Cole Ruud-Johnson
Cole Ruud-Johnson has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch, 2 times.
3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Scale Your Real Estate Business w/ Cole Ruud-Johnson
Cole Ruud-Johnson returns to talk about why scaling a real estate business often makes owners poorer, not richer, and what actually separates durable operators from people chasing quick wins. He shares his target of a $1M–$1.5M/year business with 50–60% margins and a team of three to five before considering growth, plus how he rebuilt Easy Button Real Estate from a lead-gen shop into a leads-plus-conversion service. Mike and Dan add their own numbers, including a $4M revenue year that netted less than a $1.3M year with two employees.
Key takeaways
- Cole's benchmark for most investors: get to about $1M–$1.5M a year in revenue with 50–60% margins, low overhead and a team of three to five people before deciding whether to scale further.
- Revenue and profit are not the same. Mike and Dan did just over $4M in revenue with ~20 staff and took home barely more than a W-2, versus $1.3M revenue with two people that produced over $1M in profit.
- A real estate operating business generally isn't sellable, so growing headcount and overhead just to 'feed the machine' rarely builds enterprise value.
- Most failures are skill issues, not business-model issues. Cole cold called for eight months before his first deal and says restarting the clock every six months prevents anyone from getting good.
How to SCALE an REI Business that Serves Your Lifestyle with Cole Ruud-Johnson
Cole Ruud-Johnson joins Mike and Dan to explain how he moved from high-volume wholesaling to running call centers and consulting businesses that fund intentional real estate purchases. He walks through his hiring order, how he manages overseas talent, and the specific roles (executive assistant, chief of staff, house manager) that bought back his time. The conversation also covers why fixed overhead on variable revenue makes flipping and wholesaling fragile, and why he buys appreciation-focused assets in San Diego instead of chasing small cash flow.
Key takeaways
- Cole treats his businesses as the cash generator and real estate as the place to protect that cash — he buys San Diego properties for appreciation and tax write-offs, and is fine if they only break even as long as they don't lose money.
- Flipping and wholesaling companies carry fixed overhead (salespeople, office, debt) against fully variable, market-dependent revenue and no recurring income — a structural risk most small operators underestimate.
- Start with a two-week time audit logged in 30-minute increments. Most people claiming ten-hour days are only moving the needle an hour or two.
- His first hire is always admin, then fulfillment, marketing, sales, and finally leadership. A $5–7/hour global hire can remove roughly 70% of non-client-facing work.