From One Duplex to a $1M Business with $300k Annual Profit (for just $20K out of pocket) | Jake Harrison

Brian Luebben (0:01)

What is up, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome back to the Action Academy podcast, Corporate America's Least Favorite Podcast. Guys, we have a crazy episode for you today with one of our Action Academy members, Mr. Jake Harrison. Jake just closed on a landscaping company for a little bit over a million dollars, 1.2 million for total project costs, including working capital. And what's really cool is Jake was working in corporate in the manufacturing space. So he was doing all the numbers, all the backend, all the finance. But what makes this full circle was Jake was also working in landscaping before, when he was in high school and he was in college, he was working in landscaping. So he went from being the landscaper to owning the landscaping company. And what's the coolest part of all of this is Jake was able to do this for $20,000 out of pocket to buy a million dollar business with $500,000 of real estate attached, $300,000 of manual profit. Jake Harrison, welcome to the Action Academy Podcast, man.

Jake Harrison (0:58)

How are you doing, Brian? I'm doing great. I appreciate you having me out here, dude.

Brian Luebben (1:03)

It's been a, so walk us through a little bit of your journey. So you were listening to the podcast and now you're on the podcast. So what's advice that you would give to somebody that's listening to this show right now of like what you did different to be the person that's on the show instead of just listening.

Jake Harrison (1:19)

Yeah, that's great, Brian. I was, I was exactly that guy. Like you said, I was the listener. Even when I listened to my first episode of the show, you know, I was thinking to myself, hey, this is a little bit out of reach for me. And then I said, you know what? Let's keep listening. Let's listen to more and more. And I kept on going and I realized how doable this is.

And the biggest aha moment for me when I was listening to the podcast was take the leap. And those three words alone, take the leap was the kind of deal breaker for myself. I realized that it's in the palm of my hands. These people aren't that different.

And all I have to do is take action. And that was the biggest aha moment for me. And once I did from there, it was kind of all gas and no backing down.

Brian Luebben (2:06)

Yeah, 100%. You went 10 toes deep. So it's kind of like you jump out of the plane and build the parachute on the way down, right?

Jake Harrison (2:13)

That's exactly it.

Brian Luebben (2:14)

So I'm super excited to break this down. First, I actually want to go to your first ever original deal. So when you joined Action Academy, or I think a little bit before Action Academy, you had bought a duplex. And so you had started this rental property journey. You were living in one side, you're running out the other bedrooms like I was back in Atlanta, Georgia. Walk us through the journey of buying your first duplex, and kind of the realizations that you had along that journey about the equity versus the cash flow versus what strategies you needed to pivot to.

Jake Harrison (2:44)

Absolutely. Yeah. So with the rental property, it was, in my eyes, it was, all right, let's make a really smart and exciting investment that will produce us a lot of cash or long-term wealth. And I went through, purchased the duplex, live on one side, I rent out the other side, and it was great.

And then until I took a step back and realized, all right, we need to do this tenfold, a hundredfold, right, to really even see a dramatic difference in the cash flow side of things. It would take a lot of properties to see this. And I think that's a great wealth building tool long-term. However, from the cash flow side, I realized, hey, we need to maybe look at a different route. So instead of going ahead and continuing my search for other properties, I took a step back and I realized, hey, I've been listening to this podcast and they always talk about business buying. And I thought, you know, my whole life I knew I wanted to own, operate, or run a business of some form.

Initially, I had thought maybe that would be real estate until we took that step back and realized, hey, small business is the route I think we want to go. And from there, it was, all right, let's take a break on the real estate side of things and let's start focusing on small business. Because I wanted to be all in on what I was doing. I didn't want to go half and half. And so I wanted to go all in on this small business once I realized it. So from there, I continued listening to the podcast more and more and more. And then that's when I did decide to reach out to the group. And it seemed like an absolute great fit. And that was the moment I decided to make the jump and join. And I am so happy and so thankful that I did that.