If We Had to Start Over, We'd Do This Instead
If John Wilson and Jack Carr lost everything tomorrow, how would they rebuild?
In this episode of Owned and Operated, they tackle one of the biggest questions every entrepreneur eventually asks: would you buy a business, build one from scratch, or take a completely different path?
John argues that acquiring a small home service business is still the fastest way to create wealth, while Jack makes the case for starting lean with a service business that requires little capital and can scale quickly. Along the way, they break down the lessons that took years to learn, the mistakes they'd avoid, and the exact playbook they'd use to grow much faster the second time around.
In This Episode:
- Buy vs. build: which strategy wins today?
- The home service businesses they'd start from scratch
- Why marketing and sales matter more than fulfillment early on
- How seller financing changes the economics of growth
- The fastest path to generating cash flow
- Branding mistakes they'd never make again
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🔗 CONNECT
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John Wilson → https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/
Jack Carr → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-carr-home-service/
Breaking $5 Workshop → https://www.ownedandoperated.com/upcoming-events/oao-workshop-breaking-5-million
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💰 SPONSORS
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If we lost everything tomorrow, what do we do?
I'd go start an electrical business. I don't have to live with a five percent seller's note. I don't have to live with any kind of debt.
To be honest with you, that's what I did at Wilson. We bought into a small business. All it takes to win is the desire and a little bit of intelligence, which is marketing, sales, fulfillment. If I had to do it again, that's how I would model it.
It's hard.
As you're thinking about like big lessons on your journey, like what are the things that you think took too long to learn?
That one's easy for me.
Welcome back to Owned and Operated, a top 150 business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson, and on this show, we talk about our own home service business, the home service industry, and how to grow within it, or generally whatever bullshit topic related to home service we're talking about. Today, I'm rejoined by my co-host Jack Carr, whose podcast is currently ranked higher than ours. We're super proud of him and not jealous at all. Make sure you check out Jack Quisitions. We'll click, we'll put the link below. Jack, welcome back to the show.
That is an intro if I've ever heard one. I'm so I'm so happy.
I actually have been practicing. I worked in front of a mirror.
It's been good. You know, we just talk about whatever we want. That that's what the show's about. If you're listening, it's whatever.
I mean, at one point we did talk about Magic the Gathering businesses. So, like, you know, I would say 90% of our least listened episode. Most or least listened. Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. That one was not popular. Weird. That's so weird. Yeah.
All right. Um, our prompt for today is if we lost everything tomorrow, what would we do?
So I think that there's needs to be some parameters on this, right? So when you say lost everything tomorrow, are we starting with zero dollars or just like 25k?
Um what's a what's a reasonable amount for putting it?
Yeah, I think I think that's the key, is like if you lost, if you have zero dollars in your account, like I respect you, keep hustling. Uh, this is not shade at you whatsoever.
Put some G's in the bank.
You should probably put some G's in the bank. And the reason is like, hey, it's not only for growing your business, but also like, hey, if stuff hits the fan, like you want a few dollars to be able to back it up. So yeah, if we start at 25, I think that's a really like, hey, starting over good starting over number is like, hey, you've worked uh for a year for your W-2, you've grinded, you've saved again after you lost everything, you got 25 in the bank. What do you do?
I mean, honestly, I would buy something.
Yeah, because 25 would compound at 10 into 250, but like you could get creative and maybe get a little bit more, like a purchase price.
No, I'd probably go seller. I'd probably go seller seller finding something.
I mean, that's a 10% SBA, but if you did a high seller note plus like you could probably buy something, what, up to a million dollars if you if you truly thought about it, um, like that's reasonable, not like guru zero dollars down type stuff. Like you could you could go out there and find something, um, and a million dollars of purchase would be like I don't know, like two to three hundred thousand dollars in SDE. So like a small business, like three or four employees in the home service industry in any kind of realm.
Yeah, I think I I think I'd buy some. Like I I think that's just like uh sort of the obvious answer.
I think um it's the fastest answer.
It's the fastest answer, yeah. And I think so. Yeah, the options are would we stay in home service? Would you buy one or build one? And how fast could we get it back?
So would you stay in home service? That's a great question.
I think that home, yeah. I probably I think like it's the thing I know, and I also think home service in general. I've said this before, but like basically we need it.
Yeah, distribution is different because we need it.
Like people need it, yeah. It's different because it's needed. I like that. I think that one of the best things about home service is also one of the worst things about home service, is there's not a tremendous moat. Um, yeah, like all it takes to win, seemingly, is the desire and a little bit of intelligence in order to win. But like if you want to win in home service, like you can probably win, which I think is a very is a it's unique, right? Like, that's a unique thing about this industry, is uh you can make it on the other side of that.
I think you're you're missing one key factor with a lot of pain in personal life. Um, so like a lot of pain.
But that being said, who cares if you are a glutton. Jack, in this prompt, we just lost everything.
That's true. I'm just being very clear is like anyone listening is like, hey, there like you are a hundred percent correct. I'm not disagreeing with that whatsoever. As someone not from home services, moving into owning home services. Yes, like we are both very, very good proof that you can do it. Um, at different time points, like people always say, Well, Jack, like you guys started it at this generation, and I always say, Well, John started at the generation before me. Like, we think that this time frame matters, but I think in the reality of it, is just like, hey, if you are open to having a lot of pain and you want to do it, you can do it in home services, depending where you are. Um, yeah.
So I think that's one of the best and worst things about this industry. So that's what that's why I would just be like, okay, well, how can you how can you buy something and then you could shortcut two or three years off the process, and then you won't be able to buy something that big just with the amount of money that you have. But like if you bought something that was doing a couple hundred grand of revenue, like okay, I think though you could really start to figure something out.
I would challenge the buying though, just because I'm thinking of somebody like Dustin Marks down in in Texas. You know, Dustin, uh Mother. Um, like he's been able to build build a giant business in like two years in plumbing.
He bought that.
Uh no, I don't think so.
Hey Dustin, text me when when you listen to this because I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that it would Dustin bought it and then rebranded it to Mother.
He might have, but it was it was like super small. Like it was him and a operator that was trying to monster. I think I think you're actually right. He did buy into a very, very small business. Like it was like 200,000.
And that's what I'm arguing for. I to be honest with you, that's what I did at Wilson. Like we bought into a small business and it became so like I think like if I had to start over again, I would do it again.
Yeah, I'm just wondering if like the answer is hey, maybe you don't buy in, maybe you start. Because what's the startup costs on an HVAC company?
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But um so yeah, I am going to go the other direction just because I want to be uh the devil's advocate contrarian here.
Yes, is if I had to start again, I would take that 25k and I'd go start an electrical business, electrical home service business. A there's almost no tools that you'll need right out of the gate to do basic home service electrical. B, there is a slightly larger moat, so you'll have to go get your electrical license, which helps. C in the home service side, not the new installation, new construction side. Uh homeowners are afraid electrical, which builds you a DIY moat, which I enjoy. Um and uh D, I don't think that there is a huge amount of um the industry as a whole is not as sophisticated. Yes, you have to fight off the like the giants who utilize electrical as like a division, but you don't have to fight off 10,000 HVAC companies or 10,000 plumbing companies.
You have to fight off like HVAC is a sort of a shockingly competitive oh it's super competitive.
It's it's crazy. In our area, like there is 10 HVAC companies to every one electrical company, and the electrical company though, yeah, it's it's probably like similar from plumbing. Plumbing tends to be in our area, it's like it's like 1041. Like 40% of the there's a 40% uh 60% less public math. Um but like that's the that's kind of the ratio. It's like half. Half plumbing is half of a lot of HVAC, and electrical is like one-tenth of HVAC. Um yeah. So that's where I would start because I think 25 can get you a decent truck, you know, $10,000, $15,000 truck. You can put three or five into a nice website, uh getting everything started, and you can go hire your first person partner with them. What and like somebody who only does like, hey, I'm a bend conduit for a living. Um, I think you could find one of those. Hey, bending con I'm not talking shit on bending conduit.
Bending conduits it that's hard shit. That is hard shit.
It's like the angles and like getting it perfectly. Like the guys who love to bend conduit, like the guy, yeah, love to bend conduit perfect. It's it's super impressive. But yeah, I think I could do that. I think I could get to a million dollars year one startup electrical home service company, and then I would just pound Facebook Marketplace next door, turn on um all the uh funsi aggregators because those are almost free. Yeah, electrical has a low, low cost per lead. Um, and that's where I'd start.
Yeah, I receive what you're saying and still hate the idea of starting, but I do receive what you're saying. I just think like if you can start day one with phone calls.
I I think that you get less phone calls though. Like A, you're it's gonna be harder to find to buy an electrical home service company. B, like yeah, the the electrical in-bound call demand is a little bit less than I think that uh than like HVAC or plumbing. Um I think it's a lot less.
I always heard it was like HVAC's in the home once every 18 months, plumbing's once every three years, and electrics once every seven.
I think that's changing to some extent just with EV, solar, uh how like house electrification in general. It's probably speeding up a little bit, but I don't disagree. I think that's probably a lot less. So you have to go out there and get demand where demand is. Um but I I just don't think it's sophisticated.
So you would, I'm just gonna like roll through this again. So you would start and it would be electric. Okay. And I would if I started it would be plumbing, and but my very strong preference would be buying.
It's also like based on what you historically are good at, right?
I think if I look, I'm I'm just gonna like give you a little bit more pushback here. Rapid has been a success story, yes. You bought a tiny business and you made it a big business in like three years, which is which first off is fucking awesome. Yeah, four years, which is awesome. Like, would it have taken six or seven years to be in the same position you are today if you started?
100%. But we are going into this with the knowledge that we already know. I'd say the first year of stagnant stagnantation stagnantation, being stagnant, because I don't know what that word is. I don't know what you're trying to say. Being stagnant and not growing was because I didn't know the industry, didn't know how to break in, didn't know sales pitches, didn't know you know, you don't know what you don't know, but now that I know what I know, um I think that starting, and you you mentioned something interesting. You mentioned like how what's your edge? And I think the edge for me starting and going in rather than buying is I don't have to live with a 5% seller's note, I don't have to live with a 10% SBA note, I don't have to live with any kind of debt on myself, and so everything can be reinvested back into the business, which would accelerate growth. Um, that being said, I you know, if there was an electrical company and I was starting and it was like, hey, the seller will finance and like you could start off at a million dollars, I probably would take it. Three employees, like.
Um, all right. First year, I think first year for me, like you're just rowing. Like I would start, you know, if it's a couple hundred grand of revenue, I feel like that gets you in the door, that gets you a license. It sort of solves those initial pain
point problems. So, like, what's the technology? You know what is kind of funny. Um, I'm sure House Call Pro is obviously really great for like a lot of businesses, but like we bought a business uh last week that was using House Call Pro. I think you used House Call Pro.
We had a business that did use House Call Pro. We never used it.
I cannot understand House Call Pro at all. Like you can't tell who does what. Like, there's no like there's no I'm gonna log in again. There's no like data to to do anything. I I can't understand what's happening inside this business. I I think it might show me like total revenue, kind of, but there's no like sales, there's average job size, maybe it's all about number of jobs completed and less about like what was the revenue. So, like I've actually I spent like an hour in in there yesterday trying to find revenue by tech or sale by tech, and I I was unable to find it, should which is kind of crazy it next time. So I okay, that's a good idea. But um, I think my point is like I would optimize the tech stack, I would like get it set up for success so that I could begin implementing everything else because I feel like that's a foundational piece, is like what's tech stack? Do we have trucks? Do we have customers? Um and then just like beginning the process to drive more and more customers.
I think that's the that's a big important part too is um what you're overlooking. You're starting on step two here, but what you're getting at is that we said we both go into home services again, and I think well, I would buy it. No, no, I know, but going into home services and choosing that industry, I think is extremely important. And it's because we are both used to immediate cash cycles. Like you're like, hey, I would start this tech stack and I do this and I do this. And you couldn't do that in other businesses where you don't have an immediate cash cycle, like you have a 60 or 90 day um like if you go into restoration and you're only doing work for GCs, like you have a 60 or 90 day.
Yeah, that would be really hard.
Like you have to front money for 90 days after you've just spent your first 25k. So like we both chose businesses that immediately pay you on completion.
Yeah, so we both chose high gross margin, COD, can be B2C, can be B2B, uh, a lot of other verticals, licensed. Um yeah.
Yeah, it's really interesting that we both kind of went a similar direction.
Um with now what what is interesting is Sam Preston, he talked I'm pretty sure he talked about this on the show, but he started a land clearing business. Did you hear about this? Okay, so the it's on it's honestly kind of insane. So he started this land clearing business, and I'm I'm pretty sure the way it works is they set up like a GBP, a website, and like you know, they set up a business, and then they went and got a subcontract. It's like roofing or whatever. Then they went and got a subcontractor to actually clear the land. So in their first month of business, they sold 80 grand.
I believe it.
And I'm like, okay.
Well, I mean, you realize that all these are.
That's without buying the equipment.
Yeah, totally.
And I'm like, so so you know, maybe, maybe that's what we should do. Because he he did that in like 30 days. He created like eighty thousand dollars and then started like working backwards on how he was actually gonna get it done. But that's crazy. That's crazy.
That is crazy. I mean, so like that that might be the answer, though. Like, maybe that's your the roofing side as you you start a roofing company, yeah.
Get rid of the labor side.
You don't need labor.
Yeah, go knock doors. That's probably the scrappiest way to do it. Like, if you can't buy something, like what can you just go launch? Like, he just literally launched it. I think I'm gonna ask him to break it down on the show because it it is it's such a ridiculous story. Uh, like basically a million dollars in 30 days, and he didn't have to buy a single thing. Like, that's that's insane to me.
Because like some of the other ones that are in that that same ballpark is it's not subbing it out, but you could sub it out. Is like there's this the stump grinding guy on on Twitter.
Yeah, stump grinding's really interesting.
Stump grinding is the same way you could sub out stump grinding, sell it.
Chris Corner did that down in DFW. He created like a lead gen for stump grinding where he just like did exactly the same thing and he then sold the leads to stump grinding companies. Maybe that's the easiest path of all of this.
Is just be just go, don't do it. If you are a marketing person, go just optimize a website for SEO, get the phone number, sell the leads. Because like, how many home services, how many home services are brand specific? You know what I mean? Like, if if yeah, I mean, even HVAC isn't, man. Like, we used to sub out our installs to a full like we didn't have an install crew until like two million in revenue. So from 600 700k pretty normal.
We didn't either like we we subbed it out when we were pretty early.
And so, how important is actually having you know dedicated installers on your team? The answer might not might be not that important, right? Who cares who comes and clears your land as long as your land gets cleared for the price that you agreed on?
Yeah, though I I agree. I I think especially for something like that, I don't think it matters. Yeah, right, very interesting. Very interesting.
We also both chose tier one, which I find interesting because like maybe the answer is not choosing tier one, maybe the answer like stump grinding, or you know, hey, we only do water heaters, or hey, we only do land clearing. Like maybe the answer is a tier two, tier three business that has almost low or no competition to get your feet under you, and then you add that, you know, you expand the portfolio of saying, like, we do water heaters, and now we also do plumbing. So start kind of backwards.
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As you were as you're thinking about like big lessons on your journey, like what are the things that you think took too long to learn?
Sales process. That one's easy for me.
It I I start Yeah, that that nowadays should be like a day one, I feel like if like if I had to start again from zero, that would be day one.
So the hard part, like it was a really, really hard journey for me converting from facilities maintenance where you save money and fix things at the lowest cost possible, into oh, we are generating revenue giving options. Um and what I and I I hear it all the time during our breaking fives and when people reach out to me. I saw it on Twitter the other day, and I want to be like, Wrong, you're wrong. But I'm being nice, I'm trying to be nice lately.
Um people are on their own journey.
People are on their own journey. If you don't if you don't offer the sale to that customer and you think I'm doing a good job by fixing their unit, they're going to come back to me because I did such a good job fixing their unit. The answer is that a significant portion of the time they actually won't. They will go somewhere else for the installation of HVAC equipment specific. Like you don't own that customer because he's a member, you don't own that customer because you've done work on their house three times and did such a great job fixing the unit. When the day comes that they are going to actually change out their unit. It, there's a decent chance that they do not use you. And I don't know why or what or where. And so the answer happens to be like you need to make the offer and you need to generate revenue and you need to get your sales pitch down day one. Because if you don't, that customer will inevitably go somewhere else. And it's the strangest thing that took me a long time to wrap my head around.
Yeah, I mean, I I think that was the same for us. Was uh it it took a long time uh to like dial that in.
Yeah, I you think by not offering the sale, you're doing you're being altruistic, but you're not. You're just being dumb. You're not being a good business owner.
Yeah. Yeah, I think uh similar, I think it took a really long time. I we were probably like late teens when we we sort of like understood what the business is, which is marketing, sales, fulfillment, like that's it. And um that like if I had to do it again, like that's how I would model it again. I would deal with marketing and sales like as soon as humanly possible and fulfillment after, because like nothing happens if you can't get a lead and you can see.
So then why wouldn't you optimize for something like roofing? Because like that's the business. You don't have to worry about fulfillment.
Yeah, I mean, I think like roofing makes sense. I I think you know, my gut reaction is just like, what do I know the most? But like, yeah, roofing, you can go knock doors and sell sell roofs and then sub it, like, or land clearing is another great example. Like, I I think my first answer, my initial gut instinct was wrong, to be honest.
Because I think um Did you just say you were wrong?
I yeah, I say that all the time. Wrong all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Soak it up, soak it up. All right, what would what would you have done? Well, this is sort of the same. Like, what would you have done sooner? Yeah, focus on that. What would you not do again?
Brand and branding, branding early on. Um, and but again, again, this might be specific to like the industry that we're cheating I'm choosing. Like, maybe branding is important or less painful if you're to do it for a land clearing company, because you are the like branding was so painful for us because we have 10 hundred million dollar brands in the area, or 10 50 million dollar brands in the area that are all pushing branding to the same customer base, and so your hundred thousand dollar spend branding just gets drowned out, like it's not real branding. Um but if you're doing land clearing, like how many branded land clearing companies do you see? Like, I know I know the basement or why would you found the it foundation company because they do branding and they're the only branding foundation company in the area. So maybe the answer I say is depending on market, and like there was a guy who was using Wizard of Ads, um, who I'd talked to a lot about this. Like, he does doors, doors, that's it. Interior, exterior doors, his average ticket's super high, and he doesn't do any aggregators, doesn't do any pay for any leads. He only does branding. Yeah, but that makes sense because in a smaller market where there's no other branded door companies, like you call the one branded door company. When you type into Google, like it comes up automatically because it's a low cost per lead. So like you can focus on spending the money instead of on Google, you can spend it on branding.
Yeah, I mean, I think I think so. I think like small companies shouldn't be pushing. I think that brand is like helpful when we talk about that in an episode uh a couple days ago where it was like we're rebranding. So like I think there is a win, and we obviously have a brand, so we're like, we are pro it. I think investing overly in brand when you're too small is a a waste of money. I think like you should just be focusing on the lead. We we bought a business uh earlier this year that was investing a ton into branding, they were spending a tremendous amount. We bought it, we cut that out completely, we put in leads, we spend about 80% less than they did a month on marketing, and the business doubled. Like it was a very like that was the right decision.
No, I I agree. I think that again, unless you're encroaching 10 million and in and again, I think this is highly specific to market and competition, but I think that what we would do, since the question is what I would do, is I wouldn't spend if I'm going into a top three, top five uh industry, I would not spend on branding early on. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, in the comments, tell me why I'm wrong because everybody on Twitter likes to yell at me, Jack. That's because you're wrong.
Okay, could we rebuild? Yes. I think like faster, better, stronger, baby. It's I mean, it took 10 years to get here today. I think like, I don't know, I could maybe do it in five. I think it would be funny to do it a second time. There's some really cool people that I am really like enjoying following their journey in the industry, and they're going from like zero to 40 or 50 million in like two or three years, and every single one of them is a second, third, or fourth time entrepreneur. Like they are literally doing it the second time fast. They understand the thing.
Are you talking about like the big names, or are you just talking about just rant?
Like Sammy from Apex Pros or uh Matt from Call Dad or like they just they this is their second or third time that they've gone on this ride. So like they just know, of course, we need a sales process day one.
Yeah, and they know what the sales process is.
If we had done that, I would have shaved four years off our growth.
I would have shaved two.
If I would have focused on marketing, I would have shaved four years off our growth. So it is sort of funny, like, oh yeah, we just have to focus on like the core of the business. But I think I was so distracted by the daily gyrations of whatever that I just, you know, I didn't I didn't get there for the first three or four years.
Yeah. Yeah, I I definitely think that you can shave off a couple years in the early stages when you're learning and and trying to understand what your business is and how it functions and getting the right people in place and what those people look like. Because again, a lot of it's people orientation, and you think you have good people in place, but then you realize, hey, just not a good fit. Um yeah. So and that that takes time because it's an emotional journey. A lot of this is emotionally driven, not data driven. Or it's like, hey, you don't even have the data or you don't have it compiled right because you don't know how to use the software or whatever it is. So um yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I could definitely build faster next time. I mean, we have we've been ramping our speed on on build since you know every year. So I think that that's yeah pretty accurate to what it would take to do it again.
Before you end, what roofing electric.
You change to roofing?
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, probably. All right, go ahead.
I think I change from electric too after we've gone through this.
Yeah.
I think I'd choose a tier two business like water heaters, water heater, or like um in in like a landscape adjacent, like turf. Like all we do is turf. Yeah. And then all I would have to do is do the GMB, sell turf jobs, and then sub that turf.
Yeah. I mean it's what Sam's doing, it's fucking awesome.
Uh I would just have to sell the turf job out or sub it out.
Yeah.
So I'm going turf.
Sweet. I love it. I love it. Dude, just like that.
Just like that. Out of the big three.
Cool. Uh if you like what you heard, make sure you like and sub, and make sure you check out Jack Positions on YouTube or wherever it is you listen to podcasts.
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