This week, Matt is joined by Joe Margolis, CEO of Extra Space Storage, one of the largest providers of self-storage in the U.S. Joe explores the drivers of the exponential growth the industry has seen in the past few years, the importance of company culture and customer care, and why self-storage is ultimately about hope.

Matt shares an interesting connection with Extra Space. His wife is a member of its board and was instrumental in helping raise Extra Space’s first institutional capital. They have seen from both inside and out that Extra Space is a company that cares deeply about providing an excellent customer experience and maintaining a family-centered culture. Joe illustrates this point with a story from his first week at Extra Space. He’d moved from the East Coast to Utah for the job, and at the end of the work day asked an employee to run some numbers for him. Joe expected the employee to jump to it right away, and was shocked when he took the numbers and went home to have dinner with his family. He learned quickly that family time was a priority for the business and that not everything needed to be treated as an emergency.

Joe shares the diverse industry landscape that comprises self-storage. While Extra Space and its five top competitors make up about 30% of the country’s storage facilities, the majority of the storage facilities in the country are still owned by smaller or regional owners, who usually have a portfolio of two to fifteen stores. Thus, self-storage is on the more fragmented side of the real estate industry and will be fascinating to follow as its demand continues to increase.