From Property Failure to Predictable Profits with Tsen Wharton

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:00.034)
You you remember that film, The Field of Dreams, Kevin Coxter building the baseball field. He was being told, if you build it, they will come. So I don't believe that follows through in property. If you build it, they might come, but also they might not. And if they don't come, it can be pretty dire for someone who's outlaid a lot of money and it's painful to put something out there to the market, only for you to have to pay for the cost base.

And not have enough coming in. It's it's horrible experience. And that's why often is the case people throw the towel in and say, I'm just gonna go back to bicolaire.

speaker-1 (00:34.616)
Hello there and welcome to this episode of WellTalk, the podcast which has been specifically designed to help you build, protect and transfer your wealth in an elegant way, leaving an amazing legacy. And to talk about some of those things, I've got a great guest today, one that we've been chatting to and fro on the phone for a little while. First time we've kind of stood together, we noticed we're both standards in what we do, that keep ourselves

you flexible on the balls of our feet. And it's the amazing Sen Wharton. Now, before I get you to speak too much about what you're going to talk about, Seth, that's such an unusual name. I've never come across that name. What's the derivation?

speaker-0 (01:17.228)
Well, top marks for getting pronunciation bang on first time. You wouldn't believe how many versions I've had of pronouncing T S E N. That T really kind of throws people. The origins of it, Kevin, are that my mum, her side of the family, has a large ancestry dating back beyond where she was born to China. She wasn't born there.

She is from British Guyana in South America, interestingly. So she looks oriental, but she speaks with a Caribbean accent. But her family from her grandparents go back to the China side. So it's that Oriental origin that's come down. I'm the only one in her entire family, as in from my mum's side, that actually has an oriental name, me and my siblings. So it's kind of come from nowhere back into my dad's.

English. I'm born and brought up in Scotland. I have Scottish heritage in me as well from the lines about so it's a real mix, real mix, but that's the origin of the name and the ethnicity.

speaker-1 (02:26.414)
Well, thanks for explaining that. And it's a real mix, the whole principle of wealth building, isn't it? You heard me talk about build, protect and transfer wealth. And my own simple definition of wealth is having multiple streams of recurring income that creates certainty in an uncertain world. How would you frame your definition of wealth? What does wealth mean to you, given your on the wealth talk?

speaker-0 (02:51.788)
Well, I love the way that that is coined in a phrase and it rolled off so eloquently from your tongue there. I can't say I'll have a as articulate a definition. I'm thinking on my feet here, but I like what you said about certain in an uncertain world. I I like to see things as predictable as much as possible, and I see wealth being assets that one owns that generates.

More than enough income to cover what we wish to do, not just basic needs, but a level of comfort. Doesn't need to be crazy splash out spending, but the things that we want in life to be able to live the way we want, travel the way we want, enjoy the time we've created through having put the time to building assets. And for me, it's I'm a family person, so it's much about creating experiences with that wealth, enjoying that with.

family and close friends and making sure it endures. But the whole thing is that I wish for it is that it's fairly low stress. It's quite predictable and it's low stress. Nice. I like that. Yeah.

speaker-1 (04:02.83)
There's a lot of noise that goes on in the whole wealth building arena, including the teachers and the gurus and those who would have us believe there are magic pills, silver bullets and get rich quick opportunities. But you and I think differently on that, don't we? So why don't you help us understand a little bit more. So you give us the derivation of your name, but tell us a bit more about who you are, what you do, who you do it for and how that specifically would help anybody.

speaker-0 (04:05.014)
yes.

speaker-1 (04:31.34)
looking to build their wealth.

speaker-0 (04:33.368)
Question. So I'll need to be conscious not to go in a monologue here and so stop me and jump in at any point. I am Sen Wharton. I am property entrepreneur. I'm husband. I'm father. And for me, I guess the things that are of high value to me, it's worth sharing up front because that will filter into the things I guess talk about more tactically when it comes to the means of building wealth. I

see this whole journey of life that we're on as in my view becoming the best version of ourselves. And I see that through the lens of best version of me as a property entrepreneur, as a father and husband, as a family man I've got three great sons, an amazing wife. And also in my health. So in whatever form of functional athlete I want to be. Not long back from a family ski trip,

I'm about to go and do the tough mudder for a charity. So I love to keep active. That's a huge part of wealth. I didn't mention that before, but you know, people say a bit cliche that wealth is health. I very much believe that all of our assets and money we talk about don't mean anything if we're too ill, too weak to be able to actually enjoy them freely. So that's a huge part of it. So that speaks to at a high level kind of values.

I'll go back to some of the history shortly, but I guess what I've realized is that I see this journey of property entrepreneurship, so business in property, property investing, to be the ideal vehicle through which I can experience my highest values, the things that I want to draw out of this journey called life, the challenge, the reward, and the the wealth, to enjoy the time it creates.

When I was getting started with things, a bit of the kind of origin story, I used to believe, Kevin, that my journey was corporate world, business, university degree, good graduate job, and start to progress up corporate ladder. That's what I thought I wanted in my twenties. And at around two years into my graduate role, which was

speaker-0 (06:52.642)
Fantastic by the way. It was selling advertising space for for Eurosport television. It was really exciting. There was a part of me that quite a big part just wasn't feeling fulfilled, challenged in the right way. And I started looking and seeking for something to fill that gap. And sat on a tube in London going to and from the job, reading the Metro. I saw an advert for one of those free seminars, probably what we were talking about earlier, the get rich quick thing. Anyway, first

insight, go and have a look, what's it all about? It happened to be a a stock trading seminar, which wasn't quite striking the chord at the time, but what did strike a chord was the chap held up a a purple and gold book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that was the catalyst for it all, which is probably the same for many people you speak to, but a age of 24, and I read that book, the penny seriously dropped. And I took that, I read it

A few times and the thought process started to marinate and I saw what was going to be the answer. And so I started on that journey about 18 months after reading the book. So that was 2006, age 26. And the journey started. It was just low, slow, gradual. And I worked in the corporate world for to compress the story about, it must have been eight years whilst building portfolio and got to a point of financial.

independence through buy to let an HMO. Just a very lonely journey, not anyone to talk to about it. My girlfriend, fiance, turned wife all throughout that journey, amazing support, but wasn't interested. And so it was quite a lonely journey. And if I accelerate that a bit beyond, I did do bits of investing in my education. I learned about some additional strategies because I thought if I just keep doing what I'm doing,

It's going to take me a real age to get to the kind of level of wealth that, you know, I know you help your community accelerate to in your membership, but I could see it take a very, very long time. So I learned a bit about service accommodation. That was back in 2015, 2016. And I'm sure we'll touch on this later on, but I kind of dived feet first into that and failed miserably.

speaker-0 (09:21.634)
I'm happy to admit it. And I I I jumped in with a strategy of I guess nothing more than hope and guesswork and failed here in Scotland, in the city centre in Edinburgh, got it pretty wrong using a rent to rent model and with a short space of six months was was burning money, which was a horrible experience. But the great thing is it led to a serious moment of crisis and change.

And going into the year 2017, I made a pledge to myself never to do that to myself again and not not to guess. And started the new year with a with a new approach, which was to promise myself I would go and find the demand first, forget location, forget property, just go and find the demand first. And only then, when I have that demand, get it to a point of certainty, and then

Go and take out a rent to rent and so on and so forth. And that really changed the trajectory of everything I've done since. so we're now nearly 10 years from that point. I think we'll get into it later on, but that demand-led approach really changed the way I looked at my world of property and property business. That was starting with service accommodation back then, adding on to my rental portfolio, and then moving into other sectors to serve with short stay accommodation.

And then other long-term investments that I do now in how I go about reverse engineering from that end user first. So right now, in short, I've got three main businesses. I've got the trading business, which is service accommodation. That's focused on emergency accommodation, so it's public sector. Then I have a long-term investment business, which is the houses and the blocks of flats.

focused on supported housing, supported living. And then I'm in a similar space to you. I love helping others accelerate the journey. So through mastermind, coaching and and membership. And that's how I I guess other than the family and the sport and the fun and the travel, that's how I allocate time and what I love doing.

speaker-1 (11:40.687)
Thanks for that. I'm very used to when I'm interviewed getting short questions and long answers. So thanks for doing exactly

speaker-0 (11:47.128)
question. I didn't quite know where to start, where to finish.

speaker-1 (11:49.518)
Yeah, well, that's fine. I think you did a good job. I think we need to pull back on that and look at some of the lessons because I think I appreciate your humility in saying that you made some mistakes. I think we all learn not just about and from the mistake, but who we are as people because that tension can spill over into other parts of your life. anyway, let's not dwell on that. as far as the

Language is concerned. Not everybody who listens to the podcast will be experiencing property and some of the language needs to be debunked a bit. So you talked about, I mean, most people understand what buy-to-let is and they'll understand HMO because it's multiple occupancy properties. But a couple of bits of the language they may not understand. One was service accommodation and you also used

equal term which was short term let's so you want to describe what service accommodation is why it's a strategy within property what the pros are of that what the cons are of that

speaker-0 (12:59.104)
So service accommodation in simple terms is if we think about the utilization of a standard residential property, a house, a flat, any configuration of rooms, but instead of having long-term tenants on a tenancy agreement, we are having guests who come and pay by the night and use this.

property as it could be a place for leisure, it could be a place for working away from home, or multiple other, I guess, niche use cases, but it's not their main primary residence where they they buy and have a a mortgage themselves or they rent out. And so we're using a residential property a bit more like a commercial asset by

being kind of like a hotel and having guests, and we are providing an element of service, hence the service accommodation. So people will come in for that nightly price, which is a good bit more than monthly rent. They will have the benefit of using the entire property and using all the utilities, the heat, the light, the Wi-Fi, have it fully furnished and in many cases, very beautifully furnished.

Often giving an experience that one wouldn't get in their own home. Some use cases are people go and stay for a weekend in the kind of place they could only dream of owning, but they get a this kind of fractional use, if you will, of a beautiful luxury place. Or it could be a very standard accommodation that is being used by people working away from home to go and build some infrastructure. In my case,

My guests are actually homeless members of our community. Made homeless for a number of different reasons. And they're the end user guest, and the council is my client. So that's a very different, I guess, counterintuitive guest, but it's a very effective, I guess, way of using service accommodation. The pros and the cons. The pros can be that the top-line booking revenue.

speaker-0 (15:24.632)
That one generates is a good bit higher than what you'd get from the what is capped at your monthly rent. The market rent is the market rent. But a nightly rate times 30 nights, if it's fully occupied, could go into quadruple what the rent is. And so it means you could have much higher profit. You have quite a degree of flexibility in how you turn on and off that tap so you can pause, you can

Use it for the family if you wish. you don't have tenants. So of course, right now when the rent reform bill is worrying a lot of landlords, tenant-related issues aren't a thing. If someone misbehaves in your property, then they can be asked to leave, just like a hotel could ask them to leave. So it gives a huge amount of control. I won't go into other benefits that have existed for tax relief, et cetera, but there's some simple tactical operational things. The the cons.

The biggest one is exposing the owner operator to downside risk. So setting up a property at relative expense and furnishing it nicely and not having anyone come. You you remember the that film The Field of Dreams with Kevin Coxar building the the the baseball field? In his dreams, he was being told by

speaker-1 (16:44.915)
yes I do.

speaker-0 (16:49.29)
former baseball players, if you build it, they will come. If you build it, they will come. So it's a famous tagline for the movie, but Sadly, I don't believe that follows through in property. If you build it, they might come, but also they might not. And if they don't come, it can be pretty dire for someone who's outlaid a lot a lot of money. I I've seen it in so many scenarios. I've experienced it myself personally. And it's painful to put something out there to the market only for you to have to

pay for the cost base and not have enough coming in. It's it's a horrible experience. And that's why often is the case people throw the towel in and say, I'm just gonna go back to buy to let. So that's probably the biggest con to it is that there's a bit of regulatory and compliance related things, but not too much more than your standard letting.

speaker-1 (17:38.348)
Okay, so thank you for the explanation. I think it was clear enough. And I suppose the different use cases would really come from somebody's individual preferences and what they see where they are. But rather than choose a use case without understanding where the demand already exists. So they already demand it, so build it, as opposed to build it and they will come. How do you go about doing that? What's your process to do that?

speaker-0 (18:07.31)
So having had the painful experience that I shared when I jumped in, guessed, went and quickly set up four properties in the city centre of Edinburgh, thinking that can't go wrong, it's the tourist cap capital of Scotland, it's the second largest financial services centre in the UK. There's all year traffic.

To set something up and make money in the summer and then for it to go noticeably down towards Christmas to the point where you're subsidising it with me, my biter income and my business partner, his construction business income, was a real wake-up call to that fact of, we kind of got this bit wrong. We didn't understand the end user, we didn't understand the unit economics of how the cost base and the cost variables interact with the booking or lack of.

And what that led to was me creating a framework that, in hindsight, is what I did to get started again by finding demand first. So the simple acronym that I can share, which is easy to remember, is DICE. So I've written all about it in this book, Predictable Property Profits. That's the story of what I did to fail and how I turned things around and then apply this model to every

investment stratio do. But it's simply Kevin stands for demand first. So it's about who is the end user, what is it they want. And when I get to the I part, the I is identifying the appropriate solution. So that what's the right property solution for that demand. So is it, for example, a four-bedroomed house in a kind of suburban secondary town that's 30 minutes drive from

This energy from waste plant, because my end user is a major specialist engineering company that's going to be there for 12 months, moving different specialist trades in to build a biomass boiler. And they want their guys living in a home-for-home environment, one bedroom each, a nice living room kitchen, space for parking. It's safe, and it's not on a high street where they can be distracted by bars and nightclubs.

speaker-0 (20:27.096)
Kind of thing. But yet they can jump in a motorway and get to their place of work in 20, 30 minutes. So that's identifying the solution. That's the D, the I, the C in dice is really important. This is a game changer that I hope people will take away. And this is getting commitment in advance. And it's quite simply this concept of pre-selling. So before we actually part with capital, part with cash.

I certainly prefer to get a deal lined up by way of some form of commitment. Now, that commitment could be a verbal yes on the phone, all the way up to some kind of booking agreement, deposit, a waiting list. It might be a pre-lease agreement in the supported living space where I'm operating now. It's that there's a there's a whole, I guess, spectrum of levels of commitment, but I'm looking to get.

As far along that spectrum as possible before I move to the E, which is execute. Now I'm going to go and do the deal. I will, for example, when I got started, sign a lease to do the rent to rent, I will put the money down to buy a property. I will set the business up. It's that simple centuries-old model of pre-selling that for whatever reason we don't see too often in the property space, but I realized from my

painful mistakes that actually this is the the way I prefer to do it. And applying that model to serve as accommodation first is what I found to be tremendously successful and have since gone on to apply it to other property strategies I get into.

speaker-1 (22:12.014)
All right, let me ask a question. So you had the painful experience. You didn't have this model. Did somebody teach you this model? Did you invent the model?

speaker-0 (22:22.188)
In a way, someone did teach me this model in a different space altogether. So I credit in my book two American software entrepreneurs who I learned from in 2014. At one point, Kevin, I wanted to have a SaaS, not a pension SaaS. I do want one of those, but a software as a service. And I went on a course to learn how to.

start and build a software as a service product. And this was back in 2014. And the very clever entrepreneurs teaching this program from the US taught me this concept of finding the the need, the pain point, the demand first, and figure out what's the solution that is going to be required. And then get the validation by way of pre-selling it, get some

small down payment before you go and build the thing. And so I did do that at a small scale. And I actually got some pre-sales for a software concept. And I actually built it back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and then really struggled to get it big and off the ground and realized that

Building software back then wasn't my highest value. And I reverted back to property, which I had to accept defeat with that. But do you know what? It was that, I guess, dark moment of stress, financial stress and strain, after having run service accommodation really poorly, that led me to become resourceful and dig deep. And I reminded myself of what I already knew.

From having been taught it on a course two years ago. And I thought, why not give this a go? This makes total sense.

speaker-1 (24:12.662)
So tell me then how you made the change from these different use cases and you're thinking about Edinburgh being just a whole hub for different people to what you're doing now, which you've talked about a different sector altogether, which probably, as you said, it's slightly unusual, maybe counterintuitive. So why don't you tell us what you discovered, how you discovered it?

and why it's a good use case and why it's an interesting one for you.

speaker-0 (24:47.864)
So, and you're quite right by talking about borrowing the ideas and best practices and inspiration, the innovations from other sectors, I find a lot of gold in doing that. This is case in point. So, in applying that, specifically a few examples for those listening to think practically who or what might they know to identify where there might be demand opportunities. The one specifically where

I've had great success. It started off with, I guess, having an awareness that I wanted longer stay guests in the properties that I was operating. So literally months rather than nights. And that would then allow and I wanted it to be direct bookings as well, by the way. So it wasn't it wasn't having money chipped off from booking.com and Airbnb. So I wanted to generate my own direct bookings for several months.

And to have one clean a week. And that would optimize the net profit versus the seasonality and the multiple stays and multiple cleans and the cost of booking.com and Airbnb in the leisure space. So knowing that's what I was striving for, Kevin, it was a case of okay, well, where do I start? How how do I find these opportunities? And my thinking naturally went to, and I don't know where this idea first came from.

Because I can tell you, I'm not an overly creative person. I do like to borrow. And I don't know where this particular idea came from, but I k I reminded myself of it that I wanted to find the person or organization who were already connected to multiple contractor organizations who book accommodation, because they're the ones who I saw in the first instance that could have the capacity to book long term, because they're building something. So I thought rather than trying to find

multiple construction companies, what about finding agents who place these contractors into accommodation? So that was my that was my Google search term back then in 2017. And I got a handful that I then did some good old outreach to messaging, emails, LinkedIn, whatever it might be. And so the concept there, which I think is great for your listeners to take through, I like to describe it as

speaker-0 (27:14.966)
A simple kind of analogy with the hand. You know, the hand's got multiple fingers that it's connected to, but if we can find the person or the organization who is the hand, the the PAM, who's already connected to all of these potential opportunities, that's really high-leverage use of our time. And that could be a specialist agent, or it might be a particular public sector institution. It could be a body, an organization, an individual, a team. That's what I go looking for.

if we take that as big picture. So in the first niche, it was contractor accommodation agents. And that's where I found that first bit of gold. Literally within a few weeks of that twenty seventeen year, a response that came back telling me I've got six guys, more to come, need accommodation for five and a half months. This is my budget. So I I I got an entire brief to go hunting.

So that was the starting point. And anyone who's listened to this can can do the same thing. And it's part of what I teach and help people with. But if you go now to ChatGPT and you're to do a prompt to say, please show me an exhaustive list of all of the agents who place contractors into short stay accommodation, you'll get a nice list that you can then go out and contact. So that's where I started. And after a two year run,

And I could see the writing on the wall that the project's come to an end. Had a great experience. We we we've rapidly built a business in you know that went from losing money the year previous to getting that first thousand pounds of profit within a 45-day period, and then over 10,000 pounds a month in profit in less than 12 months. It was really you know exciting. But it wasn't gonna last forever. And so the thinking was where else could I find demand to

replace contractors, but also add some more growth because my business was at maturity towards decline. I wanted to go back into growth again. And my thinking then went to okay, councils. I understand, I have a an assumption, a hypothesis that councils place homeless people into private sector accommodation. And why not try there? And so it was then speaking to again the hand about that team.

speaker-0 (29:39.8)
The emergency accommodation team who are connected to hundreds of the individuals in the community who need the housing. That led to the second wave of growth. And anyone in the UK can do the same thing. This demand is not seasonal. There may be local authorities that people who are listening speak to that are at capacity with partners who provide accommodation. That's understandable. But

In my experience, if someone was to speak to probably three or four different local authorities, there's a very strong chance that one of those still requires more housing stock to be able to utilize for this need. So that was a very practical example of two niche end user groups, but I've helped people find demand in all sorts of unusual niches based on what and who they know.

both private sector, public sector. It's really, really interesting. And I and I find that great fun. This is this is what I love about property entrepreneurship. And so taking that concept, that's what's then I think you asked about where I am now, that's what's then moved into where the focus now is in building relationships with supported living providers who have a very clear demand requirement for housing with some element of care and support.

And when I understand what that requirement is, whether it's a a single house or a block of apartments, I then have a brief to go actually looking for that. And that's what's really changed the game, versus what I used to do pre twenty sixteen.

speaker-1 (31:21.644)
I thought you said you weren't very creative. All I'm hearing is creativity.

speaker-0 (31:26.09)
Okay, wow. It's very kind. I I don't necessarily see it that way. I guess I'm more of just a an implementer and a borrower.

speaker-1 (31:34.51)
Well, not really. you know, I'm obviously seeing what I see and what I call, you what you're doing is creative collaboration. And I think that's the, particularly if you're getting a result, not just for you, not just for the local authority, but also for the tenant and the tenant or the occupier, whatever the language you use, needs that longer term support rather than being

speaker-0 (31:58.329)
yes, yeah.

speaker-1 (32:02.158)
Well, alternatives which would be less than ideal for them. So I can see a win-win-win all around there. I mean, in many respects that creative collaboration is really one of the things that we talk in wealth builders about wealth is built in pillars. And the seventh pillar of the seven is joint ventures and collaborations. And it's seeking those things out. I like the way you articulated as a hand in...

in wealth builders, just so you know, there's a parallel. I'm seeing a lot of parallels with you. So I get my team to look for chips and they go, well, what's that? I go, coaches, hosts, influencers, podcasters, and those people who supply to the avatar that we need and find and help me make connections to those. And so I make the connections and you you're one of those, you really? In a sense that there's probably good synergy to be had.

way beyond the value of this podcast that would be good for you, good for me, good for the listener, good for the tenants and hopefully some people will want to reach out. But before we get to the point of allowing people to reach out to you, which I would definitely want them to encourage to do that, how important is this whole principle to you of diversification within

property not just diversification away from property and having multiple streams which is where I come from is being diverse in many different things. You seem to have chosen diversification within the property sphere so what's your view about that?

speaker-0 (33:45.512)
I I am definitely a fan of diversification. I am someone who's quite risk averse, but yet open enough to explore new endeavors that could help reinforce the proverbial fortress, the structure that we're building long term. And so the way I have tended to approach it to date, because the journey is still ongoing.

And I'm always learning, is to get fairly good at one thing and replicate, duplicate, and then start to innovate and and and and iterate around it, build motes where you can to protect and mitigate against the downside. So whilst that's going on, diversification could be a bit of a a dilution of effort and energy and and focus and it could be a bit of a distraction. I I

Did try in my earlier years trying to do too many different things at once, and ended up diluting myself and not being very good at any of them. This was around that 20 kind of 14, 2016 period. And so learned a lot from that. And so getting something up and running, like one of these property strategies I I mentioned, getting the dividends of the that learning curve we go through.

really does help. And the network we create, the power teams we create, all the intellectual property we build, I like to do that bit first to a point, so that it frees up enough bandwidth to then bring in that bit of diversification. And so for me so far, it's been predominantly diversifying within different property strategies. I'm diversified, I'm very diversified in my geographic location. I can give you an idea, like right now.

I'm currently selling the first property I ever bought, which is in London. And based on the offers I'm getting, I'm having to take quite a haircut on it based on what it was listed at last year, which that market in London is showing me it's very, very different to some other parts of the UK where I'm buying, in the Midlands, for example. And if I were to be buying more where I am in around Edinburgh.

speaker-0 (36:10.914)
Where prices are holding fairly well. So I have diversification geographically and asset type. And with that being the case, then surplus is, I mean, I do have diversification other things by way of some like cryptocurrency and SP. And that's where I'd like to continue putting more surplus cash flow and add more to that by way of precious metals. But

The focus on that has been so small in the last few years because it's been so heavy on the property side. But I'm highly, highly aware of the attraction to want to grow that asset base into different areas and feel that sense of security because there's diversification, there's hedging.

speaker-1 (37:05.09)
Obviously, one of the big things I'm talking about this year, for those who follow the podcast, might not be obvious to you, is the pernicious tax, which is inheritance tax. And as you're building assets, you're building not just security, but also assets which would be subject to inheritance tax because property assets generally don't qualify for business protection relief, which trading businesses do unless your businesses

fall into BPR. So do they or don't they fall into BPR?

speaker-0 (37:37.462)
Service the accommodation side of our business, which I own with a business partner, is absolutely a trading business and it's you know very successful. We have no intention of looking to sell it on an exit, but it serves us very well by having both a management side to it of our own properties that has a team employed and a holding side of it. And then everything that is, I guess, people-based.

Service based, coaching, membership, in person, mastermind, absolutely all all trading. And from that is coming, I still have this desire to have a software business, and I feel it's getting closer now thanks to AI. so yes, the the trading businesses are very much there alongside the investment asset based businesses.

speaker-1 (38:30.594)
So we'll all be rolling your dice, will we?

speaker-0 (38:32.984)
That's a nice way of putting it, yeah. Rolling a dice, but with with with predictability rather than the the kind of gambling nature of it.

speaker-1 (38:41.998)
We are owning the house as opposed to allowing the house to take the revenue burning where we're digressing. But I think it's great to hear that anybody building their wealth needs to understand how the inheritance tax will be charged upon that. And that's more difficult if the asset is entirely simple property based because they don't qualify for BPR. So you're building a problem there. And what are you doing to help the next generation?

kind of understand what you're doing and what's their involvement from a family perspective.

speaker-0 (39:17.878)
this is a topic absolutely love. So we talk about entrepreneurship as an everyday piece. My boys are still in full-term education. One is soon to go to university, and that was nearly not to go to university, because there are many other things one can do, but it was decided in the end that that's the life experience to to to go after. But

Because we talk about it and discuss it and they have an understanding of what dad does, both with the property physically and in talking to people and helping them through kind of mentorship, they've got a a good awareness of creating value through these different means. And they've all been involved in their own endeavors. So for example, the eldest one, when he was 10.

Started or 11 started baking tray bakes to sell to our service accommodation business to put in as a welcome gift. And he he learned in that process to invoice us. His business was called Tiffin Me Please, because he baked tiffins and he would create an invoice with a letter head and create value for our company. He'd buy the ingredients and so he learned from that. And that then went on to

Starting a bin service for our neighbors, because we live rurally up a driveway. So he'd put a letter through their door to pre-sell the service, and they signed up in advance. And then on a monthly basis, take the bins out, take it back. Now that's passed down through two other brothers. So now the oldest one's nearly 18. And the young one who's 11 now, he runs that business. He's inherited it. Now the oldest one, he started a business last year, a trading business on Amazon.

So, using the same principles, he used a clever tool called Helium to find demand and reverse engineer a product with a higher chance of being successful. He had to go and source that, brand it, create it, and launched that successfully last summer. So he's got his first real trading business at age 17. He launched it before his 17th birthday, actually. And as part of the property side, having conversations with our

speaker-0 (41:39.256)
tax advisor, these young men will be introduced to the business by way of growth shares. And ultimately my eyes are on actually setting up a family office, which I'm excited about. So the early shoots of both entrepreneurship and investing have started. And I can't say that we've got that rock solid foundation structurally in place yet, but it's on the

horizon for how we use group structure, family investment business, it's going the right direction.

speaker-1 (42:15.212)
When you see what you're doing and that's great, thanks for sharing that. That's an insight that is probably fascinating for many people, including me to hear. Because when you've got entrepreneurial children inspired by a creative dad who doesn't think he's very creative and they become self-aware and unable to control things, they can build that predictability rather than the illusion of certainty, which sometimes appears in jobs. And you don't meet

job holders very often who are wealthy because the taxes are too punitive and they're always worried about the future of the job they can earn, but it's more difficult to keep that earning going and certainly to be financially independent early. So I think it's great what you're doing. Definitely I would want to encourage you to take a leaf out of the wealth builder book and look at how SAS can help you with that. It's like a family investment company, but tax free.

So definitely I would encourage you to do that. And as an open-minded man borrowing lessons from others, that would be great to share that with you. I really enjoyed the conversation with you and learning about you, learning about what you've been doing. I'm sure we could talk more and what I'll do is give a space for people to either get a copy of the book or reach out to you. So how would best...

People do that if they like what they hear and they'd like to connect with you beyond the just listening to you on the podcast.

speaker-0 (43:46.122)
Easiest places, I am easily findable on Facebook. Simply send Wharton my name and on LinkedIn my book itself. I'm happy to share with you a link where this can be downloaded for free. So I I can I can give away an actual digital copy ebook. If people want to buy a physical copy because they prefer that they can do that. But if they want a free version, they can. so that's nice and easy.

And then for those who may fall into the category of being interested to get capital working at a predictable in a predictable fashion with demand-led asset backed opportunities, then we keep those people informed of what products are working on by way of a private wait list. And so we can perhaps share that in the show notes as well if people are interested to explore what that's all about.

And it can acquire further that way.

speaker-1 (44:43.436)
Okay, well, is there a website that they can visit as well?

speaker-0 (44:47.01)
Yes, my main company website for what I'm all about and how I help people is Devonirplus.co.uk, so D-E-V-E-N-I-R plus dot co.uk, so that's literally French for become more.

speaker-1 (45:02.67)
Yes, it is. was thinking that. I remember that from my economics in French days. was thinking, divinier is the word to become. So we obviously thought that through, right? That's just pretty cool. It's always method in the madness of a name.

speaker-0 (45:16.088)
There is absolute method and madness. There's a whole lot more to it. And I can tell you another day the the method and madness behind the design of our our logo as well, 'cause it's a there's a story there as well.

speaker-1 (45:26.382)
Okay, well, I'm sure you and I will talk again and I'm sure there'll be other reasons for you to share your wisdom with us on other days as the landscape continues to change and people continue to need to learn and make distinctions from other people. So thanks for sharing. Thanks for being here on the podcast. I look forward to sharing other lessons with other able teachers and mentors and guides because seek out guides, ladies and gentlemen out there.

Don't try DIY. You make the mistakes Sen made, you make the mistakes I made. A good mentor and a good guide can help you make those intellectual shortcuts and stop making those mistakes to accelerate your wealth and get you to a place where you don't feel any pain. So until next time, see ya.

speaker-0 (46:16.462)
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the Wealth Builders Membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.