My New 7-Figure Business REVEALED... $3M Invested!

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. And it's been a while since I just sat in front of the camera and talked to you all about what I'm up to and what I'm doing in my businesses. And so the thumbnail is not clickbait. I am indeed starting five new businesses and in this video I want to talk about why I'm starting the businesses and how I'm funding them. And there's gonna be a really cool thing. I want to talk about the end of this video too that I haven't really talked about. So most of you do know I have sold off a big chunk of my real estate portfolio throughout 2022. I think I sold within about the top 5 to 10% of the peak from the peak of the market. But ultimately I was able to capture about $3 million worth of my sold it off and was able to capture about $700,000 worth of equity. I put that all into a 1031 exchange and I'm using that to put towards the headquarter building that we have for Augusta Lawn Care. So we've already paid off the land. We have a lot of the materials literally sitting on the property ready to be built. However, we are still waiting on a permit and it's been a long process. I do expect that throughout 2023 we are able to finish that project. But because of those delays, I've been able to sell the real estate, put that, that equity into a 1031 exchange as well as I expect over the next 12 months for me to cash flow from the businesses and pay off the headquarter building project without any debt. So I did not want to take $3 million loan to finish the project. It's especially in this high interest rate environment. I want a 7,8% interest rate hovering over a head and being a massive payment. So we've just been a little more conservative by selling the real estate and paying the headquarters in cash is the expectation over the next 12 months. Also because I sold the real estate, that money is also what I'm using to start four new Augusta Lawn Care locations. So if you don't know, I am the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. I started about three years ago franchising and and we now have over a hundred locations around North America. I now am going to be owning eight of those locations, four of which we are putting next to an existing location that I own in North Carolina. Now, I'm not going to be involved in the daily operations. We have general managers at each one of those locations. And then I have a regional manager that is really managing the general managers of all eight of my locations. And really what we're trying to test is the, the ability to be able to copy and paste the business model that we have for Augusta Lawn Care in different markets across the country. And for someone to have not just one location, not just two, but many locations, an entire chain, 10, 20, 30, 40, as they grow their wealth. And the reason I'm doing this honestly is because I've sold out a lot of my real estate, about half. Same thing with my stock portfolio. About half of my real estate and stock portfolio I've sold out of. And I've done that because I truly believe over the next 12 to 36 months, the best returns for me and for my capital is going to be in my businesses. It's not going to be in real estate, it's not going to be in the stock market. It's going to be in my businesses. And at Landscapes, I'm going to talk about the math behind that, the logic behind the return on investment when you invest in your businesses versus those different asset classes. As we head into a recession, however, just know that by selling off the real estate, I've been able to now afford these four new locations. I'm going to spend about $80,000 for per location. That includes all the equipment, all the franchise costs. Because we run these as if they were franchise locations. They're all completely separated and they'll be managed by separate general managers. And I truly believe the return will be better on those than in any other asset class that I could potentially have for my personal, personal money. Now, by doing this, what we're trying to do is prove what we are going to call the executive model. Now, this is not released yet, but, but later in 2023, we are going to be launching what we call the executive model at Augusta Lawn Care. When instead of starting with just one location, an investor can come. They have six locations all grouped together and they would come to training with their six general managers and a regional manager. And this would be capital requirements of more around $500,000 instead of right now, which is only 50, 60, $70,000. You can get an Augusta Lawn Care location started and off the ground even less if you, if you're doing the solo operator model. So the goal is to have the solo operator model for people to get started, the growth model for an established business to convert into Augusta Lawn Care location or grow one singular location very large, or the executive model where if someone wants to join from Day one, they can buy a whole grouping of territories together. So that's the plan as we head into 2023. And in my opinion, the executive model will be the thing that allows Augusta Lawn Care to go from 100 locations to 500 locations over the next few years. Now, the fifth business that I'm going to be launch, I'm actually going to be announcing in a few weeks at Landscape Summit. If you're a landscaper, I know there's a lot of people who are not landscapers and lawn care professionals that watch my videos, but if you are, I highly recommend you come to Landscape Summit. We don't have a whole lot of tickets left. The hotel we're actually having the conference is completely sold out. But if you go to the website, mikeandy.comsummit, there's a secondary hotel that we've now five, 10 minutes away from the conference center that they'll do a shuttle back and forth from and you can stay there and book directly from the site. So, so go to mikeandies.comsummit. i highly recommend you come. There is a cap of 320 people that we can have in the room. So please go there. If you're watching this before the end of the new year or even first few days potentially, we still have some spots available. Make sure you book your tickets. Corey Ballard is going to be there, Tommy Mello, other landscapers, other business owners that have been extremely successful, I highly recommend that you be there at Landscape Summit. We have two massive announcements. The second one I can't tell you about. It's going to happen the very, very end of the event. The other one is going to happen halfway through and that is going to be the announcement of the fifth business that I'll be starting in 2023 and it is going to be game changer. Three years ago we started franchising Augusta Lawn Care and I said that within five years. I said, give me five years and by that time we would have a unique and unfair advantage as part of being Augusta lawn care versus just starting as independent. I truly believe 2023 will be the year that starts to become a reality and starts to become more obvious of what that is. We've been building the infrastructure over the past three years. I truly believe we've been improving and refining. I've made plenty of mistakes and errors and trying to figure out Command center and all the ways that the departments work and for us to support our franchisees in the best way so they can scale up. I truly believe we built that infrastructure and now we can scale it from 100 to 500 locations and, and in doing so, we'll create an unfair advantage from a branding perspective as well as the resources, technology and software that we are building for our franchisees. So if you want to know what that fifth business is, you're going to have to come to Landscape Summit. But I truly believe it's going to change this industry and further cement the fact that Augusta Lawn Care is in the business of changing the landscape industry for the best over the next couple decades. Now, the last thing I want to address is this channel and what we're doing with the content. Two things. Number one is business. Bootcamp is something I'm very passionate about, not only because it is more of an entertainment, but I truly believe it'll bring in more small business owners to the community and to my content. And it's really like the bait on the hook. I'm really not interested in people, you know, being entertained, but I really want them to come and learn business concepts. And many times entry level entrepreneurs and small business owners, they won't necessarily sit down and watch very technical videos. And so by having business boot camps a little more entertaining, I hope to be able to grab them, attract them into, and then give them the vitamins that they actually need and cover those vitamins with something that's a little more entertaining. And we're going to invest into this over the next several months, significantly, hopefully getting another editor and ramping up how many videos we're able to produce. But the goal in all of this is to attract small business owners, especially in the service industry, that can learn and grow their businesses using these different concepts. And my hope is by having a little more entertainment involved and be able to increase the production level, I'm able to attract more of those small business owners and give them the advice and help that they need. Now, the last thing I want to talk about is demonetization is a community post I made a couple weeks back and that is why did I demonetize my channel? So the videos that we are now putting up are demonetized. Now my channel, like this month is going to make two have 2 million views. The most money I've ever made from Adsense is a little over $6,000. So it's nothing. It's not like it's nothing, but it's not like I'm making millions of dollars from AdSense. So don't, don't think anything crazy. However, I'm very clear that I'm not turning my demonetizing my channel and taking I don't make any money now from the ads. And if they are ads that play pre roll, I'm not making any money from them. So please do not click them. The reason I'm doing this is because the vast majority of the ad that played before my videos are targeted towards young males, entrepreneurs. And it is the type of lifestyle and portraying an image that I do not believe in when it comes to entrepreneurship and that is fast cars, women, cash, get rich fast. In my opinion, all of that is an absolute facade. What we've seen with ftx, what we've seen with cryptocurrency, what we've seen with many of these businesses over the past 12 months, even businesses that were just venture backed and unprofitable, is things that go up very fast, come down very fast. And I do not want my audience looking at those things and seeing them and coming to my channel for content that is helpful for their business in my opinion and to be seeing those other things now I am aware that Google is still going to play ads on pre roll and I'm just simply not going to get my 55 or 60% cut or whatever it is. That's fine. I don't want or need that money because in my opinion I am making that money because my users, my audience that is trying to look for good business advice is clicking on these scams and these pathetic fulfillment by Amazon things and people flashing money and cash and Lamborghinis. And in my mind that is not what entrepreneurship is and I want to have nothing to do with it. I hope there's a day where I can block specific types of genres of advertisements and sponsors that show up before my videos. And I have consistently turned down sponsors on my videos as well. Now some people are like, oh, that's make you such a great person. It's not. I truly believe I'll make more money and I'll have a better brand in five or 10 years because of what I'm doing. I don't take sponsors. I've been offered tens of thousands of dollars to make video sponsors part of my videos, whether it be business, bootcamp or these type of videos. I have had tens of thousands of dollars offered to me to do that. I decided not to and it's further cemented my actions in doing so with the likes of uh, FTX going down and these other sponsors that are basically running Ponzi schemes in the back end. And now creators have to break, take their videos down, apologize, give money back to their users. And that's just not something I want to be part of. If I don't have full control of the product or service I am pitching. And I can't absolutely know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I'm doing what's right for the audience. I'm not going to pitch the product. So in all of my videos, there's links in the description. Those are all my products. Those are. None of those are. I'm not affiliates. I'm not pitching other people's products. And the only reason I'm doing this. Cause I can control what I sell and I control my brand. And I really believe that all the courses that I sell and the content I have for marketing and web design and all the things that we do is gonna help your business. And I can truly stand behind that. I'll put my name behind it every single day of the week. And that's the only type of things I'm gonna continue to pitch and promote on this channel. Now, last thing. Landscape Summit. You got to be there. So if you're a landscaper, go to mikeandies. Com Summit. There's another crazy, crazy. Not just my fifth business thing I'm starting, there's another massive change and a massive announcement that we are having at Landscape Summit. I think you'll really want to be there, so look forward to seeing you there.