"Teams thrive when they are surrounded by people who are supportive and are part of an inclusive culture."
Jeff Shipwash Tweet
Jeff Shipwash is a husband and father to a baby boy born in May 2021. Jeff and his wife Jess started their real estate investing journey in 2020 and are the owners of Shipwash Properties, located in Knoxville, TN. Jeff and Jess did not let a global pandemic stop them from launching their company and embraced every challenge starting a business from scratch created! Jeff is also a finance officer for the US Government and Jess is a registered nurse for Covenant Health. You can also follow their real estate journey at thatflippinginger.com
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Table of Contents
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Jeff Shipwash: Greetings! My name is Jeff Shipwash, founder of Shipwash Properties LLC. Shipwash Properties is a real estate investment firm that I started in 2020. We specialize in purchasing homes directly from homeowners with the goal of either flipping them or adding them to our rental portfolio. I started this business for two reasons. Number one, when I went to sell my first house, it was an absolute nightmare. I wanted to be rid of the house because I had met my wife and we needed a home that was better suited for the both of us. Like most people, I had to sell the home to be able to buy the next one. We had found a house close by that we absolutely loved, but we had to get our current home sold before we could officially make an offer. It was the most stressful and frustrating 45 days of my life. We worked opposite shifts. I worked days, she worked nights as a nurse.
We would get a viewing request at all hours of the day and evening. The worst was when she would be coming off a 14-hour shift and would have to rush out of bed so someone could look at our house. It was a never-ending cycle of keeping the house clean as well. After each show, my agent always requested feedback from the agent that did the showing. That was also disheartening. “overpriced,” “cat hair in the floor” (we adopted a kitten), “needs repairs.” This was almost daily. To make a long story short, I thought to myself there had to be a better option for people like me that wanted to sell their home fast to either move into a new one or for people that had a new job lined up and needed to move fast.
And also a better option for people like me that didn’t have the most perfect, magazine quality house. After I began researching this business idea, I noticed there was a ton of other companies that did this in my area. After researching a little further, most of these companies were terrible. They either weren’t legitimate, or they gave people absurd offers. That was my opportunity. I knew I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I felt like I was finding my niche. This leads me to my second reason for starting this company. I LOVE watching HGTV flipping shows.
My wife and I were obsessed with Hometown on HGTV. In addition, we loved watching the shows with Chip and Joanna. One day I finally told her that this could be us! Why not? She had an eye for design, I had a background in accounting and finance. It seemed like the perfect match! So we launched our business. Since launching our business in 2020, we have worked extremely hard on becoming Knoxville’s go-to homebuyer. Our hard work is finally starting to pay off.
Business has increased dramatically and we are currently in the process of working out a business plan that will allow us to scale our operations.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Jeff Shipwash: I wanted to be a doctor growing up. Specifically, I wanted to be either an ophthalmologist or a pediatrician. I was obsessed with eyesight. In high school, I finally broke down and went to an eye doctor after struggling to see notes on a whiteboard. When they placed corrective lenses on me, it was like the whole world lit up! If you wear glasses or contacts, you know what I am talking about. After researching Lasik, I wanted to learn how to do that. My dream was to go to the University of Tennessee and studying to become a doctor. If I failed to get into an ophthalmology residency, I wanted to be a pediatrician.
I always loved helping kids and I truly thought that working every day as a pediatrician would be rewarding. Of course, life changes. After getting burnt out in undergrad, I decided to just get a degree and figure it out later. I ended up graduating with an undergrad in accounting since I took several accounting courses during my first two years. I took these courses because I wanted to understand business as well.
I always thought I would open my own practice, so I needed to know how to handle books and other accounting functions. After graduating from undergrad, I took a job with a local credit union where I held multiple positions. I later moved on from that company to take a better opportunity, but I still felt unfulfilled.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Jeff Shipwash: Not even two years ago, I planned to walk away from my excellent W2 job and go back to college fulltime. I was dead set on going back to school to be a doctor. I was so tired of waiting. I knew it was going to cost a fortune and I would rack up student loan debt, but I wanted to do something I could be passionate about. I had already written out my two weeks notice (I had not turned it in yet).
My wife was supportive and told me that we would make it work while I was in medical school. I was talking with academic advisors almost daily and was preparing for the upcoming semester. I never in my life thought I would be going back to school at the age of 27, but here I was! I was pumped! That two-week notice never got turned in. I soon found out that I was an expecting father. Life has a funny way of getting you back on course!
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Jeff Shipwash: In my opinion, the definition of an entrepreneur is someone who takes complete control of their own success. They don’t depend on someone else providing for them or their family. It is 100% their responsibility to go out and make a consistent income. As an entrepreneur, the consistency of a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly paycheck is no longer the responsibility of someone else. It is totally up to you. You will either sink or swim. With great responsibility comes great rewards.
Although this is a huge risk to take financially, an entrepreneur has the ability to completely reinvent their future. That risk may turn into the greatest thing you ever decide to do.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Jeff Shipwash: Teams thrive when they are surrounded by people who are supportive and are part of an inclusive culture. In my opinion, you are only as successful as the people you surround yourself with. Successful entrepreneurs surround themselves with Rockstar teammates. Whether it is someone they have a relationship with outside their organization or someone that is part of their own team; great entrepreneurs have a successful track record of finding and maintaining these relationships.
They also understand just how important it is to reciprocate in these relationships. For example, I surrounded myself with Rockstar contractors to do my remodels. This wasn’t an easy task! I maintain these relationships by working to make their jobs more efficient, providing them consistent work, and working to maintain my side of the relationship. In other words, you have to provide value back to your teammates.
It isn’t a one-way street. You can’t take and not give back. When teams feel like their opinion and proposals are valued by the opposing person, they tend to be much more efficient and dependable!
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Jeff Shipwash: A post COVID world presents many unique opportunities to be disruptive. This is where having and surrounding yourself with a team full of Rockstar’s is going to be even more valuable. Our entire lives changed during 2020. The way people see the world is not the same. What we think is important is not the same as it was pre-2020. Your job as a leader is to identify these opportunities and weaponize them into making your organization much more powerful.
For example, it was obvious that the world would trend to a more virtual environment. If your organization failed to game plan ways to adapt to a virtual world, you are the opposite of a disruptor. In fact, you may begin to struggle in your business (my opinion of course)! In addition, now is the time to disrupt the corporate culture. Seize this opportunity and thrive!
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Jeff Shipwash: I help people that want to sell their house without a hassle. Instead of dealing with the long, stressful way of selling your house traditionally, we offer homeowners to sell their house super fast and super easy! We never ask for repairs, we let you set the closing date, and we give you a guaranteed offer! Since we don’t depend on banks, appraisers, or any other “middle-man,” we drastically speed up the process of getting your home sold.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Jeff Shipwash: The most useless talent I possess is the ability to place myself right back into a dream where I left off! I am completely serious! If I wake up from a dream in the middle of the night, and I want to put myself right back into it, I can! How is that for useless? I mean, I think it’s really cool! I woke up the other night from a dream about my team winning a national championship. Since the game wasn’t completely over, I wanted to jump back into it! I closed my eyes, and put myself right back into it and was able to finish out my dream.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Jeff Shipwash: The tile of my book would be “Don’t Let The Failures Of Others Define You.” I have had every opportunity in the world to be a useless member of society. I was surrounded with it growing up. I was surrounded by it so much, that people often state, “wow, I can’t believe you grew up to be pretty successful.” That statement is disrespectful in my opinion. People that normalize failure because they were surrounded by it growing up are excuse makers. Just because your parents, siblings, or friends were irresponsible doesn’t mean they define your future!
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Jeff Shipwash for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Jeff Shipwash or his company, you can do it through his – Instagram
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