the journey so far
TLDR
This startup has been 17 years in the making
It’s not just a job. Revonate is deeply personal for me
Altruism doesn’t pay the bills
Create value with every exchange. There’s a beautifully virtuous cycle when you help other people make money
Personal Background
I’m a half-latino/ half-caucasian working class kid from Queens. This fact hit me especially hard when I looked around my high school at 14. It was one of those all boys catholic high schools you hear about on TV… and it felt like most of them came from a world of privilege that I had only ever seen on TV.
My mother was a real estate broker — when she wasn’t sick in bed. My father was a retired mailroom supervisor moonlighting as a retail store security guard. My brother and I always dreamt of building wealth through real estate — buying, renovating and selling/ renting homes in addition to running other cool businesses.
Professional Background
I’ve spent the last several years running sales teams at three venture backed startups to build a foundational skill set as a revenue leader. As you could imagine I’ve experienced a fair amount of highs and lows throughout that time. It’s trained me to fully embrace the flywheel concept to develop a revenue generating system that scales.
Pandemic shift & accelerant
The pandemic changed the world. I always felt like I would be pulled into starting a business one day. I felt that pull when I saw how broken this country got over toilet paper. I knew there was something bigger I could do to help, but I also knew I wasn’t wealthy enough to donate my time & money. I needed to create my own startup that didn’t just help rich people get richer.
Jeff Bezos is known for asking “What’s NOT going to change in the next 10 years?” when you’re evaluating a new business venture. My strong opinion loosely held:
- Companies (especially “white collar” types) will need to adopt a flexible WFH policy
- Real estate value was going to shuffle across the country significantly when more people realize they can work from anywhere
I felt strongly that there must be a way I could make a valuable business concept from this chaos.
Revonate Founding Story
I did what any highly ambitious, over-confident yet relatively pragmatic person would do- I moved to Vegas to gamble my life away.
My brother and I bought a ~50 year old home in an old part of Vegas. It checked all our boxes and was the first house we looked at. We put an offer on it and engaged with a general contractor to turn it into our dream AirBnB experience.
I heard horror stories about working with GC’s — especially for a significant remodel. I decided I’d be cautious and vet multiple GC’s. We ended up choosing the one I was referred to from my broker (also a close childhood friend). After reviewing the “quote” from my GC I drafted my own contract with a payment schedule that was tied to project deliverables. We were off to a great start but the project went $40k+ over budget and was a month delayed. In the end our relationship soured, he never finished the punch list and I didn’t pay the remaining balance.
But it wasn’t his fault. As an owner-operator at a small GC firm he struggles to maintain positive cash flow running capital intensive, low margin projects. Once I dug deeper I realized how fragmented the residential renovation industry is and that growing demand significantly outweighed supply for skilled labor.
I’ve worked as a carpenter in high school but knew my calling wasn’t building houses. But I sure as hell could build a sales team.
So what if we could make more money together?
What if I could build a business that didn’t just put food on my table but also benefitted the tradespeople that build the world?
