Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Fort Collins. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Nick George helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Fort Collins, Colorado.
Is your business serving the residents of Fort Collins? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpFortCollins.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
E38: From College Painter to Mile High Coatings: David Nanninga's 17-Year Journey
From college internship to building a thriving specialty coatings empire, David Nanninga entrepreneurial journey exemplifies resilience in the face of unexpected challenges. When sudden unemployment struck at 25, David transformed adversity into opportunity by establishing Mile High Coatings during the 2008 recession—a pivotal moment that would shape his future.
Started as a house painting operation, Mile High Coatings has evolved substantially over 17 years to encompass concrete staining, polishing, epoxy flooring, and garage cabinet systems. David tackles common industry misconceptions head-on, particularly regarding epoxy flooring durability. While many consumers associate epoxy with peeling and failure, he explains how these perceptions stem from inadequate DIY solutions rather than professional applications. His company's lifetime warranty on garage floors stands testament to their quality and craftsmanship.
The business serves everyone from homeowners seeking to enhance their "forever homes" to commercial property managers requiring industrial-grade solutions. After nearly two decades in operation, Mile High Coatings enjoys substantial repeat and referral business—perhaps the strongest endorsement of their work quality. What truly distinguishes David's operation is his personal commitment; unlike franchises, this is a ground-up business built on experience, dedication, and continuous improvement. Between managing three daughters' activities and finding time for skiing, mountain biking, and golf, David exemplifies the work-life juggling act familiar to many successful entrepreneurs. Discover how Mile High Coatings continues to raise standards in the specialty coatings industry by visiting their comprehensive website at https://milehighcoatings.com/.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a highly skilled commercial and residential painting and specialty coatings company? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, David Nanenga, with Mile High Coatings. David, how's it going?
Speaker 3:It's going great. How are you Nick?
Speaker 2:Good, we're excited to learn all about your business. Tell us about your company.
Speaker 3:Mile High Coatings was started by me in 2008, so 17 years and we started out as a house painting company and over the years, have evolved. We're doing a lot of concrete coatings, including concrete staining and polishing epoxy flooring, garage floors, we do patios and basements and in 2016, we started doing garage cabinet storage and have added and refined some of our offerings since then, but that, I would suppose, with the bulk of what we do and how did you get into the business so?
Speaker 3:I started in the business while I was in college. I participated in one of the college painting sort of programs. Back then it was College Works Painting. Another competitor at that time was college pro painters. It's kind of an internship-based program where they teach you how to run a small business. It happened to be a painting business. I had a lot of success doing that. I did that a couple years while I was attending school at Colorado State. Then I graduated in 2006 and started Mile High Coatings in 2008.
Speaker 2:What are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?
Speaker 3:I think probably I'll do a specific example. When it comes to garage floor coatings, there's a big misconception with people that epoxy floors don't last and that they peel up from hot tires and all this stuff, and that they peel up from hot tires and all this stuff. But really what happens is the DIY kits that you can find at the big box stores really don't last very long and mostly it's a function of the prep involved, and so they get a bad rep because people assume that they're just going to fail. You know, they lump in a professional project along with a DIY project and think that, you know, think that ours are going to fail. But you know, we do a lifetime warranty on our garage doors and some of our, some of our other applications and they're really durable and they last a long time.
Speaker 3:So that's probably a specific misconception, I would say that we deal with from time to time.
Speaker 2:Who are your target customers and how do you attract them now?
Speaker 3:So really we have a pretty wide customer base. So really we have a pretty wide customer base.
Speaker 3:Obviously, homeowners Typically we find the homeowners that are on their second or maybe their third home, or maybe their forever home and they're really wanting to spruce it up, but then it could even be really anyone, even you know property owners, you know with the house planning side of things, and then certainly business owners, facilities managers, when it comes to the commercial and industrial side of things, we work with a lot of contractors as well, and so really our customer base is pretty wide and then, as far as reaching those customers, over the years I've done a lot of different things, from bus benches and ads in the newspaper and in different mailers and everything, and we've kind of refined it, kind of built it down to some online search and then the in-home home-improvement magazines that people that homeowners will receive once or twice a month, and then, of course, repeat and referral business is a huge part of our business.
Speaker 3:We've been in business long enough that we have a good customer base, that people move a lot and when they move to their next house they'll call us to do their floor or paint their interior or they need some sort of work done. So we get a lot of that as well. To the next house, they call us to do their floor or paint their interior, or they need some sort of work done, so.
Speaker 3:So we get a lot of that as well, outside of work, what do you do for fun? So I'm pretty busy between, uh, having three girls and in a business, it's never a dull moment in our house. In the winters we have the Icon Pass, so we do a lot of skiing most weekends in the winter, when we can, and then in the summers, for me it's mountain biking and golfing are probably my two main go-to activities, and then I enjoy working out on my exercises as well. But, uh, you know we have so many activities going on that it's it's just so busy with having three girls. Um, my oldest is a freshman in high school I just finished her freshman year and my youngest is in second grade and and so you know they're involved in sports too. So it's pretty mild right now. It kind of feels like we're in peak activity all the time.
Speaker 2:Let's switch gears. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you overcame, how it made you stronger? What comes to mind? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, probably the one thing that I think of, and it was completely unrelated to the painting industry. That company sold in 2008 and they transitioned everything, reestablished their headquarters out east, and so they basically just shut down, completely, ceased operations in Fort Collins pretty, pretty suddenly and swiftly. So it was a pretty huge surprise. You know, being being 25 years old and, and, and all of a sudden, you know, you know, one day, one day, you have a job, you know, the next morning you go in, and, and you get a pathetic two-week severance package.
Speaker 3:And I was 25 years old, just fresh out of college, or maybe I was 24. And, yeah, just trying to make things work, and so, so I literally, just within a couple of days, printed up some flyers and some business cards and just started knocking on doors, pounding the pavement, uh, here in fort collins, trying to drum up some business, because I thought, well, I can, you know, I, I can always start my own business, so we'll, you know see how it goes and so 17 years later, here we are, so it worked out in the long run.
Speaker 3:But that was uh, it was interesting there for a couple of years uh doing, you know, trying to grow a business in the midst of a recession david, please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Mile High Coatings I think probably the main thing would be that I am the owner and I started this business from the ground up.
Speaker 3:It's my business. I'm not a franchise Not that that's a bad thing but I didn't take the easy road, that's for sure. Since I started, and you know, I plan on continuing to own and operate my business for years to come. I've still got a relatively young family that I need to, you know, support, and so I don't have any plans to, you know, to shut down, to quit, to sell or anything like that. So I mean, I really enjoy what I do and it's always a fun challenge, and I'd like to think that you know a lot of the mistakes that I've made I've learned from and we've grown and gotten better, and so you know that's what kind of keeps me going too.
Speaker 2:How can our listeners learn more about Mile High Coatings?
Speaker 3:Our website, milehighcoatingscom, is a great way to learn about all the things that we offer. It's, you know, it's got a pretty comprehensive suite of information between the floors, the painting and then the cabinets that we offer, so that's probably the best way.
Speaker 2:Well, David, I really appreciate you being on our show. We wish you and your business the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpfortcollinscom. That's gnpfortcollinscom, or call 970-438-0825.