Mike Andes and a co-host break down the math on buying pool-service routes. Ten clients for $20k, thirty for $20k, ten for $10k. They debate whether the unit economics work when acquisition costs hit $2k per customer against $1k to $2k in monthly revenue.
Questions this video answers
10 pools for $20,000.
20 grand for 30 pools.
10 pools for $10,000.
About $2,000 per customer ("you paid $2,000 for someone").
Approximately 18 months to recoup the cost.
Chapters
I think I bought 10 pools for 20 grand, so.
10 pools?
Yeah, for 10.
20 grand.
It's pretty bad, bro.
You have to do cleaning them for like two years.
So there's this broker and they pretty much let you buy a route and the person selling it to you has to like teach you. I want to hear your take on this because I bought another one. Another route too? Yeah, 20 grand for 30. So a little bit better. But they're not that good accounts and they're super low prices.
Yeah, yeah.
And then I bought another like ten for ten grand or something and I was thinking about buying another one.
Why would you not just get the lead yourself and kind of do lead gen yourself?
I think I'm lazy partially, but then also I'm not good at it, I don't think.
Because if we're constantly buying them and we're basically paying like two grand a pool, we're just never going to be able to scale. Do you know your average ticket is per year? Like a thousand bucks?
Like. Like revenue.
Like revenue per customer?
Yeah. Probably close to grand.
Two grand?
Yeah, probably so.
But it takes a whole year to recoup the cost of acquiring them. Right now, who makes money in the pool service industry is the lead. I've looked at this industry up and down.
Really.
The people who make money are the people who get the routes and then sell them off.
No way.
100%. You paid $2,000 for someone, it takes 18 months. Why would I not? If I can just get the lead, service it for a month or two and then sell it to someone and get all the revenue and profit for the next 18 months. Today it's simply a matter of dialing your Google Ads.
We were doing some door hangers too. We've probably done like a thousand recently and not so much come back, which is weird. I put like a free first. First month free too. Mm.
How many out of that? You get any calls at all?
Not yet.
Right.
I actually, I think I got one. So far I gotta be better about asking, but I think it was more I was like chasing like just fast growth. Fast, fast, fast. And I was like, I have money to put money in marketing and buy pools, so I'll just do that, you know.
Right. Your big challenge now is like switching from the labor, doing the work to now like managing the crews.
Right.
Got it.
Yeah. So far so good. I had to fire one guy. The catcher was. I caught him drinking. He was drinking. I called him, he said he had a coup beers. And then I got a call from some random guy on the road saying, yeah, your guy's falling asleep at the stoplight. And I was like, oh, geez. He said like, oh, I promise. It was just that one day, like really bad day. I was like, it's all good. He was going through like a breakup and stuff. I felt bad. Then the next Monday, he didn't show up. He, like, called in sick.
Some of it just comes back to confidence, right? Confidence you can build a million dollar business. Confidence you don't need to go to school to get a degree. Confidence that, like, the business is going to do well. That was hard for me to get over, dude. I. When I was your age, I was the guy who was supposed to go to medical school and become a doctor when I was super young. And so at 21, I had people emailing me saying, what are you doing wasting your life? It's a throwaway of talent. You should be doing X, Y and Z. That's why I asked you, like, what is the end goal? Like the million dollar thing. You've got to actually know that's your goal and why it's your goal.
I have reasons for it, but it's like when you're comfortable. Yeah. It's like it takes away the reason, you know? Yeah, a little bit, A little bit.
