Hello Bryan, these are good questions. I was in your shoes a couple years ago. Here are my thoughts about what you should do:
1. Really know your stuff. You want to be really well educated to show to the potential investor that you are serious and someone who is going to make them money. If they start asking you questions and you can't answer any of them it is a bad look.
2. Know your market. When you wake up instead of scrolling on socaial media scroll through zillow. Eat, sleep, breathe your market. I want you to know it so well that when a new one comes up you think, "oh I haven't seen this one before". Analyze deals over and over again so that you know your market well enough that in a 10 second glance you can get a pretty good idea of how the property might do.
3. Analyze the property in depth. Have a spreadsheet that shows a conservative estimate of revenue, expenses, and what their return will be. If it is not a simple project have a summary of the plan.
4. You definitely want to have thought through the partnership structure already. My question to you would be what are you looking for from the partner? To be honest 20/80 is kind of a low split even for your first deal. If it is your only way to make it happen then that is fine. 20% of a deal is better than 0% but I would start off asking for more.
5. Have a deal so juicy that they can't say no. This is how I did it. If it is a run of the mill deal then there is no reason for them to partner with you when they could just do it themselves. This is the hard part because everyone wants an amazing deal and a lot of the people looking for those amazing deals have more resources and connections than you do. This means you need to make a great deal out of something other people are passing up, find a niche that is less explored in your market.
When it comes to posting in the forum, it can't hurt but I wouldn't count on it. You will likely have more success reaching out to people in your current network or expanding your network through things like meetups and networking events.
I hope this is helpful, feel free to reach out if you have more questions!
