Brandon Barnum didn't have a lot of consistency in his early life. His parents split up, and he was constantly moving across the nation with his mother. She was more of a free-spirit, and wasn't really focused on finances, so Brandon grew up living off of food stamps and government assistance. As young as twelve years old, he knew he wanted a different life for himself and he found his consistency in thriving to make a better life for himself.

In college, Brandon got a degree in marketing but always had plans to one day open his own business. After college, he went to work in marketing for a law office but was only making $20,000 a year. At the age of 24, he got full custody of his two year old son. That's when he decided he needed to pursue his entreprenuerial passions. He asked his boss to lay him off so he could collect unemployment for a short time, and he went and started working in the mortgage industry. While he didn't know much about mortgages, he knew he wanted to do things a little differently.

He set up a website at that time, which at the time was not being used much to set up a localized version of a Zillow to help attract more clients.

In 18 months, he 10x his income making over $200,000 a year. After about a decade in the mortgage industry, he realized the power of relationships in the industry. He founded a company which would merge to one day become refer.com. After taking refer.com to 5 million users, he had a successful exit.

Now, Brandon runs HOA.com to provider better solutions for homeowner associations nationwide. He has also written the book Raving Referrals to help everyone understand the power of referrals.