When others saw chaos, Nathan Cox saw opportunity.
When others panicked during the 2008 recession, Cox, having just served in the U.S. Marines, bet on himself and the Gulf Coast and launched Bellator Real Estate & Development. Over the next eight years, Cox grew the business until, in 2016, he formed 68 Ventures, which has gone on to become one of the largest and most successful development and investment companies in the Southeast.
Cox recently appeared on “1819 News: The Podcast” with 1819 News CEO Bryan Dawson to tell the story of his entrepreneurial journey from humble beginnings to booming success.
“Any perceived success that I've had is all a result of other people and what they've poured into me over the years and how much they've given me, this organization, my family to go make things happen,” Cox said.
To complement Bellator, Cox started Truland Homes in 2011, which quickly became the largest private homebuilder in the Gulf Coast region. In 2023, he sold Truland to D.R. Horton for roughly $100 million.
“When we sold Truland, we did make a strategic shift from the vertical integration to truly a development and investment company,” Cox said. “And so even if we do have 10 operating businesses, we view those operating companies as investments from the perspective of we believe in the person that's running that, the person that's our partner. And our job is to provide them with resources, mainly financial, relationships and then wisdom earned in the mistakes that I or we have already made. Those are in the past where we were really trying to be a true operator.”
Cox said something he is often asked about is where the name “68 Ventures” came from.
“That story came from a talk I had heard Dr. Kevin Elko give. And he was telling the story of 'What's your 68?' So it's actually derived from a hockey player, believe it or not, Jaromir Jagr. And for those of you in Alabama that don't know anything about hockey like me, Jagr was the equivalent of the Michael Jordan of the hockey world. And he wore the number 68 to remind himself that he plays for his country, he plays for his family, he plays to honor himself in that spirit because his grandfather was killed in the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. So it wasn't for money, it wasn't for fame, it wasn't all the things that come with that. It was for something bigger than himself. And I thought that was a pretty cool story. And so I spent a lot of time thinking through my own personal 68, and it still holds true today.”
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