When people ask me “what does your VA or AI agent do?” I often struggle to know where to begin.
Like really, do you lack that much imagination for all the things I DON’T want to do?? 🤣
So here’s a video of my AI x human system automating one of many super tedious tasks in my life
Only by freeing up my time from admin can I move to the value chain, from admin to delivery then marketing (like this video)
If you want to make AI agents work for you, join me at my next live workshop for founders and investors in my bio 🌿🦾✨
New York City, I’m excited to let you all know that I'm on the New York board of ACE NextGen, and we’re gearing up for the ACE Conference in NYC next week 9/19! While this will be my first time attending the conference, I’ll be leading some of the evening and networking programming — including happy hour, after-work mixers, and yes, even a party with Andrew Yang!
If you’re an AAPI entrepreneur (or a supporter of the community) looking to connect, enjoy great food, music, and conversation over drinks — come join us!
Let’s build community, make meaningful connections, and have a little fun along the way.
#ACENextGen #AAPIEntrepreneurs #Networking #NYCEvents #ACEConference2025
Andrew Yang party: https://posh.vip/e/offline-8
ACE Next Gen Summer Mixer: /event/ny-ace-nextgen-summer-mixer-152600/?pk_campaign=widget-event-list
ACE Next Gen Conference: /event/national-ace-annual-conference-2025-148992
Has anyone watched 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once'?
The feeling of seeing hundreds of parallel universe of your journey all at once?
Two weekends ago I had the pleasure of attending SARECON 2024, and I felt like I saw hundreds of me's.
Investors. Wholesalers. Hard money lenders. Flippers.
2 of the speakers my age and below had 8 figures of wealth in commercial real estate. And they built it essentially in 4 years.
It paralleled my real estate journey, in the alternate reality where everything I did was 10x.
10x the passive income. 10x the asset price. 10x the transactions/yr.
I went to SARECON wanting to know what was possible and walked away with so much potential.
Now it's time to integrate.
Thanks to George Lang, Annie Liu, Nelson Lin at the SARECON team for putting together a transformative event. And the countless friends who inspire me, house me, and push me to dream bigger.
When was the last time you had a paradigm shift in your career?
I've been in CRISIS mode these last thirty days.
One month ago my property management quit.
My executive assistant quit a week later.
Today, I inked a contract with a new property manager and had my first sync with essentially a brand new team.
During my COO days, I told my team 'your job is to standardize every part of your work so you can hire your replacement, fire yourself, and conquer new ground.'
This probably sounded dramatic, but there is no fire drills for when your entire team quits.
Few rise to the occasion, but all fall to to the highest level of our systems.
That was the essence of Courtyard Sihe's Q2 investor update. /q2-2024-fund-update/
I'm anxious about the new team. What my investors will think. Will this work out?
Posting consistently on social media is as much about diligence as it is about courage. I don't always succeed, but I hope to always to return and post another day.
Things are always uglier when they're works in progress.
When was your last baptism by fire? How did you persevere?
Have you had an internship that shaped the trajectory of your career?
This week I'm happy to welcome Hanchen Ruan as my summer intern at Courtyard Sihe Partners. Introducing himself:
"I’m Hanchen from Beijing, China. I came to US for my college degree myself. I’m major in economics and want to finish a master’s degree in finance. I’m passionate about exploring new area like the AI or other that I’ve never tried before. In my free time, I enjoy drive around and listen to music. When I’m driving on the road and listen to the music I like, it makes me feel peace and that time belongs to me. I live to listen RnB and Hip Hop, my favorite artist is The Weeknd and Eason Chan, I can hear the emotions from their song and sometimes I feel the same from their song. My current goal is finding my own way and that’s a lifetime thing to achieve. I hope I can find the answer with Courtyard Sihe."
In addition to helping out on fund operations and taking intense headshots, I have cajoled Hanchen to make some cameos in my content in the coming weeks :) Please welcome him warmly as we work to make his internship productive and thoughtful.
A home is the largest single asset most Americans will own in their life.
Today I wanted to share with you the financial model I created and used to purchase my latest property in Cleveland, Ohio.
The first time I realized I owned 10 apartments, I was taken aback. Then the first time I saw keys for 20 apartments, I realized I had really achieved scale. At enough scale, I started to see fairly similar cost ratios upon turnaround of a property.
Most costs are pretty fixed: you don't have much control over water, gas, electric, property taxes, or insurance. Maintenance is always heavier at the beginning, especially for older houses, so I budget more conservatively for unforeseen expenses (have you ever heard of knob and tube wiring?)
Rents are also set by the market, we can only get more or less depending on how well maintained the apartment is, and what kind of tenant we screen for. My team generally undercharges the market by a modest amount ($25 to $50/mth) so we have our preferred pick of tenants.
Common wisdom says "In Real Estate, Money Is Made On The Purchase, Not On The Sale" In my experience, this means negotiating for the lowest price before a seller walks away. I am an aggressive low baller because I'm searching for sellers in pain—pain often resulting from their own mismanagement and misconduct. Part of how I got my first triplex for $117.5k was because the seller was dying to sell due to accruing interest from private money he had loaned.
Here's a picture of the spreadsheet of my thoroughness when researching neighborhoods and deals in Cleveland OH.
Have you ever been intimidated about the cost of real estate? What parts especially?
Interested in daily life as a real estate investor? For years I've shown friends pictures of my before and after offline and I'm excited to finally share on social media.
When buying houses below market value, I've learned to expect some pretty bombed out apartments like the photos attached. One of the costs that most people don't realize is that when my team throws away trash left by tenants, we actually have to pay for a private dumpster (~$400 per load) to dispose of the bulky items. In this case I had 5 big dumpsters of trash to dispose of and had to spend $2k just to clean up the apartment before we started actual renovations. One of the things that is disheartening about this line of work is also witnessing the systems of poverty up close and strengthens me and my team's commitment to ethical stewardship as property managers and investors.
In the case of this apartment, after cleaning up the apartment we were able to rent the unit to a very normal working class family making $69k/yr. The mother is a special education teaching assistant ($34k/yr), and the father is a delivery driver for Amazon ($35k) with a young daughter. We completed rehabilitation for roughly $15k and rented this 2BD1BA for $1,000/month in.
After doing this for seven years, I've got many stories to share, so let me know what you're interested in. Have you managed a home renovation before? Like / Share / Comment what your experiences have been!
Thank you to all the lovely people who made it to NYC entrepreneur dinner club (EDC) last week. It was a blast 💥🧨
Last week me and 10 (!!) AAPI entrepreneurs took over a corner of Gugu Room and enjoyed our Japanese-Filipino dishes. Congratulations to our President @alexfchester of NYC who won the uCozy 3D Neck and Shoulder Massager 🕺 🎉
Things I’m learning from the experience: 1) explore the power of a focused conversation, setting a theme for entrepreneurs, 2) getting the insights from the attendees to make the event more exciting and successful, and 3) we put together an album for the group
Given the joyful reception, I’m pleased to also announce that we’ve got our next EDC in the pipelines tentatively for 6/5 at the Hidden Tiger. We’re finalizing the menu and will post when tickets go live; hope to see you there!
Happy May and AAPI Heritage Month; I will be hosting another dinner in New York City with @acenextgennyc and you're invited!
Come and join us at Gugu Room next week as we share stories and delicious traditional Japanese and Filipino cuisine. This is an incredible opportunity to connect with peers, exchange ideas, and nurture new professional relationships. I'll be fresh off my trip from China and look forward to catching up.
Reserve your spot while they are available at /event/entrepreneur-dinner-club-at-gugu-room-107149/
And yes, you can attend even if you're NOT a full-time entrepreneur! ACE NextGen is all about building lifelong relationships with like-minded individuals regardless of your current role. Any other questions feel free to drop a comment or DM me.
See you there 🪩🕺🍗
Greetings from Beijing! 🛫🇨🇳🪂
After a decades-long pursuit of entrepreneurship, remote work, and one global pandemic later, I boarded a 24 hour flight to the other side of the world on Sunday and will be staying in China until the end of the month.
So much has changed, both inside and out, since I last came as a teenager to study abroad. Among the biggest changes is my network of cool, connected, globe trotting friends. I’ve started to use social media more this year professionally, and figured I’d experiment using it personally as well.
People ask me what my trip is for, and my working answers are ‘self-exploration and integration.’ After receiving my education in America and starting my career there, I’d love to explore what meaningful connection via regular Asia trips looks like in my thirties. A sampling of things on my itinerary:
1. Meeting with @0xyami , Co-Director at @startupgrindbeijing , and attending a panel on brain science and entrepreneurship 👩🏫
2. Practicing meditation and attending workshops with the @taozi.tree.yoga community 🧘
3. Seeing @chamberlainz 's set at @solo_beijing Sat night thanks to an intro from @yongwzhao 📀
How can you help? If you’ve got intros, recommendations, or other things to put on my map, I’ve got two weeks in Beijing to put to good use. Meanwhile, thank you to those who have expressed encouragement and support for my solo sojourn; this is certainly an experiment for me and I look forward to reporting back on the other side. 🎒✨🌈
Thank you to all the lovely people who made our first @acenextgennyc entrepreneur dinner club (EDC) last week a smashing success 💫💪💥
Last week me and 18 (!!) AAPI entrepreneurs took over a corner of Buddha Bodai and shared our stories over delicious vegetarian Chinese food on a rainy Tuesday evening. Turn out far exceeded my wildest expectations, as people kept showing up beyond the original headcount, with staff finding ever more creative ways to pack people into our transformers-frankenstein seating arrangement
Things I’m learning from the experience: 1) executed properly, there’s clearly a bustling AAPI entrepreneur community that is hungry (lol) for community, 2) there are variations on the EDC format we can play with via price point, industry focus, and other variables, and 3) I need to take more pictures of the food
Given the joyful reception, I’m pleased to also announce that we’ve got our next EDC in the pipelines tentatively for 5/7 at Gugu Room. We’re finalizing the menu and will post when tickets go live; hope to see you there and kick off AAPI Heritage Month together!
