I spent 24hrs with a blue collar millionaire

hey everyone this is a very special episode it's meant for youtube but so i know you're listening to this right now on like spotify or apple podcast whatever but go to youtube right now and watch it this episode is where i go with a guy named mark who i found on instagram and he restores browns stones and i asked him everything about his financials how the business works but it was a very visual thing so we decided to make it a video so again go to youtube or you could just listen it right now you're probably at the gym or on your way to work but i hope you guys enjoyed this episode let us know in the comments if you want more of this type of stuff and i hope you like it i feel like i could rule world i know i could be what i want to put all in it like a day's off on a less travel place how much did you spend on it again two point eight to buy it two million to build it that's four point eight in and you're gonna sell it what did you say six and a half six six point two that's all kind of instagram the other day is marco o'brien and he buys and restores themselves browns stone homes in new york city i thought i sounded awesome and i thought i don't wanna make my living using screens all the time i wanna figure out how his life is how his business is the economics behind it so i called them up i'm gonna spend the day with i'm gonna figure out all the numbers and if this is actually something cool to do it's this business actually any good it's just lifestyle any good do i wanna trade places with them and at the end of this video i'm gonna give them a sam store we're gonna look at the economics of his business is to make a lot of money and then we're gonna have a lifestyle category where we ask ourselves is this actually something that you feel pride is it a good lifestyle so let's get through it oh i fucked up i messed up i can't even figure out how to use apple maps to get to where he lives let alone build a freaking brown zone alright so let's go this way okay so he dm us where to meet them it's eleven forty five or a few minutes away we're gonna walk a couple blocks that's guy he looks like the does man like the most interesting man alive he's got these kinda like movie star good looks and i don't know too much about them other than he looks awesome he has a cool job and so where we're meeting is at his apartment and then we're going to go to a town home that he's currently restoring as well as a commercial property that he's restoring i'm excited but i'm a little nervous i don't wanna look stupid because i know nothing about like construction i'm wearing red wing boots but reality is i'm cosplay playing i'm a yu guy who's trying to dress like a blue collar guy so like hopefully he doesn't call me out on that but it's the truth marco brian what's up dude shame what's hell man hey man alright nice nice to finally meet you yes we're gonna start with this place so where are we now this is your house ninety four bank street it's it's it's a project and but i'm living at it so look i usually buy things that are yeah have rats in the cellar and holes in the roof and water damage everywhere mold and and problems but this one when i walked into it i was like this is cute it's a hundred it's a hundred and eighty years old one eighty a and eighty years old i mean it's super old how much did you pay for this place five five how much money are you gonna have to invest in it at this stage closer to six how much can you sell for seventeen can we see it yeah that's going hey really quick guys if your interest in this and you're interested in that blue color lifestyle which frankly i am on why making the video and you wanna start a business in the space we have together this thing called a blue color of business and database the database with hundreds of different business ideas where you can use your hands you could start immediately lot a different metrics about why the business is potentially interesting and so if you're interested in that click the link below poorly free alright now back to the so when i walked in these these floors were shiny i just you know it just gl i thought i love the floors i came in here i love the fireplace and speaking we talked a little bit about buying the old furniture like i'm really not fancy i love the stacking my i love living on my west village which is which is super fancy but i i bring that people are like you bring all that firewood in like we're you're gonna put it like like this is the beauty of living in a in home insane same don't is is it's insane that a home that's gonna sell for seventeen million dollars you are stuck that's not how they're gonna use it that's right do you think this will be done this project so it's been two and a half years that i've been waiting for permits you know it's landmark you just sit and do nothing no it's it's a lot of work of architects engineers getting soil bearing bearing test you know they've gotta break up the the foundation down below in the in the seller and i could show it you and then they they wanna see where's is my neighbor's foundation where's is the footing where where's is my footing compared to their footing but it's like just getting the permits and doing all this regulatory stuff it seems like that's like the thing that like when people talk about like products that they're gonna sell on the internet they think oh my product is amazing i'm like yeah but like the reality is you have to be a good marketer seventy percent of value are you good at like buying ads online with this it's like well i can build this amazing place i can make a profit it i do it cheaply but it's like yeah but can you spend the years like right jumping through the hoops of like getting approvals and all this other stuff you didn't die like it's it's the cost to carry it it's in time time will kill every deal and and often it does can we see the rest yeah yeah so and actually so this is funny because i'm using this as a right bedroom because i i moved in i thought i'm gonna be here for six months maybe a year and then it's gonna be a demolition site i'm gonna restore all of this so there's gonna be you know plastic up everywhere and workers running around so i'm gonna just keep the footprint here and let's start working upstairs i don't know much about real estate but it the limited amount of stuff that i've done it seems like everything costs way more and takes way more time yes yeah it's it's it's just out of control and it's getting worse and worse so this is my my desk my office look at this fireplace here though i mean isn't that is this your brand oh that's my vodka brand yeah broken broken shed new zealand vodka and make it from way a hundred percent new zealand products water from new zealand way from new zealand which is you know this is a business that you own and started yeah i spoke to a guy about this recently and he was like well how did you how did you get into real estate like what what was that thing that made you get into real estate and i said desperation like i had i i i was freaking out had two and a half kids i was living in greenwich connecticut in a house that i had no right was it a fancy house no that's what no it it was like a thing that you were gonna fix yes exactly well it was something that i would've have had somebody else fixed right okay because i wasn't building house it seems like maybe took a project that maybe was a little bit over your head and then you're like well i have to make it work right yeah got it exactly and did that work yes yeah and that's kinda always how i lived so you're like and that was like how you got into real estate yes is it was i i i was completely over leveraged so i'm a big big believer in in leverage and use other people's money the bank's money but it's a great way to go broke and get yourself in a lot of trouble and i know people that have done that and hasn't hasn't worked out very well that's like how so many great things happen particularly i'm there i just turned thirty seven but like i think about this all the time like if i lost it at all okay i have young kids i'm now like a proper man i have people who would rely on me and like if this goes is like it's my job to like the you know to take care of this group it's like the most ema feeling ever of like shit i have not taken care of the thing that i'm supposed to take care of i feel behind and now it's my backing and insta wall and i have to end like well that's the beginning of a great story yeah hopefully it's gonna be a great story but that's like a very scary primal feeling i have nightmares about that as like a dad did you i think should we also do do you wanna walk out upstairs outside and oh you now the sun's coming out hey let's take a quick break you know that feeling when strategy is done the brief is written everyone's aligned and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content that someone is usually you and it's due tomorrow well the breeze assistant from hubspot can help it works right inside hubspot you can draft campaign copy blog posts emails all in your brand voice all using your actual customer data so you don't create just content you create content that converts check out hubspot dot com the agent customer platform for growing businesses how many so you've been doing this how are you how would you i don't know come on fifty five fifty one fifty one i don't know man see this is why i hate played this game no no i'm sixty sixty three oh hate i hate that game oh so do i i usually say go fuck yourself i'm not playing you're specialty i think it's town homes right townhouse is brown stones restoration how many have you bought and sold so this is my third my third big project of of restoring browsing so sixty two green avenue in fort green four twenty eight van in ninety four bank street and then i've got and i've got other projects like in crown heights went over here on jane street that i i act as the owners rep so i don't own it but i i you know run run the project and then before that you were just selling real estate no but bombarding us my house so i could buy another one that's insane that you would get into this business without knowing anything about and at a big high level i mean you know did much how much had you you took a loan out what was your so alright so so the the numbers on the first one and the numbers back then were basically you you buy for a million bill for a million and sell for three million so you make a million bucks so this house was eight hundred thousand i i built it for about eight hundred thousand and i made a lot of mistakes i mean crazy you're in for one stick yeah and i sold it for like two two three or something over how much time like less than a year so that's like a double right is that a double or is that run right i mean it could have been but the next one i made a million bucks i was like that's a home run i was there i like this okay so you're like i'm good i'm good at this now so i started doing more i did four i would get like four going at a time i'd buy a piece of property i would go i'd run with my kids and a stroller three of them and at you an old lady i'd feel like i love your house i got these all these kids me these kids i'm trying i'm always i'm looking for something a little bit bigger i live over around on rocky point right now there was something bigger and this woman patch like oh yeah i hi kids you know yeah well give me your number and i can i give her number and i do i put it in mailboxes i just it was a numbers game so it's it's kinda like boom and bust a little bit yes very much and this funny i i mean make does that stress you out yeah but i i've i've gotten good at it i think you know i do a lot of yoga i thought it's gonna be like camera shit all day and it's like fun no we wanna go through the yeah yeah this shit this huge happy because this one yeah so this this i bought like two two years ago so this has taking me way too long what's the total square footage so now it's like forty five hundred okay so you pay two eight how much you're gonna put in i'm putting in one point eight that's turning into more like two million and what can you get for it six two pretty slim so check this out this is this is super cold i just discovered it like maybe maybe three months ago i it was it had plastic vinyl floor over it and i just assumed it was rotten and i was going to sweep it out or something and and i pulled on pulled out a piece of the plastic and it came up and i was like i wonder what's under that this to be like a hundred years old paint on top a goo yes it's a hundred and forty years old and so i i took my grinder out and started grinding and man i i'm finding i find this so look some people say yes it's kind of banged up you should really just put something over the top of it nice and sa tile i'm like i i don't care so i this is all an extension here so this two things that i do i like to go on the roof i like to finish or three things the roof the seller and i widen the staircase so you can kinda tell that the there's more of a gap because brown stones and notorious for being a little dark in the middle because there's no windows in the middle typically so i've widened this staircase and i put a lot of light and a bulkhead on the top so you get a light down the middle and then this is all you know original original those bricks are those original yeah so and this also these bricks a hundred and forty years old yes that's pretty awesome so that's another thing i expose the brakes so this has sheet rock on it when i buy it so i ripped the sheet rocked down or we're not sheet rock plaster usually the plaster starts cracking in the k's against the hundred and forty years ago was the eighteen eighty right yeah yeah or eighteen ninety yeah so someone made that in eighteen ninety that's was pretty crazy yeah where do you see the the seller the seller is literally rock horse hair and mud let's see is the is the is the way they made these foundations anyway so this is the this is a typical rumble wall right so you got rocks rocks and and then i grew up in a basement like this and it's felt exactly like those yeah that's funny i love it so i wanted to keep all that exposed but i also think it's important to get as much usable space as you can as much finished and this is basically free square footage because you know in terms of a r yeah you don't area ratio they don't count a base because it's below grade so i try to make it and right now you're not seeing it at the best i i gotta put baseboard on finish the floor and and really spruce it up so it feels like it's real space it's not it's not a so how much you think this how home sulfur six two what type of person would buy this house what kind of person like a what would the job be probably like you know yeah i get a lot of creative here in brooklyn like actors ford green no more like people like these days in social media and doing some some kind of media business it's crazy maybe you'll be buying the six billion dollar home in brooklyn out so this is a rental basically so you come under the stairs oh wow it's your own your own entrance here and this will be like a five thousand dollar rental or in loss suite so you come in you've got a your fireplace original big open living room kitchen washer dryer bathroom bedroom oh there we get the backyard are bedroom two bedrooms washer dryer i know it's in a weird place and then a backyard so what just be done how much longer i'm hoping to have this you know photos taken like in two weeks so this will get i'll put like photos mean like pictures didn't start marketing it it's not gonna be done in two weeks no but i can i can start selling it to start so when do you prefer this to be sold end of the summer oh okay and move in would be went like september oh alright cool so you're nearing the end of the two year project yeah two and a half your project yeah so this gets this will get pave the the did you guys work for you or are they they're sub subcontractors so everybody these days is contract nobody's you know i'm not hiring you know how crew people but you're gonna come out of pocket with it yeah dude there's so much risk yeah alright i work i work on a computer all day this is my work or this is weird but talk you to a mike we get it i wanna do like you wanna you wanna bust something let's see what we let's see if we got okay we got something upstairs alright let's see okay so you've probably have heard this on the podcast but if you're running a company i think that the number one attribute that will determine if you are gonna succeed in business is how fast you can learn from others specifically how fast you can learn from other entrepreneurs but there's a problem with that i have this problem and in fact you probably have it too that's one of the reasons why you listen to my first million in the first place the problem is that finding other successful entrepreneurs to learn from it's a pain in the butt and so that's why a few years ago i started a company called hampton you can check it out at join hampton dot com we have thousands of members and they exist for this exact reason so here's how it works if you're a founder that does at least three million in revenue and you make it through our incredibly thorough vetting process we then match you and put you in the group with nine other entrepreneurs you meet in real life in your city once a month and it becomes your peer group that will frankly change your entire life it's changed mine i'm in the group as well and so if you're a founder that does at least three million in year in revenue check out join hampton dot com again the url is join hampton dot com what do you think you wanna i'll do that let's get you dirty right my man can we can i can i just can i can i get him to cut it or you you wanna break it can he cut just for two one minute just one one minute he's he's not a spas that you're out with this let's do it but you gotta just yeah you gotta be careful i got when you when you hit that you know don't really hold it tight then you touch that all the way through all the way too right all the way oh my god is so dangerous good so what you your hiring what was he saying about the story about getting sued for too dangerous yeah i mean if osha if ocean thank you sir i'm sorry to mess up your workstation but let's see he's showing me how he worked out when he was in jail oh that's right oh there it is that's pretty good oh wow can you expect that that you should put that on your hinge profile alright i'll try can goofy through with me not nearly as good but it's good and aggressive you're was just i right because you because you can probably do it on your skateboard no i can't do that my skateboard no to you right well i know i can't do that okay we looked at his manhattan place we just looked at his brooklyn place this place how much should you spend on again two point eight to buy it and then about two i'm sorry about two million to build it so that's four point eight in and you're gonna sell it for what did you say six and a half six six point two six point two and that's over three years right so you'll make something like hundred thousand dollars a so if you wanna buy a six million dollar forty five hundred square feet right yeah home in ford green this place is awesome we're on the corner from slight speculating what a good tire deal alright thank you very hospital we're gonna get her subway alright got bless to you soon alright thank you for everything i'll talk you a little bit alright we just got back to the office let's give this thing the score okay so i've divided this thing five business and life style because it most important we're gonna do money machine and mop and first of all i love mark i'm gonna hang out and mark again but in terms of money this business was a pain in the butt and i don't think it made that much money i'm gonna give it a three basically i think that he probably does something like five hundred thousand to a million dollars a year in income but that's on a good year on a bad year you probably can like lose money in it and it just a lot of work for that amount of money second machine can it run without him and he has a team of people that he uses in most of his projects but he's really like the catalyst for this whole thing working i'm gonna give it another three and for mo the biggest mo here is i don't think people are crazy enough to do this but anyone with enough money could probably do it and there's a lot of people in the city can i'm gonna give it a two so what does that sum up to an eight so the business score an eight out of thirty alright now let's do lifestyle so and you have pride in the product that you're making do you like the people who you work with and your customers and does it provide any freedom so for pride he was very proud of what he was doing i was actually proud for him i thought it was amazing i'm gonna give that one a nine he said that sometimes he'll make stuff and like the buyer will just coming and like destroy it which would really suck but he still gets a nine now people i met some of his coworkers some of the guys doing work it was awesome they were really cool and lovely i'm gonna give it a seven just because some of the people who he sells his properties to i probably don't wanna hang out with some of those folks and now freedom i'm gonna give this one a five the reason i'm gonna do a five is because each project has an end date so you could take some time off if you've wanted to but when he's there like in the think of it it seems like saturday and sunday is included he's always in the phone like dealing with regulations and things like that so the lifestyle score is a twenty one out of thirty alright so here's what that adds up to for business he gets an eight for lifestyle of twenty one twenty one twenty one you wrote a thirty one for biz he is gonna get an eight lifestyle twenty one add all that up what's that up to that's twenty nine so marco o'brien buying restoring selling browns stones sam store twenty nine i feel like i could rule world i know i could be what i want to from my all in it like a days all on a road less travel never looking back alright let's take a quick break to talk about a podcast because if you're listening to you like podcast and what's better than one podcast another podcast and let me tell you another podcast you should check out it's called success story if you like hearing about different success stories and hearing q and a sessions with successful business leaders or hearing keynote presentations or just checking out conversations about sales and business and marketing tactics this is a great podcast for you so check it out wherever you get your podcast