A first-generation immigrant built a home-service empire on the one thing his industry refused to touch, marketing, then sold it in six and a half years for $108 million.
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A home-service contractor can out-scale competitors decades older by treating marketing as a core discipline instead of an afterthought, going all-in on bets most operators are too undercapitalized or too cautious to make, and rebuilding personal leadership style every time the company outgrows the last version of it.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You run a trades or home-service business stuck under $2M in revenue and are afraid to spend real money on marketing.
You're scaling past $10-25M and still can't let go of daily operational control.
You're weighing a private equity exit and want a concrete sense of how equity rollover, quality-of-earnings audits, and broker processes actually work.
You want a first-generation, zero-capital founder story, not just a tactics list.
SKIP IF…
You want a SaaS or tech-startup playbook. This is home-service trades specific: HVAC, plumbing, electrical.
You're looking for a step-by-step operating manual. Most of the value here is the mindset and sales-aggression story, not documented systems.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
A Mexican-born founder who was smuggled across the border as a child, paid rent to his father at 15, and worked his way up through supply-house and HVAC jobs eventually built NextGen Air Conditioning from a garage into a $108M exit in six and a half years. His edge was treating marketing as a core discipline the trades ignored, including a $2.3M six-month, 250-billboard bet that mostly paid off by attracting top talent, not just customers. He nearly ran out of cash at $32M revenue from never reading a P&L, then hired real financial leadership, went through a competitive private equity sale process, and rolled 24% of his equity forward instead of cashing out. He's now building a thermostat company, Nuve, aimed at fixing why contractors lose 92% of their customers.
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Cold open: the headline number. $108M revenue, sold in six and a half years, framed as one of the fastest paces in the trades.
01:32 – 03:40
02 · Born in Mexico City
Childhood in Mexico after his mother's death at age two, raised in part by aunts and uncles until his father sent for him.
03:40 – 05:56
03 · Smuggled Across the Border
Crossing into the US through San Diego on borrowed documents, then learning English by full immersion in an American elementary school.
05:56 – 08:36
04 · His Father's Absence and Alcoholism
A complicated relationship with a father who was in and out of the household, and how watching him work brutal jobs shaped a work ethic.
08:36 – 13:22
05 · Paying Rent, Then a Fake ID
Being charged rent at 15, getting evicted for missing a payment, and getting a fake ID to work full time at McDonald's.
13:22 – 16:04
06 · The HVAC Job That Changed Him
A job at an HVAC supply house exposed him to hundreds of contractors and planted the first curiosity about owning a trades business.
16:04 – 20:34
07 · Why Every Founder Needs an Apprenticeship
His four-year apprenticeship framework: work for a $5M, a $20M, and a $100M company before starting your own.
20:34 – 27:53
08 · Home Comfort USA... Then Betrayal
Co-founding his first air conditioning company on a handshake fifty-fifty deal, then being denied his equity when he asked for it in writing.
27:53 – 37:48
09 · Founding NextGen for Revenge
Starting NextGen Air Conditioning and deliberately poaching his old partner's staff one by one until the old company shrank.
37:48 – 45:36
10 · $9.8M in Year One
Reinvesting every dollar of profit and credit into marketing and hiring during the earliest hyper-growth phase, treating growth like a chess game.
45:36 – 56:26
11 · The 250-Billboard Gamble
A six-month, roughly $2.3M commitment to 250 Southern California billboards, a bet that could have bankrupted the company but instead drove both customers and top talent.
56:26 – 1:01:19
12 · From Hustler to Leader
The psychological shift required past $25M revenue, from dictating tasks to asking the executive team what they need from him.
1:01:19 – 1:05:27
13 · $32M Revenue, $800 in the Bank
A near cash-flow collapse exposed that the company had no real accounting function, triggering the hire of a financial controller and CFO.
1:05:27 – 1:14:52
14 · Private Equity Comes Knocking
Unsolicited interest from brokers and PE firms led to a formal sale process, a quality-of-earnings audit, and 162 offers within 24 hours.
1:14:52 – 1:22:15
15 · The Wire Hits, Then What?
The moment the $108M wire landed, immediately giving money away to family, and having a next project already lined up to avoid the post-exit void.
1:22:15 – 1:28:57
16 · The Thermostat and Generational Peace
Building Nuve, a branded smart thermostat meant to fix contractor retention, and reframing the ultimate goal as generational peace rather than just wealth.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
94% of contractors never break $2M in revenue because the trade's old-school culture treats sales as taboo and defaults to word-of-mouth.
A six-month, roughly $2.3M all-or-nothing bet on 250 billboards was meant to generate customer calls, but its biggest return turned out to be flooding the company with job applicants from every competitor in the region.
Past $25M in revenue, a founder's job flips from telling people what to do to asking his executive team what they need from him.
The company hit $32M in revenue with only $800 in the payroll account, because nobody on the team had ever built or read a profit and loss statement.
Average contractor customer retention in home services runs below 8%, because homeowners forget who serviced their unit within about a year of the job.
A competitive sale process brought in 162 acquisition offers within 24 hours of going to market, once a formal quality-of-earnings audit and deal deck existed.
Rolling 24% of exit equity forward into the buyer's next fund, instead of the standard 5-10%, is a bet that the combined company's stock will be worth three to five times more on the next sale.
Revenge fueled roughly a decade of aggressive growth after a former partner refused to formalize a promised 50% equity split, but the founder says that motivation runs out once the company outgrows the original grudge.
Testing a marketing channel with too small a sample, like 5,000 flyers producing 10 calls, isn't a failed test; it's a sample too small to draw any conclusion from.
The recommended path into trades entrepreneurship is a four-year apprenticeship: a year at a $5M company for culture, a $20M company for sales systems, and a $100M company for financial structure, before starting your own.
The industry's average EBITDA margin sits around 10-20% because most operations are still built on heavy human labor for dispatch, CSRs, and accounting; a fully automated model could push that closer to 40-70%.
Micromanaging a capable executive team strips their autonomy, and autonomy is one of the core drivers of internal motivation once a business is too large for one person to run by force of will.
Takeaway
Marketing turned an invisible trade into a $108M exit.
WHAT TO LEARN
The gap between a $2M contractor and a $108M exit isn't operational skill, it's the willingness to spend real money on marketing, hire an executive team you eventually can't control day to day, and rebuild your own leadership style every time the business outgrows the last version of you.
01Selling His Company for $108M
Selling a home-service business for $108M on $108M revenue is a rare pace in the trades; most operators who reach that scale take twenty to thirty years, not six and a half.
The founder credits the entire outcome to one specialization: treating marketing as a core competency in an industry that historically ignored it.
02Born in Mexico City
A tough childhood becomes fuel only when paired with people who show up consistently, even imperfectly; the relatives who kept the family fed mattered as much as the hardship did.
Growing up without a stable parent doesn't have to be framed as tragedy; perspective is a choice, and framing hardship as normal rather than unfair preserves the drive to build something later.
03Smuggled Across the Border
Learning a new language and culture in months, not years, comes from full immersion with no separate track; being dropped into English-only classrooms forced fluency inside a school year.
An unfair-seeming disadvantage early in life can become the exact training ground for handling pressure and uncertainty later in business.
04His Father's Absence and Alcoholism
Watching a parent work a brutal job every day without excuse builds a work ethic that outlasts resentment; the model matters more than the relationship's quality.
Understanding why a parent failed you doesn't erase the damage, but it converts blame into something closer to acceptance and forward motion.
05Paying Rent, Then a Fake ID
A hard deadline with real consequences at age 15 teaches accountability faster than any lecture; the lesson was give your word, keep it, or face the cost.
Getting a fake ID to work a full-time job instead of buy alcohol reframes what rule-breaking looks like when survival, not rebellion, is the motive.
06The HVAC Job That Changed Him
Watching contractors roll into a supply house in six-figure trucks and asking direct questions about their business turned curiosity into an unpaid industry education.
Working the supply side of an industry exposes the entire competitive landscape faster than working inside a single company would.
07Why Every Founder Needs an Apprenticeship
The recommended path into a trade is a four-year sequence: a year at a $5M company for culture, a $20M company for sales systems, and a $100M company for structure, before starting your own.
Each revenue tier of a company teaches something the others don't; small companies model culture and grit, mid-size companies model sales systems, large companies model financial structure.
Buying an established business from a retiring owner rarely works the way online gurus pitch it; most sellers who are genuinely profitable have no real incentive to hand over control.
08Home Comfort USA... Then Betrayal
A verbal fifty-fifty partnership with no legal documentation isn't a partnership; it only protects whoever controls the paperwork and the narrative.
Get equity agreements in writing before scaling a company, not after; waiting until leverage has shifted to the other party means that conversation happens from weakness.
09Founding NextGen for Revenge
Revenge is a legitimate short-term fuel source, it drove roughly a decade of aggressive growth here, but it has a ceiling and eventually needs to be replaced by a different internal driver.
Hiring away a former employer's installers, technicians, and sales staff one at a time is a direct way to compress years of team-building into months.
A founder who believes he built a company alone tends to under-invest in retention, which makes that company vulnerable to a determined competitor poaching it piece by piece.
10$9.8M in Year One
In the earliest stage of a business, treating every dollar of profit as reinvestment fuel accelerates growth, but maximizing credit lines and cards to do it adds real solvency risk.
Ignorance of financial fundamentals doesn't block early growth if sales and marketing are aggressive enough, but it becomes a serious liability once revenue scales past roughly $30M.
11The 250-Billboard Gamble
Advertising in statistically insignificant amounts produces noise, not data; a test has to be large enough to draw a real conclusion before being judged a failure.
Committing to a six-month, roughly $2.3M all-or-nothing marketing campaign is a legitimate strategy specifically because most competitors are too undercapitalized or too risk-averse to match it.
A branding campaign's biggest return can show up somewhere it wasn't budgeted for; the billboards were built to generate customer calls, but their larger effect was flooding the company with job applicants.
Revenue effects from brand marketing are frequently impossible to directly attribute, but a marketer has to trust the aggregate lift even without clean attribution data.
12From Hustler to Leader
Past roughly $25M in revenue, the CEO's job inverts; instead of dictating tasks, the leader has to ask each department head what they need, then get out of the way.
Micromanaging a capable executive team removes their autonomy, which kills the internal motivation that actually drives performance at that level.
Feeling useless as a CEO past a certain revenue tier is often a sign the business is functioning correctly, not a sign that leadership has failed.
13$32M Revenue, $800 in the Bank
A company can hit eight figures in revenue and still have almost no cash on hand if nobody on the team has ever built or read a profit and loss statement.
Underpaying or skipping a dedicated accounting function at scale is a hidden tax that eventually shows up as a cash-flow crisis.
Bringing in outside expertise to expose blind spots is often what triggers the shift from pure hustle to real financial management.
14Private Equity Comes Knocking
A quality-of-earnings audit and a structured deal package are what convert people think we're worth a lot into an actual sellable process.
Running a competitive sale process gives a founder real leverage on both price and deal terms, including how much equity to roll forward.
Rolling a larger share of equity forward into the buyer's next fund is a bet on a second payout, and only makes sense if the founder trusts the buyer's ability to keep growing the combined company.
The best private equity partners defer to the operator on how to fix identified problems instead of assuming their financial expertise translates into operational expertise.
15The Wire Hits, Then What?
Having a next project already in motion before an exit closes prevents the common post-exit void where purpose disappears along with the daily grind.
Naming the specific risk of a life-changing payout in advance is a more useful plan than assuming discipline will show up automatically once the money arrives.
16The Thermostat and Generational Peace
A product that solves for who does the customer call when the branded device fails addresses a much bigger underlying problem: contractor retention in home services can run below 8%.
The long-term goal for many founders isn't wealth for its own sake but removing money as a source of fear for the next generation, a distinct target from simply getting rich.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The profit measure buyers use to value and price an acquisition.
Quality of earnings (QoE)
An independent financial audit that verifies a company's reported profit is real and sustainable, typically required before a private equity buyer will make a serious offer.
Rolling equity forward
Instead of cashing out 100% of a sale, the seller reinvests part of the proceeds as stock in the buyer's new combined entity, betting on a second, larger payout when that entity sells again.
P&L (profit and loss statement)
A financial report showing revenue, costs, and resulting profit over a period. The founder in this video admits he had never seen his company's until it was doing $32 million a year.
AP/AR
Accounts payable and accounts receivable. The functions that track money a company owes to vendors and money customers owe the company.
CSR
Customer service representative. In home services, the staff who answer inbound calls and book service appointments.
Home-service trades
Businesses that install and repair physical systems inside homes, such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, historically built on word-of-mouth reputation rather than paid marketing.
1:03:40toolSFMP (business brokerage that ran the NextGen sale process)
1:04:20toolCLA (accounting firm that ran the quality-of-earnings audit)
Quotables
Lines you could clip.
1:01:30
“The hustler died, and the businessman was born.”
Tight, self-contained line marking the exact turning point of the story→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
33:30
“I couldn't wait to grow my company and walk into the same room and him be the small guy.”
Raw, visceral revenge motivation that most founders won't say out loud→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
59:15
“If you're feeling useless past 25, past 50, past a 100, you're doing your job.”
Counterintuitive leadership one-liner, easy to caption on its own→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:01:10
“I don't wanna be the CEO, man. The CMO is where it's at.”
Contrarian statement from someone who actually sold for $108M→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
1:15:50
“Getting rid of it, that's where you're like, this is what I'm talking about, this is what I live for.”
Unexpected reframe of what motivates him after a nine-figure exit→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
37:10
“Why can't a Mexican American come into the United States as an immigrant, go up and build a multibillion dollar empire and be up there talking with those dudes?”
The clearest statement of his long-term identity-driven ambition→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:15:00
“The wire hit on a Thursday morning. I continued my day. The next day, I went to work.”
Grounded, unglamorous reaction to a $108M payout, cuts against the usual exit narrative→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 16:04denseOrigin story: Mexico, immigration, absent father
20:34 – 27:53denseHome Comfort USA and the equity betrayal
27:53 – 37:48steadyFounding NextGen out of revenge
37:48 – 45:36steadyEarly scaling and the $9.8M first year
45:36 – 56:26denseThe 250-billboard marketing bet
56:26 – 1:05:27denseLeadership shift from hustler to executive
1:05:27 – 1:14:52densePrivate equity sale process and deal terms
1:14:52 – 1:22:15steadyLife after the wire and what's next
1:22:15 – 1:28:57steadyNuve thermostat and generational wealth philosophy
The Script
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Israel, in 2022, how much did you sell your company for? A little bit over 100 mil.
It's tad bit. And when you were doing that, how much revenue was the company doing exactly? 108 mil.
Nice. And so revenue. From what I understand,
you did that in six years? Six and a half years. Yeah.
Right? Which is, in your industry, I believe, one of the most insane paces that's ever got. A record, to be honest with you.
Um, I've known companies that have sold for more, but it's taken them twenty, thirty years to to get there. But How did you do it so quickly? Marketing sales, bro.
What you're what you specialize in. Well, you you you're, you know, your your whole content is marketing and sales, and that's what, you know, my heart's we're just talking about it right now.
My heart as a as an operator, I'm a CMO. Like, I'm a pretty good CEO, and I'm a good, you know, sales driver, but, like, not nowhere near how your, you know, your your your sales competence and the way you speak about sales. When you talk about sales, it's like you can tell that that there's love between you and sales.
That's how I talk about marketing. Yeah. So I think it was my gift to to the operation was definitely marketing.
For, you know, the longest twenty, thirty years, the contracting world has sucked at marketing. Like, nobody really knows a good, you know, air conditioning or plumbing or roofer. Like, everybody's just been word-of-mouth or little, you know, direct mail pieces here and there, and everybody's got their guy kinda thing.
We kinda blew up in in 2017, 2018 when we put up, you know, 290 something billboards in Southern California,
and people were just like, what the like, what is that? And then people just started noting. And I wanna circle back to that story because what I wanna do on this podcast is I really wanna talk about the entire journey from your come up story Yeah.
To basically selling your company and everything in between. So zero to 1,000,000, one to ten, ten to fifty, fifty to a hundred, hundred to exit, And then ultimately, what you're doing next, which is Nuvais.
Right? Yep. But I wanna start at the very beginning.
And so you were born in Mexico City. Yep. And you had a tough upbringing.
I did. So tell me kind of, like, walk me through the whole story behind that and also how you think that shaped you later as an entrepreneur. Me and my brothers were born in, uh, Mexico.
Um, you know? Look. When I talk about my past and when I talk about my upbringing, like, I I I I don't wanna, like, sound not like I'm, you know, trying to play a victim card or trying to, like, you know, get some kind of pity from you guys.
Like, I had a really fucked up up upbringing, but that doesn't mean, like, I was, like, crying all the time. And, you know, I was like, oh, poor child kinda thing. Like, it was a tough upbringing, but to us, like, that was normal.
Like, you know, I've never had a mom. My mom passed away when I was two. So, like, to me, they're like, oh, man.
Poor poor you. You've never had a mom. It's like, not really because I don't know what it like, I have nothing to compare it to.
Yeah. I have nothing to compare it to. So it's it's not like I'm like, oh, man.
I never had a mom. What am I gonna do? It's like, no.
I've never had a mom, so I I I don't know what what it is to have. And my dad was in and out of our life too. So, like, I've never had both parents in it, so I never had anything to miss with it.
So don't think that I'm like here, like, oh my god. Poor child kinda thing. Dude, I had a badass up green green.
Yes. It was tough. And, yeah, you know, a lot of things that happened in in in my journey shaped who I am.
But at the end of the day, like, bro, I had badass cousins in Mexico. My, you know, yeah, you know, my aunts kinda shuffled us around trying to, like, find a place for, uh, you know, who could afford to feed us in Mexico. But, like, at the like, I could still remember me and my brothers were you know, me and my brother me and my older brother were in Mexico, and we're, like, fucking playing soccer.
We were, you know, going to school. We we never skipped a meal thanks to my thanks to my aunt and uncle. So it was it was a tough upgrade bringing.
We we were there till we were, like, um, five, six years old. And then my dad came over here to The United States. He was working at a chrome polishing company, which now I now me and my older brother own.
And he worked there for, like, you know, four, five years right after my mom passed away, stacked up some, uh, some money, and then he, um, he brought us to The United States, man. You you know, we got smuggled in through, um, The US border through through San Diego.
Um, back in the day, don't know if you guys know this, but, know, you could walk in with a birth certificate. They didn't, you know, they didn't. There was no way of verifying who owned that birth certificate or anything.
So it was just two, you know, two older white, uh, white people. And me and my brother were in the back of suburban.
They showed him these certificates, and they let us pass through. And and how did you manage you didn't even know English when you first went to, like, school and elementary school. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. How did you even manage to, like, overcome that?
It was weird, bro. And I still remember that feeling of walking into school because, like, the kids would, like, be talking, and I'm like, am I in the wrong place? Because, like, I remember being in Mexico and everybody was normal, and everybody's cool, and everybody was, like, you know, respectful, and they you know?
And then I walk into The United States and, you know, we're in, like, you know, third, fourth grade, I think we were. And you walk in and, like, the teachers are speaking English, the kids are speaking English, and they're coming up to you, and they're, like, you know, trying to play with you or trying to introduce themselves.
And you're just like like, what am I supposed to do? So I remember that. That was probably one of the toughest parts of of of coming into The United States, being so lost in the school system.
And then back then, it wasn't like, hey. This, you know, this class is only for Spanish people, this class and then the rest is like, everything was just kinda mixed in. So, like, we had to learn English right away.
I dude, I I I could guarantee you, we probably learned English, like, where we could understand and kinda communicate. We had a thick accent, obviously. I I could probably tell you, like, in six to eight months, we were already communicating with the kids, playing around in the in the in the in the recess and, you know, just doing all that.
But, yeah, man, the it
was cool. The the the most kids in here in the in in where we grew up in in in the West Side Of Anaheim, they were just chill kids, man. They were all like us.
They were all you know, half of the school is Hispanic and half of the school is white. Hey. Really quick.
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So if you want it, link is in the description. We'll send it to your email. Now back to the video.
And I know you had a complicated relationship with your dad too from leaving early and everything. So explain that. And I'm curious how did that impact you as an entrepreneur later?
Because there's a saying that the
father story is always embedded in the son. And that's a very common thing with a lot of some of the biggest, most successful entrepreneurs that have lived. Elon Musk, he has a whole story like that too.
So I'm curious I'm curious for you know, to explain your relationship with your dad. Look. There was a pros and cons to my dad being in and out of our life.
I think he was, um, like, when I was in the midst of things, for sure, was pissed off. And, you know, I was like, what the fuck? He always leaves, and he always comes back whenever he wants.
So, like, I was I was pissed at him for, like, the longest time, but now that I'm an adult and I matured a little bit more, like, I look back and, like, my dad lost his dad and his mom when he was super young too. He was one of, like, nine boys and four and and four girls.
So there was, like, thirteen, fourteen kids in his family. He was the youngest one, and he got the short end of the stick. Like, his kid his brothers and sisters had to raise him, so he never really knew what a mom and dad was.
So I think that, like, I'm looking back at it. It's like, I used to be mad at him for coming in and out and being an alcoholic and just not pouring attention to us, but I can't blame him for something that he never was taught. Like, nobody ever told him, like, hey, son.
I love you. You. Or, hey, son.
You're doing a good job. Or, hey, man. Like, keep going.
You're a badass. Or, you know, nobody ever complimented it. So, like, I always looked at my dad, and when we were growing, he was always quiet.
He was super reserved. He was chill. Like, he he wasn't, like, you know, out there.
He was always happy, though. The the the times that I did see him or or that he didn't, uh, he was in our lives. He was just a happy dude.
You know what I'm saying? So I can't blame him. You know, that was the the the pros of it.
The the pros of my dad doing that is, dude, I saw my dad bust his ass for twenty, twenty five years, man. I saw my dad bust his fucking ass every day, you know, when when he was around four, five in the morning, hungover, sick, fevers, throwing up.
Like, I saw him do that every fucking day, bro. And that's what I think shape got me my my work ethic. Like, knowing that, like, there's no excuse.
If my dad could wake up at four in the morning and go to one of the dirtiest jobs in America and I don't know if you guys know what chrome polishing is, but these guys walk in just like how we're walking in, and they put on almost like a hazmat suit to be able to polish these rooms and chrome chrome these rooms. And they walk out, there's freaking grease and powder chrome powder and copper powder all over their skin and, you know, their fingernails and everything.
It just and and and I saw him do that for, you know, forever, bro. So it got me it got me it got me the the work ethic that I have now. There's no excuse for me not to wake up and go out there and and and and and try to make a living for myself or try to get a better future if my dad could do it for me.
And speaking of that, I think he made you pay rent when you were 16. Yeah. He did.
And then when you did it, what happened when you couldn't make the rent? He'd look. He he he he was such a blunt dude that, like, he wasn't sugarcoating anything.
Like, he told us from day one that we started working like, hey. $400 are gonna go for rent, and then the rest of you guys could keep. Like, I'm not gonna be here, you know, busting my ass and, you know, kinda the the tough dad scenario.
And he made us pay. And, look, I always blame him because I was 14.
You know? No. I was, like, 15, 16 years old when he did that to me.
I was bay I had been paying rent for two years already. So, like, to me, it's like you you have a 14, 15 year old paying you rent.
Like, you could cut him a slack. Right? But it but it also taught me that, hey.
We had a deal. Yeah. We had a deal.
The deal was, hey. You're gonna work, and you're gonna go to school full time, and you're gonna work full time, and you're gonna come, and you're gonna pay us $400 for you to live in this house, right, to to make sure that we because we we had an okay house at the time already. And, um, and we had a deal, and I broke that deal.
So for the longest time, I hated him for doing it because it's like, bro, give me a fucking break. I'm a four I'm a 15, 16 year old kid, bro. Yeah.
Like, $400. Like, I'm gonna pay you in a couple weeks.
And he's like, no, man. Get the fuck out of here. Like, if you're not gonna if you don't have my rent by tomorrow, then, you know, you don't have a spot to live in.
So it taught me to, hey. When you give your word to somebody, make sure that you come through with it. And if you're not gonna come through with it, they're like, there's gonna be consequences.
Yeah. You gotta be okay with the consequence because get at the end of the day, it's not like he said, oh, yeah. You know, I'm gonna charge you 400 and just pay me whenever you can.
He said, hey. This day this every every month at this day, you you gotta have my rent. And I did it for two years, two and a half years.
I had my rent. My brother my older brother paid rent. My I think my the only one that didn't pay rent was my younger sister, which, you know, she was too young to do.
But we all we all we all had a pitch in to be able to to be able to, uh, had a have a kind of decent living. And then I think when you left, you I think there's a story about you got a fake ID just to work at McDonald's. That's pretty badass.
Bro, so we had a so in Santa Ana, you were able to go and and and grab a fake ID. Like, we're 17 we're, like, 16, 17 years old, and, obviously, I need a full time job.
I can't work on a I can't go to school and be a part time job and be homeless. Right? So, like, I had to get a fake ID.
I had to get a fake job permit. I had to, you know, do all these things to be able to work a full time job just to be able to have a, you know, enough money to coming in to be able to pay. Because when when I moved out of my house, like, was living at my I was living, you know, six months at my friend's house, and I was living at another friend's, but they were charging me rent too.
So it wasn't like Yeah. You know, I was living for free, and I was just chilling and and having a blast. You know?
I had the responsibility. I had to pay rent, so I had to work full time. I had to go to school full time, and I, know, I had to grind.
It's wild because most people experience my experience of getting a fake RD was buy booze. Yeah. I think you're when I read that, I was like, man, this guy got a fake ID I had a just to work at McDonald's.
I had it, bro. I had it. So That McDonald's job was dope, man, honestly.
Well, I was dope. John is bro, it was three of us. Right?
So we're, like, sixteen, seventeen in high school. It's three of us. Four of us were best friends.
You know? They had a really good upbringing. You know?
They had their parents, and everything was was good, but they did it more for, like, just to have money to buy clothes and have nice cars and all that. But it was dope because, like, from, you know, the time we got out of school from 02/15, we got there at 3PM, and we were from, like, 3PM to, like, eleven, sometimes twelve.
Damn. Got home, did homework, and did it again over and over. But, like, at that McDonald's is just us four.
Like, one was in the kitchen, one was in the front drive through. I was in the I was in the back drive through, you know, handing drinks and all that. And it's in your Belinda, California, one of the most beautiful fucking cities.
So, like like, again, perspective, like, most most of you guys would be like, what the fuck? 17 years old. You're homeless.
You're working a full time job. Poor you. Right?
I'm, like, having the time of my fucking life, bro. I'm working with my best friends. There's fucking hot girls coming in.
I'm 17, 18 years old. I have money in my I I have money every day. Like, I have a badass car.
Right? Like, to me, everything was perspective. Like Yeah.
So when I tell you guys these stories about my upbringing, yeah, it was a fucking tough life. And, yeah, it was like, no kid should ever have to go through that. But, like, we made the best out of it, man.
Yeah. Me and my brother always made the best out have to learn that perspective, or did you just always have it? Bro, I just had it, bro.
It was like That's a gift. To me, it wasn't like I had a choice to be like, oh, man. Like, man, my dad kicked me out.
Or, man, you know, what am I gonna do now? Like, to me, it was, like, always, like, trying to figure things out, and that's what I thrive on. Like, when when somebody gives me an obstacle, it's like, Go around it.
Go through it. Go like, I I thrive on fucking just obstacles in life, man. Like, to me, when there's when when when there the complexity of an obstacle is what gets me going.
Yeah. So whether it's a business, whether it's life in general, whether it's a personal relationship, like, to me, when when it gets tough, that's when I like, the best part of me comes Yeah.
So then that job led to the supply side of the HVAC. So explain that. And you basically started working in a supply shop Yep.
Which sells the parts to The contractor. The contractors. Right?
So I was it was, like, a Friday afternoon, and we're, you know, we're getting ready to get out of, uh, work. And I I think we had an early shift where everybody was getting up at seven, 06:30 or seven. And we're like, hey.
We're you know, um, James is throwing a party. Let you know, we rarely fucking went out because we're always grinding and and working. And I'm like, hey.
You know, James is throwing a party. We should all go. And we we we're like, let's go.
So I drive down Cerritos Boulevard in in the East Side Of Anaheim, and I see this now hiring sign. It just said now hiring, and in fact, it was a big ass warehouse.
I'm like, look, man. If I could get a couple bucks more, a buck more than what I'm getting, like, fuck it. I'll go.
So I'm just I'm I'm just gonna stop by, you know, see what it's about, and then I'm gonna go grab my shirts and, you know, I was I I wanted to buy a shirt and, you know, to look fresh for the party. And I walk in, and there's this old man. His name's Richard, and this other guy named John.
He's in the counter just fucking, you know, these old school, like, just smoking cigarettes inside of the warehouse kinda dudes. Right?
And I'm like, hey, man. I saw the the not hiring sign. You know, I would love to get an opportunity.
He's like, oh, where do work? I'm like, oh, currently, I'm working at McDonald's, and, you know, I've worked out of parts, uh, auto supply house where we memorize parts and we put them in bins and we ship them and it's like, oh, it's the same thing here. So you have experience?
I'm like, yeah. Pretty much. I'm like, you know, I'll I'll do anything.
Um, and I think back then we were paying getting paid, you know, $56 an hour. Nice. And he's like, yeah.
If you wanna start, you know, you could start right away. We'll pay you, you know, a dollar more than what you're making, you know. And then after that, you could move your way up here.
And, um, I did rob. I'm like, fuck. Yeah.
Dollar, bro. Are you kidding me? A dollar has $40 extra of a week.
You know what I'm saying? So I quit right away, fucking went and worked right there.
I worked there from, like, you know, I think I was turning 18 to, like, I was 22, 23 at the supply house, and I saw contractors of, you know, hundreds of, if not thousands of contractors go in there, buy equipment, take it to a job, you know, go install for homeowners and collect the payment, and they just kept doing this.
And I and and the one thing I noticed when I was working there is like, man, these motherfuckers drive dope ass trucks. You know? These these construction dudes are are are doing good.
Right? And I've always you know, I'm a curious guy, so I've always I would always ask him like, hey, man. Like, would you sell that for?
Like, hey. How many employees do you have? How many jobs are you doing today?
Or how how much was that truck? You know, 80, a 100, a $120,000 trucks.
And I'm like, goddamn,
bro. These guys are making money. Right?
And, um, yeah, that's when the curiosity came in, I just you know, I started asking a million questions about the trades. Yeah. And because you've called that, like, your university, which is where you learned a lot of the things.
Yeah. I'm curious what you think about this. Because the online culture right now, which it wasn't this way back in your day, which the online culture right now is everybody should be an entrepreneur.
So a lot of people are coming out, they have no work experience at all.
And they're just trying to start a business from scratch. And they have like no specialized knowledge, no work experience. How important do you think it is?
I call it like an apprenticeship. Bro, you've got a How important it is to actually just get a job in the industry that you wanna work for so you could absorb all of those best practices of the industry. It's a must, bro.
I I I tell this to everybody. Look. If you guys wanna get into the trades, if you guys wanna be a plumber, if you guys wanna be an electrician, if you guys wanna be a roofer, if you guys wanna own a contracting world, a contracting business, they're like, there's a four year apprenticeship that you gotta go through to make sure that you become you know, that you give yourself a chance to be successful.
That doesn't that doesn't give you that doesn't, um, give you a certainty that you're gonna be successful, but but at least it gives you a chance to be successful. And this is where most of these online gurus get it wrong. It's like, you know, just go buy a plumbing business or, you know, there's all these boomers that are selling their bit.
No. There isn't. And and you think a a 56 year old boomer is just gonna be like, you know, I've been making a million dollars for the last twenty years every year.
Like, do you think they're just gonna be like, yeah. Here's my business. Go ahead go ahead and take care of it.
No, man. Like, there is a there there's a pathway to making sure you give yourself a chance to own one of these businesses. What I tell everybody is like, look.
You gotta go work for a $5,000,000 company. You gotta work for a $20,000,000 company. You gotta work for a $100,000,000 company.
And then you the fourth year is when you, you know, start planning on what you're gonna do with your with your life on it. But you gotta work for all those companies, man, because the 5, the 20, and the $100,000,000 company all do something really, really fucking phenomenal inside the operation. Yep.
And every single one of them do something good. Right? The $5,000,000 guys have amazing culture, you know, their work ethic, their you you know, they they suck at marketing, they suck at sales, they suck at hiring, but but the culture in there, it feels like family.
Right? The $20,000,000 guy is is getting to, you know, build the team and start the marketing, start the sales, and start the like, they're they're they're they're they're they're gonna teach you that side of the business.
Then, obviously, the $100,000,000 guy is gonna teach you all the accounting in the back end and the support and the structure and, you know, how to really drive a business forward. So I always tell, you know, 18, 20 year old kids that are out there, if you guys are gonna get into the trades, make sure that you go to trade school for a year, work for a $5,000,000 company, work for a $20,000,000, work for a $100,000,000 company.
That's your four year apprenticeship.
And then after that, you could be like, okay. Cool. I'm ready to start my own business.
Yeah. And you know what I did too? So when I started, I started as a salesperson.
I had a job. Right? I started as a small company.
Yep. Then went and worked for a slightly better company. Mhmm.
And then I went and worked for one of the at the time, was one of the best, most notable companies in our industry. And so what happened was a lot of people ask me how I scaled so quickly. I went from $100,000 a month to $2,500,000 a month in eighteen months.
That's insane, by the way. But it's a lot of it and the answer I always give, which is it's like a non answer because it's just the hard truth, is I had built so many skills through that time. Because I wasn't just trying to get good at sales.
I was trying what was really valuable is I would at the last company, especially, we were in an office. So I would ask the CMO and be like, dude, so you're spending $800,000 on ads this month.
Can you show me how you do that? How do you actually do that?
Or I could even see, oh, here's how they run payroll. Here's how they do the meetings. Here's how they do this.
And so you learn through observation and osmosis. And then I just kind of internalized all that. And then I basically created my company of, like, what did I like at all these companies?
But what were the things that pissed me off that I wanted to change? And I'm I'm curious for you because we'll we'll get we'll get to the start of the company later.
But since we're on this topic, what were the things that you took from the companies you worked for,
and what were the things that pissed you the fuck off where you're like, this is never gonna happen to my company? Uh, the things that I really liked in our operation one of the dopest things that I that I liked when we were at, um, even at, uh, at the at the wholesale supply house, you know, I saw that he was super frugal, that he made sure that, you know, if if you were only working forty hours, you were making forty hours, they were profitable.
You know, they watched inventory properly. They watched, like, they watched everything good. So that's that's what I took from him was, like, look.
In order for you to be a profitable business, yeah, you can't be fucking cheap, but there's a thin line between being cheap and being too fucking, you know, just giving the house away. Right? So what I learned from that, the five years that I was at the distribution center is that, like, making sure you manage the inventory and making sure you manage labor and making sure you manage that was proper.
Then I cofounded a company called Home Comfort USA, which was an air conditioning company in Anaheim, California. And what I learned from there, we went from zero to a little bit over $20,000,000 in revenue in a four year in a four year span. And what I learned from there was the sales drive, bro.
Like, that guy, you know, I was more of the COO, the back end, like, hey. From the point of sale to the point of collecting the payment, and he was more of the marketing to the sales point, so we complement each other properly. But I've always known that I was a good, you know, operator on the back end, know, getting installs done, getting them equipment order, getting them to job site, getting like, I always had a gift for that, but I lacked the front end, which was, hey.
How do you make the phones ring? How do you make those phones ring into revenue? And that's what I took from him.
He was a fucking sales machine, bro. Every day, you know, he brought in his sales guys, and he riled them up and the technicians and like that that, you know, that Wolf of Wall Street kind of feel. Nice.
Like, we're we're, like, we're most of the like, these new, you know, upcoming companies contracting out, they they're losing that part of it, which is, to me, is one of the dopest parts of the operation. Like, I learned that from him. Mhmm.
He would bring in the sales guys on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He would bring in the technicians every single day, and he would fucking you know, he would have monsters, and he would have donuts, and he would have everything ready for them. And, you know, people would walk in, and he would be handing out cash.
And I'm like, okay. That's what it is. It's the people that he's driving.
Right? And he would get them riled up, and he would put and I was on group messages with him, so he would like, hey, man. Whoever, you know, sells the next x, you know, gets $250 cash, or whoever does this gets $500 cash.
Then he had all the technicians. And I just learned that and observed that. I'm like, damn.
That's how you drive a business. Nice. So when when my third operation you know, when my third my second business, NextGen Air Conditioning, which, you know, I was a founder and CEO, that's what I took from him.
I knew that it doesn't matter how good you're on the back end. If the front's not fixed and the front's not perfected, then nothing else matters. So that was one of the dopest things.
And, obviously, scaling a company from zero to a 100,000,000 a $108,000,000 in a six and a half year span, you learn that you gotta fucking be able to withstand a shit ton of pressure in that Yeah.
Amount of, uh, in that amount of time. What is one thing, though, that pissed you off about all the experience that you said, dude, when I start next gen, I'm never fucking doing this. The the the shop at home comfort and the shop at, uh, at Howard Industry, um, the operation was, like, super dole, bro.
Carpets and drywall was dirty. Bathrooms were fucked up and, you know, computers were old and mismatched fucking screens. And then to me, like, I'm like, bro, like, I want to be able to come in here and fucking love working here.
I wanna be able to come in here and be able to be like, man, this is my shit right here. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So when I started when I took control and I and and I started my first business with, uh, Nextion, dude, if ever walked into my operations, we had seven different operations in Southern California. It felt like you were in Google, bro. Like, glass screen offices, music playing in the background, coffee for everybody, snacks for everybody, fucking walk in and start handing out cash to everybody.
Like like, it felt like like people were eager to walk in there. Like, people were, like just just with the music playing in the background and the I had a full time cleaning crew and all the operations, so everything was immaculate. The bathrooms were private.
They're big. They're, you know, they smelled good. Like, everything was fucking like, I looked at every single detail in the operation.
Vans were brand new vans. That's what I, you know, I didn't like about the other operations that they would just buy cheap old vans, and they just throw the technicians and put them in houses. I'm like, man, I want the vans to be brand new.
I want the vans to have the best racking. I want the vans to have the best tooling. So that that was the one thing that I hated from other which I had no control.
I was just the COO. Right? Yeah.
But I hated that. And, uh, and once I started once I built that next, and I'm like, know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna I'm gonna make this where everybody wants to come and work.
I'm gonna make this where where when we're in here grinding because, dude, we're spending eight, ten, twelve hours with these people. Right? We're spending twelve, fourteen hours sometimes grinding with these people, talking hey.
Call this customer. Hey. Make sure this gets done.
Like, really delegating that operation and making making sure it's it's going forward. So, uh, it's like, if I'm gonna be in there for fourteen hours with all these people, right, like, I I wanna be happy, bro. Yeah.
I wanna have a good vibe going on. I you know, hey. Starbucks on me.
Grab fucking grab eighty eighty cans of Starbucks. Bring them on. Let's fucking work an extra couple hours so we can, you know, get this revenue that we're trying to collect.
Right? Yeah. So that's what I that's that's the one thing I hated that they didn't have a vision to for the the employees to me because I was an employee for so long.
I was like, when I when I become a CEO, I'm always gonna be an employee. I'm always gonna be an employee. What what do I want the company to do for me?
And that's how I've been doing it for, you know, from from NextGen to Nuva now. It's like, what what can the company do for the employee so the employee could go out there and take care of our consumer so then in return, we could charge properly and make a profit. If you ever wanted to get my one on one help in terms of scaling your business, then listen up really fast.
So we're taking on a few clients where I can personally one on one audit their business across marketing, sales, operations, fulfillment, finance to be able to tell you what your constraint actually is and, ultimately, what are the one to three things you need to do next to be able scale working entirely one on one with me?
So if that's interesting, there's a link in the description that'll say Cole one on one that you can go book. But, essentially, not only will you get my personal advice, but we'll also be opening up our entire playbooks of my $36,000,000
a year company across marketing, sales, operation, fulfillment, finance, So you can basically model the best practices of what we've done right into your business, and it'll include the opportunity to meet in person up at an event with me. So if that's interesting, click the link in the description and mount back to the video.
So I have four purposes of a company and a framework. I explain this to all of our team when we have team wide meetings and all this stuff. The first purpose is to obviously deliver for the customers.
Amen. But the second one is really to deliver for the personal growth of your team.
And so I essentially want my company to be the one company that they work for to where maybe they're 35 or they're 55 or whatever it is. But they look back and they're like, man, the time I spent, whether it was two years, four years, ten years at that company Made you.
Yeah, made you. It was a pivotal point in my career. And the reason, that's actually something I took from the last company I worked for because I wouldn't be where I'm at if I didn't work for that company.
And so I wanna create that experience Amen. For as many people as I can. Yeah.
That's our job as CEOs. That's our job that's our duty and responsibility as CEOs is to make our employees better. Look.
I always use examples of my employees. I always tell somebody that I'm hiring direct. If I'm hiring them direct, look at the worst thing that's gonna happen to you when you come and work for me is that, number one, yes, it's stressful.
Number two, yes, I'm gonna make you a better person. Number three, I'm always gonna have you under pressure to because I'm trying to get the best version of you. But the bet the worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna start off at a $150,000 salary.
By the time you're done with me, wherever you walk in, you're gonna be asking for $23.04, $500,000 salaries.
I promise you, and I guarantee you. You bring up my name in the industry, and you say, hey. I was his personal assistant.
I was his sales manager. I was his office manager. I was this.
I was that. I work with them direct. Anybody you walk into, I promise you, they're gonna give you way more than what you what you're making right here because because that's the that's the type of company that that I'm trying to build for everybody.
Dude, it's it's totally the same with us. So I wanna go back to the story. So you your first real business you started, you co founded fifty fifty partnership, Home Comfort USA.
He fucked me over, but It's cool. Before that, didn't he recruit you by taking you to, like, a Lakers game or something? Yep.
So, like, for years, bro, look, this is the one thing that I always look back when I was at home at Howard industry just selling equipment and material to these guys. Like, probably I probably got job offers five to 10 times a week, bro.
Yeah. In front of my boss. You know you're good.
You know what I tell my guys is if you don't get job offers from our clients You know there's something. Probably suck. Yeah.
Yeah. So when people try to brag about it, I'm like, yeah. Welcome to the job.
Exactly. This is what this is what it's like to be good. He would always like the people contractors would already be like, but, ish, come on, bro.
I'll pay you way more than what Richard's and Richard's standing next to me. And I'm like, bro, I'm cool right here. Like, these guys treat me good.
They pay me good. And this guy kept recruiting me for, like, a year, year and a half.
And he finally gave me, like, $50,000 in cash, and he put me in front row legacy tickets. And he's like, hey, man.
Like, you know, I've been trying to start this company. He started for, like, two years, couldn't get off the ground, had, like, four or five employees. And he's like, everybody, you know all the installers.
You know all the technicians. You know most of these sales guys. All these guys come in and, you know, they they're always fucking around with you ish.
You're always, you know, joking around with them, and, you know, they they like they like you. And I'm like, bro, how am I gonna leave this five, six year, you know, company that I've been here?
They pay me a $130,000 a year, which back then in the day was, like, soup is equivalent to, like, $2,300,000. Right?
And he's like, look, man. Trust me. We'll partner off.
We'll be fifty fifty. We'll do this. We'll do that.
And, you know, he had his company home comfort for, like, two years. I came in the picture, then we went from 0 to 20,000,000 the the the the years after that. And then when I try to hit him up for the equity and, like, hey, man.
Like, you know, I brought in a 160 employees out of the 180 something we have here. Like, you know, let's make this a legal document.
Let's get you know? Oh, it's you know, we're not doing good. The company's losing money and I'm like, the fuck?
You just bought a m seven. I I mean, BMW seven fifty LI, and you just got a house in Pelican.
Like, how's the how's the company doing bad? Right? Yeah.
And he tried to give me a runaround, bro, and I'm like, look, man. I need my equity. Didn't didn't happen.
You know, I was ignorant. I should have got that since day one instead of, you know, after building the empire. And we parted ways.
We parted ways, and, you know, I took a week off, kinda chilled at home, trying to figure out what the fuck I was gonna do.
And, you know, I had a bunch of offers after I after I turn off turn on my phone, and I kinda, like, just sat down. And I'm like, dude, I don't wanna do this again. I don't wanna go and build another empire for somebody else, and then, you know, something happens.
So, you know, back in the day, I I called it the the next generation of air conditioning and heating, which was way too long. And, you know, I've kinda, like, ponder on that name forever.
And one day one day, I was at home Home Depot buying, like, equipment material for the guys, And I'm and I saw a piece of drywall, and they said, next gen drywall. And my company name was called the next gen air conditioning, the next generation of air conditioning air conditioning. And it was way too long, and I just couldn't come up with a better name.
And when I saw that piece of drywall and it said, you know, NextGen Drywall, I'm like, NextGen Air Conditioning. There you go.
So that's where I got the name from and, you know. And do you think you founded that company to get revenge? A 100%.
Yeah. A 100%. Do you think that's good fuel?
A 100%. A 100%, bro. Because, look, when he fucked me over on that and I told him, I'm like, bro, I'm not here to mess with you.
I'm not here to take something that I'm I didn't earn. Like, you know the the things that I've had to do for us to get it to this point. You know all the installers how to bring.
You know all the technicians how to bring. Like, you know everything that we had to do to get it to this point. And he in his mind, he thought that he built everything because he was always the face of it.
Mhmm. So I'm like, alright. Cool.
You know, I'll I'll start my own. Luckily, I didn't have any noncompete because we didn't have any paperwork or anything done. So I was like, you know what?
Cool. Whatever. Um, I start next gen air conditioning.
One by one, I started plucking the feathers, bro. I started plucking feathers all day long. Hey.
I started. Hey. I started installers, technicians, uh, sales guys.
Just fucking one by one, started dismantling his whole team. You know?
We he went from 22, $23,000,000 in in in revenue at his peak, and, you know, NextGen started growing like this. You know?
6.5 later, he was doing, like, a little bit under $8,000,000. It's crazy he didn't realize that was gonna happen. Which because, I mean, I could've told you that without even knowing the story.
I think I think in his mind, he and this this becomes an ego thing. Right? I think in his mind, he really thought that he built that company by himself.
Right? And we we know that we don't do this shit by ourselves, bro. There's always a team of people that help us out.
Right? So when you hear, like, built Nextion, what I really meant to say is we built Nextion. We built home comfort.
We built Nuva. We built, you know, these these enterprise level companies. Like, it wasn't not just me.
Yeah. I'm I'm the forefront, and, yeah, I'm taking the risk. Yeah.
I'm putting up the capital, and, yeah, I'm doing all that. But at the end of the at the end of the day, there's four, five, six, ten people behind me that are actually driving the business forward. So Mhmm.
In his mind, he was so egotistic. And, obviously, he was, you know, a high sales driver. I'm the best fucking sales guy in the world kinda guy.
And, you know, in his mind, he was so egotistic that you're he's like, bro, you didn't do shit. What What are you talking about? You're just my COO.
You're just my my it's like, alright. Cool. Yeah.
So you know the last job I was at, uh, we kinda got in a little fight, and we're we're cool now. We're actually good friends. But
he told me, I was like, yeah. I'm gonna be moving on. And he was like, you know you're never gonna make more than you made here Oh.
In your life. Bro. And I was like Don't say that.
I was like, thank you. Well, thanks. Mean, at the time, I was like, fuck you.
But I look back and I'm like Don't say that. I probably use that one thing as my fuel.
I mean, there's multiple drivers, but that was a big one until about probably 10 to 15,000,000 a year. Yep. You know?
Just try I mean, and it's part of the reason you go so fast. Yep. It's because, like, you just wanna punch Somebody has to piss you off.
You wanna punch somebody in the face with your revenue. Yeah. I couldn't I couldn't wait, bro, to see them at conferences because in the trades,
um, there's probably, like, four or five conferences a year that happen where everybody comes together. Mhmm.
And you see the the 50, the 100, the 20, the $30,000,000 is all walking around. Right?
And everybody kinda knows those conferences already, and, you know, we all used to put I'm I'm like, I can't fucking wait to grow my company and walk into the same room and and him be the small guy and him be looking up to me and being like, what the fuck did I do? Right?
And I couldn't wait. And that happened, like, in 2000 and, I think, twenty two ish, twenty one ish, right before I sold the company.
Twenty twenty one, twenty twenty around there. There was a conference in Las Vegas. I think it was, like, a Lennox show.
And I'm not I was an Lennox dealer, but, you know, obviously, people knew my name, and we were blowing up quickly. And I walked into the room, and there's all these Lennox guys there. Probably, like, a couple 100 of these guys, you know, old school old school, uh, white dudes and, you know, all CEOs of $10.20, $30,000,000 companies.
And I walked in there, and everybody got up and and came back to, you know, hey. And he was in the corner just looking at me like, the fuck? Like Yeah.
How does that feel? It felt good, man. Honestly, it felt good.
I'm like Even after all of that time, you still felt good. Oh, bro. I'll I I've been waiting for that moment.
That's In the corner of my eye, I was just saying, like, you fucking piece of shit. Why'd you do that to me? Like, we could have built this together.
But retrospect, if I would've stay if you would've gave me my 50%, then I would've grown that company to a 100 plus, you know, sold it, and then we split the pie. Right?
Luckily, you know It worked out. He did what he did, and we did it again. Do you think at some point, though, the anger and the revenge in in terms of fuel runs out?
Yeah. You know? Or can you can you operate with you on your shoulder for deal?
What's what's been the something else as you've you've grown?
That's not the driver anymore. What do you think it shifts to It's just the the the pressure that I put on myself in general. In in my eyes, I'll never be good enough to for anything.
Right? Even when I sold when when we sold the the original company, um, to the Apex Group, um, Home Comfort, like, that was cool. Even when we sold NextGen to the wrench group, like and I saw the wire come in and, you know, and to me, like, I always feel like I I leave things undone and that I could have done better.
Mhmm. And that's been my the story of my life, bro. The pressure that I put on myself is immense.
The pressure that I try to, you know, growing these these operations or when I'm taking on a new project or when I'm taking on a partner or whatever it is, the the amount of pressure that I put on myself is, you know, it's pretty harsh, honestly. So it's it's it's not I I think it stopped being the money. It stopped being him.
It stopped being a certain, you know, chip on my shoulder kinda thing. And now it's more like, I wanna prove myself why I can't be in the Bezos, why I can't be in the Musk, why I can't be in that same realm as them.
Yeah. It's not no more why can't I be in the Ken Stars and and the Ken Goodriches and the and the, you know, in the general contracting, um, population?
Like, why can't I fight in the public sector? Why can't a Mexican American come into The United States as an immigrant, go up and build a, you know, multibillion dollar empire and be up there talking to with those dudes? Mhmm.
And so I'm trying to prove that to myself. I'm not trying to prove that to nobody else. And every day I wake up, I'm like, it's just one more day to get into that step.
I wanna be up there, bro. I wanna be up there. I want my flag to be up there.
I'm super prideful of being Mexican American. Obviously, I love my country. I have it tatted all over my my body.
It's not not just one country. This is one one of the misconceptions that people have. Just because I rock my Mexico hat all the time is it it's Mexican American tatted on me.
It's Mexican American flags tatted on me everywhere from my the back of my in my back and my chest. I have the American ego tatted on my stomach. Right?
Like, everything that I've done has been Mexican American, but I wanna see the flag up there too. You know, the the top 10 billionaires,
most wealthiest people in the whole universe are all American, you know, uh, or Caucasians or American people. Like, why can't there be one of us up there? Why why can't there be a brown guy up there?
You know what I'm saying? I love that. So let's talk about the absurd scaling timeline.
So I think it was four months to 1.2. Yep. 9.8 in the first year.
Yep. 18 in year two, '24 year three, thirty two year four. Yep.
COVID doubles to 60. Yep. 60 to a 100 exits.
So walk me through the first million. I think it was in the garage. Yeah, man.
Again, goes back to the hunger that I had to proving him wrong. And, look, I wasn't even I wasn't even thinking revenue back then, bro. I didn't even give a fuck about revenue, to be honest with you, because I was so ignorant.
I didn't know what gross profit was. We didn't have a p and l. We didn't have QuickBooks.
We didn't have anything. Yeah. We had a Google Sheets, and we're dispatching technicians and installers and sales guys from it.
And we were in a garage thinking you know what I was thinking? How could I take that installer from him? How could I take that sales guy from him?
Oh, I hired him. Oh, I hired her. Oh, I hired.
So to me, was more of a chess game. To me, it was more of a chess game. How could I grab those pieces and put them in front of me?
So that dude, we blew up on, uh, at NextGen once we once we had a shop and we were we were able to advertise. Like, I went all in on the marketing side of it.
Mhmm. I went all in on it. I didn't I didn't like, every single penny that came in as profit or revenue, right, I started max maximizing credit lines with vendors.
I started opening up credit cards. I started, like, really leveraging the debt and also the profit of the business to be able to dump everything back into the marketing, back into getting more vans, back into hiring more people.
So it was an insane growth, bro. $9,800,000 in your first year pre COVID in 2017, 2018 is equivalent to, 20, you $30,000,000 in your first year right now.
And in the home service industry, it's not like you just press a button and you created a SaaS, um, software and it's selling by itself. Like, gotta deal with technicians, installers, sales reps, CSRs, in house support, accountants, Like like, you gotta deal with all those people.
On top of that, you're marketing. On top of that, you're consumer. Like, you gotta deal with all that in in in in as an everyday CEO.
So it was stressful, man. It was stressful. I lived in I lived at NextGen for the first five years of my of of the operation.
And by lived there, I literally, you know, got there at five in the morning, and I didn't leave till, like, 09:10PM. Eight months or twice smoke I used to smoke cigarettes, which I fucking love. I haven't smoked in four years.
I, um, you know, I've been sober for about nine years from alcohol and and from cigarettes about four years, but I am gonna go back to cigarettes. But, um, I used to You're gonna go back to cigarettes. I love cigarettes.
Why not like a babe? I'm old school. I'm gonna wait till I get to a billion dollars net worth And then you smoke a cigarette.
And then I'm gonna smoke a cigarette. Yeah. You ever heard that thing?
Rory Sutherland says this. He's like, if you're a it's it's just kinda like the coolness of cigarettes, and they've done a great job branding this. Yep.
But if you're, like, staring aimlessly out of a window, they might think you're crazy. If you're staring aimlessly out of a window holding holding a cigarette, you look like a philosopher. Yeah.
Um, you know what? It goes back to, like, what do you what keeps driving you, bro? And look, as as dumb as this sounds, I am looking forward to like, I already envisioned myself.
I already envisioned myself in in in in in Mexico with my family, you know, throwing a huge party in Cabo just in a yacht, all of us just celebrating, you know, our billion dollar eggs or 10,000,000,000, whatever whatever god let lets us get to.
And I already envision myself smoking that cigarette with a cup of coffee at 6AM by myself in that yacht just praying praying to the lord. I already envision myself.
And that small thing of me chasing that taste of the cigarette is getting me to keep going every single day. It's it's the stupidest things that drive me.
That that is a real I understand why that's a driver, though. Because it's a visceral feeling you're attaching to that moment. Bro, I could Yeah.
And I I get it with the the nicotine coffee combo is one of the best right when you wake up the morning is one of the best feel Especially when it's raining. So Especially when it's cold. This is a, uh, this is a random story, but I was on vacation with, uh, three of my buddies.
They thought I was nuts when I about this. But, uh, I woke up at 6AM in The Bahamas.
You know how they have those, like, islands, like Johnny Depp lives on one of them or whatever. I forget what they call that where it's like the blue the you know, the ocean's just, super blue. And I got up in the morning.
I took a shot of tequila and, uh, was smoking a cigar, drinking coffee. And I'm not even kidding.
I wrote this is a side quest when I had this medical business. I wrote the whole marketing promotion front to back on that yacht. Yeah.
And I think they're still running that. I'm no longer with the company, but they're still running that. That's had to have generated 30 mil Damn.
For them. And it came off of me shirtless on a, uh, yacht at 6AM smoking a cig, drinking tequila. You you know what it is that well, maybe it's different for you, but you know what it is?
That when when when you're at that moment in life when you've envisioned it so long and you finally do it, there's so much peace that, like, grows into your body and that euphoria of, like, you're almost not alive kind of thing that just the the flow of ideas keep coming in, and and that's when you come up with dope shit like that.
I know. Yeah. It was so funny because I looked like such a degenerate.
And my buddy who's also really successful, what he said something along the lines. He's like he's like, dude, looking at you right now is just the pinnacle of high performance. I was like, whatever.
You know, it is what it is. Amen. So I think you had this framework that 0 to 10,000,000 is pure sales aggression.
10 to 20 is marketing consistency during the slow seasons because that's something in the cooling industry. And then 20 to 40 plus is perfecting the details. You still agree with that?
100%. So tell me about the sales aggression. And specifically, we were talking about this a little bit earlier.
But, like, why in in your industry is sales so taboo? And and, like, some guys just don't wanna touch it with a taboo hole. The old school mentality of, like, the old school contractors that were in our industry weren't sales drivers.
They weren't, you know they they you know, 94% of contractors only get to the $2,000,000 range or below. So they they were they're so comfortable where they're at.
You know, they're doing $2,000,000 of revenue. They're netting $4,500,000 a year.
They're comfortable. They're they're not looking to be sales driven. Right?
And to them, looking talking about sales. Right?
And this has been the the the the idea behind our contracting or the the the all the things that that that the contractors, um, have stood for before us is that you don't need to sell.
We're just here to help people. And it's like, well, are you really helping people by, you know, not replacing that fifteen year old unit just because you could change a $20.30 dollar part on it? Or are you really helping people by educating them on how they could, you know, choose these high efficiency units that can save them energy?
So to them, they can't see that concept of, like, well, I'm just gonna fix it because there's nothing wrong with it. We came from a generation from the why fix it if it's not broken? Mhmm.
Right? That's been the whole contracting world up to this point. Yeah.
Now it's like people like myself, people like the Tommies, people like that that are coming into our industry, they're not it's they're not okay with why fix it if it's not broken. They're more of like, hey. Why not educate the customer and let them choose?
Yeah. Why are you why are you shopping for the customer? Right?
So I think that's the that's the shift in the industry that we're in right now that that we're I always say you wanna sell people not on not on the product, but on the way of thinking Amen. That leads to them buying the product that's the right way for them. Bro, you're a beast, bro.
You just gotta have that one liner, man. A beast. Condense it down into a well, that's what I do.
So but, yeah, because once they have like, in in your
in your case, once the customer truly understands what's actually because, you know, most customers They don't what, 9999 They don't know. Who unders I don't even know what's going on with my cooling unit.
Have no idea. You can tell me anything. Nor do you care until it breaks down.
But you gotta tell me, hey. You know, here's kind of the health of the system. Here's the parts that are straining the system that could lead the problems down the line.
Here's essentially what you could do now. If you don't do anything, you might not experience anything tomorrow, but here's what could happen down the line.
What do you wanna do? There you go. Right?
That should be the framework that we're using now. Maybe I maybe I should sell somebody a cooling unit. Bro, you'll kill it in sales here and there, you see me?
So, uh, talk me through the marketing. Right? And I know you have the billboard story.
A lot of people think billboards don't work. So I want to know, 10 to 20 was really getting the marketing down. That was one thing you brought to the industry.
At scale, what were you doing for marketing?
What were you spending percentage wise on each channels and dollar wise on each channels? Yep. Uh, tell me about the billboards, all that stuff.
So, look, we went from, um, back when we started home comfort and into the into the next gen, uh, story. Everything was radio, TV, print, newspapers.
You know, there was little to no Google. There was little to no Yelp. There was little to no social media.
Definitely no social media. And, um, and I saw the transition to go from from the paper and the radio and the traditional media into the the digital era. Right?
And and and I was in the midst of the transition to it. So when I came in and I brought NextGen into the into the industry, I was I was I started with the print.
I started with the traditional, but I slowly saw saw the the KPIs died off on it knowing that we were investing heavily into it. And this new thing came about, you know, called Google and Yelp, and social media was just popping up.
And and and and and I started really shifting my marketing from there into the into the digital area, and that's when I saw the huge spike on it. Well, we got to a certain point where we're spending so much on Google, so much on Yelp, and we're doing the traditional a little bit little to no traditional media that there had to be a different way for me to attract the customer in the masses.
And I'm not talking about tens of thousands. I was talking about millions of people. I wanted people to know our brand from, you know, from San Diego all the way to to Los Angeles down to Palm Springs area.
Right? And the only thing that I could think of that you know, like I said, I'm a marketer at heart. I'm a CMO at heart.
The only thing that I could think of is, look, these people are stuck in track for for two fucking hours, three hours every single day in California. Every single day, people are stuck in traffic for two to three hours a day. And I would always look around, and there was always Coca Cola and and lawyers and and Budweiser and Nike and Apple and all these badass brands in it.
And I'm like, well, why why hasn't a contractor put their name up there? There's these are all these people that are driving it every day are our customers every day. So why haven't we done it?
And I took a huge risk in 2000 and, uh, '19, I think. I took a huge risk. This billboard company that came up to me and they're like, hey.
You know, would you like to put some billboards? I I got your direct mail piece, and I've seen some of your ads on TV and radio. How about we we enhance your marketing with some billboards?
And I was like, look. If I'm not the type of guy that's just gonna put one billboard up or 10 billboards and be like, okay. I did it.
Like, why don't you come back and give me a really good offer? I wanna put up, like, a 100 or 200 billboard. And they're like, uh, do you know how much that's gonna cost?
And I'm like, no. I'm I'm assuming it's gonna be a lot. So they came back and, you know, I think I they they started with, like, 50 billboards.
They wanted, like, a little bit over a 100,000. They explained to me how the billboard game work based on on on visibility, based on traffic, based on eyeballs, all that. And and I'm like, okay.
Cool. Hey. What happens if I buy, like, 250 billboards or something?
They're like, well, first, we gotta look at the inventory, make sure it's even available. Right? So they didn't have enough inventory.
So I went to, like, two or three different billboard companies, and I told them, hey, man. Like, I wanna do a huge billboard campaign, but I wanna drop it all at once. And I want the whole fucking Southern California to know who we are.
And at the time, I was doing good. You know, we're we're we're going from 30 to 30 plus million dollars in in revenue. I had adjusted some of the pricing.
We're we're, you know, we're making money. I have a couple million dollars in the bank account. You know, things are flowing properly.
I'm educating myself on the financials. Like, I'm really, like, starting to be an operator. Right?
For the first three years, was a fucking hustler. And and and I really start educating myself to become a a business entrepreneur or an operator.
And so we we land a deal, and they they come back and they're like, hey. Look. We have a little bit over 250 billboards for you, and we could, you know, get them done in the next four weeks if you sign a contract.
And they wanted, like, almost 4 or $500,000 for it. You know, I grinded him down.
You know, part of being a good operator is also being a a a Negotiator. Negotiator. Now I grinded him down, and I'm I'm like, you know what?
Fuck it. Let's do it. Pull the trigger on it, and it just fucking From one day to another, bro, the phones lit up.
And it wasn't it wasn't you know what surprised me the most is that it wasn't just, uh, homeowners calling saying, hey. You know, I just saw your billboard. My toilet's clogged.
Or I just saw your billboard. My air conditioning is not working. What surprised me the most is that fucking just employees from every fucking company, bro.
Every major company in Southern California, if you were doing air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, we just had fucking people just flooding our our shops every day and just wanting to work for us.
Right? And that was the most important thing. Uh, that was the most important pivot in in the operation because, yeah, you could make the phones ring, but if you don't have the people to come in and and fulfill the demand, then you're fucked either way.
Right? Yeah. So it made the phones ring.
It made us the our our marketing spike up, but then they got us the top players and the employees. Imagine these technicians are driving from house to house doing tune ups and and and and installing air conditioning or installing toilets, going from house to house, and they're they're in traffic two two, three hours of the day.
And they're pitting my billboards every five minutes, and they're like, who the fuck is this company? Right? So we we had the top players come and apply at our at our shop.
Me me being a shark, you know, looking at all these people coming, I'm like, I gotta get in there, and I gotta grab the top people. So I started interviewing people. I started fucking nope.
You start today. Here's $10,000. You start today.
Here's $5,000. And we started just, you know, really calibrating the the operation into what it molded to. What I like is the violent effort to where you you do 10 billboards.
You're like me in a lot of ways. It's like, if we're gonna if we're gonna eat shit, we don't nibble. No.
Know? And so you instead of just a test, you're like, no. Let's just buy them all.
Dude, and that could've That'll be the test. That could've bankrupted us too looking back at it. Like, me me me thinking back, like, that was a six month commitment that they wanted from us.
That was a six month commitment that they wanted from us. So six month commitment for $3,400,000, bro.
Like, that's a lot of money. And if it didn't work, I'm fucked. Yeah.
It's not like this billboard company is gonna be like, well, yeah, let's do let me just take them down. They gotta get a new company to guide them. They gotta put, you know, new creative up there.
Like, it could take time. So when I did the six month deal, I think it was close to, like, 380,000 a month that I was spending just on billboards, not including the, you know, $809,100 that I was doing on Google, 250 on Yelp.
I was doing traditional media, which was like newspapers, direct mail, bell packs, all that was spending, like, $100,150,000 there. Like, total, we're spending about, you know, $1.41.0.5 mil a month in marketing on it.
But that could have, like, really won't gone sideways for me because if I would have put up all those billboards and nothing would have happened, that bill is still coming in for the next six months. So luckily, did. You know, we went from, you know, doing a couple million, 1,000,000.5 to a couple million dollars a month to, like, $3.3.5,
$4,000,000 a month, 5,000,000, and it just started going from there. Hey. If the way you sell your product or service is through phone sales, you need to stop using booking systems like OneSub, Calendly, iClose, and other booking systems that aren't designed specifically for a phone sales approach or a phone sales team.
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Now back to the video. Yeah. And the thing about, so branding, which I would categorize billboards under branding 100%.
Is, you know, that revenue came in because you took such violent effort. You knew it was from that. Yep.
But there's no way to really directly attribute it. Like, of it's probably attributed to your Google. Of course.
Right? Of course. And it reminds me, like, content is really the same thing because it's kind of like branding.
We went super hard on content this year. I've been, like, pissed about it. Well, I was pissed about it for, like, the first three months because I was like, where's the fucking, like, direct attribution revenue?
But then, you know, this month or this past month especially, we just had like a banger month. And I know for even though I can attribute it, I know for a fact It's fucked, yeah.
It's because we went like 10 times harder on the And so I think like what you do really well is you look at the marketing as like an entire ecosystem. Yep.
Because they might see a print ad, they see a billboard, they see another billboard, and then they maybe see a Facebook ad or Google ad, then that's what gets them. You know?
Because even if it's subconscious Yep. You know? Because it's like the impression
type thing that actually happens. I, um, what what most of these contractors do, Ronco, is that they they kinda nibble on marketing because they're so they're they're not confident enough, and they don't have the balls to be act actually be like, hey.
You know what? I'm gonna commit myself to this magazine. This magazine, you know, does a 150,000, uh, homes.
I'm gonna do instead of doing the whole 150,000, they just go, oh, well, can I get just get this little ZIP code here? And it does 5,000 magazines.
And they get 10 calls, and they're like, oh, this shit doesn't work. 5,000 magazine. I only got 10 calls, and it's like It's not even statistically significant.
Like, bro, like, what like, why are you even spending money on 5,000 drops? Like, if you're gonna dump money into marketing, you gotta make sure it's a long term game, but you gotta make sure you got balls out on it. And that's what we've done.
Like, another example, most of these contractors will spend $510,000 on Google, and they're like, well, my phones aren't ringing. It's like, the fuck do you expect for $510,000 a month?
Yeah. Like, your customer acquisition is 6 to $800 on Google.
Like, what would you expect that you were gonna get 10,000 customers and people are just gonna be flooding the gates? No. It's like one of the things that contractors are are are doing wrong, they're delusional, number one.
And number two, they don't go all in on the marketing. They're they're kinda they just try it for a little bit. And if it works, cool.
And if it doesn't, they pull back, and they they go back to their word-of-mouth bullshit. And then they're stuck about below $2,000,000 wondering why they're not growing. Yeah.
It's an easy it's an easy it's an easy operational you know, it's a complex operation, but it's an e an easy ecosystem.
It's marketing, sales, and and and customer fulfillment. Well, and here's how I like to think about it. This is how you could actually tell the contractors to do it.
So in our industry, like, a $100 a day is what people like to test. You know? They're they're really on, like, a $100 a day.
Yep. So that's 3,000 a month. Well, here's the thing.
To get enough data to even figure because you could have 10 leads come in, you close zero. The next 10, you close four. Right?
Okay. Worked. Right?
But if you if you stop it at ten, you didn't know. So essentially, you have to basically, you're paying for you're saving money on time or you're paying for speed.
At ten. So if I'm spending $3,000 a month, it might take me two months to figure out if it's going to work. I'm just going to drop it in a week.
And then if it doesn't work, I can move on to the next thing. There you go.
You know? Okay. Moving on.
So the next level, let's say 30 to 100, was you were saying you had to really shift from being a hustler to a leader. Yeah. Right?
What were the hardest shifts you had to make, the biggest learning lessons that you needed to make to actually run your business like a real business? Knowing so from going from 25, 30 mil to the the the hyper scale of getting to 60 to a 100 mil is the toughest part as personally,
you have to be okay giving up control. Yeah. These fuckers are, like, so anal about, like, oh, no.
I gotta know what the customer's saying with this because and I gotta know what the fucking like, they got they gotta know, and they gotta control everything. Right? And that's where most most most contractors get handicapped.
The the 25 mil plus contractors have to be humble enough to know that there's people out there way better than them. Way better than them. Because what's gonna take you from $25.50 mil plus is an executive team.
Mhmm. Right? Yeah.
The the 1 to $10,000,000 is you hustling, you fucking on your guys, you on your technicians every day, putting out bounties, putting out cash, giving out this, giving out that you know, making sure the phones are ring light. That's what gets you to 10 mil. The 10 to $25,000,000 is, you know, grabbing a sales team, grabbing a tech team, and putting a couple controls in there to be able to produce the profit.
And then the 25 to to plus million dollar companies, you gotta fucking build an executive team that all have the same common goal. But but and this is where most people get it fucked up. They have the common goal, but everybody has to get compensated well enough where they're gonna pour in, you know, their heart, their their their time, their energy, uh, just as much as you do.
The if they see you put in fourteen hours a day, they're part of the executive team. They better be putting fourteen, fifteen hours a day, and they better be, you know, on text messages, on calls, late super at night. They gotta pour that blood, sweat, and tears into your operation from 25 mil plus because if not, you're gonna be stuck at $25.30 mil.
I promise you it's building that that three tiered, uh, management team, right, to be able to drive that business forward. Otherwise, you're gonna get stuck below 25,000,000. You're never gonna get there.
Yeah. And and, you know, um, you were talking about micromanaging. Yeah.
So when you micromanage somebody, you rob them of their autonomy. Of course, You know what? One of the there's three.
But there's three main drivers of internal motivation. Okay. Right?
Which is what we want. We don't wanna like be whipping people to be able to we want people to be internally motivated. Yep.
There's autonomy, competence, like they're feeling like they're getting better at a skill and growing. And then there's community, is a lot of what you talked about with So culture, inadvertently, like these are heavily studied, but you're hitting these no matter what.
But when you micromanage, you rob them of their autonomy And, basically, you you rob them of, like, they don't have the internal motivation because they don't feel like they're responsible
the outcome. Drivers, bro. Yeah.
Especially if they're drivers, especially if they're, you know, self sufficient people And you have a manager, you know, breathing down their neck. They're gonna be like, I don't wanna do this. That's this isn't this isn't what I enjoy.
Mhmm. Like, people that are gonna take you from $25.50 to a $100,000,000 plus, bro, you're asking them what you need to do.
Like, you never like, when we were building next gen, the roles flipped on me, and that was that was the part of the toughest psychological thing that I had to be okay with myself. From zero to '25, I was hiring.
I was doing this. I was driving. I was telling people what to do.
The roles flip after 25. You gotta be okay with you humbling yourself. I was going up to my I was going up to my CRO, my my my sales executive.
I'm like, hey, man. What do guys need from me so we could close more deals? I was going to my my COO.
He's like, hey, man. What do you guys need for me to help you guys drive more more installs? Or, hey.
What what do you guys need for more for more leads? Like, I'm the one opening up myself to what do you need from me instead of for the first twenty, twenty five, 30. I'm like, no.
You gotta do this, and you gotta make sure that they do this, and you gotta make sure that there's calls on here. And, like, I'm dictating everything that what flips around on the 25 mil plus companies is you humbling yourself to being like, hey, man. Like, what do you guys need me to do?
Cause I'm feeling useless. If you're feeling useless past 25, past 50, past a 100, you're doing your job. Mhmm.
Get away get get get out of the way. Yeah.
That's what you need to do. I mean, it's how can I support you? How can I support you, bro?
How can I make you more money? How can I make you better? Like, what do you guys need for me?
I walk into Nuva ask Juju. I I walk into Nuva. Hey, Juju.
What do need me to do today? That's my content creator. I'm asking him what I want he needs me to do.
Uh, hey, uh, Kanani. What do you guys need me to do today? Oh, ish, I need you to talk to the sales.
Hey. Um, uh, Marketing, would you like, I'm walking in, and this is a $140,000,000 enterprise company we just built.
I'm walking in saying, what do you guys need me to do? Not the other way around. This is where most CEOs get it wrong.
They think they they wanna be the big man walking in the room and saying, I'm the CEO. I'm the boss. You guys listen to me.
I'm like, I'm cool. I don't wanna be the CEO, man. Yeah.
The CMO is where it's at.
The best guys are having fun. One of the best experiences you could have in your company is when, actually, the growth doesn't totally depend on you Amen. And somebody else can drive it for you.
Yeah. It feels great. You're like, okay.
Let me just you're you're driving. Let me prep the company to make sure we can fulfill. Let's see.
So I wanna talk about I think it was November 2019. You're doing 32 mil. You had this experience where it was like, I'm doing all this revenue, but there's, $800 in the payroll account.
Yeah, bro. Right? What happened in like, what led there, and what exactly happened?
It it you know what? The what happened is that, um,
the hustler died, and the and and the and the businessman was alive was born. Mhmm. That's what happened.
The the big man trying to tell everybody what to do, um, died, and the humble Ishmael came out and said, hey, man. Like, I don't know what I'm doing here.
Like, can anybody help? And and people and I started reaching out people that were doing forty fifty mail that were running profitable businesses. And I started, you know, before everybody was reaching out to me because I'm the one pumping my chest online and Yeah.
You know, growing these businesses. But, you know, 2019, I'm, like, sitting there.
I'm, like, I'm doing a fucking $32,000,000 in revenue, but I don't see where the money's at. Right?
They're like, I'm calling vendors telling them, hey. Can you hold on this payment? I'll get you guys another payment next week.
I gotta make payroll this week or, hey. I gotta pay down this credit card to be able to, you know, advertise or like, I'm I'm, like, you know, stealing from Peter to fucking pay Paul and doing all this shit. And I'm like, there has to be a better way.
There you know, maybe I I I tapped myself. So the hustler died in November, and and and and the entrepreneur and the businessman was born. And, you know, this guy named Tom came in the in in in, uh, in my operation, and he educated me on financials, bro, in the accounting, in the back end.
And and he asked me, he's like, hey, man. You're $32,000,000. Where's all your team at?
Where's your accounting team? And I'm like, who? Beatrice?
Who? Beatrice? Beatrice is a bookkeeper.
She's over there. Beatrice is a high a low level bookkeeper getting paid $25 an hour, and she's running a $32,000,000 empire.
She's trying to figure out what the fuck she's doing, and she's always coming up to me. And I'm just like, just just we're good.
We're good. Yeah. And, you know, it had he had to come in and and really educate myself on on the financial end.
And, you know, I hired a c financial controller, hired an AP and AR. I started stretching my accounting team. And back then, I would be like, fuck no.
Those people cost way too much money. Yeah. Now looking back, it's like, dude, those people are fucking just as important as the technician, just as important as the sales guy, just as important as the installers, just as important as the as the girl picking up the phone, uh, you know, uh, answering a phone call to mister and missus Smith.
They're just as important as that. And because I didn't know that side of the operation, it was hurting me. Luckily, we were such a, you know, a a high level sales driven organization that it was just a couple tweaks here and there.
Yeah. Raise the price here, cut here, you know, adjust here, add here.
And it was like, boom. The fucking money started flooding in again. That's when I understood
what, you know, the the power of a conversation or the power of being humble Yeah. Could do. Well and the biggest thing that I've found that helps to scale through eight figures is you have to have good data.
Yes. Because the initial phase, you can use that market to get sales aggression. Right?
But after that, it becomes pinpointing what is the constraint, what is the one thing you can fix that ultimately could lead you 20% or 30% growth or double the company or whatever. You don't know what that is if you don't have your numbers correctly. Right?
The smart people. Yeah. Exactly.
And you don't know, okay. Here's what my gross margin is. Maybe I can negotiate this better to get better product cost.
Okay. These these techs aren't doing well. These were techs aren't doing paying them properly.
Yeah. There's comp too. All of that stuff.
And you said even at this time, uh, you were, like, joking. You didn't even know what, like, a PNL was. No, bro.
He's like wild. He he comes up to me, he's like, Kayla, show me your balance sheet and your PNL, and, um, I wanna see where you're where you're paying at if you're saying that there's no cash flow. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Like, what do you mean a p and l? And he's like, you don't have a profit and loss statement ish? And I'm like, I think Beatrice does.
Yeah. And she's like, you've never seen it? I'm like, bro, the numbers tell me everything.
He's like, yeah. But you also gotta pay attention to this, this, and this. And I'm like, now it makes sense.
Right? Now it makes sense. You're like the balance what?
So, um, okay. So Who's balancing what here?
Yeah. So now you're at a 100.
Okay. Was selling to go all along? Or yeah.
How did you kind of what flipped in your brain to where you're like, okay. I think an exit might be sales. Heard a company in, like, Sacramento had sold, and they were doing, like, 60,000,000 revenue.
Right? And I was doing 60 around there, but I was on my way to a 100. And we heard a company had sold for, you know, 80 plus mail.
And then I heard another company called Service Champion selling for, like, plus 200 mail. And I'm like, what are you like, I don't think they realize that.
We're just plumbers here. We're we're air conditioning guys. I think these guys think we're like a tech company or something.
And when shit really got serious is when, like, people started flying in from everywhere, and they I would just pop into my lobby at five, six, seven in the morning, and there was people in suits there. And I'm like, what do you guys want here? You just showed up for your showed up?
Wow. They would show up, and there were people in the lobby, and people were calling in all day long, bro. Oh, you know, we're a broker, and we're the, you know, private equity, and we're this, and we're a bank, and we're this, and, you know, we're interested, and we wanna see your books, and we wanna see this.
And I'm like, these people will show up and they're like, yeah. Yeah.
We're from this firm and we're from this private equity and we're you know, we wanna look at your business. And I'm like, look for what? And they're like, do you know how much it's worth?
And I'm like, we're plumbers, bro. Like, literally, that was my answer to that.
I'm like, you guys realize we're fucking doing plumbing here in air conditioning. Right? Like, this isn't like no fancy tech company.
They're like, I don't think you realize how much it's worth. And I'm like, well, yeah, I would like to know that.
Right? And then I started educating myself again. Like, I don't know.
So instead of, like, you know, getting these people, oh, get out of here. I'm not interested. I'm like, well, I started asking questions.
Well, what how do I figure it out? Have you ever done a quality of earnings issue? I'm like, quality of what?
And they're like, no. I'm like, no. He's like, well, you know, you need to do the quality of earnings.
You need to get know, do you have a CFO? And I'm like, no. I have a a a financial controller, and, you know, I have a pretty good, uh, in house team.
They're like, you know, you would for a transaction this big, you would wanna hire a high level CFO. And I'm like, how much is it gonna cost?
They're like, you know, really good $1.02 5,300, maybe 400. And I'm like, you know what I've learned is that people that charge that much will impact the fucking bottom line and the top line the most.
So when they told me about this CFO, I started educating myself and asking questions, and I'm like, you know what? I need to hire one of these dudes.
So I hired one right away. I started interviewing him. I called a bunch of my buddies that were super smart people.
And I'm like, hey. Can you guys help me interview these smart people? Because I don't know I don't I don't know what questions to ask these people.
So we interview them. We pull the trigger on this guy named Mike. He's been a CFO his whole life.
He worked at this company, x y and z, whatever. We bring him on board and he just starts cleaning up the financials, bro. And then we hire a company called the CLA, and they're they come in and they're like, okay.
Well, we're here to audit you, make sure that you, you know, you have a quality of earnings report so you can go out there and, you know, tell them what your EBITDA is. So we start structuring our deck, right, our marketing deck, our operational deck, our HR deck, our legal deck, and our financial deck. And we start structuring it and, you know, people start, like, flooding in, bro.
You know, this broker came in from SFMP, and they're like, hey. Like, you know, you're about to step into a world where, like, there's a lot of sharks out there, and you might wanna have somebody like us that have done this before come in and help you with this. Like, you're about to land a deal with, a you know, you're you're getting drafted to the MLB, and these people are gonna try to take advantage of or or they're gonna try to, you know, sneak in things that that shouldn't go in there.
And I'm like, you know what? That's a good idea. I've never done this before.
So I hired him. So I hired a a broker called SFMP. You know, they we structured the financial day.
We structured everything, then we put it out in the market. And they've sent out a a a they they send out a a notice to, you know, all these private equity and bankers, and they're like, oh, you know, next generation air conditioning is up for grabs, and this is what their performance is at. And we had a 161 or a 162 offers within twenty four hour hours.
Wild, dude. And I'm like, what the fuck? Are you guys hiring or what?
And, um, no. They do people started coming in, and they're like, okay. Well, next step is we they're gonna start flying in.
And I'm like, what do guys need me to do? And they're like, just choose who you're gonna feel comfortable working with because this is literally like getting married. And I'm like, alright.
Whatever. So people start coming in. I start interviewing them, and I'm I'm like trying to fuck around with them because look, man, this is who I am every day.
Like, I I'm not like I'm not like super smart. I'm not like trying to put a front for people. Like, these people are walking.
I start clowning on them, and I'm like, I'm trying to get a vibe from them. Because I look. If we're gonna get into a relationship that is is this deep and meaningful, like, I gotta be able to enjoy, like, what I'm doing or else as soon as I stop enjoying it, I'm gone, bro.
Like, I'll move on to something else. And, yeah, all these private equity people started coming in and interviewing our people and seeing our operation. And, you know, I started asking them questions.
Who are you guys with? What do you guys do? What do guys gonna do?
What are you guys gonna do for us? Like, what can you guys take? You know, my goal has always been to get to a 100 mil.
Nobody had ever done it before, by the way. This is before pre Tommy, pre pre everybody. Like, we were one of the first $100,000,000 companies to grow that fast.
I'm So trying to tell them, hey. I'm trying to get to $2.50 now, and there's no way I'm gonna get to $2.50 because I don't even know what that looks like. So if you guys can somehow come in here and help me or tell me what what what you guys could do to get me the two fifty profitably and, you know, ethically, then I'm all ears.
And some of these people had dope ass answers. Some of these people are, you know, full of themselves. And, you know, God gave me the sixth instinct to be able to read people properly.
And this guy came in and just started talking baseball with me, bro. And his name is Ken Haynes. He's from Ranch Group.
He just starts talking baseball, and, you know, my dad and his dad were, you know, pitchers, and we just start vibing off. And, you know, we start talking about the braves and the dodgers and the angels and all this shit. And, dude, it was like two, three hours into the conversation.
It's like, oh, shit. By the way, yeah, we wanna buy your company. And I'm like, done, bro.
Like, I I could see myself doing this shit all day long. Like, as long as you guys don't come in here and fuck it up, then we're good. So, yeah, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
I had a bunch of offers, and I'm like, you know what, bro? I'm gonna take yours just because you're you know, it looks like you're a good dude and and and you mean well. And these people, you know, they they they depend on us a lot.
So Yeah. You know? And you rolled forward 40?
30? What? How how much equity did you roll forward?
24. Mil. Okay.
What was 24. What would that would be 24%?
Yeah. Okay. I rolled about 20 yeah.
A little bit of And that's probably pretty standard. No. Most people wanted me to roll 10.
Oh, yeah. That was one of the caveats. Yeah.
That was one of the caveats that why I went with wrench wrench because everybody wanted me to roll, like, five, ten mil only, And they were gonna give me a bigger lump sum up front. And I'm like, bro, I'm this is a little $100 backpack.
I'm chill, bro. I'm not like you know, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to create an impact in our industry. And they were just like, no.
You know, most people roll $5.10 mil. They're like most people that sold their company, though, were, like, 50, 60, 70 years old, though.
Mhmm. So I could understand why they would roll five, ten mil. Right?
And I'm telling them, like, no. I wanna roll as much as I can because I already know what happens on the second row. Right?
So I rolled 24. I wrote sorry. I rolled 15, and then they let me buy another five mil, like, right, uh, thirty days after.
And then once I got my third earn out, they let me buy another, you know, 4 mil in change order. So, yeah, now it's up to 24 mil on it. So we're just waiting for the whole portfolio to flip.
And, obviously, you know, we buy the stock at a $100, and they're trying to sell the stock at 3 to $500 on the next row. So, hopefully, we sell it in the next year or so, and, you know, that 24 turns into.
What's the biggest thing you learned working with
PE then? Because, you know, some some people have bad experiences. You know, you've heard those.
And then some people, I think, like Tommy said publicly, that he's learned a lot from the people he ended up partnering with, and it's really helped him grow as an entrepreneur. Moe, um, what I've learned that the private this
this batch of private equity people are super are super, um, good financial, um, people, which look.
In in in in a business and an operation, there's two people that need to be in involved in the operation for you to create profit, which are the driver Mhmm. Which is the operator, CEO, CMO, whatever you wanna call those guys, the operator. And then there's the back end person that's like, no.
Cut this. Do this. Do that.
And be and he he helps you create the profit. Uh, private equity is really fucking good at looking at numbers and finding pain points, but they really suck at fixing the pain points.
That's where the operator comes in. And the most successful private equity people that are in our industry right now are humble enough to know that, hey. Here's the pain points.
Can you go help us? Instead of like, well, you don't know what you're doing. Let me put somebody else that knows what they're doing.
Right? So where you see these horror stories from is the is the private equities that think they know everything versus, like, the the Tommy's, which, you know, I think they they're with Cortex.
They they their sponsor is Cortex. They let him drive that business. They give him tools to drive that business forward.
That's why he's at 300 plus mil. And you're not gonna know how to operate it better than him. Of course.
Of course. So, um, that that's I think that's one of the basement the biggest, um, opportunities where, you know, I've told this to everybody is that private equity needs to learn to deal with operators and to work with them instead of coming in here. And just because you're private equity or just because you're, you know, you got a fancy Harvard, uh, degree, you you you're gonna come and tell us what to do.
Like, we're just as important as you guys do. So that's where they need to kinda figure things out. And so for you, what was it like to get the big fat wire?
What was that, man? It was cool, but, look, the wire hit, like, on a Thursday 8AM kinda thing, 9AM kinda thing.
I was at work already. I continued my day. The next day, I went to work.
The next day, I went to work. The next day, went to work. So it's cool.
I've enjoyed some of it. Like, you know, I was making money from day one from from home comfort to day one at NextGen. So it's not like, you know, when the wire came in, I'm like, I don't know what to do with it.
Like, we were making like, we were making 5 to $8,000,000 a year Right. A year pre selling the company.
Yeah. Obviously, getting a $80,000,000 wire is different. Right?
But, um, it was it was cool. Like, to me, I I never did it for that. As soon as it came in, I started giving it away, though.
Like, I gave my fucking COO some, my CMO some. I gave my sister. I I sent my money to Mexico.
I my ex mother-in-law, I gave bought her a house. I bought her a car. You know?
I bought my I gave my brother money. I just I I started getting rid of it. Like, to me, getting rid of the money was fucking dope.
Not like making it is cool, but getting rid of it. That's where you're like, fuck. Yeah.
This is what I'm talking about. This is what I live for. Yeah.
I can't wait to cash Nouveau out because as soon as it comes in, I'm just gonna give it back out too. Nice. So a lot of times when people exit, though, there's like a trough because
what has been, like, reinforcing them and giving them all the purpose is now gone. Now you it's kinda a little bit different because you rolled over.
But, you know, the biggest piece of advice I've always heard from people who exit, who coach people on who are thinking about exit, is to know what you're gonna do next. Yes, bro. So did That's you what I'm scared of right now.
Did you not know what you're gonna do next? Or No. I knew, uh, when I left NextGen because I was in the midst of building my thermostat.
Okay. And I knew the complexity of the thermostat was gonna drive me nuts, so I knew I had a purpose to do it. Uh, it was like, um, building this thermostat is like building an iPhone.
Right? Building Steve Jobs building the iPhone for the world is what I'm doing for the industry right now. So, um, what I'm scared of right now, though, is that I know we're about to sell Nuva for a lot of money, um, and I don't know what to do next.
And that's what I'm scared of. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to fig I'm trying to find this is how psycho I am. I'm trying to find a bigger problem to get myself into, to be able to be able to dig myself in there just to keep entertained because I know that amount of money comes in, bro.
There's problems that come with it. There's there's there's, um, there's what is that thing called when you're, like, when you when there's, um, when you're, um, temptations.
Yeah. There's temptations that come in. You know, the devil tries to come into your life and all that.
And, like, that's what I'm scared of. I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to I'm trying to time it properly where I exit Nuvia. I hire a CEO.
The money comes in, but then I already have a bigger problem to solve in our industry. Right? I'm a I'm a contractor at heart.
I'm I'm gonna pour my the rest of my life into contracting. So I'm trying to figure out what other things we need to fix inside the in the contracting world that's gonna that's gonna drive me nuts to be able to be in there daily.
Because, otherwise, if I get bored or if it's too simple, then I'm just gonna fucking wander off and fucking be, you know, partly doing dumb shit.
Yeah. Did you have any ideas? No, bro.
No. It has to do with AI, though, because that's the one world that nobody's figured out in our industry. Yeah.
Like, we figured out, you know, there's you know, we know we know how to make profit on the contracting side and the operational side. We know how to make profit on the SaaS side and on the hardware side. Like, there's there's successful, uh, businesses like service sign that came into our industries worth $10,000,000,000 now.
They're successful contractors in our industry. The one thing that we're missing is how do we integrate the AI world into our contracting into our contracting world where all contractors benefit and our EBITDA skyrockets?
The the me and Juju were just talking about it. Then the the the next contractor or whoever figures out the autonomous model in the contracting world, right, is gonna be a fucking trillionaire.
It's gonna be the next NVIDIA. It's gonna be the next Tesla. It's gonna be the next that guy.
Because right now, we've been we've been running based on labor, based on, hey. You know, we hire, we increase price. We hire, we increase price.
We hire, we increase price. And, like, we we we you know, we need CSRs dispatcher. We need all these people to do everything inside the operation, but nobody's had the balls enough to be able to, like, okay.
Let me grow a $100,000,000 company with four or five people in house. Mhmm.
Four or five people in house. No CSRs, no dispatching, no production, no accounting, no nothing inside. Just technicians and installers inside the home.
Whoever figures out that model right there,
bruh. Yeah. Well, that's a and that's a big that's a big leap, though.
Where where I would think and granted I'm talking up my ass because I don't know, is I would think that the dispatching function could be maybe it already is heavily AI AI enabled.
Look. The SaaS because it's kind of like a puzzle. You know?
Knowing certain people's strengths, what's the age of the unit, who's the type of customer, what's the history of the customer, who's gonna be the right person based on experience, personality, what's that person? That. And that feels like something that could be augmented with AI quite well.
It's exactly that. But because we have so many people inside the operation, so many humans inside the operation,
our EBITDA is 10 to twenty ten to 20% if we're lucky. Right. Like, there's there's rare Tommies out in the industry.
The vast majority of these people are running under 10% single digit EVs. Right? Nobody's ever figured out the autonomous model that what I call the Tesla model in our industry that are gonna be netting forty, fifty, 70% because it's just technicians and installers inside the home.
From the time the the ad is driven to the time it's dispatched to the consumer, it's converted into a call. It's dispatch to a tech like, all that needs to be automated to where the first point of contact, human to human contact, is the technician. Right now, like, it's all fucked up, bro.
Like, we've been doing the same thing that we that our the Ken Goodrich is the thirty, forty, fifty year old operations have been doing. Nothing has changed, and this is what pisses me off about our industry. And this is why I came up with my thermostat, and this is why I'm I'm trying to challenge all these people.
It's somebody needs to question that shit. Somebody needs to go in there and start taking the risk and saying, hey. How do we get rid of all these this dude, I had 82 CSRs.
82 CSRs just answering phones all day, inbound and outbound. Mhmm. How do we get rid of all those people?
We had a team of, like, 12 in accounting, APAR controlling collections, CFO, an assistant to this.
Like, we had a whole structure on like, how do we get rid of that? And we just put a live PNL where revenue gets attributed to every chart of accounts. And every day, we know exactly to the penny.
When somebody sells something, it triggers the the gross profit, the net profit. We just see everything live, bro. How do we get to that model?
Because once we get to that model, fucking, it's gonna be biblical. If
you're a business owner who has appointment setters or an outbound sales team, you're gonna wanna hear what I have to say for a second. So a multiple 8 figure business owner texted me the other day, and when he started using dollar.ao for the first time, his pickup rates went from 9% to 20%.
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So if you wanna check out dialer.ao for a phone sales outbound system, just click the link in the description or just go to dialer.ao. Now back to the podcast.
So we'll talk about Nuve real fast, then we'll wrap. So explain because we haven't talked about it yet, the thermostat Yep. Nuve.
What's the basic value proposition for that? I saw the alarm company. I saw the alarm panel at my house, and there was something wrong with my sensor.
And on the alarm panel, it says ADT.
So I clicked the ADT logo, it gives me a 1800 number to call so they could fix my alarm. Well, if I cover up that ADT logo if I cover up that ADT logo and something goes with my alarm, what am I gonna do?
You're gonna grab your phone, and you're gonna look for an alarm provider to come and fix your alarm. Well, that's where we're at in the HVAC world. Right now, there's EchoBee, Nest, and Honeywell.
There's no provider inside that thermostat. So if something goes wrong, what what do you do? You grab your phone.
You look for a provider. You go on Google. Look at reviews.
You go on Nayab. Look at reviews. You go on social media.
Look at for a provider instead of, like, who's been servicing this unit for the longest. New homeowner walks in. Let's say you I'm a contractor, and I've been servicing this unit for five years.
They sell that house. New homeowner comes in. What's the first thing they're gonna do?
Call another contractor. Now you lost that customer that that you've been harvesting for five years. So what I what what I'm trying to solve with my thermostat is we always give the contractor, the original provider, whoever installed the unit, whoever has been fixing it, we put their logo and their contact information on the thermostat and not on the on the thermostat only, on the app that controls the thermostat.
So they never know it's a NuVet thermostat. It's it's service champions. It's NextGen.
They have their own app. They have their own thermostat on it. So every time the consumer needs you, they're at their fingertips.
That's all we're trying to solve, which in return, if you can install more of our devices inside the home, you're gonna be able to retain most of these clients. And if you could retain clients, your marketing spend will go down. Mhmm.
Dude, most of these contractors, bro, are are retaining less than 8% of consumers. That's wild. 8%.
That means 92% of your of your customers go to somebody else because they forgot who you are. They can't find an invoice.
They don't know where in the email. They they they forgot your name. Right?
They're they're not gonna go in the attic and look at your stupid sticker that you've been putting for ten years. And that's the problem we're trying to solve with Nuvent is we're trying to give the contractor back the power instead of, you know, keep investing $1.21300000
dollars a month on Google. So what's been the hardest part transitioning
from the trades to, really, this is a software hardware company? Um, the software hardware, uh, world is a lot to do with, uh, trust. Like, I gotta trust my CTO.
I gotta trust my CRO. I gotta trust my CMO. I gotta trust all these people to drive the business.
In the contracting world, I could fucking go in and sell to them. I could go and take care of that goddamn customer. I could go in if a customer we flooded a customer's house, I'll send the drywallers.
I'll send I'll do everything. Right? I have control of the operation.
In the in the SaaS world, in the hardware world, bro, you have zero control. Like, you wanna roll out features. You wanna roll out new product.
You wanna roll out this. It's like, ish, this take this takes time. Yeah.
Yeah. Hey. Like, I'll I'll give you a pretty example.
We rolled out our version one. Right? Our version one thermostat, an ugly ass thermostat.
We sold $15,200,000 our first year of thermostats, bro. $15,200,000 of the most hideous thermostat.
It was a beta thermostat. I just wanted to put it out there to see if it if people even wanted it. A year and a half later, I'm about to roll my second version.
I just rolled it out last week. Like, that's how long it took. I've been working for a year and a half on version two.
Mhmm. And it's like, Ish, you wanna change this? You wanna do this?
You want this? The screen, this, the blah blah. It's like, bro, you don't just fucking walk in.
It's like, oh, here it is. Thirty days later, we're launching it. No, bro.
You gotta feed software into it. You gotta fucking the hardware's gotta communicate with the servers and the software inside. It takes fucking time, bro.
So I think that what the SaaS world hardware world's teaching me is a lot more patience than the contracting work. One of the biggest correlations because, obviously, software is like a bigger opportunity for a lot of people. 100%.
Because, really, what happens with software is there's only like, at home service is very fragmented. Software is an industry where usually only one to three providers will capture the entire market. Right?
And so really to kind of like
to win there, you either have to create a new market or you create like a subcategory in a lot of ways. And so one of the biggest correlations I've found with those bigger opportunity vehicles, as they call them, is they can't be solo founders unless you're like I mean, there's Elon Musk and all these people.
But generally, it's very hard. Like for me, if I'm going to start a software company we were talking about earlier, you know, I'm gonna do the distribution side, but I'm not going to learn the CTO skill set in two years.
Same. Even if I spent two years trying to learn it, I'm not gonna learn it. Right?
You're not supposed to, by the way. Yeah. Even in big hedge funds, like, there's usually three, at minimum, three partners in the fund, and they have different, like there's a raising capital guy, there's the guy who's like the nerd who knows all the algorithms and all that stuff, then there's another guy who's like literally just fund operations, you know?
And so that's something I found. I think a good place to end off is I've heard you say that your goal is not just generational wealth, but generational peace. Yes, sir.
What do you mean by that? Um, I want the rest of my bloodline to never have to worry about, um, money again. I want them to not worry about what if they're gonna,
you know, if where they're gonna be at tomorrow, if they're gonna have food on the table, if they're gonna have a home to go to. You know, my whole life, I've been I've been struggling to see the people that I love in my whole life just be poor. Right?
My uncles, my cousins, my brother, us, like, we've been just dirt poor our whole life. And to me, like, I've never like, to me, being poor is probably one of the, you know, one of the harshest feelings that I had to deal with my whole life and and and something that I've just been working, you know, diligently to be able to change in into my daughter's life, into my, you know, their daughters and their and their kids and and and the close family.
So, uh, just giving people the peace of the that I didn't have. All the shit that I had to go through and all the mayhem that I had to go through, obviously, you know, requires a lot of hecticness. And what I want the next generation and my daughters and and my and my my nephews and everybody that's close to me, I just want them to have peace, man.
Like, I want them to do whatever they want whenever they want. They don't have to answer to an asshole like me or they don't have to answer to anybody. You know?
If they wanna be in Monaco tomorrow and they just wanna be there for a year, cool. Go there. If they wanna go to Mexico and live there for the rest of their life, go there.
Like, I I want them to to really enjoy life. So I'm sacrificing myself, and I'm sacrificing time and energy and and just you know, I'm not nobody enjoys this, bro. Nobody enjoys building businesses and fucking going through harsh and and and firing people and hiring people and all the curveballs that get thrown thrown at you.
You gotta be a little bit psychopathic
to, uh, you gotta be a psychopath to be able to enjoy this. I don't want none of my loved ones to go through this, so that's why I'm doing it. Ishmael, thanks for coming on.
Thank you, bro. That's the pod. Hey.
If you enjoyed this podcast and you wanna check out another one of my podcasts, you'll probably like this one.
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