.png)
Today we will have a very exciting podcast as Kylon Gienger joins us along with his wife Teliah. This is the first time we’ll hear about a married couple’s working dynamic and how they’ve balanced each other out throughout the years.
Kylon could be described as a jack of all trades with the many unique SMB companies he’s been involved in. He currently is a podcast founder, band member, President of a company accelerating entrepreneur acquisitions, and a home service business portfolio owner. For many of his ventures, he’s had Teliah right by his side as his co-founder and partner throughout the process.
Today you’ll get to hear in-depth about these many businesses and their shift from starting companies to purchasing them. With 3 exits under their belt, let’s hear more about what their next move will be.
Episode Host: 🎤
John Wilson: @WilsonCompanies on Twitter
Looking to scale your home service business? Service Scalers is a digital marketing agency that drives success in PPC and LSA.
Discover more growth strategies by visiting Service Scalers: https://www.servicescalers.com
More Ways To Connect
The Owned and Operated Weekly Insights Newsletter
John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
https://www.wilsonplumbingandheating.com
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC
https://rapidhvactn.com
Get Owned and Operated on YouTube, on Twitter, or our weekly newsletter.
Brandon Niro: Welcome back to owned and operated where we dive deep into the businesses we own, the businesses we are acquiring, and we also bring on guests to talk about their operating struggles. If you like what you hear today, follow John and Brandon on Twitter. That's John at Wilson companies in Brandon at Brandon Niro.
Brandon Niro: Also check out our weekly newsletter where we teach you how to be an effective operator. You can sign up by clicking the link in the description of this podcast. Or by visiting owned and operated. com that's owned and operated. com. Check it out.
Announcer: Today we will have a very exciting podcast as Kylon Ginger joins us along with his wife, Tay. This is the first time we'll hear about a married couple's working dynamic and how they've balanced each other out throughout the years. Heilong could be described as a jack of all trades with the many unique SMB companies he's been involved in.
Announcer: He currently is a podcast founder, band member, president of a company accelerating entrepreneur acquisitions, and a home service business portfolio owner. For his many ventures, he's had Tay right by his side as his co founder and partner throughout the process. Today, you'll get to hear in depth about these many businesses and their shift from starting companies With three exits under their belt, let's hear more about what their next move will be.
Announcer: Enjoy.
John Wilson: It's no secret that Brandon and I have cleaned up a lot of poop in our career. Unfortunately, we don't clean up crappy bookkeeping. That's where today's sponsor comes in. Appletree Business Services handles bookkeeping, payroll, and taxes for small businesses. Appletree Business Services is the go to choice for growing service companies so they can manage cash flow, know their numbers, and save on taxes.
John Wilson: The U. S. based team has taken care of small business bookkeeping and taxes since 2005. Find them online at appletreebusiness. com or email Patrick at appletreebusiness. com. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Today I have Kylon and Taye Ganger. Welcome guys to the show. As we start off with every episode, normally it's 60 seconds, but I've got a couple on with me tonight.
John Wilson: Can you guys give me the two minute. Starter for where you guys have been over the past couple of years. Cause you've got an interesting backstory.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Do you want me to start? Go for it. Okay. I will start. I got out of the Navy in 2012, started a painting company with my best friend over the next several years.
Kylon Gienger: That grew. We were working out of six states. We started a couple of retail businesses. We bought a commercial building, remodeled it and turned it into a health center. It was a juice bar and a yoga studio. At that point, we got both of our wives involved heavily. And so it was two couples, all best friends running these sort of three businesses together.
Kylon Gienger: We exited all of that between 2015 and 2019.
Teliah Gienger (2): No, we exited in 2019. We started in 2015.
Kylon Gienger: And exited on 2015 and 2019.
Teliah Gienger (2): No, we exited in 2019. Started it in 2015.
Kylon Gienger: Okay. That's what happened.
John Wilson: One of those numbers is right.
Kylon Gienger: And after that, I've done a bunch of other stuff was a salaried youth pastor for a couple of years prior to all that started a podcast around non traditional learning paths and people at a drama college dropout.
Kylon Gienger: And it was around that angle, flipped houses, did a bunch of random stuff. And then I ended up Being on the founding team of a company called Acquira, which in a nutshell helped people find and acquire specifically home services businesses. And that, is the first time I met John Wilson, although I don't remember that encounter, talking to a lot of people then.
Kylon Gienger: And then last year, We started exiting Acquira and we purchased plumbing company and then an HVAC company, and that brings us up to current. So that's the high level on my end. You want to add anything?
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah, I was mainly involved in the studio and the juice bar for four years. I ran that with my best friend, Kennedy.
Teliah Gienger (2): And in addition to that, we started doing yoga teacher trainings. And so I would lead. Trainings in Washington state, and she would lead them in Costa Rica. And so we would go back and forth and train up people between those two areas for three years, I want to say. And then, yeah, we sold the brick and mortars in 2019.
Teliah Gienger (2): I continued with teacher trainings basically until COVID hit. And then unfortunately had to stop doing those due to mandates and whatnot in Washington state. And then. Got slightly involved in Acquira on a very small scale after we had our daughter, because I missed working with Kylan and then, yeah, we both exited that last year when we bought
John Wilson: these two businesses, that's about it.
John Wilson: Yeah. Nice ending. That's about it. That's about it. Holy God. All right, so , we've got a, we've got a couple of things to work through here. I'm like now just checking my notes. I'm like, I think I got everything.
Kylon Gienger: You know how they say in your twenties, you should really just experiment and try a bunch of different careers and find, that's basically what we did
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Yeah. It looks
John Wilson: like it was fun though.
Kylon Gienger: It was lot of fun. Yeah. We had a blast. We learned a lot, man. Yeah. This is large variety of experiences.
John Wilson: I think we're going to dive pretty heavy into like most of these because they all look interesting, which is I'm sure why you did them, but I think probably the best thing you guys did was you exited some stuff.
John Wilson: Like my track record looks somewhat like this, but I still own most of it, which makes my life very complicated. Whereas like just being able to Hey, this chapter was over. Let's go on to the next one. That's a superpower. That's awesome.
Kylon Gienger: And those chapters, I would say it was very clearly a shift from, Hey, let's start every business we want to own to, Hey, let's just buy it now.
Kylon Gienger: That was, I guess the major shift there and learning.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Before we talk about the businesses, which we're going to spend a lot of time on, I would love to understand a little bit more the like married Co working dynamic. So I'm sure it's been different at every company, but give me the general vibes.
John Wilson: I'm sure it's ebbed and flowed.
Teliah Gienger (2): The general vibes are that I absolutely love it and I cannot imagine it any different, honest to God. I know people that cannot stand working with their spouses or they just, it's really hard for them to imagine. Those or it
Kylon Gienger: like complicates or complicate
Teliah Gienger (2): things that like year and a half after we had Stevie, where I was not involved in what he was doing was.
Teliah Gienger (2): So weird and it was honestly very challenging for me because I just wanted to know what he was doing. I wanted to know like the ins and outs of the business and I couldn't because it wasn't ours. So I couldn't actually get super involved. And so that was like honestly one of my. Hardest times.
Teliah Gienger (2): Cause I just missed it. I missed being involved in Mr. Knowing what was going on.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. I'd echo that. I would say working together every time we've worked in a business together, side by side, it's only brought us closer together. We have always balanced each other out very well in and outside of business.
Kylon Gienger: And so inside, in business, it works out really well. You tend to do all the stuff I don't like doing, or I'm not good at and vice versa. But also it just, it keeps us equals, I know there's a lot of stay at home moms or stay at home dads that becomes their full time thing. And over the years you lose your.
Kylon Gienger: Edge in terms of, a career, and maybe even start to feel like you need more purpose beyond just taking care of your kids. Having us both involved, we've both really kept that edge and it's really kept us as equals. So it's really difficult for me now to want to move forward with, say, major decisions and less, I consult a first and vice versa.
Kylon Gienger: And that just comes naturally. Date nights, like first thing in the morning, a lot of what we're talking about is just business. Cause we both really enjoy it geek out on it. And it doesn't really get in the way of our relationship. I think because we both love it so much.
Kylon Gienger: And like I was telling you, John, before the podcast even started, even just last night, we were having a conversation of. We just spent last weekend with a bunch of our really good friends that we've grown up with over the years and not all of them, but several of them, one of their primary drivers is to be a mom or to be a dad, to build a family.
Kylon Gienger: And we want that too, to an extent, but we just don't feel like it's to the extent that a lot of our really close friends do, because we really love this game of operating businesses. It's just so much fun. We're gut checking ourselves. Is this okay? Should we want. Kids more than we do now.
Kylon Gienger: And, we're not done yet. We'll certainly try for more kids, but we really this whole business thing.
John Wilson: There's definitely a certain high that comes with it. I can definitely get behind that. What are the roles that you guys have typically taken? Can you walk me through? So painting the retail center, flipped houses, acquire a now plumbing HVC, like I'm sure the roles shifted.
John Wilson: How did it work?
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, they did shift a lot. I'd say very broadly speaking, they shifted from back in the early days, we were running our own businesses. Like you mentioned earlier, like when we had the painting company and a juice bar and a yoga studio, she was primarily running the juice bar and the yoga studio.
Kylon Gienger: And I was primarily running the painting company and more on, I guess you could say if there was a board of directors, the board of directors for those other two businesses.
Teliah Gienger (2): And we each had partners. To and in those businesses, so
Kylon Gienger: that helped share the load a bit, but then after that, we started getting more and more involved in these businesses, both in the business together.
Kylon Gienger: And then I would say once that happened, I guess like with the HVAC company, the plumbing company, I know what role I tend to fall into. It's like almost 100 percent working on the business strategy, visionary kind of setting culture. What would you,
Teliah Gienger (2): I really like implementing things and managing people.
Teliah Gienger (2): Like she's a really good
Kylon Gienger: manager. I'm
Teliah Gienger (2): a really good, not to both, but I'm a really good manager.
John Wilson: No, she is. I heard you're a really good manager. You can boast.
Teliah Gienger (2): So I think that's where we balance each other out is I love doing that stuff. I love giving people tasks to do and holding them accountable to those tasks and then helping them grow their areas.
Teliah Gienger (2): And Kylan is really good at like broad picture. That even carries over into our. That carries over into our personal life. If we're talking even just down to our finances, I take care of the day to day, the month to month stuff. And he's I managed, he's got a balance sheet, a
Kylon Gienger: personal balance sheet.
Kylon Gienger: I'm saying, yeah, I guess that's, I guess that's true. So like more granular example I guess the last thing we really worked on integrating into this HVAC company, which we're really only a month and a half into is a whole new payroll system. Company wide for. 70 something employees now. And so it would be my type of decision to be like, okay, out of all the things we can focus on this quarter, what's, it's EOS rocks, what are these kind of big rocks and stuff?
Kylon Gienger: And okay. New payroll system. She's the one that rolled it out and implemented it and worked with the team to get it done. And I can do that too. I think our roles can actually be pretty interchangeable, but that's where we tend to fall really.
John Wilson: So on, on an org chart. Okay. To me, that sounds like if we're going off of EOS, then this is a typical visionary integrator system.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Yeah. We're very familiar with that. I don't think we've thought about that a ton or really mentally put ourselves in those roles yet. Cause I think quite honestly, I'm not sure we'll get into it. We're still learning all the ins and outs of just operations. It's why I haven't hired an operations manager yet for this large business that we just took over because both of us are very interested in just learning how to kill it at operations before we ever step outside of that role and start, managing operators, okay. But yeah, I think like just at Herliman, the big business that we're in now, technically like I'm the operations manager on the org chart right now for the whole team. And then you are the office manager at this point. And that'll probably change over the next. 12 months or so, right?
John Wilson: To what?
John Wilson: What do you think it'll change to?
Kylon Gienger: At this point, we would like to in 12 months time have another operations manager in here, but I've been very clear with the team. I'm willing to stay longer if that's the case. If I had to sum up what I think this year is going to be all about in one word, it would be stability.
Kylon Gienger: Like across the two businesses we own now, we just need stability. And so I feel like I need to be in the driver's seat and kind of both of us in a sense to ensure that happens before we hire people for our current roles and ascend above further. But I would see you like, we've talked about the future role for you in maybe the.
Kylon Gienger: HR slash marketing, sort of director at the holding company level, maybe something like that. Frankly, we're just not quite there yet. So we haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it.
John Wilson: Have you ever thought about like TAY becoming the operations manager? What do you think about that?
John Wilson: If change implementation is your thing, why not?
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah. I would've thought
John Wilson: about it. We've
Teliah Gienger (2): thought about it. Like I could do it for a short period of time. I don't know if I'd want to do it long term though.
John Wilson: It's a heavy job.
Teliah Gienger (2): So I like, I could do it, but I couldn't do it long term. I really couldn't, I could manage somebody. That would be like here physically,
Kylon Gienger: but you're dead on with that. Cause before we hired the operations manager for the plumbing company, so we could come over here and work on this one, we were serious to talk about you staying in that plumbing companies in Missoula and this HVAC company, which is bodies in Spokane.
Kylon Gienger: And when we were seriously talking about her staying there and running operations until we found this guy and I would 100 percent consider that we just don't like to be a part of that much.
John Wilson: Yeah. We should do. A live culture index because I actually have Kylan's and I've never gone over it with you.
John Wilson: Yeah. I thought you were supposed to send them along or something. I never got it. Like we could do it on a podcast if you guys want, but it would be really interesting to have Taze. I'm like signing into it now and I'm going to send you the link.
Teliah Gienger (2): Okay.
John Wilson: We just recently
Teliah Gienger (2): did. What is it? The big five
John Wilson: Personality
Teliah Gienger (2): tests.
John Wilson: Oh, I haven't heard that one.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah. Jordan Peterson is like big on it. And so he rolled it out and your sister was like, everyone in this family should do it. And
John Wilson: it
Teliah Gienger (2): was good. We learned a lot. Actually, it was cool how it broke down and we're really similar in a lot of ways. And just how things don't really ruffle our feathers.
Teliah Gienger (2): We're both, what was the one we were both really high conscientiousness. So we were both like really high conscientiousness and it was interesting assertiveness,
Kylon Gienger: assertiveness, really high in it.
Teliah Gienger (2): So it was fascinating to read that. And we're definitely
Kylon Gienger: more similar than not.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah. At least more similar than your sister and her husband.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. You should do the culture
John Wilson: index thing. He's going to say, that'd be interesting. I sent it to you in the chat.
Teliah Gienger (2): Oh,
John Wilson: do you
Teliah Gienger (2): want me to do it right now?
John Wilson: We should do this live. This would be fascinating. Let's do it. Yeah, we'll pause the recording. I want to go through this. Okay. Cause like Kylons, he's me.
John Wilson: Like it's nearly an identical thing. So him filling out the ops manager position is like wild to me because it's not a fit for his personality.
Teliah Gienger (2): No, it's not. But you know what? He's really, he's good at it. That's the challenge that
John Wilson: yeah, Kylons right now and it's it's identical to mine.
Teliah Gienger (2): And the interesting thing too, is he was always put in that position.
John Wilson: I think when you're an ops manager, you can take. An ops manager slash CEO seat because you're the one in the driver's seat.
Teliah Gienger (2): I have to do all of these
John Wilson: Okay, super easy. It actually only takes five minutes. I promise.
Teliah Gienger (2): Okay, please read down the columns and check the word you believe described So there's
John Wilson: two questions.
John Wilson: There's literally two questions The first one is select the ones that you think you are at work And the second one is to select the ones that you think you need to be at work
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, it's interesting because I just, to be frank, I don't think I have been in that true CEO position enough to really understand the clear distinctions between a CEO role and like an ops manager role.
Kylon Gienger: I'm still starting to parse that out for myself.
John Wilson: You're probably feeling both right now. Yeah, clearly you are between two businesses, but when we were A little bit smaller, like way smaller than you guys currently are. Cause right now we're around the same size. I think lately, I think you're slightly, I was filling the ops manager role, but it was still very much like ops manager slash CEO, right?
John Wilson: You're working on strategy. You're working on vision. You're working on culture and you're investing. And those are all CEO activities. Yeah. And the ops manager is dealing with the day to day. So you're both the president and the CEO. That's what it looks like. Cause the president runs the company, the CEO invests.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.
Teliah Gienger (2): Am I supposed to choose like all of the ones I think are me or just try to Yeah, it
John Wilson: could be like, it could be five. It could be 20.
Teliah Gienger (2): Oh my gosh.
John Wilson: I know I did not pause the recording and I think that this is going to do really well, I think this is great.
Brandon Niro: Oh, my God.
Kylon Gienger: I see what you mean though, man.
Kylon Gienger: Was it your email last week or so when you were just talking about, hey, you're in Florida now and you're just looking back at the last six years and where the team's come from in your new role? I emailed you, right? I was like, not necessarily eye opening because I get that. Been in business enough to understand that progression, but I've never quite, I've never been through that whole progression yet.
Kylon Gienger: And I'm really looking forward to it.
John Wilson: You're literally like months away, probably like you are on the precipice of that transition. It's mostly what do you do with your day? So soon, like right now, my day, I'm trying to think about what my day looks like. Yeah,
Kylon Gienger: that would be interesting.
John Wilson: All right.
John Wilson: So my day, so we have five locations.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah.
John Wilson: Yeah. Part of the hard part about transition for moving into an actual functioning CEO role. There's a couple really hard parts. One, most of your staff is really far away from you. You are so separated. And you are in the same way that I am because you've got two locations.
John Wilson: And so when you show up and invest time into either one of those locations, like that's a big deal. And people really feel that. So when I show up and start talking to people, it's a big deal. Whether or not you want it to be, whether or not you think your presence is a big deal, it is a big deal because you're the CEO.
John Wilson: And so you really have to be judicious, with how you invest your time and make sure that you're giving it to the right people. So that one's honestly really challenging, not just choosing where to invest your time, but also controlling your time and conversation because every conversation matters.
John Wilson: And then I spent a lot of time thinking about recruitment and the next big roles that we're filling. So in the next year, we're going to be filling out our C suite, which is pretty intimidating. So it's a lot of just thinking time and then working through some real estate stuff. We have to buy new properties.
John Wilson: Trying to think what else I do during the day. That's like most of it. And occasionally talk to the people that run the companies. But like day to day, I almost never even hear about stuff happening in the company's day to day.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. So there's a lot of, you just described a lot of strategy, resource allocation.
Kylon Gienger: One of the things you'd mentioned was. Yeah, you'd, so you'd mentioned culture and you'd mentioned that was more of a, out of the other two things, that one was tougher for whatever reason. I'm curious to hear you dig more into that. How are you thinking about building?
John Wilson: Culture is a lot tougher mainly because of the yeah.
John Wilson: Why is culture so tough? Okay. So we have 110 people on the team, so I'm going to give you some perspective of our scale. 110 isn't that crazy from a total team size, but I think it's the distributed Locations that make it really hard. There are people that we hired last fall that I have not physically met yet.
John Wilson: And I think that's where the culture part gets weird. I actually just met one today for the first time that we hired in September. And he didn't know who I was. Which was
Kylon Gienger: Like a manager level or a field level? No, just a
John Wilson: technician.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah,
John Wilson: not a big thing. And there's probably five or I know their names.
John Wilson: I knew who they are. I know where they sit in the org chart and I know what they do. But when you go from this very controlled, like I'm in this business every single day and I know what these people look like, talk act I know their spouse's names to I haven't met this person and I pay them 70, 000 a year and I hired them like six months ago.
John Wilson: Like culture becomes way harder to control. So I'm not a part of any hiring. I'm not a part of any firing. I find out when people are hired Hey, we brought on six new heads, and they're starting next Monday. If you could pop by, that'd be great. That's like the level of an update that I get.
John Wilson: So managing culture is now just okay, I don't know anyone when they're coming in. So how do I instill what matters to me and what matters to like my legacy and my grandfather's legacy. Into these people that I may only talk to five times total in their like three year stint here Like a lot of my culture investment is going into our managers.
John Wilson: So how does our 20 people in leadership think about like our core values, how I make decisions, how I would want decisions to be made so that way that energy can pour down and then how do I communicate to 110 people regularly enough that they understand what I think is important. So that's been the hard part and trying to like work around that.
John Wilson: So we're starting to do more regularly. Scheduled like monthly newsletters, basically writing a lot. We're starting to do like a fireside chat every week with the whole team via just podcasts. And it's basically core value shout outs, because I found that I always thought core values were like bullshit, but like this scenario that I described where you don't see your staff for six months and you're not partaking in the hiring.
John Wilson: Like, how do they really know? The job activities every single day that I care about as the owner and CEO, like, how do they know? So we started going through these core value shout outs where once a week we're like, Hey, Eric did something amazing today. Here's the very specific story that he did and the job behavior that lived out our core value.
John Wilson: And this is why it was awesome. We're investing a ton of energy into really getting. Like traction and stories behind those core values because it started to matter way more now that the culture is like I can't hold the culture in my hand anymore It's its own animal and I just have to guide it. So long story, but yeah
Kylon Gienger: That's great.
Kylon Gienger: I think you hit it on the head. My initial thought was just like spreading culture stories through media This is what it comes down to. Now, when you create it, when you say you have these core values, are they at the individual company level or kind of overarching, holding company level down to these.
Kylon Gienger: Portfolio companies.
John Wilson: So we do it at the holding company level down. So Hey, our holding company probably looks a little weird, but it's more like it looks like one big company operationally. They're their own pillars, but through our shared services company, we support them and conversate with them every single day.
John Wilson: So we act one giant company.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. That makes sense. And to come up with those core values, did you just come up with them yourself, all out of your brain? Or was there some consulting? We did
John Wilson: it as an exercise like four years ago. And then we're just now getting to the point where we're like driving it in.
John Wilson: Because again, I didn't really understand the point of it. I thought, and I think it's like a light switch or maybe being pregnant. Like you either get your core values being important or you don't like you're either pregnant or you're not. Yeah. I think it was a light switch. They hit me like four months ago that I was like, Oh my God.
John Wilson: Those are actually important. And yeah, you can't go back. Okay, I have both of your culture indexes here. Did
Teliah Gienger (2): it go to you?
John Wilson: Oh, yeah. Are you guys ready for this?
Teliah Gienger (2): No.
John Wilson: Yeah, let's do it. Okay, this will be fun. So the easy part is you guys are the opposites, which is probably good. Who wants to go first? Sure.
Teliah Gienger (2): Okay,
John Wilson: all right.
John Wilson: All right, Tay's up first. Okay, I'm going to screen share this, actually.
Teliah Gienger (2): Correct, we're the last to see it already.
John Wilson: Oh yeah, I have it up. It was up to me immediately, basically. Oh my god. I've never done a Live Culture Index, so this will be fun. Oh, I'm very excited, okay. Okay, so this is you. Ignore the title, all the titles are horrible.
John Wilson: This is not befitting of anything. Okay the way you read this, Is a is typically assertiveness dominance or vision and like where you fall on it is basically like how far seeing are you and are you willing to make a pile of decisions with no information there's not a right or wrong here but this is basically like a lower a is You're probably in the right seat with integration because it's mainly like I know what needs to be done I have the ten things that need to be done and here they go.
John Wilson: B is Introvert versus extrovert. So you lean towards the extroverted side slightly. It doesn't really matter where the number falls It's about how far it is from the red line.
Teliah Gienger (2): Okay Why is it
John Wilson: four? They really don't explain it. It's all over the map. There's no rhyme or reason. I think mine's at a six and Kylan's is at a two.
John Wilson: Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay. Alright, and then C is structure. A low C is like, What is a box and a high C is you're going to do pretty well in a box. So again, that totally aligns with like integration change management. Like we have X set of things that we need to get done. Here we go. We're going to follow the rules and D is mainly decision making.
John Wilson: So how you fall inside there. So there's a couple other things that matter. So the A to B relationship means you're going to usually talk to people. With your A to B relationship. So when you have something that you need some direction on, you're going to go out and talk to a pile of people and see if you can get some direction on that before you make a decision.
John Wilson: So you can contrast that with Kylons, which is the opposite, which is he's going to make it and then find out what happens. Yeah. And then your A to D is, are you willing to make high risk decisions? So this being equal means like you could go either way. You might go flip a house on your own or you might not.
John Wilson: So some people are like totally opposite. Kylons is all gas, no brakes. So he's very happy to make a high risk decision. So we can do his next. All right. So this is Collins. Yours actually matches mine almost identically, which is funny. And you also think that the job behaviors is like what you think your job requires of you.
John Wilson: All right. So high a is basically you're autonomous as hell. And you're just going to do your own thing. B is you're an introvert. Yeah. Yeah. Which that makes sense. And I think people really get confused with introverts. So it's, I'm just going to clarify for the listener. Yeah. Introversion is just how you gain your energy.
John Wilson: Again, this is my identical. I gained my energy by chilling alone, but I talk to hundreds of people every single day, and I'm able to survive. Yeah, 100%. Yep. See, you need a little bit of structure, but you're close enough to the red line that it doesn't matter. And D, you're able to be creative. The A to B is the opposite of Tay's.
John Wilson: You're able to make decisions without really talking to anybody, and it doesn't matter that much. You're just gonna go do your thing, obviously, except for your spouse. And your A to D means that you basically are all gas, no brakes. So Alright. Yeah. That's great, man. So that's how culture index works.
Kylon Gienger: That's incredible. Oh, the philosopher. Yeah,
Teliah Gienger (2): that makes sense.
John Wilson: Yeah. There's
Kylon Gienger: yeah,
John Wilson: I'll send them over to you and I'll send you like the sort of written things out, but that's why you can't just send the reports out. Cause it doesn't mean anything to anybody when they see it. It's just like a random chart.
John Wilson: That's great,
Kylon Gienger: man. I appreciate you sharing that because I would love to get something like this in place for both businesses right now. I think it would help because currently probably 30 to 40 percent of my time is just spent dealing with these interpersonal kind of people. And stuff and basically two people not understanding each other, but me understanding both of them really well and trying to talk them through how to navigate that.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Yeah.
John Wilson: I think when it's fully implemented, what I see companies do is put it on their doors. So when you walk in, you're like, okay, this is how to talk to this person. This is how I'm supposed to handle this conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We found. It really gets interesting when you get into the tech side, because about 40 percent of our field team is the same exact archetype, which is called a craftsman, and they're just like very focused on what they know and doing a great job, which is probably a good one.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, sounds like they're in the right role.
John Wilson: Alright, we're going to jump back from Culture Index, but I really appreciate you guys entertaining me on that. That was interesting. Okay, I want to talk about the painting company. Jeez, okay. You guys worked in six states. That just sounds like a big painting company.
Kylon Gienger: It was more, we started specializing in like large apartment complexes and we had an in, cause both of our dads were in multifamily development. We had to cut our teeth to get in there and figure it out and win bids and everything, but we had a door that we could put in there.
Kylon Gienger: And so that was basically just, it was hiring a bunch of subs, a bunch of temporary workers. I think, at our peak, we'd probably have somewhere around 30 to 40. Folks, and then, yeah, we were doing projects, for three months here and there, maybe one month project here in like Texas, Iowa, Indiana,
Kylon Gienger: Georgia, got fun stories from that one.
Kylon Gienger: I don't know if I'd recommend anybody started painting company to be quite honest with you. It's not the worst thing in the world. But if you're really interested in the trades, I don't think I'd go for that one. Just You know, not much of a moat, really low margins and all that stuff, but it was a great first business to cut my teeth in and just understand, like how to hire and fire and manage and, build systems.
Kylon Gienger: And looking back, like we could have done so much more, but also we made some pretty significant mistakes that almost bankrupt us and tanked the company in like year two. Like really just naive, stupid mistakes that are embarrassing to talk about, but I'll say it anyways. Yes. My best friend and I were the ones running this company and we looped his brother in.
Kylon Gienger: And so it was the three of us and we were hiring different people and doing all these projects. All three of us were also in a band. And I was in a band for years with these guys and we toured several States and recorded a few albums and just, tried to make that thing happen. I love everything about where this is going.
Kylon Gienger: So we've heard,
John Wilson: this is great.
Kylon Gienger: We were, common have your whites on and you go paint a house to make money. And then we'd have be playing like a dive bar that evening. Everything would be, we'd have painting gear and band gear in a van, a painting van. And we shed our whites and Don our band gear and go play like a dive bar that night or something like that.
Kylon Gienger: And we started doing a little bit of touring and then we simultaneously, we landed. This large job painting, I think it was three different apartment complexes in Atlanta, Georgia. And then at the same time we were recording an album in LA, and we hired a subcontract that we work with on other jobs to manage this entire project in Georgia.
Kylon Gienger: And the long story short is. We basically took our hands off the steering wheel, got super naive, and just put all of our focus and attention to recording this album, thinking that this guy who had done some jobs for us, like we thought, Hey, we could trust him and he'll just take care of it. And we'll take some, off the top and, Bob's your uncle.
Kylon Gienger: That wasn't the case. And he ended up basically screwing us, stealing a bunch of 20, 000 plus worth of materials. He hired a bunch of people, had them work for a month and then didn't pay them and then just disappeared. And the long story short again is we ended up with probably 75 percent of the project to do, and only 25 percent of the budget left to do it in.
Kylon Gienger: And so that all culminated into a midnight plane ticket I had to buy out of Seattle to go to Georgia, right near the holidays. In 2012. It doesn't matter. It was a miserable. I had to go there and fix the whole mess. I was, had these really rough and tough guys that this guy had hired searching for the owner of the company because they hadn't been paid.
Kylon Gienger: And I was like hiding in an apartment at this complex until I could figure stuff out enough to understand what was going on and fix things. And it was pretty bad. And then we ended up all of that
John Wilson: debt that
Kylon Gienger: ended up landing on our materials and paint supplier. Basically, they got the brunt of that.
Kylon Gienger: We just barely squeaked by. We did get the job done, but then we had a lot of debt with our supplier and no way to pay them. So that was a good lesson in humility. They could have gone after our bond or something like that, but we basically came, and we very proactively went to their headquarters.
Kylon Gienger: And essentially just begged, Hey give us a chance here. We like opened our books. We were super transparent about here's all our jobs lined up for this next year. Here's like what we're paying ourselves. Here's what we can afford to pay you every single month to start paying this back. And they were willing to work with us.
Kylon Gienger: And then I remember twice a month, I'd call them and be like here's what we can do towards the account this month. And. We ended up landing a large job down in Texas, actually right next to Steven Ullman that you had on and we hung out with him a bunch down there and ended up paying it all back, but it was a major lesson.
Kylon Gienger: And there's several lessons there, but at the end of the day, we were very naive and I would definitely cut my teeth. business and decided to take it a little bit more seriously moving forward. How did you guys leave the painting business? Did you sold it off? I owned it 50 50 with my partner and I sold the other, my 50 percent to him.
Kylon Gienger: And
Teliah Gienger (2): yeah, after we had paid off all the debt, we
Kylon Gienger: lived
Teliah Gienger (2): in Texas for three months and
Kylon Gienger: we paid off
Teliah Gienger (2): the debt. And then
Kylon Gienger: We were wanting to exit before that was all, but I owned it with him. We were both responsible. So I stuck around until we were basically back in the black. And then I exited and it's been now like 10 plus years since we started it.
Kylon Gienger: It's still going largely on its own. I don't think he does much in the day to day, but he kept it going. So that's neat.
John Wilson: That is cool. Doing the same niche, like apartment housing.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, they've expanded it. They do some like industrial stuff now and they've certainly expanded a bit, but it's neat to see that.
Kylon Gienger: And it's largely a testament to him. He's a great entrepreneur and just probably one of the most steady, consistent guys. Like he starts something, it's going to just go forever, right? And it's neat to see that for sure. We're still, we were hanging out with this last week and still best friends to this day.
John Wilson: That's amazing. Yeah. I don't want to say jealous. The grass is always greener. I'm always interested, because I don't want to say jealous, in people that can create something from scratch. Because anything that we've created from scratch has never been it's always weaker than basically what anyone else has created from scratch, and then I go to buy.
John Wilson: You feel like my only value Is buying shit that other people make. And when I make something, it doesn't go that well. That's amazing that 10 years later,
Kylon Gienger: look at what all you've been able to do with the stuff you buy. That's inspiring to me and a lot of other, yeah.
John Wilson: I'm not trying to discredit it, but it's just you wish you could start something because that sounds cool to begin at the beginning and strap it.
John Wilson: It's interesting.
Kylon Gienger: But you come to think so we did start, like we started this juice bar and yoga studio and they're profitable businesses, but not cash cows by any means. Feel free to
John Wilson: dive deep because they're next on my conversation list. But those are still going to we actually those in
Kylon Gienger: 2018.
Teliah Gienger (2): That is a really cool aspect is seeing something that you have created from scratch. And it's. And even all through COVID,
Kylon Gienger: like those are two of the worst businesses you could have during COVID and they still survive, which is really neat to see. So that does feel good. I haven't thought about that in a while, but
John Wilson: yeah.
John Wilson: That's freaking awesome. That's totally awesome. Like it's like intergenerational where like you sell it to your kids or what's another example? Oh like I'm really good friends with Someone whose business I bought two months ago and he listens to the show. Hey, what's up Armand.
John Wilson: But I think he has a ton of pride and rightfully so in an incredible business that he started 12 years ago that I bought. And that thing is like humming along beautifully. 68 days in and he should totally be proud of that. That's incredible. He was works part time in it. It was an electrician right now, but that's awesome.
John Wilson: He gets to walk in and be like, hell yeah. Like I built this. It's okay that my time in it is done now, but
Teliah Gienger (2): right now, John.
Kylon Gienger: John Hurlman. Yeah. Shout out to Lance Hogan and John Hurlman. Cause I think about that often too, man, like a big driving factor for me is wanting to carry on the legacy of what I think are two very great, good men.
Kylon Gienger: And that's Lance Hogan, who founded the plumbing company that we bought and John Hurlman, who founded the HVAC company. Two really good, just really good guys, hard workers. And it's a real honor to, Carry that on. And I just, I want to make it great for their sakes. I think about that often, actually.
John Wilson: Yeah, I think that's a good thing to think about.
John Wilson: I know being in family business, I know it matters to me. Yeah. Buying other family businesses. I assume it matters to them too. Yeah. It's got your name on it. Yeah. Other businesses have other people's names on it too. So yeah, it all matters. All right. So get me like up to speed a little bit on the health center.
John Wilson: What in the heck was this thing?
Teliah Gienger (2): So my friend and I just really loved hot yoga. And at the time there was only one hot yoga studio in town that was available to anyone. And we had been going regularly. And then we brought Kylan and Landon. With us to a class and in true Kylan and Landon form, they weren't actually really enjoying the class.
Teliah Gienger (2): They were just looking around the room thinking I can do this better.
John Wilson: High gross margin.
Teliah Gienger (2): So
John Wilson: monthly recurring revenue. I'm thinking the same thing, man. We have the same culture index.
Teliah Gienger (2): We get out of the class and we're like, what did you guys think? And instantly you're just like, we could totally do this better.
Teliah Gienger (2): We should start our own. And we're like. Whoa, what? And that was not
John Wilson: the purpose of this.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah. And then I remember just vaguely, I remember this Starbucks meeting we had with them and it was basically Kyle and Landon pitching this idea to us. Like we're going to run the studio and then we can do a juice bar too.
Teliah Gienger (2): We are going to run it. Mainly that meant you girls are going to run it and we're just going to do it for you and we'll get it started and then you can take it over. And at the time I was planning on going to nursing school, I was like full on in college at the time. And so I eventually decided not going to do that.
Teliah Gienger (2): And I'm going to instead open up a yoga studio and a juice bar and be a business owner. And it worked out really well. It was fun. It was different. It was unlike anything that we had ever experienced on our grand opening day, the main waterline burst underneath our parking lot. So that was a great start to call
Kylon Gienger: the plumbing company,
Teliah Gienger (2): paid them
John Wilson: a lot of money.
Teliah Gienger (2): And
John Wilson: it was in that moment, you fell in love with the plumbing industry, right? Cue narration.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah, we had it for four years. We started it in 2015 and started with just the studio. The juice bar came six months later and I wasn't technically involved in that at the start. We wrote my
Kylon Gienger: sister into that.
Kylon Gienger: So it was also a way to like my whole family specifically, they're all very entrepreneurial and it was a way for me to rope some of my siblings into it as well and landed my partner. You've roped his little brother. And so basically I got my little sister and we got his little brother to run it. And then we got both of our wives to run the yoga studio.
Kylon Gienger: So we just thought we were a genius,
John Wilson: so far this sounds pretty good,
Teliah Gienger (2): but then they get it started and then they would just like bounce. They'd be like, okay, so you know this, and we're like, yeah, sure. But we did, we actually had it and we did a really good job. And at the height, I think we had about 25 employees between the two of them.
Teliah Gienger (2): It was great. Yeah, it was a really good experience. I really enjoyed working with my best friend and my sister-in-Law. We learned a lot about each other. We learned a lot about communication and
Kylon Gienger: just being a teenager and we were all 20, like 22 4, 22 to 24 years old. Yeah, so super, super young kids.
Kylon Gienger: One of the best things that honestly came out of it, man, was, and I try to talk to this, to people who, one of our friends the other day, she was just talking about Hey. Here's all these sort of successful people I know. And really to make all the money they have, they had to start with a lot of money at some point.
Kylon Gienger: They had invent some crazy thing or win the lottery or something. I was trying to explain it can start out really small. Like we put, it was something like a hundred grand or something was the gap on what we needed to put into these businesses to, put tile down and furnish it and stuff.
Kylon Gienger: And so we went out and we basically just, we raised that money, a bunch of 20 mid twenties folks from
Teliah Gienger (2): not
Kylon Gienger: even there was one family member, but it was
Teliah Gienger (2): not even peers, just they weren't even friends. They were like friends of
Kylon Gienger: friends and, people who didn't know, but we'd take them to lunch and they believed in us. And so we got people to write 5, 000 checks, 10, 000, 25, 000 checks to us on 12 percent interest a year on a five year note with a balloon payment at the end of five years for this money. And these folks trusted us and we took that very seriously. We ended up paying them all their money.
Kylon Gienger: We sold and paid them all their money back. And some of those same investors are the ones that helped us with the equity to buy a 6 million business just recently. So that stuff, it just, it compounds, right? It starts young and it starts with a few thousand dollars that people entrust you with, but if you do right by them and you're motivated, it's just, it's beautiful.
Kylon Gienger: Pretty amazing how that compounds on itself and your reputation just grows. That was a big benefit. It's crazy
Teliah Gienger (2): to think about looking back now.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah.
John Wilson: From a totally outside perspective. It's crazy to hear about. This is wild. I love every minute of this. Okay. So like acquire is interesting. I guess before we get into it, you've started and exited three things.
John Wilson: You are the only guests that have done that on our show. We've had some people that have, okay, Chris Powers, he exited real estate, but real estate's very different than a business that you started. I think other people have maybe just done one business, but like three exits is really interesting. Walk me through, like, how do you choose the right time?
John Wilson: Because it feels like you obviously know the right time. You've done it three times now. So clearly there's like the wind changed or something like that.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Truthfully, I don't feel like there was as much sort of cold analysis on it as it was just a gut feeling. I think we knew by the time it was time to exit all of those things, we knew, Hey, we've started these three things from scratch.
Kylon Gienger: It's been a great ride. I feel like I've cut my teeth in business, those businesses. We talked about scaling, for instance, the juice bar. It was a neat juice bar. It was a neat brand. People loved it. We thought about doing a franchise idea. And as we just looked into that model a bit more, I don't think it really got any of us going as much.
Kylon Gienger: And so I think we realized these businesses are great and we feel like we've cut our teeth, but we're not going to scale them anymore. Like we're just done. I've learned, I've sucked up all the knowledge I can from this. I think all four of us felt that way. And now it's time to move on. And there's just a very clear.
Kylon Gienger: Seasonal change in our lives,
Teliah Gienger (2): but we have looked at the numbers, especially with the studio and the juice bar, because there were three owners. And we just, we looked at the numbers, we looked at the margins and we're like, really, this isn't a business that's going to support three owners. It could support
Kylon Gienger: seriously.
Kylon Gienger: And nobody felt the desire to do that,
Teliah Gienger (2): right? Like whenever it came down to it, none of us just really wanted to pull that trigger. And so we realized, okay this could support a single owner and they would be fine. And they would have, a decent salary each month and that would be okay.
Teliah Gienger (2): But for three long term, it just didn't make sense. And so we had looked at the numbers and we'd actually worked with a coach for those two businesses and he helped us like with our margins and stuff. He'd been in the restaurant business for a while.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, that was key.
Teliah Gienger (2): And I think that really helped us.
Teliah Gienger (2): Like he worked with us for so long to get our margins. And we were like, Oh man, this is so great. And then we like got done with the end of our coaching. And we were like maybe we shouldn't
Kylon Gienger: make us a millionaire
John Wilson: and we're leaving. I think it's
Kylon Gienger: probably
John Wilson: time to get rid of these.
Kylon Gienger: But it's a great starter business for somebody.
Kylon Gienger: And that's who we found. We found a gal named Carissa who is also in her twenties.
Teliah Gienger (2): And she's been super
Kylon Gienger: motivated and she wanted to buy both businesses. And she did so with an SBA loan. So we've been on the other side of the whole SBA thing as a seller. And. She saw that those businesses through COVID and everything, and she's just been great.
Kylon Gienger: And I think she'll probably eventually do something similar. She'll probably move on to cause she's the type of person that can do bigger, better things, and hopefully leave that legacy to somebody else. And then, having my sister and my partner's little brother involved. They went on to like bigger and better things, she's got an advertising agency now, and he's like a real estate millionaire or something crazy like that.
Kylon Gienger: So it's just, it's been like these businesses we built and they've just been this training ground for all these young entrepreneurs. And it's just, I'm just now realizing that, which is pretty sweet.
John Wilson: Yeah, that's great. I think Sam Leslie's first episode, he talks about that a little bit on a smaller scale, I think, but one of his first businesses was like a pest control business.
John Wilson: Yeah. I don't remember what state I want to say South summer. And it makes like not a lot of money. Basically it just keeps his dad busy, but it was the same thing. Like he used it as a training ground for himself. And then he gave his dad a job and his mom ended up getting some money from it to do the bookkeeping.
John Wilson: It pays some cell phone bills and it is this there's no purpose in selling it because right now it provides value to the family that's like More than money. It was just interesting. I think that's cool. It sounds like you guys have a similar story. Yeah,
Teliah Gienger (2): I learned a lot with those businesses I really did.
John Wilson: Yeah, we wouldn't be here without them. So you're in plumbing and HVAC now.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah.
John Wilson: Welcome.
Kylon Gienger: Thank you. Thanks for welcoming me months ago or something when I really did need it too.
John Wilson: You're welcome. The water's warm. Come on in. All right. The first one was plumbing. The second one was HVAC. Can you walk us through the deals a little bit?
John Wilson: It can be as high level or as low level as you want.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, I'll start higher level. And if you feel like you want to pick at anything we can. So when I was involved in Acquire, we were in the business of coaching and investing in acquisition entrepreneurs that wanted to buy their first business and specifically Niche down to home services in order to do that really well.
Kylon Gienger: We figured, Hey, we should probably buy our own and use them as case studies. So we ended up buying this small plumbing company in Missoula, Montana, putting one of our leadership team members in there as the ops manager. And the long story short was about eight months later. I can't remember how it came about, but we went to visit the business and I came as like a representative, as president at Acquira and just came here as one of our portfolio companies.
Kylon Gienger: I'll go take a visit. Talked with the team. I think that first night we ended up, I befriended a couple of the techs. And then we went to the previous owner's house who still retains 20 percent in that business. And we stayed up till 3am, 4am drinking and just, Having a blast. And I really got to know these people well and got to know the business because we already owned it by way of Acquira.
Kylon Gienger: And I really fell in love with all those folks and with Missoula and discovered that we really hadn't done right by them in terms of when we bought 80 percent of that plumbing company, we made a bunch of promises about how we were going to grow and systematize and. Get the owner out of the day to day and from estimating and invoicing, all this stuff he didn't want to do.
Kylon Gienger: And we hadn't really done any of that. And it was nobody's particular fault. I think we just had shiny object syndrome and got distracted with bigger and better deals, frankly. But I went there and I was like, man, really not done right by these folks. And it's a really neat little plumbing company.
Kylon Gienger: There's a lot of potential here. And I knew at this point I was becoming more aware of the fact that, Hey, I want to buy my own business and kind of start my own portfolio. I knew it was dead weight for Acquira at that point. We weren't doing right by them. And I also want to start my own business.
Kylon Gienger: So I pitched the idea of, Hey, why don't I just buy this from Acquira and slowly start exiting from Acquira. And that ended up just being a neat win situation between everybody. And so I basically just took over Acquira's ownership position in that company, 80 percent and exchange it for cash and stock basically.
Kylon Gienger: And.
Teliah Gienger (2): That was easy.
Kylon Gienger: That's where that happened. So we
Teliah Gienger (2): not easy. So we
Kylon Gienger: stepped in and I'm talking like small two technicians and doing like maybe 800 K per year. And so between July and September or October, 2021, we grew it by 60 percent or so. And now like we should hit 2 million this year.
Kylon Gienger: With the way things are sitting. Yeah. And that was a really neat introduction, I think, to the trade, specifically plumbing and HVAC. It was a small company really good people and already pretty highly organized, although like we did come in and we implemented service Titan and all that stuff.
Kylon Gienger: So there's a big learning curve there, but it was already pretty organized. So it was an easy company, I think, to get started with and cut my teeth in that industry. But I always knew from basically day one, I knew, Hey, in six months, I want to buy another basically. And then it became very clear, Oh, I don't ever want to buy something.
Kylon Gienger: That's this small again this is great. I get this side of the spectrum. Now I just want to go bigger. I didn't think I would go as big as Herliman, but without talking too much about it, ended up just getting in touch with John Herliman and. Finding about this large company that he wasn't really planning to exit at all anytime soon, but we got an initial conversation in July.
Kylon Gienger: So very shortly after I took over the plumbing company, I was already talking to the HVAC company in Spokane and we hit it off and then over the next six months, just made the transaction happen. And that one was considerably larger. They did 12 million in 2021, 75 ish employees. Yeah, it's a larger one.
Kylon Gienger: And we've now been, we officially took over operations on the 1st of January, 2022, but we actually were able to focus on it and move over here full time right at the end of January. So we're recording this March 8th. It's really been just
Teliah Gienger (2): over a month in.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, it's been really just over a month that I feel like we've really been able to sink our teeth into it.
Kylon Gienger: So it's all very fresh and we're still figuring it out,
John Wilson: but
Kylon Gienger: it's fun. That's a quick synopsis,
John Wilson: so right now you've got two businesses in the portfolio, one plumbing, one HVC. HVC is way bigger.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah.
John Wilson: And two totally different areas, but like how far apart are they?
Kylon Gienger: Three hours.
John Wilson: Three
Kylon Gienger: hours. Yeah.
John Wilson: So not crazy, but.
Teliah Gienger (2): No.
John Wilson: Enough to be inconvenient. Yeah, it's definitely enough to be inconvenient. How often do you visit either one? We are here in
Kylon Gienger: Spokane at the HVAC company full time. And
Teliah Gienger (2): at this point we're in Missoula like once a month for about four or five days.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. What do you do
John Wilson: during those four or five
Kylon Gienger: days?
Kylon Gienger: We've only had one of those cycles. And it was actually, it was showing up to present our core values. I'd spent a lot of time with that team trying to draw out, identify their culture and kind of get it into some core values format. And we went back to basically present those and get the team to rally behind them.
Kylon Gienger: And also we found out, once we got there to smooth over some issues that were going on between the existing team and then the new operations manager. That we hired there because that integration is still very fresh. That new operations manager is, he's also like a month and a half or so into managing that business.
Kylon Gienger: So that's all very fresh and we're still working through that. So I'd stay and moving forward. That's the majority of what we're probably going, supporting him and going over to make sure that integration continues to happen. And that we're still pursuing some of the original sort of rocks and one year goals that I outlined at the beginning of the year, right?
John Wilson: So for the foreseeable future, you're going to be visiting once a month for four to five days.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah, the thing to understand is we're super adaptable and can reinvent ourselves pretty easily. That part
John Wilson: I got. Yeah.
Kylon Gienger: Oh, are you? Yeah. I guess once a month is what's currently that's like in the calendar, but really whatever is needed will be there.
Kylon Gienger: We were
Teliah Gienger (2): literally just talking the other day about, Oh, I might need to go over there for a week and then swap. Like he goes over there for a week and then,
Kylon Gienger: we'll do whatever we need to do. And we have a house there in Missoula. Like we, we love it in Montana and we love that team. Like I'm dead serious.
Kylon Gienger: When I say I would trust anybody on that team, all of our technicians to watch my daughter, like unconditionally, they're, they are really good people. I love them to death. And so I just, I love to be over there and be involved. And it's, I want to make that business great. And I think we can, cause Missoula is still quite small, but it's growing rapidly and we're growing.
Kylon Gienger: About at the same pace. And I think we can easily become probably the top plumbing company in the area there over the next five years or so. I honestly believe that, and these guys have built a great foundation for that. So it's I genuinely love that business. I want to make it a great case study.
Kylon Gienger: And because of that, I'm very intentional. We probably could be growing it a lot faster than we are. But those guys are like we have 150 reviews. Now all five star we have one, one, one star review, not even a customer of ours. Somebody that it's a long story, but not really justified every other, all 149 other reviews.
Kylon Gienger: They're all five star cause it's just such a rockstar team. So we've chosen to grow that company. Slowly and go for more quality over quantity. And, I'm okay with that. Where Herliman is the opposite. They've gone for quantity over quality over the years. And now we're trying to rein in that quality a bit more still grow fast, but it's interesting.
Kylon Gienger: Each business is like getting to know a person to me. It's each one has a very unique personality and all these different dynamics, and I just, I love that process that you can't treat. Any business the same right across the board.
John Wilson: Yeah. So what does this look like next?
Kylon Gienger: Frankly, dude, that's why I follow you.
Kylon Gienger: Nice.
Kylon Gienger: You're one of the folks that I like to talk to. And I need more like you who are, one, two, three, max five years ahead of where I want to be. So that sounds
John Wilson: like more deals because that's what I do.
Teliah Gienger (2): I already have my next two deals lined up. I say my next two deals, but it's
John Wilson: well come on, let's go.
John Wilson: What do we got?
Teliah Gienger (2): No, I'm not kidding. We've been chatting already with a company in Helena, a plumbing company that's like the size is in between
Kylon Gienger: They do 3. 5 I
Teliah Gienger (2): think they
Kylon Gienger: were like 4 last year 4 billion a year So a decent size
Teliah Gienger (2): So they're in Helena and then I actually just got a lead on an HVAC company in Missoula that I'm like, I'm going to reach out to and word
Kylon Gienger: of we've done a lot of good in that plumbing company in Missoula.
Kylon Gienger: So it's amazing. You get in your foot in the door with one company and the seller really just come to you and other people
John Wilson: start talking to you. Yeah.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. So we've got that. So what's next is more deals.
Teliah Gienger (2): After we stabilize, of course, this year.
Kylon Gienger: And I'm extremely interested in the shared services model, which we have done, frankly, zero work on besides a lot of just thinking.
John Wilson: Oh, it's hard to do with your current structure. Makes more sense after Tay's two deals.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah, exactly.
John Wilson: Makes a
Kylon Gienger: lot of sense. Looking at folks like you like you and others like you have really inspired us in that. So that's the direction we'd like to head. Yeah. Because the Griffin, Griffith.
Kylon Gienger: Brothers.
John Wilson: Yeah, Griffin.
Kylon Gienger: I listened to that episode that
John Wilson: podcast.
Kylon Gienger: So you're like
John Wilson: life changing episode. It's the best hour that I've ever spent in my life except for getting married. Yeah. Yeah.
Kylon Gienger: Anyways, that's where we're at. Yeah.
John Wilson: All right. Some more deals. So when do you think the next one happens?
Kylon Gienger: We've been planning on I'd love to get that plumbing company in Helena under LOI before the end of this year. That's what we've said. We still do hold that with an open hand because one of my greatest fears because I've seen a lot of I guess people I admire in business, I've seen their downfall because of this, one of my greatest fears is having shiny object syndrome and just jumping into something else before I can really stabilize the thing I'm on.
Kylon Gienger: And right now, the two businesses we have, like we've got really good people, like the management layer, they're really solid, but I feel like they still need us. They still need us to lean into the day to day and help them build the business and build the right. Kind of structure and bedrock to continue to grow and scale.
Kylon Gienger: And I'm not willing to go on to the next deal. How much I may want to until I feel really confident that these other two are really solid. Or I just, I don't think I could sleep at night. I wouldn't be keeping my word, frankly, but I'm very motivated to make that, towards the end of this year, we're able to move on to the next deal for sure.
Teliah Gienger (2): We're pushing pretty hard so that can happen.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. Cause these other guys in hell, I like, they're just, again, they're fantastic. We really connect well with a lot of these trades company owners that are ready to retire. They're just, they're such great people, salt of the earth, just humble. And these guys have been great.
Kylon Gienger: They're like voluntarily. Sending us their P and L's every few months to update us. Like here's how the company's doing. Here's what things are going. Like I sent them, Merry Christmas. Like we keep in touch and build that relationship and it's going to culminate in a sale at some point.
Teliah Gienger (2): They're like willing to wait, which is cool. Like they've just, we've told them our timeline and they're like. Yeah, that sounds great. Like we'll just, yeah, they
Kylon Gienger: want to wait for us. And I have 100 percent confidence if they were approached by another buyer, like they, I haven't made them sign anything, but they'd tell us first, we'd have a shot at it, right?
Kylon Gienger: We've been there. We visited them and met their team and stuff like that. It's.
Teliah Gienger (2): How far
John Wilson: is Helena from your current stuff?
Teliah Gienger (2): An hour and a half.
John Wilson: That's an hour and a half from Missoula or so. How far is it from Spokane?
Teliah Gienger (2): Four and a half
John Wilson: hours. Oh, all right. Hour and a half. The wrong way. But
Teliah Gienger (2): I, like our hub being more out of Missoula and then being like in that central place and then we can go to whichever direction we need to,
Kylon Gienger: we really gravitate towards
Kylon Gienger: montana, Wyoming. We'll have a ranch out there someday,
John Wilson: so it'd be neat to in the
Teliah Gienger (2): middle of nowhere.
John Wilson: I got that from Kylan's hair. Like I'm already imagining you just like on a horse.
Teliah Gienger (2): Oh my God.
John Wilson: Yeah. Like very Fabio. I can totally see it. This is great. This is great. Oh my gosh.
John Wilson: So with two companies, like 90 employees, right? No, I think it's a little less.
Teliah Gienger (2): It's like maybe 78 total,
John Wilson: 78 now,
Kylon Gienger: maybe 90. Once we hit the busy season in a couple more months. Yeah,
John Wilson: Probably gotcha. All right. So when does shared serve? I'm really fascinated by people. I just talked to Jake Wakely, his episode, like I've brought up his episode like 15 times with people because I think his episode is dope.
John Wilson: And it's dropping in a couple of weeks. And it's like a guy, he bought a moving company in Texas. He's about to buy another moving company. And he's also about to buy a property management company. So like he's really quickly going from this small business owner to a holding company owner rapidly.
John Wilson: And he's like figuring it out, which you guys are in the same boat. I just think this whole like birth of a holding company is fascinating. So walk me through how you guys think about that, when the transition will happen and when you think you'll be launching like a shared services or type of concept.
Kylon Gienger: I am still figuring it out. I
John Wilson: to be quiet. What does T think? Tay, she's got a thinking face on it. Yeah, you do. You
Kylon Gienger: have
Teliah Gienger (2): I would
Kylon Gienger: more in depth thoughts,
Teliah Gienger (2): I would think, and I don't know, I haven't really given this a ton of thought, but I would think once we have the third company, it would make sense to have at least the structure in place when we onboard the third company for a shared services company.
John Wilson: Yeah, I, no. What do you think? Maybe, I have no idea.
Kylon Gienger: I'm really interested in the conference coming up too, because I'm seriously considering going. We might
John Wilson: both go. It should be fun.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. I think it'd be a blast, but I just, I want to learn from more people that have done this because there doesn't seem to be one, size fits all type of playbook.
Kylon Gienger: It's so
John Wilson: there's a few different models. We take a really involved model. Tim Ludwig did a really. This was like two years ago. I can't believe I still remember this. It's just, it's relevant every day, but it's like the five different types of holding companies. I it's bookmarked somewhere. I'll find it.
John Wilson: I'll text it to you. But yeah, it's like on the very far side is like Warren Buffett who buys a billion dollar company and then Might talk to the guy who runs it like once every two years or something. And right here is basically a rollup. So it's a lot more similar to what we're doing where it's very industry focused, like we have our expertise, we have our niche and we're going to execute on that niche.
John Wilson: And then the other three sort of fall somewhere in the middle of there with how decentralized you are and what you bring in house or don't bring in house. So yeah, people like pick really interesting models all throughout that. Where even if you're diversified Berkshire style, they might still get involved.
John Wilson: Who am I talking to that does this? Oh, Daryl Starr, Justin Turner, Sam Razzati, some of these like classic small PE guys. They're buying these companies and, but they still get involved with like financial reporting. They still get involved with some HR, some marketing, which doesn't look very different from what I do.
John Wilson: In a roll up, which is, I thought was totally interesting because I like you're in five different industries, like totally different, like manufacturing, internet marketing, like skydiving, like they have nothing to do with each other. So I thought that was interesting. More to your point about there is no right way.
John Wilson: It's just like what fits.
Kylon Gienger: Yeah. And I guess I'm personally really interested in going more than a diversified route. Cause when you look at our history, it's been in a bunch of different industries and moving forward. Like I just, I love the business of business. And like I said, getting to know new businesses, like getting to know new personality.
Kylon Gienger: It's okay I can only learn so much from so many HVAC or plumbing companies. Now I'm really interested. Like I would love to own a pub someday, dude. Like I don't care if it makes money. I want it to break even that'd be fine. I just want to walk in and know that I own it and have a beard on the house.
Kylon Gienger: Cause you know, I'm the house, right? I want that. And I want to find a way to make it work. And it's just, it's the joy and the pain that we've chosen in life. But frankly, I just, I don't know what that looks like. I look at folks like you and, other people I talk to and. I learn as much as I can when we get there, I think I'll know and I'll just figure it out because we have everything else right now.
Kylon Gienger: The big focus is we're just, we're so new in this very large business. Like I've never run a, the largest business I ever run was barely over a million, now like here's 12 minutes, we can probably hit 14 million this year, probably on track to do that. With just the HVAC company. So not even counting the plumbing company and then the others we want to apply.
Kylon Gienger: So that's all new to me that I don't, I'm learning every day how to operate a company like that. And honestly, I'm leading through and Jim Collins talks about this in good to great, which I'm reading again. I'm really leading through just asking questions like. 75 percent of what I do, I go into the office and I just all sit probably half the day with all the different managers in the different departments.
Kylon Gienger: And I just, I ask a bunch of questions and I take a bunch of notes and I just BS and talk with them and we figure stuff out. We're trying to understand what's going wrong. So we can fix it, what's going right. So we can double down on it and what are underperforming parts of the company where we might need to get rid of and reallocate resources.
Kylon Gienger: And that's where we need to be and where our focus needs to be. And then, up here in my mind, somewhere is this idea like, okay, I'm thinking bigger than this. I'm thinking shared services, holding company, how do we build something to where we can buy, three, four, five of these things a year, I feel pretty confident that the answers will come.
Kylon Gienger: Probably over the next
Teliah Gienger (2): year, I think
Kylon Gienger: for sure. The next year, probably within the next six months or so, we're just not in that head space yet. I'd love to be on a, like a year from now. I think I could provide some more values of that.
John Wilson: I'll bring you back on. You're like right at the size where it starts to matter.
John Wilson: I'm starting to realize that. Was it you that I talked to you about this or was it somebody else? There was somebody else I was just talking to you about
Kylon Gienger: this. I don't think it was me. We're in a group text, right? You'll do a few paragraphs on, here's like the right ratio or something like that.
Kylon Gienger: I'm like, I'm legit screenshotting that stuff and
John Wilson: my one note with some searchable keywords. I think with the shared services part, like you bring on these key roles at really specific points. So like HR, you bring on a 50 and HR doesn't really look like HR, like how you probably think of HR.
John Wilson: Like benefit shopping, like doing the actual HR work. Although that is important. Like HR at 50 is recruitment, like pure play their entire job is bodies in the door. Yeah. Cause nothing else matters besides getting to a hundred, right? So then at 50, it really matters. And then at 80, you have to clean up your finance because your finance becomes a, like just total mess.
John Wilson: And complicated because you have two locations across two different with two different tax rates. Dude, and not just that,
Kylon Gienger: We're in residential, commercial, service. How do
John Wilson: you do rolling quarter cash flow forecasts? How do you do budgets? How do you talk to your GMs? How do you know who hit projections?
John Wilson: How do you incentivize? Finance gets so complicated so fast at that 80, basically the moment you had a second location, but also around that 80 point, because you're just dealing with Some freaking money. It's like a million dollars a month. That's a few bucks. Yeah. But you're right at that, like sweet spot of building this thing out.
John Wilson: So this is cool.
Kylon Gienger: That's why literally right before this, I was talking to Tay about the Holdco conference coming up. Tay, you guys should totally come. It's going to be great. I know I was talking to her about those. I don't love conferences, but it's like this one. It could probably be worth it.
Kylon Gienger: I'm sure like an unfriends like the main idea.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Kylon Gienger: Sold it.
John Wilson: I know it's not a conference at all. It's totally an unfriends.
Kylon Gienger: But I was talking to her about exactly what you said. It's I have this overwhelming sense that the stage we're at. The very worst thing I could do is not have some sort of consistent network.
Kylon Gienger: Like my biggest fear is making too many decisions and moves right now. Yeah. Without having this council of people that are ahead of where I'm at, because that scares me to death, man. I remember talking when we first bought like the plumbing company, like I was lucky enough to get in touch with folks like you and like rich and I remember I had an hour long conversation with rich and it just.
Kylon Gienger: It blew my, I took three pages of notes. He probably doesn't know it, but like I recorded the whole conversation so I could go back and listen to it. Sorry, Rich.
Kylon Gienger: I've told him it probably three times. Dude, I'm grateful for that. Cause it set the stage for the next six months in that company. And it helped us grow like by 60 percent in three months, like really rapidly. I need that for this next round. I'm very aware.
John Wilson: Yeah, I think, we're all on the same page.
John Wilson: We're all looking at what's next, we're in the stage where the decisions that I make today for real estate or executive hires or culture, those are the 50 million and 100 million dollar decisions. That's the decision that's in the next three years, do we hit 50 million or do we not? Because of the stuff that I'm thinking about right now.
John Wilson: And just being surrounded by people in the same space, we're slightly ahead, is huge. Yeah. Yeah. Very beneficial.
Kylon Gienger: You're the average of the five people you hang around the most. Those are words I've lived by and it seems to work out.
John Wilson: Seems to work out. Okay. I have kept you guys a few extra minutes, but I've loved every minute of this.
John Wilson: This has been awesome. Same. All right. So we end every episode with what's your single biggest challenge right now? So what's your single biggest challenge right now? I know it's cliche for the trades. You can give two answers, by the way. Like I'd love both your single biggest challenges.
John Wilson: I'll say labor and you say vehicles.
John Wilson: All right. This feels like cheating.
Kylon Gienger: My answer,
Teliah Gienger (2): labor and vehicles, I think our biggest challenge with this company in particular, at least that I feel like I see regularly. Is just how unorganized it is, or it was, and trying to organize it in the best way possible with all the moving pieces.
Teliah Gienger (2): It is so complex and so dynamic that it's not just like a, okay, we'll do this one thing and it's going to poof, automatically everything you have. You're dealing
John Wilson: with like change management now across 70 people.
Teliah Gienger (2): Yeah. That's
John Wilson: complicated. Like literally changing how you sign your signatures on an email. Is it?
John Wilson: Yeah. I hear you
Kylon Gienger: have six different managers that every signature is different.
John Wilson: Yeah, I know. We actually just went through this and it was literally a training. Yeah. So
Teliah Gienger (2): I think that's the biggest thing is just it's just this big old, like moving amoeba of. Parts and you're just trying to like, organize it the best way you can and until Kyle and the other day, I was like, sometimes it feels like you're just trying to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg just a little bit.
Teliah Gienger (2): And it's slow.
John Wilson: That's a huge challenge. That's a good one. That's a good one. And labor and vehicles. That's a good one too, but it's also bro, that's a bit of a freebie. You
Teliah Gienger (2): gotta give a better challenge than that. I'm sorry.
Kylon Gienger: I only say that because that's literally all I've worked on all day is just recruiting and looking for more box trucks and vans and like pickups.
Teliah Gienger (2): But high level, like what's your biggest challenge?
Kylon Gienger: High level. Honestly, at this point, it's dialing in the finance. It's just like you said, once you hit around 80 people that, and especially two companies, the financial end of things, it becomes very important. Previous owner of this company, great guy built a great company, didn't pay a ton of attention to the margins and really building systematic processes around keeping those consistent.
Kylon Gienger: And so Yeah. Cool. It's just all over the place. And so basically trying to, we've been raising prices. We've been building in lieu of service Titan, which we're in the process of implementing in this, a company of this size, it's crazy, dude. They're like rolling out the red carpet in a way I've never experienced.
Kylon Gienger: Integration is. Four or five months or something crazy. It's going to be crazy, but in lieu of that we're rebuilding spreadsheets for folks and trying to get everybody on the same page. As far as what our financial targets are and new pricing and the margins they need to build into their estimating and stuff, that's my biggest challenge right now, because in my mind, it's very key, this company had a really good 2020, 2021 did not look so great because they, they Didn't focus on that stuff at all.
Kylon Gienger: And I will not make the same mistakes in 2022. And if you don't watch those things, it is very disorganized at this company. If you don't watch those things that like, it's a company killer. And so I wouldn't consider my strongest, like I'm not super, super strong in finance. I know enough to be dangerous, but it's not like my area of expertise.
Kylon Gienger: And we don't have a solid financial controller or anything like that yet. So that's my biggest challenge right now for the next month or two.
John Wilson: These are two big challenges. I'm sure you guys will solve them both, but those are good. Those are like, totally. Those are good challenges. Yeah, like labor and vehicles, man.
John Wilson: Really? That's what you brought to the table? I know. Nationwide. Yeah. Alright, this was totally awesome. I enjoyed this a lot. I appreciate you guys hanging out for a few extra minutes. By a few, I mean 40 more minutes. If people want to catch up with you, where can they find you?
Kylon Gienger: I would reach out to probably my email.
Kylon Gienger: So it's Kylan ginger at gmail. com. K Y L O N G I E N G E R at acquire a week. We coach acquisition entrepreneurs, and I still have a lot of those people reaching out and I'm chatting with them today. They're asking questions. They're doing their first acquisition. I honestly love that stuff. So I want folk, if anybody's listening and you want to just chat about this stuff, I love to geek out about it.
Kylon Gienger: And I love to. Take the time to chat with you. So just shoot me an email and we'll set up a time. Awesome. Yeah.
John Wilson: Thanks for coming on guys. Thank you.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
