Jacob's Juice

Open your eyes and ears to the valuable information about our world today. Brad Lepper, founder of Stone Bru Coffee, Tonya Vakalskus, Realtor with Keller Williams, and Mark Shut, Founder of Web 3 Ready all provide huge insight on real estate, business, and crypto.

Business From Scratch with Brad Lepper

Brad is the founder and CEO of Stone Bru Coffee which is a local coffee roaster in Sioux City. “Sioux City is a small market, but we dominate because of the experience, quality, and structure we bring to our customers.”

Brad started out as a real estate investor and worked a 9-5 at Scheels. He was working at Scheels for 8 years and then it clicked. Brad had learned everything he could about the business of Scheels and began to change things up within Scheels. He began asking questions about how they could organize their inventory better or make more profit by outsourcing more suppliers. Finally, Brad had enough when he was approached with a business idea.

Originally, Brad was going to open a laundry mat off of Sergeant Road in Sioux City. However, the location had a drive-through window, and he didn’t want to let that go to waste. Brad partnered with Nick Tropht who is the head roaster for Stone Bru. Together they created a coffee shop instead of a laundry mat.

The Juice

Brad dove into the specifics of starting a business and how to best go about making a plan.

“You need to assess the opportunity and idea. Is there something already like this, are you the first to the market, do you have other people helping you on this?” Questions like this are important when starting a business.

Think about it this way. If you learn and cover everything you need before starting the business, you will be in a better position. Or you thought… According to Brad, “Just start. Things are not going to go as planned but you can be best prepared for when you need to pivot”.

One of the main focuses that Brad had was on the end goal and enjoying the process along the way. He mentioned “Everyone wants the million-dollar business but they never talk about the feelings of running a hundred-thousand-dollar business or less. That feeling of making your first sale and then every milestone after is what drives me. Of course, I want the result in mind, but the journey is where the real fun happens”.

Brad also commented on the current real estate market since he has experience in this field.

“Real estate is about to go through hell. The interest rates are high, people are scared, and inflation is coming.” He also goes on to talk about how the media hides a lot of important information in order to delay market crashes and preserve the economy so the wealthy can get their ducks in a row.

Markets up or down- Tonya Vakalskus

Tonya is a Realtor within Sioux City and in Okoboji. She is one of the top real estate agents in the mid-west and even served on the Iowa Association of Realtors.

Tonya started her journey in real estate in her thirties, this was young for Realtors at that time. She described her first years in real estate as a “whirlwind of confusion”. Once she got her feet under herself and went through working with mentors, she was able to grow her network, start selling properties, and brand herself as a top Realtor in the area.

On top of that, being a real estate agent means that you run your own business. She is an independent business within the brokerage that she operates with. “Being your own boss is hard.” She says.

When you are working for yourself, there are many difficulties. Tonya says the hardest thing is “Staying accountable. You need to be able to do the small things and get the work done.” People always talk about the end result or the big thing that got them to their riches, but they never talk about the little things along the way.

For Tonya, she has many small wins. “When I got my first closing on a house, it felt amazing. I was able to produce more for my clients because I now was evolving as an agent with my skills getting better every day”.

Tonya also loves working with people. She believes that the connections you make along the way in business are some of the key aspects to success. “If you don’t meet people, people will never meet you”. Tonya is talking about growing your sphere. In real estate, the more people you know the more houses you can sell which means more money for you.

Speaking of houses, the current economic status of the housing market is confusing. Tonya says it best, “the market is going down, however, we are still seeing homes go on the market because there is less saturation. People can get good deals on homes and save money along the way.” There is always a positive that comes out of a negative. The lower market means that there is more investments to be made in the future.

Industry on the Rise- Mark Shut, Founder of Web3Ready

Mark Shut is the founder of Web3Ready which is an education platform for the new emerging web 3 platforms. He is a student at Southern Methodist University, SMU, and is studying business and real estate. He loves web 3 but one of his passions is learning about real estate.

Mark sees the world as an ever-changing environment that we all live in. The world of digital technology is getting more and more advanced. Web 3 is the newest of them being a decentralized platform for people to organize, share, and profit from content, products, and currencies.

The education company that Mark runs is growing every day. He has his own platform https://www.w3ready.io/ . People are able to come and learn about web 3 for free and start their journey into crypto, NFT, and digital assets.

The hardest thing for Mark was “learning that planning only takes you so far, you must take action and really do the work you say you are going to do.” If you struggle with this you aren’t alone. Staying on task and not getting distracted is one of the most difficult things to do. Mark mentions that distractions play a huge role in the development of his business.

“Every time I see a notification on my phone, the world I am building sucks me right back in”, Mark. He is building the platform for the future that people will be utilizing and learning from every day. His goal is to “be the go-to education platform for web 3 information”.

Along Mark’s business journey there was one thing that he says was the most important, “networking”. The network you create determines how you succeed, most of the time. “I began expanding my network by going to events, connecting with people on Linked In, starting conversations, and shaking a lot of hands”.

Remarks

Business is a beast. The best way to conquer it is to learn from the successful people around you. This comes from putting yourself in uncomfortable positions and striving to be great. Figure out what makes you the best and really hone in on that.

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