Why did you choose to start a Sweaty Startup?

[mo3b]

For those of you who already have achieved and somewhat succeeded, why did you go for a sweaty startup instead of i.e. e-commerce or tech?

 

[elmer1444twick]

@mo3b Low barrier to entry and low initial capital investment.

 

[mo3b]

@elmer1444twick I was recently trying to start an online store, but it seems like the investment is higher than expected. Finding suppliers is more difficult than I would think and competition is high.

 

[anij34]

@mo3b We do it not because it’s easy. We do it because we thought it’s going to be easy.

 

[mo3b]

@anij34 Good one

 

[newmove]

@anij34 I need that on a sign in my shop.

 

[newmove]

@mo3b Fell into it from retail jobs. Seemed easier and more money.

 

[mo3b]

@newmove More money than tech or ecommerce?

 

[newmove]

@mo3b I would say there's more failed e-commerce businesses than failed carpenters. I'll never have Bezos money, but I'm not poor.

 

[mo3b]

@newmove Don't forget that there are construction billionaires as well. Some of them even became president

 

[thegingersnap16]

@mo3b Born into wealth doesn’t really count here

 

[muyale]

@mo3b Gap in the market for someone who actually cared

 

[mo3b]

@muyale I read about the lack of skilled workers. It seems to be enormous.

 

[muyale]

@mo3b Especially in roofing, majority of my guys I taught with me side by side the first two years. Trained them from zero previous experience. That worked a lot better. But then you scale up and it’s always a different battle. If I had to do it over again, I would turn away more work and grow slower. Anyone with heart and knowledge can grow a company to 10 people. The “good to great” leap beyond those first 5-10 employees- that is a whole different ball game. Probably a lot of people can relate to that “scaling science.” Like what’s the alchemy that makes your business great and how do you maintain that with growth. That’s what I love learning and sharing about.

 

[mo3b]

@muyale I've no experience in any success of business. But hopefully I'll experience those things in the near future.

What makes it more difficult over 10 employees? How did you get your first clients?

 

[muyale]

@mo3b So I first started out doing Christmas lights. My dad was a builder/roofer- so grew up learning how to shingle every summer through high school so by 17 I was supporting myself more or less at piece work shingling. Then when I was in college did the Christmas lights. Built up a big client list just knocking doors and then a few wealthy clients sent me to all their friends. Then by senior year of college I had tons of roof repairs I did for one of my clients that had a property management company’s then used my light money to get my license and a truck- all that. Then got asked to bid the condo project I had done so many repairs on. I had one employee at the time, and told him okay if I get this job I’m not going to go to grad school, and we are going to have to put together a team for this job. Then I bid and luckily they gave me the job. He brought on a few of his firefighting buddies he worked with in the summers, turned them into a tear off crew. And I pretty much shingles the whole 400 squares with a feeder. It was slow but we got the job done and the owners loved it. Then after that everything was at lightening speed and I just hung on for dear life. Then dumped almost everything I made into a dump truck and built out my online presence (this was 2013 right before anyone knew the power of google local and being #1 on the mobile search). Got #1 organic and #1 local in about a year. Had a company platypus local that was great back in the day (out of San Diego). And then yeah just kept reinvesting and branding. Big focus on color branding like Home Depot orange. Only we did Blue. Did fun hashtags and special edition swag all the time. Just made it fun and attracted GOOD PEOPLE that made my business great. And a few later on that made it very bad haha. But yeah just attract good quality people even if you have to train them from nothing. That’s what I did.

 

[muyale]

I got super lucky to be honest. It was just a weird series of events.

 

[mo3b]

@muyale This is really inspiring to read. I love how you build it from scratch and all the way to being #1. You didn't just get lucky, you're probably skilled at what you do too. Thanks for sharing the story

 

[muyale]

@mo3b Thanks for caring to read my friend! Appreciate the kind words

 

[conradrocks]

@mo3b To make money.