Chris & John
- Feb 23, 2021
- 3 min read

Ep 128: Entrepreneurship and Success in Real Estate with Veena Jetti

Today’s guest is Veena Jetti, the founding partner of Vive Funds, which is a unique commercial real estate firm that specializes in curating conservative opportunities for investors. Veena is also a multifamily owner-operator, real estate investor, and entrepreneur with over 10 years of real estate experience. She brings a dynamic perspective to targeting, acquiring, managing, and operating assets using best practices combined with cutting edge technologies. Her professional expertise includes driving corporate strategy and business development opportunities. In this episode, Veena addresses the role of entrepreneurship in real estate. She wholeheartedly believes that success as a business owner comes down to pivoting when necessary, solving problems creatively, and constantly revisiting strategies. Tuning in, you’ll hear her perspective on costs as lessons, what it means to her to be the Chanel of real estate syndication, and what she has learned about communication during the pandemic, as well as how COVID-19 has affected her business, the importance of doing proper sensitivity analysis, and why she is branching into mixed use development deals. All this and more in today’s episode, so make sure to tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out about Veena’s background and what she does now.
How she “took the shortcut” into real estate, thanks to her real estate family.
Transitioning into starting her own company: where Veena got the confidence to do that.
Veena reflects on the saying, “The first million is the hardest to make.”
Why she believes that entrepreneurship and success are about solving problems creatively.
Hear some examples of the costs that Veena viewed as lessons or opportunities.
The importance of investing in people and outsourcing in order to free up your own time.
Learn how she decides to spend funds and why she prioritizes investor experience.
Veena shares an example of a mistake she made during the pandemic and what it taught her about communication.
How COVID-19 has impacted her business and how she is adjusting her processes.
Overshooting expense assumptions and undershooting income assumptions.
Veena talks about the rise of new operators doing proper sensitivity analysis.
COVID as a catalyst for change: the changes Veena has made as a result of the recent social distancing regulations.
The reason Veena is looking to branch into mixed use development deals going forward.
Some things to look for in a sponsor: integrity and aligned incentives.
Be wary of the “strings attached" deals; you’re better off walking away than getting involved!

Tweetables:

“Once you know how to make money, you can continue making money.” — @veenajetti [0:07:30]

“I view some costs as very cheap lessons, because I’ve [had] the expensive lessons before and the cheap ones are much better!” — @veenajetti [0:10:59]

“I always say I want to be the Chanel of real estate syndications. That’s what I go for and that’s what I want my investors to know and experience, because that’s the lifeblood of my company. Everything has to be done in [the investors’] best interests.” — @veenajetti [0:18:27]

“You want to overshoot your expense assumptions and undershoot your income assumptions.” — @veenajetti [0:32:44]

“I’m open to market risk, obviously. It’s an investment. Everybody is taking it on. What I’m not open to is somebody taking on a deal, getting an acquisition fee, and then walking away from the deal.” — @veenajetti [0:45:05]

“If you aren’t at a point where you can turn capital away, be working toward that, but also be cognizant of how your investors are interacting with the people that are actually involved in the deal day-to-day.” — @veenajetti [0:52:59]