Alex Zemianek
I’m an operator first. Everything I advise on, I’ve actually run — real properties, real payroll, real guests, and a real technology stack I built myself when the off-the-shelf tools couldn’t keep up.
Operator to advisor
For most of my career I was the guy running the business, not the guy writing the software. I spent 20 years buying, operating, and scaling real estate — from single homes to commercial buildings to a property management operation of 70+ units. I lived inside the tools every operator knows, and I hit the same walls everyone hits.
Then AI changed what a non-technical founder could do. Instead of waiting on a vendor roadmap, I built our own platform — revenue reporting, owner statements, distribution, automation — the whole operations layer, sitting on top of the systems we already ran. It worked. So I built a second one for a state trade association’s advocacy work.
Somewhere in there, the vendors and platforms I used started asking me what I thought. What was missing. What actually helps an operator versus what just demos well. That’s advisory now — the operator’s seat, made available to the founders and companies building the next generation of this industry.
How I got here
- The lawn
It started with my parents’ lawn mower. I’d knock on doors, cut yards, then put the money back into faster equipment so I could cut more. That’s the whole operator instinct in one summer — find the work, do it well, reinvest.
- AT&T
I started in a mall kiosk. Store manager in six months, the company’s biggest store inside two years, and eventually the #1 regional manager in the country. Nine years of learning how to run a P&L and lead a team before I walked away.
- KJZ Investments
After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, I bought my first properties and named the company after my dad, Kevin Joseph Zemianek. He passed at 52, right as he and my mom were building their dream home at the lake. Naming it KJZ was how I carried him into the work.
- JZ Properties
KJZ grew into JZ Properties. The “JZ” is the middle and last initials of three generations of Zemianeks — my grandfather, my dad, and me. Twenty years in, that portfolio spans homes and commercial real estate across two states, plus a 70+ property management operation.
- The platform
A couple of years ago I couldn’t write a line of production code. So I learned to build with AI instead of around it, and stood up a full operations platform for our rentals — then did it again as an advocacy tool for a state trade association. That’s the work I now help other people do.
If any of that sounds like your world, let’s talk.
Whether you’re building the technology or running the operation, I’m happy to get under the hood with you.
See how the advisory works