Eric Poortinga

Been replying more than posting original things lately, but here's an update on my world. Shelved my medical receivable software biz, never got the traction it needed to keep me interested. Of course, someone reached out wanting it recently. 1/x

@Molson_Hart That's true, but putting it right in the middle of town like Round Rock has, and like Hutto tried to do is retarded.

@EricPoortinga They still need some people

If Americans don't want data centers, reindustrialization will be impossible. Data centers have - No truck/car traffic - No toxic chemicals - No noxious odors - Minimal noise - No pollution It's better for residents than almost every factory. I understand that they use power and water, but factories do too. Peoples' minds need to change because these data centers will be essential to productivity going forward.

@ScottSissom @MatznerJon That's how you can tell this workflow hasn't been used. 🤦

@MatznerJon EDDM from the post office doesn’t work that way. You have to send the exact same postcard to every address on the Carrier route.

I built an agent that mails a custom picture of your own house (creepy?) Type any address (or upload a CSV). Hit enter. Sixty seconds later you're looking at a photograph of that house. Lit up at night. Full permanent lighting traced along every eave and peak. Not a stock photo. Not a rendering of a house that sort of looks like it…. THEIR HOUSE. The one they pulled into this morning. - Pipe that image into a 6×4 postcard template (or even better use an API). - Print five hundred of them. Drop the stack at your local post office under USPS Every Door Direct Mail. No mailing list. No names. No opt-ins. Just "every door on carrier route 14B, go." Three days later, every homeowner on that block opens their mailbox and finds a photograph of their own house. Already lit up. On a postcard. With your phone number on the back. They didn't ask for it. They didn't send you a photo. They've never talked to you! That's the agent. Or skip USPS entirely. We'll let agents run the whole thing for you. - Hand us the address list. - We render, print, stamp, drop. You never touch a postcard! And every postcard can carry a unique QR code tied to that specific address. When 184 Chestnut Lane scans theirs, you don't just get "someone's interested." You get 184 Chestnut Lane is interested. Call them (or door knock!) tomorrow We originally built this for a permanent lighting company, run by a handsome gentleman wearing a rolex in a podcast studio. Swap the modification prompt and you have a new product tomorrow: - Roofing. New shingles. Color swaps. Before/after. - Siding & exterior paint. Color picker → rendered house. - Garage doors, front doors, windows, fences, driveways. - Landscaping. Front yard transforms. Xeriscaping. Tree removal. - Commercial signage. Render the new sign on the actual storefront from Street View. - Pressure washing. Dirty → clean. - Interiors. kitchens, baths, fireplaces, basements, flooring. Interior photos are all over the internet, and send a mailer when the house changes hands. If your customer can't picture what you're selling them, this is for you. We're building these for $500 bucks, then usage (no seats or retainers or whatever).

Can someone tell me why ai data centers need to be near populated areas? In the age of fiber optic data transport, I don't get why they are going in suburban areas.

@MikeBotkin_ No one in irrigation calls it amazing... lots of dynamics as to why you don't see a ton of multi-unit businesses in the space. But if you crack that nut, I'd love to be a vendor.

Here is my contribution of the day. The industry that I tried rolling up but could not gain traction? Residential irrigation. I love...(repeat)...LOVE residential irrigation. A-MAZ-ING business. I just could not get traction/momentum. I hope somebody sees this and does it. Send me a check when you sell for $$$$$$

@Molson_Hart Gating redemptions while still getting their fees... Sure sign of a winning investment.

1. Extend 2. Pretend 3. Suspend 4. The end

@mcuban So now I need to worry about everyone I've ever emailed with anything remotely private (message, photo, files) and whether their agents will use that in some nefarious way to benefit itself, let alone the person?

Have you ever added a router or access point to a network ? The second you turn it on, it starts getting lit up. Hopefully uou change the PW and configure it properly This is exactly how agents will try to sell you things. The minute you light up an agent and the .md file is available to be read, it is going to be lit up non stop. Agents trying to take advantage of EVERYTHING. Agents are going to be easy to set up, hard for individuals to use correctly in a Wild Wild West Agent world. Thoughts ?

@shawngorham @MikeBotkin_ Driving up inflation for any poor sap that calls one of their brands for a new door spring.

@MikeBotkin_ what are we even doing here

Guild Garage just sold for 16x. $800 million on $50 EBITDA Launched in 2024. Initial raise was $30, according to wots. Did ~30 acquisitions. Sheesh.

@MikeCalcara Hope you at least steered him toward the 5.3 and not a trim with the 6.2 exploder V8? It's amazing how bad Toyota messed up the Sequoia cargo space just to shoehorn a hybrid that gets terrible mpg.

Client called me last week ready to buy a Toyota Sequoia. Three kids. Two dogs. Weekend road trips. I asked one question: Have you measured your stroller? He hadn't. The Sequoia trunk is tight (nearly nonexistent) with the third row up. Showed him a Tahoe instead. More space. Better functionality. And it fit the stroller. He would've bought the wrong car and realized it six months in. Then taken a bath on the trade-in to fix the mistake. I'm like your built-in antidote to buyers' remorse.

@LoganHaskett @reallyapriest @outsidetheboxNL Built in '17, I wanted the energy efficiency of spray foam. Wasn't until afterwards I found out the potential issues with mold in sealed attic. Luckily I had also opted for whole house dehum unit, which I re-ducted to only dehum the attic. Definitely wouldn't do foam again.

Spray foam can probably be good if done correctly. My worry is that most insulation guys don’t even know how to properly use it. You also need to drastically change your hvac systems size. Which I can promise you almost no hvac company (besides us) is doing J calculations to determine proper sizing. This is a huge problem. Even my insulation guy said he wouldn’t put spray foam in his personal house and he sells spray foam for a living lol. Best insulation is definitely rock wool in my opinion

Mold has entered the chat

The guy that sold his biz to an idiot for $52M and proceeded to buy his mom a Kia just announced his new SOP AI tool for small businesses. It's only 5x the cost of Loom, that does the same thing...

@KrissBergTweets @MarkSteynOnline @nypost Mark is the best, I miss hearing him on the radio. That book and the followup After America definitely changed the way I view the world and our leaders.

@nypost This dude predicted all of this almost 20 years ago @MarkSteynOnline

Party’s over in Paris: Fearful French cancel NYE concert on Champs-Élysées as migrant violence grows trib.al/gtdQTRN

@Austen @gtschool Unlikely to qualify for the new EFA if you make more than $60k/yr as a married couple.

If you’re a homeschooler in Texas you’re about to be among the luckiest kids to ever walk the earth. Stay tuned (cc @gtschool)

As someone that started my career in the semiconductor industry in 2002, the problem has been and currently is that the pay is terrible compared to other high tech jobs. So 20yrs later it's no wonder that students are picking other paths.

@NolesNews @shawngorham Do they discount premiums at policy creation if you're willing to agree to only use their contractors in the future? That would seem sketchy. Auto policies already have a preferred vendor model that gives an option for the discount, but not mandatory. Owner can still vet quality

@EricPoortinga @shawngorham Florida already has carriers that do that. The company they use sucks though. And it’s a reduced premium, not a reduction in deductible. IMHO, not worth it considering the company they rely on to do what I believe to be shoddy work many times.

Ever wonder why homeowners insurance is through the roof? We can charge DOUBLE to insurance to do this dog and pony show and then manipulate codes in xactimate to charge more knowing the adjuster will cut my invoice, but I still billed double the market rate. That's the game

@mhp_guy Do you have a go-to for physical addresses of businesses for postal mail campaigns?

I rarely start a business without running a scrape first. Scrape for customers, research, reviews, etc. It changes EVERYTHING. These are my 4 favorite tools for this:

The problem isn't that a tax on real estate exists. The problem is how that tax is assessed. Remember when the democrats floated the idea of net worth tax and everyone with two brain cells to rub together pointed out that taxing unrealized gains is a disaster? Well, a tax on the assessed value of the home you live in is a tax on unrealized gains. In fact, it's worse than that. It's not just a tax on unrealized gains. It's a tax on total value. Taxing unrealized gains on a stock forces a sale, but at least a stock is something you can sell. You live in a house. It's not there solely as a repository for value, an investment vehicle you can sell, pay your "you won too much" tax, and be on your merry way. It's where you live. Sure, I get it. We all get it. The boomers want to pay no taxes, ever again. They want young people to pick up the tab for all the government services they use, so they can go on more cruises, before they die and leave everything to a Catholic charity whose primary function is to import more third world barbarians into a country that's no longer their problem, because they don't care what happens to the entire universe one microsecond after they are dead. They'd sell us all out for an oatmeal-raisin cookie. We all understand this. But it's not only boomers who pay property taxes. It's anyone who owns a home. And if that's limited to retired people, well, there ain't gonna be a next generation, will there? Total-value property taxes raise the cost of home ownership, and thus the mean age of first time home buyers. Why should homes pay more for local government services in an inflated real estate market, or when they cost more? Pricier homes don't use more fire services. They don't use more roads. They don't use more flood prevention. And they use a hell of a lot less police. Why are they paying more? Soak-the-rich property taxes, like EBT spending, Section 8, Medicare, and all this other socialist nonsense, are just one more way for the government to punish success, and hide the fact that we have a huge expensive underclass burden who never have to take the blame for how much they cost all of us, because politicians want to buy their votes. Taxing people who have stuff, just because they have more stuff, may be an easy way to get money, but it just makes it harder to have stuff. Taxes on thriving inhibit thriving. If government, that poor, underfunded group of victims who can only survive by robbing us at gunpoint, needs more money than a flat tax would provide, then let it stop subsidizing the underclass of non-producers, at home and aboard. Ease the federal tax burden that pays for all that nonsense, and state and local governments can set a per-capita flat tax to pay for services that are consumed per capita, whether the capita in question is a person, or a structure, or a plot of land, whatever. No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity. We need to stop flushing money away.

@pulte How about restoring quality craftsmanship? Pulte builds some of the crappiest homes in the country that wouldn't outlast a 50yr mortgage.

Housing is in my blood. My grandpa founded his homebuilder in 1950. I was born and raised in homebuilding. I worked in new construction my whole childhood. We will and must restore the Dream of American Homeownership for Americans. It is time to restore the American Dream!

@dtmorgan18 They came during covid and can't stand the heat. Going home.

Narrative violation: we have two buyers from Texas looking to move to Orange County.