Listen to this episode using your favorite app

⚖️ Legal Disclaimer

All opinions expressed by the guests are their own. 9×90™ and its affiliates do not endorse or guarantee any specific outcomes discussed in this episode. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and consult with professional advisors before making any investment or business decisions. Nothing discussed in this episode constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Any such offer or solicitation will be made only through official offering documents and to qualified, accredited investors, in accordance with applicable securities laws. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or 9×90™.

About this episode

In this high-powered episode of 9×90™, Adi Soozin sits down with Dan Abbate—a serial entrepreneur who sold his first tech company at 19, scaled a $20 Million hard money lending business, and now leads Cloine Capital, a $100 Million land development firm backed by other entrepreneurs.

Together, they explore:

• 🔁 The entrepreneurial equation: how to build businesses that run, grow, and scale without you.
• 💡 What makes a founder “investable”—and the biggest red flags he sees.
• 🏗️ Why land development is just “manufacturing for builders”—and how Cloine Capital makes it work.
• 💰 The reality of exits, fundraising, and capital preservation in real estate.
• 📿 The ancient Greek philosophies shaping his life and leadership.
• 🧠 Why being a visionary founder doesn’t mean being good at operations—and what to do about it.

Bonus: You’ll hear why Dan offers guest condos to future collaborators and how AI (like ChatGPT) fits into modern philosophical conversations.

Whether you’re launching your first startup, scaling your empire, or structuring your first fund—this episode will leave you rethinking how to design a business and a life worth building.

About this guest

For those of you who do not know Dan Abbate, he …

1. Serial Entrepreneur Since 14: Dan Abbate began working in his father’s manufacturing business at age 14, started college at 15, and sold his first tech company by the time he was 19.
   
2. 13-Year M&A Career: He built a successful career in mergers and acquisitions, leading and structuring deals across industries—an experience that now powers his unique investment model.
   
3. Founder of Clotine Capital & Life Systemization Framework: As the founder of Clotine Capital, Dan has developed and implemented a systematized approach to both entrepreneurship and life design. He now applies this framework through land development investments and operational excellence.

Connect with this guest

📩 To connect with Dan directly: dan@cloinecapital.com

---

---

Show Notes Generated by Gemini

These show notes were generated by AI

• Guest Introduction Adi Soozin introduced Dan Abbate, highlighting his early entrepreneurial success, including selling his first tech company at 19 and a 13-year career in mergers and acquisitions. Adi Soozin noted Dan Abbate’s founding of Cloine Capital and his systematized approach to entrepreneurship and life design (00:00:00).
• Entrepreneurial Equation Dan Abbate explained his concept of the “entrepreneurial equation,” which he defined as building a self-running, self-perpetuating, and self-growing business (00:01:08). He emphasized the difficulty of removing oneself from operational roles once a business is established and advocated for deliberate role selection from the outset (00:02:11).
• First Startup and Exit Dan Abbate recounted his first startup, which sold website traffic to Wall Street firms during the dot-com bubble (00:03:06). He described how one of his customers acquired his company in an all-cash deal, just before the market downturn (00:04:17). Dan Abbate acknowledged the luck involved in the timing of his exit (00:05:08).
• Early Exposure to M&A Dan Abbate shared that his initial exposure to mergers and acquisitions came through his father’s manufacturing business, where he observed consolidations and rollup activities. He mentioned his mentor, Doto, his father’s CFO, who influenced his understanding of business growth strategies (00:05:52).
• Influence of Background Dan Abbate reflected on how a person’s background can shape their perspective on what is achievable in business. He noted that while systems might allow for upward mobility, ingrained cultural and mental aspects can be challenging to overcome (00:07:46). Dan Abbate used the metaphor of “standing behind the counter” to illustrate how entrepreneurs can become trapped in operational roles (00:08:42).
• Impact of Experiences Dan Abbate discussed how his past experiences shaped his current approach, making him sympathetic to entrepreneurs and willing to share his time and network (00:09:50). He mentioned his preference for investments with calculable risks and his avoidance of heavy operational involvement (00:10:55).
• Qualities of Investable Entrepreneurs Adi Soozin and Dan Abbate discussed the importance of execution and the ability to drive value in a business, rather than solely relying on vision (00:13:56). Dan Abbate emphasized that he assesses an entrepreneur’s understanding of their market and sales processes before considering investment (00:14:49). He shared an anecdote illustrating the pitfalls of a well-connected but operationally dysfunctional team (00:15:48).
• Readiness for Acquisition Dan Abbate stated that a key indicator of a company’s readiness for acquisition is the dispensability of the current ownership in its operations (00:18:30). He explained that the goal is to acquire a business where the removal of the founder has no significant impact on its functioning (00:19:30). Dan Abbate advised business owners planning for exit to remove themselves from daily operations and build a capable and independent team (00:20:27).
• Origin of Cloine Capital Adi Soozin inquired about the name “Cloine Capital,” and Dan Abbate explained it originated from a property called “Cloine the portfolio,” which was named after Cloine Street where the first house in that portfolio was located. He liked the name because it is unique and has no other common usage (00:20:27) (00:22:07).
• Philosophical Influences Dan Abbate shared his affinity for ancient Greek philosophers, particularly Thales of Miletus and Diogenes (00:23:14) (00:24:54). He admired Thales for applying philosophy to business and Diogenes for his cynical yet simple approach to life (00:24:03). Dan Abbate feels his own life and business approach embody aspects of both philosophies (00:25:42).
• Discussion on Philosophy Adi Soozin mentioned her interest in Emerson, Kierkegaard, and Socrates, sharing how reading them provided comfort during a challenging time (00:26:40). Dan Abbate agreed on the timelessness of philosophical insights and the ongoing conversation between philosophers across centuries (00:28:30). They briefly discussed the concept of stoicism and its modern interpretation (00:29:22).
• AI and Philosophy Dan Abbate suggested that AI tools like ChatGPT could be used to explore philosophical perspectives on current situations, offering a real-time dimension to the historical philosophical conversation (00:31:21). However, Adi Soozin noted that AI might lack the direct and critical feedback one receives from trusted advisors (00:33:10).
• Cloine Capital’s Approach to Land Development Adi Soozin asked about Cloine Capital’s unique approach to land development, and Dan Abbate explained that they source investor capital from other entrepreneurs (00:35:30). He described land development as a manufacturing process where they aim for just-in-time delivery of lots to builders, often in large-scale developments (00:36:22) (00:37:55).
• Land Acquisition Strategies Dan Abbate discussed how they find land, which includes builders bringing them deals or opportunities arising through their network. He highlighted the value of connecting with landowners who are not emotionally attached to their property and are looking for solutions (00:38:57). Adi Soozin offered to introduce Dan Abbate to someone from Lando Acquisition Guys (00:40:07).
• Fundraising and Investment Structure Adi Soozin commended Dan Abbate’s clarity in explaining the cash return component in real estate investments compared to VC. Dan Abbate elaborated on the different cash flow preferences of their investors and the typical two-to-three-year holding period for some land deals (00:42:37). They also briefly discussed capital preservation strategies in real estate (00:43:34).
• Hard Money Lending Business Adi Soozin inquired about Dan Abbate’s hard money lending business, which he stated was around $20 million (00:44:31). They discussed the potential for scaling this business by partnering with capital preservation-focused investors to increase capital turnover (00:45:16).
• Advice for Starting a Private Equity Fund Dan Abbate advised against entrepreneurs trying to fill roles they are not best suited for, drawing an analogy to building a house (00:46:19). He emphasized the importance of focusing on one’s strengths and hiring competent people for other roles to achieve permanent solutions (00:48:38). Adi Soozin shared a contrasting perspective from John Pennington on starting a fund (00:49:37) (00:51:19).
• Team Management Adi Soozin asked about Dan Abbate’s tools and tactics for managing time and teams, and he admitted he is not a great task manager. He credited his “right-hand man,” Brad, for providing the operational and process-oriented counterpart to his vision-oriented approach (00:52:56).
• Getting Involved with Cloine Capital Adi Soozin inquired about the best way to get involved with Dan Abbate’s fund or accelerator activities. Dan Abbate mentioned his work with 1909, EO Accelerator, and Harvard’s entrepreneur-in-residence program (00:54:03). He recommended emailing him directly at dan@cloinecapitalap.com as the best way to connect (00:55:08).
• Closing Remarks and Invitation Dan Abbate expressed his openness to connecting with people and learning about their ventures (00:55:08). He even offered a guest condo for those who want to visit and have conversations. Adi Soozin contrasted this friendly Midwestern approach with a more reserved New Yorker demeanor (00:55:57).

---

---

Transcript

This transcription was generated by Gemini & edited by ChatGPT

---

Adi Soozin:
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of 9×90™. Today, we have a very special guest—Dan Abbate. I met Dan through an initiative launching soon in Palm Beach, so stay tuned for that.

Dan is a lifelong entrepreneur. He started working in his father’s manufacturing business at just 14, entered college at 15, and sold his first tech company by the time he was 19. You know those genius prodigy stories? We’ve got one right here for you. He went on to build a 13-year career in mergers and acquisitions, leading complex deals across multiple industries. That experience now fuels his distinctive investment philosophy.

As the founder of Cloine Capital, Dan has created a systemized approach to both entrepreneurship and life design—fittingly, from sunny Florida.

---

Adi Soozin:
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dan Abbate:
Of course—thanks for having me.
Adi Soozin:
So, you say you’ve “solved the entrepreneurial equation.” What does that actually mean?
Dan Abbate:
Right. It’s something I made up, so that’s why you’ve never heard of it—but I’m happy to explain. When I moved to Florida in 2013, I gave myself a mission: figure out how to build a business that is self-running, self-perpetuating, and self-growing.

Coming out of my M&A career, I didn’t know how to do that. But I was determined to find out. So the “entrepreneurial equation” became this personal quest to design a business model that could run without me, grow on its own, and eventually sustain itself indefinitely.

---

Adi Soozin:
Okay, I love that. I don’t know if you’ve seen my software company, but I created the Elite Startup Toolkit—five playbooks for building organic marketing systems that compound over time.
Dan Abbate:
Exactly. That’s the idea. You shouldn’t have to be in the driver’s seat all the time just to keep the engine running.

My old approach—like many entrepreneurs—was to wear all the hats. But I realized that if you build a company like that, it’s hard to take those hats off later. You build yourself into the operations, and that makes scaling or exiting difficult.

So now, I never take on a role I wouldn’t want to keep forever. From the beginning, I’m deliberate: Do I want this responsibility long-term? If not, I delegate or design around it.

---

Adi Soozin:
What was your first startup?
Dan Abbate:
It was a company that sold web traffic to Wall Street-funded firms during the dot-com bubble—around 1997. I started a few websites that got a lot of traffic. I wasn’t the best coder, but I was better at turning traffic into a business than most developers I knew.

So I built a network—aggregating web traffic from a bunch of sites—and sold that traffic to Wall Street-backed buyers, mostly on a per-click model.

Eventually, one of those buyers said, “We want all your traffic, so we’re going to buy you.” That was my first exit.

---

Adi Soozin:
No way. That’s wild.
Dan Abbate:
Yeah—and the timing was lucky. Six months later, the buyer went under when the dot-com bubble burst. But I had already exited—all cash.
Adi Soozin:
An all-cash exit at 19?!
Dan Abbate:
Yeah. They offered it. I didn’t even negotiate hard. They just calculated it would be cheaper to buy me outright than keep paying for traffic for the next five years. They were wrong, of course, because the whole market collapsed soon after.

---

Adi Soozin:
So, is that what led you into M&A?
Dan Abbate:
Actually, my first exposure was earlier—through my dad’s manufacturing business. I used to hang out there, and he sat me next to his CFO, Doto—a brilliant guy and one of my mentors. Doto was a Filipino immigrant and just an incredible human being.

My dad’s company was doing consolidation and rollups—classic M&A stuff. So I grew up around that. After selling my startup, I realized I had two areas of expertise: tech/process automation, and rollup strategy. That became my M&A focus.

---

Adi Soozin:
It’s always interesting seeing where people from family office backgrounds end up, especially after growing up inside the business.
Dan Abbate:
Exactly. What you’re exposed to shapes what you think is possible. You can have upward mobility in America, but the mental and cultural models you inherit are harder to shift. It took me moving to Florida to really break free of the old patterns.

Even though my family was successful, I was still repeating my dad’s model—who was repeating his dad’s. Sometimes you need to consciously redefine your playbook.

---

Adi Soozin:
That’s such a good point. People ask, “What drives you?” and I’m like, “Do you know what my grandfather had accomplished by my age?”
Dan Abbate:
Exactly. I call it “standing behind the counter.” Everyone chooses a counter to stand behind—maybe literally, maybe metaphorically. Some people stay small because that’s all they saw growing up. Others grow huge but still get stuck wearing all the hats. It’s about being intentional about the role you play and what kind of business you want to build.

---

---

Dan Abbate:
A lot of people are standing behind a virtual counter—meaning they can’t remove themselves from their business because of all the hats they wear. And what’s tricky is, most don’t even realize they’ve drawn that line until they stop and think about it.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you started college at 15, sold a tech company at 19, and spent 13 years in M&A. How have those experiences shaped how you build and invest today?

Dan Abbate:
Great question. For one, I’ve become super sympathetic to entrepreneurs—and honestly, to anyone who’s working hard to build something. I try to be generous with my time, energy, and network, even if I can’t directly invest or be deeply involved. If I can help someone move closer to where they want to be, I will.

Dan Abbate:
That’s kind of the soft side. On the more practical side, I’ve moved away from VC and angel investing. It’s just not my thing anymore. What I do enjoy are deals where I can model out the results on a spreadsheet. If I can say, “I’m putting X dollars into this asset, it produces Y output, and the risk variables are limited to these 5–10 things,” that’s where I want to be.

Dan Abbate:
I’m very deliberate now about avoiding heavy operational risk. Not just as an investor—but as a human. Because when something goes wrong operationally, someone has to fix it. And I don’t want that someone to be me.

Dan Abbate:
So I focus on engineering problems out of the model. I want to design the business in a way where the issues don’t even have a chance to show up.

Adi Soozin:
That makes total sense. I have this go-to-market playbook I give to founders. When someone asks me to look at their startup or invest—or even introduce them to my investor circle—I ask them to go through this playbook first.

Adi Soozin:
If they can finish it, I know they have the grit, the focus, and the execution skills. For me, it usually takes 3 to 7 days to complete with a new venture. For someone new to marketing, it could take 21 to 60 days.

Dan Abbate:
Right.

Adi Soozin:
But if a founder can’t even complete that, how are they going to do the real work required to grow a business?

Dan Abbate:
Exactly.

Adi Soozin:
One of my friends has had access to the playbook for two years. He keeps asking why I haven’t introduced him to investors. I’m like, “What have you implemented?” And he’s like, “Uh… uh…” That’s not a good sign.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, because if you can’t execute at the basic level, how can you steward someone else’s money?

Adi Soozin:
Exactly.

Dan Abbate:
And honestly, I think this is where “hustle culture” and the influencer-driven startup world have done some damage. A lot of entrepreneurs—especially the newer ones—are being taught that vision is everything. That it’s all about the big idea.

Adi Soozin:
Right.

Dan Abbate:
But the real game is about driving value. You put money in, you get more money out. That’s the whole point. I don’t care what the vehicle is. The math has to work. Execution is what matters.

Dan Abbate:
I think Simon Sinek’s Start With Why is helpful on a cultural level—aligning vision, purpose, values—but you still have to do the actual work. You have to block and tackle. As an investor, that’s what I’m betting on: your ability to execute—not just your vision.

Adi Soozin:
Totally agree.

Dan Abbate:
Whether it’s a startup or a scale-up, the first thing I ask when someone pitches me is: “Do you know how to market and sell your product?”

Dan Abbate:
Like—do you have a repeatable process? Can you show me, step by step, how it works? Because if you’re asking me for money, I want to know if you’re pouring that money into a machine that already runs… or if you’re hoping the money will magically figure it out for you.

Adi Soozin:
Yes. I had this one founder—great beverage concept. My friend wanted me on their advisory board. He said I’d get 10% equity just for showing up—no vesting, nothing. But I said no.

Adi Soozin:
Even though they had a Starbucks strategic partner and someone who manages half the beverage supply chain in the U.S. on board… both of them were nonstop party animals. Couldn’t show up sober to a meeting—their own meetings with attorneys.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, that’s a red flag.

Adi Soozin:
So I told him, “It doesn’t matter how great your formula is or how well connected you are—who’s actually running this business?”

Dan Abbate:
Exactly. You’ve got to do the work. It always comes back to execution.

Adi Soozin:
Then one of them says, “We’ll just go straight to investors.” And I said, “Investors don’t invest in a formula. They invest in a team that can roll it out and grow it.”

Dan Abbate:
Right.

Adi Soozin:
If you don’t have operators, and proof that those operators can deliver—no one’s writing you a check.

Dan Abbate:
Totally agree. That’s how I’ve always approached it. I’ve never had the luxury of being in Silicon Valley where people throw money at a pitch deck. I’ve always had to be accountable—to my own money, or someone else’s.

Adi Soozin:
Exactly. Okay, so—what are the key traits you look for in a company that signals it’s ready for acquisition?

Dan Abbate:
Great question. One of the biggest is how involved the current ownership is in the day-to-day. If the company can’t run without the founder, it’s usually not ready for acquisition.

Dan Abbate:
Now, that’s different if you’re doing a rollup or consolidation play—merging it into an existing company. But if you’re buying it as a standalone business, and it’s your first entry into that space, then the founder’s involvement can be a serious obstacle.

Dan Abbate:
Private equity firms will sometimes try to keep the founder around, give them a President title or similar—but in my experience, that rarely works.

---

Dan Abbate: like it like that because the guy’s used to doing what he’s like he’s used to doing everything on his own and now all of a sudden you’re coming in and telling him how to do things differently or like where you’re going next and like it just is always kind of a mess. So I always look at it like if I want to if I’m going to acquire something, I want to acquire a a business that the the taking out the current ownership has no effect on anything. Like it’s literally a financial transaction just somebody else owns it and everything else is operating. Now a lot of that has to do with scale. Depending on like the bigger businesses, not necessarily, but generally if you are going to find that scenario, the bigger the company, the the more likely there isn’t like a total keyman issue. Um, you know, or or or limited keyman issues that you have to deal with. So that’s kind of the main thing really. So if you’re a if you’re a business owner, a founder, and you’re looking at like, hey, I want to plan for an exit.

Dan Abbate: The best thing you can do to plan for an exit is um make sure you’re not involved in the company. Like get yourself out of the company as much as possible. Replace yourself with people who are better and permanent that will will drive the business forward.

Adi Soozin: Okay. And you now have clin capital. Pronounce it for me again.

Dan Abbate: You got it. Cloine like magazine. Cloine.

Adi Soozin: Like

Dan Abbate: Yeah,

Adi Soozin: what? Where

Dan Abbate: like

Adi Soozin: does this name come from?

Dan Abbate: Okay, great. Great question. So, Cloine. Um, so, uh, f going on five years ago now, maybe it’s a little longer. Um, don’t remember exactly when, about five years ago. Um, I was having lunch with some other entrepreneurial friends of mine, two older guys that I’ve been going to lunch with for a while, like literally two or three years probably at that point. And they said to me, and they were like in their 70s, right? And I’m 40 45 now, so or will be 45 in October.

Dan Abbate: So, they’re older than me. And all of a sudden they go, “Hey, do we ever talk to you about this portfolio of group homes that we own?” And I was like, “No.” And they’re like, “Well, you know, there’s four partners in it and we want to like create some liquidity for estate planning purposes. So, we’re I think we’re going to sell it off. It’s a great business, but like maybe you know somebody who wants to buy it.” I was like, “Sure.” So, I started to look at it and long story short, I dug into it and was like, “Hey, this is a great business. I want to buy this thing.” like, you know, it’s basically residential houses in regular normal communities, but with triple net style leases like that you’d get from Walgreens or like some big giant, you know, great AAA tenant.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: Well, maybe maybe not Walgreens anymore. They’re having a lot of trouble lately, but you get the idea. Um,

Adi Soozin: It’s It was structured like a commercial real estate deal.

Dan Abbate: correct. except in like individual real residential homes and it was a portfolio of those and so um and and the cap rates like 12% instead of like 3% right so

Adi Soozin: Oh

Dan Abbate: like

Adi Soozin: my god.

Dan Abbate: yeah

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: it was and so um anyway I bought that from them and that was kind of like my first project that I did under the the concept of clothing even though I didn’t even know what it was yet or have a name associated with it because that first portfolio was called Cloine the portfolio and the fir and the Cloine the portfolio was called Cloine because what the first house that they bought was on a Cloine Street in West Virginia.

Adi Soozin: Oh my god. Okay.

Dan Abbate: long to answer to that’s where clotine came from. And I actually ended up liking clotine because again going back to my tech guy days um you know look at the end of the day um when you search for clotine no one else uses that word like it does not exist like it’s just me which I love and because apparently it’s originally was like a French woman’s name from like the 1700s that nobody even uses it as a name anymore either.

Dan Abbate: So, it’s kind of a funny backstory.

Adi Soozin: Do do you read philosophy?

Dan Abbate: Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot.

Adi Soozin: Who’s your What do you read?

Dan Abbate: Um, probably my my Okay. So, I have two favorite philosophers. Okay. And and and because I I I really live by both of them. So, the fir and I have a tendency to skew back into like the the ancient Greeks and like Socratic and like prescratic

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: like that time period. That’s my favorite, right?

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: Because it’s like the most classic classic. It is a classic. Um, so Thales of Myitus. So, Thales of Myitus I’d like because he basically, you know, this is prescratic. So, he uh was an aristocrat and a philosopher. And of course, you have to be an aristocrat to be a philosopher back then because

Adi Soozin: And

Dan Abbate: otherwise

Adi Soozin: yeah.

Dan Abbate: you were probably working in a field somewhere, you know, dying at 25. And so,

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: like, in order to do philosophy, you had to have like some status. So anyway, Thales was hanging out with a bunch of his aristocratic buddies the other day uh like you know back in the day and he uh and they were making fun of him for being into philosophy because they were like why why are you into this philosophy stuff da da and he said well because it’s knowledge and it’s it’s critical thinking and it’s reasoning and logic and all these things and it’s good and they’re like well how is it good and he’s like I don’t know but I’ll prove it to you like I’ll somehow I’ll prove it to you like because they were making fun like yeah whatever. So anyway, then he spent the next like I don’t know what whatever the time period is. I’m sure I’ll have it wrong. 10 to 20 years of his life um applying his philosophy to kind of his business dealings and eventually um created a monopoly on olive oil like equipment in their region and became

Adi Soozin: No way. 

Dan Abbate: like super wealthy and like basically all those guys who were making fun of him he had they had to go to him to buy stuff basically and like and then he he was like yeah I did it like he he did it for spite basically right like that was kind of his he did philosophy for spite right so that’s

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: the reason my litus and The other one that I like is um Dioynes. So Dioynes um was like the the the um I

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: don’t know if he’s the first cynic or the founder of cynicism or whatever, but Dioynes basically is like ah it’s all b******* anyway. Don’t worry about it. Like I’m just going to like anything that has to do with like all these things that you would worry about, I’m just going to go live in a barrel on the street and like hang out. Like his whole like that’s what life is about is just living in a barrel, hanging out and being like chill, right? That was basically Dioynes’s approach.

Dan Abbate: And so,

Adi Soozin: Okay.

Dan Abbate: uh, he became super famous by being super, uh, with with that super kind of chill mentality of like, ah, it’s all meaningless anyway, so like just just hang out and have a nice life. Um, to the point where he had like, you know, different um, other aristocrats and other kind of like, you know, royalty folks um, seeking his counsel on how to live that kind of life or whatever. And so I liked those two specifically as like a internal philosophy like for myself because one was for like use philosophy in total application for like to create a business and like grow your wealth and the other one was like ah it doesn’t really matter anyway who cares right that’s kind of like so I I kind I think I I think I have created a life for myself and an approach for myself that really kind of like embodies both of those things which keeps me very um comfort comfortably moving forward I guess is a good way to say it. You know

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: how about you what do you do you read do you read any specific philosophy?

Adi Soozin: Yeah. So, okay. I Some people don’t consider Emerson a philosopher. If you do, I like I like his work. Um

Dan Abbate: Yeah.

Adi Soozin: I also I loved how I was reading Kieringard and uh uh Socrates a lot last year. There was um there was an international smear campaign that a few people tried to do uh not realizing the depth of my international connections because you know you you don’t always you don’t flex in every room you go into.

Dan Abbate: All right.

Adi Soozin: And so I they um they got in a lot of trouble for it with uh at an international level. But at the time I was like so upset that people would try to take these punches at me and like set up this smear campaign. And so I turned to Socrates and Kierard and I loved uh being able to read what they went through and I was like

Dan Abbate: Yes,

Adi Soozin: it hasn’t

Dan Abbate: exactly.

Adi Soozin: changed like in thousands of years people still do this. So it was like very comforting to me to like see these like these old dudes that we now like look up to uh thousands of years later went through the same exact thing when they were around the same age. Um I thought it was really funny. There was one point where Socrates was having to deal with these people and um he’s like, “Well, I was in conference with the gods and they say you’re wrong.” I was like, “Let me get this straight.” So, this guy that we now study as a genius, made up a few extra gods, claimed he was in conference with him, and that was the power play he came back with. Like, this guy is next level genius. Like, it’s like, damn. Well played, Socrates. Well played.

Dan Abbate: Well, you know, that’s why I love philosophy so much as like a as a a genre, I guess you could say, or whatever.

Dan Abbate: Um, is because it’s all the same for 2,000 3,000 years. There’s no difference. Like you I can go read all that that all the answers are in those books in the.

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: things that these and I love how there’s the way that philosophy works specifically and I guess this is true of academics in general sort of in lots of disciplines but the philosophers are having a conversation over time right it only moves in one direction because one guy dies and then the other guy responds to it so the guy who died can’t respond back

Adi Soozin: Yeah.

Dan Abbate: but it kind of moves forward in time with one kind of responding to the next to responding to the next responding to the next and It’s just an interesting thing to think about as like a human that it’s like we’re figuring out what this kind of process of being human is and like dealing with all these things are and we know the answer because we’ve had enough time go by or like not the answer but like the way to like apply it in your life.

---

---

Dan Abbate:
The thing is, when you acquire a business and try to keep the founder around, it often goes sideways. The founder is used to doing everything their way—and suddenly, someone new is telling them what to do or where the company’s going next. It becomes messy.
So for me, when I’m acquiring a company, I want it to be a pure financial transaction. Meaning: if I remove the current ownership, nothing changes. The business just continues to operate. That’s the ideal.
Now, some of that depends on scale. The bigger the company, the less likely it is to have key man risk—or at least, fewer critical dependencies. But generally speaking, if you’re a founder looking to plan your exit, the best thing you can do is get yourself out of the business.

Dan Abbate:
Hire people better than you. Make sure the business runs without you. That’s what makes it attractive to buyers.

Adi Soozin:
Okay. And now you have Cloine Capital—pronounce that for me again?

Dan Abbate:
You got it: Cloine, like the magazine. Cloine.

Adi Soozin:
Where does that name come from?

Dan Abbate:
Good question. So—about five years ago, I was having lunch with two older entrepreneurial friends of mine, guys I’d been meeting with for a few years. They were in their 70s. I’ll be 45 in October, so yeah—they were older.
Anyway, over lunch one day they casually said, “Did we ever tell you about our portfolio of group homes?” I said no, and they told me they were planning to sell it for estate planning purposes. They said it was a great business and asked if I knew anyone who might want to buy it.
Long story short—I looked into it and said, “I want to buy it.” It was a portfolio of residential houses in regular neighborhoods—but structured with triple-net leases, like you’d see in commercial real estate.

Adi Soozin:
Like a Walgreens-style lease?

Dan Abbate:
Exactly. Maybe not Walgreens now, but you get the idea.

Adi Soozin:
So, structured like commercial—but applied to individual residential homes?

Dan Abbate:
Correct. And the kicker? The cap rates were around 12%—not 3%.

Adi Soozin:
Oh my god.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, it was a no-brainer. That deal became my first project under the Cloine umbrella—even though the name didn’t exist yet. The original portfolio was called “Cloine” because the first house they bought was on Cloine Street in West Virginia.

Adi Soozin:
No way—that’s amazing.

Dan Abbate:
Right? And I ended up loving the name. From a branding perspective—especially as a former tech guy—I love that nobody else uses the word “Cloine.” Google it—it’s just me. Apparently, it was a French woman’s name from the 1700s, but it hasn’t been used in ages. It’s unique, searchable, and has a nice sound to it.

Adi Soozin:
Do you read philosophy?

Dan Abbate:
Oh yeah. A lot.

Adi Soozin:
What do you read? Who do you like?

Dan Abbate:
Two favorites. First, I lean toward the pre-Socratic era. Ancient Greeks—very classic stuff.
Thales of Miletus is one. He was both an aristocrat and a philosopher. Back then, to even be a philosopher, you had to have status—otherwise, you were working in a field and probably dead by 25.

Adi Soozin:
Exactly.

Dan Abbate:
So Thales was hanging out with his aristocratic buddies, and they started teasing him—like, “Why are you into philosophy? What’s the point?”
And he goes, “It’s about knowledge. Reason. Logic.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but what’s the use?”
So he decides—more or less out of spite—to prove the value of philosophy. He spends the next decade or two applying his thinking to business, ends up monopolizing the olive oil equipment market in the region, and becomes incredibly wealthy.

Adi Soozin:
No way!

Dan Abbate:
Yeah. So all the guys who made fun of him? They had to buy from him. He proved his point. That’s why I love Thales—he used philosophy to win.
The other one I love is Diogenes. He’s either the first cynic or the founder of cynicism. Total opposite energy. His whole philosophy was: “None of this matters anyway.”
He lived in a barrel on the street. Literally. Just chilling. That was his life philosophy—radical detachment from materialism or social structures.

Adi Soozin:
I know Diogenes! He’s wild.

Dan Abbate:
Right? And despite living that way, he became famous. Royals and aristocrats came to him for advice on how to live that kind of carefree life. I like both these guys—Thales, who built wealth through logic, and Diogenes, who said, “Relax. It’s all meaningless.”
So I think I’ve built a life that reflects both. I design businesses and create wealth, but I also don’t let it consume me. That balance keeps me moving forward in a pretty grounded way.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah. So good. Do you want to know mine?

Dan Abbate:
Yeah—what philosophers do you read?

Adi Soozin:
Some people don’t consider Emerson a true philosopher, but I love his work.

Dan Abbate:
Sure, definitely.

Adi Soozin:
I also got deep into Kierkegaard and Socrates last year. There was a period when a few people tried to launch an international smear campaign against me. They clearly didn’t realize the depth of my connections.
You know—sometimes you don’t flex in every room you walk into.

Dan Abbate:
Right. Absolutely.

Adi Soozin:
So while that was happening, I turned to Socrates and Kierkegaard. Reading what they went through gave me a lot of peace and perspective. It reminded me that truth holds power, even when people try to bury it.

---

---

Dan Abbate:
Yes, exactly.

Adi Soozin:
It hasn’t changed in thousands of years. People still do this. So it was actually really comforting for me to see these old guys—who we now revere as geniuses—going through the same exact experiences when they were our age.
There was one moment with Socrates that I thought was hilarious. He was dealing with some political drama, and he goes, “Well, I was in conference with the gods, and they said you’re wrong.”
And I thought—wait a second. This genius we still study today made up a few extra gods, claimed he had a private audience with them, and that was his power play? I was like, this man is a next-level tactician. Well played, Socrates. Well played.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, totally. That’s why I love philosophy so much as a genre—it’s timeless.

Adi Soozin:
Yes.

Dan Abbate:
Nothing’s changed in 2,000 or 3,000 years. All the answers are there in those texts.
What I love about philosophy—and this is true in some other academic disciplines too—is that it’s a conversation stretched across time.
One philosopher writes something, then dies, and the next responds. It’s a dialogue, but it only goes one way. The guy who died can’t reply. But each one builds on the last, and that carries the conversation forward.
It’s humanity slowly figuring out how to be human.

Adi Soozin:
Yes.

Dan Abbate:
You get to see all the ways people have tried to make sense of life, challenge systems, find meaning.
And you’re right—Stoicism has really taken off in the last few years online. I love that. Stoicism is fantastic.
It’s just one school, but it offers very practical guidance for living well and dealing with the chaos of life.
And Socrates, for example—he didn’t just talk about it. He lived it. The guy was sentenced to death, and the executioners basically told him, “Hey, if you disappear tonight, we won’t chase you.”
But he didn’t run. He believed so strongly in the system—even the system that condemned him—that he accepted it.
People argue maybe he was old and ready to go anyway, but still. That was a radical level of commitment to his principles.

Adi Soozin:
That’s wild.

Dan Abbate:
It is. And when you think about it, we all go through those same kinds of tests—repeating the same patterns. We’re all just applying ancient questions to modern problems.

Adi Soozin:
You know, I sometimes forget that Stoicism is technically philosophy. In our family—growing up in New York City—Stoicism was just life.
Which is why when you said you’re from Chicago, I was like, “Okay, I’ve gotta defrost my New York shell.”
My mom just found pictures from my seventh birthday—we were having a tea party, but not a silly one. We were learning how to be stoic, serious little women.
We had books on our heads to practice posture. And every girl had the classic Slavic smile—the closed-lip, future-empress stare. We were seven.

Dan Abbate:
(laughs) Yeah.

Adi Soozin:
One of my friends—we call him the “Hot CRE Yoda”—he’s kind of the wise older brother in our commercial real estate bubble. He’s always like, “Adi, you need to get into Carl Jung. You have to read Jung.”
So I’ve been learning his stuff slowly, mostly through Eric Broaddy, who came on the show a few episodes ago.
I haven’t read Jung directly yet, but whenever something happens, I call Broaddy and say, “Okay, what would Carl Jung say about this?” And he’ll be like, “I would say this, and Jung would say that.”

Dan Abbate:
You know what’s great? With ChatGPT or other AI now—you can have that conversation. It’s read all the texts. You can literally ask, “What would Socrates say about this situation?”
“What would Plato think about this choice?” “What would Benjamin or Nietzsche think about this problem?”
It’s incredible. The conversation that used to unfold slowly across centuries can now happen in real-time.

Adi Soozin:
Oh yeah.

Dan Abbate:
When I do my philosophy work through the University of Edinburgh, I use it all the time.
First, I read the primary texts. Then I have conversations with ChatGPT as if it’s another student. We debate, question, unpack different views.
It helps me process and solidify what I’ve read—because it’s like having a dialogue with someone who’s already digested the material. Of course, AI makes mistakes, but it’s more insightful than most peers who’ve only read it once.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah, but ChatGPT doesn’t give me the hard truths when I need them. It’s always too gentle.

Dan Abbate:
(laughs) Yeah. Too positive.

Adi Soozin:
My godfather is different. He’ll say, “Yes, you got stabbed in the back. But did you lose your reputation? No. Did you lose your business? No. So why are you still whining?
There’s a big meeting tomorrow. Thousands of people are depending on you. Snap out of it.”

Dan Abbate:
Right. Exactly.

Adi Soozin:
ChatGPT would never say that to me.

Dan Abbate:
You’re right. It wouldn’t.
But what your godfather said? That’s peak Stoicism.
Stoic philosophy says that things happen—but you assign the value. You decide if it’s a catastrophe or just a hiccup. You decide how much it ruins your day.
The power is in your reaction. Not the event itself.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
And I think people misunderstood Stoicism for a long time. They saw it like Spock from Star Trek—emotionless, robotic. But that’s not what it is.
It’s not about burying emotions. It’s about not reacting emotionally to everything.
You can feel things. But you don’t let those feelings derail you.
You can either freak out… or just deal with it. Either way, you still have to deal with it. So you might as well do it without the emotional baggage.

Adi Soozin:
That’s where Carl Jung really complements Stoicism.
Before Broaddy explained those concepts—and even with help from ChatGPT—I used to think Stoicism meant pretend it didn’t hurt.
Like, if someone betrays you, just swallow it. But you can only bury so many betrayals before it turns into whiskey every night—and that’s terrible for your liver.
Jung says, “Okay, here’s how you process it… so you can let it go in 15 minutes and move forward.”

Dan Abbate:
Exactly.

Adi Soozin:
That’s kind of where I’m at now.
We totally got off track though.
This is what happens when you get two investor-side, tech-minded people together and start talking about philosophy.
It happens every time I visit California—I spend hours with friends having conversations like this.

Dan Abbate:
(laughs) Yeah.

Adi Soozin:
Okay—back to it.
What makes your approach to land development with Cloine Capital different from traditional models?

Dan Abbate:
Hmm… good question. I don’t know if it’s radically different, but I can tell you what I think is interesting about it.
First—we draw a lot of our investor capital from other entrepreneurs. People like me who’ve built businesses but never had access to land development deals.
So this gives them a way to get into the space without actually becoming developers themselves.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
And what I learned when I got into land development is… it’s basically a manufacturing process.
You just happen to end up with a house or a townhouse on a lot as the finished product.

---

---

Adi Soozin: Permits
Dan Abbate: just a house on a lot you know you need raw materials. Okay so what do you need? Well you need the lot to put it on. Okay what do you need to put on the lot? Well, you need all the, you know, um,
Adi Soozin: approvals.
Dan Abbate: utilities and all that and then before that the permits and all that and then you need the land before that. So, we know that the big builders, um, really as just like you would in manufacturing, the the the big builders are essentially um, they want just in time delivery of lots. That’s really what it comes down to. especially since ’08 the the they want just in time delivery so that they can just focus on building a vertical house and they can control the time essentially that they that their capital is kind of like stuck either in land or stuck in some port of the process. They want to control all that for time. They’re they operate kind of like a bank in that regard.
 
Dan Abbate: They want everything to be dialed in as anyone would. So I think our opport so our opportunity what we saw as as people who are um you know pretty um what’s the word uh more entrepreneurial able to deal with a lot more variables than somebody else. Um, we can do that just in time delivery really well for our our builders who ultimately take it from us after either all the permits and then they’ll do all the horizontal development themselves, the actual construction or we’ll go through horizontal construction as well and then we’ll deliver them finished lots so they can just go vertical immediately. So that’s um and I and what I love about that business is the scale is big right away. Like we don’t really do we’re not doing like 30 house developments. Like on the low side we’re looking at like 250 300 units is the low end and beyond that you know 800 a,000 plus is kind of like a good sweet spot for us or or or even higher. It just depends on what the opportunity looks like.

Dan Abbate: Um
Adi Soozin: Where are you finding land?
Dan Abbate: yeah that’s a good question. Um, most of the land deals that we’ve done up to this point have come in either from the builders themselves who’ve identified locations that they want to be at and and they bring us deals and they say, “Hey, we found this property. We’ve already been talking to the seller, but we want someone to like
Adi Soozin: Take it
Dan Abbate: take
Adi Soozin: through.
Dan Abbate: Yep.” go through the process.
Adi Soozin: Yep.
Dan Abbate: Um, those that those that’s kind of a mixed bag of like is that a good deal or not? Because sometimes the builders getting in the conversation that early have already identified kind of what they want it to be and so they they have expectations of how how much you’re going to like they want you to deliver for which may or may not be realistic depending um so it’s either them bringing us the deal um or frankly um it’s it’s really just been through our network. It’s it’s been either through the land acquisition guys at the builders and kind of like the extend their extended network um or me just kind of bumping into people or people in our team literally just going to events and kind of like backing into somebody who it’s not really their business but they own a nice piece of land in a particular place and they know it has value but they don’t know what to do with it.
Dan Abbate: Those are like kind of great opportunities because um yeah, just because the person knows they’re not like a seller who’s like, “Oh, I never want to leave this land because it’s my family’s land and blah blah blah.” So, they’re not emotionally connected to it, but they’re so they’re ready to do something with it. They just don’t know what to do and they want to kind of move it out, you know? So
Adi Soozin: Wait, wait. Do you know the the family land for that owns the company, Lando Acquisition Guys?
Dan Abbate: no.
Adi Soozin: Oh, okay. Um, you’ll I’ll introduce you to him at uh the event next week.
Dan Abbate: Oh, cool. Awesome.
Adi Soozin: Yeah, he’s uh
Dan Abbate: Wait. So they work through the So they work through the process of dealing with the families to get through like to get to like where like raw land.
Adi Soozin: um their family has owned farmland throughout the entire Midwest uh the Midwest uh column for
Dan Abbate: Yeah.
Adi Soozin: 200 years.
Dan Abbate: Oh, cool.
Dan Abbate: Okay.
Adi Soozin: Yeah, they own a ton a ton of um farmland
Dan Abbate: Yeah.
Adi Soozin: in the Midwest. And then you’ll also meet Oh, no. You already met Mario.
Dan Abbate: Yeah, I know where I am. Yep.
Adi Soozin: Yeah. Okay. So, I’m making him fly to New York next
Dan Abbate: Is he
Adi Soozin: week.
Dan Abbate: coming too? Okay, good. I’ll get to see him again. Awesome.
Adi Soozin: I loved how everyone was like, “Why is Mario here?” And I was like, “I made him come.”
Dan Abbate: Yeah, that’ll be good.
Adi Soozin: You’ll notice um you’ll notice in our little bubble like for the next gen, like we Yeah. We we make each other come with us to events because our parents are industry titans who are taking over some part of the world. So yeah, your friends are the family you choose.
Dan Abbate: Yeah, I get it.
Adi Soozin: Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. One of my friends was like, “I need you to dress as like like Okay, so you saw me at the the meeting last week. I was like in serious professional attire and then for 9×90 I have to be in like this sparkly leotard.” And she was like, “I need you at the event next week signing books and wearing your sparkly leotard.” And I was like, “Hell no.” And then Mario was like, “I will fly up and go to the event with And I was like, that’s better than having like five bodyguards. Okay. Yeah, I’ll be there.
Dan Abbate: That’s awesome. I like to I I as you saw in the meeting when I was there, I I have my official uni uniform, which is uh which is a Lululemon shirt here, this Lululemon. And then on on the bottom on my shorts, I have Vulcom shorts. And I have basically that variation in a couple different colors and that’s my uniform. I of course have a polo shirt when I need one or a jacket if I need one, but I try to stay out of it as much as possible. So
Adi Soozin: Yeah. Oh, funny. Yeah.
Adi Soozin: Yeah. But, okay. So, you’re raising for this land development business right now.
Dan Abbate: correct. Yeah.
Adi Soozin: What I thought was brilliant with your pitch is, and I always try to explain this to friends who are not investing in real estate, how I can’t just take money whenever they want from like the fund can’t just take money whenever they want because we have to in real estate, you have to do a cash return quarterly or monthly. And whereas like with regular VC, you can just take the lump sum whenever and deploy it whenever.
Dan Abbate: Right.
Adi Soozin: And you explained that on your website.
Dan Abbate: Right. Yeah.
Adi Soozin: You’re like
Dan Abbate: Yeah. Most of most of the deals that we do have a a cash flow component associated with them. the land stuff. It depends on the deal that that like it depends on which we call them verticals, which vertical you’re going into because some people don’t want the day like the monthly cash flow is generally monthly, quarterly or
Adi Soozin: annual.
Dan Abbate: on some sort of time frame for us. Um,
Adi Soozin: Yeah.
Dan Abbate: and so depending on where what deal they’re into and what they want, because some people like the the monthly cash flow because they want to like live in it or reinvest it or whatever. And then other people are like, you know what, if you can hold on to this and like grow the value over a three-year period, and we don’t usually go like our target is like two to three years maximum in a scenario like that. Um, and they don’t have to deal with taxes or like having to like, hey, I’m taking, you know, like they it really it just depends on the investor and what they’re kind of trying to accomplish. Some people like it either way. Um, so
Adi Soozin: Yeah.
Dan Abbate: yeah. Yeah.
Adi Soozin: Yeah. No, I I have a friend um he does he only does capital preservation
Dan Abbate: Yes.
Adi Soozin: in real estate. So, I’ll take something where I see like a very easy value ad, take the building, max out tenants, renovate whatever we need, and then I turn to him and like, “Hey, Scott, do your Houston guys want this now that it’s just cash preservation, not because they don’t want the cash flow.”
Dan Abbate: Exactly. Exactly. Yep.
Adi Soozin: Yeah.
Dan Abbate: Yep. Yeah. That’s a great Yeah, that’s a great resource for that. Um it’s and we’re kind of doing the same thing because like in our hard money business where we’ll do um hard money loans and stuff for fix and flippers and things like that. Obviously, that’s more of a cash flow focused business, you know, like you know, we make the investment, you know, the the they pay us, you know, whatever monthly and then we can pay the investors monthly. Like it’s very simple, very clean. Um, so anyway, yeah, that’s
Adi Soozin: your your hard money business. How big is that fund?
Dan Abbate: um we’re at about 20 million right now,
Adi Soozin: I
Dan Abbate: so
Adi Soozin: have
Dan Abbate: it’s
Adi Soozin: someone
Dan Abbate: not
Adi Soozin: I should introduce you to. Um, so I actually we were looking at adding that as another asset we acquire, but it then it was just like too much because we’d have to bring too many people inside.
Adi Soozin: Um, and so I just I’d rather focus on one goal and hit it well than try to focus on three and miss all of them. Um, but there there’s someone who has a really really unique structure for hard money uh play in Puerto Rico.
Dan Abbate: Okay, cool. Yeah,
Adi Soozin: Um, just
Dan Abbate: we’re definitely scaling that business as well. What we’re trying to do is like that’s just the equity that I I made reference to. Um, and so what we’re trying to do with that is look for the opportunity to now really scale up the turns because the things that we’re investing in the more the first position mortgages and they’re usually only a six-month term. are usually like done really quick. And so what we want to be able to do is find like essentially somebody who’s more like the, you know, capital preserv preservation guy like you mentioned so that we can essentially like originate maybe take some points and then sell the deal to the kind of like a Fanny Freddy type relationship but on the hard money side because that way then we can take that same capital and just kind of keep turning it as opposed

---

---

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
…to having to wait the six months, then we get the money back, and then redeploy. So if we could skip that waiting period, we could really focus on marketing and scaling. At this point, we’ve always had more demand than we’ve had capital.

And on the flip side, too, we want to grow that business in some interesting ways. We’d really like to be up at $100 million—either in terms of actual deployed equity or in terms of accelerating our capital turnover. Like I said, if instead of turning the capital twice a year, we could turn it four or five times a year…

Adi Soozin:
That would be great. Yeah.

Alright, so looking back on everything we’ve discussed—your whole life—what are a few major lessons or adjustments you’d recommend to someone starting out with their first private equity fund?

Dan Abbate:
This is the same recommendation I would give anyone starting any business: don’t start a business or put yourself into a role you’re not truly the best at.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
We have a tendency—I always use this example—if you’re going to build a house, we entrepreneurs and finance people know to hire an architect, an engineer, the zoning consultant, a plumber, an electrician, the drywaller, and the painter. We hire specialists for everything.

But for some reason, when we start a business, we think we have to be all of those people. We do everything ourselves because the entrepreneurial culture kind of tells us we can… even when we’re not actually good at those things. Most of the time, we don’t even enjoy them—we’re doing them out of necessity.

So my point is: be really aware of when you’re inserting yourself into a role just to put out fires or play cowboy. That’s dangerous.

Dan Abbate (cont’d):
You have to say, “This is what I do now,” and stick to it. Unless it’s truly a dire situation—like the whole business is going to collapse if something doesn’t get done—I actually just let the thing not get done. Because by not doing it, I’m forced to solve it the right way.

If I jump in and do it myself, it’s a temporary fix. If I step back, I can build a permanent solution. So that’s my advice to anyone starting a business or a fund—get really clear on who’s doing what and why.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah. Okay. That’s… do you know John Pennington?

Dan Abbate:
No.

Adi Soozin:
He’s the co-founder of Bridge Investment Group.

Dan Abbate:
Oh yes, I do. His son is Jordan.

Adi Soozin:
Bridget—no, no, that’s Paul Hutchinson.

Dan Abbate:
Oh, Hutchinson! Okay, then I don’t know John.

Adi Soozin:
Wait—you know Paul?

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, I’ve met Paul through one of Jordan’s events.

Adi Soozin:
Okay. You know Jordan?

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, I do. In fact, I’ve got something in my inbox right now—Jordan introducing me to someone. He’s always doing that, which is great. I appreciate it.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah, I have to have him on the show soon. His father came on the show a couple of weeks ago.

Dan Abbate:
I saw that episode. I watched it.

Adi Soozin:
You saw the episode where I asked him to be my mentor and he was like, “Okay, kid.” So, his business partner—the one who co-founded Bridge with him—is John Pennington.

Dan Abbate:
Okay.

Adi Soozin:
And when my father said, “It’s time—you have to start a fund,” I was like, “But I don’t know how to do every role in the fund perfectly.” Mr. Pennington sent a story in for the bestselling book.

Dan Abbate:
You mean this book?

Adi Soozin:
You got it.

Dan Abbate:
I did.

Adi Soozin:
If you bring it next week, a bunch of the authors are going to be at the event to sign their parts.

Dan Abbate:
Oh cool, I’ll bring it.

Adi Soozin:
Depending on the edition, flip to page 313.

Dan Abbate:
Okay.

Adi Soozin:
So, he sent that story in. Then I sent him a thank-you note for giving me clarity on how to start the fund. His advice was different from yours—he said, “You just have to do someone’s job good enough until you have the money to hire someone better.”

Dan Abbate:
Right?

Adi Soozin:
So I was kind of choked up. There was all this family pressure, and then his story came through and made me feel like, okay… I can do it.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah. I just find it’s easier to find the money to pay the right person than for me to do the work at all. That’s kind of my counterargument to that philosophy.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
If you can get the right person in sooner rather than later—go for it.

Adi Soozin:
You’re going to make a lot more money that way. I think when they were starting, capital wasn’t as accessible as it is today.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah.

Adi Soozin:
Like with my fund, we have five key roles, and we’re actively filling them with the founding team—rather than me trying to do those roles myself.

Dan Abbate:
Exactly. 100%. I’ve just found that things move so much faster if you get the right people in early. It’s way more efficient—you don’t burn as much time flailing around.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah—and getting people who confidently move in those roles.

Dan Abbate:
Right.

Adi Soozin:
Okay, this is a fan favorite question: what are some tools or tactics you use to manage your time and your team effectively?

Dan Abbate:
Tools and tactics… I’m not a great manager of people. I’m a good rah-rah culture guy. But actually assigning tasks and pushing them through? Not my strength.

Adi Soozin:
Oh?

Dan Abbate:
Yeah. Something I’ve learned over the years is the value of having a right-hand man. Mine is Brad.

Adi Soozin:
Heat!

Dan Abbate:
Brad is an MBA, an engineer, and has years of experience at Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Labs, and other big companies. He’s very process-oriented. Brad is involved in all of my businesses. He’s essentially the other half of my brain.

I do the visioning—the “what are we going to build?” side of things. Brad makes it real and concrete.

Dan Abbate (cont’d):
Because I know myself, I know I need someone like Brad—someone who can play the other side of the equation. And we’ve known each other 12 or 13 years now, so there’s deep trust.

That’s been my secret weapon.

Adi Soozin:
That makes sense. Most people are either one or the other.

What’s the best way for someone to get involved with your fund? Or your accelerator?

Dan Abbate:
So I do work through 1909 in downtown West Palm Beach. They’re great. I’ve also worked with EO—the Entrepreneurs’ Organization—and their EO Accelerator. And I’m part of the Harvard Entrepreneur-in-Residence program.

Adi Soozin:
Yeah.

Dan Abbate:
So basically, those three things are how I stay connected to builders. Otherwise, people just reach out to me directly—or they get intro’d through someone. It happens all the time.

---

---

Dan Abbate:
Um, so—

Adi Soozin:
Through LinkedIn?

Dan Abbate:
You know, yeah.

Adi Soozin:
They can reach out to you through LinkedIn?

Dan Abbate:
LinkedIn is not great because I don’t check it that often. Although I think my marketing team is going to start looking at it now because we just got—like, we should probably check LinkedIn once in a while. But I would tell people to email me at dan@cloinecapitalap.com—that goes directly to me.

Adi Soozin:
Okay, all right, sounds good.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah, don’t be shy about it either. I’m super friendly and I always like to hear what people are up to because I’ve made my best relationships with people who just reached out…

Adi Soozin:
Cold—

Dan Abbate:
We started talking.

Adi Soozin:
Okay, cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything else you wanted to cover or add?

Dan Abbate:
I don’t think so. Yeah, if anybody wants to reach out to me, I talk to anybody about anything.

Dan Abbate (cont’d):
I love it. If they’re friendly enough, I have a guest condo just around the corner here that I bought. People come and hang out with me—they stay at the condo for free. We walk and talk, have philosophical conversations. I just love doing that with anyone because I don’t have anything else to do, I guess. I don’t know… what else is there?

Adi Soozin:
There’s no doubt you grew up in Chicago. Chicago people are so friendly. A New Yorker would be like, “You can email five of my assistants; one of them will run a background check and decide if you can talk to me.” You’re like, I have a spare condo over there—come visit!

Dan Abbate:
Yeah.

Adi Soozin:
You know, come on and visit.

Dan Abbate:
Yeah. You hit it right on the head. It is a very Midwestern thing. Despite all my time on the East Coast, I still consider myself a Midwesterner at heart.

Adi Soozin:
Oh no, you totally are. I’m the ice queen—and here you are, Mr. Sunshine.

Dan Abbate:
Good! If we make a good pair, then we can hang out somewhere in the middle. Awesome. I love it.

---

Listen to this episode using your favorite app

⚖️ Legal Disclaimer

All opinions expressed by the guests are their own. 9×90™ and its affiliates do not endorse or guarantee any specific outcomes discussed in this episode. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and consult with professional advisors before making any investment or business decisions. Nothing discussed in this episode constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Any such offer or solicitation will be made only through official offering documents and to qualified, accredited investors, in accordance with applicable securities laws. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or 9×90™.

---

Come on the show

Fill in this application to apply to come on the 9×90™ show: https://9×90.co/apply-now/

---