How to Start an All-Electric Lawn Mowing Business | RoundUP 23

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the landscape business course. Today is another episode of the Roundup podcast where we're going to interview another landscape and lawn care professional. And I hope it's something that you can gain tips, advice and tricks to grow your business. Here we go.

Let's go.

Vlad, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Mike.

Cool. So let's go ahead and jump in. Let's first off, go over kind of how you got started with lawn care and then why did you or did you from the very beginning decide to go exclusively electric?

So, yeah, I mean, you know, I've been mowing my own lawn since I was a kid. Kind of like you, with your, your history. And, you know, I kind of thought about probably doing mowing on the side a few years ago. Probably like 2018, 2019. And I even spoke to my previous boss about it, you know, and with the whole pandemic happening, so I went to school for architecture and urban design and, you know, the whole pandemic happened and, you know, everything got kind of put on hold. So, you know, I kind of jumped around on a few ideas on what I would do. Maybe I'd be a real estate agent or something. Or my long term goal is kind of like what you're doing is be a real estate investor. So. But I needed some sort of, you know, funds, you know, to build that up. So, you know, I kind of got the idea of maybe, hey, let's go ahead and give this shot, and maybe being like a lawn care owner and, you know, starting my own business. So, you know, I kind of follow a little bit of videos in the beginning from like Florida, Florida turf pros. Kind of quiet lawn. I think you might be doing their Zero Turn episode soon. Shout out to those guys. So I kind of got the ideas of how can I stand out. So I know we live in Florida. It's not the most like, green state, but being kind of like a millennial, we're always thinking about the environment. Something that I quickly got to as well. I know there's electric equipment out there. I did a little bit of research and I thought, well, this might be a good way to stand out in front of all the other competition here in Florida. I mean, you know, you got a franchise right here in Deland close to me. There's a lot of competition for lawn care, you know, lawn care service. So I wanted to stand out. So that's what kind of did. I did a little bit of research on what I can do. And a lot of the commercial mowers right now are around 21 inches. You know, there's you know, Toro, Ego, Greenworks, all these other brands. So I did a lot of research, I watched a lot of videos online about reviews, what would work well and you know there's commercial manufacturers out there like Mean Green, which down the road I did end up getting one of those mowers. So but in the beginning I didn't. I just started off with the smaller 21 inch mowers and kind of built up my capital so I can afford a large mower. So from there, Yeah, I started 100% day one with all electric lawn equipment. And you know, it's so far it's worth great. I'm sure it's just like you talked about in your videos. The upfront investment is definitely higher than you know, going about going out and buying, you know, maybe like a commercial, you know, 1200, 1400, possibly, you know, gasoline mower. But you know, the maintenance has been pretty much zero. Like I, all I do is sharpen blades, maybe put a little bit WD40 or grease on some of my stuff and that's it and then charge batteries.

So from, from a pricing standpoint, did you find that people were willing to pay more for that electric service? Because obviously that was your differentiating point at the beginning. Did you find people actually willing to pay more for it or was it like, hey look, I'm really happy that you're saving the environment but I'm not willing to pay a dollar or more for it? What was your experience in that?

So you know, at the end of the day, yeah, like you said before in one of your videos, most people are not willing to pay any more like a penny more for electric lawn equipment. They're down, they're trying to find, you know, the best deal, the best value lawn care service. So you know, the way again I save money on that is just the maintenance cost reducing, you know, going down to my dealer to get repairs and stuff like that and other parts. So I'm, you know, probably, I know I'm on the higher end in my market definitely. But you know, it's definitely not because I'm electric, it's just because I try to bring a proceed a higher perceived value to my clients out there.

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Got it. And so when, when you, when someone's, you know, becoming a customer, do you get a lot of questions about what the mower can or cannot do or is it pretty much okay, we want a lawn care service. Great. You're electric and it's more about your brand, your communication. Obviously the price has to something factor into it. What have you found in that regard?

So most of my clients, I feel don't really question anything about lawn equipment. But I do get a lot of attention from people that drive by, people walking their dog. I get a lot of people stop me, especially with a mean green walk behind mower. That's what I have, that wbx, it's not your traditional looking, you know, push mower. So they definitely stop me and they ask me, hey, how's that equipment going? How long does the battery last? I even get a lot of lawn care workers that are out mowing lawns nearby. They'll come by and stop me and ask me, hey, how's that going? How much did it cost? Is it powerful? And people ask me how powerful the hand tools are and everything. So it definitely attracts more attention. And that's kind of going back to what I was trying to say, stand out. But my client didn't really question the quality of the work. I mean I go out there, I produce high quality, you know, care for them. So there's no question of if it's going to bring, you know, what they're looking for.

No, it's very cool. And what I think is really cool what you're doing, Vlad, is really leaning into the differentiating point. Right. Like you are electric and even on your website, which I'm going to pull up in a second, you know, it's.

A long care web design.

Oh yeah, of course, absolutely. But like.

But just, just you leaning into that is what I find is so, so good. What makes you different and whether it be someone's age or something that they offer in terms of electric or robotic and just leaning into that, how has that affected your growth kind of plans and ambitions in terms of the electric side, is it somewhat of a limiting factor in your belief in can you grow and scale this or is this more something that you will eventually have to change the gas powered and your branding if you were to grow and scale the company up so scaling wise?

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think I'm definitely limited, you know, I definitely, you know, you have to make sure you have enough batteries on board when you go out for your routes. Because you know, it's not like you can stop at a gas station and fill up on gas or anything. Like you really got to make sure you have them. I mean as I'm small sometimes when I started I had to, you know, go back to, to shop or the house and kind of charge them up for a little bit during lunch and then go out there and continue for the day. But as I do scale, I'm going to continue to invest in new batteries to make sure, you know, as my, you know, you know, my, I get more budgeted hours and then as I bring on, I have a part time worker now, I'm going to be hiring in January. Once the season, the Christmas season starts laying off, I'll pick them up and you know, we'll definitely need more, more batteries to keep up with, you know, the added budget hours we're getting every week. So that's like the limiting factor of that part there. What was the rest of the question?

No, that was great. In terms of just scaling and, and as you grow, do you think it will scale? Because I think my biggest concern is like even with batteries, like they're expensive, they take a certain amount of time before it actually pays off. When you compare it against fuel, have you seen where those batteries begin over time to actually deteriorate or they have less budget hours that can be completed on a mo?

Yeah, so right now I use ego and a lot. I used, I have mainly two right now five amp batteries that I have issues with. They get overheated and they're not charging. But I have some of their larger batteries and I have zero issues with it. And then I kind of, I also have the mean green mower which uses, you know, they're kind of like two car sized batteries inside the mower. There's zero issues with those batteries. I mean they last all day pretty much. Their runtime is probably like six, seven hours maybe. So they definitely last my entire route. I start from 8am to 6pm and then I charge it overnight in like four or five hours is ready to go for another full day of worth of work. So you know that that mower is a lot more expensive, like you know, $10,000 so that I'm still paying that loan off. But that investment definitely pays off because I mean it's a lot faster than using a 21 inch push mower that I have. But there's no issues with that battery. But the smaller ones definitely there has been issues. Yes.

Have you, have you done the math in terms of how long it typically would take to pay off from a purely economical standpoint in fuel versus batteries, how long that would usually take to actually make it economically make sense is that once you hit a thousand hours, obviously there's benefits outside of just the fuel itself because how I look at is even spilled fuel and gas cans, just a sure can is $50. Right. You don't have to buy those every six months because they always get lost. There's so many little other things around fuel that I'm very interested in with the electric side. But have you actually done a breakdown of what that hourly savings is or how long it takes to kind of break even on that piece of equipment?

Not exactly. So like I said in the beginning, I did start with a 21 inch push mower and I was tracking my time then at least for that size and I was trying to see when would it be economical, how economical would it be using the larger mower? I didn't really do like a gas and electric analysis comparison comparison. But I mean I think at the end of the day like I'm probably like it's probably a little more economical sense. I know like you, I don't know about the larger mower. It's you know, definitely more expensive. But if you're trying to do small residential properties, probably under 5, 6000 square feet and you're going to use all electric I think and probably in the long term it's definitely going to pay off. I mean just a headache. I mean, you know, there's no, there's very little chance of something breaking and now you have to go to dealer, find a part or anything. I mean, you know, there's very little moving parts. Worst case you go out, you spend you know, maybe two $300 on a. Another battery if you need some more and you're off backing mowing lawns, there's no hold up or delay or anything like that.

So what's a little trippy for me when it comes to these electric mowers is just how light they are. Right? Yeah, like, you know, have you found that to be an issue? Not just from like and a you stand but obviously it's way easier in your body. But like I don't know, like, I just don't know if I, when I feel like that lightness, I'm like man, this, I don't know if this is going to last me five years. Like has things broken like with the plastic or anything like that. Obviously they're built commerce for commercial use. But what's your experience been with that so lighter.

Let's talk about the hand tools first. So the pow. The tools are lighter without the batteries. Once you put in a battery, especially like a 7 and a half amp 10amp battery, it starts to become heavier than the gas. I use the gas, you know, my own property, I still have the tools right now. And when you compare it, such a hypocrite. The gas actually lighter. They're actually lighter. But if you put like you know, a five or two and a half amp battery in there, it's probably equal or maybe a little bit less. Now the mower, it is very light. I actually like that because it's easy to move around. It's not like wear and tear on the body. But the bad part is I don't know if it's the mower design or because it's light. There's not enough suction in those mowers. Right now. For example, Ego and I know the Greenworks, they have a 25 inch, that quiet lawn and other people use. It doesn't the best. It doesn't have the best cut quality. And maybe it might be because there's not enough suction because the mower is so light. You go over the bumps and it kind of loses that suction when it raises. So I don't know again, it's a design or because it's so light, because I have a, you know, 21 inch gas mower that I use in my own home and the cut quality is a lot better. And I think because it's, you know, it's Husqvarna, it's metal, it stays on the ground a lot more. So it's able to, you know, create that vacuum effect, that suction effect.

Got it. And then in terms of charging the batteries, I know you said at night you charge them. Have you played with the idea of trying to do some sort of a solar charge? Have you just found, hey, it's just easier to buy more batteries and have them as backups.

So I actually got this again back, going back to quiet Lawn. He had kind of talked about this in one of his videos. So they have an enclosed trailer and he has solar panels on top. So going from job to job, you're going to get a very little like charge unless you really leave it in there, I guess, and you have extra batteries charging while you're out mowing. So it's possibly something I would look into as maybe if I scale larger one Day. I think it's just easier to have just all the batteries on board ready to go. There's no question if, like, oh, what if they don't charge in time? Or what if it gets rainy? Because it rains a lot here in the summer, we're not getting any sunshine and, you know, then we don't have any batteries. So I think it's better just to buy extra batteries, pay the, you know, the higher cost, couple hundred bucks or whatever it is, have all the batteries you need for that day's route, no matter what the weather is going to be.

Speaking of rain, like, I've always thought, like, the pro of having an electric mower in the rain is the fact that it's lighter and it won't make as many ruts. Like, you could actually potentially keep mowing during the rain or when it's pretty soupy. The downside in my mind is again, that issue of suction and just if it actually is powerful enough to get through, like just wet, thick grass. Like, what's your experience been. Been on that side of things? I know some of these are elementary questions, but for people, that's kind of okay.

Yeah, I know a lot of people are not using electric equipment. So when it comes to my smaller EGO mower, so when it is wet, majority of our clients here have St. Augustine grass. So it gets pretty thick and it'll, it'll. It'll handle the load. But what happens is it starts burning the battery a lot faster. So what? Normally that battery will last an hour. Now it's going to last maybe 30, 40 minutes. With my larger mean green mower, again, I can increase the bill aid speed. It'll take on the, the grass, like, no problem. Like, it's, it's nothing. No problem at all. But again, you're going to burn a little bit extra battery because of that. So you kind of have to compensate that when you're out there mowing, you know, you know how wet the grass is, you know, so you just want to make sure you have no battery for the rest of the day. Especially for something like the mean green, the more commercial mowers. You can't just replace the battery in and out in the truck real quick like those mowers. Those batteries are kind of like inside the mower, so you have to kind of plug it in. It's not like the ego, the handheld tools where you can just swap a battery and keep going. So that's the difference. But I definitely think they could definitely take on like the wet grass and the suction like the larger commercial brand mowers. Yeah, got it.

And in terms of employees, like, obviously you're still trying to grow, you know, have some experience with the employees. You're going to be hiring another one here in January. But I think one of my other concerns, just for ease of use and just, you know, comfortability around that kind of equipment in terms of batteries and figuring out like how many minutes I have left and not just saying, oh, I have gas in the truck, when I run out, I'll just go fill it up. How have you, or have you seen employees deal with the battery side of things and their adoption rate of the technology and then also just treating the equipment because it is lighter? I feel like potentially it could be dropped more or broken easier. I could be wrong on that. How has it been harder to train employees on this? And this is where I see a lot of solo operators or smaller companies using it. But then as they grow and scale, they eventually switch over to gas sometimes. Have you found that to be an issue or do you think it's just a matter of the technology getting better and it's, it's not really a problem?

I don't think so. So, you know, my first hire that I have right now has zero experience in lawn care. So they're, you know, they were just learning right there on the job, day one. So, you know, the handheld tools, there is more plastic, but there's still, you know, the shaft of the, you know, the string trim is still metal. Some of them are carbon fiber. They're, you know, the edge are still metal. So if they drop it, I think it's just the same quality as the gas. It's not going to break. The most plastic part I have is the blower and the mower, which, you know, I've dropped my blower so many times, like on the grass or maybe the concrete. And it's, it's sturdy, it's not going to break. It's pretty thick, you know, heavy duty, like material. I, I think at least from the EGO brands I can talk about because that's what I use. I think they're, the tools itself is, you know, the great quality. The batteries are the ones that are a little bit issues. But I think the employees, I think it's easier than gas because there's no need to start up, you know, the mower or the trimmer. It's just, you just press a button and you go. So especially kind of like what you talk about, what I'm doing a little bit is Just hiring sometimes people with zero experience. So I think there's a benefit because it's electric because everyone knows how to like push a button and it works electronics, so there's no need to, you know, hey, do this. Or like, I know for gas, like you might need to adjust something or check the spark plug, maybe it's loose or something like that. There's, there's. You don't. I don't have to worry about anything like that for new employees because we don't have that parts and the electric equipment, it's literally just flash the button and you're out there mowing or anything like that. So it's, it's actually, I think easier because it's electric.

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A little bit more about the maintenance side of things of the equipment. I know you said, hey, like it's basically some WD40. There's no like moving parts besides the blades, like you sharpen those up. Is there anything else been that's like.

Hard to find parts, for example, like either crack something or broken where it's like, like you literally, it's unusable. You can't just go get a part from your dealer and you have to reorder a new one. Is there anything like that right now? Just because it is such a new sort of technology.

So there's not. When you talk about dealers, usually dealers are the gas equipment. So I had an issue earlier on where I lost the part for my ego mower, for example. I can't just go down to my local dealer, shop here and have that. They all have gas equipment. So there are retail centers here like Ace and other like Lowe's or whatever that sell ego part ego merchandise, but they don't actually sell the parts. So I had to go online, order it, wait for it to come in. So in the meantime I had to find out what to do. Like, you know, do I use my other mower? Do I have to, you know, go buy another set of equipment and then, you know, just have a set of two or three or whatever is extra laying around. So you kind of have to Play with that. My larger mean green mower, for example, will the closest dealer to me that you know, where I got is, you know, still about 35, 40 minutes away from my location. And I know for you it's very important to have a local dealer close by. But with the electric being so new, a lot of the local dealers are not, you know, they're not going towards electric yet. So I have to go out a little bit out of the way. And a lot of those parts are coming straight from the manufacturer, which is Ohio. So it takes about a week or so for those parts to come in. So I think that's good. If you're going to start in electric equipment, lawn care equipment, that you have at least two mowers, at least accessible, or you have a place to go buy an extra string trimmer, extra blower, and you have that capital in the bank in case you need to. Because if one, if you only have one set of everything and one thing breaks and you have no money in the bank, let's just say to go and buy another one at like Ace Hardware, you're kind of getting yourself a little bit screwed. And I had a point at that one point I was like, oh man, do I just go out and bring my gas mower out? And I thought, no, that's not going to be very valuable to my clients. I want to be true that, hey, we're all electric and if something breaks something, we're going to find a way to make sure that your lawn gets taken care of and it's quiet, it's clean and it's electric.

I think it's back to what you said though. It's really about the battery technology, right? Because technically the tools themselves are actually relatively cheap. Like they're not like abhorrently expensive. It's the batteries. So as long as the batteries can work well, getting a couple replacements or backups, I should say, for a trimmer or a mower isn't too bad. And especially like even the past little bit, we had one of our franchisees getting a Honda 20 inch mower. And because of the shortage there, they were wanting $2000 for a 21 inch mower, which is typically 1200. So that starts to become a lot more economical sense to go out and buy a push mower, get several batteries and be okay with it. From, from that perspective, a 21 inch mower commercial like highest end. What are you looking at in terms of price once you get the mower itself as well as the several batteries as backup?

So Right now I think the mowers are about I think like 700. And I think there's a battery included with that with, you know, when you come in. And then you're probably going to want, depending on how large your business, if you're a solo operator, you could probably get away with maybe like two, maybe three batteries. Two, three batteries for just a mower for a full day's route. And then you know, you want a couple extra for your handheld tools. So you know, with a blower, string trimmer, I think, you know, depending on size of battery, let's just say with 7 and a half, 10amps or so, you're probably going to want about maybe like four of those, maybe five, six if you want to be safe right now, like, or at least when I started I only had what, four. And again it was still kind of difficult because sometimes I had to come home and charge my batteries for go out for the day. So next year I'm going to do a lot better job to make sure that I have the batteries. Buying extra, buying extra inventory, make sure they're charged, keep them on the truck so it reduces that drive time again, increases P4P and everything performance. So just keeping extra batteries.

Yeah, I think, you know, I think my, my big thing would be for a. Is someone just getting started. Like I think it's a great place for a 20 inch more if you have smaller lawns. And I think honestly the price on the smaller lawns is becoming comparable and, and it's a great place to get started. Especially like for me when I first got started, I actually, full disclosure, didn't know yet to sharpen the blades.

Right.

So I went the whole first year without sharpening my blades. I didn't know you actually had to. And then when I did, I didn't know you had to take them off. I would, I didn't know how to use an impact driver, so I would literally just take a grinder and just try to sharpen them after jacking them up. So like for someone that is much less mechanically inclined, electric might be a great place to get started because the bar entry is better.

Yeah, I agree. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. Like I said, like with those mowers all you have to do is really change the blades. And it's just three bolts, you get them blades off or two depending on the mower. And you know, I have a grind of a, you know, a sharpener in my house here I sharpen them up and you know, you put them back on, that's it. There's very little mechanical knowledge needed.

Definitely going forward to 2022. What's kind of your plan, Vlad, your kind of goals for the business? And is there kind of a triple bottom line in terms of the ecological and the environment side of things? But more important, the business, the numbers. What are the plans for the business as you begin next year?

So like I said, so in the end of January, looks like hopefully maybe February. Begin February, I'll be hiring my first like full like part timer. And then as we built up, you know, clients and stuff like that. So hopefully by like maybe March, what I'll be doing is I'll be getting an actual like truck. I want to do a trailer setup kind of with the ramp rat sport now because we do a lot of bush trimmings, so I know a lot of electric. You know, they usually get like an enclosed trailer. But trailers are big and a lot of these homes are so small. There's so little space to park a vehicle. So right now I have a six foot trailer behind my, my personal vehicle, my suv and it's like, it just, it's very tight. So I do want to go into a trailer set up with a ramp rack sport. We do a lot of bush trimming. So I always have a lot of debris in the back of there. Keep the two mowers I have back there and moving forward, like I said, we'll buy. I'm hoping to get a truck for that probably in March. Just, you know, truck prices are so high right now, so it's a little difficult to find something. And again, as soon as we build up, you know, enough clients, you know, we'll have that employee go to full time. And then towards the end of the summer, maybe mid fall, we'll get them their own truck. That way they'll be on their own and we'll have like two solo routes going out there. And you know, Moving on to 2023, just continue to keep growing and hire some more employees, maybe another two, possibly in 2023. And just, just, you know, keep continuing to grow and keep bringing value to the customers around here. I mean, there's a lot of homes being built here. You know, I have a lot of small properties and there's some larger ones as well, but we can cater to the small ones. A lot of them really like how quiet they are, especially they're building these small homes. You talk about under 5,000 square feet. I mean, between the houses, there's only like six to eight feet between them. So, you know, when we're out there mowing. Their neighbors don't even know we're even there. So it's great. But moving forward, you know, for the numbers wise this year, which, I mean I went from part time to full time this year. I started full time in June and I went full time since. So we're finishing the year with about 41, $42,000. Nothing impressive of course, but moving next year. I have some numbers here. I kind of use your from long care was it landscape business course. You had talked about doing projections. There you go. So I got one for next year. I'm looking hoping to do about $147,000 with that employee going to full time and hopefully we'll be having about almost 3,000 budgeted hours together. We'll be mowing. So that's kind of like the goal for next year. You know, keep buying some more equipment and keep and you know, hiring as much as I can. So as soon as you know the, the routes are full but hire another employee and keep growing. I definitely don't want to keep this small. I'm not passionate about lawn care service. Just kind of like how you are, you know, I like the business side of it, the numbers. I really like working on Excel and Google sheets and the marketing side of it. So I love going out there and doing door hangers and doing online ads. So I see myself later on down the road kind of, you know, being like an office manager until that gets handed off to someone else down the road. But for now that would be ideal. Hopefully, you know, we'll have, you know, maybe like four solo, you know, crews out there going duds like the future, probably next year or 2023. We'll probably have that completed for now. Yeah.

Very cool. Well, I appreciate all of your time. I think my last question is some in relation to your setup in terms of the, the trailer, the setup. I know a lot of people are concerned about having too much weight on the, the axle of their, their trailer or their truck. Are you going to use a smaller truck like a Ranger or Tacoma or something smaller or are you just going to get like a 1500 or 150 and then furthermore, would you put your, your mean green like your, your larger mower in that because that would obviously not necessarily be a whole lot lighter compared to obviously the push mowers are much lighter of being electric. What's kind of your plan set up in terms of the truck for that trailerless setup?

So I'm definitely looking for something like a 1500 or F150. And I know, you know, I've looked at other reviews for those ramp racks. They do put zero turns on there. But I am looking to hopefully I'm going to do some testing some more in the spring and summer to maybe go down to just 21 inch or if they come out with a more smaller 30 inch mower, kind of like what you guys use, the Ex Mark. But right now there's nothing like in the market like that for electric besides a 25 inch greenworks, but has terrible ratings so I'm not going to invest in that. But hopefully down the road we have the smaller mowers where we can just keep that on the ramp rack. Hopefully I'll have the mean green maybe on there for some jobs that require it. If it really becomes an issue where, you know, the truck's not really able to handle that weight, maybe we'll tow possibly like a trailer behind that or have another vehicle that might not have a ramp rack but just be for those, for those larger jobs that we have, the projects that require like a trailer behind the truck.

Got it. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time, Vlad. Best of luck to you next year.

Thank you. Yeah, I'll see you in January for the conference.

Oh yeah, absolutely. That's awesome.

I'm bringing my employee with me, so.

Oh, cool. Very cool. The one that's starting later in January.

February, I don't want right now. I have.

Yeah, got it, got it.

The first part timer, she's kind of like seasonal a little bit.

So kick off the year with going working full time with you then.

Yeah, eventually. Yeah, definitely. Yep.

Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Vlad.

You have a good one.

Take care.

Thank you.

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