From Craigslist Apprentice To Eight-Figure Plumbing HVAC Electrical Leader

Peakzi Podcast: A Craigslist post turns into a career. A first-day service call turns into a mission. And a small crew of roommates turns into a 50-person home services company that breaks eight figures. We’re joined by Steve Akian, founder of Akian Plumbing Heating Cooling and Electric in Watertown, MA, to unpack what actually drives sustainable growth in the trades and what gets lost when contractors chase scale without standards.

We talk about the moments that shaped Steve’s approach to customer experience and why professionalism matters in residential service the same way it does on large commercial jobs. Steve shares how he thinks about hiring, training, and keeping transparency consistent as the team grows, plus his mindset on reviews: even the negative ones can become a repeatable learning loop. One of the most useful ideas he drops is simple and spicy: the best teams argue, and how they argue is the difference between drama and progress.

We also lean into technology, local SEO, and AI for home services. Steve explains why Peakzi feels like a modern-day necessity as more homeowners search conversationally through AI tools, and he calls out features his team uses, from market ranking insights to a coupon scan that surfaced old offers hiding on the website. He also gives a peek at Fix to Finish, an early-stage AI app he’s building to solve real problems in the home services space.

If you’re building a plumbing company, scaling an HVAC business, or trying to modernize your contractor marketing without losing your culture, this conversation will give you practical language and a clearer standard to aim for. Subscribe, share this with a home services leader, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re putting into action.

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More info at: https://ai.akianplumbing.com/

Peakzi Podcast: Home Services Success Stories

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Steve Akian

Julian Placino 0:00

Welcome to the Home Services Success Stories Podcast powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business. I'm Julian Placino, your host, and we have another great show in store for you today because we have Steve Akian, who is the founder and owner of Akian Plumbing Heating, Cooling, and Electric. Steve, welcome to the show. How are you?

Steve Akian 0:22

I'm great. Thanks for having me on, Julian. First podcast of 2026. Let's go.

Craigslist To Apprentice Beginnings

Julian Placino 0:27

Absolutely. And really excited to jump in and learn about your home services success story. So, so Steve, as the founder of Akian Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, how did the business begin? Tell us the Genesis story.

Steve Akian 0:40

Hmm. How did the biggest uh well, I've always been entrepreneurial since I can remember. And so around 19 years old, I was looking for something to do, some direction in life. I asked my neighbor who was a plumber, uh, what his thoughts were on um, you know, maybe a career path. I told him, like, I'm really hands-on. I like to work with my hands. Uh, I'm a hard worker. What do you think? And he said, uh, why don't you try becoming a plumber? So uh I actually went on Craigslist, posted something myself. Uh, I don't know if you remember Craigslist. You're gonna be some funny looks here, Julian.

Julian Placino 1:17

No, no, Craigslist, absolutely, 100%. Yeah.

Steve Akian 1:20

So so posted on posted on Craigslist, someone got back to me the next day, started my career as an apprentice 17 years ago, and I've been running the business for about nine years now.

Julian Placino 1:31

Unbelievable. You said entrepreneurial. So, what were some of the other different things that you dabbled in before you settled into home services?

Steve Akian 1:38

I'll dude, I used to sell Pokemon cards in the fourth grade. How's that?

Julian Placino 1:42

That's pretty awesome, man. So Pokemon, so really it was it was kind of wired in in the beginning. What would you say is kind of the sort of entrepreneurial motivation? Is it freedom? Is it making money? Like, what do you think drives that in you?

Steve Akian 1:57

Hmm. I think it's a combination of freedom and taking care of people.

Julian Placino 2:03

Okay, a combination of freedom and taking care of people. So ultimately, as the story goes, you did settle into home services, but there was a kind of impactful moment. So uh on your first day as apprentice, you restored water to a three-family home. Why was this moment so impactful to you?

Steve Akian 2:20

Yeah, and doing your research, Julian. Um impressed, dude. Uh you know, um, I remember when I was a kid, right? I I and I would play in the arcade and win win all these arcade tickets and stuff. And I would cash those arcade tickets in for gifts for my grandparents or my parents or like you know, my brother and stuff like that. So I always loved kind of I guess just taking care of others. So when I was in that home as an apprentice on my first day, and you know, the woman who was went without uh water for however long, about like I think I think a day or two, uh, had her water up and running, and I saw the expression of gratitude on her face. I was like, wow, like you know, we came in here, we solved some problems in real time and got this back on for this lady, and like she's so appreciative, and we get paid pretty, pretty well for this. I go, this is this is pretty cool. I like this.

Julian Placino 3:22

So it's kind of the impact that you made and how you were directly involved in that through the trades. Is that right?

Steve Akian 3:29

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so.

Julian Placino 3:31

Okay. So as a as a hands-on on the technician side of things, are you more skilled and are you personally more of a plumber, electrical guy? What what would you say is your official background in trades?

The First Job That Hooked Him

Steve Akian 3:40

So I'm I'm a plumber by trade. Great question. So I'm I'm a plumber by trade. So when we started the business, you were doing mostly just plumbing and heating, and we added air conditioning on shortly, shortly after. And then a few years ago, we attacked on electrical services.

Julian Placino 3:56

Okay, okay. And you've worked on a a wide variety of projects from universities to hospitals to major companies. So, what did that teach you and how did that ultimately help you settle on the direction that you wanted to take Akian?

Steve Akian 4:10

Yeah, so before starting the business, actually, most of my experience was in the commercial industrial sector of the of the market. And I was like, wow, this is so it was so well organized, right? Having worked for the best of the best on the commercial side, um, you know, companies that we worked for, Harvard University, big pharmaceutical companies. I mean, I'm I'm in I'm in Watertown, Massachusetts, which is a stone throw away from Boston, right? So I'm I'm just outside of proper Boston. And the company I worked for before was um in the next uh city over. And so having worked with clients on that scale, I was like, wow, if we could really bring this level of excellence to the home services space, I really think that that we'd have something special there. And, you know, here we are. Um, you know, we're not the biggest company, we're not the fastest growing. Um, however, we have managed to break eight figures um in less than eight years. And uh it's something I'm really proud of. We have a great team here at Akian. We have a we have a great culture that we're continuing to improve every day, right? Uh uh we're we're not perfect, but we strive to be.

Julian Placino 5:20

So interesting. So you saw a kind of a vision of uh how home services was done in a different kind of sector, and you wanted to apply that to residential. So, what were some of those issues and challenges or gaps that you saw in residential that you came to close?

Bringing Commercial Standards Home

Steve Akian 5:38

Well, it wasn't so much I saw how home services was done in a different sector. I just saw how how service and what professionalism looked like, right, in a dick different sector. And I'm like, wow, you know, I remember growing up, you know, my mom, we we our heat went out one day. He she had to call a plumber. And I remember seeing her go through that experience of falling around, called multiple people, you know, got some quotes, um, right. And and and uh I remember it being kind of a uh a challenging task, right? Just to get the heat back up and and running. And the person who showed up was a little a little sloppy, right? Um, so so didn't have really a professional um uh appearance. And I'm like, yeah, let's let's get into the home service space and just introduce some of these, you know, professional qualities that you see um, you know, in some in some other markets. And so, you know, it and that might be been a little naive for me to say, right? Because now that I've been in the home services space for, you know, it's gonna be nine years in April. Um, I've seen that there are a lot of uh companies out there that are elite and that do do job things the right way, providing options for clients, helping them understand what those options mean, walking them through it, showing up professionally, right? Um and uh so, so yeah, I mean, it's it was it was actually a breath of fresh air when I saw that. Oh, there's a community of really top-notch, top-tier um, you know, companies here that I get to compete with.

Julian Placino 7:08

Gotcha. So now being in the industry for nine years, what have you discovered is your true unique value proposition to the market? What would you say?

Steve Akian 7:18

What others have told me, I'm gonna share what others have told me. Um, and then I'll share my own observation. So, what others have told me is that I do a good job at bringing people together. Really good job at that. My own sort of um core value that I discovered in the past year is that I always find a way. And and and and I mean that in the sense of I persevere. There are challenges, and challenges come in any business, and we always find a way, whether it's through creativity or teamwork or communication, we always find a way to make it through. That's a win-win-win. Win for the company and win for our community and clients.

Julian Placino 8:13

So I heard you're really great at bringing people together, and also you always find a way. So creativity, resourcefulness, commitment to excellence. So let's talk about the bringing people together. How many employees now in the business?

Steve Akian 8:25

Uh, around 50.

Julian Placino 8:27

Around 50. Okay. And again, you you did you how how many employees at the start?

Steve Akian 8:34

Well, at the start, it was my my apprentice, my brother, who dropped out of Northeastern University to uh come join um on this crazy idea that I had uh and I so it was it was really three of us from from the get-go, and we were all roommates at the time, too.

Culture At Scale Through Communication

Julian Placino 8:53

So that's awesome. So three to fifty then. So so you have obviously grown. So how do you think about culture and what do you think makes your team great as a person who's known for bringing people together?

Steve Akian 9:10

That's a good question. I think what makes us great is the genuine care that we have for each other on the team. Um, and then and then that that then spills into how we handle our customers. Um, you know, still when we have a negative review come in, um, we take it as a learning lesson. Um, you know, we we do our best not to react to it. Sometimes, you know, you get people that are like, oh, this this person doesn't know what they're talking about. And it's like, well, let's let's learn from this, right? Let's learn from this, let's get back to this client, let's do our best to make them a fan of ours and and move forward. And of course, you can't make everybody happy. Um, but um, you know, we we care to do our best, right? And so um I would say, simply put, that that's that's it right there.

Julian Placino 10:06

Care to do your best. And that's very evident in your reviews because a consistent thing that keeps coming up is transparency and professionalism, they come up repeatedly in your reviews, right? So, so how would you say you scale that? You've gone from three to fifty, you know. Sometimes um not everybody's the same, not everybody shares your your your core values or whatnot. But what is the secret to hiring or trading, or how do you deliver that consistent brand experience?

Steve Akian 10:30

Yeah, well, this is where communication is one of our core values, and this is where this is one of the reasons um why when you're good at communicating and when you're open to being transparent, magic happens, man. You know, I think I think that's one of the things that um I I appreciate most about the the team that we've put together is um I something we like to say is the best teams argue. It's how they argue that matters, right? So respect goes a long way here at Akian and and and and uh we've had team members that have come in that have had like short fuses, and it's really incredible to see them transform um into kind of uh you know, chilling out a little bit and understanding that, hey, like, you know, um we don't have to go zero to a hundred, right? We could sit down, we could have conversations, we can learn from things, um, you know, we don't have to take them as losses. And I think just just having that open, um, that open door type policy, like if you come into our office, it's one big, it's one big room. Our install manager, operations manager, general manager, service manager, sales manager, we're all just sitting across from each other um at our desks. So um, you know, it's uh that that that would be it. I would say communication is is how you scale that, right? So you have companies that'll print core values on the walls, but like we're about the core values, right? We intertwine it in our trainings, we will we'll like you know have have have fun with our core values, right? Um during service meetings and install meetings. And I think it's just important to kind of understand that those core values are our guiding stars.

Julian Placino 12:29

What I think I heard there is um so transparency and and and openness is not just the thing your customers are seeing, but also in the way that you conduct the business internally. Another key aspect also is you mentioned that you're not afraid to have conflict, provided you are arguing for the benefit of the business. And having an open kind of environment allows people not to be afraid to like kind of speak up and say, hey, we can do this better, but it it creates kind of a culture of innovation then. What do you think?

Steve Akian 12:58

Absolutely. Uh absolutely. I I think the biggest the biggest problem um that people have around the word innovation is they think that innovation is about having answers when it's really about getting answers. It's really about teams collaborating and it's it's about having others put their ideas into the shared pool of meaning. And when you blend this all together, I mean, you know, something something cool comes out sometimes, not all the time. Um, but but yes, sometimes you get some really, really neat uh concepts and ideas.

Fix To Finish AI App Origins

Julian Placino 13:28

Yeah, absolutely. At all levels, and when all levels share that that core value and report from the different parts of the business that they see, yeah, absolutely. A lot of great things can come from that. So um, so Steve, you're also the founder of uh a co-founder of Fix to Finish. What exactly is that and what are the problems you're looking to solve with it?

Steve Akian 13:50

So um, I do need to be careful about how I answer this because I have a partner um on this app and we're in the early stages, but it's a it's an AI-based uh app that we've been working on for the past six months or so. So my business partner and I uh were introduced to each other uh a little over six months ago. Uh I was looking to hire a developer for this idea that uh my management team and I had at uh an off-site meeting that we had a few years ago. And uh my accountant brought it up to my attention. He was, it might be time to start looking into this and um digging in to see whether we want to uh uh uh um pursue this uh idea that you had. So first meeting I had, I met uh this uh gentleman named Eric, and he's world-class at what he does. Um he's had experience working at Harvard and MIT in the past, and he had just a really incredible portfolio. And for the past about five years, he's been developing applications for companies. Um, and I pitched the idea to him, you know, and again, I was looking to put a budget together for what it would cost to develop this app. And he was like, hey man, um I think you have a really great idea here. Are you open into partnering? And again, going back to Akian, one of our core values is teamwork, and and that really is rooted in the fact that I always believed that two heads were better than one. And so I didn't shoot it down. Um, you know, I said, uh, yeah, I would love to learn more. What are what are your thoughts around what that might look like? And um, we had chemistry, we got along, and um, yeah, and and so here we are about six months later. We have a really early stage product. Um, and uh there's all sorts of things that that product is uh able to solve in the home service space. Uh, and and I'm looking forward to being able to talk about it more very soon.

Why Peakzi Matters For Search

Julian Placino 16:04

Okay, and we'll leave it there. And um, I think that's actually interesting, a great segue to to Peakzi because your mind thinks of home services and also technology. So you are a customer of Peakzi, and you actually, you know, you're you're in that space. So, how would you describe what Peakzi is to another home services leader?

Steve Akian 16:24

Oh man. I would say Peakzi is a modern day necessity. I would say it's a modern day necessity because our websites are built for human interaction and Peakzi is built for interaction with AI, um, which which humans are um currently using, right? Um sort as they were using Google before, but it's it's so much more than that, right? Um, you know, Google didn't really allow for a conversation to occur, um, where Chat GPT and Google Gemini, it's really more conversational. Um, and yeah, so so I would say I would say modern day uh necessity, really, um, just because it works into the way things are being done nowadays. And I know things are moving quickly um with with AI and just with the world in general, and they have been, right? Things have slowly been moving faster and faster and faster, really, since the beginning of mankind. So yeah.

Julian Placino 17:34

I think that's great, a modern day necessity. So it is becoming and already kind of is like almost there, like the standard, the standard of how people are searching for information. Um, I think that's a great point. What have you found to be some of the most interesting or useful features of the platform?

Steve Akian 17:50

I really like the dashboard. Team and I look at the dashboard to see where we where we are ranked um against others that are in our market. That's been really helpful to us to find where we can um continue to improve on our operations. Um I would say that that that that's really had uh that's what stands out to me, anyways, right now.

Julian Placino 18:13

Okay, so the uh the market insights that it provides you, kind of seeing what any gaps that you might have, areas to capitalize on. So I think that's great. So any other features about Peakzi that you want to mention before we kind of close out things here, Steve?

Steve Akian 18:26

I'll tell you, man, the the uh the coupon um scanning of the website that it does is incredible. When when I when when I got an email on, hey, can you confirm that these are the coupons you want to publish on on um you know your your AI webpage, uh, I was like, whoa, where'd you find these? And so it it it kind of it forced me to do some digging um on my website. I'm like, wow, you know, and and uh yeah, it it's it's it's helped me uncover um some things that I didn't even know were there. Um so uh on top of it, it it's just been a helpful tool to kind of provide um more not not optics, but um other perspectives, fresh perspectives on on certain things that you probably want to button up.

Julian Placino 19:20

Okay, interesting. And going a bit into the coupon. What exactly is the coupon and how does that benefit a home services leader?

Steve Akian 19:27

Well, the the the the what the coupon is is um PC does a scan of the web page to find coupons and offers that you currently have on your website. And we had so many that were old and expired and were in the back pages, and you know, like I every year will go through them myself. Um, you know, and and I encourage others uh on the team too as well. I thought we were doing a good job on that, and it was like, whoa, right? Like it helped uncover things that we didn't even know were there. Um, and so so we're talking about coupons now, but it does that in many other ways too.

Legacy Mindset And Where To Find Him

Julian Placino 20:03

Got it. So it does like a deep dive scan of your entire digital presence of any things that you might need to update and improve. And I think that's a that's a great, great point. So um, Steve, get ready to land the plane here. So you've been in the business now for for for nine years. It doesn't look like you have any signs of slowing down, you're doing some innovative things in technology. So looking ahead, what do you want the legacy of the business to be? What kind of impact do you want to make for your community, your customers, your your team?

Steve Akian 20:32

That's a great question.

Julian Placino 20:35

Are you familiar with the book Seven Habits, Julian? Uh Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Fected People.

Steve Akian 20:40

Yeah. Right. Uh that that exercise, uh, begin with the end in mind. I don't know if you remember it, but it talks about how you know, meditate on like you being uh lie on the wall at your own funeral, right? So that that that exercise really had an impact on me, man. Um and and really helped helped be there as a guide um and something to remind myself of like really how to be every day. And you know, something that I was journaling this morning about was, you know, everyone wants everyone wants to say that they're a leader or you know, the boss or whatever. And it's like, I don't know, man. I've just found that it's just so much, it's so much what's the word I'm looking for. It's worth so much more to be a servant, right? Um and to to be there to serve others. I I think that you know, there's a lot of like votes that are like revolve around like it's lonely at the top and like that, and it's like I don't know, man. Um I just I just want to be known as a company that did good.

Julian Placino 22:04

Yeah. Well, I think that's that's simple and powerful at the same time. And I think a good place to leave it. So uh Steve, this has been really great to to connect with you here and learn about uh your story. If you would share with us how do people check out the website, connect with you on social, follow you, share with us all that.

Steve Akian 22:22

Yeah, yeah, sure. Um, so uh Instagram, it's Mr. Akian. Uh I I changed it from uh it was it was Akian CEO, but then I got married and the and she changed her name to Mrs. Akian. So I only thought it'd be appropriate for me to put my Instagram handle as Mr. Akian. Um uh so you can find me there. Um websites www.akianplumbing.com. Uh Instagram is Akian USA or Akian Plumbing and Heating, sorry. Um, yeah, and then there's some stuff on Fix2finish that is gonna be coming out soon. Actually, fixtofinish.com is up and running now. So um you can go you can go there for some sneak peeks on what we got going on.

Julian Placino 23:06

Cool. Well, we're excited to see what's to come and make sure to have all your contact information in the show notes. So, Steve, this has been a lot of fun to get to know you. Thank you so much for your time.

Steve Akian 23:14

Thanks, Julian.

Julian Placino 23:15

And everyone else, that's it for today's episode. So thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the next episode of the Home Services Success Stories Podcast, powered by Peakzi, the number one AI platform for growing your home services business.