Do you think Zillow rental manager is scalable?

I would suggest going with a multi family for scalability.

Last but not least, as I mentioned in my other comments is also more about scalability!

An entrepreneur has scalable,  documented systems in place to replace themselves. 

I strongly sugest set up your real estate investing as a scalable business from the start use your back ground and time to develop your business model and evaluating and finding properties to grow your portfolio.  

Sourcing deals yourself with direct marketing sounds like a great way to gain sufficient volume for a scalable business

I smh when I see newbies say - I'm broke so I want to wholesale as that's a sure path to failure because wholesaling requires knowledge and seed capital to do in a scalable fashion.What was the biggest lesson you learned in your first 12 months or thing that you wish you did differently?

It avoids the CA franchise tax, is scalable so you can add multiple assets under it while benefiting from the liability minimization structure of child series', and it can streamline your operations by using one set of books, bank account, etc.

It avoids the CA franchise tax, is scalable so you can add multiple assets under it while benefiting from the liability minimixation structure of child series' , and it can streamline your operations by using one set of books, bank account, etc.

The problem was, it's not scalable and i'm stuck being the management company.