Build Your Dream Team: Leadership Tips for Real Estate Entrepreneurs

John Harcar (00:01.969)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Kyler Kropf, And what we’re going to talk about is besides his journey in business and real estate, we’re going to talk about how he’s building affordable housing. Guys remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and really all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their business by providing tools and resources to grow the business they want to have and in turn live the life they’ve always dreamed of.

So Kyler, man, welcome to our show.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (00:33.176)
Thanks John for having me on the show. I’m super excited about today’s topic. Super excited.

John Harcar (00:36.593)
Yeah, me too, man. I love talking about anything real estate, but especially affordable housing now because there’s so little really of it left in many places. But before we kind of get into all that, jump into the weeds, why don’t you tell our audience kind of a little bit about you, your background in business and real estate and kind of what got you to today.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (00:56.686)
Absolutely, would love to. Well, from a small town, my name is Kyler, 26 years old, built four companies, currently building a modular and tiny home company. currently do around 400 homes, manufacturing. But what got me started is I dropped out of the eighth grade, I worked on a farm for my dad for the longest time until I was about six years old after I dropped out. I was 14 when I dropped out.

on the farm always had a heart for doing something bigger, doing something more with myself, but never knew exactly what that was gonna be. I at AbraCurric in New Mexico, worked for my uncle for about six months on roofing. I didn’t like that. I said, hey, I need to go back home and start me a company. So I went back home. In 2019, I founded Saddlebrook Life.

which we are in DeKalb, we started building backyard sheds. So I went, currently making $250 a week. I said, well, that’s not enough money, so I need to make some more money. Went and looked at the neighbor’s shed. I decided how to build it, went to Lowe’s, bought the lumber, and built it in two weeks, sold it, and I’m like, okay, now I gotta deliver it. So I figured out how to deliver it, and then…

John Harcar (02:00.559)
Yeah, right.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (02:12.782)
We kept on building those things. COVID hit in 2020. My brother started coming helping me. He’s 24 at the time. He was 21 at the time. And we started building sheds and then all of a sudden after COVID hit, people wanted these DIY projects like finishing out their own stuff behind, know, backyard ADUs, like that. And…

John Harcar (02:33.092)
Yeah.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (02:34.466)
We started building those things out. COVID was crazy. We had massive growth. We grew the company from about 1 million a year to 7 million a year. We kept on growing and we kept on scaling it. went from in nine months, we went from 7 to 15 million in under nine months in sales. So we figured out, there’s a big shortage in the modular and the tiny home affordability, but in custom stuff. we started, after that happened, we’ve been scaling ever since 2019. We’ve built over 2,000

John Harcar (02:50.811)
Wow.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (03:04.46)
some homes and the affordability. We’ve helped investors build communities, which is what we’re doing now, bringing ROI. We’ve invested in our own real estate into single family and these that we build. So we’ve just been on a journey of growth, figuring out along the way of what does the industry really need and how can we help investors, how can we build a portfolio for ourselves.

John Harcar (03:28.667)
So you started out just building sheds, just basic regular sheds. How did you learn to build a shed? mean, now you probably, I mean, you can look at it and probably know how to build it, but I mean, how did you kind of learn that process and then grow it into a business?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (03:42.766)
So I went to the neighbor, there was across the neighbor, across the yard from where I lived there was a neighbor’s shed. And I went over there, counted all my lumber, I got me a material list, went to Lowe’s, bought the materials, and in two weeks I had a shed constructed. I don’t know how strong it was, I just copied it.

John Harcar (03:56.857)
And they just copied the way that was built.

Okay, so then now with, are you now building ADUs in the back or are you still building sheds? mean, what is your business look like now? What are you doing now?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (04:10.83)
So in 2024, we completely got out of the shed industry and moved right into modular housing. So it’s like an offsite built home that we deliver to a property, we put on a concrete slab and then it’s part of your property.

John Harcar (04:25.032)
very cool. Do you do all the plumbing and do all that stuff too?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (04:28.29)
We do everything from A to Z, we’re one stop shop. We buy the home, we deliver it in house, we connect your plumbing, your septic tanks, your concrete pads, your roads. We do everything for an individual or an investor.

John Harcar (04:39.567)
Love it. So as you turn this one time thing into a big business, it sounds like what were some of the beginning struggles you had? What were some of your growing pains that you overcame and how did you overcome those?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (04:53.216)
Absolutely, great question and this is one of the biggest things as I learned as a leader growing. We have over 110 employees now. As a 26 year old going through, you I have no GED, I have no diploma, I dropped out of eighth grade and I figured out early in life that I need to surround myself with people that have GEDs, that have the diplomas, that have the college degrees and I had to learn how to communicate and to delegate. In order for my team to grow and my company to grow, I had to get around smarter people and John,

John Harcar (05:00.974)
wow.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (05:23.3)
The biggest thing is building a team. I’ve learned out how to communicate to my team, how to create a vision so strong that now we move people in from all over the world, all over the country, from New York to California to Arizona just to come work for our company because of the vision that us leaders have. And we’re super excited to be able to be in this space. I’m super passionate about it.

John Harcar (05:45.925)
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you are. So as you’re growing, how did you know how to bring on, or not know, how did you bring on all these employees? Did you do any specific hiring tests, like the predictive index, all that? How are you finding the right people in the right seats for your business?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (06:06.52)
So I go back to in order for you to lead people, you have to lead yourself first. in 2021,

the company, we just about went bankrupt. We were right on the verge of it and we met a coach that was driving past one of our dealer locations. She called us and said, hey, I’m looking for a titanium. She ended up helping us get out of that. That was the year we grew substantially, but it wasn’t until I figured out how to lead myself and how to get around the right people that have done it before I did it. And I wasn’t scared to invest. I wasn’t scared to be coachable. I was willing to do whatever it takes to grow a company.

To listen to to be able to humanize people I think that a lot of leaders don’t know how to humanize their people They don’t know how to put systems and processes in place They don’t know how to get information in here out on paper like creating a playbook in order for them to take their company to the next level so We’re just on the verge of creating a hundred million dollar business But the biggest thing that was holding me back was me I had to learn how to delegate and how to really lead with vision with confidence which I called the three C’s

John Harcar (06:53.265)
Mmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (07:13.648)
is certainly confidence and clarity. If the leader doesn’t have clarity around their goals, if they’re not 100 % certain that their product is going to change the customer, and if they don’t have any confidence, you’re never going to go in the world.

because I hire people, we actually, we hire anywhere between three to five people a week, which is virtual and production people. So I have people flying, moving in from all over the world because they want to be a part of something that’s bigger than themselves. We’re not just a movement of affordable homes, we’re creating a movement of building people. And that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned in leadership is if you lead yourself and you have a vision big enough that fits everyone’s vision inside of your company.

John Harcar (07:31.563)
wow.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (07:55.68)
you will start attracting the right people. And you have to become attractive. Your energy is attractive. So it’s honestly not just one thing, John, of what we’re doing, but it’s being around the right people, investing in yourself. I always say, if you can’t invest in yourself, why would someone else invest in you? And that was the big question that I had.

John Harcar (08:13.113)
Right, 100%, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, the mastermind concept of being around the people that have done or where you want to go because they’ll show you the mistakes not to make. So what mistakes do you see people make that, you know, when they’re trying to build a team and they’re doing it the wrong way?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (08:26.286)
All right.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (08:34.338)
think it comes down to analysis paralysis or they don’t have the right blueprint in order for them to grow. They just don’t know what they don’t know. Like it’s so easy to grow a team if you have the right information. I feel like, you know, there’s a lot of coaching out there. There’s a lot of,

John Harcar (08:41.072)
Mm-hmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (08:49.068)
people that are saying, do this or do this, I think you just have to forget about the analysis paralysis and go into it and know that you’re gonna mess up. You’re gonna learn from it, but keep growing a team and have a strong culture. I say always, our culture is strong because number one, I have core values and I have culture values. When a person comes in, they can read my 39 page playbook and know exactly what our mission is, what our values are, what our core values are, and what we stand for. People always wanna know what does this company stand for.

extremely strong on those core values and what this company and where this company is going. So, I feel like there’s… if you’re not building a team in 2025, you’re gonna get left behind. have a…

team is about 30. I have 30 people on my marketing team and having the right leaders underneath you is the key to building a bigger company. don’t personally run my marketing team. I lead my leaders. I have five leaders that I lead and they lead the people underneath them. So I’m always valued to those leaders. that it’s like I said again it’s not just one thing but that’s one thing that I feel like is holding people back from growing teams is because of the information they just don’t know.

John Harcar (09:41.969)
Mm-hmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (10:00.514)
or they’re just scared to.

John Harcar (10:02.545)
And you mentioned this one person that kind of, you know, that lady that needed a tiny home and I guess she kind of maybe would mentor you. I guess you can call it, but where did you learn all these different, you know, this different stuff? mean, for, you know, for your age and be accessible, you are, I mean, you, you have a different mindset than a lot of other people that I even know that have good businesses and it’s not about the leadership part. It’s about monetarily growing. Right. So where do you think you attribute this thought process to?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (10:33.134)
You know, it’s more than just one thing, if one word comes to mind, it’s kingdom mindset. You know, I have an abundance mindset that whatever I do, I attract. And the energy that I… I mean…

It’s not just one thing I’ve spent over three quarter of a million dollars in myself and personal coaching and just getting in the rooms getting around that information because I always say new info you want a new life give new information that new information has changed the situation that you’re in and you have to be willing to invest in I’ve paid a hundred thousand to get in a room to know get to get the information to start changing the language of how I was speaking so

In 2022, I think the biggest moment, I’ve always grew up, know, kingdom mindset, going to, you know, having God in my life and all that. And I just remember sitting down, I was at, on a coaching event, it’s about a hundred thousand to be in this group. And I remember sitting, watching a sunset. And that was the day that I said, you know, God, I’m going all in. you know, I

John Harcar (11:17.712)
Mm-hmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (11:30.07)
have for me and I just surrendered and the number one thing that I always you know Seek ye first the kingdom of God and and we have a Christ-centered we we’re very open about our faith we’re very open about what we stand for and I just feel like that attracts that the right people in your company and the right people that you want to partner up with so it’s the discernment that I have that where God has taken us he’s opened up

opened up some God doors and I talk about good doors versus God doors and it’s been an incredible journey. I know I’m 26 but if I could go back, I’ve met some incredible people. I’ve been in rooms that an eighth grade dropout you would say, hey, why, you know, most people were like, hey, you don’t deserve to be in that room. Well, God that room, don’t, you know, he’s just putting me in the right room. So it’s all glory to God. Honestly, it’s not credit to me. It’s all him. I’ve just got some amazing.

John Harcar (12:13.594)
bright.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (12:25.26)
I gotta give it to my team. My team is amazing. They put me in front of this camera to talk and I lead them. It’s an amazing journey that I’m on.

John Harcar (12:34.691)
Amen, man, I love the story, I love the vision. So you’ve already talked a little bit about what your team looks like. So what does your business look like right now? mean, obviously you’re focusing on the tiny home and module business, correct?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (12:49.752)
Correct.

John Harcar (12:50.765)
Okay, do you have plans to grow into, mean, are you a nationwide company? Are you strictly in the Texas market?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (12:59.096)
So we’re in the Texas market. serve the four different states. So Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I have shipped into Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico. We’ve done some pretty big deals there. We’re getting into more of the tiny home parks, taking over the RV parks. We’ve got currently one going on right now where we’re doing a little.

John Harcar (13:19.185)
Mm-hmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (13:22.318)
80 some tiny homes so they’re right around 700 square feet, two bedrooms, one bath. So these are modular homes so they come in off of, you know, they’re not on a frame. We build them out of manufacture and deliver them to someone.

John Harcar (13:33.733)
Deliver them and put them together, yeah.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (13:37.55)
So they’re more like a stick-built modular home. So they’re with a spray foam insulation. We two by four on 16 inch centers. So we’re building a home that’s gonna last for a lot longer than a mobile home or manufactured home. We’re building a home that if you’re going 80 miles an hour down the road, it’s gonna stay in one piece. we’re building something that I would wanna invest in myself.

John Harcar (14:01.489)
Got it. And you said, did you say you’re converting mobile home parks to some of these tiny home parks?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (14:07.342)
RV parks. people that, know, yeah.

John Harcar (14:08.441)
Or RV parks. Okay, awesome. Are you finding more, or any specific regulations or anything that are impeding where you’re putting these homes or any type of rules or laws that you have to abide by?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (14:27.224)
So I fall, I mean, my stuff is built up the UCR 2021 codes. So it’s like, I can get into most cities. If I can’t get in there, I figure out how to get in there, but.

There’s just some places where you can’t go where a stick built has to be built on site, which I don’t have a problem with. You just don’t have the controlled environment that I have building them here. I can build a home within two weeks. I can get a home out of my facility. I’ve got a big backlog right now, but it takes me about two weeks to build it here in a controlled environment. So I haven’t seen, we’ve seen where some cities don’t like it, but there’s always a way around it. And there’s always, once they see your product, our product, it’s

up to any code. can get, like in Arizona, we had to send one out in Arizona and we had to put an R42 spray foam value on the walls. it’s, I build custom, so whatever whatever codes you throw at me, I’m going to build it up to those standards.

John Harcar (15:23.735)
Nice. Okay. How much do these houses normally go for? much, you know, how much, you know, what’s your build costs and sale costs?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (15:30.894)
I’ve got homes that go anywhere from between $60,000 all the way to $150,000. So anywhere between from an investor standpoint, depending on how big the deal is, you can spend anywhere from between $110 to $140 a square foot.

John Harcar (15:45.041)
Why do think there aren’t many other people doing this type of affordable housing stuff?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (15:53.186)
I think it’s new. think that the investors are just now finding out about it with the research that I have. We sell to a lot of B to C. We’re trying to go more B to B where we’re selling 100 units. So a lot of our stuff is super custom. People want a cabin out by the

They’ve got a property up in the mountains in Arkansas. a two-bedroom, two-bath, getaway cabin. I did a lot of Airbnb stuff. that’s what, a lot of people want that.

John Harcar (16:19.376)
Alright.

John Harcar (16:24.945)
Okay, very cool. You’ve had a tremendous track record of success, I mean, at a young age. What do you attribute, what are your keys to success that have kept you and gotten you where you’re at?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (16:39.628)
I think it’s staying, having the three C’s, confidence, clarity, and certainty of where you want to go and being able to pivot when God has you pivot. In 2023, we pivoted from sheds to modular home because I’ve seen a pivot coming that I’ve seen a bigger need. I just started a company two months ago, hopefully it does. It’ll do seven figures this year. Not to brag, but it’s all about how do you figure out where the biggest problem is and then go solve

all that and figure out how to build it. It’s a company where we do on-site work like shops, do concrete, septic systems, roads, and figured out how to do it fast and with quality.

John Harcar (17:10.831)
What’s the new company you got?

John Harcar (17:20.261)
Okay.

John Harcar (17:24.751)
Nice. What trends are you seeing out there in real estate now coming down the pipe in reference to your tiny homes or modular homes, those type of things.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (17:36.482)
I see in the modular housing space where…

That is becoming more popular because you can buy from one company, you can get them shipped faster, they’re built underneath a controlled environment. If it’s raining for two weeks, your build process is continuing to go on. I see that the industry is gonna get more, where they can get their investment starting to turn over faster for them. So if you can get a project done where it takes you a year to get done and you can get housing moved in in three months or four months, you can start rolling in some money. That’s where I see the industry going from what I’m seeing.

John Harcar (17:51.665)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (18:08.367)
Okay. And if someone wanted to get into this type of business, right? They want to maybe start doing tiny homes, tiny home parks, whatever. How or what advice do you think you would give to them to really set them up for success?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (18:25.23)
build a team, mean learn from people that have done it and.

just know like anything that you start is not easy. You know, they don’t tell you all the systems you have to build the hard work that goes into it, but nothing good is easy. you know, it’s all about building company, building people and knowing that, this is something that you want to do. Do you want to be a part of such a big industry, which is the affordable housing, the housing in general. I don’t think that it’s going to go any way anytime soon. So there’s so much business out there. You just have to get around the right people or if you have

John Harcar (18:52.635)
Mm-hmm.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (18:59.574)
passion for it, start building.

John Harcar (19:01.581)
Right, no, 100%. Any other words of advice you would give for anybody? Just say they want to get into real estate or even any advice on mindset. It looks like you’ve got a good grasp on how to keep your mindset in the right focus.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (19:16.842)
Absolutely you become what you think about all the time and the biggest thing that I have figured out is I was always the person that would say hey one day I’m gonna do this one day. I’m gonna do that one day I’m gonna start that business one day. I’m gonna hit the gym or one day. I’m gonna start Going out there and doing what you know what my dreams are and it’s all about day one You know today is the day where you start changing your life today you start changing your mindset today Business is all about mindset and who you surround yourselves with that the movies that you

you watched information that’s going in your mind, if you knew how important your mindset was, you would protect it with all costs. So why are you still spending, you know, listening to the things that are not advancing you to the next level that, you know, you keep saying, hey, I don’t, I’m not making enough money or my business is not growing.

Words are life or death. So whatever you speak, what you’re gonna get. And my biggest thing is I’ve just learned to reprogram my mindset because here’s the thing, your mind is the most important real estate to invest in. That’s what people miss. They think that they have to go out there and spend 100,000 to get around coaching when the information is right in front of you. You can go to YouTube and search how to start this business or how to do this or how to do marketing. So I don’t feel like there’s just one thing, but if I was to tell you that it’s one thing, your mind is

John Harcar (20:06.118)
Yes.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (20:34.256)
the most important real estate investment. Start investing in you. Start pulling back money, saving, investing, because there’s four seasons that someone goes through, which is springtime, summertime, fall, and winter.

John Harcar (20:36.677)
Invest and do it. Yeah

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (20:46.378)
In the springtime, what people don’t understand is the most important time to invest is when they’re 16 to 25 years old. If you can invest in real estate and business and invest in stocks, you’re gonna be so much further ahead than anybody else in the marketplace. But here’s what happens. The school system teaches people how to think and to not mess up because the first thing that you do when you mess up at school, it’s wrong. You get graded an F or a C.

John Harcar (21:10.266)
Right, right, right.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (21:12.076)
Right? So you don’t want to start failing, but the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is go do it and learn from your mistakes. Don’t repeat your mistakes, but learn from them. And it’s okay to mess up. It’s okay to learn because the biggest lessons are learned in the moments of failure of going through a storm because the storm is actually the thing that’s going to propel you to the next level. So it’s it’s awesome. I love business. I love people. I love building people. I love giving back. I’m big into giving back to the community.

John Harcar (21:23.633)
It’s okay to fail.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (21:42.181)
And I just can’t be more excited for what God has for us in this next season in this industry. Yeah.

John Harcar (21:46.897)
I’m excited for you, I’m excited for you. It looks like you got a great path. I got some folks out there that are listening to this that maybe want to find out more about your business, what you do, how they can maybe get into it, or just kind of want to talk about, or maybe buy some of them. I don’t know. How do they get in touch with you?

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (22:06.988)
Yeah, go to, I’ve got Instagram, TikTok, I got all them, official Kyler Croft, we’ll put the links down below. And then I’ve got two podcasts that they can listen to as well. One on Mindset would be the Young CEO podcast. There I only talk about mindset on business growth, how to grow teams, how to build SOPs, processes. And then I’ll have the Tiny Home podcast where it’s more Patrick v. David, where it’s more education on where we see the industry going and just insights on what we’re doing and how.

we’re involved in in our business.

John Harcar (22:39.365)
Love it. All right. Awesome, man. I love your heart. I love your passion. I love your path. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. Kyler, I appreciate you coming on and sharing all this, man. I really, really do. You dropped some great nuggets. And I hope everybody out there really took what they could out of this and if they have interest to reach out. Thank you again, Kylo, and I hope everybody enjoyed the show. Cheers.

Kyler | SaddleBrooke Life (23:04.578)
Thank you, Joe, for having me. Yes, sir.