How Chris and Jason Became Partners

“You’re not going out every day looking for a business partner, but when you see or hear the right thing, it just clicks.”

— Chris Powers

The day before I met Jason, I had no idea who he was. We were introduced by a friend, we were going to go have lunch really quick, and chat about a land deal like I’ve done a thousand times. If you would have asked me the day before, I probably said, “Yeah, I’m going to go have lunch. A deal will never get done and I’ll never talk to Jason again.” That’s not because I’m being negative, it’s just that’s how life is. You meet with lots of people and only very few things really pan out. Being open-minded and at least showing up is critical. When you’re in the game and you kind of know where you’re headed–whether it’s in life, or with a project, or anything, you’re not going out every day going, “I’m looking for a business partner.” In fact, I wasn’t looking. But when you see the right thing or you hear the right thing, it just kind of clicks. We were able to work on deals together for a year or two and really get to know each other before we put pen to paper and made it official. We were just really thoughtful. Part of that was because I had been in partnerships that didn’t work, so I was very guarded. Whereas I think when you’re young, or you haven’t had an equity in anything before, it’s really easy to say like, “Ah, 50/50.” 50% of nothing is nothing. As soon as it starts becoming something and you’re like, “Why am I  giving–“ You know, whatever it may be, we just were able to get through those first two years. After two years, you’ve seen all sides of somebody.

And there was no agenda. Even in that first year, year and a half, I don’t ever remember having a conversation of, “Hey, we have to figure out if we’re going to be partners, or how this is going to–” In my mind, it never even happened.

Jason is unbelievably sharp and talented at–there’s a lot of people that would have been in his situation that would have immediately once they kind of saw– like, “What does this mean for me?” Jason is very thoughtful of knowing if it’s meant to happen, it’s going to happen.