Episode #148: Raising Capital with Brian Adams

Nov 13, 2020

When it comes to raising and managing capital, it’s all about putting the investor first. Today’s guest is Brian Adams, and he joins us to talk about all lessons he has learned about this syndication fundamental. Brian is the Principal and Founder of Excelsior Capital, and he starts out today talking about his journey into capital raising as well as his focus on buying up multi-tenant office properties in secondary markets in the Midwest and Southeast. From there, Brian gets into how he raised over $60 million of equity in three years after learning the power of listening to his investors’ needs! Brian raised so much capital that managing it brought a whole new bag of challenges, and we hear how this taught him to value things like reporting and transparency as highly as he does. For Brian, networking is key, and he weighs in on how he took the opportunity provided by some family connections initially and used it to build an ever-expanding community of investors who trust him. Brian gets into essential software tools, the value of his CFA certified staff, and of course, his superpower today, too. For all this and more, listen in!

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Brian’s journey into capital raising, the assets he buys, and his portfolio size.
  • How Brian learned it’s easier to raise capital by asking key investors what they want to buy.
  • Lessons learned about effective management after raising more capital than Brian could manage.
  • The role of family networks in gaining momentum for raising capital initially.
  • How Brian scooped up his second phase of investors by offering a unique opportunity in the office space.
  • Indispensable software for Brian including Juniper Square, ETS, and Slack.
  • The use of Brian’s CFA certified team and why his gift for networking his is superpower.

Tweetables:

“It’s much easier to scale and you will raise much more capital if you actually take the time to sit down with your most logical network of investors. Folks that are likely to give their resources to you and just ask them what they want.”— @ExcelsiorCapit1 [0:02:37]

 “We’re very focused on reporting, transparency, and actually, what that experience of the investor is beyond just what the economics over the returns are.” — @ExcelsiorCapit1 [0:04:58]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Brian Adams on LinkedIn
Excelsior Capital

Juniper Square

KKR

Blackstone

ETS

Slack
redIQ

APT Capital Group

The Garzella Group

Passive Income through Multi-family Real Estate group on Facebook

Gary Lipsky

Kyle Mitchell

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