The REAL Steps to Launching an Assisted Living Business
Jul 30, 2026
If you've been thinking about starting an assisted living business, you may feel excited and overwhelmed at the same time. I have seen many people get stuck because they watch video after video but never know what to do first. The good news is that you do not need to figure everything out today. You just need to follow the right steps in the right order.
Want the full breakdown? Watch the video below👇
Start With a Clear Plan Instead of More Research
Many people spend weeks or even months watching YouTube videos and reading articles. They collect information, but they never move forward. I have seen this happen over and over again.
The truth is that more information is not always the answer. What you need is a simple roadmap that tells you what comes first and what comes next. When you have a clear plan, every step becomes easier because you know exactly where you are going.
âś… Stop collecting random advice and focus on following one proven path.
Know Why You Want to Start an Assisted Living Business
Before you worry about licensing, homes, or funding, take a moment to think about why you want to do this. Many people come from healthcare. They know they can provide better care, build a better team, or create a better experience for seniors.
Your reason matters because building an assisted living business takes work. There will be challenges along the way. When your purpose is clear, it becomes much easier to keep moving forward when things get difficult.
đź’ˇ Write down why this business matters to you. Keep that reason where you can see it often.
Focus on the Right First Steps
One of the biggest mistakes I see is trying to do everything at once. People worry about buying a home before they understand the business. Others spend money before they know what their local requirements are.
Instead, break the process into small steps. Learn how assisted living works in your area. Understand the licensing process. Learn what type of residents you want to serve. Build a business plan before making big financial decisions.
Each step builds on the one before it. When you stay focused, you avoid expensive mistakes and save yourself a lot of stress.
âś… Learn your local requirements before investing time and money.
Build Your Business With Confidence
Starting an assisted living business does not mean you have to know everything on day one. Every successful owner started as a beginner.
I have found that confidence comes from taking action, not from waiting until everything feels perfect. As you complete one step, the next step becomes much clearer. Small wins create momentum, and momentum helps you keep moving forward.
Remember, your goal is not to have all the answers today. Your goal is to make steady progress toward opening a business that serves seniors well and creates the future you want.
đź’ˇ Progress always beats perfection.
Stay Focused on Your Next Step
It is easy to become distracted by new ideas or endless online advice. Instead of asking, "What do I need to know about everything?" ask yourself, "What is the next step I need to complete?"
That simple question can keep you moving forward instead of feeling overwhelmed. Building an assisted living business is a process, and every completed step brings you closer to your goal.
âś… Focus on one task at a time and finish it before moving on.
Wrap Up
Launching an assisted living business does not have to feel confusing. When you stop chasing more information and start following a clear roadmap, you can make steady progress with confidence. Keep your focus on the next step, stay committed to your purpose, and remember that every successful assisted living owner started exactly where you are today.
If you need help creating a business plan for your assisted living business, check out the Free Business Plan Checklist.
And if you’re ready to figure out your next step, join me for the next Roadmap Challenge where I’ll walk you through how to get started.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
Have you been looking at assisted living and you're like, "This is perfect for me. You know, I'm a healthcare worker. I can do this better than anybody else, but I feel so stuck. I feel so overwhelmed. I don't even know how to get started. Like, there's got to be a step-by-step path for me to actually shift into this and actually, you know, start my own assisted living business, but I don't know how to do it." And then you start researching, you go down these rabbit holes of watching YouTube videos,
00:00:25
and ultimately you're just like, "I I don't know. I give up. I can't figure it out." This video is going to be for you. This video, the real steps to launching an assisted living business, is going to give you some clarity on the things that you should be focusing on first as you're trying to get started in launching your assisted living business. So, if that's something that you have been looking for, stick around for today's video. We're going to help you
00:00:48
out a ton as you're trying to get started. Hey friend, my name's Brandon Gustafson. I help healthcare workers start their own assisted living business so they're not stuck trying to figure it out and know exactly what they should do next. Head over to the website assistedlivinginvesting.net, by the way, and I've got a bunch of other resources and links for you down below. So, go check those out to help you out as you're trying to figure out how to get started and know exactly the
00:01:11
things that you should be focusing on as you're trying to launch your assisted living business. Now, let's get into it. So, this video, the real steps to launching your assisted living business, what I want you to understand is there are some decisions that you need to make up front before you get into this. Um you need to figure out if you're going to be doing this as a licensed facility or an unlicensed facility. You also need to figure out which population you're going to serve.
00:01:39
When you take some time and you sit back and you think, "Okay, what do I really want out of this? What is my goal?" And I want you to type this down below, as well. Like, what's your big driving force behind this? Is it money? Is it around like just providing adequate care or high-quality care to your potential residents? What is the thing that for you is like, this is why I want to do assisted living? Just type it down below. I'd love to hear from you on what that looks like for you.
00:02:04
But when you start figuring out, I want to do this licensed, I want to do this unlicensed, then it's going to help you move forward. I want to serve this population versus that population. I want to serve an elderly population versus a mental health versus autistic individuals. Who do you want to serve? When you are able to clearly state that, your pathway to getting started gets a lot more clear for you, and you know what you are working towards. So just take some time. Like this is the first step. Just think about it and just
00:02:34
be like, who do I want to serve? Um okay, this is what I want to do. And then you move forward. So I'm going to really quickly break down for you licensed versus unlicensed, cuz a lot of people this is a crossroads that people uh hit and they're like, I don't know what to do. So pros and cons. Licensed facility. You are in a licensed facility going to have more authority. Uh like just from a perception standpoint, people are like, okay, this is a licensed facility. It's a legit business, right? Uh you're going
00:02:59
to provide higher level of care as well. So you're going to be able to generate more money because you are providing a higher level of care. However, you're going to deal with more regulations, so you got to be aware of that. And it's probably going to take you a little bit longer to start up. Some states it can take 12 to 18 months just to get licensed. So you want to take that into consideration. Some states it's faster, but uh that's something that I want you to just realize, hey, this might take me
00:03:23
a little bit longer. Whereas with an unlicensed facility, it's a little bit quicker to start. You can typically start pretty quick. You just got to go make sure zoning is good, talk to the fire department. Once you have those approvals in place, you can start moving forward. You're going to deal with less regulations, which is good. You're still going to have to deal with regulations, so just realize that, but there's quite a few less. But you are providing a lower level of care in an unlicensed
00:03:46
facility, so your pathway to profitability, your ability to generate more income is going to be reduced. So you just need to figure out what is the thing that's why we figure out our driving force behind this, and then we identify, okay, is profit the thing that's more important to me than anything else? Then I should probably go with a licensed facility and have more beds. Is I really want this intimate feeling where I can help a lot of people and create this incredible atmosphere where I'm
00:04:11
providing extremely high-quality care, then a small unlicensed facility might be fine, but I do want to encourage you to make sure that you're going to see if this is profitable. If you're interested in my free underwriting calculators, type in calculator down below, we'll get that over to you. The next thing that you do is you need to take that vision that you just sat back and you thought about, okay, I want to unlicensed or I want a licensed facility, and I'm going to serve elderly
00:04:35
and you know, maybe I want to serve elderly women who have have experienced abuse in in their past, and that's the niche that I want to work on. Cool. Now, you have an idea. Now, we need to turn that into a business plan, okay? So, if you need some help with this, just type in BP down below, I've got a free business plan checklist, we'll send you the link for it. But, with a business plan, you need to figure that out before you go find a property. A lot of people do this out of order,
00:05:02
actually. A lot of people are like, okay, cool. I want to do this as an unlicensed facility, now I'm going to go find a property. Pump the brakes, okay? You need to go about this the right way. There is an order in how you're going to get started, and a lot of people skip around. They they skip over to funding or skip over to finding a property or licensing. Those are the things that they start focusing on and try to figure out, that's not what you should be doing. You need to build your foundation
00:05:27
first. Type in foundation, by the way, I'll give you some information on my foundation builder program, it helps you focus on getting this foundational work done first, and that's going to help you be a lot more successful in the long run. So, why do you need a business plan before you start looking at a property? It's because it's going to help you further define that population that you're going to serve. And not only is it going to help you define that, but it takes it from your brain and puts it on
00:05:52
paper, and then you can share it with people and gets them excited about it. Okay? So, you need to do that. It's going to help you out if you're trying to figure out the licensing process, what type of license you're going to apply for. It's going to help you figure out how big of a house you need. Like, if you want to serve 10 residents in a home, you need something that's bigger than four bedrooms, right? So, you need to figure out how many residents do I want to have in here? And that's going
00:06:15
to dictate how big of a house you need to be looking for. It's going to help you think through your staffing model. How many staff do I need? Do I want to Do I want to have like a private chef there? Do I want to have housekeeper? Or am I going to share responsibilities amongst my caregivers with some of this stuff? What's that going to look like? You're going to think through these things. The other interesting thing that I found, having done this dozens of times with myself and my students, is
00:06:39
it's going to help you out when you're looking for a property, specifically when it comes to talking to your local municipality, your city, your county, whoever it is that's in charge of it from a zoning perspective, and the fire department. Weirdly enough, they actually want to see your business plan. And so, it's going to accelerate your ability to move forward with the city and getting the house and making sure it's good for assisted living by having a business plan, because whether they ask for it or
00:07:06
not, you're going to be able to answer their questions. But, I have had a lot of municipalities actually ask me for my business plan. I honestly don't think they read it, but what they want to see is are you like doing this the right way? Are you going about this in the right path? And they want to make sure that's what you're doing. That's why you have to build your foundation first. Now, let's talk about funding, right? So, what I want to talk to you now is how you should be thinking about funding early
00:07:33
on in the process. This is really important for you, because you need to be building that foundation. It's going to help you out with your funding. And when you work on your foundation, it's going to open up so many doors for you. There's actually so many different ways that you can get funding. In my roadmap challenge, I teach what I call the cash compass. And that little framework is actually designed to help you see, oh my gosh, there's so many more opportunities than just like traditional funding and
00:07:58
getting my assisted living business like that. There's just so many options that are out there. So, if you're interested in learning more about that, type in roadmap. I'll send you a link for the roadmap challenge and would love to have you in there so you can learn about the cash compass, the different funding options that are available to you. But, the way that you need to think about funding is I need to build my foundation before I can go and start securing the funding for my assisted living business. That's
00:08:22
the thing that's going to help me level up and help me help take me to the next level as I'm trying to get started with my assisted living business. That's what you need to be focusing on right now as you're trying to get started. Okay. Now, if you do that and you focus on that foundation first, you're going to have so many different doors open up for you. Whether it's a traditional lender, whether it's a partner, whoever it is that you're working with, that working
00:08:46
on that and building that foundation first is going to open up a ton of doors for you. You'll You'll just be amazed at what it does for you. So, let's talk about what to research before your choosing home. We talked earlier in the video about identify who you want to serve, right? How you want to get started, licensed versus unlicensed, and that population you want to serve. Is it elderly care? Is it mental health? Is it disabilities? Is it autism? Like, who is it that you want to serve? And then from
00:09:10
there, you need to identify how many residents you're going to need to be profitable. You need to do underwriting, figure out exactly what that's going to look like for you. If you need some help with that, type in calculator, we'll get you the free underwriting calculator as well. But, when you figure out these numbers and figure out, okay, I need to have 10 residents. That's what's going to allow me to be successful, then you got to find a house that's going to help you get the 10 residents
00:09:36
in the home. If you're like, oh, I could do this with four residents. I already have the house." Do the underwriting to make sure you actually hit your profitability goals when you have four residents in a home. You have to do those things up front. That's what's going to allow you to be like, "Okay, cool. I could be a lot more successful with this and now that I know what I'm getting into." Okay? So, spend some time, figure all of that out, and it's going to help you move forward with
00:10:01
a lot more confidence that you have the right house, you have the right model, you're serving the right people, and you're actually going profitable and not lose thousands of dollars every month just because you want to run a charity. You can't run a charity in this unless you have just infinite amount of funds and you're okay burning money with it because you want to help a population, but most of you that are watching this, that's not you. You're already struggling with funding. You can't run a
00:10:24
charity and lose thousands of dollars. You have to make sure this is profitable up front. So, type in calculator will get you the free underwriting calculator. It's going to help you see if this is going to work. So, the simple order for all of this, everything that I've kind of laid out for you, we've talked about a few things that are finding the right house and getting the money, getting the funding process and all that. I actually teach a framework, and it's called the three M's. Okay? So,
00:10:47
the three M's, you focus on your model, your market, and your money. So, you can do that today. You can You can identify those things and start working on that today. And the rest of it becomes so much easier when you work through that. Model, market, money. Identify those things. I actually teach that. Again, type in roadmap down below, and in the roadmap challenge, I'm going to teach you about the three M's, what they look like, and how they work. Model, market, money. How you can focus on each of
00:11:18
those, and how you can leverage each of them to help you move forward and accelerate your pathway to getting into assisted living. And for those of you that are you're like, "I I'm interested in assisted living, but I I know if it's the right thing for me. Like I I don't even know if I want to start. It seems interesting and I've been I've been sitting around watching a bunch of YouTube videos and it seems like a cool thing, but I'm not sure if it's the right thing for me.
00:11:42
The Roadmap Challenge is a great option for you to just get in there, ask some questions, get a feel for what it actually is, and learn how to move forward if it's the right fit for you. So, type in Roadmap, we'll get you the link to the Roadmap Challenge. We'd love to see you there. Now, we went through a bunch of stuff here in this video helping you figure out exactly what those real steps are to launching an assisted living business. It all comes back to foundational work. It comes back to thinking through the
00:12:09
process, working on those important things first to build your foundation, your model, your market, your money. And when you do those things, finding the right house and getting the funding and figuring out the licensing process, all of that becomes so much easier because you've built this foundation. If you found this video helpful, make sure you like the video, subscribe, ring the bell as well so this will help people like you find this video and videos like this to help them move forward as they're trying to launch it.
00:12:35
Are you curious about assisted living, but you're not sure how to get started? At Assisted Living Investing, I help healthcare workers start their own assisted living business so they're not stuck trying to figure it out and know exactly what to do next. And I want to remind you that it doesn't take a lot, just a little bit. Just keep going step by step by step and I promise you if you do and you are consistent and persistent, you are going to be successful. Thanks for watching and have
00:12:57
a great day.
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