May 16, 2022
Is it possible to be in four companies and still have time for important things in life?
Edwin Carrion’s expertise in all aspects of managing operations of startups, from development, design, organization, legal, financial, marketing, capital financing, and strategic negotiations with client and vendor partners, has made him the key player in growing four of his most notable companies from start-up to annual revenues exceeding $15,000,000.
With all of these, he’s still able to focus on making himself and his loved ones happy. In this episode, he talks about how creating a replicable business model and finding the right partner and team helped him to achieve success while still living his best life.
[00:01 - 05:19] Living Life to the Fullest
- Having an early head start in business
- The secret to diversifying
- Making a model of success
- Creating a team
[05:20 - 08:04] Bringing in a Technical Partner
- Why you need a technical partner
- The value you can offer as the business-side partner
- Growth mindset
- Capital resources
[08:05 - 15:19] Important Lessons for Business Owners
- Edwin on why he’s not interested in service-type businesses
- Instead of reinventing the wheel, perfect the wheel
- Building the way he wants to
- Managing risks
- Learn from your mistakes
[15:20 - 16:16] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Edwin!
- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“Once you create a model of success, that model can be duplicated into whatever you do. And as long as you follow the same business model that got you to success, everything else is going to work the same way.” - Edwin Carrion
“I will not change one thing because I know that today I will change one thing in my life. My life wouldn't be the way it is right now. And I don't regret anything that I have done in my life and I'm happy for those mistakes.” - Edwin Carrion
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Edwin Carrion 00:00
Once you create a model of success, that model can be duplicated into whatever you do. And as long as you follow the same business model that got you to success, everything else is going to work the same way. And I have created that so I don't go crazy and I start four things at once. What I do is I focus on one of them, become really good at that one. Once I create a team that is able to sustain a step back, and then I'm able to go into the next investment, on to the next thing that I want to create.
Intro 00:27
Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson 00:39
Edwin Carrion is an entrepreneur, a businessman, and deal maker with more than 20 years of successful experience in multiple industries. Edwin, welcome to the show.
Edwin Carrion 00:48
Hey, Sam, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. How are you?
Sam Wilson 00:51
Hey, I'm great. The pleasure is mine. Three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show: in 90 seconds or less, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?
Edwin Carrion 00:59
I started in real estate in 2002. I started enterpreneurship when I was 14 years old. Where am I now? I'm living life to the fullest. And you probably wonder what that means is having a balance of my life, enjoying all aspects of my life, working 20 hours a week and spending a lot of time and creating a lot of memories with my family.
Sam Wilson 01:20
That is fantastic. And that was gonna be my next question is what is life to the fullest mean to you?
Edwin Carrion 01:26
It means having a balanced life, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, you know, at the beginning, we've focused into making a big, you know, and we put aside and that becomes our number one priority. And we forget about everything else, we forget about our health, we forget about being happy. We forget about spending time with our family being present for our kids, be present for our wife if you have one and we lose sight of all of that. It comes to the point that yeah, we get the success, but success is not fulfilling, you know, at a very early age, I was fortunate enough to go bankrupt and realize that when I went back about 27 years old when the real estate market crash, and from there on I've been living, you know, the YOLO life when you only live once meaning that I've been making myself happy. And through that of making myself happy, I'm able to make my family, my kids, my employees, my business and just the growth is continuously going.
Sam Wilson 02:18
That is interesting. You said you've been involved in multiple businesses. What were some of those businesses outside of real estate?
Edwin Carrion 02:25
Started when I was 14 years old. Like I mentioned, my first company was a DJ company. I was a DJ. I played throughout South Florida radio stations, clubs, had an entertainment company. So that was my first company. Carwash prior to that, actually I started doing washing cars when I was 13 years old. And 14 my DJ company. When I was in the military in the United States Marines, I used to sell calling cards because without cell phones back in the day, so I will sell calling cards to the marine so they could go home, especially because I was stationed in Japan. From there left the Marine Corps, started real estate development. Before real estate development, I went into the jewelry business, built a massive company, sold that company in 2014. Back into real estate development, from there on, I bought a transportation company. With a transportation company, we got into the InC 5000. As you can see back here behind me, we are in the Inc 5000 in the transportation company. Opened up an investment firm into the forex market. And that's what I do. So today nowadays are four things transportation, real estate development, forex investment and business consulting and education.
Sam Wilson 03:31
That's a lot of moving pieces. And going back to your idea here that you want to live life to the fullest. It sounds like you've kind of like the lots of variety and a lot of things going on. And that's part of your living life to the fullest. Is that right?
Edwin Carrion 03:45
It's not gonna like there's a lot... It is in everything in life. And you learn a lot, even the financial planners tell you you have to diversify, right can't put all eggs into one basket. So what I learned with me is that once you create a model of success, that matter could be duplicated into whatever you do. And as long as you follow the same business model that got you to success, everything else is going to work the same way. And I have created that. So I don't go crazy. And I start four things at once. What I do is I focus on one of them become really good at that one, the ones I create the team that is able to sustain I step back, and then I'm able to go into the next investment on to the next thing that I want to create.
Sam Wilson 04:25
When you talk about team, what does that mean to you and who is the first person when you're starting a new business that you always bring on?
Edwin Carrion 04:34
It all depends on the business that I'm starting. But let's talk about the transportation company because I did mention transportation. In the transportation company, I have no knowledge and I didn't have a lot of experience in transportation. So when I bought the transportation company, the first person that came in was my technical partner because I am the business partner. I have all the knowledge in business but I don't have the knowledge into like the Forex for example, my Forex investment partner. I am not a trader, I don't know anything about Forex trading. Now that I've been in business for two years, I have learned a lot. But I still cannot, you know, be responsible for other people's money and for my money into the business side. So what do I do is I bring in a technical partner. So that will be the first person that I'll bring into any business is a technical partner, if I don't have the experience on the technical side of the business,
Sam Wilson 05:19
How do you find a technical partner that wants to work with you that if they already possess the technical skills, what value do you offer them, maybe that they haven't already self-created in their own life?
Edwin Carrion 05:33
There's a lot of things that a business partner brings to the table, that a lot of times a technical partner doesn't see. And again, is not just partnering with somebody. It's finding the person that is looking for the growth. So on the transportation side of the business, my business partner, he grew his company to eight trucks. And that's all he was able to handle. He didn't know how to scale from a truck to 40 trucks or a trucks to 100 trucks, he didn't have the mindset. So when I talked to him, you know, when he explained to me the business model, I told him, why don't you have 50 trucks? Why don't you have 100 trucks? And his mind just went no, no, no, that could never happen we can ever get to that level is too much. So that's where I come in, and I bring the value in, number one, I've seen the value. And as far as being able to know how to scale a business and know how to sustain, how to create a team to sustain the scale of a business. That was number one. Number two, I could bring the capital, you know, I have earned the financial freedom and being successful at what I have done in the past. So I have capital resources that I'm able to raise capital, to bring the capital into the joint ventures and the businesses that are part of. What the other one is, how do I find that, besides me jumping in with anybody, I make sure that we do share the same values, because I only work with people that share my values, like my business partner in the Forex business. This is somebody that I mentored six years ago, and into business and real estate, actually, deciding real estate wasn't for him. He liked it. But it wasn't for him. It wasn't his passion. So he got into the Forex trading, he became really good at it, he got to the point where he was making good money. But again, he goes talking to him, if this is such a great business model, why haven't you taken it this far? And again, the mindset is not there. So once I partnered up with him, in less than two years, we grew that company really big. And just as again, because I know how to scale things. I know how to create a system. And I know how to bring the capital in for projects like that.
Sam Wilson 07:22
Right. You find the technical partner, when you bought the transportation company, had you already identified the technical partner? Or was it Hey, I'll buy it. And then I'm sure there's somebody out here that could find?
Edwin Carrion 07:33
Well, when I bought the transportation company, the person that I bought it from that became a business partner, he was the technical point. And the transportation company, you know, I could break it down into three components, logistics, maintenance, and administration. So I took over the administration part, he started with the logistic and maintenance. And that's how we grew.
Sam Wilson 07:53
Right. Yeah. Because you had the mindset on the administrative side, maybe how to bring in more business, how to grow the company, and he knew how to run it, and just was growth, growth-minded? That's really interesting. Is there any business right now that you would say, hey, that's too difficult, or has too many moving parts to just say, No, that's not of interest. Or is there anything on the table now as a possibility, because you know, how to grow and scale companies.
Edwin Carrion 08:18
I mean, the businesses that I personally don't like to get involved with are the service-type businesses, hair salons, nail salons, restaurants, because the profit margins are too small. So one of the things that I learned throughout being in business for over 20 years is that you need to learn what each customer is going to bring you. What is the average revenue per customer? And in the restaurant business, in the nail business, the average revenue per customer is very small. That's one of the things that I tend to stay away from. And I learned that when I had my jewelry business, again, I was the business partner. And I had a technical partner in the business. And we realized that our average client was around 100, to $1,000. And that's a good number to have, because that means that we don't have to have a lot of quantity. So with time you learn about that is better to have quality versus quantity. And it goes the same thing for my development. When I started in real estate development, I used to build so many houses, I was crazy, like all over the place, trying to find land. And I was doing like all these small little houses, which they were you know, $200 to $300,000. Nowadays, you know, I don't do that anymore. I built one house every year and a half, two years. But the house is a $3 to $5 million project. Like my next project I'm starting to work on right now. It's going to be a $10 million project. And it's only one house so I don't have to go crazy building 10-15 houses, I only do one project and it's going to need me the same amount of money as the other ones would. But at the same time I work a lot less because I do not like to work.
Sam Wilson 09:49
Right, that makes a heck of a lot of sense. On the development side, what have been some of your favorite developments and why?
Edwin Carrion 09:56
My favorite developments have been the first ones that I built. And I'm going to tell you why. Because I realized at the time I was building 1600 square foot houses, four bedrooms, two bathrooms with one car garage. And I didn't create the floor plan for those. What I did was, I always understood that you have to add value to everything that you doing life. So I used to go to these big developers, the Lennar, the Schumacher homes, the Better World Builders right now, which are some of the big ones, D. R. Horton's. I used to go to their developments. And I will pick a model that I like, and I will take the model, and instead of reinventing the wheel, I perfected the wheel. And what I mean by perfecting the wheel was I added things that didn't have, little things meaning like in their bedrooms, they used to put carpet. So instead of me putting carpet in the bedrooms, I used to put tile, so when somebody that was buying their first house, they would walk into this house and be like, Oh my god, he has tile on the bedrooms. He's like crazy, like this so much money, maybe it cost me an extra 1%. to add that, you know. In the closets, instead of putting the wires closets, I used to put the rod, the metal rod, which cost about the same amount of money. And people were like, oh my god, he has a cloth. He has a rod it has ever been the wire mesh. So those were my favorite projects, because I realized that I was building somebody's dream. And in America,to own your house or to buy your first house. It's like you accomplished the American dream, right? Especially because I'm coming from another country, coming here and buying your first house like wow, I made the American dream. So I was building and I was creating people's American dreams.
Sam Wilson 11:30
That's awesome. Absolutely awesome. never really think about it from that perspective. So you're building right now your $10 million home, that's your next project. If people just come to you and say, Hey, I've got this big, giant home I want to build will you build it for me?
Edwin Carrion 11:43
No, like I told you, I don't like to work. And one of the things that I do is I don't build for people. I build for myself. So every project that I do now is a spec project, meaning that I'm going to build it the way that I want to. And when it's 90% complete, that's when I put it for sale on the market. And the reason I put it for sale on the market when it's 90% complete, because there's very little changes that the new owner could make. Versus that me put it on our market, like a lot of developers do, you know, before it breaks ground or when it's the beginning stages, people come in, and they want to make all these changes. And it just prolongs the process. And it makes it more tedious. So to me, I said I have good taste. My wife has amazing taste as an interior designer, and we just build the way we like it. And if you build it, it will sell.
Sam Wilson 12:25
What are your risks in that? Let's say the economy takes it... What are your risks and building a high end luxury home?
Edwin Carrion 12:32
Risk is like anything else in business, there's always a risk, right? So as long as your key with your risk, and you know, for me, my risk tolerance could be 30%. For you, it could be 10%. So as long as I'm okay with my risk tolerance, I try to mitigate that risk. Since the beginning, I try to figure out what is going to be my risk. So in this case, my worst-case scenario could be that. Well, number one, let me explain a couple of things. I'm doing development, right. So I'm not flipping, I'm not wholesaling. Flippers or getting an old house, putting some paint here and there and making it look pretty, right. So the profit margins are very little right and you're a developer, you profit margins are larger than that. So we got about 30% profit margins from the total costs of construction. So my project profit margins are huge. So if the market was to crash, which now everybody's talking about a real estate bubble coming up, which there might be a bubble, but I don't think it's going to crash like it did back in 2007, 2008. So let's say a crash 30%. I'm still at breakeven. And if the market crashes, that way, I can rent a house because high-end luxury homes, a lot of people I didn't know that before it started building higher luxury homes. But there's a huge rental market for that there's a lot of companies that bring their CEOs and CFOs to other states, and they pay for all these luxury homes, and they pay a lot more than you were to sell the house because they don't want to have the liability on their books. So they rather rent, right. So there's two parts to this. The third part is you can always rent it for movie shoots, video shoots, all those things. Because I have done that in the past with one of the houses that I used to own. We film a couple of music videos in there and everything else, there's multiple options on the high end luxury market. And the last one that I always tell everyone is that even though let's say we're in a bad economy, there's a lot of people making a lot of money when there's a bad economy, just like when there's a good economy, right? I made millions of dollars from 2008 to 2012. When everybody was suffering, we had, of course, the economy, the United States, you know, I made millions of dollars in the jewelry industry during that economy and I was buying real estate I was buying properties and taking advantage of the fire that there were out there.
Sam Wilson 14:33
If you could look back and your business career and there was one mistake that you would rather not repeat again, what was it? And then how can you help our listeners avoid that?
Edwin Carrion 14:42
I love this question. And I don't know why everybody likes asking this question. And my answer is nothing. I will not change one thing because I know that today I will change one thing in my life. My life wouldn't be the way it is right now. And I don't regret anything that I have done in my life and I'm happy for those mistakes. But the one thing you have to remember is that as long as you learn from that mistake, you're going to be better off. But if you do not learn from that mistake and you keep making the same mistakes over and over again, you're not going to get anywhere. So it's not about changing or doing something different is about learning from that mistake and make sure you don't commit and you don't make the same mistake again.
Sam Wilson 15:19
Absolutely. Edwin, if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
Edwin Carrion 15:25
The best way to do that is join me on my social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn @edwincarrion78. Or you could just go to my website, Edwin Carrion and send me a message and you could connect to me. If you have any questions about real estate, live business, relationship, marriage, kids, anything, send me a message I'm very easy to get in contact with. I love to help people out.
Sam Wilson 15:45
Edwin, thank you so much for your time. Certainly appreciate it.
Edwin Carrion 15:48
Oh, thank you for having me. Have a great day.
Sam Wilson 15:50
Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen, if you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories so appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.