The Risk of Keeping Your Best Player Part-Time with Peter Nukasan

Peter Nukasan shares his entrepreneurial background, starting with computer refurbishment on eBay at age 16-17, followed by a t-shirt clothing brand, and eventually landing in the land business in late 2019. He discovered land investing through Rich Dad Poor Dad and LandWatch, connecting with Matt Nunn from None Land Sales. His business operates on two fronts: retail owner financing (buying cheap land and selling on terms) and wholesale (bulk sales to other investors).

His current team consists of Mike Madrigal (full-time sales director handling both retail and wholesale leads), Noah (part-time operations managing deeds and notarization), Aaron Nola (part-time customer service for retail owner financing customers), and one full-time overseas VA in the Philippines handling back office work. This structure evolved from Peter working solo for nearly the first year. He was initially uncomfortable with hiring full-time staff but found that investing in his MVP (most valuable player) paid for itself within six months.

Peter's leadership philosophy centers on asking questions rather than providing answers, which empowers team members to become self-starters and problem solvers. He prioritizes understanding his team's personal goals and aspirations, having conversations roughly twice yearly about their ideal life scenarios. He also builds relationships outside of work—for example, helping Mike negotiate a car purchase and setting goals around Mike's passion for cars (like acquiring a Porsche Boxster).

He identifies a key accidental discovery: when he delayed responding to team questions, the number of questions dropped dramatically within one to two weeks, forcing team members to solve problems independently. This builds confidence and a culture of self-reliance. He emphasizes eliminating business bloat (unnecessary software and underperforming VAs) to free up resources to properly support high-performers.

For hiring, Peter uses HireMyMom.com (which produced Aaron Nola), referrals (Noah), organic inbound leads (Mike), and recently Indeed.com with paid promotion, which generated 81 applicants for a local position with just $60 in advertising. He considers recruiting services like Remote Latinos and Robert Half as options for higher-level positions but currently keeps his team lean.

For organization and tracking, he uses Trello for personal and company task management, with color coding and due dates. He plans to implement KPI tracking using Google Forms integrated with Airtable (or Airtable forms directly) to have team members submit weekly metrics. He also uses QuickBooks for financial tracking and acknowledges the need to implement automated financial reporting and trend analysis. He notes that effective management typically spans only four to five direct reports, necessitating a departmental structure with department heads as organizations scale.