Jacob

28. Trying to escape my W-2, so far 6 failed businesses. Currently building a painting company.

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Quick summary of my journey: graduated in 2020, have had 6 W-2 jobs since then (fired couple times, quit a couple times). In an effort to escape W-2 I have started 6 businesses, all failed. Here’s the list

-Airbnb
-jiu jitsu apparel brand (ha)
-long term rental RE
-email marketing agency
-house flipping
-RE wholesaling
-AI tool (really a web scraper)
-local email newsletter (not a complete failure, makes a little money)

With all that in tow, I’m starting a painting company (remotely) to escape my W-2 and will document it here.

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Anybody else estimating and quoting paint job remotely? Is it just wishful thinking on my part to think this is possible or is it a real thing?

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Sometimes it’s so hard to be objective about your business and take the advice you would give anyone else. So looking at the numbers can help.

Spent $800 in ads for $5,800 in gross margin. 7.3x LTV/CAC. AND I have more painters than jobs currently.

Spend. More. Duh.

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@AlexLathery Slowly learning this the hard way! Thanks for the info

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

First 10 days of having a painting company, closed almost exactly $10,680 in booked rev (deposits collected). Had to refund the $680 job. Now, time to paint…

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

What kind of CPL are other painting companies seeing? Right now mine are $15, they started at $60

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Closed my 3rd full exterior job Sunday, now at around 14k in revenue basically 2 weeks in!!

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Other small painting companies, however do you pay your painters? Are they W-2? Contract per job? Hourly? If so how do you track hours?

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@AlexLathery Roger that, been trying to quote over the phone….already seeing the issues with that

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Other small painting companies, what is your average gross margin on an exterior job? 50%?

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@skylarstew Gonna start aiming for that!

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

First paint job I booked, I called my painter (only one I had). Paid him for the materials and half his labor up front. He ran off and ghosted me. In the last 10 days I have sourced 6 solid painters (2 teams of 2, and 2 solo guys). Have 4 guys fully busy, trying to book out the next 2.

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Painting startup update: in week two here booked our second job, $4,500 in booked revenue, deposit collected. Only about 2k in gross margin but we will take it

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

My suspicion is - this painting business will be a supply constrained business. At least it is for now, I’ve got two jobs and nobody to do them. Hard to find labor I can trust for $25/hr in the Midwest

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

Week one building my remote painting company: Ran some Meta ads last week and got a couple jobs. Did a phone sale at Lowe’s for the materials with my painter and pre paid him $625 for part of the labor. He ran off with the materials and the $625 and blocked me after completing maybe 25% of the smaller job, had to give the customer their deposit back also. Damn. Now just scrambling to find new painters to do the second job before I have to return the deposit for that too

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@_nickstaley At best, this is misleading

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@MarketPalmer_ Returns vary….its always worth the money on a good deal. Buy at a good price to buy into equity and find a good tenant. Once you have a good tenant it it truly is not that much work. I also only think the returns are good (worth it) if you self manage

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

I price drop sometimes, but I only ever enter at a price that works. So we get it under contract for 100k, get a buyer at 115k. Then go back to seller and say “based on what we saw in walk through blah blah, we can only do 90k but we can remove the due diligence and bring closing forward to this week” and BOOM you made an extra 10k with a 5 minute convo

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@vrexec I live in NYC and know some of these people. It’s a keeping up with the Joneses type thing. “Sure I could retire, but Billy is gonna keep working and will have more money than me!”

For some people money is not freedom it is status, usually it’s a combo of both.

[Jacob @JacobR_RE]

@Upstatebigmouth @Benny_the_Bull @Neiobi @ShowMeYourCIM True, even still, all the work it takes to double check and make sure your pro PM isn’t taking advantage of you and negotiating each work order with them is more expensive.

You need 1 VA managing your rental portal and one decent boots on the ground guy you can pay $25/hr.