Hi, I’m Taylor Cu and Welcome to My Community!
Hi, I’m Taylor Cu and Welcome to My Community!
STORY
On November 8th, 2016, Taylor Cu appeared on the late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live. It turned out to be a major turning point in his life.
Taylor, who was in his senior year of college studying mechanical engineering, was taking hip-hop dance classes in Los Angeles intending to pursue hip-hop dancing as a career. His goal was to hook up with a big-name musical artist and go on tour with them as one of their background dancers. A choreographer, who like the way Taylor danced, asked Taylor if he’d be interested in backing up rapper Vic Mensa when he appeared on the Kimmel show. Taylor was excited about the opportunity.
His performance went great, and he had a lot of fun, but there was a problem. He never got paid. The reason (which he didn’t know at the time) was that he wasn’t part of a talent agency. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel cheated. It made him re-evaluate what he was going to do with his life. He faced up to the cold, hard fact that very few background dancers are able to turn their dancing skills into lucrative careers. He knew from that day on he had to find a more stable way to create income for himself. (If not being paid wasn’t enough, that night Taylor did not get to meet Jimmy Kimmel or even Guillermo.)
Taylor did some online research and networking. He concluded that getting into multifamily real estate was the way to go. “Because of my engineering background, I liked the analytical side of evaluating a property and how the risk is spread across all these different units,” Taylor said. “It just seemed like a safe investment and a good area to be in.” Taylor joined real estate meetups, a mastermind, and started networking with as many people as he could in the industry.
The Multifamily Artist
When he finished college, he started working for a family friend who was building restaurants. Taylor would go back and forth between Northern and Southern California, overseeing restaurant construction and improvement. “I thought that being in construction would help get me into real estate, but it didn’t help as much as I thought it would,” Taylor said. So to speed up his real estate education, he started a podcast called the Multifamily Artist (even though he admits at the time he still knew very little about real estate). “I never posed to be an expert,” he said, “in the intro to the podcast, I talked about how I was on a journey to go from the hip-hop dancing/engineer to multifamily investor.”
Hiring Door-to-Door Reps During a Pandemic
When COVID-19 hit, everyone at this friend’s business, including Taylor, lost their jobs. Taylor concluded that if he was to speed up his multifamily investing education, he needed a job that would give him the flexibility and time to educate himself about the industry. Working remotely, in October 2020, he started a job recruiting people to sell Google’s fiber internet service. “Trying to hire door-to-door representatives for Google fiber across the country in the middle of a pandemic definitely came with its challenges.” Taylor said.
In September 2021, he took a break from his podcast when he moved to Austin, Texas, for a month with the goal of investing in his first multifamily deal and being on the general partnership. One of the operators he’d been networking with for about a year invited him to come for some hands-on training and to get an inside look at the business. “They never got a deal together when I was there, but I helped them with their marketing materials and other investor relations items. They wanted me to move to Texas permanently, and I wanted to because I was tired of my recruiting job, but I couldn’t do it because my family and girlfriend are in California.”
Taylor Cu - Dad's side of family
The Right Team
On December 23rd, 2021, tired of trying to find suitable candidates willing to promote Google fiber door to door in a pandemic, Taylor quit his job as a recruiter. It was around that time some friends sent him word that PassiveInvesting.com was looking for an investor relations associate. Soon after talking with the Director of Investor Relations, Andrew Davis, he was offered the job. “I’m in charge of cultivating and creating new investor relationships to bring to our deals.” Taylor said. “The team is set up where I cover the west coast, Marco Tripalo covers the central area, and Andrew covers the east coast. My job is to find investors in California who are looking to invest in our real estate assets, which are mostly in the sunbelt markets in the Southeast.”
Taylor says he feels what sets PassiveInvesting.com apart from the competition is the type of assets they invest in (Institutional Class A and B+ type of properties, Self-Storage, and Express Car Washes), the quality of their communications, their monthly distributions, conservative underwriting, and finally, the PassiveInvesting.com team. “I have a tremendous amount of trust in our management team.” Taylor said. “Dan Handford has experience in scaling and operating 7 and 8 figure businesses. Danny Randazzo used to be a financial consultant for Deloitte. He would oversee multi-million-dollar businesses and advise them on their profits and operations. Brandon Abbott has a background in residential and commercial construction and as a commercial insurance adjuster. His hands-on experience and ability to assess risk adds a ton to the team.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Motivated by his desire to provide for his future family and retire his parents, Taylor has a strong desire to succeed both at PassiveInvesting.com and as a passive real estate investor. “What I bring to the team is transparency, my work ethic, and my communication ability.” He said. “Plus, I’m always going to be honest and transparent. I’m never going to be disingenuous. People can reach me at any point in time, and if I don’t know the answer, I’m going to find the answer or connect you with the person who has the answer.” As for the opportunity that lies in front of him, Taylor said, “I feel like I hit the jackpot. To be able to learn from experienced operators, and to hear about their goals and their ambitions, inspires me to think bigger and know that anything is possible. It’s such a supportive environment. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
