[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the short term show. The show about short term rentals and.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Long term wealth with real property owners hosting real properties who are crushing it in the vacation and short term rental space.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: And here's your host, Avery Carle.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Hey y'. All, welcome back to another episode of the short term show. Today is the last day that I'm gonna have my not finished studio. So if you're watching on YouTube, sorry, this is the last time before it looks cool again. Anyway, got a few announcements. Still hiring in most of our markets. If you don't know what those are, you can go to the Shorttermshop.com and check them out. But specifically, we're hiring agents in Orlando, Myrtle Beach, Branson and the Smoky Mountains. So also Emerald coast as well. Just added that one. Also. Also hiring agents in the Emerald Coast. Be sure to also sign up for short term Shop plus free. So lots of cool stuff in there. It's an app and it is free. There's a paid version too, if you so choose. But we want to see you hanging out with us in short term Shop plus. That is it for announcements. Now we're going to move on to our extremely cool guest today, Andrew Llewellyn.
Great job. Yes, I had a hard time pronouncing.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: That, but I got a job pronouncing it.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Andrew, tell us a little bit about yourself. Say hello.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Hey. So I'm Andrew from Louisville, Kentucky, and we kind of specialize in short term rentals, specifically in larger groups like 10 to 30 people. And we're right here on the home of the Bourbon Trail right at the start. And it just makes it a really great place to have some bachelor parties, corporate retreats and other milestone events.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Awesome. Louisville. My cousin owns a few dog boarding places in Louisville called Bark.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Interesting. Oh, yes, I know about those. Great facilities.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Yep, my cousin owns those. Anyway, so let's talk about. I'm very interested in what it is you're doing because I feel like a lot of our listeners and just people who are interested in short term rental investing in general are terrified run the other direction of big groups of people renting their properties. But you specialize in big properties for big groups of people, right?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: That's, that's exactly what we do. And you know, I would say our first barrier to entry that, you know, we use to vet our guests. That's a big thing in short term rentals, as we all know, is price. And we, we really like people that can pay a higher price. We're not really trying to position ourselves as a Cheap option. We're trying to position ourselves as a different option, a better option, things like that, for larger groups that really want to focus on the experience and not, you know, planner. Timmy forgot, you know, to check the size of the beds and he put two, two of his 30 year old friends and a twin or you know, a double or whatever it is.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: We've all been there, right?
Did you, did you start with big properties? Did you say, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to only go big? Or did you start with smaller ones?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Funny enough, this whole kind of short term rental thing was an accident.
And originally the building I purchased was supposed to be a bakery on the first floor with some ice cream production because I had two ice cream trucks and a food food truck at that time. And there happened to be one Airbnb on the third floor of this building. It was pretty cool. And then two long term tenants so it could kind of sustain itself. And I really liked, you know, it's like, oh, it's a new business. Cool. It's like classic, like early entrepreneur, too many things going, too many.
So I'm glad we've gotten rid of that behavior. So that's awesome. But anyways, really early on we thought we did our due diligence. Well, the city had other options. They wanted us to put like a half a million dollar hood system in to bake blueberry muffins. And I didn't think I could sell enough blueberry muffins to justify a half a million dollar like hood vent. I don't know how much, you know, the listeners know about restaurants, but they're seriously expensive.
And so a friend of mine that had at the time one of the larger Airbnbs in Louisville, it was like 16 or 18 people, he said, oh, you should Airbnb this whole building. And I was like, you're out of your mind. Like haha. And so I'm like, now I'm back to the corner. And I'm like, well, maybe I should just model that on Excel and see what it looks like. And I was like, oh yeah, we should airbnb this whole place with the premise of it would be five separate units.
And I knew we could get away with that. And then I kind of had this idea in the back of my head, well, maybe there's these larger groups that just want individual bedrooms or they've got 30 people and they're willing to sleep two per bed. So we started with five apartment units and it's really just kind of meshed into only large groups and we do very few like apartment type stays.
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[00:05:41] Speaker C: Up a little bit and hear about the food truck and the ice cream truck because I feel like that is also very important when it comes to. To your journey, when it comes to starting a hospitality business that you've already been in that service industry. So tell me about those.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Those were a ton of fun. They were really difficult. It was hard work, but it was super fun. You know it. People don't come in an ice cream shop unless they're happy. So. And you're just kind of serving smiles all day. So that, that was an awesome aspect of it.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Ice cream shop.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't make any money post Covid, but.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Oh, do they not? They don't.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Because basically like we were making, we were doing decent and then Covid happened and like a 16 year old to scoop ice cream went from like $9 to $15 plus.
[00:06:33] Speaker C: Oh, I didn't think about that.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then our food costs went up 50% and then all of a sudden we became like, you know, you don't go to an ice cream shop and think you're gonna spend $15 a person. So we went from being like a snack to a meal. So we got like the triple whammy there.
But back to your question. The hospitality aspect, I mean, it really just taught you kind of like patience and learning what the customer wanted and didn't want and how to position yourself in the marketplace to be unique. And I think that's a huge aspect of what I brought from the restaurant industry into short term rental was how do you position yourself as something unique so you're not just like competing on price. You're not just another scoop of chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: Love that. And you also get the benefit of dealing with different people's personalities and learning how to not take things personally. So I think that's a really key aspect that a lot of people miss.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: And, and you know, to piggyback on that, not only the customer, but the employee. So we, we hire all of our own cleaners in house. And so understanding how to Manage the employees and, you know, getting them to follow the process that you want and get the results that you want and keep them engaged and on board is important. I've got. I've got two girls, top of mind right now, that have been with me for two years, cleaning.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: All right, so we start with the one building that's supposed to be a bakery, but they want you to spend a half a million dollars on a hood. How many muffins would you have to sell to make that up?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: I. I have no idea. I didn't even have to do the math. I was like, it's just like, it's too many. Like, I know that's. It's just bad money after bad money if we kept going down that road. And that's when I pulled out Excel and started looking up comps on Airbnb, nightly rates and occupancy and things like that.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: All right, so you got this one, and you get this thing off the ground, and it was an accident, and it's going pretty well.
So what was. What made it click with you to make you say, okay, I'm going to go buy another one of these things and it's going to be a big one?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Just. I mean, really, the. Our current1 is 10,000 square feet, so it's pretty big. And so just to continue that model, and we saw that we run about 70% occupancy, so it was like, oh, well, there's definitely more of a market, you know, that we could eat up here in Louisville for. For that product.
And we knew how to run it and just kind of like a little inside baseball that, you know, we really liked about it was we could fill it with 15 to 30 people, and we could get kind of a premium for nightly rate. And then it was really like serving just one really easy guest that was distracted with their group the entire time.
[00:09:22] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: So it was like they showed up, they checked in, and they didn't want anything else from us. So it's super easy to service.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Interesting. And that's exactly the opposite of what I think a lot of people assume about having a big property. So that's. I love that. So let's talk about cleaning. What's the. The. Not the cleaning fee on Airbnb, because you don't. They. They did away with that. It's rolled into the price per night now. So everybody who likes to yell at me on the Internet about cleaning fees, shut up. They don't even do that anymore. But what do you pay for Cleaning For a property that size, we pay.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Probably like 80 to $100 per unit to have it cleaned really well.
And then, you know, that depends on if we deep clean it or not. You know, anything.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: It was. How many bedrooms?
[00:10:11] Speaker B: You said 15.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Wait, so 15 bedrooms total?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: 15 bedrooms total. And then we vary between units of, between four and two.
And then we have a couple threes in there as well.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Do you only rent all of the units at once or will you rent them separately if needed to?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: We'll rent them separately if needed to. And then we have kind of a tiered system on the way. We open up the calendar to make sure that we don't get a single booking six months out so that we do get those larger bookings we want.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Well, let's hear about that. That gets, that gets super dorky. And I really want to like here, like, how do you come up with a process for this? Because that to me sounds like so difficult to wrap my mind around. Okay, we've got three bedrooms, we got two bedrooms. And how do we fix this so it doesn't block us from getting a bigger booking? So I, I want to hear about that. Super.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So if I get two in the weeds, just get me out.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: No, go all the way.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: We look at booking windows for different size units. Okay, well, let me back up here a little bit. We, we have like 75 to 100 metrics we measure every week. And then those turn into like 125 like measures that we kind of track to like make sure that we're pricing correctly for large groups. And then that we're also getting like that last minute, like, oh, it's Tuesday night and we have an individual unit. Like we might as well just fire sale it.
So. And then everything in between. So back to kind of the booking structure. Now that you have that context.
We, yeah, we look at the booking window basically and then kind of price accordingly from there. And we try to go for the, the full buyout and then we open up our combination units after that. And then as those smaller bedroom units become more desirable in the market. And then at the last minute, like I kind of said, like the one, the two bedroom and the three bedroom units Monday and Tuesday night that haven't moved. We just try to be the, we literally like compete on price at that point.
Just try to be the lowest in the market because it's a fixed cost business. So you're applying $75 to your fixed cost that you wouldn't have otherwise had.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: I think that little piece of it is also really important to remember because I hear investors all the time, they get really hung up on this. Price per night is my break even number. And I cannot book $1 below.
And they forget about, okay, well, you can book this. You know, here we are, it's this week. Your calendar this week is wide open and you can book zero dollars or you can book a little bit below what your break even number is and have some money to apply to your costs. I think that's a really important call out even on those little, little ones.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, there's. There's a concept that I've kind of studied. There's like cost accounting, which is I have my break even number and I don't go below that. And then there's throughput accounting is I have to, I have a fixed cost to cover and anything I can, you know, apply to it brings the fixed cost per day down. And like, if you're not putting like it's $100 a day to have the building empty, say, and you put $75 towards it. Yeah. You lost $25, but you lost 25, not 100.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Somebody in there.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: It's so crazy that there are two very. Just basic common sense ways to look at things that are completely the opposite. And it makes sense to some people. Some people are like, I can't go below that or I'm losing money.
But you're losing money if you don't go below it also.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like you're kind of. It almost becomes mitigating your loss in a way.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. And it happens. You know, there's ups and downs in all real estate, but short term rentals specifically.
And guys don't get discouraged if you have a bad couple of weeks. It's okay. You know, it's. It's a long term game. So let's talk about what you're looking for. What you're. You're standing in a property right now that you bought that looks like an old office building with the drop.
I know. I really did think it was the green screen, but now I'm like, why would he have that as a green screen? Does it make sense?
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Crazy green screen. So, yeah.
[00:14:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So is this your second acquisition after that first building that was supposed to be a bakery?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: This is.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: Okay, so tell me about this. And how'd you find it? What were you looking for? What are you gonna do?
[00:14:37] Speaker B: So we, you know, originally the building that we had had some office space in it that we converted into apartment units to be able to run this STR concept.
And so we started, you know, looking around and noticing that office was going for, like, really cheap in the downtown Louisville area. And so we just, you know, started looking at anything and everything, Taking the architect with me on showings. That way he could say, you know, really quickly, yes, I can fit, you know, what you want in here, or no, this is not going to work.
So we probably under. I want to say I underwrote probably 60 different buildings. Yeah, just like, crazy numbers. I know. And, you know, but a lot of those are, like, real quick. It's like, there's no way that's ever going to work. Like 10 minutes and it's done. And then we found this one. It had been on the market for, like, 4, 450 days.
It had three sets of tenants in it, all on verbal month to month leases.
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Verbal.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
One was an adult daycare, and it was just like. And they were all at half the market rent. And so no matter which way you cut it, it was like, as soon as you bought it, it was gonna. You were gonna, like, start writing checks to the. To the. The property.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: I mean, I can see why an owner would never want to raise the rent on an adult daycare. I could see how you get in that situation. Nobody would, like. I would feel terrible. I. I wouldn't be able to do it.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Well, not only did they not raise the rent, but they halved the rent on them during COVID and never put it back up, so. And yeah. Yeah, so we worked with those guys and really tried to be patient with them and find them a new place. And this is the area I'm standing in actually, is way nicer than the first floor that they were on. And they. They really needed a new, updated, better place, and they needed a better home.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: And so we kind of, you know, worked with them. I even went to the is. I tried to do the right thing. Like, I'm kicking them out of their place. And, you know, that's kind of morally a questionable thing to do. Adult daycare. Right. And so.
So I even took them to, you know, some leasing meetings to, you know, get them some really good realtors that specialized in the office space that they needed. And we found them a home and got them. Got them on their way and got the other guys on their way as well.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Well, that's really sweet of you. I think a lot of people would have just been like, okay, hit the road by.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we. We like to sleep at night. You Know. I don't know.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. Something about sleeping at night. That's attractive.
Okay, so how big is this place? How. What are you planning to do to it? You said. So it's 10,000 square feet or you existing one's 10,000.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: My existing one's 10,000. This one will be like 18,000.
And yeah, we'll have almost, I want to say like almost 3,000 square feet of a common area at this one. Kind of a game room, conference room, hangout area, chef's kitchen, that. That type of deal.
[00:17:45] Speaker C: Okay, love that.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: And what all do you have to do to it? Because I imagine you're not going to leave the drop ceilings in the office behind you that way. So what's that going to look like?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. This was, this was not our intention to leave any of this. It's all behind me. It's all coming out.
And there's. There's a couple. I wish I could walk around and show you, but there's a couple little unique features in here. There's a freight elevator that's got some cool old clamshell doors. We're going to repurpose those into headboards for a couple of the beds.
So there's a little bit that'll get safe, but we'll end up putting, let's see, eight four bedroom, two bath apartment style units in here.
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Okay, and what did you pay for this and what do you expect to put into the rehab and what do you expect it to gross when you're finished?
[00:18:36] Speaker B: We paid just around 1 million for it. And then we'll probably have like another two and a half in renovations in it and will probably do around eight. Eight or nine hundred thousand out of it.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: Eight or nine hundred thousand?
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: My goodness. Okay, let me back up and ask you, what is the existing one grossing? We didn't hit that around 4.
My goodness. So it's grossing 400,000 and you paid how much for that?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: That one was like just such an outlier. It's not real. I paid 900 for that one.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. So you paid 900? Building that is gonna. That is grossing 400 and something. Thousand.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I snapped that one up right on the back end of COVID when no one. It was. It was madness to buy that thing with like, there was no, like, vaccine. There was nothing happening. And it was just like, you know, we might as well just do it. Like what? You know, it was like kind of in this like, really questionable neighborhood. I was questionable on whether the neighborhood was gonna turn around or not so it was kind of like capturing lightning on a bottle accidentally. There was no skill in that.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Maybe a little bit of skill. Sometimes it takes a little bit of magic. But it does take skill to keep the magic going. So don't sell yourself short.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Wow. That's amazing. Those numbers are insane.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: And both of these properties are in Louisville.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: In Louisville, yeah.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: So I just, I grew up. There's a town in Mississippi 30 minutes from where I grew up called Louisville. And it is so hard for me to say Louisville correctly because of that.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Well, the nice thing is there's like 15 official pronunciations of Louisville.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:20:23] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: So you just like, you just kind of just falls off your. Just let it fall out of your mouth.
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Okay, so we're, we're making this a bunch of apartment style units. It should do 800 to 900,000, man.
Yeah, that's nuts. And I think this is really interesting too because I think everybody in the real estate world was kind of wondering post Covid, what's going to happen with all of this commercial property that, you know, people don't have to go into the office anymore. A lot of people are working from home now that kind of has stuck and is here to stay. What happens to all these commercial properties? And I think you're doing a really good job of repurposing and turning them into something that can cash flow apparently quite a bit.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, I think it's another unique, another unique thing about Louisville. It's, it's very difficult. The permitting and the, the red tape process to even get going is just like unreal. So there's, you know, just not a lot in the market and not a lot of people willing to like go in and do that that aren't building 300, you know, room hotels.
It's, it's just hard at this level, let's put it that way.
[00:21:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So the people who have that ability are probably doing other things, you know, big like single family developments or hotels or things like that. So I think this is a really interesting asset class and strategy that you stumbled upon by accident because you wanted to make blueberry muffins. I love it.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
You know, it's, it's, it's interesting. I don't know how. And you know, if this is too in the weeds, again, just tell me.
I think it's an interesting asset class because you get rewarded for real estate at a real estate level for operating a business.
And if you just opened a business and operated it this well, if you were to exit it, you wouldn't get rewarded this well.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: Right?
[00:22:15] Speaker B: That's an interesting aspect about it that I like.
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[00:23:09] Speaker C: Is the exit in your strategy or do you plan to just hold these? Because I mean that's a, that's a lot of money that you're making and that's a really good business, I think, to hold on to even, not to even exit.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: It's, it's. I've got, you know, we've got some numbers internally, high and low, you know, that we would, we would exit on and you know, really just depends on the cash flow and the need for other capital and you know, whether the banks are willing to kind of let us grab some capital out of them.
You know, if it were today and we needed to go do a third project, we would probably have to sell the existing one just because you can't get the, the money out at the same interest rate that you could, you know, during COVID or just prior.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Right.
So what are you using to manage these properties? What, what's your tech stack look like?
[00:24:01] Speaker B: So we have guessy for pro. So that's running all of our listings and then we have price Labs. That's, that's, we really, that's a really good one. Oh yeah, we spend a ton of time in Price Labs and. But you do have to manage to, to be clear, you have to manage price labs because sometimes it does really goofy stuff. Or for us, with the large groups, you know, we may have a big event coming to town, like Louder Than Life, the concert series. And it like took our price and like 3 xed it and it just was like crazy to the point where we weren't going to book. So we had to like bring that back down into reality. But if we were an individual unit, it probably would have been correct.
But those events just don't draw large groups. And then we use, we use eos. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's not really a tech Stack. And it's not really a short term rental specific thing, but Gino Wickman wrote this book called Traction.
So we use kind of that over the entire system to have like, you know, weekly meeting rhythm to keep score, to know who's responsible for what. And that's, that's our biggest driver to keep the train on the tracks.
[00:25:16] Speaker C: That's a great book, guys. Gino Wickman, Traction. I haven't read that in several years, but I did, I read it when I was first starting my real estate business and it's so great.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: So great.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: It's a great one.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Top five. Really? Really? Just guess the price labs, the. What's the one with the locks?
I forget. Remote lock.
Yeah, yeah, they're kind of, you know, like they're way deep in the tech stack, so kind of.
But yeah, those are, those are the ones we use. And then we use Guesty for all our automated messaging and then we use the back end of our own website for the guidebook.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Okay, love that. Well, one thing that has come to my mind, a question that's come to my mind while you've been talking is how are you financing these? Because this is a very specific strategy that I feel like a lot of banks are going to be like, hell no. I don't know you, I'm not doing a hospitality. This is commercial. Like, what, what are you trying to do? This is crazy. I'm not doing that.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's, you know, that's, that's exactly my experience.
We're trying to get this, we're trying to get this one financed. I talked to 40 banks and got 38 no's.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yep, yep. And, and then one sort of maybe yes to a term sheet. And then they were like, well, you know, we're not actually interested. So. And then I got one to get me through. So we actually used SBA504 to do it because we had two years of operating experience on our operating entity.
So we have two. We have a holding company for the real estate and then we have an operating entity that we use with Guest.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: And how long does it take for an SBA loan to go through?
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Like six, eight months.
It was a long process.
Yeah.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: So guys, I hope you're listening to that because so many people are like, oh, yeah, it's going to be like residential and we'll close in 30, in 30 to maybe 60 days tops. No, it's, it can take the better part of a year to get a business like that closed. So make sure that you're able to. You make sure that you underwrite accordingly and measure your close date correctly, because it can throw off your whole timeline. If you're thinking you're going to close 60 days out and then the rehab is going to take another 60 days and you're going to be up and running for high season, you may not. So you might want to make sure that you have the capital to carry it through whatever your low season is, depending on when it's going to close. So those timelines can affect a lot of. So pay attention.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: And. And that. And that SBA 504 process. I don't know if you guys have been through it, but it is. It is like, invasive down to, like, they're like, let us see your accounts payable and accounts receivable in detail, line by line. And you're like, wow, okay, sure. And so. And then they're like, asking questions and enter. They get into, like, intercompany receivables. And like, I sent, like, you know, a thousand bucks to this company to use for something, and they, like, want to know the detail on that. And it was 18 months ago, and I'm like, I don't know my own money over there.
So very deep. Yeah, it'll make you get. You'll get good at your numbers.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: You'll have to.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: So when you're new and you're trying, you don't have this track record of two years. How were you able to get that first one?
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, so the first one we had the track record of the ice cream shop.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, right. Different kind of business. And then it wouldn't work. Yeah, you're right.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: And. And, you know, I was lucky enough. My dad was like, I'm tired of you seeing, paying. Of seeing you pay rent. Like, let me know, like, what I can do to help you, like, buy this property. And it was, you know, a million dollars is a lot of money, but it was right under a million dollars. So it was a little bit easier for the. The banks to get their head wrapped around and, you know, they thought it was a decent asset. And most small banks, you know, you don't even have to go to the board of directors for under a million.
[00:29:16] Speaker C: Okay. So you just snuck right in there.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Snuck right in there.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: Is there anything about your story, because we're getting to the end of the show, Anything about your story that you feel like our listeners would benefit from hearing that I have not asked you about?
[00:29:30] Speaker B: I think just, you know, finding a mentor, joining a group, getting around people to hold you accountable. That's been the biggest driver, you know, in my personal growth. I wouldn't, I don't know about the success. It's hard to judge that, you know, as, as me and, you know, my own success, but, you know, just the growth and staying in it and keeping, keeping your head on straight. You know, times do get tough, but, you know, having that group really helps in all aspects of running a business.
[00:30:00] Speaker C: Absolutely. All right, on to the final three questions. First question, what advice would you give 20 year old Andrew if you knew then what you know now?
[00:30:12] Speaker B: I would go back to when I was 26, right before I opened the ice cream shop.
This is a story for the, the context of this is for a whole nother day I was a part of a team that was buying a helicopter. Not normal. And.
Yeah, right. So I was working for a guy and you know, the, the other guys on the team were like, hey, we have to check that what the sales guy said is going to really work in reality so that this helicopter will go where we want it to with, you know, the interior that the guy I was working for wanted in it. And it wouldn't.
And it was like, you know, all this millions of dollars was about to be spent and just by doing our own math and verifying what the sales guy said, you know, saved a huge blow up and all sorts of, you know, trials and tribulations and probably people losing their jobs. But I use that lesson today.
Trust the sales guy, but verify what he says, you know, with your own real world numbers.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Always, always, you have to know how to analyze yourself. Don't, don't pay people to do it. These are things you need to know how to do to be successful.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: That's, that's a great point. Don't pay people to do it. I mean, you have to, you have to know through experience whether there's an error in there and how to spot the error, because they don't, they don't care. They're not on the bank loan.
[00:31:36] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly.
Okay, next, what advice would you give a new investor who's looking to get started today?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Well, I think I jumped the gun.
Join a group. Really? That's been the, that's been the biggest, the biggest driver of my education is going, you know, and finding other people taking courses. You know, all those things, you know, like $2,000 for a course. You're like, man, that's like 2,000 bucks. But it puts you so far ahead.
You get to, you get to learn other people, you get to pay to learn other people's lessons. And that could put you six, eight, you know, two years ahead of where you would otherwise be. And that's how we got, you know, our pricing and all of our processes working so well so quickly with the first building was taking courses and, you know, sitting there kind of figuring it out using their. Their roadmaps.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Great advice. And last, you can't say traction because you already said it. What's your favorite book that's impacted your mindset?
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Favorite book? There's a. There's a really obscure book called what I Learned Losing a Million Dollars about a guy that was trading commod commodities on the Chicago stock market, I think in like the 70s or 80s. But the lesson from the book was where are we getting in and where are we getting out at the. At the top and the bottom of the market? So that when you hit the top and you've hit your high number, you've, you know, I'm getting out here because it may just go back down and then the bottom. So you don't just stay in it thinking it's going to go back up. And then another book that I just absolutely love is Zero to one of Blake Masters about, you know, competition is for losers, finding a good position in the market and, you know, starts are so important that momentum at the start is such a big indicator of how the rest of a project is going to go.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Great recommendations.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: So if our listeners want to follow you on social media or reach out to you or see what you're doing, find your properties, how do they do that?
[00:33:43] Speaker B: So I'm on social media. I am Andrew Llewelyn, and right there at the bottom. And then also you can find
[email protected] love it.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: Thank you so much for coming on. And guys, we will catch you on the next episode.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you, Sam.
