#228 How this NEW Service Owner is doing $80k/month

Summary

Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Episode: #228 How this NEW Service Owner is doing $80k/month
Release Date: July 29, 2025
Host: John Wilson
Guest: Ethan from New York

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Introduction

In Episode #228 of "Owned and Operated," host John Wilson welcomes Ethan from New York to discuss his impressive journey as a new service owner achieving $80k per month in revenue. The episode delves into Ethan's transition from a finance background to franchising, his strategic lead generation methods, the integration of a local newsletter into his business model, and his insights for budding entrepreneurs.

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Ethan’s Background and Business Journey

Transition from Finance to Home Services

Ethan begins by sharing his professional history, highlighting his five to six years in finance, specifically in raising private equity and venture funds. Despite a successful career, he longed to own his own business. "I want to own my thing," Ethan [00:49] emphasizes, explaining his shift focus to the home services sector due to his familiarity with it from his previous role.

Decision to Franchise

Having never owned or managed a business before, Ethan felt unprepared to start from scratch. This uncertainty led him to explore franchising as a viable pathway. "Franchising is a shortcut," Ethan [03:32] asserts, noting that it provided the necessary support and preset operational levers to help him focus on growing his business without the complexities of building a brand independently.

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Choosing a Franchise: Rolling Suds

Selecting the Right Brand

Ethan chose to franchise with Rolling Suds in March, recognizing the appeal of an emerging brand with growth potential. "Rolling Suds was emerging when many established brands like Mr. Rooters were sold out," Ethan [04:00] explains. This decision allowed him to access a support network and avoid the high capital requirements associated with established franchises.

Initial Investment and Setup

The initial investment for a Rolling Suds territory was approximately $50,000, covering access to a quarter-million people and around 100,000 households [10:38]. Additionally, Ethan invested in specialized box trucks equipped with advanced power washing machinery, enhancing his service’s branding and operational efficiency [11:59].

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Lead Generation Strategies

Commercial Side: Cold Calling and Emailing

Ethan attributes a significant portion of his commercial leads to personal cold calling and emailing. He believes that direct outreach has provided the highest ROI, leveraging his background in B2B sales. "Calling people, emailing people. You got to do it and it works," Ethan [00:01] emphasizes.

Residential Side: Utilizing Agencies

For residential leads, Ethan relies on offshore agencies that perform cold calling. "A lot of the Rolling Suds franchisees use an offshore agency that does cold calling," he notes [15:57]. These agencies help fill the calendar with residential appointments, albeit sometimes with a small percentage of leads misunderstanding the service offered [17:49].

Balancing Efforts and ROI

Ethan discusses the importance of capital allocation, prioritizing high-ROI activities like direct outreach over more expensive channels like Google Ads, which he finds intimidating and less controllable [31:09]. "You don't want to burn like two grand a month that I could, like, I could get a cold caller," he states [32:02].

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Launching a Local Newsletter: Westchester Weekly

Concept and Implementation

Ethan launched a local newsletter, Westchester Weekly, a month after starting his franchise. Inspired by successful local newsletters and the decline of traditional print media, he saw an opportunity to merge local media with his service business. "Local newsletters are like a thing right now on X," Ethan [36:02] mentions, highlighting their relevance in the digital age.

Monetization and Growth Strategies

Westchester Weekly serves dual purposes: as a lead generation channel and an independent revenue stream. Ethan explores various monetization strategies, including ads, partnerships, and event hosting. "We're reinvesting in it to accelerate the growth," he explains [36:23].

Integration with Main Business

The newsletter offers free advertising for Rolling Suds, leveraging owned media to enhance brand visibility. Ethan believes that owning both the service business and the media brand creates synergistic growth opportunities. "If you own the media brand and you own the local service business, it's free advertising," he states [36:54].

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Monetization and Growth of Media Brand

Advertisement and Recommendations

Ethan experimented with Sparkloop, a tool that recommends other newsletters to new subscribers, aiding in quick customer acquisition. "We're recouping like 50 to 75% of the cost of acquiring the customer immediately," he shares [40:58]. This efficient reinvestment strategy fuels the rapid growth of Westchester Weekly.

Local Partnerships and Events

To further monetize the newsletter, Ethan considers partnerships with local businesses and events, such as collaborating with a minor league sports team to host events and giveaways. "We can run a giveaway with free tickets and collect emails," Ethan discusses [42:10].

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Advice to Entrepreneurs

Embrace Challenges and Learn from Mistakes

When asked about advice for new entrepreneurs facing initial hardships, Ethan emphasizes resilience and a growth mindset. "You're going to get punched in the face over and over and over again," he advises [58:31]. He encourages treating every setback as a learning experience and stresses the importance of taking actionable steps over continuous learning without implementation.

Focus on High-ROI Activities

Ethan recommends prioritizing activities that yield the highest return on investment, particularly in the early stages of business growth. "Just knock some doors and get away higher ROI in three hours," he suggests [30:54], reinforcing the effectiveness of direct outreach methods.

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Future Plans and Growth

Scaling the Service Business

Ethan is focused on expanding Rolling Suds by adding a second truck and potentially entering new territories. "I'm laser focused on just growing my rolling suds business," he states [53:55]. His goal is to transition from handling multiple estimates personally to managing commercial sales with the support of a growing team.

Long-Term Vision for the Newsletter

While prioritizing his service business, Ethan plans to continue developing the local newsletter, exploring additional revenue streams and partnerships to ensure its sustainability and growth alongside his primary business.

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Conclusion

Ethan's journey from finance to franchising with Rolling Suds exemplifies strategic business growth through effective lead generation and innovative integration of a local media brand. His success underscores the importance of resilience, direct outreach, and leveraging owned media to create synergistic growth opportunities. For entrepreneurs, Ethan’s story offers valuable lessons in capital allocation, embracing challenges, and the potential of combining traditional services with modern media strategies.

Notable Quotes:

• Ethan [00:01]: "Calling people, emailing people. You got to do it and it works."
• Ethan [03:32]: "Franchising is a shortcut."
• John [07:15] & Ethan [07:15]: "Has been an amazing way to speedrun the learning process..."
• John [30:44]: "Is it a lot of emerging ones?"
• Ethan [58:31]: "You're going to get punched in the face over and over and over again."

Connect with Ethan:
Ethan can be found on X (formerly Twitter) with the handle @relander. He encourages entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts to reach out and engage in conversations about business growth and strategies.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Episode #228, highlighting Ethan's business strategies, insights, and future plans, enriched with notable quotes and structured for clarity and engagement.

Transcript

[John]

How do you get leads on the board?

[Ethan]

Week one, calling people, emailing people. You got to do it and it works.

[John]

There's a few other, like, solutions that are just, like, extremely premium. And this might be like 80 grand a year of a subscription. It's a lot of fucking money.

[Ethan]

Can you just, like, knock some doors and get away higher ROI in three hours. Any of your listeners are thinking about doing a franchise? They've never owned or run a business before? Totally a shortcut. Obviously had to be pretty bullish to invest a bunch of my net worth in it to start. If you just dump some money into ads for six months, you can get mid seven figures.

[John]

So what's stopping you from doing that? Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Today I have Ethan from New York. Welcome to the show.

[Ethan]

Stoked to be here. Great to meet you, John.

[John]

Yeah, this was good. I appreciate you coming out.

[Ethan]

Yeah, absolutely. Like, I was just telling you before this, like, obviously we'll. We'll get into this, but I'm a relatively new business owner and I'm still running my business with duct tape. And one thing that was. Was really cool was to be able to see, you know, what a real company looks like and what the sort of the North Star is. So I sort of know what I'm shooting for as I grow over time. So it's. It's awesome to be here.

[John]

Yeah. No, this is. This is awesome. We. We brought you up. I heard you on a podcast, TJ Larkin's podcast. I want to plug it. I just don't remember the name.

[Ethan]

Local newsletter. Insider movie.

[John]

Yeah. And I just thought your story was interesting. And I think Jack and I talked about it a couple weeks ago because I was. Because we were talking about owning a lead source.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

And I think there's a lot of different ways to do that, but a local newsletter is like a thing right now on X.

[Ethan]

Totally.

[John]

So I thought it was interesting. And then you're also a new franchisee, and you launched that franchise with rolling suds in March.

[Ethan]

Yep.

[John]

And then I think, immediately launched a local newsletter.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like a month after it was. It was pretty, pretty quick succession.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah. How about you just, like, walk us through, like, a little bit of background, but, like, let's focus on the entrepreneurship part.

[Ethan]

It's no secret that my office here.

[John]

In Nashville is almost completely empty. So how do I support my team as well as have great growth metrics? Well, the answer is international contractors with Quick Staffers.

[Ethan]

So Quick Staffers is a premier staffing.

[John]

Agency which will place top tier Talent in your business built by the trades for the trades.

[Ethan]

So if you need a csr, they'll.

[John]

Be placing a CSR that is highly trained in your business, that knows service titan and can book calls effectively. Day 1 Call 1 Affordable, reliable and trained in all of the industry best practices. Quick staffers can help you cut that overhead, boost conversions and scale your business fast. So don't waste another lead. Visit quickstaffers.com and transform your business today.

[Ethan]

I spent the first five or six years of my professional life in finance, raising private equity and venture funds. Great job. Wasn't wanted to do what I wanted to do forever. I want to, you know, own my thing. Long story short, ended up sort of focusing on home services space. A lot of my clients at my old job were investing in that area so I had a lot of familiarity with that segment of the economy.

[John]

Like the funds you were raising for were buying inside home service like plumbing, H Vac, exactly.

[Ethan]

Roofing, all that stuff.

[John]

Who's the fund?

[Ethan]

A lot probably like a couple dozen different funds all like lower middle market, middle market, upper middle market, all sorts of stuff. And I wanted to do something in that space but I knew I was going to be a solo operator, didn't have any partners and didn't want to, you know, raise outside capital. I want it to be my thing.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But wasn't fully, you know, didn't feel fully equipped to start a brand completely from scratch, having never run a business, having never, you know, managed a blue collar workforce, having never done home services sales. So that's a lot of levers that I'd never had to figure out how to pull on my own before. Which is sort of what set me down the franchise path.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

What attracted me to that, to that path was some of the levers come sort of preset for you and you can focus on how to, how to, how to, to pull some of the levers but you get some support for some of the others and then, you know, over time or 5, 10, 15 years, whatever it is, maybe at that point I'll feel prepared to either buy a business myself or start something else from scratch now that I've got the experience or when I have the experience with, with pulling some of those levers that I'm, I'm pulling for the first time still now and then I discovered rolling suds and we can get into that story if you want.

[John]

I'd love to.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

So you're, I've talked to, I'm good friends with Aaron. I've talked to One other franchisee from Rolling Suds and I'm just, I'm curious.

[Ethan]

Yeah. So I met with a lot of different home service franchises.

[John]

Like what are the other ones even out there? Like what's the landscape?

[Ethan]

Oh my God. I mean there's like probably some, someone could correct me, but it's at least hundreds. Like there are hundreds and hundreds of these brands out there in every service you can think of.

[John]

Is it a lot of emerging ones? Because I would imagine most of the, like the Mr. Rooters, the road, those have to be sold out.

[Ethan]

Yeah, exactly. And that's part of what drew me to a brand like Rolling Suds was, you know, lots of the painting franchises, the fencing franchises, the roofing franchises, most of those are sold out. So if you want to get into an established brand like that, you are buying someone else's business. So for someone who, you know, didn't want to raise outside capital.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And had enough capital to get an SBA loan but didn't have enough to buy a 10 million revenue business, that math didn't really math. So finding an emerging franchise who I felt comfortable betting on while I bet on myself to build my own business was sort of the path that made sense to me where I could open de novo territories but have a corporate team who, you know, I felt comfortable with was going to be able to grow their franchisor business while I grew my franchisee business.

[John]

Do you feel like you found a good partner like three or four months in, but like how's it gone?

[Ethan]

Yeah, I mean it's still super early. We're growing really fast. Rolling Suds is a business like as a brand is still growing really fast and the network that of franchisees that they've built is incredible. Like, the amount of learning I've gotten from the network is so valuable, has been extremely helpful for me. I think just the idea that I have access to 75 or 80 other people trying to build the exact same business, but in a, in like a definitionally non competitive way, all of our territories. So there's no incentive to compete, there's only incentive to be collaborative.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Has been an amazing way to like speedrun the learning process where we can all just share ideas, share wins, share losses and we don't all have to make the same mistakes ourselves. Yeah, we can share those mistakes and the learnings, you know, with each other.

[John]

I feel like that's like the best part, you know.

[Ethan]

Totally.

[John]

I've always been a big. We've never done a franchise, but we tried to do a Few. Like, earlier on we tried to bring on a Mr. Handyman as like a department. But I think franchises make a ton of sense for like basically everything you've said. I think it makes sense and I don't know why they don't have, like. There seems to be like a stigma on franchises.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Some of the wealthiest dudes I know run a bunch of franchises.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

So I feel, I think, I feel like if you're against franchises, you should just talk to more people.

[Ethan]

I think there's. So I think there's definitely merit to, you know, a lot of the criticism or hate or whatever that you see about franchises. And, you know, franchising is a very different business than the original business. So running the original Rolling Suds Power Washing location is not the same business as running a Rolling Suds franchisor.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And I think what you find is that a lot of brands underestimate the challenge that they're taking on in transitioning from being a roofing business to a roofing franchisor. And then, you know, if they're not ready for that challenge, that can have a negative impact on the early franchisees. And one thing that Rolling says has done really well is they've built out a leadership team and like I said, a really good network of franchisees who have been able to help support the growth of the brand and the growth of each franchisee's own business. Because ultimately both of those things need to grow with each other for the whole thing to work. If the franchisor doesn't work, it's going to make it really hard for the franchisees business to work. The franchisees aren't profitable. Franchisor business isn't going to work either. So that's been, that's been the biggest thing that's been, you know, positive for me. But I think it's totally valid. If, you know, any of your listeners are thinking about doing a franchise, they've never owned or run a business before. I think in my personal experience, it's a short, very positive.

[John]

It's totally a shortcut. Crazy. It's a, it's a hack like it is.

[Ethan]

I'm going to. If I had started a power washing business myself, I would not be doing the revenue four months in. That I'm going to do this month, no question about it, at like 100% would not have been the case. However, I think, you know, if you're looking at a franchise, like, just make sure you understand, you know, how much experience the franchisor has, what their vision is. Whether their service works in your particular market. I happen to be fortunate in that, you know, my territories are pretty good for home service businesses, just for, you know, lots of different factors, lots of population, mostly pretty dense, densely populated. So that's all stuff that works for me. But you know, not every service works equally well in every market. So it's about doing your research. You can find, you know, a not great brand in a not great market and you can find a really promising brand in a really promising market. And it's just about being thoughtful about how you do it. So far it's been a really good experience for me as someone who's growing my first business ever. It's totally been a shortcut.

[John]

Yeah, that makes total sense. How much does it cost to launch a franchise?

[Ethan]

So completely runs the gamut. It totally depends on, you know, how much capex there is in your particular service.

[John]

Well, I mean for you specifically, what did it take to get a rolling suds off the ground?

[Ethan]

So for me, each territory, I think this is, I think this is publicly available, I assume fdd.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

So I think each territory costs something in the range of $50,000 and that provides quarter million. Yeah, quarter million people, 100,000 households, something along those lines. Which for me corresponds to you know, like one and a half counties just north of the city. So like I said, these are really densely populated areas. Westchester County, Fairfield county. And I share those counties with another franchisee which you know, one might think is, you know, really competitive. And we bump bubbles all the time. But that's not the case at all. We share lots of relationships with property managers which has been super helpful because we can each build relationships and then, you know, the business has to be passed to each other. Because I can't do business in his territory, he can't do it in mine. So we only benefit from each other's relationships. But to answer your question, each territory is something like $50,000 and the trucks are like 150. Yeah, the new, the trucks are like somewhere between 130 and 150 depending on what sort of add ons you get there. Isuzu box trucks and those are. If you just bought the truck from a dealer, those would be something like 75 or 80, I think. And then the build out and the equipment is where you get.

[John]

Is it a box?

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah. So it's a box. They come with either two or three machines on them with a big water tank and with a big chemical tank and some other equipment on them. So this really, really nice machinery and most of the customers, commercial and residential I come across have never seen power washing company with equipment like that. They're used to a pickup truck, which is great because from a branding, totally marketing standpoint, you look really, really good when you're building that initial relationship. Are we the only power washing company that has a box truck? No, there are other companies out there. Like, it's not, you know, you can buy this equipment, but are you willing to invest in the equipment to win $50,000? Commercial projects that like, that's up to the operator and rolling suds model is built around winning business like that. I think one of the attractive things that I've continued to like to see over time since I launched is how much commercial opportunity there is in this service that's just ripe for the taking where there's commercial.

[John]

So that's like true then.

[Ethan]

In my experience, I can't speak for every market. In my experience, I come across property managers all the time who do not have a power washing guy. They bid out every project for all their 5060 HOAs every single time. They don't have anyone reliable and will come in and we'll get like three bids in a row immediately. Once we do a good job, once you build a real relationship. So for me, it's totally been a ripe commercial opportunity. And you know, part of the bet in going into this brand was that that is real. And in my experience it has been real. So I'm only more bullish on the whole thing than I was when I launched and I obviously had to be pretty bullish to invest a bunch of my net worth in it to start.

[John]

You launched a local newsletter and like, if I. We're going to dive pretty deep into that. But like, before we do, the reason is to get leads, right? Like, we're here to get leads. Aside from that, what else? Like, I've never launched a franchise before, so I have no concept of like, how do you get leads on the board? Week one, like, so how did you get lead? Like, how did you do it?

[Ethan]

Yeah, so that's an excellent question. There's a few channels that I've had a lot of success with on the commercial side. Honestly, like, my far and away highest ROI channel has been me cold calling, cold emailing, you know, commercial prospects. I've generated a lot of revenue from that. Nobody, no agency, no salesperson I can hire is going to sell my, my service and my business as well as I am. So as an early business owner, I've.

[John]

Leaned pretty heavily into that. Yeah, hitting the pavement.

[Ethan]

You just have to. And I come from, you know, my, my job in finance previously was something like, like raising capital. Is sales. Just sales for private equity?

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And so I have experience doing, you know, B2B sales in a way, so I was comfortable coming in and doing that. But you got to do it. And it works. Calling people, emailing people, leading with value. Like, it just does work. You just have to be willing to do it. And I've had a lot of success doing that, and I continue to have success with that channel. Obviously, I'm now running a business and I've got a crew and a second crew coming, and my attention is pulled in lots of different directions. So I don't have as much time as I did, you know, a month before I launched to do that stuff. But I still am reaping benefits, you know, every month from that work. So that's. That's one channel on the residential side, filling the calendar. A lot of the Rolling Suds franchisees use an offshore agency that does cold calling. They'll. I don't know exactly.

[John]

All people.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like residential customers.

[John]

Interesting.

[Ethan]

I don't know where they scrape their data. It's probably something like white pages. I don't know exactly what they use, but something like that.

[John]

They run the area.

[Ethan]

Exactly. And in my service area, I know in lots of different parts of the country, it's really, really effective. It's just a numbers game.

[John]

They dial 500,000 appointments or whatever.

[Ethan]

Yeah, it works. And it. And you know, the ROI that you can get, if you can sell well in clothes and upsell on the patio or the walkway or whatever, the ROI can be really, really high. So that's how I filled my book of business initially. I still use them. I got a second caller with them on the commercial side, so they're sort of supplementing with the B2B sales. For me. Those have been the biggest channels for me. I also do some, you know, cold email agency stuff. I've experimented with Facebook ads. I really haven't cracked that yet. And I haven't even started with Google Ads, which is, you know, you gotta. It's a capital allocation game. So you need to figure out the highest roi, things to do, and then once you generate the cash flow from that, then you put into the next higher, highest ROI thing. I'm still kind of like climbing that ladder of capital allocation. So I'll hit all the thing, all the levers eventually. I. I just haven't gotten to them all. But the cold outreach, whether it's from me or from an agency has been extremely effective.

[John]

I mean for the commercial stuff, I mean that makes sense.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Like calling, emailing. For the residential. That's interesting. We, we tried to do that and it wasn't as successful for us. It could have been the agency we used because I think it did book appointments, but they set really poor expectations. Okay, interesting. The customers like thought we were there to do something that we were not there to do. Interest, like they thought we were the city.

[Ethan]

Okay.

[John]

And maybe that's like again like how we.

[Ethan]

Like introduce the service.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ethan]

Well we can, we can trade notes on that afterwards and see if you know, there's something to do there. But I think I probably get like single digit percent of the leads are like what is this? But the rest of the leads are good enough that it's, it's like a really solid marketing channel.

[John]

Interesting. How many leads a week do you get from it?

[Ethan]

Oh, that's a good question. It fluctuates based on the time, like spring and from what I've heard like August, September are when this channel does the best. But I'm still getting like three or four a day, five days a week, which for one truck is plenty. Like I'm, I'm booking a ways out which is why I'm getting another truck. So they're still like definitely keeping the lights on. Aside from the commercial stuff that I sort of spend my time focusing on.

[John]

More and then the commercial. I think the idea there is the off season like that protects you during. Because that's the big danger here is.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I mean it's still season. It's, it's a little bit more than six months. I would say like peak season is like April to mid October, but you do work in March and you do some work in November. So it's, there's like a short shoulder season but you do some work. You just can't really do power washing with bleach if it's under 38 degrees. Just like doesn't really work that well. So there's some stuff you can do in the winter, some commercial stuff that, you know, maybe you give a discount and you book it out in the winter and you say when we have a warm week we'll come out and do it in January or whatever. And you know that that keeps the cash flow moving. But it's totally a seasonal business and there's some stuff you can do to manage that. But you're never going to have a completely full calendar in January, February, it's Just not going to happen. So part of the math is like, you know, how much cost can you cut? Or are there, you know, complimentary services that you can run in the off season so that you can keep your guys employed and keep running some cash flow to keep the lights on and make the winter a little bit less brutal. So whether that's, you know, a Christmas lighting thing or something like that, that pairs from a seasonality standpoint nicely with Power Washington. You know, we're exploring that and we'll see if maybe that makes sense. But I know that other people in this business have done something like that in the winter.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And it's from what I've heard and you know, talk to people about it. Sounds like really interesting. I haven't done that much work on it, though.

[John]

Yeah. I have a. I have a friend locally and I, I can't remember the name of his company, which is kind of embarrassing. But they're huge. Power Washington. And I think it's like 35 million. Wow. Nine locations.

[Ethan]

And that's probably one of the bigger companies in the whole country.

[John]

I think it is.

[Ethan]

There aren't that many that are getting the largest. Yeah.

[John]

If not. But she big. And their onboarding is why they don't do anything in the winter. And it's all residential, so they don't.

[Ethan]

Do any commercial work at all.

[John]

At all.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

Yeah. So, like, I was talking to them in, I think, March, and I don't. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but they had hired 500 people in March.

[Ethan]

That is so absurd.

[John]

I know. And they. So they went from like, I. Because a 35 million, you know, dollar business. So like, I think they had like 20 or 30, like full timers all year round.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Accounting and HR.

[Ethan]

Some salespeople.

[John]

Yeah. And then like 500 people. And they expected. I, I think they expected 250 to quit in the first month.

[Ethan]

Right. Yeah. I mean, that. We can get into that too, but crazy.

[John]

So even expect him to get through onboarding and then you hit. Yeah. You hit the summer and you just go.

[Ethan]

Yeah. It's crazy.

[John]

It is a crazy business.

[Ethan]

I mean, that's. That's outrageous. I, I can't imagine. Because he probably doesn't have that many techs who come back. I mean, he probably has like, maybe half the texts will take the winter off.

[John]

I would imagine they don't, but. And the way they structure their sales is different. It's all over the phone. Are you guys doing that?

[Ethan]

I have not really experimented with virtual. I'M at the point in the business where, like, I need my close rate to be optimized, and that means I go out in person, I shake the hands, kiss the babies, whatever it takes to close the business.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But from a scalability standpoint, like, virtual quoting makes so much sense. From, like, from an efficiency standpoint, I'm just, like, not there.

[John]

Yeah. But I think their software is built for. I know Roofing has it, I think.

[Ethan]

Okay, interesting.

[John]

I mean, these guys are on a software where it's like they just put in the address. Okay, here's what happens.

[Ethan]

Oh, okay.

[John]

You know, I should look at. Yeah, Yeah. I don't remember. I'll try to find out what it's called.

[Ethan]

Wow. But 500 Texas.

[John]

Crazy, crazy, crazy. I mean, they like, what, 20 times the staff in like 30 days.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

And, like, I don't even know how you recruit that many bodies.

[Ethan]

I know. Or. Or like, how do you train that many people that fat? Because it ramps up so quickly.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

I'm sure you know this too. Like, it just. It gets so hot so quickly that I don't know how you get people. Clearly, it's a hell of a lift. It's. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

That's super impressive.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But, yeah, the off season is, you know, I would like being able to keep around really good people.

[John]

Yeah. It's.

[Ethan]

I want to do it, but I need to figure out a way for. To make sense. It just has to make sense.

[John]

That's tough.

[Ethan]

What's. What is your guys training? Or I guess his or yours? What is your. Your onboarding process? Like, what is involved? Because right now, like, for me, I take a day on the calendar, I go on the truck with the guys. I like, teach the guy how to do it, walk him through what we do, what we don't do, and then I'm like, sounds good. And he's like, sounds good. You're hired. And that's kind of it. Which I know is not sophisticated, but I'm curious. What, like, what is a real company.

[John]

Like, for hiring, you mean?

[Ethan]

Yeah, like onboarding, like, whether it's like a trial day or like, how do you figure out people are a good fit and then get them up to speed on the truck?

[John]

Yeah. I mean, good fit. We're going in homes, which is maybe a little bit different. So, like, you know, no one can have a criminal background, which I don't know if that matters as much for exterior work.

[Ethan]

Probably not, but I would like. I still prefer not.

[John]

Yeah, yeah. Like, our reference is good. Do you have Any past experience with power washing? Like, your probably not going to have past.

[Ethan]

It's not important because you can, you can learn it pretty fast.

[John]

Yeah. So then it'd be like, hey, critical thinking. Like, I think that would be super important for you especially, like, are you going to be thoughtful about like the pressure you run this thing at or are you going to like go blow out windows or.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Like, are the windows open? Like, are you spraying bleach into the house? Like, stuff like that?

[John]

Yeah. So I think, like, is there some critical thinking there? Definitely. The ride along, like, we do that too. It makes a ton of sense. It weeds out a lot.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Is that. Does it. Do you find that it most often weeds people out on your end or on their end? Like on the ride along, you're like, it's not going to work.

[John]

It typically attitude.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, we had someone. We had someone do a. I heard about this yesterday. We had someone do a shadow and they got like pissy at three, like, like mad, like cussing in the home. It was like, really? It was like, all right, hey, this is why we do this.

[Ethan]

Yeah. Thank you for your time.

[John]

We'll drop you off. Like, you know, it was awesome. Like, it saved us all a lot of wow. So. So no, definitely us weeding them out. It's. Yeah, it's very helpful. So that's like prepping for. Are they a good fit? Come up with some questions. Do they have critical thinking? How do we test for that? How do we ask about that? And some version of a ride along. That helps a lot. And then onboarding, I mean, especially with you, because next year you will have to figure out a way to onboard three crews at the same time. How do we just codify what we do? And it could be as easy as like videoing it. Like, that's where it can start, you know, like set up a tripod and video a house getting done. Or like make somebody wear a gopro.

[Ethan]

For a couple days and then like talk, talk over it and just be like, watch this. This is your manual.

[John]

Yeah. Well, I think you could probably do better than that because it would be like, I don't remember the name of the software, but we do this for Looms. So like loom is when you screen record your computer and you, you know, do something with it. So we do a lot of trainings that way, but you can also. You can loom. What we've started doing to try to, like, we're in the stage of the business where we're trying to standard operate Standard operating process, everything. And like any minuscule thing. So what we've started doing is looming people's computers for eight hours a day.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

And then we put that loom into this software and I don't remember the name of it, and it spits out exactly what they did all day. And then it puts it in steps so it makes it a sop. So super easy. So you could do the same thing with the GoPro. We're just like, hey, here's the video. Like, give me a sop.

[Ethan]

That's amazing. I.

[John]

It's something attached to Perplexity. Like it's an AI driven tool.

[Ethan]

Yeah. I mean that's, that's an incredible use case.

[John]

Oh, yeah, it was sweet. So I think for you it would be like, all right, how do we, how do we record like 10 jobs and then like, hey, here's how we do this commercial job and you dump the video in there, tell me what we did, tell me what was good, what was bad, and then like codify it.

[Ethan]

This is how we do a brick building. This is how we do this or that or whatever. And then if I'm going to hire a salesperson later this year or something like that. Same thing. I just.

[John]

Yes.

[Ethan]

You know, screen record me sending emails all day. It, you know, it learns or like.

[John]

The ride along stuff. Like we started working with Craft and it's like a sales ride along software and it listens to everything.

[Ethan]

Cool.

[John]

So you can just take that and you can do the same thing. Like, all right, here's the, here's where we noticed inflection. Here's the. How I broke that objection. Here's how I thought about pricing it. Here's the discount you're capable of giving because I gave it.

[Ethan]

Wow, that is super cool.

[John]

So you can like. Yeah, you can codify all this stuff.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

And just videos looms.

[Ethan]

So in your voice recordings. Yeah. In your experience, having grown the business over the past, I think you said nine years. Like, looking back, if this technology had been available the whole time, this is.

[John]

A totally different game now.

[Ethan]

At what point would you have implemented it if you had this, like in year one or year three, year four, like, when was the right time to really like hammer this?

[John]

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that what you're doing right now is what you should be doing.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, you're focusing on leads, you're focusing on sales. Like that's what matters.

[Ethan]

Right.

[John]

I think over the winter, like when you're not in peak season. Yeah. You should probably build an Onboarding program.

[Ethan]

Right.

[John]

And you should figure out a way to do it. Ideally there's some videos like the GoPro thing, but like you especially you have seven months of on like I would not be wasting any of that time on like building April's process does make just. Yeah, you got to make that. You got to make the money.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

And then you've got four months to, you know, build.

[Ethan]

Right. Yeah.

[John]

But yeah, it's definitely like this was in a. Our Facebook group. This conversation came up earlier today or yesterday or something. But that exact question came up of the prompt was what's the thing, the biggest mistake you've made with like financially or something like that. And there was like a bunch of responses and most of them were like I overbought tools too early in the business. Which. That is a real. Yeah like thing. Craft is great. There's a few other like solutions like that that, that are just like extremely premium. Most people that buy them and this might be like 80 grand a year of a subscription. It's a lot of fucking money.

[Ethan]

Right, right.

[John]

And. And like most people would buy them and then just like not do anything with it.

[Ethan]

Yeah. I mean I think that's one of the interesting things about like the ETA sort of vibe now is there's like one segment of that world that I see is like has all the right intentions but is trying to like over intellectualize.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

The business in the early stages a little bit too much and well, I.

[John]

Think we're guilty of like we share what works for us.

[Ethan]

Right. But you're. Yeah, it's.

[John]

It is a totally different thing. So like I've learned to be a lot more cautious on now I do think craft flow could probably work, but we've learned to be a lot more cautious with like hey, before I give a wreck, like.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

I don't know if you have the like the operating bandwidth to put this hundred thousand dollar thing that I casually mentioned to work.

[Ethan]

Right. And are there like much lower cost, higher roi? Totally. Is. Is the software like a marginal.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Like margin boost.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Can you just like go out and knock some doors and get away higher ROI in three hours. You should probably do that even if it's 100. Even if it's not fun and you don't like it and it's like not as sexy as being on the computer. But I mean.

[John]

Well, I love that you basically weren't doing Google Ads. I feel like one that's hilarious.

[Ethan]

And to they honestly the Google scare me so much. They totally scare me.

[John]

I Think that, like that. To me, that totally tracks. It's like, okay, this is going to take some real energy.

[Ethan]

Right?

[John]

But it's going to work. Like you're, you're what, 80,000 or something? And you're. Or you're about to hit 80,000.

[Ethan]

This, I mean, we're tracking towards that this month. So if, if we do everything we do then should hit that. And the Google Ads, like, I know they'll work at the right moment, but right now, like, I know if I can get myself in front of a homeowner, I will, I will sell a lot of them. And that's like, I can put that in my hands and I can control that destiny.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But the, I don't know right now where every dollar invested in marketing is so important. Like just putting that into a black box like this might be irrational, but you're, you're correct. It scares me to just burn like two grand a month that I could, like, I could get a cold caller.

[John]

And the management fee. Like we had, we did, we had this conversation on a podcast with. We have a, we have an agency that sponsors us service killers and we talked about exactly this. It's like, hey, when should you add Google Ads? And it's like not to like a million dollars or more maybe. Yeah, because there's like, hey, yeah, if you only have $2,000 a month or $4,000 a month, like a management fee for an agency eats up a pretty good portion of that and you're not even spending yet.

[Ethan]

Yeah, like, and it takes time to work and yeah, all the like algorithms.

[John]

You should just go knock doors. Like totally. For sure.

[Ethan]

Yeah. But it sucks and like most people don't want, don't like to do it and I don't like to like knocking doors is not fun. I don't like that either, but it does work.

[John]

FieldPulse is the all in one field management solution for growing home service companies. FieldPulse is designed to simplify your day to day operations by combining everything you need into one platform. It also includes integrations to help you save time like QuickBooks, desktop and online. It has a bunch of advanced tools and features like a CRM, estimates and invoicing, good, better best options, maintenance plans, a robust price book and scheduling dispatching. FieldPulse will transform the way that you manage your field team altogether. It will save you time and find revenue that you didn't even know existed. Whether you're a small company that's looking to grow or a larger, larger company looking to optimize. FieldPulse has the tools that you need to do it. And don't just take our word for it. FieldPulse has earned over 580 glowing reviews with an average rating of 4.8 stars. That's Field EU LSE. Head to their website to learn more. Fieldpulse.com so you launched it? It was West Chester Weekly.

[Ethan]

Yeah, Westchester Weekly.

[John]

Okay. Like, how'd it go?

[Ethan]

Westchester Weekly was. I sort of like, started learning about the local newsletter stuff. It's super hot on X right now, and TJ's and others have done really, really awesome job bringing that into the fore and, you know, making that, that business concept a lot less opaque than it was before when there weren't that many people doing it. So, you know, props to him and all those other guys who have been talking a lot about it and bring a lot of transparency to it. But I basically discovered the concept through him and a couple other guys online and I thought it was super interesting and cool. And I liked the idea of a modern media brand that doesn't focus on news as much, doesn't focus on politics at all, and meets readers and local residents where they spend their time. One of the things that legacy media doesn't do very well is exactly that print publications like, that's not where people are putting their eyeballs anymore. Yeah, people do put their eyeballs on social media. The problem with running a media brand through social media exclusively is that the, the, the economic suck, economics suck, and the format itself makes providing curated and aggregated content really hard. Because of the feed format. Yeah, that medium just like, doesn't work for curated content that isn't driven by the algorithm. So when I came across the new local newsletter thing, you know, it made a lot of sense to me that people are still spending lots of time in their emails. They still open emails from people they know, people they trust, brands they trust, and that, that could be a really interesting medium to, for, you know, local media to replace the legacy and the social media channels. I hadn't really given it that much thought, but I sort of started poking around my rolling suds businesses service area to see, you know, does something like that exist. And it turns out that in the Connecticut portion of my service area, there are a couple people who are actually doing that. One of them is based in the town where I grew up and there are a couple others throughout the state that do essentially similar to like, how.

[John]

It'S currently hot on X.

[Ethan]

Like, yeah, it actually is. And they were a couple of these things were found at, like, the one in my hometown was founded like, over 10 years ago. Like, probably like 10 or 15 years ago. Before local newsletters were like. Before that was a phrase.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

And they just sort of like invented that, you know, spontaneously. And they did a really good job. But in the New York part of my territory, my service area in Westchester County, I didn't see anything like that. There's a guy on X, I think his name is Michael Kaufman. He owns one in the Catskills, which is a little bit further north. And he does an amazing. Like, his design is beautiful. He's found some really cool ways of monetizing the brand. He's done a really, really good job. And we're like, not even in the same stratosphere, but so I saw someone like that, but I didn't see anything in my. In my Rolling Suds businesses. Service area. So then it became, you know, I sort of had the idea that is there like a good way to pair my primary business, Rolling Suds, with a local media brand? Obviously there's a potential, you know, advertising channel there where if you own the media brand and you own the local service business, it's free advertising. Like, that's. That's really nice. Lead gen channel. That was sort of the introduction. But as we've started to grow it more and more, and we being myself and one of my buddies who helps me write it, you know, I've become more bullish on the media brand as its own asset to grow. And there's lots of different ways you can monetize it with ads and things like Sparkloop, but also like, what Michael Kaufman has done or he hosts events. You know, we've talked about doing like, partnering with a restaurant and doing like a murder mystery dinner and having the restaurant host it. We put it on and we split the revenue and we charge like 100, 150 bucks ahead or something like that. And that could be a really nice way to. To monetize and continue to build credibility and brand value in the area where I'm building a service business that is also reliant on credibility and brand value with my customers. So being able to pair those things has been really fun. And, you know, we've. We've grown it and it's. It's still growing and we're reinvesting in it, so to try and accelerate the growth, but it's still small, But I think it's a really interesting idea. So it's cool to see lots of other people try different yeah. Ideas all around the country.

[John]

Yeah. It's been. It's been a funny, like, thing to watch. I got. We obviously, like, actively run media.

[Ethan]

Right.

[John]

Property. And. And it's been a lot of fun. And I went down this rabbit hole of local. Just like, seemingly everyone.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

And it. It is interesting, the economics of it. There was a guy in North Carolina. I don't remember his name, but he ended up selling to Axios, and It was a $2 million local. The Charlotte observer was $2 million with 55,000 subs. And from what I'm reading, most people, like, how much are you getting a sub for?

[Ethan]

Like, 25, 30 cents.

[John]

Yeah. So like $17,000.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Of that's how much he would have spent to get 55,000 subs.

[Ethan]

Right.

[John]

And it's a $2 million business. Now, obviously, there's a lot of, like, who's selling the ads? How are you targeting? Like, there's a lot going on there.

[Ethan]

Totally.

[John]

But that was interesting.

[Ethan]

It can be very cheap to acquire customers. And, you know, people are starting to talk about, you know, how can you. How can you recoup the cost of acquiring the customer, like, upon acquisition? So things like.

[John]

Yeah, how do you think about that? I've been reading the Reddit. It's. I've. Subreddit. Is that what that's called?

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

Like, brain just blanked. But, like, there's a whole thing on local newsletters. Okay.

[Ethan]

I haven't even looked at. On Reddit for it.

[John]

No, dude, it's. Well, basically. So, like, obviously, like, you know, we run a newsletter and so there's a Reddit. The subreddit is like, at newsletters, I think.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

Or there's also a. Just start. And either one of those will. Will hit local newsletters a lot, like, way more in depth than Twitter.

[Ethan]

Interesting.

[John]

And everyone's problem is revenue. Everyone's problem is revenue.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

So, like, how are you thinking about that?

[Ethan]

So we're still really early on in solving that puzzle. But one of the things we've done. I'll cover sort of the two things that we're doing right now. The first one is we just started experimenting with Sparkloop. And one thing that Sparkloop does essentially like their main product is when a new subscriber hits subscribe on Westchester Weekly, a short, small little pop up will say, hey, thanks for subscribing. You know, the Westchester Weekly team recommends you check out these other newsletters. And then it shows like, three, four, five other newsletters that Sparkloop's algorithm has, you know, decided are a potential good fit for my subscriber base. They'll recommend them. They can just click and say, you know, subscribe to these other ones. And then.

[John]

Are you on Beehive or.

[Ethan]

And we're on Beehive, so.

[John]

So you can also spark loop runs on.

[Ethan]

Yeah. So they have an integration. So it all just. You just set it up.

[John]

For some reason I thought that would have been competitive because Beehive sort of has like a recommendation.

[Ethan]

Yeah. So they, they also have it. I don't know. I haven't actually played around with Beehives recommendations thing. We do do some ads through Beehives ad network that will like run above the fold in the newsletter. But as far as their recommendations like post, subscribe thing, we use Sparkloop and it's only been like a week of that. But right now it's looking like we are recouping like 50 to 75% of the cost of acquiring the customer immediately.

[John]

That's crazy.

[Ethan]

Which is amazing. Obviously, like if you pair that with another advertisement or another revenue generating channel, you can reinvest back in the growth of the newsletter extremely fast.

[John]

So what's stopping you from doing that? Why not run a thousand dollars a day of ads this time?

[Ethan]

It's time. I'm just like, you know, I've got a lot of hands in a lot of different pots and I'm trying to keep them in only one or two pots at a time. But. But that's one channel that I think makes growing rapidly really, really easy is that, you know, you get paid back so fast from acquiring customers that, you know, the smart thing that I should do is like reinvest really, really quickly immediately while subscribers are cheap and it's not very competitive to get them. And then other things we're doing are working on some local partnerships. So one thing that is sort of like a dream partnership that we have is to work with a local minor league sports team, talking with them about doing rather than outright selling tickets. Our subscriber base is just not that big. So selling tickets to a sporting event is, you know, the odds that one that that converts just not that high with, you know, a subscriber base that just isn't that big. But what we can do is we can run a giveaway with free tickets and collect emails and, and have them pay for the emails so they can grow their email list. The LTV of an email for them is probably really, really high. So if we can collect those emails, send it right to them, you Know, that's probably really, really good for them. So we're doing stuff like that. We're working on a couple of things with folks like that. And then there's, you know, all the other service businesses, the med spas and the lawyers and the real estate agents that we're just starting to dip our toes into.

[John]

But you combine all calling them or.

[Ethan]

Cold email, same thing. You just get in front of them, tell them you know how many eyeballs you can put them in front of every week.

[John]

How do you get that list? Google.

[Ethan]

Google? Yeah, it's super manual. You could use a tool like outscraper where you'll put in the input. So, you know, I want to find every real estate agent in these zip codes and it just scrapes Google and then you've got a list and you could probably even run that through an email software and, and you could probably, probably automate that pretty well. You could probably even automate a lot of the follow ups pretty well. I haven't done that just because I haven't, but that would be the smart way to do it. And if you combine all of those revenue generating things, that's a real business. Could be a real business. And then you get to the point where you can hire someone to do the biz dev for you. You hire another writer to do another one or two publications during the week. So then you're running two or three. It's a lot more ad slots and. And you can see how it can be a real thing in addition to the synergies with a business like rolling suds in the same service area.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

So it's really interesting idea, I think.

[John]

Yeah. What do you think? I saw something on Twitter yesterday. I think you might have commented on it. It was a guy named Joss or.

[Ethan]

Jass or I think he might be in Winnipeg and he. His newsletter is big. I don't remember what the numbers are, but.

[John]

Well, he said it was like 35,000 subs in the email and then 70,000.

[Ethan]

Like on like social followers. Yeah.

[John]

So big. Totally. And he was like thinking about going backwards with it.

[Ethan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

You've been doing this for four months. Like what is your take? So I guess I'll summarize it better for the listener. I think his name's Jass. I'm trying to get a call with him. It just sounded interesting.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I mean he seems, I've listened.

[John]

To a cool guy.

[Ethan]

He seems really smart, really scrappy. Yeah, yeah, he seems like.

[John]

So, so he has this like big local newsletter. I think 35,000 subs is considered big, right?

[Ethan]

Definitely.

[John]

Okay, so, so big. Local newslet 100,000 total followers. And that is the business currently. I think he's a real young guy. Like 24. Yeah, 25.

[Ethan]

Which is, I mean super impressive.

[John]

Oh hell yeah. Yeah, he's killing it. And that business right now, just from his Twitter is like low six figures revenue, something like that.

[Ethan]

Probably like my guess and I have to be corrected wrong. I would guess like between one and like 250.

[John]

Okay. And he, and his, his question was, hey, should I launch an H Vac company on the back of this newsletter? Which like, I don't know.

[Ethan]

Like. Yeah.

[John]

So like what do you think?

[Ethan]

I think it's way harder to do it in that order.

[John]

Like that's what it seemed like to me. It seems like he's got a good business.

[Ethan]

I think he's got a good.

[John]

Blow that up.

[Ethan]

I would, if I were him, I would probably blow that up and do more events like getting into service business, it's just so different. There's so much more capex involved in it. It's way more of a. It's a, it's, it's a people business. It's a very different kind of people business than hiring like writers and newsletter like biz dev people. You just have to throw yourself into that completely if you want it to be worth the effort. Yeah, I really don't think you can like half do it. Like could you do like Christmas lights is only a couple months out of the year. Like, yeah, like he could probably make that work pretty easily. But if I were starting with a newsletter and jumping into H vac, like I think I'd be really, really hard to do it right. To do it right and to not do a business like that right doesn't seem like it's that worth it to do it. But there are probably some services, like I said, like that are a little bit lower capex, where Christmas lights, you can take like 50% on deposit, use that to pay for the materials. So you're really not outlaying that much cash and investing it up front. You could probably do that pretty decent. But like some of the other stuff that'd be a really heavy lift. And I'm not sure it's like the juice is really worth the squeeze when he's got something that's really awesome.

[John]

That was, that was kind of my take.

[Ethan]

Yeah, I think he's got a really, really great gem and I don't know where he's generating his revenue from But I would like Winnipeg is a real city. I think that's raised from. But Winnipeg is like a big city and there's probably like a lot of stuff you could do to grow a media brand in a city like that.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

But I don't know, maybe he something. I don't. It's totally possible. Yeah.

[John]

I mean it seemed like, like my quick take was. It was like an EV play. So how can I take this cash flowing thing that has audience and turn it into enterprise value? Because I do think that's the danger of local media. Like the, The Charlotte Observer, $2 million of revenue. It sold for $5 million.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

I don't know if there's that many of those types of transactions. And the way it sold was to Axios, which launched Axios Local and then they had a half a billion dollar deal.

[Ethan]

Right.

[John]

So like I, and I think Charlotte observer was the first of 30 local newsletters. So it was like their big. It was basically a platform investment to launch 29 more or buy 29 more. So I don't know. I don't know what like the bag looks like in local. I could totally be.

[Ethan]

I don't think anyone knows really. It's.

[John]

So yeah, they're just not selling yet.

[Ethan]

They're. They're all, they're all so early in their growth trajectory that I don't think anyone really knows where the limit is and sort of where growth caps like where exit value and multiples might cap because they're just really not trading yet. They haven't been around that long.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

For the most part. Except for the, you know, couple examples that you're talking about.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

Um, but I would think, I mean like legacy media used to be really huge businesses and just because that form of media isn't big anymore doesn't mean that a new version of local media couldn't be really substantial too. So.

[John]

Well, when we were looking at tam, an easy measurement was what's the current distribution of your local print newspaper?

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Like can you just get more subscribers than that? Because like that's the tam.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

So for us locally, like we're, we're in northeast Ohio, but like we're closer to Akron and Akron has something called the Akron Beacon Journal and I think its distribution is like 25,000.

[Ethan]

Really?

[John]

Like it's not that big.

[Ethan]

No. I feel like you guys could, I mean with like if you just dumped some money into ads for six months, like you guys could probably sniff at that pretty easily.

[John]

Right.

[Ethan]

Without trying that hard.

[John]

I think so too.

[Ethan]

And the product is. Is. I think your. Your product market fit would be a lot better than a legacy newspaper.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ethan]

So you'll probably have, like, a higher NPS than the newspaper would because you're just meeting the customers where they want to be and giving them the news that they actually want. Not like, oh, like, you know, so and so, like, political scandal in the, like, Chamber of Commerce or whatever. Who cares about that?

[John]

At Wilson, we've saved a stupid amount of money by having AI help out with our call center, and the best tool out there that's making that happen is Evoca. So, look, you've probably heard the buzz about AIC. They seem to be everywhere. But not all AI CSRs are created equal. And Evoca seems to rise to the top every time. They answer every call in the first ring, they sound just like a real person and they don't take breaks. But here's what makes Evoca really interesting. In the real world, if a caller's getting heated, like they're getting frustrated or annoyed, Avoca knows it hears the tone, emotion, and hands the call to a real human. So you can still save that call. And this has been huge for us here at Wilson. There's no more churn or people yelling representative into the phone. And the backend is tight. It directly integrates into Servicetitan at the gold tier level. That means it can handle reschedules, check tech arrival times, and look up customer info. It even helps with capacity planning. It's basically a CSR with perfect memory. On top of all that, it consistently makes our team better. We get post call analytics, auto tagging, and coaching tools so that no matter who's on shift, we deliver for our customers. If you're curious, go to Evoca AI, Avoca AI, book a demo and tell him owned and operated Senshu. Yeah, I agree on the, on the Winnipeg thing. I feel like he's got. I. I understand wanting to chase enterprise value and, like, being stuck with, like, a cash cow that isn't worth a lot could be a real problem. Yeah, I think, like, I would find an easier.

[Ethan]

I would do.

[John]

I would find an easier value.

[Ethan]

I mean, I think TJ is doing a really good job with his business because he's helping launch local newsletters. And I think that's a really great idea in this moment. And I'm not. Not to suggest that, you know this guy, but that's like, he knows how to build a newsletter. Like, other people are demanding help, like a service to help do that. So why not do something like that?

[John]

I Met a guy that did this like 10 years ago for. I don't remember the, I don't remember the industry segment, but like he helped launch local newsletters.

[Ethan]

Really?

[John]

Like 50 of them.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

And it was for this. I don't remember the. It was like PR or accounting or something like that. But he would launch these, like local newsletters in Georgia and D.C. and they were 30 to 40,000.

[Ethan]

Wow.

[John]

Yeah, it was, it was wild.

[Ethan]

Do you know what the structure, like, would he take an equity stake or would it just. Would he just charge like a monthly retainer?

[John]

Charge a monthly retainer, but somehow he ended up claiming them back? I don't, I really don't remember.

[Ethan]

How interesting. Yeah, because I think you could probably structure it. I mean, I don't know, I've never tried, but you could probably structure it as some sort of partnership where you're like, have a minority stake in it and you charge some sort of, you know, monthly retainer for whatever ongoing service you're providing. But I think that would be a really interesting business for someone who knows how to launch local newsletters to do. But maybe that's not interesting to him. Maybe he wants to do like a totally different line of business.

[John]

I don't know. But I agree, like, you've got the easy thing. Stay, probably stay with.

[Ethan]

But listen, if he, if he's, if he's like, if he's got the balls to, to throw himself into a local service business, like pop off more power to him, go do it. He's clearly scrappy enough and hungry enough that I'm sure he'd be successful at it. But I would just think really hard about whether you want to. If that's the kind of business you want to be spending your day to day doing. It's just really different. It's just different.

[John]

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. So what do you think the next couple years looks like for you?

[Ethan]

Oh, that's a great question. I mean, I'm, I'm laser focused on just growing my rolling suds business. I mean, Westchester Weekly too, but rolling sets business is the main thing. So I'm keeping the main thing. The main thing. And I want to grow that thing as fast as possible. Get it as big as possible.

[John]

Is it net profitable yet?

[Ethan]

Yeah. Yes. We're, we're, we're, we're profitable. I think we turned a profit in our second month.

[John]

That's crazy.

[Ethan]

Which has been great. So, I mean, like I said, I've gotten really lucky. I'm in a really good market. I've had good success with text, not giving me too many problems. We've had some turnover, but that's solvable. I haven't had any bad people on the team which has been really good. So we're able to reinvest in the business. We're going to be getting a second truck here which will give us a lot of capacity and then who knows, maybe we'll expand next year or something like that out a little bit. But I would love to get this business to the point where I can grow a team around me so that I'm not running 10 residential estimates a day. I can focus on a lot of the commercial stuff which is much bigger ticket, much higher margin work and I can have people around me to support some of the other parts of the business, whether it's you know, running day to day ops and supporting me with sales and things like that. That I think will be a big milestone for when we turn from you know like a scrappy startup to like okay, there's like a real path to build like yeah. A firm not just even sales currently.

[John]

And because rolling sales is young, really young, there's probably not like a huge franchisee yet.

[Ethan]

There's a couple in the network that are pretty consistently doing six figure months I think right now. So here's what I'll say. I would not be surprised if in a couple or a few years there are like several franchisees who are doing mid seven figures. I think there's a lot of room to grow. I think the national account sales, you know, the franchisors business I think is, is really promising.

[John]

Like huh.

[Ethan]

It makes a lot of sense to me that if you're a national QSR national hotel brand, like you want consistency, you want consistency, you want one vendor, one point of contact, you don't want a thousand like chalk in a truck who are providing different pricing, different level of quality, you know, different level of responsiveness. And right now there's no other national provider of this service. So it makes a lot of sense to me that there could be a lot of growth there for the whole network.

[John]

That makes sense. So regularly, some regularly hitting a hundred thousand and the biggest is like four trucks, five trucks. Is that, does that sound right?

[Ethan]

That's.

[John]

I heard they were starting to already see some mergers.

[Ethan]

There's have, has been some M and A in network.

[John]

That's kind of wild. It's crazy for like a 24 month old, you know.

[Ethan]

Yeah. I mean there's one of the things like I said earlier, like one of the Things that the franchisor has done really well is they found a lot of franchisees who are super hungry, super ambitious and have like enough capital to build a real business and not just, you know, start with one territory and kind of like pedal along with that forever. So yeah, there has been some M and A within the network which I think is really healthy and we're going to see more and more of that over time as some people scale and you know, having liquidity within the network is really good for a brand that's having people move in and out and have people grow and consolidate and exit is I think, really, really healthy. But yeah, I think there, there are a couple, a couple franchisees who are growing really fast, already running like five plus trucks with I think there's one franchisee with more than 10 territories who's super bullish on it. There are some like, institutionally backed franchisees in the network who've either had success in other franchises and like have, you know, a lot of, of capital to invest the opportunities there or have some, you know, private equity support, which is amazing. Like, I love to be a part of a brand where funded. It's funded and people are trying to do stuff. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to grow a real business here and it's cool to be around people who are similarly ambitious.

[John]

Yeah. If you've got any message out there for like new entrepreneur, they're just starting. Yeah, they're about to get their know, punched in the stomach for a year. What, what do you got?

[Ethan]

I mean, I would say like, you're going to get punched not in the stomach, like you're going to get, you're going to get punched in the face over and over and over again. And one of the best things you can do is just take those punches and, you know, not take them personally. You're going to have big losses and you're going to make big mistakes and if you treat everything like a learning experience, you're going to get better every single day and that's going to be what creates success down the road. I'd also say, like, if I was a wantrepreneur for two years and I listened to all the podcasts, I watched all the videos, I read all the books and I think that was net. Net a good use of time because when the, the time came for me to take the leap, I sort of knew what to look for and what not to look for. But at the same time, like, at a certain point, like you can't just keep listening to more stuff. You gotta do it. And there's no perfect decision. And if you. If you're really meant to be in this game, you just gotta get in the game. Like, this is not gonna be the last business I ever own. I don't know if this is gonna be. You know, this may or may not be the best business I ever own. We'll find out in 20, 30, 40 years. But I'm in it, and I'm learning, and I'm making mistakes and getting better every day. And the only way you can figure that stuff out is just by doing it. So be smart. Make a good decision with how and when you get into entrepreneurship. But you got to do it, and you got to approach it as like a former growth mindset and just take every punch as a lesson. That's what I would say.

[John]

That's a great one. If people want to connect with you, your story was great. How can they find you?

[Ethan]

Yeah, I would. I would find me on X. My handle is at relander, so my DMs are open. I love chatting with people who are into business and. And talking about stuff. So feel free to connect and we'll chat sometime.

[John]

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, dude. This was fun. Thanks for making the trip.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

Thanks for having a cool story. I love that we got to talk about early entrepreneurship. We got to talk about my current latest obsession, which is local media.

[Ethan]

Yeah.

[John]

And I love that we were able to pair them. So this was awesome.

[Ethan]

Totally. Yeah. This was great to be here. Thanks, John.