Raising Capital, Passive Income, and Building Generational Wealth with Jenniffer Maldonado Cintron

Christian (00:01.038)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. We have an incredible guest here, Jennifer Maldonado. She’s an experienced real estate entrepreneur, a capital raiser and the visionary behind Catcher Spark, a global movement empowering women to invest and build generational wealth. Today’s episode, we’re going to dive into her journey, her expertise in raising capital and how she’s creating opportunities for women to take control of their financial future. Whether you’re an inspiring investor looking to scare your real estate portfolio,

or wants to learn more about building wealth with purpose, you won’t want to miss this conversation. So Jennifer, welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you. Why don’t you introduce to the audience who you are, your background, how you got here, and take it from there.

Jen Maldonado (00:45.294)
Thank you, Cristian. I am happy to be with all of you today. you know, about my background, a lot of people ask me, why did I quit engineering? Right? You have these amazing jobs, six figure income with Johnson & Johnson, why you decide to leave? And then after that, I was working with Nestle. And it’s pretty simple for me. It’s mission driven. After you hit some point of success in the corporate world,

then you find that there’s something inside burning that is asking for more. And I’m not talking about money. I’m not talking about the success and the prestige. I’m talking about your soul, your heart, right? And that’s what happened on my career. I decided to transition and retire at 32 years old from a corporate career as an industrial engineer.

and real estate was my vehicle to get out of the rat race. And I just jump in without a parachute. I’m like, this is what I’m doing. I did two deals and I knew this was the new path for me. And through that journey, Christian, I just learned so many things from struggles, the not having a financial.

plan and being focused in specific strategies in real estate to now having managing $150 million in an asset and preparing for a bigger acquisition of $350 million.

Christian (02:25.742)
That is incredible. Thank you for sharing that, Jen. I’m curious to know, mean, how did you, why real estate, right? How did you transition into real estate?

Jen Maldonado (02:33.965)
Have you ever played Monopoly? All the time. Okay, great. It started with Monopoly. You can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. That’s what Steve just said and that’s what happened to me. I did not have an answer until two years ago when I was sitting and thinking about a memory at my 10 years old playing with my brothers and my dad Monopoly.

Christian (02:37.208)
all the time.

Jen Maldonado (03:04.073)
In the process, I was always frustrated because I never find a way for a year how to beat them. And it was this competition thing between all of us. It was family. was integration. It was lessons learned. And also it was a dream because my parents didn’t came from money. My parents didn’t came from wealth and we have to learn, right? We were living paycheck to paycheck barely making it.

And as I’m sitting there and I’m looking at the game, I say one day I want to own hotels and I want to play Monopoly in life, where I really start learning lessons about the importance of having access to capital, the importance of understanding timing in real estate, the importance of understanding location and the potential of people falling in that location.

And through that journey, have so many lessons and I read what I call the purple Bible of a reached out poor dad one day in that moment where I was searching to what really was calling my heart and my soul and real estate was that vehicle for me and I connected dots. So knowing that I can do profits, but then it became

I would say mission driven. It was about how do we invest with purpose and how we profit with impact. And through that journey, playing Monopoly, learning how to raise capital, learning, you know, I started with a small duplex in Burbank, California in 2012. Lucky me, perfect timing to buy real estate. So my journey started with house hacking, living in one side, renting the other one.

start practicing financial habits, right? You put a little bit in the expenses side, you put a little bit in the investment side, in the savings side, in the emergency and donate. And through that journey, four years, that first property alone gave me a profit of $250,000 that literally in five years I doubled.

Jen Maldonado (05:24.609)
And it just keep going, going. And that was only one of the assets. So it was a journey. It was never a get rich quick. And that journey helped me not only in real estate, but grow as a human being. And I started becoming the best version of myself. And that also allowed me to expand the knowledge I got by leaving my W-2 job and bringing my

friends, engineer friends who saw what I was doing. It’s like, how do you do this? And I invest with you, can you teach me? And then it became that journey of community. And that’s how I ended in real estate. It was that monopoly game, family memories, and one dream, one desire to do something different in life. And real estate just opened that opportunity for me.

Christian (05:56.602)
Yeah.

Jen Maldonado (06:18.199)
through different lessons, not only in life, but also through financial hardship and financial wins.

Christian (06:25.124)
That’s amazing. And the best part is you brought your community with you, right? And community is everything, especially in this business, as you know, right? So I’m curious. I mean, you’ve raised over 150 million. That’s a lot. So I mean, why don’t you tell the audience, I mean, what are some key strategies and maybe just overall the mindset that you have to have to attract investors and successfully raise that type of capital?

Jen Maldonado (06:31.362)
Yes.

Jen Maldonado (06:48.459)
Yes, for sure. It’s a different game. have to tell you, Christian, at first I started with friends and family. That’s what I knew. I have what I call my map process, my mindset, my approach to investors and the process, which is what most people teach us. They talk about how you structure a deal, how do you put paperwork, the legal aspects, where do you find your investors.

but they don’t teach you who you need to become in order to attract the investors. And that’s my first thing. How do you set up a mindset to become a money magnet? Right? Where you are not begging for money, where people understand that you are not asking for favors. This is an opportunity for them. And one of the strategy was family and friends. After that, as I was going through, I was posting because I love

online. I love to share and I was posting in Facebook and as I was posting in Facebook people started adding me as friends and of course that was in 2016 and they wanted to know more how did I did that project? How can they get involved? And it was so natural and I was just answering questions having fun with them. We were developing a relationship and suddenly some of them started investing with me.

And after that, they brought their friends, right? And it just became a referral network. When you give your investors a really good experience, then they just keep inviting their friends and their friends and people hang out with similar people. So, leads me to the next point, networking. If you go to the right places, if you hang out with the right people,

you’re going to find your investors without you having to be selsy and tell everybody, hey, this is what’s happening. I’m looking for money. It became so natural to me to the point that even the people who were speaking in front of the room were talking about me because I was always service oriented. And that’s what my parents thought me. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my pocket. It wasn’t what’s in it for me. It was a mic. How can I help you today?

Jen Maldonado (09:09.567)
And people seeing that, it just completely shifts everything. And barely I asked for anything. And people start asking, Jen, what is that you do? And I’m like, I do high-performance deals and I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs find their way out of the W-2 or increase their wealth. And how long you have been doing that? Well, since 2016. And at this point I have double and triple some of my investors’ money. Right?

And they start bragging, my investors start bragging about me. Like, I know these girls, she’s super cool. And it became like a raving fans thing. So at this point, it’s growing organically. I didn’t have a formula at Christian. And then what happened is, of course, I go to a couple of bigger players, people who are more in the family office environment, and I’m not raising.

Christian (09:47.29)
you

Jen Maldonado (10:07.521)
big monies and I also learned that the way that you approach them, the way that you speak to them is very different. And then I talked to a few venture capitalists, a few angel investors, networking, I learned about them and it was a completely different world. So I have to relearn how to raise capital and that’s when approach show up for me in my journey of finding how I can grow, right?

So the map for me became how do you close the gap from where you are to where you want to go? I use my map. I use my mindset, my approach and the process. And it was very interesting because I decided that I wanted to learn how to raise capital. Although I did it, right? I raised like $1 million, a matter of almost two weeks. And it was like my first time.

And I didn’t know that was an entire business, right? I was just partnering with some investors and the only thing I can bring was my relationship and a little bit of knowledge. And the more I grew and the more I wanted to learn, I humbled myself, Cristian. I’m like, I don’t know at all. I know there’s people that is doing this in big leagues and I decide to go and take classes. And the more I was learning, it’s like…

Okay, there’s so much more out there about raising capital. How is the process? Me being an engineer, know, we like to break things down, sometimes make it too complicated or too simple. Yes, yes, and then you’re data-driven, which is also a good thing, but sometimes it doesn’t help. It paralyzes you. So in that journey, I was finding answers.

Christian (11:35.471)
Yup.

Yep, very analytical. Yes.

Christian (11:46.916)
in.

Jen Maldonado (11:53.774)
And in the process, I put together this process for myself and I want to continue and then I want to raise $5 million in 45 days without reaching out to institutional lenders. An opportunity show up to me, three hotels. I got a phone call when I was in Puerto Rico for my farewell party. I was moving from California to Austin, Texas, LA specifically.

I got that phone call where they told me, Jen, you want to play a bigger game? And the only thing I can think of, Monopoly, right? When they told me I have three hotels, the numbers looks amazing, but we have only 45 days to close. And I’m like, you’re killing me.

Christian (12:39.794)
my goodness.

Jen Maldonado (12:41.513)
So it was a lot of pressure but then I find out how to leverage relationships and in that process I got a couple of people that call me and there were some kind of little family offices some doctors who wanted to invest and they heard from me from another doctors and a group of engineers that reached out to me and they say hey you know we’re in the group we heard about you from this guy

Christian (12:46.906)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Maldonado (13:10.285)
we invest in alcohol, but also we wanna invest in real estate. That journey, Christian, lead me to try to test if what I was doing will work for someone else. And I went ahead and I say, what if I can try these in 15 people? And here’s the problems I have and things that I didn’t know, I wish I know. Here are the…

challenges I have as a human being to keep disciplined, to keep myself engaged and I create a little community between them and accountability partnership and suddenly in 90 days I did 30 students and all of them minimum raised $500,000 and some of them have a little bit of experience, some of them were okay in experience and it was just incredible and I’m like I’m

flipping in here, right? This is real. Like I have something of value, but beyond the result and the outcome, it was so amazing to see the breakthroughs that they have as human beings, to see the best version of themself showing up to become that money magnet, at least on this aspect, and then seeing them doing it.

Christian (14:05.454)
Yeah.

Christian (14:21.006)
Mm.

Jen Maldonado (14:28.461)
And that was so amazing. It felt so nurturing from a selfish perspective. It just filled my heart and soul. And at the same time, it’s like, maybe I can do this too. Maybe I need to start growing. And since then, that’s what happened.

Christian (14:45.562)
My goodness guys, I mean are you listening to the story right now because this is incredible I mean Jennifer what you’ve been able to accomplish and just the way that you’ve gotten here It’s just so strategic and the fact that you were able just to have that much confidence To be able to put this together. I applaud you first and foremost So why don’t why don’t we talk about this right catch her spark, right? What is the mission behind that? I’m curious to know I mean, how are you empowering?

Jen Maldonado (15:09.921)
Yep.

Christian (15:16.0)
women entrepreneurs to build generational wealth right now, because there, as you know, there are the incredible women entrepreneurs as yourself, but they’re just needing to take that extra step, right? Whether that’s hiring a coach, a mentor, you know, maybe they’re just stuck on the ground floor. Like what do you do as far as your mission with Catcher Spark?

Jen Maldonado (15:38.196)
My mission is very clear, Christian. I want to foster future generations of women entrepreneurs and business owners. And I want to do it by removing three big challenges. The first one is role models and mentors and coaches. So Cashers Park community right now, it’s you meet at these wonderful women. I’m just one of them. But these women are changing the world in different industries.

Christian (15:40.378)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Maldonado (16:07.221)
We go and we learn from each other. We barely start meeting and we are aligning in the same goal. How are we gonna pay for our success? For women it’s challenging because you need to see a woman doing it. And hey, I love guys, guys are awesome doing what they do. But in reality, we have different challenges. We have different conversations.

We have different ideas and it’s cultural, it’s historical, and it’s going to take a journey to go to a place where we start having the same kind of balance. It might get there, I don’t know, right? But in the meantime, how do we navigate through all of these challenges is by coming together and having authentic conversation and learning the things that has been really hard to learn out there. So one,

We’re creating these community, attracting role models, coaches and mentors that we personally know that can change other girls’ life. The second, the reason why I am so passionate about raising capital is for women, one of the biggest challenges to start their business, it’s money. Access to capital. Most, think it’s like probably 78 % of women, I think it is, they fund their own projects.

And it’s very hard for them to expand beyond that because they don’t go out there and get access to capital. And if I can not only teach them, help them to learn how to raise capital, to learn how to pitch them, but come in front of these bad ass women that can’t really have authentic conversations because we’re very real. We don’t have problems saying this doesn’t look good. I don’t even understand why you are selling.

but here’s what I wanna know. And having that feedback and coaching process, and also this is the part I love, some of them are passionate about these projects and they will say, I will mentor you. And in fact, I will go on this deal with you. It’s our little shark tank, right? That just started and this is shifting girls’ life.

Jen Maldonado (18:24.075)
Right? We are in the journey with the startup journey. It’s going to take us a while as we find the right people and the right process. But that’s the second thing that I know that is a challenge for women. And the third one is what you just mentioned, Christian, and it’s confidence. Through our lives,

Christian (18:42.509)
Yeah.

Jen Maldonado (18:46.429)
that what we learn out there even in the corporate world is that we always have to prove ourselves. We have to do better even than our counterparts, male counterparts, because it’s hard for us to accept that we deserve this. And I have sometimes to say that some people will consider weak. Sometimes you have to borrow someone else’s in you in order to move forward.

That doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna build it, but you need that support from the community. You need that women helping you, guiding you, giving this advice, and sometimes shouting you like you’re playing too small. And that’s what happened to me. One of the girls told me like, what the heck are you doing? Why are you doing a million dollars deal? Why are you not going into the billion dollars? And I’m like, damn. Like it just click on my head and.

Christian (19:34.18)
Yeah.

Jen Maldonado (19:40.034)
tell you too that I was part of another group to a co-founding member of another women real estate network and that was the first group that says Jen here’s three million dollars between all of them if you believe in this deal we know how you look at things here’s the money and they can draw their girlfriends so most of my investors are women I have men too but having that kind of backup having that type of community that have your back

Christian (19:57.018)
Wow.

Jen Maldonado (20:08.223)
It just gives you completely different level of confidence, right? And they know that real estate, you can lose money, right? It can be risky. You can lose money. A lot of people think that real estate is so, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yes, you can lose a lot of money. But if you follow certain steps, you reduce that risk. And they knew that that was my operating mode. However, the fact that they bet on what they believe

Christian (20:12.036)
Mm-hmm.

Christian (20:29.562)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Maldonado (20:38.145)
and they lend me their confidence, they didn’t lend me only money, they lend me confidence. Man, that allowed me to, I have to get this done not only for me. I have to play my A game for those who I love, for those who I care because these became my friends too after we did business, we became friends. So I need to bring the best on me. My A game to really help these women not only grow there.

portfolio, but also, you know, get confidence on how to invest in real estate. But that’s a little bit of what is Cash has Spark about.

Christian (21:15.97)
No, I mean, that’s absolutely incredible. The fact that you’ve been able to build, you know, something like this. mean, I personally believe that someone can speed up their learning curve just by investing in a coach or a mentor, right? You’ve already made the mistakes. You have the experience versus you just trying to figure this all out on your own and having no community, right? Not knowing how to build confidence, not knowing how to raise capital versus you could just take the slingshot, right? If you will, to just investing into yourself.

speeding up your learning curve and doing things the right way and becoming a real operator in business that can last the next 15, 20 plus years, right? Because as you know, most entrepreneurs, they start out, they don’t really have the right processes put into place. The next thing you know, they’re out of business, right? So what you’re doing is, I believe, you women, you guys are absolutely incredible. And I personally can say this as well. Like I wouldn’t survive without mine, right? I can say that.

Jen Maldonado (22:14.475)
I’m so excited.

Christian (22:16.086)
And you guys are incredible. I mean, it’s just amazing what you’re doing here. So I’m curious too to know what steps are involved though? Let’s say someone joins your community, right? What are the first steps someone is taking when they join your community?

Jen Maldonado (22:34.445)
So one of the things that I do, and this is very important, a lot of people want to invest in community, to invest in mentorship, want to invest in coaching. But the challenge is, one, are they really committed to make this happen or to allow the co-creation of the world to work with them? So before they get into any of my communities, Christian, I have a filter.

Right? If you some kind of want it, I will recommend you other areas that are free or even channels, books that are a very low price point that you are not risking a lot. Because what I have found is that when people are not committed and they have one door in one, I mean, their feet in one side of the door and the other one and the other one, it’s hard to help them succeed.

And I don’t like people to see putting 30, 40, $50,000 in a coaching program that later they’re not going to do anything with it, which is the most cases, right? And you’re like, what are you guys doing? Why you just don’t leave this money, right? In the same means to count, just to get the knowledge. So the first thing I do with the step is let’s figure out your commitment. Because a lot of people think, yes, I want to do this. Fine. How much hours are you dedicated this week?

to do this? How much time? Does that take you out of what? Find the time first. Second, tell me where you want to go. It’s hard to guide someone if they don’t know what they want to go. So I do that process of what’s your purpose and it sounds funny and repeating in many entrepreneurs and many videos, but you need your purpose. You need an internal purpose. Why is that you’re doing that?

Some people say, hey, I want to make a lot of money. Fine. Right. You’re going to do something with that money. Okay. Let’s talk about that. Because the strategy for a person that just want to park money for luxury lifestyle is completely different for those who want to park money to create a legacy. And the conversations are very different. The kind of tools, financial tools that you need are very different because at the end, real estate is only a vehicle to get there. So

Jen Maldonado (25:01.281)
What I’m trying to say is there’s a filtering process. I want to know where you are today, how committed you are, why you are doing this. And based on that assessment second step, do you meet the requirements for this group? If you’re not here, what other people can help you? Because it’s not like I want to tell you disappear. I don’t care. You don’t meet my criteria. Bye bye. Right? That’s not me.

It’s like if you don’t ignore, you’re not here but you want to go here, this is the steps. You can talk to these people, these resources, you can talk to these other people but this is the steps I will follow. From a financial aspect, a personal aspect. Because through this journey since 2012 when I started, Christian, what I find out is people with lack of real commitment, right? Commitment meaning I’m gonna make this work whatever it takes.

Christian (25:52.004)
you

Jen Maldonado (25:56.224)
I might fail multiple times, but I’m gonna stand back up and do it again until I get it. Also, people who have a very poor commitment, they might get all the knowledge, maybe one property, and the first time they fail, right? They’re like, I don’t wanna do this, I lost all my money, and I don’t have any money now, right? It was the wrong timing for these people. They needed a financial advisor to help them establish a foundation.

Christian (26:19.514)
Mm.

Jen Maldonado (26:25.185)
There’s so many people out there that try to tell you, can get in real estate without any money. Yes, but you have to come out with the coaching money. You have to learn how to wholesale, which it requires other kinds of investments. They want to sell you this idea. And I don’t go with that. It’s like, this is the reality. You’re going to need money. Now there’s many ways that people can partner with other people. I’m going to put my sweat equity.

Okay, here are your tasks. So you have to start from the bottom. But people come up with the idea, they only have the financial resources to take the class of wholesaling and they think that they’re gonna make a lot of money. And it’s these false idea, right? And then there’s the other people where they might have the money, but they don’t have the time to check, right? Or do their due diligence when investing in syndications.

I have a couple of things I put together for my investors to educate them because a lot of them have lost a lot of money. And when they told me the stories, I’m like, do you know this? Do you check this? Do you check that? And for me, it’s like, my God. Right? It’s come on. Like there’s that extra step. You cannot be ignorant. And if you don’t know, this is why you have consultants that can help you look at the deal to make a better decision. So with that being said,

Summarizing, one, you need to know where you are financially, with your commitment, with your time, and with your knowledge, right? If they don’t have knowledge and they wanna start, hey, there are multiple books that reached out for that is in real estate is like the Bible. Everyone has to read it because it gives you the concepts. There’s Take a Grow Rich because it tells you in overall how this person needs to think, right? Those are two books.

Christian (28:06.946)
Yep. Yes.

Jen Maldonado (28:19.297)
They don’t cost much and there’s so much material in YouTube about these two things that you can start asking questions. Second step, once you define where you are, you need to understand where you want to go and why you want to do this. And third, you get clarity on that. Then you can start investing in mentors and coaches because if you ask me,

A lot of people love to sell you everything in the dream, but none of them take the time to tell you, listen, I know that you want to do all of those things, but you don’t have these resources. This is not going to work for you. I don’t want you to fail. Here’s a person that you can start checking it out. This is a better way to do it. I think if you have a different opinion, let me hear it, right? Let me know. But I don’t like people.

failing because there was someone in the other side of the room just telling them, me the money. That’s not gonna be me. Because of that, before you get in there, you need to know where you go and what are the steps to get there. So that’s the process for us. Once you get through that door, it’s opening resources for you, right? Who do you need to do what you wanna do? What do you need from us? What resources? What knowledge? Here’s the people.

Right? And here are some opportunities. Do you want to learn from these ladies? Do you want to be the talent and work with these ladies while you work and grow? Or what is your goal? Right? So I will say that that’s the process for us because I don’t like people coming here that are not going to be committed. We are high performers. We are not going to, I call it, coded for you. We’re going to, with love, share what we think.

because you came to us to help you really grow. And that comes in different aspects, but that’s our process itself.

Christian (30:21.316)
Jen, I feel like we could go on for another hour and a half, truthfully. You are remarkable. You’re incredible. So Jen, know unfortunately we’re running out of time though. So why don’t you just share to the audience where they can find you. Obviously we are gonna put all of your socials in our descriptions, but why don’t you just share to the audience where they can find you and how they can connect and work with you.

Jen Maldonado (30:28.621)
Bye.

Jen Maldonado (30:44.213)
Yes, at this moment, my focus is growing my YouTube channel and it’s a GenMaldonado. The reason for that is I want to create clarity for people before they come to me and through my channel, they will find the different pages depending what they’re looking for, from my websites in genmaldonado.com to other websites that lead them to that. So I will recommend it. Let’s connect in YouTube. Let’s learn. Write together for free.

Get your certain things out and after that, we can take it from there.

Christian (31:17.53)
You heard it here. You heard it here. my gosh, Jen, thank you so much for making the time today. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I’m really just looking forward to seeing you build, know, Catcher Spark and your business and just continuing to see you grow. You’re incredible entrepreneur, incredible woman. And again, I’m just excited for you.

Jen Maldonado (31:36.503)
Thank you, Christian.

Christian (31:37.86)
No, of course, Jen. Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the show today. As always, guys, we will see you on the next episode. Take care, everybody.