investors in particular? What’s going to help them maybe solve this problem of, you know, I think the way I phrase the problem is, it’s hard to make a property cash flow with 6 and a half or 7% interest rates uh at max leverage and that is really keeping a lot of people out of the market. Um fundamentally. It’s really hard to just find that something that works at a basic level in that in that environment. What what are some of the tail winds you think that might might change that dynamic or help investors succeed despite that dynamic. Yeah, taking the long view here, which I think is the right view to take if you’re going to get into real estate investing, you you ought to think, you know, this is a a uh an asset class and a play that really pays out over the long haul in terms of just cumulative risk and tax adjusted returns. One is that the industry has been professionalized and institutionalized at a rapid pace. Now, I don’t think we’ll get to like in MFR, multi-family, you know, to anywhere close to 50% institutional ownership of rental units. Most rental homes are and will continue to be owned by individuals, by families, by by mom and pop as you said investors, but the reality is that the institutionalization of the asset class does have an impact. There is almost a Cambrian explosion of new software solutions, service providers that are going and meeting those demands for institutions, but I think then what happens is some of those solutions can be also made accessible for retail investors. I like to think of Formula 1 and then mass market cars, you know, the formula 1 teams are innovating with you know, uh engines and fuel types. But eventually, we all benefit from those innovations in the mass market cars that we uh purchase and drive. And I think the same thing is happening at a rapid clip in in real estate where institutional investors have a different level of requirements in terms of how they get their reporting and their data that they use to make decisions, portfolio optimization, asset management, how they go about leasing and managing vacancy and turns, and OC and repairs and maintenance, and all those solutions where is a service provider, a software provider, are increasingly becoming available for us as individual investors. So, I’m excited about really having bigger pockets be almost that orchestrator and helpful guide to investors in knowing and being aware of, hey, what are some things that I should be looking out that might be helpful to me in my unique situation, right? That that you said that personalized experience. So that is one. It’s like there’s so many solutions out there. And notably, um many are technology solutions, right? New entrance, uh many venture-backed companies, not all of them, specifically of course with generative AI where the pace of innovation is almost is accelerating and AI today is the worst is ever going to be. It’s going to be better tomorrow and then the next the next day after and the next day after. And so while real estate is sometimes a bit of a slow-moving industry, I think that a place of adoption is actually accelerating, which to me is exciting because that’s where I think we can guide each other, guide our members and investors in in in finding ways to drive I despite the macro today. Couple years ago, there was this thing of like the institution is going to take over the industry. It’s going to be all owned by corporate America and they get the. Institutions own like 3% of single family rentals in this country. of single family rentals, not of single family homes, single family rentals, the 15 I think it’s 18 million single-family rentals give or take in the United States. And you know, they were net sellers, I believe starting in 2023. I believe that was the case in 2024 and I believe they’ll be the case again here in 2025. So that that share is is actually diminishing. The retail investor is the one buying most of the inventory uh for sale here. And you know, I I go to these conferences like IMN, single family’s rental rental forum or whatever. And everyone’s bet on the institution. I’m like the only guy who’s like, guys, this is a this is a bigger pockets um uh uh industry. Like the people that buy these rentals are, you know, somebody works a full-time job or has a small business and buys one, two, five, 10 properties over a lifetime. and there’s a small tiny tale of people who go on to buy, you know, more than those 10 properties um in their in their their lifetime. But these investors are in many cases every bit as sophisticated as the institutional investor in terms of the specific property that they’re buying, right? They’re going to get to know that that that property is so is such an all- in bet for this individual. Um it’s it’s it’s multiple times their annual income. Um especially the first one, two or three. I mean these these are just all in bets, the terror and fear that go into buying that and and and but you know, and the hope that that they will appreciate and produce that cash flow in time that that I think is generally been rewarded by and large uh to those investors. But that there there’s a there’s it’s funny that the rookie investor, the people w who listen to the Bigger Pockets Real estate Rookie podcast, right? Is are are actually the most sophisticated investors on bigger pockets, even though many of them don’t own a property. Like, if you took if you put a test in front of them about real estate knowledge, they’re actually the most advanced ones um here because of that dynamic. And these powerful tools that were built for these institutional investors, these sophisticated software systems. I think the people who really will benefit the most from them in the end will be the rookie who spent a couple hundred hours listening to a bunch of podcasts, reading a bunch of books, getting fairly sophisticated and is ready to use that that knowledge. Um, and then and and I think that there’s a really good application for those. And I think that’s where that partnership angle I was discussing earlier comes in. And obviously, your your knowledge of that space is going to be so critical in translating these solutions, um, that have been built hundreds of millions of dollars invested in many of these solutions, um and helping them make them accessible to the bigger pockets members. Yeah, there was a lot of fear mongering about you know, walls 3Ds out here to to get our homes. The data doesn’t show that. In fact, there’s actual research that shows that when there is increased levels of institutional investment into SFR, that actually helps community because they will typically rehab stock, you know, improve ultimately, you know, those those those homes and neighborhoods and create more rental supply for folks that don’t want to or can’t afford to actually buy. And that that so we can talk obviously probably a whole episode on on that, but it is I 100% agree that just because of how they configure a buy box and the fact that they need to deploy capital at scale, they have to work with pretty narrow bybox. is three bed, two bath, right? in certain locations. And there’s so much alpha you can get if you’re gonna approach invest in that way, which they have just because of the amount of capital, but as you said, if you’re gonna buy one unit, two to three, right? Over the course of some period of time over a few years, you can really find those unique opportunities that would fly under the radar or where institutions can’t actually access. So, yes, it happens that sometimes you lose out on a deal that is also being considered by an institutional investor and they can pay cash and they can move quickly, but as, you know, next to that deal, there are going to be many opportunities where you being local or partnering with folks who really know that market can help you find that alpha. And that and that is what we’ve seen in the data, as you said. Most investments, most purchases of rental units are still done by uh individuals. Awesome. What what what are some of the first areas that you’re going to dive into here in terms of of uh exploring as the new CEO? First, I’ll say that I’m really excited to build from a very strong foundation. And my first order of business will actually be to listen and learn. Obviously, get to know our team, talk to them, learn from their, our customers, our members, our our partners. uh and I’ll just put it out there from day one. I’m a big believer in feedback, so I’ll be seeking out feedback. You’ll find me in the forums. So, you know, there’s, you know, any ways that you that you feel comfortable with reaching out, please do so. I want to hear from you. Now, in terms of opportunities, I’m excited to actually, you know, I think we can invest really a lot in one technology. Uh I can only imagine what would an AI enabled experience look like in the forums. You know, it’s it’s so funny just I I got I got to chime in here. The Bigger Pockets, we we have spent the last 10 years that I’ve been here, building a lot of cool features, right? We just bought we built 100 features over there. Some some of them people have completely forgotten, never used, no one no one cared about. We built them. We spent a lot of time on. 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Yeah, 100% is funny that you mentioned personalization because I think we’re finally at the cusp where we will and by we I mean companies that can actually be at the cutting edge of technology offer personalized experiences. a couple of months ago, I was at an event with one of the four world’s foremost experts in personalization. kind of wrote the book in the late 90s, but he was also secretly, you know, not so secretly I guess in that forum admitting like we we couldn’t really do that, you know, or but now I think we can because this latest generative AI technology, the underpinning of that is large language models. I mean it’s in the name, right? They are great at parsing out information and as you know how we go about searching for things, right? It’s changing used to be keyboard-based, right? Now we’re very much used to Googling things is a verb. But think about that search experience, you’re still, you know, forced to go through a lot of links and clicks and like still do a lot of work yourself to actually get to the answer so you can make the decisions that matter to move forward with whatever it is that you’re doing. But now these models are great at helping you move more confidently because they can summarize. Now, of course, our members can and I’m sure are already going to chat with or Google to get those those those summaries, but you’re going to get the sort of of the shelf generic answer. We are in a privileged position where we have first party data, meaning the real-time conversations and content that we can provide and they can provide to each other. And so if you have a query, which right, you know, these days you can actually like write the whole question, like what are you actually trying to accomplish? It doesn’t have to be like a three-word search. And and can be great at helping you move forward more efficiently through that journey. Yeah, I’ve always articulated like, you know, if you’re a flipper from Atlanta, Georgia, right? You want to come to bigger pockets and then you don’t want here’s 1,200 episodes of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. You want, here are the 10 best ones to start with ranked in order of best based on what other people that are in your geographic, demographic, all those things like to consume. Listen to those, that’ll give you the foundation. Here’s a book for that. Here are five other flippers in Atlanta, Georgia that are currently doing deals, what they’ve done, what those projects look like, and here are the professionals you want to talk to, agents, three three agents to interview that specialize in working with flippers. Here are lenders, whatever. We we’ve got all that on Bigger Pockets right now. That all exists. We just like you have to figure it out as an investor and so only a small percentage of people are actually then able to to to get through all of that stuff and find those answers. It still a good number of people, but it’s it it it’s right there. and I think that’s what you’re talking about and that’s that again, that’s the piece that I’m so excited to see us us solve for in the coming the coming months and years. Yeah, 100%. and then tie that to really reasoning about what is it that you already own or are trying to accomplish in terms of your investment thesis. Right? So it’s one bringing best content in a personalized way for the investor, but also if we can reason about, okay, maybe you own two other rentals or you have a short-term rental. This is where they’re located. How is that portfolio performing? The answer you can get in terms of like, okay, the next best move for this specific opportunity in the context of your overall portfolio, I think that can be also very powerful, right? So what would that cockpit or dashboard or control enter for the investor look like, right? where they can connect data sources, share what, you know, portfolio they have and what their goals are and such that then our our tools can help them reason about that context to prepare them for the next move. That gets me really really pump. Um I think there’s also opportunities to invest, you know, beyond technology in actually reaching more more customers, more members. Great as bigger pockets, you know, awareness is and the millions of members that we have, there are still many more out there that would benefit from even knowing that we exist and then actually developing a deeper relationship with us. So, I’m also excited about, you know, growth investments to just reach more more more investors. I can be both so proud of what we’ve done so far and so excited to about your skill set and the strengths that you bring in that I have not yet developed and get to learn from you in a lot of these areas over the next couple of years about how to do those two things, right? Reach that next level of the audience and then and then build this personalized technology experience that I think is going to be the underpinning of everything. It’s the expectation people have today is for it to be easy to find what you’re looking for. And Bigger Pockets has built what you’re looking for, but we don’t make it easy today to find what you’re looking for and that’s going to be the the really superpower I think you’re going to bring in in here. Ole, what’s the best way I can help you going forward here uh uh following your your start date next week, Monday Monday the what’s 18th? To help me, it’s it’s really about helping each other. The reality is that if we think about our you know, our our customers or or members, it is, you know, murky out there. You know, the macro economic uncertainty and that’s where I think the power of communities really shine is in these times of uncertainty. And so what I’ll be doing and what I hope we all continue to do is just to be there for each other, which is, you know, the foundation of this company. So it’s almost do continue to do that, be there for each other, help each other, navigate situations, ask questions, be available. I will be asking tons of questions, so I ask for patience and and and you know, in helping me get ramped at the beginning. I’m coming in with a very optimistic outlook. Uh there’s plenty of opportunity ahead. It’s just really helping me get ramped and continue to help each other as as we navigate, you know, the macro around us, but it is still an amazing asset class as as the saying goes, the best time to buy real estate was yesterday and the next best time is still today. Right? We just need to be there for each other and helping find for all those those opportunities. Well, I I’d love to close out with a little farewell to bigger pockets if that’s all right. Um here in the the community on this. So, um I’ve wrote a little little note here that I’ll uh I’ll I’ll pull up for a second. But yeah, my my uh my announcement and stepping down here as CEO um comes after about a decade here at Bigger Pockets. Um for those who never heard the story, I I joined as the then third full-time employee back in 2014 and my my last day as CEO will actually be just over 11 years after my first forum post, which was in May 2014. You can still see that newbie from Denver, Colorado um in there. Uh and I’m talking about I’m going to buy three properties by the end of the year. Well, that didn’t happen, but I did I did start a few months later as the director of operations and and join BP. And um, you know, again, while I’m while I’m obviously sad to uh be leaving the helm, I’m I’m excited to work on BP money and I’m also very grateful for the countless people uh who have poured their hearts into making bigger pockets um, the transformative, I think force it is today. I also, I’m I’m a little proud proud here, you know, you know, there’s been ups and downs along the ride, of course, but 10 years ago, I guess eight years ago now, when I was um not just an employee but starting to take over a leadership position here at Bigger Pockets. This is kind of a fun story. I was team was giving me some props for being a good operator. operations VP of BP of operations at that point. But they were saying, Scott, you’re not a visionary enough. You got to think bigger and bigger. And so, when we were setting a Bhag, a big hairycious goal at that point. Um, partly out of annoyance and partly aspiration tied to the to the mission of bigger pockets. I I said, all right guys, you want a big goal? How about this one? We’re going to make a million millionaires, a trillion dollars big enough for you. kind of kind of like that that vibe a little bit in in the room there. Um and it’s going to be bigger pockets is going to help a million people uh build a million dollars in personal net worth in part through real estate. And at that time Apple wasn’t a trillion dollar company. There was no trillion dollar company. So it was a preposterously large goal be a Bhag. And I I was doing some reflection about, you know, how silly that seemed at the time and and how we we we’ve easily really under any way that you want to measure it, achieved that goal. Obviously, you know, people’s journeys are their own, but we were at least a small part of the journey for at least a million millionaires and here’s some math for that. Um if you look at uh right above me here, if you’re watching on YouTube, there’s a counter here which has the total aggregate number of people who have ever created a free account here on Bigger Pockets. And that reads that 3.16 million members, 3,167,328 at this exact moment here on May 14th as we record this this podcast here. We know that 29% of those members are millionaires uh based on exhaustive survey and data and and research that we’ve done here. So that’s about 913,000, not quite a million there. But wait, let’s talk about let’s just add in Bigger Pockets money. Just bigger pockets money. 75% of the people who listen to Bigger Pockets money don’t listen to any other other shows on on bigger uh on bigger pockets. And we know that 29% of you guys on bigger pockets money are millionaires based on that similar survey data. And we know we’ve had 5 million unique listeners to Bigger Pocket’s money and really no matter how you want to slice and dice that data, it gets me a way over the edge from a million. That doesn’t count the millions more people who have been a guest on biggerpockets.com, not logged in and creating an account who have absorbed even one piece of information there, the three or four million folks who have bought a bigger pockets book over the years or the uh millions and millions more YouTube um viewers or the podcast listeners for Bigger Pockets real estate on the market, real estate rookie. So that’s a that’s a staggering item there. That’s not just a statistic, that’s millions of lives changed. That’s a bunch of dreams realized. That’s a bunch of legacies built on there. And and it’s strange, I think to think about that cumulative impact, right? There there was never an event. There was never like a moment when bigger pockets surged. And you’re like, whoa, you know, that it just took off. It’s just a slow compounding of like 1% a week for 10 years in a row, um, to get to this kind of out outcome here. And again, that goal was so big when we initially set it that it seemed silly. and today, at the end of the journey, it feels ridiculous to reflect that literally several trillion dollars of investment decisions were likely influenced at least in a small way by this platform. So, and again, I want to give full credit to Josh Dork and our founder in gratitude to him. He his vision laid the foundation for this journey. He got the flywheel going. He did that hard work you talked about earlier, Ale of starting the the community flywheel. Um there’s no playbook for that. It’s just hustle, hard work and one relationship at a time with the most important members of that community, the the power members, the moderators, the contributors to our forums, the blog um authors, the podcast hosts, the book authors, all of those folks one by one. And I just had the privilege of of pushing that flywheel forward following that handoff there and it’s been the ride of a a lifetime here. So I’m really grateful to Josh. Obviously, all of our content contributors from Brandon, um, to David Green to David David Meyer, um, to our dedicated team past and present. Really grateful to you, your creativity, resilience and commitment turned that idea of bigger pockets into a nationwide movement here with a little bit of international overlap. Moderators, content creators, contributors, our ambassadors, all of you, current former, you fostered a community that’s uh as welcoming today as it was um when I joined in 2014 and it’s, you know, an empowering, protective, wonderful uh community that that does its best to give back um real advice to people to help them make better decisions. And then, you know, obviously every single person who’s ever browsed the site, post a quest posted a question, up vote a post on bigger pockets, participate in any social media interaction or offered advice and given back. You guys have been the heartbeat of bigger pockets. So it’s been really empowering to see your triumph, your your struggles, um your first deals, your financial freedoms and uh the setbacks that that that others can learn from on those journeys. Um so in the next couple of weeks, I’ll spend thanking as many people as I possibly can here um personally. I’ll thank a a good a good bunch of folks before this episode airs as well um out there. Both for what you’ve done for bigger pockets and for what I’ve done personally. And then I’ll kind of finish off by saying, when I reflect on the last decade of my my life and career here at Bigger Pockets, I see a uh a web of moments, right? From late night strategy sessions or late night apprehension about big decisions there. Uh electrifying conferences where you look out over a sea of 2500 people and you’re scared out of your mind to talk live in front of them, um to quiet victories in in forum threads where we out somebody who maybe wasn’t uh working on with best practices or trying to scam our members or we suspected, perhaps there. Um, I recall relationships built, conflict and resolution, wins and losses, personal one-on-one advice given from so many members of this community to me directly, that directly led to better real estate investing decisions in my personal portfolio, including one-on-one mentorship from some of our most prominent uh uh forum members helping me make better decisions. Shout out to Jay Hinrich, one of our all-time leading poster, who personally mentored me on how to do private money lending, a huge advantage in my personal portfolio. I see a community that uh didn’t just chase wealth, but redefined it. You prioritized freedom and giving back to the next community member. And you prioritized investing in real estate the right way for the long-term and treating buyers, sellers, tenants, and team members with respect and dignity. and I see uh the contributions from our team here at Bigger Pockets from technology products that they built, breakthrough insights, new strategies, new acronyms, new resources and guides and mental models to think about real estate investing and the countless resources that derive from those ideals. So, it wasn’t perfect here at Bigger Pockets, nothing ever is, but this was incredible and the highlight of a career, an opportunity of not just one but maybe multiple lifetimes. So, I’m very proud of what we’ve built and I’m very I’m even prouder of what we’ve become. I look forward to what we will become under your leadership, Ole, and thank you to everyone here at Bigger Pockets for trusting me to lead this journey. It’s been the honor of my career. And again, I won’t be going that far. I’ll just be over there at Bigger Pockets Money, continuing the work that many of you know um there and in the personal finance space. So, I’ll be there. I’ll I’ll see you uh I’ll be in in your earbuds if you’re in the gym uh or or in the car with you on your commute to work or wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. So, um excited for the future and grateful for the past. Thank you so much, Bigger Pockets. Um that’s me, Scott Trench. My title is now real estate investor and co-host of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.