Every conversation starts with a story.

Co-founded Iron Ridge Capital in 2011 alongside lifelong friend Erik Trotro, scaling from a single six-unit Seattle renovation to a portfolio that owns 500 units and manages roughly 2,000 across Texas and Washington. Iron Ridge has delivered a 24% annual return to investors over 18 years and two market downturns — no capital calls, no losing deals, including a Bremerton property that burned 60% to the ground, sat vacant through COVID, and still returned 7% per year on exit.

Started hunting at seven or eight with a pellet gun in the woods across from his grandparents' lake house outside Gainesville, Florida. First serious hunting in high school, deer and elk after relocating to Washington, and a permanent camp two hours from his current Texas home. Forty-four years in he shot the largest buck of his life — a 13 point — and now hunts most weekends with his son, who has been fishing since he could hold a pole.

Erik's story is a clinic in capital discipline that compounds over decades. Two downturns, zero capital calls, and a deliberate three-year pause when the market broke — that's not luck, it's a system. The second half lays out exactly how a working entrepreneur engineers a next-act business that is AI-proof and family-bonded, which is a question more guests should be asking.