From Engineer to Entrepreneur—Escaping His 9–5

Hey everyone, it's Mike Yandy. Today we're out in Colorado and we're going to be doing a tour of Augusta lawn care location.

This is Joel.

He's actually the owner of the year for 2024. Put together our entire coaching dashboard and metrics that we keep track of every month. He's part of a lot of people that are moving from kind of white collar engineering software. And he has started in Augusta location. This is his third year and so he's just moving into profit mode on his first location. Past 500,000 annual revenue. So go ahead and take a tour of his shop facility and hear from Joel from Lafayette, Colorado.

Hey, brother, how you doing? Hey, Mike, how's it going?

Good to see you, man. This is like the highest point. You come quite a bit from where you service, like most of your service area.

This is really our service area. So Erie's are. I would say a third of our customers are here in Erie.

Okay.

We service snow and mowing for this HOA right here. But yeah, we go all the way out to Superior to the west and then Broomfields to the south.

Cool.

Or that kind of beyond that ridge.

This is pretty central in. In terms of.

For the Lafayette location.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool.

And it's all from here.

So Lafayette in this unit. Okay. Broomfield has its own unit halfway down there.

Okay.

Then there's another unit for Christmas light storage.

How long, how far is the Broomfield drive? For now?

At least.

10 minutes into like the northern part of Broomfield, but if you go further south, it's probably six, seven miles. So when we were doing Broomfield as part of Lafayette, it was difficult because Broomfield is basically like the size of Broomfield's half of like basically the same size as all the Lafayette location. So. And we split it all. We put it all in one day. So it's a very sparse route. So now split it up. It's easy to do like chunks each day of the week.

So you think you kind of just grow there for like another year before kind of getting something over there.

The trouble. Shop space is always a trouble. So for me, it's like, I'd like to get out of this and do something with some office space more so that we have some electrical and like power to charge stuff and kind of meet together.

But this is a really nice storage facility because most don't have parking. So you're either like, it's all parking for RV stuff or you have just storage. Got it. So it's actually not too bad to Be here and go down Broomfield. Because Broomfield's more developed. It's a little bit older, so harder to find something like this.

Right.

And interesting.

Cool. Let's go. This is, this is the move. It's awesome. So you all push mower then?

Yep. Wow.

And then ramp racks for everything.

Yep.

Let's go. And did you do Christmas nights last year for the first year. Good stuff.

Yeah. So this is what's left over from last year. And then all the actual customer boxes are in their own unit.

Cool. Then you kind of just walk me through like the, the first few years. Then like in terms of revenue when you started this location, like year one, two, three, like what was that looking like?

Sure. So this is our third year. Year one, 2023, we did 240,000.

Probably just like negative 1,000, negative 2,000 profits kind of break even. Year two, we did 424,000. I think about 40,000 in profit.

And then this year we're probably on track for depending on how Christmas lights go because really trying to like 3x what we did last year. So really tail heavy right now. I think we're around 350 for the year. Shooting for somewhere between 5 and 5 50. And then Broomfield will do hopefully 40 to 50,000.

Okay. So that was basically like one route. Just kind of like getting started over there for now.

Yeah. So Broomfield split off. It's been a really weird year for leads. I don't know why. We really struggled with that in the spring. So Broomfield hasn't really grown at all. And they're at about 40 mowing clients. So it's not quite enough for the GM by himself. But we try to supplement with cleanups and other projects.

Got it. Cool. Very cool. And then before, before you came here, you were an engineer, like software side, right?

Yep.

So maybe kind of walk me through that like leaving that to this. Like. Yeah, I know people will watch the video, but like for someone like that's completely outside of lawn care. What were some of the things that you thought that you kind of have to change your mind or you have to learn coming into this industry.

And the mowing and stuff you can learn on YouTube. So that wasn't too bad. Especially since we just do the simple services. I think the biggest thing was going from the office environment, kind of white collar environment to working with more with labor force, blue collar environment, and especially learning how to train those guys, manage those guys.

Definitely. Since before I'd never done management, had real management experience besides like small teams in College. So that was a big learning lesson for me, trying to figure out how to motivate guys, how to make sure they're doing good work, all that sort of thing. That's still a struggle with me, especially now that I'm managing managers that managing team members. I know you had a video recently about that. So that was the biggest transition. That and sales a little bit. But with the simple services it's less so sales. Just making sure that we're providing good service and getting back to people in a timely manner.

Even right now I kind of think about a lot of that white collar, like the engineer side with everything with AI and so many layoffs, a lot of them are starting to think about like, okay, do I make this huge transition? What would you say to someone like that? Like they like considering whether the welding or the thing on going blue collar, what would you say to that person in terms of just like, hey, be careful of these things. And like also I think sometimes like being an IC versus a manager and like that transition, what would you kind of tell that three year old version of yourself from back then?

I would probably say it kind of depends on where you're coming from because I know there's a lot of people who kind of come in, have a lot of cash and want to kind of be a manager immediately and go or manage a manager like I did, which is still tough because you're learning the business and trying to manage someone at the same time. So you're kind of being a little bit micromanager and that's not necessarily great for whoever you're leading. But if you're not going to go that route, are you going to go yourself? I would say kind of research what you're going into, make sure that it's something that you at least like doing so you don't get in a couple of months in. And business is hard regardless of what you're doing. So if you hate it, you're going to burn out and it's not going to be fun. So at least make it something that you can enjoy doing or at least be content doing day after day and working with other people.

And I'm not a huge people person, so that's also tough for me going from individual contributor to more of a manager, leader of a team. And so just make sure that you are comfortable with that as well because it is a very different set space going from like being at a computer and just kind of heads in doing your own thing even if you are working with a team to Being more hands on, face to face with people, especially with customers as well. So it's a difficult transition. But I would say, like make sure you understand kind of what you're going into. It's not impossible to do. It's not.

I'd say it's like people say, I know Cody Sanchez is often saying, like blue collar businesses, Main street businesses are a great way to kind of transition into, but it's not completely hands off. It's never going to be passive no matter what you're doing. Even right now, I'm pretty hands off, but I'm still checking in on things, checking in with my managers, making sure we're doing a good job. And if I have to step in, I have to step in. So always be ready to kind of get your hands dirty. Work in the business is kind of the main thing as opposed to thinking, oh, I'm just going to put some money in, it'll be hands off and I'll just be able to lay on a beach doing nothing.

Yeah, you kind of ran a little bit differently even when you got you were getting your second location. I remember we had our meeting, we were like, hey, is it enough revenue yet? Because you weren't quite yet to the 500, like for it to have a second location. So I know having them together and like you're still kind of operating as one for now before you break it off. But like walk me through that thought process of like, like having two managers versus just being like, hey, let's just keep growing this one until it's fully at 7, 800,000 in profit mode. What was sort of your mentality or idea behind that?

Yeah, looking back, I would probably not have split it off this year. I would wait another year. And I knew that going in that probably wasn't the best idea. But I was expecting again, we had quite a bit of growth on going from 240 to 420 last year. So I expected to be able to continue growing. But for whatever reason, our lease dropped off 33% this spring compared to last year.

And it's all on the recurring side or projects too. Just across the board.

Yeah, got it. And so we really struggled to grow. And so that kind of led to problems that I didn't foresee happening. And always my fallback plan was could always just move back into one location, one CRM.

But the reason for splitting it off was one, to kind of understand myself what it's like to have a couple of managers and being that more regional manager kind of role. And Kind of growing myself that way. But more importantly was I really wanted to triple the lights business. Broomfield, we didn't really have a lot of presence. So I really wanted mostly to get the websites, have the SEO so that we could rank highly for Christmas lights. And then going into especially next year for mowing and the lawn care side really ranked really well. Have a presence so that we could really capitalize next year on the growth.

What do you think you'll do in Christmas lights this year between the two?

So we're only going to do Christmas lights for Lafayette. So it's basically one truck, one crew. Because I think you can do based on what we did last year, targeting 100,000 revenue. We did 37 last year.

Nice.

But we were only doing installs maybe half a week, like two, three days per week through November. This year we have pretty much every Friday in October lined up. And then if we can get every.

Day all your renewals, all your renewals in October.

There's a couple new ones too, but yeah, mostly renewals. And then if we can get almost every day or every day in November lined up, we can easily hit 100 with one crew.

Cool. Because that was kind of like your big money maker. Even last year you did like 60,000 in that. Like that last month.

Yeah. November we hit 64,000 I think. And so from November and December we did 37,000 Christmas lights and we did. We prepaid for a lot of our materials through certified lights. So the. We didn't have a huge expenditure of lights all in November. So that kind of helped. It kind of hindered our pre loss through the rest of the year, but then made November and December look really good.

What do you do in January? February here. Cuz I know you don't do snow.

Oh, we do do snow.

Oh you do?

Yeah. Our snow blowers are actually. We have shovels.

All residential stuff though.

Yeah.

And do you rule that into snow service or winter services or is it totally separate?

Last year I put them all. I put it all together. Didn't love the outcome of that. So this year we're just doing snow separately.

Were people just kind of confused by it?

I don't know. So two years ago we just did winter services by itself. We had pretty much 50% opt out straight off the rip and then more kind of opt out as this crew started showing up in November. They're like, what are you doing here?

We did the kind of video explanation, the emails, text messages. Because last year or two years ago, November was horrible because we had to do a ton of refunds for winter services because people didn't see our email. So last year, I made sure we did an email, two text messages, and made sure people knew that we were doing this. But we still got 50% to opt out immediately and another 20% kind of first couple weeks of November. So we had like 50 winter services plus snow clients, and then a few more, maybe 20 more snow clients only.

Got it.

So the goal this year is really to get as many people on snow as possible to fill up our trucks and give them on season passes. So that way we have similar revenue to winter services but less labor to fulfill. And I think with. With P4P, the goal is to break even. To hit our break even point on revenue is to get basically our P4P percentage on pay per visit versus the season pass.

Got it? Okay. All right, that makes sense. Last year at Augusta Lawn Care, the average location grew revenue by more than 27%. And we're on track to beat that this year. If you want to see why, go to augustalawncareservices.com franchise and watch over 50 videos and case studies of different owners that took their independent lawn care business and. And turned it into Augusta Lawn Care. And so you think you'll be able to keep, like, two or three of you guys? Kind of.

Is that the goal? I like to keep everybody. So we have three techs, two GMs right now.

So the goal is basically that's two trucks for Lafayette, one truck for Broomfield. And so if we can get 50 and 100 or 150, that should be. We should be able to fulfill that with all those guys.

And do most of those leads come pouring, like, right when snow is about to show up, though, or do people think about it a little more ahead here?

Some people think ahead. It's kind of like everything. Some people think ahead. Most people wait. Yeah, it was hard last year because we've had a lot of winter services customers, and since we're doing winter services plus snow, that kind of filled up our snow.

And so I didn't actually advertise for snow because we were basically full right in. In beginning of November and couldn't take on any more clients. So I don't know exactly how that was going to work. But this year we're doing more advertising. We have, I think, 2,000 door hangers sitting there ready to go for snow.

Okay, cool. Let's go.

Yeah, snow's all right here.

Are you doing the instant pricing on it or not? Okay, cool. Oh, you're doing the monthly. Kind of like the season.

Yeah, the monthly. Yeah, the season pass.

Are you just doing like a four month thing or is it.

So it's a six month season, November through the end of April. This year I'm trying pay for 5 months, get one month free kind of thing.

Because upfront, like they pay up?

No, because. So they're going to pay November through March. Okay. The reason being is that usually April, it's probably not going to get snow. If we do, it melts by noon. Like last year we had two storms in November, zero in December. And then January, February, we had snow and then no snow. March, April. So three out of the six months we didn't have snow. And so the season pass pricing is kind of average based on how many visits we do on average per year. But we just kind of spread out that price. And so some customers are like, well, if it doesn't snow, I'm paying for something I don't get. But it's like one, it's insurance and two, basically it's insurance on. If we do get a lot of snow, you're covered. And if we don't get in. There are months without snow, it's kind of averaged. If like February, we get four of his instead of two and you're still covered. So.

And then you can just ease into mowing.

Yeah. Cool.

That's cool for. I know, I know some people, they don't do Christmas lights because they're in markets like George, where it can snow in November, December. So is it here such dry snow that you can kind of just blow things off or like, what's the, the protocol if you get a heavy snow? November?

Yeah, so actually I had two last year. November, first week in November and then Thanksgiving week. And that just screwed up our entire schedule, especially for leaf cleanups and winter services, is that we like, our schedule is full in November and like we were just pushing things. Pushing things because sometimes you'll get snow and especially on the north side of buildings where it's shaded, it just won't melt for a week. And then you can't do leaf cleanups because you're just covered in snow.

So with lights it was kind of an issue. But again, since we weren't full to capacity with lights, we were able to reschedule things and move things around. There were a couple customers who were upset because we had to move them two weeks just to make sure that the snow was completely gone. But I do remember there was one or two last year where there was still snow on the roof and we just had to work around it with the ladders and such to be safe, but still get the stuff on the customer.

You say, hey, we're only going to do like the lower, like ones.

We didn't have to do that. Okay, cool. And then this year I plan to, if we really get into snow shoes, just rent a lift, park down their driveway and usually the lifts can get. The houses are small enough that you can get everywhere with one lift.

Really? That's like one of the ones with the. The arms that go out.

Yeah, articulating booms. They have a reach of like 40ft or so. So you can get most places.

Would you only do that if there is snow then?

Or do you think there are some houses that are really steep and even with the. The goat, it's sketchy to get on them even if you're harnessed in and have that. So if we do some of those, I still want to do the lift just because it's not fun being on a really steep pitch. But most of our houses, like these are not bad at all to be on.

Yeah, no, totally. For the two GMs, what's it kind of been like? Like you said, moving from, hey, I'm the manager to now I'm managing managers. What's that like? Especially for the location that kind of just got started and really he's a labor. But as gm, what's that been like for you? And kind of being that regional manager.

Role, it was really nice in May, June because my wife and I had our first child end of May. So I like checked, almost checked out in June.

So I got lucky that they were able to take it and roll with it without a lot of input from me. For Lafayette, Matthew, he's my third GM here, so I've had one in 2023, one in 2024. And then Matthew, the latest one and the only one so far that's survived spring rush. So that's a. A good sign. And so he's. He's had both of them have had experience running or being involved in family lawn care business beforehand. So they had experience with at least operation side of it. And this is kind of more the sales side and a little bit of the admin using copilot. That was the learning curve.

But I kind of put had a training program for them that go over multiple weeks to kind of slowly ramp them up on tasks and responsibilities so that each week they'd kind of take on a little bit more. And so far that seems to have worked pretty well. I think the biggest thing is, especially for Broomfield is kind of understanding what to do when there's. When you're not full with field work. So if you finish at 1 o' clock where you push do kind of do follow up on estimates. Door knocking, door hangers, trying to get more business. And that's kind of been a struggle of trying to figure out how to make that work because we haven't had a lot of success with the door hangers this year. We did have some. So it's really trying to make sure that he understands like it's your job to grow the business and make sure it's successful in addition to doing all the field work. And then obviously that's tough. That can be tough if you're out in the field for a good chunk of the day, you're tired, it's hot and then you have to try to figure out what to do after that. So that's the biggest thing for Broomfield.

Because you guess right as spring rush was hitting or to the tail of it, you were gone because you haven't kid and then they were in the middle of spring rush. So do you think that played in a part of not growing as much, not having you here as kind of the sales driving force or was it just like, oh, overall you really. That was like sidelines because you have to be gone and you let it kind of close ratio dip or whatever it might be.

I actually don't think I'm great at sales, so I think Matthew's actually done better than me. He's the LA at GM and he actually hit the max metrics for top 10 on close ratio. I think in June and August being above 70% which I never got to in the last two years. So kudos to him.

I think it's just for whatever reason, our inbound leads in April and May, literally April was 25% lower, May was 33% lower. Even though we were doing more through door hangers like I was doing door hangers every day I could before the baby came.

And Google Ads and Facebook ads. I don't know what it was if it was like tariff scaring people back in the spring or job issues. But Lee's just dropped off and they've come back last month, this month our lead counts back up to where we expect it to be.

But I think it's mostly just for whatever reason, inbound wasn't as good as it was and that's what led to it. Not so much that I was out of the field or kind of sitting back.

Have you changed? Like, because now I guess probably this year or coming in 2026, I guess Matthew would probably. Probably be more in profit mode. In Lafayette, that one's still in growth mode. Have you already kind of determined the difference in how you're compensating or bonusing those two different GMs or are you kind of using the same model for both?

I'm using the model you came up with a year or two ago. So for Lafayette, it's in its third year. So it's distribution sharing. And we had our first distribution for Q2. It was a small one. I think the total distribution between him and myself was just under $2,000. So not a lot. But at least it shows that there is profit in the business and kind of show him what it looks like. And I expect Q3, Q4 to be really where the profit is. Q3, I expect another distribution a little bit bigger than that one. And then Q4, I expect it to be substantial, especially with the lights and snow.

And then Broomfield is based off of growth mode, so it's revenue targets again. Since we haven't been able to grow, we haven't hit those targets yet, but it's basically 20,000 to 40,000. There's a bonus each month that we hit that 40 to 60, 60 plus. And that will continue for the first two years at least.

Got it. And Matthew, how long has he been with you?

Since February.

Okay, so it's been still this year. Got it. And so this is. So he went through spring rush like.

Right off the rip.

Yep, got it.

Let's go.

Gotta get through a spring rush. I know we're late.

Sorry. No, but should we get coaching?

Probably pretty soon here. Do you want to check the other same thing?

Yeah, it's basically the same thing with smaller.

That's cool. How much you have to pay for these?

Between the three units, the four parking spaces, we spend 12 to 1300.

Not too bad around here.

No, because office space, like classy warehouse space or whatever. It's like starting at 2,600, I think was the cheapest I've ever seen.

And even if they have space then for like the trucks and allow you to have fuel and all the rest of it too.

So that unit, I don't know if you want to see. It's just boxes.

Same thing.

No, it's for. It's Christmas light storage. Oh, really? Yeah.

Okay, so you had 37 last year.

Do you get more?

Do you pre order a bunch More for this year or just kind of as you sell them?

Yeah, I Pre ordered basically 50 houses worth of lights. Oh wow.

So I so to do 100. So our average last year was $1,000. So with the lights I have on hand, we could probably do 70 to 80 clients. And so if I need to. We had a lot of extra inventory last year just because what customers wanted for different lights. But we should be able to do at least 80 customers. Cool. But yeah, this is Broomfield. This is. We actually had unit two before. Over was Lafayette's original one. So 10 by 20 on that one's a 10 by 30. And this is kind of like what it looks like.

Cool. And so it's really just the one GM working for that one now. Do you think next year he'll get like one employee kind of thing?

Yeah, I wanted to get. I projected to have one employee for here. We just didn't get the lead growth. But next year definitely fill up that one truck, get it just get capacity with those two so that we can save up, get another truck if we need to and continue growing. Luckily I started with two trucks right off the rip.

That was fine. That worked out well for the 240. I think we. We got the third truck early last year. So yeah, we went all of 2023 with two trucks and that worked out well.

Got it. So that that location maybe grew what like 15% the year this year then LA yet 15% in terms of growth this year.

Cuz it went from like 4:20 to 5.

Yeah, it'll probably be 20 to 30 in the spring. We were at like Q1. Our growth was.

Around 30% before things dipped off in the spring. And so overall in the year I think we're still at 10 to 20%. And then hopefully in last part of the year, lights will jack up.

Cool.

Keep going. That's awesome man.

Good stuff.