In The Lab with Ruben Kanya

How do you build a brand in the STR community, stand out, and make your guests feel even more welcome? This episode, I have the pleasure of stepping into the lab with my man, John Hildebrand, who is all about investing in short term vacation homes away from home while building a  brand in the STR community. His story and approach to build an Airbnb business around an established brand and rep...

Ryan Webster is a multifamily investor and operator. Before he began working in real estate, Ryan enjoyed the opportunity to build things and sell them off. But then he reached a turning point in his mid-life journey (a crisis, if you will); something was still missing, and that time with his family. In our path to provide and pursue excellence, it's easy to lose sight of why you are doing it in t...

Sometimes we are pulled in many directions when pursuing our goals. If you have a lot of projects on your plate, you need to find the most efficient way to work so that you can stay sane and maintain momentum. Don’t let the overwhelm break you, instead break all your goals down into manageable chunks. I mentioned a book that teaches the importance of mapping out your NEXT 15 MOVES. After all, if y...

This episode is to remind us all in our respective labs that often we are closer to our goals and dreams than we think. Most importantly it’s important for us to remember that on the other side of our goals exists a resource, person, insight, idea or piece of information that we don’t know that will help us get over the huddle. It’s important that we face this opportunity starting with WHO not HOW...

As short-term rental hosts, we are no stranger to mistakes. Humans make mistakes, it's normal but when they keep happening over and over again, then we're not being careful enough. Even though some mistakes may not be your fault, there is still something that you contributed to whatever happened - and ultimately, these choices are yours and yours alone to shoulder; nobody else's. Not to punish you...

What is the difference between staying in Airbnbs vs staying at hotels? And if you stay at both, can you take some elements from both that work in both places? Typically, it's all about an experience that is convenient. Think about who your customer is and what they're looking for. Hotels usually have a concierge that makes guests feel taken care of plus room service and valet. An Airbnb host migh...

Travis Smith is the Founder and CEO of Tribevest, a platform that makes it easy to invest as a group and do deals together in as little as 48 hours. He started his career with Morgan Stanley but realized the most direct path to wealth and financial freedom wasn’t as an individual. The path is as a group, as a tribe. Travis is obsessed with building a platform that standardizes, streamlines, and ul...

Nancy is a physician, eye surgeon, and real estate investor. As a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School, she currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two young daughters. As an ophthalmologist, she helps people see better so they can regain their identity, dignity, and vision for the future. Nancy started investing in real estate to create passive income, hoping to...

Bailey is a Real Estate Investor, a young budding Entrepreneur, and a college drop-out. He started his career at just the ripe age of 20 while studying, taking calls and reservations in the middle of class. He began to ask ‘why?’ when he’s earning so much already. Bailey was one semester away from graduating college then he decided to drop out. It’s an incredible story. No one approved, especially...

This episode is brought to you by our team at InvestedTalent.com a sponsor of the new amazon best seller book: Hospitable Hosts. Invested Talent is the same agency Ruben founded that produces The Real Estate Experiment show, we are not only honored to have sponsored this book but we are also excited to launch the Hospitable Host podcast coming soon. Today, the team has the pleasure of producing an...

Heather Dreves is a fund manager that specializes in private real estate funding. She has been in the industry for over seventeen years and has raised over $300 million dollars in her time with Secured Investment Corp, for investors for dozens of different projects.  She believes in building relationships with both investors and real estate developers, which is one of the reasons her fund has...

In this episode, we are repurposing everything in the lab including this episode. We’ve used the word ‘repurpose’ SO many times, it has become one of our core values that we share with experiment nation and our clients at investedtalent.com and today we have the pleasure of having Hani Mourra who shares these same core values with us that he went as far as creating a well known product to help con...

This week in the lab we have no other than our very own practitioner Dr. Rachel Gainsbrugh, a pharmacist by day and Short Term Rental Investor by night. Dr. Rachel cracked the code to generate income without having to punch a time-clock, work overnights or 14-hour shifts. By day she is a trained hospital informatics pharmacist. By night she is the owner, with her husband Jesse Gainsbrugh, of a gro...

If you know anything about me, you know as your host (Ruben Kanya) I love experiments and one experiment that I've fallen in love within the last 2 years is the short term rental/ vacation rental industry also known as the #airbnb space. Here's a summary of my infatuation for the short term/ vacation rental space: 1. I've interviewed over a dozen owners and operators in the #airbnb #vacationrental...

Chad Griffiths visits us in the lab to experiment commercial industrial real estate investment and give a quick look at retail properties. He gives us an idea of what to expect when investing in industrial real estate and the ways it can provide headache-free tenants based on the various unconventional models that industrial real estate provides in addition to high returns. Working as an industria...

Lauren Cohen joins us in the lab to experiment immigration and international investing — as an international lawyer and cross-border expert. Lauren's personal experience with her then-husband’s deportation launched her flight into investing across borders, using real estate as a tool to help investors legally migrate to the United States. In this journey, Lauren has become the president and founde...

We’re in the lab again to uncover Tonya Weathers’ multiple learning journeys — what we call experiments in our lab to evidently get to her investment end goal of becoming a multifamily syndicator. Tonya leveraged one property to another to get to her end strategy which is what we reinforce and encourage you to do in your own lab. Tonya’s mission has been to break the generational curse and has bee...

GUEST SUMMARY: We’re back in the lab with ex-Army Officer Brent Bowers who left the life of deployment to become the Land Shark that he is today. After more than 8 years of service and a baby on the way, he felt like he needed to spend more time with his family and experimented in the world of real estate. He started with rentals until he found a podcast, much like this one, that opened his eyes t...

GUEST SUMMARY We are back in our respective lab with the man that helped us build it. John Jonas is the reason why this episode is even possible and has been produced in a collective effort by our team sourced from onlinejobs.ph. John Jonas is the founder of onlinejobs.ph – the job board for virtual workers in the Philippines. He discusses his journey into growing his businesses by outsourcing tas...

GUEST SUMMARY TJ steps into our lab while having multiple experiences in a lab of his own as a mechanical engineer turned rental-preneur. TJ’s short term rental journey started from working in the oil and gas industry as a mechanical engineer to real estate, using data, the numbers,  and other tactics to predict STR and arbitrage opportunities, and finding his niche in the industry before ven...

GUEST SUMMARY In the lab we have Stephanie Walter, CEO of Erbe Wealth. She’s a capital raiser, syndicator, real estate investor, business owner, and financial educator who recently retired and sold her insurance agency of 16 years. Stephanie is able to share with Experiment Nation a unique perspective having worked in the corporate world, been a business owner and having real estate syndication re...

In this episode, Ruben discusses strategic branding and how to build a brand around your niche. The best thing you can do for your brand is to be very niched and make it very clear who you are serving, understanding their obstacles and desires.  If you're looking to build a brand and are hesitant of niching down with the concern that you're alienating other prospects — embrace this resistance...

GUEST SUMMARY Today Johnny Wolff joins us in the lab. A real estate entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of HomeRoom Coliving shares with Experiment Nation how you can turn the challenges you face in your real estate journey into business opportunities, using data analysis to figure out your next move, and solving the problem of getting your investment properties rented with technology. Homeroom Coliving...

GUEST SUMMARY We brought Mark Podolsky in the lab, a former investment banker turned into what people refer to as ‘The Land Geek’ share with Experiment Nation how you can build a profitable business from dirt. Often in the lab, we’ve had investors discuss multiple real estate models built on land, but Mark takes us back to the core foundation asset in real estate —  land. You’ve heard the say...

GUEST SUMMARY This week Phil Capron joins us in the lab as a navy veteran, Founder of Mission First Capital — which provides investment opportunities for veterans. As the author of "Your VA Loan: and How It Can Make You a Millionaire", Phil not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk having been in the same shoes as a veteran's face today. He purchased his first home in 2010 using a VA loan whi...