E58: Capital Raising Made Easy - How Real Advisers Capital Helps Issuers Attract Investors

AIME Episode 58 Transcript

Sarah Florer (00:04.654)
Hi everyone, welcome to Alt Investing Made Easy. Today, Roland and I are here to talk to you about something that we've been working on that we're very excited to share with you today and that is the launch of Real Advisors Capital and the relaunch of Real Advisors with the Real Advisors Capital website. So, Roland, do you want to kick off and tell us a little bit about Real Advisors, Real Advisors Capital and why you came up with the idea to form these?

Roland Wiederaenders (00:35.186)
Yeah, we talked about this a little bit at the beginning and we've referred to it throughout, you know, our some 60 episodes we've had to date. But this Alt Investing Made Easy is a marketing arm of an investment advisor firm, Real Advisors. And Real Advisors is a Texas registered investment advisor. We don't have any assets under management now, but we really formed it to be a digital marketing agency.

Sarah Florer (00:44.952)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:05.18)
for our issuer law firm clients who want to use general solicitation and advertising in connection with the sale of their private securities deals under rule 506 C. So that's a mouthful, but basically it's just using advertising in connection with the sale of private securities and we're doing that through this medium, the podcast or video podcast medium through AIM and you know, Sarah, we've had

Sarah Florer (01:20.75)
Mm.

Roland Wiederaenders (01:36.83)
multiple clients on as guests and talked about their 506C deals. what we wanted to do today is share this new website that we've created for Real Advisors Capital. We had a website for a while for Real Advisors, but I don't think it really suited our needs. But, I don't know, let's see, sir, can you go ahead, can you see that now? Yeah, I can see it on my, yeah.

Sarah Florer (01:39.47)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (01:59.853)
I can see it, yeah, that looks really good.

Roland Wiederaenders (02:04.848)
And so this is really our goal here with Real Advisors and Real Advisors Capital, is capital raising made easy? So often our clients come to us and they say, we know you can be our perfect legal secretaries. Ideally, we prepare these documents that have no typos and they look very professionally drafted and they cover all the terms and conditions of the deal and provide all the disclosure.

But in the end, what our clients really want from us is they want money for the deal. They don't care about the documents. They want money in the bank account. And really understanding that that's their goal. I've always wanted to do something to try to help them with that. And now with the changes in the securities laws in 2013, I think it's already 12 years later, but this is still sort of a relatively new concept.

Sarah Florer (02:39.596)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (03:01.296)
And that's what we're trying to do here with Real Advisors Capital.

Sarah Florer (03:05.87)
Well, think it's first of all, it's been a process to develop this website and we have the great support of our partner Anthony, Anthony Carano, who is also a partner in AIM and he's a digital marketing specialist. So we're really lucky that we have the expertise we have as attorneys, the expertise developed through years of working with people raising capital. And then we also have the expertise of Anthony who's been doing digital marketing for two decades.

So combined, we think we have a really good formula for making this a really successful endeavor and really helping our clients, people who come to us, whether they're law firm clients or whether it's anybody else that comes to us, helping them formulate a strategy, a digital marketing strategy, develop out assets, digital marketing related assets, raising money.

supporting on everything, deal structuring. I mean, I guess what we could go through is that there's a section on this, the different services that we offer, right, Roland?

Roland Wiederaenders (04:12.24)
Yeah, for sure. I just wanted to show everybody who Anthony was. And then there's Sarah. Great picture, Sarah. And then me.

Sarah Florer (04:17.059)
there's Anthony. It's like he's with us.

thank you. We were also supported in all of our video efforts by Mark Caddell, Red Sun Marketing. He's our videographer for AIM. He's been with us since the very beginning, coached us through the early days, continues to do so, and also helps us out, makes sure that we look good when we get photos done for different reasons. So full credit to Mark.

Roland Wiederaenders (04:28.795)
Right?

Roland Wiederaenders (04:45.766)
Yeah, for sure.

Roland Wiederaenders (04:50.204)
Well, we can go through the services here if we want. OK, so investment advisory services. could be a financial planner. I would probably refer that out. Who would we go to? We found him on the show, and I don't remember his name. Carlos, right? Well, a couple of Carlos's.

Sarah Florer (04:50.862)
So let's see we got.

Let's do that, yeah.

Sarah Florer (05:09.102)
Carlos is one. Carlos, yeah. We know a number of financial planners and the position, I think we kind of agree that when we refer work to other investment advisors, we don't get anything from that. So it leaves us with neutrality. We try to really send people to our contacts that we think might suit them. Carlos is, he was the most fun to talk to because of the art angle. His experience as an art investor was so interesting.

Roland Wiederaenders (05:30.799)
and

Roland Wiederaenders (05:37.715)
And for sure, know, just wanting to refer people to a planner that will incorporate investments in private securities into the overall plan. So frequently you go to investment advisors and not denigrating anybody, but they probably have an aversion to recommend any investments to a client that they can't get paid on themselves. And that's going to be case frequently with these private securities deals.

Sarah Florer (05:59.042)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (06:05.936)
You probably, know, if you are interested in private securities and getting that most objective advice, when you do go to a planner, see if they're independent. If they're, and if they're independent, that means that they're not necessarily a registered representative of a broker dealer. Broker dealers aren't bad, but they only take deals of up to, or of a certain minimum size. And so frequently, Sarah, don't we work on deals that...

Sarah Florer (06:22.968)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (06:32.794)
maybe honestly a million dollars that we're trying to raise, is really relatively small size securities offering.

Sarah Florer (06:39.438)
Right. Yeah, it is. It's big for the person who has the project, but it's small typically in the grand scheme, especially in the US economy. I just wanted to make a note, about that. I had a really pleasant conversation with some friends, some new friends, Jean, Laurie, and Polly from AMG Wealth Advisors. And they specifically brought up ALTS and alternative investing is a strategy that they recommend for their

clients that they manage wealth for. And I was really pleased to hear that. I think we'll be having them on the show soon. So we'll get to hear from them about what they do specifically, maybe why they think alternative investments are such a good part of a wealth management portfolio.

Roland Wiederaenders (07:24.56)
That sounds really good, Sarah. Well, here's the section, Compliance Services, and kind of a boring topic, but we want everybody to know that we're focused on compliance here, and we joke sometimes about the criminal penalties for violations of the securities laws, but the main thing that people should really think about is if you're going to be an issuer of private securities,

Sarah Florer (07:26.168)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (07:37.678)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (07:51.557)
you could be personally liable for securities fraud claims. And so that means you can't stand behind the shield, the ordinary corporate shield that you get when you just operate a business through a business entity, whether it's an LLC or corporation. So compliance is something that we're really keen on. Being attorneys, it's something we make a big priority.

Sarah Florer (07:55.34)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (08:15.95)
Exactly. And in the end, you end up paying more. This is the risk, It may seem like you can short-term save on compliance for some people, it may seem that way, but whether there's criminal liability on the table or not, there is a financial liability and that hurts badly, even if it's not the same as the orange jumpsuit as some of our clients like to fret over.

Roland Wiederaenders (08:45.682)
Well then this investor acquisition and marketing, and again, this is kind of getting back to the idea that our clients come to us to, they want to raise money. so, so frequently, if you haven't done this before as an issuer, one of your first goals is going to be to build up your investor network. And generally you start with friends and family. And as you scale up, Sarah, we've seen this so many from so many of our clients that they do.

deal, successive deals after deals, and then finally they're moving up the scale. They start thinking about, what's the next potential investor? And that's typically maybe the small family offices. And then scaling up from there, maybe going to small institutional investors or other funds. But this is something that we want to help people do is build up their investor network.

Sarah Florer (09:25.72)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (09:32.866)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (09:40.67)
Exactly. And there are tried and true tactics, especially using digital resources. And that's what Anthony is a specialist in. It's really interesting to hear him talk about all of that. it's such a great amount of information to learn that goes on in the background in developing digital marketing campaigns for reaching and expanding your investor network.

Roland Wiederaenders (10:05.382)
This last one is one that I really investor relations can't overstate the importance of that. When you use other people's money in connection with an investment, you will be beholden to them. You're answerable to them for what you're doing with their money and how the performance is going and whatever it is, whether it's commercial real estate, a hedge fund, a private equity deal. You have to be answerable to your investors.

Sarah Florer (10:12.014)
Hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (10:34.628)
And the best way for issuers of securities to avoid liability is to make sure that they're always out in front of their investors, letting the investors know what's going on. know, Sarah, we haven't, I haven't told you a lot about this in the past, but I guess I consider one of my greatest professional successes an instance where a client lost investors all their money. was around $5 million.

But they didn't get sued. The client didn't get sued in that context. And one of the main reasons was they were so good about always being in front of their investors and letting them know what's going on and telling the story about the investment. Warts and all. Sometimes we like to leave out the scary parts of the story, Sarah, but it's really important that investors get the full picture so they don't feel like they're being misled or having the wool pulled over their eyes.

Sarah Florer (11:00.92)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (11:20.43)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (11:29.344)
It's so true. I would say here, Roland, in these services in particular, you and I are involved and we have another team member who's really good with communications and people who can help, who is involved in providing these services. And again, it's an area where you don't want to be coy. You want to make sure people know the good, the bad, and the ugly, really. And hopefully that will, you know...

lead to investors that trust you for current deals and future deals.

Roland Wiederaenders (12:03.334)
Well, speaking of which, that's a good segue to the deals page and fans of this podcast maybe will recognize some of these opportunities. And I love we've got the invest in motorsports racing with Ryan Sheehan Racing. And if we click through there, let's see what it does. It goes to their site. So that's pretty cool. You can check out Ryan.

Sarah Florer (12:12.707)
Mm.

Sarah Florer (12:27.054)
Yeah, Ryan Sheehan is such an interesting young man. I think he's only 19 or 20 when we recorded this. It was about a year ago. So he's approaching 21, but he's so well spoken and he's got a quiet, quiet confidence to him that that I think is a great it's very not just inspiring, but it's also it's the right mindset for being a professional athlete, but also managing the business of being a professional athlete, which is

a huge part of it.

Roland Wiederaenders (12:58.8)
Yeah, it was great getting to know him and he's got a lot going on for him. We've got a private equity deal, Cornboard Manufacturing, remember them?

Sarah Florer (13:00.493)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (13:10.69)
They are so cool. You know, one of these days you might just go to Home Depot and check out the crates and see if they're made out of corn barn. That would be a great way to sort of market test the success of their experiment. Well, it's not an experiment. They have this really interesting project product that's made out of this. I remember a corn stover, right, which is byproduct of corn production. And it's.

Roland Wiederaenders (13:19.001)
I know, and...

Roland Wiederaenders (13:32.774)
That's it, yeah.

Sarah Florer (13:38.038)
transformed into this really useful product, which is this corn board, very durable, doesn't get infested and rotted and things like that. It's very interesting technology. At that time, I think he was looking for one investor to replace another, but he may be in the future expanding with a more general capital raise.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:01.65)
We've got oil and gas and the technology. I'd love to talk more about Jim. I guess we don't have the other deals on here yet, but yeah, we can maybe just say something about these.

Sarah Florer (14:14.776)
Those are cool, huh? Jim is, well, you want to talk about Jim's gags? He's a force to be reckoned with.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:16.378)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:21.734)
He was an engineer on the NASA Apollo missions. So he was an engineer with the missions to the moon. And now he continues to do business in Austin. And he's involved with Sound Curves. And this is a high-end technology company, but high-end headphones. so they've got an opportunity for investment as well.

Sarah Florer (14:25.411)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (14:44.174)
Yeah, exactly. you know, apparently these are the kinds of headphones that professional musicians use, but they're made in a way that I guess the technology is scalable. And so the price point came down. So now it's more palatable for the common, know, somebody who just wants a great musical experience and is willing to spend, you know, more than the Amazon earbuds for that.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:12.39)
Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, this is included in alternative assets as well, an investment in oil and gas. And Brian Hancock is our friend. They have their own podcast and investment in an oil and gas deal. what was interesting, Brian was on as a guest, actually, and he was a client of the firm.

Sarah Florer (15:13.816)
So.

Sarah Florer (15:24.387)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (15:35.331)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:36.856)
and telling us about the incredible tax advantages of investing in general partnership interests of an oil and gas deal. I learned a ton about oil and gas deals from talking with Brian, working with him, and having him on as a guest of AIM.

Sarah Florer (15:53.292)
Yeah, absolutely. And how appropriate for Texas. this is something that, you know, we if you're from Texas or you're raised in Texas, there's always oil and gas in the background in one way or another. But from the rest of the country, it's, know, those tax benefits are federal. So it's not that you have to be in Texas to take advantage of investments in Texas and the tax benefits that come from that. So.

Roland Wiederaenders (15:57.932)
Yeah, that's right.

Roland Wiederaenders (16:13.562)
Yeah, that's right.

Roland Wiederaenders (16:22.054)
Well, you know, that's good, sir. I like looking through this again and thinking Anthony did a great job and we're going to continue to work on this. It's a work in progress and, you know, we'll continue to talk about this for sure on AIM, but just to give people kind of an idea of another aspect of our business.

Sarah Florer (16:29.035)
It's beautiful.

Sarah Florer (16:38.488)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (16:44.194)
Yeah, and just want to say, Roland, you to reemphasize you, you came up with the idea for Real Advisors. You went through the process to become registered as an investment advisor. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to get to work with you because it's I mean, look at this. It's it's beautiful where we've gotten to with this. And it's you know, the process of raising capital for people helps the economy as a whole and generally is.

especially in the small and medium area, is a huge important engine for our economy. And I'm really glad that we get to work in this space with clients who are part of that process also, with people who raising capital, who are starting businesses. It's not an easy thing to do. It certainly sounds sexy. It's a lot of hard work. But it does produce new technology. produces...

you know, obviously jobs and wealth creation. And again, as we've said before on Alt Investing Made Easy, know, everybody has a seat at this table, every single person, and you know, what you need to be armed with is knowledge. And you used to say it all the time, we don't want to see good ideas fail for lack of funding, right?

Roland Wiederaenders (17:58.695)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's the democratization of capital. That really inspires me a lot that no good deal should fail for lack of funding. I just said it the other day.

Sarah Florer (18:02.456)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (18:08.04)
Exactly. And no good deal should fail for lack of a seat at the table, right? Like anybody can participate in this. Sorry.

Roland Wiederaenders (18:16.466)
Well, that's right. That's what our laws have been designed to do. There are some real egalitarian principles and shrouded in our legal system in a way. And I've learned so much from talking with you, Sarah, about hearing your experiences in UAE and other places around the world. And we are gifted with a legal system here that while there is a

You know, it's predominated, like you look at our guests, they've been mostly white males, right? But we've tried to represent, you know, everybody that's participating in the industry. And we want to remember that, you know, there have been great disparities in the past and it would be really a failure on my part if I were unconscious of those. so, yeah, the idea of...

Sarah Florer (18:48.696)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (18:53.891)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (19:09.36)
giving everybody a place at the table is for sure really important. And that's how I connect emotionally with what I do professionally, honestly.

Sarah Florer (19:20.11)
Yeah, likewise. think, and it's so rewarding actually to be a part of trying to support people with success. yeah. Yeah, I agree, totally. Yeah. So thanks everyone for joining us for this quick introduction to...

Roland Wiederaenders (19:30.77)
Well, I think we can keep this one pretty short. What do you think, sir? Okay.

Sarah Florer (19:41.762)
What's already been there for a while, Real Advisors, but we've relaunched it as Real Advisors Capital and we have this beautiful new website. So we'd love to hear from you either directly through the links below, the information below, or you can contact us through this website. It would be fun to start to get contacted through the website. So thanks for joining us today. If you liked this episode, please like and subscribe to our channel.

Roland Wiederaenders (20:07.13)
And remember everyone, take aim with your alternative investing strategies.

Sarah Florer (20:12.43)
See you next time.