A reminder of who I am:
I’m 34 years old. I started a moving and storage company out of college which we sold in 2020 for 7 figures. In 2017 we built our first storage facility for $2.9 million. It’s worth north of $10 million today and we’ve refinanced a few times. It has put life changing money in my pocket.
I went on to spend 2020-2021 building a real estate private equity firm. We now own 63 properties with a total basis of $100 million and a value north of $150 million.
I’m now working to grow a massive personal brand to fuel several other companies I have launched over the last two years.
I’ve started 8 companies over the past year. They are all fueled by my personal brand. I attract talent and customers to the companies using this newsletter and my Twitter account.
I haven’t sold an advertisement on this newsletter in over a year. Every promotion you see here is for a company I own.
I shared a breakdown of my current net worth ($25 million) recently. You can check that out here.
My strategy is simple:
I use my social media network (mostly Twitter and this newsletter) to recruit world class operators and then partner with them on a new business. I generally own more than 50% of the companies that we launch from scratch.
This email is an update on how it is all going and how I plan to build a $1 billion empire of business:
Bold prediction:
5 of these companies will be valued north of $50 million in the next 10 years and ALL of them will do over $1 million of revenue in 2024.
Here’s the update 1 by one:
SELF STORAGE – Our real estate private equity company and self storage management company are running very well. This is a sleeping giant. It is still my main focus and will be the main source of my wealth as I age.
We’re operating efficiently and prepared to buy a ton of real estate over the next several years. It has been a slow year as rates have risen.
My operating team here is phenomenal and they are laser focused on managing risk and navigating a difficult market at the moment. Our debt is fixed, our properties are performing (except a couple small ones) and we are well positioned to weather the storm.
- Age: 6 years
- Employees: 45
- My ownership: 50% (of the upside, we are general partners)
- Monthly revenue: $2 million +
- Estimated Enterprise Value: $200 million
REAL ESTATE ENGINEERING – RE Cost Seg was launched in June of 2022 and we got our first customer in July. It is going exceptionally well. We have 20 people on the team and we’ll do nearly $300k of revenue this month.
I use this company to cost segregate all of my real estate and shelter my income from all of these other companies from taxes. Here is how it works.
- Age: 14 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 19 employees
- My ownership: 45%
- Monthly Revenue: $200k +
- Estimated Enterprise Value: $10 million +
- Twitter handle: @recostseg
OVERSEAS RECRUITING – Support Shepherd isn’t one I started. I got involved as an affiliate when it was doing $40k of monthly revenue in April of 2022. I took an ownership stake in April of 2023 when it had 7x’d in size. My partner Marshall is the majority owner and a KILLER operator.
This company fuels all of my other companies with amazing talent in LATAM and the Philippines. I’ve made over 50 hires through Shepherd and it is my #1 cheat code to grow companies.
Overseas talent = lower cost and MORE talented people. My average compensation overseas is $1k per month ($5 per hour).
July was its first month with over $1 million of revenue and we are growing fast.
- Age: 4 years
- Employees: 150+
- My ownership: 12.75%
- Monthly Revenue: $1 million and growing
- Estimated Enterprise Value: $25 million +
- Twitter handle: @weareshepherd
WEB DEVELOPMENT – WebRun was started next – it is about 7 months old and it has been the most challenging / rewarding project of the bunch. I use them to build all of the websites for all of these other companies.
Building websites is hard and we’ve had turnover on our team. We sold a lot of work early but have had some delivery issues lately where we are behind schedule. The sites we are putting out are excellent and we’re excited about the progress, but our systems need improvement.
We got some consulting a few weeks back and it has made a massive difference. We also cut off new twitter promotion and newsletter ads in late July (because of the deliverability issues) but we sold $60k+ of work in August so far. Wild!
- Age: 6 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 8 employees
- My ownership: 50%
- Monthly Revenue: $50k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: less than $500k
- Twitter handle: @webrunlabs
PROPERTY INSURANCE BROKERAGE – Titan Risk is the sleeping giant. We used this company to knock $80k off of our insurance premiums across our storage portfolio and my long time business partner is CEO of this endeavor (so I’m 100% sure it will be massive).
We’ve also attracted a phenomenal producer with 30 years experience and a great account manager.
The sales cycle is long. The admin headache of licensing and permitting is tough. Relationships with carriers are slow to build. But we have some GREAT irons in the fire and my money is still on this company to be the largest in my non-real-estate portfolio (and the most valuable) 5 years from now.
- Age: 6 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 3 employees
- My ownership: 70%
- Monthly Revenue: $10k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: less than $500k
- Twitter handle: @titanrisk1
US RECRUITING – Recruit Jet is 6 months old and gaining traction fast. We collected a $40k+ placement fee on Friday and we’re well over $150k in revenue with only 1 operator + 1 admin.
We have great inbound from new clients and my operator is an absolute stud. He is doing a ton of recruiting for me inside of my companies as well – recently placing an acquisitions pro.
Recruiting is a damn good business and I’m excited about this one. Good talent fuels all of my companies as well so I’ll be one of my largest customers here.
- Age: 6 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 1 employee
- My ownership: 80%
- Monthly Revenue: $50k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: less than $500k
- Twitter handle: @hiringfirm
LOCAL SEO / LINKBUILDING – Bold SEO is one of the most exciting – with over $83k of monthly recurring revenue on the books at the 3 month mark. We bought another agency’s book and brought over a KILLER operator as well.
The most exciting thing about this business is it’s impact on my portfolio so far. A few links for my brother’s lawn care company over 2 months took him to #1 on Google and the same thing is happening at my storage properties. More on that here.
Being able to rank my businesses on Google is a superpower – and I’ll use this company as the ace up my sleeve as I buy and invest in more small businesses.
Operationally this one is tough. Dealing with building all the links and sourcing / writing the content is a logistical challenge but we’re hiring fast to get on top of it.
- Age: 3 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 3 employees and growing fast
- My ownership: 55%
- Monthly Revenue: $85k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: ~$1m
- Twitter handle: @boldseo
BUSINESS BROKERAGE – NickHuber.com is also a long sales cycle but it is going exceptionally well.
We’ll be going out to market with three companies worth $15 million + combined over the next few weeks. This could mean 7 figures of commission for us with our team of 3. The dealflow is great as my distribution to sell companies has struck a chord with a lot of business owners.
I hired my father @TimHuber1964 in this business, which was super rewarding and we’re bonding over my favorite thing in this world – business. He’s also seeing what I’m building up close and running special projects for me – and he said he is proud of me – which is what I’ve always been after.
The two folks we hired to help my father are KILLERS and I’m thrilled with the progress.
I think this will morph into a large real estate brokerage over time as well and we’re close to listing a few properties as well. My reach could really disrupt that part of the game.
My long term game plan:
Use this brokerage to take an equity stake or buy several companies a year myself. Layer on all the services above to grow them, repeat. I’m not there from a cashflow perspective – need to bank serious cash to play these games, but it will happen eventually.
- Age: 4 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 2 employees
- My ownership: 100%
- Monthly Revenue: $0k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: $0
- Twitter handle: @brokermybiz
PAID ADS – AdRhino is brand new and specializes in mainly local Google Ads management. 3 employees along with an incredible operator are working magic at my real estate company and just now taking on a few outside clients.
Our plan is to knock it out of the park for a few of my companies and then start marketing for outside business.
- Age: 2 months
- Employees: 1 operator + 3 employees
- My ownership: 60%
- Monthly Revenue: $10k
- Estimated Enterprise Value: less than $500k
- Twitter handle: @paidadspro
PEST CONTROL – @_ColemanS and I partnered on a new branch of his pest control company in California. I’m a 25% partner and the branch is bringing on a lot of clients this summer already – with nearly $1 million of annual recurring revenue.
Web Development and SEO from the companies above have been needle movers here already.
BOOK – I’m close to confirming a book deal for my first book which will come out in spring of 2025. This will be a big part of the flywheel and I’ll work hard to knock this out of the park.
It’ll be about business, management, marketing and building companies.
Two failures:
TaxCreditHunter.com failed. We just couldn’t find legitimate companies that still needed ERC credits and it was SUCH a slimy industry. Too many companies demanding credits even when they didn’t qualify and too many other bad actors slinging these services in crappy ways. We hired an operator but it didn’t work out. Despite me pushing HARD in my newsletter and getting almost 13k followers on the twitter account.
BlueKeyCapital will become a reality – but I’ve failed to find an operator so far. Brokering debt could be a massive opportunity for me (along with actually brokering real estate soon). But the timing isn’t right with the market and with more cash I’ll be able to recuit a killer with an offer they can’t refuse.
Holding company / Personal Brand:
The last 5 months I’ve hired 5 people to work at the holding company level. Head of content, copywriter, operations, video editor, admin. The team is performing exceptionally well.
They are helping me with all of the admin of the companies + the content you read here and across other socials.
I’m spending $50k + per month on email acquisition across my marketing spend and social ads. I have another $30k of monthly overhead with the talent at this level that I’m investing in.
This will morph into a $1m + per year line item very soon and I’ll continue to invest in the personal brand growth. It is the key to all of these companies.
If I can break into more of a main-stream influencer across some other channels it’ll amplify all of this. The book will help.
A few notes:
All of these companies are promoted without paid ads as of right now (except for two). I tweet about the companies, build the follower lists and vouch for the companies in this newsletter which is up over 190,000 subscribers.
All of the operators for all of these companies were recruited through Twitter. I met them all here. Several employees were recruited by @weareshepherd and the US based folks @hiringfirm.
These companies have a big referral synergy already – sending customers back and forth who need different services. We have a 15% referral fee going around inside and my operators have started working closely and sending referrals freely.
There are 10+ clients who have used 5+ of my services already to grow / improve their companies. That is exciting for future growth.
I’m excited that more of my operators are beginning to collaborate and I’ll be hosting an operators summit here in Athens GA where I bring in all the members of my team for a 3 day workshop / mastermind in the next few months.
Engagement on Twitter is down – but it has never been better for funneling warm leads to my individual companies. This place is insanely valuable – probably driving north of $1 million per month of revenue to all of my companies.
People still don’t understand me there and there is a lot of “I can’t believe you are friends with Nick Huber” going around the circles. I’ve toned down the negative posts and might move away from them all-together. I just can’t help myself from having fun at times.
It is hard to judge humor on Twitter and a lot of important people take my rage bait tweets as serious and it tarnishes my profile. One of the reasons why I changed my profile photo to a bit more serious look.
I wouldn’t sell my Twitter account for $50 million.
The number one question I get:
How do you still do so much fun stuff and how are there enough hours in a day to run all of these companies?
The answer:
I’m not running them. My thesis is to find smart people, motivate them with great compensation or equity, and put them at the helm.
Simply put:
I find capable people and put them between me and the problems.
That said – let me make a confession:
This stuff is hard. It is scary. It is uncomfortable. It doesn’t come without its problems and insanely difficult situations. But if you want to do special things, you’ll always have discomfort and stress. It’s part of the game.
Thanks for reading and supporting – I couldn’t do it without you all.
Onward and upward!
Nick Huber
P.S.
One of the most common questions I get:
Who run’s your pay-per-click ads on Google?
Well I have big news.. I partnered with the best performance marketer I know and have spent the last 3 months building an agency that is now ready to take on more clients.
If you’re a service business I highly recommend AdRhino. They run campaigns for us at 63 self storage locations and they do a great job.
If you’re spending money on ads in your town, set up a call with AdRhino!