Episode 65: Fractionalized Real Estate Investing and Blockchain Technology Ft: Laura Fortey of REITIUM
GUEST:
Laura Fortey is a real estate powerhouse with a knack for turning properties into profit. She's a seasoned pro when it comes to buying, managing, renovating, and selling her own investments, she's also dabbled in REITs, MICs and Private Equity. She's a tech-savvy entrepreneur, with years of experience helping startups and small businesses grow from the ground up. This combination of skills inspired her to co-found REITIUM, a revolutionary real estate crowdfunding platform that makes it easy for anyone to invest in private equity with as little as $100. As a leader in the fintech industry, Laura is passionate about financial literacy and empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs. Plus, she's always on the lookout for opportunities to mentor and invest in female-led businesses.
“Blockchain has not seen its day yet…”
THE EPISODE:
Laura and Ashley discuss how startups and tech companies are reimagining how regular people can buy and invest in real estate. They also unpack how forward thinking companies can use web3 technology to future-proof their processes and infrastructures. REITIUM, described as the “Kickstarter for real estate”, currently uses blockchain to store sensitive data and to enable their users to buy and sell fractionalized equity ownership on their secondary marketplace. Are there other capabilities they hope to turn on with this tech in the future? Absolutely. In this episode, Laura shares some of the challenges of navigating a nuanced regulatory environment when bringing something new and unchartered to market. The ladies also brainstorm how AI may revolutionize real estate investment strategies moving forward. Host Ashley Smith has an extensive real estate background in Canada as a Realtor and a governance leader in the professional sector. For her, this was a particularly fun conversation as, in her opinion, little has changed in the industry over the last several decades, and she’s excited to explore opportunities outside of status quo practices and business models.
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GUEST: Laura Fortey
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GUEST COMPANY: REITIUM
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NOTE: This transcript is powered by AI and may not be 100% accurate:
People come up to me and say, this
is the first time I've ever owned property.
I never thought I would be able to
do this, and now I've done it.
We kind of like to see ourselves
as the Kickstarter for real estate.
Retium is a real estate investment platform.
We are a tech company and we created
a way for anybody to invest fractionally.
We use the crowdfunding model
and it's fractional ownership.
So you own a portion of the property.
I think it comes down to hope and participation
and it gives people that pride of ownership.
You.
Welcome to season two of from the Blockchain, where
we speak to today's most innovative entrepreneurs and thought
leaders to impact the true potential of smart contract
technology, Web Three and the digital frontier.
I'm your host, Ashley Smith from Fame Lady
Squad, and I'm thrilled to have you join
today's top tier community of forward Thinking Trailblazers.
We're here to foster a culture of idea
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Don't forget to subscribe, share and
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Oh, and please note that this podcast is
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All righty, everybody. Enjoy the show.
I'm so excited to be here today on from
the Blockchain with my friend Laura Forte from Ritium.
I hope I said it right, she
will correct me if I'm wrong again.
For those who are listening, I'm
in studio in Vancouver, Canada.
Super excited to meeting more local entrepreneurs
who are blazing trails throughout the country
and soon into the US. It sounds like.
So today we're talking about real estate and
blockchain technology and some of the possible intersections
and also just new business models and new
ways for people to invest in residential real
estate and other types of real estate.
For those who don't know, I do have
a real estate background, so I do.
Before I introduce Laura want to give a little context?
Because we might nerd out on the real estate side,
and then I may need to kind of get my
way back on track to make sure we're talking about.
Topic that our listeners today are here wanting to
listen about, which is web three and some of
the new innovation that's happening in the space.
For those of you who don't know, I've been
a realtor for 16 years or so in Vancouver,
Canada, not practicing so much these days, but it
was actually my involvement in the profession that prompted
me to want to learn about the technology.
I've sat on industry boards since 2011 or 2012 or
so and soon realized that blockchain technology is one of
the things that as a sector we probably want to
keep our eyes on, keep the finger on the pulse,
see what's going to happen, how it may add new
opportunities to the public and consumers.
So anyways, for that reason I'm
super excited to speak to Laura.
I'm actually speaking later today to somebody else
who's also in the real estate space.
Totally different concepts.
So people are building everybody.
It doesn't matter where crypto is.
But Laura, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I really appreciate you being here.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing great, yeah.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for having me in studio.
It's always a nice change post pandemic when we can hang
out again and get off zoom and be in person.
IRL.
So you're a multifaceted entrepreneur, you've done
a lot of things in your past.
Before we dive into what you're working on today,
why don't you give us a little history of
what you've done prior to say, 2023? Wow. Okay. Yeah.
So post university, lived around the
world, did all that crazy stuff.
In my twenty s and thirty s I had my own companies.
Basically when Facebook and YouTube and all of those
started in around the 2006 seven, I had an
online company, so literally sold digital products online, learned
all about the ins and outs behind the scenes
and ended up exiting that company and then created
my own marketing agency from there.
Then I came back to Canada, lived abroad for
about ten years, moved back to Canada, said no
to Toronto, sorry, Ontario people, but the West Coast
is the best coast for me.
So I moved to BC about seven years ago and then
started the company about five and a half years ago.
So we should speak a little bit, I think, about the
birth of the company retium, and partly because I think it's
important for folks to recognize this is not you guys, you
and your co founder hopping on the bandwagon.
With all of the excitement that's been around Web Three
over the last few years, why don't you tell us
a bit about why you founded the company?
What problem were you looking to solve?
Yeah, so I broke the golden rule of real
estate and sold my holdings when I moved to
BC, and I just couldn't ever get back in.
So it's such a problem that so many people have,
especially young people, they don't really have even the hope
of buying anymore, so they live a different lifestyle.
They spend money on lates and avocado toast, as goes
the joke, live around the world, and that's awesome.
And I always say, keep doing that lifestyle, but also just
start building as much as you can in a smaller way.
And we all know that real estate is like, safe and
stable for the most part, and people really want to get
in, no matter where you live in the world.
Everybody knows that getting into real estate is something
that they can actually start building their wealth.
So truly, it came out of my own pain of
selling my properties now, not being able to get back
in, living in Vancouver and talking to everybody else that's
out there that's going through the same thing.
So really, when I met my business
partner, we bonded over real estate.
He's a realtor, and his side of the
story goes that he made some of his
clients a million dollars fixing and flipping.
And he went to family dinner and told
his mom, and she was really excited, and
she said, okay, son, here's $30,000.
Go make me those same returns
that you made for your clients.
And he's like, Well, I can't
really do anything with $30,000.
So she goes to church and she gets six friends
together, and they all come up with 30,000 each.
And she says, okay, we've got six of us together now.
You can go buy us something.
And he's like, that light bulb moment of they're all
in their 70s, nobody's going to lend them a mortgage,
but everybody has a little bit of money, so how
can we pool it together so people can participate?
Because that's what it's about.
It's getting in, being able to participate.
And then you can make your own decisions
and choices with growing your wealth, keeping buying
more, or selling, or whatever the case is.
I think that's the most pain point
is that people can't even participate. Yeah.
For those listening who are not from Vancouver,
the housing affordability challenges here are real.
But I realize that's also something that we
see all across Canada and all across the
United States, especially over the last few years.
Housing affordability crisis is everywhere and folks who are
not able to get in feel left behind.
And every year that passes, it seems to be worse.
And part of the problem is how
do you get that down payment, right?
Even folks who earn a decent income and could probably
support mortgage payments with a bit of stress, perhaps just
that down payment is usually a tough thing to do
if you don't have maybe the bank of mom and
dad or something like that to dig into.
So tell us about Retium and what it does.
Yeah, so the answer to this issue is that
we decided to find a way how can we
allow everybody to get in for a small number.
So we brought it down to as
little as $100 so you can participate.
So this is investment real estate.
You don't live at the property,
you don't go to the property.
It's strictly an investment.
So it's hands off because that's the other piece
is like when people get a property, then they're
like, oh, now I have to be a landlord.
That is a part time or full time job in itself.
And people don't fully understand that.
So having an investment property
that you're completely hands off.
So Retium is a real estate investment platform.
We are a tech company and we created
a way for anybody to invest fractionally.
We use the crowdfunding model
and it's fractional ownership.
So you own a portion of the property and
there may be rental dividends depending on the deal.
And you can actually then also get
your appreciation when you decide to sell
whatever, how many ever years later.
And every deal is completely different.
So it's baked into the deal, like how long you
need to stay in for what returns there could be.
And you can see all of that before you invest.
So you as the investor, get to pick
and choose what properties you invest into.
And so I think for those who maybe are
a little bit familiar with the real estate landscape,
that in and of itself is perhaps a value
proposition compared to say, buying into a REIT. Right.
So maybe you can for those listening, is
it possible to kind of give a very
high level overview of just the difference of
what that might look like for prospective investors?
Yeah, so we're talking about the average person here.
So 95% of the population is not
accredited, so they're the retail investor.
And so when you're talking about a REIT,
it's going to be a public REIT.
There's often managers and Bloated, salaries.
And when anything goes public, it costs a lot of
money and a lot of us know, like, if we
got into apple before it went public, we would have
probably been multi millionaires or billionaires now.
So in the private market, there's a potential for
a lot of uptick that you don't see when
it gets to the private market as high.
And so when we look at private equity,
which is what we're talking about, you actually
have the ability to pick and choose.
A lot of times REITs are a pool of properties that
maybe it's something that goes against what you believe in.
Maybe part of your money is invested into like,
oil and gas or something that goes against what
you want to actually be investing in.
So with us, you could pick and choose, and
it's like, okay, I really like this neighborhood or
this hotel, or I love self storage, or I
like the idea of this thing over here.
Or maybe you just look at ROI and you're like, I don't
really care what it is, but I need at least 10% ROI.
So you can actually decide based
on your own investment thesis.
And if you don't even know what these words mean,
teaching financial literacy is something that we are really excited
about, too, because most people in their twenty s, thirty
s, forty s, and fifty s and beyond don't even
know what a lot of this stuff is.
So it goes over our heads and we just ignore it
and we don't know where to look it up and investigate.
So teaching financial literacy is a big part
of what we're here to do as well. That's awesome.
And I'll remind myself later, but I'm sure
we'll put some links in the show notes
so you can find access to resources.
And we mentioned at the top of the show, that not
financial advice, et cetera, but really what we want to do
here is unpack what the opportunities look like and the types
of things that are happening that are exciting.
And I do think for the average
person, being able to explore these opportunities
is very interesting because it's very accessible.
So maybe you can give us a high level
overview of what might an average investor do?
What would their process be if they were
thinking about participating in something on your platform?
Yeah, so we kind of like to see
ourselves as the Kickstarter for real estate.
If you don't know Kickstarter, GoFundMe,
these are like crowdfunding platforms.
So we are the tech.
So when you go to Kickstarter or GoFundMe, you
see all the other deals that are listed there.
Maybe you want to invest in a certain
backpack or something else, a certain startup company.
So we do the same thing, but for real estate.
So we are a platform and we pre vet the deals.
So we have an investment committee.
They look through the deals, they do some of the
underwriting, and they decide, is this a viable product?
Has this company been in business
for X number of years?
Have they done this before.
So we only bring on issuers who this is
what they do for a know, they've got experience
and so we do pre vet the deals.
But as an investor it's always up to you
as well what you want to be investing into.
So literally go on the platform,
see the list of properties.
Maybe you live in BC and you want to
invest in Ontario because maybe you're from there, like
me, and you don't want to live there.
You don't want to go there, manage it, but you
want to invest because you know that Hamilton, Ontario is
up and coming or whatever neighborhoods are available.
So you would actually go and look
at whatever you would like to invest.
Mean, it's our vision that we would actually have
in the future deals all over the world.
So let's say you're from India and your
home country and you want to invest in
your home country, but you live in Canada.
So the goal would be for us to
have places globally where people can actually invest
and maybe you can outline just what type
of investments can retail investors make.
Yeah, so we look at anything that is investable, right?
So it could be, let's say,
like an airbnb style property.
So it could be a single family condo, but it's maybe
a short term rental, so it's more of a higher ROI.
Could be a hotel.
We love self storage.
Could be like a car wash, something
that is going to generate income.
And we really like recession proof things as well.
That's an interesting topic in and of itself, I'd love to
dive in, but that's where I'll wait for another day.
Get nerdy on that.
So what type of money can retail
investors put into these types of things?
Yeah, so we only accept fiat, not
to be confused for anything else.
So right now we're regulated from BC to Ontario
and so obviously Canadian dollars, but the minimum buy
in is $100 and it depends on what province
you're in, what the maximums are. I see.
So we are regulated, we
do follow the crowdfunding regulation.
And so in BC for example, per deal,
you can put a maximum of $2,500 and
then to a 7500 per year maximum, right.
Ontario is a little bit more, they seem
to allow people there to invest a little
bit more, but that's the basics of it.
So minimum 100, maximum 2500 per deal. Right.
And so I guess what I wanted to get
out there was just to showcase that this is
not necessarily for folks who have a large savings
account, although those folks might be interested as well.
This is something that the everyday person can explore
and see what opportunities there might be for them
and perhaps even dabble in as low as $100
to see what that process looks like, what it
feels like and follow along.
So I think that's really neat and I
think we're going to dive probably a little
bit deeper into the business model.
But I do want to make sure
we unpack a little bit about the
blockchain technology that's helping support the business.
And so maybe you can speak to
a little bit about why even bother?
Why are you incorporating this
technology in your business?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So we started the company in late 2017, early 2018.
So at the time when crypto was all
the rage, blockchain was all the rage.
And we thought, okay, how can we use that
technology, not crypto itself, but the tech of blockchain,
to actually support what we're trying to do here?
So we are actually dealing
with highly sensitive data, right?
All the KYC AML, we have a full
compliance engine that we built out as well.
So when you have very sensitive
data, you want it secured.
So we actually use the blockchain
for security of the data.
So it's a data layer.
In the future, if there's other capabilities that are
allowed by regulation in Canada and the states, we
will have the ability to turn things on.
But we don't allow for that at the moment.
But in terms of why we use blockchain, we use
it for right now, we use it for the data
layer and the ease of transacting on our secondary exchange.
So let's say if somebody bought into a property and
then actually they want to sell, then we have the
ease of transacting through the blockchain to the buyer.
I love the example because I think it speaks to how
I don't know if importance is the right word, but how
companies today can be looking at what the technology can do
and also to set them up for forward thinking ideas and
things they might be able to do in the future.
And especially if you're building something today from
the ground up, enabling yourself to look at
some of those options as they unfold.
I do think it's also important maybe to
speak a little bit about the process you
took through examining the regulatory environment.
What does it mean?
How have you ensured that as you pave new
paths for this type of model, that you're doing
it in a way that's protecting people, et cetera?
Yeah, I will say it's
definitely not easy following regulatory.
From day one, it was something that we knew that
we wanted to do and that we had to do.
Again, back in the 2017 18 time, a lot of people
were going Wild West and doing crazy things and doing ICOs.
Probably everybody here remembers that
crazy Wild West time.
And from the beginning we're like, well,
we're financial services, we're proptech, we're regulated.
We found out very quickly we were selling a security.
When a lot of people were like, you're
not selling a security, use it as a
utility, do this, you could do that thing.
And we were like, Absolutely not.
We want to follow regulation we built to
build and have a company we didn't necessarily
built to sell or built to flip.
We're still in five and a half years later.
So from the beginning we knew
that we wanted to follow regulatory.
It took us actually two years to
get the license, probably partly because of
the pandemic was delayed, delayed everything.
But we decided we're not going to operate under
our label until we have the regulation piece.
So we did some white labeling
where people would use our tech.
We've done actually a lot of transactions up
to about 18 million through our white label
customer, which helped us prove everything.
It helped us work out lots of bugs.
It helped us actually get that viable
model for ourselves and to sell our
technology to other white labels as well.
And then so once we got our regulation go ahead,
then we actually launched properties under our brand as well.
Yeah.
Any additional thoughts for anyone who's out there?
Maybe an entrepreneur thinking about I
want to explore a new space.
I want to figure out if a business
that they have in mind is feasible.
But the regulatory framework is confusing because
maybe there's not a lot of people
who have paved the way before them.
Any tips or advice for folks
trying to navigate those waters?
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely like a can of worms.
Okay.
Would we have started the company if we
knew how difficult it was with the regulation?
I don't know.
I don't know is the answer. It's not easy.
Obviously anytime you're dealing with health care, food, financial
services, anything that has like highly regulation, you really
have to follow it to a T. Right.
We're seeing lots of changes and at any
moment the governments couldn't change their minds about
what that means to be regulated.
Know, we saw it with and then it was illegal and
now it's like legal, sort of or definitely legal Canada wide.
So it's like at any moment things can shift and change.
So being able to adapt and so that's why
we actually love having the white label too.
Because let's say if they take away the regulation
or they're not doing crowdfunding anymore for whatever reason,
we're like, okay, we'll stay under that and we'll
go over here and do this thing.
But I would say do your homework for sure.
And I'm glad we didn't go against
regulation because unfortunately some of our competitors
have shut down very recently and it's
probably because they went outside of regulatory.
And I guess my advice would be is try to find
an industry that is not regulated or that you can do
things in a way outside of regulation in that industry that's
not regulated because it is not for the faint of heart.
Yeah.
And how do you go about finding
resources or people to help you?
That I think is probably I'm just
trying to put myself in your shoes.
You don't know what you don't know
until it slaps you in the face.
Yeah, well, it's expensive, right?
Like legal.
And obviously your competitors aren't going to help you.
They're not going to say, okay, here's what
we did, here's how we did it.
Here's the pathway. Right?
So there's a couple of things, right?
It's like forging the path, doing the Wild West
stuff and creating something completely different or following it
and waiting for them to be more open, which
is kind of where we're at. Right?
So it was expensive and it was a learning curve.
And we didn't know a lot of things going into
this, following that curiosity, but also the reason that our
company is still doing well and thriving, and we're about
to actually launch in the states quite soon.
But it's because we have that annoying entrepreneurial
staying power of not quitting and the belief
and holding that vision true to what we
see as possible, to what we believe.
And it's like the continuous chasing of that and then
having things fall in line and knowing how to pivot,
really, at the last second and being very flexible because
a lot of entrepreneurs have this one path in mind.
And so when they reach that or when
they don't reach that, then they sort of
decide to move on to the next thing.
So being adaptable for sure, but yeah, I would recommend
not getting in a regulated industry if you can.
Yeah, it's not easy.
No, I hear you.
But it's nice to see folks like yourselves doing it
and it helps others that will come behind you, perhaps.
I think the value proposition for the
sort of retail consumer is very clear.
Like the opportunity to explore what property investments there
might be and being able to participate from $100
to possibly 2000, $3,000, depending where you are and
what the maximums are is very interesting.
But tell me a bit more about the value
proposition for the issuer and who is the issuer?
Yeah, good question.
So the issuer would be a
company who's looking to raise capital.
So maybe it is a preconstruction development, maybe it is
somebody who has been doing this for many years.
Maybe they do fix and flips.
For example, there's one company that we've done
a little bit of work with that does
fix and flips in the States.
So they buy entire apartment complexes and then they fix
and flip them and it's like a five year plan.
And so people know that, okay, they're in for five
years, here's the entire pro forma, here's the entire plan.
And that they'll get their capital, whatever
that would be at the end.
What I'm wondering as well is you obviously vet to
some extent the opportunities that come to your platform.
I think it's important to clarify that you're
a tech company that's facilitating these opportunities, right?
So you're not necessarily invested or you're
not invested in these opportunities directly.
Do you see a day where someone like myself
could come to you and say, hey, I have
a great opportunity that I want help funding with.
Or is that a ways away because I'm
not your sophisticated developer or builder, for example?
Yeah, it's a great question because we do
have a lot of people asking us that
we are looking at doing private deal rooms.
So where you could do that with, let's say, your
family or people that know like and trust you.
But when it comes to issuers, it's got to
be people who have been doing this as a
company, they've been doing this as a business.
This is something that they've
been doing for many years.
They don't have to necessarily be a developer.
It could be like, we know this group in
Ontario and they do student housing, for example.
So the housing is already built and they're just
maybe fixing and flipping or buying and holding.
And so really the issuers need to have
that track record, that experience, because the people
who actually invest in the deals, they're not
just researching RetM because we are the platform
layer, but they're actually researching the issuer.
So how many years have they been in business?
How many deals have they done?
How many deals are under their belt, understanding
who they are, googling them and seeing if
there's anything, any liens or anything against them.
One thing I will mention, in Canada,
the maximum crowdfunding deal is 1.5 million.
In the States it's 5 million.
So 1.5 million is enough for maybe like a
single family condo if you own the whole thing.
But a lot of times we're
taking a position in certain properties.
So, for example, there's a hotel out in Fernie
that we did a deal with, so they gave
us 1.5 million of their $4 million raise.
So it was just a part of what they're raising overall.
So it could be that we just own a position in it,
or sorry, not own a position, but it could be that we
offer that position to the crowd up to the 1.5 million.
Or it could be that it's the
full entire property that's coming to raise.
I just love seeing the
innovative ideas coming into play.
I think this type of thing, a lot
of folks have probably been thinking about and
hoping for opportunities and now seeing it enabled.
And obviously the other thing I'm assuming
is it's a lot more cost effective.
Now, if you wanted to participate, you could
never participate in something like this for $100.
The administrative costs in and of them, you'd have to
probably put at least 10,000, minimum, maybe 15, for it
to even be a valuable thing to participate in.
Can you speak to that at all?
Yeah, so for example, you're exactly right.
So in the private equity space, the minimum buy
in is usually twenty five K, and that is
for accredited investors only, which is the top 5%,
which means you're earning over $200,000 a year, or
you have 5 million in assets or a million
in cash, that makes you an accredited investor.
So usually that weeds out more than
half the people in the population. Right.
And then you need to put a minimum of $25,000 in.
So that buy in alone, it's way
higher than most people would have.
And if the average person has 25,000,
they're probably just going to go end
up buying something on their own anyways.
So it was reserved for higher net worth people. Right.
So even being able to get in was not possible.
So really, the thing is that the retail crowd doesn't
even know about it because it was so far out
of reach, they don't even see that it was a
potential until they look at the public markets, like REITs
or like stocks, because they're basically like fractionalized equity.
Right.
I'd love to know a little bit more about just
your experience as an entrepreneur and founder and what is
your why when you're participating in something like radium.
Yeah, good question.
I feel like any entrepreneur, it comes from pain.
Like I said, I sold my positions and
I couldn't get back into the property market.
But I also want to create this for everybody else.
Why is this the way that it is?
Why can't we have it so everybody can participate,
so everybody can get in and everybody can have
I think it comes down to hope and participation,
and it gives people that pride of ownership.
So we had a big party in January, and we
had one of our deals launch on our platform, and
we had probably 15 people come up to me and
say, this is the first time I've ever owned property.
They put in $100.
But it was that pride of ownership that they're like,
I never thought I would be able to do this,
and now I've done it on your platform.
And so it's just the start. It's just the beginning.
It's people learning and it's tasting it. Right.
So maybe you own $100 in ten properties, and
you learn to understand markets because now you have
a vested interest and you're understanding how things work
more, and you're learning financial literacy, and you're knowing
when to look at potentially selling your position or
being locked in and what does that look like
and feel like.
And the fun thing for us is that $100 is such
a low barrier that we feel like everybody can participate.
A lot of people spend a lot of money to learn. Right.
So if you put $500 in across
five properties, even just to learn as
well, those positions aren't going anywhere. Right.
But it's just like that piece of being in
and having that feeling of you're growing something.
Yeah.
And your attention definitely goes there.
I know that over the last couple of
years, I started playing around with things that
were totally outside my realm and.
Just my attention being there.
And yes, I spent some money, but
I feel like I had an education.
I feel like I paid for this
interesting, self exploring education that I probably
couldn't have had any other way.
So I do think that's really neat, but
it's great to know that you have resources.
Maybe before we move on, you can
speak a little bit more to that.
The financial literacy piece that you were talking
about, what types of resources might people find
if they were going to the links that
I'm going to share with them?
Yeah, great question.
At the moment, we are updating some
things on our website, so we're always
building out that financial literacy piece.
So on some of our social media, you'll see
some dripping financial literacy pieces, but we're actually building
out a lot more like a blog style articles
directing people to just even understanding what is a
TFSA, what is an RRSP?
And then when they know what these things are, then they
can make an educated decision of, is it for them?
Is this where they want to put their money?
Do they want to have it parked or do they want
to use it to invest into other things as a vehicle?
So really teaching that, we've gotten a lot of
really great feedback, and we also want to take
it down to the younger generation as well. Right.
So to kids like Gamifying, it making it fun.
This is something that none of
us learned in school, right?
The basics of financial literacy, emotional intelligence, all
the things that school doesn't teach us.
But so we want to bring it down to the level
of kids being excited and interested in the certain things that
they can actually get out of it as well.
Yeah, that's a fun thing.
I mean, now I'm just speaking totally off
the cuff, but that's a fun gift.
I don't know if you can technically gift it,
but if you want to buy a little piece
for your child and have them involved and have
them watch and understand, that's really interesting.
I will say, in my world, I did
not learn a heck of a lot.
And even things language we're using today,
I'm realizing we might need to explain,
like, KYC, know your customer.
That's something I frankly did not know.
And it makes sense to me.
Once I heard it, I'm like, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
But it's not something it wasn't in my language before
I entered, actually, frankly, learning about web three, because the
KYC is a hot topic in that space. But yeah.
So I think that's really great, and I think
it will help facilitate future decision making for people.
So that's really cool.
I'd love to know.
Well, first of all, I know you can't speak to it.
There's probably things going on in the background that
are maybe not like 100% yet, but it sounds
like you and your business partners are planning some
big things and have some big ideas.
Is there anything you can share about sort of in
best case scenario, what would your dream vision look for
this company in, say, five years, ten years?
Oh, that's a great question.
So you mentioned about gifting a piece to kids.
So that is something that we really want
to build out, is the youth app, right?
So that's exactly our vision, is like birthday
parties, Christmas, all the holidays where kids get
toys and then they just throw them in
the closet a couple of months later.
So we visualize that aunts and uncles and grandparents,
whoever it is, can gift money to the kid,
and then once that reaches $100 or more, then
the kid can invest in something.
So the parents obviously facilitate the
trade to keep it above board.
But teaching the kids how to do that, like, oh,
do I want to look at this place or that
place and gamifying it and giving it different badges and
keeping people interested and excited and making it fun.
So we spent the better half of last year in the States.
So looking at launching in the States within the
next six months or so, six months to a
year, I would say by next year, really, we
started in Canada because it's our backyard.
And what we learned is that it's some of the
strictest regulation in the world, which it's funny, as Canadians,
we think America's regulation would probably be stricter, but it's
a little bit more relaxed in Canada.
So for us, going to the
States, it's easier on that front.
And so we see it as like the next big
obviously the next place that we would go into.
So really, stepping into the States, it's the biggest
player in the world, in the Western world anyway.
And the people that you meet in the States, like a
few weeks ago, Thomas was in New York, my business partner,
and he met Gary Vee and certain people that you just
don't have exposure to sitting in an office in Canada.
So we're really excited about the networks and
the co creation with people into the US. Market.
And what we would love to see is for
Canadians to be able to invest into the US.
Market as well, or globally for that matter. Right.
So really in the next five to ten years?
That's a great question.
I feel like things change so much
in the entrepreneurial world that ten years
is just like a whole lifetime away.
Especially when tech is involved too. Totally.
Tech changes so quickly, so much happens.
I mean, the crowdfunding regulation in Canada
only happened eight years ago, in 2015. Right.
It was like on the back end of the
2012 Obama administration, they brought in the Jobs Act,
which brought in crowdfunding to the States, and then
a couple of years later, it came to Canada.
And actually, like, two years ago, it went
from $250,000 per deal to 1.5 million.
So what can you get for 250K? Yeah. Nothing here.
Exactly.
That's it.
How will it change?
And they're talking about it even going higher here.
Like, it's 5 million in the US.
And that would be awesome if it went to
5 million in Canada, for example, because then we
could actually have bigger positions in certain things and
then have the crowd get involved.
So, long story short, the five year vision.
Yeah, it would be like launching
in multiple different countries, helping potentially
even like helping create regulation.
So in the third world countries, a
lot of them don't have regulation.
So theoretically we could go
and create something there.
But what we would probably do is bring what
we already know with our regulatory mind frame and
create that standard of here's what you need to
do to get into a position.
And potentially even without even necessarily making
it our Mo, but having regulation. Yeah.
Introducing best practices. Totally.
And like things that will be guide rails
and protecting the consumer, et cetera, right? Yeah.
That's so interesting.
I think it's becoming tougher and tougher to speak
to where the future is going to be.
I was asked at an interview the
other day about my five year.
Would I see myself doing five
years related to something I'm like?
That is an impossible question right now.
It's so tough because things change so fast.
I would love to know, since we're
on a podcast called from the Blockchain,
we're talking about innovation and technology.
Are there other things in the tech
realm that you're excited about that may
serve your business model in the future?
Well, probably.
This is the trend everybody's talking about is AI.
Right?
I actually love AI.
I see out of the big trends, the blockchain trends that
we've seen, to me, AI has a lot of legs.
I feel like everybody's going to be using AI.
I do actually love the blockchain, too.
I'm really glad that we are using it.
I think that what happened was crypto
took over and NFTs took over.
So the blockchain kind of got like
a confused muddled wrap around the technology.
People are like, oh, your
blockchain, you're doing crypto.
Oh, your blockchain, you're doing NFT.
Even our bank five years ago actually closed
our account and told us we couldn't transact
because we had blockchain in our company name.
And they're like, you're doing crypto stuff.
I'm like, this has nothing to do with crypto.
But they didn't understand what that even meant. Right.
And that's the bank.
So I think that the technology of
blockchain has not seen its day yet.
I feel like people confused it
for so many other things.
Maybe AI will be using blockchain in some fashion.
Probably it already is in a lot of ways, but
I think definitely I want to see how the blockchain
is going to make a name for itself without being
attached to crypto and NFTs, oh, 100%.
And I think there's a lot of things
over the last six months I've been paying
attention to different companies and things that are
happening that just right now seem so quiet.
No one cares.
And it has nothing to do
with market speculation at all.
It just has to do with the tech
and how it might enable more streamlining, better
use of data, as you mentioned, easier transactions,
but not transactions related to monetary gain, just
facilitating things, allowing them to happen, more frictionlessly.
But AI is interesting.
I realize now we're kind of talking
like a little bit airy fairy.
Like we don't know how it's going to work.
But I do think that AI, when it comes to
real estate, is going to be really interesting related to
how do you analyze, say, a property as an investment.
And there probably will be certain protocols or
things that AI can quote, unquote, look at
to determine, is this going to be good?
Is it going to predict, like, it might have
a good future gain in just capital value?
Or will this be something that might
draw an income based on certain factors?
Anyways, again, I'm speaking a little bit out of
listeners, but these things will happen, I believe.
Yeah.
So let's say in theory, if we had like 100
deals on our platform, and you're like, I don't really
want to look through all the deals and research every
single thing and read all the documentation.
So in theory, you could maybe say to AI, okay,
analyze these 100 deals that RetM has on their platform,
and here's my criteria of what I'm looking for.
Tell me which deal the top five deals, which would
be the best for me based on what I'm looking
for, how much I want to put in.
Obviously still do your own diligence from there.
But I feel like we can get AI to
help us with those kind of things, and they
can read through 30 page documents instantaneously.
So instead of us reading through the entire thing, it
could be something that helps us to say, okay, here's
the top five deals based on the criteria that you
put in and you told AI to look at.
Here's the top five deals that are for you on Retium.
And then you go, okay, great.
That just saved you hours and
hours of analyzing against each other.
Obviously, they can never predict the future,
but it gives you that basics of
like, okay, here's the five ones.
Well, I wanted to do this kind of thing in this province,
so I'm going to go for these one or two over here.
Yeah, really neat.
I think it's going to be interesting to see where the world
is in a few years and the tools in all of our
hands and how they might help us make better decisions.
So that's exciting.
And I think especially adjacent to other technologies like
what you're working on here, which is really neat.
So I do hope people check out
RetM and better understand what you're offering.
I wonder, is there anything that we didn't touch on
that you feel is important for our listeners to know?
I mean, there's probably so many things.
I feel like post pandemic, a
lot of things have changed. Right.
And I'm I'm actually really excited for AI.
I feel like and blockchain and all these technologies.
I feel like we don't even know
where things are going to go yet. Right.
We were sort of talking before we started the show
about banking, like products and how things are shifting and
how things are morphing as they can and need to. Right.
So I actually love what the younger generation
is pushing for because they're the ones that
are pushing a lot of this change. Right?
Yeah.
I mean, there's so many different things in the
working world, like even the working from home.
I love the fact that the pandemic and the
gen zers are pushing for that, for example.
That's just like super basic.
But also working from abroad, like go somewhere for
a month and work at a job and work
on your laptop at the same time.
We are now noticing that people can
be more effective working from home and
not being distracted by in the office.
So, I don't know, I really think especially
when it comes to tech, you can't have
all your devs sitting in a room anymore.
There's so much distraction going on. Right? Yeah.
I think the theme is really that it's time for many
of us to break down our assumptions about the way things
ought to be and the way things are going to be. Right.
And real estate in particular is a
space generally that it's still in many
ways functioning as such a traditional sector.
And it blows me away, frankly, how little
disruption the real estate sector has seen over
the last 15 years, considering how much the
advancements of technology, the advancements of consumer wants,
and consumer behavior, for example, and how sophisticated
that everyday consumer is becoming.
So I think it's really neat to start breaking
down some of those assumptions of how things need
to be, how they ought to be, how we
participate and learn about the opportunities we might have.
So I'm excited to watch you and your journey.
And you as a founder, I think you're phenomenal.
I'm a big supporter of female founders and I
just love seeing women who are really at the
forefront, especially of so very, very cool.
Where can our audience find you
and where can they find Retium?
And don't worry, I will put them in the show
notes so you don't have to spell it all out.
But where's the best place to find you and the company?
Yeah, so the company it's very simple.
At RetM, everywhere retm.com for the Canadian
listeners, there are deals live on the
platform now which is at RetM Fund.
So that's where the crowdfunding takes place.
Personally.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
Laura Forte.
That's probably the best place. Cool. Yeah.
Well, I really appreciate you taking the
time to be here, especially in person.
For those who are listening on our podcast
streaming platforms, please do come find us on
YouTube and subscribe, because I'm excited that we're
spending more time on YouTube.
And yeah, thank you so much
for joining us today, Laura. It's been a pleasure.
I can't wait.
And maybe we'll have to have you back in
a couple of years and see the evolution.
That'd be great. Yeah.
Thanks so much, Ashley. Have a great day, everybody.
Thank you so much for tuning in to
this week's episode of from the Blockchain.
I really hope you enjoyed the show.
If you have any ideas about future episodes,
including themes or potential guests, please check for
a link in the Show Notes.
Happy to hear from you.
Also, if you're interested in being a
potential sponsor for From The Blockchain, I'd
love to hear from you as well.
Check for a special link just
for you in the Show Notes. All right, everybody.
Again, thanks for being here. Love this show.
Love being with you.
Please remember to subscribe, review
and share with your friends. Until next week.
Have a great one.
Thank you.
