Ep 328. Starting Over—But Smarter | Lessons From Launching Coastal North Jersey!

Summary

Side Hustle Squad Ep 328 – Starting Over—But Smarter | Lessons From Launching Coastal North Jersey!

Host: Mike Garvey
Release Date: April 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Mike Garvey shares his journey of launching a new branch of his lawn care business—Coastal Fertilization—in North Jersey. Drawing from his eight years of experience running a successful operation at the Jersey Shore, Mike candidly discusses the practical strategies and lessons learned as he "starts over" with greater knowledge, systems, and focus. The episode is packed with actionable advice on keeping things simple in the early days, leveraging experience to avoid previous pitfalls, targeted marketing, and the importance of not growing too quickly.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Team Structure & Flexibility

Timestamp: 00:53 - 03:45

• Mike describes transitioning from an overstaffed team last year to a leaner, more flexible structure this year.
  • “Last year we had three technicians at the start of the year, plus me and Larry. And it was a lot, I mean, probably one more guy than we needed. And this year we have one technician and then I'm going to help supplement as is Larry, which I think is like the secret.” (Mike, 01:43)
• This model allows them to control workflow, provide coverage, and avoid unnecessary payroll expenses.
• Importance of getting hands-on: Mike enjoys being in the field, reconnecting with the basics, and seeing properties improve due to his team’s work.

2. Launching a New Branch: Excitement & Strategy

Timestamp: 03:45 - 06:30

• Mike shares the excitement of working with Rob to open the North Jersey branch, emphasizing the "freshman year" energy, but with experience:
  • “It's really cool to be in the beginning stages of something brand new, just like we were eight years ago... but I actually know how I built the other one. So it's almost like... going back to school, but you already know what you know.” (Mike, 04:17)
• The goal for the first year is modest: just 20 accounts, focusing on proof of concept over explosive growth.
• Considering future replication in other regions if the model works (Hudson County, Essex County, etc.).

3. Lessons Learned: Simplicity Beats Complexity

Timestamp: 06:30 - 09:10

• Mike cautions against doing too much, too quickly:
  • “I think a lot of guys try to do too much too quick, offer a ton of services just to get somebody as a customer. And all of a sudden you end up cutting lawns and then you're doing gutters and like, what are we doing here?” (Mike, 06:55)
• Staying focused keeps the business manageable and builds solid momentum.
• Initial equipment purchases are streamlined—only essentials (permagreen, backpack sprayers, mist blower) are acquired, and starting with used vehicles helps avoid early debt.
• Key advice: Avoid debt and be prepared to reinvest and go without a paycheck initially to nurture the business’s growth.

4. Marketing & Customer Acquisition: Targeted and Personal

Timestamp: 09:10 - 10:26

• The new branch relies on hyper-targeted, personal marketing, rather than broad postcard mailings.
  • “Handwriting a hundred letters that someone's gonna open with a stamp. Yes, it costs a little bit more money, but it's super targeted. You get one or two out of the hundred—that's a win.” (Mike, 09:55)
• Leveraging Rob’s personal network and the “support local” message to set themselves apart from larger franchises.
• The power of referrals and word-of-mouth, especially in the early days.

5. Pricing & Profitability in a New Market

Timestamp: 10:48 - 12:30

• Adjusting pricing structure based on local competition and property size.
  • “I don't want to be super cheap, but the prices aren't really going to be the same as where I am at home... because I've seen some pricing from competitors up there and I'm getting used to what these bigger properties dictate.” (Mike, 11:00)
• Goal is to stay competitive without causing sticker shock, while ensuring profitability.

6. Importance of Systems & Professional Image

Timestamp: 12:30 - 14:16

• From the start, systems like Jobber are put in place for quoting, customer management, and communication.
• Mike emphasizes gradually adding services only after core offerings are stable and profitable.
• Strong emphasis on professional branding: matching uniforms, branded trucks, unified website, and consistent messaging create instant legitimacy in new markets.
  • “You show up in a branded truck with branded uniforms, I think it's right off the bat, wow, okay, these guys are legit.” (Mike, 13:45)

7. Scaling Carefully & Building Team Capacity

Timestamp: 14:16 - 15:56

• Plan to reinvest in marketing and be thoughtful about the timing of hiring (i.e., “at what point will we need some help up there to have another guy, what is that number?”).
• Transitioning the local operator (Rob) to more of an estimator and relationship-builder as growth allows.

8. Reflection, Community, and Lifelong Learning

Timestamp: 15:56 - 16:46

• Mike draws connections between the new launch and the ongoing management of the main branch (now serving nearly 900 customers).
• Stresses the fun and satisfaction of building anew, and his openness to learn from all—from new business owners to 30-year veterans.
  • “I'm always learning... we're building each other up and look forward to learning from everybody.” (Mike, 16:30)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “It's almost like going back to freshman year of high school, but I already went through high school and college, and I'm kind of back. That's what it feels like, slightly, because I know how to build it.” (Mike, 04:23)
• “Getting too complex kills momentum early. It really does.” (Mike, 07:06)
• “You don't want to get yourself in too much debt financing all this stuff, brand new truck and all this stuff. We're kind of going to use what we have as far as vehicles.” (Mike, 07:41)
• “We're not taking a paycheck for a while, for a couple years. We were reinvesting in the company and that's what we're doing here.” (Mike, 08:12)
• “Let’s get these first ones. Then let’s build off that. Then let’s get the neighbor. Then this neighbor gets, you know, this neighbor talks to that friend and that friend talks to this person...” (Mike, 09:56)
• “Once you get your fertilization down, then start adding on… we started just fertilizing [at the main branch]. Weed control came years later, mosquito came years later.” (Mike, 12:52)
• “The brand is going up there, everything is uniform again, tied into one website, tied into one phone number… you show up in a branded truck with branded uniforms, I think it's right off the bat, wow, okay, these guys are legit.” (Mike, 13:37)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:53 – Mike updates on current workload & staffing at the shore
• 03:45 – Launching North Jersey branch: vision and excitement
• 06:30 – Lessons about keeping things simple and focused in startup phase
• 09:10 – Targeted grassroots marketing strategies for new customers
• 10:48 – Pricing philosophy for the new market
• 12:30 – Systems, professional image, and gradual scaling
• 14:16 – When and how to scale the team further in North Jersey
• 15:56 – Reflections and commitment to ongoing learning

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Focus on what you already know works—reuse successful systems and processes.
• Don’t overcomplicate your offering at the start; master your core services before adding more.
• Use targeted, personalized outreach for faster traction in new markets, leveraging local connections.
• Minimize debt, be prepared to reinvest, and delay personal financial reward for greater long-term success.
• Present a professional brand image from day one—even if you’re small.
• Commit to lifelong learning and community: everyone has something to teach.

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For questions or to be a guest, reach Mike at [e-mail] or via Instagram.

Transcript

[A]

Are you ready to kick back and get inspired? Grab your favorite drink, pop the top and join the side Hustle Squad with Mike Garvey. This podcast is the perfect resource for anyone who's already started their side hustle or is just considering taking the lead. With in depth interviews featuring guests from the green industry and beyond, you'll gain valuable insights and learn what it takes to succeed in running a business while juggling a full time career. From personal stories to practical tips, the Soc side Hustle Squad podcast has everything you need to turn your passion into a thriving business. Now, here's your side Hustle Squad host, Mike Garvey.

[B]

What's going on guys? It's your host, Mike Garvey with the side Hustle Squad podcast coming at you from the Branded Bull Studio here on a Thursday. Getting a lot of work done with coastal fertilization. This week I had some days off, so got to jump back out in the field. Heading back out today, doing some more weed controls. We have a lot of properties that we do along the shore, the Jersey shore. They are all stone yards, front, back and we do the weed control there and I'm doing a lot of those. I do a lot of the stuff over the bridge. Did it last year, doing it a lot this year I'm just getting out there and kind of easing the time crunch on some things. And it's good too. It's been a balance, I mean, over the years. Last year we had three, three technicians at the start of the year, plus me and Larry. And it was a lot, I mean a lot of probably more one more guy than we needed. And this year we have one technician and then I'm going to help supplement as is Larry, which I think is like the secret. We can control the flow of what work gets done. We can, you know, help out. And then we also have Patrick, who's Larry's foreman at Amazing Creations, that can also help out too. So it's like one, one and a half. You know, we build up the second guy between the three of us to, to support Andrew, our, our main guy. It's been good and it's been awesome this week. Getting out there, walking the lawns, it's what I love. It's what I did to start and I love being out there, pop my AirPods in, do my, listen to my podcast, do my thing, listen to my music, bring my dog with me, Grizzly, he's in the truck with me and it's just great. And you know, it's very quiet over there. A lot of people aren't even at their homes. We're not even. We're a couple weeks out from Memorial Day, so it's kind of quiet over there. Get to do my thing and make these properties look good. So that was that. And then yesterday headed up to North Jersey, Northwest Jersey, to support. To meet up with Rob, who is opening our branch up there. And, you know, it got to meet up with him. And then we went and did a couple of lawns together, brought the truck up there, brought everything. And. And it's really cool to be in the beginning stages of. Of something brand new, just like we were eight years ago. And, you know, it's. The same excitement exists when we get a new customer up there when we're not looking to go crazy. We get 20 accounts this year. I'm happy. I'm happy regardless, because we're looking at proof of concep franchising and not franchising, but I mean, owning other locations, really, and kind of. Can we duplicate this? Can we duplicate this in maybe Hudson county or Essex county or Middlesex county, which would be really cool. So right now we're covering Morris Warren, Hunterdon, Morris Warren, Hunterdon and Somerset. And then, you know, we're kind of. And we're definitely spread out. That's no. That's no. No joke. I saw yesterday. But that's okay because what if we. Some really clusters, you know, maybe we're stretching it a little bit 35 minutes from one to. From the main headquarters up there to one. But there's so many homes up there. There's a lot of really big homes and big properties, and there's these developments that we're, you know, targeting. So want to talk about really how I'm starting over kind of in lawn care for this other branch, but I actually, like, know how I built the other one. So it's almost like say you're going back to school, but you already know what you know somewhat. And, you know, I'm going back to freshman year of high school, but I already went through high school and college, and I'm kind of back. That's what it feels like slightly, because I know how to build it, how it's going to go. All my equipment is in place. We're going to build out the truck the same way as we have our other stuff. Everything's in place. The signage, the website, my internal systems, the support team. Jess and Linda's answering the phones. Jess is running the quotes and the scheduling. So a lot of the basic stuff is in place where I was doing that a lot. I was doing everything early on year one through four. So want to talk about, and I'm with some of you that are probably building a business, that are starting a business and just want to hit on some things. How we're just keeping it simple. Hey, let's get 20 accounts. Okay, let's do this. I think a lot of guys try to do too much too quick, offer to a ton of services just to get somebody as a customer. And all of a sudden you end up cutting lawns and then you're doing gutters and like, what are we doing here? You know, just to lock in that customer. I think getting being too complex kills momentum early. It really does. And we're looking at, let's get what you know, have a pretty basic setup. We know what we need. We need a permagreen. We need two backpack sprayers, the battery ones. We need a mist blower for the mosquitoes. So you don't want to get yourself in too much debt financing all this stuff, brand new truck and all this stuff. We're kind of going to use what we have as far as vehicles. And that's what we did early on. And early on we bought a permagreen with maybe only 10 accounts because we're not walking these accounts. Okay. We're time. The time that we needed to get done was in a certain amount of time. So we financed that, that permagreen. So I think avoiding like the debt early and, you know, we were in it early enough to know that we're not taking a paycheck for a while. For a couple years, we were reinvesting in the company and that's what we're doing here. Let's reinvest into marketing. Let's reinvest into growing. And I see, yeah, we're breaking into a new market. Some people are already set up with their people. But I learned yesterday I had a brand new customer signed on with us. They were unhappy with Trugreen. Last year, Trugreen actually showed up to their property. I don't know what happened, if something was off mixing wise or. But there was a lot of dead patches that came up after that application. And then Trudegreen owned it. But they were never really able to get that customer back. They aerated them and everything. But I think we can pick up a lot of stuff from them. That's really what I learned yesterday. And how are we getting these first 10 to 20 customers? We're door knocking. We're. We're targeting specific Neighborhoods with a letter saying coastal fertilization is expanding. My name is Rob. I live in this, you know, right around the corner from you. And it's getting people that want to support local businesses instead of big brands and big shops. So we're targeting specific neighborhoods and talking to people that he already knows. He knows a ton of people in that area. So we're targeting again, the people that we already know with us. A letter. Okay, so say instead of doing big postcard mailings, this is something that you know straight up handwriting. A hundred letters that are handwritten that someone's gonna open with a stamp. Yes, it costs a little bit more money, but it's super target. You get, you get one or two out of the hundred. That's a win. I think we're going to also to start targeting, looking at some Facebook groups. Hopefully there's in that area and really the first customers are about, yes, you want to be profitable, but let's get these first ones. Then let's build off that. Then let's get the neighbor. Then this neighbor gets, you know, this neighbor talks to that friend and that friend talks to this person and the family comes over for something. Oh, wow, your lawn looks sick. Oh, my God. Who does it? Blah, blah, blah. Well, and it goes from there. So it's referrals. So let's take a quick break. We'll come right back. We'll talk about some other things. On the other side of the break about starting a brand new business.

[C]

Hey, guys, Adam Fullerton here with Branded Bull As a proud sponsor of the side hustle squad podcast, we're all about helping lawn care and landscaping businesses make their mark and stand out from the competition. Visit [e-mail] to learn more about our professional branding website and graphic design services and how we can help your business look awesome and grow.

[B]

Hey, what's going on, guys? With Jobber, you can easily manage jobs, track your team, get paid faster, all from one simple. Join thousands of satisfied lawn care professionals who trust shopper to keep their business growing strong. Visit the link in the bio today and start your free trial. All right, and just giving an update on the new branch, the new North Jersey coastal fertilization of North Jersey find myself to not, you know, pricing wise. I don't want to be super cheap, but the prices aren't really going to be the same as where I am at home at the home branch just because I've seen some pricing from competitors up there and I'm getting used to what these bigger properties dictates. Not always pound for pound per square foot like on the smaller properties that I live around. So yes, we are profitable. Our margins are good. We're still going to do well. But I do have a different pricing chart for, for the new branch. So I want to stay competitive and with. So people aren't seeing sticker shock right away and just saying no. So again, we do have our systems in place. Systems always from early on. I think you want to be professional, have Jobber send quotes, keeping track of your customers. All your communication is right there to say, hey, we're on our way, stuff like that. So I think it once you get your fertilization down to then start adding on or if you're mowing and you want to then start adding on aeration or cleanups or stuff like that. Mulch, you know, once you get your stable revenue in and your stable services. That's what we did in our main branch. We started just fertilizing. Weed control came years later, mosquito came years later. And then we always aerated and seeded from day one. But you know, then we had fly control, then we added tick control. And the way we did it too is we had a small amount of people that we tried it with on one year to get our feet under us to get what we're doing down and get the systems in place before we blow it up and offer it to all of our clients. So that's another thing we're doing Ulta with this branch, we're able to offer everything because we already have done it right. The brand is going up there, everything is uniform again, tied into one website, tied into one phone number. Even though the same, the logo is changing, the messaging is the same. We're professional showing up with our uniforms and our pants are matching and you know, shirts are matching and you know, you show up in a branded truck with branded uniforms. I think it's right off the bat, wow, okay, this is. These guys are legit. So again we're putting. My plan is to put the money back, put some money back into marketing, upgrading, getting out to more customers and building, building the brand up in this new area. And you know, we have to start thinking, okay, at what point will we need some help up there to have another guy, what is that number? Get Rob out of the truck and you know, have him going on, you know, estimates and other things and building more relationships and building, building the brand. So things that we're looking ahead and you know, I love giving the update on this new company with basically six accounts and we're doing it all over again and I love talking about it. And then also having the branch here at home, the main branch and what we're going through here at home, you know, with close to 900 customers. So it's, it's really cool that I want and I can talk about the different struggles that we're going through here at home and the things we're learning with the new, with the new branch. It's a lot of fun and I'm glad to share it with all of you. I appreciate you listening. I hope you get some value in this. I'm always learning. I'm learning from you guys. I'm learning from new people. I'm learning from people that have been in the business for 30 years. I'm learning every day and that's what we're doing. We're building each other up and look forward to learning from everybody and can't wait for equip for in October. Get your tickets now, link in the bio, obviously use our code, save 50% off, start booking, start looking at everything. I mean it's going to be here before you know, we're roughly a couple months away. Really. It's not that, not that far off. So we have a lawn and landscape tech conference in Arizona coming up. If you're out that way and want to come see. Pod Row is coming out there. Pot House is going out there. So we're going to have a lot of great conversations and stuff that's going to be here right before you know it. And, and yeah, so that's the update. Hope everyone's doing well. If you need anything from me, please reach out mike coastal nj.com hit me up through Instagram. Also, if you want to be a guest on the show, love to have you. It doesn't need to be a side hustle. Doesn't need to be. It could be anything, right? If you can share your story, share some knowledge to the listeners. Love to hear from you. Love to hear the story. I appreciate the support of the show. 328 shows. I can't believe it and I thank you all for the support. We'll catch you on the next one.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in to the Side Hustle Squad podcast podcast with Mike Garvey. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights to help you succeed in your side Hustle journey. Connect with Mike using the links in the podcast description. If you love the show, please leave us a well worded five star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback and support help us grow and continue to provide you with the best content. And don't forget to follow the show to be notified when the next edition of the Side Hustle Squad Podcast is available. We have many exciting guests and topics lined up so you won't want to miss a single episode. Thanks again again for listening, and we'll catch you next time on the side Hustle Squad Podcast.