Two years nomadic on a 3-person team and a $600K goal
Runs his entire $600K operation remotely while traveling the world. Systems do the work, not geography.
About
Jacob Bluestein wholesales the Jacksonville, FL market with a three-person team: himself plus two VAs in Egypt. He has run the operation nomadically for close to two years, working from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. A kidney transplant at age 25 in 2018 sparked the real estate career that now funds his software startup.
Operating market
Jacksonville, FL
Favorite features
The Challenge
Jacob Bluestein's first real estate business ran out of New York City. He tried wholesaling Cleveland, Ohio virtually because the houses were cheap, and he got crushed. He did not understand the market or its street by street dynamics. He also paid tens of thousands of dollars for masterminds that never fit how he thinks about money. The lesson stuck: cheap markets and borrowed playbooks do not replace knowing one market cold.
He rebuilt in Jacksonville, FL and found himself behind a desk 95 percent of the time. Jacksonville sprawls, and he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he closed over the phone, and the desk became the business. Then he wanted to travel the world full time. The fear was real: older sellers who distrust a phone voice, an investor community he would stop seeing, time zones far from Florida. By his own admission, it was more scary in his head than in practice.
What They Built
One market, a couple of lists, four attempts
The marketing engine is deliberately small. DataSift is the core: sales, marketing, and the CRM in one place, with boards for the pipeline and for lead management. Sequential marketing carries 98 percent of the workload, run on only a couple of lists and cut from seven attempts to four. Every quarter he asks one question: how do we get more out of this without spending more.
It took about a year or so to really get dialed in on our virtual SIF line with just those couple of lists and just the Sensei flow through four attempts.
Two VAs in Egypt covering the phones
The whole team is three people. A cold caller and a lead manager, both based in Egypt, plus Jacob on acquisitions and dispositions. Culture is the hard part of a virtual team, so he spent a week of his first trip with them in Egypt. If the team hits its revenue goal this year, he has promised a week long retreat anywhere in the world they choose.
I met up with them, we were together for a whole week. They toured me around the whole country.
Closing every deal over the phone
Roughly one seller in 10 to 15 will not sign electronically. For those, wholesaler friends in Jacksonville take the in person appointment and earn a $3,000 to $10,000 commission. Probate deals with multiple siblings get a conference call so every decision maker hears the same offer at once. A local contact, paid per visit, shoots photos and walks inspections on the rare deal that needs eyes on site.
Quarterly trips to keep the network warm
The investor community in any market is tight, and being gone weakens it. So he flies back to Jacksonville once a quarter, hits the events, and meets his lenders and old friends. The relationships stay fresh, and the deals keep coming from a market he knows block by block.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
After DataSift
- Tens of Thousands Spent on Masterminds That Never Fit
- Got Crushed Wholesaling Cleveland Virtually From New York
- Career-biggest payoff under agreement after a year of deep prospecting
- A 1,300-lead vacant property gold mine in two counties
- One shared database with his agent wife for three years
- Guru models demanded VAs and a big company he never wanted
- His investing and her listing business never connected
- Ten years flipping houses with no shared system
- One Call and One Text Found His Last Buyer
- A Deal About Every Three Weeks, Pushing for Two
- Eight Deals Working in the Middle of the Slowdown
- A $7,000 Mail Campaign Went Out at 56 Percent of Value
- Three to Five Active Listings in Every Subdivision He Underwrites
- Colorado Prices Down 9 to 11 Percent by May
- Callers Hunt Correct Numbers, Closers Take Over
- Returned Mail Tagged And Worked As Its Own Bucket
- 6 Deals In One Month From Year-Old Data
- Eight Months In Before Working The Data Right
- Bulk Dials On Call Tools Produced Nothing
- 100K Records Added, Team Spinning Its Wheels
- Mail, three call attempts, then the rehash pool
- 150 records a month, skip traced twice before dialing
- Full authority probates only, five Southern California counties
- 15 to 20 grand across seven months of last year
- Calling agents and MLS, never direct to seller
- No CRM, just a phone, a computer, and email
- $56K Largest Single Assignment
- A VA Pulls County Probate Data Daily
- $5,300 Total Expenses, About $441 A Month
- $210K In Fees From 7 Deals In A Year
- Every Conversation Started Cold
- No Pipeline, No Aged Database, No Team
- Random Calling On Whatever Records He Found
- Started September 2023 With No Probate Experience
- $95K Spread Closed In 21 Days
- All Four Questions Answered On Every Lead
- 120 Qualified Sellers In The Pipeline
- $1M+ Company With SMS As The Core Channel
- Tracking It All In Podio, Then Another CRM
- Doing What Everybody Else Was Doing
- Downloading Every Record Providers Would Give Him
- Churn And Burn Message Blasts
- One Contract For Every 10 Leads
- 100% Of Deals Sourced Inside The System
- $1M+ In Assignment Fees In 2023
- Almost All Deal Flow From Driving For Dollars
- Bouncing Between Tools Looking For One That Stuck
- Leads Tracked In Excel Sheets, Antiquated And Scattered
- First Flip Finished And Live On Market
- Partner Funding Instead Of 18-22% Hard Money
- Probate Cleared In A Week And A Half
- About One Deal Per 15 To 20 Doors
- Door Knocks The Foreclosure List Top To Bottom
- Severely In Debt, Couldn't Keep Up
- A Couple Of Years To Get In Gear
- Worked Hard For Two Weeks, Then Stopped
- 12 Years In Oil And Gas, Then Nothing Left
- $10K Deal From A Q3 Not Interested Lead
- Follow Up Brought The Seller Down $40,000
- Two First To Market Contracts In One Week
- Dedicated Caller Works The First To Market Flow
- Eviction Records Pulled Straight From Two Counties
- Outbound Marketing Completely Phased Out
- Credit Card Debt From Bad Marketing Advice
- Two Years Of Shiny Object Crash And Burn
- Absurd Data Subscription Costs Draining The Business
- $61,644 Net From A Lien List Rehash
- Tracks Wrong Numbers, Cuts Skip Trace Spend
- Emails The Township For Exact Lien Payoffs
- Rehash Filters: Mobile Numbers, No Response, Liens
- Next Day Follow Up Text Gets The Reply
- Lien Lead Silent Since February 2024
- No Follow Up Text After A Silent First Message
- Unknowingly Recycling The Same Data
- Pulling 10,000 Record Lists The Old Way
- 15 Heirs Signed, $37,500 In One Month
- Skip Trace, Upload To Sift, Call Fast
- Small Problem Lists Over Huge Data Sets
- Targets Deeds Of Trust 12 Years Or Older
- Checks County Foreclosure Postings Every Morning
- Bulk Absentee And Owner Marketing Dried Up
- 150 Mile Days Driving Project To Project
- Six Renovations Running At One Time
- Full Time Rehabbing Since 2015
- Sellers Now Calling In From Her Mail
- One Hot Lead Plus Tons Of Correct Numbers
- Mails Only The 54 Absentee Petitioners First
- Google Form Auto Formats Data For Upload
- Pulls Probate Filings Daily Across Three Counties
- Left A Company, Unsure She Could Pull It Off
- Tedious Copy And Paste List Formatting
- Struggled To Pull Data From Her County
- Years In California Trying To Figure It Out
- 135,000 Records Organized Into Buckets
- A Lead Every 10-15 Calls
- Pre-probate Inherited Niche, 60% Sell Within Two Years
- New Process Closed Its First Deal In 30 Days
- Thursday Deep Research, Offer Accepted By Monday
- PropStream Lists And Bought Probate Data
- Return Mail Dead-ended, Records Sat Dormant For Years
What changed
The click happened at a desk in Jacksonville, before any of the travel. The metro is so spread out that he refused to drive 40 minutes each way to appointments. So he stayed behind the desk 95 percent of the time and worked the phones instead. "I started locking up houses over the phone. I was like, well, if I can do this from a computer here why can't I do it from anywhere else?" The first test was a one month trip to the Middle East. It worked, and the better part of two years abroad followed.
The Results
The target for the year is $600,000 in revenue. His model math is simple: 20 deals a year at $30,000 per deal is $600,000. Cost per contract on the sequential flow runs about $1,800, and monthly overhead sits between $3,000 and $4,000. The team is still three people, and the flow still stops at four attempts, not seven.
The before and after is geography. His first virtual attempt, New York City into Cleveland, failed outright. Now he has been nomadic for the better part of two years across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East while the Jacksonville pipeline runs. In Asia that meant working 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. to catch the Florida day. The $600,000 goal is not banked yet, and he says so. If it lands, the team picks the retreat destination.
The business exists to serve my lifestyle and goals and my employees goals, not the other way around.
Get results like this. Start your free trial.
Related Stories
.avif)
What our users have to say
Get results like this. Start your free trial.
Common questions before you start
Is there a free trial?
Yes DataSift offers a 7 day free trial. In those 7 days you’ll receive all necessary materials to learn exactly how to leverage Sift in your company.
How much does DataSift cost?
Our lowest plan starts at $149 a month and our highest plan is $1250 a month.
How long does setup take?
Your account ships with the lead management default build already wired. Boards, statuses, tasks, automations — ready on day one. Add your team, import your data, and your lead manager can start working leads the same afternoon.
I'm coming from Podio, REsimpli, or Go High Level. Why switch?
Every CRM needs someone to move leads where they belong. The difference is what catches the misses. Most CRMs hand you an empty box and tell you to build it. DataSift ships with the workflow assembled — boards, statuses, tasks, and 26+ automations already wired. You're not paying for a database. You're paying for the system that already runs your lead management.
How do I migrate over my data from another CRM?
Contact our support team through our support chat and they will give you all necessary materials and information to make sure you get all of your data uploaded exactly how you want it.
Does DataSift work with my dialer?
Yes. Ready Mode, Smart Dialer, Call Tools, Smarter Contact, Aircall and Kixie connect directly. A wrong-number disposition in the dialer flips the phone status in DataSift in real time. A new-lead disposition fires the full Call New Lead sequence. Other dialers connect through CSV upload or Zapier.
