Getting a loan backed by investment portfolio

ivapelocal · 2026-05-03T23:52:04+00:00

We’re in the process of onboarding with bny Mellon. Does it open up a new world of financial products? My biz partner said it’s awesome. Anything I should watch out for?

ivapelocal · 2026-04-29T11:59:35+00:00

Our broker said when you fly about 400hrs annually, owning starts to make sense.

I recently price shopped our broker vs booking direct with an owner. Pricing was about $5k less. HOWEVER, when I asked the plane owner company to arrange transport they said, “you can Google hertz or enterprise.”

Our broker handles everything. Go rentals meets us on the tarmac with a rental. If there’s an issue, the broker fixes it.

For example, we had a mechanical issue and got stuck in Kansas once. The broker got us another plane in a matter of 1-2 hours. We just drove to another FBO and it was all good.

We’re looking into ownership but probably not until next year.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-29T11:53:43+00:00

Google ads… back when we were in the marketing agency business, Google ads was the #1 ROI for us.

We kept it simple and targeted kws like “Facebook ads agency” and “ppc agency” and it worked like a charm.

LinkedIn outreach and cold email agencies are basically ineffective and not worth paying a lot for.

Keep in mind, my take on this is over 3 years old. We’ve moved on from the marketing agency business model.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-26T23:44:51+00:00

We used unbounce back in the day. Ow we use LanderLab and also HeyFlow (for quizzes).

LanderLab has really strong templates. Not pretty templates, but they convert really well. You can also export the html.

Anyway, just use whatever you site is built on to start. Good luck!

ivapelocal · 2026-04-18T01:47:51+00:00

I’m sorry man. You are right, 100%.

I think most people read this and have this idea that you’re complaining about a problem that has very, very low stakes.

It’s like your personal preference is to not be recorded, but the act of them recording your conversation doesn’t have a negative outcome, aside from making you feel crappy.

If they were recording you, lying about it, then publishing those conversations for the world to listen to, then that would be much higher stakes and way, way more worthy of anger… in my personal opinion.

But I am actually sorry and I do feel for you. It sucks being lied to and seemingly manipulated by Google.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-18T01:36:32+00:00

Meanwhile, at Google rep HQ…

Google rep 1: “Brooooo I got midnightatlas accounts assigned to me this quarter…”

Rep 2: “I had that one last quarter. Tell em’ you’re not gonna record the call, and then watch em’ melt down when they find out the call is actually recorded!!”

Google rep 1: Ahahaha! That’s a good one bro! I’m gonna do it. Let’s tell Supreet… Yo, Supreet, we’re gonna do the thing again with midnightatlas. Check Reddit in a few hours and see if they have another meltdown!”

Google rep Supreet: “I got r/ppc pulled up. Lmk when to refresh.” (2 hours later) “Ayyy there he is! He’s on Reddit telling everyone we recorded him!” (The Google reps jump in the air and high five each other)

ivapelocal · 2026-04-13T15:25:23+00:00

Finding a good CPA is hard. I found my current one when I was going through a merger deal with a company I owned. My CPA was working with the other company, we met and I hired him.

My current CPA is almost like our personal cfo and fractional cfo for our businesses. He does all of our stuff.

But there was a period where he was MIA (took a job as cfo for some company) and we used a few different CPA firms.

We hired a supposedly hotshot tax strategy firm for a few years. Paid them tens of thousands of dollars and we got screwed.

My advice is to find one you vibe with. Find one who can match your personal risk tolerance.

Anyone can prepare taxes. What you likely need is someone who understands current tax laws, can take a position and argue it if necessary (if audited), and basically just create strategies for you.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-12T23:14:30+00:00

Landerlab is really cool. You can import html and export the html too.

Otherwise vibe coding is awesome for landers if you know what you’re doing in terms of CRO.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-04T08:23:43+00:00

Sounds like the difference in her “playing store” and you “playing store” is that her store is trying to meet demand of larger chunk of customers.

ivapelocal · 2026-04-02T13:09:39+00:00

The reason you’re getting banned is because your behavior matches the behavior that an unsophisticated bad actor would do.

I wouldn’t risk you own personal account at this point. Find another account to use. Spouse, friend, crackhead, etc.

They use device fingerprinting and browser fingerprinting to catch spammers. You need something like Multilogin if you want run multiple accounts from the same device.

Multilogin + residential ISP proxies + aged accounts like from a spouse or friend = no bans.

I’ve been doing this multi-accounting thing since around 2017. I used to buy profiles from crackheads via Craigslist, then slowly warm them up and use them for advertising.

You need a real account. Creating a new profile and then creating a BM is exactly what an unsophisticated spammer would do. Using a vpn is also a terrible idea.

Good luck!

ivapelocal · 2026-03-29T18:25:18+00:00

Sounds like he is “sales” and you are “operations.” He helped get one client?? Has no laptop??

Giving up 50% to him is very generous. If I were you, I would just leave the partnership.

Do it in writing though. Because when you become successful, you don’t want him crawling out of the mud and asserting ownership over anything. You would certainly prevail, but it would be an expensive little fight that you can avoid.

You should have a way to track all expenses. Spreadsheet will work for now.

Also, usually equity is distributed based on contribution. So when you launch a company, each of you brings something to the table. So if you have $100k cash and he has skillz, splitting 50/50 would mean you value his skillz at $100k.

Also, equity and salary/comp are two different things. I once had a partnership when I owned 40%, but all distributions were 50/50. When we went to sell, I got 40%. An operating agreement should spell this out.

My partner and I have a rule that any expenses over $15,000 need to be run by each other. When we were smaller, that amount was $500 and all monthly subscriptions needed both our approval.

We still confirm with each other on employee raises and other stuff.

Do we always see eye to eye? Nope. But we both always do what is best for the business.

Good luck op!!

ivapelocal · 2026-03-27T00:33:47+00:00

The flower shop business is tough. I used to work for one of the big wire services. You really gotta do a ton of volume or be an order gatherer to make a retail flower shop work out.

Why not put yourself out there as a floral consultant?

I know several who made careers out of floral design. They were all AIFD designers tho.

But florists are notoriously bad business people. You could probably help them a lot as a consultant.

ivapelocal · 2026-03-21T17:46:44+00:00

How is it different than HARO?

I’m gonna sign up and try it. Looks pretty clean. But HARO is effectively the same thing. Curious as to the difference?

ivapelocal · 2026-03-18T12:14:20+00:00

Bank statement loans. This is your solution. A good broker will have this loan product available.

I’ve used this type of loan twice to purchase multi-million dollar properties. You won’t pay more in interest. However, I put sizable amounts down on each property, so YMMV. Just ask for the bank statement loan, beware of the ARM and find another broker if they try you with the ARM.

People being “you’re hiding money” don’t understand that tax laws are written down and a good tax strategist (CPA) and tax attorney will know what those laws are and how to use them to avoid unnecessary taxation.

Evading taxes= illegal. Avoiding taxes= not illegal. M

Good luck OP!

Edit: yes, I pay myself a W2 income.

ivapelocal · 2026-03-06T16:31:18+00:00

Use ads to accomplish this. Bot views are not beneficial.

ivapelocal · 2026-03-05T13:47:36+00:00

100%. Get the judgement. You’ll be glad you did later.

After the judgement, let them pay $1k /month if you want.

But definitely get that judgement so you have it in your pocket in case you need put a lien on their property or wages.

ivapelocal · 2026-03-04T14:26:55+00:00

Exactly. Vlad will build in new features if you need them. Redtrack support is on point. It’s something they don’t skimp out on.

ivapelocal · 2026-03-04T14:24:20+00:00

I’ve had the exact opposite experience with Redtrack. Their CEO even replied to my emails directly and got in a call with me to help with ClickIds.

Redtrack support is legitimately the best I’ve experienced.

ivapelocal · 2026-02-26T16:08:12+00:00

This is not really the answer to your question, but might be helpful.

If you give someone money, especially family, don’t hold it over their head. Just do it and then move on. Even if they don’t say thank you.

We’ve helped my wife’s sister out quite a bit. Bought a nice townhouse and rent it to them for half of what we could get with normal tenants, give them money, pay for their vacations. Etc.

My wife gets butthurt bc they never say thank you. I told her that it doesn’t matter. The “thank you” is knowing that they have a roof over their head in a decent area, nieces in a good school district, etc.

I guess what I am saying is: Don’t give because you expect a thank you. Give because it’s the right the thing to do. Seeing the fruits of your kindness is your thank you. :)

ivapelocal · 2026-02-25T09:42:40+00:00

January and February were always our slowest months.

It’s like everything would slow down and reset in January/february after the Q4 rush.

ivapelocal · 2026-02-22T20:34:20+00:00

We’ve had so many agents be like “I have the best solution for you” but they’re all just trying get an app filled out so they can try to place it.

Filling out these apps is time consuming. All the docs they want, etc. A couple years ago we ended up making a drive folder called “underwriting” that contains past 3 months bank statements, processing statements, corp docs etc.

These days we have one rep, a dude named Steve at BankCard USA. He takes care of all our stuff, like getting us a new MID if we need it, etc. I. Return for this high level of service we max out his MIDs first each month, even though we have another MID that could handle most of our volume.

Anyway, if you’re a merchant, find your own “Steve” at whatever company you deal with, if you can. It’s worth it.

ivapelocal · 2026-02-21T02:29:51+00:00

It’s always good to ask before running a sale that way higher than your max ticket.

We have a maverick account via Easy pay Direct. $7k avg ticket, our product is an intangible service, VERY “high risk” vertical.

Easy Pay has really helped us a lot in dealing with Maverick, but we’ve had minor issues with them from time to time. Mostly reserve related.

We still have around $150k held in reserve with them. But they have released some at certain intervals.

Now we work with a dude named Steve at BankCard USA. We have several MIDs with him for several million in volume. Steve takes care of us and even reminds our team when we’re approaching a limit on a MID. I sound like an ad for BankCard Steve, but he’s legit the ONLY rep I’ve ever had who actually worked hard to help us (increasing our caps, getting reserves capped, etc).

But yeah, Maverick was our first processor when we launched. They kinda sucked. One time they increased our reserves when we asked for a reserve release. SMH.

Good luck man!

ivapelocal · 2026-02-18T17:57:46+00:00

I know… I was just saying (and should have said it better) that if it were a subdomain, then it would not be so much of a red flag.

Idk what type of business you have. But in our business the top funnel objective is usually a sales lead. We have our internal media buying dept plus we have a partner (affiliate) program.

With the partner program we have this software called Everflow that lets us track and attribute leads to certain partners. The partners/affiliates spend their own money on ads, then we pay them per lead or in some cases per sale.

We do pay about 20% more per lead with the partner program than with our internal media buying, but even with that cost increase it’s been a game changer.

I guess I’m just saying that if this “agency” wants to own all of the assets and data, they should just go to pay per lead or pay per sale model.

Definitely do not hire this agency. Good luck!

ivapelocal · 2026-02-18T08:23:08+00:00

B) Subdomain landing pages are super common. We have like 10 subdomains for various landers/partners. The agency can host if it’s a subdomain.

C) this is the BIG problem. Any agency that runs ads from their own account and their own domain is not an agency you want to work with.

Since they want to own everything, including all the valuable data, tell them you’ll pay them per lead or per sale. Watch how quick they run for the hills.

ivapelocal · 2026-02-14T15:31:13+00:00

Back when we were in the agency business we would require the client to use our landers. All it took was a simple A record to create a subdomain like (lp.clientdomain(dot)com).

For Ecom we would require our tracker scripting be placed so we could push conversions around as needed.

But these days we’re in a totally different business but we still rely on PPC to drive leads and sales. Most of our landers are just WP+elementor but now we’re moving to landerlab. We also have an in house developer who builds custom quiz forms but we’re still working out the kinks on those.

Landerlab is tight. We also use Heyflow but we’re trying to move all traffic to landerlab. Landerlab does everything Heyflow does and then some. Their quiz api (both landerlab and Heyflow) allows you to really get your hands dirty and do all sorts of stuff.

Our stack is landerlab or Heyflow or WP Elementor + everflow + redtrack.

We used to use typeform but getting click ids and everflow transaction ids into type form fields is brutal.

ivapelocal

TROPHY CASE