99.9% of Ranches Are in the Red

Jonathan Lusk grew up one of six in Whitesboro, Texas, about 70 miles north of Dallas, the son of a fisheries biologist. He went to Texas A&M, worked for AT&T, and moved to Houston when his wife started medical school, where he decided to go into finance because he did not want to be poor anymore. He earned an MBA at Rice, joined Goldman Sachs, moved to Avalon Advisors and then started his own firm, running money for 25 families. One client was Jason Ballard, CEO of the 3D-printing construction company ICON. Ballard told Lusk, then semi-retired at 38, that he was wasting his life, and asked him to manage his taxes and his ranch as well as his money. Looking for a way to put the ranch to work, Lusk searched for an Airbnb for hunting, found none, and Ballard put up the capital to build one. Lusk co-founded BirdDog in 2022, signed 10 ranches with commercial hunting operations, and Colt McCoy became his second investor. A white-label deal with Field & Stream and coverage on Fox Business opened 15 to 16 states, then hunts in Mexico, Argentina and Africa. BirdDog has since dropped its 20 percent take rate and lets landowners list for free, using the marketplace to reach landowners and earning its revenue from Section 180 deductions, a share of the spread on ranch loans, and insurance. The company is headquartered in Chappell Hill, Texas, in a downtown building that once held the town's post office. In Chappell Hill his wife runs a pediatric concierge practice a few doors down, the family helped plant a church, and they are starting a school and restoring the old general store.