333. The New Blueprint for Scaling Self Storage in 2026 (AI Changed Everything) w/Tyler Harper
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Self storage is boring.
You rent out metal boxes, tenants pay you to use them, and hopefully, you make a profit. But today’s guest is turning it into one of the most exciting asset classes with technology that streamlines operations and improves the customer experience in ways that weren’t possible until now.
The best part? Investors are slashing their overhead costs by up to 10%, giving them a new competitive advantage when analyzing and buying self storage facilities.
Today, Conner and George sit down with Tyler Harper from Patchwork Labs to discuss how he’s leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) within his self storage business. Tyler and his team aren’t just software developers. They’re investors who build solutions for their own problems—the same issues all self storage operators deal with day in and day out.
With these tools, they’re not only automating self storage and running their business 100% remotely but also scaling at a pace that is unimaginable for most—buying a new facility per week. Tyler shares how these products provide enormous value for smaller operators, how AI is reshaping the self storage industry, and why investors must adapt in 2026 or get left behind.
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- Self storage tools that help lower overhead costs and boost your bottom line
- Behind the software Tyler and his team developed specifically for self storage investors
- How artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the self storage industry in 2026
- Why smaller investors should target self storage facilities in tertiary markets
- How to use new technology to improve, automate, and scale your self storage business
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Try Patchwork Labs’ Conversational Voice AI, AVA: (707) 754-1658
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Storage is actually a really interesting thematic opportunity, specifically in more rural markets. |
| 0:04.0 | So we started buying, quit our jobs, sold our retirements, went all in, convinced a couple other folks to kind of join the bandwagon. |
| 0:11.0 | As we continued to buy, we started giving the tech to other folks, and it started working really well. |
| 0:16.0 | And so now here we are running an AI storage company and buying about a facility a week. |
| 0:28.3 | What's going on, everybody? |
| 0:29.5 | Welcome back to the self-storage income podcast. |
| 0:32.0 | George, holy smokes, man. |
| 0:33.9 | Today's episode was Fireman. |
| 0:37.1 | Yeah, 100% calling. We just got up a great call with Tyler |
| 0:39.8 | from Patrick Labs talking all about how he got into the industry, how he's leveraging AI with a software |
| 0:45.4 | background to really scale. And I think this can be a great episode, whether you're brand new |
| 0:50.4 | getting into storage or if you're an existing operator looking at like, how is AI disrupting |
| 0:55.0 | this industry? Because Tyler brings some really great insight. That was a jam-pack conversation today. |
| 1:00.4 | It really was, man. It was so much so where it's like, man, this is just so much incredible |
| 1:03.7 | information. I almost don't even know what to ask because it's like that the possibilities are |
| 1:07.7 | endless, right? It's just, it's so cool to see. And it is amazing to hear like how he got |
| 1:12.8 | started, how they've started to acquire facilities, what they're looking for, what they're doing. |
| 1:18.3 | I mean, he even talked, I mean, they're getting to the point where they're closing like one a |
| 1:21.0 | week kind of a deal, which is crazy to think on a scale. So he shares a lot of insight from |
| 1:27.1 | how they're doing that, how they scaled, how they've insight from how they're doing that, how they scaled, |
| 1:29.0 | how they've grown, what they're doing now, how they see people utilizing AI and their self-storage |
| 1:33.9 | businesses, how they've developed these tools around those needs and those challenges that people |
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