My story

As a kid, I watched my truck driver father revolutionize the golf accessory world with the Shotmaker Groove Cleaner. Witnessing someone see an idea, nurture it, and grow it into something that supports your family and others changes you forever. Entrepreneurship has been a part of me since I was a child. I saw first hand you can dream an idea and make it happen.

I ran every cliche kid hustle but my world changed when I discovered HTML in 1997; I taught myself web design and was sure it was my future path. But as life-changing as watching a business grow is, seeing its downfall is equally, if not more, impactful.So, I gravitated toward the Financial world, starting in commercial banking. In 2010, I met three Wall Street veterans at my bank. They had a problem and didn't like the timeframe provided on the solution. Instead of two weeks, I hand delivered it in 24 hours. Nearly a year later, I joined their future global investment bank as its first hire. Hired as a generalist, I became Series 7, 63, & 55 licensed and tasked with building and running Nevada's only sell-side equities trading desk. Our firm became the trusted authority in the global casino and gaming sector with offices in Las Vegas, New York, Hong Kong, and Macau. We were involved in several billions of investment banking transactions and executed billions in stock for the world's largest hedge funds and mutual funds.

And I thrived in it—for a while. Ultimately, decisions that were outside my control financially impacted my trading desk. And after being promised the world, the firm shuttered my desk, leaving me with an important decision.

I chose to build... And I picked real estate.

I jumped into the real estate sector in 2017 with the mindset to first learn the industry as a Realtor, then discover what's missing and find the industry's future direction. Between 2018 and 2019, I sold so many Opendoor homes it was unmistakable that they were building an exciting new category. In 2019, iBuyers began a program offering commissions to any realtor who referred a client—a Realtor can receive a referral commission from any state and no listing agreement was required—and my first idea was born: Firstandsold.com - One Site, Multiple iBuyer Cash Offers.

Months after a successful launch, Covid hit and shuttered iBuyers. When the market (aggressively) awoke, iBuyers canceled referral programs, and First&Sold pivoted. By the end of 2020, First&Sold became a licensed real estate brokerage, and launched the first Buy Before You Sell program in Nevada with hopes of raising capital to expand.

Bootstrapping a business reliant on paid advertising—with fair housing laws limiting targeting—is very expensive. And even more so when bidding against Silicon Valley darlings with a war chest of capital. My only answer was organic search traffic. I quickly learned programmatic SEO and grew the website into a 5,000+ page guide featuring every community, subdivision, and school in the Las Vegas Valley. It worked. The site would eventually grow to 230k+ pages covering the entire nation. The brand was seen in over 30 million searches a month and reached nearly 100k monthly visitors.

The bull market didn't last. On average, we owned homes for under 30 days, limiting interest costs and saving on title insurance. An abrupt slowdown in the market raised too much risk, followed by a competitor meltdown costing investors 9 figures drying up capital for FinProps. But I still had the website (for awhile, thanks Google).The future of real estate is mass consolidation and vertical integration of each service—title, mortgage, ibuying, and traditional sales. After seven years, I don't want to fight that fight. Especially with the US government and DOJ intervention forcefully changing the commission landscape.

So, I'm back to building websites, developing a portfolio of projects, and actively searching out the next one.