No Experience? No Excuse. Self-Storage Beginner's Blueprint

What does it actually take to run a self-storage facility you've never set foot inside, from fifteen hundred miles away, without a single day of real estate experience between you? 

Joe Downs sits down with John Gaspar and Robert Figueiredo, co-owners of CubedUp Self Storage in Morganton, North Carolina. The duo are IBM veterans originally from Brazil who fired their third-party management company after just two months and took full control of their facility from Miami, Florida. 

In seven months of self-managing, they drove physical occupancy from 70% to 84% and executed a 12% rate increase with zero tenant turnover. 

This episode is a masterclass in self-storage operations, remote management systems, and the entrepreneurial mindset serious storage investors need to scale. 

If you've been telling yourself, ‘you can't buy a self-storage facility because you're not local’, this episode dismantles that excuse entirely.

Listen For:

3:54 Why They Fired Their Storage Manager in 60 Days

5:41 The Delinquency Fix Every New Operator Needs

8:17 How to Run a Storage Facility From 1,500 Miles Away

14:08 Why Self Storage Thrived During COVID

14:31 The One Thing Stopping First-Time Storage Investors

CONNECT WITH GUEST: CUBEDUP SELF STORAGE

Website | LinkedIn 

JOHN GASPAR, CO-FOUNDER | OWNER-OPERATOR

LinkedIn  

ROBERT FIGUEIREDO, CO-FOUNDER | OWNER-OPERATOR

LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram 

CONNECT WITH US

Joe Downs on LinkedIn

Belrose website | Belrose email | Belrose LinkedIn

Transcript

Joe Downs (00:00):

Two guys who never ran a storage facility a day in their lives who don't live anywhere near their facility, fired their management company and started running the whole operation themselves from Florida on a facility in North Carolina. If you've ever told yourself you can't do this because you're not local and you don't have the background, today's episode is going to be a problem for that excuse. I'm Joe Downs. Welcome to the Storage Moguls Podcast. My company's acquired over 20 storage facilities and over 70 million in assets across multiple storage niches. I've seen this business from every angle, educated hundreds of students and learned firsthand who succeeds and why. And that's actually what drove us to build storagemoguls.ai, which is an AI powered community with the tools, the structure, and the guardrails to teach people how to buy storage facilities and really how to buy the very first one.

(01:03):

That's also why we launched this podcast to bring you the operators, the lenders, the vendors, and the real people who've bought the deals so you can hear their stories and learn this business from the folks living it every day, kind of like my guests. Folks, today's guests not only operate a facility in North Carolina from Florida, English is not their first language and they're originally from Brazil. So please welcome John Gaspar and Robert Figueiredo, who are co-owners of Cubed Up Self-Storage in Morgantown, North Carolina. They are not related, they're not brothers, but they are longtime working partners, employees, I believe. We'll unpack that, who both spent years in business development at IBM before making the jump into self-storage ownership in 2024. John and Roberto, welcome to Storage Moguls Podcast.

John Gaspar (01:52):

Thank you, Joel. Pleasure.

Joe Downs (01:56):

I've known you guys for a while now, and this has been a long time coming. I'm super excited to. Because I've followed your story, so I'm excited to unpack this for the listeners. It just occurred to me though, in the intro, I reminded myself you guys are from Brazil. Was Brazil in the World Cup this year? Yes.

John Gaspar (02:14):

I don't think so. No, no. Nevermind.

Joe Downs (02:19):

I though that would make you - Don't

Robert Figueiredo (02:20):

Talk about World Cup. I

Joe Downs (02:21):

Though that would make you a little angrier than it did.

Robert Figueiredo (02:24):

Yeah. That's not a good topic.

Joe Downs (02:28):

Because I believe they exited in the round of 16, which is the same round the United States exited in. And we only just started playing soccer a couple years ago, I think, here in the US. So that was not - I'm

John Gaspar (02:41):

American, Joey. I don't know what you're talking about.

Joe Downs (02:43):

I love it. I love it. I'm a patriot.

Robert Figueiredo (02:46):

I'll get there. I'll get there.

Joe Downs (02:50):

Robert's still in denial and John traded in his excellent soccer card for a very mediocre one. All right. Well, we have other great sports here as our producer, Doug learned this year. We dominate things like hockey and basketball and football and baseball. Anyway, all right. Before we get into the show, guys, as I mentioned, I like doing true or false questions. They're fun and it's a great way to just throw some nuggets out to the listeners. So here's your first one. I'm going to read you a true or false statement. You guys answer how you want. True or false independent mom and pop operators like you guys, not the big public REITs, still own the majority of self-storage fills in the US, true or false?

John Gaspar (03:37):

Absolutely true.

Joe Downs (03:39):

That is correct. And the major public REITs, for folks who don't know, so it'd be public, Extra Space, CubeSmart, NSA, which is National Storage Affiliates. Those are the names everybody knows, but independent and regional owners still make up the majority of the roughly 55 plus thousand storage facilities nationwide. And that's exactly who my guests are here today, the independent operators. All right. Let's talk about the thing most people are actually afraid of when they hear storage facility and losing control of something they can't physically check on. You two don't live anywhere near your asset. Neither of you had an operations background, at least in self-storage. On paper, that's the exact setup someone would say will fail.

(04:32):

What do you think would happen if you brought management, or what did you think would happen when you brought management in-house versus what actually happened? Because you bought the facility and you immediately went third party, which I think is a very logical move. If the facility can support it when you don't have a real estate background, you certainly have never managed an asset like this before. Obviously, for this fake of this podcast, let's not name the third party management company because I don't want to. Who knows what happened there, right? But just talk about third party management. What did you like about it? What didn't you like of it? What was your fear about bringing it in-house?

Robert Figueiredo (05:24):

So that's the reality. We brought the third-party management because we didn't know what to expect. And I mean, from one day to the other, we had to run the facility. So we said, okay, we need to learn several things. And if we just do the movement without knowing exactly what we have to do, we might fail. So let's hire a third-party manager. That's the obvious movement. So after the first month, we realized, I mean, based on when we speak about our work, previous work, there's several things that we gained, not only money, but also relationship that we had that we created with John, for example, or management or how to structure things to make it happen. So based on our experience, we start to see us that, well, we can do much better than this company's doing. So we have a lot of experience on that.

(06:23):

So we could communicate better with the customer. I think they're losing calls. They're not losing, I mean, losing potential customers. We don't have reports about the facility. So we were not really engaged on what was going on there. So after a while, we realized that, okay, after one or two months, okay, I think we can jump in there and do a better job.

Joe Downs (06:54):

Robert, what was the moment you realized we at least have to try this ourselves? This isn't working.

Robert Figueiredo (07:02):

To be honest, myself, after a month.

Joe Downs (07:05):

But why? What was the trigger?

Robert Figueiredo (07:09):

We used to have recurrent calls with the company and hearing what was being done and the control they had under the facility, we realized there was missing several things, several pieces to connect. Yeah, but

John Gaspar (07:28):

There's one very objective answer to that, Joe. We did the math. How many hours over the week the lady that was managing our facility would work? And we asked her how many facilities you manage yourself? You said 23. So okay, so we are spending one hour together every week. So that means you have another half hour to manage our facility per week.

Robert Figueiredo (07:58):

And also we used to getting the system and see the communication with the customers. And they were very short with no. I mean, it was not personal. You didn't try. For example, we had situations where the person was not, it was delinquent. So instead of, okay, what's going on? Can we help you? It was like, pay 15 and leave. I said, what? That's not the way. I mean, we want them to understand the situation. What's going on? He might lose his job. It might have a specific situation. We don't know. So get in contact, talk to the customer and try to understand. And we don't want you to leave. If you have a problem, let's try to find a way to solve that. We can wait a month. We can try to resolve, but we want you to stay here. We don't want you to leave.

(08:47):

So that's where those kind of things that we were like, that's not the way we treat our customers in the corporations. And that's not the way we're going to treat the customers in our own business.

Joe Downs (09:00):

That's so interesting. So your experience was your facility was being run in more of an impersonal fashion. And your vision for your facility was no, these customers aren't numbers. They're not lines on a spreadsheet. They're not payments on a rent roll. They're people. People sometimes have hiccups in life and we're trying to build relationships with our customers so they stay long term and grow with us. So you felt the need to step in. Yeah. I totally get that. But there had to be some level of fear of if we take this thing back, what does this mean? Who's doing what? Do we even know how to do it? Because I get the, you can do the personal part better because it's yours and nobody's going to care about your facility more than you. But what about all the other stuff that you don't know how to do yet?

Robert Figueiredo (10:08):

Yeah. The other stuff, we were stepping in and since the first month we were stepping in those things and try to understand. I think the biggest concern was really running the system.

Joe Downs (10:23):

Right. The system, the marketing, the collection, the raising rent. There's a lot involved. Yeah. None of it, for anyone listening, none of it is anywhere even remotely close or on the same planet as launching rockets into space. This is not a shot at John or Robert either. If it is, it's a shot at me. This is not rocket science. However, there is a learning curve. And I'm wondering where you were in this learning curve when you took this over.

Robert Figueiredo (11:00):

We were learning, to be honest. You were learning. Yeah. But when we decided like, okay, let's operate. So we did a plan and okay, we have to study the system, understand how to operate. And so we did 45 days before really transitioning. And when we started, I mean, we had few days with fear, yes. The transition was not so easy in the beginning, but there were no impact for the customers overall because there were really a transition of systems. So it was operating normally when we did the transition. The biggest part was, okay, how are we going to answer the calls? Who's going to answer what? Who's going to do what? And in which moment? But I mean, we got connected then in those things that we operate together.

Joe Downs (12:09):

How many hours a week do you think you guys spend managing the facility now?

Robert Figueiredo (12:15):

I think I spend like one hour, two hours probably. A week?

John Gaspar (12:22):

No, no.

Robert Figueiredo (12:23):

Two hours.

John Gaspar (12:24):

Maybe it's more honest to say the first week of the month when people still need to pay, some are not on autopayment, some others are not approving the credit card pool. We have more calls. So the first week is more busy. So maybe three or four hours

Robert Figueiredo (12:48):

Sometimes. Average will be two to three hours, I would say. More to two hours, I would say.

Joe Downs (12:55):

So eight to 10 hours a month. Maybe a better question is how many hours a month do you spend? Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. It would be front loaded in the first week where there's payment activities and collection calls or whatever, reminder calls. Yeah. So folks, the lesson here is you don't need to live next to the facility or near it or have a background in how to run it. You just need the right systems, the right people around you. You need to learn how to do it, and you have to have the desire to do it well. And I think what prevailed here for you guys is the desire to run it well or better than anyone else could run it for you is really what won the day here. True or false? The modern self-storage industry traces its roots back to Texas in the 1960s.

(13:48):

Should I pick on one of you?

Robert Figueiredo (13:51):

I don't know.

Joe Downs (13:54):

Fifty fifty, you get it right.

John Gaspar (13:58):

1960s.

Joe Downs (13:59):

Yeah.

John Gaspar (14:01):

Good guess, I believe. Yeah. But I think it's as simple as it would be in 1960 at least.

Joe Downs (14:09):

Yeah, it's true. Most industry historians point to the early facilities in Fort Worth and Odessa, Texas as the origin of the self-storage format we know today. All right. Before we get to the last question that I ask every guest, I want to leave the listener with something practical. So if someone was sitting on the fence right now worried, I don't know, specifically about not being local to an asset or being able to find one near them if they're not in the business, or they're thinking about getting into self-storage, but whatever self-inflicted fear they have is going through their head, what would you tell them? What's the one piece of advice you'd give somebody who's on the fence or even on the other side of the fence wondering if they should hop the fence?

Robert Figueiredo (14:57):

Well, I can say that. I mean, when we got together two years ago for the mastermind, for the self-story, I didn't know anything about the market. So nothing gets easy if you don't jump in and then you go deep in it. So you need to study, you need to have people like you, Joe, and all your storage models to give you the background and the experience you had in order to be able to understand the tools, how to analyze the market, how to analyze the facilities, how you make things to getting there. And it's not easy. It's hard. Everything is hard until it becomes easy. And when it's easy, it becomes you did your job.

(15:55):

So it takes time. It's not easy, but you have to be close to people that have the experience and can guide you to jump steps easier to get in there. So what I would say is that it was not easy for us. When we understood what we had to do to get our facility, it took seven months to get our facility. And we know people that still trying after that. So it's one year, almost two years that we studied together and they're still trying. It's not easy. It's hard. You have to go for it. You have to look at the market. You have to study a lot. You have to put hours on it. Nothing falls from the sky. But yet it's possible. And once you are in the market like we are, we understand better the whole ecosystem. So we know how to operate.

(17:04):

We know how to look for the second unit. We know a lot of people like you, Jack and Rob, a lot of people that know a lot about the industry. So it's much easier today than it was seven months ago than it was two years ago. But it takes time and effort you have to put in there.

Joe Downs (17:34):

Yeah.

John Gaspar (17:35):

And Joe, on your question about remote acquisition and management, there's one fact, you may or may not live in the right place. So I live in Miami, Florida. Miami, Florida is 100% REITs. Big facilities, just impossible to acquire. They buy five cat happy. We want to buy value add. So where is the market where you can effectively buy value add? So it's remote. You really want that? So you had to look for remote and then you acquire there. And then you build your systems to manage remotely. Simple

Joe Downs (18:27):

As that. Yep. And you nailed it. And I'm in the same boat. I live outside of Philadelphia. I'm in a major metro. John, you're in a major metro. You and I don't have the capital stacks to buy and compete for any facility within probably an hour of us. Maybe more than an hour. So you have to go remote. I've bought over 20, the closest ones an hour and a half away. And I would argue that's in a market that today we probably couldn't buy in. It's just the time we bought in it, we were able to get into it, but that's outside of Baltimore and that's probably too big of a market now. I mean, I'm glad I own it and we'll do well when we sell it. But we're even more secondary market and tertiary market because we have to be because that's where the value add opportunities are.

(19:10):

That's where the mom and pops have these facilities that the REITs and the institutions frankly can't compete with us to buy and turn around and manage. They're just not set up for it. So we're the yin to their yang. And the reason we built storagemoguls.ai is to teach people how to go find those facilities because that's where the real value and the opportunity is. All right, last question. I ask everybody this question. Have either of you read the book Be Your Future Self Now?

(19:49):

It's by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, one of the co-authors of Who Not How, which is a book you probably have read. Have you heard of Mr. Beast?

John Gaspar (20:00):

Oh yeah.

Joe Downs (20:01):

Okay. Who hasn't? Right. The book is basically about Mr. Beast, or at least he's the inspiration for the book. And the beginning of the book talks about how Mr. Beast, who was a 17-year-old kid, Jimmy something, Jimmy Donaldson or something, I forget his name, how he became Mr. Beast. By the way, he's only probably 27 years old now. This started about 10 years ago, maybe a little more than 10 years ago. He's the most followed man on the planet on YouTube. 10 years ago, he was nobody. We had 8,000 followers. He was just a kid in high school. And what he did was one night he released, he recorded, I should say, and then published to be scheduled in the future or scheduled to be published and released in the future, four videos. One six months from now from this night, 10 years ago when he was 17.

(20:56):

So one was to be released six months, one in a year, one of five years and one of 10 years. The 10 year was just released last October of 25. That's what I say, it was just a little more than 10 years ago. What he did in that moment was a lot like Cortez when he burned the ships. I'm sure you've heard that expression, maybe not actually. Probably not in your history books growing up in Brazil. But when Cortes brought. I don't know what your background in that is, but when he brought the Europeans over here, he burned the ships. There was no chance of going back to Europe. And they said, "You're going to make a life here because there's no ships." So that's effectively what Mr. Beast did that night, Jimmy did that night. By publishing these videos, he burned the ships. And what he did was he described who he wanted to become.

(21:49):

So switching analogies here into Back to the Future or hot tub time machine, whatever. If you were to get into a time machine and go five years into the future, and from a third party, look at who is John Gaspar and who is Robert Figueredo? Who have you become? What does your portfolio look like? What do you see? And what are you doing today to make sure that's what you see in five years?

Robert Figueiredo (22:24):

Yeah. So I mean, when I look for five years, we are actually creating, I would say, an ecosystem right now to be able to be five years in a very different situation. Not only for in terms of facility, but the self-storage ecosystem.

Joe Downs (22:45):

Describe it. Just describe to me what five years this system looks like. Self-storage portfolio in the system.

Robert Figueiredo (22:52):

Yeah. We saw that what we did in our facility, it can be extended to other facilities. So we have, for example, we created a tool where every facility can get in there and create RX of their facility to see all the gaps and all that we see that we use for our facility. So they can use this tool to see what is the status of their facility right now. And then we can help to improve the management of the facility as we did in ours. So this is one thing that we are doing. We're seeing gaps as well in the software space. We are tech. So we are putting a lot of tech that we know in order to make things better. Not only because we are not very well-served in terms of technology for the self-storage, but we can improve technology. We can improve management.

(23:55):

We can improve a lot of the management using technology. So we are creating this ecosystem right now in order to use for ourselves. And then we probably got to go to market, not only for managing, but also acquiring new facilities.

Joe Downs (24:13):

All right. So you guys are great partners because Robert, you answered the what are you doing today part of the question. John, what does it look like in five years because of what you're doing today?

John Gaspar (24:27):

So coincidence or not, Joe, today in the morning I presented to Robert and we agreed with our strategy. So strategy is something we need to execute today and see the results five years from now. So the answer is in five years we want to be the next Bell Rose group in some aspects. So we want to have at least 20 facilities. So that's the facilities part. We want to manage the 20 facilities and open to third parties. So a second business line to be property management. We are developing a self-storage software that will manage those facilities and hopefully sell the software to Bell Rose at that point. And the fourth is the most recent, we are developing cube depth capital. So we would like to finance acquisitions of facilities.

Joe Downs (25:46):

John, you have, I don't know how many, I think this is the 15th or 16th podcast. You are the first person to answer this question to my satisfaction.

John Gaspar (25:58):

Now I need to execute. So it's only five years to execute, right?

Joe Downs (26:02):

Right, right. Because here's what I heard. In five years, you'll have at least 20 self-storage facilities. You'll be in third-party management using the software that you built with your tech background to manage those facilities. And you'll have a lending company that will either directly lend or I don't know what those parameters look like. You didn't tell me, but that's okay. In some form or fashion, you'll also have a lending company that will specialize in lending to other buyers in your network or folks in storage mogul's community maybe to help them buy self-storage facilities. Is that a fair summation of where you are planning to be in five years?

John Gaspar (26:44):

Yes. And that's one more thing we are copying from you. So I'm going to be responsible for the facilities. Robert, for the property management. We brought another partner, just duty, for the software. And we are going to find someone for the Cubeda capital

Joe Downs (27:06):

As a vendor. I love it. I love the plan. I love what you guys are doing. I love the whole story. Folks, two guys with zero storage background running a facility they don't live near, built better systems than an outsource manager they replace that I'm sure manages hundreds of facilities. If that's possible for them, it's possible for you. And this is folks, the types of stories that we're covering every week on storage moguls and full verticals. So far talking a lot about self-storage, but soon we're going to start talking about boat and RV storage and ProStar storage and industrial outdoor storage. And I'm going to have the Truck Parking Club on soon. We'll talk about Small Bay Flex, all of it right here on this podcast. So please share it. And sharing matters. Why? I tell you this every week because when you share this, you're letting people in your social media network through whatever channel you're sharing on, know that you are in this business.

(28:03):

And that goes a long way. And I guarantee you, John and Roberto at least will nod their heads along with me because when you go to raise capital for these deals, you don't want people thinking it's your first deal or you just got in the business yesterday. So start sharing these podcasts. Join Storage Mogul's community. It's free. Storagemoguls.ai. There's tons of content in there for you. Folks, there's a seller out there right now who's ready to sell. So stop watching, start moving, drive for dollars, send the LOI. We'll see you next week.