How to Turn Unused Building Space Into Revenue With AI Infrastructure | Bill Mercer

Bill Mercer (00:00)

imagine a wall that’s just covered in MacBooks. Imagine a ceiling. not walking on the ceiling. Maybe there’s some lights on the ceiling sometimes, but other than that, it’s like unbillable surface area. A lot of times roofs are like that. Yeah, you can put solar panels on a roof, but you could also put data computational panels.

on the facade of the side of a building. How much money are you usually making on the side of a building? Usually none. walkways. There’s there’s a lot of surface area.

Quentin Edmonds (01:59)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and indeed I’m excited to be here today.

If you’ve been following me, I say that all the time because it’s hard to be ungrateful and grateful at the same time. And I am just grateful and excited that I get another day to talk to amazing guests. And today I have another amazing guest. And he’s going to tell you all that he does. I’ll give you a quick synopsis. he has a tech company that is really changing the financial model around real estate.

You ask what does that mean? Well, he’s gonna tell you what exactly I’m super excited to introduce you all to Mr. Bill Mercer. Mr. Bill, how are you doing today, sir?

Bill Mercer (02:40)

Quentin, doing great. How are you, sir?

Quentin Edmonds (02:42)

man, doing good, brother. Again, glad that you’re here. Second time thrice and this to you. Thank you for your time. I value it. Thank you for being here, man. Taking some time out. You could have been anywhere in the world. Bill, I am a tight sir. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in. And then tell them where you are in the world. What market you’re operating in.

That’s if that’s applicable. And so just talk to us, man, and you have the floor, my friend.

Bill Mercer (03:13)

All right. Well, I’ll start with where I’m at right now, which is what you asked for. And my mission is or my slogan is when you’re in the business of helping people, there is unlimited opportunities for success. All right, grandiose poster statement there. how did I get here? so grew up in Centennial, Colorado.

And just always been an inventor, kind of tinkering with stuff, was into sports and from an early age got into teamwork and and leadership. I my well my parents was at Comcast for about 15 years in their engineering and operations department. So I was always learning about satellites and cable and fiber and parallel networks.

Then get going ready for college. I was debating between an offer I got from the the Air Force Academy, which I was really excited about to serve my country and to go study engineering, but I got pulled over to Colorado School of Mines, which not everyone knows about, but it’s got a really strong engineering program. I ended up doing the petroleum engineering program because it looked like the

Best way to make money the fastest. And since I didn’t have a lot of it, that was a big priority of mine, even though I was most passionate about electrical engineering. while there, I also studied global politics, economics, and resources. fast forward, graduate, start as a drilling engineer, get married, buy my first real estate, turn that into a rental property.

And meanwhile running a business that’s just like was really, busy and having me travel all the time and then dealing with some, maturity issues. I I didn’t have I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. I grew up in a nice area, but we were lower middle class and the the first time a million dollars hit your bank account.

You gotta like make sure you have good people around you that either are not trying to take advantage of you or that are also giving you good mentorship. I had some NFL business partners and we just kind of started hanging out in South Beach, Miami too much. that kind of took me down couple year path that, I wish I could get.

couple of those years back, make some of those decisions go the other way. But it took me, to a place that I got to learn about a whole different type of community that I’m extremely passionate about now. So four years sobriety now. And I talk about that because it’s a part of being an entrepreneur that can sneak up on you. and even if you’re not an entrepreneur, there there’s

lot of just challenging circumstances in the world right now. So

I went through a whole process of personal development. I went back to school, went to MIT, did their AI and machine learning and business analytics and robotics program. I’ve been studying a whole lot about real estate and telecommunications and energy production. all of those are very vital right now.

In what people are seeing in the news or are working on. It seems like everyone became a data center company in the last, three years. and for good reason, it’s this new generation that we’re moving into where we have smart infrastructure. So you’ll hear me talk about smart cities and digital twins quite a bit also. today, my business development platform, the Biz Dev App, is a big focus of mine.

And helps me keep all of our resources and initiatives organized and moving forward, which is how I’ve been able to do so much with the company that I think we’re mainly here to talk about today, which is Rose, which is a computational panel that can be applied to unbillable, unused surface areas. So whether it’s your walls.

Your ceilings, your facade, your roof, even your walkways that’s built with a resilient structure, impact resistant, heat resistant, cold resistant, and very safe for humans and animals and the environment and for infrastructure. So this is something that patent pending is shaping up to be a big game changer for the financial model of properties where it adds a very meaningful

revenue line that can provide a whole bunch of direct and indirect benefits. So so yeah, man. just being an adventure, trying to be a salesman, trying to get away from my computer as much as often. and now just this is the first podcast that I applied to be on. So very grateful to be here. So

Quentin Edmonds (08:29)

Absolutely. Well, man, so glad you’re here. Thank you, man. Thank you for taking us through the journey, telling us what it is that you’re doing. And I love it, man. I actually I make this statement every part. destiny has no wasted moments, right? Yeah. Like we are learning from every leg about journey. Nothing is random, nothing is wasted, right? Learning from the the losses, on the success, we’ve meant we’re gaining lessons. Bill, I like to ask people and I’m gonna ask you.

What has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Like what has the journey revealed to Bill? Has it made you more disciplined? Has it made you more humble? Has it increased tenacity? Like what has the journey revealed to you about you, my friend?

Bill Mercer (09:08)

Great question. Let me think about that for a sec. Yeah. Well, see, I just learned or I just used something I learned right there. I was trained by a public speaking coach that when I’m asked a question, I can take a moment and think about it. And this little delay gives me a little bit of time to put my answer together. But anyways, shout out to Vistage worldwide.

Patience is something that I’ve had to learn. I was a running back. I was the a Christian McCaffrey guy, four four. I was scoring quick, I was making money quick, but then some of these, other parts in life you realize has to actually build a real solid foundation. I’ve been working really hard my whole life. I was kind of spoiled with my first business because I had my first multimillion dollar contract, like two weeks into business.

I expected that pace to happen with everything else that I was working on. And it just doesn’t always work out like that. So that’s the other thing is that you can make a great plan, but expect there to be calibrations that you have to make along the way. one of the other things that I think is super important that I learned about myself is that in this day and age, you can’t be a pushover, you can’t be a jerk, but if you can be intelligent.

That’s the new wave. So an intelligence means a lot of things. That means being a great problem solver. it means solving problems with love sometimes, which means like giving people some time, giving like, your your your team some extra communication. and then communication is is so huge also. I got a business partner and I love him like a brother.

But he’s always expecting me to read his mind. And, from my oil and gas training where we’re trained to overcommunicate or as a computer programmer now, you have to give every single, step function proper instructions. So anyways, those are those are a few things that come to mind.

Quentin Edmonds (11:41)

Yeah, no man, thank you, sir. And I’m glad you hit on communication. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I was telling him how I’ve been in the room with four people where we all literally heard the same thing that was said, but our perception around the same thing that was said was so different. And I is it literally caused tensions for years. And I’m like, we all heard the same thing, but it it helped me to realize that.

Everybody perceives information differently. And you and I was talking about experiences, environmental trauma, like our experiences a lot of time dictates our reality, which a lot of times dictate the way we perceive information. I love the way you talk about communication. And I’m learning this with my wife, is that we literally hear the same thing, but we still have to communicate what we heard because what she heard.

And what I heard, two separate things. And it’s like we we both heard the same words. And so I love it.

Bill Mercer (12:33)

the extra

layer that you just described there. It’s like, hearing good amount of detail and then explaining what you heard. I think that’s that’s that’s a good layer that I don’t think I’ve been even implementing as much. So that’s good.

Quentin Edmonds (12:45)

Brenee Brown. Are you familiar with Brene Brown?

Bill Mercer (12:48)

No, sir.

Quentin Edmonds (12:48)

Okay. So she she’s in kind of like the leadership space. And she she has researched like courage and empathy and different things like that. And she has a saying that actually kind of helped me win my wife, if I’m being honest, my dating. Give myself a little plug. And and shout out to Brene Brown. But me and my wife, we have a saying that we adopted from her. Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

the kindest thing that I can be like that is to be clear. And sometimes that takes just us having a numerous amount of conversations, just to make sure that we clear. Because that’s the kindest thing that I can be to you is to be clear.

Bill Mercer (13:26)

Yeah, no, I’m gonna use that quote also with my business partner that’s mentioning because he’s a very emotional man. He’s a six foot five Nigerian, educated in London, like just like suited. Yep. Just but he’s like this emotional, just like he’s so loving and he’s very sensitive. And if I bring it to him like that, that like being clear is caring and being unclear is uncaring or unkind.

That’s okay.

Quentin Edmonds (13:54)

No, the way you synthesize it is exactly exactly that. And I think that’s good. Again, Brene Brown, shout out to her. You might can do some research on her because she with how to talk within the leadership sphere with clear communication, even about bravery and empathy and all those different things. So I just had to bring that up, man. When you when you when you was talking about communication. Now, yeah, you may not know, Bill, I went to MIT as well. Okay. I didn’t mind. I’m joking. I didn’t know.

Bill Mercer (14:20)

Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (14:21)

I did not. But when you said computation panels, I say that right. I have no idea what that is.

Bill Mercer (14:28)

Okay, I got a really easy way to visualize it. So, and this is how I actually like kind of came up with the idea. I was I was actually putting together a business plan for a private equity firm that wanted to buy a roofing company. I was like, How am I gonna differentiate this business, this roofing company? And then I was looking at my MacBook, and this is the power of God and and asking for inspiration, man.

I I put I close my MacBook and I just put my MacBook laptop on the wall, my data center.

imagine a wall that’s just covered in MacBooks. Imagine a ceiling. not walking on the ceiling. Maybe there’s some lights on the ceiling sometimes, but other than that, it’s like unbillable surface area. A lot of times roofs are like that. Yeah, you can put solar panels on a roof, but you could also put data computational panels.

on the facade of the side of a building. How much money are you usually making on the side of a building? Usually none. walkways. There’s there’s a lot of surface area.

So our our design is a slimmed down version, but I also gotta give some credit to the man Akon because back in 2020, when I was reading stuff about

his vision for Akon City where he’s building power generation and Bitcoin mining into the infrastructure. That’s always something that’s really stuck with me. And if it may it makes sense, I can also talk eventually about the the power generation side, as well as the battery storage, which is in that same system. But yeah, so it’s got cooling technology built into it, which is,

Ultimately a thermodynamic system. So whether you’re in Anchorage, Alaska, you’re down in, the Central America, you can keep it at the the temperature. And then it also does heat recycling. So in some scenarios it’s gonna cost the building a little bit more power consumption. In some areas it’s actually going to be able to make their building more energy efficient as well. So then you’ve got these compute cassettes, which is

really important in the world right now, the Nvidia’s the companies that are making the chips and these panels are chip agnostic. So the minute that the next new technology breakthrough has been made, boom, you take these chips out, you swap in the new ones, or they have to be refreshed every like five years or so. So that’s built in the financial model. So long story short, imagine MacBook Pros lining your walls. That’s that’s kind of

the I think the easiest way to understand it. So

Quentin Edmonds (16:57)

I appreciate that. I think I when people talk in general, I kind of think in picture. So as they talk, I’m like picturing things. I love the, the MacBook Walls, MacBooks on the wall. That was good for me. And hopefully that I’m sure that helped other other people out too. of course, everybody that’s watching probably is not knowing what you do. I don’t even know what the percentage of people may be involved, what you’re involved in. But there’s a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business people, a lot of real estate people, right? And some there are some just some basic things.

That’s just a crossover when you talk about business. Yeah. I would love for you maybe give me one operational thing that you’ve put into place, let’s say the last year or two, has really helped you be successful in what it is that you do.

Bill Mercer (17:36)

Yeah, so definitely the implementation of AI, which is, software, right? So but now we’ve got all of these open source models that we can use. And they’re getting so smart that we don’t have to be as smart to use them. so if you can like speak out your mouth or type what it is you’re trying to accomplish, you can have these coding models.

Create it for you, or it costs way less to have someone build that for you. You’re still gonna have the people that either don’t have the time or it just is not clicking with them to go open up one of these large language models and start coding. Because it is still a lot of setup time. There is a lot of things that is helpful to know with the different programming languages and how computer networking works, and so and so but.

The ability to blast out a thousand emails in a week. because a lot of times with your email campaigns, you’re maybe only gonna hit one to like ten percent if you are an absolute just like rock star on open rates and response rates. So doing that has been one of the main reasons why we’re in the conversations with the companies that we’re involved with. and then

just also for building contracts or the the user interfaces. and the the communication layer as well too because some people like to read technical papers, some people like to have audio read to them, some people like to see videos or do interactive things to to learn what it is that’s in front of them. I try to make sure that with our message we’re provoking

Providing it in all those different mediums. without me having to go like do all of this animation, I can create explainer videos without me having to record my voice, or I can, I just figured out how to make these tutorial videos of the user interface of my biz dev app yesterday. And now those are getting pushed to YouTube so that like people can understand how to use this thing. it’s like really kind of

reducing the amount of time and we would think about return on investment. one of my mentors you know helped me utilize the concept of return on energy so lot of stuff that we want to give energy energy to our family, our friends, our our business. So how do we how do we stay competitive and and keep time back in our schedule as well too. So

Quentin Edmonds (20:02)

Yeah. No, man. I appreciate that, man. I like I want to ask you what’s next? Like, what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next, Bill?

Bill Mercer (20:10)

we’re working on some of our anchor commitments right now on our takeoff agreements. And when takeoff agreements, open AI or Google or Anthropic purchasing computational capacity from us. and then that helps create the financing, which then

starts like accelerating the manufacturing and the implementation. So that’s probably what’s most on my mind right now as far as like operational steps. And then the big motive behind a lot of this is, money is great. I like nice things, but money is a tool, right? So when I drive around Houston, Texas here and I see people sitting on the side of the road, it like

It hurts my soul because I know that there’s solutions that are out there. we we’re so excited to help bring this to nonprofit organizations where we can bring them an extra funding mechanism. I’ve the Biz Dev app helped me figure that out couple of weeks ago. in that I was like, yeah, let’s do like a GoFundMe. Well then the Biz Dev app was like, well, GoFundMe’s for nonprofits.

But you could present this as something that the nonprofits could install in their properties to help fund their mission. I’m like, that is awesome. Or, some sober living homes or, hospitals or schools, like the opportunity to help bring additional revenue to a school so that they can bring tuition costs down. Like it’s so just the the or the other one I love is

The opportunity to put this on multifamily properties. And all of a sudden, you’re now able to either do some investment in the property to make it more attractive, or you’re just able to bring down the land the rent or the lease prices, which then makes it more affordable for the tenants. Now the tenants have more money to like survive or put into their business. So the economic stimulation.

is is really exciting once you once you think about it. So that’s that’s what drives me, man. I’m not dating. I’m not really doing anything too much except, personal spiritual development, my health and working on this. So very grateful for it.

Quentin Edmonds (22:22)

I love it, man. Now, I so it’s kind of you kind of led me to where I wanted to go next is the word relationship. Now I know you said you’re not dating, but I do know there is sometimes building healthy business relationships. I would love to know what’s your philosophy perspective.

on building relations business relationships. Are there build are there relationships within the business that are help you be successful, people within the business that has helped you be successful? Or is there people who you’ve helped be successful within the sphere of what you do?

Bill Mercer (22:51)

Yeah, so the first thing that’s on the frontal cortex right now, because I’m kind of going through it in real time, is that and this is something that, you new entrepreneurs or, traveled entrepreneurs, I think is so important to consider. All right, you ready for this? If you don’t like a proposal that is given to you, ask some questions about why it was set up that way and or

provide a counteroff. I’ve seen so many people get so offended by offers sometimes. And it’s like, hey, this is the negotiation. If it’s not, I’ll tell you. but even still, like I think it’s so important for people to ask, okay, like that’s not quite how I was, seeing this, cap table or this commission spread spread.

This is what I was thinking. once again, going back to that, can’t be a pushover, can’t be a jerk, you got to be intelligent. having that ability to communicate and look at the numbers. And some people like don’t like what I’m about to say, but dang, ask Chat GPT or ask your AI. Hey, look, this is the facts of the series of events. This is the outcome I’m looking for. Help me present that in a way that is not offensive.

And like ’cause it’s hard as humans, our heart gets pumping and like we don’t always know how to say things that get our message acqu across. And like, a very close person to me, mom, love you. Sometimes I have to ask Chat GPT, how do I get this across to my mother without, offending her because I care about, how she feels and I want, to so it’s just use your tools,

So then that’s caring, right? That’s that’s effort right there, not just yelling or so

Quentin Edmonds (24:32)

Yeah. Man, to your point. So it’s interesting. you don’t know this. I’ll just show you real quick briefly. So as we’re talking, I’m just taking notes on things that you’re saying. So when it was still a blank piece of paper like this one is right here, was preparing for you for this conversation, and out of nowhere the thought came to me, and I just wrote down, I’m just curious. That’s literally what I wrote down. That’s the first thing I put on this page.

Before you I before you said anything, I just put I’m just curious. And what I know and what I’m learning, and I learned this from one of my mentors, it’s hard to be curious and offended at the same time.

Bill Mercer (25:06)

Mm.

Quentin Edmonds (25:06)

That’s one of our mentors told me. It’s hard to be curious and offended at the same time. So I love how you talked about, listen, you didn’t say the word curious, but she was like, listen, if it’s something in the contract and the wording that you don’t like, let’s just be curious.

Bill Mercer (25:20)

Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (25:21)

Why is that in there? Instead of jumping to offense, why is that in there? Talk to me more about that. Because maybe I’ll have a better understanding. Maybe it would make sense if I understood it or whatever.

Bill Mercer (25:30)

Here.

Quentin Edmonds (25:31)

And then to your point about Chat GPT, you talked about your mom. I literally have a Chat GPT chat called Casting My Cares. And it’s literally related when I’m frustrated with my wife, before I talk about my frustrations with her, I go into Chat GPT and just say, This is what I’m

Bill Mercer (25:47)

Feeling. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (25:48)

And then I just take time to maybe process what it gives back to me. and I’ll be like, quite didn’t think about it like that. And then my approach to her is totally different and it works. like you said, man, use your tools. People we we use our tools for everything else. We’re built, we’re building some incredible mainframes. Sometimes Chat GPT can start out with these interpersonal skills too. yeah, I love it, man.

Bill Mercer (26:09)

Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Yeah, yeah. I love it.

Quentin Edmonds (26:12)

Listen, man, this has been fun. Listen, is there I’ve asked you a lot of questions. Is there anything that maybe you came in with this on your mind or in your heart? Like, I want to make sure I get this point across. I just want to give you space that if it’s something that you came in that you wanted to make sure stuck, a message that you wanted to make sure landed. If there’s something like that, I just kind of want to create space and offer you the opportunity. Yeah.

Bill Mercer (26:35)

Okay. Well, yeah, didn’t have an answer planned for that, so let’s freestyle a little bit.

Quentin Edmonds (26:41)

And listen, don’t feel pressure. I’m just I just want to make sure we don’t miss enough.

Bill Mercer (26:45)

I’ve

got a million things I could say. So I’m just trying to I can talk, brother. Like I’m very passionate. I keep being told I should be an educator. and that’s what I do. I love it. So first thing, Rose, it was actually named after one of my business partners’ daughters. but it also stands for Resilient Operations System Equipment. I just really want people to consider what

The opportunity could look like if a safe new revenue generating piece of hardware could be brought to a property. There’s a lot of concerns over data centers and water consumption and being close to these electromagnetic fields. And those design concepts have been a huge priority.

You can stand next to this thing, your phone’s not even gonna be able to sense that there’s a signal coming out of it. It doesn’t broadcast, it’s all hardwired. the dry liquid cooling system, know that sounds like the opposite, dry and liquid, but there’s a technical component of this that I won’t go into right now, but it’s not like we’re sucking oceans or lakes dry of water.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life learning about telecommunications and electromagnetism and neuromodulation. I’m not like a a tinfoil hat guy, but I understand the science, the physics behind it. those are design concepts that we’ve really been working on. So this is the this is a very safe.

thing to bring to your property for humans, for animals, for plant life, for the property. And I just really want people to think about like how we can make this world more affordable. it takes some investing, it takes some ingenuity. It takes optimizing some operations. So one of the other things I talk about a lot is using an ERP, an enterprise resource planner. So

Whether you like Elon Musk or not, people like the guy is a really good example of someone who specializes in defining variables and resources, putting a system together so that you can put a plan and and execute that plan and derive analytics. So this day and age, it’s pretty hard to run a business without having a good ERP system.

And it’s a lot easier to use than it might appear. It’s just like using Facebook. You just keep your photos here, your messages here, you get your updates here. so yeah, I guess th that’s the first those first few things that came to mind. So so yeah, I think you mentioned I should give our platforms

Quentin Edmonds (29:20)

Let me say it cleanly now. I want to say it cleanly. So if someone wanted Yeah, that’s

Bill Mercer (29:24)

Wasn’t sure if that’s where I was.

Quentin Edmonds (29:28)

on me. That’s on me. But yeah, but but yeah, if somebody but you in the right mind. that’s where we’re going to. So I’m just I’m just having fun with it. But yeah, but if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, man?

Bill Mercer (29:41)

Yes, sir. so we’re growing our LinkedIn page right now. Rose Compute LLC is the LinkedIn page. The website is rosepanel.io. It’s got some great videos on there to help with the visualization and seeing the applications. I’m also reachable at hello at rosepanel.io. and then the bd app.com, the

bees and boy d’s and dog app dot com. that’s where you can learn more about what I’ve been dis discussing as far as ERP systems. So a lot of great solutions on there. and yeah, man, those are those are our platforms. So

Quentin Edmonds (30:20)

I love it, man. Well, listen, let me say three things to you. One, this is probably my third time saying it. Thank you for your time, man. Like, I value people’s time. So thank you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift of your integrity, the gift of your authenticity, even the gift of your vulnerability. I believe our stories when we tell them, it plants seeds for people.

Now, those seeds, we’ll never know when they’re going to grow. We’ll never know when they when they actually get down into the root. But the seed is cast out there, it’s thrown out there. So I believe what you talked about today, your story with your business, it planted some seeds. And I believe it’s going to take root and grow for some people. so thank you for that. And lastly, man, thank you for the way you think. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. Bill, I appreciate and greatly appreciate you coming on today, man.

Bill Mercer (31:10)

Thank you, sir. just trying to be humble and getting getting the mission, accomplished. it’s a long mission, but just trying to serve and very grateful for your time as well. So hope to talk to you again here soon.

Quentin Edmonds (31:25)

Absolutely, man. Well listen, y’all heard my friend Bill. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here. Cause I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Bill. So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.