Unlocking Success: How Mentorship and Capital Fuel Emerging Developers

Access to capital, powerful networks and seasoned mentors often determine who gets to build and who gets sidelined.

In the Season 3 finale of Create the Village, Integral’s Daryl Jones sits down with Brandon Rule, founder of Rule Enterprises, for a candid look at what it really takes to transform an opportunity into a viable deal.

Brandon shares his journey from quitting his banking job at 23 to launching his own firm, a path marked by lean years, hard lessons and generous mentors. Together they dissect the difference between an aspiring, emerging and established developer, talk through the hidden costs of partnerships and guarantor requirements, and explore why technical assistance is just as important as financing. Along the way, Brandon reveals his audacious goal to own a professional sports team, not for the glamour, but to reinvest in the surrounding community and build generational wealth.

What you’ll hear

• Why representation is still so low in real‑estate development and how structural barriers like capital access and networks contribute to a talent drain.

• The importance of mentorship in discerning a viable deal from an enticing but risky “opportunity.”

• A framework for understanding the three stages of a developer’s journey and the kind of support each one needs.

• How guarantor requirements, fee splits and partnership structures can either empower or exploit emerging developers.

• A vision for building generational wealth by investing in communities, including Brandon’s dream of becoming a billionaire and owning a sports team.

About our guest

Brandon Rule is the founder and CEO of Rule Enterprises, a full‑service real‑estate asset and investment management firm that develops mixed‑income, mixed‑use communities. An entrepreneur, speaker and philanthropist, he left his banking job at 23 to pursue community development and uses commercial real estate as a tool to transform urban neighborhoods.

SUBSCRIBE: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.