For Scott Trench, this all started with a park bench, someone else’s dog, and a stranger.
Trench, in his first couple years out of college, was trying to figure out what to do with his life. And one late morning more than a decade ago, he found his answer: Out walking his friend’s dog, Trench sat down next to someone he’d never met and, after the two spoke about investing, the stranger invited the 20-something to a weekly, peer-to-peer Real Estate Mastermind Group. Trench accepted the invitation and shortly thereafter met Josh Dorkin, founder of the then-new real estate education platform BiggerPockets. Trench was already a fan.
"I was like, 'Oh my gosh, you’re Josh Dorkin and I love the BiggerPockets podcast,'" said Trench. "Now, I think he remembers it differently, but I think he said 'go away kid' three or four times. So, I kept following up."
Trench would become BiggerPockets employee number three. Today, the company has more than 90 employees—and Trench is now the company’s CEO. Dorkin stepped back from BiggerPockets in 2018, but since then the company has continued to grow: BiggerPockets has podcasts, digital tools, events, and bootcamps. The company now has more than three million members and The Chernin Group (TCG) has made a majority investment in the platform, Fortune can exclusively report. TCG now owns more than 50% of the company’s shares, though the firm declined to provide further specifics. BiggerPockets is also launching new tools, like Market Finder and Deal Finder, in conjunction with the news.
I’m the daughter of a Florida real estate investor, so I approached BiggerPockets with skepticism and glee. Glee, because real estate gets weird: Talk to any real estate investor, and they’ll have a Hunter S. Thompson-crazy story about a tenant or property manager. Skepticism, because a platform helping everyday people learn to invest in real estate has a serious responsibility to communicate the risks.
"I try to apply a healthy fear to real estate," said Trench. "I've been doing this for ten years, but I’m afraid of the market. But I’m also afraid of the opportunity cost of not investing in real estate long-term, because it is a powerful wealth builder."
A key part of the company’s value proposition—and bull case—is that it’s offering education that’s accessible to everyone. It’s also a moment where there’s evidence to suggest that more people are investing in real estate than ever. BiggerPockets’ YouTube channel has 1.2 million subscribers, and the company says that 350,000 people interact with its content every day through one of its channels.
"It takes work, but it's not complicated," said Dave Meyer, BiggerPockets head of real estate investing and podcast host. "We’re not building AI here. We’re collecting rent, we’re trying to control our expenses. We’re trying to help ordinary people realize that they can do this."
Maureen Sullivan, TCG partner, has spent much of her career thinking about organically-grown online communities. She believes that BiggerPockets has what it takes to be successful where many have failed, saying that the company's subscription business is proving sticky among consumers. (As of July 2024, BiggerPockets's membership business had 97% subscriber retention, per the company.)
"I just think the potential of a business is so much bigger when a whole host of people care, beyond those who work at the company," she said. "It’s grander than just an internal group of employees saying 'We’re going to make this work and put it out into the world.' But if you can fundamentally create fans and loyalists, your runway of how you can innovate your products and services is so much longer."
Unlike venture capital (where I spend most of my time these days), real estate is incredibly sensitive to macroeconomic vicissitudes. And, in a week characterized by headline-snatching market volatility that's since receded, it was still worth asking: What would a theoretical recession mean for BiggerPockets and its users?
"I will say, the crash already happened in the commercial real estate space, where you’ve seen a 30% peak to trough decline in asset values from 2021 to 2024," said Trench. "The single family market is just much more insulated from that pricing fluctuation because of the 30-year fixed rate…But the moment you don’t respect the market, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble."
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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