Three Business Deep Dives: Fencing, Stock Tank Pools, Saunas & Cold Plunges. Ep. #84

I literally quit my great office job to learn how to build fences. I joined a crew and I was making 15 bucks an hour.

The magic is where you find low barrier to entry plus really ugly manual labor.

I came across the idea of a stock tank pool. I just loved how it looked. So I put one in my backyard. I could probably sell some of these.

I like to call this a piggyback model. You see a new Walmart opens and a game stops right in front of it.

If you don't have $100,000 for an in ground pool, this is super easy. I was buying so many of them from tractor supply from other feed stores. I'd buy out their inventory in a few.

Welcome to the Kerner office. You are going to love this episode because it's a hybrid episode. I've never done one like this. I found an entrepreneur that's a lot like myself that started multiple things and went deep in all of them. So today you get the benefit of three deep dives in one episode from the same person. Sam did a fencing slash pergola business, so we went into that. He has a stock tank installation business where people can spend, you know, 2 to 5 grand to install an 8 to 10 foot diameter stock tank in their backyard. That's perfect for millennials just hanging out or kids. This is a booming industry that most people would never believe or maybe even think should exist, but it's very profitable and anyone could do this. And then lastly, but certainly not least, Sam talked about his sauna slash cold plunge business which is inside of someone else's gym that's grossing over 10 grand a month and is a really unique concept that you are going to love. Three deep dives one episode. One awesome entrepreneur named Sam. Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time. Sam, tell us who you are and what you do.

Yeah, so my name is Sam Uncart. I'm from Fort Worth, Texas. Essentially went to school at Texas Tech, got a great normal job. After college, I worked for a company named Alcon for four or five years and always found myself wanting to own my own business. You know, I had that entrepreneur mindset. I could tell from from the start I just wasn't happy in my, in my corporate job. So four or five years went by and basically I decided I wanted to get in the construction industry. I had some friends who were home builders and both commercial and residential construction. And basically I wanted to learn from the ground up. So I literally quit my great office job to learn how to build fences. So I joined a crew, and I was making, you know, 15 bucks an hour, just burning through my savings, and I wanted to learn how to do the work myself and then start my own fencing company, essentially.

Did you tell them that, or were you just like, I'm looking for a job?

I told when I was being hired because the guy looked at me like, you know, I was probably overdressed for the interview.

Yeah. I mean, Sam, you're wearing a Patagonia vest right now. Come on.

And I had like, you know, I have a college degree on my resume. He's like, you know what you applied for? And I was like, you? Yes, sir, I do. I'll be upfront with you. You know, I want to learn how to do it myself because I want to open up my own business. And he said, you know, we need the help, and I'm happy to, you know, very open. He helped me on the business side as well. You know, if I asked questions, he would answer it. He did not see me as competition, which was great. Yeah. I mean, I worked for him for six months and literally was out digging holes, you know, driving a trailer around. And in the spare time, when I was in the truck with my boss, I'd ask him questions about the business side of things and learn the business that way.

Did you tell him you wanted to start a fencing business or home service or any business?

I said fencing. So I told him I had buddies who were home builders that, you know, my goal was basically to learn the business, get a crew together, and then get some contracts through them. And he did more custom fencing, some elaborate gates, like nice ranch fences. So maybe that's why he wasn't too threatened. But also, just the market. I mean, there's more work than workers. So that's what I told him. I told him from the very start.

What was it about fencing that turned you on to it? Conversation you had with a home builder or.

Yeah, my home builder buddies. You know, one the contracts, they sign them for the entire neighborhood. So you get 60 houses all at once. So that's a good thing and a bad thing because they expect the work to be done. You have a short window once the house is done to run the fence. But also, it's low barrier to entry. You can YouTube how to build a fence, and after an hour or two, you can feel. Most people can feel pretty comfortable doing fence in their backyard. It doesn't require a lot of crazy power tools. You know, it's not. You're not framing a house. You're not Plumbing, doing electrical work. It's digging holes, setting posts, and screwing in fence boards, essentially.

It's kind of giving me a framework as you talk about it. Like, I'm opening a sheet right now to take note of this. So of, like, low barrier to entry. Like, on the surface, it's like, oh, that's bad, because I'm going to have a lot of competitors. But it's good because you can get in easily. Right. But I think the magic is where you find low barrier to entry plus, like, really ugly manual labor. That's, like the magical sweet spot. Like, I interviewed these guides that have a pond cleaning business, and the barrier to entry is buying a $20 rake from home Depot. Nobody wants to, like, go waist deep in a pond, step on a snapping turtle, and, like, rake weeds up and, like, lift them up that are waterlogged and put them on the shore, like nobody wants to do so. It's a great business.

Yep.

It sounds like fencing.

Yep, it is. And I mean, after a week, I could pretty much build like, three different types of fences pretty comfortably. Like, I knew how to do it myself. So it's. It's very. It's very quick and easy, but you hit it. You hit the nail on the head. Like, who wants to go out there and dig holes to set posts? You're working with concrete bags. It's heavy, it's bulky. You know, you're driving a trailer all around dfw, which is like Mad Max with traffic out there. So it's not fun, but it's easy to get started. It's just hard to stick with it. But there's a lot of money in it.

So did you launch the. The fence business? And if so, how did it go?

I got burned out on fencing. I did like woodworking, so I switched to sort of pergolas and decks. So same concept, outdoor woodworking. And I did do that for. I'd say not. Not even a year. I'd say six to eight months.

Did you start the fence business or did you get burned out while working the job?

I got burnout while I was on the job. And I said, I am going to start a business, but I don't want to just focus on fencing.

Yeah, you saw. You saw too much.

I guess so. Yeah, I saw too much. Also having more conversations with my home builder buddies. They talked about, you know, we'll give you the business, but here's what we expect. And I would have to give. You know, it'd be zero to a hundred. I mean, I'd have To have like five crews all at once.

Okay.

And I was more wanting to just, you know, have myself and one or two crews and we're starting on these small jobs to get my feet running. And if I let my, you know, it's my good friend from childhood, I don't want to say, yes, I can do this and let them down and. Cause.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So. So it's not just like the conversation opened your eyes to it. The conversation was like, you go do this and I'll sub my jobs out to you because I don't have a good fencing guy. I need a good fencing guy.

Exactly.

And then when push came to shove, it's like, he's like, okay, here's a job. Go hire five crews. And you're like, whoa, this is risky. This is dangerous.

It was essentially he. He got a bigger neighborhood than we originally thought he got, and he also got a promotion. So, I mean, he was over like a subdivision now.

Wow.

Like three or four neighborhoods in there. And in order to beat the current bid, like, this guy's been doing it for a while, and it just. It was just too big. You know, I'd be. It'd be. I could have done it, but it'd be great.

Yeah, yeah. So you still. You still really like the business, especially if you start small and, you know, start getting residential jobs. And that's completely different from like, all right, here's a. Here's a subdivision.

Yeah.

For your first job, you know, and.

These subdivisions, they nickel and dime. They give the offer to. It's really, really cheap, which I didn't like as well. So there's still. I mean, it's always in my back pocket, I think, to go and do the private jobs and the nicer ranch jobs, you know, those sort of things. But those subdivisions, those home builders, I mean, they don't mess around. And it's such a tight. The way home building works. You know, the frame goes and the brick goes, and there's like a three or four day period where the fence needs to be done. And that's times 100 homes. So you're on their time having to, you know, I gotta do a fence on this street. Okay, now we're waiting a day now. 40 homes just opened up. Now you need five crews activated. Some weeks just need one activated.

So that's crazy.

A crazy thought. So that, that pushed me back, but I went and started building pergolas and pergola business.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Which low barrier to entry somewhat. There's you have to have some carpentry skills. You have to pull permits from the city. It's a lot more, you know, detail planning than a fence, which I like. I like woodworking, so I fit right in. I have that mindset of, you know, I know how to do the marketing. I know how to run ads, acquire customers, and I also know how to, you know, saw cut, design a pergola structurally, so it's safe. Work with, you know, electricians to wire in ceiling fans, things like that. So I did that for six months.

And how did that go? How did you find your jobs? What were your margins like?

I did Yelp ads. I ran ads on Yelp. I signed up for Angie's List. You know, all the basics. Google Ads put videos out there on social media. I have a somewhat. I think I do. I'm biased, obviously, but a creative side on social media. So I'm pretty good at filming the progress, like the TikTok style when it comes to construction. So I did that. And, you know, once you get one or two of those jobs and get some content, you know, I just really reuse that content, film it from different angles to build a portfolio, and then slowly but surely, jobs started coming in. For pergolas, I did it for six months. I probably did eight to 10 jobs. And they're all, you know, when I say pergola, it's. It's a wooden structure. It's just wood. I mean, it's. It's cedar wood. I'm not putting brick. I'm not putting siding, windows. It's just a structure to put shade over a patio, essentially.

What's an average job size? Like both top and bottom line?

Yeah. So it costs. It's really just wood. And some screws and materials cost you anywhere from three to 4,000. And then I was charging anywhere from eight to 10,000.

Are you buying a kit or is this all custom?

This is just from a lumber yard. And they. They would deliver it. And wood's so expensive. Lumber so expensive, especially cedar wood. Some of These posts cost $400 for one, and, you know, multiply that by six, and then you got, you know, wood running on top and wood running to the side, and it adds up quick. And then the hardware is another four or five hundred bucks. So wood's expensive, especially cedar.

Were you doing it yourself or did you have a crew?

Both. So I started with myself, and then I had a buddy that whenever he was off work, he'd come help me. We do. I think we did five or six ourselves. And Then I was at Lowe's and I saw a guy loading up a bunch of wood in his trailer. And I just said, hey, you know, do you build pergolas? He said, yep, followed me to the job site, said, yeah, we can do this for X number of dollars. I said, let's go.

What did he charge you?

It wasn't unreasonable. I mean, I was probably making, you know, before I would make 5,000, I was probably. I probably paid in like 2,000 in labor.

You didn't have to do it.

I didn't have to do it. Yeah. It was the best day of my life not having to do it.

Okay.

I love doing it. But Texas, it was heated. Texas, summer, other things going on. It's near impossible to run the business side and do the work yourself unless you're a madman.

So is that kind of why you got out of it?

No. So I built a few decks as well, wooden decks. And someone said, hey, do you install above ground pools? Not to go off another tangent, that's another whole business is just installing above ground pools. Those come in a kit, and if you can assemble furniture and you're somewhat handy and you have two or three guys, you can assemble an above ground pool. So I said, yes, we'll do the deck. We'll assemble the pool.

Was the deck built around the pool, correct?

Yeah, it was a deck specifically for a pool. And the person said, hey. They just said, hey, do you have any interest in installing this pool for me? I'll give you. I was like, 500 bucks. And I looked at the box and I YouTubed it. I was like, I could knock this out half a day with a buddy. So we'll do it videoed. That got two or three more pool jobs. And that's what kind of launched me.

Like, you, you set up a camera and like a time lapse video or.

I don't know if I did time lapse. I just. I just filmed different angles and.

Okay.

And I have that sort of, you know, millennial marketing eye. I can make a nice kind of TikTok style video, so.

And that got you more jobs?

It did a hundred percent. That got me more jobs. I ran an ad.

Where did you post it? Like, sorry, did you post. You push paid ads to the video or you posted it to your personal socials?

Or I posted my personal ones and I'd ask friends to share it. And then I posted to my business social and then I ran it as an ad as well. So I used it as an ad, which worked. And then I. On Like Angie's List, I put that I was an above ground pool installer. That's like one of the service options. And I got a couple of jobs that way. It's not glamorous, but they're not that hard to do. And there's a market out there for people who want above ground pools or cheaper pools. It's 105 degrees in DFW for five months out of the year. If you don't have a hundred thousand dollars for an in ground pool, here's a $5,000 option.

And most people don't believe the in ground pools cost 100 grand, but they absolutely do.

Yes, it is. That's where I come in.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So you started doing pools. You did a handful of them, and then what made you pivot away from that?

So, you know, I learned about what a stock tank pool is. I saw it online somewhere and I actually, I wanted to pull in my backyard after doing this. My wife's like, you're building all these pools now. Let's get an above ground pool. So I did the research on what I wanted. I didn't want anything high maintenance. And came across the idea of a stock tank pool, which I guess for. For listeners out there, you know, it's essentially, you look like a cattle trough. It's so silver, round. You know, things you see on ranches that horses drink out of. People are. We're converting those into pools. And I thought that was just such a cool idea. It's trendy looking, you know, it's real esthetic. And there's a company down in Austin, Cowboy Pools. Cowboy Pools, Yeah. And they are amazing at their marketing and how they position it. They actually, they do a lot more than we do to their actual pool that with different equipment. There's more expensive, but there's much more of a luxury setup than the things that they do. And I just loved how it looked and the idea. So I put one in my backyard, uploaded a video, same thing, videoed it. I was like, I could probably sell some of these. And that just took off. Off.

Did you ever see the Instagram reel? I posted about this by chance?

I did. I did.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah, I saw.

I thought it was so cool.

Yeah, I saw that. And then I saw your whatever post about interviewing for your podcast.

So. Yeah, yeah. You're like, chris likes this.

Yeah.

It's funny because all the comments on that are like, you're so stupid. No one would pay $5,000 for this. It's like, I'm not inventing this idea. This is a thing already.

I saw that, I read all those comments and I was like, I can't believe how much backlash this is getting. I know I'd get it on my ads too. Funny enough. People are just, there's no way that that's going to be so hot. This and that. And they're just like, why are you taking your time out of your day to comment?

Yeah. On a. I know.

Business ad. But it's part of the.

It helps the ad do better.

Yeah, yeah. Keep engaging. Yeah.

So are you buying these from like tractor supply and then the pool equipment from like Amazon?

Yes. So pool equipment from Amazon and then the tanks themselves, a number of suppliers. The tractor supply has them. There's like store Russell Feed and supply, which is might be local to Texas. There's a few of them and then a couple other farm and ranch stores. But primarily tractor supplies where I, where I get them.

Okay. And what are the unit economics on this business?

The tanks, they come in, they come in a bunch of sizes, but the, the ones for pools, they're either 8 foot diameter, 10 foot diameter. And the 10 foot one from tractor supply costs like 850 bucks. 900 bucks. Sorry. The 10 foot cost 850. 900. And then the 8 foot cost around like 600. 550. That's just the tank itself from tractor supply. They change between location, location and then the pool equipment, everything, the fittings, there's a few plumbing pieces. I buy a few extras, a few extra things. I make it so just easier maintenance on the pool is like three to $403. Let's call it 350. So you know, if you're looking for a 10 foot pool with all the pump, with everything set up, it's around $1,200.

I'd say for you the cost, all in the cost, not including labor.

Nope. If I was going to put them in my backyard today, went to buy everything. $1,200. Buy everything you need.

Now how many hours of labor are we talking?

An hour or less.

Wow.

Yeah.

Drill some holes, screw in some pvc, set it and forget it.

Yep. We offer ground leveling so that the tank needs to be level. There's a lot of companies. The. Most of the companies I see out there don't do that.

Why would you not do that?

It is tough. You know, sometimes you show up and there's a, like.

Because it's hard, Chris.

Huge incline. Especially in dfw. If you know the area. Like if I'm in Glen Rose, it's solid rock. I know the area. So I, I asked the homeowner, like, hey, you live here. How's the digging? How much of an incline are you on? I. I know that beforehand. And if I ask for a picture and if it's a high incline, I say, we're going to upcharge you for digging more than four inches. Essentially, I just use a tiller and shovels. And, you know, some, some days we've done some that took four hours to level, and it was just back.

How much of an upcharge on average?

Usually it was like 300. And I say if, if it's 4 inches or more of an incline, then we upcharge you for the digging. And then there are a few that were just crazy inclines. And I would charge, you know, five, six hundred bucks for that.

Yeah, okay.

But it wasn't hard. And so we level the ground, you know, we deliver the tank, obviously, we position it, we drill the holes, you know, install the equipment, we fill it with water and wait for it to get to the right level and run everything to make sure there's no leaks, everything's running properly. Walk the homeowner through everything, and then you're done.

So there's no continuous water source setup. You literally are just filling it up with a hose, right?

Yeah, you fill it with a hose and then you run the pump. And the pump that we use is made for a pool. You know, an above ground pool that's the size of a tank so they stay really clean. They're low maintenance, super easy to work.

On, you know, if you don't any chemicals.

Chlorine. It's chlorine. So you buy a little, you know, the rubber ducky floaters, and you put a little chlorine tab in there and that's it. Less is more. You don't want to do anything crazy with the chemicals because it's a steel tank. It's galvanized steel. So if you put some, you know, heavy, harsh pool chemicals in there, it could cause rust, it could cause other issues to the tank.

Yeah. Is it just like, for sitting, like, just, just to like, chill, have a drink, get out of the hot sun? Like, you're not swimming in that thing, right?

Definitely not. You don't want to dive into it. But I, I'm, you know, I'm six two.

Unless you're at a. Unless you're at a circus and you're 50ft up.

Yeah, no, I, I'm six two and I can eat. I have an eight foot and I can put my arms up, you know, crack a beer, kick my legs all the way out, spread out and fully relax with my wife and I have a kid, one kid that's old enough to get in.

Okay. Yes.

I'd say it's like a lounge pool, and then great for kids as well.

And how deep?

It's two feet deep, which is. I found the perfect height. I mean, again, I'm a little taller, but my wife is, I don't know, five, eight. And we both can sit there with our arms up, and it's not, you know, you're not too far down, too far up. It's a really. It's a nice depth to. To sit in.

It's like a cool hot tub. It's like a cool tub.

It's. It's a hot tub that you can get them. You can get them with heaters, but it's like a hot tub that you sit in the lounge. And I mean, it's. Again, it's dfw. It's so hot in the summertime.

Yeah.

I want to mow the yard after I'm done mowing. Like, it's just so nice to go. Just dip in for 30 seconds. Like, get all the grass off me, wash off, cool down instantly. There's nothing like it. I mean, it's. It's perfect.

I think this is just. The more I think about it, the more I think this is just a brilliant product idea.

Yeah.

Like, I feel like if. If you got those haters on the phone and we actually had this conversation, like, okay, I could see why, you know, like, do you live in Texas? Do you know what 106 plus 80% humidity feels like for four months straight? Like, geez, last week it was still 93 degrees in mid October. Like, what are we doing?

Yeah, no, it's. It's hot summers. If you don't have a hundred thousand dollars for an in ground pool, or if you don't want a giant above ground pool, which has a lot of maintenance, this is super easy. And if you want to get rid of it, drain it, flip it over, put it on Facebook, Marketplace, roll it to the dump. I mean, it's.

Can't do that with any other pool.

No, no, man.

It's like, it's perfect for millennials because millennials want it for themselves because they want to, you know, crack a beer in the hot sun and then their kids want it. It's perfect for the whole family. Is that your. Your target market or are there like, boomers in There, too.

There's boomers in there too. You know, we work with a lot of older couples who use it as a lounge. They're retired. They just want to place to cool off, but they don't want to invest in some giant pool. And then I had plenty of families that had kids who were five or six years old who were sitting out there watching me fill it with water, saying, can I get in now? Can I get in now? Can I get in now? Because it's. It's not a kiddie pool, but, I mean, it's. It's a perfect size for. For kids to get in, splash, play. It's like my daughter, she's. She's not even three, and she gets in and splashes. And I mean, she loves it. She. It's. Yeah, it's awesome for kids, so.

All right, so outside of the upcharge for leveling it, what do you charge for these things? Your costs are 1200 an hour of labor, whether it's you or an employee. What are you charging?

8 foot? I charge around 2,200. And then the 10 foot, I can. I charge 2400 to 26. I change it. I upcharge. I went to 2600 last season and was fine.

Are they both 2ft deep?

They are.

Okay. And then what are your primary customer acquisition channels? Social media.

Yeah. So social media. Paid Facebook ads, I think I spent around. I spent like 3,500 bucks last summer on Facebook ads. That was. The primary driver was Facebook that I found worked best for this business.

Do you know how many jobs that directly brought you that $3,500?

I don't. Not off the top of my head. Majority of them, you know, 80%, I'd say, came from that. And, you know, what was cool to see last summer is I started to get a few referrals. People would post. Post me on their social media tag me, and then a few days later, I'd say, hey, my friend, you know, shared your story. I'm in. So and so outside of Dallas, wanted to get a quote from you, which was cool to see that snowball effect start to happen.

The Facebook ad acquisition channel, scalable. Like, could you really ramp that up?

Yes. Yeah. I want to spend more this year for sure. But it definitely is. I just have to have, you know, it's just me and it was me and my helper this last season.

Yeah.

But there were days where I could have very easily had two crews. You know, I was not turning down jobs, but I was saying, hey, I can get to you in eight to nine days. And some customers fell through the cracks because of that. I definitely can scale it. You just have to have. I just need the right things in place before I start spending more. But I pull back the ad, spend some days because I was booked out 14 days and I didn't want to lose business. Absolutely scalable.

Now, is there a world where you could change your ads up a little bit and add the heating element, add a few hundred more dollars and make it like an all season hot tub, cool tub?

Yes. And I thought about that going into this off season. I, I did a few actually on the tail end whenever it started cooling down, which it cooled down like yesterday. It's been pretty hot the last few days. But there is, you absolutely can. And there's a few other things you need to do to make it a true. I wouldn't even say hot tub. But Texas summer is somewhat mild. This wouldn't be for every market. If you're open the north and you want a hot tub, get a hot tub. You don't want to get this. And then because it's just not insulated well enough, it's going to cost you a lot of electrical or propane. There's basically. There's a steel tank and there's a poly tank. It's plastic. You essentially have to buy both, put the plastic in the steel so it's better insulated. You can even spray foam on the insides of the tube to make it a true hot tub. But if you want to go all season and you pay for the ads and you, you know, market is that you absolutely can, especially in this market because we have mild winners and you can get the water warmer rather than.

Yeah.

10 degrees, you know. Per month.

Yeah. Do you have any bearing on how much cowboy pools are doing in revenue or number of jobs?

I don't. I just, I see their ads. I mean, I'm in the business, so I see their ads all the time. So I, I know they're doing well, but they do a lot of cool stuff. You know, they're. They're involved. This, this isn't what ace like acl. I don't think they're part of acl, but they do like festivals, like large music festivals. They bring out a tub, they set it up.

Austin City limits.

Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Okay.

I don't think they're part of that. I'm just saying I've seen them. They were at some music festival. I just go to Austin city limits. But it's Austin. There's you know, one a festival a week, but they just do really cool stuff like that. I mean, they, they. They have some really cool marketing, so I know they're doing well. They also ship nationwide pools, which blows my mind how they can do that, but.

Wow. I wonder if you could fit that on a pallet. I mean, pallets are 4x4.

They have a box truck. I've seen it. That they.

Geez Louise.

I don't know the logistics behind it.

How does that work?

They have a video, and it's a box truck, and these people are on, you know, unloading it. I don't know where they're at. They're outside of Texas, so I don't know if they're just driving it from their warehouse in Austin or what, but it's. It's cool. It's an interesting idea that that's possible.

Okay, so this is something that you're actively doing. It's kind of going into the off season, but you're going to scale it up even more next year, right?

Correct. So the, the big. I'd say the big differentiator that I want to do is buy the tanks from the manufacturer. The minimum order, it's around, it's like $35,000 for the purchase. And you get. I don't know the number off top of my head. Like, it's like 70 to 80 tanks. So you get. You get a big supply. But that's the biggest headache of this job for me last season, was getting the tanks, finding them because I was buying so many of them from Tractor Supply, from other feed stores. I mean, I'd buy out their inventory in a few days, and then they wouldn't have any. So now I'm driving up to West Fort Worth, and I have a job in East Dallas. So I have to go get the tank, drive across the Metroplex. Just a hassle to get the tanks. So that's my next goal for next season, is to get the tanks. You have to buy them all up front, and then you have to have a place to store them all. They're huge. They take up a bunch of space. But once I have that, I mean, that's just. It's so much easier to. To do this.

Yeah. Cause I imagine you're like, you. You get a job, then you go to Tractor Supply and buy the tank. So it's kind of hard to scale under that system.

Yes. And, you know, if. If Tractor Supply had tanks, I'd buy them all. When I started a month into the business and saw that hey, this is working. I had no problem buying all the tanks I could when I'd find them, storing them in my yard. But they don't carry more than, you know, five or six, so it's tough to know. And there's two sizes, you know, and so some places it happened all the time. Tractor supply said they had a ten foot. I drive an hour and a half to go on site and it's an eight foot. Or it has a huge dent in it because it's been sitting in the yard and someone hit it with a forklift. So, yeah, getting the tanks was a pain, but buying them from the manufacturer, it's a hefty bill. But it's a game changer to have it in your warehouse, go pick up what you need and go.

Yeah, I mean, you could have a big storage unit even, right?

Yeah, that's what, that's what I'm going to do is just have a storage unit and fill them super easy. And, and whenever I did the math, I mean, it saves me several hundred a job, like three or four hundred bucks. And that's just the cost of the tank, not the time, not the headache to go get it from Tractor Supply. My margins go up.

First of all, I love talking to you because you're doing all these little things like you're very ADHD like myself, which that's a compliment.

You're like, I know to some it's.

Not, but yeah, no, it is. It is. Like, it could be bad, but I'm biased about myself. So I think it's good. So I think you're good. All right, so tell me about the sauna business. Because this, you've got a brick and mortar business there in Cleburne, which is south of dfw. I'm very curious about that as well.

So it started out, there's five of us total, five partners. And I wasn't even on the trip. It was a bachelor trip with some of that group of guys and they all party too hard the night before. And they found a place, I think they were in Louisiana. They found a contrast therapy place, which is a sauna, sauna and cold plunge contrast therapy facility. So basically, you know, you get in the cold water, you get in the sauna, you can go back and forth and it's supposed to alleviate hangovers. They did that and loved it and basically, you know, had the conversation of we should start one of these. And you know, back home in dfw, and this was two, three years ago that they originally talked about it and they very seriously put the work in. They talked to building owners to find a spot to lease. They put a proposal together, did 90% of the work, but they struggled to find the right location. I'm in Cleveland, Texas. The gym I work out at, World Gym, had a office or a build. It's probably two times. You can't see my room two times as big as a bedroom. And it was for lease inside of the gym. And I snapped a picture to my buddy and said, hey, you know, what about in here? Like, we're inside of a gym? Absolutely. They loved it. You know, I was, you know, doing the pools, so that's so lucky.

Sorry I got to interrupt you. Yeah. Not like you didn't do any hard work, but, like, it's just like the perfect location in your backyard, in your gym, probably stupid, cheap, and it's like the perfect audience. You're not going to compete with the gym. I'm sure they have. This isn't even on their radar, so they don't care. Is it just. Was it just perfect or is that just me?

It was. And that's why. That's why it worked out. And that's why, you know, I got to be cut in as, you know, partner, and all the stars aligned. But on top of that, everything you just said, you know, I was the guy who was going to run it, manage it, the operator, trustworthy, you know, we didn't have to hire out, and we could save money by using me, who now work too much and don't get paid enough for it. So it all worked out. It's like the only gym. There's a Planet Fitness in town. This gym's, you know, 10 times better. It's nice, it's clean, there's awesome equipment, it's always packed. And, you know, that's our perfect audience. We do run ads, but we don't have to because the gym brings in people naturally. If anyone moves down here, they want to join a gym, they go to World Gym. And we're right inside the gym, which is awesome.

Before we get too deeply into it, I want to know what they saw in Louisiana that, like, was the light bulb moment for them.

I don't know the name of the facility, but they went and did it themselves and how great they felt afterwards. So, you know.

And what is it exactly? I. I'm not familiar with the concept.

Yeah, so it's a cold plunge, is basically. It's a big bathtub.

Okay. Sorry. It's a. It's a cold plunge.

Yeah. And it has A filter on it. It's running. It's chlorinated. It's running 24, 7. It's like a $10,000 piece of equipment. One of them. But the water gets, like, it gets down to 30, I think these get to 35, 36.

Okay.

Which is. It's colder than the ice bath.

That's cool. That's cold.

Yeah.

It's literally colder than ice. Yeah.

So, I mean, you think, you know, ice water frozen is 32 degrees. If you get in water that's 32 degrees. What happens when you sit still? Your body forms, like a heat barrier around your body, and it actually keeps you a little warm. The way these cold plungers work, they circulate water so it's constantly running. So your body doesn't. No.

No warm for you.

Not at all. You don't ever warm up. So it's. It's tougher than an ice bath. I get a lot of athletes that say, you know, I did ice baths and football in high school. This is not like that.

It's like, oh, that's.

But it's that. And then in combination with the sauna. So it's a. It's an sauna that you sit in. We have four of them. They get really hot and that. That. It's called contrast therapy. Going hot, cold.

Okay.

There's a lot.

Okay. You're riding, like, every tailwind, every tidal wave right now. Andrew Huberman is like your best friend.

Joe Rogan, every.

Every tech bro, every podcast, every tweet is all on your. On your side. They're all your business partners.

Yeah. Whenever I hire a new employee and I kind of work with them on their sales pitch, you can get really scientific with what it does for the body. But you can also say, you know, pro athletes take ice, Ice baths for a reason. Right. Like, yeah, it's. It's proven. It's already out there.

Yeah.

If you can't remember these scientific words, you know, day one, talk about how your favorite athlete takes ice baths.

Yeah. Dak Prescott uses it. You're good to go.

Yeah.

Where do we sign exactly?

So. And yeah, the demand's out there. It's a really cool up and coming thing, this contrast therapy.

Are the infrared saunas. Are. Are those like, the more affordable ones?

Yes and no. They're probably more expensive than a traditional sauna, because a traditional sauna, you just need a little electric heater and you can put it in a. I wouldn't do this, but you can put it in a closet and heat the room up. Yeah, but you need, like, you need insulated. You need, you know, the floors to be able to handle moisture. These are. We buy. I mean, it's a kit and you basically assemble the sauna and there's two infrared heaters, and it has like red light therapy, and it's, it's a nice, it's a nice unit. And they cost us like 7 to 8,000 each.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, not. That's not very cheap. I mean, cheaper than like a purpose built, you know, cedar sauna, but not cheap.

No. Some people convert their closets and you can go buy cedar planks from a hardware store, you know, insulate the room. Then you just buy the electric heater, which can cost, okay, 500 bucks. So you can, you can get away with a cheap sauna.

Okay.

It's the same thing. You just have to know how to do it.

I imagine you got one cold pledge and four of these because they're spending four times as much time in the, in the sauna.

Yeah. We have two cold plunges, four saunas.

Okay. Okay. So twice as long.

Yep, yep. Okay. So the way our room is set up is our facility set up. We have a cold plunge that's in a private room. So if, you know, people are, you know, put girls getting in a swimsuit or guys taking a shirt off, you know, they want some privacy, they're going to scream at the shock, make faces, you know, they can have their own time. We have a sauna, same thing. It's in a private room. And then we have a cold plunge that's like, as soon as you walk in, it's right there under our neon sign, you know, for that visual effect.

Oh, man. You're just taking your TikTok brain and, and implanting it there, huh?

Exactly.

Like this has to be shareable.

Exactly.

Is there a different price for the private versus public? And I think it's so brilliant that you did both because, like me, I'm an introvert. I don't like people watching me. Believe it or not, I'm on a podcast. I don't. Something like that. Yeah. So if I go on a cold plunge, unless I'm with like my best friend, I don't want, I don't want any eyes on that. I'll go in the private one. But a lot of people, or just like the shock aspect of it and the, the viral aspect of it, like, or it's. There's like the dare aspect, the challenge, like, you really need to have a public and a private.

Yeah, you do. We have Just membership levels. And if you buy the top membership, then you get access. You can download our app and you can book ahead of time.

Which got an app.

It's so it's not. We didn't develop the app. It's our right. The software we use, it's like white labeled or. Yeah, we just like put our logo on it and someone logs in, they see our still.

I mean to the general public, that's your own app. That's cool for sure.

So they can book ahead of time with the app and then we have a, you know, the lowest membership level, you can't book ahead of time. You can still use the private stuff, but if it's booked ahead of time, like you're out of luck. You just gotta wait or whatever. So that's how we structure it is basically pay for the highest membership and then you can book and have it whenever you want.

What are the membership prices in Lummos?

Unlimited. If you want unlimited Access, it's a 45 minute session, $75 a month. And that gives you access to the sauna and the plunge. And if you look at our competition, we were half. I mean there's, there's one up in Fort Worth. If you're in Dallas, you're looking at like 150 to $175 a month. They use the same equipment we do.

Yeah.

Have a nicer built out, you know, standalone facility in downtown Dallas. But they have the same exact saunas we use and the same plunges we use.

Wow. Okay, so unlimited 75 bucks a month. Is that private or public?

Both. That's where you can book the private and then you can. We also just have walk ins. So if you want to walk in, use the sauna, use the blinds, walk in.

How much is. I thought the private was more expensive.

It's not more expensive. It's only available for the people who pay 75. If, if you don't pay that 75, then you don't have access to book those. The private ones.

Gotcha. And then how much is just a walk in? Like a one time.

One time is $30. If you're just walking in 30 bucks and you get, you know, a full session.

Okay. And are most people doing it just after their gym session or are they coming in just for that?

Majority are after their gym session. A few people come in, use the cold plunge, go work out, lift, and then they come back for the sauna because cold plunge wakes you up, gives you a ton of energy. Dopamine. Then they go work out after that.

They must love it.

Yeah.

I bet you get amazing feedback.

It's crazy. It is. I mean, we have people, so we offer first times free. And we did that because people come in smart, they get hooked. I. I've never done it before. The first time I did it, I was hooked. Yeah, so we do that. And then people just. Just come back naturally and say, hey, I need to do this again. Let me sign up.

Oh, man. Okay, so is there like a funnel? Like a physical. Like a physical funnel? Will they walk in the gym? And there's like some signage. Like, how much leeway do you have to, like, funnel people towards your door?

Yeah, I mean, the gym is. They work with us, you know, if we. We bring in customers for us that naturally join the gym and vice versa. So we have signs out front. We have, you know, posters on our windows and our. And we're right by the water coolers. So I have some signs right above the water coolers. You know, Jim helps us out. They also, like, share our social media. They help us with, like, their email list. You know, they gave us their email list. They used them, which was huge. They're. They're very helpful. I mean, such a beneficial relationship with a gin.

And there's no, like, what do you pay them in, like, in rent?

2,000Amonth.

Okay. Yeah. But outside of that, there's no, like, financial. It's just kind of like, you scratch my back, I'm scratching yours. We can't really measure exactly, but we just both trust this is very symbiotic.

Yes. Yeah. We. We explored, you know, being included in their gym memberships and working with them like that.

But it gets a little hairy.

It does. It gets a little hairy. And we're, you know, we. We opened December 1 this year, so we're new. We were just figuring it out. So we're. We're completely separate in that, you know, in that regard, but we share the same building and we both, you know, beneficially bring in business to each other.

You said December 1st. So, like the end of last year.

Last year. End of last year.

Okay.

Yep.

And how has it gone so far? Like, what are your numbers? Like, how many customers?

Yeah, so we're. We're close to break even. We just paid off all our equipment, so. Which is huge because we, we did a one year note, essentially a little less than that. We're right at like 130 monthly recurring members with insurance. You know what. We pay our employees and rent and, you know, we do Facebook ads and all our other Little rinky dink things. We're close to break even after within the first year, which is great.

Yeah. Including paying off your equipment Outside of that. Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

So saunas are like, what, 30 grand for all those cold plunge? 20 grand?

Yeah. 50 grand, essentially for all the equipment. I know insurance was. We're trying to work on getting insurance lower because, you know, it's a big liability to have water or someone get out of the plunge. Slip out of the plunge. So we have a pretty high insurance bill, but we're working on getting that lower. But also, it hasn't been a year and we haven't done a lot of marketing outside of the gym itself and Facebook. So that's part of what I'm doing now is getting more involved with the Cleburne community and surrounding cities to do a little more like guerrilla marketing type stuff.

I mean, I think January is going to be massive because I'm sure you wanted to capture that New Year's tailwind, but nobody knew about you yet. Right? But now it's like you've got thousands of people that know about you that have never signed up. That January 1st rolls around, it's like, okay, let's do it.

I'm excited for January and it works out. You know, being in the pool off season is. I'll have more time for. But. And also naturally, you know, DFW, summer, it's 105 degrees out. Who wants to go sit in a sauna? Some people do. I do. After my workout. I mean, I still go, you know, cold plunge feels nice. But there's a dip. June, July, with just member activity, both new and current members. But we're really picking up now, especially with this cold front that just came in.

What's like your capacity with your, your four saunas and your two cold plunges? What could your MRR be at full capacity?

Our goal has always been 200 members. That's not the capacity by any means. You can fit three people comfortably in each sauna. Oh, you have the private one. So three. That's 12 on the. Or, that's. Sorry, that's nine on people on the outside of the sauna and then one in the private. So that's 10 people in the sauna at once and then two people in the cold plunge. You know, 12 people in there, it'd be crowded. It'd be a little hectic. We haven't gotten there, but we've had, you know, six, eight people in there at once. Comfortable.

Wow.

But 200 has always been our goal. But that's not capacity. We could.

Yeah, I mean, because you could serve like if you divide it up like a customer every five or six minutes. Really? Yeah, if it's 45 minutes. And I'm sure it's like morning and afternoons and like dead in between, right?

Yeah. There definitely are some lulls where, you know, one or two people come in during the workday, but you're spot on. Mornings are very busy. And then, you know, once people get off work, they go work out. If they're coming into us after they work out, that six o' clock range gets real busy for us.

How often do you cycle out the water in the cold plunge? Is that a concern?

That's probably the, the my least favorite part of this job because I do it myself every two days. So I go in there and we didn't buy a drain, so we'd have to like jackhammer through the floor, through the concrete. So I have to pump the water out through a, like through a pipe. So I go in there with a pump and hose. I did it this morning. I was up at 5am, went to drain.

You regret not getting a drain?

I do. That's gonna be my first purchase. Once we, you know, start making some money off this thing is a definitely have a drain, but it's not that bad. But you do have to stay on top of that. The saunas, super low maintenance. You know, we wipe them down every. Like, I did it at the six month mark. I sanded it and I put this clear coat to protect it from wet stains and stuff. But the water, the cold plunges are the, the most maintenance for, for the physical space.

How has everything gone according to your projections? Because like, you and I have been in this seat sometimes alone, sometimes with partners. You put a spreadsheet together and you're like, everyone's on cloud nine. You're like, this is amazing. We just need to get this many customers, we'll break even yet. How has it gone compared to how that conversation went?

It's good. I'm not the numbers guy in this equation, so, you know, if I was ever worried, I'd get on.

But you're wearing a Patagonia vest. Like, what are you doing?

I know. Yes, it's from my old corporate job. I didn't buy it. It was given.

Okay, okay.

But he's all smiles when we get on the calls and he talks the numbers and goes through the giant finance list and he's like, yeah, this is all good. I mean, it's steady upwards. It's A slow burn. And I always have to remind myself it hasn't even been a year yet. Like, yeah, we're in the gym. I. I work out there almost, you know, probably five, six times a week. And I see people who I know have not came in yet, and I pat people on the shoulder and I say, hey, have you tried us out yet? No. Why not? I just, you know, haven't gone in there. I. You know, so people are just hesitant or afraid to come try us out. So there's still a ton of opportunity just being in that gym, which is awesome.

Yeah.

But it's just a slow burn. But it's a steady upward arrow, which is nice.

I wonder if you could do, like, if you could, like, work with the gym to do, like, a cold plunge day, maybe you could do like, a free day, and you're already doing free. But, like, like a day dedicated to everyone doing a cold plunge. Or you can even test it where it's like, hey, $20Amazon or Starbucks gift card for. For doing a free cold plunge. Like, literally paying them if. If they're really getting addicted right off the bat. Like, why not?

We've done some interesting marketing things. Nothing like a cold plunge day. The one I've been thinking about for Christmas is we'll match your. Not match your donation. We'll donate on your behalf for, you know, if you're in the cold plunge for X minutes, that's X dollars.

Oh, that's cool.

So we're going to donate to. I have to find where.

Have you ever seen those prank videos where someone walks up to someone on the street and they're like, hey, for a dollar, would you save a child? Have you ever seen that? And they're like, what? Huh? Like, for a dollar, we say, okay, here's five dollars. And then the van rolls up, five kids sprint out, and they're like, what you could do. That's like, for every minute that you don't stay in the cold plunge, someone in Africa is starving.

Yeah. Flies. Some people. Yeah.

What's the plan to scale this? Or is your scaling plan just like, let's double our customers in this one location? Or do you really want multiple locations?

We want multiple locations. We want to do a couple more, you know, under our, you know, partnership, and then we want to franchise. So again, that's where I probably wouldn't have started this business if I didn't have the partners that I do. The finance guy that I do, that's how his mind works. He knows the site. He knows how to Franchise. He knows, you know, how to go out, get a loan, you know, raise money. But we want to get this one profitable and then we want to pull the trigger on one or two ourselves. And then after that we want to just open the door. Hey, let's get 10 more this year.

Yeah. I look at it as very similar to the float spa concept, but probably less trendy, which is a good thing, like more sustainable. Right. You just have high fixed costs. You got one employee at the door checking people in and out. Not high fixed costs, high upfront, one time costs. Then you've got your set overhead that literally does not change every month. And you know, once we hit this nmr, we're good. After that it's all gravy. That kind of how you look at it.

I do, yes. And that's what all excited. It's an interesting business model. I just, monthly recurring revenue is just, it's an amazing, beautiful. Yeah, I just, I love it. And every time I sign someone up or get a new member, you know, I don't see it. It's, you know, yeah, we've got 75 bucks. How long are they going to stay? I mean every month now we're getting that. It's just, it's feeling.

Yeah. I like to call this like a piggyback model. Like you see a new Walmart opens and a game stops right in front of it. You see a Starbucks open and there's a Chipotle right next to it. And then more specifically in LA Fitness opens. There's going to be a strip mall out front with like a GNC and like a Jamba Juice. And it's like the hardest part about this in my opinion, is it going to be finding that space that's small enough for your need. I used to open iPhone repair stores and we wanted to be in the best retail locations, like the best, because it was an upscale store, but we only needed 4 or 500 square feet. But nobody builds under 1200 really square feet in a strip mall. That was always the hardest part is finding the small enough space for this.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's the location, location, location, very important. And the fact that we're in the gym, you know, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be in Cleveland, Texas. That wouldn't be our location if, yeah, for that spot. And I've driven around to other gyms. I, I, I pulled a big list of gyms in DFW and I drove to like 10 of them to see if they had any office space. Like one did, but they weren't interested. They were using it for something else. But it's a. If you find a spot like that. So this gym, there's a barber shop next to us that is slammed. And I go, I go there. When I joined the gym, I said, that's amazing. They have a barber shop here, completely separate in the D. Like the gym, just like us, but it's packed out the door. I talk to them every day. They stay super busy. I know the owner. I mean, they. They crush it. There's so it is what you said, that piggyback aspect. Find the right spot. A gym with an office in it. Yeah, it's a gold mine.

If other than the, you know, adding the drain with a jackhammer, what would you have done differently on day one or day negative 10?

I'd say focus. So our employees, you know, we wanted the place to be clean and presentable. That was what we drove home during the interviews and hiring process. I would shift that mindset to, you're not just a front desk associate, you're a salesperson. Your. Your job is to sell memberships. And on this, you know, the back burner. I don't say back burner, but this second half is, you know, keeping the space clean, you know, making sure it's presentable. But you're a salesperson. That's your job title. Membership sales associate is what we call them. Focus more on that.

So I've got a customer acquisition idea for you. I don't want to tell you what this was being used for, because a friend told me this in confidence. So I don't want to tell you the industry, but I'll just tell you that it's working very. I would tell you off the podcast, but I'll tell you it's working very well in a different industry. DMing people, locals on Instagram, specifically finding people that are checking in in local areas. You know, they live there, you know, they're millennial. You can see their pictures. And offering them a discount to join it seems like very unscalable, but it's very scalable and it's a very similar demographic to what you're doing in a similar service, kind of similar price point and everything.

Yeah, that's interesting.

This is an awesome business. I feel like five, ten years from now, we're going to see these all over.

There's a few big players out there and some nice, nice areas around DFW and around the nation, but it's. It's growing fast.

Well, we don't want to say their names because you're going to be the one doing this.

That's right.

Franchising it.

Yeah. Drip social sauna, Cleburne, Texas.

What's your website?

Drip sauna.co CEO. I primarily I run the Instagram and we have this guy at the gym. He has like 200,000 followers. He's a fitness influencer. He's done some videos for us and we've gotten like a hundred and one hundred thousand views on a few videos. It's pretty cool.

Oh, that's cool.

Piece of advice. You know, fitness influencers, they're. They're the real deal. They have a big following. It's like a cult. I mean, this kid has. I get so many comments on these videos from people all over. It's pretty funny.

But it's not like most of them aren't local, right?

Yeah, most aren't. We've gotten a few that have been. And this guy just knows everybody at the gym. But, you know, when we think about expanding, you know, that's when he comes into play. But yet he's. He has fans all over the U.S. oh, man.

Yeah. I've got a friend that does high ticket sales for Instagram fitness gurus like that. He sells their coaching products for five to ten grand. And you could totally just partner with them. Say, hey, you're already on the phone with these guys that are. That have money. Like, just push this to them as well.

Absolutely, man.

All right, Sam. Well, this was super good. Better than I expected, and I had high expectations, so thanks for your time. What is your email? If people want to reach out with any questions.

My email. I'll give them the drip email. Samripsana co Sam R I P S A U N A dot CO okay.

I would love to go around with you and install a pool and take. Make a YouTube video about it, if you wouldn't mind.

Let's do it. I'll let you know. It's a, you know, it's a slow season. I mean, we're not sure, not doing any. But when it warms back up, I'm planning on, you know, my goal is 100 plus next, next season, so.

Man, that's a good business.

Yeah, I'll let you.

Six figures in profit.

Yeah, it was a crazy, crazy summer for us.

Was that your first full summer or first summer period?

First full summer. I, I did the, the one before. You know, I did. I was focusing more on the woodworking and I did a couple of them. And then I said, you know what, how this was I'm going to hammer, I'm going to change. All my ads started working, and then I just shifted my whole business to, we're Texas tanks now, and that's what we do.

Yeah. See, this is just like my call right before. This was a guy that's doing trash can cleaning, and he's being very diligent and he's focused, and he quit his job for this. And it's growing and it's. It's go. It's going well, but he's saying no to a thousand things. And that's one way. It's not right, it's not wrong. That's just one way that works. You and I are different. We're chasing rabbits. Yeah, right. We're pivoting every six hours, six months, whatever. It tends to be. But it's like, it doesn't matter. Like, we're constantly refining down. All right, okay. I don't like that. I like this. I like that. Oh, this is a cool acquisition channel. Let's try this one over here. Let's try this. Like, people get so hung up on focus or not focus. And it's just like. Just stay in the game.

Just. I love that stay in the game advice. You know, my wife tells me the exact opposite. Quit starting businesses. Quit doing that.

Yeah.

And you always hear that, but I'm going to switch to your thinking. I like that.

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. One day I'm gonna sell a T shirt and it's just gonna say, compounding doesn't care. Like, we're not in. We're not interrupting compounding when we switch business ideas because we're still in the game. Like, we're still in business. Like, if you quit business, then, yes, compounding is interrupted. It's like selling a stock. But it's like our experiences, our failures, they all compound. And our wins get more exponential as we go. I love that I'm the most biased person that will ever give you that advice, but play this for your wife.

I'm listening to it. Yeah, I'll see what she says.

There you go. Well, Sam, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And this is going to be awesome.

Likewise. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it.

All right. Have a good day.

Alrighty. You, too.

All right, which was your favorite, fencing and pergolas stock tank installation or the sonic hole plunge business? Let me know in the comments below. Share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner Office.