Sell Your Business Fast. Then Do This With the Money.
Blue Bay Fund I
Here's What Smart Owners Do With the Money Next.
You spent decades building it. The wire just hit. Now what? Most business owners get this part wrong, and nobody tells them until it's too late.
How to Sell Your Business Fast — And What Happens After the Wire Hits
I've watched it happen more times than I can count. A business owner spends 20, 30, sometimes 40 years building something real. Then they sell it, and within 18 months, half the money is gone. Not because they're foolish. Because nobody prepared them for the moment after the wire hit.
Let Me Tell You About the Moment I'm Talking About
You close on the sale. Your attorney shakes your hand. Your accountant sends over the final numbers. And then, for the first time in decades, you have a balance in your bank account instead of a business to run.
The phone stops ringing the way it used to. The calendar clears. And the question that's been buried beneath 30 years of work suddenly surfaces.
Now what do I do with this?
I'm Edwin Epperson, a former U.S. Army Green Beret and the Managing Principal of Blue Bay Fund I.
Over the years, I've deployed more than $30 million into real estate secured investments. In this guide, I'm going to show you exactly what smart business owners do with the proceeds from the sale of their business and what most people get dead wrong.
Blue Bay Fund I — At a Glance
Capital Deployed
$30M+
Investments Made
150+
Minimum Investment
$50K
Position Type
1st Lien
Target Return
10-15%
Edwin Co-Invests
Every Deal
The Three Mistakes I See Retiring Business Owners Make
Before I tell you what to do, I need to tell you what not to do. Because in my experience, the first 90 days after a business exit are the most financially dangerous of a person's life. Not because of bad people. Because of default decisions.
01
They park it in the market because that's what you do.
Their financial advisor puts the proceeds into a diversified portfolio. Stocks, bonds, maybe some mutual funds. And then the market drops 18% in a quarter, and it's not a number on a screen anymore. It's the business they sold. It's their retirement. It's their kids' inheritance. The volatility that's acceptable when you have a business generating income becomes unbearable when this is all you have.
02
They buy rental property because real estate feels safe.
They've heard real estate is a good investment. So they buy a duplex or a small commercial property. And now they have a new job, one they didn't ask for. Tenants. Maintenance. Late payments. Property managers who take 10% and still call you on weekends. They traded one business for a worse one.
03
They wait too long to decide, and the money sits doing nothing.
They know the market feels risky. They don't want another headache. So the money sits in a savings account earning 0.01% while inflation quietly erodes the purchasing power of everything they worked for. Waiting feels like safety. It isn't.
Wondering if your situation is different?
Most of my investors thought so too, until we talked. No pressure, no pitch. Just a conversation.
What the Smart Ones Do Instead
The business owners who protect their wealth after an exit don't do anything complicated. They do something disciplined.
They put their capital to work the same way a bank does. They become the lender, not the borrower, the landlord, or the speculator. They invest in secured first-position mortgage notes backed by real estate. They collect monthly income. They don't manage property. They don't watch ticker symbols. And they sleep well.
This isn't a new idea. Banks have been doing it for more than a hundred years. The difference is that, until recently, individual investors couldn't access this type of investment without millions of dollars and the right connections.
That's exactly what Blue Bay Fund I was built to change.
"
"I didn't build this fund for everyone. I built it for someone who spent decades building something real and now needs their capital to work as hard as they did, without them having to work alongside it."
— Edwin D. Epperson III, Managing Principal, Blue Bay Fund I
Where Business Owners Park Their Proceeds · Risk · Return · Effort
Stock Market
Index funds / portfolio
Rental Property
Direct ownership
Cash / Savings
HYSA / CDs
Private Mortgage Notes
Blue Bay Fund I
How a First-Position Note Actually Works
I want to explain this plainly, the way I'd explain it over coffee. Not with financial jargon. Not with a prospectus. Just how it works.
A real estate investor needs short-term capital to buy and renovate a property. They can't wait 90 days for a bank. They need the money in about seven business days. So they come to me. I underwrite the deal by evaluating the property, the borrower, and the numbers. If it meets my criteria, I fund the loan. Blue Bay's investors provide the capital that makes those loans possible.
Here's what helps protect you. The loan is secured by a first-position lien on the property. That means if something goes wrong and the borrower defaults, you are first in line for repayment. Before any other creditor. Before the borrower receives a dime. The property serves as the collateral, and I only lend on properties with enough equity to cover the loan, even in a worst-case scenario.
I also invest my own capital alongside yours every single time. That's not a talking point. It's a structural decision I made before the first investor ever wired a dollar to Blue Bay. If I'm not confident enough to invest my own money, I won't ask you to invest yours.
How a First-Position Mortgage Note Works · The Deal Flow
Step 01
You Invest
You commit capital into Blue Bay Fund I with a minimum of $50,000. Your money is deployed into secured mortgage notes, not the stock market.
Step 02
Edwin Underwrites Every Deal
Every borrower, property, and set of numbers is personally vetted. No deal closes without Edwin's sign-off, and he co-invests in every single one.
Step 03
Loan Funded, Lien Secured
The loan is issued with a 1st-position lien against real property. If the borrower ever defaults, the fund has legal claim to the asset, not a promise.
Step 04
Borrower Repays Monthly
The borrower makes scheduled payments of interest and principal each month. That cash flows directly back into the fund on your behalf.
Step 05
You Receive Monthly Income
Truly passive. You never manage a property, talk to a tenant, or watch a ticker. You simply receive your returns while your capital works for you.
Want to see how a real Blue Bay deal is structured?
I walk through actual loan files on our investor calls. No NDAs. No pressure. Just transparency.
The 90-Day Window Most Business Owners Miss
Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough. After you sell your business, there's a window, often around 90 days, when your capital can be especially vulnerable. The sale has closed. The tax implications are being sorted out. You're in transition. And every financial advisor in your ZIP code wants to be the one who receives the wire.
Many of them will recommend the same type of portfolio they recommend to most clients because that's what they're trained to do. If the market cooperates, you may do just fine. But if it doesn't, if the timing of your investment happens to coincide with a market downturn, you'll experience it differently than you ever have before.
I've seen business owners who spent decades building a $3 million company watch hundreds of thousands of dollars disappear during a market correction within a year of their exit. Not because they were reckless. Because they defaulted to conventional advice during an unconventional moment.
The 90-Day Window · Two Paths After the Sale
Day 0
Day 30
Day 60
Day 90+
Most Owners
Smart Owners
Why I Built Blue Bay for This Exact Moment
The Discipline Behind Every Decision
I made my first loan from the side of a mountain in Afghanistan. The discipline is the same
Why Blue Bay Is Different
"My capital goes in first.
Every time."
Before the first investor ever wired a dollar to Blue Bay, Edwin made one non-negotiable decision: he co-invests in every deal. Your priorities first. Not last.
I made my first private loan while deployed in Afghanistan in 2014. I was sitting on the side of a mountain with a satellite connection and a deal I believed in. I funded it. It performed. That's when I realized something important. Capital doesn't care where you are. It cares about the quality of the asset securing it and the integrity of the person managing it.
When I came home and built Blue Bay, I built it for people like the ones I'd watched work hard their entire lives. Disciplined people. People who built real businesses. People who deserved better than the default options the financial industry continues to offer.
The minimum investment in Blue Bay Fund I is $50,000. There are no investment windows because we're continually originating loans and deploying capital. Unlike a blind pool fund, you can personally choose which loans your capital is allocated to. You see the opportunity. You review the collateral. You decide.
I also co-invest in every single deal. My capital goes in first, before any investor's dollar is invested. That's not a policy. It's a commitment. If I'm not willing to invest my own money, I won't ask you to invest yours.
"
"The market can do whatever it wants. My investors' returns don't come from a ticker. They come from a first-position lien on a piece of real property, and that property doesn't move because sentiment shifted on a Tuesday morning."
— Edwin D. Epperson III
Is This the Right Move for You?
I'm not going to tell you Blue Bay is right for everyone. It isn't.
This fund is designed for accredited investors who understand that pursuing higher potential returns often means looking beyond conventional investments. It's also for people who are comfortable with the illiquidity that comes with private lending.
But if you're a business owner who has recently sold a company, or you're preparing for an exit, and you're asking the question I asked years ago, How do I make this money work without it becoming another job, another headache, or another reason to lose sleep? Then I think we should have a conversation.
Not a sales call. Just a conversation.
I'll walk you through an actual loan file. You'll see how the deal is structured, what the collateral looks like, how the loan is underwritten, and how similar investments have performed historically. Then you can decide whether it's the right fit for you.
Edwin D. Epperson III
Edwin has deployed over $30 million into real estate-secured investments since 2014. He co-invests his own capital in every deal. He built Blue Bay Fund I for disciplined people who built real things and deserve better than default financial advice.
Blue Bay Fund I · Direct Access
Ready to Talk to Edwin Directly?
No gatekeepers. No junior advisors. You speak with me, the fund manager, the underwriter, the person whose capital is in every deal alongside yours.
Schedule a Call with EdwinAccredited investors only · No obligation · 30 minutes
With Honor,
Edwin D. Epperson III,
Manager & CEO
Soli Deo Gloria
