Nick Huber Profile picture
Sep 15, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read Read on X
In December 2017, after 5 yrs, my wife and I got tired of our 600 sf apt in Boston MA for $2,500 a month.

So we made a list of what 20% of our activities that brought us 80% of our joy and set out to find a city that had all of those things.

Here's what we did...
I made my list:

Craft beer / cycling / music scene
College vibe / sports
Fishing / hiking
Affordable country club (golf)
Lakes / Mountains nearby
Entre community

She made hers:

Restaurant scene
Beach within 5 hrs
Yoga
Coffee culture
Family friendly
Live music
Our criteria:

Less than 1:20 from major airport + city
55+ in January
100k+ ppl
New build 4 bedroom for under $300k, less than 12 minutes from downtown
East of Mississippi River

I was investing every single dollar I had to my name into self storage so we needed to live cheap..
My partner and I made the decision to take the management team for our service business (yes, an in person sweaty service) 100% remote.

No office. No geo footprint. No more high cost, city living.
On January 2nd 2018 we packed up our 6 month old and went on a 45 day journey to check out some cities that had a lot of what we wanted.

We visited:

Asheville NC
Athens GA
Bloomington IN
Columbia SC
Charlotte NC
Raleigh NC
After a few weeks on Zillow (and 7 days in the town) we chose Athens GA. On July 3rd 2018 we closed on a 3,000 sf home 9 mins from downtown with an unfinished basement and 2 car garage for $289,000.

The only problem was we didn't know anyone at all within 5 hours of Athens...
Turns out the tribe makes or breaks the location no matter how much there is to do, so we got to work.

We introduced ourselves to people at church, in the co-working place i rented, and even at the park and grocery store.

It was uncomfortable and it was WORK.
Soon enough we had our tribe and fell in love with the city.

The cost of living
The hospitality
The culture
The food

And on and on...
And my business didn't skip a beat. We bought 5 self storage properties in the first 12 months (all in the northeast). Our service business had its best year ever.

And we had a yard and we wore shorts in January and our mortgage was $1200 a month.
Baby #2 came. Covid came. The world changed for us and for everyone.

And we felt lucky every day that we had a garage and back yard to spend time in.
The entire journey was scary as hell. Every few hours my wife and I would look at each other and ask what the hell we were doing.

Leaving the comfort of where we were telling ourselves we needed to be wasn't easy.

But it was so freeing and exciting at the same time.
If you're considering taking a leap, do it.

Life gets fun when you get out of your comfort zone. And creating an entirely new environment, with new people, living how you want to live, is as rewarding as it gets.

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More from @sweatystartup

Mar 8
High school sports is a different level today.

You can’t compete at most high schools unless you do travel leagues, summer leagues, camps, lessons and dedicate your life to it.

So screw it.

My kids will be average athletes, enjoy the outdoors and will be great at business.

I was a D1 All American. Still hold 3 college school records and 6 high school records.

But it ain’t worth it today.
There are several sports that aren’t even worth playing.

Football is a brain injury waiting to happen.

Swimming is 4am and 4pm practice and 4 hours a day in the pool.

Volleyball and baseball are year round travel sports living out of hotels.
Wrestling encourages 16 year olds to starve and dehydrate themselves - often damaging the metabolism for life.

Baseball is a total waste of time. Insanely low odds and massive time commitment.

Gymnastics damages the body and joints and takes over young kids lives.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 21
A thread on how to turn $100 into a lot more:

Sound silly? Good.

It really is this simple sometimes.

Lets go👇
First, get on your computer and buy a web domain.

Get a freelancer (upwork or fiverr) to make you a logo/flyer and get $45 worth of flyers printed at your local print shop.

Buy a box of sidewalk chalk if you really want to grind and get gritty.
Go downtown with the sidewalk chalk and write “pressure washing and home cleaning 888-555-1234” as many times as you can in high traffic areas.

Go to a middle class or high end neighborhood and hand out flyers on porches and wherever else.
Read 17 tweets
Feb 13
I attribute a lot of my success to running every major career decision through this test from age 20 onward:

Which route will increase the odds of me being able to do whatever I want with 100% my time when I’m 35 yrs old?

A thread:
It turns out, when I really did the math, I didn’t need a unicorn startup.

I needed to stash about $1MM (after tax) by 27 and then invest it wisely from there.

Definitely wasn’t going to happen with grad school or law.

And most normal jobs didn’t cut it either.
So I started a small business with really crappy competition and a sure-bet way to make $250k a year for a few years straight.

The rest is history.

And I achieved my goal 5 years early.
Read 11 tweets
Jan 24
A mindset shift that really changed my life:

A thread:
Walk into every single interaction with the goal of adding as much value as humanly possible.

Don't think about charging money, withholding info, etc.

Prove you know your stuff.

Help in a massive way.

Gain trust. Profit later.
A lot of folks have this mindset of scarcity.

If I give away what I know I’ll lose something and they’ll gain.

Or if someone else makes money, I must be losing money.

The sooner you realize that it’s a plentiful world, everyone can make money and you should share everything.
Read 7 tweets
Jan 22
If you're new to the real estate community on X this is a must-read.

A thread on how most real estate folks structure deals with outside investors.

Most GPs utilize the "preferred equity" structure when they raise money from outside investors.

They "syndicate" deals.

Here's the basics:
The person (or team of people) putting the deal together is the "sponsor."

Also called the general partner or GP.

They find the property, do all of the work, hire the management company and take fees.

They often co-sign debt and always secure the financing.
The investor is generally passive, doing no work and just putting in cash. They are called the "limited partner" or LP.

They don't co-sign debt. They simply read reports and ask the sponsors questions and cash checks every month (if the deal is going well).
Read 28 tweets
Jan 15
What successful people understood before they were successful.

A short thread.
Mentorship isn’t about finding a great mentor.

It’s about becoming a person great mentors WANT to help.
Hiring isn’t about finding good people.

It’s about becoming a person good people want to work for.
Read 16 tweets

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