The first company I built wasn’t the one that ended up cash flowing first.
I started Blue Rabbit Group with a former coworker from my Sonder days, a month before I started building Zenith Degree.
Blue Rabbit Group: The One That Came “Easy”
BRG came easier.
The mission Stacy and I were chasing was clear from day one. We’d both seen the gap between property management, real estate, and hospitality, and we knew it needed closing.
Stacy brought real estate development experience. I brought operations.
Where we each added value was obvious from the start. Countless calls on culture, brand development, website build, and we worked through all the questions together.
Web development and marketing. Cold calling. Building relationships with owners. Underwriting. It came naturally.
Once BRG had legs (baby legs, but legs), I started spending my downtime building ZD.
Zenith Degree: Building It On My Own
ZD was harder.
No co-founder this time. Every decision landed on me, with the occasional gut check from my wife over dinner or in front of the TV.
ZD still had that hospitality DNA underneath it, but the brand identity and what I was building were different from BRG.
ZD’s mission is to help owners, renters, and vendors find their Zenith by delivering the best spaces to the community. Degree is the measurement of that.
Honestly, when I built ZD, I was also shopping for my first real estate investment property. I wanted to build the exact single-family residential property management service I’d want as an owner myself.
I’d worked for a local property management company before and seen what built lasting relationships, and what didn’t.
Full transparency from day one. Setting expectations early. Both prevent a bad reputation before it starts, and both are what lead to my success.
The blueprint was fresh from BRG, and I carried a lot of the same principles into what I was building solo. But it played out differently. I’d compare it to having two kids: a lot of the motions are the same, but the personalities and the experience are completely different each time.
Two Businesses, One Newborn
Speaking of kids, my wife and I had our first baby within 10 months of launching both businesses.
I’m grateful beyond words for my daughter. But I wouldn’t recommend starting a new business, let alone two, while dealing with a newborn.
Constant calls from vendors, tenants, and owners. Trading off sleep with feedings in the odd hours of the night. Rough.
What I Took From It
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.
That stretch was a test, and getting through it left me with better systems and a business built around what actually scratches my itch for work, and around being the best version of myself I can be.
It also drove home to me the importance of ironclad systems and processes. Where to delegate and what to lean on with AI to assist me where I needed the help.
