@moseskagan posted a thread of the mistakes he made early on as a GP so I thought I'd share some of mine, as well as a few things that worked.

I still feel "early" and that's what keeps me motivated.

You're either leveling up or leveling back - the journey is the desination.

Mistake: Not near enough appreciation for great operations and property management.

This is now where I spend a lot of my time thinking. There’s an enormous arbitrage in operating and managing that exists today. I’ll unpack this in a separate thread one day.

Mistake: Giving equity out like it’s candy. It’s easy to give equity when the perceived value is zero. Much harder to get back if things don’t work out.

Lesson: Only give equity to someone who brings something to the table that you absolutely can’t get any other way.

Very little emphasis on decisions that helped build a company, more emphasis on just doing deals.

This works very early on, but eventually, you'll become a company builder rather than a "deal doer".

Lesson: Be aware this day will come.

Real estate is expensive, you'll have to raise capital.

Success: Always did everything I could to make the investor experience the best I could with the resources I had. Couldn’t recommend this enough.

Lesson: Treat your investors like your customers, it goes a long way.

Mistake: Tried doing too many different types of deals, didn’t have focus. We really began to scale when we began to focus.

Employees, investors, and lenders want to see a focused vision, hard to do when you're chasing every shiny object that comes your way.

I find most folks find “development” to be the sexiest thing in real estate. Learn what development means. It’s rewarding, but it’s hard and riddled with risk out of one’s control. Easier to buy something existing and learn the fundamentals that way.

Mistake: Don’t pay the final bill to a contractor until work is complete and signed off on by both parties.

Be clear about the scope of work and find trusted contractors or crews - they are worth their weight in gold.

Bad relationships can be an expensive nightmare.

Mistake: I paid zero attention to the tax code. I’ve said in other tweets, the greats in business and investing understand the tax code. A lot of $ can be made through tax efficiency.

Lesson: You don't have to hit home runs if you hit tax-efficient singles and doubles.

Success: Keep the financial structure simple between LP’s and GP’s. Too often see newbies trying to reinvent the wheel through structure & financial engineering. “Don’t go chasing waterfalls”.

Success: Focus on articulating your skin in the game. Early on, most investors are investing in you more than the deal. A healthy dose of skin in the game goes a long way.

Thanks for reading.