Business

Brother Ben X Digital Real Estate Program Is COVID-19 Kryptonite

Published

5 years ago

August 15, 2020

Ben X describes the Digital Real Estate program and how it got started.

I teach people how to become mentally, spiritually, and financially free through my Digital Real Estate program. Our company Assets Before Splurging have several courses and classes but the top tier program is Digital Real Estate which teaches you how to build and scale your business online with passive IMPACT to bring about passive INCOME. I often teach my students, “don’t focus on passive income… instead focus on passive impact, because the more people you impact the income will come.

The idea of me creating a program stemmed from me gaining over half a billion views on Facebook alone, 40+ million on Youtube and over a million followers on social media earning 6 figures in my early 20s after having no degrees in what I’m doing. People all over the world began asking me for advice and guidance on how to do what I did so I created a program showing them just that. I dropped out of college after hearing the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan teach on “debt is slavery” and I honestly was not learning anything valuable in college, so the creativity came from my adversity.

Within the last year I teamed up with my brother Jake Tayler Jacobs and we’ve built a 7-figure financial and life institute. We came up with Digital Real Estate name one day on our podcast and the concept has been impacting thousands. We teach how to find your purpose, tie it into your Digital Real Estate business, how to create content properly, find your target audience, even how to make money without your own product and how to scale it to a six figure business the same exact way we did.

One of my biggest accomplishments is helping thousands of people change their mindset about themselves, life, and their finances. To be specific, for me my biggest accomplishment in business outside of impacting so many people is the impact the business had on Jason King (@Jason.king.biz on Instagram) he came into the course after being laid off due to COVID-19 and made $11,000 in 4 weeks. He was so helpful inside of our private Facebook group we made him a coach for the Digital Real Estate program, he started to get so many testimonials that Jake Tayler Jacobs and I hired him under ABS and now he has his own podcast, teaches weekly on Facebook and have a whole new energy compared to how he first came into the class.

The second biggest accomplishment is the impact the program had on a brother named 11Hrtz(on Instagram). He came into the program and procrastinated, and months later finally applied and made $1500 in one day when he was struggling to make a couple hundred a week due to COVID-19. Unfortunately after revealing this to his family he was robbed and stolen from and he announced this inside of the private group we had, so I decided to raise money for him that night so he could at least get a laptop. That night along with the support of the other tribe member Jake and I gave him $1,000 to get him going and surprisingly he did much more than just buy a laptop to get on his feet. In just a couple days he used that money to not only buy a laptop but buy a digital asset and sold it making $10,000 in one day. The great part about this story is he bought my course homeless and he was homeless when he announced he was robbed and because of the Digital Real Estate program he is doing well and in high spirits.

Lastly a big accomplishment of ours was making $200k+ in the month of June now scaling up with the next goal of doing $500k per month in our Life & Financial institute. This accomplishment was last purposely because to me life isn’t about the passive income, but about the passive impact, the bible says seek ye FIRST the kingdom of heaven and all of its righteousness and all of these things will be added to you, so what makes this a real accomplishment is being able to be an example that when you accept your own and be yourself God will bless you with what was promised.

As a student of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan we are taught to do for self and don’t wait on others to do for us what we have the power to do for ourselves. One of the things I learned in business is that you don’t have to guess the business because business is about providing a service or product, so it’s more so about listening. So over the years I listened to the questions that my community asked me about making money and running a business online and I built the program based on what I did and what they asked me about. Another motivation was me HATING MY JOB, I worked out a warehouse job that reminded me of the plantation I read about then I worked at FED-EX and had an awakening thought. The thought was, “I’m throwing all these boxes on the truck, if I came to work next week going 10x harder throwing a thousand more boxes on the truck my paycheck will be the same, but if I worked for myself the more productive I am the more reward I receive” and it was it from there… I fired my boss before he fired me.

Minister Louis Farrakhan said “adversity is the mother of creativity” so being that I dropped out of college and quit two jobs I had to become creative and be consistent and I knew if I was able to do it and I dropped out of college than my people who are from the same background as me could do the same and it has been a success.

Honestly… there has been no challenges due to Covid-19. Covid-19 and this pandemic has made business sky rocket and maybe the only challenges we’ve had was having our money tied up by stripe because we scaled a lot faster than expected so they have our money on hold because they deemed it at risk for disputes because we scaled so fast. Due to Covid-19 everyone is watching and shopping online, so it made people value and more attention to what we’ve been teaching the whole time. How we overcame the stripe problem was switching merchant accounts to a company that supports our community that we have built a relationship with. We showed proof of funds, explained why our business scaled so fast they understood, and we got back rolling. In the meantime, of getting the backend together we continued to promote, but put everyone on a waiting list as we fed them content leading them to crave for the programs. When we opened back up sales began to roll in like we never left.

Honestly I think it’s due to what’s going on in the world today, it’s forcing them to see what I’ve been teaching and talking about over the years. One of the things I explained to them is having an online presence right now is almost paramount for business, although I believe it was even before COVID-19. Watch time is increasing on social platforms, zoom app usage is growing rapidly and online sales are increasing due to people not wanting to be around everyone due to the virus.

One of the things that may catch their eye about our program is the multiple ways you can make money. I’m often asked, “do I have to have a business or product to succeed in Digital Real Estate?” and the answer is absolutely not, because we show you how to make money with a product/service or without one. Not only that, but many schools are closed down and the ones that did open I saw in New York, coronavirus creeped in so it closed back down, this has forced parents to think about home schooling. What better way to pivot than to learn how make money online from home passively and be able to spend more time with your family.

Brother Ben X Instagram

Business

Derik Fay and the Quiet Rise of a Fintech Dynasty: How a Relentless Visionary is Redefining the Future of Payments

Published

5 days ago

October 17, 2025

Matthew Wiles

Long before the headlines, before the Forbes features, and well before he became a respected fixture in boardrooms across the country, Derik Fay was a kid from Westerly, Rhode Island with little more than grit and audacity. Now, with a strategic footprint spanning more than 40 companies—including holdings in media, construction, real estate, pharma, fitness, and fintech—Fay’s influence is as diversified as it is deliberate. And his most recent move may be his boldest yet: the acquisition and co-ownership of Tycoon Payments, a fintech venture poised to disrupt an industry built on middlemen and outdated rules.

Where many entrepreneurs chase headlines, Fay chases legacy.

Rebuilding the Foundation of Fintech

In the saturated space of payment processors, Fay didn’t just want another transactional brand. He saw a broken system—one that labeled too many businesses as “high-risk,” denied them access, and overcharged them into silence. Tycoon Payments, under his stewardship, is rewriting that narrative from the ground up.

Instead of the all-too-common “fake processor” model, where companies act as brokers rather than actual underwriters, Tycoon Payments is being engineered to own the rails—integrating direct banking partnerships, custom risk modeling, and flexible support for underserved industries.

“Disruption isn’t about being loud,” Fay said in a private strategy session with advisors. “It’s about fixing what’s been ignored for too long. I don’t chase waves—I build the coastline.”

Quiet Power, Strategic Depth

Now 46 years old, Fay has evolved from scrappy gym owner to an empire builder, founding 3F Management as a private equity and venture vehicle to scale fast-growth businesses with staying power. His portfolio includes names like Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships, BIGG Pharma, Results Roofing, FayMs Films, and SalonPlex—but also dozens of companies that never make headlines. That’s by design.

Where others seek followers, Fay builds founders. Where most celebrate their exits, Fay reinvests in people.

While he often deflects conversations around his personal wealth, analysts estimate his net worth to exceed $100 million, with some placing it comfortably over $250 million, based on exits, real estate holdings, and the trajectory of his current ventures.

Yet unlike others in his tax bracket, Fay still answers cold DMs. He mentors rising entrepreneurs without cameras rolling. And he shows up—not just with capital, but with conviction.

A Mogul Grounded in Real Life

Outside of business, Fay remains committed to his role as a father and partner. He shares two daughters, Sophia Elena Fay and Isabella Roslyn Fay, and has been in a relationship with Shandra Phillips since 2021. He’s known for keeping his personal life private, but those close to him speak of a man who brings the same intention to parenting as he does to scaling multimillion-dollar ventures—focused, present, and consistent.

His physical stature—standing at 6′1″—matches his professional gravitas, but what’s more striking is his ability to operate with both discipline and empathy. Fay’s reputation among founders and CEOs is not just one of capital deployment, but emotional intelligence. As one partner noted, “He’s the kind of guy who will break down your pitch—and rebuild your belief in yourself in the same breath.”

The Tycoon Blueprint

The playbook Fay is writing at Tycoon Payments doesn’t just threaten incumbents—it reinvents the infrastructure. This isn’t another “fintech startup” with a flashy brand and no backend. It’s a strategically positioned venture with real underwriting power, cross-border ambitions, and a founder who understands how to scale quietly until the entire industry has to take notice.

In an age where so many entrepreneurs rely on noise and virality to build influence, Fay remains a master of what can only be called elite stealth. He doesn’t need the spotlight. But his impact casts a long shadow.

Conclusion: The Empire Expands

From Rhode Island beginnings to venture boardrooms, from gym owner to fintech force, Derik Fay continues to build not just businesses—but a blueprint. One rooted in resilience, innovation, and long-term infrastructure.

Tycoon Payments may be the latest chess piece. But the game he’s playing is bigger than one move. It’s a long game of strategic leverage, intentional legacy, and generational wealth.

And Fay is not just playing it. He’s redefining the rules.