Real Estate Entrepreneurship: A Journey to Independence with Antonio Cucciniello

Real Estate Entrepreneurship: A Journey to Independence with Antonio Cucciniello Transcription:

Steven Pesavento [00:00:00]:

Yeah. I mean, I feel you because as I've climbed or ridden the ladder of success, like, the elevator up of success each time I've gone higher and higher, I've gotten more confident. I've started realizing, like, what I'm capable of. but it's funny because when you're just starting out, nobody has any expectations of you. Welcome to the name of your numbers show presented by investor mindset. We're on a mission to create financial independence for over a million investors. And I'm excited to have in the studio, Antonio Cucioniello. How are you doing today, Antonio? I'm awesome. How are you, Steven? Man, I'm living I'm living a beautiful life, and I'm grateful to have you on here. You're a young guy. You've created some success, and I'm excited to learn more about that. And so the first question I have to kick things off is, what did you name first? What was that first target or goal and that first thing that you were going after? You mean, like, all the way back in

Antonio Cucciniello [00:00:56]:

childhood?

Steven Pesavento [00:00:57]:

Yeah. What what was the first thing that you named? What was the the goal that you set for yourself that you were saying, hey. This is the thing time going after when it comes to business and money. When I first started out, the

Antonio Cucciniello [00:01:09]:

my biggest thing was doing anything entrepreneurial. I wasn't even dead set on anything specific. I was just like, I can't fit in this mold of a 9 to 5. It just wasn't for me. For plenty of people, it works great. And I think it works great to provide a lot of structure for a lot of people. But for me, it was how do I get out of this? So my first thing that I tried was I tried an Amazon FBA business. I tried selling cutting boards, bamboo cutting boards, and they took us a while just to get to that. I had a partner He and I thought we were golden. You know, we had a product. It was on Amazon where, like, we're gonna be financially free in, like, three and a half months. So we both quit our high paying jobs, and I might have had 2 months, 3 months of savings. I was like, this is gonna be easy. We quit. My partner goes to some countries in Asia. I forget with his girlfriend for, like, 3 months. We start selling the boards. I learned a very valuable lesson of not spending more than you make. I I was spending more money on advertising than I was just to get to the bottom of the first page because I thought that got to the bottom of first page in Amazon, that would be everything. Right? Like, everyone would find my product. And from there on, I'd be fine. but I was spending more than we were making per board. So we ended up losing $21,000 in total. And My partner, like, stopped responding to me while we were in while he was in China and he, like, didn't order new boards. So we screwed in a couple of ways. So I learned in that lesson to not take on partners that I don't think are gonna be fully responsible and also to make sure your business cash flows. It's so crazy. Right? Like, when you do that 1st business,

Steven Pesavento [00:03:01]:

you wanna make it. You're excited to be an Ringer. I remember one of my first, like, real businesses with a was a company called Quickbox, and we were doing on demand storage. We had, like, an Amazon like in your face. We'd come to your house, pack up all your stuff. And then if you wanted it back, you could order the specific boxes or items, and we come deliver it to your So it was cool. It was exciting. Couple big VC companies invested a ton of money and a couple other similar competitors after after we had kinda shut everything down. But what's so crazy is that, you know, I had 3 partners. One of them I really liked, one of them was really smart, but was a challenge. And then, you know, it was me, the 3rd partner. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, that really smart park just disappeared. Stopped communicating. Stopped responding. And he was the tech guy. He was the guy who was responsible for everything on the back end. So I ended up having to fly to San Francisco showing up to his house unannounced to be like, hey, bro. What's going on here? So, you know, the importance of picking a good partner, man, it's a it's a good lesson. Yeah.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:04:09]:

The That's basically what happened. Oh. Except my partner wasn't across the country, and I had to fly to go see him. So good for you that you did the because getting in those situations just suck. I mean, it's the the main thing I would tell anyone is if they're thinking about doing that is vet the people ahead of time would you trust them with

Steven Pesavento [00:04:29]:

basically your life? If if you have any hesitation on that, then I would just say, don't even bother. Yeah. And it's so hard when you're starting out because you don't know what you don't know. The same is true when it comes to investing. Right? And so it's so important important to gain the skills and knowledge, but you also just have to start. You know, you have to to take that leap and do it because you through both of our experiences, we learned a ton. What I'm curious about is to go back to kind of that first target, that first thing that you'd named was being an entrepreneur. Kind of expand on why that was so important. What was it about entrepreneurship that was so appealing than kind of the traditional way of living? It was more freedom

Antonio Cucciniello [00:05:09]:

You know, I valued my freedom more than anything else, more than making more money, more than spending time with this specific amount of people or traveling. It's more like just the ability to be able to say, Alright. It's 2 o'clock on a Wednesday. I wanna go outside and go for a walk. I don't wanna feel like I have to answer to a boss. I don't wanna feel like I have to ask permission to go visit my girlfriend or to go do whatever I wanted. That felt so controlling and so limiting to me. that I was like, how am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life? Imagine when I have kids, I'm gonna miss their sports games. I'm not gonna be able to do what I wanna do. I was like, I gotta build this life now. And it wasn't obvious to me because most of my family members are entrepreneurs. They're all, like, you know, one person businesses. But they were all able to come to my sports games and, you know, spend time with their family, take off when they wanted because they had that freedom. It wasn't clear to me. There was no one in my life who was really working a regular old 9 to 5 like that that that limiting of freedom would be there. So I went into the world kinda blindsided, and

Steven Pesavento [00:06:24]:

that's what led me to choosing entrepreneurship. Yeah. And it's such a clear path, but feels like you're walking down the plat path with your eyes closed because there's just potholes everywhere. There's challenges. There's branches. It's like tripping over the partner issue. You try to find the next product, and there's all these problems. But it's like when you get to the other side and you get into this place where there's a clearing, It's like you really do have that freedom. You have the ability to be like, cool. I'm gonna go fly to Hawaii next week because I want to. I have the ability to do that. But you also have way more responsibilities. So as you've diven into the entrepreneurship world, what's been the other side of it? You know? obviously, the freedom's amazing. What are the trade offs that you make initially in order to start earning that freedom?

Antonio Cucciniello [00:07:13]:

I've made financial trade offs to do that. So my first job, I was making, like, $66,000 out of college as a software engineer. It was nice and cushiony. You know, I had not a very hard work schedule. I worked from, like, 7 to 3, and I had my own office. Anyway, And in the ideal world, at twenty two years old, that was all great. Right? But I've had to sacrifice you know, as I my pay went up, when I first quit that first job, I went from 67,000 to 0. I had to move back into my parents I I had some freedom in the sense that I was living away from them. But now I had to move back home in my parents basement, do exactly what they told me to do. I had to go pick up jobs just to pay my bills that I had. So I would say financial responsibility goes up a lot more because Now it's unless if you had a stable business that you created already, switching from full time job to full time business. It's kinda day to day. And because of that financial responsibility, you also have to deal with a lot of emotional uncertainty. And so you have to evolve a lot more as a person because you're like, I don't know if I can go on this trip with my friends or I don't know if I could even go out to dinner with my friends because I'm struggling right now. And so Being in having been in those shoes, I can tell you that it's definitely a lot harder than it might seem on the outside for that sake of that freedom. But as of now, it has been worth it. I'll tell you that much.

Steven Pesavento [00:08:55]:

Yeah. I mean, I feel you because as I've climbed or ridden the ladder of success, like the elevator up of success, each time I've gone higher and higher. I've gotten more confident. I've started realizing, like, what I'm capable of, but it's funny because when you're just out, nobody has any expectations of you. If you fail, everyone's expecting you to fail. But then once you start having success, all of a sudden, when you start having the failures that are normal in business, you know, it can really start, you know, to feel like that impostor syndrome, you know, when things are tied but you gotta you gotta keep that front on for the team or you gotta keep that front on for your your spouse or your family because they they don't have the same mindset that you do to understand that this is normal and that it's part of the process, you know, it can be a challenge. So I'm curious, you know, you've gone down that path of entrepreneurship, do you feel like you made it? Do you feel like you got to that point where you started feeling that upside that you were going after? I I definitely feel the upside, but I don't feel like I've made it. There's two different things there.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:10:05]:

I you know, I'm not living financially free off my rental properties. The purpose of my me buying the rental properties is for my parents. to retire them and then for my future family. So I'm still working towards retiring them. I'm three and a half years in from starting that that might full time job is being a content creator. And I When I left my last software engineering job. I was making a $167,000 a year. I am still not there yet. I I should be on track to be around there this year. But, you know, I have cost as a business owner that's not as exactly the same as just having a 9 to 5 job. my taxes are gonna be a little bit different and and and whatnot. But long story short, I'm still working significantly more than I would say the average person who has a 9 to 5 job. But I definitely have a lot more freedoms than the average person who has a 9 to 5 job. So like, I can go to the gym in the middle of the day. No problem. And no one's gonna yell at me. I can go work in Italy and no one's gonna tell me that I can go visit my family in New Jersey, but I also can't take off for a week and not worry about money coming in because I have to make sure that I'm doing things to keep my business alive because I'm the main person in the business. So you know, there's the trade off in that sense. Yeah. When I compare where I started from

Steven Pesavento [00:11:36]:

to where I wanted to go that 1st phase, that 1st level of success that we wanted to hit, I made it, and it feels great for about 10 minutes until you set that next phase, that next thing that you're going after. And then it's just that constant cycle of kind of, okay. Well, I made it to that goal now what's the next thing? And it's easy because you can get kinda caught on this treadmill where you're just going from one thing to the next to the and that's why I think it's so important for people to get really, really clear on what you want in your life and what that dream life looks like. And it's gonna look different at different chapters, and it's gonna look different for different people. But I'm curious for you. What what life do you really wanna live and kinda what's important for you right now? Yeah.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:12:23]:

My ideal is to basically build a media company behind what I'm doing right now on help thing beginners get started. My objective is to democratize the learning of real estate investing for as many people as possible because I feel like it's the best way to build generational wealth and financial freedom for people. So I'm working towards that while I also I'm still working towards building out my rental portfolios so this way I can buy more properties, take on some more creative deals. So the media company would be helping people get started, and he would monetize through sponsorships and through through doing raises to help people get into investing that way while also on the back end still helping growing my portfolio to keep helping retire my parents and and do it there. So that's, like, the the next phase. And this phase might take 5, 10 years. I I think now I've started to broaden my horizon from my perspective,

Steven Pesavento [00:13:32]:

Antonio, I'd call that the vehicle. You know, the the media company, you're gonna be earning money. So that's how you're gonna make money. you know, the investments in some ways that's earning money because it's part of your business, but it's also part of the multiplying money category because you're gonna be growing the money that you co invest. But what's it all for? Like, is it for legacy? Is it for your family? Is it to make impact in the world? What what's kinda driving that? Growing up, I was bullied. I was overweight.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:14:02]:

I didn't know how to talk to girls. We didn't have a lot of money. So I felt like I was handed this life that was out of my control. And all my life and probably why I cared about freedom so much is I was always aiming to find a way to get control. And so my objective through helping people get started investing in real estate And then eventually, other things like helping them with their emotions and being better socially and just their finances in general, is also they can take control of their life and their time. By having rental properties, you can make income or by investing with other people, you can make income beyond your time spent at your job or beyond your time spent on your business, and you can take that money and allow it to free up, to allow you to have a time to relax without having to constantly worry about doing things. It gives you the freedom.

Steven Pesavento [00:14:57]:

And so that's really why I'm doing this to help people who feel like they have no control over their lives. and to help them feel like they have that control. I mean, it makes so much sense. And the thing is, like, we've got so much, you know, we've got so much in common of that mission. Because when you get in that place where you take back financial control of your life, that gives you back one piece of your life that you get control of. But the other piece that's a benefit to that is when you have money, when you've got your baseline needs covered or then some, money is just an unlimited key that unlocks any door. and you can solve a lot of problems with it. And even if it doesn't directly solve the problem, it starts giving you the resources, the people, the lessons, the knowledge, things that eventually get you in that place. So what I'm curious about, what you know, back in 2020, I was on this trip. It was the middle of the pandemic. I was living out in Hawaii. And this guy who had retired you know, he was a an apartment builder. He had made a bunch of money, and he went out and bought this the old beach boys house in Kona, Hawaii. And he asked me this question. He said, hey, Steven. You're super driven. You're going after, you know, obviously, doing as many as you can and growing your business and and this and that, he's like, at what point have you made it? What's your number? So I ask you the same question, and what's your number, the number that you don't have to work anymore and that, you know, you're gonna be satisfied.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:16:33]:

Yeah. That number keeps going up as inflation keeps going up. But I I I think my number you know, and this is probably not as well thought out as it should be. But I've always like, been really attracted to a $1,000,000 from the real estate to help retire my dad, help retire my mom. and give some to my brother and sister and start being able to build up for my family. So not really touching much from that, but more like to disperse. on that end, and then a $1,000,000 a year from my business. And while that could seems small to some people. To some people, it seems large. You know, it depends on who you talk to. But for me, I feel like at that point, I could say, Alright. I've made it, and now most of what I'm doing is solely for other people. and increasing my legacy and impact at that point of trying to help people get started. That's a great answer. And, you know, the purpose of of asking this question is

Steven Pesavento [00:17:39]:

it opens up a new line of thinking. It opens up a new line of thinking where we start to get clear on that target, like, what is it that we're actually working towards? And not that at the point that we hit it, we no longer work or we no longer do something in the world that's making impact, but we no longer have to do anything. And for me, my answer to him at that time, I was kind of dumbfounded. I was like, you know, I I should know this number. And so the number I rattle off was, oh, I want a $1,000,000 a coming in from my passive investments, which if I back into that, that means I need to have $10,000,000 invested. Right? generating 8 to 10 percent return, and I got a $1,000,000 a year. But then it actually sat down, I thought about it. And I was like, well, what is this all for? And what I'm hearing from you, Antonio, is that something that's really important to you is impact. You wanna help people. You wanna help people get out of the situation that maybe you experienced. And even more so, you wanna help your You wanna take care of them. Nowhere in anything you described talked about you. So that's a really important thing for you to underline and kinda keep at the forefront of your mind when you're thinking about all the things that you're doing. But for me, when when I actually came back and I sat down and I thought about it, you know, my number I was spot on. what I wanna hit $1,000,000 a year that I'm in a place. It kind of creates unlimited potentials. Yeah. Sure. I could make a $100,000,000 or I could make a bill in, and I can keep growing, and my number might change. But having that is kind of a high goal that I can then figure out, hey. How I back into that? And just from the baseline, like, the first number that covers my, you know, my everyday expenses, just basic. Super basic. Nothing special. That's just 10 k a month. So a 120 a year. And so, like, with these two numbers in our mind, we can then back in to what freedom looks like. We can back in how much money do I need to make in my business that's going to fund the investments that's going to then fund that life that I wanna create? And how quickly do I need to do that? Do I need to make 10,000,000 bucks in the next 12 months so that I can be there, or do I have some time to figure it out. When you think about that for yourself, what what comes to mind when you start to to think about how you can name your number and get clear on kind of that path towards getting there. Yeah. Like, when you think about if you wanna be at a $1,000,000, was that a $1,000,000 a year, or was that a $1,000,000 in net worth? Oh, a year. A year. So you wanna make a $1,000,000 a year of your investments?

Antonio Cucciniello [00:20:22]:

Off of my investments and a 1,000,000 from my business. Yeah. So how are you gonna get a $1,000,000

Steven Pesavento [00:20:27]:

a year your investments, well, we're talking about the same thing. So, you know, depending on your strategy, maybe you could do it with less because you're getting a higher rate of return. Maybe you gotta do it with more. But when you get clear on that, then all of a sudden, that opens up the focus potential. It's like, okay. Well, everything should be on the business now so I can make the money that I start investing. But let's pivot here. Let's talk a little bit about what your using to get towards that piece of financial freedom. We talked a little bit about the vehicle. You've got your media company. You're making money doing that. And then you're also doing real estate investing as well. Is that right? Yeah. I specifically

Antonio Cucciniello [00:21:09]:

buy small multifamily homes mostly and then fix them up and rent them out. So I guess you can call it burr, but it was an accidental burr. And then I was like, oh, this really works. And then I kept doing it. So, yeah, I I I spread myself thin by investing in a in a few different markets. I'm in New Jersey, Ohio, Florida, and Arkansas. And that was a whole challenge in itself, but I do like the idea that I am diversified in different markets because as we're seeing right now, what's happening with the recession. Some markets are getting hit significantly and some are going up still and it's really weird. Like, Austin probably seen a 15, 20% decline on some of the homes that I'm looking at. And in Akron, Ohio where I have some of my rentals there going up and going over asking price on almost every offer I put in. So it's really weird.

Steven Pesavento [00:22:08]:

And okay. Well, that's really cool. So you've got different properties. You're buying small multifamilies, and it sounds like you're operating those. You've got property managers and you're finding the deals and you're you're kinda making those day to day decisions for the manager.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:22:25]:

Yeah. As of right now, I am the one who is doing everything in that real estate business minus the property managers. And obviously, the contractors, like, by everything I mean, like, I manage the portfolio. I am currently working on bringing my entire family into the business because my family members are part partners on some of them some of them not. And so what I'm trying to do is alleviate my time in that area by also building a retirement job for my parents a part time retirement job for my parents. So this way, they're not doing nothing when they retire and they have something to do when they retire. because I've heard bad things about people who retire and have nothing to do.

Steven Pesavento [00:23:13]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's so it's so true because You know, if you go and you work your whole life and then you have no purpose anymore, you have to find a new purpose. Oftentimes, the people who work the longest or immediately move into some kind of fill philanthropy or some kind of giving where they have a reason to show up every day. They end up living longer and are typically healthier.

Antonio Cucciniello [00:23:36]:

And happier.

Steven Pesavento [00:23:37]:

And happier. Yeah. Which which is kinda what it's all about. So as we're getting close to wrapping up have one more question before we wrap up. Share with the audience where they can follow you or get in touch and kinda use the channels that you've got out there to start learning, how do they get in the game?

Antonio Cucciniello [00:23:56]:

Yeah. I'm most active on TikTok in Instagram, YouTube, and I have Facebook as well. My handle is invest startersinvestaarters. This is my book. You can get it on Amazon. It's the Real Estate Investor Playbook. And Yeah. I go live. I post pretty regularly. I got a free course. You could take my objective is to give all the information away for free. And if you're the type of person that wants and run with it, be my guest, then I've done my mission properly and helped you. So that is where we're at.

Steven Pesavento [00:24:35]:

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Definitely them up on that if you're looking to learn how to go and buy real estate and kinda manage and operate yourself. It's a great way to get in the game and start some experience if that's kinda part of your vision and your goal. So as we wrap up, you've you're on the path. You haven't made it. you're making progress. You've got the vision. With the actions that you've taken and the investments that you've made, What would you do differently now if you were gonna start fresh so that other people can learn from your experience?

Antonio Cucciniello [00:25:06]:

I might have not invested in 4 different markets right off of the bat. That that probably slowed me down more than hell me out immediately. Long term, it might help me out more than slow me down. So real estate wise, if you're doing that, I would have done something differently. Also, I would have been more okay with going slower. I was so rushing trying to get my way out of a job that I probably skipped some steps. And didn't build something sustainable because I was just so hungry to chase after that goal. And like you said, it's all about being happy. So right now, I'm doing the backwards work of, alright. How do I build this sustainably and happily rather than just replacing myself replacing my job with more hours and sometimes more headaches in as an entrepreneur. So I might have gone more slower starting out.

Steven Pesavento [00:26:12]:

Yeah, brother. I've been there. You know, I built a couple and he flipped over 200 houses across the country, 1600 miles away from where I lived, and there's a lot of lessons learned You know? You move quick. You learn quick, which is a great benefit. Sometimes you move too quick and you end up building something that isn't even the business you wanna own and run for years. And that's what I think is so important why if you get clear on what you want, if you get clear on that dream life, what you wanna do, how you wanna feel, who are the people you wanna have in your life, and what do you want to spend your time doing on a daily basis? and then you can back in how you're gonna get there. Because for some people staying in your career and raking in the money from your job or your current business, that the path and then invest that cash into things that pay you and work with experts who do it. And for other people, it's going down the path of building a new business. It's the excitement of going and learning something new, tripping, falling, getting back up, continue to kinda make your way up that mountain. So Antonio, it was phenomenal to have you on. So cool to hear your story. Thanks for tuning in you guys, and we'll see you on the next episode.

Steven Pesavento [00:27:23]:

Thank you for listening to the investor mindset podcast. If you like what you heard, make sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share with a friend. Head over to the investor mindset .com to join the insider club. where we share tools and strategies from the top investors and entrepreneurs on how to take it to the next level.