He Left Tesla to Buy a Plumbing Company. Here's What Happened Next.

Today we're talking about why going from tech to plumbing, which obviously is the most rational move ever.

You know you're going to get punched in the face.

You don't know what angle and how hard.

A lot of wins, a lot of punches in the face. When we bought this, we just said, let's make sure we have the war chest.

Any dipshit can buy a business. It's the running it profitably. That's the actual skill.

You want your team to be able to grow. You want your team to have opportunities. I think that's something that I strive for. The team has given me a ton of trust. They've jumped right in, which has been awesome.

What assumptions did you have on ownership that were just totally wrong?

I think I—

Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 150 business podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson. During the day, I run a plumbing, HVAC, and electrical company across Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee. And for fun, I run this podcast where I talk to my friends about how to grow their home service company. Today I have my good friend Jared Worthen on. I met Jared 4 years ago at one of our Breaking Fives. Today we talk about his transition From Tesla to owning a plumbing company. Jared, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this will be this will be fun to reconnect. You were out at our first Breaking Five, which was in 2023 or 4.

Yeah, I think March of 24.

Yeah, March 24. That's crazy. And yeah, today we're talking about like your background. We're talking about why going from tech to plumbing, which obviously is the most rational move ever. And we're talking about the plumbing and drain industry and just like your journey in ownership, uh, since you've acquired your business. So welcome. I'm excited to dive into this with you.

Excited to be here.

Awesome. Well, how about you get us started a little bit? Just like give us the background on Jared.

Yeah, I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and I, um, yeah, first generation college. So I came from a family of tradespeople, went Went to work for some construction companies, a pool service company and ServPro during college to kind of pay my way through, through school and then graduated. And I moved to Silicon Valley because there's opportunity and, and people are doing cool stuff. And so went down there and I started at Tesla and spent about 4 years on their sales and business side. So it was when they were selling the original Roadster, a few hundred of us in an office.

That thing is sick. That thing is sick. Supposedly they're making a new Roadster and like, I do want it.

It's, uh, yeah, so that— I mean, honestly, that's a great tie to the next part of my career or next path there. So I spent 4 years on the business and sales side, but I had studied manufacturing in college, so it was always like, how do I get to the engineering side of the company? And, um, so I was, you know, I sales manager for the 9th store that Tesla ever opened, which was fun. And yeah, was there for 4 years, and then I got coaxed away by an old boss to to a little fintech startup. Spent about a year and a half there, and I saw the runway running out there. And so, I jumped—

Yeah.

I got recruited back at Tesla and actually got an opportunity to manage operations for our design studios and rapid prototyping. So, the night that we revealed the Roadster, that was secretly built in the shop I was managing in combination between the Bay and LA, which was pretty fun. And the very first semi-trucks that rolled across the stage, if you ever saw a prototype vehicle, it was built in the CNC shops, the fab shops, the 3D printing labs that—

That's cool.

that were part of my team. So, um, super cool job. Um, and then COVID hit and my wife and I, we moved back to her hometown and I was able to go remote for a while. And then eventually Tesla started calling people back.

Yeah.

And it was, it was at the same time I had, I had been given, uh, by a buddy the Buy Then Build book. And, and I'd always wanted to do something on my own and it just didn't, didn't make sense to start a car company on the Central Coast of California. And so was, was looking at what, what are my other options and We're in a smaller college town. It's, you know, on the coast, smack dab between LA and the Bay is where we live. And, and so you just start looking around and it's, you know, kind of the core 3, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC. Those aren't going to go anywhere.

Yeah.

Having grown up in like a family of tradespeople, having worked in construction for a while, having managed machine shops and fab shops, I love, I love the people in it. I love the, culture in it. And so it felt natural to go back to. And then having the tech background, having the comfort with applying technology to some of these, you know, kind of more traditional business models was intriguing. You know, it's a whole set of tools. I think too often tech is wrapped up as like the solution. And I think in reality, they're just tools.

Mm-hmm.

And so if you're good at wielding those tools, they can be really powerful. And if you're cumbersome and not, you can do a lot of damage. And so, I felt like there was an opportunity there for me to come in and maybe do something. And so, I started searching while I was at Tesla. And then, like I said, the writing on the wall was there that if you're not willing to move back to the Bay Area or LA, your time is limited at Tesla.

Yeah.

And I didn't have any hot prospects yet and I had a wife and a couple of kids at home. And so, I said, okay, what's a good— How could I work remote so I can kind of keep searching on the side, but pay my bills and all that at the same time? And so I actually applied for a job at ServiceTitan and joined the team. And so I came on as a technical program manager there. We were rebuilding the kind of the backend architecture for MarketingPro at the time. They had bought Aspire and FieldRoutes and realized we couldn't quite get all the customers on the platform.

Yeah.

on the backend piece of it all. So we were rebuilding that. So I spent about a year and a half there. I thought I would learn a little more about the industry. I learned a lot about software tech and that side of stuff. And then, yeah, and then my wife and I were just kind of like, this isn't the right fit. This isn't really getting me closer to where I want to be. And so we were in the spot where she came in one day and she's like, why don't you just go do it? Like, we spent 2 years chasing this, you know, this Shortcut to save 2 years. Like at this point, just jump in.

Yeah.

Got on a truck and see what happens. And so after some, some conversations with a number of companies locally, I got an opportunity to work for a plumbing company and, um, and got my time towards my license and I was able to get my license. And then I actually—

Oh, you have your license now?

Mm-hmm. So I got my license and then, yeah. So in California, if you have a college degree, it shortens the amount of time and And so I was able to work towards that and get it. And then probably the biggest key was I was able to build relationships in industry. So our local supply house, the guy who runs kind of the biggest shop around, I had built a rapport with him and—

Yeah.

When it kind of got to that final stretch, we're like, all right, we need to make this happen. I called him up and who do I need to meet? You know, it's the, you know what I'm trying to do, you know what my long-term goal is, Who can you put me in front of? And had a few, you know, had a few interviews set up and, and met the owner or the, I guess now the previous owner of Drain Doctors. And, and the rest is, I guess, 4 months history. So, okay.

Yeah. So you, so you just did this thing.

Yeah.

We're talking to you in first 4 months. I love it.

It's, uh, yeah, we had a, had a kid January 17th and closed February 1st. And so it's, it's, my wife is a saint. It's, it's been, uh, it's been exactly like we drew it up, you know?

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Yeah. Part of it was working remote for a few years. Like I don't, I sat at this chair for, you know, when I was at service time, I was on calls with Armenia at 3 in the morning to, you know, so I was in this, this office, this one little room by myself. And I'm just not wired that way. I like being around people. I like working in an office with, with a team. So that part of that was a big part of it is, is I want to give, I want to invest back in the community. I feel like business ownership is one of the best ways you can do that. If you can run a good business, if you can provide head of household income jobs, um, I think that's really powerful. Um, and then, um, the other piece of it for me was going back to the pool maintenance and like the service and repair job I had in college. Relative to stage of life, that was one of the most fulfilling jobs I've probably ever had. I was a 19-year-old kid making 2 or 3 times minimum wage. So, the money wouldn't support a family now, but it was something that at the time, I felt like I had all this financial freedom. And then, there was something about being on a truck. You clock in, you get on a truck, you go out there. That pool was broken and now it's fixed, or this pump was broken and now it's fixed. This pool was dirty and now it's clean. Yeah.

Got to see the outcome. Yeah, I miss that too, to be honest, of like you get to like step back and like be like, I did a good job today. Like this water heater or boiler or furnace or whatever I installed that day looks good.

Yeah. You show up on July 2nd for someone who's having a 4th of July party and their pool's green and you're able to, you're able to get it fixed. You know, maybe it takes a day or two, but you're able to get something fixed by their party on the 4th of July. And you just, you know, there's just very real I don't know, maybe it's ego stroking or whatever, but it's satisfying. You see the satisfaction you can give customers. And so that was fun. So there was always kind of that nagging in the back of my head of like, that was the most fulfilled I've ever been. And then part of it was when moving to a small town like this, a college town, I just kind of said, what's here? We're right north of Vandenberg. So there is some—

Mm-hmm.

Like there is some aero tech manufacturing and some of that. Um, those just felt a little, I don't know, they just were less appealing to me. There was just something stable about the trades. And then when I honed in on the trades, it was 2008 hits again. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical aren't going away. The game will change. The game will get harder. You know, you have to, but your toilet doesn't flush. Someone's still calling you out. You know, you're, they're, they're going to repair the water heater or fix the water heater if they don't have hot water. They're going to repair the HVAC unit even if they don't have the funds to fully get it because they need heat for the family. Landscaping might not be as bulletproof. Some of the pool cleaning, you know, those are the things that people might cut if money gets tight.

Yeah.

And so I just felt there was stability in these 3. And then plumbing was kind of a luck of the draw. I mean, I built a Google Sheet with about 8, you know, I went from Paso to Santa Maria. And I said, okay, what are the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies here? And who are the owners? And how do I get ahold of them? And it was cold calling. It was showing up. It was, you know, scouring LinkedIn to see if there was an introduction that could be made. And, and took longer than, you know, I don't know if I knew it would've taken 3 and a half, 4 years to get across the starting line. I don't know if I'd had the, had the boldness to continue down the road, but ignorance Helps a lot. So yeah, yeah.

I think, um, you're what I would classify as, uh, like obviously it was a search process. So if people aren't familiar, um, search is like we're gonna go search and buy a business. Uh, did you bring— did you have investors or did you guys do this yourselves?

Okay. Yeah.

Um, so, but you're a part of what I would call the replenishment generation. So I have this idea in my head, and it seems to only be in my head, but I am getting more and more confirmation of it every day, that all of the— and this is a known— the first part's a known fact. All of the big companies sold before 2021, 2022. And so a lot of consolidators and financial backers in the industry believe that the industry is like, there's not much left. It's like, oh, it's overpicked or whatever. But what I always think is interesting is the amount of people that I know that bought their business the first time, they didn't exist in 2020 or 2021 as a competitor, and they run some of the largest regional platforms 4 years later. And I can think of a dozen people off the top of my head that are millennials that bought their business between 2020 and 2022, and that business is now a 30, 40, 50, 60, I know a guy who's 80.

Wow.

And he literally didn't have a business in 2019. And I think it's crazy. So I think it's a part of this, it's a different competitor now, and there's like millennials coming in. It's not what the business used to look like 10 years ago, but they become these, like they're replenishing the large regionals that were gobbled up by private equity. So yeah, I would sort of put you in this bucket because you're bringing sophistication. You're not a former plumber or something. You're bringing a technology background to scale this business. So it'll be interesting to watch. I think it'll be fun. But yeah, you're a part— in my head, I'm like, yeah, here's another one, another replenishment generation member.

Well, and it's, it's interesting locally, we don't have a ton of huge shops. And so Pipe Dreams came, Pipe Dreams has come in and bought a few of the, the bigger ones out.

I thought they've had some real challenges at Pipe Dreams. Am I making that up?

Uh, you know, I, I obviously never worked in any of the companies, but we, we see a lot, we see a lot of techs both at the last shop I worked at and then now, now here we, we have a lot of techs looking, um, when we post positions. Yeah, I think it's, from my viewpoint, it's a little bit of the running it from running a business from a spreadsheet and not necessarily from the office or from the front lines or whatever. So it's interesting. I mean, they bought a business, you know, they bought a business that had been here since like the '40s or the '50s.

Yeah.

And in a matter of a couple of years, it's amazing how quickly You know, I remember my parents telling me, you know, it takes a lifetime to build trust and, and, you know, a minute to lose it. And I think extrapolate that out to a business, it's very similar. And it was one of the things that appealed to me about Drain Doctors is they'd been here since the '70s sometime. There's arguments about when exactly it started, but they've been here for a long time and they've served their customers the same way for a long time.

Yeah.

And one of the, one of the things that I caution myself on is I think it's tempting to come in and say, I can buy leads, I can put all the software in place. And I think, again, it's a tool, and when applied correctly, it's going to be incredibly powerful. But if you go too far or you don't do it right, I think you can quickly alienate the people who got you there and the customers who got you there. And we're not— I'm not a 3 million person metro in Northeast Ohio. I'm—

Yeah.

Maybe half a million people stretched across an 80, 90-mile stretch of coast. And so I think the path for us is— what is it? What's the one in Tennessee Jack always talks about? Dairyberry or something? But it's—

Yeah, Dairyberry.

It's how do we— How do you own? How do we stay focused and go really deep? And so when I got into it, I think when I came out probably for the first breaking 5, it was, oh, we're gonna get to— we're gonna get to 3, and then we're gonna bring on HVAC, or we're gonna bring on electrician, and we're gonna do this, we're gonna be everything to everybody. And I think, you know, a few years of, you know, being in it and getting punched in the face, and you kind of see how hard it is to build one, you're kind of like, yeah, you know, I, I think we could probably build bigger than I think we can on the Central Coast. But at the same time, it's like, I want to do this one real well before we before we add more headaches, because it's, yeah, it's a small town. And, and so if you, if you burn too many bridges, that can spread really fast. And it's hard to come back from that. So I'm proceeding with caution, but also pretty aggressively, I think, for, for the market.

So yeah, yeah, that makes sense. What assumptions did you have on ownership that were just like totally wrong?

I think I, I think I knew it was, you know, you know, you're gonna get punched in the face. It's just how do you kind of stand up? You don't know what angle and how hard. And, and so I, I think that's funny. You know, I, I had, I had my last job and kind of last job I worked at, I got a chance to kind of test drive, so to speak. And I learned a lot.

Yeah.

And you kind of know, okay, the operations are actually a very small part of the business. And you know, there's HR, you know, there's all these other things. And, uh, I'd say the biggest, the biggest miss I had coming in here was workman's comp in California is a, is a nightmare. And so I'm a, I'm an asset sale. I'm a, a legally different entity than Than the guy I bought from. But in the state of California, your work— they have a workman's comp X-mod is what it's called. And it's basically your safety score relative to all other, you know, residential service repair plumbers. How safe is your business? And we learned that that can— that can— I learned the hard way that that can follow you. And so there were—

I can actually follow you. For the listener, that can follow you in most states.

Yeah.

And so we've had— we have history follow us in Ohio.

Yeah. So that was hard because there's like an impossibly narrow gap that you can shoot to dodge it. But it was about a 5% of revenue hit for us in like the—

That's crazy.

You get in and you're like, all right, sweet. We feel like the dust has kind of settled on the deal. And then I, more aggressively than our revenue would justify, I had brought in some capital Right away to bolster a website, to kind of build an online presence and do some of these things. And so we, of course, we, we go and we sign some of those contracts, we get some of those things going. And then we get the letter from, from the, uh, the Workman's Comp Board here in California. It was like, hey, you know, hey there, buddy. Yeah. Hey, how you doing?

So, hey, how you doing? Yeah. So either, oh, there you owe me a shitload of money.

Yeah. It's, uh, that multiple is wrong. By a couple factors. So it was, uh, that was tough. You know, you just, you think you do your due diligence and it turns out there's always a couple more stones that you need to turn over.

Yeah.

Luckily, you know, I'm very aware of, there's a lot I don't know. And so just, we, my wife and I were in a position that when we bought this, we just kind of said, let's, let's make sure we, let's make sure we have the war chest to get kicked, you know, I guess punched in the face is probably the more, uh, more, you know, Podcast-appropriate term, but getting kicked somewhere. Yeah, getting kicked in the nuts quite a few times.

Yeah, I mean, we're explicit on Apple, for better or worse.

There we go.

So can you walk me through, like, in whatever you're comfortable sharing, like, the deal a little bit? Like, for a lot of listeners, I think people are interested in acquisitions, but they don't really know where to start. So just like, what was negotiating like? Like, what's the specs on the deal?

Yeah, so it was doing I went off like last 3 years. And so it was doing about 1.3 top line and about 2 in seller discretionary earnings, something like that. I think I—

Okay.

We closed it right around a 3, 3.5. And so it was, yeah, times SDE. And so it was fine. It was a solid deal. I think I had gotten to the point where I don't know if I'm glad, I guess the seller would hear this after the deal, but I was to a point where, you know, I had turned over a ton of stones searching here and I was pretty geographically constrained and I just, I wanted a seat at the table. And so when—

Yeah.

The last deal I was, when the last deal kind of fell through, I was running in tandem on, okay, if I can find another deal, that's my preferred route. But if I need to buy a truck and start out of my garage and go that route, I will.

Um, yeah.

And then, like I mentioned to you, yeah, I was talking to one of our local vendors and just said, you know what I'm trying to do? Who can you introduce me to? And, and I got put in front of Dave and, and then, then it's— so Dave and I connected personally really quickly, met his wife and, you know, and him for coffee and—

Yeah.

Universe, the timing was perfect, but he's never bought and sold a business and, and candidly, neither had I, but I'd at least studied a whole lot more on it and how to price it and how to value it. And so he's got a CPA who also was not necessarily in it day in and day out. And so then it became his CPA threw a number out and I threw a number out. And then unfortunate for the seller, kind of put him in a tough spot where I think, you know, we had ridden together in a truck for a few months. He liked me, he wanted to sell to me, but his CPA is saying, don't take any less than this. And I'm saying, I don't know how that math works. And so—

Mm-hmm.

We spent probably a month. I was lucky enough to have enough of a relationship with Dave where I felt like I could kind of say, hey, here's the— I'm not trying to just be a seller undercutting you, but here's what I see. Here's what scares me. Here's what excites me. Here's how I get to this number.

Yeah.

And eventually, we were able to kind of come to a good agreement. And they were willing to carry a note for a while, which was nice. So between cash and a seller note, we We got it done. And, and, uh, yeah, and like I said, he's stayed on now and, and he's, you know, stayed on as a tech for me and, and yeah, enjoying, I think, not having to look at numbers and HR stuff and figure out who's gonna take that truck now that's sitting empty and all that fun stuff. So.

Yeah, we, um, just so, just to unpack that a little bit, I'm just gonna like sort of summarize it for the listener, for people that are thinking about M&A. Um, and, and this is a lot of like how we've done deals deals too. So it was a cash down plus a seller note. When we go to offer, we give 3 options. Here's your cash price, here's the price if I go get a bank loan, here's a seller note price. Seller note price is obviously the highest, cash is obviously the lowest. I'm trying to think what else we do. And then I think an important note, just as people think about this, is yeah, most people have never sold a business before, and obviously most people have also never bought a business before. And I think that there is no right or wrong price for a business. And I think that that's an— I mean, maybe there's a wrong price, but the market's pretty illiquid and it's pretty hard to see what other people have paid. And the right price is whatever 2 people can agree on and it makes the math work. And I just think people get really caught up. Valuation is much more of an art than a science. And the same business could be worth $2.5 million to one person and $1.5 million to the other, and both of those people could be right. So I just think just an important note, as people think about valuation, I think people for the first time, they just get so like, well, Well, what's the value? And it's like, well, the value is whatever the fuck you can get the other person to agree to. And it doesn't really matter. Like, there's no like right, you know?

No. And that might— I mean, my wife is a great sounding board. That's where she came in. She goes, it's not free to sit here. It's not free to search. And so that was— yeah, that was helpful when we talked about it. You just sit down and you say, okay, so we're here and he's here and it's a little more than we want to pay. It's probably a little more than my Google Excel spreadsheet says it's worth. Um, but at the same time, I've been searching for a while. I feel like you're in a good spot.

Like, I feel like you're in a good spot.

Oh yeah, I feel great about it. And I feel like the seller feels great about it. I feel great about it. And, um, and we got there. And the biggest thing for me is, is I, I wanted to get, I wanted to get in the game. Like, you know, I spent a lot of time studying, spent a lot of time learning, and it's like, okay, let me see, let me see if I can do this or not. Like, like, let me see if, let me see if I can get started.

I think that's like the most important step. Because if you're trying to grow a business and if M&A is on the roadmap, I think that the most powerful thing you can do is exactly what you've done. We're just like, hey, almost do the smallest deal you can do because you just have to get in there at some point. And then the doors open for you so much more because now you're the owner of Drain Doctors Plumbing and you're not just Jared from Everlasting Capital, whatever.

Yeah.

So yeah, Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's great. So like you're 120 days in, walk us through it. Like what's been the big stuff? What have you done? What have you not done? What opportunities are you seeing?

A lot of wins. Um, a couple, you know, a lot of punches in the face. We, um, like I said, so I started working for them in the summer of last year. I went on as, you know, as an apprentice and got to know the owner, got to know the team a little bit. So I think that helped me expedite We actually slid the close because of the birth of a third kiddo. Um, but it allowed me from day one, I knew everyone's name. They knew my name. Um, by that point they had seen me work. I'd been out on the end of a shovel with them for a little bit or under a house with them. So there was a little bit of a head start there that I think other people might not have. Um, so that was huge. And then the office manager was, you know, I had had conversations with her quite a bit about here's, As we were working through the deal, here's what I'm hoping to do, here's what we're going to roll out. And, and so, you know, they were working off of effectively an Excel spreadsheet for dispatch and paper invoices and, um, yeah, you know, how a lot of companies ran for a long time. And clearly it's, it's, it's working for them. Um, but if we want to do— if we want 10 techs, if we want 15 techs, 20 techs, that's not going to scale. And so it's a little bit of the mix. We've just last week went live on our CRM. Um, so that was a, you know, we're, we're in the fiasco of that where you're getting calls and permissions are wrong and trying to teach price booking and all that.

What'd you guys end up using?

We ended up going ServiceTitan. Um, you know, we came down to FieldRoutes and ServiceTitan and, um, my comfort—

FieldRoutes?

Um, and so my, my comfort level with ServiceTitan, having implemented it before, it's more expensive, but it was just something I knew, which at this point, You know, something that was, you know, relatively stable.

Yeah. One less thing to learn. That makes sense.

Exactly. So I decided to pay the premium to go that route. Um, so we're doing that. We're overhead in California is expensive. And so you look at, we have a great deal on a rental, on a lease for our building, but it's still expensive. And so that's currently, you know, it was currently being spread across 3 techs when I started. And so we have a couple, you know, a couple guys starting here in a couple of weeks. And so we're going to be You know, we'll have almost doubled, you know, obviously it's, it's a small team, so we're doubling the size of the team, which is cool.

Yeah, sweet.

So we'll be at 6 techs here by the end of June and, and chugging along. And our calendar is slammed. We, I think we had 20 Google reviews when I, when I started at the company last, last, you know, June and our last, yeah, June or July. And so we're working on that. Again, it's a small market. So we have one company over 1,000. I would say we have like 4 or 5 companies in the 200 to 700 range. And then, you know, now we're sitting there at 100.

Wow.

And with kind of some of the, with some of the changes where there's, you know, frequency, we're actually catching up pretty quick. And, you know, we're staying crazy busy. We're, I think we've got to keep these 6 techs busy and we're showing up 20th if you search water heater repair, water heater install in San Luis Obispo. So, It's great. We're busy and we're also doing a lot of the, like, how do people even find us stuff wrong? And so if we can get some of those things fixed, I think it's a pretty positive outlook.

Yeah.

Like I said, it's the structure around scaling that kind of scares me. So it's how do you teach the software, but then how do you put, again, how do you put the systems in place that really allow you to thrive, allow you to succeed. And so it's, are we closing out jobs right? Are we, you know, not from a, the pushing buttons perspective, but like, are we actually installing water heaters correctly? Are we doing it the way I wanna do it?

Yeah.

Are we— a lot of that cultural stuff is they had a few really good techs who had worked together for 15 years. And so they didn't write a lot of things down cuz they all knew it. But now as we're bringing new people into the fold, how do we start to communicate clearly and make sure that information is, is disseminated effectively and clearly. And bringing in a culture of training, bringing in a culture of, you know, open communication and just continue to build trust as we're pouring gas on the fire while we're, you know, trying to build it at the same time. So.

Most marketing agencies will show you clicks, impressions, and maybe even traffic, But none of that really matters if the phone's not ringing. And that's why we partnered with ServiceScalers. They are built specifically for home service companies, and they focus on one thing, which is driving real high-quality calls and book jobs. This is a no-brainer. They're offering a 60-day money-back guarantee on LSA management, Google Business Profile optimization, and website builds. If you don't get more visibility, more calls, and better leads, then you don't pay. If you want more For more booked jobs without the marketing headache, click the link below and book a free strategy call with Service Scalers. I mean, that sounds like— that sounds huge. I mean, doubling the first couple— like doubling texts in the first couple months is awesome. And it sounds like— I mean, 20 to 100 reviews is— I would have to imagine that really moved the needle, um, on like map, like showing up on map, which you're saying yes.

Yeah, we're seeing ourselves on a lot of searches. There's still some ones I'd like to— like to be more competitive on, but Yeah, it's—

have you seen, have you seen the list of like all the things to improve on your GBP?

Yes, I jumped on and did the like big reputation thing and we, you know, we're on— It's crazy.

There's like 270 things or something you can do with your Google Business Profile, which is kind of like ridiculous.

And they had used— it was— I forget who they were paying a few hundred bucks a month to manage their site and their And their online presence. And I, during my due diligence period, just logged into the backend of it all. And there were like, I think it was 88 broken links on the site and all of the, all of like the red flags that like don't get you to show up. And so it was, you know, it was encouraging to me during due diligence of like, man, I've worked there. I know they're busy. I know the phone is ringing off the hook. I know they're saying we can't do that job and they're turning people away.

Yeah.

And now I'm also seeing that they're not even— they're invisible in the eyes of Google.

Yeah.

And so there's— it's going to take an investment, but there's opportunity there, which was exciting. I think I thought I'd be a little more calculated and, you know, for a bad pun, a little more surgical coming in. Like, oh, we'll take some time and we'll let it go. And then I don't have the self-control to not be like, nah, let's just go for it. Just do it. Like, send it. And so we're, we're just going and—

Yeah, there's like 2 different philosophies on what to do when you buy a business. Like, one is like do no harm. So I'm gonna go in, I, you know, hey, if you bought something, you know, don't fix what's not broken if you bought a good business. And the other is like do a lot of harm, like just like get in there and like fix, fix shit. And I do think the bigger that— like, if somebody bought Wilson tomorrow They should do no harm. Like, this is a machine. You need to figure out what the fuck's going on before you start like doing shit. If you're buying an owner-operator business, you like get in there, like get your hands dirty, make changes, because there are low-hanging fruit that you can just double the business.

Yeah.

So I think I— yeah, people are always like, yeah, I'm just going to let it sit. And like, fuck no. Like, get in there. Like, Double it. Let's go.

It's been fun because it was like, you know, you get feedback from the team and it's like, we've never had— like, it's— we've never had to market. We're staying busy. And it's like, that is awesome. That's phenomenal. Like, you, you have a reputation and you have customers coming back. But what if you did? Like, and that was kind of the question.

No, totally, totally.

What if we did? What if we did that too? Like, it's not either or, it's also. And so it's been fun. They've— the team has given me a ton of Trust, probably, well, not even probably, way more than I deserve early on. They've just kind of said, look, I guess, fuck it, let's send it.

Let's go for the ride.

Yeah, they've jumped right in, which has been awesome. And I'm sure frustrating at times. And I'm sure difficult at times. But it's been cool. We had like, we got a call from, again, we're in a college town. So there's a ton of apartments. And we got a call from some guy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And she's, you know, my office manager's chatting with him and we went out and, you know, inspected a bunch of laterals on this like 70-unit apartment complex or whatever, 70-unit apartment complex. And how did you, how did you find us? And it was like an absolutely rewarding moment for me, just totally selfishly. But he was like, oh, I found you on Google. You guys got great reviews. And I was like, see, see, there's value. And it was like a cool, it was a very tangible—

Yeah.

She came to me and was like, hey, those reviews matter. Like we showed up. And he saw the reviews. And so it was, you just got to find, like, for me, when you get kicked in the nuts, it's like finding those, like, nah, but like, but we see the value in reviews now. We see why I'm handing out business cards with a QR code, like finding every way that it matches our culture right now to like, you know, kind of ask, like we've never asked. And so now to softly ask is a big step. And so—

Yeah. Yeah.

We're not aggressive. We're not sending a bunch of text messages yet. We're not sending a bunch of emails yet. I don't know if we will, but if we can tactfully ask at the end of it, if we've earned it, awesome. And, you know, 2 to 3 reviews a week would be a game changer for us. Like that is very doable across a team of 6 techs and some office staff. And so, you know, we kind of made it bite-sized and now we're seeing some wins from it and they're seeing some wins from it. And it's just kind of snow— I wouldn't say snowballing yet, but you can see that momentum building.

Yeah. You're getting traction. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Have, have you, what, what are you thinking next about like implementing and driving to the business? What, what's on the horizon? What's the opportunities?

I think we've sort of, we've, we've, with these new couple techs coming on, I think we're gonna kind of get a little bit big. I think we're gonna get big and a little bit unstable. And so it's probably gonna be maybe a little bit of a like stabilizing phase. Like let's, yeah, let's get our footing a little bit. And then I, I think it's driving some training. driving even just the— we're trained plumbing professionals. We got to somebody's house, you see something that's wrong, say something. And, and teaching them how to not be salesy, but like, if, if we see that their pressure is crazy high up, give— don't ask if you can send them an estimate, just give them an estimate for a PRV. Hey, I noticed this, it's wrong because it like, it concerns me as a plumbing professional because of X, Y, and Z. If you'd like us to take care of that for you, here you go. Like, that's the sales approach I'm trying to build at this point. And if we can get that culture again, in addition to Google and some of these other places, we'll keep ourselves busy. So teaching that culture is kind of teaching some of those things, coaching some of that. And then, uh, and then I, I think it's, you know, we, we've got some really strong people in the organization, but we're so small, we're flat. Like we don't, we don't need leaders yet, but it's trying to figure out, okay, who's, who's going to be a good service manager, not just from a plumbing technical expertise perspective, but from a manager of people perspective, who, who, who can fill that role. It's a lot of what you described from day one. You tried to build yourself out of the business.

Mm-hmm.

I've been on a truck more than is healthy for Drain Doctors. And so the best for Drain Doctors' long-term health is for me to be, again, working on it, not in it. And so how do we build that kind of core team that can help me stay here and they can be running the day-to-day operations? And we're small enough that I have no no illusions that I'm going to be, you know, out of it for a while. Um, but, but from an aspirational perspective, how do we start to build that over? You know, if by the end of the year here, we can have some of those trainings, some of that structure in place, you know, we're starting to get some, some not chain of command, but like, um, a little bit of that, you know, org structure as well.

Yeah.

Breaking Five talk about generalists becoming specialists. The 2 girls in the office, they, they both do everything right now. And so even starting to separate out CSR and dispatch, separate out AR and AP and all of those things and showing them these, you might still do all of these, but do you understand that it's not one role, you're wearing 7 hats. And at some point I might take some of these hats from you and then you'll be left doing these 5 hats.

Um, yeah.

And so just even getting, you know, reframing the way they think about the business, they think about how it's structured.

Yeah, I, um, I was talking with someone the other day. This is gonna sound self-serving, I promise there's a point, uh, but they, they asked, um, which was a question I don't think I've ever gotten before, uh, which is like, what makes Wilson unique? As like, uh, like, why are you having growth and other companies are not having growth? Inside the same industry, same year, or whatever. And it honestly kind of stumped me for a little bit. And it's back to like you building out your leadership team and like what to work on. And like my initial answer was, I do think was partially true. It's like we're generally stubborn. Like we're stubborn and like we can see, we can see, we have a vision of I'm messing up my— I'm messing up my words. Basically, like, we can see an unseeable future. So like, we can see like, hey, when we first said we're going to be a $100 million business by 2030, we were doing $2.5 million.

Yeah.

So like, we can see a vision of like what's ahead of us and we're stubborn enough to continue. And I do think that that that is partially real. I think the other thing, 'cause I sort of let it soak in for a couple weeks, what is the thing that allows us to keep doing that? And I was back to, hey, when I set that vision of $100 million by 2030, it was 2021 and we were doing 5 or 4 or 3 or 2, something like that. And we had no business setting that goal. We had no business seeing that our future could potentially be that in 9 years. And I think the real superpower is a near-vertical learning curve. As I think about what has set us apart over the past 4 or 5 years, I think it's the fact that we can see this uncertain future, even potentially a future that we have no right to be seeing.

Yep.

We can kind of stubbornly figure out a path there, And as a leadership team, we have a learning curve that is so steep that we are able to learn and figure out our way how to get there. And I think that that third piece is probably the piece if I was thinking about who is the who should be on my leadership team today, or who should I be thinking about for a service manager, or like how to think about that, I would be optimizing for learning curve because I think like the The farther along in my career that I've gotten, that's become a bigger and bigger differentiator, 'cause it's basically Peter Principle.

Yep.

When will this person hit the top of their learning curve? When will they hit their Peter Principle? But yeah, anyways, I don't know if that helps or not, but that was something that over the past few weeks has really been running around in my brain, because this year we're gonna do, I think we'll break 50. And we're well on pace for this $100 million by 2030 target, which is ridiculous given our starting point for that target was like $2 million. It doesn't make sense. We had no right to set that target, and yet we're going to achieve it.

Well, it's huge. I mean, I remember when I was at Tesla driving to the Bay or driving to LA, I'd listen to the early John and Brandon episodes of Owned and Operated. And I think There's, there's a weird— there's like a gap in the middle that I see in just kind of contracting or the trades in general. You have private equity and they ran from a spreadsheet and it's impersonal and it's known that growth overall. And then I think you have these like small mom and pops where it's, it's often maximizing for the, the contractor's lifestyle, right? Like, I'm going to build a business and I want to get to a few hundred thousand dollars. I want to be able to buy the boat and I want a vacation. I want to be able to go ski in Tahoe and— Yeah. And so they kind of get to that size where they make a good living and then they kind of park it, but then it's not enough to really feed the beast down below. And I guess I agree with what you're saying. Obviously, I'm not a Wilson expert, but having followed your journey, I also think there's something very real and very unique about a business that preaches the like, we want people to be able to grow here. We want people to be able to Part of your vision is like, you know, it's not about your success. It's not about, you know, I mean, your name's on the trucks, but you've proven it time and time again that you want your team to be able to grow. You want your team to have opportunities. And I think that's something that I strive for, probably at a different scale just because of the market that I'm in. But it's how do you build something on the Central Coast where you can say like, no, you as a tech coming in, you can make a wage where you could actually buy a house here and put roots down.

Yeah.

And yeah, don't get me wrong.

And there's advancement. I think we, we had, uh, we have these once-a-month leadership huddles, and I sat in, I sat in one a couple months ago, and it was really interesting because you kind— I kind of forget the impact that— because I'm like, like, yes, I know we're making an impact, but it's different hearing people's story. So we had this, like, we had just acquired a company, and the leaders from that company came in, and we had some of their techs come in too. And people sort of gave like almost like their— they gave their story inside Wilson. And these were people that like, hey, I started off in the call center and now I'm a supervisor or a director even, or a manager. And hey, I was a plumber and now I'm a man. Like, and it was really interesting to see like, yeah, this vision that we set as a group of like, hey, we want to grow from within and we want to like do these things and like hearing People walk through their story to new people like that they're bringing into Wilson and they're like, yeah, like this is real. Like this is where I started. This is where I am today. And they're just like so proud of their ability to drive, which was awesome. And like we got to give them the vehicle to do that.

That's huge. I was 22 when I started at Tesla.

Yeah.

A couple months removed from college on inside sales. And after I was 6 months on inside sales and they said, are you willing to move to open a new store? And Off I got sent. And so at 22, I was running the 9th store for Tesla. And, you know, and it was somebody gave me a shot before I deserved it, before I had the skills to do it and said, I think you have what it takes to figure it out. And, um, some things went well, some things, you know, you learn. But, um, I guess for me, it's, you know, I'm not— I still have a lot of career left in front of me, but how do you look— how do you turn back now and say, okay, who are these? Especially I feel like in the trades.

Yeah.

Who are these kids that maybe traditional school has said, you know, kind of brushed off or kind of left on the, on the side? You say, no, this is a—

Yeah.

This is somebody that's very sharp, that's very hardworking, has a good head on their shoulders, but maybe doesn't— I, and I kind of relate to it. School was never my strong suit. School was never what I enjoyed. It was a, it was a means to an end. Um, and so in a similar fashion, how do you find these, you know, these people that can, that can come in and build something really cool.

Yeah.

'Cause I'm not gonna do it myself. And I think I see it as a differentiator for ourselves. And so in interviews, you just, you hear a lot of people talk and they start out somewhere and they, you know, the money's a little bit better 'cause they got a couple bucks an hour better than the last shop they were at. But then in a couple years, it's kind of, it's more of the same. It's the owner's pulling up in a new lifted F-350 and I'm, You know, and I'm struggling to make rent. Or we lost a ton of techs at the last shop I was at. People leaving California and going to Idaho and Texas, and, and yeah, they can make the same and, and, and live a whole heck of a lot cheaper. And, you know, selfishly, you're not, you know, a mile from the beach, but how do we, how do we provide that path? How do we provide that opportunity for the, for the people who are going to come in and bust their ass and, and—

Yeah.

And help the team? You know, it's not, it's not going to be a handout, but it's It's an opportunity to say, hey, you wanna come in here and work, work hard and build something together? It's, it's gonna be hard, but we'll have fun doing it. Um, and so that's what we're trying to build. And, and I think that's, uh, I'm sure you're gonna do it. A unique thing in the market. So.

Yeah, I'm sure you're gonna do it. I'm excited to check in in like a year and be like, how'd it go? How's it going? But yeah, I think, uh, yeah, building is, um, it's fun. Welcome to the game.

Thank you.

4 months in, welcome to the game.

So at this point, I think they say so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If, if, as we sort of like approach our ending here, how, what are some, like, what's a message you'd want to give for somebody that wants to follow your path?

It's a grind. Like it's, it sounds sexy on—

It does sound sexy.

It sounds sexy. I'm buying this thing.

I bought a drain business. I can't think of, I literally actually can't think of anything sexier.

But it's like, it's, you know, the whole SMB world, it's like, Especially if you're on Twitter or you're on somebody's blogs, it's like, go get an SBA loan and you'll buy a business and you'll be walking your kids to school at 9 and working 4 hours a week running it. And it's just—

Yeah.

I knew that reality wasn't— I knew that wasn't going to be the reality. But even just getting across the starting line was a trudge.

Yeah.

And it was a lift. And it's a whole different set of skills in a lot of ways, I think, to find and buy the business than even to get in and run it. Totally.

And so, what I like to say is basically any dipshit can buy a business. It's the running it profitably. That's the actual skill. Yeah.

And it's like, I mean, you're somewhat therapists as you're somewhat educators. You're often working with sellers who We don't have great brokers locally. And so it was, I knew I was going to have to meet somebody and convince them to sell me their business and convince them to do it at the right price and not sound like I'm shady and trying to undermine them or take what they built. But it's also hard. You work in a business for 40 years and you find out it's only worth, in California—

That's always the tough news to deliver.

It's like, hey, here's your, to a certain degree saying, hey, here's your life's work. It's not even worth half a down payment on a house in California.

Yeah.

Good luck retiring. And so how do you communicate that without being, you know, while still being able to close the deal? But then it's just been fun. Like, it's been— the search got to be a grind. And like I said, I mean, I've gotten kicked in the nuts, I've gotten punched in the face since we've come in, but it's been, I don't know, at least personally, it feels right. It fits like a glove. And so you're like, nah, this is where I'm supposed to be. And again, we've, we've had a ton of wins. I joke about the punches in the face and stuff, and, and they're real, but we're, we're making some real progress and we, we've got a great team. And, and yeah, I hope in a year and 4 months we're, we're chatting again and, and different problems. And that's really all it is, is, you know, it's a new set of problems at a different scale.

Thanks for coming on today and sharing your story. This was a ton of fun.

Thanks for having me. It was a It was a blast catching up again. So—

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