Life Update: One Year from Launching Our Assisted Living Venture!
Jan 27, 2025
Have you ever chased a dream, only to hit roadblocks that made you question everything? That was me just one year ago. Today, I want to share my journey of launching an assisted living business, facing challenges, and ultimately finding clarity and success in this rewarding field.
Check out the video, too:
Taking the Leap into Assisted Living
A year ago, I stood on the edge of a new adventure—starting an assisted living business. I had a vision: create a space where residents could thrive and families could feel at ease, knowing their loved ones were well cared for.
But starting any business, especially in assisted living, isn’t simple. It takes more than passion—you need a solid plan, funding, the right team, and the determination to tackle the unexpected.
Facing the Unexpected
The first few months were tough. Finding qualified staff, managing payroll, and staying compliant with state regulations felt overwhelming. And let’s not forget the emotional weight of caring for residents—it’s a privilege, but it comes with challenges.
There were moments when I questioned if I had made the right choice. Could I really handle this? Was I cut out for the responsibility?
The Power of Letting Go and Focusing
During one particularly tough stretch, I remembered a pivotal lesson from my past. Before diving into assisted living, I had pursued another venture that didn’t work out—a healthcare franchise. Despite investing time, energy, and money, it just wasn’t the right fit. Letting go was one of the hardest decisions I’d ever made, but it taught me an invaluable lesson: sometimes, stepping back opens the door to new opportunities.
That experience reminded me to focus on what I could control and take it one step at a time. With a clear vision and renewed determination, I dug into the work of building my assisted living business.
One Year Later: Lessons Learned
Now, a year into this journey, I’ve learned some crucial lessons that I want to share with you:
- Start with a Solid Foundation: Have a clear business plan and understand your local regulations before opening your doors.
- Build a Strong Team: Your staff is the heart of your business. Invest in hiring and training people who align with your mission.
- Adapt to Challenges: Unexpected obstacles are part of the process. Stay flexible and focused on solutions.
- Remember Your “Why”: When things get tough, reflect on why you started. For me, it’s the joy of creating a home where residents feel safe and loved.
Looking Ahead
The past year has been a whirlwind, but I’m proud of how far we’ve come. Our residents are happy, their families are grateful, and our team is thriving. Most importantly, I’ve discovered that setbacks don’t define us—our response to them does.
If you’re considering starting an assisted living business, know that the road won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it.
Final Thoughts
Your journey might not look exactly like mine, but that’s the beauty of it. Every step you take, whether forward or backward, teaches you something valuable.
So, where are you in your journey? Are you ready to take the leap, face the challenges, and build something amazing? If you’re looking for guidance, I’m here to help. Let’s make your assisted living dream a reality!
Your Next Step
To start your assisted living investment journey, download our Business Plan Checklist to help you build a solid foundation for your business.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
hey everybody it's Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing welcome to the channel excited to chat with you today uh today I have a an interesting topic that is a little bit outside of uh Assisted Living it's kind of my personal story what I've been doing the last year I wanted to give you some updates on that and some of the struggles that I've been dealing with as we get into it so uh let's get into it thank you [Music] hey everybody welcome back to the channel excited to have you here today
00:00:41
uh in this video I wanted to get into some of the reasons why I haven't been recording for about a month and why I had to step away from the channel I think I made a video uh kind of related to this actually about a year ago as I was getting into this I alluded to it but I had an opportunity to do a franchise and the franchise was not in assisted living it was a different area of healthcare and I took that opportunity I was called Novus health and I had been working with a franchise coach trying to figure out the process
00:01:13
and felt really comfortable there's a lot longer story to this than than that it took about a year for me to find the franchise I was comfortable with and to move forward with it and we were able to do that we moved forward with them we secured funding on that through an SBA loan so I've now done three SBA Loans um the process there and have a lot of really interesting things I can share with you here in coming videos on the pros and cons of SBA Loans so we'll get into that in a future video for sure but
00:01:45
I was able to secure an SBA loan I think we did that in April or May of of 2022 and we started uh operating the location here in Utah in Sandy Utah in June of 2022. I found a space for us to lease and kind of went through the process of hiring people and and getting things started with a franchise and that took a lot of time for me to get everything up and running as you can imagine just starting the business getting the funding getting everything there I just had too much on my plate and the channel
00:02:19
is the thing that that went away and uh worked on that I had partnered on it with my brother and we decided to move forward with it so we started that we launched it in June of 2022 started the process of going through and operating this Nova's Health location and we were super excited for what we were doing we had the ability to just make a huge impact on people's lives using functional medicine which is getting to the root cause of issues so if you have diabetes for example what is causing
00:02:52
that and not just oh you need to eat better or whatever it's let's get in let's do lab work let's figure out exactly what is causing your diabetes and helping you make the changes if you're dealing with thyroid issues helping you identify what is causing those thyroid issues so that you can move forward with with your life and get back to being healthy and getting back to the person being the person that you want to be that's what we got to do in at Nova's Health we saw some incredible
00:03:17
results it was a lot of fun to to kind of get in there and and see the impact that we were having on people's lives it was it was incredible um unfortunately the business uh just was not working well um the the way that I was I was talking with the the franchisor about this and I think they had envisioned this going obviously they had a mission that's going um much more differently and and thought it was going to you know the the whole virtual component would be a fad um that we would get Beyond covid and people
00:03:49
would start coming back into offices and be very committed when it came to their health and that just didn't seem to be the case and we were running into issues where people just didn't want to do it they didn't want to um they didn't want to deal with the costs of of getting healthy and the commitment that it takes to actually do that and so for us it kind of fell apart we were losing a lot of money 15 20 grand a month um just in operational costs as we were trying to get this going and we just we
00:04:18
could not do it anymore I talked with my brother we made some really tough decisions on what to do and we shut down the business in April of 2023 so not even a year into it as we started trying to get this going we like it's a rough situation it it's not fun at all I'm having to sell my my personal residence uh because of it to take care of some of the debts and my brothers got to deal with a few things on his end so you know we're going to come out we'll be fine I am not turned
00:04:52
off on Business and Entrepreneurship at all if anything I am more committed to make it work than I was previously but it does not make it any easier here in the moment and it's difficult and hard to kind of go through that process and figure out exactly what we're going to do and what our next steps are but that whole process everything I've been doing in the past year has just taken me away from the channel and has not given me the flexibility to to get into this and I was going through a
00:05:24
course a masterminding course with Benjamin Hardy recently the tedx is easier than 2X and if you comment down below actually I've got a ton of books and if you are interested in one of those if I still have them uh comment down below we can connect and I can send one off to you just for the cost of shipping because I got a ton of them through this course but anyways as I was going through that course um something that kept coming up is you need to find the 80 um that is just taking too much of your
00:05:53
time and it's not working for you and you need to let it go you've gotta find somebody else to give it off to or you just have to step away and and just let it go and as I was reflecting on what I needed to let go in order for me to be successful what I really want to build which is the Assisted Living side of things I realize Novus has to go despite all of the heartache and the pain that's going to come with it I have to just let that go and let it be out of my life and it has been
00:06:26
Whirlwind of emotions and it's not not a fun situation to be in but we're going to make it through our house just went on the market uh yesterday uh you know this is May of 2023 is the recording of this video I'm sure one day I'll look back at this video and be like oh my gosh that was that was crazy but that's kind of where I am today and where I've gone to and and what we're trying to do and um trying to build and now I'm I'm working on I'm building out content here
00:06:56
on Assisted Living investing building out content for courses online and coaching and helping you reach your investment goals through Assisted Living because I truly believe in it and that it can have you can make a huge impact on the lives of the people around you and doing the things that you want to do and reaching your financial goals while also just having an incredible impact on the people that are around you so just wanted to kind of get that out there let you know where I've been the
00:07:22
past year uh what I've been dealing with and where we're at where we're headed and how we're going to to get there to the next phase in this entire process I'm excited for it I think it's going to be great and uh yeah excited to have you on the journey I appreciate all the comments and the sport and and everything uh with all the difficult things that we've dealt with uh here on the channel kind of going back and forth together uh it's it's been fun and I'm
00:07:51
excited to continue that relationship with you and continue working with you through this process I want to thank you again for watching today make sure you give me a big thumbs up on the channel make sure you're subscribing uh getting more of this content out here visit on assisted livinginvesting.net got free resources we're launching our courses um so you can get on there and we can have some direct conversations through one of the coaching options that I have there and I'm excited to work with you through
00:08:19
that process and remember it doesn't take a lot it just takes a little bit just keep going step by step by step I promise you if you do you're going to be successful you're going to be able to reach your goals I I found that even with Novus as I was going through the process there that that incremental progress helped me achieve the goal that I had and it didn't work out how I had hoped and how I had planned that I was able to achieve that goal and it was through incremental process I
00:08:45
promise you making those baby steps and just being consistent is going to be what helps you get there and be successful thanks for watching and have a great day
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