Case Study: From $35K Startup Capital to 12 Closed Deals in 6 Months

In July 2024, I liquidated $35,000 in stocks and gold to start Local Home Buyers USA. Six months later, we've closed 12 deals generating over $120,000 in net profit.

This is the playbook.

The Starting Point

Capital: $35,000 Team: Just me Experience: 3 months of self-taught web development Industry knowledge: Worked at wholesale startups, saw the problems firsthand

What I lacked in resources, I made up for in technology. While competitors were paying $2,000/month for Podio and virtual assistants, I was building custom systems that worked better and cost nothing.

Month 1: Foundation (July 2024)

The first month was all infrastructure:

Built the core website on Cloudflare Pages (free)

Created the valuation engine (the math that would power every offer)

Set up Twilio for call tracking ($20/month)

Deployed the first Slack integration

Total spend: $847 (mostly domain and marketing tests) Deals: 0

Month 2-3: Content Machine (Aug-Sept)

While most investors run Facebook ads, I went organic. I wrote 270+ blog posts, each targeting specific long-tail keywords:

"How to sell a house in foreclosure in Phoenix"

"We buy houses for cash [city name]"

"Sell inherited property fast [state]"

Each post included an interactive calculator—not some generic form, but actual valuation tools that showed sellers what their house might be worth.

SEO results after 90 days:

47 keywords ranking page 1

2,400 organic sessions/month

Cost per lead: $0

Month 4: First Deals (October)

October brought our first closings—two novation deals that netted $23,000 combined.

The novation model was key. Instead of buying houses for 65 cents on the dollar and praying for a buyer, we partner with sellers:

1. Seller signs a partnership agreement
2. We fund improvements (paint, carpet, landscaping)
3. We list on MLS at full retail
4. Seller gets more than a cash offer
5. We split the upside

Lower risk. Higher profit. Sellers who actually like working with us.

October stats:

Deals closed: 2

Net profit: $23,400

Marketing spend: $3,200

Month 5-6: Scaling (Nov-Dec)

With proof of concept, we scaled marketing:

Increased PPC budget from $50/day to $150/day

Launched targeted Facebook campaigns

Added a second virtual assistant ($5/hour, 20 hours/week)

The technology kept compounding advantages:

Automated lead scoring routed hot leads to my phone instantly

Cold leads entered a 30-day SMS drip sequence

Every interaction logged to Slack for easy follow-up

November-December stats:

Deals closed: 10

Net profit: $97,000+

Marketing spend: $12,800

ROAS: 7.5x

The Tech Stack That Made It Possible

Here's everything running our operation:

| Tool | Purpose | Cost |
|------|---------|------|
| Cloudflare Pages | Website hosting | Free |
| Cloudflare Workers | API endpoints, automation | Free tier |
| Cloudflare D1 | Lead database | Free tier |
| Slack | Operations center | Free |
| Twilio | Call tracking, SMS | ~$50/month |
| Calendly | Appointment booking | Free |
| Vercel | Dashboard hosting | Free tier |

Total monthly tech cost: ~$100

Podio: $600/month
VA management: $1,500/month
CRM: $200/month
Call tracking: $150/month

We're running at 3% of the industry standard cost.

Key Lessons

1. Technology is leverage Every hour spent building systems saves 100 hours of manual work later. I spent 3 months learning to code. It paid back 1000x. 2. Transparency beats tricks We show sellers our actual valuation math. When they see we're not hiding anything, trust happens fast. 3. Speed compounds First to respond usually wins. Our Slack-first system means we're calling sellers back in minutes, not hours. 4. Niche down, then expand We started with Phoenix. Got the systems right. Then expanded nationwide. Don't try to boil the ocean day one.

What's Next

2026 goals:

Hire first acquisition rep (our bottleneck is my time, not leads)

Launch PropTechUSA.ai as a standalone product

50 deals closed

Open-source more of our stack

Want to learn how we built any of this? Book a call or check out our tools.