A short YouTube interview where Eric Tanner (co-founder with his wife Anna of Stronger Roots Housing) describes how they entered the sober living space after meeting Andrew, used his course as a step-by-step playbook, and rapidly scaled from zero knowledge to operating one staffed sober living house with a second approved and a third being purchased. Eric emphasizes the practical support and coaching as crucial, finds the work more fulfilling than short-term rentals, and is open to expanding beyond California.
Chapters
It's good to have you here. I know. I've wanted to chat with you about your success for a little bit. You and your wife. Could you introduce yourself and your business a little bit?
Yeah. So my name is Eric Tanner. I do this with my wife Anna, who is unable to make it. But our business is a stronger roots housing and we operate that in the Bay Area.
Bay area of California. Awesome. And I mean, what brought you to us? You learned about sober living, but why work with, you know, sober living riches?
On getting it started, you know, for us, we were in the real estate space and we were obviously looking for different exit strategies and different ways that we can fill the house and make money doing it. But we started at ground zero. We had no knowledge at all of how to do this or where to go or what to do. And we met you at, we met Andrew at a meetup and we asked him a little bit about, you know, his experience in real estate and what he was kind of doing and that, that introduced us to his course. And so that's, that's really how we got started. And we went really from knowing nothing at all to have having a good knowledge and owning and operating a business within the sober living space.
Awesome. And, you know, what did that look like working with us? What problems did you have initially and then kind of, how did we help you with navigating those and getting up and running?
Right. So, you know, starting off, obviously not knowing anything at all, it was slow going. You know, we wanted to learn as much as humanly possible, as quick as possible because we had purchased a house and we had this in mind and we were setting it up and getting it going. It was a roadmap. Uh, you know, the, the course just gave us a step by step playbook essentially of what to do and how to start and who to call and how to, how to kind of get going. And so it was on us to put those things in action and, and put them into practice. And you know, the course gave us everything that we needed and so we just followed those steps and uh, and now we, we have a, you know, an operating business. We have a house full of clients. Uh, we are currently waiting to, to get people into our second house that we have already done the approvals for. And we are in the process of purchasing a third. So it all happened real fast, within a few months and we're already on our third one. And we definitely couldn't have done it without the course that, that Andrew provided.
What's the, the biggest thing that was helpful for you guys.
Uh, the biggest thing, we all always had someone to lean on and that was the most helpful. I can't tell you how many times we've texted and called you and tried to get answers for problems that keep coming up and there's always going to be issues, but it's definitely, it's nice to have somebody to lean on, to be able to call and text and know that you can get the answer whenever you run into something that you haven't dealt with before.
So yeah, you guys are, you guys are special. You have my cell phone number. So I'm getting all these voice memos from Anna, but it's been awesome. And so since working with us, I mean you guys have done real estate investing in the past, since working with us now and getting your sober living homes up and running. Like what's changed for you? What does life and business look like for you now? And maybe what's the impact that you're having? Like, different than like short term rentals or something like that.
It's more fulfilling. You know, short term ren rentals. You're. That's. That's the space that we were coming from and, and you know, yeah, it's nice to, to get a quick buck, but to impact someone's life, to help them get into a better place, not and achieve their goals, you know, that's, that was the biggest plus for us that, that we noticed. You know, it's nice to make money, it's nice to get a successful business going and, and all that with the added fact that you're also helping someone, you know, achieve their goals and get into a better place. So our life keeps doing this thumbs up thing.
You're holding your thumb and it kept doing a thumbs up bubble.
Oh, I got you.
Funny.
So our life is, is basically we added another business to our, our, our portfolio and we're in a space that we love to be in just because of the Pl that come with it on, on helping people.
So that's awesome. And you mentioned, you alluded to it before but like the, the support piece, what do you feel like the. Our support has been like throughout this process?
I couldn't, I couldn't be happier with the support that, that we've been given that we've been shown. You know, any question that I've ever had in this space, I've gotten an answer for any, any problem that came up. It. It seemed like this course provided that, that, that answer for it. And so I would say that that's that's by far the, the biggest, I guess the biggest takeaway that I got.
If someone was on the fence about working with us, what would you tell them?
I would tell them that this is, this is the way to go. I'm a big believer in, you know, getting, getting the help that you need. And this checks all the boxes, so I would, I would recommend it with flying colors. And you definitely got to get this course.
Thank you so much. And I'm super proud of you guys. I'm excited to see you continue to grow. Do you have any plans on doing this outside of California?
I'm open to it. I want to do it. So, you know, it adds another, another wrinkle to it because we already kind of have our base here. We have our manager, so it's, it would be starting over again, but I'm excited for that challenge, so, yeah, I'm open to it.
That's really awesome. One last question for you. How big do you see this going?
As far as I can take it, you know, it's, the sky's the limit and I think it's, it's just as long as I can get these structures in place and, and I have people to lean on, so I could, I could go as long as I can go.
Well, thanks again for taking the time to, to share all that with us and I'm excited to see your growth.
I appreciate you.
Just a quick question for you. As far as feed feedback, is there anything else you'd like to see or that would be helpful? I keep trying to add stuff as I see that it could help, but is there anything else?
Man, it really, it really, truly was very eye opening, all the information and, you know, running into it. I'm sure I'll think of something. And I, I, I could, but it was real well put together, so I, I really do appreciate that. I appreciate everything. And thanks again.
Yeah, you're welcome. And I'll see you on some future coaching calls.
