Joe Fairless' Journey From Madison Avenue To An $85 Million Real Estate Portfolio
In keeping with last weeks' real estate theme, Episode 25 of Ambition Today finds us across the table from Joe Fairless, Real Estate Investor and Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show.
In keeping with last weeks' real estate theme, Episode 25 of Ambition Today finds us across the table from Joe Fairless, Real Estate Investor and Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. Joe set his roots in advertising after a bit of soul-searching during his undergrad years at Texas Tech. Fighting complacency, he left Madison Ave. for the allure of real estate investing and entrepreneurship, and was met with incredible success, with due credit to his persistence and work ethic.
Owing his early sense of drive to his start in landscaping, Joe Fairless has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. After leaving his teenage lawn-mowing business, J&J Landscaping, Joe tried to cling to his high school football career by attending a junior college near his home town of Dallas. After transferring, he went on to graduate with a degree in advertising and quickly rose through the ranks of executive marketing, while investing in real estate as a side project and finding passion in that venture. Joe applied his trademark tenacity to his newfound love of investing and now controls approximately $85 million worth of rental property. Kevin digs into the factors behind Joe's success, and much more:
The seemingly hidden on-ramp of landscaping as a teenage job to eventually invest in real estate.
Exploring passions during college to find what interests you.
Applying lessons from the corporate world to an entrepreneurial startup.
Leaving a comfortable job to pursue your real dreams.
How to break into the shark-infested waters of commercial real estate.
The 75/25 rule of listening/asking when approaching mentors.
Acknowledging your strengths.
Acknowledging your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with people who help make up for them.
The grit of making your ambition come to life.
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"As a thought leader, how does ambition play a role in your life?"
Quote Of The Episode:
"Don't get caught up trying to be everywhere at once, find the platform that makes sense for your skill sets and what you enjoy doing. Then own it." - Joe Fairless
“Be different before being incrementally better.” - Joe Fairless
Links from this episode:
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
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How Matt Rodak Plans To Fund Every House Flip In America with Fund That Flip
Any amount of research into the seemingly eternal-growing market of real estate investment will almost surely make one familiar with Matt Rodak, Founder and CEO of Fund That Flip.
Matt Rodak
Any amount of research into the seemingly eternal-growing market of real estate investment will almost surely make one familiar with Matt Rodak. The 2007 John Carroll grad is the founder and CEO of Fund That Flip, a company which allows anyone to apply for fast and affordable funding in the rehabilitative real estate investment business. The New York based startup had already raised $2 million by April 2016, shortly after graduating from Manhattan's Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator in the summer of 2015 and Founder Institute New York prior to that. Fund That Flip finds its niche by bridging the gap between accredited investors and vetted real estate rehab projects in the U.S.
On this episode of Ambition Today, Matt Rodak discusses his seemingly inevitable entrepreneurial roots (despite his "best efforts") as the son of a business owner. He explains how his relationship with his father, and him owning his own company before and during college, led to Matt's on-again, off-again kinship with business ownership. Today, Matt capitalizes on the experiences of his youth by taking action to solve the problems he notices in his industry, such as streamlining the loan application process for prospective "flippers". We hear about his journey to where he is, his advice on how to get there, and much more:
Maturing in an entrepreneurial-spirited family.
Paying for college by advancing a teenage lawn-mowing gig to a profitable business that he was able to sell during his sophomore year at JCU.
Being introduced to the real estate market through his early exposure to landscaping.
What to study in college vs. what to leave to education via real-world experience.
Bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to a non-entrepreneurial position at a large business.
Using lessons from upper management to implement starting a business.
Creating a business to streamline and eliminate the fallacies of market norms.
Employing the JOBS Act to capitalize on a brand-new industry.
Ownership vs. Accountability in life.
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"How do you align the ambitions of your team with the ambitions of the company?"
Links from this episode:
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android.
Listen to this episode now:
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Lessons Howard Love Learned While Sitting On Both Sides Of The Table
Over the last 30 years Howard Love has founded 15 companies and invested in over 50 early stage startups. His new book "The Startup J Curve" organizes his experience into the 6 phases startups go through as they grow. Howard also is the Founder & CEO of LoveToKnow, a digital publishing firm with over 30 million monthly visitors.
HOWARD LOVE
Over the last 30 years Howard Love has founded 15 companies and invested in over 50 early stage startups. His new book "The Startup J Curve" organizes his experience into the 6 phases startups go through as they grow. Howard also is the Founder & CEO of LoveToKnow, a digital publishing firm with over 30 million monthly visitors.
With coal magnates and aviators as his ancestors, entrepreneurship has been in Howard's bloodline for generations. In this episode, Kevin speaks to Howard about what he has learned from sitting on both sides of the table, both as a founder and an investor. We also discuss the 6 phases all startups go through according to Howard's new book The Startup J Curve. We also hear about the value of getting a formal education versus learning directly from the real world and much more:
Growing up in a family that encourages and breeds entrepreneurial spirit.
Dropping out of college to get real world experience.
Being resourceful in the startup space.
The grit it takes to get your company off the ground.
The knowledge and insight gained from writing a book.
Advancing the dialogue of startup culture through understanding of the J-curve.
The phases of a company: create, release, morph, model, scale, and harvest.
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"When you think about the younger version of yourself, how do you reconcile where you are now, and where you thought you would be?"
Links from this episode:
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android.
Listen to this episode now:
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Swallow The Frog 🐸
“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the biggest one first.” -Mark Twain
"Swallow The Frog."
I heard that phrase recently. It wasn't the first time I heard it and apparently Mark Twain originally said it quite some time ago. His original Swallow The Frog quote was:
“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the biggest one first.” -Mark Twain
As human's we are all guilty of procrastination. In fact, it is actually programmed in us to do so.
Making sure you swallow a frog on your todo list each day is so important for progress in one's life and especially in entrepreneurship.
For some reason when Matt Rodak reminded me of the swallow the frog meaning in a recent conversation, it stuck with me. I woke up the next day, looked at my Todo list in ToDoist and starting swallowing some of the larger frogs on my list! I completed the items that I really hated doing normally and that had this stench of anxiety around completing. And I felt great afterword!
The best part about swallowing the frog earlier in the day is you don't spend the whole rest of the day thinking about it. It's done. It's gone. The progress is made and you can now use your brain power in other productive ways. And if you do the worst part of your day first thing in the morning then when bad things happen the rest of the day, they are quickly put in perspective as not that awful.
One little productivity hack I started to use that I think you might find useful is this. When I caught myself snoozing an item on my todo list or I found myself feeling anxiety around an item to work on, I started adding the frog emoji 🐸 in front of the task's name. That way the next time I looked at my todo list, I knew exactly which I item's I needed to accomplish first that day.
So tomorrow wake up and Swallow The Frog. Ensure you get the tasks you dread the most, done first each day! And if you have to swallow more then one frog each day (as most startups founders do) then make sure you swallow the ugliest and wart-iest first! And if you still need help, someone even wrote a swallow the frog book, which might be helpful.
Ambition Today: Cory Crosland of Croscon on Bootstrapping, Grammys, and the Future of Mobile.
On this episode of Ambition Today, I was joined by serial entrepreneur Cory Crosland. Cory is the founder of Croscon, an engineering company which partners with big thinkers to plan, engineer and support their digital business.
On this episode of Ambition Today, I was joined by Cory Crosland. Cory is the founder of Croscon, an engineering company which partners with big thinkers to plan, engineer and support their digital business.
Today we talk about how to bootstrap a company from one person just doing freelance work to a growing team of almost 20 people. How you can stay motivated years into your company. What it is like being nominated for a Grammy and winning a Webby Award. Also, what is the future of mobile now that Android has 1.4 billion users and much more.
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android.
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