Wendell’s Weekly Wins and Whiffs

🏆 Win of the Week: Another Year Around the Sun and a Shift in Trajectory

Friday was my birthday. June 12th. I turned 32. And I am not going to lie, there is something weird about hitting that age where you feel young and old at the same time. Maybe it is the salt and pepper mullet that Catelin loves and I have rocked. Maybe it is the fact that I suddenly feel wise instead of just dumb and lucky. Maybe it is just the accumulation of years and wins and failures all stacking on top of each other.

Whatever it is, Friday felt good. I golfed. I did not work. I ate at The Fig Tree, one of my favorite restaurants in Charlotte, shout out to Catelin for the treat, I love you! It was simple. It was intentional. It was exactly what I needed.

But here is what really happened this week that matters more than a birthday. While I was taking time to reset and refocus, the business kept moving. The deals kept flowing. The capital kept coming in. And the vision became clearer than it has ever been.

This is the part I want to hammer on because it matters. We are in the middle of a fundamental shift in how T&T operates. For years we have been grinding on fix and flip deals. Buy low, renovate, sell high. It is a solid business. It works, but the margins have gotten thin. The market is weird. And frankly, we got tired of chasing nickels and dimes on the backend of a project.

So we pivoted. We leaned into what we actually love doing, which is building. New development. From the ground up. Controlling every aspect. Creating assets that are built right instead of playing catch up with somebody else's mistakes. And here is the win. We did not pivot alone, we partnered deeper, we brought in Adam. Three partners, equal split, combined vision.

Right now we have 7 builds/projects in motion. Seven. And we are just getting started. We are talking about luxury builds. We are talking about single family home subdivisions. We are talking about townhome projects. We are talking about future commercial space. We are talking about getting MASSIVE.

I am 32 years old and the vision for what we are building with this team is bigger than it has ever been. That is the win.

💨 Whiff of the Week: When Small Mistakes Become Big Problems

This week started with a string of frustrations that honestly tested my patience. The first one was the appraisal on my cash out refinance I am working on for one of my personal rentals. The appraiser came, looked around, and missed an ENTIRE third floor finished attic. Two bedrooms, a living space and an additional 205 square feet. That is $40k to $50k in value they just walked past. My property manager's assistant forgot to show her the space even though I had mentioned it to the appraiser initially. It has been a week and a half delay trying to get them back out here, when this thing should have closed already.

But that is not even the worst of it. We found out that our tax abatement application for the 32 unit apartment complex has a June 30th deadline, if we miss it and the application gets denied. We started this process back in January… JANUARY. And we are just now figuring out that we are cutting it close because TD Bank decided to move at the speed of molasses on everything.

Real talk. I have never worked with a bank as incompetent as TD. They are the worst. Customer service is nonexistent. Communication is nonexistent. They have held up a deal that benefits the entire investment because they cannot get their act together. If you work with TD Bank, be ready for headaches unlike anything you have ever experienced. I could rant all day about this experience, but I will save you the negativity.

On top of all that I had to go personally clean up my condo rental unit here in Charlotte. It was in good condition, the tenant left it nice, but I had to physically go there, fix some things, and get it ready to rent again. Here is what bothered me about it… I did the work myself. I felt like I took a step backwards. That is not how I want to operate anymore. I want to be a strategist. I want to make the big calls. I do not want to be the guy running around doing the maintenance work myself. I am working to build companies that do not need me at the tactical level and this week reminded me that I have not gotten there yet.

🎯 Tactical Tip of the Week: Why Abundance Mindset Beats Every Other Strategy

This ties directly back to the partnership shift and I want to make sure you understand why this matters because it changes everything. The number one question I get asked is why partner? Why not just do it yourself and keep all the profits?

That question is small thinking. That question is a poverty mindset disguised as business acumen and I am going to tell you straight, it is the biggest mistake you can make as an entrepreneur.

Here is the reality. Yes, when you do deals by yourself you move faster in the beginning. You make quicker money. You do not have to share the pie. And then you hit a ceiling. You hit the ceiling of what you can physically and mentally handle. What one person can manage. What one brain can strategize. And then you stop. You plateau. You become comfortable. And comfort is the death of growth. Or you just straight up start hating everything about what you do because you are pulled in so many directions.

When you partner, when you combine efforts, when you put multiple skilled people in the arena together, something different happens. Your capacity expands. Your reach expands. Your ability to execute at scale expands. And suddenly you are not arguing about whether you are going to make 100k or 200k on a deal. You are talking about 5 million, 10 million, 20 million plus in profit. Who cares about profit split when you are cranking out those kinds of numbers? I mean you still care, but there is so much of a share, money doesn't matter anymore, just the next big idea, vision and goal.

I am not interested in being the biggest solo operator. I am interested in building something that is massive. And you do not get massive by yourself. Full stop. You get massive by being part of a team that is all in the same direction. You get massive by hiring amazing employees that believe in your vision. You get massive by not thinking about what YOU are going to get done, but what WE are going to get done. That is an abundance mindset. That is real business. That is what wins look like over ten years, not ten months.

Now there is nothing wrong with operating by yourself if that is how you like to work as well as obtaining your financial goals. That just isn’t the way my mind works.

🔦 From the Field: Culture Beats Everything Else You Are Building

We implemented something this week that I have been thinking about for a long time. Quarterly meetings with our team. Not performance reviews. Not checking in on metrics. Real conversations where we sit down and ask our people how they are actually doing. What could we be doing better? What is working? What is broken? Where do they see gaps?

You want to know the thing about building real companies? The machine is not what moves the needle. The people move the needle. Always. And if you do not invest in your people, you do not have a business. You have a structure that is going to crumble when someone decides they want to go do something else.

These quarterly meetings are about listening. They are about getting feedback that matters. They are about reminding your team that you actually care about them as human beings, not just as workers. They are about catching problems before they become crises. They are about building a culture where people actually want to show up.

When you do this consistently, something shifts. People feel heard. People feel valued. People start caring more about the mission because they feel like they are part of the mission. Suddenly turnover goes down. Suddenly quality goes up. Suddenly you have a team that is actually firing on all cylinders because they are bought in.

We have an incredible team. These are people who are invested in what we are building. And the investment we make in them is the same investment I make in myself. Because a great business is only ever as good as the people who run it.

💰 Passive Investor Opportunities

We are continuing to move deals through the pipeline at Tide and Timber Ventures. If you have been curious about passive investing with our team, reach out. These opportunities fill fast and now is a solid time to have that conversation.

⚡ Flip Fuel Lending

We are growing the team and the loan volume at Flip Fuel Lending and we are just getting started. We lend on residential fix and flips, new build construction, bridge loans, and rentals. If you are looking for a lending partner who actually understands the investor side of the table, visit flipfuellending.com or reach out at [email protected]. We are also hiring Loan Originators. If you want to join an investor-focused lending team, reach out.

🐝 The Hive CLT Entrepreneurs Network 

The Hive community keeps growing. The conversations in that room actually move needles. RSVP for our next event at https://jointhehive.co/

💬 Final Word

I am sitting here at 32 years old with a fiancé who believes in me, a team that executes, and partners who share the vision. A week ago I was doubting whether I was delegating enough. Whether the business could run without me in the middle of everything. And then I took a week, celebrated a birthday, and realized that the systems are working. The team is executing. The business is moving. That is progress. That is what it looks like when you stop trying to do everything yourself and start building something bigger than you. Keep that in mind this week. What are you holding onto that you should be letting go of? What ceiling are you hitting because you refuse to partner? Think about it, then do something different.

Keep growing or die,