Today we’d like to introduce you to Ali Boone.
Ali, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I actually started out very different than what I am today! I grew up in Georgia and went to school for aerospace engineering. I was originally a pilot but decided I wanted to make more money once I started in the industry, so I thought engineering was the obvious choice and, certainly, flying and engineering would be the same thing… right? (not!) So, I spent the time to get my Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, and I almost immediately landed the “dream job”. However, the minute I turned the corner into my very first cubicle, I could literally feel my soul leave through my toes. I was staring at a drab gray cubicle, about a mile underground and away from any hint of sunshine, everyone around me looked like a bunch of robots, and I hated the business casual clothes I was wearing. I knew I had to get out. I knew this before I even sat down in my chair.
It took me almost five years before I finally left my corporate job. During those five years, I was literally researching everything I could get my hands on in hopes that I could figure a way out of corporate. I quickly narrowed it down to knowing that I needed to either start a business or get into real estate investing somehow. I read a library’s worth of books trying to find the golden ticket, and eventually, I knew I had to narrow down my search if I wanted anything to actually stick. I chose to start a business. What business, I had no idea, but I decided to figure it out.
Not a couple weeks later, a random real estate investing opportunity landed in my email inbox. I was bored, so I decided to check it out. The opportunity seemed crazy- buying pre-construction beachfront properties in Nicaragua. Yes, Nicaragua the 3rd world country. I’ve always been the type of love ruffling everyone’s feathers around me, so obviously I should pursue this absurd-sounding investment opportunity.
Long-story-short, I ended up buying into it, and through that investment, I began to meet a lot of players in the real estate game and find out about more opportunities. I began investing fairly regularly because I thought, well if I’m going to be stuck in corporate for a little while, I might as well do something smart with my paycheck! But as my investing continued, I began to be presented with ways of making money as a licensed agent through these deals. Before I knew it, it had all picked up so much that I finally made the plans to bounce out of corporate and become an entrepreneur.
So, the Georgia girl doing top-secret flight test engineering in places I can never tell people about suddenly became a real estate entrepreneur living the hippy life in California! And I’ve never looked back since.
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth road… I wish! Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster like no other. It often feels like a never-ending path of trials and tribulations. Things can go great for a while, but then all of a sudden–crash!
One of the most prominent things I’ve experienced as an entrepreneur has been the fear associated with not always knowing where my next paycheck is coming from. There is such a component of surrender that has to be incorporated into having your own business. Because if you spend time stressing over that next paycheck and when it will come, you won’t have time to actually work on your business. Instead, you have to work as hard as you can and just hope that [surrender] it will all work out.
One of the best things I ever did was to educate myself about the dynamics of being an entrepreneur before I actually became one. That way, when the stress hit or the obstacles presented themselves, I could say to myself “oh yeah, here’s that one they were talking about!” Because I knew the challenge was a normal part of entrepreneurship, I was able to know I wasn’t doing anything wrong and this was just part of the game. I knew, through reading and educating myself, that the successful entrepreneurs were the ones who found ways of overcoming these exact challenges.
The next best thing I ever did was in having a mentor. I wouldn’t have succeeded without one. I needed that person, and still need that person, to help me keep my sanity along the way. Someone who had already been there, so they knew what I was feeling. Entrepreneurship can be really scary! It was in having mentors that could talk me off the edge of the cliff that I was able to stay energized and keep moving forward. Plus, it’s oftentimes hard for us to see our own situations clearly, so my mentors have always been able to help me see the forest through the trees much better than I could on my own.
We’d love to hear more about Hipster Investments.
I work primarily with turnkey rental properties. These are properties that a company has bought distressed, rehabbed, placed tenants in, and that have property management on standby to manage the property once purchased. This is the normal process that a rental property investor would go through themselves, but in this case, a company is doing all of the work on your behalf. You, as the investor, just buy the finished property. These properties are all cash-flowing, meaning the income on them exceeds the expenses, so you get to pocket cash flow each month in your pocket. This is great for California people because we can’t buy cash-flowing properties here. If you buy a rental property in most parts of California, you’ll be spending money every month to maintain the property rather than pocket cash flow. All of the properties I work with, to get cash flow, are outside of California. But because all of the hard work is done on them for you, you don’t have to worry about being local to the properties.
My company, Hipster Investments, is a middleman between the investors and the turnkey providers. We act as a support for the investors in working with the turnkey providers. So, like a new investor who has never bought a property before, we can assist with that buying process. We can also help you identify trustworthy turnkey providers. We then stay on even once you’ve bought a property in case you need our help with any challenges or if you have any questions. So, we are part glorified matchmaker and part emotional support dog for investors.
What sets me and Hipster apart is our realness. In an industry like real estate investing, it can be very hard to distinguish who to work with. There are a lot of intimidating people, there are scammers, and there are a million people telling you what you should be investing in. I’m not that kind of person. I’m very real, I tell it to you like it is, and I’ll even be the first person to tell you when a turnkey might not be the best fit for you (and all I sell is turnkeys). I speak honestly and I don’t sugarcoat anything, but at the same time, I’m very gentle. When I started my company, I wanted an opportunity for people to actually be able to connect with someone in the industry and feel good about that connection. I wanted to open the doors for people who may not know where to navigate otherwise and/or who are intimidated by stuffy dudes in suits! I just wanted to look different in the industry, and in now-seven years of business, we’ve definitely accomplished that. It’s been extremely rewarding!
More recently, I’ve been getting more known for my story of getting out of corporate and for my public declaration saying that I want to challenge Tim Ferriss to a lifestyle design duel. Lifestyle design is one of the most important things to me, and I truly live the life I want to! I travel when I want, do what I want when I want, and I sleep as late as I want. I really want to get more into helping others achieve that!
Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
Growing up a total math geek definitely served me well when it came to running real estate numbers! But more than that, it was my constant interest in problem-solving that made a huge difference along the way. Even before I became a pilot and engineer, I was constantly looking for problem-solving opportunities. I loved it. So, of course, when it was time to start and maintain a business, and problem-solving became arguably the biggest component of it all, I had plenty of experience with that under my belt.
But even more than problem-solving, I don’t think any of my success would’ve happened had I not grown up with confidence. I think I’m very fortunate in today’s world that I grew up with parents who really allowed me to gain confidence in myself. Without that, I wouldn’t be anywhere because I wouldn’t have tried anything. And if I had tried something and it went wonky even just once, I probably would’ve quit and run away. But I’ve never had anyone tell me I couldn’t do something and I believe them. Usually, if someone tells me I can’t do something, I’ll purposefully go do it just because. Entrepreneurship has taken an extreme amount of independence, and fortunately, I grew up learning to be independent.
In a weird backwards kind of way, I feel like growing up being such a control freak actually served me as well–not in the sense that being a control freak helped anything, but it allowed me to see the contrast of what mode I needed to be in, which was that of surrender. This more than anything has been a constant battle for me throughout my entrepreneurship journey–learning that I can’t control everything. Or anything, in a lot of cases. I had to learn to seek out the alternative to being a control freak, and in seeking that out, I was able to see how to surrender. It’s like having to see the dark in order to be able to acknowledge the light.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hipsterinvestments.com, www.aliboone.com
- Email: ali@hipsterinvestments.com
- Instagram: @aliboonedotcom
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/aliboonedotcom
- Twitter: @aliboonedotcom
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