BiggerPockets Money Podcast - Scott Steps Down as CEO: A New Age for BiggerPockets Money

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

BiggerPockets’ CEO Scott Trench announces his decision to step down as CEO, and focus full-time efforts on personal finance content with BiggerPockets Money. We also welcome BiggerPockets’ new CEO, Ale Ayestaran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. This is a special edition, and today I'm going to share a bittersweet announcement. What's going on, everybody? I'm Scott Trench, CEO of Bigger Pockets, here today with a very special guest for a very special episode and my last episode as CEO of Bigger Pockets here. And that's the big announcement I wanted to make today is after a decade of leading this incredible organization, I've made the decision to step down as CEO and refocus my energy full-time on Bigger Pockets money alongside Mindy Jensen.

And as part of that, I'm welcoming the next leader of Bigger Pockets here, Ale Aesteraan. How'd I do? Did I pronounce that right, Alley? Yes. Well, welcome to Bigger Pockets. Welcome as the new CEO. Thank you, Scott.

I'm super excited to be here. I actually don't formally start until next week, but of course, you know, this is a big milestone for the company. And I'm really pumped that we're doing this way. know actually letting the community know first, obviously lots to discuss, but I'm really excited to be here with you today. Awesome. Well, we couldn't be more thrilled to welcome you.

And in a few minutes, we'll get into your background and all those kinds of things. Before we get to that point, I did want to share with the Bigger Pockets community some of the reasons why I made this decision and kind of the context behind it. So we'll jump right into that. The first reason is that this company, Bigger Pockets, has been more than a job. It's been my passion, my purpose, and maybe to an unhealthy degree, a little bit of an obsession here for the last decade. I've spent the entire time helping people retire early. It's time to take a little of that for myself here and practice what I preach. So I'm going to

take a step back, doing the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, even foolish time. I think that's the right word, foolish time, will be a much more sustainable workload for me and my family. And I'm looking forward to spending Tuesday afternoons, maybe on the mountain bike or on a hike on those types of things. That's the first part of this. The second reason is I think that folks who have been follow in Bigger Pockets Money and me on the podcast here, know that while I love real estate, I have an even greater passion for just the concept of early retirement. And I really want to focus on studying a lot more depth into broader portfolio theory, different tactics for financial planning, preparing for college savings, all of those different aspects of personal finance that I really

want to add to my skill set here. And take that theory for traditional financial planning and and perfect it or apply it to the pursuit of early retirement. And then the last reason, and this one's really important here, is I think that the next phase of Bigger Pockets growth here calls for a leader with a different, an evolved skill set here to take Bigger Pockets as a business, as a platform, and as a community to that next level. And I think there are three areas that will really emphasize here going forward. Those three areas are first building a world-class technology experience, especially on BiggerPockets.com, and particularly as it relates to personalizing the experience. I think people

need to come to Bigger Pockets. And if you're a rookie, here's a rookie experience. If you're an experienced investor, here's an experienced system for that. Second, on that point, I think we've done a really good job here at Bigger Pockets in helping new investors by their first, second, or third investment property. And I think we have an opportunity to do a much better job of helping more experienced investors, build larger portfolios, raise capital, or operate much larger businesses, the business of real estate on that front. And then last, I think there's an opportunity to develop a lot more of a broad partnership strategy with many of the technology and services firms in the real estate ecosystem here. We've had plenty of partners that are wonderful here,

and I think there's a lot more we can do with a more sophisticated partnership approach. So this, those three reasons in the, you know, for what I think bigger pockets needs, in addition to my personal passions and pursuits, were the reasons behind this decision. And we actually began the process of looking for our next leader in December 2024 when I notified the board of my decision to take a step back and, and end my time as CEO of bigger pockets here. And we worked this entire time period to find the next leader. I'm excited. again, welcome Alley to the team here as our next leader. And I think his experience that fits all three of those needs that I just described so perfectly. I mean, he's got a background in building great technology products and technology enabled real estate services. His whole background is in helping these more experienced investors and building the operations for huge real estate portfolios over at mind, where he was the chief business officer and chief operating operating officer. So with that, Alie, one more time, welcome again to Bigger Pockets. Maybe you could round

out a little bit more of that experience, that background for folks wondering who you are and what your background and skill set are. Thank you. And absolutely. But before I talk about myself, I first want to for sure appreciate, you know, recognize and congratulate you, starting with Josh and the team at bigger pockets past and present on the amazing company and business and community platform that you've built. Really the envy of the real estate industry, especially for individual and, you know, what we used to call at mind the retail real estate investors in contrast to the larger institutional players.

It is just an amazing company and you should feel very proud of everything that you've, I really mean that. And, you know, I wouldn't have taken this opportunity. if there wasn't a very, very strong foundation to build upon. Well, thank you. And I'm so glad you mentioned Josh Dork. And I mean, Josh, you, if you're listening to this, built in there. And it has been a true pleasure to join as a early member of that, building off of what you

and I'll call out Brandon Turner here and many of the other content creators really built over the years and push that flywheel forward to, you know, we'll talk about a little bit later about the aggregate impact we think we've had here at Bigger Pockets. but it's just a, it's just been an astounding outcome here, really the privilege and honor in my career. So super lucky to have that start and foundation poured by, by those folks. And then, and then to work with everybody else, all the stakeholders, the community members, the sponsors, the team here at Bigger Pockets, our investors, everybody has just come together to really build a really special company, I think, here. I'm really incredibly excited. Let's see, about myself.

I am originally from Argentina, if you can tell from my accent. I'm not a native English speaker. Grew up actually in the very south of Argentina in a region called Patagonia, in a small town. So a very idyllic upbringing, I would say. And the reason I even start as far back as my childhood is I really cherish and remember fondly those moments when I was growing up because it really was about community. This is a small town in the most remote part of Argentina, which makes it one of the most remote parts of the world. You would know everybody, your neighbors, the principal at school, the mayor, the owners of the businesses, the farmers.

We were really a strong need community. And I think that has really shaped who I am and what I value because I only wish for my kids now, I formed a family here in the US with my wife, that they get to experience just even a little bit of what it is to be part of an amazing and tight-knit community. I moved to Buenos Aires. Right before my university years, I started engineering there. That's something you all should know. I'm a geek, I'm a technologist, I'm a builder at heart, and I just was and forever will be an engineer in that sense. I love problem solving, specifically with technology. And after a few years working in Argentina, I actually started to have an international career with the Boston Consulting Group, which is a leading strategy consultant firm.

Working elsewhere in Latin America, I spent some time in Europe based out of Paris, which was an amazing chapter, and ultimately came to the U.S. in 2010 to pursue a master's in business administration and MBA at Stanford University. And that was an amazing inflection point, sort of literally landing in Silicon Valley. land 15 minutes off campus. I knew right away that I would want to, you know, spend the rest of my career and life here. I was fortunate to meet my now wife on campus. She is Mexican and had moved also to start her program. And so upon graduation, we decided to, you know, stay in the Bay Area. We married a couple of years after. We currently live in San Francisco. We have three kids. Both her and I have had careers specifically in technology companies since. Now, as I look forward, my last chapter was at mine.

And I would say so far that has been one of the richest chapters in my career because I really got to flex all the things that I'm super passionate about all my muscles, you know, mine is one of the largest property management companies in the world, right? Could you tell us a little bit about your experience there? and what you did, what was the secret sauce behind mine? Might be a known fact to some of you, but maybe not widely understood that mine as a third-party property manager, meaning as a company that has owned the assets and like an invitation homes, you know, think one of the larger owner-operators of single-family rentals.

Mine manages on behalf of other investors, both retail individual investors, even, you know, single-unit landers, to. large institutional players that own hundreds if not thousands of units. And they currently manage very close to 20,000 single-family rentals all across the US, which is an incredible fit, given the variation in geographies, unit types, investors, buy boxes and preferences, makes it quite challenging to account for all those differences. But the secret sauce there really to scale at that level and do it with great outcomes for the investors and with good profitability for the company is with technology. So I learned a great deal through that chapter, but I'm

even more excited to in a way continue the mission, which is, you know, my mission is to help individuals achieve their dreams and achieve financial freedom through real estate, which I'm almost shocked it almost matches one-to-one to bigger pocket's mission, which is to help individuals achieve their dreams, create wealth through real estate, and other means, certainly real estate, a big, big aspect of the mission. But it is actually doing it at a scale that even though mine, it is one of the larger property management companies out there, we're talking thousands, tens of thousands of investors, whereas bigger Pockets really plays a part in shaping that journey for millions of members of our community.

But I think that's just the beginning. I think the potential that Bigger Pockets has that we have ahead of us in terms of reaching the next million and the next 10 million of aspiring and existing investors, both domestically and internationally, because by the way, I think this is very much a universal thesis, I think is unparalleled and unmatched. So I'm just really excited to in a way continue the mission, but at a much bigger level of scale and impact. I feel like there's a lot of things I'm super proud of

and that opportunity on the scaling property management and operations and helping people, again, turn these small mom and pop portfolios. That's, you know, the retail investor, the small investor. That's who we serve here, right? I mean, most people in this country who own real estate, own 10 or fewer properties. and I think it's something like 70 or 80% of the single family rentals in this country are people with just one or two rentals outside their primary residence.

So it's a huge, that's the population. But how do we help those folks in that next phase, you know, determine which properties to sell, which properties to keep, how to generate much more operating income from those properties and actually have those properties finish that play and make them feel financially free? And that's why I'm so excited about your arrival here at the home here at Bigger Pockets. So, but what are some of the things that maybe you most appreciate about bigger pockets today? And what are some of the opportunities you see coming up?

There's so many things that I'm really excited about. So the business is incredible, but I think it starts because of its community. I think community is really hard to create or recreate or replicate. You earn, you earn community through a lot of hard work, really being there for each other, for the members. just thinking, if I were to start a company, and many companies, many founders out there are trying to launch businesses in different verticals and the only wish they could have a community to build upon. It's almost impossible to, there's no playbook that would tell you how to create community. It's through the many years of hard work and just being there for the customers,

for the members and for each other, that you create that. So the fact that that is bigger, pocket starting point, it's, as I said, is the envy of the industry. And one thing I'm going to be very focused on building from is that community, which I think is incredible, the power of the brand. Second, of course, bigger pockets has been affected by the macro in real estate. There is no one company. I have yet to find a company in prop tech or real estate that hasn't been massively affected by the macro in the last few years. And bigger pockets is part of this industry, but it has been incredibly resistant, resilient and resistant actually to that macro. And that just shows to me again how much value Viger Pock has continued to

create for its members and customers, right, where the business despite challenges continues to thrive. The early inroads, you know, some of them actually, you know, we have real evidence that there's a big opportunity to continue to lean in, as you said, on technology, right? the launch recently of the mobile app. Of course, the forum is at the core of the experience for many members, but I think there's a lot more that bigger pockets we can do with technology to improve the experience and add even more value for our members and our partners. So there's definitely success to build from, but way more to do, and that gets me obviously

excited. Love it. You talked about that macro impact, and I think, the best way I can articulate that is transaction volume, right? So the number of investors who bought rental properties in 2021 was 1.4 million per our estimations. There will be different variations that out there. And we believe that number dropped to 760,000 in 2023 and it stayed about the same in 2024 and is within a couple, one to three percentage points of that in terms of pacing here in 2025. Is that the problem you're talking about with from a macro perspective in terms of that and what do you think is the

biggest challenge for investors that's causing that drop off in transaction volume you know first and foremost if you're a real estate investor you are an investor and i think so some challenges that we're facing in this industry are challenges that we're facing just because of macro conditions that affect everybody volatility we have the pandemic crazy supply chain you know backlashes right the rate environment and how rates not only moved, not moved at a pace that was basically unprecedented. And so those, all those macro uncertainty on the economy and like some years of high cumulative inflation, those affect all asset classes, all investors. And so we just are in that backdrop. Now specifically for real estate, I think rates and what that means for cap rates and

yields just has meant that there has been fewer transactions, which is, you know, for us, one reason why members, customers, you know, can come to the community, to learn from each other, you know, to get that content and expertise. So there's less demand for that, for sure. I'm also thinking, like, what happens when those wins change from headwinds into tailwinds? As I was sharing the news of this next chapter for me, and talking, catching up with some friends and mentors, they were like, oh my God, I love bigger pockets. I used to, you know, listen to the podcast. I would go in. was learning, and I was like, okay, you said you used to. Why are you not doing it? Well, that was

more actively buying then. Not so much right now. So I think that demand is still there. Of course, we are being affected by, as you said, the transaction volume. To me, that's opportunity because those, you know, headwinds will turn into tailwinds. But it also makes me wonder, how might we continue to help investors, even when the conditions were buying or maybe not as favorable? Might we help them with thinking through how to optimize an OI? How to, you know, think through OPECs, you know, are their opportunities there? And so I think there's a lot we are doing and we can continue to do, even in an environment where investors, you know, some transaction volume is depressed and more about like managing and optimizing an existing portfolio, right?

Because there's always opportunities to do that more effectively. What are some of those, like you said, tailwinds that you kind of think might manifest over the next few years for, for investors in particular? What's going to help them maybe solve this problem of, you know, I think the way I've raised the problem is it's hard to make a property cash flow with six and a half or seven percent interest rates at max leverage. And that is really keeping a lot of people out of the market. Fundamentally, it's really hard to just find that something that works at a basic level in that environment. What are some of the tailwinds you think that might change that dynamic or help investors succeed despite that dynamic? Yeah, taking the long view here, which I think is the right view to take. if you're going to get into real estate investing, you ought to think, you know, this is an asset

class and a play that really pays out over the loan hold in terms of just cumulative risk and tax-adjusted returns. One is that the industry has been professionalized and institutionalized at a rapid pace. Now, I don't think we'll get to like in MFR, multifamily, you know, to anywhere close to 50% institutional ownership of rental units. Most rental homes are and will continue to be owned by individuals, by families, by mom and pop, as you said, investors. But the reality is that the institutionalization of the asset class does have an impact. There is almost a Cambrian explosion of new software solutions service providers that are going and meeting those demands for institutions. But I think then what happens is some of those solutions can be also made accessible for retail investors.

I like to think of Formula One and then mass market cars. You know, the Formula One teams are innovating with, you know, engines and fuel types. But eventually we all benefit from those innovations in the mass market cars that we purchase and drive. And I think the same thing is happening at a rapid clip in real estate where institutional investors, have a different level of requirements in terms of how they get the reporting and the data that they use to make decisions, portfolio optimization, asset management, how they go about leasing and managing vacancy and turns and OPEX and reperson maintenance, and all those solutions where it's a service provider, a software provider, are increasingly becoming available for us as individual investors. So I'm excited about really having bigger pockets be almost that. that orchestrator and helpful guide to investors in knowing and being aware of, hey, what are some things that I should be looking out that might be helpful to me in my unique situation, right? That, as you said, that personalized experience.

So that is one. There's so many solutions out there. And notably, many are technology solutions, right? New entrants, many venture-backed companies, not all of them. And specifically, of course, with generative AI, where that pace of innovation is almost, it's accelerating. And AI today is the worst it's ever going to be. It's going to be better tomorrow and then the next day after.

And so while real estate is sometimes a bit of a slow-moving industry, I think that pace of adoption is actually accelerating, which to me is exciting because that's where I think we can guide each other guide our members and investors in finding ways to drive in OI despite the macro today. A couple years ago, there was this thing of like the institution is going to take over the industry. It's going to be all owned by corporate America. And they get to have an institution's on like 3% of single family rentals in this country. Of single family rentals, not of single family homes, single family rentals, the 15 to, I think it's 18 million single family rentals, give or take in the United States. And, you know, they were net sellers.

I believe, starting in 2023, I believe that was the case in 2024, and I believe there'll be the case again here in 2025. So that share is actually diminishing. The retail investors, the one buying most of the inventory for sale here. And, you know, I go to these conferences like IMN, single families rental forum or whatever. And everyone's been on the institution. I'm like the only guy who's like, guys, this is a bigger pockets industry. Like the people that buy these rentals are, you know, somebody who works a full-time job.

or as a small business and buys one, two, five, ten properties over a lifetime. And there's a small, tiny tale of people who go on to buy, you know, more than those 10 properties in their, in their lifetime. But these investors are, in many cases, every bit as sophisticated as the institutional investor in terms of the specific property that they're buying, right? They're going to get to know that property. That property is such an all-in bet for this individual. It's, it's multiple times their annual income, especially the first one, two, or three. I mean, these are just all in bets, the terror and fear that go into buying that and, but, you know, and the hope that they will appreciate and produce that cash flow in time that I think has generally been rewarded by and large

to those investors. But that, there's a, it's funny that the rookie investor, the people who listen to the Bigger Pockets real estate rookie podcast, right, are actually the most sophisticated investors on bigger pockets, even though many of them don't own a property. Like, If you put a test in front of them about real estate knowledge, they're actually the most advanced ones here because of that dynamic. And these powerful tools that were built for these institutional investors, these sophisticated software systems, I think the people who really will benefit the most from them in the end will be the rookie who spent a couple hundred hours listening to a bunch of podcasts, reading a bunch of books, getting fairly sophisticated and is ready to use that knowledge. And I think that there's a really good application for those.

I think that's where that partnership angle I was discussing earlier comes in. And obviously your knowledge of that space is going to be so critical in translating these solutions that have been built hundreds of millions of dollars invested in many of these solutions and helping to make them accessible to the bigger pockets members. Yeah, there was a lot of fearmongering about, you know, Wall Street is out here to get our homes. The data doesn't show that. In fact, there's actual research that shows that when there is increasing. levels of institutional investment into SFR that actually helps community because they

will typically rehab, stock, you know, improve ultimately, you know, those those homes and neighborhoods and create more rental supply for folks that don't want to or can't afford to actually buy and that that so we can talk obviously probably a whole episode on on that but it is I 100% agree that just because of how they configure a Bible and the fact that they need to deploy capital at scale, they have to work with pretty narrow buybos, three bed to bath, right, in certain locations. And there's so much alpha you can get if you're going to approach investing that way, which they have just because of the amount of capital. But as you said, if you're going

to buy one unit two to three, right, over the course of some period of time over a few years, you can really find those unique opportunities that would fly under the radar where institutions can't actually access. So yes, it happens that sometimes you lose out on a deal that is also being considered by an institutional investor and they can pay cash and they can move quickly. But as, you know, next to that deal, there are going to be many opportunities where you being local or partnering with folks who really know that market can help you find that alpha. And that is what we see in the data. As you said, most investments, most purchases of rental units are still done by individuals. Awesome. What are some of the first areas that you're going to dive into?

here in terms of exploring as the new CEO? First, I'll say that I'm really excited to build from a very strong foundation. And my first row of business will actually be to listen and learn. Obviously, get to know our team, talk to them, learn from our customers, our members, our partners. And I'll just put it out there from day one. I'm a big believer in feedback. So I'll be seeking out feedback. You'll find me in the forum.

You know, there's any way that you feel comfortable with. reaching out, please do so. I want to hear from you. Now, in terms of opportunities, I'm excited to actually, you know, I think we can invest really a lot in one technology. I can only imagine what would an AI enabled experience look like in the forums. You know, it's, it's so funny. Just I got to chime in here. The bigger pockets, we have spent the last 10 years that I've been here building a lot of cool features, right? We just bought, we built a hundred features. Some of them, people were completely forgotten, never use. No one, no one cared about. We built them. We spent a lot of time on, some of them are into integral parts of our site, right? And our major revenue centers and clearly

driving a lot of value for customers as well, like our agent finder, for example. And, but we've never figured out how to say, oh, you're on this site looking for this. Here's how to instantly find it. We just have like a big, like, navigation bar in that. And I'm, I just think this concept of personalization AI is one of those things that's a no-brainer for our site that I'm just so excited to see you you come in and help us solve for along with our new chief product officer. Yeah, 100% is funny that you mentioned personalization because I think we're finally at the cast where we will, and by we I mean, companies that can actually be at the cutting edge of technology offer personalized experiences.

A couple of months ago, I was at an event with one of the world's foremost experts in personalization, kind of wrote the book in. the late 90s. But he was also secretly, you know, not so secretly, I guess, in that forum, but meeting like, we couldn't really do that, you know? But now I think we can because

this latest generative AI technology, the underpinning of that is large language models. I mean, it's in the name, right? They are great at parsing out information. And as you know, how we go about searching for things, right? It's changing. It used to be keyword-based, right? Now we're very

much used to Googling things. It's a verb. but think about that search experience and you're still forced to go through a lot of links and click and still do a lot of work yourself to actually get to the answer so you can make the decisions that matter to move forward with whatever is it that you're doing

but now these models are great at helping you move more confidently because they can summarize now of course our members can and I'm sure are already going to chat chit or Google to get those summaries but you're going to get sort of off-the-shelf generic answer. We are in a privileged position where we have first party data, meaning the real

time conversations and content that we can provide and they can provide to each other. And so if you have a query, which right now, you know, these days you can actually like write the whole question, like what are you actually trying to accomplish? It doesn't have to be like a three-word search. And an AI can be great at helping you move forward more efficiently through that journey. Yeah, I've always articulated like, you know, if you're a flipper from my Georgia, right? You want to come to bigger pockets. And then you don't want, here's 1,200 episodes of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. You want, here are the 10 best ones to start with, ranked in order of best based on what other people that are in your geographic, demographic, all those things,

like to consume. Listen to those. That'll give you the foundation. Here's a book for that. Here are five other flippers in Atlanta, Georgia, that are currently doing deals, what they've done, what those projects look like. And here are the professionals you want to talk to, agents. There are three agents to interview that specialize in working with flippers. Here are lenders, whatever. We've got all that on bigger pockets right now. That all exists. We just, like, you have to figure it out as an investor. And so only a small percentage of people are actually then able to get through all of that stuff and find those answers. There's still a good number of people, but it's right there. And I think that's what you're talking about. And that's,

Again, that's the piece that I'm so excited to see us solve for in the coming months and years. Yeah, 100%. And then tie that to really reasoning about what is it that you already own or are trying to accomplish in terms of your investment thesis. So it's one bringing the best content in a personalized way for the investor. But also, if we can reason about, okay, maybe you own two other rentals or you have a short-term rental. This is where they're located. How is that portfolio performing? The answer you can get in terms of like, okay, the next best move.

for this specific opportunity in the context of your overall portfolio, I think that can be also very powerful, right? So what would that cockpit or dashboard or control center for the investor look like, where they can connect data sources, share what, you know, portfolio they have and what their goals are and such that then our tools can help them reason about that context to prepare them for the next move? That gets me really, really pumped. I think there's also opportunities to invest beyond technology in actually reaching more customers, more members.

Great as bigger pockets, you know, awareness is and the millions of members that we have, there are still many more out there that would benefit from even knowing that we exist and then actually developing a deeper relationship with us. So I'm also excited about, you know, growth investments to just reach more, more more investors. I can be both so proud of what we've done so far and so excited about your skill set and the strengths that you bring in that I have not yet developed and get to learn from you in a lot of these areas over the next couple of years about how to do those two things, right? Reach that next level of the audience and then build this personalized technology experience

that I think is going to be the underpinning of everything. It's the expectation people have today is for it to be easy to find what you're looking for. And bigger pockets is, built what you're looking for, but we don't make it easy today to find what you're looking for. And that's going to be the really superpower I think you're going to bring in here. Ali, what's the best way I can help you going forward here following your start date next week, Monday, Monday the, what's 18th? To help me, it's really about helping each other. The reality is that if we think about our, you know, our customers or our members, it is, you know, murky out there, you know, the macro economic uncertainty.

And that's where I think the power of communities really shine is in these times of uncertainty. And so what I'll be doing and what I hope we all continue to do is just to be there for each other, which is, you know, the foundation of this company. So it's almost do, continue to do that. be there for each other, help each other, navigate situations, ask questions, be available. I will be asking tons of questions, so I ask for patience and, you know, helping me get ramped at the beginning. I'm coming in with a very optimistic outlook.

There's plenty of opportunity ahead. It's just really helping me get ramped and continuing to help each other as we navigate, you know, the macro around us. But it is still an amazing asset class as the same. goes, the best time to buy real estate was yesterday and the next best time is still today, right? Which I need to be there for each other and helping find all those opportunities. Well, I'd love to close out with a little farewell to Bigger Pockets if that's all right here in the community on this. So I wrote a little note here that I'll pull up for a second.

But yeah, my announcement in stepping down here as CEO comes after about a decade here at Bigger pockets. For those who never heard the story, I joined as the then third full-time employee back in 2014. And my last day as CEO will actually be just over 11 years after my first forum post, which was in May 2014. You can still see that newbie from Denver, Colorado in there. And I'm talking about how I'm going to buy three properties by the end of the year. Well, that didn't happen. But I did start a few months later as the director of operations and join BP. And, um, I'm talking about. And, Again, while I'm obviously sad to be leaving the home, I'm excited to work on BP money. And I'm also very grateful for the countless people who have poured their hearts into making bigger pockets.

But transformative, I think, force it is today. I also, I'm a little proud here. You know, there's been ups and downs along the ride, of course. But 10 years ago, I guess eight years ago now, when I was not just an employee, but starting to take over a leadership position here at bigger pockets, This is kind of a fun story. Team was giving me some props for being a good operator, Operation VP of BP of operations at that point. But they were saying, Scott, you're not visionary enough.

You got to think bigger and bigger. And so when we were setting a B-Hag, a big, hairy, audacious goal at that point, partly out of annoyance and partly aspirationally tied to the mission of bigger pockets, I said, all right, guys, you want a big goal. How about this? We're going to make a million millionaires, a trillion dollars big enough for you. Kind of like that vibe. a little bit in the room there.

Bigger Pock is going to help a million people build a million dollars in personal net worth, in part through real estate. And at that time, Apple wasn't a trillion-dollar company. There was no trillion-dollar company. So it was a preposterously large goal of befitting a B-Hag. And I was doing some reflection about, you know, how silly that seemed at the time and how we've easily really under any way that you want to measure it achieve that goal. Obviously, you know, people's journeys are their own.

were at least a small part of the journey for at least a millionaires, and here's some math for that. If you look at right above me here, if you're watching on YouTube, there's a counter here which has the total aggregate number of people who have ever created a free account here on Bigger Pockets. And that reads that 3.16 million members, 3,167,328 at this exact moment here on May 14th as we record this podcast here. We know that 29% of those members are millionaires based on exhaustive survey and data and research that we've done here. So that's about 913,000, not quite a million there. But wait, let's talk about, let's just add in bigger pockets money, just bigger pockets money. 75% of the people who listen to bigger pockets money don't

listen to any other shows on bigger pockets. And we know that 29% of you guys on bigger pockets money are millionaires based on that similar survey data. And we know we've had five million unique listeners to BiggerPockets money. And really, no matter how you want to slice and dice that data, it gets you way over the edge from a million. And that doesn't count the millions more people who have been a guest on BiggerPockets.com, not logged in and create an account who have absorbed even one piece of information there, the three or four million folks who have bought a Bigger Pockets book over the years. Or the millions and millions more YouTube viewers or the podcast listeners for Bigger Pockets Real Estate on the market,

real estate rookies. So that's a, that's a staggering item there. That's not just a statistic. That's millions of lives change. That's a bunch of dreams realized. That's a bunch of legacies built on there. And it's strange, I think, to think about that cumulative impact. There was never an event. There was never like a moment when Bigger Pockets surged. And you're like, whoa, you know, that it just took off. It's just a slow compound. of like 1% a week for 10 years in a row to get to this kind of outcome here. And again, that goal was so big when we initially said it that it seems silly. And today, at the end of the journey, it feels ridiculous to reflect that literally

several trillion dollars of investment decisions were likely influenced, at least in a small way, by this platform. So again, I want to give full credit to Josh Dork and our founder and gratitude to him. And his vision laid the foundation for this journey. He got the flywheel going. He did that hard work you talked about earlier, Alay, of starting the community flywheel. There's no playbook for that. It's just hustle, hard work and one relationship at a time with the most important members

of that community, the power members, the moderators, the contributors to our forums, the blog authors, the podcast hosts, the book authors, all of those folks one by one. And I just had the privilege of pushing that flywheel forward, following that handoff. there and it's been the ride of a lifetime here. So I'm really grateful to Josh. Obviously, all of our content contributors from Brandon to David Green to David, Dave Meyer, to our dedicated team past and present. Really grateful to you, your creativity, resilience, and commitment. Turn that idea of bigger pockets into a nationwide movement here with a little bit of international overlap. Moderators, content creators, contributors, our ambassadors, all of you, current, former,

you fostered a community that's as welcoming today as it was. when I joined in 2014, and it's, you know, an empowering, protective, wonderful community that does its best to give back real advice to people, they'll help make better decisions. And then, you know, obviously every single person who's ever browsed the site, posted a question, posted a question, uploaded a post on bigger pockets, participated in any social media interaction or offered advice and given back, you guys have been the heartbeat of bigger pockets. So it's been really empowering to see your triumph, your struggles. your first deals, your financial freedom, and the setbacks that others can learn from along those journeys. So the next couple of weeks, I'll spend thanking as many people as I possibly can

here personally. I'll thank a good bunch of folks before this episode airs as well out there, both for what you've done for Bigger Pockets and for what I've done personally. And then I'll kind of finish off by saying, when I reflect on the last decade of my life and career here at Bigger Pockets, I see a web of moments, right, from late night strategy sessions or late night apprehension about big decisions there, electrifying conferences where you look out over a sea of 2,500 people and you're scared out of your mind to talk live in front of them, the quiet victories and forum threads where we out somebody who maybe wasn't working on with best practices or trying to scam our members,

or we suspected perhaps there. I recall relationships built, conflict and resolution, wins and losses, personal one-on-one advice given from so many members of this community to me directly, that directly led to better real estate and investing decisions in my personal portfolio, including one-on-one mentorship from some of our most prominent forum members, helping me make better decisions. Shout out to Jay Heinrichs, one of our all-time leading poster, who personally mentored me on how to do private money lending, huge advantage in my personal portfolio. I see a community that didn't just chase wealth, but redefined it. You prioritize freedom and giving back to the next community member.

And you prioritize investing in real estate the right way for the long term and treating buyers, sellers, tenants, and team members with respect and dignity. And I see the contributions from our team here at Bigger Pockets from technology products that they built, breakthrough insights, new strategies, new acronyms, new resources and guides and mental models to think about real estate investing and the countless resources that derive from those ideals. So it wasn't perfect here at Bigger Pockets. Nothing ever is, but this was incredible and the highlight of a career, an opportunity of not just one, but maybe multiple lifetimes. So I'm very proud of what we've built, and I'm even prouder of what we've become. I look forward to what we will become under your leadership, Alley.

And thank you to everyone here at Bigger Pockets for trusting me to lead this journey. It's been the honor of my career. And again, I won't be going that far. I'll just be over there at Bigger Pockets money, continuing to work that many of you know there in the personal finance space. So I'll be there. I'll see you. I'll be in your earbuds if you're in the gym or in the car with you on your community to work

or wherever you'll watch or listen to podcasts. So I'm excited for the future and grateful for the past. Thank you so much, BiggerPockets. That's me, Scott Trench. My title is now real estate investor and co-host of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.