Offshoot: The Fident Capital Podcast

Offshoot: The Fident Capital Podcast

Offshoot is a passion project that stems, quite naturally, from my years of experience at Fident Capital. One of the best aspects of the gig is interacting with brilliant people on both the operator/borrower and investor/lender sides of transactions. I love the diversity of their viewpoints and experiencing the horsepower that’s behind their performance. I aim to give these experts a venue to share their knowledge and experience, build relationships, foster connections, and support real estate entrepreneurs. We talk shop on real estate and finance, and we talk personal performance, delving into daily routines, habits, and beliefs that underpin these individuals. I hope you enjoy the conversations.

  1. Aug 6

    Bill Douglas: Own your data or somebody else will.

    In this episode, Kevin chats with Bill Douglas, CEO of OpticWise, a data and digital infrastructure company for commercial real estate. Bill helps owners and operators stop treating their digital systems like scattered gadgets and start managing them like mission critical infrastructure. Bill calls it the triangle. The property manager runs the building, the asset manager runs the investment, the IT manager runs the office systems, and the building's networks, sensors and data sit in the middle belonging to nobody. Most buildings OpticWise audits are running more than ten networks when they need two. The rest is wasted CapEx on the way in and wasted OpEx for the life of the hold. Bill puts numbers on the opportunity. On a retrofit, if OpticWise can't find $300 per door per year of NOI, they don't take the job. On a new build, $600 is the baseline and $1,000 is a home run, on top of what gets saved by designing digital infrastructure alongside the structural and mechanical. In a market with no cap rate compression, no cheap debt and rising concessions, that's real value hiding in plain sight. The second half goes personal. Bill has managed multiple sclerosis for over 20 years and survived a ski accident that broke 13 bones, then came back to find his business had grown 25% while he was out. He talks about the half days he blocks off twice a week, the $100 he owes the company pool every time he touches work on vacation, and why the voice in your head is worth hearing but not believing.

    Bill Douglas: Own your data or somebody else will.

  2. Jun 17

    Shlomo Chopp: Complexity is the opportunity. Binary thinking is the trap.

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Shlomo Chopp, the Managing Partner of CASE, a distressed commercial real estate advisory and investment firm that runs about 90% advisory work and a small, highly selective book of opportunistic investments. Shlomo and his team are currently working on roughly 20 loans totaling more than $2 billion of debt, and he comes out of a family office with over 35 years of experience owning and operating about 70 properties across the country. He's a college dropout with no formal finance training who taught himself structured finance by cracking open CMBS loan documents during the 2010 downturn, and has since invested in, structured, or advised on nearly $5 billion of commercial real estate. His role is fundamentally one of translation, bridging the gap between the language of the operator and the language of the lender. The conversation covers why complexity is where the opportunity lives, why binary thinking is the trap most owners fall into, how to argue the inputs rather than the outputs in a workout, and the rolling consequences of not reading your loan documents.

    Shlomo Chopp: Complexity is the opportunity. Binary thinking is the trap.

  3. Jun 1

    Aleks Gampel: We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're just trying to make it spin faster.

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Aleks Gampel, co-founder of Cuby Technologies, a hardware and software company that's built a completely new type of home construction. With 243 people across three continents and a million engineering hours invested, Cuby has developed a mobile micro factory: a containerized, plug-and-play factory in a box that ships to any market and manufactures single-family homes with unskilled labor at roughly $100 a square foot in 30 days. Aleks walks us through how Cuby has built the antithesis to traditional modular construction by localizing manufacturing rather than centralizing it. He gets into why construction is fundamentally a logistics problem, how 168 shipping containers and 600 SKUs come together on a 6.5-acre site, and why the company chose to manufacture its own windows, framing, and sandwich panels rather than relying on third-party suppliers. He also gets into the economics of the mobile micro factory at roughly $25 million all-in, why Cuby targets regional home builders who can't compete with the Lennars and DR Hortons of the world, and how the company bridges two capital worlds. Venture capital funds the platform while infrastructure equity and debt fund each factory as its own SPV. On the business side, Aleks shares why most startups fail on partnership dynamics, what drew him to a problem nobody has cracked, and why solving for housing sits at the base of Maslow's hierarchy. His take on building inside a conservative industry is straightforward: don't try to reinvent the wheel, just figure out how to make it spin faster.

    Aleks Gampel: We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're just trying to make it spin faster.

  4. Mar 26

    Derek Myron: It's not what you make, it's what you keep.

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Derek Myron, Managing Partner of Centura Wealth Advisory, a San Diego-based registered investment advisor specializing in ultra-high-net-worth families. Since founding Centura in 2014, Derek and his team of 62 professionals have grown to $1.4 billion in assets under management. Derek walks us through how Centura has built a practice that goes well beyond traditional asset management into comprehensive tax planning and financial engineering. He gets into how sophisticated strategies around index replication, hedging, and tangible property regulations can materially change the tax picture for high income earners, and why that planning conversation is fundamentally different from what most advisors offer. He also gets into how RIAs like Centura think about allocating into real estate, where private market investments fit within a UHNW portfolio, and why real estate remains a core tool in the tax planning conversation, not just an asset class. On the business side, Derek shares how he thinks about building a firm, designing accountability around roles before people, extracting genuine core values from top performers, and why he prioritizes his team's growth above everything else. His advice for entrepreneurs is straightforward: stay humble, find good mentors, and build a peer network that functions like a real board of directors.

    Derek Myron: It's not what you make, it's what you keep.

  5. 12/11/2025

    Jay Rollins: People first, deal second - building platforms, not just portfolios

    Kevin chats with Jay Rollins about his 40-year journey building and selling four companies, from RTC-era distressed acquisitions to growing JCR Capital to $1.6 billion in AUM before selling to Walker Dunlop in 2018. Now Jay's doing something different with Canopy Real Estate Partners—scouting real estate operators between 35 and 45 who've proven they can do deals but have never recruited institutional capital. His pitch: let Canopy put discretionary capital in your hands, teach you fund management, and help you build a platform, taking no equity in your company beyond what's earned at the project level. Jay discusses how he's matched his fund product to investor appetite with a structure that behaves like a real estate bond—6% current return, four-year duration, 18% at exit, with only 50-55% leverage—designed for LPs tired of "trust me, I'll call you in five years." The conversation covers why having discretionary capital in the middle market is a massive competitive advantage, how proper promote structures and vesting drive team alignment, and why basic interpersonal skills like looking someone in the eye and remembering their name will put you ahead of 95% of the younger generation.

    Jay Rollins: People first, deal second - building platforms, not just portfolios

  6. 11/13/2025

    Mark Roppolo: Two deals a year when nothing pencils, the power of patient capital allocation

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Mark Roppolo of HFS Capital Partners about operating in the space between family office and traditional fund. Mark explains how this structure allows HFS to maintain unusual discipline—sometimes doing just two deals a year when market conditions don't warrant more. The conversation covers their approach to sourcing deals exclusively through operating partners rather than marketed opportunities, why they underwrite the sponsor as much as the asset itself, and how they've deployed $280MM across over 70 deals without a single failed capitalization. Mark shares his philosophy that success in real estate comes from tenacity and deal flow rather than being the smartest investor, discusses the accountability framework he learned at the Naval Academy, and explains why staying closely connected to operating partners through daily conversations drives better investment decisions than spreadsheet analysis alone.

    Mark Roppolo: Two deals a year when nothing pencils, the power of patient capital allocation

  7. 10/09/2025

    Tony Yousif: I Haven't Asked for Business in 10 Years - Lessons from Distressed Real Estate

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Tony Yousif, Executive Managing Director of SVN, about building a nationwide distressed real estate advisory platform through relationships rather than transactions. Tony shares his journey from working at a convenience store and borrowing from his now-wife's salary to survive, through 2.5 years of 100-hour weeks before his first $25,000 commission check. The conversation explores how he positioned himself as a "conductor of the orchestra" between lenders and local market experts rather than just a broker, working with institutions like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Fannie Mae to navigate troubled assets. Tony explains why he operates as a farmer rather than a hunter—planting seeds and nurturing relationships instead of chasing deals—and how this approach has given him the freedom to fire clients and walk away from $80,000 monthly retainers when relationships aren't mutually respectful. They discuss the difference between relationship brokers and transaction brokers, why banks' "extend and pretend" strategy looked genius through the last crisis, and Tony's philosophy on harmony versus balance across the three circles of life: business, friends and family, and self.

    Tony Yousif: I Haven't Asked for Business in 10 Years - Lessons from Distressed Real Estate

  8. 07/17/2025

    Jeff Pensiero: "Baldface Lodge: 36,000 acres of Pure Conviction”

    On this episode, Kevin chats with Jeff Pensiero, founder of Baldface Lodge, a legendary backcountry snowcat skiing operation in British Columbia's Selkirk Range that many consider the pinnacle of snowboarding lodges. Jeff shares his 26-year journey starting with $40,000 borrowed off a stated-income mortgage, bootstrapping the operation from a canvas dome and single snowcat into a world-class facility with 3,000 people on the waiting list and wait times stretching 8 years or longer. The conversation explores how falling in love with his wife Paula led him to Nelson, BC and sparked the vision for the lodge, his connections with snowboarding legend Craig Kelly and even the Foo Fighters, and the reality of reinvesting every dollar back into the business for 17 years with little to no personal income. Jeff opens up about the realities of entrepreneurial commitment, his refusal to accept failure, how high standards and strong vision helped weather countless challenges, and the role trusted mentors played in cutting the path forward.

    Jeff Pensiero: "Baldface Lodge: 36,000 acres of Pure Conviction”
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About

Offshoot is a passion project that stems, quite naturally, from my years of experience at Fident Capital. One of the best aspects of the gig is interacting with brilliant people on both the operator/borrower and investor/lender sides of transactions. I love the diversity of their viewpoints and experiencing the horsepower that’s behind their performance. I aim to give these experts a venue to share their knowledge and experience, build relationships, foster connections, and support real estate entrepreneurs. We talk shop on real estate and finance, and we talk personal performance, delving into daily routines, habits, and beliefs that underpin these individuals. I hope you enjoy the conversations.

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