How We’d Start a Plumbing Company From $0 in 2026

Well, how do I start? Like, I need all this money to start. And I'm like, I actually don't think that you do. I think you can build a business.

I've seen guys build to a million just off Facebook and Nextdoor.

How we would start a plumbing company from $0.

The first step is I'm getting my GMB right.

Like, can you get the first job before you put a dollar to work? Like, rent somebody else's list basically. And like, I think you'd get your first couple of jobs off of that.

So you would pick that though over LSAs?

I mean, like, look, LSA, Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 150 US business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson. On this show, we talk about home service businesses, we talk about the home service industry, we talk about our own home service business and what we're doing inside it to grow or change or really whatever. So today I'm joined by my somewhat infrequent co-host who's basically always here, Jack Carr. Jack, hey, welcome back to the show. It's been so long. It's been like, what, 4 days, 3 days?

Not like I haven't been on this podcast for the last 3 years.

3 years. It's funnier this way because then it just gets you riled up.

I know you just love saying it. Watch my face.

I do. It's actually, it's actually a pretty good time. Well, before we dive into like what we're actually going to talk about today, like, how you been? What have you been up to?

It's been good. I mean, we're just rounding out the end of summer and it's been, yeah, record after record after record, all thanks to joining the Wilson team. That's what I'm attributing it all to. Nothing to do with like us or how we were doing or decisions we made prior to summer.

Thank you. Thank you.

So really excited about that. It's been, it's been solid. So honestly, it's been, it's been a great summer. We're really happy. We've done a bunch of recruiting. So yeah.

When you— we talked about this a couple of weeks, months ago, but you were talking about how this was the first summer you feel like you've been appropriately staffed. Like, what was the impact? Like, how did you think about that impact?

Well, that's been the entire difference is we've ran marketing in summer for the first time ever.

Yes.

So running marketing in summer, obviously we have a higher marketing spend in summer, but we've also had more jobs and we've had more capacity and we've been able to fill the capacity with now the marketing. And so that's essentially doubled everything this summer from last summer.

Yeah.

And I, to be honest, I think that there was more capacity too. Like we could have hired another person and actually tried to fill board. Like, you know how in September, October you're like, oh, I need to fill this board. So I'm going to outbound and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that to put more leads on. Like we didn't go above and beyond to fill capacity. We just let capacity fill and then moved on.

Yeah.

So I think that if we were actively trying and pushing to fill capacity, we could have even grew more.

Yeah. No. Yeah. Your team's done awesome. It has been crazy. It's like literally 100% year-over-year growth, which is just nuts. And I was looking at this yesterday. Oh, because we're looking at like properties for like, okay, do we outgrow the current one? And like, how do we think about it? And, um, you were like almost about to hit $5 million year to date, which like feels crazy to me. Uh, cause you did 4-something all of last year. Uh, so that's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. We hit, we hit last year's in July, last year's number in July.

Yeah. That's crazy.

Summer. Yeah. We just had a crazy, crazy great year. Uh, shout out to, again, part of it is Wilson. Part of it's having a great GM. Part of it is just learning from our mistakes last year.

Continue. GM did great. Uh, plumbing's doing great. You have an awesome sales team that I don't think you had in place last year. I really think like you guys put all the right stuff in place and your team just like executed. Yeah, they just like did it, which has just been honestly the interesting part.

It's a young team, so if we can keep them on through until next year, it'll be wild. Because I mean, you know how it goes when you're able to like teach them your method in your way and then you see them actually execute. Like our best producing, uh, service service guy on, on HVAC has been with us for 3 years. So like, he knows, like, that's why he gets it. And so once we get these new younger guys up to par with that, like, I think it's going to be even wilder. Like, the amount that they're going to be able to do is going to be crazy.

No, I agree. It'll be interesting to see. I feel like a lot of businesses that I've seen that have gone on like the growth streak that you're on, like, they— the stuff clicks, which like your stuff is clicking right now. And but they usually click for like a couple of years in a row. So like, I bet what's going to happen again is like, I don't know if it'll be a double, but like, I bet you'll hit like north of 50% growth again next year and like be in that 12 to 15 range.

I think, yeah, I don't disagree with you at all because there's some really— I don't want to call them easy levers, but there's some levers that we can pull in the next year.

Yeah.

That if we can get that, even just like electrical driving the bus, electrical driving the bus, plumbing.

Yeah.

Sewers, plumbing, sales clicked correctly. Like there's some really easy levers to add an extra $5 million in revenue.

Cool. Well, before we get too far, I am supposed to give 2 shoutouts. One, this is kind of funny. I'm pretty sure our Breaking 5 like might have sold out. Did we sell out?

We have one spot.

Okay. We literally have one left. That's hilarious. So we Usually there's like, we get close to filling up completely or we fill up, but like it's within the past last couple days or whatever. But it's like, this one was kind of funny.

Weeks before.

Yeah, yeah. But this one was kind of funny. I'm pretty sure we like filled up like a, like a month out, which, uh, is pretty cool. It's fun that we've, um, I feel like it's been our way to, uh, give back and, um, we've, I don't know, helped companies grow, which I think is just a lot of fun. Uh, but we do have another event May 3rd to the 5th of 2027, baby. We're calling this one Catalyst. Make sure you check out ownedandoperated.com and you can find the information for the event Catalyst. This is the biggest event that we've done with, uh, Owned and Operated so far. We're expecting around 100 home service entrepreneurs. We're gonna have some great, uh, speakers, some great breakout sessions, and really like help people, uh, be the catalyst for, uh, companies to continue to grow to whatever their next stage is. So We're really excited about it. It'll be a lot of fun and we're just excited to get together with everybody. As your business grows, the financial decisions get a lot more expensive. Things like hiring techs, buying trucks, raising pricing and marketing. If you're making those decisions without really understanding your numbers, you're probably leaving a pile of money on the table. And that's where Profit and Grit comes in. Tyler has built, scaled and sold a $25 million service business. So his advice comes from real operating experience. You'll work with him directly to improve your cash flow, understand your margins, and build better forecasts to make you more confident as you make decisions as you grow. One client increased bottom line profit by 11% after fixing pricing, improving job mix, and stabilizing their cash flow. If you're doing between $3 and $5 million a year and you want more clarity around your finances, book a free 20-minute strategy call at the link below. Okay, so today we're talking about Starting over. We've done a few of these. Like, if I had to start from zeros, what would we do? So today, specifically, how we would start a plumbing company from zero doll hairs in 2026. Here's the story.

All right.

Jack and John begin gambling. It's— we face horrific losses. We lose the whole company. We escape with $100 in our pocket, but we get to keep everything we knew, which is, which is great. We have limited capital, zero customers, no employees, and one goal: to build a plumbing company from zero to $1 million as quickly and realistically as possible. Uh, the rules are no vague answers. No, I'm pretty sure that, that had, that had to be for you, not for me.

Yeah.

And they have to commit to numbers, timelines, Our family's still supporting us despite our incredible gambling addiction. We're both still married, uh, but really we just lost everything and we're ready to roll again. By limited capital, because I would say that's pretty vague, uh, to whoever wrote this script 10 feet to the right of me, I will say that we've got $5,000.

Yeah.

$10,000?

Like, $100 is light. $10,000— I mean, $10,000 feels good.

Okay. All right. $10,000 feels good. We saved everything. Our wives shoved $10,000 away from our horse jockey betting.

I mean, so the— assuming that I'm still in Tennessee and I still have my licensure, which I think is a big part. So obviously the, the beginning has to start with the things that every beginning company has to start with. You spend the $30 on getting your LLC put into place. You come up with the name, which really doesn't matter at this point. Don't spend too much time on a logo. Don't spend too much time on any of the silly branding stuff that people worry about for months and months.

ChatGPT. I mean, ChatGPT can put together a nice little—

Package for you.

Yeah. And then once— You only have $10,000, so you can't spend, you know, $700 even is a lot on a logo.

Yeah, definitely agree. Um, and then I think that the first step is to put some advertisements up for a plumber. I could do some plumbing, but I definitely need a plumber. So, that's going to spend— is going to be about— my hope was that I could probably get that through and get somebody hired within a week, which at about $30 a day from Indeed, that would put me at $150.

Yeah.

Maybe run some Meta ads in local or Meta posts in, in local groups, Plumbers of Nashville, Tradesmen of Nashville, Nashville Contractors, run some, some ads there, or at least free advertisements just saying, hey guys, looking for some plumbing help.

Yep.

Call some subs. And then the marketing is like, okay, I got my people set up. The next thing that I'm doing simultaneously is I'm getting my GMB, right? That's a free source. I'm putting it in a spot that's probably close to my house.

Maybe at your house.

Maybe at my house with a service area rather than a geolocation. And then, I'm asking for reviews from— I'm allowed to ask for reviews from any of my previous work that I did before my gambling addiction took hold. Amazing.

It was a real tragic gambling addiction.

Yeah.

But fortunately, you helped a lot of people in your previous life and they're all happy to help you with a 4- to 5-star review.

Hopefully 5.

Well, you may have lost their money in your gambling. Yeah, we don't know. I don't remember how far down the rabbit hole you went. My tragic story that we put together.

My hope is to drive about 20 reviews right out the gate. And then at that same time, I set my Google Business Profile up, I fill it out, I take some pictures. Even if maybe my phone got smashed, I can take pictures of my water heater or some previous jobs I had. Populate it, turn on LSA. And so right now we're still probably at under $1,000. I have a hope of somebody coming in to help me out with some jobs. I'm also going on those same Facebook groups and I'm saying, hey, looking for work, plumbing work. I'm going on Nextdoor. Knock it out. Hey, looking for plumbing work. I have openings in my schedule, willing to help out. So like, that's my big first steps. I still have $9K to now focus on like truck equipment, parts, material, things I need for those first jobs. But that's my hope is to get the phone ringing. I have to get a VoIP, probably grab a cheap VoIP because I want to start the build correctly and not use my personal phone number.

There's like 2 different ways you can think about investing cash inside a business. Um, and you can basically invest before revenue or you can invest after revenue. Um, and the idea of that is like investing before revenue is if I'm an existing business and I want to launch, launch a new service line, does it take me $1 million to get that new location or whatever up and running? Um, well, that million dollars would come before I drive revenue, or like some large portion of that. Uh, the other is like, hey, we are going to respond to revenue by investing further into it and basically like testing it. Uh, that tends to be my philosophy. Uh, we've said this a lot on the show of like, hey, before we go buy a lining machine or jetting machine or whatever, somebody go sell this thing. Like, prove that we can actually drive revenue from this idea. And then we'll invest in it. But like, I'm— I tend to not invest before revenue because like, you just don't know. And I've been burned enough times that, you know, you just don't know what works until it works. So I would be focused on like, can you do like a couple hundred bucks or even before you do anything, can you just go on Nextdoor and say like, hey, I'm a plumber and I have work? Like, can you get the first job before you put a dollar to work? Because if I only have $10,000, like 10% of it into like formation is still a lot of money. I think so.

I think there's a base level of setup though that you need. You could probably avoid the, the hiring, but the hiring takes multiple days to actually kick in. And so that, that's why I invested early in hiring just because it takes, you know, time, whereas like equipment you can go out and buy down at Home Depot. And so, I mean, another way to do it though, Another way to do it, and maybe this is—

maybe this would be interesting, is like, hey, I'm gonna go on— I, I'm broke. I got 10 bands that my wife set aside from my— what should my gambling addiction be?

I was gonna say take $10,000 down the casino and put it on black, and now you got $20,000 to start the business with.

There it is. This time it'll be different. Um, yeah. Oh my God, that's horrible. All right, so So yeah, so I think, I think what you could do that'd be kind of interesting is like, what if you just subbed from the get-go? Like, hey, you— I called around to a bunch of plumbers and said like, hey man, um, you just want to work with me on this? Uh, like, I'll be your apprentice or whatever, but like, I'll get you the jobs and like, we— I don't know, we could figure it out. Uh, or like drain cleaning. I, I feel like there's a way to do— because we've subbed people in to install or do sewers or—

There is.

So I bet there's a way that like you could actually get a business going and like prove out the thesis without any of the formation stuff where you just start posting on Facebook and then you find somebody to like partner with, run the jobs, whatever. You sub it out, you pay them whatever, you mark it up 10% or whatever to cover your fee, and then boom, you have a, you have a plumbing company. Yeah.

No, I actually agree with you there that that is a viable method to start is you sub everything out.

Yeah. Because then you don't have to buy tools.

You don't need a truck. You don't need to install. You don't need people. That being said, you are starting with your knowledge, right? That was part of the background.

And so this is my knowledge is like, I think with— I could sub it.

I think with that knowledge though, like you could also, you know, to hire, you know how to get your first jobs, like, you know, all this stuff. I don't disagree that like that is how we started. We subbed out. We had one plumber and we subbed all of our rest of our plumbing out, especially stuff that we couldn't do. But like you can sub out jettings, you can sub out sewer work, you can sub out anything. So I don't think that's a bad idea is like, hey, you, you roll some ads for drains and then you sell it to sell the job at a percentage to a sewer crew. And now you're ripping $2,000, $3,000 and the sewer crew is pretty happy because, hey, like they're ripping $7,000, $8,000.

I mean, yeah, that's how we did sewers for, for a long time. I'm kind of into this. So there's actually— well, Sam Preston, from Service Scalers. He started a home service business and which is, you know, kind of like kind of cool. So he's like running ads for it and stuff and it's been a huge win. And this is literally what they're doing. It's not plumbing, but they started a home service. I don't, I don't remember if we've talked about the industry on the show. So like, I probably won't call it out so I don't like ruin his— like everyone goes and does this thing, but it's exactly this where like he runs ads against something And then he like gets the job. I think he's like sells it over the phone or whatever, and then he subs somebody out to do it. And I think that for something like for him, he needs to run ads just because of the type of work it is. I think with this, like you could literally just start with Facebook. So I think you could do this for— I think you could drive your first dollar of revenue with zero money out of pocket, which that would be my start is like, okay, I have $10,000. How do I get to $20,000? before I actually invest anything, or 15? Like, how do I build a little bit more of a buffer? Um, so I don't, you know, I don't want to bet the house and maybe it's a bad season or something. I don't remember what season I had this addiction problem. Um, all right, so 2 different options there. I feel like those are good options. Any others?

No, I feel like that those are the, those are the 2 ways. Limited capital, um, limited labor, tons of knowledge. It's like, hey, you figure out how to market and sub, or you market and hire. Keep marketing low in both scenarios, try to do scrappy free things to get free jobs, and then run them and make some money.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could probably get going like a couple thousand dollars of revenue a day. Now, granted, 80% of that would go to the sub, but you could clip $200 a day, probably early. You could do it early. Which, like, that's grocery money, you know? It's the mortgage. Try not to move out of the house. Really leaning into this narrative. Okay, um, I'm sure that we're supposed to put like, uh, if you have a gambling addiction, call this number. So we'll look that up, uh, you know. All right, uh, you need your first 100 customers. So we started off, we're either subcontracting or we are, uh, spending all this money.

Well, I think we roll—

Jack's just like—

You roll one way, I roll the other way.

Jack's got like $10,000 and he's just like LLC documents and logos and—

Hey, my logos are free, but yeah.

Yeah. I think we can take— That costs 50 cents of tokens on ChatGPT.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely wrecked.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna do mine. You do yours.

Yeah. I mean, I think yours has some huge benefits, right? Because, because you don't have to buy a truck, you don't have to rent equipment, you don't have to do any of that. Whereas my hope—

It just doesn't scale as well.

Yeah. So we need to, we need to get our first 100 customers. I think a lot of it's the same. So it's number one, it's staying super, super scrappy. So again, don't go dump money into PPC. I wouldn't even focus on— I wouldn't— I don't even know if I would buy aggregator leads at this point. I think that you could fill schedule for one, one person just by word of mouth referrals. And you totally could.

Yeah. Up to, up to like if you have kids, bring it up at your kids' school.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're gonna— up at sporting events, wear a shirt. You know, like, if you're a— if you're like a one-man band, like, it's a— it's a lead a day. Yeah, you just need a lead a day.

Especially if you're doing service and installation yourself, where you're like service and then you kind of sub out some installation work. Like a water heater, which you can get a ton of water heaters, um, like, because you can undercut everybody. You can undercut everybody and you can get the cheapest water heaters at Home Depot. Like, at the end of the day You could, you could scrape $300, $400 per water heater job and do 2 of those a day. Yeah, but point being is you need your first 100 customers. I think that's how you continue to build. I actually wouldn't put any money anywhere else except LSA. And I'd keep my LSA options even pretty tight. Like, I think the LSA options would really just be like water heaters, maybe, maybe some drains work. Maybe some light.

Yeah.

See, I don't even know what categories I'd pick in, like, sinks. I don't even know if I'd pick sinks, faucets, cartridges, leaks. I mean, maybe pipe leaks because you have to be careful because you get a lot of junk when it comes to, like, tubs, toilets, and sinks, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then I'd run that. I think you could do 100 customers. What if you're doing 1 customer to 2 customers a day? That's 2 to 3 months. I think it's realistic.

Yeah. Yeah. I think what I would do, I would go— so we got $10,000. I would go to— I want to say like a garage door company, or a landscaping company would be another one. Like, who's somebody that has customers in residential? And I think I would just like offer— I'd be like, hey, can you— I know, I like this.

Well, I already like where this is going.

I'm gonna— I don't want to spend any money. Like, bro, I only got 10 G's. Like, I burned everything. Um, so I would go to someone that has no chance of like competing with me, right? Like, uh, like HVAC, like they, you know, they might get weird about it, but like garage or landscaping, like they don't care. Um, landscaping, like, I bet they hit sprinkler heads or they need backflow. Like, I bet there's work there already. So you could just like partner with them and align with them because this— the, the prompt is how to get your first 100 customers. Uh, but you could also just like ask them to like blast their email list and like pay them money. Like, hey dude, I'll give you— if I've got $10,000, like, I'll give you $1,000 plus like $25 for every lead that comes my way, or, or no $1,000 and $50 for every lead that comes my way. Uh, here's how I'm gonna track it. Um, you're my only marketing source, so any lead is you. And, um, and then like run a promo just on the back of some— like rent somebody else's list basically. Yeah, that they'd built. Uh, and like I think you'd get your first couple of jobs off of that.

Um, so you would do that though over— so you're spending $200, $300 on that plus $25 a lead. Say you get 10 leads, so it's $250 plus $300. I mean, so you're at $500 just for rounding $600.

But I drove revenue or I drove—

but you're driving revenue. So you would pick that though over LSAs?

Yeah. I mean, like, look, LSA in— I'm like focused on this prompt. I'm living this right now, Jack. LSA like doesn't seem to work if you have less than 100 reviews. So my concern would be if, if I have to open the doors on Monday and I lost all my money on Friday, I'm going to be scouring Facebook groups. I'm going to be calling new construction plumbers, but like someone that is looking for like work more consistently. And I would partner with them. I'd like get a sub relationship in those first couple of days. And you'd want like a stable— like you need like 2 to 4 guys like, hey man, I got this job, like can you help me with it? I'll give you, you know, $800 to do it, whatever. And then yeah, I would like start calling garage door people or landscapers or whatever and say, hey man, I just need you to Let your customers know about us, or do you know anybody that needs, you know, something— hope drippy hose faucet, whatever— like, I'll give you some money for it and we'll make it happen.

Okay, sweet. I think that we have—

I mean, that makes sense. Again, it's like, uh, I like the idea.

You don't lose any money though if it like— if it just runs.

I mean, I think you'd set up LSA. I think I'm for that. I'm just— I'm focused on like the speed and then how do I get revenue and then give money. Like, how do I— because I feel like— and the reason I'm focused on that Is one, that's just my mindset in general. But 2, I think that everybody gets so worked up about like, well, how do I start? Like, I need all this money to start. And I'm like, I actually don't think that you do. Like, I think that you can just build a— I think you can build a business.

There's plenty of people who have done it, yeah, that build business. I've seen guys build to a million just off Facebook and Nextdoor. Like, it's definitely possible. Uh, and then now you're starting to get jobs. You, at some point, you need— you actually do need to graduate to like, hey, one truck.

Yeah, my metric for that, like, if I'm hitting like 5 to 10 leads a week consistently, I'd probably go hire somebody but keep my stable of subs. That way I could just like keep sort of like have expandable capacity but fill my one guy.

Yeah, so I already have the one guy. I'm probably calling subs as well to take on jobs that are bigger that we can't handle. Um, but like realistically, right, if you're looking at that doing that month 2, month 3, which I think is realistically possible, Yeah. That looks like what you— I'd probably buy a Maverick, which would be $500 a month in payments. I mean, that's definitely coverable with one person early on. So, as long as it's financed, I wouldn't go and buy a used vehicle with $12K or something. I'd rather get a cheap financed truck, put a sticker on the side for another $50, and then I think I would just continue. I keep targeting water heaters. Water heaters is a great one. I target dig jobs and leaks and I target drain stuff. Like those are my big 3 I think I would go after just because the others can be profitable, but they can also be a lot of runaround work. So yeah, I take them much, but I think that—

Yeah.

I take them. Don't get me wrong, I take the work, but I'm saying like when I'm targeting, I'm targeting certain things like, hey, we're doing a special on water heaters. Or, hey, you know, leaks, you know, we'll do repipes for cheaper than the other guy. I don't know.

Um, I would, uh, I think the only difference is like, I'd probably buy something used as hell. Like, give me the dirtiest, nastiest fucking clunker I've ever seen.

Drop like $2K, $3K though on that. And you only have like now 4 or 5 left.

Well, what city I'm in? I mean, can I bike? You know, can I get a little like kid's bike, shove a, shove a toolbox on the back of that bitch?

You could get, you could get like a decent old Transit for like $2K with like 150,000 miles. Not like a Transit Connect, excuse me, like the mini Transits.

That's perfect. Okay.

I mean, that's like 5 months of payments though on a— like, I'd rather, I'd rather have cash going out at like $500 a month Versus dropping $2,500 right out the gate. Because what happened if your guy leaves?

Wow, it just went from $2,000 to $2,500 so fast. Here, I'm gonna look this up actually right now. Cheapest— I mean, dude, this thing could be anything. Cheapest work vehicle.

What do you think you're gonna find on Google right now with that? Like, going to scroll Facebook Marketplace for hours to find that.

Dude, I could get a car. I bet I could fit a water heater into this. Uh, okay, all right, here it is. I gotta, I gotta hit.

It's like a Isuzu Trooper from like 1995 for $1,500.

So much better than this. So much better. A PT Cruiser. Yeah, this baby is $1,500. It's 2003. Oh, it's got— dude's got 70,000 miles. This thing's brand new. It's brand fucking new.

Just don't get it.

And you know, because of that weird-ass shape of those PT Cruisers, I could fit— I bet I could fit a water heater in that thing.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say yeah. And then, dude, I'm— hold on, I'm screen—

I'm screenshotting. How do I do this? Yeah, there we go.

Fun fact, I actually threatened all of my, um, managers that I was buying them PT Cruisers at one point if they didn't sell more. So this is the reason why.

Threatened, or do you mean offered? Because this is obviously a great situation. So yeah, I would get a PT Cruiser, $1,500. Uh, it's screen shared if you're watching on YouTube, you know, like this exists. I pulled it off Facebook Marketplace and, uh, yeah. So yeah, $1,500, dude, no tax. Like that's a Venmo transaction all day long. Cause I don't have a bank account yet cause I haven't gone through that process. Uh, so yeah, you can keep your $500 a month thing. I'll pay rent. That's like, that's my ramen. So you're just gonna end up broke again, dude. Jack, you're just gambling again. I don't think you're going down. I don't think you're going down.

I'll take the $500 a month payment that I have to cover, which is like, what? Oh, Jack, 5 jobs at like $100 in profit.

We thought he was getting back on his feet, but just— he started gambling on Mavericks again, which is what got him here in the first place.

Bad choices.

Okay, all right. So I have a cooler truck than you, obviously. Wouldn't disagree with my PT. All right. Well, yeah. What else? Here's a stat about Yelp that I bet you didn't know. When millions of people ask AI like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or any of the others what the best home service provider is, Yelp recommendations show up three times more than Angie, Thumbtack, Home. HomeAdvisor, Better Business Bureau, and Nextdoor combined. And here's why that matters to you: 91 to 97% of those searches do not include the business name. The homeowner hasn't picked anybody yet, and they're deciding right now, and Yelp is where they're getting their answers. These aren't low-intent browsers. Over half of Yelp's 76 million monthly audience earns 6 figures and owns their home. Jose Varga started 5-star HVAC on his own in Dallas, and he turned on Yelp ads and they hit 30% year-over-year growth with $650 revenue per call, and he grew his monthly leads by 444%. If you want to own the moment when homeowners are making their choice, then you should be checking out Yelp. Start earning your share on Yelp's 350,000 daily home service leads by going to business.yelp.com. Owned and operated.

Okay, so I think the next is like race to a million. Like, so, so we got the, the basis is in, you got your first truck, you have your first hire, you're subbing out. We both got to the same spot, just slightly different paths. I've spent, I think, less money in the short term. I will spend more money on that truck in the long term.

We'll see.

I did free advertising or anything like that.

I haven't filed for my LLC or documents yet. But I did spend $1,500 on a truck. So I, in my mind, maybe I've spent like $1,000 on the leads from that garage door company. That was a great partnership. Uh, so like I've got $7,500 left, so I'm feeling pretty, I'm feeling pretty good. And I've been driving revenue, so I'm probably back, still back at 10.

I mean, I'd say the same thing.

Yeah, well, it's cool. We'll pull out a calculator. Yeah. Also, Jack's like, I bought a fleet of Mavericks.

Yeah, 7 of them.

Your gambling addiction was betting on Maverick futures, and you're just right back at it again.

Just spent all my money on Ford stocks.

Your children.

What's the next big step, right? So there's this early on, there's a jump, a step change that has to happen from really small to small and scrappy. Where is that? What do you feel like that point is?

I mean, I think eventually it's probably like number of leads. Like you have to figure out how to get from like the 5 to 10 leads a week to like 100.

Well, here's the, here's the other question, I guess, which is more important is like what big changes do you have to make to get to $1 million in revenue? Because I don't think that— all right, you're running LSAs, you're doing Facebook, you're doing referrals, like all that actually from a marketing standpoint, I don't think actually changes that much other than you drive leads. So you get more LSAs potentially. But if you chose the right market and you chose the right spot, maybe you finally rent a small building like a contractor warehouse or something, but nothing really changes from a marketing standpoint in my opinion. You can get to a million off of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a few other things you can do, and I just thought of these, but Like, you can buy phone numbers from other plumbing companies. Those honestly, probably like $10,000. I mean, we bought companies for $10,000 down. Like, the second deal I did was $12,000 or $15,000 down.

Yeah.

And that was an $800,000 revenue business. So like, you could do that. So if I still keep all my knowledge, honestly, like, that's probably what I would do is I would start I would like get the— I would get the base rolling of like, hey, can I get jobs? I'm subbing them out. I got that sick whip, uh, that PT, you know, whipping around town in that bad boy, windows open, chunk, chunk out. And, um, got this awesome partnership with this like garage door, uh, guy, just really painting the narrative. And, um, and then I'm gonna go— I'm gonna go do a deal. I got $10,000 in my pocket.

There you go.

And I got a lifetime of knowledge.

Seller financing, 0% down deal. Just what everybody says is not possible, John's gonna go and do it.

I'm gonna go do a fucking deal. So I'm gonna— I, I don't know how I'm gonna slug this thing together, but it's gonna be like a rev share, or it's gonna be seller, or maybe it's just the phone number and it's $10,000 or $5,000. Um, but I'm gonna do a deal. If I get to keep everything I've learned over the years, that's, that's step one. So I'm going to go from like, just go with my piece of the— MSA.

Yeah. That's going to be sweet. Use the other $5K that you have to like put on legal fees to rip a manager service agreement and just take over a business.

I'll talk to my attorney and say, hey man, I'm going to need like 90-day terms on, on this. Or ChatGPT. Like, if, you know, if I'm really like that, that level of broke, you know, ChatGPT maybe.

But I think you're breaking the prompt here.

I think I might be breaking the prompt, but I do think it is actually like a viable option. I mean, the amount of businesses that I bought for under $100,000 and like some of those have been, it's under $100 grand, I think it's been like 4 or 5 now. And some of them did have like a financing component. So I bought a carpet cleaning business like years ago and it was $30 grand. Customer list, equipment, and, um, like pricing structure, name, GBP, all that stuff. Uh, and I think it was like 10 grand down, and I paid him a couple grand a month for a year or 2 years or something. Uh, so like you can do a deal like that. And like even a carpeting clean— a carpet cleaning business or something like that would still potentially work because then you could just siphon it off for the customers.

Yeah.

But yeah, I honestly, I would go do a deal. I actually think that's the fastest way to get to a million.

Our second deal was very similar to that.

Go do it.

Is like we bought, we bought an $850,000 revenue company for $12,500, $6,000 down.

Yeah. So, so like I actually like inside this prompt, I actually feel like this is pretty realistic.

It's not unrealistic. And like we've done 2 deals since then that were probably similar category.

Yeah. So I think I've done 4 in this price range of sub-$100,000, but like meaningful enough. We did one, it was $60 grand total and they did $600,000. We did one, the second deal we ever did was $100,000 or $115,000, but $10 grand down.

Yeah.

Or $12 grand down, but that was $700,000, $750,000 revenue. We did another one that was $65,000. It was $400,000 revenue. Yeah, like you can do it.

Yeah, I think so.

So like, if I was keeping all the knowledge, I would go do a deal.

Yeah.

And then I would just keep doing this machine over here of like, I'm driving the leads instead of the subs. I'm sending it to like my little thing that I've got here. And I'd probably, I would try to make it as contingent as possible. Like how do I—

Rev share.

Rev share or profit share or Something.

Yeah. And I think there's enough room inside most plumbing industries to be able to do some kind of rev share just because 5, 10% on 60% gross margin is— it's there and you have no overhead, right? Because you're still running super lean. I have a little bit of overhead. You have no overhead because you're running PTs. You just have to hope that they don't get in an accident. And then—

That thing's 71,000 miles. Like, it's basically a brand new car. Like, I'm pretty sure, like, just came off the lot. That 2003 PT.

Just like only the absolute worst crash test rating of any car ever.

Is it actually?

It's one of the worst.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Just putting everybody at risk.

Yeah.

Not to mention you're putting it like, it's like somehow worse than like a motorcycle behind your head too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it, you know, part of the, part of the risk of the job. Um, okay. I don't know. I feel like that actually makes— so then, so then like, I actually like, if this prompt actually happened, like that That is actually what I would do, just so we're on the same— like, I can come up with all the ways in the world to like market my way to it and sell my— and hire and all that shit. But like, what I would actually do is, uh, probably this: I would spend no fucking money, I would sub the shit out of it, and I would go do a deal. Like, that's actually, I think, what I— what would happen.

And so what— so you cross $1 million though, what does the company look like? Like, what's— what should the company look like for— I think that if we zoom out and be like, hey, this is what a million-dollar company does look like, and, um, versus like your way of, hey, I'm buying a bunch of businesses, I think that would be more valuable.

Um, yeah, well, it would probably 3 to 4 plumbers in the field. Hopefully you buy it that way. I would be my own CSR and dispatcher for a while, uh, just to like maximize free cash. And, um, yeah, that'd be most of it. Probably put it on some CRM, but I'm assuming if I did a deal that I would just like whatever they're currently using is what I would use. Uh, yeah, I'm sure Jobber, I'd figure out how to use Housecall or something.

Jobber, Housecall, FieldPulse, any, any of them. I would definitely be my own CSR.

I feel like FieldPulse is like really good for like the— what they said, we had them on the show, they were like really good at like the 2 to 5. I don't know if they're— maybe they are. I haven't looked at them as like a 1 or 2 man guy.

Yeah, I think I just don't want to get stuck again in one, like, because I was using RazorSync. Shout out RazorSync, which was— yeah, but I just want to get stuck again in one that like I'm now I'm stuck in Jobber or I'm stuck on Housecall Pro. I think like FieldPulse I could build with.

So you can grow into. Yeah, no, you're right.

So that's where I sit. Yeah, I'm with you. 3 to 4 good technicians. Doing service and installation, probably not service and sales, install split, 4 trucks. So I'm paying $2,000 a month in Maverick fees.

Cash is going straight. I, you know, I'm— I've in the past like 30 days of me launching this new project, I've been able to move from like ramen to like I'm on porterhouse steaks already because like that $2,000 a month is like spending. Dude, I'm just like, I'm back. I'm like, I re-picked up a gambling addiction. Instead of Mavericks, now it's, I don't know, corn futures or something.

The worst part is you say this as a joke, but I've actually seen the owners who are ripping $300,000, $400,000 out of these no-overhead million-dollar businesses. That's real. They are the ones with the nice new trucks eating porterhouse steaks.

I'm like, you are just unbelievable. Yeah, no, totally. We bought a decent amount of these companies.

Do not buy a boat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I already have a lake house under LOI. Like, I'm good to go.

But yeah, I think that— I think the owner could be running calls. The owner could also be doing big sales. The owner could also just be office only. But you're going to have to hire for what's not there. Have a— have like 3 to 4 trucks, probably 4 running at any point in time. Again, I would lease trucks. I would get as low monthly payment as possible. John is buying PT Cruisers still for his guys. Nobody wants to work there because they're afraid they're going to die. Die in a PT Cruiser on PT Cruiser incident. Um, outside of that, I think those— that's like, that's the biggest view. Maybe at that point, at a million, you could start trying other methods of, um, like verticals for branding and— not branding, but marketing. If branding's one of them, it's one of them. I mean, we've seen the yard sales yard signs work well at that size. Um, you could start doing Some small ag, lead ag. Um, but like, you got to fill up 3 guys, 4 guys worth of work. So yeah, you're looking at what, 20 calls a week, 15 calls a week each?

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we did something great here. So me doing a deal, I think I beat you to a million bucks.

I think you could get there in 6 with, with a deal.

Like if you were scouring Facebook Marketplace for closing plumbing companies every day and hustling and calling and talking, I'll say I mean, I would just like, I would literally just go like, I would go to every single one that's out there and I would knock on the door and I would say, what's up? Like, hey man, it's me. Yeah, what's up? Yeah. Uh, but no, I think I would hit the pavement like, dude, I want to stop eating ramen. I'm ready to move to Poorhouse, you know? So, um, yeah, I, I actually like, I actually think that's how I would do it, uh, which is kind of funny. Um, is I would just like I would probably, uh, just buy my way up to like 5 as like as fast as possible. Um, we talk a lot about breaking 5. Obviously we have a whole—

There's a whole conference on it.

Yeah, there's a whole event, uh, based on breaking 5. But I really— I mean, deals can get you there fast. Yeah, eventually you do have to learn how to run a business. And one of the dangers, and I see this time and time again, is like people buy their way up to $5 or $10 million, but then they never figure out how to do marketing or like really grow the business beyond that. Like M&A is a tool. It's not the whole business, but you can use it to kickstart or get past a plateau. Like it can get you to whatever the next step is. This, this year for Wilson in our core business is a great example. We went from like $30 to $50-some million and we got to skip a couple of steps, which is great. Like we're excited about that. We still have to run the business and we still have to market and hire and recruit and sell and train and all the stuff that comes with it. Uh, it's not like buying stuff solved all of our problems, uh, but it did move us down the track.

Yeah, yeah. Now you just have to get a directory of emails that all make sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do actually. Uh, I gotta give that feedback to Brandon still. That's hilarious. Seriously, I'm sorry.

Here we are. Here we are. I think that's a good, good breakdown.

Awesome. All right, so, uh, we both had $10,000 month 1 marketing. I spent like, I'm gonna say like $1,000 on leads that turned into money. My first hire happened after I bought a company. Um, and I think, yeah, I mean, I think that I hit a million bucks probably in that first, uh, year or really close. Because I would be aiming at like something north of half a million, uh, revenue.

Yeah, that like million to $800,000 in, in top line is like a really good spot where you can buy that for really cheap because it's not valuable to anyone else except—

And back to my earlier point of like, I want revenue before I invest. You go buy that company, go freaking ham on lead ads and like, uh, everything. Um, but still like keep up some of the level of scrappiness that you had up until that point. But like You have the revenue, you have the infrastructure, go rip. But, you know, just being able to, um, sort of get across the line. Now, obviously, you know, we've said this a lot on the show, just so— just fair warning, if you have not listened to the years of content that we've had on this show regarding this, this is what I would actually do. Uh, but buying a company that small is one of the riskiest things that you can do. It is a very easy go-to-zero risk. If one guy leaves, half the business goes away. It is not like I say it easily because we've done a lot of them now and I'm very comfortable in the industry. But if this is your first time ever glancing at this industry, it's not as easy as like the conversation that we just had.

Nope. Totally makes sense. I think mine's starting $10,000, month with marketing is probably a few hundred. First hires quicker than you. Truck number 2 comes into play. at around $250,000, $300,000. And I'm targeting about $250,000 to $300,000 per truck, which at 4 trucks will get you to that million-dollar number. And I think that time to take a million is time to $1 million in revenue, or at least on a benchmark like, hey, this— I'm on track to hit a million.

Yeah.

It's probably around that 16 to 18 month mark is I think year 1 is just getting it alive, keeping the baby alive. And then year 2 is more focused on, okay, baby's alive, we have our first good hire, we have marketing channels that are working. Now we, we try and go for, for the million. So yeah, that's where I think we're at.

All right, thanks everybody for tuning in. If you like what you heard, like and sub. I've also been told to refer to 1-800-GAMBLER if you actually have a gambling addiction. Uh, I hope you find help.