I'm curious to know how other wholesalers have scaled their business, what the first deal did to help that? 

I self manage my first home but I am looking to scale.

Also creates unlimited scale potential.

how can i start and scale?

Simple, offer and demand, at all scales, not the only "rage" you are looking into it.  

Focus on 3 and 4 units, which will generate more income, have a lower cost-per-unit price, and better economies of scale.

Start small, prove to your wife you can do it and then scale.

Improve standards of living for my tenants by increasing the rents and qualify better scale tenants Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

That extra spread is what allows you to keep scaling as you can use this incremental capital (debt) to acquire more.The difficult part that I see for most investors is balancing this leverageable equity and acquisitions while maintaining or improving the cashflow as you acquire more and more.Sometimes you hit your equity numbers but you went into areas with less and less rent to value ratios so your cashflow is actually incrementally going down.

The goal is to scale with less closings.