What I’m thinking about: The energy and alignment proper focus brings…coupled with the visceral pain of subtraction.
Over the last couple of months, some of you have been asking, “Any update on Land Pricer?” (an AI-enabled software built to reliably price land)
I’ve hinted at some updates, here’s where things stand:
For much of the past year, the tension of running two businesses was weighing on me (e.g. blown deadlines, being over budget, existential turmoil), particularly as it became apparent that the marketing, sales, and ops for Land Pricer did not overlap with Serious Land Capital (SLC) as much as originally anticipated…
…And the learning curve and resources required to build an excellent software product continued to punch me in the face.
In need of advice, I attended a private mastermind hosted by one of my earliest business mentors, Ryan Levesque, a top-notch internet marketer and best-selling author, who now focuses on the Digital Contrarian, which inspires my newsletter.
Within the past couple of years, Ryan, and his business partner Richard, sold their info product business AND software business for a retire-and-live-in-luxury amount of money.
Few folks could provide as qualified an opinion on my situation as these two guys.
As we sat at Ryan’s 100+ acre farm in one of the most beautiful towns in Vermont, I reserved my hotseat to attempt to resolve my SLC and/or Land Pricer question.
There was a lot of great advice shared, but the takeaway from Ryan and Richard?
“In retrospect, we regret not just focusing on one company. Even though we had a great exit, we would’ve made a lot more money if we had gone all-in on one business.”
Hard to be more clear than that.
Without question, I’d choose SLC as the primary operation. If there were two of me, I’d run both companies, but at my current skill level and set of resources, only one is feasible now.
SLC is already proven (we just had our most profitable year to date in the midst of the worst RE market in 20 years), I enjoy the day to day more, and there’s at least the same monetary potential as Land Pricer has, though perhaps slower (which is fine since we have a 50+ year vision).
Given how far along the Land Pricer product was though, I set a 6-month deadline to ship an MVP and then potentially sell the company to a strategic partner or find another operator to take over the day-to-day.
Again we didn’t choose to start Land Pricer for giggles. It was built with SLC’s needs and rigorous standards in mind…which extended to other land investors. And if another company came out with a pricing software that fits the standards we needed, I’d gladly close up shop. So far, nothing is even close, unfortunately.
Even with that deadline, a validated MVP was still further away than anticipated (what I thought would take a few days would more realistically take a few months), particularly as we conducted real-world pricing exercises.
Around this time, I attended the live event with Alex Hormozi, and anyone who follows Hormozi’s content knows how often he dissuades entrepreneurs from running more than one business.
This was hammered home being in a room with 100 other business owners and about a third of them were in the EXACT same situation as me, trying to run more than one business…and many of them attempting an AI software play, anticipating a sizable exit.
No special snowflakes.
After the fifth identical story, Alex started interrupting and filling in the gaps, already anticipating what these other business owners were going to say.
Very apparent during all of this is that there was a reason we were in the audience, and Hormozi was on the stage sporting a net worth of $250M+. Results don’t lie.
At the end of the event, Alex’s team reminded us that intelligence equals the rate of learning. Learning requires making decisions and taking action. So the faster you make decisions, and act on them, the quicker you learn.
Shell-shocked, I left knowing that I had to accelerate ending my day-to-day operation of Land Pricer, my split focus was costing SLC thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars…EACH day I delayed.
There were a few groups who had already identified themselves as being interested in running daily ops for Land Pricer, and if they didn’t move forward, worst case I would sunset the company, as painful as that would be to swallow.
Talks are ongoing. I’m optimistic that one of these opportunities will solidify, and we’ve already had demos in front of 9-figure real estate operators, reinforcing the idea that we’re solving a real problem for the industry.
I’d still be involved as a board member and domain expert (and customer), which is a much better fit while I remain purely focused on operating SLC…and giving our clients and our team my UNDIVIDED attention.
Whether I’m at the helm or not, bringing a software product to market that positively impacts the land industry, and enables other entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams, is still the gameplan.
In the meantime, I’ve resolved to never start a new business…unless and until I can step away from my primary operation for at least 3 months, and the business not only doesn’t burn down, but GROWS.
We aren’t there yet…and in the meantime, there’s a specific excellence in doing ONE thing at a world-class level, and NEVER stopping.
SLC deserves that. YOU deserve that.
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Need funding from an operator with zero distractions? Serious Land Capital has my complete focus. No split attention pulling me away from underwriting your deal with world-class rigor.
We’re actively deploying capital on 2X+ margin opportunities. $50K minimum purchase price. Same institutional-grade standards, now with 100% of my bandwidth.
