Paul, the crowdfunded 4-plex step is the one that most people will scroll past as aspirational fluff — but you're right that the infrastructure actually exists now in a way it didn't fifteen years ago. The harder truth buried in your piece is that the credential path survives because it offloads risk onto institutions: a bank trusts the IB analyst seat more than it trusts the 22-year-old with a Substack and a duplex underwrite. The capital markets haven't fully caught up to the audience-as-track-record model yet, but they're getting closer. For anyone reading this who's early — what's the actual blocker: access to deals, access to capital, or just not knowing where to start?
Paul, the crowdfunded 4-plex step is the one that most people will scroll past as aspirational fluff — but you're right that the infrastructure actually exists now in a way it didn't fifteen years ago. The harder truth buried in your piece is that the credential path survives because it offloads risk onto institutions: a bank trusts the IB analyst seat more than it trusts the 22-year-old with a Substack and a duplex underwrite. The capital markets haven't fully caught up to the audience-as-track-record model yet, but they're getting closer. For anyone reading this who's early — what's the actual blocker: access to deals, access to capital, or just not knowing where to start?
this is great/hilarious - will be forwarding on to many students from whom we get outreach