Blue Collar Business Podcast
Welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast with Sy Kirby. Dive deep into the world of hands-on entrepreneurship and the gritty side of making things happen. Join us for actionable tips on scaling your blue-collar business, managing teams, and staying ahead in an ever-evolving market. We'll also discuss the latest industry trends and innovations that could impact your bottom line. If you're passionate about the blue-collar world and eager to learn from those who've thrived in it, this podcast is a must-listen. Stay tuned for engaging conversations and real-world advice that can take your blue-collar business to new heights.
Blue Collar Business Podcast
Ep. 56 - Get Heavy Machines Repaired Without Dealer Delays
What happens when skilled mechanics break free from the dealership model? A revolution in equipment service that's changing the construction industry.
Alex Kraft spent 16 years watching the same problems plague heavy equipment service: weeks-long backlogs, poor communication, frustrated customers, and skilled technicians earning a fraction of what dealerships bill for their labor. Instead of accepting the status quo, he created Heave, an on-demand platform connecting equipment owners directly with skilled technicians.
The brilliance of Heave lies in its simplicity. When your excavator or dozer breaks down, you upload photos and details to the app. Available technicians in your area respond with their rates, experience, and estimated arrival times. You choose who comes based on reviews, expertise, and pricing. No more calling dealerships repeatedly for updates; you communicate directly with the person who'll fix your machine.
What truly sets Heave apart is its impact on technicians' livelihoods. While dealers typically pay mechanics $25-28/hour while billing customers $200+, Heave's independent technicians set their own rates and keep most of what they earn. Many are on track to make over $200,000 annually, creating a career path that could help solve the skilled trades shortage.
Since launching in 2020, Heave has expanded to serve customers in over 30 states, fixed more than 100 equipment brands, and recently secured $7 million in Series A funding. Their success proves that when you solve a real problem in the blue-collar world, growth follows.
Ready to stop waiting weeks for equipment repairs? Download the Heave app or visit heaveapp.com today and experience what the future of heavy equipment service looks like.
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Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Welcome back, guys, to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast brought to you and sponsored by our lovely folks over at Thumbtack. When you're ready to grow but your systems can't keep up, you need a partner who gets how you work. Thumbtack delivers leads that match your strengths, plus data tools and real-time insights to help you make smarter moves. Automation keeps you running smoothly and centralized systems make scaling super simple. Every day, pros use Thumbtack to hit their goals. Ready to grow, visit thumbtackcom backslash pro to book your personalized strategy session today.
Speaker 1:Guys, I am super excited for today's episode. It's one that's been on the backlog behind the scenes. This gentleman took the time to fly in here and this is a topic that's worth. We probably don't have enough time today to talk about all the things we could. But the service industry. If you own these machines, guys and I know a lot of you guys are excavation outfits and utility outfits and you came from the YouTube side of the world over here to the podcast. But when you go buy that first machine, it's all about sales. Yeah, they're all over you, but really what you need to be worried about is that service shop attached to the dealer as well.
Speaker 1:Guys, and this gentleman knows all about ins and outs of every dealer across the country as he's pushing forward with a platform that everybody on this show needs to know about, pushing forward with a platform that everybody on this show needs to know about. It is so cool from a software perspective, but literally tying new age tech with old school blue collar mechanics mainly and you guys out there that are owning those machines and you can't get the dealer support that you need. This gentleman has founded a wonderful product that is going to help you get there. Former COO of Flagger Construction Equipment 16 plus years in the dealer world. Man that would probably take a toll on anybody but helped several different struggling dealerships, put them back on track, put them in top performing within two years timeframe. I am really excited to sit down with my good friend already now, mr Alex Kraft. Founder of Thieves On Demand Heavy.
Speaker 2:Equipment Service. Thank you, sir. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. Then. That was quite an intro, was it?
Speaker 1:Did I nail it? It's a pleasure to be here. That was quite an intro.
Speaker 2:Was it? Did I nail it? I want to bring you around everywhere I go.
Speaker 1:Well, man, you have literally pioneered. I'm always wanting to spotlight and shed light on anybody that's willing to fix a problem. That is a major problem, but nobody wants to bring it up. That is a major problem, but nobody wants to bring it up. And, man, give us a little industry background on yourself and where you come from, where you've been and all over the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I started my first real job out of college back in 2004, landed with a Volvo heavy construction dealer called Flagler. We were in Florida At one point. We also owned the dealership in Eastern Pennsylvania, new Jersey, new York City. It's called Penn Jersey Machinery. So I worked for a dealer with really good size, you know, and Volvo at that time had 38 ish dealers across the country and I think you know we were historically like third or fourth largest, you know, maybe fifth at the most, but, um, so I, that's how I learned the construction industry.
Speaker 2:I didn't really have any experience in it before. Uh, I took a job, uh, selling, I started selling and renting equipment. So I was out in the field in front of customers like yourself. And then, you know, work my way through the dealership over 16, 17 years, ended up, you know, working in every department. Uh, I became the COO, uh, and that's when I really became involved in service. I didn't I always knew it from afar, you know, knew it from the PNL or, as every sales rep knows you, you know, service when it's not going well because the customer calls you. Um, you know, after they call the service department and then when they get, they don't get the answer they want, they call the person. They have the relationship, which who's the salesperson? And so I'm well-versed in in everything dealership from my experience, Directly tied to equipment though dealership or then.
Speaker 1:So Volvo is kind of the. I like a good old Volvo machine, but it's a good machine it is. We don't have rented a couple. So, florida, let's fast forward. Through that you get to that COO role of this dealership and now we can start asking the question of why, why are we doing the things that we're doing? Frustrated customers, serviceability Maybe tell us a little bit through the sales or the service, a couple of generalistic things about a dealership that most folks wouldn't know.
Speaker 2:Okay, so one of the things as to the why, where, why I started Heave was it's perfect. Nothing changed. Why, uh, where, why I started heave was perfect. Nothing changed, you know, and it's really frustrating. You know, like I said, I started in 2004. You know, our dealership got sold in 2020. Nothing had changed in terms of, like, the overall operation. All the problems were the same. Um, you know, you have different people who come in and leave, and new people come in, and it's like, but the problems remain the same.
Speaker 2:No one really wants to do anything and, like I'm just the type of person that, like I wasn't, I wasn't like a destined entrepreneur, like I didn't have like these dreams from a young age of like starting a business Really, yeah. So I was different. Like I, I was at a stable company, uh, and then I was just just became so frustrated with the state of affairs and people just acting like they were helpless, like, uh, we can't solve it. Like I don't understand cause we devote so much of our time to work Right, you know, it's where we spend most of our time, unfortunately, and I just can't.
Speaker 2:I can't get with if I'm going to put this much time into it to not like want to improve at something or be the best, or like I can't show up to work every day just knowing that, like hey, these five problems that are just going to always be there. Like we're, we're going to let customers down, we're going to invoice customers wrong, we're, we're going to it's going to take three weeks to get a tech to them, it, you know, I can't. I can't live that way. Um, and I had built, uh, enough experience to have the confidence uh, at, you know, towards the end in like 2020. Like you know what, what if we started a business that focused more on the customer and the customer experience, and that's my mindset leading into it.
Speaker 1:No, 100%, and that's exactly where I was going with. That is, you saw all the problems, not just heard about them, but you felt them, you lived them. You know what these guys are going through at the dealership level, in-house, but you're also knowing what this customer is having to deal with and lack of transparency and invoicing, and invoicing wrong is. I can just go off on that one by itself. But when you go to pick up the phone, nobody really wants to talk about it. There's lack of systems. I'm literally dealing with this.
Speaker 2:Pick up the phone Call in Like I used to do this sometimes, like I would call my own dealership and then I would never get to anybody or it would take like forever. You'd get passed around these phone trees and then you know I would like walk through the hallway and I would hear the phones ring and then no one's picking them up.
Speaker 1:There's just a lot Breeding ground for pissed off customers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I was always amazed at how much money customers spend for the experience that they get, and it doesn't matter. You have monster customers like Archer Western Walsh Group billions of dollars and then you have smaller customers, but even the smaller customers are spending millions of dollars on rentals a year, millions of dollars on buying five machines, ten machines, whatever, and then what you spend on parts and service too. So you're spending that amount of money. There should be a bar of a standard that you should receive as a customer.
Speaker 1:Customer service 101, you know sales as you guys. You've heard this thousands of times in your world. But sales sells that first machine, but service sells the rest. And I talk about on this show and on the YouTube all the time about, hey guys, payments and repairs. You just don't want them both at the same time. You've got to set yourself up for that. But with seeing all these generalistic problems in a state of meteorocracy that nobody is willing to pick up the torch, you go you know what. Well, let's step off and let's fix some of these problems, because they're not going away. And you, of course, built a portfolio of customers over the years and probably reached out to them and said, hey, is this a problem?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did so. Ironically, when we first started, it wasn't. We didn't have the service, we weren't doing service. Uh, when we first started the company, it was like july 2020. It was um, a technology company that was aimed at making um buying and renting equipment more accessible. So, like, the easiest way to compare would be like an expedia type experience, um, and we pursued that for two years and it was really really difficult because we didn't own the inventory, like, we just wanted to be the software layer to make it.
Speaker 2:You know, if you think about it, like if I go to a website to order food from a restaurant, it's not the restaurant's like online experience there're, that's a third party that they're using. So, like, thinking of, you know, thinking of like that kind of a model. So we didn't own the inventory, we just wanted to make it easier for customers to transact and you know, I'd meet with customers and they liked it, but inevitably it would get to the point of like, oh, okay, well, what dealers are using this? And that was the breaking point. We couldn't get dealers to use it and so, therefore, it had no value to the customer.
Speaker 2:But almost every one of those conversations with a customer where they were like huh, yeah, so it doesn't have any value to me, but if you could find a way to help me on the service side, I would be a customer tomorrow. That's my major pain. So in retrospect, I tell people our first product that we had for like two years, we were solving an inconvenience, we weren't solving a true problem, and then when we switched, pivoteded the service, we were solving an immediate problem. And that's when, like I mentioned, like two years of just like suck to, like not really get anything going, like literally we switched the service and within our first month it was like, I mean, like customers, oh my god, this exists, how do I do this? Oh, this is fantastic. And so then it was just full speed ahead after that.
Speaker 1:Well, good on you for pushing, and you did what a lot of entrepreneurs fail to do, and that's listen, and you listen to your customer. Like I, was definitely hardheaded at one point in cycle.
Speaker 2:Let's see here's where's where this is really hard, because you need to be hard-headed, you need to be stubborn. Everything that you read is true. You need to be able to push through tough times. The really, really difficult thing when I look, is having, like this instinct of well, what's wasted effort. You know cause you gotta keep pushing through and like and I just realized so ironically, I decided to kill our first product after we started having success with it.
Speaker 2:So we were that is ironic so we were helping a few like sales reps sell machines and you know they would sell a machine for like 250 grand and we would use that as our wedge, like our. You know, we would call into that sales rep and be like man, this is great, you sold this to a new customer 250 grand. So the dealership makes let's call it 25,000 in profit. You make a commission, probably like four or 5,000, and we were charging a subscription at that time. They were like hey, how many sales reps work for your dealership? Ah, 50. Great, hey, can you get us a meeting with their VP? Let's see how many more reps we get on here.
Speaker 2:Every time we'd have that conversation, the sales rep would say if I don't sell something next month I'm going to cancel. And you're sitting there and you're like the math doesn't work. You could afford, based on what you just paid us, you could afford to not sell anything for the next year and you still come out ahead. But it was the sign to me that they didn't see the value in it. And so that's when I was like we have to kill this, we have to go after service.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, you, you need stubbornness, you need to be hard-headed, but it's just like, can you? You got to kind of game it out and understand like the big picture thing. Like, even though the math works and even though the value was more on the dealer side for what we were providing, we couldn't extract enough value. And when people and and like you, you go, you read about like this stuff about entrepreneurship and starting companies, and people say build something that people want, build something that people will pay for. So it sounds very simplistic, but that was a good example of it works. But they weren't willing to pay for it and that was like very eyeopening to me but it helped me make the decision.
Speaker 1:It's gotta be a two way street right. And yeah, the customer if they don't see immense value in it, it's going to be hard to get behind for them. But it also entrepreneurs we already feel undervalued, we don't need our whole.
Speaker 2:And it's tempting right, it's tempting to go on a whiteboard and be like here, let's draw it out, you made $25,000. You paid us $99 in the month, but if they don't recognize it, you're not gonna convince them. And so that helped me, uh, make the decision. And then, like, like I said, once we went to service, there was no selling, literally if who did you?
Speaker 1:found the problem, heard the problem and dove head first. Walk us a little bit through how he works, like if I was just first time hearing about it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what I like to do is you own equipment like in a perfect world. How should service exist?
Speaker 1:Man machine's down make a phone call hey, come fix my machine. I need it up by oh two hours, please. That's how it should work.
Speaker 2:That's how it should work. So we built an app and we call it on-demand service. Because it is on-demand, it's when a customer needs a tech and so a typical experience, like when I was driving over here this morning I'm getting blown up on the app. Customer's got fill in the blank I got a PC-138. I got a CAD-950. It's got a def issue. Every machine has a def issue.
Speaker 2:I'm at this job site in northwest Arkansas. Customer can take a picture of error codes, take a picture of a machine or whatever the issue, submit request. An alert goes out to all of the technicians in that area. The technicians set the service area and then they can see customer what the issue is and then the technician can respond if they have availability and then the customer just gets pinged. Every time a technician responds, you can see oh okay, john Smith can be here this afternoon. He's 145 an hour. I can click on John and I can read a profile on him. I can see like oh okay, john spent eight years prior to owning his own business. Spent eight years at the local cat dealer. Before that he was at the John Deere dealer.
Speaker 2:All right, next, Frank Frank Thompson can be here tomorrow morning. He's 175 an hour. He's got these reviews on the Heave app. I can see that I can also click on his profile and then, as a customer, you get to pick who you want, and it's that simple. It's a very simple concept. It's um, but it's up to the customer. Like the way we set it up is. We wanted it to operate as many ways as possible the opposite of how the traditional experience operates. So there is no phone call, it's going through an app. Customer always gets to pick which technician they want. You get different price points too, right, we also we calculate, like distance and mileage too. So, like you can see in my example, the first tech 8.7 miles from your job site and they charge 250 a mile or whatever. So we show you the round trip travel. So, like, hey, just so you know it's gonna be 250 round trip just in travel before they get to you, and we do that for everybody that also secures your guy that's driving out there.
Speaker 1:There may be a guy that just left one of the rental houses that's been doing this five or 15 years and wants to start his own. Got his own truck, but he doesn't even know how to price himself and it sounds like you can also. Hey, look, this is how this market should should go. You're going to get paid this to go do your work.
Speaker 2:Just put your price. We can, we can help people with that. Yeah, based on what we know about the markets. But, yeah, like there's so many crazy things, like in the traditional experience, when the one, one of which that stands out to me is the customer has no say over who they get, and also they have no say over the distance, right like you. You just know from dealing with angry customers over time. You're like, oh wait, we sent somebody from two hours away and we're billing the customer for that travel time mileage Like, but they had no say in it, and then they didn't have no parts, right, and they had to go back. And so, yeah, that's one of the reasons why we show the customer like, hey, so-and-so is 50 miles away from you.
Speaker 1:That's huge man, yeah. And then, not only that, it goes to availability, which is cool, sure, but I'd also maybe throw this in there yeah, john Smith, maybe a cat and John Deere guy, but I may have a Komatsu out there and Frank over here he came from the Komatsu dealership, yep, and it's going to be 12 hours down. I may can get a rental out there or whatever, but I've got Frank the tank coming out, who's the man on the Komatsu stuff, and he'll have it done in six hours. So to be able to see the back end of these guys price point availability location, like, come on that is amazing.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's that's where I think our company thinks that service should go. Is, uh, in service in the future, which is today through us? Is all of these factors right, something that I didn't realize the power of until we started. I'd love to tell you I was so smart that I thought about this, but I came from a dealer, so I was just used to how it operated. What started happening early was, like I mentioned uh, customer would have a cat excavator go down. They'd book a tech tech would go out there and then, while the tech was on the job site, customer would be like, hey, uh, when you're done with that, this deer dozer is giving us an issue. Can you look at it? And then text like sure, said the deerzer, and then all of a sudden like, hey, this Komatsu excavator. So we were knocking out like three different brands on the same, on the same service call and customers were like are you kidding me? I would have had to call three different parties. Who knows when each of them could have gotten here.
Speaker 1:We one travel charge and this guy fixed all three gotten here One travel charge and this guy fixed all three and I love how it's becoming an app interface. As you guys know, on this show all the time I talk about younger guys embrace the technology as much as you can because it's outrunning the industry as fast as it's moving. But we're all used to apps. We're all used to a phone. I mean they spend more time we all do on social media than anything. I mean we know how to operate an app to be able to. Hey, got a machine here. This is what's wrong with it. I think it's a fuel issue. I'm not a mechanic and then get four or five responses to a working area. That's unbelievable, man Congrats.
Speaker 2:First of all, I appreciate that it's been very difficult, but yeah, it's been very rewarding.
Speaker 1:It's always difficult doing what no one else will do Doing this podcast as a dirt guy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. And people tell you, like, whenever you try to do something different, people love to tell you about how it'll never work and you don't know what you're doing and and I get it. But, um, I've always kind of been comfortable on being on the uh, you know, the other side of that being different yeah, it being different. Um, you know, I've always had kind of a chip, a little chip on the shoulder too, like to prove certain things. Um, but yeah, it's just wow, what a, what a crazy idea. If you build something that you know is more responsive to customers, that'll save them money, like what, what, what an idea that you can build a big business out of that.
Speaker 1:It's insane, dude, it literally is. But no, I'm always the pioneers. We need more of it. People just like yourself, willing to find the problem, not just go. Ah, somebody will come along and fix it. No go, hey, look these customers. I'm tired. I've got really, really good people that I like taking care of and I'm tired of doing this dealership model. And it is, you're right, the trad or traditional way of calling the dealer. We talked about it earlier. You can't get nobody on the phone. So if you don't have a guy on the inside, you're not even getting your phone call or even getting on a list that day. No, and so you're not having to worry about a phone call. You're not having to worry about any of that. My machine boom, take a picture, it's a lot like Thumbtack. And for the owner I mean, honestly, take a picture, it's a lot like thumbtack. And for the owner I mean, honestly, take a picture. We get compared to thumbtack for today's episode.
Speaker 1:Right, I apologize no, hey look, this is the first podcast I've been on with an ad read, so I feel very official okay, well, um, I really appreciate thumbtack being our present sponsor and but it it's a model that works to that point you know what I mean and the customer spending to your point millions of dollars every single freaking month. We make our payments but when it goes down, the number one thing in our world is downtime. For a guy like myself and to have that right in the palm pocket not just me, but the guy out there say he's working right away. You know what I mean. He can get access I'm assuming employees and set them up in a profile. Your foreman's worried about these 12 machines on this right away project and it is out in the middle of wherever Oklahoma. Well, it may be three hours from a dealer, but there is a local guy somewhere and hopefully he's on the Heave app and can come right around the corner.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, there's so much to talk about Some things I don't want to gloss over. One of the things that's kind of magical about what we built is the communication aspect, and so the customer is communicating directly with the technician who can fix the machine. You know, and so like that's another thing that, when you are raised in the dealership world, becomes unbelievably frustrating is that and I empathize with customers is that customers are always chasing information. You know, you're always like you don't hear anything and so naturally you assume the worst. No one's working on it. They don't know when they can get someone to me. You know all of it's probably true, but the only way to know is you got to call again, you got to call again, you got to call again and it's just not. It's not a good model and you just got time for that.
Speaker 2:No, and so that's why you know, one of the things that works so well with our app, with the app, is that it's all messaging and it's with directly with. There's no middle people. You're not dealing with a dispatcher or a manager who then has to check with someone, who has to check with someone else else, who then has to call with the technician. It's like no, you're dealing with the person who's coming out, and there's a lot of advantages to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not dealing with a service writer that's been there two weeks, that really doesn't have a clue about the machine itself. He's just typing stuff in a computer. I mean, you can go to any parts store in America and get that experience. Nowadays I need wipers. Is that four wheel drive? You know it's like that. The service.
Speaker 2:So I had we dealt with this. It was it's like a. We did a centralized service experiment at the dealership I was at, which was a massive failure, and the one story that was like burned in my memory is we had a customer our largest customer at the time four letter name really easy name and they call in and the guy answering the phone asked him how to spell it and you're just like oh my God.
Speaker 1:What are we coming to? I was saying QDR rates.
Speaker 2:How do you spell that? It's like oh, you know, the customer that owns 200 machines from us and, you know, is our number one sales customer, rental customer service customer.
Speaker 1:And of course you know he ends up on the phone with that service writer that's been there for a week and he's just trying to do his job. But being able to talk to the guy that's actually going to put his hands on whatever issue that's in your machine, yeah, you cut out a lot of lag time and crappy communication. That is totally time wasting. But I'm assuming they can go back and forth within the heave after the sale. It's all within the app.
Speaker 2:That's really good, oh man, which is also, I think, important too, because there's context. Like people like texting, but if you think about it like texting just to text, a lot of stuff can get missed. Like you will have customers where we're doing like 15 jobs at one time for right, and so if a technician is texting the customer like wait, which machine is this for? It's like, so, if it's in in the app, it's all tied to a job and so there's context to it, right, there's a message on this job, there's a message on this job, and that's all you know. We've built out a bunch of new features too, where it's all kind of shared within, like you mentioned, like a foreman and someone else on the site like you can pull.
Speaker 2:You can pull different people within your operation in on one job and now they're all communicating with the technician. So it's not even like hey, you talk to the technician, now you have to pick up the phone and call your people. You're all in on the same messages.
Speaker 1:Not only that, for you customers and you owners of those machines, as inspection, daily inspection reports if there is something that transpired on that machine, you want the documentation for the next guy that comes out. So being able to pull that entire communication putting it in that equipment piece of file for that next tech that works on it, whether it's through heave or not, whether it's a dealer warrantied item, you can at least you know, you know you need that documentation. So having that all within one centralized location man, you're freaking doing this thing, dude. Yeah, it's fun, that's awesome. So, service area right now. I know you guys are pushing hard, but you guys are in like how many states?
Speaker 2:currently. So our core market this is the way I describe. Okay, we have core markets and then we have other states where we work. So core markets are Florida, Texas, georgia, north Carolina, tennessee. We just started in Ohio, coming to Arkansas. We've done jobs in Arkansas, that's right. So this year I think we've done jobs in 30, 32 states.
Speaker 2:And what happens all the time is, you know, a large customer will use us in Texas or Florida or Atlanta and you know they'll call us up and they'll be like hey, I'm working in this mine outside of Indianapolis, can you help me? And we go yeah, we never say absolutely. If we can't like, was it? Hey, give us, give us 30 days, we'll butt out a technician network, and so, like, we do work every week in indiana. Today we do work in colorado, we get, and then we get customers who will download the app without ever talking to us in california, like we've done probably 10 jobs in california this year because we have we have technicians who have downloaded the app all over the country, and so it still. It does surprise me when you just see a customer you've never heard of. We've done jobs in Delaware, like it's kind of it's wild and we have technicians, and so it's-.
Speaker 1:And it's growing by the day. Pretty special, yeah, Especially when you're also taking care of them. I mean it's a literal two-way street that's paved really well for the customer and you know your network of of man. That's so awesome, Seriously. So take us where it's going. We let's talk a little bit. Some news popped out this week. I was on LinkedIn, I was, yeah, some major news I'll let you kind of share.
Speaker 2:We closed a Series A capital raise of $7 million, which is a big deal for us. So we've raised $13 in our history through venture capital firms, which is an interesting experience on its own. Yeah, sure, where we're going is we want to be the only nationwide field service provider for all brands of equipment. So one of the things that's pretty cool is we've fixed over 100 different brands of equipment in our lifetime and that has come from customers is we've fixed over a hundred different brands of equipment in our lifetime.
Speaker 2:Um, and that's and that has come from customers, you know, like service call on a cat and then a customer like hey, can you do you guys work on on highway trucks? Yes, we fixed max. Peter builds Kenworth. Hey, can you guys work on cranes? Yes, generators yes, and so the alignment with customers is awesome. And then the downside for dealers is that they have a territory that they cannot go outside of. There's two cat dealers in Florida, there's three cat dealers in Texas. They can't go outside of their footprint. We can fix equipment everywhere by being brand agnostic and a technology home.
Speaker 1:That's insane. How have I know the big hot topic in our world is? Well before I go there, let's stay on this. You mentioned venture capitalist and all of these terms. A lot of these guys are blue collar guys just starting. Could be an electrician or a plumber. Talk a little bit about that. And you've done all of this since July 2020. It's not like we're talking a huge time period here, guys.
Speaker 2:So if there's yeah, give us a little bit. So venture capital I didn't really know anything about that before I started the business. I started the business Um. So you know most people know like venture capital, private equity. You know like two paths to um to raise money, Right, um, venture capital is a fascinating world to me.
Speaker 2:So you have firms that you know look to invest money in emerging companies that you know everybody has like their own checklist of what they look for. But what it was fascinating for me was you know a venture capital firm like their job is to research industries. You know a lot of venture capital firms are can be organized into a couple of different ways Like they're like industry focused or what could be called stage focused. So stage is like the um, the age of a company when they invest. So naturally it, if you invest in um, a seat at seed seed is like a term for like a very young small company If you invest early, like at that stage, it's not as much money you're investing but the potential to pay out is that much larger because the young company could grow and become a massive company, right? And then you have other venture capital firms that look to invest at later stages because they don't want as much risk, right, and so, if you like, invest like series B, series C, series D you're typically having to write larger checks and the payout is not as big because these are well-established companies, and so it's just like what the risk profile is.
Speaker 2:What was really interesting to me is like these are people and venture capital companies that, like I mentioned, they look at companies every day. So they're getting pitched companies I don't know eight to 10 a day or whatever and then they've made investments of many companies that become really successful. So they look for certain characteristics of DNA, of what makes companies successful. It could be market opportunity is definitely a big part of that. It can be characteristics of a leadership team.
Speaker 2:It can be the product itself that they're selling, and so it was an unbelievable experience for me to speak to a lot of these firms and get their feedback on our company right, and then you look at their portfolio and the companies that they've invested in, and so to look at look at should be a word now in the portfolio of a couple of these venture firms alongside of, and Uber alongside SpaceX alongside of, you know, like really, really big, successful company. So it gives you a tremendous amount of confidence and I got plenty of no's. Know, that's the entrepreneur favorite word, yeah, but but what was really helpful is that, like the questions that they ask about your business, it helps you like, oh, that is a vulnerability for our business, so I gotta shore that up, because these people are professionals at assessing businesses, and so it was a really interesting experience. Raising money is never fun, but fascinating, Fascinating.
Speaker 1:But what about the validation for yourself? After the grind making a huge pivot? Let's try this thing.
Speaker 2:And then, all of a sudden, these companies are like yes, yes, yes, and you're like whoa just, it was totally, it's totally surreal, um, and yeah, it gives you a tremendous amount of confidence because they're not investing money in you because they like you. They're investing money in you because they think that you're going to be successful and they're going to make money Value. And so yeah, it gives myself, it gives our team, a tremendous amount of confidence going forward, that we're onto something really big.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody, I was talking to a few folks about he just trying to find our little area local, do you know about this? And I was just talking to you at dinner last night about our local yokel shop that we take a track O2, or if we needed something to go down or you needed it, you know, whatever welded or an actual shop, they're gone as of August 25th and so now we're sitting here going. Well, I mean, we have the dealers, those guys where I'm going with this and I'd like for you to talk on before I get there. I apologize again, this venture capitalism. I'm sorry, I can't get off of it.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to show and make a point to if you have an idea wanted to show and make a point to. If you have an idea, you put grind, perseverance behind it, make a pivot when it's maybe the best not the best opportunity or the best opportunity but strike on that opportunity, pivot and people want to work with you. It's the point I was getting there. These blue collar guys with an idea, yeah, totally. Um, there is the white collar world.
Speaker 2:They want to work with. Yeah, I, I completely agree. It was something that stood out to me actually, um is that I was kind of amazed at how, like vcs will talk to anybody. Like you think, like you look at, you, look at a vc firm and firm and you can see that you can read about all their successful investments. And maybe you have or maybe at least I did I had this preconceived notion of like, oh yeah, they're not going to want to talk to me, you know, with my dumb company, because this is who they've dealt with in the past. But no, like, because they all they understand the game.
Speaker 2:They understand that everything starts small. Every company has their first customer. Everyone starts from the same place Airbnb. They're selling air mattresses on the floor. You know now, they're worth more than all the hotels combined. But venture capitalists understand that. So you are right in terms of like, they'll talk to you, they'll give you time. It is, you know, some of it's like Shark Tank too right. You get a certain amount of time. You got to get their attention. It's got to be a big idea. It's got to be flushed out. It's got to have a plan. You know you can't be winging it, but yeah, I was amazed at like oh wow, like these people are hearing me out.
Speaker 1:This is pretty cool, man, that's unbelievable. Just to have, you're right. But the plan and the strategy I talk about for so many years within my own business, that dude slapped me upside the head 80% of the time, just flying by the seat of my pants, trying that's how we all figure it out, though Exactly, literally, and through these experiences. You know, education is expensive, but experience is priceless. And just going through it, just like you did in the dealer world, and dealing with the problems from your mechanic side or your sales team or your customers in general, fixing the problem, then not only going, hey, this is a problem, here's the fix, I believe it is, here's the plan and strategy. Hey, what do you guys think about it? Then taking their feedback, molding, molding and look at you now, dude, seriously, kudos, arsham. Very, very glad to shine some light on what you're doing this early on. It's everything. When you've already done it and you've already got there, we have a lot to do.
Speaker 1:Don't we all the other thing? Major question that I know a lot of these guys are going to want to ask you and they're going to be like, hey, Cy, why didn't you ask about software? Now I think I already know your response, but as these next gen, all these new machines are coming out, it literally change a hose. You got to have the computer to reset the sealed system. It's a ridiculous joke, but I'm assuming a lot of these guys already have the software. They do.
Speaker 2:Okay, they do. So that was the one question that I had before I committed everything to starting the service business was I didn't know how many guys had software, and when I started talking to technicians to like build our initial network, everyone did um, and so most all of these guys are former dealership mechanics.
Speaker 1:So, and when you said that, with the guys that did have the software, what size fleet did they have? I'm saying you're from the customer side or you're saying from the mechanics side, from the mechanics, understood. So they're already leaving. They've been building their repertoire of software.
Speaker 2:They were a former cat dealer tech. They have what? Is it Sys, I think is the cat program. Yeah, they were at Deere, they have the Deere. And then when I started asking techs like, hey, what software do you have? I have a diesel laptop, I have JAL test. There's another third one. I'm like, oh, everybody's got software. This is really interesting.
Speaker 1:I think we've got a scanner, but I think a lot of the folks that you're probably speaking to here today on the show yes, I know there's some guys that have huge fleets that listen to the show, but a lot of them are that one to three to that five to seven year mark that we may have 10, 15, maybe 20 machines. But I know some of these guys that still don't own software. I don't, yeah, Most customers don't.
Speaker 2:Even large customers don't have software.
Speaker 1:but the techs, the mechanics on our platform do that was the, Because I don't really want to necessarily deal with the dealer past the sale. To be honest with you, because of all the things we've sat here and talked about today, it's an absolute struggle. And I'm sitting here paying for rental and paying or the machine. The rental machine ain't made it there, so I got a crew standing around trying to fix, like, guys, do yourself a favor and jump on the Heave app. This is obviously very new in our neck of the woods, but I hope to hear from some of you guys that are already on heave and hear your experiences and I will get them shared with Alex.
Speaker 2:So I'd like to talk a little bit about why. So I'm going to defend dealers a little bit, okay, okay, okay, I would say so. You know why. Why so common question why hasn't this been done before? Because it is a simple idea, right? Is that number one dealers have no incentive to improve. Okay, and that's the one thing that you, when you work there for a long time, number one dealers have no incentive to improve. And that's the one thing that, when you work there for a long time, why things don't change is that there's no incentive.
Speaker 2:You have a very large footprint that the OEM is protective of. Like I mentioned, there's two cat dealers in Florida. No one else can sell cat into Florida. You know, you don't have to really get better because there's no real threat In the auto business. I guarantee you here in Northwest Arkansas, if there were three cat dealers in Northwest Arkansas, I bet you there'd be a different experience. But there's not. There's one, and so there's no incentive.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing, too, is that it's really hard to be a dissenter, dissenting voice, within those walls. Right, you have a lot of people who make a lot of money, and do you want to be the one person who's speaking up like, hey, no, we should change x, y and z. You know, you got a lot of people making a lot of money like, no, no, let's keep everything the same. So now, the part that's not really their fault is that service in many ways is a numbers game and they still have enough bodies. So we had a hundred field techs in Florida, the dealership I worked at and we probably had to maintain I don't know 10 000 machines. So that's a math problem, right? Um, now, cat might have 400 or 500 field technician, but they got to maintain 50,000 machines. So you're back to the same thing Now, same percentage, right? And that's what creates this tremendous backlog and time to get a technician.
Speaker 2:Now I heard I started 2004. I'm sure there was people listening to this who'd be like well, I started hearing that 1990. No one wants to be a tech. Yeah, I would say, here we got hearing that 1990. No one wants to be a tech. Yeah, I would say, here we got to finish the sentence. No one wants to be a tech and make $25 an hour, $28 an hour. That's the problem and that's what I started, seeing as to why really talented technicians left to go independent Because they're not making any money for the value of their skills and there's a disconnect Like you can't as a company. You can't say sales sells the first service, sell the second and then pay the skilled labor, the skilled labor, nothing. And that's where I think the future is, because dealers are paying in-techs $27 an hour, billing them at $200.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, $250.
Speaker 2:So that creates like. No, I go like, if you look at the independents on our platform, they make, you know, $150 an hour or $170 an hour. Some make $130 an hour. They set their wage and then we just add a little markup on top and so they're getting almost all the money. But they should. They're talented, skilled technicians. So that's one of the things that fuels us. Um, and and one of the reasons why you know I love our position is that you know, the economic structure of a dealership will not change. They are not going to blow it up. They can't. Um, and you know, I'm sure I've talked to dealers um some are.
Speaker 2:Some dealers are our customers too, which is pretty wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they just need the help, so they'll book guys through us, which is cool.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting point of view there through the dealers.
Speaker 2:Rental companies and dealers use us, which is awesome. But yeah, I've heard some brag. Oh, we just brought on tax at fifty dollars an hour. Great, how do you look? The other guys in the osc? Yeah, like in 28, but yeah, 50 50 is not what they should be paid when you're fixing a four hundred thousand dollar excavator that needs to be up right now. You know, like that's why we think this is the future, is that you get the. All the leverage is on the labor side and um, and so that's why the technicians are basically our customers too.
Speaker 1:You know, give them the ability to make money that's such a good, why, dude, that's literally such a good, why and the way you look out for those, for those guys, that it's not just from the mechanic standpoint. We as skilled trades in general especially through the cost inflation going a little off in the weeds here we all feel undervalued when we are all having to race to the bottom to get on a job site. You know what I mean and you're like you're sitting here, how much cost are you carrying? But those mechanic guys, when that $500,000 tracko that is running that entire job site goes down, he's the most important man and his mindset and his knowledge is the most important man on the entire job site blue collar podcast right.
Speaker 2:A major talking point is how do we get people more interested in the trades right? Yes, sir this.
Speaker 2:To me, this is one of the main reasons how you can do it. No college education, that's no college debt, but showing people a real path that they can make. So one of the things that we're most proud of is like this year we'll have I don't know, it depends on our growth we could have 20 techs make over 200 grand this year. Wow, like, think about that so, but that's, that's life-changing. Yeah, that's the thing. You can't say like, hey, be a such and such brand tech and make 70, make 80, right, that's not going to pull more people into the trades, but hey, here's a legitimate path to own your own business, not have college debt. You go to trade school but then you could legitimately earn 300 grand a year Very easily. Right, and be your own boss. That, I think, carries a lot of weight and can get more people interested in pursuing that.
Speaker 2:I've read plenty of articles about people becoming HVAC technicians. And you know, because those you know trades are, you know there's not a lot of supply, so that people see the opportunity to go into those fields because there's no shortage of work. And you know, with a lack of supply the rates can rise. You never hear it in our space, because if you go the traditional route, you can't earn. Hmm, that's one of the ways, and as we become more popular and people know about us more, I think you're going to see some dominoes fall, which is really good, because they're going to it's needed, man, it's needed and it's literally.
Speaker 1:You know, this show is about industry change in retrospect, of whatever angle that is, but the industry is willing to change. Folks have got to start game changing.
Speaker 2:Competition drives change, and that's what I was saying before. When you have a structure set up, it's no, look the construction. People like to say, oh, this is so. Different industries have a lot of similarities. It's like the cable business to me, you know, like if I move to northwest arkansas I'm sure there's only three cable companies yes, one or one monopolized Right and everyone laughs about the experience that you get from it because there's no.
Speaker 2:Everything is set up a certain way. I think, look, we're driving a great customer experience, we're growing because customers love the experience. But I bet you will force the existing players to kind of level up their game too.
Speaker 1:I hope so. I truly do, man. You have to. Somebody does, and I'm glad to see you, my guy.
Speaker 1:Blue Collar Performance Marketing's passion is to bring attention to the honest work done in blue collar industries through effective, results-driven marketing tactics. They specialize in comprehensive digital marketing services, from paid advertising on Google and Facebook to website development and content strategy. I started working with Ike and the team earlier this year and they've had a huge impact on our specific marketing campaign and trajectory of our overall company. Their expertise in digital ad management, website development, social media and overall marketing strategy has been an absolute game changer for our sales and marketing at SciCon. If you're looking to work with a marketing team who does what they say, does it well and is always looking for ways to help your company grow, book a discovery call with Ike by going to bcperformancemarketingcom backslash bcbpodcast or click the link in the show notes slash description below.
Speaker 1:Thanks, guys. Last kind of question that I normally ask on the show. Really, I ask every single person what's a takeaway for you know that blue collar guy who is just sick and tired of being stuck in the mud, mentally, physically, emotionally, maybe that dealer guy that's sitting there, been there 15 years thinking about making a change mentally, or it could be that you know that HVAC guy that either way Um so if you're thinking about it, you should do it.
Speaker 2:That would be my um it's, you know.
Speaker 2:I think it's normal, and it's natural to I was this way too. Like you get comfortable, um, and you just become so afraid of, of making a change or a move and I've yet to talk to anybody who did make the change or move and regret it. You know it just, and it's not easy, I'm not saying it, it's easy, um, some of us have life circumstances that help make us change. Circumstances like, look, the company, the dealership that I was working at, was sold, that kind of forced my hand. If there wasn't a sale, do I do what I do now? Maybe not. So you know, everyone has different circumstances, but it was. It was the like.
Speaker 2:Looking back, I'm like, oh, my God, that was the best thing for me, because it kind of forced my hand, it gave me an excuse to try something different and you know, you got to be super passionate about it. You can't do it like half ass and you can't Got to be obsessed with it. Yeah, you do, and you have, because otherwise it's super easy to just quit, you know, and go back. Like you have to be really, really committed, like I.
Speaker 2:I think one of the reasons why, um, the companies that invested in us invested in us is because the first two years of heave we didn't have any revenue, we didn't have any success. So that gave them the confidence that if they invest in us and me, that I would push through difficult times because I had already done it. But if I didn't love what I was doing and if I wasn't passionate about it, it would have been really easy to fold and then just go work somewhere else. So you can't just make a change just for the sake of making a change. You have to really believe in what you're doing and what you want to get done. But I would say go for it.
Speaker 1:100 for it 100, dude any. We need more concrete guys, we need more hvac, but just don't do it half ass.
Speaker 2:That's such a good way of saying go all the way and like going a couple steps deeper to that, like like understand, like the lay of the land, like you say, hey, we need more concrete guys. Okay, like be thoughtful around. Like well, who are the existing concrete guys? What would make me different than those concrete guys? Um, don't just try to be the same, uh, and that's that can be a hard thing too, because it's it's easier to just want to copy people, but the big, big wins come from being different being a pioneer man and doing what everybody's not willing to do, and endure the suck when it actually happens real suck and no, and you know the you I'm sure you dealt with this too Like when you start a company in the early days no one cares.
Speaker 2:Nope, nobody wants to hear from you, nobody you know, look your family and everybody like they want you to succeed or whatever Kind of. But it's weird, it's really weird. Like no one pays any attention to you and then all of a sudden, one day I don't know what that one day is then it's like, oh okay, now everybody wants to talk to you and it's, uh, it's funny. And you just got to keep your head down and just push every day get out push.
Speaker 1:Where can we find heave are you? Are you guys on facebook, anything social?
Speaker 2:yes, we are all over the socials, good, um, so, uh, our website is, uh, heave app appcom. We don't just have an app, we have a desktop version. So, um, you know, a lot of fleet managers are in an office, you know, so you can just go to our website, heave appcom, and you can order service, communicate with technicians that way. Um, I'm on LinkedIn all the time, um, probably too much, but it's just kind of necessary. It is you want to recruit and find people? But, yeah, we're, uh, we're trying to build a brand that is rec, that stands out, um, and so, yeah, we're, we're pretty active on all the socials, promoting our content and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Man, I'm glad you chose to share it here on the show today. Man, I'm super passionate about the product because it's fixing such a major industry problem for not just the top guys. And the same same guy that's, you know got the one machine and software man. Digital space, it's changing the world, man, literally. Yeah, it's software gives convenience right.
Speaker 2:It gets its connectivity um. So it does help in all of the traditional areas where, like, contractors like yourself have struggled with the legacy companies right, poor communication can't get all the way. That software fixes that um. And so that's that's why, you know, at our core we're a technology company and I'm excited to like keep like pushing from the forefront of like what can, what we can do, like we just we launched something earlier this year where we take a machine error code and just create the the service request and send it to all the technicians. So you don't, as a customer, you don't even have to like go in and say, hey, this is what's wrong my machine, if you have an error code that pops up, it immediately pings all the technicians dang dude, that's legit yeah, so little things.
Speaker 2:All like that kind of stuff is really exciting. Like we're gonna keep like being able to do like new cool stuff automation yeah and man, it's coming faster.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you guys all the time, embrace it, embrace it, embrace it. Mr alex, I can't thank you enough. Thank you, si. Seriously, learning about Heave, I've been really excited about this episode. What an iconic entry to the market and a push man, and I look to be an avid customer moving forward. But guys, go check them out.
Speaker 1:Heaveappcom Yep, check them all out there and make sure to go check them out Heaveappcom. Check them all out there and make sure to go follow them. Episodes right from there, totally free, no subscription. Or, if you're hopefully on a podcast streaming platform, don't forget to drop us a rating and a follow here at the end of this episode. Go find Alex and Heave and guys. Until next time. You guys be safe. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with the fellers. Check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.