Should I wait to graduate and simply start off by house-hacking a few triplexes/quads and go from there, or should I start actively looking for deals to utilize my private lender and to get my foot in the door and start scaling as early as possible?

just to clarify, when I say smaller deal i meant $1MM below and larger I meant $1MM to $3MM (what I'm focused on). so even at that larger scale (to me), i'm still mostly dealing with individual sellers instead of companies. 

Getting to one million is more than possible, you just need to start somewhere and then scale accordingly. 

But I do want to take this seriously as I don’t plan on scaling skyscrapers and beating my body to death until I’m 60 years old.

Consider contacting him to see what he is up to.Bigger properties lead to:1) Less tenant risk2) Better economies of scale (less cost/unit compared to single family or small multifamily)3) Better returns (see 1 and 2)

I read in the blog below that Oklahoma is 50/50 on the Landlord friendliness scale.

From what I know, the common process of financing in the real estate development is like this:https://cdn.corporatefinanceinstitute.com/assets/p...But what if a junior developer who has less job experience in this field than any others and is trying to develop a huge scale of townhouses?

In regards to out of state I would also recommend SCALE. 

What are some strategies to scale after those intial two?  

Fees vary by market and management company and when you have scale.