How I Built a $1B+ Business in My 30s

Oct 08, 2026

In 2011, I left Goldman Sachs and took my biggest risk ever.

I reverse mortgaged my house to invest in a struggling business called Teles Properties.

But five years later, Teles had grown from $300 million to $3.4 billion in sales and was bought by Douglas Elliman.

And I built it with a small brand. Not 1 million or 10 million followers.

So here are the 3 pillars I used to build a big business with a small brand:

I asked all 28 real estate agents why they chose to work with us.

Every single one said the Teles platform saved them one day a week.

This became our value prop that we built the entire business on.

Now, building a brand doesn’t give you free leads…

But it does make every ad cheaper.

Let me explain:

You could run the exact same ad as Oprah Winfrey, but hers will cost less because the familiarity drives trust.

So give away your best stuff to build that trust.

A daily podcast I made public took us from 28 agents to 700 in five years with no ad spend.

I break down exactly how all three pillars work in my latest video:

Watch it on 2x speed.

But one of the most important skills I learned that helped me build Teles wasn’t just brand or marketing…

It was learning how to become an investor.

People think investing means buying the S&P 500 or Bitcoin.

But I think that definition is completely wrong.

Investing is the intentional allocation of resources, and there are 5 forms of capital you’re already investing, whether you mean to or not:

I break down how to invest each of the five forms of capital in this video:

Your main man,

Sharran

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