Tommy DobczykOpportunity Zone Advisor, OZ Wizard · Director of Development | Certified Opportunity Zone Advisor

9/11 Deal: Bought Roofing Tar Paper for $3, Competitors Bankrupt! #shorts

7 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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0:46

In a brief first‑person narrative, the speaker recounts a deal made on September 7 2001 to purchase a warehouse’s worth of roofing tar‑paper rolls at $3–$4 each. Four days later, after the September 11 attacks, the market price surged to about $34 per roll. The speaker’s bulk purchase generated a huge profit, effectively driving four competing roofing companies out of business. The experience led the 24‑year‑old narrator to realize he could scale his business without personally performing the manual labor, marking a pivotal shift in his entrepreneurial mindset.

Chapters

He says, I got a warehouse full of it. I got to get rid of it. I'll give it to you at a discount. Will you take it for $4 a roll? I said, I'll buy two trucks at $3 a roll and have it here by next Friday. He said, done. That was September 7th, 2001. You know what happened four days later? No. It was 9 11, 2001. The price of that roll went from $4 a roll to $34 a roll. And I just bought a warehouse full for dol. I put four roofing companies out of business. Like when he was saying he went and got his competitors workers, I went and just got my competitors. I realized at 24 years old that I no longer needed to be the guy that did the stuff.