YouSaid · the spoken record

Ryan Williams

lines on the record: 37
first: 2025-02-13
most recent: 2025-02-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So landed that plane. I'm just starting to think about takeoff for my next journey. It will be a company that is at the cross-section of financial services and technology. I'm spending a lot of time now speaking with potential clients, customers, doing all the fun due diligence, as well as prospective investors in the business. I'm excited about applying the learnings. A lot of people like, Ryan, aren't you going to take some downtime? And it's actually somewhat therapeutic to be able to apply the learnings from decisions I made that worked out and that didn't into what's to come next. And I want to focus on working people that I share values with, that I care about that have the same incentives as I do in terms of financial as well as mission, you know, and build on what I've been able to do. But I'm an entrepreneur through and through. And to your point earlier, that's where I feel most fulfilled, that zero to one phase.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm proud of the team who really led a lot of the blocking and tacking and of getting, what was a complicated transaction done in an environment where there really wasn't much M&A happening. I'm really grateful for all the investors that believed in me and had conviction despite some saying stay the path, stay standalone. But it had been a decade since I started Cadre. This was a really great way for me to leave and impact the market and ultimately fulfill the promise of why I founded the business.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. You probably are. And so fortunately for me, I'd engaged with company Yield Street many, many moons before. I'd gotten to know the founders really, really well. And we both had alignment on the mission. We both cared about broadening access to alternatives. They took a different approach. They focused much more on the retail investor base from the outset. Focus much more on sort of credit and debt-oriented products, but it was a perfect compliment. And so after spending some time with the founders, some mutual shareholders and investors, we agreed to join Combined Forces, technically sell the business. And what at the time was a lot of...”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Building path in my mind was a much longer path. A more expensive path, just given where the markets were. And it was a less certain path in a lot of different ways. The partner path was really interesting because we had so many inbounds from large institutions that were interested in what we were building and doing, in acquiring the business. And we had interest from other fintech and consumer tech platforms as well. What I wanted to optimize for was a partner that could allow us to diversify our product offerings as well as our distribution and a partner that had mission alignment because yes, we could go work with, you know, you name your big institution, but at the end of the day, it's not necessarily a guarantee that why I started the business would be what they were getting.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. It was challenging because I think that in so many ways, you know, your identity can become inextricably linked with what you do in your profession. And for me, I saw that certainly happening. So when I started the business, the vision was democratizing alternative investments. Real estate was the beachhead product. The pandemic was sort of a shot in the arm in that it showed me the importance of diversity and diversification. And so the question for me was, how do I most efficiently diversify our business such that we have multiple business lines that can endure any market condition? So there are two paths that we could take. One was we could go out and we could raise additional capital to build other mini cadres, you know, a credit and a private equity and a farmland and infrastructure. Or we could partner. And the”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As well in those dynamics. And then to the extent that you deliver on one those engagements, it becomes like a snowball, you know, and this person is, oh, I really would love to connect you to this person and this person. And before you know it, you've been able to build a really strong group around you. But I think so often people look at those dynamics as transactions in a lot of ways because they're like, okay, what can I actually bring? And there's a lot, you know, that people can share that you might not necessarily think is valuable to hear, but some of these folks who are in kind of high places actually enjoy learning about.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm here What I would say to people that want to build that kind of cohort of domain experts, it's got to be a symbiotic relationship. There has to be something you're bringing to the table. You can't come with your hands open every single time asking for something. So for me, as I thought about some of the investors, other than investing in the business, which is great, it was also keeping people close to certain themes and trends that I saw in real estate or alternatives, you know, sharing with them insights that I saw that may be helpful for them. sharing perspectives about other founders that were emerging that I had gotten to know that I thought would be interested for them interesting for them to get to speak with and then just making sure you know you deliver on what you say you're going to do so for me it was following up the communications whether those were weekly email updates on how the business was doing asks that I had of people but then also insights I wanted to share it was just about being consistent and you know ensuring you held yourself accountable”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And Michael was great as well with making sure I kept my head on straight, and I focused on the main thing, which was making sure our business continue to scale and achieve product market fit. And then I actually talked with Josh Kushner a lot as well too. And Josh had a very unique perspective, obviously, being in his seat, but was incredibly supportive throughout. And so, again, I consider myself really fortunate that, you know, despite all of the craziness that came with being a CEO and a founder, plus at that time, I had this network of people around who cared about me. One of the things I learned from that experience is you can never overcommunicate to your key stakeholders. And so I had to get in front of it. I had to stand in front of the company and say, hey, you know, tomorrow, this is going to be something that's out. Here's the truth of the matter. Let's stay focused. I'm carving out six hours of my day for one-on-ones. If anybody wants to talk with me about, you know, anything that's bothering them or they're excited.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People like Vinode Kosla, you know, who I would talk to. And Vinod was great in that he gave me this advice that still resonates with me today, which is the most important. Attribute in his mind of an entrepreneur is who do you listen to for what advice? And that's a muscle as well, right? Because early on, you know, it's sort of a trial and error. You listen to one person who gave you certain advice on one concept or theme. You realize it was not the right person to listen to. And so what I did was I built, you know, I guess a little cadre, if you will, of advisors around me who I knew would be great for certain challenges. And Vinod was super helpful as it related to managing the team and keeping everyone focused in-house while there were media stories surrounding the business. I spoke and spent a lot of time with Michael Ovitz as well.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first thing I would say is I was very naive about the media world. I probably in hindsight could have gotten ahead of some things earlier. But, you know, you can spend all your time managing media and then, you know, the business suffers. And so I had some incredible mentors who I went to whenever there was a story on the horizon.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All things that I was raised with and all my experiences and times with them, there was a genuine respect for those values. We didn't always agree on everything. And I don't even think, you know, Jared and Josh agree on everything. But what we did agree on was we wanted to do what was best for Cadre and to move the business forward because it was a company we all had a deep pad.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got a lot of attention, it wasn't necessarily for what I thought the reason would be. And I guess taking a step back, Josh and I were in school together a couple years ahead of me and Jared had been really supportive in one of my real estate businesses and also on a personal level. And so I got to know them in a very different context in the world as seemingly gotten to know them. They were still relatively early in their careers. And so when I was thinking about partners and thinking about the kind of people I want to work with, you know, those two off the bat checked every box. And so my experience with them has been incredible. I never anticipated the geopolitical focus on the business. And I always made it clear to Jared and to Josh that, you know, I had certain principles and values and those values are for me values I would never forsake and I would never concede on in any way, shape or form, respect, integrity, transparency, empathy.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what we did with Goldman, which as far as I know, hasn't been replicated. We secured $250 million commitment from Goldman, you know, the institution. And then they had about 1,000 sub-advisors and clients beneath that commitment. And those were the individuals that ultimately owned fractional stakes and the properties or the portfolios that we built for them. And so I would say, you know, it was really building that critical mass of high impact large enterprise-like clients that gave us the ability to then open up access to a wider range of folks from a position of trust.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then there is an ongoing client relations management side of this as well where we had to bring on domain experts who could cultivate those relationships. And so we spent the first few years building a highly concentrated base of significant whales, if you will, like to use it fish and whales analogy. And we were able to get those investors to say yes, we believe in this business, we believe in the product. And it really differentiated the brand.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We ended up winning a few contracts and we were able to strike some partnerships less than two years since I started the business with some of the biggest names in the financial services world. And once we've got those investors to say, you know what, this is a really unique way to give our clients access to real estate at smaller fractional bite sizes with liquidity than being able to go to independent advisors and direct to individuals became infinitely easier. The muscle that you've at least we had to be able to build was, you know, we needed to have a really clear playbook for these longer sales cycle meetings and engagements where we knew what meeting one was going to need to look like to hook these investors on the concept of what we were looking to do, the value proposition. We knew that we wanted to meet them in person because it was very much relationship business. We had one shot at technology demos and giving them a view into what this would entail because I was already skeptical.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Marathon. It's not a sprint. And the rewards from a lot of that investment early on in building an infrastructure that is trusted, credible, that has all the safeguards you would want in place, that's a well-curated platform will pay dividends down the line. And so after a lot of conversations with folks like Goldman and JP Morgan and Ford Foundation, some of these bigger institutional clients.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, exactly. And so, you know, you think of Goldman, you think of this behemoth, and you think of this institution that is relatively slow moving in the scheme of technology companies. You think of a lot of domain understanding and expertise and investing. And what I wanted to do is build a moat around some of these highly sophisticated partners from a distribution standpoint, get them to buy into the concept, get them to distribute our product to their clients. And from there, I thought you could then go down the kind of customer pyramid, if you will, to a wider range of investors that maybe didn't have all the quote-unquote sophistication, all the infrastructure that someone like Goldman had, but would look at Goldman as a, you know, a social proof point. So that meant the sales cycles for getting some of these partners to bring their clients onto our platform to invest were much, much longer. So as an investor, VC, you've got to be willing, you know, to understand that this is more of a marathon fast.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“B2B, which is really what I think we are more of in the B2B to C business as well. It's a very different playbook, especially when the underlying industry is one that is used to everything being analog offline, relationship based. And so my approach to scaling the business was a little counterintuitive, which was start at the top of the customer pyramid, if you will, like with the most sophisticated, discerning analog offline potential partners, but also the ones that have the most gravitas and the most trust.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to hype up how dynamic it was, but they were very immersive dynamic wireframes. But yeah, the first version of the product and the platform I built, the first actual asset was an asset that I was able to secure vis-a-vis a relationship with Jared Kushner, who was one of my earliest partners as well. And then the investor-based, those who were buying fractional stakes from my network and then from friends and family who had gotten to know us well over years. So we kind of built proof of concept. And, you know, at the time too, this idea of technology, which is hard to believe because this was 2014, but the idea of technology changing real estate was still crazy to a lot of people. Proptech, fintech, these were still, you know, slogans and phrases that people sort of laughed at, you know, and so in a lot of ways we were very early, which is probably one of the reasons why the folks at Blackstone were supportive that I was not going to a competitor instead, you know, was taking this moonshot.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The next step for me was to figure out how do I build an MVP? How do I build a product where it's easy for people to log in and invest in real estate projects? So my second year, Blackstone by night, you know, I was building out my business plan and building out the first version of the product in an MVP.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Decided that I'd done well enough financially. I wasn't going to optimize just for the next dollar. And instead I want to have an impact. And also I thought a lot about if I didn't go out and build this kind of business, I regret it down the line, number one. But number two, someone who may not have the same goals and mission in terms of promoting self-determination amongst the underserved, which is kind of like my founding principle. And I always said, like, you know, in order to get unconventional outcomes, you have to do unconventional things.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After my first year at Blackstone in their real estate private equity group, I saw what they were doing thousands of homes on a weekly basis. I was buying one or two, maybe on a quarterly basis. And so I was like, I didn't necessarily have the same level of belief that the investing that we were doing was going to accrue to the benefit of the community, the same way that if I were to have invested in a community, I know I care about both doing well and doing good.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And from there, you know, my passion for real estate really blossomed. We started buying more homes, thousands of units we acquired. Now, this was sort of my night job. My day job was working in finance to pay off my student loans. And I got to a point where I had enough belief and conviction in the understanding of real estate to say, you know what, now it's time to take the next step in my journey.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, you know, his own home was up for being foreclosed on, had gone through the short sale process. And so there was the idea and the opportunity right there. I said, well, what if we could start buying some of these homes? Their neighborhoods we know, their people and communities that have had a hard go at life in a lot of ways and may have been prone to subprime predatory lending. Let's give them a second shot at the American dream and raise money from some classmates, bought a few homes, rented them back out to people in the community and ended up selling back one of the homes to one of the previous owners made three times our money.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Timing is everything. And that period of time presented a lot of challenges for so many people, but also opportunity. And so in the midst of the great financial crisis, I went down to it Atlanta with my roommate. Visited his neighborhood and his neighborhood was completely ravaged by foreclosures.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was the kernel of my passion in real estate. So, this was where I found and I learned how lucrative real estate could be. There's a professor named Arthur Siegel, a renowned HBS professor in real estate who taught the real estate curriculum I developed. And I spent time with him after class, and he would always say, Ryan, the best way to get into real estate is to get into real estate. And it's nice to have the theory. It's nice to understand cap rates and all the concepts. You're not really immersed in it until you actually are investing or in owning or part of a real estate firm. And so that just stuck with me. And, you know, I was like, I'd love to figure out how to get involved the next year was the great financial crisis. And so, you know, I believe that.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They said no to almost every other concept that I thought of, and it takes, you know, as an entrepreneur, a really, really strong will. And so I knew all I needed was two to three professors who say, yes, we believe in this concept. And we think others should be able to learn some of these concepts so that they can go off to real estate careers and have the same opportunities that people who come from that network.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New Yes, that's right. That's right. How? Fearlessness. And, you know, it's interesting because, again, it goes back to what my grandfather said, what's the worst thing that can happen? People say no. And a lot of people did say no. But, you know, I'd been in the entrepreneurial world. I was used to being rejected.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To know why real estate got to go back to those college years, financial services, venture capital, private equity. I started doing a ton of research on those spaces. So what I recognized quickly was that there really wasn't a way for undergraduates, especially those who didn't come from the finance world to get smart in these spaces. And real estate really resonated with me because I never owned real estate. My family didn't growing up, but it was always around me. And so I had a curiosity about it. And so the more time I spent learning about it, more I realized that it was the most important asset class to own to build long-term wealth. Yet very few people were able to actually own it, especially people such as myself. And so it was a curiosity. I built a curriculum. I recruited some Harvard Business School professors to teach the curriculum, which again, hindsight was crazy.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cadre is a technology driven real estate investment platform. I started the business to democratize access to real estate and ultimately alternative investments. And, you know, it's a platform where people can log in, they can invest in either single real estate properties or in portfolios that our team curates for them. And the idea behind Kadre came to me after spending time sitting at some of the most well-known institutions, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs, seeing how much money and wealth was being created, but for a relatively small part of our global economy and questioning why is this the way of the world? Why can only the 1% of the 1% benefit? And so I decided to build a business that would be akin to a Blackstone, but with the tech stack behind it for the masses.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Must probably be like Altavista, whatever the search engine was at the time, but I brought the only suit I had, which was the suit I wear church, and ended up going through the pitch, the presentation, one first place, won a $10,000 grant. Most important for me was I got access to mentors who saw more in me than I saw myself. And it was their urging that led me to apply to Harvard. Which was a huge inflection point first one of my family to go from there, things really took off for me.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Provide the same kind of access to them and maybe charge a little bit of a markup. And that's what I did and actually made decent money, I mean, hundreds of dollars. But it showed me that there was a market here. And I found a local embroiderer decided to start customizing these headbands and wristbands. I'd ask, you know, what's your favorite slogan or your team name or your number? Reach out to my embroiderer within 24 hours, have custom embroidered headband or wristband. And I actually started really growing the business throughout the state and throughout the region and caught the eyes of a nonprofit called the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship or Nifty, which is based out here in New York. They said, you know, we heard about this business you have. Would you be interested in applying to our national business plan competition? You can win a grant. You can come to New York City.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was 13. Okay. Yeah. And so I went to local wholesale garment district. I bought, you know, these terry cloth headbands and wristbands. Initially, they were just for me because I wanted to have some kind of design or logos that looked somewhat like the Nikes of the day. But then teammates said, where'd you get these? And I, you know, obviously didn't let them know what my connection was, but I told him, you know, I could.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the first real venture was my personalized sports apparel business where I was telling these custom headbands and wristbands. And again, born out of a pain point, couldn't afford the Nike or the Adidas or the Jordan headbands and wristbands.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. My earliest days were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is where I was born. And Baton Rouge is a city that's divided and historically has been divided, physically and economically. But despite those divisions, what I saw at least was opportunity. And a lot of people who were making the best out of challenging situations. And so when I think about entrepreneurship, that's sort of the lens that I always saw the world through, which is there's always going to be barriers, there's always going to be challenges ahead of you. you know, but I saw so many examples of people prospering despite that adversity and figuring out creative ways to address some of the challenging circumstances they were in. And so for me, entrepreneurship is really a state of mind. I had so many endeavors that didn't work out. I actually tried to start a local sort of bait and tackle shop up selling worms to people and that didn't work out, largely because no one knew who this little kid was trying to sell this kind of product.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was the idea and the opportunity right there? I said, Well, what if we could start buying some of these homes, their neighborhoods we know, their people and communities that may have been prone to subprime predatory lending? Let's give them a second shot at the American dream and raise money from some classmates, bought a few homes, rented them back out to people in the community, and ended up selling back one of the homes to one of the previous owners. And from there, you know, my passion for real estate really blossoms.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The midst of the great financial crisis Down to Atlanta with my roommate, visited his neighborhood and his neighborhood was completely ravaged by foreclosures.”
2025-02-13 · Masters of Scale · Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT