My guest is Brandon Laughridge. Brandon lives in Kansas City and owns a property management company North Terrace and a furniture and home interior store Nell Hill’s, along with a growing real estate portfolio. This is the first episode on the podcast where we discuss how real estate overlaps with owning small companies, something I hadn’t spent much time thinking about until meeting Brandon. Those on Twitter will recognize Brandon as he has been a key contributor to SMB Twitter, perhaps most notably from a thread he did on what he believes is the most certain path to building a high net worth that I’ll link to in the show notes.   In addition to real estate and Twitter, we talk about using SBA loans to buy small companies, what drives key employees, and why Brandon moved away from online based businesses towards property management, home goods, and real estate.   I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.