Building a Pool Company from Scratch with Todd Gustafson of Cool Pool People

In this episode of Between Two Stops, host Niki Acosta sits down with Todd Gustafson, founder of Cool Pool People, a top-tier pool service company in Frisco, Texas, managing over 1,000 pools each month. Todd shares his journey of growing a successful business from the ground up, the importance of customer care, and how fostering a strong team culture has been key to his success.

He also reveals valuable lessons—like why saying no is crucial for business focus—and how technology has transformed service efficiency and team communication. Don't miss this episode packed with insights for pool pros looking to scale their business!

Transcript

Niki Acosta (00:00)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Between to Stop Some of Your Hostess, Niki Acosta. And I'm really excited about our guest today. We have Todd Gustafson from Cool Pool People out of Frisco, Texas. I had the pleasure of meeting Todd and his team on a day where they were celebrating a pretty cool milestone. think I was there in November and you had 925 pools and you had balloons out and your whole team was there. And I was like.

Todd Gustafson (00:23)

Exactly, exactly.

Niki Acosta (00:28)

this is a really great example of a company who's doing it right. And so I'm really glad to have you on Todd. Welcome to the show. As we get started, you know, one of the things that really, really impressed me was like your story. You you started a long time ago and it's you've learned so much along the way. Tell us how you got to where you are today.

Todd Gustafson (00:28)

Yeah.

Thank you.

Wow. That's a big question. but thank you for having us on. It's, it's an honor to get to talk about this. And, it's one of my favorite things to talk about. So I appreciate it. how did we get to where we are? Well, that's a big one. you know, I mean, I started with, with absolutely zero, and, just built it up one pool at a time. We haven't bought routes. we haven't, we haven't linked up with a builder. we don't have any.

We don't have any flow of leads or flow of clients. It's one at a time. And it's each customer talking about us or talking to their neighbor and referring us. So yeah, it's just been one at a time. And really, I don't know if there's a secret, but one of the things is just to take care of that one client that you have. Just take care of them with everything you've got. And suddenly you'll have two.

you know, and then you take care of those two with everything you've got and then you'll have three. just organically grows, I guess is the term. And I would recommend doing it that way. I mean, I'm sure other people can do it other ways, but it worked for us.

Niki Acosta (02:05)

You started in 2008, is that right? 2008 was zero and now servicing, you know, getting close to that 1000 full mark.

Todd Gustafson (02:08)

2008. Yep.

Yeah, getting close to

1000. We're at 940 and our goal for this year is 1000.

Niki Acosta (02:19)

Amazing. So amazing. When we went to visit your office that day, I remember you standing outside and talking about, and you got a little passionate about it, like, you all choked up, but we were touring your office where you store your chemicals and have your tea meetings. And one of the things that really kind of inspired me was you talking about the day that the sign went up on your building.

Todd Gustafson (02:30)

Yeah.

Right, right.

Niki Acosta (02:48)

and

how absolutely terrified you were.

Todd Gustafson (02:50)

It was, it was, it's hard for me to even think back. And that's like three or four years ago. It's not that long ago, but, um, it really was, it was, I don't know how to describe it. It's like, you wish you were bigger. You wish you were making more money. You wish you had a bigger company, whatever, but, that sign for some reason just made it real. And it seemed more than, than I should have. It's just a little metal. It's not a big metal sign.

But it just looked really professional really big and it was like really real and That warehouse when we walked around there just seemed way more space than we needed Now we look at it and it looks tiny In fact, we just we're starting to lease on a second identical one So we're doubling that and I really it looked like this is more space and will need in the rest rest of my life So those moments of reality we've been have been huge

And I guess just advice or maybe not advice, just telling the story of what we did. I don't know how or why, but I didn't have any doubt. I still look back. don't know why I didn't have any doubt, but there was no doubt we were going to grow exactly to what I wanted to grow to. And, you know, I was without cash. I started at zero, right? And then I've got one client. Then I have two clients.

It's probably not conventional, but you know, I wasn't paying bills and then people were getting upset. And I just, would talk to them on the phone and say, eventually I'll pay you. And I paid everybody. but, it was a rough way. Usually people say, you know, store up a bunch of cash and then get going. And I kept thinking, well, if I could store up cash, then I would just stay where I'm at. so, so I jumped out.

with completely zero. I even took on clients for free because I needed experience. So I worked really, really hard for people for zero dollars. And one lesson I learned there was you always hear about it, time and money. It's two things, time and money. And a lot of times I just consider money. And for that example is, hey, I'll clean your pool for free. Okay.

You know, two years later, still cleaning his pool for free. And it's like, I never put a timeline on it. so then I was like, Hey, could you at least pay me for the chemicals? And he's like, nah, I think I'll just do it myself. So I thought I was building something big there. Right. so anytime I do give somebody a deal like that, it's always time and money. Like we're going to do this, but it'll last three months or we'll do this and it lasts one month or whatever. So there's, there's one lesson.

but, but I got a lot out of that. mean, I got a lot of experience that I wouldn't have had had. not have been cleaning that person's pool. I did that for three people, I believe. and then the next lesson was just, I took everything in the beginning, every, any client that would come to me. and I think that's a good thing. you learn a lot. You learn a lot by, by walking through the weeds, literally, getting bit by mosquitoes.

tree sap on your hands, all those things that I told you when you came to visit, you learn, you learn how to get through that. You learn how to deal with that and you learn you don't want to deal with it. And then, and then it makes you, when you say no to someone like, don't want this pool. And here's the reasons why. And it's not just cause I'm just being Willy nilly and I've done it. I've taken care of pools like this. Not interested. Somebody else might be, I'm just not interested. so.

It helped me define what I want to do. And for me, geography was a big, big part of it. We're in an enormous Metroplex. You know, this could be different if you're in a smaller town, but we're this enormous Metroplex and most, most of our competitors have a pretty defined area. in other words, we're in Dallas, so there's Dallas and Fort Worth. Most pool cleaners that take care of Dallas don't go to Fort Worth. So that's kind of defined.

And most pool cleaners in this area stay on the north side of Dallas. So they'll be in the northern part of Dallas and all of the northern suburbs. So now you're down to maybe 30 suburbs or something like that. And that generally is where most of the pool cleaners will operate out of. And I just looked at that and I just wanted to narrow that even more. And I picked one city and, and year by year, I kept selling the routes.

that weren't in that city because I had a plan of eventually being in one city. But if I didn't have that plan, I probably wouldn't have wanted to sell. So that helped. that was wonderful because I'd get $5,000, know, boom, $8,000, boom. I'd just get this money coming towards me by selling the routes. I would lose the monthly income, but I got it in a big chunk. So that helped me grow.

But focusing, I guess, would be the next thing is just figuring out who you want to take care of, how you want to take care of them, and where you want to take care of people. So we've gotten really defined on that. And now that we're larger, and now I have, there's 30 of us in the company now, it's now a lot clearer for people to do their job because we have really clear things that we believe in. And I can teach what I learned and what I believe in.

And as, as an employee, they can listen and they can say, don't really agree with that. And I'm going to go to another company or they can say, man, I, I agree with that. And now all of us agree on the same things. And when we're in front of a client, it's it's consistent. so I think, I think that's another thing of just being focused and clear. helps to get everybody on the same page as well. And that's powerful.

Niki Acosta (09:05)

Speaking

of getting everyone on the same page, Todd, when I was out there, was really, really, first of all, was delighted to be there on a day where you guys were having this massive celebration. There were balloons and all kinds of really great energy. And I was like, whoa, what's happening today? We're walking into this SIL meeting. I have no idea, or this tech meeting. What are we doing? And the first thing that struck me were the number of trucks in the parking lot. I was like, whoa, that is a lot of trucks.

Todd Gustafson (09:25)

Yeah

Right.

Niki Acosta (09:34)

The second thing that I noticed was that your team members seemed really tight with each other. Like they were hanging out with each other and laughing with each other and it seemed like everyone was getting along and everybody had kind of a happy face on. And they didn't even know that the balloons were inside by that point. But when I came to your office...

Todd Gustafson (09:34)

Right.

It was just going to get better.

Niki Acosta (09:58)

I saw the little thermometer that you had and you, guess you had set a goal of 925 pulls. And if you got to that, there were like bonuses involved and you you would celebrate that milestone. And I guess y'all also got to it sooner than you thought you would. So these guys outside had, and gals had no idea what they were going to walk into, but it struck me. You know, I know there are a lot of teams out there, especially smaller companies, you know, when you are an owner and an operator and you're out in the field, it is

hard to make time to have those team meetings. But I think your team meeting, from what I witnessed, was an example of one that has done right. So tell us about how you manage such a large team and also what kind of qualities you look for in employees.

Todd Gustafson (10:35)

Thank you. Thank you.

Wow, was lot of questions. So the meeting used to be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning. So we would meet every day to get, well, before that we had no meetings. And when I had no meetings, everybody went astray. And then I switched it over to five days a week. And that went for maybe six months or a year. And then they revolted and said, we're grown men.

You don't need to be checking up on us this much. so we had a lot of discussion around that and we settled in on a Monday, Friday meeting and that's been running now for six, six years probably. And I don't, it seems like it's a good rhythm. so it kind of begins the week and ends the week. but I mean, when you're, when you're pool cleaning, like every second matters, every minute matters and to take 30 minutes to talk.

is really painful for a pool cleaner. even if you're doing, there's some tests, reagent tests, and most of them take about one second or two seconds. There's one test that you have to roll this in your hand for 30 seconds, CYA test. And I'm telling you, as a pool tech, that's just torture. So 30 seconds is important.

Niki Acosta (11:59)

The CYA

you

Todd Gustafson (12:10)

So to take 30 minutes out is huge. And we have an agenda when we meet. And I used to have the agenda written down minute by minute, and we would send that out ahead of time so they could see what was happening. Now we've kind of fallen into, we just send an agenda and we know that it'll fit within that time. And sometimes we go beyond, and I apologize at that point, and people are usually shuffling and wanting to go, but a few times we've gone over and everybody's glued and...

and zeroed in and they don't care. We'll go 15, 20 minutes past sometimes. But anyway, go Mondays and Fridays are our meetings. And then something we did just a couple of years ago is we now have team leads. And that was a huge, huge, huge thing. And now we have a leader of the team leads. So we've got kind of structures in place and now a tech in my company, now they're doing their job.

And now they have a team lead to turn to, or to ask help from, or to get advice from, or suggestion. There's just, or they'll pop in and just, how's your day going? With no, no agenda, just, just a nice pop in. And then they're like, you know, I have three or four questions, but it wasn't enough for me to call. But now that you're here, I just got these couple of questions.

so we just kind of just stay in touch all the time and it, really does help. It helps people enjoy their job. Cause when I ran it before, before we got larger, when it was just me or me in one person or me and three people or me and four people, I didn't, I didn't have that team mentality. We didn't have that team luxury. everything was really, really, really rugged.

Hey, we're out in the elements. this is hard work. I can't have you being sick. I can't have you being hurt. if, you are sick, you're still working. If you're hurt, you're still working. Like it was just like, we work, we work every day and this isn't, there's nothing. I'm not even being mean. I'm just saying that's, that's the way it is. so that grew some really strong individuals and

Niki Acosta (14:20)

Hmm.

Todd Gustafson (14:34)

When I look back now, I mean, that's an enormous platform that this company is built on. That's still there, but not the way it was. And we still get to every pool every week. But now we have people that want to do extra work. Back then, nobody wanted to do anybody's extra work. They just wanted to do their work and ensure it was done. But now, like if somebody does get hurt or sick,

And they say they'll text into our group text. I think I can do eight of my 10 pulls, but I can't do two of them. Somebody will within a couple of minutes, somebody's going, I got them. And, those people, they lose out on the money, right. And the other people get extra money. So that's all good. And it's, we're getting less and less and less turnover now that there's a little bit of reprieve. We've worked out that I could talk for hours. We've worked all, all sorts of.

Niki Acosta (15:16)

sorry.

Todd Gustafson (15:33)

Now people can take vacation and we couldn't do that before ever, ever, ever, ever. We actually have two weeks of paid vacation that are scheduled. So that's not up to the person to decide, but we take the whole week of Thanksgiving off and we take the whole week of Christmas off. That, that allows everybody to go see their family if they have to travel. And that person comes back really refreshed, really recharged.

And what our clients get for the next 50 weeks is powerful. Whereas our competitors that might be working all 52 weeks, they get, in my opinion, based on customers telling me, they get a lot less intensity and a lot less accuracy and a lot. mean, the work is less. We work two less weeks and we do a lot more. so anyway, just a lot, a lot of things.

Niki Acosta (16:28)

Yeah,

and to that point, do think burnout is a pretty real thing in this industry, especially when you're on the elements. You're dealing with weather and you're moving water around. It is a very physical job. It's great that you're at a place now where people can take days off and you have folks that will cover them. In terms of employees, when you're looking to hire, you've been at this for a very, long time and you've managed to...

Todd Gustafson (16:34)

Yeah.

Definitely.

Niki Acosta (16:56)

to rally up 30 people and have pretty good retention, what have you learned in the process of hiring? What are the qualities that you're looking for?

Todd Gustafson (16:58)

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I just talked to a waiter about this just this week. It's a wonderful coffee shop, cool atmosphere. And they were in business in 2020 and there were some cool things that happened there. But, you know, we were talking about employees and he said, you know, we hired this one guy that came in here with a lot of formal dining experience. And he was trying to teach my whole team that...

That we have to do things more formal and set this here and you know, you should always do this and set this. And they finally said, you know, that that's all great, but that's not what we do. We're a casual place. We want, we want things casual. so it's not really a matter of what's right and what's wrong. It's what do you want? And, what we want is somebody happy. So, so in the interview, we're looking for somebody happy. I don't want people coming in and I have to motivate them every day.

I don't want, I don't want people that are dragging. now I could be, I could be wrong on that or whatever, but there's some, there's some people that are pretty focused and determined and, and get a lot of work done. we just, we just have a reputation of being like, cool, you know, cool pool people. it's just a little more fun. and, and our clients like that, we like that. We attract fun clients. We have, we attract fun employees. It's just.

So we have fun atmosphere. do things that are fun, happy. So it's like kind of a theme that we want and we produce it and we back it up and we attract it. And that's one thing. other thing is just like when somebody's in their backyard or when you're in your house and you look out at who's in the backyard, I want that person to, I want our client to feel comfortable to walk out and say hello and want to come out and say hello.

So we have, our guys are, I had this one, we still have this client that he's done work all around the globe, really wealthy individual. But he said, Todd, goes, he goes, I gotta tell you, like everybody you send in my backyard, I want to go talk to them. says, there's just really enjoyable people. It adds to my day. He says, and I've met people all over the world and I've been in.

really intense situations and he goes, everybody you send back here, I like, and that's a compliment. And that's what we shoot for. So when they come in on the interview, we want them to be happy. Want them to be articulate. And that doesn't mean just in a language that's like, can you speak and can you say what you are feeling and what you're thinking? And not everybody can do that.

so articulate is, another thing that we look for, polished. mean, you know, like if, if it's like, like, how is your all messed up and disheveled and on sideways and shoes are untied. just, just, I mean, we're there to clean pools, right? Like they need to be clean. so I guess.

Niki Acosta (20:14)

colors are disheveled.

Right.

Todd Gustafson (20:31)

clean, approachable, happy, those type of things. That's what we look for.

Niki Acosta (20:36)

Todd, one of the things that really caught my eye too was the number of women you have, female pool technicians on your team. Tell me how you got that.

Todd Gustafson (20:44)

Yeah. Well, it's actually,

we have, we actually have one female technician, but we have multiple ladies, which I guess you could say in our office, but they also come to the meetings. And we also, I also like everybody to go in the field and, and understand what we're doing. Right. So that's, that's an important thing so that we can all grasp what's going on, but they don't actually have a route, but they will go out and.

Just understand what's going on in the field. But yeah, there is actually one lady that is a technician and she's phenomenal. And she's actually raised up to be one of these team leads that we're talking about. And she's got a great, I mean, she's, she's phenomenal. She has a great attitude, just always happy. Things, you know, happen and we get tough. She just smiles right through it and can do all of the work.

So yeah, that's probably a little unusual. but yeah, we, it's, it's a great thing because I'll tell you before, before hiring, ladies, it's probably when we were just all strong, determined, no lead, no teamwork. in fact, I was, I was against teamwork. thought teamwork was wimpy. If I would look back on it.

but now teamwork is, what makes us strong and, it's what propels us. And, it's what gives us longevity for, for employee. cause people can get burned out, not just over a long period of time, but they might get burned out within a week. There, something might happen or something comes up and our team members have an attitude of wanting to step in and help. we don't even force them. We say who wants to help.

Niki Acosta (22:37)

Great.

Todd Gustafson (22:42)

and there's multiple people that want to help. So that, I don't even know how all that happens, but it has happened and it is true. They want to help each other.

Niki Acosta (22:53)

Sounds like you some good women, Todd. Just saying. know Chancy over there at Cold Food People, I've spoke to quite a bit, she's a firecracker and she gets it done. A lot of respect for Chancy over there. Todd, you did a talk at a trade show, which Chancy was kind enough to send to me, called The Power of No. And one of the quotes that you had in there was from Warren Buffett.

Todd Gustafson (22:55)

Yeah, I think so. think that might be the whole key to the whole thing.

She's phenomenal. Yeah.

Niki Acosta (23:23)

And do you remember the quote?

Todd Gustafson (23:26)

Let me think. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. That's where Warren's from. So,

Niki Acosta (23:29)

The

difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no.

Todd Gustafson (23:38)

Say

no. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Sorry for slipping on that. Yeah. And it's true. Cause you can be successful and say yes to everything. And a lot of people, I always remember people saying, you know, why would you turn down that client? Like his money's just as green as everybody else's, you know, it spends the same. So it might be as green as everyone else. might spend the same. But

saying no is where you start to define your business. And when you start to define it, then you have a business. If you don't have it defined, then it's just ambiguous. a client can't really be attracted to the business because they don't know what it is. He does everything all the time. We got to a why in the road.

on many, many things, but I'll explain one was a client that was like, Hey, I can buy this, Polaris bag on Amazon cheaper than you can sell it to me. So I want to buy my bags. So I would, I would let that guy do that. And then the other people, would say, thank you for.

buying this bag and putting it on there and just taking care of it. So I don't have to think about it or worry about it. So I had both of these and sometimes then I started getting employees like we would forget which guy wanted us to not do it and which guy we did want to do it. So he's like, there's kind of always a hesitation to what's going on. But, what I think we found or I know what we found is we work a lot better with people that want things done proactively. So, so we just.

Niki Acosta (25:24)

Mm.

Todd Gustafson (25:26)

And now my guys don't work afraid. They now can be proactive. And a lot of the clients that we pick up, they're saying, man, we're firing our guy because he never noticed anything, never changed anything, never did anything. So we're, we're attracting people that want us to be proactive and I can train people to be proactive. And I think long-term cost of ownership, I believe for our customers is less. Cause we're actually.

Niki Acosta (25:46)

Hmm.

Todd Gustafson (25:55)

we're doing that, to, where we're being so observant. And I think that really comes out in the freezes when, when we're watching and we're saving people money on the freezes, where a lot of our competitors are. I shouldn't put words in people's mouth, but, but I've heard people say that they like letting, letting it freeze and letting damage happen. And then they get the money off of the repairs, right?

Niki Acosta (26:16)

You

Oof.

Todd Gustafson (26:25)

So from a client point of view, it's like, gosh, you know, should I go with a guy where I can save $2 on a bag, but lose $10,000 on repairs in the winter? For example, but either way, we don't promise that we're going to save money. don't do anything. just, promise we're going to give you great customer service and we promise that we're going to be very on top of everything. So that that's what we deliver. And so that why in the road,

We now, if somebody wants to clean their own filter or if they want to buy their own bags, we just say that's, that's, it's awesome. I mean, it's a great way to save money. It's a, it's, you might even be, it might be fulfilling for you to clean your filter, but we clean everybody's filter and we buy everybody's bags and we take care of everything. yeah. And, and our clients that like that are just like blown away that somebody would want to do the opposite. So there's definitely two different clients and you can.

You could specialize in this one or you could specialize in that one. It doesn't matter. I think you just got to define what you want. And that made our life so much clearer because now we could start layering things on top of that to just take care of this one type of client. Whereas when we had both, couldn't really layer service on top of that. was just like, you're constantly kind of worried, what should we do? What shouldn't we do?

Niki Acosta (27:47)

Yeah,

I think look, any, when you have the opportunity to educate your customers, like, first of all, that's, that's great. Because then you are seen as the expert, right? That's, that's part of what you're delivering when you're providing full service is expertise. And I've met and you I'm sure have met the people that are like, I don't tell them anything. If I tell them they're going to do it on their own, like, in the long run, like, great, there may be people who want to do that. And if you want to do that, great. But I do think that

Todd Gustafson (27:57)

through.

Yes.

Niki Acosta (28:16)

that some of the really successful folks that I've talked to have been really good at defining what their service entails and why they do it that way. And I've had good results and they have said no. I know a lot of pros who they treat that first visit as an interview that goes both ways. Like they're interviewing the customer, they're looking at the trees in the yard, they're looking at.

Todd Gustafson (28:25)

Yeah.

Niki Acosta (28:42)

the equipment on site and going, okay, is this something realistically that I want to take on? Because if you say no, then you leave a space open for the right kind of customer for your business, right?

Todd Gustafson (28:47)

Right, right.

yeah.

Those challenging pools were, I loved them in the beginning. It sharpened my skills. I had a lot of extra time so I could devote to that. I mean, after a while it's like, I get paid the same for this and this. Which one do I want to do? And some clients are like,

You know, maybe they bought the pool when the kids were young and now the kids are old and they don't swim in the pool and it's just not their focus anymore. They're spending their money or time on something else and the pool is just kind of a nuisance now. That's not our client. Like we are so into what we do. We get along with the families that are really into their pool and it's really important to them. So we match that energy level. But there are...

Tens of thousands of pools in DFW that are just in people's backyard and they don't touch them. They don't want to look at them. And there's probably, there's probably guys that want to focus on that. Like, the client doesn't bother me. don't, just do what I want to do. but, we're focused to us. Pools are really important and, and our, to our clients, pools are really important. I don't know if that answers what you're saying.

Niki Acosta (30:12)

No, totally does. Yeah, I don't even know if there was a question there.

We are getting close to time. Tom, I don't want you to get off the hook. You are a Skimmer customer. Thank you for being with us. But I just wanted to get a sense, probably when you started, you didn't have a lot of technology in place. And whether Skimmer is the right choice for you or if it's something else, how has technology helped your business grow?

Todd Gustafson (30:18)

Cool.

Thank you, and you're

Yeah.

Well, you know, like I said, we went from being non-team to being team focused. For us, Skimmer has been a huge part of that, or being able to do that, or another layer, another layer of making that possible. We had, I studied architecture is what my degree was in. So I feel, I mean, even graphic design, I feel really comfortable with that. So I had the most awesome sheets of paper that I've

Niki Acosta (31:09)

you

Todd Gustafson (31:09)

put

it people's back door. And I had a certain way I cut them, certain way they were laid out. There was a graphic to the way that I marked where the chemistry was. It was elegant, beautiful, lots of information. I was really proud of those. But the bad news is I put that piece of paper at somebody's back door and I don't know what I wrote on there. They do.

Niki Acosta (31:37)

Mm.

Todd Gustafson (31:38)

I'll have another copy with skimmer with software. As soon as you, as soon as you send it to them, you also have a copy. So if somebody says, Hey, what did you do? October 3rd, you know, 2010. We can look that up. Um, when I was leaving off the papers, some of my clients had file folders and every paper I put in there is in the file, but I had no information. Um, so that's a big thing. When, when we notice something and.

We want to get that fixed. We now have access to look as a tech, you have access to look and see, that get fixed this week or did it not? Or what we're in the process is it? Whereas when we were on paper, we had no access to that, right? You just have to walk in the yard. it is fixed or it isn't fixed just visually. And then if the client says, Hey, what's going on? Why isn't that fixed? I don't know. But now, now we know. So as a team, we're much more informed.

Niki Acosta (32:32)

You

Todd Gustafson (32:37)

And that looks a lot better in front of our clients. So that's a big part of Skimmer. We had another software before Skimmer and it was just kind of old fashioned technology. And it was good. It was a move up from paper for sure. But Skimmer is just elegant, quick. I think it's quick. I sometimes there's times where in certain neighborhoods here there's bad connection. So it's slow there, but it's elegant and quick and

intuitive, the map, I love you can tap that map and just see where everything's at. You can see where your day's at. You can push another button and reorganize so that it is more efficient and efficient route. Yeah, so there's a lot of power built into Skimmer and that's not just because you've got me on here. It's absolutely true. You're welcome.

Niki Acosta (33:30)

Thanks for that Todd. Appreciate you. Well

look Todd, we're rooting for you. I know you have a pretty ambitious goal. I think you said a long time ago, for some reason like 1,600 pools is your goal, right? And y'all are well on your way. You were ahead of the mark when we visited you in November. And you have even more pools now than you did in November, which is always a good sign.

Todd Gustafson (33:36)

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

940 now.

Niki Acosta (33:53)

940

polls. Well, I hope to speak to you again in the future, Todd. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us on Between Two Stops today. And yeah, check out, by the way, check out Cold Pool people's, check out their social media. You'll see these awesome like cold tip posts.

Todd Gustafson (34:13)

Yeah. Yeah. Once,

once a week we put out a pool tip and that goes to the general public, right? A lot of our clients get to read them and a lot of people that are not clients get to read them. And a lot of people in Argentina and Japan and wherever it gets, it's get to read these. Um, and people, people love them. Yeah. People love them and they'll share them. Um, we, we've got, we got clients that come to us after watching for three years and commenting for three years and they have another pool guy.

Niki Acosta (34:28)

And people care about them, which is so cool.

Todd Gustafson (34:40)

and eventually say, know what, you know a lot more than he knows, or you know a lot more than they do. So that's a good thing. But it just puts out what we believe in and what we think and people can learn to align with that or not align with it. Luckily, most people seem to be in align with what we believe. So that's good.

Niki Acosta (35:03)

Well, thanks again, Todd. You are for sure the coolest pool people. Such a pleasure to visit your office and get to know you all a little bit better. Again, Todd Gustafson from Cool Pool People. Everybody say bye. You're most welcome.

Todd Gustafson (35:06)

you

Bye bye. Thank you, Nikki.

Bye.