Please, introduce yourself and your business. (Tell us about your business)
FROM BIO: Fernando Angelucci has built a portfolio of over $220,000,000 in self-storage assets across the country within the last 6 years. Fernando diversified his investments between purchasing existing cash-flowing assets, building ground-up facilities, and self-storage conversions of big box retail stores. In addition to his own acquisitions, Fernando provides other investors access to off-market facilities at drastic discounts, capital for strategic partnerships, and opportunities for passive investors to participate in syndications.
How did you start your business?
In 2014, I quit my job working for a fortune 50 company just 13 months after graduating. I attended a free real estate event near my house and learned how to max out credit cards to buy their programs. I went home and applied for 60+ credit cards and was approved for 10-12 of them. When the first batch arrived I cash advanced $97k off the cards and started marketing for a house to buy out of probate court in downtown Des Moines, IA. From there I started wholesaling houses, then flipping houses, then holding rentals for "passive" income. Very quickly I realized that all of these supposedly "passive" activities were not so passive. Coupled with the headaches of dealing with challenging tenants, I started shutting down my various businesses and started learning about self storage in 2015/2016. From there we started wholesaling self storage to test our knowledge and the market and in 2018 purchased our first self storage. That was the beginning of our current saga.
How much revenue was your best year? (include margin if possible)
$18mm (56-58% margin)
When did you notice traction when building your business? The “Oh S**t!” moment, what did that feel like?
Haha great wording for this question. I noticed traction in my business after reading and implementing the concepts in the book "Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business" by Gino Wickman. It laid out the fundamentals of an "operating system" for your business. It's been a rocket ship ever since.
What was your childhood like? Were you slinging candy on the playground?
I had a great childhood growing up. I was the son of two Brazilian immigrants. I have a brother that is 14 months younger than me. A spirit to always work hard was instilled in me by my parents and a sense of competition came from being so close in age with my brother. No slinging candy for me. The real breakthrough came when I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki in high school. It changed the way I thought about making money.
What has been your best marketing marketing channel?
Podcasts! One podcast gets us in front of a whole new audience, then that recording can be cut up into 700+ pieces of marketing. Now do that 100+ times. It has opened so many doors for us.
How many attempts at building something did you make before you found what you’re working on now? Did you always have an entrepreneurial drive?
I had 6 previous businesses from the age of 19 to the age of 25 before I found out about self storage. I feel like my entrepreneurial drive came at the age of 16 once I found out that being an entrepreneur was an option.
What is your biggest overhead expense?
Currently it would be the pursuit cost. That is the cost you must spend to find out if a deal or development is worth your time. The unfortunate part is that on one large development deal, you can spend up to $500k before the deal can get funded by the bank and the investors. Acquiring existing storage has less pursuit cost but can start at $25k - $100k.
What’s the most important skill you’ve learned?
How to raise money from investors.
What do you spend the majority of your time doing, in a given week?
I spend the most amount of time thinking. Thinking is something that is so important and needs to be scheduled. From outside the office someone might see me just sitting at my desk with a legal pad and a pencil just staring at a wall. But by scheduling this time to think, it has lead to some of the biggest pivots in our business that allowed us to continually scale at unprecedented rates. The task that I spend the second most amount of time on is raising money.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when first starting your business?
1. There are cheaper forms of capital out there! 2. Start big. The more 0's on a project, the easier it is to get debt and equity to chase the deal and the less competition there is for that deal.
What’s a big problem you’ve faced as a business owner and what were the emotions behind it?
Failing multiple businesses. Failure is not the end. It is the beginning. The ones that become successful are not the ones that never failed. It is the ones that failed, learned from their failures, and adapted for their next attempt or idea. The emotions are tough to deal with but are fleeting. Instead of relying on your emotions to tell you what direction to go, I find it healthier to observe those emotions, let them pass, then continue on the journey of entrepreneurship using all of the lessons I have learned from the failure to continue on.
What is your best advice for someone who feels completely stuck?
Read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Then do one thing per day minimum to get you to your goal. Stuck usually comes from looking at a massive problem or opportunity and trying to solve it all at once. The expression "how do you eat an elephant... one bite at a time" is relevant here.
