What if your next million-dollar employee didn’t need a salary, vacation time, or even sleep?
In this episode of Build It to Billions, Brett Swarts sits down with self-storage entrepreneur, AI innovator, and founder of Storage Moguls AI, Joe Downs, to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the way entrepreneurs build, scale, and operate their businesses. Joe shares why he believes AI isn’t replacing great people—it’s empowering business owners to accomplish more with leaner, smarter teams while creating systems that drive exponential growth.
Together, Brett and Joe discuss practical ways to integrate AI into daily operations, automate repetitive tasks, improve decision-making, streamline acquisitions, and create scalable businesses that are less dependent on the owner. They also explore how entrepreneurs can leverage AI to unlock new opportunities, increase enterprise value, and position themselves for larger exits. Whether you’re building a real estate portfolio, growing an operating company, or preparing for your next liquidity event, this episode offers actionable insights on using AI as the ultimate growth partner to help scale from millions to billions.
Episode Highlights Here:
Brett
Before we jump into this episode, I want to invite you to join our community to help you become a better steward, scale to billions, and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want
you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support. It’s incredible to see your comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
Thank you so much for subscribing; it means the world to me. Welcome to the Build to Billions podcast, where we guide successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. We believe the key to scaling and compounding your wealth in life starts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership and applying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goal is help you scale and compound your wealth in life, so you can give more all the way to help MVPs. My name is Brett Swartz, and I’ll be your host today. By the way, we’re also streaming on Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast and YouTube channels. And if you have a large exit coming up, make sure to go toCapitalGainsTaxSolutions.com. That’s Bitcoin. That’s real estate. That’s business. Go toCapitalGainsTaxSolutions.com. I’m excited about our next guest. He’s outside of Philadelphia, and he builds real companies. He shares what he’s learning. He is a multi-faceted entrepreneur in self-storage, financial securities, development, and AI. And we’re going to be talking about kind of how all those three are intersecting in today’s world. And I think it’s important conversation to have, given where the world is changing. You just you
know I feel like we all need to become experts in AIas as we’re in our product or our specialty, and this gentleman has run multiple companies across real estate development and media, and he hosts a podcast called Successful Idiots where they learn a lot about what not to do and teach us some similar ways to do it better, and he also runs Storage Moguls. Hard to pronounce, but you can learn more about that by going to Storage Mongols AI. Please welcome the show with me, Mr. Joe Downs. Joe, how we doing?
Joe
Great, Brett. How are you? It’s Storage Moguls, like a ski mogul.
Brett
Yeah, sorry. Like those history channels, right? Where it’s like the like I get that word mixed up. Or, anyways, okay. But be that as it may, share us a little more about your story and your focus now, and then we’ll take it from there.
Joe
Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me, and thanks for putting on shows like this for you know up and coming entrepreneurs who didn’t have this. I didn’t have a podcast to listen to when I was driving around looking for real estate deals 25years ago. So, kudos to you for putting this stuff for this information out there. A little bit about me is that was that was probably maybe the history there is you know I’ve learned in the last couple years that I was a serial entrepreneur, not necessarily by design, but by survival. You know, I’ve been involved in various asset classes, all tangentially or directly related to real estate, commercial real estate, and they’ve all gone through you know ebbs and flows and cycles, and I’ve gotten knocked down, and you know I told you I’m from outside of Philly, so I’ll steal one of Rocky’s lines. It’s not about how hard you get knocked down; it’s about how you get back up. So, unfortunately for me, although fortunately because I think that’s what molds you as you grow, I’ve been knocked down a few times and had to learn to get back up and fight for another day, and you know I think I tell my kids I wouldn’t I wouldn’t. There are mistakes I’ve made in the past, and knowing what I know now, would I do them differently or make different decisions differently? And the answer is no, because I ended up here, where I am, and what I went through, which you can look back and easily call a mistake or boneheaded or this or that has helped what forge and mold me as to who I am today. So, it’s weird. It’s funny when you look back and like, oh, that was a mistake, but I wouldn’t change it.
Brett
Excellent. I love it. That’s part of why the thesis of your podcast probably has done very well, and you’re going to learn and you’re going to be appreciative for what the lessons taught you, and how and how they helped afford who you are today. So, let’s talk about you know storage practitioners, not professors, and storage moguls, and AI, and just this this world that’s changing rapidly. How are you know best helping others to embrace it and to succeed in today’s world.
Joe
Yeah, great question. So, for a while, we’ve been in self-storage for seven plus years now. We’ve acquired ourselves 20 facilities. In fact, this is a kind of a busy couple weeks for us because we’re closing on, I think three in the next 10 days. So, we’ll be up to 23 facilities where we’ve got two in development that are pro storage facilities, and then all along I’ve been I went through a mentorship training program myself years ago, and then because we were so successful, the gentleman who used to run that invited me back. So, I went from speaking on stage, you know. Kind of the social proof of hey! you can do this too, to next thing.
Brett
So, if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody
Watch the episode here:
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About Joe Downs
Joe Downs is a commercial real estate entrepreneur, AI strategist, and CEO of Belrose Storage, where he leads acquisitions, operations, and strategic growth across a national self-storage portfolio. With more than 17 years of experience spanning commercial real estate, distressed debt, mortgages, and business development, Joe has built a reputation for identifying overlooked opportunities and turning them into scalable, high-performing businesses.
Joe is also the founder of StorageMoguls.AI, an education platform dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and investors leverage artificial intelligence to acquire, operate, and scale self-storage businesses more efficiently. Through his content, coaching, and podcast appearances, he teaches practical AI workflows, operational systems, and investment strategies that enable business owners to increase productivity, reduce overhead, and create lasting enterprise value. Passionate about servant leadership and continuous innovation, Joe is on a mission to help entrepreneurs build smarter businesses that can grow from millions to billions.
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