Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

We don’t tell our kids they’re smart, we tell them they’re hard workers.

If you grow up being told and believing you are “something”, you’ll grow up becoming that something. Good or bad.

If kids are called stupid by the person they love and trust the most in the world, you better believe they'll think they're stupid.

Their test scores will reflect it and everything else will reflect it.

Whereas if that same person with the same brain grew up in a decent household and the parents didn't say they're stupid, they will fundamentally, on a molecular level, be a different person simply because of their environment.

We become what we think about all day.

There's a study where It took a bunch of kids that were equally smart.

They all got the same puzzle to work through and were all told they did well, but with 3 different variations.

Group 1 was told: “You must be smart at these problems.”

Group 2 was told: “You must have worked hard at these problems.”

Group 3: No additional praise.

Then they were all given a much harder test.

And these were kids that should have scored about the same on this test, but guess what, the kids praised for working hard handled failure better.

These kids were more likely to
- Continue wanting to try
- Enjoy the puzzles
- Believe they could improve

When they got to a hard problem, they persevered.

And the kids that were told how smart they were, did worse.

When they got to a hard problem they thought,

"well, if I can't solve it, it must be unsolvable because I'm smart."

That’s why we don’t call our kids smart, even though they are.

We want them to be hard workers and to learn to persevere.

And our hope is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

12 hours ago | [YT] | 40

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

I went with this guy, then I picked his brain.

6 years ago he started a concrete staining business, it was going just ok.

Then a customer asked if he could paint their sport court. He said “why not?”

Within 3 months he was ONLY doing sport courts.

Today does hundreds of courts per year at $5k-$10k each. Do the math on that.

Most of his jobs come from full service sport court companies that sub out to him.

Insane net margins.

He’s going to Oklahoma next month to do 22 courts.

He did a great job with mine. Alabama stencil still in the mail.

Full interview dropping soon. Follow ‪@thekoerneroffice‬ to watch when it goes live.

1 day ago | [YT] | 39

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

I just met a guy whose whole business is getting contractors referrals.

He does it by cold calling other local businesses on their behalf.

Really interesting.

For example:
A roofer hires this guy. His team cold calls plumbers, HVAC companies, realtors and property managers in town and books a bunch of intro meetings with the roofer

The roofer does one job to prove himself. And from then on those businesses send him their customers.

Referrals close at about 80%. Angi leads don't.

He started it for $319.

12 months in he was at $14K a month, 92% profit.

3 days ago | [YT] | 64

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

While everyone is out there trying to build the next CalAI, I just met a 19-year-old making 6 figures moving people's furniture.

He started a moving company with $2,679, a truck and some mailers.

He sends the mailers out, then goes to the house and closes the job in person.

Month 1: $4,162
Month 6: $101,763, and $49,196 of that was profit.

A moving biz like this is often overlooked because it's "hard work".

But it's also a service that people will always need...
Until the robots start carrying our boxes, of course.

4 days ago | [YT] | 65

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

My 3 biggest financial regrets:

1. Not buying Bitcoin in 2013.

2. Selling my last house for $275k in 2016 that is now worth $675k.

3. Losing out on $125k in savings by not building our pool in 2021. (seriously)

(You have no idea how expensive pools are now.)

6 days ago | [YT] | 88

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

I had lunch with a custom home builder the other day. Wow. His last deal:

Land: $350k
Build costs: $650k
Sale price: $1.65m
Area: DFW
Sqft: 4300
Year he bought land: Didn't ask

$650k profit from 1 home.

I was digging for info (as I always do) and I genuinely think this is true.

He works with the subs & his wife designs

5-10 per year

This biz has headaches but man…at a certain price the headaches are worth it.

1 week ago | [YT] | 96

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Move fast and break things doesn't apply to all industries.

This guy got 6.5 years in prison.

There was a custom home builder in my area that ran away with deposits, too.

He turned around and started another business under a new name. He's the biggest builder in town now.

1 week ago | [YT] | 51

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Instead of a $100k airport convenience store with 1 cashier & many customers

We now have $1 million+ dollar “automated” stores filled with sensors & few customers.

Oh, and 1 employee to prevent theft.

Isn't innovation amazing?

1 week ago | [YT] | 76

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

I'm proud to announce my retirement from road cycling.

Why? Because I never died or got hit, and it's only a matter of time before I did.

Cycling is an asymmetric bet in the wrong direction, especially in Texas.

Same with riding motorcycles, which I retired from at 21.

1 week ago | [YT] | 221

Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast

Everything I post is done manually by me or someone on my team. Nothing is scheduled or automated.

Here's why:

Platforms deprioritize content posted through an API or scheduler. They all want native uploads. It's well documented.

Automated stuff still goes viral sometimes. It's just less likely to. And less likely is can be expensive for us.

If you check my Facebook and Instagram reels, the timestamps are never identical. Always within an hour, but never the same minute.

I could easily build an app in an afternoon or use one of the dozen third party apps out there for this, but its just not worth it.

Sometimes the best way to do things is the hardest way.

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 104