Today on Hindsight Hacking we are joined by Edward Rodriguez. Edward is the CEO and Founder of BPN Capital Group. What is BPN you ask? BPN recently announced the FIRST EVER blockchain based commercial mortgage deal to tokenize real estate property. Allowing everyday investors the opportunity to own a piece of that high rise or commercial building. Edward believes that commercial mortgages are on the verge of becoming a new frontier in the developing use of digital tokens, a technology-based way for small investors to own shares of big loans. Edward also has the pleasure of having Jay Elliot serve on the BPN Advisory Board and as his personal mentor. Jay was the Senior VP of Apple for 6 years and worked directly with Steve Jobs. One other amazing fact about Edward is he is doing things the right way. Trying to make a positive impact in the world allowing others to get a "seat at the table, that he created. Enjoy the episode and thank you for listening! Connect with Edward: https://bpncapitalgroup.io/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bepro/ Connect with Cory and Ron: Head over to Https://profitswithpodcasts.com to find out more about how your can easily launch and monetize a podcast. Or maybe you would like to learn more by jumping on a call with the guys? Just book a time that works for you! https://calendly.com/hindsighthacking/connect?back=1&month=2020-11 And you can find Cory and Ron on a few social channels! https://follow.cool https://www.facebook.com/coryecarter Or you just want to check out their websites: Https://gethhm.com Https://impactorsmastermind.com
Today on Hindsight Hacking we are joined by Edward Rodriguez.
Edward is the CEO and Founder of BPN Capital Group.
What is BPN you ask? BPN recently announced the FIRST EVER blockchain based commercial mortgage deal to tokenize real estate property. Allowing everyday investors the opportunity to own a piece of that high rise or commercial building.
Edward believes that commercial mortgages are on the verge of becoming a new frontier in the developing use of digital tokens, a technology-based way for small investors to own shares of big loans.
Edward also has the pleasure of having Jay Elliot serve on the BPN Advisory Board and as his personal mentor. Jay was the Senior VP of Apple for 6 years and worked directly with Steve Jobs.
One other amazing fact about Edward is he is doing things the right way. Trying to make a positive impact in the world allowing others to get a "seat at the table, that he created.
Enjoy the episode and thank you for listening!
Connect with Edward:
https://bpncapitalgroup.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bepro/
Connect with Cory and Ron:
Head over to Https://profitswithpodcasts.com to find out more about how your can easily launch and monetize a podcast.
Or maybe you would like to learn more by jumping on a call with the guys? Just book a time that works for you!
https://calendly.com/hindsighthacking/connect?back=1&month=2020-11
And you can find Cory and Ron on a few social channels!
https://follow.cool
https://www.facebook.com/coryecarter
Or you just want to check out their websites:
Https://gethhm.com
Https://impactorsmastermind.com
[00:00:00] CORY: All right, everybody. Welcome back to Hindsighthacking. In today's episode, we have a gentleman here that has definitely done some very unique things, specifically another first for the show, Mr. Edward Rodriguez, the CEO and founder of B P N. Capital group now, BPN recently announced the first ever blockchain based commercial mortgage deal to tokenize a real estate property. Edward believes that commercial mortgages are on the verge of becoming a new frontier in developing the use of digital tokens technology based way for small investors to own shares. Of big loans. Now that is just the beginning of what Edward has going on. And so I'm going to let Edward tell us more instead of me going on and on, because, you know, who's it better to come from? Definitely not from me. So Edward, welcome to the show.
[00:00:54] EDWARD: Thank you Cory thank you, ron, for having me and inviting me and you cover it correctly. [00:01:00] That the I, my background is in quantitative risk analysis, commercial mortgage backed securities, commercial real estate and real estate management. And through all of those. Industries. I learn a lot. And I found also that there was a huge disadvantage to the guys that don't have a lot of money on their management and that don't have a lot of capital. And I discovered blockchain late 2013, early 2014. And I saw that this technology could actually change all of that. And back then it was just a dream. You see? I recall till today when I told my wife my, also my accountant back then I told her, listen, I'm going to change the way that the finance system currently works and this technology is going to be at the verge of it. And she looked at me and she was like, you're crazy, but man, and I'm like, Hey,
[00:01:57] CORY: as wives do.
[00:01:58] RON: That's what wives [00:02:00] do yea.
[00:02:00] EDWARD: Well, the choker for her came in 2018, when I said, I'm ready, I'm ready. And I'm going to start working on the, I call it. I remember like today I call it the BPN initiative and I said, I'm ready to start the BPN, the BPN initiative. And she looks at me and I mean for her, it was madness because she knows how I get, whenever I get focused like this on any project, I'm like a horse. I can not look any other way. And I get laser-focused until. Get what it is that I determined to, to actually accomplish. And, well, it's a long bottle. I can tell you that we, we, we have a Berry I'm blessed to have a very good team. I had to go to over 300 people to actually. Put together the team I put together, some of the original team members have go on their own ways. Because again, I'm like a horse, you know, I, I get laser focus and for them it was a little bit too much, but Hey, anything good takes determination. And it takes time. And [00:03:00] today I can say it was a long journey, but we got it we finally were able to structure the deals in the way that we wanted to structure. And today we can say, we can give the opportunity to guys. that don't have billions of dollars to participate in structures that they will have the same benefit that the billionaires have. And I always liked to say this, I didn't come up with the structure. I gave it the name and that structure I'm referring to. I call it the billionaire structure and almost nobody talks about it. It's a structure where you come in. With 20% of the cost to develop a project or a property, but they won you own 40% of the equity. So that means any project you're developing. Let's say it's a high rise because mainly it's used for high rise development. Let's say you're developing a high rise. Well, a billionaire will come in and say, I'll put up 20% of the cost to build this high rise, but I [00:04:00] want 40% of the equity high rises regularly cost between 400 to 700 million to build. 20% of that is plus a hundred mil. So obviously it's not for everyone! Right.
[00:04:14] RON: I was trying to look at my piggy bank and I was like, yeah, that's not for me.
[00:04:19] EDWARD: Yeah. But, but I found away where, where we're actually can securitize that 20% and say, Hey, instead of you having to come up with a hundred million. as a single Partner, you can come into the structure and buy security tokens in the representation and pretty much own a piece of the high rise you see, that's why you never seen anyone. That's not worth billions say, oh, I own a percentage of the high rise. Well, that's the reason because mainly the partner that comes in with the 20% is a billionaire that, has a couple of hundred million laying around and they get 40% of their equity. The other benefit is even [00:05:00] if the market goes south and you literally assume the worst of the worst, which is, let's say the market loss loses 50% value and the next two years they just broke. Even you see? So even losing 50% of the value of the asset, they just broke even. When the asset is finished, obviously the asset is going to be worth a lot more than what it costs to build. So they make a hundred percent day one, and then they make the surplus from the project when it's finished, which is another sometimes. 60 to 90%. And then in a couple of years, hundreds of percent. So we're giving that type of opportunity to accredited ambassadors for smart family offices that never before had access to stuff like this, not only in real estate. Many projects like today, we're, we're working on a biofield project with advanced Northwest [00:06:00] Northwest advanced biofuels with Delta airlines to help Delta actually help Delta be one of the pioneers of saying we want to lower our emissions. We want to be actually environment friendly. And they're one of the largest airlines in the world and they are a big participant and they're supporting this project. They already write up a contract for the next ten years to buy every single, every single gallon of biofuel that Northwest advanced biofuel producers to help us buying it a hundred percent for the next 10 years, that type of project before the same thing will only be accessible to the billionaires. You know, they got billions on their management, so they can come in and say, Hey, here's 50 million here. So a hundred million this time around, I'm doing it differently. You know, I'm opening the doors and giving them a seat at the table to the guys. Never before have had access to this type of stuff.
[00:06:57] RON: I would love to say I understood. [00:07:00] Blockchain, but that would be a flat out lie. I would love to say I understand crypto, that would also be a flat out lie, but like I play in the world. Right. And I think that's where a lot of investors are and they're like, okay, how can I maximize the smallest amount investment to get the biggest returns? And that's, you're, you're letting just the average Joe play in like billionaires pockets.
[00:07:24] EDWARD: Correct. You know what upset me the most. Sometimes what, when I go to these shows to talk mainly blockchain or Bitcoin shows, I hear all these guys and they use all these fancy words and I'm like, guys, if you really want to teach, and you want people to understand, and you want them to have similar understanding to the one that we have are inside the blockchain. Why not use simple terms. So if you want to really understand blockchain, all you have to, you just got to look at it as an accounting system. That's based on a public ledger. [00:08:00] That's not hackable because it's chair among many different computers that even if you try to hack into it by the time you're literally trying, it has already moved on to another server. So that's why it makes it so difficult to hack into it. You see, because again, it's a network of millions of computers trying to solve and competing to solve the same mathematical problem. Right. So in simple terms, look at it as the train, right. I'm going to use the train analogy there. We'll be Bitcoin or whatever other use we can put on blockchain right now. The train railroad is blockchain because Iran is on it. And the simplest way to look at it is back in the early nineties. A lot of people thought, Yahoo was the internet.
[00:08:55] RON: Right, right, right, right. [00:09:00] Right.
[00:09:00] EDWARD: Because again, those were the applications that we use the most back then till this day. I remember when I got my first computer, I'm talking about 96, 97, a full year too I'll never forget this. I remember asking my brother was the one teaching me how to use it. And I remember asking. Because he told me you need to have a messenger. You need to have AOL. You need to have Yahoo. And I remember asking him, whoa, why are these things so necessary? Because I was more interested on the software side and not really the offline side. And he told me, well, if you, you see, my brother used to live in Miami, I used to live back in the Dominican Republic and he's like, well, if you want to communicate with me now. Guess what you can write to me through, through the internet, you know, and I like to give the same analogy back then. Yahoo was not the internet. The internet was the platform that yahoo operated on same thing as [00:10:00] blockchain, as blockchain and Bitcoin. You see Bitcoin is pretty much that utilities, the biggest case use that we have had for blockchain. Now is it going to be the same in 20 years? I doubt it because Yahoo is not as relevant as it was in the nineties. Right. It was just one of the biggest case uses for the technology. And that's how I want people to look at it. I mean, today, 83% of everything. And this is based on studies that have been done by university. I think it's even more, but universities have found that 83% of everything we do in the business world, have to do with internet, we have to use the internet to accomplish it. That's a large percent. Now, if you go to our personal life, It's a very similar number. it's about 79% of everything we do. If you're looking at you want to [00:11:00] watch a movie, now you use the internet. You're going to buy groceries. Now you use the internet. You want to educate yourself. Now you use the internet. I mean, it's almost part of our daily daily lives. The first thing we do when we wake up,is touch this thing right. In 20 years, blockchain is going to be the same. And today what a lot of people don't understand is, and just to correlate with what you were saying, do you fully understand. The cell phone technology works. Do you need to understand it? You just know he works, right. It's going to have the same thing is going to happen with blockchain. You're not going to need to understand how it works, anyone that he comes out there. Because again, I've been to so many expos that I have spoke on. Every time I hear a techie person talking about all the technicalities, I'm like, guys, nobody wants to know that you got to simplify it because at the end of the day, When I wanted to learn about these stuff, I'm the type of guy [00:12:00] that I'm self-taught I learn easier if I'm teaching myself, right. And by researching anyone that's like me, that wants to learn either it's going to go into a course. Cause we all have different learning, learning styles. They're going to go on and roll it on a course and learn everything. You're trying to tell them. Don't be so technical here. You see, they came to, to, to see what you are actually saying. But you got to make it simpler. You gotta make people grabs the information. Cause even with the internet today, you go to five GS. They don't talk to you about how 5g technology works for christ' sake no, they tell you where are you going to be able to do with it, right? That's what we should be concentrating on. That's what we should be talking about.
[00:12:47] CORY: Love it, And the whole pieces from the simplification is we, we need to trust, right? We need to trust the phone works. We need to trust that blockchain is working. And so, uh, before. We kind of move [00:13:00] on a little bit. I'd love to hear some of your stories about like a worthwhile crypto investment about the whole pump and dump schemes that are out there. Because I think that's like the pump and dumps specifically that that's going to give the antitrust, right? Like that's going to give the, the crypto world a bad name. And so I'd love to get your take on, on some of that and a couple of fun stories there.
[00:13:23] EDWARD: So I'll give you an example. You have two separate things, right? Blockchain, we already established that is the system where crypto cruelly operates and crypto is just a use case. Blockchain could be used for so many other things. It's not even funny. He can let. advance every single technology we currently use in the workforce, doesn't matter which industry you're talking including government. Right now. Let's go to the other side, which is the crypto, the crypto industry, the problem within the crypto industry. [00:14:00] That you have to understand every single project that came out, I will say maybe in the early 16, 17, those projects, a lot of them were trial and error. Right? We got to understand that a lot of people got way over their heads and they didn't look at regulation. I can tell you, I could have been. I could have, have done everything I'm doing now in 2017. The only reason I didn't chose to was because I didn't feel comfortable with the regulation side. That's why every single structure we put out our from BPM in us, it's fun to be structured as a security token. Okay. We want to comply with regulation. There is this big misinformation within the crypto space that regulations bad regulations not bad. [00:15:00] Regulation is there to protect investors is there to protect the people. Right? And we live in a country that's heavily regulated and that's what it may serve our country be so successful because in an, in an, they got to look at it as a necessary evil, because even though there's a lot of good people that have a lot of good intentions, There are bad actors out there that come up with a structure, they put flashy things on it and then use the pump and dump strategy and millions of hardworking people literally put their money on it and lose it. Right. So, yeah. We got to call things by how they are. So I literally asked anyone if you're putting your hard earned money into any structure, remember it's not, the blockchain has failed you. No, no, no. The people running the project ha failed you. Okay. They have promised you that they were going to do something. [00:16:00] With blockchain technology and then decided, you know what, we're not going to do anything. We're just going to pack it. The money in college today, one thing has nothing to do with the other, the biggest problem, blockchain solves is trust. That's the biggest problem. Blockchain really solves. Okay. You can trust that if something gets put into the public ledger it's impossible to change. You can trust that the same way that you can trust that two and two will always before you see. So again, it's not the problem of the trust is not with the technology. The problem with the trust is with the people running the projects. Do I wish that we had a lot more. Hands and, and regulators to regulate all of this fraudulent projects I do, but unfortunately our government doesn't afford to I mean, there's not enough people to actually police all of the bad actors. That's why, if you see a project that literally is [00:17:00] registered in Wakanda or whatever of these countries that are very poor regulation countries for Christ's sake, guys, They're doing it for a reason. Right. Anything coming out of or anything that looks too good to be true, really? I mean, look at the people behind the project. Anyone re telling you, oh, 500% return. Come on guys. I mean that doesn't exist. I heard it. I seen projects come out and say 500% returns. A thousand percent returns. I'll give you 1, 1, 1 that's even funnier. Oh, let's save the whales. We're going to do a project to save the whales. And when you ask what percentage of the money you raise is going to go to the whales, five percent. Oh, yeah, really? What's going to happen to the other 95%. Yeah, come on guys. I mean, there's no such thing as easy money guys. It doesn't exist. And they just got to look out [00:18:00] for those red flags. And again, if you see a company that was registering US that's following and literally compliant with regulation, has a team. has lawyers behind them has a compliance compliance group. That's the type of project you want to be putting your money on. Right? Pretty much right. bad actors are always going to access. They remember this prior to blockchain, we had Ponzi schemes, right?
[00:18:28] RON: It's just the new Ponzi scheme right.
[00:18:30] EDWARD: Is just a new way for bad actors to literally rip people off. And it's sad. I mean, every single industry has gone through this, right. We are the Early stages still but I believe that in the next 10 to 15 years, just like you happened with the internet, only the true full projects are going to remain standing and pretty much, you're going to see that just like the internet, [00:19:00] you will see that all of those other bad actors are going to disappear.
[00:19:04] RON: Right? Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. So let's, let's talk about I'm going to switch gears a little bit. I know you've had. Uh, an amazing mentor in your life that has worked with some amazing people. his name was Jay Elliot and he worked with Steve jobs. I would love to hear. I would love to hear about that and how that's helped you.
[00:19:23] EDWARD: Well I can tell you, we J is, is, is a P a big piece of apostle and like, Jay, I have had so many other mentors. But I'm not going to start mentioning names because if not, I'll forget one and then they'll get upset,
[00:19:36] RON: then they'll get upset. I know,
[00:19:38] EDWARD: but I can tell you, man, Jay is someone that saw what we were doing. Understood. It. Jay's a very smart person. He understood what we worked with and said that anything I can help with I'm here. And pretty much when he said that, I said, Hey Then let's let's get it. Let's make it official. Let's make it official. Let's get the paperwork ready. I'll get the lawyersto write [00:20:00] something. And Jay understands how a company goes from A to Z so to have his guidance in our, in our. It's just phenomenal. Remember Jay was not only the VP of apple. He worked at Intel. He worked at IBM and this is a guy that helped apple go from 300 million to 6 billion. Okay. And he, this is the guy that literally. Met Steve jobs on a barrier early age. And you can read about this. I mean, Jay has written books about this.This guy met Steve met Steve a very early age and was able to see the brilliance, not just the guy, but also the brilliance behind the guy. A lot of other people that work with Steve only saw this brilliant guy that was sometimes frustrated or mad or someone that the mandate people to work at a certain level Jay didn't see that Jay just saw the brilliance and the guy behind the name. And that's why they [00:21:00] were such a good team. Because they both respect that each other. And again, I mean. I, for me, it's been an honor, you know, and Jay has been someone that I highly respected. And when he heard the project, he, he was introduced to the project by someone else that we know in common. And when he gave the approval approval to it, I was like, that's phenomenal. That's fantastic.
[00:21:23] CORY: So fun. So fun. All right. So hindsight. Our goal here is to help our audience basically have better foresight through our guests hindsight. And so with that in mind, I'd love to hear a couple of stories of how, in hindsight, what you learned from all the businesses that you started, including helping sell textbooks to your college peers. But, but yeah. Tell us, walk us through, I mean, I know there's several businesses that you've been been involved with and what's that kind of like special sauce that you feel got you through to where you are today to being able to [00:22:00] have BPM, capital group,
[00:22:01] EDWARD: I'll tell, I'll take you even further than the test. See, my first business idea was a hotdog stand idea. I come from a family of three industries. We are business people. We are lawyers and we are in the military those are literally the three industries. And in one side of the family, my mom's side is military and business. Right. And , my dad's side, he see there, the legal side or business, that's it. My mom's side. They, my grandfather had a lot of mini markets and also a huge commercial company that supply to all of those mini markets. So by age 13, I was actually running the distributions. For the family helping my grandpa, but by H 11, I actually convinced my dad to let me put the [00:23:00] first hot dog stand in front of one of the mini markets. And by. Before I turned 12, I had about 14, 14 hotbox stands, but I figured it out that what I was selling was not really hotdogs. You see, what I was selling was an experience because I bought a set of dominoes and I invited people from around. The area to come play dominoes three times a week, right? It was Friday, Saturday and Sundays. And they used to come together because through the week and it's literally going back to what it is.
[00:23:38] Fantastic. I had the kids, we had schools around it. Right. So I have the kids that came out of school to eat but in the weekends My business was dead. My hot dog stand, was dead, and I was like, shoot, what do I do to createdemand when I don't have the kids coming out of school to buy. So I then bought this [00:24:00] home Domino's set and I invited adults to come and play. And I said Sooner or later they're going to get hungry. And when they get hungry, I'm going to be there to sell them a hot dog. And that's how we started. And then I moved to apply the same exact model through all of the mini markets that my other family members had and I started hiring my little cousins to actually do it because of. Hey, from Friday to Sunday, they didn't have school. Right. And pretty much during the school days. One of the guys that work for the mini market would run the stand right? Because the kids already went to the mini markets to buy juice, to buy soda, to buy candy. Well, now they have a hot dog, that they can eat. And the weekends we, the kids from the family will take care of the hot dog stand. So That was amazing. I figured out that what I was selling was not really hot dogs when I was selling was the experience that people got together to be competitive with each [00:25:00] other. And cause I created this little tournament and I would say, Hey, whoever wins. More games gets to be put in the table shard and I had a one to 10 position. You won literally five within the past two weeks, while you get put on the table shard and peoplewanted to be there, right? Because if there is something that we humans like is recognition and that's all we have. That's how that started. Then back to the textbooks. I come to the U S my, my, one of my brothers says I think you will have a better chance of success if you move to the us. And at the beginning, I didn't want to, I, I had pretty much that business, the hog dog business, that for a kid, I was making good money. Right. And at the same time, by 13, my grandpa asked me, I need help like running this to do the accounting of the wholesale business he [00:26:00] had, and he was getting old and he said, I love for you to help me cause you're good with numbers. And I said, yes, grandpa, why not? So I will say, well, to identify a lot of things that he should have been doing to save. I'll give you one, for example, if he would have bought a hundred cases of beer in one single order, the beer company to my country's called precedented, we'll give it an extra five back then. Right. But he was buying the quantity, but not in a single order who was buying the quantity in multiple different orders. So obviously he always missed getting the five extras. Right. And like that there's many other things that I was able to find. And then we were able to afford to lower the. To attract other people to come and buy to the holster store. And my brother convinced me to move to the us when I started college. I see that college textbooks are crazy expensive. I [00:27:00] don't qualify for financial aid. So I go and I'm going to buy my test books. So when I go and I buy them, I saw that I bought one. One of my cousins that were starting the same thing hat. So I go to return it and I bought it for like 120 bucks. And when I go to sell it, they go, we'll give you 20 bucks for it. And I'm like, yeah, I bought this just yesterday. I haven't used it. I haven't scratched it. Are you mad? And they go, no, no, no. That's the most we can give you for it. Then I go online. And I try to sell it in Amazon. And I see that almost will take 70% of whatever I sell the book for. And I'm like for what. You're taking 70% for what? This is ridiculous. I mean, this, this is a ripoff. So I get upset. I create these little clop in school and I started literally putting posters everywhere in the college that Iwanted kids to meet. Close to [00:28:00] the cafeteria in the bookstore. So we can trade books the first Monday of every semester. And the last Monday of every semester, by the third semester that I was doing this, I get this letter from, from the school saying that I am soliciting and mind you, my English back then was not the best. So. Why don't these people even talking about. Right. And then I go, I ha I had a little translator. I go to my translator and translator and he explained me what soliciting is. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't make any money. I don't what I'm doing. Why are they even, I'm not selling anything I'm doing is getting kids to come here and instead of sell their books to the school, well, if you sell it to me, I'll pay you 20 bucks more than the school. I saved money. You save money. I'm helping kids out. Why, what the heck is the problem? My brother tells me, well, that's how things work here
[00:28:56] RON: You took money from them.
[00:29:00] EDWARD: [00:29:00] So they, they, when I go and complain to the Dean and go through the whole shenanigans, they go listen our sales. have dropped my man. We need you to stop this. And guys, what I thought you were going to be happy, right? Because of what I was doing I mean I'm helping kids save money and they're like, yeah,
[00:29:17] RON: it's a business
[00:29:19] EDWARD: it's business. Right. I created a website that, did exactly. it actually turned out to be worse for them. Right. I created a website that did exactly what I was supposed to be doing there. The only difference now that instead of only affecting my school, it's also only now it's going to affect all of the school and it was, it was madness so I get up. I got right before I made it into a website, the school gave me a reprimand letter and a reprimand.letter is like this letter they give you that if you don't stop what you're doing, they're going to expell you. Right. And they're going to say they're going to send all other [00:30:00] colleges and university a letter saying this guy's a trouble maker. Be careful. Right. So right there in there. I said schools now for me, you see, because this is a business and I've been running a business since I was 11. And this guys are not, you see my end? When I was selling hot dogs, I knew that I was creating demand by making people hungry. I didn't have to cheat them or Rob them to actually make them buy from me right. And for me, that literally shifted. I was like, yeah, school's not for me. Unfortunately, I started going to school for courses that I really wanted to learn not to finish any, any career really, because it was the, you got to tell me things like they are, if it's a. It's a business, but don't tell me that you guys are a non-profitable organization, that you are for the best of the people that you are for the best of the kids. [00:31:00] Forget that you sell a lie to someone else. Not to me. When I created the site, it reached a point. I had seven point something, million members, and I'm like, this guys were complaining. because I had around? No, I had more. I had. Maybe 400 students that will come and meet. And literally exchange books. Now I have seven plus million members. Right. Right. So look what you look at the monster you have really made. Right. Right. And just like everything in life. I got myself a bigger clue so one of the biggest corporations in the world, the name of my website was blast books, right? So one of the biggest corporations in the world, I'm not going to share the name cause we sign some docs with them. come and say, we are, we have an infringement in there in their trademark. And from there I had a two plus year battle with, [00:32:00] within the trademark trademark, us Trademark administration office and went back and forth. And finally, we got into an agreement where, what I was doing, kept being doing, and pretty much we settled and ended there. What I can tell you. I learned so much, even though those were the most stressful years of my life. I learned so much from the experience I was able to get insight for one of the largest corporations in the world, from how they rolled things. And at the same time I was Florida flatter because there were afraid of something I created to help out. And in a sense to challenge what the school system in the high level of education system, we're doingto kids. It's like it's it's it's it was retarded why should we be let you rip us off that way? You know, we shouldn't. And, and, and that's that. And [00:33:00] I think that one of the other things that made the, the college textbooks idea more successful was back then, the reason that the schools were literally kind of had a hope for the kids was they give the kids certain amount of money to spend in books through their financial aid and nobody else let you use that money. You can only use it at the bookstore. And what I did was. I went out to PayPal and I said, Hey PayPal, why don't you allow my kids to buy? They're going to pay. I can tell you they're going to pay. They're going to get this money within the next three weeks. Why don't you allow my kids to use PayPal and then they'll pay you later. And PayPal was just starting with a service called pay me later.
[00:33:50] RON: Nice.
[00:33:52] EDWARD: So PayPal said, you know what? We're gonna support you. We're gonna work with you. We see what you're doing. And paper, [00:34:00] I think I was one of the first guys that integrate a bill me later to their website. And again, the kids were able to, instead of go buy their books at the school that we're able to come buy it from here. And PayPal was giving them six months. interest free To pay for the books and it was, it was fantastic. It was, it was just fantastic
[00:34:23] RON: oh yeah, that is that's some crazy stuff, man. Both stories were phenomenal, but it tells you why you're so successful because there's determination. And I know there's people that are like clamoring to know. How they can get involved with you. Like where can they find you? How can they get involved in this blockchain thing? Like what, what is, what is on the horizon that you can help people get involved with you?
[00:34:46] EDWARD: Yeah, well, they can go to our website, WW dot BPN capital group.io. They can find you find us also on the, on the social media. And we're going to be today. We have about [00:35:00] $2.7 billion worth of structures that we already signed paper off, and then we're going to be putting out in the near future. And they're going to be able to buy into those structures that we have helped clients put together. Sorry, put together. And the reality is. The first thing I would do is we do a quantitative risk analysis and then we hire a third party firm to do one. And we'll give you the one that the third, because we don't want you to think. Oh yeah, of course. The quantum analysis from BPN is going to say this a great investment because they're the one structuring it. No, we're going to show you the one that the third-party firm that has nothing to do with us. We'll do, and we'll let you decide. Is this an investment? I want to put my money on or not. And on structures that we go ahead and put together what I call the billionaire structure again on, on those deals. [00:36:00] Inequity. You'll see that you're coming in at 20%, you're getting 40%. And then you, you have that as an upside. You want to get out of the investment, which is what the current structure through a marketplace doesn't have. You could, you could sell your tokens six months, 12 months after you, you come in to the structure because as the project that bends the value of the token is going to increase right. So you can sell your tokens on any given moment. There's no restrictions, there's no limitations. And we're just kind of giving you the opportunity to sit at the table. Because back when I was a Quan, I w I always, and I learned this actually from someone in the family office space that told me, I found myself in the same position you are today. And I said, what do you do? He said, I created my own table you see, I was not allowed to sit at the table. I created my own table. I had a seat at the [00:37:00] table, but I wanted to welcome others at the table. And I couldn't cause I, I didn't have the say, what, what did I do? I created a new table where pretty much everyone can participate on and truly understand what they're putting their money on. I'll give you an example in the commercial mortgage backed security space. If you ask I will say a hundred percent professionals that are in the banking world or in the finance world, I will say about 75 to 80% of them are going to tell you, we are not a bar with a commercial mortgage backed security space, and we do not understand it. And mainly the guys don't really, really fully understand it are the guys that do risk analysis against it. Because again, I'm in bankers are there, they remember they are paid based on. And that's why we have 2008 habit. Cause you have people pushing your stuff that they were being paid based on how many loans are closed. They closed, right? It's like telling a [00:38:00] kid we're going to give you candy based on how many toys you break, what are they going to do? They're going to break all their toys because you just told them you're going to give them unlimited amount of candy based on the amount of toys they break is breaking toys. A good thing. Not really go ahead. they're going to break it cause you're going to give them candy. Every time. It was the same thing with the bankers. If you tell bankers we're going to give you bonuses based on how many loans you closed, what are they going to do? They're going to close loans. And unfortunately back then the credit rating agencies, a lot of them weren't even in the same building as the banks that we're underwriting the loans. They were really not looking at it. I get people telling me because in the Quan space, I will say able to get investors out of the marketing time to not lose a lot of money. And I get people telling me, oh, you are rocket scientists. You're so smart. You're this you're that I'm like, guys, that's not true. The only thing I did was look, I did my job. [00:39:00] You see, I was hired to do a job. I did my job. Right. That's it? Because there were some stuff that we found. With you, some of the files that we were working with with big banks. Okay. Now, when we looked at it, we just wanted it to cry. Right? That's how bad it was. It was, it was impossible to miss it. And then you got people say, oh, you are rockets. I am not, I'm not a rocket scientist for Christ's sake all I did was my job. I did what I was hired to do. I look, I alive what I was hired to analyze. And we do the same, every single structure that we put out, a BPM we'll look up the risks. Every investment has risk. Every single investment has risks, but when you like to know what the risks is, they want without sending anyone telling you this is a monkey would lipstick. We don't want a monkeywith lipstick. We'll want to show you excited. The Monkey without the lipstick this is how we look. Do you [00:40:00] want to invest or not.
[00:40:01] CORY: Edward, I've loved this conversation and I, and I'll tell you why Ron and I, we try to attract people in a way that, uh, if you're just about the money. We don't want to do business. Right? Like, and we're just in marketing, right? And so we want people that have a message that they want to share that impact people to help make people and make this world a better place. And everything about this conversation with you, it tells me that you lead. With a genuine desire to be upfront, be honest, help people be better, help welcome them to the table that you've created, which I love all of this. And so my last little question for you then was what do you, what advice do you give to people to leave? That way to whether it's being heart-centered or however you want to call it, like, how has that done for you and how, like, what said advice that you give people to assist? It's okay to lead with your heart. It's okay. To lead by being a good [00:41:00] person and cause that's exactly what I feel, everything that you're about. I feel like I want to go invest in VPN in that crypto, because now I understand that the, the person that is leading it. Is leading it for good cause. And not one of these, you know, any kind of scam, any kind of negative thing. Like you seem like you're leading from such the right place that I want to personally invest. So like, what's that advice that you give for people?
[00:41:29] EDWARD: So I can tell you that I have been very lucky in life because I am the youngest, my mother's side, they, the oldest in my mother's side and the youngest on my father's right. And I have, my oldest brother is 59. Okay. My youngest brother is 21. So as a middle child, I learned from all of my oldest brother's mistake. And at the same time at my mom's house, I had to be the leader. [00:42:00] How do I think I will say will to accomplish, to find the perfect medium to lead was by fully understanding that we are all living in borrowed time. And unfortunately, people think that money is everything that's not accurate, even though money helps you at the same time. If you're sick, there's nothing you're going to be able to do with that money. You see? So if you lead with the saying off, I want to leave a, an impact when my barrel time is over because we are, I like the analogy of the yogurt. I don't know if you have you guys ever heard of it all yogurts have an expiration date, any south side, you flip it, you look at it. There's an expiration date. We all, all human beings have an experience. We just have it inside. We don't know when it's going to come. And I always like to leave my life in a way that if tomorrow was my last day, even if I don't know it. [00:43:00] I could feel that I will leave in peace because I never did anything that will hurt, hurt someone else. Not only business. And a lot of people will say, yeah, but you're going to lose money if you do business that way, I don't want that money. Okay. That's not good money. Not all. Money is good. Okay. I'm the guy. And I can tell you this. Andpart of that battle that I mentioned to you. I had with that huge company was part of the reason I actually discover this. I am the guy that said no, to $50 million at 21 on a company blast books. That was making me no money. Okay. I was not rich. I was not poor. I was the guy that put together something that was made to help people. Okay. Right. Cause I didn't create blast books to make money. So when I will suffer and the number went up and up and up and after he got to a point of. [00:44:00] For Christ's sake. There's not really a number that will make me agree to what they were saying that were trying to buy from me because the terms within those terms that were things that I didn't agree with and that I wouldn't feel good, literally if I would have done it. So if you lead anything, it could be a company, it could be your family. It could be your friends relationship with the sense of you're, you know, you're living in barrel. And pretty much, yes. He may make you money now in the short term, but it's going to lead up impact to people's life. When it's going to affect them within a certain amount of time, then that money is not worth it. That's not money that you want to make. Okay. And it is sad that we are not living by the principle because at the end of the day, Generations from now, I may be forgotten, but something I did [00:45:00] may affect my future generations. And we are so selfish to not see that you see, I want to leave the world in a better place than I found it. Because at the end of the day I have kids, my kids will have kids and their kids will have kids. You see if you lead that way, I am telling you. I am telling you as a fact that you will leave the place, the world in a better place than you found. Cause you won't make decisions based on. A lot of people make business decisions based on how much money they're going to make. I don't do that. My decisions are based on first. What's the risk. And second, how is it going to impact society? That's really the message. And a lot of people will say, Hey, I'm too romantic about it. Or, or, or on extremis about it. Well, at the end of the day, if you know, we are all mortals, I'm a young guy still I'm 32 well, I can tell you I can die tomorrow [00:46:00] and that's what we don't get our society. Doesn't get that just because I'm young and I'm healthy. It doesn't mean I may not die tomorrow. I could get into a car accident tomorrow. And that's it. Last day, last time I saw my kids was the day before. That's the last thing my kids are gonna remember from their dadand if I did, something that three years later may affect my kids. I'm not there yet. It's going to affect them regardless. Right. And that's what we don't see. We have a lot of leaders out there that they lead and they think that their employees and their team work for them total opposite. Okay. I work for my team. You see, I have the pleasure to work for my team. I have the pleasure to wake every day and do something with a group of people that I enjoy doing it with. 99% of leaders, unfortunately, believe all they work for me. My [00:47:00] assistant works for me. My accountant works for me. My lawyer works for me. My compliance officer worked for me. That's not how I, that's not how I see my company. I have the pleasure of working with every single human being that has decided that they have a share interests with me and they want to join the journey. And five, 10 years from now, this may become a huge company and we all get to celebrate and say, oh my God, look at what we were able to do for humanity. Sharing is caring and it's an old saying, but not a lot of us do it. It's easy to say it very hard to do it. And I think that that's the secret when you lead with that. I think that. Pretty much is the secret to success. That's the secret sauce and isn't that so secret, it's just a lot of people are not willing to do it unfortunately.
[00:47:55] RON: So true. So true. And we appreciate your time today. We are [00:48:00] excited that you came on the show, amazing stories and yeah, your heart is exactly aligned with what we do and how we believe. So it was a pleasure chatting with you today. And we thank you for coming on the show.
[00:48:10] EDWARD: Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Cory. Thank you for having me. And again, I mean, anytime you want to do this, just let me know. And last thing I want to leave you with. I wrote a personal quote and the quote goes society. must embraced structural changes because things will never be what they were before you see, after things change. They won't come back. If you ask someone to go back to the typewriter what do you think they are are going to tell you
[00:48:39] RON: They are gonna laugh at you.
[00:48:41] EDWARD: We're not going back to no typewriter. Are you mad? Well, that's exactly it so I can tell you, you either get on the band wagon now get familiarized with there's a lot of phenomenal projects out there. Aside from hours event, there saw a lot of exciting [00:49:00] things that are currently being done and you want to participate. Blockchain is actually a very good way to participate. A lot of the people that are involved within the blockchain industry. We want everyone to participate. We are not just only talking to the dot. Literally the 1%. Okay. Even though we have access to the 1%, we don't want to cap it there. We want to have inclusion. So you must embrace a structural changes, guys. It's justit's part of evolution. You see, I'm not going to be every day. I'm a different person because every day I learn something you see, every single day I learned something new and people think they done. When they stop breathing, that's a total lie. That's when you are clinically dead. Okay. That's when a doctor says you're clinically dead, you die that day. You stop learning the day you stop learning. That's the day [00:50:00] you really you're dead and again, man, I just wanted to leave you with that. Well, it's a pleasure to be on the show, guys. Thank you for having me.
[00:50:08] RON: Thank you.
[00:50:09] CORY: Thank you, Edward. Definitely a blast and look forward to getting to know BPN more in the future.
[00:50:15] EDWARD: It sounds like a plan. Sounds like a plan. Thank you guys very much.
[00:50:18] CORY: All right, Ron, that was fun. That was a lot of education. Edward has some fun stories and through those stories, I'm guessing there's a takeaway or two that you've got for us.
[00:50:29] RON: I love it. It's about creating demand and adding value to whatever you do right. And he talked about the hot dog stand, right? His goal was sell a hot dog, but that's not how he focused. He wanted to create value, create an experience, brought in Domino's and created this whole thing. And he figured when they get hungry, they'll eat, but let's have some fun with it. So that was brilliant. The other takeaway is. Have a laser focus on what you want and go get it.
[00:50:57] CORY: Yeah. Yeah. It's man. There's huge. He had a [00:51:00] lot, he had a lot there. Like one thing that stuck with me was he made a comment, anything good takes determination. Right. And so like, and I just think about like any CEO, any business founder. They had to have had determination that end up with any kind of success. Cause they kept getting, you know, knocked down. Right. And we get back up as it, like any entrepreneur goes through this and, and then obviously the ethical, the lead by the heart being genuine, uh, I mean fits right in with everything that we're doing. And so for, for anybody that might be playing in the crypto world, Go check out BPN. It aligns with people doing things for the right reasons and the right way. So all the links will be in the show notes, definitely a blast having this conversation and, you know, always, it's always fun to have a first on the show. Right. So, all right. Thanks so much for watching, listening and being a part of everything. And we'll talk to you guys soon.
[00:51:56] RON: Take care guys