What The Funk?

0:00 now more Texas Tech Damn we're shifting over to Aggie lay this that's right I can't believe in the Pre show that you insulted this man by accusing him of being from Tech I did what he actually did

0:14 that before with him for some reason I thought Ryan Tart who he agey guy and good friend of Colin's right College Roommate I I thought that for whatever reason he went to tech so I accused him in

0:25 person of Tech and then I just copied and pasted your questions to Joe and I saw Texas something so I didn't edit it but I was kind of aware of it too I'm like

0:36 well you know as as as aggies go were quick to correct that mistake one hundred percent I mean they're they're very different schools right I mean I've got it I've got a cast like to the outsider it's

0:48 like I just two more big schools that are good at football kind of in the middle of nowhere but like really they're very different schools that very different schools I think you'd be surprised at the

0:59 difference in size between the two of them as well. AM's bigger? AM's significantly bigger. Interesting, interesting. You know, and we're fiercely loyal, like Texas Tech grads are as well, but

1:13 we're probably a little bit more famous for being that fiercely your love, Colin Plack Colin with Land 'Em Gig to story over it taking we're, today down guns, anyways, Well. indeed, Indeed.

1:17 loyal, love how you ended up in Denver,

1:30 wanna dive into the rigs to real estate piece, understand what it's like raising a young family with your hand in various buckets. The very quick exit, what was that, 11 months? You were at a

1:42 company for 11 months that went from nothing to selling for one and a half billion dollars, I wanna dive into that a little bit too, but why don't you take us back to the beginning? Where are you

1:51 from? How'd you get into oil and gas, and let's get to know you a little bit. Yeah, so I grew up in Plano, Texas and, you know, running around high school times when I kind of figured out that

2:03 I wanted to go into engineering math science, it came pretty easily to me and it was something I was always fascinated by. And I also had a friend growing up whose dad was a petroleum engineer,

2:13 always traveling the world, going to really cool places. They obviously did pretty well for themselves, you know, they had vacation homes, boats and stuff like that. So I was like, okay, this

2:21 guy gets to travel. And, you know, experience all that, but at the same time, make a good living out of it and provide for his family. Sign me up. Yeah, I was like, sign me up. So I don't

2:32 hear a lot of cool places in traveling, oil and gas, you get to go to places, you know. He's a big fan of the room. Box food, places like that. Yeah, so obviously when I say cool, I mean,

2:43 it's cool for the oil field in Norway. Norway, Canada, the South America, that type of thing. So places, you know, growing up in Plano, Texas, places that sound cool because it's not. Plano

2:56 Texas right

2:58 now Plano Senior high or pash or What I went to pash okay Slang has plano east for you jeremy answer is that determinism

3:12 so what what got a ticket A and M

3:15 a really you know so I had an average GPL School you Know I didn't really apply let you know in hindsight really apply myself as much as I could have in high school so average G P a but really good as

3:27 a T score and that's what really got me into AM I did not get into U T of him you know Texas Tech I got an acceptance letter before I applied there but that was a dick before we were recording earlier

3:39 we're we're talking about Texas Tech and kind of bashing them but jokingly obviously cause we have a lot of friends and colleagues from there but Yeah so I wound up at Texas A and M and graduated in

3:50 four and a half years in Petroleum engineering and then Straight out of school went to Durango, Colorado to work there for four years in the San Juan Basin. I have to say, like, for areas that you

4:01 can end up in oil and gas in the lower 48, like I've done pretty well, Denver and Durango, Colorado and my - Yeah, that's, yeah, that's awesome. That is a nice one. Except for a 11-month stint

4:13 that you referred to earlier, I did live in Midland for 11 months there, which is a fantastic experience as well. Yeah, but you weren't volunteering. You know what I mean? I'm sure it was the

4:23 right move for you. No, I know. I mean, if you live in certain places, other places may not be appealing. But before we go on, I want to talk about SATs. So you said you got a good score. Tim,

4:32 do you remember what you got on your SATs? Yes, I do, in fact. Yeah, I know what I got to do. Are we going to do this? Are we going to go out and just start showing how to say your SATs?

4:41 Should we say I'm at the same time?

4:45 Do I lie? Do I lie or tell you the right score?

4:49 I'm trying to remember, Mike. I think, you know, remember yours? What do you think I'm going to score in the SATs? We're all going to do it at the same time. OK. All right. Three, two, one,

4:60 12, 18, 10. Oh, my God, you 12, 80, 13, I got 10, 80. I need to quit at least we're on the same scale. I think after my grade, they changed the scale to 2, 100. So, you know, it's kind

5:13 of like inflation today. And today's dollars aren't worth what yesterday's were, you know, kids talking about 1850. I'm like, wait, that wasn't even a scale when I was there. It wasn't

5:22 impossible. So, so, yeah, well, quick, quick story of the SAT, thanks. I always found this hilarious. So one of my best friends in the world, Dan Marcus, a genius. He and I went to

5:32 Brandeis together, but his history with the SATs is kind of funny. So one of the gifted and talented kids, he's from New Jersey suburbs. One of the programs, like they make you take the SATs when

5:45 you're in like seventh grade sixth grade or something just to like test how far down the path you are. Anyways, he got a 1340. So when he was a sophomore, they're like, okay, like you did really

5:57 well, you know, when you were 12. So you should come in here and take the test 'cause it's really good for schools, especially to get a 1600 and just get people that get that recognition, it's

6:08 positive. So as a sophomore, they made him take the SATs. He's like, okay, but if you do that, then I don't need to take it next year. Usually juniors are required to take it. So he had a 1590

6:19 And he's like, that's it, I'm done. I don't need any more. They changed the rule the next year. They're like, oh, I'll all juniors, even if they've taken. So he got a 1600. And he said he

6:28 was one of like 30 kids that went to the White House or something for like some sort of dinner. And basically he said, like, you've never seen people with worse social skills in your life. To

6:40 be a fly on the wall for that dinner meeting. He's like, it was really helpful. You score a 1590 I would have to go back. I wouldn't say I'm not taking it Again I would have to go back if I'm that

6:52 close and try at least but I don't think there was any real benefit to him you know what I mean other than just pure anticipation just pure pride for her to do it I wouldn't it doesn't you know let

7:04 you get accepted more to harvard if that's where you are to go it's I mean he didn't get it he didn't get an armored cars he didn't have regrets so anyways like the complex history so it was funny

7:15 it's funny you mentioned that I was always just really good at taking tests and in hindsight I didn't apply myself in high school like I could have you know I I could have been and all the a P classes

7:25 and I was like Nah I'd rather just go get a job and make some money you know I got into a program my senior year where I was out by like one PM and I was working and making money after that versus

7:34 taking you know in a P accelerated math class and stuff like that and so when I got to Texas A and M they wanted to put me on this five year track you know they were like oh you didn't take calculus

7:44 he didn't take a P physics and in high school I was like, I got this, just put me in it. And they're like, well, you can take this test. And if you do well on this test, then you can go on the

7:54 four year track. And of course I did well on that test and then I got my ass kicked that year. I mean, like, I actually had to, you know, study for the first time in my life. And it was, it

8:06 was insane. I mean, we were learning stuff in physics, like integrals and stuff like that that I had never even learned. And they had, but they weren't teaching yet in calculus at AM. So, you

8:14 know, physics was the head of calculus And I had a time of it, you know? So in hindsight, maybe the five-year track would have been a better way to go. But definitely got my eyes open that first

8:25 semester.

8:28 That is a nice moment when you have to kind of figure that out, holy crap, and you gotta establish your new pattern. How am I gonna study for this? We're gonna go figure out how to do this crazy

8:38 math. But man, I can't imagine having to go through a calculus-based physics class without having taken physics. or taken calculus yet? Yeah, I would be like getting into, you know, Spanish six

8:51 and you haven't taken Spanish one, you know, so they were literally speaking a foreign language to me. I could not wrap my head around it for a little while, so. Was it Tom Blassen game? No, I

9:03 do have some good Tom stories. That was one of the last classes, my graduating class of 2010 was one of the last ones where he actually taught and did his like, you know, Friday night, 12 hour

9:14 tests that he's famous for Well, Colin, I had him before he was infamous and when he was just starting out teaching, I think I was in his probably third semester where he was actually teaching and

9:25 we didn't have those seven, eight hour tests at that point. Yeah, he was just, he was testing out his cruelty on you guys, he wasn't sure how far - He wasn't even wearing overalls with us. What?

9:37 He didn't wear overalls. He was very, very chill and very supportive, actually people are like, oh, this guy's tough Awesome awesome guys super supportive very smart And he gave me some very

9:47 apropos advice when I was showing him some of the stuff that we were doing from an analytics perspective. And he's like, don't start thinking you can drill your own wells now, okay? I know that

9:59 you think you see what it looks like and you got these patterns, don't do it. Don't do it, stick to selling software. Like all right. But super, super helpful. Yeah. So you finish up at AM and

10:14 then when you move back to Plano, you do something else. No, I went straight to Southwest Colorado, Fort Mores area and got to work immediately. So graduated in what? December of 2010 and by

10:27 January, I was at work. So not really a transition or a gap year or anything like that, just getting right after it. Straight to Durango. Straight to Durango, yeah. So I mean, beautiful

10:39 country, like I said, I really lucked out when it comes to the oil field.

10:44 In the field watching rigs and everything that was kind of the company that I worked for that was their program for training engineers is basically you know you you go and sit on a rig for three

10:53 months and after that you get your own and you're going around and doing work overs you're budgeting them you're calling people out and kind of project managing all that but at the same time I'm

11:01 working in a National Forest I'm Kicking Elk asked the location in the morning you know we had have a great story where a bear broke into the doghouse but through the skylight so it couldn't get out

11:12 and so we just have you know the next morning of the imagine like the local Yeah exactly he has a bear that's been trapped in there for eight hours in it drank like all the Lanolin hand cleaner and

11:25 hallmarks all it was the most destroyed piece of equipment I've seen in the Oldfield there's man Yeah I mean cause cause the issue there was this was in thirty and for the Carson National Forest and

11:36 whenever Durango Farmington Aztec Mingus whenever they'd have trouble bears guess what the Forest service would do that In a truck and take them out to thirty four so he had all that delinquent

11:46 asshole bears that the houses Yeah Yeah exactly exactly so it was a fantastic place to work man what a great for Arm I mean Ah I mean that's Gotta be a great was that Bill Barrett know this was a

12:03 company called energy which Salon Diamond back in two thousand Birmingham Birmingham Alabama Yeah Yeah so that was Super Fun getting to go back there for budget season to Birmingham Great I got to

12:14 interrupt your car just for the for the second podcast in a row he's gotten to say Birmingham Alabama and his his an Alabama accent I've Gotta be honest which is ironically the same as my Fake Texas

12:29 and Louisiana accent Mississippi Florida even some places Georgia perhaps maybe not quite as slow as what I do for Tennessee though I Dunno you just Want East Texas right there that was it I went to

12:46 dollars you're definitely missing your accidents there he lived so I'm not no I'm not it's going to come out this week so San Juan I mean the San Juan Basin Great Show All CBM I assume as all CBM

13:00 Wells coal bed Methane Wells Yeah and and your what was your what was your role out there then so again you know right out of school spend basically a year in the field watching rigs managing that

13:13 type of program and then when I did get into the Office I was assigned a certain area and I basically handled wells in that area from cradle to grave right so as soon as the drillers were done

13:25 drilling at casing at cementing it it was in My We're We're called District engineer so it wasn't production engineer I wasn't completion like it was everything encompassed from cradle to grave so I

13:35 got to design for acts on the vertical wells everything from production compression pipeline design all the way to DNA. So just a really good round experience. And it was nice, like, in hindsight,

13:48 it's single phase gas reservoir for the most part. You know, there's some tricky stuff with coal bed methane and dewatering and stuff like that. But at the same time, really good place to learn

13:58 all the different like the biggest thing is not necessarily like learning how to do every single thing, but understanding like how pipelines work and their terminology versus production engineering

14:08 versus completions. And you get to practice it on these, you know, pretty shallow decline low pressure gas wells. And then being in Durango, it's kind of nice from a social aspect, just, hey,

14:22 every weekend just drive up in the mountains, go hike ski, whatever you're going to do, right? Yeah, yeah, tons of days skiing. Everyone that I worked with, we all own jeeps, so we'd go

14:32 camping up on, you know, the highest mountain passes you could pick. Tim's jealous, Tim's jealous. Yeah, it was, it was. A really great place to learn and also you know working at a national

14:42 fruit forest right out of school instilled in me that like I you know we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment and everything like that you know sometimes and I'm not going to

14:53 throw any basins under the bus but you know which ones I'm talking about where you go out to the field and there's spills and nothing's cleaned up and there's trash rusty equipment everywhere like out

15:01 here and you know we really took pride in what we did that kind of instilled a sense of stewardship in me for the rest of my career after that

15:11 Great I mean the I'm Jealous you know you get paid money to move somewhere like Durango cut your teeth write learn on some sort of exploratory wells where you could test some things out which are a

15:22 lot different of course than what you were doing when you hit the huge Permian Wells rachel which were producing you know a thousand plus barrels a day when they I peed so so I mean do durango to

15:33 Birmingham that's Gotta be like four stops like how do you even

15:39 What does Durango do? Durango, Denver, Denver Birmingham. Sometimes you had to go through Atlanta in the winter time. Like if there wasn't a storm in Denver, there was a storm in Durango. It

15:48 was a nightmare to travel. And you know, we were doing that 10, 11 times a year. So you definitely gain an appreciation for single stop flights and larger airports because yeah, those small

16:01 planes like forget about it. Even hot days in the summer, you have to think about that. Like I've been on a flight where they're like, if three people don't get off this plane, we will not clear

16:09 that mountain. Yeah, yeah. Like that was how they got volunteers to get off. You know, it was just, it was the dynamic of a small mountain airport.

16:18 I flew into Farmington once and it was one of the, actually one of the, I'm sitting there looking out the window and you think, well, we got another couple minutes before we land and suddenly

16:29 there was the runway. It's up on top of a Mesa, just like it, just out of nowhere, there's just a flat spot.

16:37 Geology out there you know the mountains and then you know any flat spot you could put a runway on Yeah Yeah and those were those were interesting flights for sure because you flew on the Great Lakes

16:48 right which is a a nineteen seat or II I think it's nineteen seats beechcraft no bathroom which when I first went out there and flew on that you know I had a few beers in the Denver Airport on my

16:60 layover and get on the plane and look back and it's single aisle and in no baffles like this can be rough I think I flew out of Albuquerque to Farmington actually and I am not sure if has great lakes

17:10 or not but what I do remember was the copilot turned around to give the safety instruction he turned round from his chair didn't even stand up from his chair and gave the seat belts and the the thing

17:24 Yeah that same trip there was no door between the cockpit and the passenger cabin in that same trip flying back to denver it was just awful choppy getting into the front Range and My I have done a lot

17:36 of flying and have a few hours in an airplane as well so I'm familiar with the alarms and what what pilots are doing unlike the sheer alarms going off as we're coming into the front range we're

17:45 getting our ask these little plane everybody around me is like pale in the vesting was like the pilot turns off the alarm and it was awful sounding alarms and then it goes off again and he turns

17:57 around and just shuts the door

18:01 on everybody's face surprise is probably mine too I dunno but that was like the flight of the four corners man Yeah he started he started to get used to it so so what next right so you're in Durango

18:14 right maybe not your most traditional oil and gas city right coming out of school then where'd you go so after that around two thousand and fourteen the writing was kind of all the wall that energy

18:26 and had you know purchased in two thousand and nine ten

18:32 this Permian asset in the Delaware, and they were trying to figure it out. It was, you know, trying to make it be a vertical play. The Wolfcamp was, you know, a target, but really they were

18:41 going after Bone Springs when it first started. And it was very clear that like we were competing one-on-one for capital for them. And you got to remember back 2010 through 2014,

18:51 you know, oil is at least70 a barrel, sometimes upwards of 130 and gas, you know, pretty flat two, two and a half, 3 So competing with capital for them just wasn't a viable option. So the

19:05 writing was on the wall that they were going to probably divest that asset there in the San Juan Basin. So I wanted to get ahead of that. I also wanted an oil experience, but I, you know, moving

19:16 from Durango, I could have moved from Durango to Midland with Energen, and they would have accepted me with open arms, right? But I wasn't quite ready then to leave the mountains and the Colorado

19:28 lifestyle. So I started looking really hard at Denver. I ended up going to a company called Bill Barrett at that time I was the lead completions engineer for their you interbase an asset and just

19:39 you know perfect timing right for a complete shit storm I get there in August of two thousand and fourteen and that's what it was Yeah exactly Yeah So I'm the newest guy on the team is if you don't

19:53 know much about the you into Basin I mean it's like break evens out there or in the fifty sixty dollars a barrel range so you've Gotta have at least eighty to ninety hundred dollars a barrel out there

20:05 cause it's like I could sit here and list everything that that makes it so expensive to operate out there but Yeah news Guy on the team really bad break evens needless to say all of the acid about

20:16 fifteen months there before they divested the whole asset and got rid of everybody and involved with it

20:23 Yeah so that was the mainland

20:29 so Yeah so then saw Bill berets like Hey Sorry it's early twenty sixteen good news for you Young man though Oil's Twenty six dollars a barrel so why don't you go find yourself another job and you did

20:40 Yeah Yeah exactly I mean it's it's one of those kind of career defining moments that everybody in the Oilfield I think eventually has to go through right like February of twenty fifteen at that point

20:51 I've been out of work for three months and few interviews here and there nothing really stuck and I had one interview with a private equity company and they kind of ghosted me for two weeks after that

21:03 so I wasn't thinking anything was German Master it Yeah right and then they give me a call on a Thursday and they were like Hey We've got a job for you it's production engineer for our our delaware

21:12 asset and only we're going to need you to be in in Midland this was a Thursday and I was like I'll See you Monday So I literally packed up My car lined up a place to live like basically over the

21:24 weekend and moved down and started work that Monday So those are things you just have to do in this industry right and bought a window in two thousand and fourteen you would have been able to line up

21:34 a place to live and one day that that was that Luckily I had a good friend of mine all growing up you know all the way from middle school through high school his little brother was a petroleum

21:45 engineer worked out or in I had a three bedroom house to himself so I was able to you know offer him a fair price for that room and was able to move in very quickly so that was a you know a lifesaver

21:58 because yet one bedroom apartments at that time were sixteen seventeen hundred dollars Holy Cow what Holy Cow from Midland well I mean you can make a lot of money there so I guess there's that but I

22:10 mean C'mon Man It's Muslim and anybody from Evelyn listening it's just you know that price point that's that's expensive it's expensive it it just goes to show like the simple fundamentals of supply

22:21 and demand right I mean yeah there is a massive demand for housing nobody if you're there for three to six months or twelve months you're not going to buy a house so you're going to rent you're going

22:31 to pay a premium for that right so does this the eleventh month eleven month the payout that or at least to exit that jeremy refer to the beginning Yeah Yeah So's just kind of do you know it's funding

22:46 the UPs and downs of this industry is going to probably be a theme of this whole recording but you know you go from three months of have no work and you know you watch your your page every sorry your

22:57 savings are slowly dwindling and that's the lesson that we can talk about later when we get into the real estate portion of what I'm doing now Hell Yeah I was Watching My Savings dwindled Down I

23:06 thought I had all my Ducks in a row have these great investments and stuff like that the problem was I had them in the Roman wrong investment vehicle had them on the stock market so I'm sitting here

23:16 when I'm out of work I'm selling stocks I'm getting hit with capital gains taxes to keep the lights on now versus you know what I learned later about real estate and passive income and having you know,

23:27 non-correlated streams of cash flow that can come in and cover you when times are bad. And you have to set that up when times are good. And I'm sure get into that later. But yeah, that's when I

23:39 first learned that lesson. And then just the sheer ups and downs, I went from, you know, three months out of work, watching everything dwindle down to 11 months later, we sell this asset for16

23:50 billion on the

23:52 exit. And, you know, I didn't have any real equity in the deal, but they certainly made it worth my time to move to Midland for 11 months. And

24:01 it's just funny, like the ups and downs, right? It's like extreme low to extreme high, and then you got to find a way to balance that out. And that's what I'm doing today. Yeah, well, I want

24:11 to jump into that in just a minute because I think the whole ARIS, Cambridge, very, very quick exit, that's what brought you to PDC, right? And ultimately back to Denver. So I actually did,

24:23 Tim, I did some business with them, the air is guys. obviously fast moving organization right they pick up some lease holds they drill a few wells they prove it out and then boom PDC says we we

24:33 like it and I think has actually had some success with with that acreage but for you right now then you're going from okay while you're going back to Denver but you're going this time to a bigger

24:45 company that's multi Basin and ooh what was you know coming from an up Pe backed startup by Kimmeridge what what was that transition like not only just okay I just moved here from denver is it Hell

24:57 Yeah now I get to go back I already got a house there or was it wow I thought I could be at this company for a few years yeah no definitely I was excited to get back to denver but also still work in

25:09 the same asset with the same people that I've been cultivating those relationships over the past year with so that was great PDC has a really great culture is a fantastic place to work like all the

25:20 people I work with are great and so that was good and and you know the flip side of that Is Paris the private equity you know we had twenty people doing the work of what would it take a normal company

25:31 of like one hundred and fifty right so there was a lot of things that didn't necessarily fit into the wheelhouse of a production engineer that you just had to do because you had to do it had to get

25:40 done really fast you know so I was doing pipeline work I was doing some some land work and stuff like that and do it all it all ended up working out you know it was definitely a much higher stakes

25:53 like boomer bust feeling at the private equity like we could sell for one point six billion or we could flame out and go to nothing like you know the eleven other companies that have acreage right

26:05 next to us that literally did that versus Us getting the timing right and in getting that good exit Yeah threading a needle for sure but a lot of people have gone on right I think Marty Meissner was

26:17 was over there that was my original contacted heiress I think he has his own company now right he's got his own

26:25 He made the choice after working at the private equity and he had worked for corporations for many years and he was further along in his career than I was. He was perfectly happy, passing up the

26:36 opportunity to work for another corporation. And it's really like it's nothing in PDC. It's just that he wanted to work for himself and he knew that you could have a lot of growth with that track

26:48 record after building Eris and the Fermion. Yeah. Well, it was the experience with that company that really showed me how things get bought in the field because I had sold some iPad based field

26:59 data capture products

27:07 to, I don't know, who? Concho or somebody else out there in West Texas, Hunt. And it was right next to an Eris Lease. So it hit Marty's radar. Somebody else is like, hey, what's that? You

27:15 got like an electronic grease sheet thing. He's like, yeah, it's an iPad and you punch information into it You don't have to bring your handwritten, you know. grease the sheet to the Doghouse to

27:24 get it right typed up there like where where do we order that the first time I ever got like a call from a random West Texas number like hey so I want to put in an order for you like you want a burden

27:34 order okay you didn't have to sell anything has never happened before okay Yeah sure we I can take yours are but I mean you could just tell you guys like that we see that it works what does it cost

27:45 let's go right not every operator works that way but when you're that way you can that one hundred percent and that's what I was going to get at is like we can make that decision in a matter of hours

27:54 and the person making the decision has the authority to do so versus going through committing I'm not saying like like PDC is not at a size where we have a lot of bureaucracy by any means but I see it

28:05 at other companies where do you know there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy you Gotta go through to make a simple decision like that whereas at a private equity it's fantastic in that sense that

28:16 you know you see something you want to pull the trigger you can justify it to whoever is going to come down on you if it doesn't work out then by that same token you do have a lot more responsibility

28:25 oh yeah if it if things do go wrong right now and that's the thing about the great thing about working at a small fast growing company is they don't bring their problem bring the solution you've got a

28:35 problem go solve it we'll worry about or worry about it later yup Yup ask for forgiveness and so so you're it brings you back to denver now want to learn a little bit about the the the rigs to real

28:47 estate you have a podcast right yes you got a podcast and you have obviously sort of a system where you help people in the oil field maybe diversify their income provide somewhat of a safety net for

28:60 the UPs and downs of of the cyclical space so you want to dive into what you got going with the rigs to realistic yeah like I said I mean it all ties back to those lessons I learned when I was out of

29:11 work for those couple of months and selling stocks getting hit with taxes I was like there's Gotta be a better way in and I figured it out several years later it's one of those things where Yeah I've

29:21 got to do something about this and you get busy and sidetracked and everything like that but I you know late two thousand and eighteen I was starting to really think like hey the good times aren't

29:32 going to last and obviously they didn't in hindsight but I started thinking like there's Gotta be a better way that I could have a reliable stream of of passive income that doesn't distract me away

29:43 from my W to job it's got to have tax benefits and it's got to appreciate over time and be a solid investment and also I didn't want it tied to commodity prices in any way and I wanted it to be

29:55 something that that people physically need an housing fit every single bill of that right so it's got tax benefits it's got passive cash flow if you do your numbers right and select a market right and

30:07 we can get into that later but and it also appreciates over time and it can be relatively passive if you want it to be so I jumped headfirst and that Gal got into single family rentals to market, and

30:22 that's kind of one of the secrets that I tell people is you don't have to invest directly in your backyard, you know, in Denver, a600, 000 house rents for two grand a month, like those numbers do

30:31 not work, versus I found a market in Fort Worth, Texas, where I could have that same house that would generate, you know, 1, 400 a month in rent, and I pay110, 000 for it, you know, and so

30:42 those are the type of numbers that you can start to work. However, when I got into single family, I started realizing that it wasn't going to scale to meet my needs. I had certain income goals and

30:53 certain timelines that I wanted to meet, and single family is fantastic to get started, get your feet wet, grind your teeth a little bit, but for the busy oil and gas professional, and especially

31:04 like the higher net worth busy oil and gas professional, I say that because if you have a higher net worth, you're going to have higher cash low goals. Typically, I say, If you have a cash flow

31:15 goal and you divide it by 300 bucks a month per door. And that's more than 12 to 15 doors. You need to start looking at multifamily. And that's the realization that I eventually came to is that

31:27 multifamily could scale to meet my needs. You know, basically it didn't take any more work to close on a 20 unit apartment building than it does on a single family house, but you get 20 doors for

31:39 that same amount of work. So kind of

31:44 fast forward to today You know, I have about 2, 000 units

31:49 that I'm a general partner on 2, 000 units. Congratulations, man. Wow, that's a big time. And that's obviously like a very fast forward. There's a lot of growth and stuff that happens in

31:58 between there. And I talk about that a lot on the show. You know, I'm an open book about what it took to get to where I was, and it's a very simple formula that you can follow, and it's

32:08 repeatable. But the problem is a lot of people just don't know about it, and they get intimidated by what they don't know And so, you know, 2020 rolls around March, April, 2020, and I'm

32:20 watching friends, family, colleagues that I've known for 10 years in this industry get let go and they don't have any other options. And like their whole identity was wrapped up in their job and I

32:30 was like, man, I wish there was a way that I could just help these people teach them, you know, what I did. And I was like, well, duh, just like start a podcast, start a blog, like to help

32:39 people what I did and also have other people on the show that have had success in real estate and using that to smooth out the ups and downs of the oil and gas industry. And that's where Riggs to

32:49 real estate was born. That's good stuff, man. So how many episodes have you done to this point? We've got about 55 right now. Nice. I'm putting a bank together. You know, I haven't released an

33:04 episode in a few weeks, but putting a bank together and we'll get consistent again after that. So yeah, a lot of it, some are just me, some I'm interviewing other oil and gas professionals of

33:14 real estate investments and everything like that and others are like. I've had an Amazon best-selling author economist on, I have Jay Parsons coming on in a week, who is the chief economist for

33:23 Real Page, you know, billion-dollar company that handles everybody's rent rolls and everything like that. So I'm really excited to have him on. So just a full gamut. And then I've also had people

33:34 on who haven't even bought their first house yet, but they want to talk about the process of what they do, what they've done to get to that point, you know. So it's a wide range. And the whole

33:43 point is just like, let's get talking about this and figure out, you know, what works to help us smooth out the ups and downs, the boom or bust of this industry. Good for you, man. So are you

33:54 brokering or, I mean, I guess, I just, you're teaching other people how to do some of this stuff, but I guess, so what's in it for you personally? I mean, obviously you've got 2000 units and

34:06 so you're making, you've got that happening. So is it, are you brokering for other people to help them get in or how does that work? No, no, I mean. Greek surreal state is like 100 me just

34:17 wanting to give back to the oil and gas community. This is a community that I love and has treated me very well over the years. So it is me just really wanting to give back and help other people out.

34:29 As far as like, do I gain anything from it? You know, some people, they want to invest passively in these big apartment buildings and I can help set those connections up and everything like that.

34:40 Really what I gain from it is just knowing that if I help one person, you know, be better prepared for the next downturn, then I'm gonna be all for that, right? And you start out with the kind of

34:52 these selfish goals. You know, I wanted to have passive income from my family. I wanted them to be taken care of and my bills to be paid if I lost my income overnight. And once you reach those

35:02 goals, you kind of sit back and you say, Huh, well, what can I do next? You know? And there's always the answer of like, Well, let's make more money, right? but you reach a point where I

35:12 think you really start I think like, okay, if more money doesn't make me happy, what will and helping people is really the answer for that for me. Really cool. Well, I hope to get there someday,

35:24 even though you're 10 years younger than me, you've already gotten there and I haven't. I'm jealous, but at the same time I admire your effort. No, seriously, you're doing really good stuff and

35:32 you were highly recommended for me. You know, very polished for what you're doing. And personally, I appreciate that. You know, I think there's a place to charge for services and there's a place

35:44 to offer kind of insights for free based on experience. And I really like that you're doing that.

35:50 So, you know, obviously you started side hustling in high school when you're, you know, getting off at one o'clock and going to work and do all those things. So it was always in there to have

36:00 that, that little nugget of, hey, I'm gonna go do some other stuff on the side. The, I guess

36:08 the conflict, I'm curious and Jeremy knows this, but I've kind of start of my own other thing. And I'm not going to mention it on the podcast. Oh, come on, man. Hold on, hold on. All right,

36:20 maybe I will, hold on. Just let this go. All right, all right, all right. Well, I'll come at the end of this little piece. So I'm wondering about the balance between, obviously owning 2, 000

36:30 units does take some of your time on a weekly basis, and clearly you're W2 at PDC, I guess. Obviously, it takes a good portion of the rest of your time. What is the balance? How can you tell,

36:45 you know, if you're advising a guy like me once you get into real estate or own a bunch of units, what is that balance you have to be able to strike? I think there's a couple facets to the answer

36:55 of that question. Number one, you've got to find something that you're passionate about to where it doesn't feel like work. You know, I come home from a W2, and if I have to get on a call with an

37:06 investor or an asset management call or talk to our construction guy, that doesn't feel like work to me I really love doing that. Right, so number one, find something that you're passionate about.

37:16 Number two, people have a lot more time, non-productive, like NPT, if you wanna use a - NPT, NPT. Yeah, something from the industry, but - It's funny. There's a lot of time in your afternoons,

37:30 in your mornings, your weekends, right? Like, don't use the weekend to escape the life you have. Like, use the weekend to create the life that you want. And that's, if you have that kind of

37:41 motivation, and it's something that doesn't feel like work to you, then you'll be astonished at what you can accomplish on the side, right? And I set very clear boundaries. And, you know, I

37:52 have a lot of respect for my W-2 job. And I love this industry. I love it's a question. I'm sure you guys were waiting to ask. A lot of people asked me that. They're like, why do you even work

37:60 in the oil and gas industry anymore? And really, it boils down to like, I love what I do. I love the people in oil and gas. To me, real estate was not like my ticket out of the industry. my

38:12 ticket out of the oil and gas industry, to me, real estate was like, I'm gonna hedge my bet and have some passive income and a track record that if I don't have a choice, you know, one day,

38:22 whether I get to stay in the oil and gas industry or not, that at least I have set up, right? And again, it's not like, like real estate isn't the end all be all and I'll say this on the show a

38:32 lot. Like, my big thing is fall in love with finding a solution to the problem. Don't fall in love with an individual solution 'cause solutions come and go, right? Like real estate could come and

38:43 go, solutions come and go. You've got to fall in love with finding a solution to that problem and the problem we all have is the boomer bus nature of this industry. It hasn't changed for, you know,

38:55 you talk to guys that have been in the industry for 30 years plus and they had guys that were, when they first broke out, 30 year hands telling them like, hey, get ready for it, save up for it

39:05 and nobody does, you know, you still drive to Midland and there's like a Denali with a Malibu wake center in front of a40, 000 house. Where are your priorities, sir? You know, none of it's paid

39:15 for, you know? Oh yeah. So

39:19 it's interesting, since I teased it a little bit, so yeah, I don't, seven, well, 2012,

39:27 13, I started looking at franchises just for fun, 'cause a friend of mine had done it. And again, as a hedge, didn't pull a trigger, didn't have the guts, did it

39:37 again in

39:45 2015, just for, again, really just kind of put my toe in the water. And then, before COVID even started, I started entertaining the franchise consultants again. And lo and behold, they just

39:52 said, you know, this is a good time to go ahead and let's find something that will be some sort of protection that doesn't take me away from my W-2. And so I've gone and done that, I pulled the

40:04 trigger, I've told Jeremy about it a little bit, I probably won't, since I haven't actually opened the retail establishment yet, I'm not going to mention it yet. It's aimed at kids and fitness

40:14 and things like that. So I think it's a good, you're located in the right place is gonna work out well, but similar to what you're talking about, it's gonna be something I can get behind is gonna

40:24 be fun. And I think there's a lot of people in the oil and gas industry, certainly all the franchise consultants come April of 2020 started reaching out to oil and gas executives everywhere. And so

40:38 there's a lot of guys like me who went out and did it.

40:41 Yeah, I love what you said there. And something that I want to kind of key in on there is a lot of people aren't willing to take the risk to start another venture or a side business or something

40:52 like that. But what I say to them is like, you told me what's riskier. You wake up five years from today and you're still stuck with the same problems or you took a risk and bet on yourself five

41:03 years ago. And who knows where it could go. I mean, you're not going to get it right the first time But the point is you're taking actionable steps. in the right direction and you'll figure it out

41:13 as you go. And you also find that along the road, it's super, super fulfilling and enjoyable. Humans are like basically created to solve problems. And if you're not doing that, if you're not

41:24 growing as a person, then, you know, you're sitting stagnant and tell me what's riskier, you know? I mean, I like that approach. And the way that I like to put it as this, no money, no

41:36 problems, no money, no money, Waymo problems. Waymo problems, yeah. Yeah, and it comes back to, you know, you asked like, do I get any money off the Riggs Real Estate Podcast? It's like,

41:50 no, that is fulfilling for me in a different way, 'cause you start to realize, you know, money doesn't solve all your problems. And the people who chase the almighty dollar till the day they die,

41:59 you know, they die typically lonely and miserable. So you gotta enjoy the journey the whole time.

42:06 Oh, there you go Man, that was a great way to close it down. My man, calm, plaquey. PDC production engineer also rigs to real estate. Where can people find your podcast and follow you and all

42:18 that good stuff? Yeah, so the Rick's real estate podcast, anywhere where you consume, wherever you're listening to this right now, you can find it. So just search Rick's real estate podcast,

42:27 run iTunes, Spotify, all the big names there. I have a big presence on LinkedIn. I'm always posting what I think is valuable content. It seems to get good feedback from people in the industry.

42:39 Yeah, good stuff Always willing to help anyone that wants to get started. Whether it's real estate or not. Like I said, fall in love with finding solution to the problem, not necessarily an

42:48 individual solution. So do reach out to me. I have a lot of content out there to help people get started in real estate. Selecting your market. If you want to go to the passive route, we can talk

42:57 about that because it's a fantastic way for busy professionals to get their feet wet and kind of learn while you earn. And it goes back to what I described earlier, you've got to find something that

43:08 you're passionate about. And you may find you're not passionate about real estate, but if you made a passive investment, you're at least gonna make good money on your, or good returns on your

43:16 investment. And you can learn whether or not you have a passion for it and get a kind of insider view on the industry at the same time. So yeah, reach out to me. I'm happy to help any and everyone

43:26 that reaches out. Appreciate that, my man. Thanks for coming on, Colin. Yeah, appreciate it guys, enjoyed it.