Cloning the Deal Maker: How AI “Clones” Are Scaling Investor Outreach to 32,000 Customers

Craig (00:00)

I have like 32,000 customers today and I can’t talk to 32,000 customers.

There’s no way, but I could clone myself. could clone, we’re literally cloning me right now, so that’s great. ⁓ Big Star Wars fans growing up, so they got it right, know, George Lucas got it right. So we’re learning how to clone me. And another thing is, like, if you’ve run businesses before and you understand how you have to train people and how slow that is, you might not get it right, and then you just put three months into someone, you learn that time is such a valuable resource.

Pedro Pereira (00:06)

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host Pedro Pereira and today I’m joined by someone today who we’ve been looking very forward to chat with. I’ve got Craig Cecilio here with me, who’s been making some serious moves in the real estate investment stage and areas, especially having to do with technology. Welcome Craig.

Craig (02:27)

Hey Pedro, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Pedro Pereira (02:30)

Glad to have you here, man. So I think our listeners are really going to be able to take away something from our

today, especially in how you’re approaching the adaptation of technology into real estate investing. So let’s just, let’s dive right in. ⁓ First off, for many of the people here who may not be so familiar with your world, give us the short version, that elevator pitch. What are your main focuses today?

Craig (02:56)

Yeah, I say it’s been an evolution across four

I learned how to raise capital, structure deals, and do real estate investing at an early age. I was fortunate to get a couple mentors in my early 20s, fresh out of college. And what I’m doing today is basically that on steroids with the advent of technology. I just feel fortunate that they taught me some things you usually don’t learn about until your 40s. You can’t learn this stuff in books, boots on the ground.

One of my mentors was a real estate developer. Another one was an attorney who specialized in capital structures and raising capital and started some local real estate hedge funds over the years. So having that knowledge, that base, they point

the right direction. And with time, as I proved myself, because I had to prove myself, they opened up their networks to me. And then like everything else, I had to deal with the ups and downs of the markets with Y2K, if I’m going way back, the 9-11, the Great Recession.

Pedro Pereira (03:47)

Yeah

Craig (03:50)

⁓ Then you had a period of things were taken off. Pre-pandemic things kind of slowed down. I’m not sure if people really felt like 14 to 16 there was a softening on the market to crypto came out of nowhere. Then you had the pandemic and then last three or four years, I think you had a series of events like where it was crazy. It’s moving so fast. Now we live in a day and age where no one picks up the phone and we have artificial intelligence everywhere. And so how do you adapt to all these things going on? It’s kind of like, my God, what’s going on?

But that kind of brings it out to me, I’m a competitive person, I like that, I like the challenges. Going through these market turns has kind of, ⁓ I’ve developed that muscle, right, through patterns of overcoming these obstacles. I’m like, this is great, what’s new? You know, I’m excited about it. And most people are older, you think older person, they don’t learn anymore, they’re stuck in the mud with certain things.

They don’t like technology. I embrace technology. I love technology and one of the reasons I was able to scale my businesses was through technology over the years and so I kept adapting to it. So as you get more customers, how do I talk to more customers? How do I raise more capital? How do I underwrite more deals?

And then when you scale is to apply technology and then with AI it’s just like, oh my god, this is great. This is fantastic.

I have like 32,000 customers today and I can’t talk to 32,000 customers.

There’s no way, but I could clone myself. could clone, we’re literally cloning me right now, so that’s great. ⁓ Big Star Wars fans growing up, so they got it right, know, George Lucas got it right. So we’re learning how to clone me. And another thing is, like, if you’ve run businesses before and you understand how you have to train people and how slow that is, you might not get it right, and then you just put three months into someone, you learn that time is such a valuable resource.

Pedro Pereira (06:00)

Of course, it’s too many.

Craig (06:26)

Especially when you’re older and you have kids, I have three.

beautiful young daughters and when I’m working I am away from them so I want to make sure my time is spent in the right things especially when you’re onboarding lower level employees or social employees or new employees and now you have AI do some of those tasks and knowing AI is not going to make those mistakes or limit those mistakes, it mistakes of course, anything new does and it just opens up more…

possibilities for you so you could scale a little bit quicker, could make less mistakes. It’s crazy man, it’s moving so fast and every day I’m learning something new, it’s exciting.

Pedro Pereira (07:02)

Yeah man, that’s, I love to hear it.

What really caught my attention is saying all that was when you really mentioned, you know, how you embrace the technological changes, which is not easy to do, especially in today’s climate when technology is changing hourly. If we could even say it, everything comes out new constantly. And even in just this year with the developments that we had in AI, it has been absolutely astonishing how much has been accomplished. What, is the key that you have here? What do you really use or focus on to be able to keep this machine running so smoothly when things

are so constantly changing.

Craig (07:37)

Ah, well, it’s kind of like an analogy for that. A duck on a pond, it glides across the pond, it seems like it’s smooth underneath, its feet are going like this all the time. That’s kind of how it is, like every day. So it’s fascinating seeing the AI, I just brought in a chief AI officer a few weeks ago, guy is a genius and stuff, and so it’s learning, it’s learning us, it’s learning our systems, we’re learning the software we have in place, the applications we’re using.

Pedro Pereira (07:43)

Ha

Yeah.

Craig (08:07)

aren’t not improving fast enough. Some of these applications are almost like, I call it blockbuster video versus Netflix. It’s like, wait a second, you guys didn’t change fast enough. So we were trying to integrate it everywhere and knowing some of the applications we use, we might have to replace. So you could see the of the writings on the wall with that. you know, real estate’s kind of, I like to say it’s a traditional investment as well. And some of those…

Everyone’s trying to really modernize it and it’s really on the local and governmental levels where the modernization has to happen. I think that’s gonna take some time. However, you can do a lot of things internally. So if you’re just underwriting a deal, you get a prompt chat to do it and it’ll you an answer in seconds where you hand it off to an analyst, might take a week, right? And you might get pushback. Oh, I gotta do this. Well, you just put it in the system, here you go, here’s your numbers, right? At the end of the day, it’s just awesome to do that stuff.

Pedro Pereira (08:54)

Yep.

Exactly.

Craig (09:01)

And again, you have to know how to prompt it. So older people who have the experience should be able to utilize it because you know how to prompt it. All the intricacies of a real estate deal and understands interest rates, rates, and all that stuff. That’s fascinating to lot of people, and I could talk about that stuff. But that’s easy. Once you know this stuff, it’s easy. But if you’re new in it, and usually younger people understand the tech, but they might not have the decades of experience of how the nuances work in real estate. So I feel like I’m at a good

Pedro Pereira (09:04)

Mm-hmm.

course.

Craig (09:30)

⁓ good place. There’s not a lot of people who understand who have the years experience and accepting technology. So I feel fortunate for that to happen. feel like that things are aligning for me right now in this current market.

Pedro Pereira (09:42)

That’s absolutely great to hear. Having both of those ends being strong is definitely gonna be a key driver in the future to both understanding technology and having the experience to be able to use it correctly is a very important factor. And I wanted to touch on some points here. Now, every operator has moments when things really got real,

when maybe a deal went sideways or they had to sort of fast. Could you mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Craig (10:44)

Uh, which one? There’s always plenty of deals going sideways. Uh, so I got a big, I’ll go with a big one and a small one. So great. Uh, my main law’s own a bakery in town. So, and, and my father-in-law happened to buy a little house and fortunately the house he bought is on this lot and next door they’re building apartments. now, know, by her, circumstance, his lot’s worth a lot of money. So I’m at his, so I’m out there, it’s a couple blocks from his bakery. So I was like, oh, by the way,

Pedro Pereira (10:48)

Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Craig (11:14)

behind the bakery, I bought a house back in the crash. I bought a house, I bought lot of distressed assets during the great recession. And I was like, yeah, that house I bought is the biggest house on the block. And that was a disaster of a flip. So we went in and did it, and one day we’re trying to put a window up, and you need permits for a window in this part of town. And the guy, the permit guy comes in with

Pedro Pereira (11:20)

Mm-hmm.

off

Craig (11:38)

badge, and he’s all like strutted in, he’s got his…

USC hat and I’m like, you know, you like USC football and he’s like, yeah, I’m like, yeah I got season tickets and he looked at me. You trying to bribe me? I was like, no, no, no. was like, okay, that took like three months to get three months to get the permit on that one. So we were trying to get like a 20 % return per property to our LPs. That one was like a 6 % return. So we had the permit issue. Then the roof was a lot worse than we thought. And then we the pool was a disaster.

Pedro Pereira (11:50)

Run

Craig (12:06)

I always stay away from pools because it was like, know, underneath it. Once you pulled away the lining, there was cracks. You’re buying the site unseen if you bought distressed assets back in the day. Plus it’s site unseen. Paper to numbers look good. that was something. We did make a little money on it, but it was everything that could go wrong went wrong. know, longer hold time means the interest. Yeah, the interest, had to hold on the longer. So that’s an interesting one that we had to

Pedro Pereira (12:08)

Yeah.

listed.

Craig (12:29)

through. I think I had one in recently.

Pedro Pereira (12:30)

for sure.

Craig (12:34)

think we exited this one in 2020 or 2019. Actually, we got a return on it. It was a multifamily property out in Killeen, Texas. There’s a base out there with a story around. And that one had everything that could possibly go wrong. We had a flood. It was like three units. So it was like, not three units, was about 150 units, but like three buildings.

Pedro Pereira (12:48)

Mm-hmm.

Craig (12:58)

So we had a flood on that, the pipes burst, they were frozen, they burst. I think there was a fire in one of the units. Oh, by the way, there’s a triple homicide in one of units. I’m like, oh God, you what could go wrong, went wrong. We sold it, we got 9 % to our LPs on that one. So that was a win, you know, we still almost got double digits on something. If we can manage a project like that and still get a return, you know, that’s a good thing. That’s why I like multifamily, because you can kind of, you do have a little leeway when it’s larger units.

Pedro Pereira (13:07)

Oof. Disaster after another.

Craig (13:28)

Or if it’s like four to 10 units, you don’t have much leeway at all. So that was one that was a complete disaster. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We were able to make a little money out of those. That was nice.

Pedro Pereira (13:30)

huh.

Hey.

It’s like, it’s good. seemed like you’re able to really take, you know, when challenges come along, you’re able to flip them and still start to get a positive side out of it. I wanted to ask if with all this AI integration and technology that you’re adapting, have you experienced any challenges or problems on that end that you could elaborate a little bit on?

Craig (13:56)

I won’t say problems. Everything’s new. So I say we’re just learning. I, right now, the expectations is how fast is it gonna, any business owner wants the same answer, how fast is this gonna produce more revenue for me? The other day, I am doing this to make money. So it’s hard to understand that when you’re building this out and you’re like, well, I don’t know how fast it’s gonna learn. What do you mean? It’s gonna learn overnight?

Pedro Pereira (14:01)

Mm-hmm

Yup.

I’m

Craig (14:24)

Is it gonna take a

month or three months? So that’s a little bit of the frustrations. Like, well, it’s going. We started like testing the AI callers out and it’s like, okay, did that work? Is it working or is it not working? What do we gotta do? Well, it’s learning. So it’s like understanding that and the predictions and forecasting is something that I’m trying to grasp, but most of us are trying to grasp that anyway. So my big thing is like keep testing every day. So what you can control is how frequently you test.

So let’s control the controllables. Let’s control our testing. Let’s control our attitude. Let’s control our collaborations and alignment and brainstorms.

If we could do that, then eventually that will lead to some type of results. And then we maybe could do some forecasting with it. It’s a lot. I don’t know if it’s more than I expected. It’s just new. I’m not, how do I say? ⁓

Pedro Pereira (15:56)

Mm-hmm.

Craig (16:00)

I don’t feel any kind of overwhelmed or anxiety ⁓ using it. just, I’m excited to use it and I want to see the results like everyone else real quickly, but I understand it’s complicated. Yeah, so.

Pedro Pereira (16:13)

Of course. thank you for that. It’s a very genuine answer, honestly. People don’t talk about enough how…

You know, technology is all exciting to adapt, but you still have to take its time. There’s a lot of barriers to entry within the learning. So thank you for your honesty on that. And in my opinion, it really, you know, your drive of, you know, taking challenges and flipping them to keep focusing on progressing forward is really what I believe that separates the people who just dabble in the industry and the people who stay in the game long-term. So congratulations on that. think that you guys are heading in a great direction. If I could ask, you know, looking into the future a little bit, what are you focused on?

Craig (16:42)

Thank you.

Pedro Pereira (16:48)

What is the next problem you’re looking to solve? What are you looking to scale next? What are the goals and plans for the future?

Craig (16:55)

Yeah, really to make our platform turn

like an investment platform because real estate for people who are…

just regular people who want to do it passively and just want to a fractional part of it like Robin Hood, he owned Fractional Stocks as our platform owned Fractional Real Estate. It’s really kind of create that platform to be a very engaging, interactive experience for people and that’s where the AI comes in. Because I don’t know what you know or don’t know. So if I have like 30,000 people, how do I talk to all of you and you want to receive information differently? Or one guy wants a DM on Facebook, one guy wants a phone call, one guy wants an email, one guy wants

DM one guy I don’t know what you want right at the end of day it’s like my god so AI could help us improve that experience and I call it being this is my tech hat on being very product-led ⁓ knowing real estate I think gives me an advantage because that to me it’s complicated it’s hard work but I understand that game really well so I could really forecast things pretty accurately with that and how that’s gonna turn out but really kind of combine that too for a great experience and really talk people

people

at where they are at in their financial journey. Because they’re there not for real estate, they’re in there to make money. So let’s align interests. So what do think this is? What are your expectations? How can we help you? And really gather that information, I call it data on them, so I could have a great experience for them. So that allows me to get more investors to buy more real estate if I can do that properly. So really focusing on that experience is a large part of what we’re focusing on this year and next year.

Pedro Pereira (18:29)

that that’s really big especially with all the market changes now everything coming in with a i mean the sky’s the limit and whatever a i can dream of it and later on will also be the limits of the infinity and beyond as what some people would say so i wanted to you know touch on a couple of things because the people that here are listening i think that they would get a good

good amount of information from this, since they’re either very early in their journey or they’re looking to level up. we’re going to these things, these experiences, these stories about successes and challenges really help people ⁓ find real experiences to build their businesses on. So when it comes to building relationships in real estate, in the technology era, in also just, you know, lending, growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you in that?

Craig (19:25)

That is a great question. So that is something that evolves and you have to work on. You have to make that a priority for yourself because I quote in people, your network is everything. So you have to proactively work on that. So when the markets change, like pre-recession, I had 50 friends that were all doing real estate and everyone owned a piece of a nightclub. Because that’s what people did, bought restaurants and nightclubs back then. Now I have like the only one that’s left. I was like, where has everyone went? So it’s like I can’t reach out to them to be business people

They got over leveraged there, so I have to build new relationships. Now we came out of this big bubble, tech bubble, where I was friends with lot of tech guys and tech companies and I’m looking around, there’s a little less nowadays. So you always have to evolve that. What is that today? Today I’m working on branding. I’m hanging out with influencers and developing relationships with them. And how does that work? You you have to add value to them. Do you want someone who’s got like a million views on Instagram or YouTube? Well, why would they want to be friends with you at the end of the day? What value do you

approach with them. Maybe I start a little lower right at the end of the day but get out there go to events meet people figure out

I just call it like how the game is played, you know, there’s always the game just evolves over time. It’s the same thing. Build those relationships. More importantly, be authentic. Be authentic who you are. Get to know who you are. Maybe you don’t know who you are, but who do you want to be? Strive to be who you want to be and at the end of the day, then attract those people. Because it’s not just like, I’m friends with an influencer. If they have no morals, your morals don’t match, your values don’t match. Hey, move on to the next. So I always look at like, hey, this is the person I want to be. This is the person I am. Let me surround myself with them. And if they’re

in the business world too, that’s an added bonus. And then you start attracting those people, then you go from five to 10, before you know it, you have a tribe. And if you have a tribe, you have a brand, if you have a brand, your business can take off.

Pedro Pereira (21:14)

That’s great. Yeah, you really can’t fake that. Relationships are everything in this space and being able to build genuine ones, authentic relationships that you can build towards the future, that’s also a very big differentiator here from the people who stay and the people who just head out quickly. But I did want to reach out to you, know, ask before we wrap, if anyone wanted to reach out, connect to you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Craig (21:41)

Yeah, think nowadays I like Instagram a lot. CXC, Cecilio is my handle. Of course you could do LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I’m getting bugged by vendors all the time so I might lose you there. It’s more authentic to go to Instagram. I’m on X as well as they’re learning to use YouTube so reach out to, I’m not sure how to reach out to YouTube but Instagram is the best one. LinkedIn, Twitter, X sorry, are the best mediums to reach out to me at the end of the day for things. yeah, easy to find.

Pedro Pereira (21:51)

Yeah.

Craig (22:11)

I work on my brand, social media stuff, so I’m always posting interesting content at times.

Pedro Pereira (22:17)

That’s

that’s great. Well, listen, man, I really appreciate your time your story and your perspective We really need more people in the space that are doing things the right way and I truly believe that you’re one of them So congratulations on that. I think you guys are heading in a great direction For all of those of you tuning in who have received value from this make sure you subscribe because we have more Conversations coming up with operators just like Craig who are out there building real businesses Craig Thank you so much for being with us today

Craig (22:47)

Awesome, thanks Pedro, appreciate it.

Pedro Pereira (22:49)

Thank you everyone, we’ll see you on the next episode.