Justin Smith: 10 Years in Prison for Selling Bath Salts — Now Building a Tech Empire

“I knew what I was doing was wrong. But the temptation of money is insane.”

Justin Smith didn’t start as a drug dealer. He started as a 12-year-old building computers in rural Ohio. By 13, he was running a dial-up internet service provider from his parents’ house. By 23, he was running an 800-property real estate empire. And then everything collapsed.

From Louvaille to Full Sail

Justin grew up in Louvaille, Ohio — population 300. No stoplights. No stop signs. His mother was a contractor who worked through three back surgeries. His father worked in a factory and never aspired to much more.

Justin was different. At 12, he built his first computer for profit. At 13, he launched a dialup ISP called Verra.net — you can still see the old website on Archive.org’s Wayback Machine. When customers called at 3 AM with connection problems, he answered. When DSL came to town nine months later and killed his business, he didn’t lose money.

He went to Full Sail University and earned a Master’s in Entertainment Business and Law in under three years. The secret: eight-hour school days, four hours of lectures plus four hours of hands-on labs.

The Real Estate Years

After graduation, Justin answered one job posting on Craigslist. A top-30-under-30 realtor called him immediately. “If you want this job, you’ll show up right now.” Justin showed up in a cutoff shirt, covered in tattoos, wearing a bandana and a lip ring. The realtor didn’t care. He sat Justin at a computer with a broken website and said, “Fix this bug and you’re hired.”

Justin fixed it in under a minute.

Within three months, Justin had taken over the company’s side business — Ad to Z CDs, selling through Amazon Fulfillment. Within six months, he was running everything: the real estate operation, the property management division, the handyman team. Over five years, they grew from a dozen rentals to over 800 properties under management with just two leasing agents and one property manager.

Then Scott, the CEO, started acting erratically. Adderall pills fell out of his jacket at work. Employees came to Justin worried. Strange emails went to investors. One morning Justin got fired.

The Gray Area

After losing his job, Justin took freelance gigs. He built websites. He did video production. The money was fine but not exciting.

A colleague who owned smoke shops approached him. The top-selling product in every location? Spice — synthetic marijuana. More revenue from spice than all other products combined.

Justin figured out the supply chain. Chinese labs sold synthetic cannabinoids by the kilogram. You take one gram of pure chemical, spray it on ten grams of loose leaf herbs, and sell those grams for $25 each retail. One kilogram costing $1,500 could generate $250,000 in retail value.

His first order was three kilos, shipped directly to his house. He was terrified signing for the package. It was completely legal at the time.

Then came the synthetic Molly — methylone, also called BK-MDMA. Same margins, same Chinese suppliers, same gray legal area. Justin was wholesaling kilograms for $10,000 each. His customers were buying a hundred at a time.

He knew it was wrong. He felt the guilt. But he convinced himself he just needed $3 million saved, and then he’d stop. Instead, he started spending: a recording studio, $80,000 mixing consoles, an office building. He couldn’t explain where the money came from. He wasn’t thinking about getting caught.

284 Kilograms

China updates its drug schedule once a year, on January 1st. In December, his Chinese supplier had 284 kilos to liquidate. Justin said he’d take a hundred on consignment.

He split the shipment across 20 addresses — some he controlled, some belonged to college students who had no idea who he was. The DEA had been watching him for a year.

They seized it all. They raided his house, his recording studio, every property simultaneously. Military boots on his head at 6 AM. Zip ties. His girlfriend next to him. All from one encrypted email saying “I can handle a hundred of them.”

151 Months

The federal analog act meant his drugs could be charged as the nearest related controlled substance. The marijuana equivalency table said one gram of what he had equaled 500 grams of marijuana.

His lawyer told him the odds at trial were terrible. The evidence was overwhelming. Justin pled guilty.

The judge sentenced him to 151 months — just over 12 years. “I know what I did was wrong,” Justin told the court. “This is not a reflection of who I really am.” The judge wasn’t moved. Justin went to prison.

Building from Behind Bars

County jail was worse than federal prison. Someone took food off his tray, so he had to fight. Four guys jumped him. He got thrown in the hole with a man who smeared feces on the vents.

Federal prison was different. When he arrived at Coleman, other inmates brought him shower shoes, essentials, advice. “You don’t have to pay it back,” they told him. The clock was ticking. He might as well learn something.

Justin read over 500 books. He went through the RDAP drug treatment program. And he started thinking about the handyman estimator he’d built years ago at the real estate company — a tool that eliminated double data entry for field service work.

Using a contraband phone (he knew the risk, calculated the reward), Justin built a software company. Nine months before his release date, he retained a business law firm. He set up a Delaware C Corp with proper cap table management. He recruited developers in India to work for equity. The beta launched six months before he walked out.

The First Step Act cut his sentence short. He served just under six years instead of twelve.

Contractor Plus

Today, Contractor Plus has 18,000 users. The app helps handymen, plumbers, electricians, and HVAC companies run their businesses from their phones — estimates, invoices, scheduling, dispatching. It’s the tool Justin wished he’d had when he was running that property management empire.

Justin works from an office in his building. He gives Friday morning team meetings that borrow from the prison RDAP program — what went well, what could be better, holding each other accountable. His probation officer became one of his biggest supporters, introducing him to business networks and professionals.

One year after release, Justin petitioned for early termination of his three-year supervision. The prosecutor didn’t object. Neither did his probation officer. The judge granted it in three days, thanking Justin for being “a prime example of the good that can come out of our correctional system.”

The Lesson He Keeps Repeating

“If you’re out there selling drugs or doing something in the gray area, if you know in your heart it’s wrong — stop. Walk away. The temptation of money is real. But you don’t have to learn things the hard way.”

Justin believes his experience opened doors that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Prison gave him time to read, to think, to build something different. But he wouldn’t recommend it.

“The worst that happens when you don’t ask is you’re right where you started. But if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

You can find Justin’s company at contractorplus.app or download the app from any app store.