Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast with your host Pancham Gupta. This podcast is dedicated to helping the high paid professionals to break out of the Wall Street investments and create multiple income streams. Here’s your host Pancham Gupta.

Hi, this is Joe Fairless if you want to diversify out of Wall Street investments and listen to the gold collar investor podcast.

Pancham Gupta  

Welcome to the gold collar investor podcast. This is your host Pancham really appreciate you for tuning in today. My guest is Stephanie Boldrini. She’s originally from Brazil and moved to Silicon Valley 20 years ago, where she had a successful career in tech sales. And for the past three years, Stephanie has decided to focus on commercial real estate investing after receiving inspiration from sophisticated real estate investors. She has invested in three different asset classes since then and has achieved 36% cash on cash returns. Hey, Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Steff Boldrini  

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Pancham Gupta  

Thanks for your time here. Before we get started, are you ready to fire up my listeners break out of Wall Street investments?

Steff Boldrini  

I am so ready. Awesome. 

Pancham Gupta  

So, Stephanie, before we get started, right? Like, why don’t you talk about your background? I know you came from Brazil, over two decades ago to US and started your career in California. Why don’t you enlighten us like how you got started into the business where you are in now and your background?

Steff Boldrini  

Sure. So landed in Silicon Valley. And just naturally you always end up in tech. So, I was in tech sales for about a decade. And my boyfriend at the time was a successful retail real estate investor. And at that point, I started wanting to invest in startups as an angel investor. But very quickly, it became very clear that real estate is a much, much better, safer, and greater returns than investing as an angel investor. So, I decided to learn everything I possibly could. And the rest is history, including the ex.

Pancham Gupta  

Oh, nice. Okay, so you came from Brazil to kind of get a job here. Or was it more like your entire family moved? What was the

Steff Boldrini  

mindset shift? Thank God. Yeah. Okay.

Pancham Gupta  

Okay. All right. So, you started in tech sales, and you, you know, you had your boyfriend. And that’s how you kind of learn the ropes about real estate, right? So, when you actually personally started investing in real estate,

Steff Boldrini  

I started about three, four years ago, more, or less.

Pancham Gupta  

Okay. So up until three, four years ago, you were in tech sales. And now have you quit your job fully? Where are you right now? And when did you quit? If you did,

Steff Boldrini  

I did quit my job. And one lesson right from the get-go is to not quit until you’re making what you’re making, you know, at least, that in the real estate side. So, in hindsight, I should have not quit, personally. So that is one lesson learned from the get-go?

Pancham Gupta  

Well, you know, that’s thank you for sharing that it’s, you know, I’ve had a lot of people on the show who have quit their job. And, you know, including myself, if someone were to ask me, I would say I should have quit sooner. Right? And your answer, and you know, thanks for being transparent there. So, when did you quit? And can you detail like, well, how was it like to quit your job there, and now that you’ve quit, and you said that you shouldn’t have quit, because your income wasn’t at par with what you were making? What led you to quit in the first place.

Steff Boldrini  

I don’t even remember what led me to quit. But I never really enjoyed having a boss. And I quit four years ago. So, at the time, it was a bit difficult to find deals. So, I thought I had to spend a lot of time looking at deals, talking to people, and networking and all of that. And it did take a couple of years for me to close on my first transaction. So, you should at least have that under your belt and start to see what kind of cash flow you were getting at the end of the day. Because it’s really important to also qualify for loans for your future investments, if you’re doing it by yourself, or with other you know, friends and family. So, that is something that you have to think about. And everybody’s situation is different. Some people may have somebody else that can, you know, ride the bills for a while other people may have children where they can’t. So, these are the things that you should really think about before leaving your job. 

Pancham Gupta  

got it. So, in your case, I know you said that you didn’t like your boss. So, you just woke up one morning and said, hey, I’m gonna quit today. Is that how it went, or you were planning for it for some time,

Steff Boldrini  

I was planning on it. I learned everything I could went into contract with on a property with my then boyfriend learned a lot on that entire process, when into another LOI later, so it was incredibly helpful. And you know, lesson number two, make sure that you have somebody that has done it before next to you, I don’t care if you have to pay them for it. I have hired consultants before on my first few deals. So, it’s really, really important that you don’t miss anything. Because, you know, if you haven’t done it, yet, there will be things that you don’t know. And we don’t know what we don’t know. So super important to have a team behind you. And it’s going to save you a lot of time and money later.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it? Yeah, no, that’s so true. I’ve paid my share fair share of coaching, fees, or investment, so to speak. So, in telling me this, right, like you said that you what kind of investing or what kind of properties you were investing in when you invested in, in the first LOI or the second LOI.

Steff Boldrini  

With him, it was retail deals, we didn’t end up purchasing because it was going to be a huge project. One was a super old movie theater, that we had to completely remodel from top to bottom. And we weren’t going to convert into any event space. There was a signing property, but it was going to be a huge undertaking. So yeah, it was mainly retail.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. So, what do you do now? That was four years ago, I assume. Right? And yes, you didn’t close that one. So where are you today? And what do you invest in now?

Steff Boldrini  

So, I made the decision of purchasing some self-serve car washes in Texas. I also have a self-storage facility and some short-term rentals right now.

Pancham Gupta  

Wow, so many different asset classes like now you pique my interest. They’re like carwash, and that too in Texas, and you live in California, right? So how did that come about? Like, talk to us about that? And how did you analyze that deal? And did you have anyone to help you with that? Or you just went solo?

Steff Boldrini  

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I was analyzing purely on the number side, it was a brand-new asset class for me, and I wrongfully so thought, how hard could it be to manage, you know, three self-serve car washes from Park. And it has proven to be a lot of work, unfortunately. So, I’m really looking forward to the day that I will be exiting those properties, and only focusing on self-storage moving forward.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. So not sure. Like, would you mind sharing some numbers like or maybe? How did you analyze these deals? And how are you actually managing these from California?

Steff Boldrini  

Yeah, so you know, I like to tell people, really, everything depends on what is important to you. If cash on cash returns are important to you. And that’s your number one priority, you should invest in car washes, the numbers are phenomenal. We’re getting about 50% return on our money. And at the same time, it takes a lot of time, and I have not taken the time to make this my priority asset class. So, I’m not interested in learning how to manage these kinds of employees. And I’m not interested in expanding that kind of business because he has a lot of moving parts. Something breaks every day. And right now, we’re dealing with some theft, because we still accept coins in some of these properties because people don’t have credit cards in some of these locations. So, it’s been a fascinating ride. A lot of lessons learned. And I just know something amazing is going to come out of this I just don’t know what it is yet. Besides, you know, even thicker skin.

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, no, I think these are the lessons you always learn from any investment like I feel every investment that you do, whether it’s the one that you know, very well, like you know, the asset class, you know, very well you still learn something from it. Always, always, always the case, right. But in your case, this is a brand-new asset class and you I’m sure you’re gonna come out stronger. So how did that come about? Like you were doing some properties retail in California, and you just thought, oh, let me go buy carwash and

Steff Boldrini  

no, I’m not that Crazy. It was a portfolio of properties that included a self-storage. So, it came in my inbox. And the numbers looked great. And so, I decided to purchase it because math is really important for me. And at that time, I was not seeing anything like that kind of return in the self-storage space. And so, I said, well, this will be a great start to, you know, get closer to the income that I had before in order to qualify for further loans. So that was some of the reasoning behind it.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it? Sure. Did it do get leverage on this? Like, did you get bank loan?

Steff Boldrini  

Yeah, yeah.

Pancham Gupta  

And now you’re trying. So, you’re still keeping the Self-Storage side of it? I’m assuming because you like that, that you got with the deal. But you’re selling the car washes?

Steff Boldrini  

Correct. Correct. Okay, and expanding on the Self-Storage Facility?

Pancham Gupta  

Got it? And the car washes? Like, is it easy to sell? Or just curious? Or is it like, have you listed it for sale, like, how’s the process there?

Steff Boldrini  

God willing, it’ll be easy to sell. So, because of the test that we just found out, are the cash flow is not the same as it has been over the last several years. So, I’m looking at all possible exit strategies. So, build to suit retail partner up with somebody to build multifamily on it because it’s zoned also for multifamily, selling just as land. So those are the ideas that come to my head when I can’t sleep at night, thinking about these car washes.

Pancham Gupta  

Wow, my good luck with that. I’m sure we can talk about your sales process and get you back on the show. And when you’re done, like done selling these. Okay, I do have more questions on car washes, like anyone listening who wants to buy, let’s say, what should they be careful about? Okay, let I think that now that you know what, you know,

Steff Boldrini  

yeah, so number one, I would definitely keep them if they were within 30 minutes from where I live. Number two, the first thing I would do before buying them is to go to a carwash specific conference. So, you can meet as many people as possible. So, they can help you and you can build your network for any issues that you may have. That’s 100%, a must for any new asset class, in my opinion. And then number three is making sure that you be able to qualify for the loan. So, I was not for the first I think three lenders. And then after that, I just had to have a phone call with the lender. But the point is that obviously rightfully, so they did not approve me, because I did not have carwash experience. So, you might need to partner up with somebody that has that kind of experience, which will actually be beneficial for you in the future.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Great. Thank you for that. So, let’s switch gears here. Stephanie. And I know you said in your buyer and you’re not doing it now, but you were buying land in metaverse. Is that right?

Steff Boldrini  

I purchased some coins that can buy land in the metaverse in December last year at the perfect time.

Pancham Gupta  

But did you actually buy land with those coins? Did you not?

Steff Boldrini  

Not yet, but I did a ton of research to the metaverse, which was it’s fascinating what they’re doing there.

Pancham Gupta  

So, you know, I know maybe we can spend two minutes on this. But what does it even mean? Like I understand this in this Metaverse, which is a world in itself right a virtual world and you can go buy claims from land in that matter. Was there a couple of companies right like which are offering these meta verses right, and where you can go buy land? And like what does that even mean? Yeah, now you have this land now what?

Steff Boldrini  

Right? So, there are some meta verses that are completely decentralized. So that means that it’s not owned by a company like Meta or Facebook, and you will be able to build right now whatever your heart desires there. So, an interesting case for it. And by the way, it’s not. This doesn’t mean that I agree with Metaverse, and I don’t want my future kids to be living in the metaverse. I just wanted to learn to know you know, what is the future of tech. And so, one thing to think about is like Snoop Dogg has a huge piece of lands in the meta, one of these metaverses and he those shows over there. And when you have land near his piece of land and a Metaverse, you will get a lot of quotes unquote foot traffic or eyeballs and because he’s having these shows there, there is no limit to how many people can attend. And some of them have limits just to make it more attractive. But let’s say there are no limits, right? So, it’s not a, how many cars per day that you have it so it’s the entire globe could be watching that show. So, in my opinion, you could have even more exposure than a major intersection in a major city in the future. So, you can lease your piece of land to other people. You can have whatever you want an art gallery for NFT’s. The opportunities are endless. And I believe one of my questions was, can you do multifamily and sell condos or rent these units out? So, there are some people that are working on subdividing within each piece of parcel that you actually have in the metaverse so it’s a fascinating

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, you know, I get the feeling of Okay, someone wants to advertise next to it. Snoop Dogg is performing. But I don’t get the idea of condos are like you can’t really live on Metaverse, right, like so.

Steff Boldrini  

Can you have your friends over? You can have your friends from other parts of the globe visit you or actually, right? Yeah, virtually. And that’s what I always tell people go ask your children. Don’t ask me. I’m not going to be spending a huge amount of time in the metaverse ask them I know a lot of people nowadays they spend a lot of hours on Roblox. ROBLOX

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah. My son. There you go. Yeah.

Steff Boldrini  

So, ask him.

Pancham Gupta  

Let me ask you this, like my last question on this. So Roblox is actually a meta verse. It is inside a metaverse like where did you buy your land or wanted to buy your land? Like, what are some of the metaverse companies which are completely decentralized and offering this?

Steff Boldrini  

Yeah, the one that I purchased was in decentraland. And the currency is called mana M A N A?

Pancham Gupta  

Got it? And what are some of the others? Do you know? Or you don’t

Steff Boldrini  

know, there are a few. And there will be more as we all can imagine, this is infinite. Right? So, when I asked about that, when I was talking to people, what they mentioned is, well, it’s basically like going to a city, right, the ones that have been there for a while they’re more developed, and they have more abilities for people to do more things than the newer ones. So, they will have more traction. So those are the things to think about as well. It’s very similar to, as they say, the physical world. Yeah. In terms of all the moving parts and how to approach it.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Cool. Well, thank you, Metaverse primary 101. Here are, yeah, so what is next? You said, do you want to do self-storage? And you your buyer also said Airbnb is like, what are you more focused on both self-storage and Airbnb? Or just self-storage? Or, you know, it’d be it’d be more.

Steff Boldrini  

Yeah, movie forwarded, it’d be just self-storage, because it’s, I don’t want to scale on a one-by-one case scenario. And I’ll you know, that also may be important to other people, the return on the investment on Airbnb is much higher than self-storage. So, it really depends on what is important to you. So, for me, I want to scale bigger, faster. And that’s one of the reasons why self-storage.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. So how many units? Have you done a bad store? Like for self-storage so far?

Steff Boldrini  

Right now, I have one property, and we’re hopefully getting into contract with a couple more properties very soon.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. So, what are some of the things gotchas there? Like, in if someone wants to get into self-storage? What things do they need to be careful about? Like when you look at, you know, of course, you look at the numbers, right? Like, other than the numbers, like, how do you validate whether this is a good deal or not.

Steff Boldrini  

So, like any other asset class, you have to look at my criteria is being able to add value. So that can be through increasing rents, decreasing expenses, or adding more units. So, it depends on what your priority is. Some people are just fine with, you know, five 10% return on their money, year over year so they can buy a more stabilized property. So those are the things that I personally look for, besides the basics, like market and growth in different industries.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Cool. Cool, cool. So, I want to ask you one last question, actually. But before I do that anything else you want to share about self-storage or any of the deals, lessons that you’ve learned over the last, you know, four years of your investing into and quitting your job.

Steff Boldrini  

I love self-storage, because as you may have heard, it’s recession resistant. And it goes well, in good times as well. So that is another reason why I decided to focus on it. So that’s another thing to think about on your priority list.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Cool. So, my last question, which is completely different from all the questions I asked you so far is that what is your morning routine? Do you have a morning routine? If so, do you think that attributes to your success?

Steff Boldrini  

I don’t know if it does, but my morning routine is working out right after I most stretching, working out. And then making my 30 Ingredients smoothie and feeding my dog and getting to work? I know that working out and having a healthy breakfast is really important for our output throughout the day. So, I guess the answer is yes.

Pancham Gupta  

All right. So, it’s 30. What is that? Can I ask what is that smoothie? Is that something you came up with? Or something that found on online?

Steff Boldrini  

You know, just kept learning about each ingredients power and over the years? Just kept adding one more ingredient.

Pancham Gupta  

Is it like a food based?

Steff Boldrini  

fruit, vegetables and dried fruit powders or seeds as well?

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Got it. I want to ask you that offline, maybe the whole list. Okay. Sounds good. Well, thank you, Steph, for your answers here. We’ll be back after this message to go to the second part of the show. If you’re an accredited investor and have been thinking about putting your money to work for you, then I have good news for you. I have created an investor Club, which I Call the Gold Collar Investor Club, I will be putting together investing opportunities exclusively for the group. These are the opportunities where I have done the due diligence for you and will be investing my own money alongside you. If you are interested, please sign up on thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club, I thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club, I will reach out to schedule a 30-minute phone conversation to discuss your investing goals. Once you sign up, this can be a good opportunity to diversify and take some chips off the hands of Wall Street to produce some passive income. And in case you were wondering, what is an accredited investor, accredited investor is someone who has earned more than $200,000 as filing single or more than $300,000 Filing Jointly for last two years. Another way to qualify as an accredited investor is if your total net worth is more than $1 million, excluding your personal home. It includes your stocks, 401Ks, IRAs, cars, etc. Just not the equity in your personal home. If this, is you, I would highly encourage you to sign up? So, Stephanie, let’s move on to the second part of the show. I call this taking the leap round, I ask these four questions to every guest on the show. My first question for you is when was the first time you invested outside of Wall Street?

Steff Boldrini  

That was probably five, six years ago when I invested as an angel investor on the first startup.

Pancham Gupta  

Okay. All right. Did you have any fears that you have to overcome? That? No female fears? Wow. All right, cool. You’re just you’re less. So, what kind of startup was that?

Steff Boldrini  

Oh, I bought that first one. I was the first drone company. Actually, it already failed. But it was the first drone company that came out that in a while ago.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Got it. So, my third question for you is can you share with us one investment that did not go as expected?

Steff Boldrini  

The carwashes are not going as expected. Every day something different happens and? Yeah.

Pancham Gupta  

Yeah, it’s hard to manage businesses from far off unless you have someone really trusted their links. These are very, very operation intensive business. Businesses. Right. Exactly. All right. I hope you’re out of that soon. And we should luck with that. My last question for you is what is one piece of advice would you give to people who are thinking of investing in Main Street that is outside of Wall Street?

Steff Boldrini  

Do your due diligence and ask people that have done it before successfully and make sure that they help you along the way.

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Cool. So, Steph, this was great. how can listeners connect with you if they want to reach out to you talk to you about Metaverse or whatever? Self-Storage or Airbnb’s

Steff Boldrini  

Thank you so much for having me, Pancham. I’m on all social medias. If you just search for my name, or our website is Montecarlorei.com

Pancham Gupta  

Got it. Well, we’ll put that in the show notes. Thank you, Stephanie, for your time here. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in today and listen to Stephanie’s story of going into matters and car washes and self-storage. If you have questions do not hesitate to reach out to me at p@thegoldcollarinvestor.com That’s P as in Paul p@thegoldcollarinvestor.com. This is Pancham signing off. Until next time, take care.

Thank you for listening to the gold collar investor podcast. If you love what you’ve heard and you want more of Pancham Gupta, visit us at www.thegoldcollarinvestor.com And follow us on Facebook at The Gold Collar Investor. The information on this podcast are opinions as always, please consult your own financial team before investing.