How Nick Huber Built a $150M real estate empire on Twitter
Nick is one of the most successful examples of building an empire on Twitter. I analyzed his top Tweets and follower growth to learn how we can grow our reach and drive business impact.
As a marketing nerd who is stronger on the quant/performance marketing side, I've always been envious of folks like Nick Huber who are able to build a massive online audience. So I decided to do a deep-dive into Nick’s content and follower growth. I analyzed all of his top-performing tweets to understand how other folks can grow our own following. Here’s what I learned:
In 2011, Nick co-founded Storage Squad, grew that business in 25 college towns, and eventually sold in 2021 for “seven figures.”
Today, he runs a real estate PE firm, with a portfolio of 42 properties and over 1 million square feet of storage. Nick doesn’t have years of industry experience in PE or Real Estate. What he does have is a Twitter following.
What really made me want to study Nick was learning how he converted his audience into business opportunities. In an episode of Where it Happens, Nick shared how his Twitter following (365,000+ as of April 2024) has helped him source deals and scale his business to over $150M.
Count me hooked.
The more I read, the more I was convinced that by studying Nick, I (and any entrepreneur) could get a masterclass in how to build a social following and then turn that into business impact.
So what can we learn from Nick? What *exactly* is Nick Huber doing?
Laying the foundation: Nick positions as a contrarian working on “sweaty” businesses and not glamorous startups
“In the beginning, I laughed at social media.
I said it wasn't worth it.” — Nick Huber
Nick got started posting on the entrepreneurship subreddit as u/sweatystartup. (Today he’s got his own SweatyStartup subreddit and podcast/YouTube channel).
One early and critical choice that helped Nick break through where so many others failed: he chose a contrarian point-of-view. He vocally criticized the pervading Shark Tank-slash-Tech Crunch-slash-Silicon Valley fantasy of entrepreneurship.
For Nick, the Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg-fication of startups rings false: true entrepreneurship involves getting your hands dirty. “Those guys get idolized—and that certain type of entrepreneurship really kind of dominates the media, and dominates people's heads when they think about starting a small business,” he says.
He argued that impressionable youngins think that’s the place to be if you want to be somebody— when in reality, the true path to wealth and independence is in “sweaty” businesses.
Nick argued that low-risk, “unsexy” ideas make up the backbone of good businesses that are going to make money.
His comments garnered thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments. But Nick didn’t think all that much of it: “In the beginning, I laughed at social media. I said it wasn't worth it. I basically talked down to social media any chance that I got because I didn't see the value there.”
Enter real estate investor Moses Kagan. He convinced Nick to start sharing his insights on Twitter instead of Reddit. Kagan said Nick could benefit from Twitter’s massive reach and concise format. Moreover—it’s “where the deals happen.”
Within 30 days, Nick had around 3,000 Twitter followers. That may not be a huge number, but these followers turned out to be high-net-worth individuals, a lot of whom are investors and real estate professionals. They began exchanging ideas, challenging one another, and taking conversations further in DMs and phone calls.
The end result? Eventually some became partners in his self storage business. Within a month, Nick Huber had scaled his business thanks to Twitter.
And that was just the start.
I pulled Nick’s Twitter stats. You can see a significant ramp in Nick’s activity. In March ‘20 he’s posting 250 tweets per month, then 500/mo in July. At this point his monthly gained followers are still quite low. Then in Jan ‘21 something happens—Nick ramps-up to 1,000 posts/mo and sees a massive growth spurt, adding 47,000 new followers in one month:
A few months later, he would go on to say this:
Mastering Twitter: A playbook for organic growth
Nick is probably one of the most successful people to ever build an empire on Twitter.
Here’s how I think he turned Twitter into a powerful tool for business growth and personal brand building:
A. Personal struggle as a connecting tool
Nick makes a point to highlight that while other influencers only share their success, he is authentic about the struggles entrepreneurs face.
B. Building in public
Whereas most entrepreneurs are cagey about numbers, and even when they do, it’s often long after the dust has settled. Nick had the bravery to share specifics in real-time. This transparent look at his company’s profits, losses, and strategic choices educates his followers and cements his credibility and authenticity.
How many entrepreneurs are sharing a full P&L spreadsheet with their peers, let alone on Twitter?
C. Consistency is key to creating surface area for luck
We all know that consistency matters, but the data really underscores how much we still underestimate how much consistency will be required.
In the final months of 2020, Nick was steadily ramping up his Twitter posts volume, laying the groundwork for the explosive follower-growth he saw in early 2021.
In the span of just a few months, Nick's tweeting frequency increased dramatically, from under 1,000 to over 2,900 tweets in November 2020, 4,352 in January 2021, and peaking at 5,585 tweets in February 2021. This rapid escalation in activity was accompanied by a corresponding surge in his follower count. From November 2020 to February 2021, his followers increased from 19,813 to 83,859—a staggering jump of 64,046 in just three months.
Most of that growth came from just a handful of tweets between December 28th and February 11th. Think about that for a moment: out of 12,000 tweets over 4 months, just a handful drove all of that growth. Put another way, Nick’s tweets have a 99.9% failure rate.
I recently told a friend that I stopped tweeting because I wasn’t getting any traction. But if I’m honest I’ve probably tweeted less than 1,000 times ever, let alone 1,000 tweets per week.
D. Leveraging trends, injecting contrarian thinking
Nick also found ways to tap into trending topics and relate them back to his niche. A standout example is Nick's approach during the Twitter-Musk controversy. While many were commenting on the drama, Nick took a different angle, linking the event back to his contrarian message that the Silicon-Valley startup path isn’t the only viable path to success.
A year later, he employed a similar approach. We’re all told we should go to college, get straight A’s, but Nick reminds us that:
By adopting a contrarian point-of-view, Nick taps into a collective consciousness that readily responds to his tweets, often sparking discussions and debates that further boost engagement.
This technique complements his use of threads, where he can delve into a topic in greater detail. When a thread gains traction, Nick quickly posts additional content, maximizing the visibility and impact of his tweets.
Rather than relying on single tweets to convey a message, Nick frequently links his posts together to form a cohesive story. This approach not only holds the audience's attention longer but also invites them to explore more of his content by "pulling the thread." It's a technique that encourages deeper engagement and fosters a stronger connection with followers.
E. Doubling down on viral momentum
In January 2021, Nick's top three most-liked tweets were all part of a single-day thread. This demonstrates the power of the thread format.
When a thread starts gaining momentum, Nick is quick to double down on the opportunity. By capitalizing on the algorithm's behavior, he maximizes his reach. The more engagement a thread receives, the more it is likely to appear in other users' feeds, creating a ripple effect that attracts new followers and further increases engagement.
Nick's strategy involves closely monitoring engagement and identifying when a thread is going viral. Once he detects this, he accelerates his content output, often with additional tweets and threads that relate to the topic resonating with his audience. This approach allows him to ride the wave of virality, maximizing the potential upside.
F. Content that challenges and educates
He also doesn’t shy away from debunking prevalent business myths. His threads often challenge conventional wisdom, offering well-thought-out counterpoints that encourage readers to think critically. This approach not only sets him apart but also establishes him as a thought leader in the industry.
G. Strategic use of multimedia links
Finally, Nick includes links to his other platforms, like YouTube and Spotify, in his tweets. He also offers download links to lists of business ideas and the like on his website. This not only serves to cross-promote his content but also strengthens his role as a comprehensive resource on entrepreneurship and real estate.
What can we learn from Nick Huber’s Twitter journey?
These are the three core lessons I take from Nick’s story.
Identify a contrarian point of view that allows you to position your brand relative to everyone else.
Pair a strong positioning with consistency. People wildly underestimate the number of failures they’ll need to get to success.
Social media puts small-but-mighty in the same country club with wildly-successful. Don’t wait, use that access.
Let’s talk about #3:
One thing that surprised me is that whereas other influencers like Mr. Beast got to massive scale before he productized by launching Feastables and Mr Beast Burger, Nick was using Twitter as to network into opportunities when his following was still tiny.
Nick saw that Twitter allows him direct access (via DM) to high-net-worth individuals and potential investors he wouldn’t have access to IRL.
I think that’s a good lesson: you don’t need to wait till you have massive reach before driving business opportunities. As long as you serve a small niche well.
That shows up in my own experience as well: I’m no influencer, but my frequent, high-quality LinkedIn content, serving my small niche, has has helped me source over $1M in revenue for my business.
