Meet The Disruptors: Paul Hersko Of Discount Lots On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Customer is always right within reason. The customer has a right to be treated with the respect they deserve so always make the customer experience your total focus, every minute of every day if you’re starting out any business.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Hersko.
A successful serial-entrepreneur, Paul Hersko is co-founder of DiscountLots.com. In his latest business venture, Hersko and his business partner, William Goldberg, paired their expertise in e-commerce and investment banking to create a national marketplace for vacant land. With DiscountLots.com, the pair is revolutionizing how individual consumers can purchase real estate.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I decided to start my first business back in 2016 — an Amazon FBA business. Within the first nine months it grew to a seven-figure brand. The brand was moving along until one day I crossed paths with my now business partner, Willie Goldberg. I found myself instantly fascinated by what he was doing. And as our friendship grew, I learned more and more about his business, he was selling vacant land online. I quickly realized there was a massive gap in the market we could fill. We partnered up and created discountlots.com. Our mission is simple: Make land ownership easy and affordable for everyone. Fast forward to today and we have sold 1000’s of properties with a team of 75 people.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Most people don’t know that you can go online and buy vacant land with a swipe of a credit card. Land is an underserved market because the financial industries aren’t really there. They’ve overlooked this space. It’s very difficult to go to a bank and get financing. To fill this gap, we created a trusted nationwide marketplace with proprietary technology. Now people can visit our website, find their dream property, and check out with their credit card. We are modernizing a broken industry, one property at a time.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When we first started, we had a very small office in a co-working space where the walls didn’t go to the ceiling. It was just the three of us in this little room. Within the first month of the business, sales started to soar, which meant our phones were ringing nonstop — all day, every day. Everyone could hear us since the walls did not go to the ceiling. Within a month, pretty much everyone at the co-working space absolutely hated us because we were so loud. Shortly after, we decided it was time to get our own office space. The lesson in this was that the beginning days of any startup are super fun, gritty, and you need to just make the best of what you got. It was really exciting to keep outgrowing our projections and workspace!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Over the last three years, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time, money and effort investing in mentors to help me forward my path towards success. Specifically, I have worked hard with my business/life coach, Molly, who has helped me leave my comfort zone, challenge the status quo, and break through the things that I thought were not possible to achieve. It’s probably one of the best things I ever did as a founder — to pay for people’s time who’ve already accomplished the things you want to do. It’s the single best investment you can make as an entrepreneur.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
It’s a fact of life that the world is constantly changing, and the small businesses that were once the focal point of communities are often forced out by big-box stores and private equity firms. But I think it’s important to remember that this was not always the case. Just a few short decades ago, if you lived in a rural part of America, your local hardware store was an institution — it was where you went to get garden supplies, or paint, or even just ask for advice on how to fix something. It was a place where people actually knew each other’s names and cared about what happened to their community.
While I’m all about disrupting the status quo and challenging convention when necessary…I also have empathy for what happens when a small business gets forced out by the Walmarts of the world. Because while it may be great for those companies’ bottom lines, it often comes at the expense of losing touch with our communities; it means losing something. You’re getting rid of all the stories that are attached to that store, and all the people who worked there, and all their families. And those things are what makes a neighborhood feel real and authentic — and if all those things are gone, then your brand loses its character. I wish that there was more room for both to exist. There needs to be more of a balance. And that is what we’re trying to achieve — balancing a sense of community while at the same time disrupting a market to serve even more and more people in the future.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
1. Treat your team like its family. Be positive and open minded. Always be supportive and ready to lend a hand to others. Show respect for others’ cultures and beliefs. And ultimately, encourage others to voice out their ideas while also allowing them to enjoy and have fun.
2. Hire the most expensive person. I’ve learned that when you hire someone who is really expensive, they’ll deliver results in a shorter period of time and with higher quality output. It’s a simple shift in thinking, but it’s made a huge difference in my business.
3. Do a lot of journaling. I’ve found journaling as one of the best ways to stay consistent and strong as a founder. It’s an opportunity for me to have self-reflection that can give me clarity and insight into my feelings, goals, and values. There’s a lot of emotional and physical aspects to this journey, but journaling really helps me stay grounded.
4. Customer is always right within reason. The customer has a right to be treated with the respect they deserve so always make the customer experience your total focus, every minute of every day if you’re starting out any business.
5. Keep it simple. Make things as simple as possible. Less words. More action. Focus on what moves the needle and let go of anything else that doesn’t matter. If something isn’t working, try something else. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We’re not going to sleep until we’re able to thoroughly disrupt this industry. In fact, we’re just starting this revolution. Our long-term goal is to sell 10,000 properties over the next three years and become a Billion Dollar Company. We won’t stop until we make this happen.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
My most favorite Ted Talk episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQMbvJNRpLE&t=8s
When I was younger, I used to think that you could only achieve big things by taking massive action. But then I watched this TED talk by Stephen, it really changed my perspective on what it means to be successful. The premise of this talk is that if you try to break down what you have to do each day into small pieces and take action on those pieces, you can achieve anything. And this has been my building block ever since I started as an entrepreneur. I always improve a little bit each day, versus trying to take massive action. Because I know that if I just do a little bit each day and implement it into my daily life, I can have massive, compounding results over time.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
“Life doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.”
When you are the founder of a business — you are in the trenches, in the ring and the center of attraction. You’re omnipresent. You have to do everything whether you like it or not. You are responsible for everything. It takes a lot of dedication, endurance, hard work and long sleepless nights. The truth is, no matter how many people tell you that your idea is brilliant and that it’s going to be the next big thing, there are going to be some days when you feel like giving up. But it’s important to remember that there will always be good days and bad days in business — the key is to find a balance between the two. I keep this picture above next to my desk: it shows two wolves with arrows in their backs, one big wolf with lots of arrows in its back standing up strong, which says “me now,” and a little wolf with one arrow in its back on the ground defeated, which reads “the old me.” The quote above them states “life doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.” As your business grows, the problems don’t get easier — you just get better at solving them!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I wish that people would just treat others how they want to be treated. It’s important to remember that we all have different backgrounds and experiences, and that makes it hard for us to see things from other people’s perspectives. But when we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, it really helps us understand why they might act the way they do — and maybe even help us empathize with them. If we could just all take a minute out of our day to talk with someone new and look into their eyes without judgment, everyone would feel so much better about themselves and other people.
How can our readers follow you online?
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Paul Hersko Of Discount Lots On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
