Chapter 2: The Next Generation

I'm going to build this mini storage unit and Mike was the project leader so he had the plans and he was telling us what we should do to make this plan a reality and I think that was Mike's first. He shot at the leadership in the construction capacity and he did great, he had the vision of it and he knew how to work to achieve it and I think that translated very well in the construction as well because he saw the plans and knew what the goal was. . The end result was going to be and what he wanted it to look like and what it would take to get there, so he immediately went in and said, "Okay, we need to build a good foundation and here are the techniques for digging a hole." You know, we have the machinery to make it a little easier and the tricks to get all the water out.

Having that vision of how everything fits together helps you progress. From start to finish you don't have to stop along the way and figure out what the

next

step is you don't have to go back and fix anything because you realized oh actually this doesn't quite line up. with my vision or My vision is a little different, that's why having that initial vision is so important and everything you do takes you there and although being in a mini storage unit is not as exciting as a movie project or A luxury apartment building, yes it is. He still motivates you to do it and have fun doing it and learn a lot doing it.

You know, he's an optimistic, happy guy, so you can't help but be the same. I actually stayed with Mike. at Mike's house during this time of summer, as I mentioned before, his family was so welcoming, that was part of it. They said, "Oh, you're working with us every day, why don't you stay with us too? So I had a room downstairs." and I realized, you know, when I was there decompressing from the day that Mike and his dad were leaving and talking about construction techniques and, you know, what things mean in the plan and how you can save money, save time. kind of tips and tricks that he learned and then he would come back and show them to Tori and I the

next

day and we would go over it together and then we knew we built that part of the plan and that was it.

Great, we ended up completing it over the summer and at the end Mike's dad came to inspect it and said, oh yeah, this looks amazing guys, now a professional team could have done it for the same price and a third of the time, but Lo You learned, but that was the important thing. He was building his team from the inside and, especially for Mike, who wanted to have a big role in the business. That probably taught you some valuable skills that you won't use. to get by by just telling them and then have a team come in and do the job knowing Ed, it wasn't that surprising, he did things a little differently, he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, he made mistakes along the way if he had to but really just trying things and doing things and I think he also passed that baton to us and said here, try it, do it, you know, a mini storage unit, it's big, but it's not like a multi-story apartment. building where if you make a mistake everything will collapse and hurt people.

You're somewhat limited in scope, if you make a mistake there you can fix it and it won't cost too much time or money, but you know, I think the time and money aspect was kind of secondary, you have to try. You will only learn and improve by trying things. I think his impact inspired me and he worked together to do things like he helped build some of the Mini Storage Buildings when we were, you know, in college and my dad didn't have a big building that we were doing. He inspired me to be a better, more motivated and hard-working person when we return.

Alyssa and Mike are done. With college and struggling to find their way in life, figuring out not only what to do with their lives but also how to have a greater impact on the world weighed heavily on Mike and Alyssa last semester of college we dated long distance because I still I was away in Michigan um and that last semester of college you know you're trying to figure out what I do after college you know I had some pretty good connections in Michigan where I was able to get a job pretty easily um but you know, young and dumb or in love. or maybe both I decided to return home because that's where Mike was.

My wife never wanted to be in Minnesota. I mean, we both grew up here, but you went to school in Michigan and she was very involved in politics and she was kind of growing up. there, she came back to Minnesota and gave up on that dream of being a kid now, after college, I guess the fuller story is also, uh, I came and agreed to work with my dad for the first year, even though my heart was really I wasn't there and my dad would have told you that too. I remember it was during the winter.

I just didn't love the construction. It was very cold outside and there were so many interesting things. The world I wanted to move on and push it forward, so there was a period where I was sick, I was a little bit legitimately sick, but also, if I'm honest, I was pushed a little further away, so I wasn't. get paid or anything but this is taking time off to pursue other ideas and ventures and my dad never had my whole heart or mind during this time, first of all one of our original plans didn't work out well so Mike had applied went to business school and of course he just applied to, you know, Harvard, yeah, just the big stuff, um, and in hindsight, now you know he was pretty young at the time, he was 24. or 25 years.

Typically, for MBA candidates, you're a little older. You get more experience unless you have something like super crazy on your resume, so he ended up getting an interview at Yale, but he didn't end up getting into any of the schools he had chosen, so that was actually our first plan. We were going to business school, he would do that, I would find a job working wherever and then he had interest in working for um like a consulting company, so that's what he thought he wanted to do, um, but then he didn't have . the option to do it at least not at the level he wanted.

I'm sure if he had applied to a lesser school he could have gotten in, but he wasn't interested in doing so at the time. I was also working to get into the business. I actually took the business school exam and got an incredibly high score, but then when I applied, I only applied to the best schools. I didn't get into those schools even though I had interviews, but what I later learned was that they didn't. get people out of college they want a couple years of work experience he's not satisfied with just the everyday, I guess I don't mean it, but he just thinks big, you know, he likes, there's a Disney quote and maybe I'm going to destroy this, but he says something to the effect that it's fun to do the impossible, and he's like that.

It was clear that Ed expected Mike to continue in his footsteps. Mike and Alyssa. Initially they were not so sure and preferred to find their own way to leave a mark on the world. You know, I moved back here without any job opportunities like that. It was good. I am back. I was applying for places. I was doing odd jobs. You know, seasonal jobs didn't fit very well. I was working with Mike's dad doing some odd jobs too. You know, helping with cleaning the apartment or different things that just needed to be done. But sometime that fall, it would be fall. 2010.

I just had this moment with Mike. I think I need to do something more with my brain, with my mind, like not. I was grateful for the odd jobs and doing all that, but, I just need to do it. something else and then we looked at a variety of things and at one point she wanted to teach for America uh we wanted to go to different countries we wanted to just try something new and part of what was happening is that the world was for the most part closed to New Opportunities, there weren't a lot of job opportunities and the ones there were, Russia was going to higher ranking people so I wasn't getting the opportunities and that was part of the conversation that was happening and another part was just acknowledging that you know this is not just a real estate company, if that's all, then I'm not that interested if we're just doing a mom-and-pop store to help the local community, I mean, that's that's great, but that's not where I want to spend my life, We only have one life and I want to have some kind of significant positive impact on the world, that's when my mind started to change, my wife and I even had my fiancé. that I had the time I had conversations about this of whether we could really make this our career is something that we could believe in and push this forward really have the kind of impact that we want to have in life we ​​started to realize that yes, this It is the most important thing is that we had a paradigm shift.

I guess instead of thinking we're stuck here or this isn't what we want, we decided to see it for the opportunity that it was and in that second year that's the point. I really got fully involved and, um, yeah, I think my dad was very honest, I would tell you today that that first year I don't think he was very sure of myself, um, because my heart wasn't in it, but by the second year that is. When things clicked and we moved forward together, we started to realize that we could take this business and scale it, and if we scale it in a way that reduces costs, we can really get it to a point where we can solve the affordability crisis. of housing in the United States, yes, today in the United States rents and housing costs are rising faster than wages and if you look at the last 60 years, other industries, for example manufacturing, have approved labor productivity by 760 percent, agriculture is approved by 1500 percent and during the same period of time construction has done nothing it has been flat well 10 but it has not done anything well this is unsustainable if this continues and that It means that we are going to be in a difficult situation here in the United States, so the simple idea is to simply apply the technologies and techniques that these other industries have used in the construction world and in the housing world reduce costs of the home.

Yes, for a family it may be a paycheck to paycheck salary. Think about the impact a 15% reduction in your cost would have. sounds like you should save money for a rainy day that means you could build a retirement fund that means you can actually take that vacation you've been dreaming of taking in your life will improve if the cost of your housing goes down and therefore not only I believe that we can solve the housing affordability crisis, but I also believe that we could have a significant impact on the demographic change that is coming to America and therefore realizing that we were excited because there is an impact here that can do that can actually make a dent in the universe his father had built a good foundation he had taught us a lot of things, you know, we basically had access to his knowledge from 40 years of doing this, which a lot of people don't I don't have, so Yes, we simply had a change of perspective.

You know, realizing that it was a good opportunity and you know that on a larger scale, just because his father did it this way doesn't mean we can't find a way. do it our way, you know, make it our own, do something similar but different, you know, most people who know Mike and know his father would say that they were definitely similar in certain areas, but they were also very different in others. , so I just decided to take it and move on and I guess that's what we did in the next episode of Zero to Unicorn.

Mike and Ed face an uphill battle with a new construction project and suddenly Mike steps in as CEO not because he's ready but because it's what he needs to do was one of the worst moments of my life. I don't think he seemed that bad to the rest of the world, but it felt amazing, right?