From India to America: Kapil Singla’s Profit First Journey

Episode 107: From India to America: Kapil Singla’s Profit First Journey

The Profit First REI Podcast

August 25, 2022

David Richter

Summary: 

We have a returning guest on the show today, and that’s none other than Kapil Singla. The young entrepreneur who skyrocketed his way to the top after moving to the US.

In this episode, he’ll be giving us an update of where he’s at in his life and business after a few years of implementing systems and using Profit First as key drivers to his success.

Key Takeaways:

[2:05] Kapil shares his whole real estate story with us.

[9:12] What early financial lessons did he learn, and how do they compare to where he is now?

[13:03] How is Profit First factored into his business?

[15:15] In terms of finances, what does he value the most in his business?

[18:15] What are the lessons around money that he wants to pass on to the next generation?

Quotes:

[8:22] “A lot of people, no matter what level they’re at, find it important to surround and connect with people that share the same goals as you.”

[10:07] “Money was hard, money was everything at some point.”

[10:35] “A persistent action towards a goal and having the faith to back up your ideas makes money come to you.”

Links:

Contact Kapil: 929-413-9332

Kapil’s Facebook-https://m.facebook.com/kapil.singla.756 

Profit First Real Estate Investors FB Group-https://m.facebook.com/groups/ProfitFirstREI/ 

Simple CFO-https://simplecfo.com/ 

Tired of living deal to deal? 

If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David 

Transcript:

Kapil Singla:

As a real estate investor, we were all always short on the cash reserves. You know, we were always broke. So with the Profit First model, I think it was a huge go and a huge plus for us in a short amount of period, we were able to add in last six months, closer to 12 single family doors, just using that system and keeping that consistency with Profit First. So it really did help us

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Profit First REI podcast, where real estate investors, master financial management, eradicate entrepreneurial poverty, and learn to be profitable from day one. Now for your host, David Richter dirt,

David Richter:

Hey, everyone have another exciting guest today. It’s Kapil Singla, and I’ve actually had him on before today and he was episode 23, Michael Jordan. So he was on that episode and it’s amazing going back. And I’ve had a couple of repeat guests now and just where they were and what they’re doing from then to now. And Kapil’s working on some awesome stuff. I’m excited to at least mention that on this podcast here and have that potentially be some value. But also I just wanna hear his story of like, because he was just, he was a 19 year old wholesaler doing deals doing, you know, going through the grind and then actually partnering with people and doing bigger stuff. Now he’s made huge life changes between the last time that we were on the podcast moving and just a whole lot of different stuff. So appeal great to have you on again. Hope you’re doing well today.

Kapil Singla:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me again. David, it, it’s a pleasure being here and thanks for the great intro, man.

David Richter:

Yeah. Well then let’s get this started. Tell us your story again, but this time talk about the beginning, cuz I know, you know, you started out young at an awesome age to be able to leverage now with the other stuff that you’re doing. So like tell us your journey from the beginning again, and then tell this different stages of your business. And you can even mention what you’re doing now inside of the tech and stuff like that as well.

Kapil Singla:

Sure. Yeah. Again, the story kind of begins came to us three and a half years ago when I was 17 years ago and 17 years old. And just started knocked on someone’s door as, Hey, will you teach me real estate for free and worked for them for eight to nine months? I would say managed a couple of rentals. I was going to high school in the morning managing rentals in the afternoon, in the evening and taking calls with while the lunch break. So it was a good experience. And after a while definitely left them, started my own wholesale real estate company. You know, definitely did some tax liens and lost a lot of money in that as you guys probably heard in the previous podcast. So after that so far my first deal was in later 2018 2019 was very slow, but the wholesale side and the flipping side kind of picked up in 2020.

Kapil Singla:

So from that from then to now, we’ve done closer to 85 transactions in real estate in a span of two and a half years the company’s growing with six to seven employees that are on the payroll, but there’s a lot of other commission agents. Of course, that work. We have expanded to a couple of states. We’re mostly Indiana. Now Michigan, also Idaho as well recently got into a development partnership in Washington. So just it’s a very you know, partnership model that I go with with a strategic partnership with people who already have boots on the ground already have some, and we come in with a deal flow and help ’em scale. And my partner in Northwest Indiana we scaled them up to seven figures this year. So just with our deal flow and our, our partnerships are, are very, you know, it’s a very hand in hand and it’s a very win-win situation for everyone.

Kapil Singla:

And so yeah, we on the tech side you know, definitely wanna talk about that side on this podcast here. The tech side coming up with a lot of flippers, a lot of wholesalers landlords is the analytical part that a lot of businesses don’t really have. So we kind of fill the gap in that space. You know, we came up with house folios.com with Rob fuller. He’s the founder. He flipped more than thousand houses. He was the biggest turnkey guy and was developing the software for himself. But now he’s, he’s finally came out and started giving it out to the public. And we are like closer to 3000 users on that site. And we’re trying to grow that into a platform and try to help as many real estate people out there, man.

David Richter:

So this is all in the span of two and a half years, correct?

Kapil Singla:

Correct. Yeah.

David Richter:

Yeah. So you came to America and you said, I honestly, I connect so much with you worked for free. That’s when I first started, got into real estate, I was working another job, but then I started working for free for another real estate investor in the Northwest Indiana area. Yeah. And started working there. And that was a great experience that was just getting to know what was going on and providing that value there. Then eventually I started working with that team and then helping grow that. So I love what you said that if, if people would listen to that, that is really, I believe a key to success. It might not be your key, your key might be going out there and busting it yourself, getting, you know, doing the things wrong right from the gate or whatnot. But if you get around the other people and just say, how can I help you?

David Richter:

What can I do? And honestly, a lot of these people are want are wanting that help they’ll take any help they get, can get cuz that’s a small business world. And if you can learn from someone, tell them like, here’s what I can do for you as well too. Like here’s what some of the skills that I have. Can you use that in your business? Kind of being able to come to that. So Kapil, I love that that’s huge value there. Then doing the transactions, the partnership model, what you’re doing now with the tech side and really helping people with the analyzing of the deals. I think you’ve, you have, you have just rapidly just grown in the last two and a half years from just now your business, mobile, your tech mogul. You’ve got the, you’ve got a lot of these things under your belt and I absolutely love your journey.

David Richter:

And I just wanted to also say as a side note, I’m talking too much. I should let you talk, but I just so excited for you that if you’re listening to this podcast, you should go back and listen to then and listen today, just in the first few minutes, how, how much more energy there is and just how much like he is just excited and ready to go. And that’s the real estate journey that is, this is the, this is the real estate journey. If you buckle down partner with the right people have the right values, steer stay clear to your vision, your values, what drives you? This is where you can, this is where you can get to. So I’m just, I’m incredibly excited because I believe as a listener and as, as you Capel, you are a huge inspiration to anyone who’s listening.

David Richter:

It doesn’t matter if they’re 20 years old or if they’re, you know, 80 years old, you can get started in real estate. And look what happened in two and a half years because of what he listened to, what he took on and then what he did, the action that he took. So, sorry, I just wanted to, I wanna brag on you just because it’s been an incredible transformation here. Like you were already doing a whole bunch of stuff back then when we talked and now just seeing that, seeing a couple compos circle and where you are now is just super exciting.

Kapil Singla:

No I greatly appreciate the, again, the opportunity David here, and a lot of people probably listening to podcast listening to you know, to YouTubers Warren Buffets and all those people, you know, they always mention being connected with the right people. And our first meeting was a good success mastermind, right. And, and just a huge part that I really wanna mention, especially for my success and my successful partnerships was these masterminds and going out, connecting with these people because you know, everyone in there has paid money to be there plus traveled and wasted there two or three days. Yeah. So they’re not there to joke around they’re there to make deals. They’re there to connect with people. So I think a lot of people, no matter what level they’re at, I’d highly recommend being surrounded with people like you connect with me anytime. I love to connect them with more people. So just, just love that connection side. That’s, that’s my core thing. And that’s how I get introduced to a lot of people because you give first and that you get back. I just love that concept. So,

David Richter:

Oh yeah. Yeah. That is a core tenant of, I, I believe of who we are as human beings. We want to give back and we want to do what’s right. We wanna provide that value and we’ve seen it over and over again with what you’re doing. And so I’m just very excited again here having you on. So let’s talk about then since I talk, I think our podcast has probably upgraded since we last talked to, and I’ve got some good questions around money, which I think is gonna be great because now you can tell on the journey, what early lessons about money did you have maybe even in childhood that has transformed over time where now like, okay, maybe two and a half years ago, another light bulb went off. And then during that transformation of the last two and a half years, just the concepts around money, what are you? Can you gimme some of that, what you’ve learned and then how you’re thinking about it today?

Kapil Singla:

Yeah. So that’s a great question. Very deep question there, see money is, is, is very hard to explain and no one wants to talk about it. It’s a very secluded topic. It’s now, you know, with the keeping, keeping in mind with childhood, I grew, my dad was entrepreneur, but never was like ultra successful or anything. So in my mind, money was hard to make, was hard to get to, but it always had you know, if you had money, you had a different social status. Again, I was in India, America’s different, you know, so childhood talking part money was hard. Money was everything at some point, you know, because even some of the relationships that my dad had would not be there just, you know, or would have been more if you had more money. So I think it’s, it’s been a very, it’s been seen as a very materialistic of course thing.

Kapil Singla:

And, and I think growing up now with having closed three businesses of my own, I think money, I would say still hard to make, but I think a persistent action towards a goal and a focused and having a faith to back up your ideas and having that courage and the, and not being afraid part you know, it makes money come to you. And, and I think now the, I like even you and me, we don’t like run for money. Like when I started whole selling, we were definitely running for dollars. We’re like, Hey, we gotta close this deal. I’m gonna make 10 grand. Now it’s all about what can I provide you in value? And if that has intrinsic value to it, great. If it doesn’t have interesting value to it, then fine. We’ll be friends.

Kapil Singla:

We have a good relationship. It might turn into some value down the road. So now it’s all about making value and money kind of follows to be, to be honest, you know, and of course I’m not, I’m not a billionaire or anything, but, but with my age, I, you know, a lot of people say I’ve done quite a bit good and all that, but, but I think that’s my outlook on money and I love moving money. I’m not afraid of talking about it. You know big, I love the investing side of it. I follow Ray Dalio, Warren buffet very closely. And Kevin OER, of course, you know, so

David Richter:

Awesome now. And I think you’re being modest there. I think a lot of people would say, say, you’ve done very well for where you are right now. And the sky’s the limit from here. I mean, because of the, you’re just, you’re showing us too, those words are manifesting those beliefs that you have. So it’s like, we know that even if times get tough again or whatever, there’s always, you’re going to come out the other side, if you can be persistent and have that attitude of always providing that value because it is, we all, if you’re listening to this right now, we all have that where we’re alway, where we had a point in our time and you might be right there running after the money. You need that money for survival for just the basic necessities. But at some point, if you hang around people like a appeal going to these masterminds, going to these places, you’re going to learn that not only can you make money that money that now isn’t, it’s not about the money.

David Richter:

It’s about that creating value. So exactly huge value here, Capelle, this is amazing. I think this is gonna be very inspirational, I believe to the listeners. So let’s ask a couple more questions here since it’s the Profit First REI podcast. We talked about this a little bit before, but can you gimme your perception and like, how is Profit First factored into your business, your life, your, you know, your everyday, what are you doing in these businesses? Does that help guide any principles from that book and from the, from the concepts of Profit First and now Profit First for real estate investing that’s coming out.

Kapil Singla:

Yeah, for sure. No Profit First did play a crucial role. We recently like second quarter of this year transformed a little from whole selling and flipping and started buying rentals. So at that point I, I, I read Profit First for like five, five months ago that that’s probably when I read it. And, and I, I love the concept of the dividing of the money into different accounts and the different sides of it. So it did play a huge role and I do follow it currently and still have separate accounts for that. So I think that was a huge learning. A lot of people think might be a small one, but for me it was a huge win because as a real estate investor, we were all always short on the cash reserves. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, you know, we were always broke. So everything with a Profit First model and a great thanks to you for building that. I think it was a huge go and a huge plus for us in a short amount of Peter, we were able to add in last six months closer to travel single family doors just using that system and keeping that consistency with Profit First. So it really did help us that’s that concept?

David Richter:

No, I love that. I love hearing those success stories too, because with the people we work with inside a simple CFO, we see over and over again, just having those reserves where yes, you can jump on opportunities or it helps save for the rainy days or, you know, the bad times or whatnot, but just the, the peace of mind, you know, being able to sleep and be like, okay, you know what? I don’t have to live deal to deal anymore. So yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because not only have you, you moved past that, but now you’re taking advantage of the opportunities and being able to really capitalize on what you want to do and need to do to grow the,

Kapil Singla:

You know, totally, absolutely.

David Richter:

So that just brings me to a couple other questions here now in your business and in, and in the different things that you’re doing now, mm-hmm <affirmative> what role would you say? Like, and what do you measure the most inside your business from the aspect of the finances? Would you say it, is that cash on hand? Would you say it’s like making sure you have a certain amount of net profit now because you’re running Profit First, like percentages are at a certain amount, or what are the key things that you look on, maybe a weekly, monthly basis inside the business?

Kapil Singla:

No, absolutely. See profit does matter to me a lot. You know, I, I’m a big fan of Kevin O Larry, where he says, if the business is not making money in the third year, it’s a dog, it’s, it’s a hobby. It’s not a business. You know, whenever I open up a separate LLC, I check all the balance sheets P and LS every month, making sure which accounts and which companies having me the highest return on my time. Hmm. That’s the biggest thing, because at this point you know, of course I wanna get married here in next two to three years have kids. So for me, the most thing important right now is my time how I use it and which company is giving me the best out of it. So I calculate my ROIs, IRS’s internal rate of returns on, on all the companies, all the LLCs and spend time accordingly.

Kapil Singla:

And of course I take on new opportunities as tech all the time. I connect people. We raise money for startups too. So, so yeah, just for me with the profit side, if a business is not pro producing me, it’s not cashing me or it’s not paying me. And I don’t know if a lot of people have heard about the Eddie, Wilson’s five faces of business. I love the concept, you know, I believe in it, follow it by heart. And I look at all, all the businesses and which phases they are having an operating system behind it.

David Richter:

So awesome. No, I love that because I love that you have a time that you go through and look at that, like, what are the returns on these businesses? Cuz those are the decisions that really matter, knowing those numbers and knowing is this worth my time or not, you know, like, am I wasting my time on this area of the business where it’s not producing anything, should I be over here? You know, like, or doing whatever it is that actually produces that because we know we have a finite it amount of time, we need to make sure that we are producing at the highest level for the things that are gonna produce the most value. Also what you said there, I highly endorse Eddie Wilson and the empire operating system. If you’ve heard of like EOS or if you’ve heard of some of these other ones too, like scaling up, it’s kind of a conglomeration of all those at the different stages of your business, you know, like from startup all the way to when you want to sell it or whatever that might be for you leaving a legacy and he clearly defines those stages.

David Richter:

So that’s what Capel follows. And it’s something that I highly recommend as well too. So that was, that was a great share for the people here as well. So getting down to just the last couple questions since you said, I, I know that right now, you weren’t married, don’t have children, but I want to ask since you brought it up, that if you want that in the future, what are the lessons around money and finances that you want to pass on to the next generation?

Kapil Singla:

So next gen definitely. My dad always gave me this goal of have a certain amount of money till I get married and I’ve surpassed that goal for him. And he said, no matter what, you know, at the end, if you look at the divorce ratio in America or any other country it all ends up being with, with the money side of it. It, it is honest, it’s, it’s, it’s a hurtful thing to say, but it is what it is, you know, you know, so keeping that in mind with the money side, I definitely wanna I don’t know if I’ll pass on if I’m wealthy, I don’t know if I’ll pass on that to my kids or not yet, but, but I, I wanna make sure I teach them about IRAs. I make sure I teach them about how to not think like a normal rat race guys how to have abundance mindset and how to be giving and making the value out of something. So I definitely wanna pass those things on for my personal goals. Before I get married, I wanna have a, have a kind of a nice house. May I don’t care if it’s paid off or not, but and I wanna have a portfolio that kind of pays me monthly, you know, make sure that’s profitable. And so, so those are some of my personal goals. And I honestly, at this point have not thought that what I’ll pass on and not

David Richter:

Awesome. Yeah. But still, those are great things in order to pass on the abundance mindset, making sure that that no matter if it’s your children or other people, because obviously at our age, we’re able to say, okay, there’s a, there’s gonna be entrepreneurs behind us, either taking over our businesses and like what they want, you know, like that next generation of people that might raise up there or whoever it might be. And these are all great concepts to be able to pass down. So this has been amazing. This episode here just char working for free at the beginning, getting that, you know, all the way now to where analyzing the different businesses and what’s the greatest return. So going from there to now, what you’re doing has been, I think that’s been very inspirational. It’s something that I think every, every single person on this podcast, no matter if you are doing at your first deal or you’re done a thousand deals, you can relate to what Kapil has said because you’ve, he’s got multiple businesses looking at those.

David Richter:

And he’s also been at the other side working for free until he learns. So there you go. This was incredible. So now let’s talk about how our listeners can provide value back to you. Appeal, which I know house folios is probably one of the biggest things right now that you’re working on, which let me give a little bit on that before you even do, because I’ll, I’ll tell, I’ll let them know that he walked me through this system and it’s strictly, I believe for analyzing deals. This is not a CRM. This is not a follow up generator. This is for analyzing the properties and it’s links to the MLS on like, and it’s incredible to be able to pull up comparables really quick to me when I saw it, I thought this is a way you could systematize your business, at least the front end of analyzing the deals. So I I’m, I know I’m stealing his thunder a little bit here, but this is where I wanted to, at least after he showed me, I was like, oh, wow, yes, this is something that looks like it’s helps you get that upfront. And I like the data that’s fed into it too, because there’s a lot of these systems out there that use the public data and all that. And it’s like just a very hit or miss type thing, but this is run from the MLS. So capo, how can they provide value back to you?

Kapil Singla:

So, well, first I love to pro you know, thinking with the tech side I got, I got in with Rob fuller because I fell in love with the software, as soon as I heard about it. I fell in love just because if I had that a year ago, I would’ve been probably the twice on the rental side of my growth than now. So, you know what we have focused, definitely we have spent a lot of time on the, an analytical tool of it. You know, a lot of people, no matter if they’re done 50 deals, a hundred deals, or if they haven’t done a deal software perfectly fits them. And a lot of people don’t know their numbers. You know, I, I stress on it. A lot of people know about cap rates. You know, they don’t don’t know about cash and cash return.

Kapil Singla:

They don’t know about internal rate of return. Those things matter a lot. You know we built a system, we built a platform for a beginner to a pro, no matter what stage of business they’re at the platforms has been built as an all in process from sourcing a deal through an MLS, analyzing it, underwriting it. You can also apply for lending from the software. We are gonna have few more partnerships here soon with the lending side of it. Then you can, you can make an offer to close and track every transaction. You can have a renovation, budget, budget, add receipts, and plus a huge plus is we also give people house FOLs power to websites on the selling side of it. So if they’re doing a turnkey side or if they’re flipping houses, if they wanna take that to a lender it’s kind of a, you know, a visiting card or a, or a executive website link. So we’ve made the platform in a way that they can compare, make comparables with what appraisal companies are looking for, make sure they feel confident in their purchase, all the numbers and everything comes up. You can analyze any deal anywhere in us in less than five minutes.

David Richter:

Yeah, that was what was powerful. I literally said, Hey, you know, we’ve got a 15 minute call here. Can you walk me through it? And he walk me through it in five and I’m like, I understand it. It was simple. So, you know, like if I could pick it up, I was like, okay, you know, I want to at least have you talk about, about it. So, and they want to look at this, where would they go? Where, how would they get to it

Kapil Singla:

So they can definitely reach out to me. My can I give my number on the podcast?

David Richter:

Yeah. Anything that you’re comfortable giving?

Kapil Singla:

Okay. My text messages and I don’t care, text me anytime. I’ll try to respond on the earliest convenience. 9 2 9- 4 1 3- 9 3 3 2. So I’ll repeat that again. 9 2 9- 4 1 3 -9 3 3 2. And of course you know, if you don’t find me, find me on Facebook, Instagram by Facebook is my name is a little it’s different handle on Facebook and Instagram. It’s K A P I L the last name’s single with an a on the end. So feel free to reach out to me anyway. And if you guys are interested in a demo of house FOLs, as I’m on the platform here, I’m gonna give everyone an opportunity that anyone who joins me through listening to the podcast, I will love to give them a 10% discount with a profit for lowercase code. So if anyone signs up through me or my team you know, feel free to use that code, then you’re, you know, using the Stripe payment and put Profit First lowercase and you’ll have a 10% discount. It’s a very minimal it’s a, it’s not a super expensive software. You priced it in a way that anyone

David Richter:

Can use it. Yeah. And that’s what I liked about it as well, too. It was powerful, incredible software at a very reasonable, very reasonable price. So just if you want to do that, look it up, see if it fits for your business, if it can fit into your systems and help you analyze deals faster. Or if this could be something that you could hire a VA to analyze your deals now, or something like that, take some of that off of your plate. If you’re a, so entrepreneur and going out there and doing that, or if you have a big team, and this could be another tool in the tool belt to analyze deals faster. So really excited about that. Excited about your journey. This has been incredible feel. Thank you so much for providing that value today about just the whole journey for the last two and a half years, we’re gonna have to have you back probably in like six to 12 months and just see what you’re doing there and what else has gone on, especially now that you’re using this and building your portfolio even more. So I just wanted to thank you so much for being on today.

Kapil Singla:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

David Richter:

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode valuable, could you do me a quick favor? Could you give us an honest rating within iTunes and be honest, you could say whether you liked it or not. And obviously with iTunes, the more reviews and ratings we have, the better it is for other people that are searching for Profit First and a podcast. So we’d love to be ranked on there and that’s thanks to your help. So we would really appreciate that if you would like to go give us a rating. Also, if you’re looking to connect with us further, I would highly recommend checking out our Facebook group Profit First for Real Estate Investors. And that’s literally what it’s called. So you can type in Profit First for real estate investors, and you’ll be able to find <laugh>, you’ll be able to find our Facebook group right there.

David Richter:

So come join active real estate investors who are supporting each other and growing their businesses and profits together. That’s what that group is all about. The link should be in the description below. And if you’re interested in working with us in implementing Profit First in your real estate business, we offer coaching and guidance. So if you wanna work with someone who’s actually Profit First certified and who works right now, currently with real estate businesses, you can actually go start your application process by going to simpleCFO.com forward slash apply, or just go right to simpleCFO.com. And there’s an apply button right on there. If you wanna actually start your Profit First journey with someone who can actually walk you through those step by step and help, you know, and grow your cash flow. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the Profit First REI podcast. See you next episode.