Building the best luxury property management company and sharing the journey
Austin, TX
Joined October 2010
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I evaluated 50+ businesses to buy. Had 20+ founder conversations. Submitted 3 LOIs.
The business that changed my life was already in front of me the whole time.
After a career in tech sales, I hunted for a business to acquire: HVAC, roofing, landscaping, auto repair, heavy machinery, even daycares. Two of my LOIs came close to being accepted.
What stopped me was the personal guarantee, and inheriting a team I didn't know. Would they share my energy and ambition? Could I earn their trust?
Then I heard an Acquiring Minds episode about Matthew Orley buying Red Cottage, an STR property management company.
It clicked. I'd been an Airbnb Superhost for 10+ years. My grandparents ran a B&B. Hospitality was in my blood, and I'd overlooked it.
Soon after, a couple of luxury homeowners asked me to manage their homes. My wife and I saw the opportunity right in front of us. That's how Via Luxury Rentals in Austin, TX started.
A mentor told me entrepreneurs are the only people who'll work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 for someone else. He was right. Some months feel like chewing glass: worrying about payroll, wearing every hat, not knowing where the next client is coming from.
But then you watch a great hire find their stride, a homeowner trust you with their home, and a team come together around something you started.
This year we're on pace to pass $1M in gross booking revenue in our first full calendar year.
None of this happens without my incredibly supportive wife, and the family and friends who kept encouraging me.
If you're thinking about taking the plunge: it won't be easy, and you'll doubt yourself more than once. But building a life you're proud of is worth it. 🚀
Follow along as we build Via Luxury Rentals & Property Management.
A horse race announcer for crypto tokens immediately following a bull run, winners/losers announced daily 🐎🫏
Awesome to see the write up from @FTDA_US on AI agents citing the framework leaders in the space @virtuals_io @ai16zdao @arcdotfun @0xzerebro 🚀
It’s a good reminder to zoom out to see the innovation being built in web2. No surprise the leading categories for AI agents are platform + framework followed by productivity
Bullish on @focEliza project and excited to watch this space grow thoughtfully from great leaders like @CP2426_
Excited to announce the launch of the focEliza public good community.
It aims to effectively accelerate the development and adoption of fully on-chain Eliza, a suite of ElizaOS plugins, tools, and services designed for fully on-chain AI agents.
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Since initiating the focEliza project and releasing related updates, we have received a great deal of attention and engagement, along with very positive feedback. People are highly enthusiastic about the concept of fully verifiable, trustless, fully autonomous, and chain-interoperable AI Agents.
This enthusiasm is the starting point for establishing the public good community. We aim to inherit the community culture of @ai16zdao & @PhalaNetwork, fostering open collaboration to effectively accelerate this concept. The focEliza public good community will serve as a gathering place for enthusiasts, cutting through market noise, building consensus, and collaboratively creating practical, fun, and chill products. Most importantly, we aim to carry forward ai16z’s spirit of open-source and community.
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We will not release a whitepaper, there will be no VC, no team, and we will not write lengthy explanations about why we need fully-on-chain AI agents or outline multi-year plans for focEliza. We will simply focus on building the necessary and exciting features right in front of us, step by step, enabling AI agents to go on-chain and trustless.
We believe that through growth within the community and market, focEliza will naturally progress along an effective co-building path: something people care about, will use, and that contributes to Eliza’s development.
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Additionally, to ensure focEliza starts light and agile, I will explain focEliza’s architecture and challenges today to help it move forward quickly and efficiently.
1. Early Contributor to focEliza
As the CTO of @Artela_Network , our team initiated this project because we were bullish about this direction and saw great potential in AI16z and Eliza.
Now, focEliza will continue to grow under the public good community. The Artela team will remain a long-term contributor, providing ongoing funding to support the development of the focEliza community. Thanks to @Artela_Network and @JieliLi4 for all the support that made this possible!
2. "When CA?"
Over the past two weeks, many people have asked me about this. As the initiator of the community, I want to clarify from the start: Maybe, there will be something, but I don’t yet know in what form. I firmly believe this will be an important part of effective acceleration.
I have seen @shawmakesmagic deeply troubled by misunderstandings around ai16z-related "CA," and the community has faced difficult-to-explain misconceptions, requiring a public restructuring.
I will address this from the very beginning because, as a public good, it will establish partnerships with everyone transparently. I will tell everyone: If you mind, please be aware.
3. How will the community be organized?
So far, many enthusiasts have contacted me about how to participate in co-building. My initial response has been to wait until we clarify our plans. Currently, the community consists of myself, @Mikkke_acc , and several anonymous engineers, product managers, and ecosystem developers.
The first step will be open recruitment through a form to onboard the first batch of partners. We don’t aim to assemble a 1,000-person community immediately but will start with a focused team of 15 people and build from there.
What will the community do, and who should join first? Key community priorities include:
* Development of focEliza
* Building the first fun AI agent based on focEliza
* Expert community organizers
* Ecosystem players
* Researchers
* People and ideas that can effectively accelerate everything
If you are bullish on fully on-chain Eliza, please join us! Keep it limited to 15 people in the early stages. Apply here: forms.gle/bzz7884p3U439AMD8
For any questions, please DM me or @Mikkke_acc
Tagging the most relevant crypto AI minds to follow. Probably around 50+ as I continue down the rabbit hole but here are the top 20 accounts to start with 🧵
@0xsammy - 24 hr roundups are so crucial - TY for your service 🫡
@CryptoStreamHub - COOKIE level data pre cookie
@cryptopunk7213 - awesome recaps of what’s happening
@0xjeff - thoughtful DD
@SmallCapScience - new AI gems
@cryptoboys27 - early to the AI crypto scene and still killing it
@0xdetweiler - one of the first great AI crypto accounts I uncovered
@jyu_eth - cracked dev behind zerebro
@baoskee - daosdotfun + ai16z contributor
@0thtachi - dev-co-founder of ARC
@markus9x - main reason I bought the dip on Ai16z! 🙏🏻
@aixbt_agent - top KOL + most mindshare for an ai agent
@based16z - entertaining + insightful
@shawmakesmagic - brilliant co-founder behind ai16z. Keep doing what you’re doing 🚀
@0xSleuth_ - great trader, learning from his framework
@crypticd22 - amazing trader to follow
@cookiedotfun - incredible crypto ai data + top 5 daily recaps are 🔥
@marvin_tong - phala + spore core contributor
@MustStopMurad - incredible memecoin trader + eye for spotting trends
@frankdegods - streamer, trader + crypto AI bull
Kyle Krasicky retweeted
2 months into the agent theme and the entire AI sector is still just worth 1% of total market capitalization.
Suggests the entire move so far has been mostly rotational capital than net new inflows.
Dream bigger.
2 months later and people are just starting to realize these aren’t all memecoins, as leading projects rollout agent platforms with clearer value accrual mechanisms.
Virtuals, which launched their platform in October, has already generated $20M+ in revenue.
The entire AI sector is still just worth 1% of total crypto market capitalization.
Crypto AI space
S - Tier (frameworks):
Solana: Ai16z, zerebro, ARC, AIXBT
Virtuals: virtuals, GAME
A + B Tiers (skin in the game):
FXN, SNAI, SPORE
A + B Tiers (on my short list)
VAPOR, AIXCB, REI, VADER
Early projects with big potential imo:
NEUR, GRPH, WAI, KWANT, MOSS, WAI
I’ve been diving deep into the crypto AI trenches since learning about ai16z and inspired by others keeping me informed so I’m going to start posting more about my findings to expand my mindshare & get more plugged in, LFG
Kyle Krasicky retweeted
There's never been a tech scene like @ai16zdao afaik. Fair launch, token alignment, organic growth, open source code that's trending as the #1 project on GitHub with hundreds of contributors
What @daosdotfun @shawmakesmagic started is crypto-native energy at its best. Accelerate
This is the dream, “Siri buy the dip on @ai16zdao”
Hot take
Fudding social AI agents is mid.
Yeah 90% of agents that *only* tweet-to-entertain will die off but you’re missing the bigger picture:
These social dynamics are going to 100X the user experience for anyone interacting online.
It’s going to solve crypto’s #1 problem:
Usability.
Instead of needing to spin up a wallet, navigate to the right website, select the right asset, sign a bunch of txns…
You just @ your agent or it anticipates what you need in advance and executes autonomously.
AI agents will help blockchain “go to where the users are”.
What appears as a joke / novelty today will end up becoming a core primitive of the new Agentic Web.
We’re not going to be scrolling websites in 5 years.