Julian McClurkin: Hey everybody! It’s Julian McClurkin, your Chief Storyteller with Tribevest. Today we're meeting with Deddrick Perry. He's actually built up enough wealth to own his own hospital, and now he's using Tribevest to invest with his college buddies. Stay tuned for that and much more. 

Deddrick Perry: How are you doing, man?

Julian: I'm doing well. How are you?

Deddrick: Wonderful. 

Julian: Can you tell me a little bit about you and your history?

Deddrick: I'm originally from the Chicago area, from the south suburbs of Chicago. My dad was a pastor and real estate investor and entrepreneur. When it came time for me to go to college, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, [and] went to Tennessee State University. And that's actually where I met most of my tribe that I use on the platform now. They're my friends from college.

Julian: Do you all have similar majors? Similar mindsets?

Deddrick: I would say more so a similar mindset. And that has been cultivated over decades of friendship. It's a good group of people. We communicate daily through a WhatsApp thread. As life happens, people get married, and [have] families, and all of this stuff. There's a financial reality, our financial peace to all of our reality, to purchase the life that we want and the lifestyle that we want. And I think a lot of people are awakening to the idea that just the amount that they earn in their career, regardless of how much it is, probably isn't enough. After college, I worked in corporate sales and media. I decided that if I can do this, I can do almost anything and started my own business. And from there, I just started investing and syndicating different opportunities, whether it be dad or  different types of small acquisitions, middle market acquisitions. And I've been doing that probably for almost the last 11 years.

Julian: Investing is definitely not something that's new to you, but it sounds like... Did you get your inspiration from your father to kind of dive into that?

Deddrick: Yeah, I mean, just fundamentally I knew that investing is the key to wealth, right? We have to always be doing it. We have to always be investing as much of our income as possible to arrive at our financial goals. I bought a portfolio of land with my Dogecoin money, and I bought about 20 undeveloped lots. I'm going to build a bunch of houses out there, probably by the end of this year. I dollar-cost-average invest in crypto, so I invest a certain amount every day. And I spread that out over a network of different coins and opportunities. I'm in line with taking those gains and converting them in and storing them. If you want to take some of your value and put it in crypto for a period of time because it expands quickly, that's fine. Be open to bringing it back into something that has a much more proven track record. The cost of everything associated with land, building, homes, it's going up, and it's not going to come down. There's not going to be a bubble that crushes the prices down; the prices are high now.

Julian: Maybe a correction but not a bubble. We learned our lesson but yeah. How did you hear about Tribevest, and how do you think Tribevest helps you in your business?

Deddrick: I think I got hit with a Facebook ad. And I was like, “Hmm.” I introduced it to them in the group. I was like, “Hey guys, check this out.” Actually a friend of mine, who's also in the group, is somehow connected with maybe a seed round investor in Tribevest or something. But we started playing with it. This could be a very valuable tool for all of us. I'm in a rhythm already. I've already got momentum with the paperwork piece of it. But if you're new and you don't have that and you're still fumbling around trying to figure it out... It's like this takes all the guesswork out of it. And even if you're not new. It just makes it easier like I don't have to even invest any more of my time with the administrative side.

Julian: But what specifically do you save time in by using Tribevest rather than going and trying to do the syndication on your own?

Deddrick: So thinking about someone who perpetually makes private equity-type of investments. There's usually some sort of admin or assistant, who is working on getting the LLC paperwork together and getting the operating agreements tee’d up. [For] all of that stuff, that person's time and energy, I can redirect into something more profitable.

Julian: Alright so moving forward with Tribevest, do you see yourself opening up any other tribes in the future?

Deddrick: Yeah. So the biggest thing for us now having gone through the establishment of just one fund is I know what to expect from my organization. Now that we've gone through this process once, we can develop some talking points to kind of expand and set our investors expectations on coming into Tribevest. I think it'll be pretty smooth sailing and letting them know that this was a new platform and this was exciting. Anything involving investing that you can get in on the ground floor, you should do it.

Julian: Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. I wish you tremendous success in your current tribe and in all your future tribes as well. 

Deddrick: Thank you. 

Julian: Wow, what an amazing interview with Deddrick. Look, if you want to follow him, make sure you go right here to his Instagram page. Until next time, we'll see you next tribe.