What Home Service Business Should You Start in 2026? (And How to Win Early)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: What Home Service Business Should You Start in 2026? (And How to Win Early)

Podcast: Owned and Operated
Hosts: John Wilson & Jack Carr
Date: January 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively and insightful episode, John Wilson and Jack Carr tackle a pressing question for entrepreneurs: What home service business should you start in 2026 and how can you win early? They analyze industry trends, market timing, business models, and leadership structures—while layering in honest, practical advice for both newcomers and seasoned operators. The episode is rich with actionable insights on choosing an industry, building for scale, and adapting to a changing competitive landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Importance of Research and Market Selection

Timestamps: [00:11] – [04:09]

• Avoiding Hard Mode: Jack stresses not to randomly pick an industry or highly competitive city:

  "If you want to play the game on hard mode, you are going to go and randomly pick something like I did." (A, [00:00])

• Start With Market Research: Focus less on personal skill set and more on gaps in the market.

  "If you can find something right out the gate that has a need that's not being met, then you're automatically starting with a win." (A, [00:11])

• Organic Growth Wins: Jack’s experience expanding plumbing services into a low-competition suburb allowed almost immediate traction:

  "We were able to rank number two in plumbing in a 50,000 person market within two weeks... No money, just organic traffic instantaneously." (A, [03:22])

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2. Industry Consolidation and Choosing the Right Vertical

Timestamps: [04:53] – [10:21]

• 2026 is Different: Playbooks from 2016–2020 no longer apply—consolidation has changed the landscape.

  "The playbook that existed from 2016 to 2020 is irrelevant to what's now today's playbook and today's competitive environment." (B, [04:53])

• Timing Matters: Avoid industries deep in consolidation cycles (e.g., plumbing/HVAC/electric), as multiples compress and opportunities shrink.

  "If you're thinking about raising money or partnering with a firm, you should probably do it the next two years... there's going to be more consolidation, which means multiples go down." (B, [07:31])

• Explore Emerging Niches: Water mitigation, pest control, and other less-consolidated or “boring" but fragmented services offer better future prospects and higher multiples.

  “Build a million dollar... pest control route and then sell that for 18x. Like, that's wild.” (A, [08:37])

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3. Model Selection: Single Vertical, Multi-location Expansion

Timestamps: [13:59] – [25:40]

• Tangential but Sellable: Choose scalable, focused models (duct cleaning, drain cleaning, jetting, water filtration, etc.), and position yourself as an attractive acquisition target for industry roll-ups.

  "I would pick something boring. Duct cleaning is another one... run five or 10 total services that are very tangential and just do as many locations as possible and scale via location instead of service expansion." (B, [13:59])

• Multi-Unit Challenges: Scaling via new locations is often limited by talent—finding and developing good branch managers is hard but essential.

  "Now how do you go and you find 10 good managers to run 10 locations? That's what sounds really difficult to me." (A, [16:48])

• Leadership as a Growth Lever: Most common constraint is local leadership—focus company-building energy here.

  "The org chart is the big problem. ‘Who's the leader?’ is the most consistent problem." (B, [16:53])

• Operational Simplicity: Seek models that are easy to operate consistently across locations, ideally thriving with mostly B players and scalable training systems.

  "What we need is a scalable system and we need...our business can thrive with a ton of B players and a couple of A’s." (B, [27:09])

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4. Execution: Hiring, Licensing & Marketing

Timestamps: [30:01] – [34:12]

• Hire for Gaps: First key hire should be a trade expert or license holder—partner if needed.

  "Someone does have to be a trade expert. And ideally that's your first hire." (B, [30:40])

• Licensing: Solve license requirements by hiring or partnering, even pre-acquisition:

  "How do you solve the licensing thing? And the answer is, you hire someone." (B, [31:29])

• Marketing Muscle Matters: Regardless of the business, you are fundamentally a marketing and sales company.

  "If you're a home service business, you're a marketing and sales business...we have to get the lead, we have to sell the lead." (B, [33:01])

• Get Scrappy: Canvassing, direct marketing, and being present where the competition isn’t is increasingly essential.

  "What if I can knock on your door and steal your attention from your phone because I'm talking to you face to face? That's a big win." (A, [41:02])

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5. Metrics That Matter: EBITDA Over Revenue

Timestamps: [34:58] – [39:44]

• Profit Focus in 2026: The most sophisticated operators and buyers only care about EBITDA, not top-line revenue.

  "As I got into better and better rooms, nobody talks about revenue...they’ll give me their ebitda, I'll ask them what their revenue is. And they actually don't [know]." (B, [36:32])

• Growth vs. Survival: In tough years, survival and profitability (EBITDA) come before revenue growth.

  "Your revenue doesn't matter this year if your business goes under because you're running negatives." (A, [38:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Industry Choice:

  "You want a fragmented industry with a high total addressable market... Even if you don't think you're going to sell, one day someone will. Businesses only do two things. They either sell or they shut down."
  — John (B), [12:55]

• On Building for Sale vs. Cash Flow:

  "Build like you're going to sell whether you're going to sell or not."
  — Jack (A), [10:23]

• On Leadership Hiring:

  "Hiring someone to run a $50 million branch is much more complicated than hiring someone to run a $2 million branch. And there are far less leaders capable of running a $50 million branch than a 2."
  — John (B), [17:30]

• On Marketing Scrappiness:

  "People are now going to TikTok and they're watching TV while they're scrolling TikTok...How do you grab someone's attention? It's not the TV anymore."
  — Jack (A), [40:46]

• On The Winning Mindset for Tough Years:

  "Winners got scrappy...the people that are going to eventually take you on, like, they, they only speak one language and it isn’t revenue."
  — John (B), [39:24]

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Structure of a Winning Approach in 2026

1. Start with In-Depth Research: Focus on markets with unmet needs and low competition.
2. Select a Fragmented, Unsaturated Industry: Look beyond the heavily-consolidated plays.
3. Pick a Simple, Focused Business Model: Prefer boring, tangential services that are easy to scale and eventually attractive as acquisition targets.
4. Recruit Trade Expertise and Solve Licensing Early: Partner with experts or license-holders as needed.
5. Build Marketing and Sales Capabilities: Scrappy, boots-on-the-ground tactics like canvassing are underutilized but powerful.
6. Scale via Multi-Location—but Prepare for Leadership Challenges: Success hinges on developing and supporting local branch managers.
7. Maintain a Relentless Focus on EBITDA: Profit is king; measure your business as sophisticated buyers would.
8. Stay Flexible with Your Playbook: What worked five or eight years ago will likely not work today.

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Useful Timestamps

• [00:11] – Why research trumps skill set in market selection
• [07:31] – How consolidation alters industry opportunities
• [13:59] – The case for boring, scalable services
• [16:53] – Leadership as the primary constraint in multi-branch expansion
• [30:40] – Why hiring a trade expert is the first move
• [36:32] – Why only EBITDA matters to top-tier operators
• [40:46] – Shifting marketing attention to new platforms and tactics

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This episode is essential listening for current and aspiring home service business owners who want to launch, expand, or reposition for the win in 2026 and beyond.

Transcript

[A]

If you want to play the game on hard mode, you are going to go and randomly pick something like I did.

[B]

If I were building a home service business in 2026, here's how I would do it.

[A]

You can find something right out the gate that has a need that's not being met, then you're automatically starting with a win.

[B]

There's going to be more consolidation which means multiples go down. Because somebody told you, hey, roofing is a gold mine right now. By the time you build a big enough business might not be a gold mining.

[A]

It is research, research, research.

[B]

So the playbook existed from 2016 to 2020 is irrelevant.

[A]

I don't like that.

[B]

Oh my gosh. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host John Wilson. I'm here with my co host Jack Carr. We're here. It's Wednesday, January 14th. It's 50 degrees. We sell H vac so we're all grumpy.

[A]

Great intro. Nothing gets people locked into a hook. Just like I, I'm John. It's 50 degrees.

[B]

Hey, it's John. I'm John. It's 50 degrees. I'm crying every day today.

[A]

What's going on? I'm. I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's bring energy.

[B]

Me too. I'm ready to go. All right. I'm ready to go today. What we're talking about is if I were building a home service business in 2026, here's how I would do it.

[A]

Oh, sweet. Yeah, I'm ready.

[B]

Fuck yeah. Let's full send this thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. If you, Jack, were to build a home service business 2026 using 2018 playbooks, how do you feel like you'd do you think you'd win? You think you'd get crushed? What do you think?

[A]

I think that I knowing. See the nice part about having done this is I know where the grass is actually greener. Like I know what would have worked a lot better from the get go. And so I, I want to go into the, the way back time machine to where I bought an H Vac company in the middle of middle Tennessee. And if you were going to start. This is a generalized topic, right. So yeah, if you were to start a home service business, the first place that I think you start is on research, right? It is research, research, research. Because if you want to play the game on hard mode, you are going to go and randomly pick something like I did.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

In a highly competitive city where it is going to be a difficult climb, there is much easier fish in in the sea to go after. And research is the number one thing. Like let's go ahead and figure out less about your skill set, less about any. Like not including your skill set, not including anything to start. It's like, what's the job market look like, what's the business market look like in that specific region? Because if you can find something right out the gate that has a need that's not being met, then you're automatically starting with a win. You don't have to generate leads. The leads will instantaneously flow to you, making life and the business easier. So what, what do I mean by that? I mean, right, I got lucky in the sense that my H Vac company was in the middle when I bought it of a suburb of Nashville that is very wealthy and has almost no competition. So lucky. 100% lucky.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But as we expanded out, it became increasingly difficult to to go against other competitors in the Nashville region because I'm going against $100 million companies. That being said, when we expanded plumbing, we expanded our plumbing profile. When we did that, we looked at the suburbs around our suburb farther south away from Nashville, and we were able to rank number two in plumbing in a 50,000 person market within two weeks. Yeah, like we were able to generate calls within two weeks. No money to put into it, like just organic traffic instantaneously. And like that is so much easier than having to fight uphill to get leads. So that's my soapbox to start.

[B]

Have you ever bought enterprise level software and realized that managing it really just became a full time job? Well, that's pretty much exactly why my restoration business switched over to fieldpulse. We were tired of software that promised efficiency, but came with endless TR sessions, onboarding and frustrated texts and using it began to feel like it was a job all on its own. Fieldpulse was built for owner operators who don't want more dashboards. They need scheduling, invoicing and job tracking. And they need it all to live in one place without the chaos or the learning curve. FieldPulse is simple to roll out. It's easy for your team to actually use, and it was 75% cheaper than the other titans of software we were using. Right now. If you book a demo with FieldPulse, you'll get an exclusive partner offer. It's 20% off an eligible annual subscription and 50% off premium support for your first year. If your software upgrade has turned into a time suck, it might be time to make the move. Book a demo with FieldPulse and see if it's a better fit my like and we'll dive a lot deeper. I think the only thing that I would add that I think is especially interesting in our in like plumbing H vac electric is what is the amount of information available and how recent is that information. So when I think about like everybody who's like big platforms today that's creating content like nine figure businesses or near nine figure businesses, the playbook that they ran three years ago, four years ago, eight years ago in our example here, 2018, this is a different playbook today. And you cannot, you know, there's a lot of content that was created at the back end of the teens, but hey, in the back end of the teens like Heartland and Apex and Wrench Group, all these guys were just getting started. So the playbook that existed from 2016 to 2020 is irrelevant to what's now today's playbook and today's competitive environment. I was talking to, I was talking to somebody yesterday and he, he on like the market for like plumbing H vac businesses. Are they still aggressively trading, like what's the vibe at the moment? And his vibe was one, yeah, they're still aggressively trading. Like 2026 is off to like just a roaring start apparently. But eventually you do run out, like you're going to run out of like the big meaningful targets and there's just not that many left anymore. Now granted there's people coming up, they're growing, they're whatever, but I think, you know, that's a totally different experience than eight years ago where it was a very fragmented market. We're now approaching like unfragmented, which is kind of interesting.

[A]

Which I was talking to someone about that yesterday and I think that's the goal is like you need to find that 2018 industry. So what's your view on industry and model when you're thinking about this? Because home service, right, is a big bucket. You go pest control, you can go roofing and like, I mean pest control and roofing. Outside of the H Vac plumbing electrical box, there are massively different models of business. One is a sale, big ticket, marketing, big ticket and one is route based, lots of lots and lots of small tickets on subscription. So like where, where's your view on if you're thinking about starting a business, where are you going and why?

[B]

I would probably try to avoid the things that are currently in the process of heavy consolidation. So like plumbing H Vac electric is nearing the end of their end of consolidation. So you know, my note on that is like if you're thinking about raising money or if you're thinking about partnering with a firm, then like you should probably do it the next two years. Because they are like the big firms are starting to trade. There's going to be more consolidation, which means multiples go down. There's other firms like Roofing or Water Mitt. Like Water Mitt. I was talking to a buddy this morning and they bid a really significant price on a water mitt, like a 9 million EBITDA water mitigation company which is like Serve Pro and you know, like damage happens to a home and.

[A]

Restoration.

[B]

Yeah, restoration, yeah. And they bid 11 times and they got blown out of the water. It wasn't even close. They like the company ended up trading for like 17, which is crazy. So, you know, that's control.

[A]

I sent you that pest control one a couple of months ago on from Twitter and it was like, oh, we had an 18x exit on 1 million in EBITDA.

[B]

Going so crazy.

[A]

Messed up. H Vac is the wrong industry. Build a million dollar, you know, pest control route and then sell that for 18x. Like that's wild.

[B]

Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. So yeah, I think like if I wasn't already in plumbing, H Vac Electric, I'd probably go for something that's not being consolidated. So the example that somebody gave me yesterday was, hey, back in the like 2010s and early 2000s, a lot of the wholesalers were being consolidated and like some people held out, some people sold, some people whatever. But like eventually you basically either got bought by Ferguson or run out of business. Like there's still some independents that are like big. There's a couple family owned ones that are really big, but they were also big a decade ago. But like it is a, a lot of consolidation and it's still happening even now. There's just not that much more and they're also just not worth that much. So that's the problem is if you're starting to build today because somebody told you like, hey, roofing is a gold mine right now. Well, by the time you build a big enough business, it might not be a gold mine anymore. Like the consolidation could have already gone and like it could have gone now, won't be worth nothing, but it's not going to be worth 18.

[A]

You're assuming though that the goal of the build is to sell.

[B]

So like all this, I am assuming.

[A]

Price is, is somewhat negligible if you're a buy and hold. Hey, I want to run.

[B]

I Mean, net worth. Like, what's your net worth? Right. So, like, the value of whatever it is that you're working on matters.

[A]

It does, but I'm just saying that, like, from a cash flow perspective, there's some people that just, hey, I want to pull a million dollars a year out of a roofing business and call it a day. Yeah, that's, that's still incredibly wealthy, whether their net worth is 10 million or 20 million, if they're pulling a million cash. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't disagree. I do think that that's something that you should. Again, it's the advice. Build like you're going to sell whether you're going to sell or not.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

[A]

And so.

[B]

Yeah. So how, how late in the consolidation stages is it? So, like, if, if water mitigation is in its first year, well, you've got six, seven years to build something valuable.

[A]

And speaking of markets, water mitigation is on the rise in terms of like, dude, it's crazy. Recently, I've heard more and more, like the Internet is starting to swirl around water mitigation.

[B]

It's.

[A]

Yeah, it's funny, the crazy thing. So I have some buddies who are in water, are in restoration and I've been talking to them and it's all B2B. It's all like this. I'm going, why, guys, I understand the model, I understand why you do this and the way you do it. But like, mold, for example, is such a visual product or a visual issue.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That like you could do direct to consumer education and you can.

[B]

The prices, the prices are crazy too.

[A]

And it's crazy.

[B]

It, it's always been funny. So we've had a water mitigation. Yeah, we've had a water mitigation department since 2020, and it's a really profitable part of the business. But you know, as. Whenever we thought about, like, it was never a hot market for water mitigation. So it's just, it's really funny because we've been like, we've been in, we've obviously been in a really hot market for plumbing, H vac, electric. And then now we have like mold remediation, which is suddenly like, you know, the next thing and we're like, okay, sure.

[A]

Do you feel, do you feel that electrical is, is considered a hot market?

[B]

No, I, I don't. And I honestly, I think it should be, but I don't think it is. But I think electrical, electrical would be a great one because people do not think about it.

[A]

I Love electrical.

[B]

I think even plumbing, like you could separate H Vac and plumbing pretty cleanly. Like H Vac was like 2016 to 2021. But like, hey, plumbing's been like the hot chick at the bar for the last four or five years. And I think electric could become the next thing.

[A]

I like electrical, man. I just love electrical. It's my background, which is part of the reason. But the other reason is again, if you do that research, like look up H Vac companies in your area and then look up residential service or residential electrical companies and there will be one or two and they'll have like 16 reviews. Like, it's like the market is so much easier from a, from a marketing perspective to, to pull those in. And most of the contractors are doing new construction.

[B]

Like, oh, totally. Yeah, it's a lot of project stuff. All right. So if we're starting today, so that's how we'd select industry. So we'd be really thoughtful about like, hey, how much information is there? How big is the opportunity or the tam, the total addressable market? How, like, at what point of consolidation are we super early? Is it not consolidated at all or is it very consolidated? Like, it's, it's tougher. Like you want a. It's called fragmented. So you want a fragmented industry, which arguably there's still a lot of businesses out there. Like total number of businesses, maybe there's like a hundred thousand plumbing H Vac companies, but the biggest 300 are now all owned by the same 15 firms. Right. So there's a lot of them, but it's really not as fragmented as it looks anymore. So you want fragmented with a high total addressable market. And ideally, whether or not you want to sell today, it doesn't really matter. I do think building with the idea of like, hey, if you get sick, what can your family do with this asset is important.

[A]

Is important.

[B]

Yeah. So you. And the only reason you want to think about that is, is the company eventually saleable to someone? Is there a eventual buyer for a 2 million dollar roofing company or mitt company or whatever it is, landscaping whatever it is. You want to know that there's an institutional level buyer at the end of whatever your journey is. Even if you don't think you're going to sell one day someone. Businesses only do two things. They either sell or they shut down. So eventually it's going to sell. So just have that in mind. If I, if I were starting today, something I liked a lot and I've talked about this so many times, but it'd be picking one boring service with like five total things that we do. I just think that sounds amazing. Like a Zoom Drain franchise. Or like, you know, we had Ken Goodrich and he's from Gettle, but he's doing generator, this electrical generator roll up. So they're just like installing generators. Or like we've always joked about, like the water heater guy, like just being the water heater guy. So I would pick something boring. Duct cleaning is another one boring that I could like run five or 10 total services that are like very tangential and just do as many locations as possible and scale via location instead of like service expansion, which is how we scaled is service expansion.

[A]

I don't like that.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

I've never done it. So like, again to me. And I've had this conversation with a few people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Even on this podcast, like, that sounds like my nightmare is trying to do amazing well. So, okay, how hard is it for everyone out there to get one? Like the question we always get, Jack, how did you hire a good gm? Well, news flash for everyone who doesn't know my story, I didn't hire a good gm. I just did. I think, yeah, I love my new gm. So if he's listening, I love the new gm, but my old GM kind of backstabbed me on the way out. So all that being said is like, now how do you go and you find 10 good managers to run 10 locations? Like, that's what sounds really difficult to me. And so that's why I don't like it. That being said, from like a opportunity standpoint, like, it probably is one of the best models. It just sounds like a nightmare to me just because, like, again, you can run in this, this cross section where operational efficiency meets revenue. And you can kind of cap at that point. Like, hey, yeah, this, this business runs super well with a manager, a CSR dispatcher and five technicians. It does 3 million and offshoots, 30% net. Like, and if you can recreate that in 10, perfect. That is truly like an awesome opportunity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, the headache though for me is like, how do you find 10 good managers?

[B]

I do think that part's hard. Yeah, I do think that part's hard. Well, that, that's the next one is like, as you're thinking about it, the org chart is the neck. It's the big problem. So if you talk to any multi unit operators, which if you haven't been paying attention, we're suddenly a multi unit operator. Hey, yo, org chart. And like, who's the manager, who's the leader is the most consistent problem. So if, if you, if you listen back, like if you've been a longtime listener, like we interviewed Chad Peterman and we interviewed Tommy and we interviewed Chris, and this was all about a year ago and we were really like honing in on how do we go multi location? Because we were prepping to go multi location. We now are. And the, the big thing that everyone just kept saying over and over again is who's the leader? Who's the leader? Who's the leader? Like, who's that person that's running that location? So I think all that to say, just like any other part of our business where we have to develop a deep expertise, like, well, how do you drive the lead? How do you make the sale? How do you. Whatever. If, if the capacity constraint is the leader for the branch, then that has to be something that we start solving. I mean, that's the thing that you become really good at because that's going to be now the capacity. And for us, that's not the capacity constraint yet. Like, we have some great leaders of our new branches, but it will be now the what I. So I think the way I'm thinking about it is almost the opposite of how you're thinking about it. We're like, oh man, how do we find all these managers? Definitely I think that's going to be hard when that time comes. I think that's going to be really challenging. And I don't want to like downplay it of just hire somebody, you know, it's obviously not that easy. I do think in general and like a scale of like, if. If hiring a leader is really hard and we already accept that, that's like an 8 out of 10 difficulty, hiring the right person, maybe a 9 out of 10 difficulty. Even inside that there's layers, right? So hiring someone to run a $50 million branch is much more complicated than hiring someone to run a $2 million branch. And there are far less leaders capable of running a $50 million branch than a 2. There's a lot of people out there that could run a really effective $2 to $4 million branch. So I think that's a part of like, hey, as you're thinking about your opportunity and as I'm thinking about the opportunity and like, hey, I want to have 1 service, 5 to 10 total service SKUs spread geographically. That's a part of why I'm thinking that way is it's really hard to hire amazing operators that can run $30 million or $40 million. That's hard. I'm not saying it's not hard to hire someone to run a two to five, but there's just more of them. So I can go out there and recruit. Yeah, I can. And, and it's a really good like you know that ops manager position or branch manager position is a perfect stepping stone for hey, I'm a plumber. I've invested in myself. I want to take the next step in my career and I see that as like a leadership position. A two to five million dollars branch is like perfect for that because it's a very frontline focus. Like there's not layers of leadership. Right. Like you're dealing directly with your field team. So even if there's not people that are like perfectly suited, there's a lot of people that are wanting to change their career path and go into leadership instead of like continue to develop their trade. So I think you have a lot of talent is I, I guess my long version. For too long I was letting the wrong marketing agencies set my money on fire and their marketing looked pretty good. On paper the reporting was attractive, active, but at the end of the day it just wasn't driving leads. That's why I started using service scalers at Wilson. Service Killers is a marketing agency built specifically for home service companies. They focus on the channels that actually drive leads like targeted ppc, local service ads, SEO, Google business profile. So that you're showing up in front of your customers that are actively searching. They'll help you see exactly what's working so you stop wasting ad dollars on low quality leads. Right now they're doing something crazy and they're giving the opportunity for one entrepreneur to get up to 12 months of marketing on them. So that's up to $100,000 in services for the right operator. If you are serious about tightening up your marketing in 2026 and want to see what this could look like for your business, go to service scalers.com and book a free strategy call and let them know that I sent you.

[A]

I don't disagree. I think anything that everything you said there is applicable. And again, especially if you have the back of house management covered like that also supports the frontline leader and a branch manager to be able to Ford specific especially if there's a cap on total revenue. Like that person. Yeah, he has some P L responsibility but they're not. Yeah, they're not worrying about insurance. They're not worrying about like a lot of the back of house HR items. Yeah, they're just following processes and procedures and then being really good managers. Yeah. So, but how does that. I mean, let's, let's circle this back to. I know we kind of went off on a tangent, but how does. If you were starting a business in 2026, like you're just, you're keeping an eye on like the type of business still to make sure that you could go and do this kind of strategy.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, so like, I'll pick on some of the examples we've already used and maybe introduce some new ones too. So like, I think duct cleaning, concrete leveling would be interesting. A garage installation, just like standing up garages. I think that's kind of interesting. So it's all these like generally high ticket.

[A]

Services, tertiary vision. This is. Yeah. Secondary and tertiaries.

[B]

Well, 100. Because all I can think about is like, who's the eventual buyer for this thing? Like eventually, whether I sell it to my kids or sell it to my employees, or sell it to a third party, all of those are preferable to shutting it down. Right. Which is the only other option. Either sell or shut down. So who's the eventual buyer? So like duct cleaning, you could build a really big duct cleaning business and then sell that to an H vac roll up and that would be a huge win. Chimneys would be another one. You could sell that to an H vac roll up plumbing.

[A]

Roll up chimneys.

[B]

Yeah. So I would find something tangential that could eventually be sold to somebody that currently trades for very low water filtration only that could go to a big plumbing company. Well drilling.

[A]

Well drilling, yep. Weldering's a little hard because you have to have a lot of licenses for it.

[B]

But yep, septic pumping is a good one. I mean, drains and septic pumping, that's like sort of an offshoot of plumbing. So I. That's where I would be building, where it's like, hey, how do we just do drain cleaning and drain replacement and then do that like Roto rooter style across, you know, a bunch of $2 million branches and just. It's not that hard to get a plumbing company to $2 million.

[A]

It's like 4American leak is your only. Is your only competition in leak detection.

[B]

Like totally leak detection.

[A]

What I find interesting.

[B]

And a plumbing company would buy that. An H Vac company would buy that. Like, yeah.

[A]

What I find interesting about all those businesses you named though too is like the model is interesting in the sense that there. Those are almost all like Your customer is B2B. It can be B2C right, yeah. But like a lot of those are subbed out businesses. So like. Yeah, water filters are generally B2C. Yeah, there's a bunch of companies doing it. But like duct cleaning, sometimes it can be B2B. Leak detection can be B2B. Like you're, you're the sub for large companies. A jetting. Jetting is a great one. Like I'm only a jetter. You can work directly for the restaurants or you can sub to plumbers.

[B]

You can do municipalities. Yeah. I mean there's a big drain company that local to us. We've talked to them about acquiring them and they like jet municipalities and restaurants and they have service contracts with like all these gas stations and TPAs and all stuff. But it's an 80 freaking gross margin drain cleaning business. Like it's incredible. And they do $7 million of revenue a year. Like it's a crazy business.

[A]

I love jetting.

[B]

Yeah, no, it's great. It's great. But so, yeah, I think like, how could it be a little bit tangential but close enough to something that someone's gonna buy it? Fake turf would be another one. I mean that'd be a huge add on for some giant landscaping company. Hey, do you want, do you want fake turf? All of the people that put this in are probably your ideal customer for planting or indoor plants or like whatever other tertiary stuff you have.

[A]

Yeah. 100. The downside, which we've talked about before, is it's, it's very hard. I know you, you just gave an example of like drain cleaning going to 7 million.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or jetting. But for a lot of these companies, like the cap on, I actually think that's great.

[B]

I actually think that's kind of great. So I'm, I'm, I think I'm kind of into this.

[A]

So back to your strategy though. It's like you have to do multi location.

[B]

I think it's multi location because I think what'll happen if you unpack that, that I'm doing air quotes problem. Another layer to me I see that as like a feature, not a flaw. So. I know, I know for us as we were really growing from like 10 to 20 million, it was a very a player driven growth. Like we, if this guy performed, we did well. If this guy did not perform, we did not do well. Which as you're building it doesn't like you don't think about it like that, but then, but then you're in it and you're like, okay, well really I have like a couple a players driving the business and what happens if I lose them? And how do you keep them and then how do you prevent that, the personality that comes with that from ruining the rest of your culture? And what we sort of backed into over time is we don't need, we don't need that one guy or girl or whatever to, to be the freaking boss and drive the performance. What we need is a scalable system and we need like, can we make it so our business can thrive with a ton of B players and a couple of days instead of like one or two A's and just driving everything? So we started really focusing on like how consistent our training, how consistent is our performance? Will an average, will an average team member do 40 grand a month of revenue? Will they book on average this amount of calls? And really trying to back into like, yes, we want those A players, but if they're not present, can we still thrive? And I think that multi location helps to drive that a little bit further because you're no longer like, you have to build a system that scales based on whatever talent you have available in that location. And it's going to be very like consistent training. Are we following our KPIs? Are we like consistently driving the behavior and performance that we want? So to me, I, I see that as a really good thing that you have to figure out how to actually run a business instead of hiring two A players that are 50 of your sales.

[A]

No, I mean that, that goes along with what we've talked about over the last three years here. It's like, you know, the, one of the best things that, that we've. I still the hill I'll die on is don't buy a business without marketing. 0 Marketing is not a benefit.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because then again, any of these, these features that you have to, you're forced to build the muscle to be really good at. Yeah, like that's the benefit, is that you guys are really, really good at marketing. Like that's the win because then you just turn the knob instead of the, the switch.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sweet. So, okay. And we spent a lot of time on like pick. I, I do think that's the most important though. It's like I, you get ahead early on in the right industry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And notice we didn't talk about, you know, you being a plumber. Are you being an electrician? Like. Yeah, I think that it's somewhat agnostic.

[B]

Well, I don't think, I think that's irrelevant. Yeah, I think it's irrelevant. I think like it might help you in the first week But I don't. I don't think it long term matters. I think the way I've said it as, as we've trained is the, the trade itself is obviously important. We have to do a good job at whatever it is that we're doing. But you can hire really talented people to solve that one problem. And then once you figure that problem out, well, you have six other problems you have to figure out. Can you run good, clean accounting? Can you run hr? Can you run marketing? Can you run a call center? Like, can you run the rest of the business aside from that one part of it, which is the trade? And if you, if you know the other six steps, then the seventh one, which is the trade, is somewhat interchangeable.

[A]

So then what, what is. Before we run out of time, what's. What's like the, the next deep dive step that you would take is like, okay, you picked your trade. You know, drain lining. I love that one. I think that's a new hot one, by the way. Like, go into a market that is starting to have tons of drain lining by the trailer. 100K. Yeah. And get trained up on how to do really, really good drain lining. And then sub out to plumbers and B2C. And then what's the next step? The next step is probably that you're hiring your first employee.

[B]

Yeah. Like, who's going to lead it and.

[A]

Who are you looking for?

[B]

Like, because if you can figure out the rest of it, like, my goal would be who is. You know, we just talked for a second ago, like, hey, the trade is like, you have to know how to do the rest of the stuff, but you can figure out the rest of the stuff. Someone does have to be a trade expert. And ideally that's your first hire. So that way, when you do go get the lead, book the call, sell it, all that stuff, you do have someone that knows the craft that you're doing. So if it were me, and it's something new, I would be looking for a partner that understands what industry we're in and has ideally done this before.

[A]

Most of these, you will actually need somebody to hold licensure for you.

[B]

So, like, this is the perfect opportunity.

[A]

That you go out and find someone who's hungry, who wants to be a business owner, but maybe doesn't have the business acumen.

[B]

I mean, that's one of the most common questions I've gotten over the years is how do you solve the licensing thing? And the answer is, you hire someone. Like, you hire someone. Like, we, we're actively buying A business out of state right now and they have licensing and like, and if they didn't, we would go higher. Like, but that's how you solve it is the seller carries the license. You go put it on. Indeed. License holder. But you can hire license holders. Like. Yeah. If you don't personally have it. That's really the only path.

[A]

Alan, from percent Bacon, I talked about this a lot. And not only that, like, I know we're talking about starting.

[B]

Well, I think SBA is really going.

[A]

To go buy a business. Right. Instead of start one from scratch. I mean, you need a license in both cases. But, like, in terms of coming off as a real buyer, like, go get that ahead of time. Go partner with someone ahead of time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then go out and find the deal. Like, that's, I think, where the, like, importance that you start this process early on so you've identified your business and then you go find the All Star. You go find the All Star. It's probably for you, if it's a brand new thing, it's probably a little bit of equity, a nice paycheck based on, you know, actually going out and making money.

[B]

Money.

[A]

Right. So generating revenue and then working with that person. Day one, get the license, get the equipment, get started and then they're running the, the technical side while you run the business. I think it's a good partnership for a lot of people.

[B]

Yeah, no, I, I, yeah, I think that, I think that makes sense.

[A]

And then go market, go knock doors, get out.

[B]

I mean, yeah, the reality is if you're a home service business, you're a, you're a marketing and sales business. And that took me like six years to come to term with terms with. But like, once we came to terms with it, we, I don't know, quadrupled or whatever. But that's what we are. We're a marketing and sales business. We have to get the lead, we have to sell the lead and the rest of it.

[A]

Sort of idealistically, though, like, that's why we spent 30 minutes talking about picking the right industry is if you pick the right industry, like, the marketing becomes so much easier. It's 15 cost per lead. So much. 600 cost per leads. Yeah.

[B]

Or can you activate it with cold calling or canvassing or like, what are all the levers you have at your disposal? I think it would be fun to build a business on the back of canvassing. Like, canvassing has been a really big part of what we've done in 2025. And like in 2026, it's now one of our most strategic resources. And it would be fun to, like, build something just on the back, like windows or roofing or, like, pest control, I guess. But, like, you could do anything where. Like, how do you deploy like, a hundred canvassers? I just think that'd be hilarious.

[A]

My wife bought us pest control from a canvasser. And I got home, I was like, what are you doing? Yeah, don't do that.

[B]

No, it's. It's so. It's so good. Well, I like that you can just literally control it. Like, there's no Google. It doesn't matter what meta ads. Like, if people are clicking on buttons, like, you can just control it. And that is a really, like, intoxicating idea. Oh, garage. Like, driveways, you know, concrete, leveling turf, all of that stuff. As I was coming, you know, duck cleaning. I guess not. But, like, all of the other ones, I'm like, you could. You could run gambling at this.

[A]

So John's saying in the second step is after you get your killer, you go start marketing and you just start knocking doors. Just start. Just start knocking doors. What's the worst thing? They flame your business online and you only have two rooms anyway.

[B]

Yeah. Come up with a second brand. I don't know. Restart the new brand for when you're canvassing. That's right. Yeah, that's funny. All right, winners in 2026. If you're actively running a business, I. I think the best way to win here is to focus up on EBITDA. 2026, 25 was an interesting ride, obviously, for H Vac. We complained about it a couple episodes ago. It was tough. And, like, going in 26, it's 50, 60 degrees when it should be 20 in most of the. Like, everywhere. Tennessee.

[A]

No, everywhere.

[B]

Like, dude, I have friends texting me every day. I have a friend in Columbus, and he's like, dude, I don't even want to look at where we are month to date because we are so far off budget. And this is a $60 million business. Like, this is a good size, established business with a marketing engine, sales engine. And they're just like, dude, I don't know. Like, I don't know, 60 degrees? And I'm like, yeah, 60. This is crazy. So just focus up on EBITDA. You know, I was talking to someone this morning, and I was. I was like, hey, how's 20? How'd 25 go? And he's like, yeah, dude, like, big year. Big year. Like, EBITDA was up, whatever. And. And what I think is Hilarious. And Tommy Mello said this on a podcast on this show like two years ago or something, but he was like that as I got into better and better rooms. Nobody talks about revenue, like literally nobody. The only people that talk about revenue are like owner operators like me, like you. And I'll ask these, I'll. I was like, hey, what'd you guys do last year? And they'll give me their ebitda, I'll ask them what their revenue is. And they actually don't.

[A]

That's actually kind of cool. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Well, I, I think it's like you're gonna do that. Their eyes on the price for vanity. So it was, it was just kind.

[A]

Of sanity, you know, it's more just like that's.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. But that's the only language that the people that, hey, you're going to pick the right industry or maybe you're already in it. You're going to build, you're going to hire the right people, you're going to spread multi location, you're going to do all that stuff. At the end of the day, the people that are your eventual partners or buyers or investors or whatever, they don't even know what your revenue is and they don't particularly care. They want to know what's your ebitda? As Wilson has grown into a regional powerhouse, I have stopped having the time to be able to babysit our customers Google business profiles. And that's why we started using Big Reputation. It turns my Google business profile into a dependable lead engine without pulling me back into the weeds. Within the first 30 days of using Big Reputation, call volume from our Google business profiles went up nearly 27%. Jobs booked from Google also went up 20%. Without us spending any more time to manage it, it helps us keep our profile active, manages reviews, responds fast and shows shows Google a business that's trusted, alive and worth ranking. You also get real visibility into what is happening. Your review volume, your sentiment trends, which tax locations or teams customers are actually talking about. There's no more guessing. So it's less babysitting, it's more signals to Google and most importantly it's more inbound calls. If you want Google working for you without becoming another job, check out BigReputation.

[A]

AI yeah, I think it's revenue is important though in the beginning because right. Growth is really where the revenue shoots up because I mean you, if you, if you.

[B]

Well that company, the water make company that ended up trading for 16, they did 20 million.

[A]

I talked to John four years ago, like revenue Was important.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because your EBITDA was nothing. Because you're putting all your EBITDA back into marketing and growth PERs, you know, so, like.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I just want to be clear, like, yes, EBITDA is extremely important, especially in hard markets like this year. And that's why.

[B]

Yeah, no, what I was saying was like, if you're already in it and you're in 2026, how to win?

[A]

It's focused on being tight. It's focused on. Because again, your revenue doesn't matter this year if your business goes under because you're running negatives. Yeah. That being said, like off years, like focusing on growth, like, yeah, it's a, it's a revenue game now. They EBITDA game. But it's a hard year. I mean, it's definitely starting as a hard year for a lot of people. 60, it's. It was 60 degrees yesterday in Tennessee. It's 45. Today it's 50. So that is a very good point though, is the winners, I think. And the other part is like, I think winners got scrappy.

[B]

Well, and this. And the people that are going to eventually take you on, like, they, they only speak one language and it isn't revenue. He literally didn't know how much revenue, like, it was. It was really, it was kind of funny. I was like, hey, what's your smallest brand? He said, 800. And I was like, oh, revenue, that's really small. He said of ebitda. And I was like, okay, what's the revenue? He's like, actually, I'm not sure.

[A]

Don't even know.

[B]

Don't even know. It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.

[A]

So they're focusing on ebitda. What else are they doing? I think that they're. People are getting scrappy in marketing. It's. I think that's where a lot of the change from the playbook that you talked about from 18 to now is like the first big change that we ran into was the failure of LSA on and off. Like, that changed the market circa 2022, 2023. But I think right now the market is drastically changing again, from a, a standpoint of marketing. It's. A lot of people are getting scrappy. There's different attention. Right. Because marketing, a lot of marketing is being in the right place at the right time. And I think people's attention is changing. Like, people are now going to tick tock and they're, they're watching TV while they're scrolling. Tick tock. And so how do you grab someone's attention. It's not the TV anymore. Maybe it's TikTok. And so, like, how do you work the algorithms? How do you be in the right place at the right time? How are you where everyone else isn't? In canvassing? I mean, you just spent 10 minutes on canvassing, but like, canvassing, nobody is doing it in H vac and plumbing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it's hard. Very hard.

[B]

But like, in. In their defense, it is really hard. But it took us a lot of work.

[A]

So, like, that's where I think the people are winning is when they get scrappy and they go think a little bit outside the box and they focus. Like, yeah, what if I can knock on your door and steal your attention from your phone because I'm talking to you face to face? Yeah.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I think that's a big win if you're in the industry right now or you're starting focus on attention, focus on being scrappy with your marketing.

[B]

Well, thanks, everybody. Make sure you comment below. I'd love to hear how you would win in 2026 and hit that subscribe and like, thanks.