Episode 4: How to Buy Your Own Franchise an Interview with Johann Hunter

Acquania Escarne 0:04

You are listening to the purpose of money podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne.

You are listening to the purpose of money podcast episode for an interview with Johann Hunter, how to buy your own franchise. Hi, everybody. Thanks for listening to the purpose of money podcast. This week. I have special guests Johann hunter on the show. She is here to talk about how she became an on site owner and business manager of the Godard school located in Middleton, Massachusetts. Johann and her husband Mark have two young sons four and seven years old. And they have discovered the importance of creating a safe and nurturing learning environment for their children and others. in their community, I love to talk about business ownership and what it takes because I want all of you to understand what can come with being a full time entrepreneur. So Johann is here today to share her experience and also give you some really good tips on how you can approach buying a franchise for yourself. I hope you enjoy the episode. If there's any information you want to know more about her or after the show more information about a franchise, please check out the show notes for the episode which can be found at the purpose of money.com slash Episode Four. If you have a chance and you're listening to this to the Apple podcast, please take time to write a review and rate or subscribe to the show. Every listener who writes a review ensures that more people learn about the podcast and the content that's going out. So please help me spread the word By sharing this podcast with friends and family, and also leaving a review on Apple podcasts for others to see it too. Thanks so much for listening. Feel free to also follow me on social. I'm at the purpose of money on Instagram, or at purpose underscore money on Twitter. Now let's get into this episode. Hope you enjoy it. Hey guys today we have Johann Hunter and we are so excited to talk about her franchise. We are going to highlight what it takes to be a full time entrepreneur and have a childcare center franchise in your portfolio. So welcome to the podcast. Johann. How are you today? I'm good, how are you? I'm great. I'm so excited to share your story and I'm also excited to reconnect it's been a few years. But for those listening out there we actually met when we were living in Dubai. I was there for three years with my job and Johann They're hanging out with her hubby and doing a little bit of side hustles too, right? Yeah, yeah.

So now that we're both back in the States, we're doing similar things. But yours has definitely escalated to a franchise business. So I want to dive into that Today on our conversation and talk about how did you make it all happen? So, first, give us a little bit of background about your business and how you got started.

Johann Hunter 3:29

Absolutely. So I own a franchised childcare center. And in essence, as Acquania mentioned, I always kind of had a few side things going on when we left the United States to move overseas with my husband's job. I was really torn about going into corporate america versus just doing my entrepreneurial things because I always knew that I wanted to have my own business and working in corporate America was kind of a means to to an end, I knew I needed to have more skills to open my own business. And I just didn't know when the right time would be. So when we moved overseas, it gave me an opportunity to play around with some some ideas. But when we moved back to the US, at that point I was on, I just had my second son. And as you moms out, there are no, you need steady income when you have children. So I really had to put my head in books and try to figure out what was going to be the best way for me not to be forced back into corporate america still have a reliable income. And that led me to the franchise opportunities that I started exploring. So I started researching franchises. While I was also researching, you know, regular businesses that were for sale, I had a business broker that gave me some businesses that were for sale and I went through those options too, but I found that I felt that there was more trust that I could put into a franchise because I felt that, you know, my family would be relying on me for Some sort of income and then at least in this pay in this arena, I knew that there was something proven and that there would be more chance of return even though there's still risk, there's more chance of return. So right now, I do have a childcare facility. Our facility is about 8000 square feet. We currently have 124 students, but we have the capacity for 132 students, which you know, getting to the 124 did not happen overnight. But essentially one of the reasons why I chose the childcare option is because I really wanted to do something for women. Women that are just always looking for help is just the best way I can put it when I was not working even though I didn't feel like I was not working for very long. I think it was about two and a half or three years that I was doing my own things part time and kind of more so full time doing things with the with the children, and I kind of felt like I was getting to see what I do. See, as a working parent, it's like it's so hard to do all the things you want to do you feel like you're constantly rushing from one thing to the other with the kids, and you just don't feel like anyone really gets how busy and exhausted you are. And so I wanted to do something that really supported when, in all of the things that they're juggling in life, and I just kept coming back to the school because that was the place where I, you know, the things that made me proud about my kids like, Oh my gosh, I didn't do this right or whatever. It always I always saw those things at my son's preschool. And I always was the person that had extra time to do things there, obviously, because they always turn to the moms that are not, you know, corporately engaged to do extra things. So it just came back to me as a place that was a happy place, a place where my son had good memories. I had good memories. And I thought it was a really a business where it supported women and their larger families, but it gave them the ability to, you know, really do all the other things that they want to do. I mean, if you think about it, how women work these long hours nowadays and how we are, you know, really in the working force, just like men, we wouldn't be able to do that without the support of these centers that are open, you know, 12 hours a day, watching our kids and are a safe haven for our children, we wouldn't be able to do that if society didn't change in the way that it did for us to trust these institutions. So that really made me interested in it. And I just found that this particular franchise that I chose, it's called the Goddard school. This particular franchise that I chose really had a lot of information that was open to the public. Once you go through a certain process of being approved, I felt that they were very confident about the information that they were giving out. And it made me feel more confident that the information was out there for me to review because it told me that there was nothing to hide and that basically, these were positive statistics that I could trust. And that was really important to me, because I knew you know, I had two small children. And you know, of course, my husband. And I wanted to be certain that I could at some point in the first year, but at some point have an income that I could provide to the family.

Acquania Escarne 8:11

That's awesome. And I really liked the fact that you highlighted you did a lot of research, you had options, you were smart enough to know that you could go to a business broker. That was something really interesting to hear. So there was someone out there who had recommended some already existing businesses, which you reviewed, but then decided to go with a franchise model because you had information that it was a reliable business, it been successful. And then you also had the stats to prove it, right. So that gives us confidence in the investment you are making. But I'm really, really excited about the mission and the purpose you have behind it. Because I totally agree. I was raised by a single mom and I did spend some time at childcare centers when my mom needed to work and for a while Her job, she wasn't entrepreneurs, so trying to sell or make sales, while knowing her child was taken care of was really important. So I commend you for that. And I appreciate that you're using your experiences from being a mom who was able to be more engaged, to apply that to now, center that you're giving other moms and other single parents, dads two or married couples, a safe haven for their kids. So that's really, really awesome. But I want to kind of dive into the logistics like you were inspired. You had knowledge of professionals you could go to for help, and then you did your own research. But what other steps did you need to take to get started?

Johann Hunter 9:45

So initially, I found out about the business broker. Within my research, I was essentially researching what businesses for sale and I found that I couldn't get much more information because I had to sign confidentiality agreements and all of that All of that information went through Business Brokers, which are kind of like real estate brokers for businesses. And so that was kind of a starting point for me. But this is kind of it's kind of funny because if you have a dream, and there's something that you plan to do, and you just continue meditating on it, I feel like one day it'll happen because I've been reading Entrepreneur Magazine franchise magazine, I've been reading these magazines for years. So when I when I went back to the franchise, idea, I already knew like what publications I could go to, to start researching, and you know, who ranked the top franchises out there. And all of that I already knew where I could get that information. But essentially, what I had to do was, I started with what franchises were the top 10 in any industry in the United States, and they're normally that ranked based on their profitability and their return on investment for the investor. So I started with that I called them the industries that I that I really wanted to focus on. And then what I did was I contacted each one individually, and you have to provide them with a personal financial statement, which basically lets them know, if you're financially capable of basically buying this business. A lot of them. I shouldn't say a lot of them at some of them have relatively high liquidity requirements. And so as cash, right, you have to have access to cash. Yeah, it has to be straight cash in your bank account, that you need to have X amount of cash, and then they'll tell you, you need to have a net worth of X amount in order to get the small business loans that we can secure for you. But a lot of larger franchises that are more successful, they weed people out with the cash requirements, because for example, if they say you need to have $200,000 on day one to sign this agreement, that means a lot of people out and I would say on average, because I've been looking at I've been researching franchises since curves. I don't know if you remember curves. Yeah, for women, I had all the franchise information for curves. I have actually, there was another franchise that I actually attended their franchise recruitment event in Virginia, I flew from New Jersey, to Virginia. And this is like nine years ago. So I had been researching this stuff for a while. And I had gotten further with other franchises as well, but I never saw them being like a final point for me. But the average amount that most franchises are at when they really want regular people to be in is like 25 to $35,000 of cash, which if you think about it, for the average person, that's not a ton of money because they might get you know, $5,000 from themselves $5,000 from a couple relatives or like $10,000 from themselves and like $10,000 from two relatives and they're ready to go. But once it gets a little bit more than that, that's when I think they're looking for people with a bit of a higher net worth. So in any case, I feel Got personal financial statement proving that, you know, I had enough money. And then once I got past that point, I was able to get there f DD, which is a Franchise Disclosure agreement. I actually had several STDs because there were other, um, franchises that I was looking at. And at this point I didn't have my attorney yet. So I basically had to go through myself page by page and read the agreement and try to see if things looked fair to me if anything looked like something that I wasn't interested in signing. But more importantly, I wanted to see what the earnings were for the franchisees how long it took them to earn money, what the return on the investment was, how long they were with the franchise, because that shows me if they're happy or not. So those are the type of things that I really called down to. And then once I, I was actually reading three, three STDs, this franchise and two others at the same time, and once I decided that I thought this was really the one that I wanted to To go with, at that point I got an attorney and I had already...

I had already put tabs on all of the pages of things that I wasn't certain about and things that I wanted to go over specifically with the attorney. My attorney is specifically a franchise attorney. A lot of people don't necessarily have a franchise attorney, they may just have a corporate attorney that will do things with franchises. But what I liked about my attorney, is because he was a franchise attorney and I had been looking at other franchises, he could actually help me determine if this was the better franchise for me, in comparison to the other ones that I had looked over and he was really instrumental in helping me because he, you know, had told me that he felt that Goddard was one of one of the most transparent, if not the most transparent franchise that he's seen in the industry. And he actually sits on a franchise panel for the United States, and he constantly refers to Goddard as a model, because he feels that their evidence that you know, obviously, if you have nothing to hide, you can just put this information out to the franchisees because there's just so much information that they put out to put people at ease that other people don't I mean, they, I don't know if this book that I had was, let's say it was like 300 pages if I, if I estimated, and I had FDA disclosure agreements that were 20 pages, wow, you know, so it's like some franchises just, they just choose to not give out a lot of information for whatever reason. So I just definitely felt more at ease with all the information just being out there for me.

Acquania Escarne 15:36

That's good. And I think it's important that you distinguish the fact that you hired a franchise attorney, someone who specializes in franchises, but, you know, if someone is maybe not able to find someone in that capacity, they could look at other options, but he obviously had a very particular skill set that helped you make the best decision. So that's also a part of your due diligence. Right. So you're all set up or you're all confident that this is the franchise you want to go with? What were some of the challenges once you sign the documents and started moving forward?

Johann Hunter 16:11

Yeah, so didn't really have any challenges with with the documents would probably just like the location that I chose was a little bit of a hurdle. But once I signed the documents, I think one of the misconceptions that I had was that this was kind of a business in a box. I mean, I knew that there were a lot of things that I would have to do, but I did probably misperceive that more would just be handed to me quote, unquote, buy the franchise, and that's just not really the way it goes. So even though I have a franchise, I still had to go through state trainings, fill out all the forms for the state to get, you know, licensed by the state. You know, I stood still had to make my own manuals. I mean, the franchise will give you guides, so to speak for certain things. But there are other things that you are doing, you know, from scratch by yourself. I mean, you can call around and ask people to help you. But they're not exactly like filling up these paperwork and doing all these things for you. So that was a challenge. So in the beginning, when I was trying to get license, I had a goal of opening in September, to be in line with the common you know, the common month that most schools open. And unfortunately, that didn't happen to me for me, but I was literally in July, you know, up weeks on end until three o'clock in the morning, like filling out paperwork, putting it in, in order, sending it to, we have like basically a consultant of the franchise sending it to this person, having them review it, but having them send it back to me, you have to do it all over again. And I did that for weeks, because I still had to go through the traditional, the standard thing that someone who doesn't have a franchise would have to go to to open this type of business in my state. I still had to meet all the state regulations. So that was something I That I might have been underprepared for because I didn't have any staff at that time. So I did it all myself, which is not really typical. Most people don't do anything until they have staff and I just didn't want to waste time. So as soon as I had the, okay, I just started doing everything on my own. So that was a bit of a challenge. The other thing that was really a challenge was I had a lot of reputational hurdles with the location that I chose, because most franchisees in the Goddard system, although it's changing now, because the system has been around for 30 some odd years. A lot of franchisees have a brand new location, which means that they choose the location they see it through construction. They have nine to 12 months during construction to start recruiting students and families and then they open. That was not the case for us because the initial location that I wanted was a town that I lived in. The town that I lived in was not approved by the system because it did not have the age demographic or the household income demographics to support this type of business, so they didn't approve. Yeah. And so they have saying that...

Acquania Escarne 19:10

Even though you're saying okay to running a franchise under their name, they still have input on where it actually a setup?

Johann Hunter 19:19

Absolutely, because the franchise has a model. And their model may be that we are in suburbs, not cities, we're in suburbs, where the moms are this age. And you know, the kids are under this age, because this is the mom, you know, these, these are the families that we serve, right. So if you want to set up in a location that they don't feel is going to be successful. Obviously, they also want you to do well, so they're not going to let you you know, hang yourself out to dry. So right, we'll circle back with you and say, well, it doesn't meet our demographics and these are the reasons why there aren't enough kids under the age of five. There aren't enough you know, families For the population that we serve, and also they if they can't support the tuitions that we charge you know, I mean there's really no purpose there. So that location wasn't approved they approved me for another brand new location. But the location was west of my house going more into what I call the sticks and I had no desire to go I mean, I was like, No, I'm trying to get either stay in my town or closest to the city. I definitely don't want to go in that direction. So that was completely out for me. And then my salesperson was like, Well, hey, we have this location. And then other things think things happen in destiny even though it was harder than I thought it would be. But the day that I called him I was so not sure if I was gonna go with childcare or if I wanted to do another model that was geared towards women and he was like, Listen, I have a like a turnkey opportunity for you know, I have a building that's completely empty the the owner didn't work out. Everything is there. The construction is already Done, all you have to do is sign the paperwork and move in. And I'm like, whoa, I'm like, What today? I'm like, I don't know. You know, I'm still thinking, I don't know. But it ultimately worked out, I drove up there with my husband to see the location. And my husband's like, Okay, well, it's too far. So that's out, you know, he just didn't see the potential that I saw. And I'm just such a dreamer, or like a positive thinker when it comes to things that I want to get done. And I just thought to myself, you know what? Yeah, it might be far from our house. But that doesn't mean it's a bad location. You know, I mean, it could be an hour from our house, but that could be the most optimal location for the business just happened to be an hour for our house. So after talking to him a little bit more and doing more research, we did decide to go with this location because my husband actually has some friends in New Jersey that own three childcare centers that are not franchises. And they have different partners that they work with on the businesses. So I called them and I sat in on one of their meetings. And then I asked him about this location. And I said, I told them the situation, you know, the owner was there, he wasn't able to run it, the center closed down, and it's, you know, it's completely built. Everything's in there. And their thing was, well, you know, what, if somebody already chose that location that lived in that area, then they already knew that that was a good area. You know, the school already ran successfully at one point, whatever the reason it closed, the demographics are there, it's already been proven because they were already able to successfully run so that's almost a better gamble than you building a brand new location that no one's ever run before. So I thought to myself, yeah, I mean, that all makes sense to me. So I thought we would run with run with it. However, when I did open, get everything started and all of that. I really was floored by the negative public. city that remained from the previous owner. Wow, there's just so many negative sentiments about the school that at one point, I didn't know if I would ever be able to turn it around and get people to understand that I was a different person. I realized that there are so many Americans out here that don't even know what a franchise is. So people did not understand that I had no connection with the former owner. They didn't understand that they didn't know what a franchise was. They didn't. they they they thought that I would have to have some type of financial ties with him in order to have taken over.

Acquania Escarne 23:38

Oh, I thought it was like a it's under new management, but it's right. Mo same. All right. Correct. Correct. You had to literally not only build your own reputation, but how to get rid of one You didn't even create.

Johann Hunter 23:52

Correct, correct. And then we had people touring the school, just solely for the purpose of just saying their two cents about the former person like, Oh, I just want to make sure because you know that person that says done, we didn't like this, and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, I'm really sorry to hear that. But I have nothing to do with that person. And I kind of one point, but like I was, I had my back against the wall, because I really didn't know where to start. And I do think that it would have been easier for me to just start without that negative reputation. But at the same time, I've learned so much from it, although it was a frustrating experience. from a marketing standpoint, there's so many things that backflips and things that we did from a marketing standpoint to just let people know what we do and what we really care about. So now I feel like that's kind of made made me a marketing ninja. I probably wouldn't be. I probably wouldn't be if I didn't deal with all of that stuff. Because I know other schools, Goddard schools that had been open for six months, nine months and they've done no marketing because they have an attitude. Because if they're in an optimal location, their schools full, they're like, well, we never had to post an ad about this. And we never had to, you know, encourage people to come here because, you know, we're on the corner of you know, we're in Center City, you know, so, and that really is...

Acquania Escarne 25:14

The previous owner, it was the same franchise just a different person. So that made it more difficult. It wasn't even like two different childcare centers in the same place...

Right,right.

Johann Hunter 25:24

So we didn't have a different name. So if we had a different name, it would have been obvious to people. Mm hmm. But you know, I would always use this example for people I'd be like, you know, like, for example, the Dunkin Donuts across the street is not owned by the same people that own the Dunkin Donuts one town over and people were like, what, like nobody understood what it meant to like, own a franchise independently operate. They didn't understand that all of these names weren't connected under the same figurehead. So I was kind of going through that conversation as well.

Acquania Escarne 25:55

That's like franchise one on one which is important because it proves that It is a great business that a lot of people are not educated enough about to take advantage of. And so you were not just marketing yourself within a new community, but you were teaching your community about business as well and what makes you different. So I do have a question to go back to, you are very active in getting your husband involved and making sure he saw the location but at that time, was he also a full time entrepreneur like you and planning to run the business with you or when you're working?

Johann Hunter 26:34

No. So part of the reason so he was still working at that time. So part of the reason why I made sure that he knew everything that was going on is because when you put out your personal financial statement, you basically have to put out all your assets, including your spouse's because they're combined, essentially when you're married. And so one of the assets that you know, I had to disclose was our house. So obviously, our houses on there, I want to make sure that there's Buying and that he knows what's going on. Because if God forbid, the, the idea doesn't pan out, you know, now we have our house down for this loan, and I wanted to make sure that he knew what was going on. Also, I don't know what other franchises do this but Goddard mandates essentially that you or your spouse be listed on the franchise because of the joint income thing. So because of that his name was essentially being signed when my name was being assigned as well. So I in essence, really didn't have a choice but to keep him engaged. Not that I wouldn't have other ways. But hey, you know, if I wanted to go with this franchise, I had to keep him in the loop on every step because his name was going to be signed when on every site. Mm hmm.

Acquania Escarne 27:43

Yeah. What is he doing now? Is he still doing a nine to five and you're running the childcare center? Or is he a part of the business more actively?

Johann Hunter 27:53

So now he's a part of the business more actively. So essentially, what happened was the first year was really a struggle for us. We had a lot of staffing issues, the big the firt. The big thing in childcare is staffing. staffing is so difficult when you are, you know, just above the minimum wage level just because there's so much competition out there. And people are going to say, well, oh, if I don't want to do this job, you know, maybe I'll go work at Target or you know, like, if I don't want to do this job, I can go work someplace else. So that's a bit of a challenge when you're working in childcare just because there are other jobs around about that. That pay scale that people can do when they're in their early 20s. Um, the other thing is that people tend to come into childcare and they're young, they're low 20s. And sometimes what happens even though we do our best to gear ourselves towards people that are career, teachers, Career Career caretakers, what happens is, you know, when you're 20, you're like, yeah, this is what I want to do. And when you're 23, you're like, no I don't want to do this anymore. Now I want to, you know, go BSR work in the medical industry, or I want to go be a dental assistant. So we'll change their mind. So that makes it very difficult as well. So the staffing was really hard in the beginning. But in any case, what happened was, he was having a very challenging time with his job.

And he kind of saw that there were changes being made at his job, and there was writing on the wall. But on the other side, he could see that we were having so many issues, and we could use the extra hand. And one of the issues that we had was, as I told you brand equity and needing to do some more marketing and advertising and that really is his forte. Hmm. So he just put it out to me. He basically said, you know, if things are changing around here, and it's just not working out for me, I think what I'm going to do is come over and help you guys because he's like, you really, you guys are going to really need more marketing, more advertising and like a focus on that and that What I can do to help you and at that point, I could take any help that I could get. So I was just kind of like, yeah, we'll see what happens. And you know, if you can help me, I'll take it. So, as it worked out, things didn't pan out for him there. And he came on to help us. And it really was such a blessing in disguise, although it has its own challenges. Because at some stages, I kind of felt that he knew more about the marketing lingo and was able to fight for us in additional ways that we couldn't fight for ourselves, because we just didn't really know what things we needed to do to put ourselves out there, how we could get seen more by our local communities, how we could let people know what things we were doing. And he was really able to use his, um, his knowledge of marketing to do that. And he also worked with we have corporate folks at Goddard that work on marketing for us as well, but those people work with all the schools so it's not easy to get, you know, you're not going to get attention for them. Exactly. So he was able to have them start things and him finish it or vice versa, in order to kind of like help us turn ourselves around, so that was a big help.

Acquania Escarne 31:08

Cool. So where are you now? You've been in business two years or more.

Johann Hunter 31:13

This is actually a year three. Yeah, that's crazy. We just passed the three year mark right now, you know, Mark is still there. With me full time, what we do is we try to work alternate schedules, although there's a lot of times that we're both there. But we do feel like sometimes it's good for us to both be there, especially if there's an event so that people can see you know, this is our life. You know, this is what we're dedicated to like this is this is it for us. We want people to know that this is what we're dedicated to and our attention is not divided. But for the most part, he will go in on the closing shift and he'll close the school he'll go in from like, two to six and I'm normally there from about nine to three during the day, helping With more the day to day stuff, and then we have an assistant director that opens in the morning at seven to greet the parents in the morning.

Acquania Escarne 32:05

So we kind of we all take shifts. That's kind of cool. And so as someone who used to spend a lot of time with your children at home, and now they're in school, are you still able to have that flexibility to spend time as a family?

Johann Hunter 32:20

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think what we do more so as a family, we do a lot of things together on the weekends. And we're not we're both not in jobs anymore, where we are working on the weekend as much as we did before working remotely as much as we did before. But we do make more things than we did before. I mean, if we have a concert MJ has a piano concert, you know, we can pop out in the middle of the day together and go see him at his school has something, you know, Christmas, whatever related, we can both pop out and see that stuff. So I actually feel there's more flexibility to do things during the day like we're always the parent volunteers at his school. I actually feel like I see my son that's in my school, Jamie actually feel like I see him less than I see my older son because since he's in the building, I kind of take it for granted. And I'm like, Oh, I can see him anytime. But the my older son, that's a different school, I have to like, make time to go to his Halloween parade and all that stuff. So I do make the time. And then when he gets out of school, he actually comes to our school for a little bit and waits for me. And then I take him home. So I actually feel like, I get a little bit more time with them. That's not in school, but it's a bounce. I mean, in the beginning, you have to get used to it. But it was an easy transition for me. And it was because I knew he was in the building. And I kind of felt safe and secure knowing that he was in the building. And it just made me feel like I was right there per se. So it wasn't a hard transition for me to get used to.

Acquania Escarne 33:49

That's cool. So it sounds like basically being an entrepreneur and you and your husband both running this franchise has given you more family time, more flexibility and I think That's really something that people don't think happens because they think when you run a business, you're there 100%. And you're working day in and day out, which I'm not saying you don't I think man when the time requires, but eventually once you get your staff in place, and you have your systems in place, you can give yourself more time. So that's really good. Yeah, but what else are you doing? So I'm only asking this question because I know you're a busy person. You're not just focused on one thing. So it sounds like the school is running really well. So are there any other investments or side hustles that you do just to kind of keep you engaged in others?

Johann Hunter 34:44

Yes, I do. I actually, um, I've had this for a while, but I have a book. And every idea I'd come up with I write in this book. It's kind of like a Business Journal. And so okay, yes. So anytime, things slow down, I kind of go back to that book and I'm like, Okay, what am I doing next? But my, my personal goal is to have a new endeavor every two to three years. And it was really hard for me to say just every two to three years because I think like, I should be doing something new every day, but every year, I guess, I don't think that that's practical. So I'm like, fine, I'll say every two to three years. But I do lecture macro economics on the side. And it's just, I've always wanted to lecture I've always, I always feel like I'm just like a true academic like with a book and wanting to learn something new. And years ago, when I was in business school, I did my Myers brigg if anybody's ever done Myers Briggs, and I was so I thought it was weird. I was shocked to find out that 80% of the people with my personality type are professors. So I always like this is I never I would never think that but you know, it just put that little bug in my ear and I'm like one of these days. I'm going to try You know, lecturing. So it was something that I, I actually had gotten a lecture opportunity when we were in Dubai. And then unfortunately, it was time for us to move. So I wasn't able to accept the opportunity. And it was something that I had planned on circling back with. So I was able to circle back with it when we moved here. And then I am working on furthering my education. So I have some courses that I'm curse currently. What do you call it? waitlisted for at Harvard Extension School, so one of the things I said when we moved here, and I said, I don't know, you know, Massachusetts, I probably I don't know if I live in Massachusetts for 30 years. But while I'm here, I definitely have to take advantage of the educational institutions that are here. So Harvard has an Extension School, so just you know, like a continuing education program. And so I'm, I'm on the waitlist for three courses that I'm interested in to take there. So if I get in, I can start as early as the end of January. And if not, then If I'm waitlisted what I'll probably do is select another course for the spring semester and then you know summer I normally try to take it easy but I do want to take get one more degree so I've started researching that as well but it's all about timing I feel like if I have a business opportunity that that shows itself before then then that might be the route that I go but if not, I would definitely pursue educating myself and just getting my final degree and kind of moving on for that from there, but I am a glutton for for education, I just feel like I can never get enough of it. So I am one of those people that's always in school taking a course here and there. I've taken one course every year since we've been back in the United States sometimes too. So I always when I was in Business School, somebody said this and stuck with me. They said, Your brain is like a muscle you have to exercise it and so you can't be you know, dormant and just you know, doing the same job day. Do Yeah. And that kind of stuck with me. And so, for that reason, I've always, um, try to get a course here and there because, at least for me, the course forces me into a pattern of study, it tells me when I should end this when I should move on to the next thing. self study has never been like my best friend. And if some people are great with self study, but it's never really worked for me. So I like to have a course. And I also like the social aspect of meeting people in the class. So that personally works better for me. And then we have a one of our friends in business school is starting a startup. And so we put in some seed money for that. It's not public yet, so we're not at liberty to talk about it. But I'm definitely trying to invest in those sorts of things just to kind of like help other entrepreneurs along. And then we've talked about a little bit of real estate but at the same time, we were burned in the 2008 time period. My house family had a lot of real estate. That was actually how they, you know, did well in the beginning and real estate that he had. And the real estate that I had in 2008 was upside down because of the housing crisis. So we've a little bit been burned by real estate, but that's something that we would consider in the future as well, to a lesser extent, just because of our negative experiences that we've had with that.

Acquania Escarne 39:27

That's so dope. So I think you're awesome. And you already knew that. More people will know you're just really killing it. And I love the fact that you are taking an opportunity to feed into up and coming entrepreneurs seed money, advice, guidance, and that is all great because it's going to help us all get better and be better. So if you want people to kind of reach out or connect with you, as there any social media platforms you want to tell us about

Johann Hunter 39:59

Yeah. Absolutely, so they can go to my LinkedIn account. So it's Johann J-o-H-a-n-n Hunter H-u-n-t-e-r. And they can basically follow me on LinkedIn. And they can also request me as a friend on LinkedIn if they'd like to talk to me. I do get a lot of people that are interested in childcare reaching out to me and I email or at least try to speak with them virtually, so that I can answer any questions that they may have. Because I remember being in that research phase, and it's hard to get information. So if anybody's interested interested in this particular industry, or if they have any high level questions, they can feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Acquania Escarne 40:40

Thank you so much. I really want to take advantage of the opportunity. And I want to thank you again for taking time to be on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Johann Hunter 40:49

Anytime, anytime. Thanks.

Acquania Escarne 40:51

The next episode drops in two weeks. In the meantime, keep building generation Thank you for listening to the purpose of money podcast for more resources. As an information check out my website the purpose of money calm. And while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter so you have the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep building generational wealth $1 at a time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai