How I Scaled My Modern "Boring" Business To $2.4M Per Year

Faraz Hemani

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Published: August 31st, 2024

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About
Business

Faraz Hemani

Founder, Iron Storage

$200K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Iron Storage

ironstorage.com

from Houston

started September 2021

$200,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

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Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

My name is Faraz. I started a technology-first self storage company that has now grown nation-wide.

Our company, Iron Storage, is leading the way in using technology and automation to be able to run a storage facility with no onsite personnel, while still providing customers with a high-quality rental experience.

In just 2 years, we have expanded to 25 stores, several thousand customers, and ZERO employees at any of our locations.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

Well, I never thought I’d be in the self-storage industry growing up. My background is in technology, previously working at companies like Oracle and Google. While at those companies, I started with small-time real estate investing on the side, buying houses to rent out to tenants.

The housing market ended up doing very well between 2020-2021, and I ended up selling nearly all the homes I had bought. It put a good chunk of money in my bank.

The issue was, I couldn’t replicate that success. The positive outcome of those investments largely came from good luck and timing. It was like a lottery ticket in many ways. I wanted to find a path to own real estate in a manner where I had more control over the outcomes, rather than crossing my fingers and hoping for the market to hand me another win.

I looked at all types of real estate and found self-storage to be particularly interesting. Because owning a self-storage facility didn’t seem like a real estate investment. It sounded more like I would be running a small business. I’d have to oversee marketing, customer service, dynamic pricing, facility operations, and a whole list of other items that seemed very similar to what a small business owner would care about on a daily basis.

I liked the idea of self-storage being run like a true small business, placing a lot of control in the hands of the operator, and I took the plunge and bought the first property. Then a second. Then a third. And pretty soon, this became a lot more than just a “side hustle”, so I left my job at Google and went all-in on self storage!

We want to be the de facto best-in-class storage operator in every market that we are in. We want to build a reputation that speaks for itself, that brings customers in the door, and keeps them with us for the long term.

Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.

The self-storage industry is interesting, because it benefits greatly from a lot of modern business practices. Things like search engine optimization, data-driven pricing strategies, online reputation management, omni-channel customer service, all make a big difference in the success and profitability of the business.

Coincidently, these are all things that were sorely lacking in the storage industry for the last several years. We knew our focus coming out of the gates was to build a self-storage business with a heavy focus on technology and process optimization.

We wanted to create an experience where a prospective customer could rent a storage unit and get access within 5 minutes or less, without ever having to interact with a person.

Our first Iron Storage facility

Describe the process of launching the business.

The first storage facility we bought and revamped was about an hour from where I lived in Houston, TX. We had to raise money to get the funds needed to make the acquisition.

It was a challenge, since we were selling people on a vision and idea that we could bring a better version of the self-storage experience to the market, without quantifiable proof of how our plan impacts performance.

Nevertheless, we got the funds together and bought that first property. In order to understand the biggest areas of focus, I was personally very active in all aspects of property operations. I took all the inbound calls from customers, I went to the facility weekly to clean the driveways and turn-over units, I personally called delinquent customers to collect payments.

That immersion for several months was critical to getting the insights we needed to iterate and drive better results. It helped me understand where the pain points were in the business, both from the perspective of the customer and the perspective of the operator.

An Iron Storage facility located in Tulsa, OK

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

What I have learned to be true is the same adage you see in almost any small business: deliver a top-notch product, execute with high quality, and customers will notice.

For us, that means providing reasonably priced storage rentals, making it incredibly easy to rent and access a unit, and making sure the customer feels comfortable and supported through every step of the process.

Oftentimes, there is not one silver bullet that makes the magic happen, but instead it is the sum of doing all the little things right that gets you to your destination.

We relentlessly tinkered with our online checkout process, our customer onboarding process, and our customer service cadences, to find a mix that makes us stand-out from the competition.

Start small. Work nights and weekends while keeping your day job. Make your first dollar. Prove to yourself that your concept is viable. THEN take the plunge and jump into the business full-time.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Today we have scaled our platform up to 25 storage facilities and counting, managing over 3,000 units across 6 different states. Our revenue has grown to over $225,000 a month. We are one of the fastest growing new-entrants to the self storage industry.

Our goal for the vision is two fold. Of course, we would love to become one of the biggest privately-owned storage companies in the world.

But above that, we have a more important goal: we want to be the de facto best-in-class storage operator in every market that we are in. We want to build a reputation that speaks for itself, that brings customers in the door, and keeps them with us for the long term.

In the industry, we want to be known as the people that pushed the needle and brought new practices and technologies into self-storage management that changed how operators do business over the next several decades.

From right to left: Faraz Hemani, and his partner Raheel Khawaja, onsite after opening a new location in Mississippi

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

There is no substitute for first-hand experience and seeing things happen on the ground-floor. There is no business book or podcast or even mentorship that can truly encapsulate what you learn from rolling up your sleeves and doing the dirty work yourself.

It does not scale, it feels inefficient, it is not glamorous, but I think any business owner needs to spend some time actually doing all the ground-floor work in their business. Take customer service calls. Work in the front-lines in your store. You will build a perspective about your business and your customers that you could not get anywhere else.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

While we are big proponents of using technology and automation as much as possible in our self-storage business, we are also big on keeping things simple and avoiding too much complexity in our software stack.

We have custom-built a lot of tools that power our business (our web interface for customers, our mobile application we use to communicate with our vendors and contractors). This helps unlock a lot of the efficiencies that set us apart from competitors.

But we also use a lot of off-the-shelf tools to power the business. We are huge fans of Airtable, as a way to organize data and make it operational via automations. We use Make.com and Zapier wherever possible to reduce manual touch points in our workflows.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

My personal favorite is “Pitch Anything” by Oren Klaff. It goes over the psychology and neurological responses that are present whenever you are trying to sell something.

It literally breaks the art of selling down to a science, and helps you understand what forces in the human mind are present when you are making a pitch, whether you realize it or not.

I am a big believer that anyone who is starting their own business needs to be comfortable in sales. Whether it is selling your product, selling your vision, or selling yourself. There are dozens of books out there on different sales strategies and frameworks. I find “Pitch Anything” to resonate with me the most, as it is rooted in basic principles of how humans think and act.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

If I was to do it all over again, here’s how I would go about it.

Work at a small company in a field that is relevant to your business. Be somewhere that exposes you to all aspects of the business top-to-bottom. Where you can see how the executives think and act.
Save, save, save. Save up as much money as humanly possible. Cut your expenses down to a minimum. Contrary to popular belief, starting a business means you are likely going to take a big pay cut for the next several years until the business reaches a certain level of growth and maturity. You will need a big runway of cash, or a partner/family member who can support your cost of living for the first few years.
Start small. Work nights and weekends while keeping your day job. Make your first dollar. Prove to yourself that your concept is viable. THEN take the plunge and jump into the business full-time.

Where can we go to learn more?

You can find me on Linkedin, I respond to all messages I get there. You can get in touch through our website at pebbleridgecap.com.

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!