To A Million And Beyond

#004: Alternative Living Spaces - From Treehouse to Multi-Million Dollar Tiny Home Company

• Matt Willis

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Join Matt Willis of Wizard of Ads on 'To A Million And Beyond' as he interviews Tony Lopez, founder of Alternative Living Spaces. Discover how Tony turned his passion for housing and architecture into a flourishing tiny home business generating over $2 million in revenue. Learn about his early inspirations, the challenges of building affordable housing, and how he navigated market demands to create scalable solutions. Dive into the intricacies of container homes, business strategies, and the importance of product-market fit. Perfect for entrepreneurs looking for insight on growing a business in a niche market.

00:00 Introduction and Inspiration
00:21 Meet Tony Lopez: Founder of Alternative Living Spaces
00:57 Tony's Passion for Affordable Housing
02:29 Discovering Container Homes
05:55 The First Tiny Home Build
08:42 Going Viral and Early Success
11:33 Challenges and Growth
18:52 Navigating Market Shifts and COVID-19
22:07 Targeting the Luxury Market
25:29 Affordable Housing Opportunities
25:58 Tiny Homes and Deregulation
26:46 Micro Apartments in Vegas
32:23 Balancing Business and Family Life
34:13 Outsourcing and Business Growth
46:20 Navigating Market Fit
50:36 Delivering Tiny Homes

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Tony Lopez:

I went and visited my parents for the weekend at one point, and my dad had built my sister a tree house, I was like, how much did it cost to build that? I could live in that thing. And he's like, oh, it was about a thousand dollars to build. And I was like, that's my rent every month. Like, why do I spend a thousand bucks a month on rent every month when I could just build something that I could literally live in for the same price?

Matt Willis:

Welcome to"To A Million And Beyond". This is Matt Willis, partner with Wizard of Ads. Today we're talking to Tony Lopez, founder and owner of Alternative Living Spaces. Founded in 2016 in Las Vegas, his tiny home business is now bringing in more than$2 million in revenue. In this episode, you'll hear how he grew his business from his parents' backyard to creating an infinitely scalable business. I hope you enjoy. That's incredible.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah.

Matt Willis:

I am really curious. What makes you so passionate about affordable housing?

Tony Lopez:

I grew up wanting to be an architect. So even at five years old when if you were to ask me Hey Tony, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'd say, I wanna be an architect. My dad was a contractor growing up in landscape construction. So he built our house, we moved, he built that house, moved again, he built that. So I just was like around that world. Like, I remember being a little kid in the sandbox, just loved building things. So that's always been like a passion within me. And in high school, I would just draw houses. Like I'd have one page of notes where I was, taking my biology notes, and then the next page on the notes, I'd be thinking of a fun design for a house and kind of sketching it out. So I've always loved housing When I was, you know, probably back in like 2016, I remember one of my frustrations was ironically the cost of living, which has only gotten, twice as bad since then. And I remember I was like, man, I feel like I'm working all these hours just to pay rent. And I went and visited my parents for the weekend at one point, and my dad had built my sister a tree house, I was like, how much did it cost to build that? I could live in that thing. And he's like, oh, it was about a thousand dollars to build. And I was like, that's my rent every month. Like, why do I spend a thousand bucks a month on rent every month when I could just build something that I could literally live in for the same price? So that, sparked my curiosity about affordable housing and kind of led me down that path.

Matt Willis:

That's what helped you realize that maybe there's less expensive options than traditional homes.

Tony Lopez:

Totally. This is a space someone can live in. Why isn't there more affordable options that aren't$300,000? You know?

Matt Willis:

Yeah.

Tony Lopez:

So,

Matt Willis:

talk to me though about architecture. Help me understand where architecture fits into affordable housing, fits into tiny homes or container homes.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. So I guess when I say architecture, my passion early on was home design. I just always loved big homes. I thought, oh man, these are so cool. in that season of recognizing a need for affordable housing and trying to come up with some kind of a solution, I think that's where the smaller footprint made sense. And I stumbled into containers. At the time I was working a furniture delivery job And we delivered to this warehouse in Vegas called Idea Box. They had converted three shipping containers into luxury offices. I just remember seeing'em and thinking like, man, these things look amazing. this was just after the whole kind of tree house situation and so it was fresh on my mind the idea of affordable housing. And so I had just started to think, man, I bet there's a way to turn these into some pretty affordable types of homes. It was more like seeing this person use containers in such a cool and creative way, that just sparked the idea for me to try to kind of replicate what they're doing.

Matt Willis:

Yeah, it's fascinating. like when I think container homes or tiny homes, in my mind the third in that sequence would be mobile homes. And so I have this picture of kind of shoddy work, rundown, but you go to your website and it's no, this is small living in luxury.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah.

Matt Willis:

More economical options too. But what really caught my attention was, oh my goodness, these things could be featured on HGTV.

Tony Lopez:

we get these random inquiries from our Instagram audience because we have a pretty big audience and some pretty good reach on there. I think people will sometimes see our content and if they have some interesting projects going on, they reach out to us. So yeah, we've had Bravo, HGTV, Magnolia Network, like multiple networks we've talked to about stuff. We've done a couple different TV shows with the intent of it becoming like a full-fledged TV show. So it was a lot of it was like sizzles, pilot episodes, things like that. I'd say we haven't gotten picked up for the full seasons yet, but who knows? I'm open to it. if we try it again, could be cool.

Matt Willis:

That's really neat. Real quick, could we create a distinction for the audience if we don't know the difference between tiny homes and container homes?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. So I would say tiny homes would be kind of like an umbrella phrase that covers any house under 500 square feet. So I'd say container homes are typically a subset of tiny homes, unless you start combining a bunch of'em and creating a big house. So yeah, typically just a subset of the tiny homes would be container homes. my draw towards the container homes was, you know, I loved home design, but I was definitely not like a home builder. the idea of the container already being a shell, you know, the exterior literally already being done structurally, it's strong enough. It felt like a pretty easy starting point. I buy the container that feels like half the job's already done. Now I just need to build out the inside. And so it was more the fact that it seemed easy that drew me into that space. And then having kind of specialized in the container homes, you know, I've kind of naturally found a lot of the benefits of them along the way that has kept me wanting to stay within that space.

Matt Willis:

Yeah, it's really remarkable. Living in containers. It was in the context of, I was out in North Carolina and people would literally dig holes and drop containers in the ground and use those as, bomb shelter, doomsday sort of a thing. And so obviously they're remarkably durable. But what you're

Tony Lopez:

Yeah.

Matt Willis:

walk me through how this business got started. What was the first tiny home that you built through alternative living spaces?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. So kind of building from that, you know, tree house experience to doing that furniture, delivering and seeing a container. the next day I happened to have a day off. At the time I was working a lot. I think I had three jobs, all with the intent of saving up money, things like that. I ended up going on Craigslist and I was like, I wonder how much these containers sell for. So I just looked up, you know, shipping container for sale and sure enough, I got an ad for basically someone that had began to modify a shipping container, and they were doing it for a convention here in Vegas. It was gonna be like a restaurant booth. So he already had like really cool windows cut out on it, had some electrical in there, had some basic flooring, and I reached out to the guy and just said, Hey, you know, are you available for me to come check it out? You know, he was asking$3,900 for it, which seemed like a good price, So I went there, I met the guy, started walking around, checking it out, and ended up deciding, you know, I'll give you 3,500 for it. And, you know, he said no. And I said, all right, I'll see you later. And I left, I didn't expect anything more from there. he actually called me back about three or four hours later. And he began to explain like, Hey I have someone else that is interested in buying this, but I liked what you wanted to do with it, so if you want it, it's yours, but you'd have to come today and I can do 30. He's like, I'm not gonna budge on price. It'd be 3,900 bucks, but it's yours if you want it. And so something about that I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna go for it.$3,900 was actually my entire bank account. So that was all the money I had at the time. Yep. It was all my money and probably I think it was, you know, a night or two before that night when I was at my parents' with the tree house my mom really felt prompted to give me an envelope with money. She's never, ever done that, ever. And she just said, I really felt like God told me to give you this and I didn't want to accept it. I'm like, no, I don't need your money. You know, I'm good. Well, anyways, I accepted it. There was$500 in the envelope and you know, prior to that I had 3,400 in the account. So the extra 500 bucks my mom gave me is actually the difference that allowed me to buy that first container.

Matt Willis:

Wow.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, it's a wild one.

Matt Willis:

So your mother played a significant role, not just in the money given obviously, but even beyond that in the

Tony Lopez:

Yeah,

Matt Willis:

living spaces.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, so, I ended up, purchasing that first container, brought it back to my parents' house'cause I needed a place to work on it. They had some extra space in their driveway and I told my dad, you know, gimme three months and I'll have this thing out of here. And sure enough, it took about a year.

Matt Willis:

to do.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, exactly right. Standard construction timeline. I'd save up, maybe an extra thousand bucks a month and I'd throw it into materials and start basically building out that container.

Matt Willis:

So how did you go about marketing it?

Tony Lopez:

it's a good question,

Matt Willis:

you who bought it from?

Tony Lopez:

right? Yeah. What's funny is I still talk to that guy. He's in Florida now. we still communicate every now and then. It's just pretty funny. I have a friend of mine that at the time, you know, had been practicing videography for a very long time. Now he's like a pretty influential videographer, which is funny. but yeah, he hooked it up. I basically was like, Hey man, would love to get your help documenting this. Wanna make a really cool video. I found this YouTube channel called Tiny House Listings, and I wanted to stand out'cause I had reached out to them it's almost like a Zillow for Tiny Homes. And they would feature tiny homes each day or each week. And, you know, their instructions to me was like, Hey, grab your iPhone, turn it horizontally, and just kind of like, you know, do a tour, which is fine, but I was like, man, I want this to stand out. And, you know, from church world, you know, at the time I was working in a church as well. And it was within the church I was at. And so I knew like, Hey, I think we could really create something special. So he came over we had it staged beautifully and just made An awesome video. We ended up putting it on tiny house listings, YouTube channel, and then instantly it went viral. And so it ended up now it's got over 2 million views, but within an hour it had 10,000 views. I had literally created the website the day before. I don't even think I had a business license yet at that point. And just needed a way to capture interest. And so the website was created and all of a sudden, I'm getting like a hundred inbound inquiries a day about this container. I had no idea what I was doing. I just started trying to answer questions and through that process, within 30 days the container sold.

Matt Willis:

And what you

Tony Lopez:

So,

Matt Willis:

you approved a concept and it gave, that probably helped you feel licensed build out more inventory because if I'm not mistaken, that was the only inventory you had at that time.

Tony Lopez:

You're right. Just built that first one. So after selling the first one, I ended up locking in a second sale. as part of those leads that were coming in. So after it sold, maybe 60 days later, I had the funds from the first sale I had this interest. It was still coming in from the website. And then I had someone that had reached out in Zion, Utah that basically wanted something similar. So I got a small warehouse in Vegas partnered up with a buddy of mine strength was more on the build side, and so he was able to bring that side of it and I could kind of continue to focus on sales and marketing and still do some of the build as well. And so we got a little 900 square foot warehouse, just enough space for that next build. It was one 20 foot container, could fit in there. Went to Costco and bought a shed for like 900 bucks. That became my office. Just those little Costco sheds and worked out of that place till we got kicked out because we were overflowing that space too much.

Matt Willis:

That's

Tony Lopez:

so we expanded from, that little warehouse to the next two over. Then we had to start putting stuff in the parking lot and the lands were like, dude, you just need more space. And we're like, yeah, we gotta figure something out.

Matt Willis:

Was there anyone in particular that you would say was most instrumental or most inspiring you to keep pushing forward?

Tony Lopez:

That's a great question. So I would say on the very first container, the two people that were most instrumental were actually my parents. I'd say my mom for that initial like launch of, Hey, I probably wouldn't even have bought the container, had she not stepped out and done that. And then I didn't have the build expertise to build this. And so for the first several months on the container home, I leaned heavily on my dad and he was kind of the build guru that was like, Hey, this is how you do it. This is what you need to do. So he was like, Hey, you're gonna need some windows. the business next to me sells windows. Let's go talk to that guy. you're gonna need a plumber. I got a buddy that's a plumber. So he definitely was very instrumental on that first build and helping me navigate how to do it the right way. I didn't know how to frame, I didn't know plumbing. So he really was the one that was just making sure I wasn't being dumb and building things that were not gonna be right. So he, the first three months he was kind of even hands on involved, and then by month three he's like, dude, this is just too much. He's like, I'll be, you know, there if you have questions, but this is all you from, from now on, But yeah, so I'd say in the early days he was huge. You know, as soon as I started to finish up that first container my friend Chris, who I mentioned is the builder, was probably the next most instrumental relationship in the launch of the business because I like doing stuff with other people. And so it was fun to be able to like, go into this next season of like, Hey, I have someone that I'm doing this with. This is gonna be a blast. he, brought a lot of positive energy as well into the situation. And so I think we created a lot of momentum between the both of us to get going. But even in the, earliest days, this very first launch, we ended up, finishing that next container, container number two, and afterwards we didn't have another container. And so that's where things got difficult and that's actually where. me and Chris together were able to push through. We ended up just building an inventory unit. We had some profit that we had earned from the first two sales that I just rolled into building another one with the hope that man, someone's gonna buy this thing. the guy that bought number two ended up buying the third one. He said, Hey dude, this thing's running out great on Airbnb. Gimme another one. So we're like, here you go, here's your next one. Then winter came, it would've been like December at this point, and there was literally no more sales. And we, I don't think we ended up landing another sale until like March. So I had this overhead of a warehouse. I still was working other jobs. You know, I had some money that we had made from, you know, the first sale. But it got pretty bad. It got to the point where like. I think at one point our bank accounts had like 42 cents or something ridiculous. So we had gotten pretty stinking low. We had to like get creative to just make ends meet in that season. And we, you know, built someone a bed and built some ramp for a church for their, you know, portable church thing. And then we remodeled Chris's parents' house. We just were trying to just scrape through, you know, until finally we ended up getting some more momentum shortly after.

Matt Willis:

That season, did you question whether momentum? Did you struggle with feeling like, have I peaked?

Tony Lopez:

You know, that's a good question. I just thought, man, this is just gonna blow up. This is gonna be incredible, you know, we're on the right path. These are awesome. And just kept pushing the marketing and the sales With the hope that, hey, I think this will pick up. I didn't really think it wasn't gonna work at that point.

Matt Willis:

It was neat that you started the business with such strong anecdotal evidence from that first viral

Tony Lopez:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Willis:

talk me about what kind of marketing you are doing in order to move the next few units.

Tony Lopez:

yeah.

Matt Willis:

Correct.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. I think I had seen the positive of YouTube marketing in partnering with people that had significant channels, almost like influencer marketing. So we continued to do that. the second container we ended up getting documenting that, doing a video launching that on either that channel or a similar one. And we did that with the third one as well. So there was. Definitely leads that were coming in from this online traction of marketing that we also, had a website developed that, I had mentioned prior to day one, and so we were getting a lot of just organic traffic. I think at that time. This was 2017. And there wasn't a lot of container home builders. Not that there's a lot now, but definitely wasn't back then. And so anytime someone was looking for container homes, you know, we just ranked pretty well. So we'd get a lot of inquiries through that. So I think between kind of online influencer marketing and some basic SEO, we started to get a decent amount of leads to try to work those.

Matt Willis:

Sure. so when did it pivot from the pro? The bottleneck in the business was inventory of containers to something else.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, so the next bottleneck was almost within the next few months. So we ended up getting a sale for a unit in Joshua Tree. Kind of looked like our other ones with a little rooftop deck. And then almost directly right after that sale, that would've been March. And this would've been 2018 now, so that's probably March, 2018. Then April, 2018, we had someone that was doing a tiny home community in Zion and they purchased five of them. So that was all of a sudden like, oh man, now we got way more. And that's when we expanded and took over the next two warehouses next to us. So we had, you know, enough room to probably put like four containers in at a time. And at that point we definitely needed a team because, you know, between me and Chris, we were okay to do one container at a time, but now we had, you know, five containers that we were trying to work on. And so yeah, began the journey of trying to find people that could help out. I'd say trying to keep up with the builds at least for the next year became the next challenge. And not that we grew massively, but it did definitely go to like, you know, building five units at a time felt pretty average probably at that point. And so, yeah, definitely needed a solid team to do that.

Matt Willis:

So was it at that point that you crossed a million dollars in gross revenue for the first time?

Tony Lopez:

I don't think so. I think we were around like eight 50.

Matt Willis:

Okay.

Tony Lopez:

I'd say 2018, we were probably 8 50, 20 19, probably eight. We kind of sat around eight 50 for a little bit. It might've been two or three years. and then we bumped up to a little bit over that,

Matt Willis:

one of

Tony Lopez:

so.

Matt Willis:

for businesses

Tony Lopez:

Hmm.

Matt Willis:

do we get from just under a million to just over, and then there tends to be another threshold, somewhere between three and 5 million, depending on the industry

Tony Lopez:

Interesting.

Matt Willis:

helped you get that final push over the million dollar mark?

Tony Lopez:

You know, I feel like for us it was kind of like a gradual growth. I think we had just continued to do good marketing. We're always documenting what we're doing, always posting what we're doing. And I would say, you know, just kind of in a steady way, we kind of climb pretty organically, like. You know, somewhere around like 7 50, 8 50, 8 50 again, and then I think we bumped up to like, you know, 1,000,050 thousand or something like that. I think it was just a compounding of like the past couple years creating content, people getting familiar with us and just kind of slowly creeping up from there.

Matt Willis:

yeah.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah,

Matt Willis:

You kept doing what had been working and eventually you were able to push through that glass ceiling.

Tony Lopez:

yeah, for sure.

Matt Willis:

At some point you came to the realization that having a team was cost prohibitive.

Tony Lopez:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Willis:

due to the heavy amount of capital investment required how did you go about making that shift?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, so it's so interesting because, you know, 2018, this was the year when we just started hiring people. You know, we got close to a million, we made nothing crazy. the units we were selling'em, the price points we were selling'em at was pretty good deal for people. So our margins weren't crazy. we were working really hard, but not like we were making a bunch of profit. we would make enough to cover our bills and, live an okay life. And I think as we, you know, our business model was, you know, try to sell more and try to build more. so over the next year or two, we definitely did that. But I started to notice something, you know, we would do more in annual revenue and we jump up to say 1.1, 1.2, but I would notice that if you were to look at it like on a calendar. I didn't know this, but I began to see a pattern after like year four of like, man, there's a certain time of the year where we just don't get sales. And then there's a certain time of year where everyone places their order. And so the reason we would not have profit is, you know, during the slow seasons it would eat up all of our profit.'cause we're just trying to like find things for guys to do and make up projects that they can start building with the hope that we can sell'em. And, you know, we would need them in the busy season from like April to October we'd be slammed. And so we'd need, you know, 10 to 15 guys that can just be cranking on these containers. But then the slow season would come and, you know, we weren't the type of people that were like, oh, get rid of all these people, you know, the money's not there right now. We were like, man, we're trying to build a team. We want this, you know, to be something that can last. And so we would just float through December to March, kind of just making up work for guys. But the overhead got to a point where it was like 75,000 a month. So you can imagine you do that for three or four months and if you did have profit, you know your profit is hurting. And I think the icing on the cake for us ended up being COVID. So fast forward to COV now, and man, our sales, like if you imagine sales is like a hose bib and that thing was turned off and ain't nobody turning that thing on, it was just, you know, the economy was like at a halt. People were not spending money, they were holding onto their cash. And I was trying everything I could to get sales to keep our team busy, to cover our overhead. And I didn't get a sale for 90 days. I think I ended up in that season after, you know, you're keeping these guys on, you know, I ended up getting in the whole probably 50,000. And so now I'm like, man, I am working so hard. I have all the liability, all the stress, and I'm literally losing money. And I'm like, this is just not working out. I have to figure something out different. And I had an idea of like, man, it would be great. I love the sales, the marketing, the design, all the front end of the business. The build side is the part that I do because it has to be done to fulfill the orders, but it's also kind of killing me right now. And it made me just think, man, I wish there was a way I could get out of the build side.

Matt Willis:

No, that's really interesting. So up until this point, was there an evolution of who you saw as your target customer?

Tony Lopez:

That's a really interesting question.

Matt Willis:

when I think homes, I tend to think either people who are looking to, get off the grid or people who can't or don't want to afford a traditional single family home. And yet based on your website, it seems like you're really targeting, luxury. And so were you always luxury or

Tony Lopez:

That's a great question. And it did evolve, you know, early on I just didn't know, and I didn't even know how this stuff works. I kind of thought like, dude, I could build a container home in my parents' backyard and we can put it in your backyard, and that's legal. You know? I had no idea about permitting code regulation, you know, probably for the first year. I was just clueless and so I thought. I thought, man, this is amazing. Everyone in the world is gonna want to have this in their backyard. And slowly started to realize that wasn't the case. There's a lot of places we couldn't put'em, you know, for code regulation and things like that. Or there is ways to do it, but it had to be done differently. And I started to notice a pattern. You know, like I said, initially it was to try to solve an affordable housing problem. But what's interesting, you know, there's doors that are open and you go through those doors and there's doors that are closed and stay closed and you can't get through'em. And affordable housing was a door that was closed and I could not get through it. There wasn't a way that I could figure out how to make an impact in the affordable housing space. And what I noticed, a door that was open was the investor space and it was the Airbnb developer type people. And this was a perfect match for what they were doing. They wanted something unique, different. There was gonna be a draw and allow them to stand out from their competition. And so a lot of investors near National Parks, Joshua Trees, Zion, different areas like that ended up being a lot of our clients. It was investors and developers, and they were using'em as rentals, and that truly was probably 80% of our business, and we'd still do some stuff for people in their backyard, some stuff that was for affordable housing, but majority of it was the investor developers.

Matt Willis:

Okay. And so with that, does that open you up to create more templated container homes

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, they're pretty cool with standard models, so you're right. We ended up creating standardized models. What happened is our first few models we built just became kind of like, Hey, here's our model, you know, because we had noticed early on when it was custom, like every phone call is so hard to navigate. And figure out, you know, what do you want? I mean, it just takes a tremendous amount of time and then you gotta create a new quote every single time. It just was not very effective. And so, yeah, we created standard models pretty early on, and the investors were pretty cool with that. They'd want, you know, some changes to'em, but for the most part, you know, they saw our model online. That's what attracted them to us. And so they, they were cool with what we were offering.

Matt Willis:

Yeah. you say that your initial vision of providing affordable housing, your passion toward affordable housing, has that shifted? you still seem passionate about what you're doing, even if largely in the luxury space.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. I could joyfully do what I'm doing in the luxury space, and I think I would be living in my passion. I truly do love housing, I love design. So I think I could continue to do that and that would be great. I also think. There's a part of me that really wants to connect what I do to a greater cause, That is where the affordable housing piece is still something that's very much something I'm interested in doing I'd say now there are more opportunities for that. 20, 25 onward, I'm seeing it go in the direction because we just need affordable housing so bad where doors that were shut before are surprisingly starting to open up, which is cool.

Matt Willis:

No kidding.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah,

Matt Willis:

get into that.

Tony Lopez:

yeah.

Matt Willis:

are we talking about? Communities of container homes, are we talking about land getting deregulated to the point where you can put container homes on'em?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. And I would say it's not specific to container homes but I'd say, I call it small housing or tiny housing.

Matt Willis:

Okay.

Tony Lopez:

I'd say like for example we spoke with the city of LA the last couple weeks and they have now put basically removed regulation from movable tiny homes is what they classify'em as. So the building department used to have certain regulations, certain hoops you'd have to go through to get that approved. And they've actually removed all, all of that regulation, which is kind of like, I didn't believe them. I had to like ask them the same question three times and this was the head of the building department. There is a level of regulation you have to hit, but it's very easy to hit that in terms of like. It makes sense. It's not like so many ridiculous hoops you have to go through anymore. So there's huge opportunity in LA and then in Vegas, we're working on a project right now where the city has allowed us to build 300 square foot micro apartments basically. So it's a small property, it's a quarter acre. We're doing 22 units on it. Each unit is 305 square feet, so little tiny studios. And that's something that usually wouldn't have been approved before. Usually you have minimum square footage requirements But the only reason they're approving it is'cause there's a need for affordable housing and they want to create more affordable options for people.

Matt Willis:

That is incredible.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, it's cool.

Matt Willis:

bringing you back to your root passion of affordable housing, does that kind of strike a chord for you?

Tony Lopez:

It does. Yeah, it's been cool. It's nice to know that like what we're doing is also making a positive difference. It is kind of interesting, like I love the housing stuff, so it's fun, but sometimes you're like, oh, you're just helping a rich guy make more money, which is, that's fine. Like he's paying me, paying my bills so that I'm happy to help him. But it is nice when you can feel like, oh, we're actually helping people that truly need help,

Matt Willis:

People that you know are either living in motels or out on the street or living in far less desirable conditions, you get the opportunity to take them from feeling like this is all I have to, this is remarkable.

Tony Lopez:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Willis:

what I know about your work is you don't do shoddy work. You don't let anything. Come out that doesn't look absolutely immaculate.

Tony Lopez:

Thanks dude. Yeah, you're right. We love to do like I've always liked the idea of creating cool housing that's also small housing, you know, I feel like those are the two kind of lanes we like to live in right there.

Matt Willis:

Do you have renders of what that community or that apartment will look like?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, we have all the renderings, so we've got the approval from the county commissioner here in Vegas and we've got all the plans drawn up. We've submitted them to the billing department, so now we're just getting final approval on that. We'll probably break ground in three or four months and so everything's moving very well on that one. And what's been cool is now that that one's moving forward, it's been interesting to see how other developers have gotten word of that. And so now we've been in touch with other developers that say, Hey, we have land downtown. We wanna do the same thing. So this is kind of, we kind of stumbled into this, which has been cool.

Matt Willis:

Yeah, and obviously it doesn't need to stop at Vegas. There are plenty of cities, even local or around you that are in desperate need of affordable housing. Also, like this is one of the things that you and I talked about was the need is. Not only national, but international for this sort of thing. So is that kind of where

Tony Lopez:

You're right. so it's been cool. I've noticed a couple things. Now that I feel like I have a product that can work in Vegas because these actually aren't container based. We're building them like traditional construction for the most part. So I've partnered with a local general contractor and we're basically tag teaming the construction of these because that door's open. I'm like, man, I would love to focus on that here locally. And then also we have developed relationships internationally for manufacturing that does allow us to engage with, large bulk orders that may be needed for emergency housing and things like that. And so yeah, definitely kind of have our foot in each side of it a little bit where it's like, Hey, we'll do really cool local stuff, but then, yeah, if there's opportunity that's international. Because the manufacturing is literally a hundred percent outsourced, it's not like it consumes all my time. Even if we're building a hundred units, like in the past if I tried to build a hundred units in my little warehouse, I would've gone crazy. So now that we just outsource a hundred percent, I have a contact that will literally go to China that'll oversee the whole manufacturing process, make sure it's being done well. So it's kind of cool to be able to take on bigger projects without having it just weigh you down completely.

Matt Willis:

Were there times up until this point that you thought, we're going under how did you

Tony Lopez:

yeah. Well, COVID was one, and thankfully they had the PPP loan, and so because I kept everybody, that meant I had payroll and so they were able to provide us funds for keeping people employed during Covid. And so that was, ended up being like 42,000. So even though I went in the whole 50,000, it really, truly offset it. So that was, ended up being a major blessing for us as a business and kept us on our feet. thank God for that. I would say that was probably the worst moment we've had ever been in. But I will say that there still was that seasonality challenge. And as long as we were trying to keep employees, we had to figure out how do we survive the winter, you know, and there's just four months of nothing because this isn't fun anymore where we work hard nine months to make money and then just lose it in the next three months. And so kind of going back to that covid situation, thinking, man, there's gotta be a different way. it was kind of a process for me. I'd say it took me probably about two years to fully unplug from the build side and basically get to a point where I was a hundred percent outsourcing. All of our manufacturing. And part of that process was trying to figure out who could do it, who's trustworthy, you know?'cause there wasn't a lot of container builders, so it's hard to just be like, you know, I'm gonna outsource it to, like, people don't build a container so no one out there is like, yeah, I'll do that for you. So it just, it was a journey kind of navigating that. And yeah, eventually, probably by 2022 or so, we'd gotten to a point where, you know, we were essentially outsourcing everything. the benefit of that is it really didn't beat us up in those slow seasons because we no longer had a overhead of 75,000 a month. So if we made profits in nine months, we still have overhead. But instead of it being 75 grand, it could have been, it was probably 10 grand. You know, so you, you lose 30 grand instead of 230 grand. So yeah.

Matt Willis:

Talk to me about what's it like having a family amidst business ownership? Have your kids, come into the office. What's it like being able to share what you do and why you do it with them?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. You know, so it's been fantastic. right now I'm in my home office and this is where I work probably 90% of the time. I don't really need a warehouse space. I don't have that responsibility anymore. I do have a storage yard, like four minutes from our house. So sometimes I'll go there if we have things and we have guys. Long story short is our storage yard is actually in the same facility as one of our builders. so it's a great relationship because I can go there, check on the build, see how things are looking. Also, if I have to do something with our storage yard, but because of that, most of my time is right here at home, which with the family is fantastic because previously, I would, be up at four 30 in the morning, go to the gym, five 30 to six 30, be in the office by seven. It was across town 35 minutes away. Because that's where it was more affordable to have warehouse space and I'd, be there from seven to five 30, then you gotta drive home dude, you're gone like 15 hours out of a day. And yeah, I mean you can do that for sure, but it's nice when you have a family to not have to do that. So yeah, working from home has been fantastic. I have breakfast with my family every single morning. I cook the breakfast, hang out with the kiddos, my wife wakes up, we all eat breakfast. And you know, it doesn't have to be super hardcore anymore. And I can kind of, enjoy life a little bit more. Lunch break with the kiddos. So, I mean, I still work hard, like when I'm in the office, especially the first half a day, like, I'm probably in here from 8:00 AM till 12:30 PM just very hardcore focused, getting work done. But you know, of course there's a lot of flexibility, which is nice being a business owner. if there are events that we want to attend or things going on with the family, it's easy to unplug and go do that too.

Matt Willis:

And one of the beautiful things that kind of proves out you, as it talks about, working on your business instead of in your business.

Tony Lopez:

Hmm.

Matt Willis:

Tony Lopez had no idea what you were doing in the space. And then you built systems and built relationships with people to, implement those systems. And so now that you have system is in place, you can run the systems without the need to be involved in every nitty gritty detail.

Tony Lopez:

You are right? Yeah, it's a great way to say it.'cause yeah, right now I'd say like, and I'm still, you know, of course we're always learning and I'm still learning a lot. Like I know I have not arrived and I feel like I've done very good on the build side, where, to be honest, dude, it was really hard being a builder. I remember like when I would have my office at our where the storage yard is now, and I was still the builder there. Like I'd have an office there and dude, I could not get anything done. I would constant interruptions through the door like. Which is just, it was the life of what we had going on, but it was always something, Hey Tony, what about this? What about this? Like, it was impossible to focus and just get work done. And so yeah, with this shift it's been nice.'cause then, like you said, I can work on more of the things that are on the business instead of getting pulled into the weeds of everything. I've done good on that on the build side, what my next step is to kind of take that same principle that I've done there and try to apply it more to the sales side. that's something I'm currently working on that is not, at the capacity that I want it to. It's just in the early stages. But I've noticed when I got away from being a builder, I became basically a sales and marketing guy. Like that's where almost all of my time and energy went into. And so now the next question is, how do I outsource the sales and marketing? And so I have a way I'm gonna try to do it. We'll see if it works, but that's the next stage.

Matt Willis:

Through your relationships, you've built an operational infrastructure that's infinitely scalable.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah,

Matt Willis:

you are a sales and marketing business, and it's very common. If you, for example, if you're in Vegas or you're in la or frankly most big cities, you see all of those lawyer billboards, right? Call Sweet James is a big one, right?

Tony Lopez:

You're right.

Matt Willis:

They're actually lead aggregators. They hold a law degree, but what they actually do is they, you call them and then they send your case to a different lawyer and then they collect a referral fee,

Tony Lopez:

No way. I did not know any of this. This is all new to me. That's cool.

Matt Willis:

various industries you see the same kind of business model play out. And the beautiful thing is if you know what game you're in, can absolutely scale it infinitely.

Tony Lopez:

Hmm.

Matt Willis:

you quadruple down.

Tony Lopez:

great. I like that point.

Matt Willis:

based on the infrastructure and the relationships you have set up.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. I had lunch with a buddy or coffee with him this morning, and he's a pool manufacturer here in Vegas. Container pools, really awesome guy. and we want to collaborate and do stuff together. He's a manufacturer. I don't like doing the sales and marketing, so we're trying to develop products together. And it was funny when he was asking me about the business, kind of like how it's set up right now. People are always so surprised when I'm like, oh, I don't have any employees. They're like, what are you talking about? You don't have any employees. Like, I see everything you're doing online and you're doing these projects and it's just actually very scalable now, where it's like, I've learned now that if I'm gonna get into a new product line, I'm trying not to be the builder and I'm trying to partner with people that can do that portion. So even partnering with a GC to do these projects in Vegas, you know, the little small housing, I think that's ultimately the business model. it's kind of like a design build broker because I love to design, I love to build, and then I help broker and coordinate

Matt Willis:

is in the brand that you are building.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. that's a great point. it's fun'cause it's such a partnership based business model where I'm not, technically, partners on paper with someone, but it's like, you know, I can't do what I do unless, I'm bringing value to you. You're bringing value to me. We compliment each other and a lot of the manufacturers don't like sales and marketing. They just love building stuff. So it really ends up being, it's not like what I'm doing is better, what they're doing is better. It's honestly like, Hey, we're each doing what we're good at, and it just compliments very well.

Matt Willis:

How do you navigate as, you run into situations where they say, you know what, Tony, I don't really have capacity right now, and they're not prioritizing the stuff, and yet something is a high priority for you?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah.

Matt Willis:

I.

Tony Lopez:

You know, I think it goes back to, and I wrote this down the other day. I was like, I'm only as strong as my builders. if I have really good build relationships, then I have a good foundation to build on. If I don't have good build relationships and I try to scale, it's not gonna go well. So I think what's beautiful is I have really good build relationships. So the builders that I do work with, we've known each other for a long time. We have great rapport. we talk consistently. I know their schedule intimately. Like I kind of know it just as good as They do like what they have going on, what my project entails. And so I think, because with a lot of'em, I would say I'm probably their main client, like I'm a great client for them because they're like, Hey, I don't have to worry about sales. I know Tony's gonna make a sale and he's gonna connect with me and have me build it. So I think they take care of me really well. I try to also take care of them really well. I do treat it like a true relationship where if they're going through a hard time, there's times where I'll make up a job just to give them work to keep them busy during a slow season. So I think because of that, honestly we have really good relationships and I haven't ran into that issue. I also am diversified, so I don't have all my eggs in one basket. So like, if a container home needs to be built, I have four different options that I can go to. And so if there was an occasion where one of those, contacts for whatever reason, maybe a tragedy happens and they just genuinely can't get around to the project. the reality is I can send it somewhere else and it can get accomplished, So yeah, I think there is a lot of risk if you just have one builder that can produce your one product

Matt Willis:

It seems like it's more of a friendship. I remember talking to an executive not too long ago, a larger company and he was like, Matt, if I'm completely honest with you, I don't know if I have any friends because all of the people that I connect with on a regular basis, I don't know whether they, engage with me, interact with me because they like me and value our relationship. Or if they're just holding out until they need something from me. And it sounds like what you're doing is establishing a relationship that goes far beyond just the business contact, and what can you do for me in this moment?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, that's a really good point Matt. We all have different strengths. One of my biggest weaknesses that I wish I didn't have is leadership. And early on I thought success meant having a hundred thousand square foot facility and a hundred employees. I quickly found out that in that early context where I was the builder. it wasn't enjoyable. I didn't enjoy doing what I was doing in that season because I was spending so much time managing, leading, keeping people accountable. I don't know, doing these things that. Some people thrive in that environment. You know, there are people that are literally wired to be leaders. Like, dude, they, they want nothing more than to be the leader for me you know, I, I do enjoy dabbling with like any Enneagram type stuff just to help understand personality. And for me I get classified usually as like Enneagram six. If, if I were to take a test and it was gonna pump out a result, and one of the words they'll use is the real. So I'm trying to think what the actual term would be. It's, so five is loyalist. I don't even know what the actual phrase is for, for the Enneagram six. But literally everything that describes Enneagram six is, is, would be me. So like Enneagram six are very fear-based. You're a thinker. You're always in your head. And for me, being in a leadership position, like one of the words they'll use is like, you're the reluctant leader. And that was me. I'm a great reluctant leader. Like, dude, if no one else is gonna step up, I'm stepping up and not'cause I want to, but just'cause like, dude, someone has to step up. And so as the business owner where you got all these employees, dude, you are in that seat. You're the number one. And dude, that's your role. I think is really important when you're going into business, creating a business that is in align with, your personality type and how you lead. I think my type of leadership isn't so much a top down type of leadership. I'll come by your side and let's do something cool together. That is where I can jive really well with people, So this business model has complimented that really well where it's like, Hey, you have your own business with your own employees. I'm not gonna tell you how to do any of that, but let's work together and collaborate.

Matt Willis:

Yeah. No, that's remarkable. I love how you instead of throwing in the towel, you found a solution that worked based on your specific skillset. Where would you say

Tony Lopez:

Yeah.

Matt Willis:

I'm in the zone, this is my primary gifting.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. I think on the creative side, I love creating innovative designs, so I think there's that aspect Of my strengths. And then I do think there's something to, like, networking is not maybe the best word for it. I love collaborating and networking with people. I think the more I can sit in that seat, which is maybe the business development seat, where you're just building relationships with builders, with buyers, with, all these different types of people is probably the best seat for me to be in the business. And that's kind of why I'm trying to get outta more of the marketing seat right now. A lot of my time goes into marketing, creating content, things like that. And I'd love to get more into business development, like go to conventions, meet people, hear about their story, how can we collaborate and work together doing that kind of stuff.

Matt Willis:

I dunno if it's StrengthsFinder or Myers-Briggs, but like what you're describing I feel like is woo, it's winning over others. Like you are the type of personality that as soon as I met you, I'm like, Tony's a neat guy.

Tony Lopez:

Oh, that's cool.

Matt Willis:

but I really like him

Tony Lopez:

Oh, that's sweet dude. Yeah, it's funny'cause when a six is operating in health, they typically function as a peacemaker. And I think that's part of what it is too. It's like you're building bridges with people. I've never been one to burn bridges. I've had opportunities where I should have burned. I don't like doing that. And I love to always keep bridges with people. and it's honestly for business, surprisingly, it's been one of the best things I could have ever done Those bridges have remained. And now fast forward five years, those are really great.

Matt Willis:

Yeah, that's really neat. A few minutes ago you mentioned your perception of success was, having a big team and leading that team, since then it shifted. would you define success now?

Tony Lopez:

Hmm, that's a good question, Matt. And I don't have like a clean, packaged answer for how I would define success right now. I'm just gonna speak organically kind of from my heart. So I think for me, success would be trying to, your purpose is usually at the intersection of your passion and your proficiencies. When your passion and your proficiency is also in alignment with your profit, like that's a pretty sweet spot. Now, you don't have to always be there, but like, if you can get those three to connect, that's when I feel like you're just living in your sweet spot. And I'm not gonna put like a numeric number and how much you make. It's just kind of like, Hey, I love what I'm doing. My needs are being met. I'm able to, bless other people and what I do is good work and people, are appreciating it. I feel like for me that feels kind of like the sweet spot for success.

Matt Willis:

Do you feel like you're already there or is there one of those lines or vectors that you feel like you're primarily focusing on in this season?

Tony Lopez:

It's a great question. I'd say I'm very much in my passion. I would say I am proficient in it, but I still need to grow. I'm very proficient in containers. I feel comfortable saying I'm an expert with container homes. I just genuinely feel like I know so much about that. But when you get out of the container home realm, there's a lot that I need to learn. And so doing these projects in Vegas, I think is an opportunity for me to grow a lot in a different type of construction. And what's cool about those is on the profit side of things, profit's okay with containers. But where there's a lot more opportunity is when you're doing larger scale projects. And so doing these kind of larger scale projects with developers is just also, you know, just has better profit. And so I would say passion wise, I'm probably doing most of what I enjoy.

Matt Willis:

Yeah,

Tony Lopez:

I think, that may happen.

Matt Willis:

What advice would you give to business owners starting out, who, maybe they're at a plateau under a million dollars, whether they're in a container home, business or otherwise?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah, man.

Matt Willis:

needed to hear?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. One of the best, some of the best advice I got was actually from a software developer and his advice had to do with product market fit, I began to realize that that is probably one of the single most important things for you to do and to find, because so long as I had this awesome product, which was a container home and I was trying to sell it to people in Vegas, the fit wasn't there. And so you could do the best marketing in the world, have the best sales system, but your conversion rate's gonna be super low. And so I've noticed once you can find product market fit, all of a sudden that's where like you get crazy momentum and you're able to then scale. in Vegas, I can't do my container homes very easily. The movable tiny homes that are allowed in LA not a great option for Vegas, but Vegas has this open door to do these small site-built, stick-built type of units. And what's crazy with these is like my conversion rate. It's kind of like a hundred percent. And I have met with three developers and all of'em are like, let's do it. I'm like, dude, that's crazy. These are big projects. but the reason that conversion rate is so good is there's such amazing product market fit. And so I think the more you can find that, the more you can have success in your business and the more naturally you're gonna grow. Because otherwise you're really grinding. You're not going with the flow, you're like pushing against and just hitting walls with everything you're doing. So I think similarly, like with LA, our focus now is movable tiny homes. movable tiny homes right now, dude, that's a great opportunity. Awesome product market fit. That's a great direction to run in, you know.

Matt Willis:

you're having trouble finding product market fit, how do you know whether to. Try to innovate win over the market maybe what actually has a pre-established market.

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. I feel like my mistake early on was thinking I could change the market and I think I can't change the market. Maybe if you have a billion dollars, you could change the market. But dude, a lot of this stuff, it just is what it is. Like, everything makes sense, dude. You just can't, like, you can keep busting your head against that wall, dude. You're never gonna make any progress. I kind of feel like the best thing you could do is not try to force something but kind of find something that naturally is already fitting within that space. I think product market fit is something that you get pretty clear feedback from, from your sales process. I think I'm a good example of that. Like, Hey, I'm trying to sell these container homes, but my God, I have to literally go through a hundred insane lead conversations and all this stuff to just maybe get one sale. That's probably a good sign that something is not matching. I noticed that I met with a really awesome kind of like consultant or coach, and I was talking to him about my. Course that I have, I have a course on how to build container homes, and I was just telling him, yeah, my conversion rate's real low and stuff, and kind of similarly it went back to product market fit. He's like, dude, you're trying to sell people a product that's solving the wrong problem. Most of them are coming to you. They don't have land yet. they don't have finances in place. They don't know what they can do on their land. Why are they gonna buy a course on how to build a container home for a thousand bucks? Like you're answering the wrong problem for them. What they need to know is, how do I find land? How do I get financing? What can I afford to build? Like, that's a totally different product and a totally different course. So I do think you gotta listen to the marketplace and be receptive to the feedback that you're getting. And if you do, I think the biggest sign to whether you have it or you don't. is this smooth and you see like a path to success within this world that you're in? Or are you just bumping your head against the wall? You went from eight hours a day to 16 hours a day, but your results are literally the same. Like that's something is off and you just have to evaluate what you're doing and see at what point are you missing with the market, you know?

Matt Willis:

That's brilliant.

Tony Lopez:

Hmm.

Matt Willis:

me about a time when you delivered a tiny home or a container home to someone and like a typical reaction?

Tony Lopez:

Yeah. Tiny homes or specifically container homes, just have the craziest installation process. So it's always like a big deal when it's delivery day because someone's going from, like, they did not have a home in their backyard. It weighs 20,000 pounds, it's going over their house, and they went from having nothing to, you know, having this a hundred percent completed and turnkey living space. So it's a blast. It's a really fun process. People are always super excited when they get to finally see their container homes. A lot of our clients are outta state. They don't come to Vegas to see the product. They see our stuff online, they place the order, and so it's really their first time getting to see it. And so, yeah, people are awesome. I feel like our clientele, because they're into containers, they're just awesome people. And so yeah, we have a lot of fun relationships.

Matt Willis:

That's awesome. Love that. For those of you who are interested, Tony is, his website is AlternativeLivingSpaces.com. They have phenomenal photos, phenomenal products. Absolutely check them out, AlternativeLivingSpaces.com. Tony, thank you very much. Appreciate you, my friend.

Tony Lopez:

Thank you.