Justin Deese (00:02.059)
Welcome to freedom blueprint podcast. We are hanging out today with Joe strip matter and, Joe, welcome man.
Joe Strittmatter (00:10.767)
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Justin Deese (00:12.782)
Yeah, I'm glad to be hanging out. We, it's been a while since we've caught up. think last year, maybe at service world or something like that. We, we connected. Um, I'm excited to kind of dig into a little bit about your story and your journey. Uh, I don't know if a lot of people know you or not, but after this, they definitely will. And, um, you've made this really cool transition from, um, you know, owning a business to sell into private equity to, now get in another industry and.
you know, all the things in between. I'm excited to kind of dig into it. But let's start out with this. How did you get even into the plumbing AC space?
Joe Strittmatter (00:51.163)
Second generation. Dad started in 1980. Actually started in 79 working for somebody else for a year. He worked for a printing company and they knew they were going to have a bunch of layoffs and they were closing the location. Thankfully nothing advanced to where he could go and figure out what he wanted to do, you know, after that.
So he put himself through refrigeration school, doing it on the weekends, and went to work for a man in 79 and was helping him out and ended up buying them in 1980. So grew up, I'm sorry? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, back then it was all pretty simple. You know, there were no borgs, there were no...
Justin Deese (01:34.958)
So a year. So just a year. Nice.
Justin Deese (01:43.736)
Ha
Joe Strittmatter (01:46.863)
you know, communication issues, you know, it was all just, you know, simple stuff. And so, yeah, and the guy hung around for a couple of years also afterwards to help that out with some things. But dad, you know, did that and so I just grew up around it. He told me I was 12 when I actually started helping him.
I would go and run rafters for them in the summertime, hanging duck work and doing things of that nature. And just evolved into later me taking it all over in about 2005. And that's what led to this.
Justin Deese (02:39.694)
So 2005, so you had it for what 18 years before you sold it? Does that sound right? 17?
Joe Strittmatter (02:46.456)
Yes, but the first...
Five, six years, roughly, all I did was construction. Didn't bother with service at all, just did new construction. And 09, I was up to five crews coming in each day, doing one or sometimes two systems each that day. And, you know, of course you know what happened in 09.
So I made a knee jerk reaction and I joined a franchise. I won't say the name of it. But I was with that franchise, think a total of six months. Three months in, I realized who was going to make all the money. And I ended up selling it off to somebody that owned the territory right beside us, thankfully.
That's when I read Ron Smith's book, HVAC Spells Wealth. And at the end of the book, he's talking about Matt, Matt Michelle, and Comanche Marketing along with Service Roundtable. And I reached out to them, figured out, heck, they're the next town over. I didn't even know it.
Justin Deese (03:53.656)
Great book.
Joe Strittmatter (04:08.538)
Denton and Louisville, mean, they were 15 minutes apart. And that's where they were based out of, so ended up joining Service Roundtable. Was with that portion for about six months till Charlotte Carson was her name. She's no longer with them, but she kept reaching out, trying to get me to join the Alliance. And I ended up joining the Alliance in, I think 2013. I was one year.
after the inaugural year joining the Alliance. fast forward to now, here we are.
Justin Deese (04:47.032)
So during that period of time, what did the business look like when you took it over and what did it look like when you exited?
Joe Strittmatter (04:54.116)
Well, when I took it over, was zero. Zero revenue. Dad had all but shut it down. So coming out of high school, he asked me if I was gonna take it over. No, I'm gonna go play football somewhere. Who wants to be an AC guy? Well, got hurt, so football went away. Ended up working his friend, a friend of his.
Justin Deese (05:07.47)
You're like, no. Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (05:21.188)
had started a supply house and ended up with 19 locations when he sold it to Watsco. But I went to work for his friend out of high school and kind of learning some ins and outs of it. I worked there three or four years, came back to dad and was like, okay, let's do this. And he told me, no, you had your chance.
go out here and work for other people. And this was back when there wasn't necessarily a service nation or a next star or anything of that nature. There was a RSES division here, but that was the only best practices that there was. And so he's like, go to work for other people, figure it out, they've figured out a better will than I have.
or if they're just doing things the way they do it because that's all they know to do and it'll get you a good experience seeing how other people run businesses. And so I bounced around for the next four to five years working for some of his friends and for some others and when I came back to him I said hey did I prove myself to you yet and he's like yep here's my license good luck. So that's why we're running back to construction.
Justin Deese (06:36.152)
sink or swim, damn it, sink or swim.
Joe Strittmatter (06:38.434)
Yeah, that's why I reverted back to construction because I didn't have any money to market. I didn't have any money to get into construction. was literally, the internet was just coming out.
We had the internet at our house, Tonya and I's house, but we didn't have a printer. So I didn't have the gas money to drive around and try to talk to builders. So I would go over to my parents' house, use their printer to print off letters that I then mailed to builders to try to get work.
And that's how got my first three builders was mailing letters out to builders offering a low price install.
Justin Deese (07:30.478)
Real marketing works. I think, I think that's a, that's, that's a cool story to share because I think a lot of times, especially now we're so reliant on the Google monster and the, know, all the digital things that we forget a lot of times that
Joe Strittmatter (07:32.108)
It does. It does.
Justin Deese (07:48.14)
You know, we're, still in the human connection business. And sometimes it just takes knocking on the door and getting outside of your comfort zone and maybe popping in on a builder. If you don't have gas money, barn somebody's printer and barn a stamp and kicking it out. Listen, letters still work. think people were like, you can't send letters. They don't work. They do work. and it's, it's because most people don't, don't do them or don't do them correctly, but
Joe Strittmatter (08:11.482)
They're unique now. It used to be the norm, kind of like the Yellow Pages. Now it's niche or unique and you can still, it's actually probably working better now because not everybody's flooding it.
Justin Deese (08:13.486)
Mm hmm. Right.
Justin Deese (08:28.642)
Right. Yeah. And I'm talking about letter, like there's letters and then there's postcards and I'm talking about two different things, but both still work. But again, you have to have a strategy with, with each of them. so, okay. So, so you got the business, took it over, got the builders. What made you decide that, Hey, the building thing is not for me. I need to jump into service or how did that even come up? And how did you even think about that?
Joe Strittmatter (08:53.722)
Well, the housing crisis of 2009 forced me. When you go, I had gathered up to two, two and a half million dollars in revenue. And the next year I did 450.
Joe Strittmatter (09:12.992)
So I didn't have much choice. I mean, when there's no building going on, can't do anything. And so that's why the knee jerk, those franchise people called me. It's like, hey, we're selling a franchise in your area. Get into service. And I'm like, yes, this is what I need because I didn't know what to do.
And I learned some really good things there. It wasn't all for naught. You know, some systems and process things. And met some really cool people that I still know that are in the industry. But I realized I wasn't gonna be making the kind of money I thought I was gonna be making, because...
By the time you pay royalties and marketing fees and this program and that program and whatnot, I was going to be making about 25 % of the profits. And so I was like, yeah, that's safe for me.
Justin Deese (10:14.254)
Yeah. Not, 25 % profit, 25 % of the profit.
Joe Strittmatter (10:17.05)
Correct. Correct. So I sold it for a loss even though I didn't have the money to lose, but it's probably the best thing I did.
Justin Deese (10:27.854)
Yeah. Well, and for anybody listening to think about that, like, so you, hit this gorilla marketing, no money, nothing other than determination and aspirations. Like let's go, let's go get it. And then eight hits and any of us in business in eight, like it was just, it was a weird time and everybody was kind of like, I can remember calling banks being like, I got these trucks. Like you want to come get them? You want me to bring them to you? Like what, what's this going to look like? I mean, I don't know.
But those of us who made it out of that, man, there were some really cool lessons that were learned coming through that transition out of the other end of it, which I don't know, maybe that's a blessing of age. know, like, okay, well, we've been through that before. And I feel like a lot of times when people are talking about economy now, I don't think quite as nervously about it as I did back in the day because, you know.
there wasn't a whole lot of diversity we had going on. And I think you guys were the same way because you were focused on the builder side. So, okay, so we, go from, from that to the necessity of the service side and then you guys sold what, what, what year did you guys sell? Okay. So 21 staff size revenue. Where, where were you guys roughly?
Joe Strittmatter (11:38.842)
21.
Joe Strittmatter (11:45.05)
12 and a half million.
Joe Strittmatter (11:51.002)
30 staff.
Justin Deese (11:52.984)
Okay. So that's, that's pretty impressive numbers per per person. So that's a, that's a lot of, that's a lot of growth to happen in a, in let's be honest, that's a pretty short period of time. I know a lot of people, like I grew to $50 bajillion in four minutes and you can too. but realistically there's sustainable growth and I think that's what you guys had going on.
Joe Strittmatter (12:04.442)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (12:20.12)
Yeah, I never really focused on the big number, right? I had some really good mentors early on.
that guided me towards the net profits. In my first Service World Expo event, they pulled me aside and were like, listen, you're gonna hear all sorts of things here.
you're going to hear people talking about how much revenue they do.
And everybody, especially the people that are doing Big Revenue, are happy to share that with you.
Justin Deese (13:00.183)
Mm-hmm
Joe Strittmatter (13:02.476)
Ask them what their nets are.
Joe Strittmatter (13:06.746)
And that was my driver. It wasn't, I want to be the best at whatever it is that I do, but my definition of being the best is different and that guided me to the net profits. And so I want to...
be as profitable, more profitable than anybody. And so there were years, you we hit 22, 23 % net. I've only, I only know three other people who have ever had a higher net profit than I had and legitimately know that they did that. And that's Jason Henderson, Lou Habaika and Billy Stevens. And
That's the realm I wanna play in because I talked to plenty of these 40, 50, 60 million dollar a year companies that didn't make the nets that we were making at 12 and a half.
Justin Deese (14:16.781)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (14:18.458)
but they have a way bigger surface.
And so I steer clear of that.
Justin Deese (14:27.394)
Well, and at the end of the day, what's the point? Like, I mean, realistically in our industry, which, which is sad, most businesses are single digit, single digit, like there's so much risk that people are putting in, risk of their financial security, their, their livelihood in single digits. What's the, what's the point?
But no, I think you're dead on it. And the, and the people that you named. Yes. I mean, that's, that's the, when I think of OGs and I think of guys that you really want to mirror, that's, that's exactly the, the, the list that comes up, not the ones that are a hundred million. And, but yeah, what a, what a great group of people to be tied to.
Joe Strittmatter (15:16.164)
Been fortunate to those guys, very fortunate.
Justin Deese (15:18.7)
Yeah. And what's, what's also cool is they're all so willing to share, you know, they're willing to share, but then it's a matter of, people listening or the paying attention or are they executing? Cause that's really the difference between, like you said, if you're getting into that 20 plus percent profit number in the single is typically it comes down to execution. Like, would you agree with that?
Joe Strittmatter (15:44.608)
Absolutely. There is no mystical magical silver bullet and that's the thing that
Justin Deese (15:51.256)
Great point.
Joe Strittmatter (15:52.333)
everybody is searching for is that silver bullet and there's not a silver bullet out there. I I've watched people jump from organization to organization. I've watched them jump from this mentor to that mentor to this idea to that idea. And it has nothing to do with any of that. Do you want to do the dang work or not?
And that's where it's at is, you you have to develop these systems and processes and follow them. But more importantly, you have to have a way of tracking and testing them.
And if you're not doing that and making that somebody's responsibility, then you're never going to get to that level.
Justin Deese (16:47.128)
Yeah. Great. Great point. There's, there's not an easy button. It's do the work. and I, and I think, you know, that's part of the challenge, not part of the challenge, but I think typically when people join a franchise group in their head, in this, you can validate this, if this was you or not, but you're like, well, great. They're going to hand me everything I need to be successful. Right. And the truth is when you're thinking about your business and your systems and your processes, they have to be you.
Joe Strittmatter (17:09.038)
Yes.
Justin Deese (17:17.302)
Like you have to, you're like, yeah, there's a book over there that tells me all the things that doesn't do you any good. You have to actually know how to do it. And then you have to train it and then you have to train it and then you have to train it again. And then you got to follow up on it you got to train some more on it. but yeah, to your point, there's, there's not an easy button and man, this is just the hard industry. It's a hard business that we're in.
You know, however many trucks you have is how many brands you have out there. And I mean, there's just, they're, they're moving targets for ambulance chasers to go, you know, bump into and, my neck and my back. You know, there's, there's so much of that. It's just a hard industry, but to your point, it's, it's, there's no easy button. You just have to do the work and you have to execute.
Joe Strittmatter (18:02.208)
Absolutely. the one book, one thing that gave me the most guidance was Traction by Geno Wickman. I've now read Traction seven times and I've read just about everything that Geno's put out from Rocket Fuel to Entrepreneurial Leave to what the heck is EOS to all of it.
Justin Deese (18:15.64)
Great book.
Joe Strittmatter (18:32.608)
The reason why I prefer that one is it tells you that you need these systems and processes, but then he tells you how to do it.
And so that's what I liked the most about that book. And it helped me tremendously. You know, we were growing 30 % year over year, every year. Was twice named by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest growing, know, privately held companies in the nation. Won all sorts of awards. And 2019, I was flat.
Joe Strittmatter (19:15.054)
the first half of the year I was flat and I'm looking at it like what just happened? It took me six months, I'm a slow learner sometimes, it took me six months to realize what had happened. One was the introduction of Google LSA, local server size. But the second thing was it had grown big enough for me to micromanage and we couldn't get any bigger than that.
I was the bottleneck.
Justin Deese (19:48.086)
You are the lid. Yep.
Joe Strittmatter (19:50.318)
And I had to get out of my own way and allow my people to start doing their jobs.
Justin Deese (19:58.062)
So to your point, I think people miss this sometimes.
is leadership is not one thing, right? It's not like one bucket, one thing. And the truth is, is the skill set as a leader and an owner for a $1 million company looks different than a 5 million looks different than a 10 million looks different than a 50 million. and it's all part of this growth process, that happens. And I think sometimes people get jammed up on that because they think like it's one bucket. No, it's not one bucket, man. You got to, as your business grows, so do you like you have to learn, you have to elevate and,
And I think that's why you were so successful as you were growing with it and able to kind of go, Hmm, I'm kind of the problem. need to fix that where most owners don't do that. They, they keep their, their grubby paws on everything. And then what happens is it stifles the growth and then nothing happens. And then at that point, the business either doesn't do anything for years and years, or it starts to backtrack.
Joe Strittmatter (20:57.228)
Absolutely, you know, we sold and we took on another brand also. And when I left, I had 120 employees. There's no way I can manage 120 employees by myself. You know, so I had to lean on and I even took on some new management from the other company that I had to teach and train.
how to manage because they hadn't been given that responsibility by their prior GM either. They were micromanaged by their, you and so they were scared to make these decisions. And I'm like, you've got to make them right or wrong. You've got to make it. Now I'm here to make sure it's not too bad of a decision, but.
Justin Deese (21:40.92)
Yeah, yeah, make a decision. Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (21:50.285)
I've got to allow you to fail on a certain scale also. Or else you're never going to learn why you don't go this route, you go this route.
Justin Deese (21:58.2)
Mm-hmm.
Justin Deese (22:07.692)
Yeah. I think once you get to a certain point, you have to be okay with like, you're not managing, like you don't care how the watch is made. You care how it works. So you're what you're doing them from a leadership standpoint is you're managing the outcome, not the everyday minutia of whatever's happening and going on. And man, that is, I can remember going through that process. was tough. Cause it was like, but, but I can do it better. Well, okay. Maybe, but there's only one of you.
Joe Strittmatter (22:25.444)
Correct.
Joe Strittmatter (22:30.218)
It is.
Joe Strittmatter (22:36.184)
Right.
Justin Deese (22:36.322)
And you can't grow if you're the one doing all that one thing. So you got to get, get out of the way, trust your people.
Joe Strittmatter (22:43.118)
Yeah, Ken Goodrich and I had a conversation about this once and he told me, he's like, man, you've got to find people that are better than you at these positions and hire them. You just got to be able to manage people that are smarter than you.
Okay. Yep.
Justin Deese (23:05.922)
Give them a task and get out of their way. Yep. That's fantastic. So, let's shift gears a little bit. So, so you sold the business, you stayed on a little bit, grew it, and then exited that business. after you sold and you kind of went through this, we'll call it somewhat retirement. Is that, is that a fair statement?
How did that go? Like, what did you do with your time? Like you're used to getting up early and doing this thing. And then all of a sudden you're like, what do do with my hands? Like, what did that look like for you?
Joe Strittmatter (23:39.864)
Yeah, the first month or two.
Joe Strittmatter (23:46.489)
your show.
Joe Strittmatter (23:50.523)
You know, for years and years, getting up at five each morning and having to be somewhere, you know, even getting up that early on the weekends, you know, it's a major shock to the system. It takes some adapting to. You know, when you're, you're,
goal driven and now you have no goals. You start trying to figure things out and you start forcing things. Like I did a whole bunch of real estate and still am. And my wife, she got on to me the other day about some real estate that I bought and she goes, you would have never have bought that.
if you didn't have a pocket full of money to buy it with. And I'm like, you're right. She's absolutely right.
Justin Deese (24:51.372)
Investments look different when you when you're not broke.
Joe Strittmatter (24:54.81)
Yeah, but I was so bored, I needed something to do. And so, we've played this game for a while, and built a great big old shop, we went and spent time over in Europe, we've been here, we've been there, and it's not...
who I am is not how I'm built. And actually I got my old shop back here about three weeks ago. And I mean, it was the best thing since Christmas. Even though I don't have a whole lot to do, I'm at the shop by 6.30 in the morning.
You know, I mean, I got a TV right here that I'm watching all my CNBC reports on in the morning. Right here on my desk and and you know, it's like I've been given some purpose back and it's exhilarating. You know, I was sleeping. 10 hours.
because there's no alarm set, there's nothing to go do, there's no whatever, and sometimes even 11 hours a day. And I was probably, I wasn't clinically diagnosed, but I was probably at some form of depression because I'm a goal-driven person and that was all taken away from me whenever I retired. And so...
You know, looking back, I don't know if I'd done it so early. But.
Justin Deese (26:47.916)
Well, and it's so, so we had an episode, for those of you listening, there's an episode with, Christiano, from Rino and we, talked about this kind of the same topic. And, and what's interesting is.
I went through the same thing, right? When I sold the other plumbing business, I sold it and it was kind of like this weird, you know, what do you do? and everybody feels their time different, like you, we did real estate, which we've done real estate for years, but you know, the trick with real estate is just kind of that one transaction. And then either the next transaction is you sell it or you have a renter and like, there's not a whole lot of in between. And I can remember one of the things like when we sold the other business,
First of all, we were like, not doing that again. We're like, yep, check that off the box and not doing that again, which obviously we did do it again. But man, the thing that I missed the absolute most out of all of that was the people. Man, dude, I missed helping people get from like, kind of a loss confused. Cause that's part of the deal with the trades is you get people in that kind of think, you know, they don't have any other option or whatever, which is not the case.
Joe Strittmatter (27:38.2)
Bruh.
Justin Deese (28:00.936)
the trade should be looked at totally different than that, but, then to take them and then have these people and show them a path for them to grow and prosper and buy homes and support their family. know, I've completely underestimated how much of that, I missed. ultimately that's why we ended up doing, doing another business again was because I really, I was struggling with that. Just, just like you, like I was sleeping too much. I was drinking too much. I was spending too much time on the boat.
You know, bought a big boat, you know, there's all these things because at some point you're like, well, I got to find something to do with my time. And, a board entrepreneur is probably one of the worst, worst things you could do to not have a goal set every single day. like even getting up and working out in the mornings was a challenge because you're like,
Joe Strittmatter (28:45.07)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (28:50.946)
I can do it now, I can do it at 5 o'clock tonight, it doesn't matter, yeah.
Justin Deese (28:52.654)
Dude, later. 11. And then you're like, I'll do it at like two this afternoon. And then you go to lunch. You're like, I'm just going to have this one beer and two and I'm not going to work out now. And you know, you're like, shit, it's been six weeks since I've worked out and now I'm in trouble and I've put on 50 pounds. So.
Joe Strittmatter (29:07.842)
Yeah, I actually built, like I said, a big shop at the house and I built a massive gym inside of it. I've got wet sauna, dry sauna, full all-in-one workout machines, all the free weights in the world. I got a salt bike. I've got a stair climber, two treadmills. And I don't have the cold plunge yet. Andy Hibaka's on me about that too.
Justin Deese (29:30.52)
Do you have a cold plunge?
Justin Deese (29:36.492)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (29:36.984)
but I don't have the cold plunge yet, but it wasn't getting used until I started going back to work.
Justin Deese (29:44.205)
Right.
Routine and Habit.
That's pretty awesome. So, um, all right. So now, so you've gone to business, you've sold it. You were in this, um, semi retired spot. What, um, what does it all look like now for Joe? What, what's on the horizon for you?
Joe Strittmatter (30:07.202)
So I mentioned Jason Henderson earlier. My wife and I were supposed to have gone on our first supposed trip to Argentina and we canceled it because it was raining. We just canceled the one I'm supposed to be at right now because it's raining there the whole time. And we decided, you know what, we're gonna go to Vegas and we're gonna go see this concert. And...
Justin Deese (30:10.594)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Strittmatter (30:34.808)
know, Jason and our friends and friends on Facebook and I saw that he was starting a garage door company and I was like, well, I'm out in Vegas.
Justin Deese (30:42.86)
Which real quick, before we go past that Jason had a business in Vegas, grew it to be a pretty good size business, sold it, sold it, exited. think probably fell on that board entrepreneur for a minute as well. And then now he's, he's ramping up some garage door stuff. that, is that accurate?
Joe Strittmatter (30:47.386)
Vegas.
Joe Strittmatter (31:00.291)
Absolutely.
Joe Strittmatter (31:04.932)
Correct, correct. And so they were, it was pre revenue when I went out there and was talking to Jason, went by a shop and was looking at things and I'd already kicked around garage doors or maybe roofs or something of that nature. And was getting some intel from him.
And so I'm back at the, I went straight back to the hotel room and I'm jotting down a whole business model on garage doors. You know, to the point I'd already bought the URL.
I mean within an hour of me leaving, I probably got it written down over here somewhere. I don't even remember what the heck I was gonna call it. It's like Texas garage door repair or something. I bought the URL and I had it, I was coming up with a business model and I'm messaging my old marketing director Casey, he's like, all right, I'm gonna get into garage doors, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. I already got the wrap and vision in my head. It's gonna be a Texas flag with all this stuff and Jason the next
Justin Deese (32:01.368)
Yep.
Joe Strittmatter (32:12.476)
day calls me and is like, hey, why don't we partner up on this and do something? I'm like, I like the sound of that. Like you've already had the brand made, you you pay Dan Antonelli, you've got the website done, you've done all these things. And it's like, well, it'd be much quicker and easier for me to start up.
Justin Deese (32:27.811)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (32:41.14)
And I like that's the one thing I learned from private equity.
One, the first thing was I learned a lot of what not to do. And the second thing was I learned.
how this consolidation and people joining forces can really expedite things. And so when Jason reached out, I had already envisioned when my non-competes up coming up with something, because we have so many friends in the industry that are becoming out of their non-competes around the same time as me.
Justin Deese (33:06.99)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (33:28.9)
I was like, why don't we just put something nationwide together and have these synergies and we can all scale much faster in the future. And so when Jason approached me, that's what I was thinking about with the garage doors. And so it was a no brainer for me to say, yeah, man, let's jump in. Because again, anybody that's sold the private equity and spending time with them, like I was regional president. And so I got to see
Justin Deese (33:58.256)
I a lot of stuff.
Joe Strittmatter (33:58.957)
a lot of things and talk to a lot of other people and how they run their operations and peek behind the curtain sun. And I can see, I've been at the negotiating table with different vendors and when you walk in and say, I $5 million a year and you walk in and say, hey, I do $100 million a year, that's two different conversations. And so, know, once somebody hears, hey, we have five locations opening up, there's a different tone that comes out of it.
Justin Deese (34:17.868)
Yeah, a little bit different leverage. Yeah.
Justin Deese (34:28.682)
Absolutely.
Joe Strittmatter (34:28.78)
And so that's why I was like, yeah, that's a no brainer for me to join forces with them.
Justin Deese (34:35.864)
Very cool. So, so have you launched yet in Texas? What, is that going to look like? Or I don't even know if that's something you can talk about yet. If not, that's
Joe Strittmatter (34:41.942)
We, we, no, I can. We are waiting on Google verification to happen for ads and things of that nature. That has completely changed since the last time I had to do something of this nature. And it's not a, hey, we'll have it done tomorrow sort of process anymore.
It's about a three month process. our rule of thumb is we won't go to market until that's done. So I'm not hiring anybody. I'm not doing, you know.
Justin Deese (35:11.03)
Yep.
Joe Strittmatter (35:25.674)
We're just getting, we've already got trade accounts, we've got uniforms, we got wraps, we got trucks built out, we've got everything ready to go. And actually we did open up an Indeed ad and I have a pipeline of people already coming in wanting to be employed. I'm just, we're just gonna pause it until we're ready to start swinging.
Justin Deese (35:51.566)
That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And actually, you know what would be really cool is if we could have you back on in a couple of months to just kind of check in on how's it going. Because one of the things, one of the things that I believe is that when you open up this garage door, it is not going to take you but probably 24 months to surpass the numbers you were doing in your HVAC business. That's just, that's my belief.
And it's because you're going to you're going to deploy the things that you already know, and it's just going to go that much faster. I think the mindset is different. I think that's the that's the difference between. So we talk a lot about the other company we had was 1.0 and the new company we have is 2.0 and we scaled 2.0 faster than 1.0 just because we deployed the same things. We already had the systems of process like all that stuff was done. So your learning curve is going to be.
Joe Strittmatter (36:24.303)
Yeah.
Justin Deese (36:50.114)
much shorter, but that would be amazing if you check back in with us in a couple months and if we can be a part of that journey with you, because I think it's pretty amazing and I think that you guys are gonna crush it.
Joe Strittmatter (36:54.445)
Absolutely.
Joe Strittmatter (36:58.358)
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think I think the platform as a whole because there are so many good operators like yourself that are sitting on the sidelines that are bored. And, you know, if it
That's who we're partnering with nationwide is people who have been good operators in the past that don't need a lot of hand holding and.
Justin Deese (37:24.589)
Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (37:34.971)
you know, we're literally getting everything down to a science with these three that we're onboarding now to week one do this, week two do this, week three do this, week four your doors are open and we're ready to go. And we already have all the content and information we can send you and guide you to this person, that person. you know, we're green-fielding most of these locations. And so it's a little different experience than, you know, the acquisition.
The last time I green-filled it something, I didn't have any money. Now that there's money to go around, I think you're absolutely right. My goal for the first year from $0, no customer base, is to do $3.5 million the first year in revenue. And I'm shooting for a 30 % net.
Justin Deese (38:12.374)
Right.
Justin Deese (38:32.91)
Well, I have no doubt that you will hit that.
Joe Strittmatter (38:36.282)
At least somebody believes it.
Justin Deese (38:39.419)
No doubt. No doubt whatsoever. Well, listen, man, I know you got a ton of stuff to do and you got this giant empire to work on to start building. So, yeah, any any any last thoughts for for the listeners before we jump off?
Joe Strittmatter (38:57.831)
gosh.
Joe Strittmatter (39:03.148)
I can't remember who.
I know Billy has a saying, you already have enough business within your business, you're just not capitalizing on it or something of that nature, but you know, success, there was somebody else that said something like, success is in the work that you're not doing. And I think this next year or two in the home services space,
is going to be extremely difficult, even more difficult than it has been. that's because Ben Stark used to always talk to me about a fragmented market. And I never really understood what he meant. What he was talking about was the last round up with service experts and blue dot and things. And I see it now.
Justin Deese (39:55.24)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Strittmatter (40:00.507)
I'm not going to name the company, but I know a company that sold to private equity about three years ago, and they have now started five other companies. Meaning five of their people have left and started other companies. And I see that a lot of that, I've talked to lot of friends that are in the PE space, and a lot of the PEs are down.
30, 35 % year over year. And I think that's part of the reason why is there's so many more operators out there in the market right now that there's one size pie that is being split, divided up more ways. And if we hit this recession that it looks like could be coming, that pie is gonna shrink. So if I was in business,
right now I would be doing away. If I was a smaller company in business, I'd be doing away with all my debt that I could possibly get rid of.
and get ready for some lean times because I've got a feeling the next year or two could be that until some of these companies start shutting their doors. And that's why I'm not eager to get back in to the space right now because I think it's just gonna be an absolute fight for the next year or two. And I'll let everybody else duke it out and I'll come waltzing back in.
Justin Deese (41:35.822)
Once the dust starts to settle a little bit, come back in and roll. Joe man. I appreciate you coming in and hanging out. think that's, I think that's always good wisdom. I think, you know, to your point, you should run lean as a business anyways, cause in order to hit the numbers that you want to hit, you gotta be lean. Um, so I think that's great advice and I hope everybody listening, uh, takes note on that a little bit, but Joe, appreciate you coming in and hanging out, man.
Joe Strittmatter (41:38.008)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Strittmatter (41:58.202)
Yes, sir. Thanks for having me.