We recently connected with Christopher Jackson and have shared our conversation below.

Christopher, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

The journey into business and growth alike for me began once I had to make the move from Atlanta, Georgia to Houston, Texas at the end of 2019 as a recent college graduate, Bachelor of Science-Mechanical Engineering, from the Georgia Institute of Technology. By January 2020, upon making it to Houston, Texas for the company I worked for, Rockwell Automation, at the time as a Software and Controls Technical Consultant in the Manufacturing space, I knew I wanted a house of my own, for more stability, and sense of settlement that I was not used to in my past. With that being the case, amidst the Covid pandemic and having to travel between Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mayfield Heights, Ohio, and Houston, Texas for the majority of the year for technical and engineering training at the job, I began my house hunt during the summer months that I was in Houston in 2020, in between training rotations. Specifically, the start of my journey into the realm of real estate business began upon closing on my first home by December 2020, and I will explain why.

Through the purchase of my first home in Katy, Texas back in 2020, which was and still is a rapidly growing area near Houston, Texas, I was able to build equity from the property quite swiftly! By the time February 2022 approached, I had more than $100,000 in equity on the property. The exposure into how to pull that equity out into something liquifiable, came 3 months prior to that. Through conversations about investment properties with one of my good friends and counterparts through college and over the years, Travise Kinney, who was expanding his business within the Air BnB space in South Carolina, my curiosity peaked, and I began calling banks when understanding more about equity. As if told on yesterday, the main phrase I constantly remember hearing from several bank visits when making my first attempts was, ” we cannot help you because equity on a home is not able to be turned into liquid cash within 3 to 5 business days”. Rather than quit and feel defeated however, I continued extensively doing more research with their feedback to gradually understand I needed to pull either a Home Equity Loan, or use a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), in my case. By the time February 2022 rolled around, I secured my first HELOC for $42,436 from Frost Bank and began my hunt for my first investment property with these funds as means of my downpayment. From February to August 3rd, 2022, I had placed 8 multifamily properties from Southeast to North Texas under contract, in a seller’s market, where there was a lot of competition due to lower interest rates still. Ultimately, I turned down all 8 of those purchase agreements to go with a different approach. Through the experiences learned of acquiring multifamily homes, on August 3rd, 2022, I acquired and closed on a single-family home, 4 miles from my first home, and chose to go with a rooms-for-rent strategy instead; building onto what I already learned about multiple tenant strategies amidst my journey. By September 2022, I officially registered and started my first business in Texas, Dwellinghouse Investments, LLC, to serve as the holding company for my real-estate assets moving forward, though I placed this first investment property in my personal name.

After transitioning strategies with my single family home(SFH) residential investment property, spanning from rooms for rent, entire family rentals, short to mid-term rental for traveling business professionals/nurses, all the way to Public Housing and Section 8 voucher approved families funded by Houston Housing Authorities; I came across the realization that I did not want to tie up all my Net Operating Income(NOI) on just one property where I would complete a lot of work for minimal profit margins. This was when I understood scaling my assets was critical! From both seeing and feeling the difference of all risk for minimal reward with a one-tenant property, where all profits turn into losses if that one tenant/family moves out for their own reasons, I began strategizing on how to minimize that risk and scale. By June 2023, I purchased my first commercial real estate asset, now Ready Lock Go Self-Storage, and performed a complete rehab and added-construction, to a once under stabilized and ran-down, 40-year-old facility.

Interestingly enough, another important aspect I began to learn at this point as well, was about establishing relationships with my lenders. By the time I had acquired, rehabbed, and began operations of Ready Lock Go Self-Storage in Webster, Texas, I utilized a 1-year Hard Money Loan to do so. With this particular Hard Money Loan, I had to make interest only payments on the principal balance of the loan, which would then ballon and become due all upfront by June 2024. As you can imagine, your exit strategy can be a time of high stress when considering terms of how you plan to pay-off or refinance this type of loan, all while performing construction and operating a facility synchronously, working as a Cloud Solution Architect-Azure Infrastructure full-time for Microsoft by this point, planning a wedding with my fiancée that was set for September 2023, and unfortunately, recovering from rupturing my Achilles in April 2024. I was on crutches with a splint, cast, walking boot, all before a tennis shoe, while rehabbing both the storage facility and my right Achilles tendon post-surgery for months, while trying to execute and figure it all out! Going the route of wanting to hold my asset for the long term and watch its growth, I began underwriting and presenting my business plan to commercial lenders who are able carry long term debts for longer periods of time. 40 denial letters and several months later, by October 2023. it became apparent that commercial lenders tightened their debt obligation terms due to the U.S Federal Reserve increasing interest rates 11 times from 2022-2023 to fight inflation. With this feedback and my tenaciousness to find a way or make one, I chose to go through the Small Business Administration via SBA 7A alongside SBA preferred lending banks to accomplish my goal. Fast-forwarding to January 2024, I was successfully able to complete a 4-month underwriting and closing process with SBA 7A and Bancorp Bank, to secure a 25-year loan on my facility as well as ensure payoff of the 1-year Hard Money loan via this refinance, prior to the debt being due. This created a very trusting relationship with both my Hard Money lender and I, which then helped me in acquiring my second commercial property, an 8-bay self-serve car wash by the name of, Flying Frog Car Wash, in Missouri City, Texas, by May 2024 after having it under contract since February 2024. Now in November 2024, I have since built out a team of 3 employees under my payroll within Flying Frog Car Wash in Missouri City, Tx and have one helping hand for Ready Lock Go Self-storage out in Webster, Tx.

With where I am at along my business and real estate journeys when it comes to scale today, I live continuously by a mantra once stated by Milton Berle, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Who Am I:

Aside from what was previously mentioned as to how I got into the industry of commercial real estate as a business owner, I am Chris Jackson. I was born in Macon, Georgia, but primarily raised in and throughout Atlanta, Georgia since the age of 6. Upon graduating as salutatorian from Salem High School in Conyers, Ga, I played football as an Outside Linebacker while at Clark Atlanta University on academic and football scholarships. After 2 years, I transferred to Georgia Tech under their 3-2 Dual Degree Engineering Program. In May of 2019, I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Being no stranger to adversities or hard work. I persevered and battled throughout childhood and college, understanding that nothing is given, but always earned. This defined my strong sense of tenaciousness very early on through factors such as working full time while in high school and taking college courses at the same time to come into college as a sophomore, going through several bouts of poverty and homelessness while growing up, working 3 jobs while playing football at Clark Atlanta University, working full time at nightclubs doing armed security at night while going to Georgia Tech during the day, and so much more. Since January 2020, I have since then lived in the overall Houston, Texas area, where I own my commercial real estate and specialize in both the car wash and self-storage industries, have been happily married since September 2023, and also work in the Tech industry as an Azure Cloud Engineer at Microsoft presently.

What Services Does My Businesses Offer:

Within the self-storage space, my business, Ready Lock Go Self-Storage off of 150 Live Oak Street, Webster, Texas 77598, provides secure, electric-provided, drive-up ready, self -storage units of various sizes ranging in 5’x10’, 10’x10’, 10’x20’, and other larger units. Additionally, the facility provides parking spaces that are 10’x8’ and 10’x15’ servicing the Webster, Friendswood, Clear Lake, Dickinson, Pearland, and greater Southeast Houston areas.

Within the self-serve and overall car wash industry, my business, Flying Frog Car Wash, off of 15165 Fondren Rd, Missouri City, Texas 77489, provides self-serve washing options in 8- 13+ foot service bays, for functions such as high pressure rinse, high pressure wash, high pressure wax and clear coat sealant, pre-soaks, bug-offs, tire and wheel cleaner/degreasers, spot free rinses, turbo air dry, and much more for vehicles of all shapes and sizes at an affordable rate running at the facility 24 hours/ 7 days per week. Additionally, new services of partnering businesses for car detailing and provisional parking for food trucks during facility peak hours and days are coming into the mix soon!

How Do I Differentiate Myself:

The primary reasons that set me apart from my competitors are that I have a go-getter attitude, deep engineering background that I have integrated into my operations, humble beginnings that allow me to operate in any capacity; whether that be as a technician to my facilities, or wearing my CEO and many other hats to ensure jobs get done as a collective, and most importantly, my local presence at my facilities! I take pride in knowing that my quality makes my customer base always feel that they are more than volume quantity sales, and lead with that expectation in both my leadership and staff as the primary standard.

Any advice for managing a team?

1. Learn when to place yourself in team situations vs. when to lead through them.

2. Not every circumstance will require you to be present to accomplish tasks that you have delegated out for your team to handle. If you attempt to be the hero of every scenario that comes to mind, you will indeed burn yourself out, as well as create an overall low morale within the team. Trust that the people you hired to do the job are able to, and that they will accomplish the very task that you set out for them to do.

3. Understand when to “let off the reins” and provide your team autonomy to accomplish goals that lead to the same end result, though different process, of the objective at hand.

4. Reward your team in ways that are meaningful to them and their situations, not just your own.

5. Create goals that will require both you and your teams support to accomplish. In doing so, accountability is dispersed throughout and for everyone. It will also help justify point number 4 above.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that in business, things work linearly. Business is indeed nonlinear when it comes to success, but strangely linear when it comes to stress points or failure. Instead of focusing on business success and failure as extremes however, I discovered it is one hell of a beautiful thing to get caught up in what is constant, your progress.

I came across this revelation, and quite often, have to go back and remind myself that no matter how successful or unsuccessful I may become along my journey of entrepreneurship; I chose progress, no matter the direction, and that says plenty about one’s character.

There wasn’t one specific backstory that helped me to learn this lesson. Rather, it was through a combination over the years, of various overcome trials and circumstances that now help me to think and see perspective differently.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://readylockgoselfstorage.com
• Instagram: @_onlythat1, @flyingfrog_houston, @readylockgoselfstorage
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-jackson-36085076/
• Other: Google Business Profile: Flying Frog Car Wash- Houston