2009: A Year in the Life of MustKnowInvesting.com
Wow! It sure is amazing how time flies, isn’t it?
Sooooo much has happened in only a year …
2009 Kicked off with the Creative Real Estate Solutions in Today’s Market Video Series, then MustKnowInvesting.com turned 1, Trevor Mauch and I launched our Private Money Blueprint System (Holy Cow! What an Undertaking!), the Battle of the REI Blogs, and MUCH MORE.
Thank goodness I decided to get my butt out of bed this past weekend and go to church. That’s where I got the idea to do this post because they put together a “year in review” video with all the highlights of 2009. So, I thought it would be really cool to do a post called …
A Year in the Life of MustKnowInvesting.com
Let’s just jump right in … here we go …
The “Creative Real Estate Solutions in Today’s Market” Video Series
We kicked off the year in January with the Creative Real Estate Solutions in Today’s Market video series (over 2 1/2 hours of solid content). It was a 5 part in depth video series on wholesaling, private money, subject tos, owner financing, and much more. And at the end of the series, we took on a very limited number of students in our mentoring program.
One of those students, Justin Wilmot, a twenty somthin’ self proclaimed surfer dude from Florida, had quite the year; he closed his first wholesale deal, locked up a million dollar credit line through a private money lender, and closed his first rehab deal. To say Justin’s life will never be the same would be quite the understatement.
Happy B-Day!
On January 19th 2009, my baby, MustKnowInvesting.com turned 1. It was a great day, a milestone, an accomplishment. Few people (other than fellow bloggers) realize how much work goes into maintaining an active blog.
Thousands of hours have been poured into the idea and implementation of everything you see, read, listen to, and watch here. To see my blog grow and mature over that first year was awesome (and now my baby is almost 2 … whew … children sure to grow up fast … haha)
The Private Money Blueprint
For the next few months, I published 2 to 3 new articles and videos per week and spent countless hours, nights, weekends preparing for our Private Money Blueprint launch.
Let me give ya a little back story …
Trevor Mauch and I had partnered up in August of ‘08 to teach people how to get private money. We taught a couple free 100% content webinars and there was a HUGE demand for more information. So, we created a pilot program to teach 20 lucky students how to get unlimited funds for their real estate deals using private money.
After the program finished, our students raved; they wanted more.
Next, we wrote the home study manual (an arduous task), commissioned Trevor’s web guy to put the private lending websites together (an expensive task), built the Private Money Blueprint Membership site (another big task), and put together a plan to launch our private money getting system in May (a “thank goodness we hired help” task … thanks @ChrisBrisson).
Whew … I get tired just thinking about all that stuff.
Anyway, much time was spent on the Private Money Blueprint project (which was birthed from MustKnowInvesting.com) and it all culminated in May when we launched; quite the accomplishment.
The icing on the cake has been the amazing results our students have gotten from our system. It’s so awesome opening up my email each morning to find another success story from a student.
The Investor Connect Contest
After things settled down from the launch, I wasn’t sure what my next “little project” would be. I had a few ideas but nothing slapped me across my face UNTIL … I had the idea for the Battle of the REI Blogs contest (more on that in a little bit).
So, in preparation for “battle”, I decided to run a small contest on my blog to get my feet wet, to learn the ropes. There was a bunch of awesome prizes and a really cool “social” component to it.
I called it … The Investor Connect Contest.
The coolest thing about it, the winner of the contest Noel Roberts, closed his first deal just a few months thereafter. Check out the email he sent me recently …
Oh yeah, and to top it all off … Noel, aka Kid Cash Flow, is only 18 years old!
So whatever your excuse was for 2009 of why you didn’t close your first deal, or why you didn’t achieve your REI goals … might as well trash it. Noel didn’t have any of the “Big 3 C’s” … Cash, Credit, or Credibility … and it didn’t stop him.
My Short and Sweet Skateboarding Career
LOL … y’all got a good laugh at my expense on this one. Make sure you watch me drop into the half pipe at the 5 min 26 sec mark.
Click Here to Watch me bust my tail skateboarding
Be on the lookout for Part 2 to this one … coming soon in 2010 :)
How to Become a CIA: 7 Part Creative Real Estate Investing Series
This was all about getting you ready, willing, and able to close on your first or next deal by delivering the information, tools, and resources to get it done. There was the “CIA Manifesto”, video tutorials, downloads (MP3s, forms, etc), guest expert Stephani Davis from FlipthisWholesaler, Dusty Keefe, master negotiator, and MUCH MORE.
The participation and feedback during this series was absolutely incredible … thanks to all who participated and all who continue to study the series.
This free in depth creative real estate investing series is POWERFUL. If you haven’t taken this training yet, write it down on your list of goals for 2010.
Battle of the REI Blogs
With 13 of the top REI bloggers in the world on board, over 5,000 visits to my blog that week, and over 1,100 votes …
What a killer event the Battle of the REI Blogs turned out to be!
One of the funniest parts about it was the trash talking between the bloggers over on Facebook. Right before the battle began, I logged in to my FB account, and my profile had been decimated by the likes of JP Moses who posted a picture of a pumpkin throwing up with the caption, “The Effect Your Blog Has on People”, Trevor who posted a pic of a line graph showing how much more traffic his blog gets than everyone elses, and Stephani Davis who posted a pic that said, “My blog can beat up your blog” … haha.
It was on!
But, shortly after the Battle ensued, it was clear that Julie Broad and Ron Mead were the forces to reckoned with. As they blew by the competition, the rest of us were scrambling to compete.
End of the day, when the smoke cleared, Julie Broad of RevNyou was crowned champion; Ron Mead, who made a valiant effort, brought home the silver.
Thanks once more to all the REI bloggers that competed AND to you, our subscribers for contributing your votes.
Oh yeah, one more thing … if you haven’t checked out The Ballad of the Battle of the REI Blogs yet, that’s a must watch. It’s my lyrical and piano playin’ debut … Enjoy!
Contributors from Around the Globe
A BIG thanks goes to all the contributors here at MustKnowInvesting.com. We appreciate all the tips, tools, and techniques you’ve shared with us.
Jamel Gibbs taught us how to flip for profits. David “The Diamond” Oswald showed us when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em and inspired us to take action. Shae Bynes shared how to network our way to wealth.
Julie Broad pulled back the curtain on finding hidden bargains, showed how to overcome obstacles, gave us the 10 commandments to negotiating great real estate deals (and much more … Julie was MKI’s biggest guest contributor).
Stephani Davis contributed in style with her Wholesaling 101 video as part of the How to Become a CIA series. And my bro (not literally … but might as well be), Dusty Keefe taught us how to negotiate like a pro in Part 2 of the CIA series and how to control real estate with zero liability in Part 7.
Happy New Year
It was an incredible year here at MustKnowInvesting.com, and it wouldn’t have been the same without ya :)
Thank you for your time, your attention, your contributions, your feedback.
Looking forward to a phenominal 2010 together.
Happy Investing!
~ Patrick Riddle … aka P-Rid
P.S. For all you social media heads out there, let’s connect. Here’s my links … follow me on Twitter, Friend me up on Facebook, Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.
Tags: creative real estate investing, creative real estate investing blog, creative real estate video series, david oswald, dusty keefe, Jamel Gibbs, jp moses, mustknowinvesting.com, patrick riddle, Private Money, Private Money Blueprint, real estate investing, real estate investing blog, shae bynes, stephani davis, trevor mauch
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Patrick Riddle:
Dusty Keefe:
Absolutely phenomenal review, my friend! Way to go, P-Rid!
Shae Bynes´s last blog ..Wishing you a merry Christmas!
Thank ya … thank ya very much.
And thank you for your contributions Shae :)
~ P-Rid
You have done big things this year and there are big things to come for all of us. Thanks again for all your help, and I can’t wait to see what you have planned for 2010. Happy New Year!!!
Alphonso Jones
WOW!! What a year . . I’m exhausted just reading about it :-) What a contributions you’ve made to us real estate investors. Thanks Patrick!!
Good Stuff! Really looking to get things off the ground in 2010
AWESOME STUFF PATRICK!! I am proud to wear two crowns… your biggest contributor AND the battle of the blogs winner!! WHOPPEEE!! I sure do love Must Know Investing!! :)
Best wishes for a fabulous 2010… gonna be hard to top your ‘09 but I know you will.
Alphonso … you’re welcome. I’ve got some cool stuff planned for 2010 … stay tuned :)
Bill, Dave … thanks guys. I appreciate all your feedback and comments.
Julie … quite the year for ya! Thanks so much for everything! 2010 is going to be a big year for you and Dave … let me know if there’s anything I can do to help y’all out.
Until next year …
~ P-Rid
This morning I remembered another cool little accomplishment for during ‘09 … my guest post featured on ProBlogger.
Check it out http://www.mustknowinvesting.com/2009/10/19/is-your-attitude-and-mindset-geared-towards-success/
~ P-Rid