Speaker 1: 0:22

All right guys, welcome to episode three of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast. You got myself, kurt Fenn, andrew McKelvie, mike aka Crazy Mike you'll know why by the end of the show and we're here with our very special guest, who I like to refer to as the Bruce Wayne of Panama City. Alan, thanks for being with us. I really wish, honestly, the first 10 or 15 minutes you were here we had on film, because we've already had some great conversation, but really depressive of our show and doing this podcast is, you know. You know I've sat down with you before, even at your house. I reached out and you graciously had me over and we got into kind of the personal story of your entrepreneurship journey.

Speaker 1: 1:09

We all have those. We know a ton of people in this community that have those my grandpa, my dad has that and I just think there's a lack of content out there about like those real pure, just straightforward conversations about what it really looks like to work for yourself and be an entrepreneur. Yeah, and we really felt like you were the epitome of that and just wanted to have you on and part some of that knowledge on us.

Speaker 2: 1:30

So thanks for having me yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:32

We're super thankful for you being here. I guess what I would just really like to start with is your background, all the way from like even. You know you left school, went to college, you know your trajectory to where you are now.

Speaker 2: 1:45

What you've done all the meat and potatoes yeah, I'll try to do it in like 30 seconds. Born and raised Panama City, grew up at my parents car washes that were started by my grandparents in the 50s. My uncle, my grandparents, started car our restaurants too, and my uncle ran those. And so at the you know family at Thanksgiving, we didn't talk about football, we talked about businesses. Yeah, my family doesn't really watch sports, although I play football in college.

Speaker 2: 2:10

We talk about business and complaining about businesses that's one of the best things about yeah and so yeah, grew up in that group and working at the car washes, grouping in the office, watching my dad fire people and hire people and negotiate contracts and just deal with mad customers and all kinds of stuff like that. Play football in college met my wife. I was gonna be a graphic designer, actually want to be an art teacher and football coaches really, and then I realized that teachers don't get paid enough money. I don't like kids that much different direction yeah, and so football got done.

Speaker 2: 2:45

Graphic designer that was 2003 ish. People were like this internet thing, what is it? You had graphic designers and you had computer people, but there weren't internet people. And so internet marketing what's that, and what are websites for? And that was like all kind of and I was really finding myself being nerdier than the artsy kids and more business-like than the nerdy kids. And how this weird middle ground of not really knowing who I was started building websites, just static, you need three pages on there and you're a dentist or you are a car wash owner, you're a dog groomer. That kind of morphed into soft building software online. People went from having desktop software to web based and built a software company called less accounting with a partner was a small business. Accounting software product built that while doing consulting work. Still, we ramped up that business and sold in 2016 and then started buying real estate and now we own breweries and wedding venues and I still do software business.

Speaker 1: 3:42

I have a hundred and twenty your corner in some restaurants and things down in restaurants to.

Speaker 2: 3:46

We're doing a third now, yeah, and but I'm not really really involved in the day-to-day in those businesses. Yeah, I'm more day-to-day in the software businesses, which is 120 employees and okay yeah, four hundred million dollars with the revenue, processing revenue, so it's most my day is software stuff so let's go back, because we were just talking about it before we start filming here.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Let's go back to working at the car washes and your dad on a car wash.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Just tell us a little bit about that, yeah, my dad, my grandfather to my grandfather, passed away before I was born and passed away in 1961. My dad was 10 but was a phenomenal entrepreneur. It was creating drive-thrus before McDonald's was, and my and he was actually a really terrible man, terrible dad, terrible father was creating car washes before they knew what car washes were.

Speaker 1: 4:35

He was building the car washes and no one even knew yeah, before they were like this thing where they banks were lending money on.

Speaker 2: 4:40

They didn't know who washes their car wash card home or you don't wash card off, and and he passed away. And then my dad took over the car washes. But I taught school for a little while but my dad invented the sort of model of express car washing, along with Benny Allford and Baton Rouge this word of you ride through yourself, you vacuum it yourself, kind of a difference from the self full service model. And then did customer tracking for car tags through the car wash. Did that in the late 90s, was in the USA today in the Wall Street Journal. For that never patented of his ideas, just gave him away.

Speaker 2: 5:13

He's like the car wash king because, because he was so open with what he was learning so I grew up with a family who we all talked openly about what we're doing my dad's, all his friends, the car wash and I grew up as a homeschooler going to car wash conventions talking to grown men about their debt service and, yeah, and water tap fees and grandfathering of sign codes and stacking lanes and they're like who are you? You're 12 and you know about workman's comp insurance, yeah, and what it takes yeah and so I didn't realize that was weird.

Speaker 2: 5:41

I thought most 12 year olds talk about debt service to, but that was unusual. But my dad, he had cultivated this group of friends who were so open and that and would openly talk about how much I'm losing my butt on this or my ass on this and don't do this, and so I just have always been that way. I share what I learned, yeah, that's all. And we did that with blogs and books and so that's just been natural to me.

Speaker 1: 6:04

So what do you think it is like that's making car washes pop up all over the place? Now Like why? Because obviously back then you're saying it wasn't really like a common thing to not like everywhere. I turn there open, yeah it was a mom and pop business.

Speaker 2: 6:17

It was, it's very much the owner at the time. If you're an owner operator, you need to learn how to weld. I learned how to weld on my back in water when I was 10 years old, like welding the track back together broken and serve, but I was like you got to get down there and I'm welding on my back you know, with safety, of course.

Speaker 2: 6:34

No, I was driving customer cars on the track when I was 12. Like my dad's, like you look big, Just just you look 16. Just drive on this and and so. But no, it really is. You have investment money coming in and there's with car washes, it's like restaurants. There's these management layers you need and when you hit a certain size, you hit some economies of scale right Maintenance workers buying chemicals in the truck loads, those sort of things, and so it's just like building houses the more you build, the cheaper stuff that it's really a patent car washing to.

Speaker 1: 7:02

So OK, cool, yeah. And another thing that I wanted to ask you about, too, is with software. How did you make a transition from working in software to wanting to buy buildings?

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yeah, and I never really. I had two houses previously before buying real estate, investing real estate, and I bought the worst times Like I bought a house in Birmingham, alabama, where we lived there and we sold it 10 years later and broke even same goes to our house in Kings Point. I had never done good with real estate. I was like I don't understand this thing. Yeah, but I got told you guys, I got access to we were building a product called Wealthfitcom I don't know if it's still alive, but it was through Fortune Builders, which is Dan Merrill, who's like the original yeah, this house series on TLC.

Speaker 2: 7:47

They have this huge organization that sells real estate education stuff and I got to watch all these videos that normally would be $20,000 or $30,000. I would just sit there and watch them. And then I started looking at areas of town and I started talking to bankers about like wait, who goes bankrupt? They're like, buy septic tank trucks. And I was like, really, they're like don't do real estate, buy septic tank trucks, okay, and porta potties Anyways, but yeah, so that started studying other towns in downtown was like this market that was $10 a square foot and you couldn't buy metal building of the paper mill for that and I was like can you buy? And so we started, we look at downtown and moved downtown, bought buildings.

Speaker 1: 8:24

It's that ability to like kind of see past what it is right now.

Speaker 2: 8:27

Well, what is investing? Investing is trying to predict the future, yeah Right, and you're. And you're creating a story of like, well, I'm going to buy this thing or put money in this stock because I think it's going to go up, because and you're trying to look for low, undervalued assets period when you're investing, whether you're buying antiques, stocks or real estate, you're trying to what is the market not realized? That there's value, and but there's value. And then what have other places done to increase that value? So, you know, you watch, flip this house. And then it'd be like, oh, I put flooring in. But I saw other towns and saw how their downtowns were blighted, just like ours, and what they did to revitalize it, and I was like, oh, we can do that.

Speaker 1: 9:06

We can do that here, and so those, those ideas, they don't keep you up at night at all.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Oh no, every, every, every, every property I look at, I don't sleep the next night, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Yeah it's terrible, but no, I that's part of part of being a good entrepreneur. Is that sort of level of excitement, paranoia, whatever you want to call it, where you just love to grind on something. Yeah, and what's tragic is when you see that grinder of an entrepreneur sell the business and they're like I'm going to start collecting stamps now. They just get fanatical and stamp collected or trains or whatever it may be, and so it's that same grinder mentality.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Yeah, it's like kind of like, almost like being obsessive.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 1: 9:48

To a degree, I feel like I'm pretty obsessive.

Speaker 3: 9:50

It really sounds like an addiction to a degree.

Speaker 1: 9:53

It is.

Speaker 3: 9:54

You're perceiving all the possibilities. You have to assess all the. You know the possible setbacks and you got to. Your brains are going a mile a minute. It is.

Speaker 2: 10:02

My aunt had this huge PR company that worked with pharmaceutical companies when they would do drug launches hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and she sold her company when she was like the first time she sold a large stake of it. She was like 40 something. She sold it the rest of it when she was 50 and she's like don't ever sell your business Cause she's like what? I don't even know what.

Speaker 4: 10:21

I do.

Speaker 2: 10:22

What I do now. She's like I go to help it Non-profits and I want to take over the whole thing because they're not doing things right, and so it's that grinder mentality I struggle with that too.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Like even about a year or two ago, like I was like we're going to church and I won't say with church, but I was like you know, I want to serve. So I started serving in the cafe and I'll ask it for like two weeks, cause I was like I don't think my energy of trying to change how they do things is what the church needs. But I can't function in that chaos.

Speaker 2: 10:49

It's not efficient.

Speaker 1: 10:51

There's no guidelines. Like I struggled with it.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Honestly, and I love chaos when there's a path to getting that sort of I think that's. We see entrepreneurs too. We're all. We love progress. So it's like I don't care what it is. I need to feel like I'm getting better or things. I can dig ditches. As long as I feel like I'm getting a little bit better, digging ditches every day, yeah. So when you're in a system where it's like I am in chaos, I can't fix it Run.

Speaker 4: 11:18

And nobody around me is trying to fix it and nobody cares to fix it.

Speaker 2: 11:20

Yeah, and so that's why I'm like. I always say, like a lot of people are just unemployable, I'm not a good employee, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:25

No, I would agree with that. I was like I was, or to the car wash in Gainesville.

Speaker 2: 11:28

I was going to school there. By the third week I had had them change all their pricing because I was like you guys got to change the price. And you got to start selling matte shampoos and they're like who are you? I'm like my dad's this guy? And they're like, oh he's, we know who he is. And so I look I changed their whole bit. It still is that way now. Yeah, and so it's I same way.

Speaker 1: 11:46

It's something you can't shut off to a degree, yeah, so, um, uh, on on that note, uh, for someone who's, I guess, like one of the big things we talk about here all the time is, when you're doing building a business new, old, changing it, whatever it may be there's a lot of financial stress, obvious that comes with it. A lot of you almost have to be able to turn your brain off to a risk. To a degree you have to assess it and know it's there. But then you have to say I'm not worrying about that, I'm moving forward. Um, and a lot of times, like myself included, I failed at more things that I've succeeded at.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Um, I would say to some degree, I'm still in the midst of some of my failures as we're moving forward with other things that we're doing. Like, what do you, what is the things about? I guess I don't know. What I'm trying to say is what are the things about entrepreneurship that, like most people don't know? Um, that if you were looking to get into it it would be super good to be aware of. And and how do you stay motivated when something, financially, may not be paying off, but you know it's the right thing to be doing yeah, because it's hard to live life without cash flow.

Speaker 2: 12:48

Oh right, it's possible. Yeah, that's, founders. Fatigue is really where you see people a year, two or three or four. Uh, episode 20 of the podcast, that's when the fatigue hits right.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Yeah, it's exciting right now, but then, episode 25, like, oh, or 30 and a hundred. Um, I think people create these false hurdles. And entrepreneurship they're like, well, I can't do this thing until I have this tool or this workshop or this thing. And, and oftentimes, entrepreneurship, the first version of the business. We all say it's a little different, I guess, but certainly with restaurants and software and breweries there's a small version of that and you should almost be embarrassed of it.

Speaker 2: 13:25

And software, they call it a minimal, viable product or a proof of concept and the goal is not to make money from it, it's just to see if people want this thing. Do they like the marketing? Do you want to? You want to fail all these little things before you get to the big, the big push. Um, I mean, we like to talk about the probably 10 Ferris four hour work week. That really is a Bible on how to start a business. When he starts his uh supplement business, of how to test it. You know he was Tim Ferriss was testing supplements to sell.

Speaker 2: 13:55

Before he had supplements he was running ads to see if people could get. Could he pay for ads and get people to that would work at the price range, the customer acquisition cost he could afford? Um, there's all kinds of versions of that for most businesses, um, I, my friends that own a product called base camp. If you've ever heard of base camp, they actually built this piece of software and had a billing form on it. It was a subscription, 30 day subscription.

Speaker 2: 14:19

They couldn't actually build a credit card yet and they didn't have that. But they're like, if no one signs up for it, why do we care about billing people? In 30 days We'll just collect their card and then 30 days we'll see if the product works, um, if we can acquire customers, and so you should be embarrassed. To the first thing, it doesn't take the world's greatest idea to make a whole lot of money, uh, and then, uh, it's uphill. You have to be really uncomfortable with uncertainty, um, and get used to that and really change the way you look at risk. Uh, especially early on in the business, your time is worthless.

Speaker 1: 14:50

Just yes, you're saving money, you're trying to figure all the systems and people look to scale too quickly, I think in most businesses, all this kind of stuff, yeah, I think honestly, like even uh, on the latter part, like I think even with some of the businesses we're doing right now to be completely honest, we were just actually talking about this this morning in the conference room is like you can get so far ahead of like what it could be, because we are builders and we have a vision for what it to be. But the most important thing to your point is, like a minimally viable product product. Can I get this sold? Can I do a deal? And if you can do that, then add layers to it.

Speaker 1: 15:22

But, if you get a, if you build out something before you have the, the, the thing that sells or the thing that people want, then you're just spending money.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Well, and most people don't realize too. They think like, let's say, I got a restaurant, restaurants don't go out of business, like because they don't have enough customers. They have plenty of customers. They've overbuilt their systems to where they're rents too high. They have too much equipment, they've bought too much inventory, all those things we did that, yeah, it's a thing. So restaurants, so most businesses, are about guessing. Real estate is not quite the way, but guessing what scale it should be, how many seats should it be, how much equipment do you need and can you grow those systems if you run into?

Speaker 1: 16:03

those systems, because I mean, you talk about it some too, but I would say our restaurant would have been successful if we had built it different. It needed to be smaller, in a place with about half the amount of rent. I mean, we have all the numbers right. Then we needed to order less food, less decor, all those things, but the business we did 25, 30, 40,000 dollars, some months in revenue. It's not that we didn't have customers, it's that we overbuilt what was delivering it and we had too much expense to make profits.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, so your expenses, which it's hard, especially if someone who loves the craft like they're a brewer, they're a chef they want to overbuild their tools.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Because they have this vision.

Speaker 2: 16:44

They have this vision and so. But when you have all your expenses, people think those are oftentimes tools, but it really raises the bar of success of what revenue you have to build.

Speaker 1: 16:53

It raises what you have to chase Like even I would even go back to like wholesaling for a degree. Like our wholesale company, we do a lot of advertising right now and I would say that adds pressure to us closing deals, whereas, like I think, about eight months ago, when we started, what were we doing? We were driving around in my truck with a stupid door hanger that we printed up and calling, cold calling people. When did we close the bulkhead of our deals at the beginning? And now we have all this complication that we've added, we're trying to manage all this lead flow and we're struggling to do the same amount of deals Right. So I think that's I mean that's point in case you cannot pace yourself very quickly.

Speaker 2: 17:32

You can, and then you know you often run into the thing where, well, such and such is doing this and they seem to be successful, and maybe that's how they're compared Comparison is the death of bad little bacteria. Yeah and so, yeah, it's business. I mean, business and parenting are the two toughest things. I think You're just constantly second guessing yourself and go man, I'm really screwing this.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Well, my dad's always told me that having business partners is like marriage, but without the sex.

Speaker 2: 17:55

It is, hopefully my parents have never had the most circumstances.

Speaker 3: 18:02

I don't know about you guys. A lot of late night offices, late nights at the brewery.

Speaker 2: 18:12

But it is. It is you have squabbles and egos and I've done this way, or you have a person who's had a bad relationship with a business partner before. My parents were adamantly opposed on me never having business partners, and I can't imagine not having one now. I don't have the energy to do everything and take the brunt of all the questions and things, and so I want to play a small role in a bigger, bigger thing.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Well, like and I, it's very difficult, like all of us could say something about the other that's difficult to work with. You know, that's the truth. We're all different people what, what? Yeah, mike especially. But the truth is like, andrew knows a ton about construction and he honestly likes being on a construction site. You're not going to catch me building things, I'm just being honest, you know. So I think I don't know how we would do a lot of the things that we do. I could do it, but would I enjoy it as much? Probably not. You know we play to each other strengths to a degree. But yeah, I think I think it's interesting A lot of the things you've been touching on, because we have kind of a unique model of how we do things here between we do find distressed properties for investors, we buy distressed properties and rehab them, and then we sell real estate as well, and now we're starting to build spec homes.

Speaker 1: 19:28

But it is all making those things work in unison to a degree is difficult when you're trying to decide how much to scale it, how much to put into it, before you have a customer base. There's a degree of marketing that it takes to and networking and getting out there to be trusted. But then there's also an expenditure where it's a diminishing rate of return to. So we're trying to find that sweet spot daily, and it's hard.

Speaker 2: 19:54

Well, if people look at most businesses, they go, wow, you're making so much money, you're expanding.

Speaker 1: 19:59

It's usually like yeah, it's the opposite.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Now we have no money. Yeah, that's pretty much like yeah that's.

Speaker 1: 20:04

That's kind of like I've, ever since I I would say this, ever since I decided to leave working a corporate job. I have money, but I'm cash poor personally, right Like I. Have things that we do and we work all the time, but I would say you know that's the truth is, most of the time you're going from success to idea until you get something that's super dialed in. My thing is is I know that I can go from thing to thing without a lack of enthusiasm, although it may be tough, but you'll find the.

Speaker 2: 20:36

Thing right.

Speaker 1: 20:37

But if you scale anything, it takes cavitable, so you may have been very successful.

Speaker 3: 20:42

But if you want to make it bigger or try that, you got to risk capital and then try to make it bigger and you really only need one opportunity to hit for you to be able to cascade your vision, your dreams, your desires into other opportunities and collaborate with other investors or other people. So you know, I go back to my chess days. I still play a lot of chess, but I lost probably 200 games to a chess master and I only remember the one I won, you know it only takes one win for you to create that future and those dreams to come reality.

Speaker 3: 21:14

So I think that's the core of entrepreneurship is the effort, the try, the vision. It is all just trial and error until you find your success level.

Speaker 2: 21:26

So it's kind of like golf actually was talking in front of that. Golf course, they're closing down and we're talking about I used to play a lot of golf and golf is a game where you play 16 holes pissed off, yeah and you play two that keep you coming back.

Speaker 4: 21:40

Yeah, that's true Like just those two good shots, or five shots, you're lucky if you got two good shots. If you're counting by holes, you're doing all right. I'm over here counting by strokes, yeah. Yeah, I got two good strokes 110 strokes and two of them worked out okay.

Speaker 3: 21:56

We'll be back next week, that's the dream.

Speaker 1: 21:58

That's the dream.

Speaker 2: 21:59

Yeah, that's sort of mentality of like failing and failing and failing, and being able to get back up every single day, when people are telling you how crazy you are, and fail again until it works.

Speaker 4: 22:08

Is that really trending? Or golf courses closing?

Speaker 1: 22:11

Oh yeah, why is that?

Speaker 2: 22:13

I mean, I'm not sure, the hurricane took some here. Oh yeah, across America even Birmingham, alabama might fatherlies the golf course. A shutdown has been shut down. I think they're reviving it now, but people bought golf course properties because they love the view. Yeah, they're turning the holes.

Speaker 4: 22:27

Like DR Horton got into the ombre yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Well, there are also a few golf courses now where they're turning into parks and the people who bought on golf courses don't play golf, but they just love the open space, the green space. And they're like I'll pay extra 500 bucks a month to keep this as a park.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Interesting yeah.

Speaker 4: 22:41

Golf is expensive. Yeah, it takes a lot of time too. It takes a lot of time. It's a long sport, I mean. I guess that makes sense in today's instant gratification world.

Speaker 2: 22:51

When golf used to be a very business. We get done too. Yeah, I want to go to Topgolf.

Speaker 4: 22:55

If I want to, you know, mess around in some golf Sure and pickleball.

Speaker 2: 22:59

You know you can play pickleball an hour and a half, or a thousand calories, I'm not sure about that.

Speaker 1: 23:04

Can you believe that yesterday, mike looks at me and goes what's pickleball?

Speaker 3: 23:06

It's none of my radar.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Obviously.

Speaker 3: 23:09

I need to get back into exercise. Everyone's talking about it. It's not my thing, obviously, but it's intriguing. I have heard about that growth and pickleball though.

Speaker 4: 23:18

But that's interesting with golf, but it makes sense, I believe, that.

Speaker 3: 23:21

You know, I had a prior profession and you came up on my radar many years ago and I didn't know a lot about you or who you were. You were just this crazy guy who bought a warehouse and turned it into a residence and then, you know, it transitioned into the brewery. Tell us about all that and how that came about, because for me I mean that's exciting. This, you know, bruce Wayne, you know.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Type scenario you're that guy. You live in the back cave behind history class.

Speaker 3: 23:53

And, I think, the perception of you you know, is this kind of quiet, grand but grandiose individual who has you know, I guess, opportunities, or his hand is involved in many different things, especially in our city like moving things forward. I mean and just get into the I mean for one of my personal things the rooftop video capturing the view of the water. I mean, everybody is waiting with bated breath on what you're going to do next. Why? My wife, my wife?

Speaker 1: 24:27

What are you dragging?

Speaker 2: 24:28

into yeah, my wife too. Yeah, yes, it's, yeah. It sounds a lot more interesting than the reality of you know breweries and humility. I don't know about that. I'm wearing gym shorts right now. I don't know if I'll call Bruce Wayne to be socks off, but you know I'm wearing a Hocus size 16, you know, in a hoodie with a car and a heart shirt that was like $11. It doesn't have to be glamorous.

Speaker 4: 24:52

You had that car heart for five years yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:55

About a year and a half.

Speaker 2: 24:57

They do that actually hold it really well. But yeah, so we sold the software business. I said let's get in the real estate because I wanted my wife to have something that, because I passed away, she had something she could run and I I through stories and talking to people when they fail they guess too big. And so we bought a $40,000 house on 19th street, just down the street over there, and we bought a quadplex in Millville for 80 and we put about a 40,000 each as tests because I had never done a construction project in my life.

Speaker 2: 25:29

I actually built a shed in my backyard. We had a blog for our less accounting product which was targeting small business owners, and I built a shed in my backyard because backyard offices and sheds were becoming a popular thing and I had 180,000 readers on this blog and I needed content. So I was like I'm going to build a shed and turn it into an office and write about it and I didn't know what soft fits were. I didn't know what 16s were, I didn't know. So I was like I'd go into like lows and be like what's this? And I'd be like you're an idiot.

Speaker 1: 26:00

That's me and that's why.

Speaker 2: 26:01

Yeah. And so I've got this whole blog series on how to build a shed and people read it evergreen content. And then so I got a little bit of confidence and I'm like, oh, what's a header? It's house wrap. And so when we went to those construction projects I had a little bit of knowledge and I knew I were going to make mistakes. But I wanted to make small mistakes before I make big mistakes. And at the time with that money I had, I mean I could survive big mistakes. But I wanted two or three, four thousand dollar mistakes. I didn't want to have an $80,000 mistake, a hundred thousand dollar mistake, and those products went through. So the story really is me buying, doing these little tiny things that nobody notices, to get confidence and skill and a little bit Be embarrassed. Yeah, because how dumb of it would it be for me to go buy an apartment complex and not have ever even known what a soft it is. That's like a recipe for, yeah, you should have lost your money.

Speaker 1: 26:50

You know who encourages you to do that? Grant Cardone, because he wants you to buy his service.

Speaker 2: 26:54

Sure.

Speaker 1: 26:56

He says he's by 200 units, but the truth is it's all about starting with something small. I mean especially in like wholesaling and flipping. I always say the statement still holds true, like we're doing one right now. Buy houses in the hood, buy houses in bad neighborhoods, whatever that means to you. I mean that's the truth. Sometimes those are the best investment projects.

Speaker 2: 27:17

It's not the luxury house or there always be a market for a trailer, there always be a market for a two bedroom, two bath, three bedroom, like, yeah, working workforce housing, those are. And again, when you're talking to bankers, when I made my money I started talking to bankers, going like who loses all their money? And they're like, well, don't buy luxury stuff because if the market goes down, that's what does the first thing yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:36

And so I talked to people who own trailer parks. I just talked to lots of people and they were open with me and that we bought. You know, we saw downtown and how undervalued it was and we bought this building and I was like this thing could be a house. And so you know, we bought it with the intention of living there, and we do. But we had a video production company at the time. We had five employees because we were doing the software company and we had lots of videos no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 28:07

Well, we can do work, we can make them.

Speaker 2: 28:08

Yeah, and so we were doing $100,000 a month in software company videos and so we had this house and I was like we should film some little Facebook videos.

Speaker 2: 28:18

Yeah, make a YouTube channel or something and yeah, and I was like yeah, and then I was like we can make this into a show and I'm like Googling how to make a show and so I ended up having calls with Netflix and Apple. We ended up selling a video series to Lowes Home Improvement. If you go to their YouTube channel, you can see the whole series on our house.

Speaker 1: 28:33

I love that. Literally everything we've talked about has just been somebody needed something, so I did it, and I didn't know how to do it, but I figured it out.

Speaker 2: 28:39

That's pretty much, and a lot of it's me just wanting to be like, do weird stuff. Yeah, I don't money at this point. Especially that time was like I don't figure out how to make a little bit of money from it, but like experiences, especially for my kids, and being put in places that make you have to think, and so the software project was not a home run financially. I had to cancel a $2 million software project that I would have made about 800,000 on.

Speaker 1: 29:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:04

And just sat back. I mean hiring people for 50 bucks an hour, building them out at 150 bucks an hour all day long, that's great business.

Speaker 1: 29:11

That is a great business.

Speaker 2: 29:12

It's like don't build me an hour unless you're building them an hour. Yeah and so. But yeah, we built our house, we shot a video series, did a few more series for Lowes and I decided that wasn't a business. I want to be in the content game on YouTube with big corporations is too much work, but it was a good experience, yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:29

Just, oh, you're having to find talent and projects and it's just too much. And we bought the brewery business or the building and decided to do a brewery there and had friends from high school that I knew that love brewing and wanted to make that a business. And another person is going to be a partner, dan Magner, who used to open roadhouses and Carabas for the franchise. Yeah, so I had those pieces and we started. We just started, but we the size of the equipment that we bought was laughable to a lot of people. Yeah, this is a brewery, but I'm like if it works, we'll buy more equipment, yeah, you know. And so we focused on marketing and not toys for the business, and that's worked so far. The story is yet to be written. The ending right I still this could all go bad for me later.

Speaker 4: 30:10

Sure, well, hopefully it has been going. Now History class has been going for about three years.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Yeah, and then we went to history class this weekend and took my son to see Mrs Claus.

Speaker 3: 30:20

Mrs Claus, yeah and all.

Speaker 1: 30:21

I could think about. Of course we were talking about before. All I was thinking about the whole time was Mrs Claus is back here reading books and look at all these parents drinking beers back here I was like this is money back here,

Speaker 2: 30:31

Yeah, I go there probably once a week yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's interesting living behind the business. I don't, I don't go, I don't stop. How many?

Speaker 4: 30:43

days a week. Are you and L weirdo in history, class A month A month.

Speaker 2: 30:48

I may eat there twice a month total and I'm only there for Wednesday meetings at noon.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Yeah, okay, other than that, I, we pay the business pays a lot of money to have a management layer that insulates the owners from the deal and let the bookkeeper, marketing people, managers, managers, the managers, and so one of the best pieces of advice I got, like a long time ago from my dad and grandfather, who are entrepreneurs as well, was pay people to do things that aren't your strong suit and work on the business, not in the business. Yeah, unless it's something that you can do professionally and enjoy doing and it's not being wasteful. Have people do the things you know don't. Don't try to sit there and do accounting just because it saves you money.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Well, yeah, and there's a difference in building yourself a job versus building a business. You can do both, but you know there's owner operator. When you're trying to guess the size of a business, you can guess it's so small. We can only be an owner operator Like a food truck can't afford a full time marketing person and a management layer.

Speaker 1: 31:42

And some things initially are a job and you become the owner, totally yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:46

That's the thing with history classes. I worked all the management layers for a year and would compartmentalize them, so you'd know. Okay, you saw the bookkeeping is going to work and we trained a former bartender and how to be a bookkeeper. Now she's a kick ass. She should be an attorney or CPA or something.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Yeah, More of those hidden gems once you've oh yeah, finding those people.

Speaker 2: 32:04

I tend to find that if you have one good employee, you ask them who their friends are. You get any friends who really get with spreadsheets, yeah, Like household budgeting yeah. I got, she could probably be an accountant. Yeah, be a bookkeeper.

Speaker 1: 32:15

So once you have one, because birds of a feather flock together, you know- so that's what's what would you say like the most unforeseen thing about, like food slash brewing business between history class and all that? You know, we were ready to open.

Speaker 2: 32:29

We didn't get any COVID money because we hadn't. I had people.

Speaker 1: 32:34

You weren't a business. Yeah, we weren't open.

Speaker 4: 32:36

Yeah Dang, I didn't even think about that, I didn't even really time that out three years ago now.

Speaker 2: 32:41

Oh, I, I, I, I, I, I. I had a terrible cash roll. Literally, we had food ready to go, chairs we were ready to open and I had a cash flow that because everyone had quit their jobs and they couldn't get on the unemployment site. And how messed up is it that the guy behind the business has money and he's not? You quit your job. Yeah, so I have this cash flow. Now here's your paycheck.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Yeah, we know some restaurants that didn't do that.

Speaker 2: 33:04

Yeah, and I bite you in the ass later on. So try the unforeseen stuff. We don't. The business is I'm going to. I wouldn't say easy, but I'd say that the, the customers are very respectful, they care, they're very protective of the business, the employees. We pay them well, we care about what they think. They're very protective over their jobs and businesses.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Which is huge yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:30

Yeah, and so you could have most of your problems are you know, if we didn't treat people properly quitting? We've only had like six people in three years leave the business. It's absurd.

Speaker 1: 33:40

Yeah, that's a note to the people managing it and we pay really well.

Speaker 2: 33:44

I mean, yeah, a regular line cook at history class makes more than a sous chef at one of these most nice restaurants, really, and so we pay well.

Speaker 3: 33:50

This is your front line troops. Every employee takes ownership of your business. Oh yeah, and they help you catapult that to success.

Speaker 2: 33:59

I think too, we also. There's this level of you can call it authenticity or humility. Like I, I'll go to a. We have employee meetings every few months. I'll go there and I'll just be like, hey man, I'm one of the owners. You'll rarely see me around, but like, if you're not happy and the managers aren't making you happy, come to me. People call that an open door policy, but like, we just want to hear what we just care and like.

Speaker 2: 34:23

I'm just making this shit up. I was not, it was not anointed from the heavens on how to run these things, and so I need you to tell me at least a beat back, yeah.

Speaker 4: 34:32

And so like.

Speaker 2: 34:32

I think people like that. I'm just like dude. I'm just a dude that wears crazy looking socks and Jim shorts, trying to figure out life.

Speaker 1: 34:40

Yep.

Speaker 2: 34:41

And I don't have it all figured out, and so let me know what we're not doing, right?

Speaker 3: 34:45

Yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, but I'll say I'll transition in, if you don't mind, all of this experience, all of this interaction with the community, all of this energy and excitement as puts you in a position to truly affect the lives of every single community member that you know either visits, lives, works, plays in this area, into a political realm, which I think is fantastic. You know, there's a quote in Braveheart that I'll try to remember and I'll paraphrase it. He says something like you see this country as an opportunity to provide you with position, but he, mel Gibson, felt that the position should provide for the community and the people.

Speaker 3: 35:37

I think that is resonates and is the best quote I know of or heard of for politics, and I think that's the battle between people's perceptions and what a lot of political you know individuals or people truly live out with. You know greed and you know doing the right thing, not the right thing. So, from the political realm, what got you into this? What drives you in this arena and what do you see? What do you hope to achieve?

Speaker 2: 36:09

Yeah. So I announced like a year goes on for mayor, which is crazy because they make 32 grand a year and they're really only a part of a board, like they don't really run the city. They can direct the city manager. Who really runs the city managers? Really your CEO, yeah, and so your CEO doesn't go around barking orders to the police.

Speaker 1: 36:27

But you're like an advisory.

Speaker 2: 36:28

Yeah, and so they really set the stage and they can. They can frame the business and work with the organization. And you know, being downtown and studying other cities, my business partner, tim Weyler, in the brewery, is a city planner, so he's worked for cities all across the country as a consultant and he's educated me a lot and so everything we've done downtown I mean literally murals were illegal, skateboarding was illegal, brews were not allowed, allings were not allowed, residents were not allowed Parking. I mean just you like stuff that's not allowed.

Speaker 1: 36:57

I like stuff that's not allowed yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:00

That's how you change the market.

Speaker 2: 37:01

And so. But I found myself so many times the city of Ocala has called me multiple times years ago Not anymore, they've done the deals done now but they were trying to give me their fire with firehouse and they were like put a history class here will give you the firehouse free and the three acres behind it that's downtown. You put apartments back there. And I was like you know, I really want to focus on Panama City, yeah, and but dealing with them, I saw like oh wow, they're like really collaborative in our city. I know all those folks there I've been in the, lived here and they're not like they don't want us to do anything, yeah, and so I always say like, and people look at me now and they go like, well, he just gets.

Speaker 2: 37:37

We have social district downtown for open container, which is huge, yeah. And people are like Alan just gets whatever he wants. I'm like, oh dude, I used to have great thick brown hair and what I've had to do is like go to other cities, figure out how they do stuff and bring it back here and go here's how they do your job in another city. Can you be more like this? Yeah, and which has forced me to learn how to do these systems.

Speaker 1: 37:59

And I tell people like just like all the other stuff.

Speaker 2: 38:01

You sat down, you figured it out, and so you know I tell people like, if I have a hard time getting my building permits, figure out how to do so in the city, and I know everybody there and I've got money. I live a block from City Hall and God helped a single mom trying to start a business or someone new to town. You're going to be like there's conspiracy theory out to get me. Yeah, but it's just a broken organization and most all government is broken, but especially blighted cities or cities that are stagnant are very broken for numerous reasons, and so I just would like to you know, I'm on a schedule to get bought out in the software company and you know, at this point I'm in the search for meaningful work, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2: 38:39

And so I've always liked weird experiences as a business owner and as a parent and I think it'd be kind of fun for my kids that could experience more government stuff. But yeah, a year and a half running for mayor, and the flip side of that is there's people you said a lot of nice things and I appreciate that. There's people that say, wow, alan, great, you're doing good. And there's people that freaking hate me. Yeah, and they're like he thinks that I'm like I've never even met you before.

Speaker 4: 39:03

And I'm like weird, is it that you hate?

Speaker 2: 39:04

me. I think I'm nice, maybe I'm not, but if enough people say that you're an asshole, maybe you're just not self aware Right.

Speaker 3: 39:12

Yeah, some people will believe it.

Speaker 1: 39:14

I think the reality is those like and I mean this in the most endearing way possible Whenever I have the most people coming at me or not understanding what I'm doing, is the moment that I know I'm actually on the right path. It takes a long time to know that and it's difficult and it's kind of lonely, but there will be more objectors if the thing is right than supporters. And I think that's especially true in our country right now with politics and things of that sort, and it's a hard road to take.

Speaker 2: 39:42

Totally my dad, because we had businesses right out kind of outside downtown car washes and restaurants, and so my dad's really seen downtown. And when I said I'm going to move downtown and start buying buildings, he said well, if you think you're going to change this town, you're going to piss off the right people. And what it was, it was not. Those people aren't evil. But when you come in with a new project in a town that doesn't have rules for things, they're like you're giving me more work to do this, your box, that you're trying to create a new box and we've got a box that works great for chipotle slum chickens and chickolets.

Speaker 2: 40:13

But you know, if you're trying to do a brewery in downtown, we got to change all these rules for you. Why are you making us do all this extra work and so?

Speaker 1: 40:19

I created a lot of thinking about it.

Speaker 2: 40:21

I didn't realize the friction I was creating. I thought when I came downtown they'd be like thank God, you're here. We've been waiting for someone to invest millions of dollars in an area town that no one wants to, and it's quite the opposite. And it was like, yeah, he's all really well.

Speaker 3: 40:32

Well, the perception, I think, for a lot of people is that a lot of folks don't want to give up their power and control. There's a lot of kingdoms built. They call it the good old boys.

Speaker 2: 40:43

And people say so like they say there's a good, every town has a good old boy network and like I can call the city right now. But you know and I can get open container. But I waited almost a full year on a condo project, $100,000 of holding costs, because the city couldn't figure out where they want to tell me where to put the back flip eventer. In the development order I said development order. The development order is meant to check your project against the land development code. Doesn't matter where the freaking back flip.

Speaker 1: 41:08

Eventer is.

Speaker 2: 41:09

We can figure that out in permitting or like let's get through the condo. Let's do one thing at a time, and so even though I can get open container and people think I can do whatever I want to the city just cost me a hundred grand holding costs on a project that they've been begging me to do because they don't know their own systems. So, like a normal investor would be like you guys are terrible. I'm going back to Atlanta, yeah yeah, but I'm going to Ocala.

Speaker 1: 41:30

Right it honestly takes someone who has that personal connection to stick through it. It's all the stuff behind the scenes that people don't realize, how much money and time and administration just to do like a simple thing. I can tell you, though, I appreciate it greatly. I've been saying since I moved here about four or five years ago, like art, this town has like so much incredible potential. That's why I want to stay here, build businesses here. I don't want to go back to South Florida where I'm from. I think you know you go downtown, you look at the water and the marina and all those things and we're in an incredible spot. It just takes people changing things.

Speaker 2: 42:01

We have more underdeveloped waterfront property Connection between St.

Speaker 4: 42:05

Andrews to downtown, down Beach Drive that whole area is just to the city. Part of that I haven't read into great detail, but like that Beach Drive I feel like that's crazy. Excellent real estate but they won't let people put a dock.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Well, they don't want. So the city founders didn't want really start out because there were people going to do and there was an old ice house there in like the 20s and there were people going to make it industrial and they didn't want. What happens with docks is it blocks. A lot of my parents live in the water in the bay is a dock will block the shore, where you can't access the shore as much and walk the shore. So, like in the 40s they said you can't put a dock there. But the kicker is most of the people on I'm saying most, 40% of the people on that road don't own the lot across the street.

Speaker 4: 42:48

Yeah, yeah, they're separate and a lot of people on the street are common, right, it's just a pair of thoughts that they did.

Speaker 2: 42:52

But yeah, they don't want people on their free property.

Speaker 4: 42:55

Am I crazy to think, though, that, if the city I mean from the 1940s to 2023, I mean, am I not crazy to think that if you gave them the opportunity to build a dock, that the value of that home would go from 2 million to 3 million?

Speaker 2: 43:08

to I mean Well, yeah, there's certainly, there's certainly like.

Speaker 4: 43:11

Which would benefit the taxes.

Speaker 2: 43:14

Yeah, thomas if you've already hit stuff. He says there's no solutions in life, only tradeoffs. Yeah, Essentially I don't know how much docs add to the actual value, but there are cons in that. It affects the sea like the sea Sure like a fireball. There's also a big, huge uproar of people trying to build big boat houses on and then blocks views.

Speaker 4: 43:35

I mean, I don't know like who's you, are you blocking mine? I'm blocking my own view, the public's view.

Speaker 2: 43:40

In the neighborhood.

Speaker 4: 43:41

I just to me. There's a, because you brought up the city part of it and you know obviously we deal with it, my dad deals with it, with the building association and stuff like that it's just like to me.

Speaker 2: 43:50

It's an enemy of progress.

Speaker 4: 43:52

It makes sense for the city to want to you know that particular section as an example increase the value. That's more property taxes. Sure, you know that's. You know more value. I just I don't Get why we're so stuck.

Speaker 1: 44:10

There's a lot of roadblocks to doing things that You're almost putting yourself out like we put ourselves out of comfort to Enhance things here, like we call our flipping business enhanced development group, and the whole idea is to make more properties that have been left to crepe it Livable so families can have homes to live in. And they're done Well. They're not shitty flips with shitty stuff in it that break, and same thing with the spec houses. But the amount when you start on that path here I'm just being transparent like it's hard. It's hard. You're putting yourself out financially and the roadblocks are immense.

Speaker 2: 44:45

Oh yeah, but when there's lots of little things to see, so like that is an item that should be Surveyed for the public of like, hey, should we unwind this? Who on this road wants yeah, yeah, out of you 50 houses you 50 people who own these properties.

Speaker 4: 44:58

How many of you would build a dock? Yeah, or how many would you accept the opportunity to build it? Yeah you may not actually do it, but if we said, okay, the city is going to allow it, yeah, would 30 of the 50 homes say, hell, yeah, we're doing it right now.

Speaker 4: 45:12

Yeah because to me, if I was one of those homeowners, I'd be building that dock and selling because I know that, being in real estate, there are people who will buy a half a million dollar house or a half a million dollar piece of property Just because it has just to put it out there.

Speaker 1: 45:27

It could literally be a vacant lot in Marathon.

Speaker 2: 45:29

It's got a boat slips for 350 grand. Yeah, my parents have a dock with four slips.

Speaker 4: 45:33

Yeah, yeah and then, you know, I had a guy, you know, same thing for me. I live back behind the old Kmart and CVS right there by the bridge. You know, I think that big daddy Lane and all that Linda Lane stuff back there, I mean I think that's a gem. Wait, oh yeah, I think that that land value, the canals they've got back there, I think that's a development waiting to happen. Yeah, so it's just, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 45:54

Yeah, and what ten years ago was all like trailers.

Speaker 1: 45:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was just talking to somebody at an open house about that every week and he just bought a lot back there.

Speaker 4: 46:02

But it's canal access I, and that's that's what I was getting to. I had a guy who bought a trailer back there he only spent $200,000, but he got 47 feet of dock and he has access to be able to put two or three different boats.

Speaker 2: 46:13

Well, I said, you sit on this 200 grand, you sit on this for five or ten years and see what it's worth? Yeah, and that's about canal. Is the dock costs like 25 grand correct? As opposed to, like my dad's, which is to the port.

Speaker 1: 46:24

It's 200 feet.

Speaker 4: 46:28

Maybe part of the beach drive.

Speaker 1: 46:30

I mean, maybe you know we don't have to get too deep on that particular hate to cut off a good conversation, but we're running running short on time here, so appreciate you coming. We're very excited all of us here at least for running for mayor. I guess I would ask you this like one final overbearing question that you can lead us out with if there's one message Personal, professional doesn't matter, as long as it's real and true to you that you would want to leave with people you know right now especially what what would that message be?

Speaker 2: 47:05

And all these are usually a pretty either really generic answers or projection of the person yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:11

Um, god, that's a tough one. I you know I'm not. I'm making a long answer, so I really project. I really wish you know when I'm a parent my kids are 14 and 16 now and they're at an age now They'll remember stuff like when they're real little, you can go I'll work 60 hours. I'll never remember this. But then there's this weird age where they get to be four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, where you really you have to sort of like dial back the enthusiasm of business. In my opinion, or, if you can and I really wish not that I neglect, I mean I worked from home and they saw me all the time.

Speaker 2: 47:47

I've always had a hard time working at home with the kids and them running up and being like hey, that's gonna tell you and me not being be able to snap out it and be present, and I really wish I had worked on that sooner than later. Even now it's a struggle because I love working when I'm doing it and then they come to me.

Speaker 2: 48:04

Hey, let me tell you about wrestling practice. I'm like, one second, let me finish this email. Yeah, and so you know I I guess I never really thought I was. People like to look at entrepreneurship as being like this Super awesome thing and it's really a trade-off. You're trading off a lot of your mind and your stress and your time and your presence and and being a grinder of problems that most of us are. You're really that person of like. They're talking, you're like I wonder if I Put a porch on that house. And they're like and dad, hey, look at this picture.

Speaker 2: 48:34

You're like and the porch, and that's the trade-off really, and we really glorify these entrepreneurs and spotlight them. And it really is a trade-off and and you kind of have to be a glutton for punishment and have to have either a wife or a partner or Someone tells you when to draw back at times and it's just tough man. It's not a it's not a perfect road. It's not a road for everybody. There's times I wish that I had just a nine to five job and just could turn it off and go home and be happy with it, and sometimes I just love the, the grind it's a day today.

Speaker 2: 49:05

It's a thing, man. So just if you're, if you're starting as an entrepreneur, that's what the road that you're gonna have to take you get used to, and if you're already an entrepreneur, perhaps you go. Oh yeah, I can understand some of those words if you're listening to this and feel a little more human. A lot of times I look at other people and I'm like they got it all figured out. They, they had this work life balance and I don't, and and they're struggling with I struggle things that they don't. But I think we mostly struggle with the same stuff, yeah, and and it's a tough road, and so yeah, just realize it's a tough road to forgive yourself and ask for help relatable yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:39

So yeah, man, I I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you got a busy schedule to come talk to us and we're just starting this out, so we appreciate having someone like you any time We'll do episode 50. Okay, yeah yeah, 47 so that's. That's episode three of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast. Thanks for being on out. Thanks for having me.