Two friends from Georgia Tech are reshaping small town Self Storage with a tech centered approach.

I sit down with Tyler Harper, Co-Founder of Homegrown Storage, for a fascinating look at how technology is finally providing an operating arbitrage in tertiary markets . Tyler's team, largely composed of Georgia Tech engineers, has built a platform that enables them to acquire roughly one facility per week while operating 30+ stores with only five people . We discuss the grit it took to sell their retirements and pitch 200 family offices, and how they eventually found "believers" who saw the same potential for tech-driven excellence . Tyler explains the philosophy behind Patchwork Labs, their software arm that "quilts" data from FMS systems and video feeds to automatically coordinate repairs and sales without human bottlenecks . Key Takeaways from this Episode: The Search Fund Influence: How watching hundreds of MBA students buy businesses influenced Tyler's view on thematic investing . The Tech Differentiator: Why Homegrown believes they can eventually scale to one staff member for every 30 facilities . Relationship-Driven Sourcing: Why personal connections still beat AI outbound calls when dealing with owners who have held assets for 50 years . Deterministic Workflows: How creating power dialers and automated sweep-out links tripled their team's output . The "Operating Arbitrage": Why focusing on smaller, sub-secondary markets offers the "sky is the limit" potential for those who can solve the management puzzle . If you are an owner, broker, or tech-enthusiast in the storage space, this conversation is a glimpse into the future of how our industry will be consolidated and managed in 2026 and beyond. Connect with Tyler Harper: Email: [email protected] Website: https://www.homegrownstorage.com Connect with Thaddeus Campbell: Website: https://s3.partners/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsthadcampbell/ This episode was brought to you by: https://kiwiconstruction.com/