The Collective Genius Podcast

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Collective Genius Q2 event marking the debut of CG Legacy, the new commercial mastermind room, host Leon Barnes sits down with Dan Costantino, a Pittsburgh-based multifamily operator and hard money lender who scaled to a roughly 660-unit portfolio and runs his own debt fund. Dan came up through trucking and logistics sales before flipping his first house for...

Jose Luis Morales is a first-generation entrepreneur and Collective Genius member of five years who scaled from doing 100 real estate deals a year as an agent to running a diversified investment operation spanning wholesaling, flipping, ADUs, and a 25-unit apartment building in Ventura County, California. Raised in his family's Oxnard cowboy store, he built a 350,000-follower TikTok presence and a...

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Collective Genius Q2 event in Oceanside, California, the host sits down with  Kelli Garrett , one of the standout new members entering the community through CG Legacy, the commercial mastermind founded by Tim Bratz that recently came under the CG umbrella. Kelli is a Charleston-based lender and investor with nearly 27 years in the business, and she's about a...

Brad Bone is a longtime Collective Genius member who, alongside his twin brother Justin, has been investing in real estate since 2015 and built a wholesaling operation in Jacksonville, Florida while running it remotely from California. He's also the founder of River X, an AI platform that helps real estate investors automate follow up and appointment setting through their CRM. This episode covers...

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Q2 event in Oceanside, California, Tim Bratz joins host Leon Barnes to announce the merger of his Legacy Family commercial real estate mastermind with Collective Genius, creating a new division called CG Legacy. Tim built Legacy Family into one of the most respected commercial and multifamily masterminds in the country while simultaneously scaling his own po...

Aaron Gaunt is a Navy veteran turned firefighter turned full-time real estate investor who runs a wholesale operation in Southern California's Inland Empire — one of the most competitive markets in the country. He went from a $22,000 assignment fee on his first deal in 2019 to building a laser-focused wholesaling business that pushes more direct-to-seller inventory than almost anyone in his local...

  In this CG Live episode recorded at the CG Select and Elevate event in Clearwater Beach, Florida, Zach Betters joins the host for a deep conversation on new construction investing. Zach and his wife Stephanie have built their Charlotte, North Carolina business through multiple iterations — from rentals to flipping to wholesaling — before making a deliberate shift into new build construction arou...

In this episode, host Leon welcomes back Bobby Triplett, Senior Vice President of Renovations at Offerpad, for a deep dive into what it actually takes to scale construction operations across multiple real estate markets. Bobby leads a renovation team spanning 25 markets nationwide, backed by 1,300 to 1,400 licensed, bonded, and vetted trades and suppliers, and has helped 64 different investors com...

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Collective Genius Select and Elevate event at the JW Marriott in Clearwater Beach, Florida, Brandon McCurdy of Sharper Business Solutions sits down after leading back-to-back masterclasses on KPIs alongside Amanda Dean and David Richter. Brandon does fractional CMO work for large real estate teams spending $150,000 plus per month on marketing, and he has hel...

Dan Underwood is a Georgia-based real estate investor and CG member who has spent the last decade methodically transitioning from high-volume single family wholesaling to a commercial portfolio spanning apartments, self-storage, mobile home parks, and an RV park. What started with a $17,000 down payment on a rough first flip has compounded into a multi-million dollar commercial portfolio built ent...

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Q1 2026 Collective Genius Premier and CEO event in Dallas, Texas, Phil Vaughan joins host Leon to share how he built a South Jersey wholesaling operation doing a couple hundred deals a year and now pushing toward $5–6 million in revenue. Phil has been a Collective Genius member for nearly five years and brings to the table one of the most remarkable origin s...

Dek Bake brings an undrafted mentality to real estate wholesaling in Southern California. Since 2020, his team has completed over 2,500 wholesale deals across LA County, Orange County, Riverside County, and San Bernardino County, with years hitting 500+ transactions annually. This episode walks through how a former NFL defensive lineman built one of California's most competitive wholesaling operat...

In this CG Live episode recorded at the Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, Pat Martin sits down with host Leon to break down how his company Pro Source Home Buyers went from a bruising 2022 to 650 closed transactions last year across Knoxville, Chattanooga, and the Tri-Cities, markets most investors would never expect to produce that kind of volume. Pat has been investing for 15 years and spent the years...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, host Leanne Barnes sits down with Amanda Dean—fractional operator, CSO coach at Sharper Business Solutions, and one of the most experienced team builders in the real estate investing world. Amanda spent 18 years at Tennessee Homebuyers growing from a two-person garage startup to one of Nashville's most recognized home buying operations, sitting in...

In this CG Live episode recorded at our Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with CG Premier member Dave Janis — a Boulder, Colorado-based real estate investor, former 18-year real estate agent, and luxury new construction developer doing six new builds a year. Dave is a different kind of operator, and his presentation brought a perspective that most high-volume wholesalers and flippers rarely he...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, host Leanne Barnes sits down with Casey Ryan—born and raised in Las Vegas, engineering grad, and one of the most operationally disciplined investors in the CG community. Casey's story starts where a lot of great ones do: grinding without a roadmap. From flipping Jeep Cherokees in college to running 110-plus house flips a year on a brutal split with...

In this CG Live episode recorded at our Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with CG Premier member Andrew Jobe, a Houston-based real estate investor doing over 100 deals a year alongside his partner J.R. Reid. Andrew presented on one of the most costly — and most overlooked — parts of the real estate investing business: what happens after you get the contract signed. We dig into how unmet seller...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, host Leanne Barnes sits down with Josh Stech—Stanford-educated entrepreneur, CG founding member, and one of the most prolific builders in the real estate investing space. Josh's journey reads like a masterclass in spotting white space: from fixing and flipping in Las Vegas, to co-founding Lending Home and scaling it to over 15% national market shar...

In this CG Live episode recorded at our Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with CG Premier member Ryan Weimer — a Boise, Idaho-based real estate investor who signed 200 deals in 2025 and then discovered he lost nearly 1,000 more. His main stage presentation stopped the room, and for good reason: the data he brought was something most investors are too afraid to look at. Ryan walks through exact...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, host Leanne Barnes sits down with leadership coach and longtime CG collaborator Annie Yatch—founder of Northstar Leadership—for a conversation that goes well beyond the typical real estate investing playbook. Annie brings a uniquely powerful background: a counterterrorism master's from Georgetown, work with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and year...

In this CG Live episode recorded at our Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with CG Premier member Shadi Tamimi, a Central Florida-based real estate investor doing roughly 100 deals a year through wholesaling and flipping. Shadi recently presented in one of our breakout rooms on a topic that doesn't get nearly enough attention — fallout rate — and shares what he uncovered when his team went look...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, I sit down with Ryan Haywood—longtime CG member, real estate investor, and author of  From Commission to Capital —for one of the most personal and relatable conversations we've had on this show. Ryan shares how he went from managing Foot Locker stores and running a collections call center to closing 115 wholesale deals in his very first year of rea...

In this CG Live episode recorded at our Q1 event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with longtime CG member and Top Female Founders Inc 500 honoree Stephanie Betters — a real estate investor, operator, and founder of Left Main CRM. Stephanie shares what she's observed across two-plus days of facilitation and main stage sessions, including the consistent theme emerging from top operators: deep operationa...

In this episode of the Collective Genius Podcast, I sit down with Bryan Sekine—CEO and co-founder of Fox and Owl Marketing, a specialized SEO agency built exclusively for real estate investors. Bryan's path to becoming one of the go-to experts for organic search in this industry is one of the most unconventional stories we've had on the show: it starts with sushi knives in Oklahoma City and ends w...

In this CG Live episode from our Premier and CEO event in Dallas, Texas, I sit down with longtime CG member  Gino Palomba , a high-performing operator who built a seven-figure real estate business while still in college—and is now running it remotely from Italy. Gino shares how his entrepreneurial roots, relentless drive, and willingness to adapt have allowed him to scale through both the easy mar...