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From $0 to $100M in Real Estate (And the $4M Mistake That Changed Everything)

By January 22, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this episode, Matthew Teifke and Darrien Jenkins share their journeys in real estate, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. Matthew recounts his upbringing by a single mother who built a rental portfolio, his path through higher education, and building businesses worth over $100M. Darrien shares his early entrepreneurial experiments, lessons from failure, and how he partnered with Matthew. Together, they discuss leadership, relationships, faith, capital raising, and how clarity, efficiency, and balance shape their current success.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Matthew Teifke (00:00)
    I currently own about a hundred million, 115 million of real estate, lost $4 million on one publicly traded company, money that I put into that, that I made and it went from 4 million to zero. Maybe almost killed myself. I don’t know. I was depressed. You know, had those thoughts. I don’t think I would do it, but it was. And now I’m back, man.

    Quentin Edmonds (00:20)
    dark.

    Hello everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds I’m excited to be here. This is one of those rare occasions y’all when we get to you for the price of one. So I’m excited to have these gentlemen on. you know, we got 18 years of experience here, somebody that, you know, got a masters in real estate. So know what they’re talking about. ⁓ and so I’m so excited for us to talk about.

    Now, one said one probably be doing more talking than the other. So we’ll see if that transpires. But I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Darrien and Mr. Matthew. Gentlemen, how you guys doing today?

    Darrien Jenkins (02:35)
    I’m doing really good. How you doing,

    Quentin Edmonds (02:37)
    I’m

    doing good. I’m doing good. Matthew, how you feeling, Sir?

    Matthew Teifke (02:39)
    Feeling great, man. Feel motivated. I get the sun is shining. Good to be here with you guys and however we can bring some value. I’m ready for it.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:47)
    Absolutely, man. So listen, I’m going to go questions out again. Like I told y’all, y’all decide who answer. We kind of got our rhythm and our cadence going. And so I would love for you to dive in and tell the people what your main focus is these days. We want you to give us a little bit of an origin story of how you got started in real estate, maybe how you guys met. We would love to know that. And then tell us what part of the world you’re in, what markets you’re operating in. So gentlemen, y’all have the floor.

    Darrien Jenkins (03:17)
    Do want to Matthew?

    Matthew Teifke (03:18)
    Amen brother. Yeah, thank you. So I’m in Austin, Texas. Round Rock specifically. Yeah, it’s where I’ve been my whole life. I would say on the origin story for me. I get inspired by my mom. I was raised by a single mom and it was me and my brother. And man. She was cleaning houses when I was 5 years old, 6 years old.

    And then she got into the construction business, asphalt and paving. She was doing sales. And by the time I was 17 years old, 16, 17, she had 18 rental houses and nobody gave those to her. she worked, she was cleaning houses and then she started owning them. And there’s so much to that, man. that, you know,

    Once you see that and you hear about that, it’s like, I’ve never come across somebody who I felt like could have a good excuse on why they can’t do this. Just a single mom without any kind of job is hard. You know, I’m married, I got two kids and that’s hard. And she worked, man. Like she was up at 5 a.m. She had three phones. She sacrificed a lot and she’s a killer, you know, like.

    Quentin Edmonds (04:25)
    Yeah.

    Matthew Teifke (04:40)
    I’m like, I don’t know how you did it. She’s like, yeah, I don’t know either. It’s kind of a blur, but that was in my soul, man. I saw my mom do that and I got a crazy brother, two boys. I played all the sports and we fought and we caused trouble, all this stuff, but I was blessed, man, by her and she would do anything for me then and still will.

    I got a lot to live up to and she’s just a good person. So that’s what started me in it. And 18 years old, I got my license as a real estate agent and I couldn’t get into, you know, the best colleges in Texas. was, you know, a hard worker, but I had it like a 3.0 or something like that. But I, I got my real estate license in college and I just was obsessed, like just hyper-focused on knowing that I wanted to be an investor.

    but really wanting to do it as a career. And so I was like, I want to know how other people buy and sell. I want to do these contracts and ask questions and know why things work the way they do. And I want to know like, what does an appraiser do? How do you get your appraisers license? What does a mortgage lender do? How do they get their license? And was just obsessed with like learning the landscape. And just hustled, man. got rookie of the year as an agent. I was doing

    I was a full-time student, you know, and I, and I still got that. And then selling houses and, you know making, I was working at Papa John pizza until I could get some deals coming in. And I remember I got like a, like a seven or $8,000 check. And it just was like so crazy to me because my Papa John checks were $500 or $600. And I was like, dude, this is insane. I think I like.

    I think I got it all in cash. I just wanted the money, man. But then just got just got really committed, ended up getting a master’s degree from Texas A&M in real estate. I couldn’t get into Texas A ⁓ out of high school, but because I had experience through college that that looked good on the resume, worked for a commercial real estate broker for three years doing high end.

    retail clients, worked for Dick’s Sporting Goods and Gold’s Gym and Advance Auto and Blaze Pizza and just like was learning a lot. And that job you dress a certain way, you you act a certain way and it wasn’t me as an entrepreneur. But I knew I was in a good spot and I was learning and I was around smart people. But eventually I branched off and

    started a property management company, started a real estate brokerage and started buying properties. And I was just thinking, man, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve seen a lot and let me kind of put this all together to operate how I want to within the space and ups and downs, man you know. I mean, we had 180 real estate agents. I was managing 780 real estate, single family homes.

    I currently own about a hundred million, 115 million of real estate, lost $4 million on one publicly traded company, money that I put into that, that I made and it went from 4 million to zero. Maybe almost killed myself. I don’t know. I was depressed. know, had those thoughts. I don’t think I would do it, but it was. And now I’m back, man.

    Quentin Edmonds (08:52)
    dark.

    Matthew Teifke (08:56)
    I just moved into my childhood home.

    in Round Rock. So we moved. We were always moving houses, buying houses, looking for the next opportunity. Here’s this RV park. Let’s go live over here. Try to buy it. I’ve moved 18 times in the last nine years, eight years. My son is seven. He’s lived in nine houses and I don’t think I’ll ever move again, man. I’m just like gone through this journey. I’m 34. I feel like

    the amount of work that I put in was more like ⁓ over 16 years. I feel like it was more like 25 years of like work, like just hustling, but not good, just obsessed. And one of the things I think about recently is like, I wish somebody would have like slowed me down or told me I didn’t have to do all this or have to make money to be somebody of value. But you live and you learn. I just feel like I’ve gone through so much and kind of

    kind of like a new, everything that I’ve done, it hasn’t been wasted, but I do feel like I’m at a new point to move forward. And that’s my quick rundown, man. And Darrien and I met through Grant Cardone, his community. Crazy story, but I won a TV show that he did, and that got me involved in his community. And just always looking to meet new people, man, and keep things into perspective. And I’m just happy to be here.

    That’s enough of me talking for this topic, but I just want to add value and make friends and do something special.

    Darrien Jenkins (11:04)
    You want a TV show?

    Matthew Teifke (11:06)
    Yeah.

    Quentin Edmonds (11:07)
    Look, right there, we both find things out together, Darrien, is there anything you want to say before I transition, man? Because Matthew gave me a lot. They got my wheels spinning. But is there anything you want to say,

    Darrien Jenkins (11:19)
    Yeah. So I want to tell the story about how me and Matthew actually met from my point of view. And so, I was ever since I was really young, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn’t always know how to do that, obviously, but what really got me into it is I read a book, a rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki I was like 16 years old and, and for Christmas, you know, the last few Christmases, I was really picky because I was like, my mom kept trying to buy me toys and I’m like, I’m 15. I don’t want toys. And so when I turned 16, she bought me just a giant stack of books and she there, I get to work.

    I was like, right, so I started reading the books. the one I read like three times was Rich Dad Poor Dad. And so from there, I tried to start a jewelry company called Silver Hand Jewelry. was selling silver rings. And so was like a double, because it’s silver hand jewelry, but it’s silver hand is the, you get it. I turned my entire room into a soldering workshop. And like I went and got the M3 mask, because like when you’re soldering, you can like gas yourself out with the fumes or whatever.

    But I tore my window out and I put a giant box fan in the window to suck the air out of the room. And like, it was awesome. It was my first entrepreneur experience. Cause I registered the company and everything. got all the logos and everything. That’s before AI. I was paying people from Fiverr to do everything. And then, and then again, I didn’t know anything about business. I went onto Amazon and found out they’re selling the same ring, like $10. And I couldn’t even buy the silver for $10. I just gave up. It failed right there. But like a month later.

    And I was, I worked since I was 10 years old. So I had a bunch of money saved up. was burning through it. Just trying to figure out how to do something with it. And, and so it was like a month later, I’m like, okay, I’m going to do a soap company. I’m going to call it lab. going to call it the gift reserve or natural selection soap company. I still might do that later, but we’ll see. so I turned the entire garage into a soap workshop and my mom tried to park the car one day and she’s like, dude, why so with the garage? Like, is all this stuff?

    And I’m like, Oh, it’s my soap lab. I need to park the car. You need to find another spot for the car. are you talking about? I’m making soap. And so I was doing like bath salts, infusers, everything. And that’s the first dollar I made a line, some random person from Florida bought a bar of soap before I was advertising. And was like, and so transitioning in how I met Matthew, I did that for the next like few years. And then when I was around 21, I started getting into the Grant Cardone community and

    I was out of money at this point. I was still working, but I was still spending it all trying to figure out just, I was just experimenting with things.

    So a real estate conference was coming up and I didn’t know much about real estate, but I knew that I wanted to go there. And at this point I had, I had $0 in my bank account. And I was actually, I was living in San Diego because I moved out. I was like living in my car in San Diego. And, and so me and my cousin put our heads together. We figured out how to get $200 for bus tickets from San Diego to Arizona where the real estate conference was. We showed up, we got off the bus like 9pm, $0 in bank account. I had no idea how I was going to hotel. I had no idea how I was going to eat.

    All I knew is I wanted to be at the conference. We got tickets for the conference and a bus ticket and we’re going for it. And it took us till like 2 a.m. to figure out how to get a hotel room, which we did figure it out. We also figured out how to eat. So that was cool too. But at the business summit, it’s right before the real estate summit. So at the business summit, one of the sales guys that worked for Grant was like, hey man, what are you doing right now? And I was reading Russell Brunson’s book on click funnels and like trying to figure out how to do one-to-many selling and like funnels and whatnot.

    And it was like, dude, that’s awesome. You should quit doing that instead. And said, you should become a 10X business coach instead. Cause it’s kind of the same thing. Build up your network and then implement the ClickFunnels stuff into it afterwards. And I’m like, all right, how do do that? he’s like, it’s a $30,000 program. And I’m like, I got $30,000. And he was like, somebody here does. And so when the first time I met Matthew in person was this event. And so I called him when I was on the bus headed back from the business summit.

    And I was like, Matthew, how’s it going? I want to pitch you something, you know? And so I was going to pitch him the, I was going to pitch him to buy me the business coach thing. And I was going to pay him back with the money I made from it. I never actually pitched him because I got somebody else from the crowd to pay for it before Matthew got there for the real estate summit. so Matthew texts me, he’s like, Hey man, cause I was going to buy him a coffee. He was like, Hey man, instead of coffee, why don’t we, why don’t we work out maybe at 4 a.m. in the lobby? And so I show up 4 a.m. in the lobby.

    Quentin Edmonds (16:05)
    and

    Darrien Jenkins (16:16)
    ready to work out Matthew rolls up with some other people. One of them is a Marine. And so the Marines like leading our workout for an entire hour. I’m like, I need to work out more to be honest with you guys. His workout like trying to keep up with him. And then after the hour long workout, I’m like, okay, we’re finally done. Oh my gosh. And then Matthew’s like, all right, guys, it’s gonna run now. And so we get on the line to go to run. And he brings in Jake’s, Jake’s training to the Olympics, isn’t Yeah, so

    Matthew Teifke (16:43)
    Yes.

    Darrien Jenkins (16:46)
    He calls Jake Sisk over and he’s literally training for the Olympics to come run with us. And I’m like, my gosh, dude, I’m gassed. All the way back, I could barely walk. I was drenched in sweat. We had a conference in like 10 minutes. We’re almost late to it because I was so slow. But it was a long run in my opinion. I don’t know what Matthew thinks, but it was long run. But yeah, it was super fun.

    Quentin Edmonds (17:06)
    Yeah.

    Matthew Teifke (17:07)
    Yeah.

    That’s a story, man. I love it.

    Quentin Edmonds (17:12)
    Definitely. You know, say lately I’ve been saying once the episode I’ve been saying this saying destiny has no wasted moments. And when I listen to y’all talk, I clearly see how destiny has no wasted moments. Matt, I think about you. You talk about just with your mom and just the ups and downs, you know, having to move a lot, just different things that you’ve required to happen over the years with you, Darrien, like this.

    Me and Matt at this you know at session and the workout, all the different things that running together, like over the course of our lives, the decision that we make in each iteration of our lives, it makes us the people that we are today, right? And so you borrow something from every iteration of your life that solidifies who you are today. So when I listen to you guys, I clearly see Destiny has had no wasted moments.

    This is why y’all in front of me. This is why y’all are successful today because y’all have compiled things over your journey to just make things make sense where they are today. And so I appreciate y’all for being here, man. Thank y’all for telling the story. I would love to know what’s next for you guys. Like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to scale and solve next?

    Matthew Teifke (18:28)
    Yeah, man,

    Trying to take all those lessons and I pray to God. I hope that I’ve learned the lessons that you’ve taught and tried to teach me and that I don’t need to learn them again. So just trying to lead, I see some gaps in the coaching space. I feel like you know I’m less motivated on having to build a billion dollar business. That sounds nice and I’m ambitious.

    I want to do good things. I want to feel proud of what I’m doing. I’m still trying to figure myself out. I mean, everybody’s always got their opinions on the world and that’s fine. But like, we all need to work on ourself and probably our family first. You it’s like, if all of our families, you know, we all got family. I get, I go off on tangents sometimes, man, but like, we just got back from the holidays and like, we all got family, you know, this mom is upset at this son and this uncle. It’s like,

    Let’s just solve these things together, man. The world would be a much, we all got the same ones, dude. Yeah. Talking to everyone like, ⁓ we got the same thing over here, Yep. ⁓ but like, just want to, I want to be around good people. I want to, ⁓ I want to buy a lot of real estate. I’m building something special. We’re closing big deals. We’re, getting really good returns for investors and all that’s great. And I’m as dialed in on that as possible. But as you get older, it’s like,

    Does that even matter? You know, if I buy a million dollars a real estate, like, is that even really matter? Not really. It’s like, what is, what am I doing for my family and myself and how am I leading and, just, just getting better every day. Like I’m literally, I know it’s simple, but this year to me in the last 20 days has always been like, I just want to be a little bit better tomorrow than today. Just a little bit. And if I can keep doing that man and not run this sprint.

    but have the marathon and lead and guide and get people hope. I mean, at the end of the day, like, I just want to give people hope. Yeah. There is a better way. as Jesus, there is forgiveness and that, you know, you can be real on a podcast and break down crying or share something and stop acting like everything’s perfect for everybody. ⁓ just want to be more real about it all.

    Quentin Edmonds (20:42)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah. Yeah. Listen, since we faith-based men, I mean, the scripture says the race is not given to the swift nor to the strong, but to the one that endures. and so, man, when I bro, when I hear you talk, when you want to do for your community, how you more focused on yourself and building yourself, man, and being better. Jesus said the race is not given to the swift.

    No to the strong, just to the one that endure So bro, every day you wake up when you talk about being 1 % better, that’s what you’re doing. You are enduring. I don’t know if you guys heard of this book is a popular book, atomic habits. you got, yeah, I read this joint like three times and, and Matthew, this, this book says James clear said just be 1 % better every day. You don’t have to be 20%. You don’t have to be 55 % be 1 % better. If you’re 1 % better.

    Darrien Jenkins (21:26)
    the loan.

    Quentin Edmonds (21:43)
    That today that’s more than zero percent better if you did absolutely nothing, right? And so man when I listen to you guys talk I’m super inspired because I am watching one percent better every day I’m watching people that are inspired to be better every single moment. And so I’m loving it man. I appreciate y’all so much Man, it’s this damn what you did. You want to say something?

    Darrien Jenkins (22:09)
    That book was in the stack.

    Quentin Edmonds (22:11)
    Is in the stack? Yeah. right. So it was in the second. There you go. So listen, I’m going to give you one more gradually than suddenly. I haven’t finished this one yet. It’s by Mark Patterson. This is really good, man. So he says success happened two ways gradually than suddenly. And he’s a pastor that’s in DC. So that really may hit for you guys. you know, Mark may really hit for you, but he, you know, he’s an incredible guy and incredible builder. So

    Matthew Teifke (22:13)
    Let’s go.

    Quentin Edmonds (22:39)
    I got time for one more question between you two, because I’m coming up. I told you I’m no more than 20 minutes. I’m coming up on it. But I have to ask this question, because you all two have a relationship. I believe you all know the power of relationship. So I would love for both of you, if you don’t mind, take 60 seconds and tell me what building relationships mean to you. Is it important? What’s your mindset on it? Tell me how important relationship building is for both of you.

    Whoever want to go first, can give me like 60 seconds. I would love that.

    Darrien Jenkins (23:09)
    So relationship-

    I don’t know if I can keep it in 60 seconds, is that? ⁓

    Quentin Edmonds (23:16)
    Okay, yeah, but however, give me give me your authentic your your authentic answer for sure.

    Darrien Jenkins (23:23)
    Yes. All right. So I’ve done a lot of sales. I was, I did Cutco, I did the California Lifeline program with the phones. I’ve helped take a sales office from three people to 30 people, like two months commission only. I was out there like training people in the field and everything. so relationships in the sales industry is ultra important, not just to sell things, but also because when I’m like interviewing people, I need to figure out who’s actually going to succeed in the role I have right now. Cause if I just take anybody in, they’re going to come in.

    and they’re not going to do well and they’re going to flip out themselves, they’re not going to get paid and then they’re going to burn out and leave. I don’t want that for them. so need to really be invested in the person and in the training and making sure that they get the gaps that they don’t have connected. I need to connect the gaps for them to make sure that they can do as as they can in this role. Because in an interview, people are looking to go get money to take care of the families and take care of the basic needs. and so relationships, very, very, very important in that area.

    Quentin Edmonds (24:18)
    Love you man, love you man. Mark Matthew.

    Matthew Teifke (24:20)
    I’m thinking this real time, it’s cool question. But to a spiritual level, right? The only thing that God wants is a relationship with us. And we just can’t do any of this without God. We can’t do it. Our best is filthy rags, So that’s literally the whole purpose we’re on this earth, is to have a relationship with God. And so if you take that and you break it down to…

    Quentin Edmonds (24:40)
    Ha

    Matthew Teifke (24:49)
    you doing that the best you can, and then you translating that with other people between you and them, and then you getting them to God or vice versa, you’ll both grow into God. That’s what it is. and so I’m just a big, God talks about, you know, scattering the seeds, man. And I don’t know, and I say all this humbly, it’s just like, my path is like bringing people together. like, I don’t know anybody who plants seeds with people the way that I do.

    Every day, Every day. That’s why Darrien and I know each other. And I have a lot of people like that. But I have to get more efficient on how these things grow and how I water them. I’m good at planning them. I’m great at that. I don’t know. I had to figure out the other steps. Seeds of relationship, seeds of hope. yeah, having that with God and having that with other people, like, it’s probably the most important thing we can do in this life, other than buying $100 million real estate, whatever. That’s cool. But like,

    Whatever,

    Darrien Jenkins (25:48)
    Matthew’s crazy with that, by the way, because before we met each other in person, we were inside the Grant Cardone real estate mentorship group chat. And so I was connecting with Matthew on phone, whatever. The first building I was looking at that I tried to buy was in Newport News, Virginia. was a $30 million building. And then I called Matthew. I’m like, hey, man, I don’t have enough balance sheet for this alone. You want to sign that for me? And he actually sent the bank his financial statements to help us with the building.

    Quentin Edmonds (26:16)
    Come on. I really wish I had more time with you guys. If I’m being honest, because I feel like we ain’t even scratching surface. We haven’t even cracked the ceiling of different things we could talk about. But man, I really want to thank you all for coming through. I really, really appreciate it. Something that you said, you said, you know,

    Darrien Jenkins (26:17)
    Permit me a person.

    Quentin Edmonds (26:41)
    Matthew said you want to plant the seeds and you’re trying to figure out how to make them grow. Now, this is from one spiritual man to another, right? The Bible talks about that some plant, some water, but God gives the increase. And so I want you to continue to plant. I want you to continue to water and know that God will give you the idea on how to get the increase, how to make it grow more.

    Because your job is just to stay open, just make the connection, plant. But I promise you, he’s going to give you the idea to make it grow even more. That’s his job to do. So just keep yourself available, keep listening. And when he give you the idea, I mean, keep being intentional, keep doing everything that you do because you’re doing it without you realizing you’re actually growing it. And I know in your mind, like, this got to be more refined. I get it. That’s who we are. We never stop trying to be the best version and be good stores of what we have.

    but I promise you, you are right where you need to be brother. And Darrien, man, bro, keep doing what you’re doing, man. I appreciate you so much for being here. Appreciate you making the connection because your name popped up on my schedule, not Matthew. So again, Matthew, this is a result of the growth. He connected to you. He brought you here along on this journey. I had no idea it was going to be T for the price of one. So I just want y’all to see that what y’all doing is absolutely working. So continue to do what you do.

    If someone wanted to reach out to you guys connect with you guys learn more about what you’re doing Collaborate, how can they reach out to you?

    Matthew Teifke (28:15)
    Easy man for me, mattteifke@gmail or 512-914-4806. 512-914-4806. I’m easy. I want to keep planting the seeds. I appreciate you, man. This is cool. You got a great energy. You’re a wise man. And I’m listening when you’re talking. So it’s not falling on deaf ears.

    Quentin Edmonds (28:36)
    I appreciate it Darrien.

    Darrien Jenkins (28:38)
    Every Thursday we have a Zoom call. Open to the public, totally free. We just we do real estate. We look at deals. We bring on the school of hard knocks was in our group the other day. The actor from The Purge was there. Like just we bring people in, come talk to everybody. Like really awesome. If you guys email Matthew, he can get you on the email list for that. So then we can come hang out in a Zoom call every Thursday.

    Quentin Edmonds (29:02)
    Love it. Gentlemen, man, I wish I had more time. I want to first thank y’all for your time. think we all know our time is our most precious commodity, right? We put a premium on our time. Like we don’t just give our time to anybody. So I got to say, thank you so much for your time. Two, got to say thank you for your stories. Both of you gentlemen showed a level of vulnerability. It doesn’t necessarily come easy. And so I appreciate you guys.

    for sharing that with us because I believe somebody is going to hear your story and be greatly impacted by it. Last thing, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for bringing the way you think to this podcast. I believe you have given enough C’s to cause some people to have a mind shift around relationships, around what they read, the way they go about life. And so I really appreciate you gentlemen being here today. Thank you so much.

    Matthew Teifke (29:54)
    Thank

    you, man. was a blast. ⁓

    Quentin Edmonds (29:56)
    Absolutely.

    Well, listen, y’all can’t tell me you can’t get the value out of this. You got two for one. You heard the gyms. You heard the vulnerability. You heard them talk about real estate, how they met, books that they read. You’ve got a lot of value out of this. So please check them out. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you, we are going to continue to bring amazing people up, just like Mr. Darrien just like Mr. Matthew. So again, thank you, gentlemen. Again, and to everyone else.

    We’ll see you on the next time.

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