#970 Brett Hagler On Solving Homelessness Worldwide

Brett Hagler is the CEO of New Story, a non-profit company focused on bringing affordable housing to nearly 3 billion people who are experiencing inadequate housing around the world. In this conversation, we discuss how New Story is bringing affordable housing to so many people through construction innovation and financing innovation to help their residents. We also discuss New Story's efforts in El Salvador to build housing, accept payments on the Bitcoin standard, and how Bitcoin is helping so many people in third world countries. ======================= Since 2018 Copper has been at the forefront of institutional digital asset development. From award winning custody solutions, to creating the first truly off-exchange settlement function, Copper pioneers technology, products, and services, in lock-step with a rapidly changing world. No other infrastructure provider covers as many assets, across as many exchanges, with the speed and security that Copper can offer. To learn how Copper helps the world’s largest institutional investors secure their digital assets, head over to copper.co Copper - the unfair advantage. ======================= Compass Mining is the world's first online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting. Compass was founded with the goal of making it easy for everyone to mine bitcoin. Visit http://compassmining.io to start mining bitcoin today! ======================= Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange built for institutions that delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment. The Bullish Hybrid Order Book pairs the high-performance of a traditional Central Limit Order Book with automated market making. Powered by deep Bullish Liquidity Pools, backed by the multi-billion dollar Bullish Treasury. So, you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. Learn more at Bullish.com or follow @Bullish on Twitter. Because the future belongs to the bullish. *Not investment advice. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are high risk products. Consult your professional advisor before dealing in them. Bullish’s services are available in select locations only and not to U. S persons. Visit https://bullish.com/legal for important information and risk warnings =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Brett Hagler is the CEO of Newsstore. It's a charity that's focused on bringing affordable housing to almost 3 billion people experiencing some sort of inadequate housing around the world. In this conversation, we talk about the construction innovation that they're helping to drive forward, the financing innovation that they're ushering in, and exactly how Newsstore is helping so many people find that affordable housing. I really enjoyed this conversation with Brett. Hope you guys enjoy it as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I first want to talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Copper.

• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Since 2018, Copper has been at the forefront of institutional digital asset development. From award-winning custody solutions to creating the first truly off-exchange settlement function, Copper pioneers technology, products, and services in lockstep with a rapidly changing world. No other infrastructure provider covers as many assets across as many exchanges with the speed and security that Copper can offer. To learn how Copper helps the world's largest institutional investors secure their digital assets, head over to copper.co. Again, Copper, the unfair advantage. Check them out at copper.co today. Next up is Compass Mining. Compass Mining is the world's largest marketplace for mining hardware and hosting. With Compass, everyone

• 1:28Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, compassmining.io. Go check them out and let me know what you think. This episode is brought to you by Bullish. Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange built for institutions that delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment. The Bullish hybrid order book pairs the high performance of a traditional central limit order book with the automated market making powered by deep bullish liquidity pools backed by the multi-billion dollar bullish treasury. So you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. You can learn more at bullish.com or follow bullish on Twitter because the future belongs to the bullish. Now, this is not investment advice. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are high risk products. Consult your professional advisor before dealing in them. Bullish's services are available in select locations only and

• 2:55Anthony Pompliano?

  not to US persons. Visit bullish.com/legal for important information and risk warnings. Go check them out at bullish.com or follow at bullish on Twitter.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:28Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I'm very excited about this conversation. I've got Brett Hagler here, CEO of New Story. What you're doing is just pretty incredible. But I think maybe the best place to start out is you're a young, smart guy. Like, why go work and build a charity versus build a technology startup or kind of go do the business thing? What's kind of the thought process behind the work you've been doing for the last couple of years?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me on Pomp. First, I'll say is I love startups. I love capitalism. So we'll get deeper into how we're trying to take a market-driven approach. I mean, how I got into it, I actually started a for-profit company right out of college, tech company. And that company, we decided to give away a little bit of the money we were making, and we wanted to go see An organization that we would be giving to and that organization was based in Haiti. So I went down on a trip to Haiti when I was 23, recently started this company in a college. I was not exposed to extreme poverty growing up, just wasn't. And on that trip, I saw, you know, families and kids that were living on dirt floors, tarp tents,

• 4:41Speaker 02

  lacking life's most basic human needs, like food, water, safety, shelter, both physical safety, psychological safety. And it just, it just rocked me and I saw it. But I still didn't think that I would try to start a nonprofit. I actually was, I had bad experiences with charities and nonprofits. I thought they were way too old school. I thought it was too traditional. I thought people weren't applying business principles and it just like felt very different to me. So I tried to go find some organizations that I could support and I could get excited about because I saw the problem and it was so clear of how bad it was. And, and long story short, I couldn't find any that I could get excited about.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  As like a younger entrepreneur that love technology, that love startups, that love trying to come at things with more risk and innovation. And it's odd to say that other orgs were doing anything wrong, just from my perspective, wasn't what I wanted. And so that's how the aha moment came of trying to start New Story. That first startup I had like basically was fizzling out and ended up failing and tons of learnings and amazing experience. And called it New Story to create a new story in the families that we get to help. But honestly, most importantly, like a new story and how we think about building a more modern, innovative, social impact organization. And then we were one of the first nonprofits to get into Y Combinator back in 2015

• 6:10Speaker 02

  and that's when everything kind of got started.

• 6:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Tell me about that, like going through Y Combinator, most tech entrepreneurs, that's, you know, the pinnacle of the start of a business. Taking a nonprofit through like, why did you want to go through YC? And why did they want you in YC? I guess is a good way to think of it.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. So why we wanted to go through it, I tell a lot of other, you know, other nonprofit. Founders ask me this sometimes and it was so organic because we were already learning from Y Combinator, right? Like when I was starting the organization and my co-founders, like we were already watching the videos, we were already like learning from the principles, like that's where I was learning from. I wasn't learning from a lot of the other places that nonprofit folks learn from. So that was really like just in our DNA, like who we are. And so that was why. And then when we got in, I think why they liked us was we had, you know, a really big vision. We wanted to use technology. We wanted to hire really great people.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  And I think the best part about going through Y Combinator as a nonprofit was they didn't treat us 1% different than anybody else there. And that was always my perspective and my co-founder's perspective on what it should be like. You know, it's like, why, why do you have to lower the standards so low? And when you hear the word nonprofit or charity, just like my mind goes and probably almost everybody listening, it's you just, you sense a different caliber and a lower standard and not a high bar for excellence, different competency on the team. And we wanted to be the anti of that. So that was, that was kind of what we, the DNA of how we got started.

• 7:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So talk to me about kind of the problem itself. I saw a statistic on your website that says there's going to be 3 billion people by 2030 that are homeless, according to the UN. And, you know, to me, 3 billion people is, you know, 40% or so of the global population. And so I think most people in the Western world understand that homelessness is a problem. It's a problem here in the United States. It's a problem even worse globally. But 3 billion people struck me as a really big number. What, what's going on with that number?

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, today, as we sit here, you know, despite all the incredible advancements we have in the world, there's, you know, give or take around 1.5 billion people today in 2020, 22, that live in inadequate housing. And so for, for folks that are listening in America or global listeners all over the world, I think sometimes when you, when we hear the word homelessness, We think folks that are that are struggling and maybe living on the street or that adds but a lot of what we've conditioned we're conditioned to see. But globally, it's more of we call it inadequate housing. And so it means families that are living in some type of structure.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  But as is defined, they're living on dirt floor, tarp tents, they're it's on land that they don't own. It's extremely small, so there's overcrowding. It's inadequate housing. It's nothing that you would ever want anybody that you know or love to live in. And with that comes all types of issues when you don't have basic human needs and shelter. You know, health issues, it's very hard to earn income in there and all these where you don't have that foundation, everything adds up. And so, you know, just today, 1.5 billion people live in those conditions. And what we say is, you know, aside from climate change, we think that this is one of

• 9:39Speaker 02

  the largest, most expensive problems in the world. If you just did the math, right, on 1.5 billion people that need better housing. It's massive. It's so massive, but it's not something that is in people's faces every day. So it's hard to see it. And it's the awareness of it is, I don't think it's as strong as it should be. And, you know, we're trying to bring awareness to it.

• 10:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So if we're at 1.5 billion today, they estimate it'll be 3 billion by 2030. It's obviously getting worse.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:08Anthony Pompliano?

  How many of these people who live in the inadequate housing, so not on the street, but they live in one of these structures, do they think that they're homeless? Like, would they identify as being homeless? Or is it just, hey, I'm a human, super adaptable, situation sucks, but my family's here. And so this is just the way life is?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  I think they understand that they are they're in, you know, extremely low income and that they don't have adequate housing. And their dream is to one day own a home and own the land. They have it goes together because what they see that as is a multi generational opportunity for their family. They see it as a place where they can their kids can have a better education. There can be better health outcomes. Their income significantly increases. We've now been doing this for almost seven years. We've been fortunate to work with thousands of families, taking them from inadequate housing to long term. Adequate housing.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Dude, the income like it almost doubles after a two years of being in the home.

• 11:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:13Anthony Pompliano?

  And so. Why is that?

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Uh, it's everything from, you know, these, these families, they're, they're, they're people that love working. They love working. They are, they are trying to find income. A lot of them, they all have income. And so, once they get into a house, you just think about it anecdotally, like, let's say that you live on a, a dirt floor and that you're living on a, a, a, kind of like a, a more steep hill that's prone to rainwater coming into your home and there's a storm at night, right? And you have a pieced together roof and it rains. You're not really getting, you're not really getting sleep at night. Your kids are probably going to get sick because of the, the environment that it's caused.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  And then you're supposed to show up at seven thirty AM in the morning because you're a maid or that you have a job. Really hard to do that consistently when where you're living is kind of like, we call it survival mode conditions. And so there's small things like that. Um, there's things like, it's really hard to get a micro loan when you're living in that environment and actually like have a business that you could start out of your home. And so, once somebody gets into a house, they're in a much better position to actualize their potential. Because it's a safe environment that they can count on and that they could actually like invest in and think a little bit more long-term as opposed to just thinking about literally surviving and like,

• 12:41Speaker 02

  how do I make sure that my kids are not getting sick simply because of where they're living and mosquitoes coming in? You know, all types of safety issues.

• 12:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. How much of it is a confidence game? Like as you're talking, it, uh, in the Western world again, the, the thing that I think of is almost like the Deion Sanders quote of, you know, look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, get paid well, right? And to some degree, like if you're like, hey, life is headed in the right direction. I'm building momentum. I'm kind of doing the right things. Does that play into it as well?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. Yeah. And, and the dignity of, of having. Having a home that just has, you know, a good floor and it just has a couple bedrooms and that has a toilet and a shower and electricity because then you can bring in a computer like you it just it's a whole different mind shift and and what we're trying to do is is just you know how families see that vision more and and work and work towards it that it's not a handout to them but that they're actually really working for it.

• 13:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, so as you start to tackle this problem, obviously it's a huge problem. Global homelessness is you know, almost so large that it's hard to pick where to start.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Walk me through when you think of the organization today. Where are you focused geographically and what does this look like when you go into a geography? Like, how do you get started?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think about there's a lot of investors listening to this podcast. I see all the time this is this is one of the largest, fastest growing, most underserved markets in the world, if you think about it. And because it's so big, that TAM is so big, like what New Story is trying to do is first focus and prove a model at scale in one area that can that can then, you know, grow to other places in a financially sustainable way, which I'll come back to. And so our focus right now is partnering with a million people in Latin America before 2030. That's our goal. And we're, you know, super focused on trying to hit that, hiring teams,

• 14:41Speaker 02

  building products for that demographic. And then from there, you know, be able to expand up other places.

• 14:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you go into one of these locations, I basically think about your kind of effort being twofold. One is you could go raise a bunch of money from like a donation standpoint.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:00Anthony Pompliano?

  And it comes in, it goes out, you got to go back to the well and go fundraise more. And there's plenty of charities who have been super, super successful in doing that. What's unique about what I think you're doing is you're trying to say, hey, look, we are going to do the fundraising, but we want to create a system where the economics are actually positive and we can make Is sustainable in a way that once money comes in, it's not a one time use of the money. We basically can recycle it over and over and over again, have more impact with it. So that doesn't sound like most nonprofits, right? The, the name nonprofit literally means we don't make a profit.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 15:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Explain this in terms of like positive unit economics for a nonprofit. May violate the way some people think about this.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I've always been very unashamed in like saying how we, how we think about things. And you know, what I believe is that the way that we're actually going to create real change at scale is it has to be done in what we call a market driven approach, right? Where there is, there is profit involved with people that get that, that work with us. So we believe in investment, we believe in profit. And, and so what we've realized after doing this for seven years is that philanthropy and government aid is literally not even a drop in the bucket of what, what is actually needed to think bigger. You know, a hundred X to think about for this problem.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  And so the way that we think about using philanthropy in a high leverage way is to fund our team, is to fund innovation, R and D. And then to go start projects that we're using philanthropy to prove, but then could be, could be scaled by the market. And so we're coming in and proving something to show the market in that area that this is a viable path to, to, to, to make profit. And we're going to go and prove it first. And so we, the phrase we use is a, a creating a financially sustainable path to homeownership for, for the lowest income families.

• 17:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  And, and you know, so we're doing that really in, in two main ways. One, the thing about like to, to, we focus on two areas. Construction innovation, so we gotta be able to decrease the cost of, of inventory of homes. And, but still have it be high quality and have it be beautiful and be dignified that somebody wants, a family wants to live there for decades, right? And then the other piece that incredibly important is is the financing, right? Because nobody can afford, you know, this type of home upfront. Even I mean, they're they're lower cost homes for folks listening, you know, in the West or the US. It's, you know, they're anywhere between like eight thousand to maybe fifteen thousand US dollars

• 17:54Speaker 02

  per home, but people can't afford that upfront. So you have to have the long term financing or else if you don't have the long term financing, you're only reliant on a government giving you a house or a charity giving you a house, which doesn't scale and it's also not dignifying for the families. They want they want to work, they want to pay over time.

• 18:12Anthony Pompliano?

  They're not looking for things for free. They basically say, look, I'm willing to work for it. Just show me the path on how to how to do it.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I mean, look, some people are, but but we're trying to partner with families that that want to work and that they they see this as an opportunity of a lifetime to actually be able to afford land and a home and they want to be able to tell their kids and their grandkids that we got this house, like we like we bought this house and that is that is what we are working on.

• 18:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So what do people get when it's eight to fifteen thousand dollars? Is this, you know, a six bedroom house? This is a one bedroom house? Is there two bathrooms, a kitchen? Like, walk me through kind of what is like the average home that would get built for for that amount?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I just got back from Guadalajara, Mexico. We're working in a new area in Jalisco, the state there. And it was just it's one of our the architects. And so we're designing homes that I'm going to say it, it might sound kind of odd, but I'll explain it. We're designing homes architecturally that will grow. So instead of starting off a family with a home that may that the square footage may be, you know, closer to eight hundred or nine hundred square feet with a cost that's going to be closer to twenty five thousand US dollars, it starts off smaller. So it would start off at a at a smaller price point and with fewer bedrooms, fewer, you know, components to the home.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  But over time, the family, they see a path to adding on rooms to their Their home. So the architecture is literally set up to where as the family grows, they increase their income, they will add on a room to their home and they will pay for it themselves.

• 19:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  And so the slabs are set up that way. The roof is designed in a way that a second story will be built. And families see that vision from the beginning. So we go and we show the families with, we're actually doing this with VR, which is, which is pretty cool. They get to walk in and see what the home is today. And then what it can be like three years, five years, 10 years, and the home is literally growing. And they're paying for all of that. They just need the starting point. And so, you know, starting out, a basic house is, it's going to be probably two bedrooms, a living room. And then the key part is, is a bathroom. Because most of these families, almost none of them actually have a toilet,

• 20:38Speaker 02

  clean water inside the home, electricity. And so those services are also included in the home.

• 20:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you think about the construction innovation, right? This to me is what makes this so fascinating. Around, you want to build as many homes as possible, as cheaply as possible, as quickly as possible. But they still need to meet some quality bar that, that makes this kind of long-term sustainable for these families. And so talk to me about the work that you guys have done on the construction innovation. Because again, I don't think people think of a charity doing innovative work around construction.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so we, we kind of do it two ways. Like we, we are, the example I just gave is trying to just kind of use what's already in some of the regions, like great architects, local materials, local labor, and just think differently about how can we design it from scratch, differently using what's kind of there so that it can be, you know, they can grow into it over time. And then we also are making longer-term bets on earlier-stage innovations. And so one of the big ones that we've been fortunate to work with from the very beginning is a 3D printing company out of Austin called Icon.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  We were, um, we were their first partner and got to, to help launch the first 3D printed home in the U.S. back in 2018. That was at South by Southwest. And so we wanted to put in risk, a lot of risk, risk capital to, to be the, the first partner to prove that out. With the long-term thinking that, um, if this, if this works, it will be a significant, you know, improvement, um, in time, cost, quality from the traditional construction. And, and we want to be the ones making riskier bets. And, uh, and that was one example of, of how we did that.

• 22:30Anthony Pompliano?

  When you say risk capital, like you're literally investing in the business in order to get them to-

• 22:34Speaker 02

  We have R and D budget.

• 22:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So we have, we have an R and D budget and we have, you know, um, donors that, a small group of private donors that we call, um, the builders. And the builders, um, fund just our operational expenses, our innovation and R and D budget. And they understand that we have to, we have to make, um, some, some risky bets that have, you know, extraordinary potential. And, and be good in early so that we can, um, you know, learn how can this work for the demographic that we want to partner with, right? Which is, which is different than some of the demographics that, um, construction companies are, are designing for. So we, you know, back when we were making the decision to, to, to, to make this, um, kind of R and D partnership.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  We felt that, uh, from a social impact perspective, from our missional perspective, it was irresponsible not to do it, not to try it. And so a lot of folks, you know, kept telling us like, why would you put X amount, I won't say the amount that we, that we partner with? Why would you do that when you could just go build another, you know, 30 homes how they've always been built? And you get to help 30 families or 50 families or a hundred families. And, uh, you know, we're just trying to make some of these longer-term bets.

• 23:51Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about the 3D printing, how long does it take to build one of these homes? And is it something where you just go buy out like a whole block, uh, in terms of land and then you just build 3D home after 3D home next to each other?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Pretty much. Yeah. So, um, so we're, so we, everything we design is, is really like, we buy land and we do, um, we do- Large communities. So we do like hundred, two hundred, up to over five hundred home community developments. And so with 3D printing, everything is onsite. So we'll basically with our partner Icon, deploy a fleet of machines and it comes onsite using local material. It's mostly a cement mix, some proprietary stuff in there and we'll print 24 hours a day. The machine can just work 24 hours and it can print houses.

• 24:40Anthony Pompliano?

  And how much does it cost if you go do, you know, 200, 300 home community? Is that a couple million dollars, a couple hundred thousand, 20 million dollars? What does that look like?

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it totally depends on the market and, you know, who are the partners involved? But, you know, on average, per unit, a home cost is gonna be, when you add in the services as well and the land, right? So we do the whole package. It's not just, it's not just showing up and building the structure of a home. It's land, services, the whole thing. It's usually gonna be between like 10 to 15K per house. So a whole community is only a couple million dollars.

• 25:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then in those communities, are they just homes? Or do you actually think about kind of planning, whether it's a playground or a community center? Like, how do you think about the things outside of the home, but still in that community?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  That's critical. So it's, we do urban planning, we do urban design. We're very proud that we really involve the families in that process as well. It's a more dignified process and it creates a better product, right? We, you know, in the startup world, people say all the time, you know, make something people want, customer discovery, work with your end user. But unfortunately, when, whether it's governments or nonprofits, when they're trying to work with lower income families, they usually are not bringing them in. They're right, they're not asking for their opinion. They're not really getting feedback. And so we're very thoughtful and intentional about bringing them into the process.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  And so they're helping design their homes. They're helping us to say how the community should be laid out, where they want their kids to play, where they would want to have a market. So they're really involved in that process.

• 26:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So the construction innovation, obviously, it's just how do we build the best homes as quickly as possible for the lowest cost and do it in a replicable way? Obviously, you have a partner that is able to help you there.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  But keeping it, keeping the quality bar high. So we want, we want like- We're not just trying to crank out the lowest cost, smallest homes, right? We want, we want a home that a family can move into and say, I am so damn proud to live here. It is beautiful and I like, I'm obsessed with this. And so that's the bar that we have.

• 26:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then on the financing side, there's a bunch of innovations that are going there. So while you're working to basically get costs down and, and keep that quality bar, but, but increase the iteration speed as well. You also have come up with a pretty innovative financing model where it seems like there's two components. One is you want the families to have skin in the game and many of them want skin in the game. And so we can talk about that. But also two is the ability to make this sustainable. So it's not just, hey, we buy you a home and, uh, you know, we're out of money. We gotta go raise more capital from a donation standpoint. So how do you approach the innovation around financing?

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, this, the last two years, this has been what I've thought about the most and what our team is, is really focused on. So, um, because what we've learned, first I'm gonna start with what we've learned. What we've learned is that we've worked with thousands of families now that have gotten into, into long-term housing is that they, they can pay, their income increases and that they want to pay. The problem is that the, the kind of, the market doesn't have mortgages or products that are, that are, that are designed for them. And so we're taking those learnings and that data because we know it works. And we're designing these longer-term mortgage products that they can pay for at an affordable interest rate.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  And, um, and it, it works. It, they're, they can pay for it. They, we've, we've thought about them only being able to pay for part of a house, but it turns out they can pay for the whole thing.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  They just need some more time. So instead of them only paying for five years, they can pay for 10 years. But then the question is, how do you track that over 10 years or longer? Right? Um, what's the, like, what's the method of servicing that, that loan or that mortgage? And, um, that's where a lot of like technology innovation, trying to bring more operational excellence to it. So that people aren't Aren't just, you know, having to to to get on a bus and drive to a bank and pay in in cash or in pesos. And it's not tracked transparently. Um, it's really hard to have a transparent credit history or credit report. And so, um, we're trying to help the families do that in a way that is better optimized for them.

• 29:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And when you think about that financing, walk me through the journey. So

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 29:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I'm one of these families. I somehow get in touch with you and I realize, hey, there's a, there's a potential path.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:24Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the first thing I need to do? Do I need to prove some level of income? Or how does this work to at the end, I actually have a home that I'm living with my family?

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So the first thing is you would need to be living in what we have defined as adequate housing. Right. And there's a lot of different ways we define that. Um, you then would be, uh, you need to have definitely some income, source of income. We're usually working with families that make between from a US dollar, um, standpoint between like three hundred to on the high end, six hundred US dollars a month. That's our demographic. Um, and then, so they need to be having some type of income. And then, and then the last part is that they need to, they have to want this. So they, they understand that it's a long-term, it's a long-term homeownership opportunity that, um, they're going to build credit history over time and that they want to pay for it.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  And they have to sign up for that. And so that's, those are the kind of the, the core components to get started.

• 30:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then as we get started, what is like the payment plan look like if I'm making three hundred, six hundred dollars a month? Walk me through how much is going towards buying land or, or paying for the house and how long I end up paying for?

• 30:38Speaker 02

  So the percentage we usually work with is you're going to pay about twenty to twenty-five percent of your monthly income. Is going to go towards home, housing. And that's very fair, affordable. Um, a lot of people listening probably spend that or maybe more. And so that's the percentage that we try to, we try to work with. And, um, and so that's how it starts. Um, we've done a model, uh, in Mexico where families Families will first pay for their plot of land. So they're they're paying for the land first, which is able to prove credit history and also helps give them a an asset, a land, that can be used, you know, in the future for for a mortgage because it's actually some collateral.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  And then we have other places, especially in El Salvador, where we're kind of coming in and buying land and just starting to build the homes immediately. And then the families are are starting on their mortgage as soon as they move in.

• 31:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And then as they're doing this, twenty twenty five percent in the United States, most people would say, hey, that is probably, what I pay. If I'm a young person living in New York City, I may even be paying fifty percent rent or whatever ends up being post tax.

• 31:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it possible for them to do that if you're living on three hundred dollars a month? Like, what else are they spending money on? And maybe what was that money going to before they were actually trying to buy a home?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Great question, Pom. So they're already paying that, if not more, because they're renting somewhere.

• 32:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  So it's like they're they're they're already paying it. It's just not, it's it's in kind of the the worst environment that they could be paying. So most are already paying rent.

• 32:09Anthony Pompliano?

  And not building equity in the in the home.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Of course. And it's it's a horrible environment that they're living in that doesn't have basic human needs. So they're already paying it. And then if somebody, you know, if they're getting a remittance, or if they get access to some type of loan or micro loan, the majority of what they're spending it on is is some type of home improvement. And so there is a very clear, you know, demonstrated data that families are trying their best to get a home. And what what typically happens is they will try to self build a structure or a home over a long period of time. So a lot of the families we work with, this is very common throughout the world, is they'll just they'll self build

• 32:54Speaker 02

  not a great structure over like ten fifteen plus years. And that's that's pretty much what happens.

• 33:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  So they're already trying to invest in a house. It's just they don't have the economies of scale. They don't have the right partners. And then the financing really isn't set up for them.

• 33:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so, once you get somebody. You say, hey, this is what it's gonna cost. This is where the land is, etc. My understanding is that they actually buy the land first via these payments. Then they start to build the home. And then there's actually a point in time where you guys look to partner with local banks or financial institutions to really kind of recycle the capital, but do it in a way where it's a win-win for the community. So talk me through kind of what that looks like.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is a model we're doing right now in Mexico. And I think it's fascinating from just like a straight up business mindset. The financial sustainability piece of this. So we are, we are starting families off where they will pay for their land for about two years. So they have credit history and they have collateral after that. Then what we're doing is we're basically bringing in a construction bridge loan to build a couple hundred homes. And then after that, families are starting to make mortgage payments. And then we've partnered with a like local bank or like a local credit union. And we've designed a long-term mortgage product.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And we're basically bringing them qualified customers that they want to work with long time. And then they're coming in because they have liquidity and they're basically buying us out of that. And then we can recycle that. And then they can now have customers long-term that they're gonna make money on. It's not, you know, crazy margins. It's about a 10% interest rate, which is actually very, very low internationally. And then it's affordable for the families. And so it's a win for them as well. So that's like an example of trying to use, we call it like existing for-profit market players and showing them that this is a demographic that can pay for this, that you can make money from it.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  And, and we want to help prove that. And then we want to scale it. Because that's what we believe at the end of the day is, is what truly is gonna impact millions of people and beyond. Because this problem is, it's just so expensive to only try to throw philanthropy or government at it. There's other problems in the world where I would say the cost of Convention is so low, it just, yeah, it makes sense to go raise billions of dollars. And you can literally help tens of millions of people. But with housing, it's just so expensive, you can't do that. And so that's why we're going with more of a market-driven approach and using philanthropy to prove out that this is a customer base that the market should work with.

• 35:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about this entrepreneurial approach to charity. Rick, I think this is what's so fascinating is you've got the innovation on the construction, you've got the innovation on the financing. You keep talking about kind of market-driven forces, which many people would assign to capitalism.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you also continue to try to prove these models and then almost hand off the playbook

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 36:10Anthony Pompliano?

  to these kind of for-profit entities. And so, you know, is this the model that ends up being the most sustainable for charities? And you expect other people to start to do this?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  We hope so.

• 36:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, tell me more about it.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, like, we, so we have this little phrase that we, we call a kind of our, our process is create, which usually like create innovation or a better model and then prove it, right? So we're using, we're in the field, we're doing, we're learning, learning by doing, we're proving it, and then share or scale it. And we're, we're, we can scale it to some point, but to get to real scale, like millions of homes, we have to have others do it. And so that's where we think a lot of the leverage is. Why I think some others aren't doing it, and some are, some of our profits definitely are.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  But it takes, it, I think it really comes back to like the team, you know? Creating something that is different and unique and innovative and then proving it in environments that are really hard to work in, right? Like, it's, it's really hard to do this stuff. And in some of the areas that we work, you have to have a team that looks a little bit more like a very high-quality for-profit startup or company than a traditional nonprofit.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  And unfortunately, most of the the market is, you know, I don't want to put in this percentage on it, but it's it's very skewed towards a more traditional kind of old school approach, which those those organizations, they are doing good, like they're literally some of the best people in the world, and it's amazing. But I think it's a little different than the type of team that we're building, coming out of Y Combinator, having a lot of advisors and supporters that are in venture capital, that are in tech, and we're trying to take the same mindset and approach as a lot of those folks are. And I think that's what's been helpful for us. And yeah, my hope is that, you know, we, along with some others that we really respect, other nonprofits,

• 38:14Speaker 02

  can be an example of how you can do this and apply it to other problems as well, not just, you know, the one we care about, which is housing.

• 38:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What do the critics say? Like, like, are there people pushing back, whether it's in the local communities? Are there people in the nonprofit world? Like, what's the anti-argument, I guess?

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, totally. So in the communities, I'm like extremely proud of our team and our approach. So, you know, I'm here, obviously, on your podcast, like, I love doing this. But, you know, our team, it's all, like, where we work, it's all locals, right? So it's all folks that are part of that country or from that country, or they're in the same culture. So the families that the people that our families interface with are people that they really trust, are people that they can they can resonate with, and that they feel has have empathy and understanding for kind of the life, the life that that they've been living. And so, and we also really involve the families,

• 39:17Speaker 02

  as I mentioned, like, it's not just, hey, we're doing this project, and you're in low income, and there's a lottery, and maybe you'll get a a home, and you show up, and the home's already built, the design's already done, you had no No input in this and like you've been you've been given this. We don't do that. We involve the families and so it's a very dignified process that we're super proud of. So the families like it, I'd say, you know, there's definitely a lot of critics. Because we we do things that nonprofits aren't supposed to do. And that people aren't conditioned to.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  They're conditioned to think, ah, nonprofits shouldn't do that, charities shouldn't do that, you guys shouldn't take that risk, you should let other for profits prove this out first. But if like this doesn't work, you could have allocated that money to help people with, you know, something that works. And I'll give you a couple of examples that we've drawn the most criticism from from people. You know, the first one was was 3D printing. So we were very, very early into it. Before it really got started, everybody told us we were crazy. Why would you do this? Ended up, you know, back in 2020, creating the first 3D printed community of homes in the world with our partner Icon. So literally, the first kids are living in these houses. And that's an example of like proving something.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  And then the critics, there's still probably some critics because it's early, but they're like, okay, like, that's one example. Another example is we recently started a new story, started a venture capital fund. And we spun it out and it's called Home Team Ventures. And we invest in early-stage seed, sometimes pre-seed, Series A founders that are just working on kind of these like big, big, big idea construction innovations. And and so we we literally raised a fund, we spun it out. New Story's 501(c)(3) is the largest general partner. And it's legally, it's totally separate and clean. But that was incubated inside a new story, like we started the venture capital fund.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  And then the third one that's happening right now is a project in El Salvador that that you've been support of. And it's it's using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network for the first time to for unbanked families to make mortgage payments. And so. As you can imagine, that's probably drawn, you know, a few critics. And, um, you know, our thinking is the only way to prove out these innovations is to learn by doing. And to just go, and to just go do it and prove it out. And, um, and we look at these opportunities and we put a filter on it and we say, is it going to be challenging? Is it going to be hard? Of course, any, all of this stuff is super hard and challenging, but what if it works?

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Right. And, and you know, like I hear a lot of B C's, you know, say like, okay, this is super hard, it's hard, but like, but if it works, you know, and having that optimism and that bigger picture thinking of what if this works? And imagining what it could be like if it works, um, we're very drawn to that. And that's why we'd like to try things.

• 42:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Tell me more about what you guys are doing in El Salvador at Bitcoin Beach to help people actually get homes.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I am incredibly excited about this. So we are working in El Zonte, um, with, uh, with Bitcoin Beach and their team. Mike Peterson and their team are incredible. And, uh, what we are doing is we are designing a community of about 300 homes right in, right in El Zonte. Um, in, in El Salvador and, uh, families will be making their longer, longer term monthly mortgage payments. Using Bitcoin on the Lightning Network through a local wallet in Bitcoin Beach. And, uh, we've been very fortunate to, um, partner with, with Coinbase and Coinbase giving, giving.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  So they funded the, the majority of this project and it's like getting underway right now. So we are, um, building the homes right now. And, uh, and then families are being trained on how to make their monthly payments. Through, through the wallet and, uh, using Bitcoin and Lightning Network. And, you know, what, what we saw in this and the opportunity is these are families. They're pretty much all unbanked, right? And, um, and a lot of them are getting their remittances sent to them. And, uh, in order to make any type of payments, um, in El Salvador, they use the dollar. So they're paying in cash and dollars. They usually have to, to travel somewhere that's pretty far, that disrupts their day.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Whether they're going to Western Union or whether they're going to some type of, of lender or bank. And they're, they're trying to pay in cash and then. Whoever is collecting that, it's like the most, it's the least transparent way to track that over time, right? Over a longer period of time, right? Five, 10, 15 years, where these families are trying to gain credit history, they're trying to make payments in the same way that probably everybody listening, where we could just go on our phone and make a payment and it doesn't have to disrupt our whole day. And, and right now, there's, it's really hard to do that if you're on banked, you know? And so what we're doing with

• 44:39Speaker 02

  in Osante and with Coinbase Giving and, and this, this pilot is proving that low-income families can make consistent monthly payments in Bitcoin on the Lightning Network. And being able to track that in the most transparent way, being able to have significant, there's basically no, there's no fees, there's no servicing costs, because it's really just our team sending an invoice to their phone, as opposed to the traditional way, which would be human labor, either coming to their door, or them having to go somewhere every single month and make a payment. Like, it's, it's a disaster to do over a long period

• 45:19Speaker 02

  of time. And so that's what's so exciting to us about, about using the Lightning Network and enabling families to pay directly from their phone, having a super transparent record of those payments, and we can just do it all digitally. Yeah. What's their response been so far from people in the community? So far, amazing. I mean, families, before they opted in to be part of this specific community, they knew that this was going to be the payment method. We, you know, are doing, we're doing training, right? We're doing financial literacy training, we're doing Bitcoin Beach team has done an amazing job of, of training people there of, of how to use the wallets and how to pay. And, you know, it's been incredible to see, especially

• 46:04Speaker 02

  the youth, really understand and be excited about this, because they can see, I mean, they obviously are all on their, their phones a lot, just like we are. And, and they're like, why would we not just? Pay from our phones instead of having to try to do everything in cash, basically, right?

• 46:23Anthony Pompliano?

  It's absolutely fascinating. How can people help, right? So there's a lot of people who are going to listen to this and they're going to say, this is an amazing story. I really like what they're doing. How do they either get involved? Or how do they help you all kind of continue in your mission?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the obvious thing is, you know, donating to start. And it could be, it doesn't have to be anything big to start. I mean, we have everything from folks doing, you know, multi seven figures, which we're super grateful for. And people that get started with $50 or $100 a month. And so I think just kind of getting into our system is the best way to do it. So you can go to our website, it's newsstorycharity.org. You can easily donate crypto. So our team built out, our engineering team built out a very simple way to do that. So get involved. That's like an easy thing, even if it's a low level. And then if you want to get involved at a higher level, you could, you know, reach out directly to me or our team.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  And we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear any ideas, thoughts you have, opportunities that you have, innovations that you're aware of, and, you know, just love to get to know people.

• 47:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  So those would be the main things.

• 47:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk to me a little bit about where people can find you on the internet? And where they can actually go learn more about either the problem or what you guys are doing. It's just the website?

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So our handle on social is just newsstorycharity. And then the URL is newsstorycharity.org. And then I'm on Twitter, just my name, which is Brett Hagler.

• 47:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we're hiring as well. So hiring a lot.

• 47:58Anthony Pompliano?

  What type of roles are you hiring for?

• 48:00Speaker 02

  All types of stuff. Engineers, designers, project managers, folks in finance that really want to, want to help us scale up how we're thinking about financing at a bigger, at a big, raising, you know, impact investment funds and really scaling up our financing component.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Construction, architecture, a lot of different roles.

• 48:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. I feel compelled to ask you, one of our sponsors is Eight Sleep and obviously if you guys build homes.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:30Anthony Pompliano?

  A huge piece of this is they want to help people improve their health, right?

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 48:36Anthony Pompliano?

  By having the thermo regulated bed. How do you do it all, right? Like, what's your sleep schedule and kind of what does your day to day look like?

• 48:45Speaker 02

  So I actually went through Y C with the founders of Eight Sleep.

• 48:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Very cool.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Yep, before, before they changed their, they had their rebrand, which is just beautiful. It's incredible. So I've known them and had a really high, high regard for their founders since we went through Y C together. The last couple of years, I've been taking my sleep more seriously, like trying to get between seven and a half to eight hours. In the early days, kind of founder entrepreneurial mode, I was very proud of just getting six. You know, I watched videos of Arnold Schwarzenegger or other Jocko Willink and like, you know, you only need six, only need six. And I don't know, maybe at that time I was 24 to 28, maybe. But, but yeah, I've been investing in my sleep and it's made a, it's made a huge difference.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  And the other ways is like, just been very consistent with, I don't do anything crazy. It's just, it's just consistent workouts, you know, every day. And.

• 49:45Anthony Pompliano?

  So just consistently working out, getting good sleep, any like kind of nuanced diets or anything like that from like a performance standpoint?

• 49:53Speaker 02

  I'd say those are the things you just said, the two main things.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Diet is leaning a little, probably a little more keto, but not like super strict. I'm during the day, probably try not to do as many carbs or sugar, fats, vegetables. And then at night I'll usually have, have a good meal.

• 50:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  That's kind of the way I've done it is like, I get more energy during the day if I'm, if I'm eating less. And I've tried all different types of things, especially like with, you know, crazy travel and kind of the entrepreneurial journey. And yeah, I think during the day. For me, less is less is more and then try to eat a usually usually a good meal at night.

• 50:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  How about you?

• 50:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I very similar like I don't have some crazy, crazy diet and if I want to eat something, I eat it like whatever. But I definitely don't eat. I usually don't eat till like mid afternoon. And it's for this exact reason, like when I eat in the morning or midday, I get very tired. And I've thought it for a long time. I was like, oh, maybe I was eating the wrong thing or whatever. I don't know. I think everyone's different and everyone's got to kind of figure out what works for them, but a lot of days I won't eat till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. And, you know, I'm hungry, right? So I'll eat and then I'll eat again, you know, a few hours later. But for whatever reason, that just makes me the most productive and I think the way that I've always looked at it is like I feel better. Like on a day in and day out basis.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 51:25Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a combination that's working out, it's sleeping, it's, you know, finding what from a food perspective.

• 51:31Anthony Pompliano?

  And then also like one of like the funniest things to me is just like I drink water.

• 51:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Like I always. I talk to friends and they, you know, we go to a restaurant or something, right? And I'm like, you know, hey, man, that's the sixth lemonade that you've drank. Or the the fourth Coca-Cola today, right? And, you know, by the way, that makes you happy, like knock yourself out. But just like, what is the balance between other liquids and water? And it's usually like.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Water's the best.

• 51:56Anthony Pompliano?

  It's an opposite balance that I have, right? And so I don't know. I don't think there's like one right thing to do, but it does feel like if you kind of just approach this as I want to have healthy habits.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 52:09Anthony Pompliano?

  And sure, I'll stray from it here or there, but as long as I'm generally, you know, kind of doing the right things, then over time it compounds, right to your point.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  And that's that's what I've seen in your story and that's been a lot of my story too of like, I just, I for folks that are younger listening, like started at a pretty young age, like probably. Out of college, early twenties with just consistent, boring, healthy habits, day after day, and they freaking compound. And it's a choice that anybody can make to have those. And you don't have to have some crazy IQ. You don't need to have this, you know, certain resume or credentials. It's just these daily choices that really compound.

• 52:51Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it, uh, it's not the sexiest advice, but it definitely is the truest advice.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  It's the truest, yeah.

• 52:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we'll send people to newstorycharity.org. They can go there, they can learn more about what you guys are doing. They can also do it if they'd like. And then you're on Twitter at Brett Hagler, they can go follow you there.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 53:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I love what you guys are doing.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Thanks for supporting.

• 53:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 53:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to pompscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period. Go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.