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Welcome to The Legacy Investor Podcast, where we talk money, investing, business, and what it means to leave a legacy for generations to come. Hosted by Cameron Philgreen, this show dives deep into the intersection of entrepreneurship, investing, and legacy-building, all while keeping God at the center. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, you'll discover how to align your financial journey with your faith, grow wealth with integrity, and create a lasting impact for generations to come. Join in, as we explore practical strategies, real-world stories, and timeless biblical principles to help you honor God in every step of your journey.
Marcus Norman, welcome to the Legacy Investor Podcast. How are we doing today, man? Doing well, doing well. How are you? Glad to be here. Wonderful. Here in Waco, Texas, just got cold and kind of excited about that. So you are also a podcast host, host of the Gentleman's Style Podcast. And I mean, how long have you been doing that? Great question. I have been podcasting since 2014. I've been podcasting for quite some time. Yeah. Dude, that's awesome. So yeah, you're passionate about being a gentleman and family, manhood, real estate, finance. Sounds like you're an investor in as much passive income activity as you can. So just catch us up to speed, man. What's your story? How did you get into real estate and then ATMs and now these other businesses you can talk about? Yeah, absolutely. Great question. I hail from the Caribbean. I'm from the US Virgin Islands where I was born and raised and then joined the military from there. And I did eight years in active duty Navy service. And when I got out, Um, like most veterans at the time, when I got out in 2014, it was very difficult to find work. And so I got my feet wet with, with passive income per se, as far as multi-level marketing, multi-level marketing was kind of the hype at the time. And so there were a lot of multi-level marketing, MLMs agencies looking to recruit young professionals. And so I got involved with multi-level marketing, didn't stick with it, did it for about two years. Um, didn't make any money at it. But my mind and my horizon had been expanded because multi-level marketing, even though I didn't make any money at it, the leaders and the people that were doing it were very leadership oriented and leaders are readers. And so they had us read a number of different entrepreneurial books. The primary one that most real estate investors get into is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that series. So when I read and then reread the Rich Dad Poor Dad series, I began to think bigger about real estate and how passive it can be if done well. And use that to catapult myself into buying. I had already owned a home, but it was just me. Right. I owned a home and house hacking was a term on bigger pockets. That was another big platform that I dove into. And so house hacking was a thing. So I was like, well, I have this five bedroom, two and a half bedroom house and it's just me. and I listed my house, I listed the rooms individually. And I said, I wanted to start off with one. I started off with one and I had made from security deposit, first month's rent, last month's rent and security deposit, I had made more money in an hour than I had made at any job that worked up to that point. And so I listed the, obviously I listed the rest of the bedrooms available for rent and filled up every room in the house and was living off of passive income. And I found myself with a, with just sitting on cash. And, um, save, save some money, bought a couple more pieces of real estate to include a duplex as well. And, and once I had accumulated enough real estate that I was willing to manage, um, I was still sitting on some cash. So I said, what do I do with this? What do I do with this money? And I literally typed it in a Google search. Um, and I typed in Google and I said, what do I do with this money? And the top number one thing at the time when I Google search, it was invest in a ATM business. And I had no idea that individuals could own and operate ATMs. I always thought that was something that a bank did. So, um, read about it. Didn't get, I bought the book on it, joined a couple of Facebook groups. Um, to learn enough to be dangerous and, but didn't want to get stuck in analysis paralysis and, uh, learn enough, bought my first ATM, uh, launched my first ATM, installed it in my first business. The first, the first two businesses were flops, but I didn't give up on it. And this, the third business I had placed the ATM in was a huge flop. They flopped because the first location was a, um, salvage yard and the owner wanted the ATM in his salvage shop because he claimed that people wanted cash, right. To, to buy car parts and get their cars out of repossession. That's what he did. He told people's cars and he would put, he would lock it in his lot. And so when individuals would come and get their cars, he insisted that primarily he wants them to pay cash. And he also fixed cars. So he would pick up cars on the side of the road and he would refurbish them and fix them up and then resell them for higher value. And he claimed that was a cash market as well. So I believed him. I believed him. Um, and, and one of the mistakes I made is he had a square, he had a credit card swipe reader in his shop. And I said, are you getting rid of that, that, that credit card reader? And he said, Oh yeah, as soon as the ATM is here, I'm gonna get rid of it. So I installed the ATM and he lied, right? He lied. Um, I installed ATM and he And weeks and weeks go by, he never got rid of the credit card reader. So clients were still utilizing the credit card reader. And then he was claiming that people were using the ATM. And I'm just having a conversation, a realistic conversation. I said, I see the data on the ATM. The ATM belongs to me. So it's not doing any transactions. It's not doing any volume. And he claimed him and his mom, it was a family run business. Him and his mom were like, no, people are using it. I said, you're lying because I can see the transaction volume on my phone. Um, needless to say, that was a flop. It was a huge flop. Um, I was able to repossess my ATM through a very funny story, but I was able to repossess my ATM and replanted it in a better location. And that kicked off for me, the money, the money while you sleep. with the ATM portfolio. Okay. So tell us about it. How does, how does one give us the dirty details? Like how, what did you learn? How did you set this thing up? What's the startup cost to like buy this thing? And then do you just like rent the space from somebody and you just kind of plug it in and that's it? Or this doesn't work. You don't have to, we don't have to spend too much time on ATMs because this is not an ATM podcast, but I'm, I'm kind of curious the 30 or 60 second version of an ATM business. Yeah, so you partner with a processor. That's what they're called. You find a processor who's going to process the credit cards and the cards and the debit cards. And once you partner with a processor, that's the behind the scenes. That's your back office. And then usually processors sell ATMs. The mentor that mentored me, he's a processor, right? And so you partner with him, he sells you ATMs and the prices can range from depending on used or new. The prices with ATMs can range from anywhere from $1,500 to $4,500 depending on the model and if it's a stand up model or a wall mounted unit. And, um, so you partner with a processor, you purchase an ATM from your processor, if they offer it and you program it, install it, and then you go head hunting. Um, I have advanced to the place where I no longer have to go door to go door to door um i i pay someone to find me atm locations and then they sell me the contract that's already in place and i just deliver it but in the beginning most people can't afford that so um you go head hunting but it's a very easy conversation to have with a business owner a barber shop a salon, you know, and just say, Hey, you know what an ATM is different from selling cars or life insurance, right? You got to kind of explain life insurance to people. But you most people typically know what an ATM is and how it works. So when you go to the business and you say, Hey, I want to install an ATM in your spot, do you think it'll be a value? Most of the time 99% of the time they say yes. Because they want cash. So that's the kind of 60 second elevator pitch there for sweet getting started. Love it, man. Back to house hacking. You rented out the five bedrooms or the four bedrooms. Maybe you lived in one. What happened from there? You know, you went from house hacking to investing or did you just, you know, what's the story with real estate investing? Real estate investing was interesting. Can you still hear me? Perfect. So once I rented out the bedrooms and I had acquired enough cash, I was pocketing about $15,000 to $2,000 a month because I no longer had a mortgage to pay because my roommates were paying it for me. And I did live in the property as well. I lived in the master bedroom. But the additional rooms were still kicking off enough to cover the mortgage and then some. But I also pocketed the revenue that I no longer had to pay. And so I managed the property for a year, and then I purchased a duplex from there. And purchasing that duplex was one of the largest ones I did. And it was a pain. I'm a veteran, so I used my VA loan. And, and so I ha I didn't have to pay PMI. I didn't have to pay a whole lot of points, um, because I'm a veteran and a VA loan allows a veteran to purchase up to a fourplex. Um, and, and kind of mitigate, there's no down payment. I didn't have to pay a down payment and anything like that. And the VA loan allows you to even split. That was something that was new to me at the time. You can actually split your VA loan, um, between properties, but you have to justify it. And so my justification was. I was taking another job. I had gotten another job offer because you have to live in the property for a period of time. And so once you meet that requirement, I lived in the property for the period of time and then I moved out and rented out the second duplex space and started generating even more revenue. And then again, I had managing three door, you know, a house, a five bedroom house and a duplex was as much as I wanted to manage. So that's when I got into the ATM investing and other things. OK, super cool. So what's your what's your main thing these days, ATMs and what else you got going on? Great question. So I manage a portfolio of about 13 ATMs today. And I still own and operate those ATMs and I manage them pretty easily. I also still have a podcast just like yours, a great show. This is a great show and gentleman style podcast. So that's also something I do to generate revenue for myself. I still invest in real estate, but I invest in digital real estate. and digital assets in a more peer to peer, um, setting or a group setting where a bunch of investors pool their money together and the agency that you give the money to, they find a real estate and invest it for you and they pay you monthly or quarterly, um, dividends or, um, Um, yeah, primarily dividends. Um, they pay you out from there either quarterly or monthly, depending on the property. Um, I also invest in Airbnbs, um, for what it's worth for, for the lingering market that is. and and now i um sold my physical real estate so i no longer own the house i no longer own the duplex and i sold all that um to purchase and and and invest into a franchise so now i co-own along with another investor i co-own uh real estate um mental health pro not a real estate a mental health franchise practice And so that's my, those are my big core investments right now. So I still do real estate. I still do the ATMs. I still have my great podcast like yours. And now I'm into franchising and that world. So that's a, I'm learning about mental health and helping people in that way. Um, I also do, um, I no longer do, um, cannabis. I'm still, uh, I'm, I'm getting out of the cannabis space. But I had a portfolio of three cannabis dispensaries that I am exiting out of. So just a lot of moving and shaking and a lot of things going on there. Yeah, man, that's awesome. So how about give us some advice for people who want to do what you're doing, who want to invest in their future, you know, smart passive income, just putting money into these objects, these, you know, pick your vehicle, ATM, real estate, you know, house hacking, people who want to do what you do. I mean, what advice do you have for the people that are like five or 10 years behind you? Uh, I'll give you, I'll, I'll reshare the advice that I got from shark tank, Kevin O'Leary. That's my guy. I appreciate that gentlemen. Um, don't, or, or Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, don't invest in anything you don't understand. If you have no idea how the thing makes money, don't invest. You'll, you'll get hurt. You'll get severely hurt. And I'm not saying all, there are investments that don't have risk. Most investments have risk. Um, but the big thing is you need to understand how this thing makes money. Um, I don't invest in crypto. I don't invest in, in cryptocurrencies. I don't invest in blockchain. I don't invest in things that don't have a tangible value or they don't make sense to me and how they make money. So that's kind of a key invest. Whatever it is you do, invest in someone or invest in someone. The new thing on the block, the new thing for me is investing in businesses. As I continue to grow and learn, I want to invest in businesses. I want to invest in people, right? Know the people. There's a company called Fanbase that I've had my eye on for a minute. Um, and I, I have not invested in them full disclosure. I have not invested in them because the CEO of the company is he's trying to build a social media platform, but his experience and where he comes from is the music industry. That makes no sense to me. A music mogul who sells record deals and labels has a very good understanding about music. What the heck do you know about social media? Right. So he's probably learning as he goes and he's, you know, and not for trying. Right. But you're competing. And the other part of that is you're competing against meta. Right. You're competing against one of the biggest social media platforms. They own Instagram. They own Facebook. Right. And that's your competition. What are you going to offer that Mark Zuckerberg isn't already doing? And so things like that. When you realize, how does this make money? How is this going to make me money? You'll find your niche and you'll find what you're good at, whether it be ATMs, real estate, cannabis, or whatever the case may be. Understand how they make money. So understand how you're going to make your money and you'll do better than most. I have found. Okay, man. What do you see are the, if not some of these things that you're investing in, what do you see are some of the up and coming investment vehicles that people should keep their eye on? Up and coming for me, and I think people should keep their eye on, is buying existing businesses. I think people should really look at their local market and look around them. My barber has always said to me that he wanted to open a second location. And so when I was sitting on cash, you know, I took him and his, his wife out to dinner and we just had a conversation about if you wanted to open up a second barber shop, what would that look like? And what would that look like monetarily? And having the conversation about if I infuse this capital, what would you, what would it do for you? Would you be able to open and what would you allocate the money to? What specific things would you do with X, Y, Z dollars? And then. What would be my return? What am I expecting to get out of you? Am I giving you this capital and I expect to be paid later? Am I buying a piece of ownership so that I co-own this with you? And then also, what do I bring to the table? One of the common things that I have to bring to the table is I have 21,000 followers on Facebook alone. And so I can bring advertising. I can bring eyeballs. I can bring views. I can bring something to this business. Um, if that's, if that's what you want to contribute, you don't have to contribute that as an investor. So, um, in Japan right now, there's a shortage of, there's a large number of businesses going out of business because they have no one to buy that. Wow. In Japan. And so look around you. I tend to be very engaged with my community and I try to connect myself with different platforms and networks of people who may be tired of doing what they're doing by a podcast, by an existing podcast. Um, you can invest and buy and invest in a, uh, already existing YouTube channel. I don't think most people know that you can. And so if you look at a YouTube channel and it has millions and millions of followers, reach out, reach out to that YouTube channel and say, Hey, can I invest in your YouTube channel? And I have X, Y, Z dollars. What could I get from my, uh, as a, as an expected return? Because this YouTube channel is, is making money. And maybe they have a pipeline, they have followers, and they're already making money. Maybe they need an infusion in cash so they can do something else with it. You don't know. But offer, make the offer and see what you get. But look at your local community and see who has a need. Now, be careful because people now seek me out for investment opportunities and you just got to vet them. You just got to find out what's going on. My partner and I, we were approached by... An event planner. And she was like, well, you know, I'm trying to feed the homeless and that's great. But are you looking for an investment or are you just looking for free cash? And she called it an investment, but we didn't see it. Right. We didn't see how this is going to return anything. And she just kind of wasn't honest with herself. Right. If you want cash, just say you want cash. Don't try and finesse me and show me all the lights and whistle. Just say, hey, I'm looking for cash. I have no intentions of paying you back. That's honest, right? If you're just looking for cash. And that gives me the dexterity to make a decision. But that's what I would say to people. Look around your local market for opportunities right there in front of you. It's great advice. I love the idea of, hey, maybe don't start from scratch with your podcast or don't start from scratch with your YouTube channel. Like maybe just maybe you never know if someone's stalling out or burnt out on their YouTube channel, they might be looking for someone to buy it. And I don't think a lot of YouTubers have exit plans like that. So if you approach them and basically give them a way out, they might be interested in that. That's pretty cool. Okay, digital real estate. Talk to me about this. This is something I'm not super familiar with. You mentioned Fundrise. I kind of understand it. It's like... Basically, you know, a fund right where but they've figured out a way to legal it up so that anyone can sort of put money in there and it's all sort of online. Explain this to me. No problem. I'll do my best. Great question. So Fundrise, depending on the season, they have different promotions where you could get in for, you know, ten dollars. But the majority of time it's five hundred dollars. If you have five hundred dollars, you can invest in Fundrise. And it is a pool of people getting together, Fundrise finds a real estate, invest in a real estate, and they have different denominations or asset classes. If you're focused on income, meaning these pool of investments are going to generate a quarterly income for you. So if you have a lot of capital, if you're sitting on a couple hundred thousand dollars and it's money you don't need, but you'd like to get income from it, you can invest in the Fundrise income fund. And Flip it. There's a growth fund. So if you want to grow your money, you're sitting on a couple tens of thousands of dollars, but you don't need it and you want to give it to them so they can invest for you. And they typically invest in that fund, a pool of real estate that has the potential to grow in value over time in various markets throughout the United States. And so they're investing in states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, New York, California, opportunities where there's land. And they're also investing in things like warehouses, for example. That is a huge growth market because as warehouses become empty, Amazon and these data centers are buying up these big warehouses to put their data centers in. Amazon is buying up more and more warehouses to facilitate all the shipping demands that they're growing into. That's a growth mindset. Those are some things that you can find in a growth fund. You have the growth fund, you have the income fund, and then you have a mixed bag, which is a compilation of mixed real estate for income and a compilation of growth assets, but it's mixed in. It's all one pot and it's Defined to give you diversification if you have no idea which direction you want to go. So I invest in platforms like Fundrise. There's another and Fundrise, depending on how your fund is doing, you can either reinvest your quarterly earnings or you can have those distributions paid out to you quarterly back into your bank account. There's other platforms that I also invest in, like arrived, which is also backed by Jeff Bezos and big players in the industry. And arrive has a mixed bag of single family Airbnb rentals and individual state specific real estate investing. Like recently they just opened up their Seattle fund. So they only this fund only purchases real estate in the state of Seattle, Washington. And so if you believe Seattle, Washington is a growth market, you can invest specifically in Seattle, Washington only if you want to. Um, but they pay monthly dividends. And so I kind of liked that better. And again, you can also invest in Airbnb rentals. So for this is the season of stranger things. We just got out of Halloween. Well, the house of stranger things that they stayed in was listed on arrived and you could invest in the, the stranger things household and the investors are, have listed in on Airbnb. And so people have been booking. It's been doing really well. I'm really proud of that investment. They have been doing really well because people want to stay in the stranger things is house and they can book it on Airbnb and staying there. And as an investor, I can stay there if I want to and book it. And, um, but it's making money. And so those are digital real estate that I don't have to hire a property manager. I have to deal with any property management. The organization or the platform does the investing for you. They just need the cash and then they pay you either quarterly, monthly, or annually. Be careful with Fundrise. Fundrise, if you... Be sure when you invest that you don't need the money. Fundrise tends to... They do not... If you need the cash, they have a form that you have to submit to request your cash. Many people don't notice. And they... it's not a quick turnaround. I'll say that. So if it's an emergency, make sure you're not investing money that you're going to need or could possibly need in the near future. Um, so cause those types of investments tend to not return your money in an expeditious manner. Um, so just be careful with that. Cool. I love that, man. It's like, uh, you know, it's a general fund that they've figured out a way to, to market these different, these, uh, I don't know, it's just like really good marketing for these different funds, whether they're miniature or massive. I'm sure there's everything in between. And people can invest as little as $10. That's crazy. Yeah. Awesome. Super cool. All right. Last kind of question for you. We'll land this plane. Is Marcus, you're a super successful investor. You've done a lot of stuff. You've explored a lot of different vehicles. What are kind of the top things you know, primary forms of cash flow for you now these days? Great questions. The primary sources of cash flow for me is on my ATMs, my franchise, um, And my podcast, those are primary forms of cashflow. My now again, with the prices, some people don't have $1,500. Um, when I first invested in the ATM business, uh, I worked my butt off. I Airbnb, I worked as a security guard or a shopping center and I did pizza hut deliveries and I worked a primary job. So, because I wanted to invest in these ATMs with no debt. So if you borrow money, um, don't overwhelm yourself. And don't borrow more than you can reasonably pay back. I got into this business all cash, no borrowed money. And so I own all my ATMs cash outright. So I don't have any debt on them. And so they make money from day one. So those are my big forms of cash flow right now. I'm fully self-employed. I've been self-employed for several years and now I'm looking to, how can I continue to make a difference? How can I continue to help people and serve people in unique and interesting ways? I love it. What can someone expect? Uh, you know, you don't have to, I mean, you don't have to share this if you don't want to, but like someone buys a 1500 or $5,000 ATM, like how much cash do those things throw off? Fair enough. And so you can expect anywhere from $200 to $600 per month. Again, the ATM generates revenue based off of the location. So that's why there's such a large swing. And that's why I got with a mentor. And again, I subscribed to some Facebook groups to kind of watch what others were doing and what was generating. The biggest payers, if you live in an area, where there's a lot of events going on and a lot of local events. Those local events need ATMs. And I'm talking the most I've ever made in a single day is probably close to $1,000 in one day at a local event. So that's your big, big, big money. But for steady income or for passive income, again, it varies from location to location. So to give you kind of an idea, If you have an ATM and the fee is $4, you may or may not want to split some of the profits. It just depends on what you negotiate with the business owner. But some businesses don't want any of the cash because they're making money from the cash that people are pulling out. So there are businesses that don't even want to split the profits of the fee. But let's say you have an ATM that's generating. It has a $4 fee. And you times that by 10 transactions a day, that's $40. Well, that's not going to change your life, right? But $40 times 30 days, that's $1,200. And again, that's an ATM with a $4 fee generating 10 transactions once per day, every single day. for 30 days straight. That does move the needle. And that's one ATM. I have 13 of those. So. That's pretty amazing, dude. And you own them all free and clear. And there's no like, you don't like pay rent to the place or anything like that. There's no expenses or overhead. So the rent is the fee split. So if I gave the business owner $2 out of the $4 fee, then that's my rent. Cool. That's super cool. Love it. Come on, guys. Get out there, ATM business. Hey, if people want to reach out to you and talk about any of this, maybe they want to hire you for coaching or for mentorship or join your Facebook group, where can people find you and anything else you want to share with us? Absolutely. Thank you for having me on your incredible show. I'm honored. And yeah, people can reach out to me at my Facebook, Marcus Norman or gentlemen, www.gentlemanstylepodcast.com. And I'd be happy to serve in the best way I can, if possible. Love it. I can tell your heart is to serve and help people out. So I really appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on, sharing all your wisdom, tips and tricks, investment strategies, investment vehicles, some stuff we've never talked about on this show. That's for sure. Super, super cool. Thank you, Marcus, for joining us. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of The Legacy Investor. Hey, if you want to help us grow and support us, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That really helps a lot. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, Cameron Filgreen. It's still new and growing, but I am going to start posting on there more regularly. Follow me on Instagram at Cameron underscore Filgreen. If you know someone who should be on this podcast, Go fill out the form on my website. It's CameronPhilGreen.com slash podcast. Fill out the form there. I'd love to have more guests on this podcast. It's been a blast. And music is by Eric Lopez Villaverde. Reach out to him for all your music needs. On Instagram, he's Eric Lopez Villaverde. Hope you guys have a great day and thank you for tuning in. Bye-bye.