How This 25 Year Old Built a MASSIVE Epoxy Company

This episode of American Builders features Luke Looney, Founder of Good Boy Coatings. We discuss:

- How to get started in the epoxy coatings business
- How Luke got his first start in the trades
- Contractors: Commercial vs residential focus
- Using social media to grow
- The importance of networking for contractors
- The future of Good Boy Coatings

Learn more about Good Boy Coatings here: https://www.goodboycoatings.com/

Presented by TradeGuard: https://tradeguardins.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Alrighty, I am here with Luke Looney of Good Boy Coding Epoxy Flooring. Luke, I appreciate you coming on today. You're the first person we've had in this specific industry, so excited to kind of hear some of the insights about it. Let's start with just the founding story, though, how you got started. Give us a little background into kind of what you were doing maybe before college, because I know you've always been in this sort of trade space, but how'd you go from where you were back then to being an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yeah, Garrett, thanks for having me on. So yeah, we kind of I got started in this when I was growing up. Um actually came to be my neighbor down the street. So the guy that lived three doors down from me, his dad, I'd grown up, grown a company to where it is now, um, doing, you know, working on national accounts across the country. Um, and I kind of started working there. It's kind of your summer job, you know, when you're in high school. So I'd go, you know, down to Kansas City, Kansas, and I start doing um, you know, just working in the warehouse the first summer, you know, in the epoxy space. And then, you know, I got out on the field with all the boys and I started working on these big manufacturing plants, the food processing plants, and kind of got my feet wet in the space um at a rapid pace. And, you know, it's intense labor, but I, you know, I loved it. I was I was young and could do it. And so yeah, the first time I went out in the field, I got in, you know, one of the trucks and I got sent out to Ottawa, Kansas, and I was basically carrying mud and a wheelbarrow back and forth for about 10 hours straight. And that was my first day in the field. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be a long summer. Um, but the intense labor kind of you know made it fun and made it fun with the guys, and I I liked the whole, you know, the whole process of it. So kind of kept going, you know, summer by summer. Um, you know, worked at the Chiefs Stadium, worked at Lee Summit North High School, um, just those three-month projects I was doing throughout high school, and I was also on government wages, so I was making good money, you know, you're making 15 grand a month or uh 15 grand a summer as a 17-year-old. So um it was great. And then I went off to college at Mizzou, and I was, you know, there's some university work going on for my old boss, Dave Schlegel, who I'm speaking of. And I was working on some of his projects up there. And towards the end of college, I was like, oh, maybe I'll go down, you know, to Phoenix and try and get into some development, um, commercial real estate stuff. Went down there and I didn't love it, but it was fun, you know, go down there for a summer internship. But I kept thinking back to the epoxy world, and about March of my senior year, I was like, I'm gonna do it. And I reached out to one of my cousins. He was a year older than me at Mizzou, and he had always been, you know, entrepreneurial, you know, driven. And I reached out to him. He was living in Dallas, Texas, working for AT ⁇ T, and I said, Hey, here's the thing I want to start, you in or you out. He got his flight the next day and moved back to Columbia, Missouri, where his parents were work parents were living, and I was also still in school. So we started kind of planning, and I was like, you just need to go out and get on a floor. We don't need a plan. You know, we can start, you know, August, August, September. But let's get you on a floor and just get your hands dirty. So I actually got him a job at um, you know, ECS, Dave Schlegel's company, and he worked there for three months on his hands and knees and just saw everything. Um, and he's making good really good money, and he kind of saw, you know, the ins and outs of the operations. I think that's how you kind of need to start a company. You don't need to plan, you know, the marketing, the sales. You kind of just need to know, hey, what are you actually selling? You know, you're selling epoxy flooring, and this is like the commercial side of things. So we saw, you know, the most detailed floors, you know, from the best of the best in the industry. So he saw everything that summer. We got back to Kansas City about August 20th, and um then we just started taking off from there.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, I mean, I the one thing I like there is like you don't need a plan to start, especially when you're at that age. Um, and it's just like, hey, just get started, get to work, and you'll kind of figure it out. And I think, especially with trades businesses, right? If if you're starting, you know, some if you're reinventing the wheel, you obviously need to have some sort of plan as to like why are you why how is your value prop gonna be different? How's your positioning gonna be different? But with the trades, you really just need to get started. Um, so I think that's a great point with you know learning the trades. Let's talk a little bit about that first job that you had. How did you walk me through the process of you guys say, hey, we're gonna do this on our own. Um, what was it like to get that very first job?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, so the very first job happened to be um a family friend, you know. So obviously, yeah, young kids out of college, they're gonna help us out. So we're like, hey, yeah, we're gonna do your garage floor. We'll just charge you at cost, you know. Um, so we got the truck, we got the we had the trailer, we got you know some equipment, you know, nothing crazy, but just kind of like a little starter package. So Nick and I went and did it. It happened to be one of the hottest days of the years in August. It was like 95 degrees, and usually you're supposed to lay the floor at you know 70 degrees. But we went ahead and just did it. Um it took us about two days. And the you know, going through it, I was like, it was fun, but I was like, dude, this is it's crazy we're doing this right now, but you know, we had ever had to have everything down of you know the mix ratios on the epoxy, um, you know, to the cure times of how long you had to get it out on the floor because you're squeegeeing it out and you're back rolling it with a you know 18-inch roller, and it's hot as shit. So, you know, you're going fast, and you're also on spike shoes, which I wasn't that used to because I was I wasn't really on spikes when I was working um at the past company, but um, you know, it was a great learning curve. Um, we actually ended up doing the steps in that garage, I remember, and we went back and the step and the steps were still sticky, so it never cured. So we were off on our ratios. I think it was a two to one mix, and I was at like a one to one. So like I never keered part A and part B. Um, so right there I was like, you got to be so careful in that, you know, end of things. The biggest thing is the mixer on the jobs. But no, we ended up leaving that job. Um, we tried to do the best we could, and it was just Nick and I laying it. Um, but we left that job and was like, all right, dude, let's just keep reaching out to you know, everyone I knew in Kansas City. He was all he was from Columbia, so we didn't have a ton of like network here. Um, so I was just like, dude, let me just keep hammering people. Um, people I knew, let's just do it for cheap and just get our hands dirty and just kind of start establishing that, and then just work at nights to try and you know get marketing, get different ideas flowing, get operations, see if we, you know, want to bring on somebody and just um, you know, we put that starting that starting cost of you know what we put down, we we didn't take out any loans, we just put all the money we had that we made you know together over high school and college. And we had enough money to you know buy a truck, buy a trailer, buy equipment, buy tooling. Um so we weren't that in debt at all. I think we ended up borrowing like three grand, but that was about it. We had it paid off. Um, but no, that was our first six months, was kind of just reaching out to people we knew. And then we brought on my little cousin. Um, who's about three years younger than us, and yeah, now we're now are there's about 10 of us. So um that was about two and a half years ago. So you you had to you just had to put yourself out there and actually do the work yourself. I think people try and, you know, point fingers when they start something, um, and they want to be like the big boss and wear a collared shirt, which I think that's the last thing you want to do. Even in even now, I don't even want to be, you know, pointing fingers. But obviously, you know, I gotta be selling to keep everyone busy because you're, you know, providing food for these families. Um, you know, if you don't have jobs lined up, your guys aren't working, so they're not making any money.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, I mean, I think that's an interesting thing in general with trades. When people start out, it's like, how much do you you know, you're talking about that first job of man, this is difficult, you're doing everything yourself. And it's like, how much of that do you want to continue to do versus you want to grow the business to where you're not doing any of that? Like, how does how do you feel about that? How much in the day-to-day do you want to be versus focused on growth? How do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Uh no, that's a good point. I think I'm I'm I was talking to a guy yesterday actually who owns Empowered Electric. He's about 40 years old, but he grew up, he grew his company to like 80 employees now from nothing. But he said the biggest thing is take the best attribute from yourself um and just stick to that rather than trying to put people in that role. Like if you're really good at it, just stick with it. Um and I think I'm super well connected in Kansas City and just a good people person. So I don't think I'd ever want to be out of sales. Um and don't get me wrong, I do love, you know, messing with operations and like always kind of checking in on the guys, but you know, that's gonna waste that's gonna waste my time and take me away from sales. Um, so I think that should be your main focus is figure out what you're best at and then you know put people in place to let the company run itself.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

There is a piece of that where ultimately, as you grow, you like you said, he has 80 employees now. So much of what your business becomes and what your day-to-day becomes is managing people and managing teams. I'm curious how you feel about that. You now have 10 people on your team. You're a young guy, I'm sure most of them are probably older than you. What how has that been growing, managing, uh, and operating a full team like that?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I think, yeah, that's always that's always gonna come in. Um, that's always gonna be present. You're always gonna have to manage. Just you're never gonna get away from that. Um, but managing the guys, you gotta find that one guy that's just gonna be all right, I'm gonna lead these jobs, I'm gonna, you know, make sure, you know, every single supply, every single bucket, paintbrush, like every little detail like that, everyone has it out on the you know, trucks. You know, there's um, you know, the oil change is done. Like I don't have a full operations guy, but everyone kind of just chips in. Um, but I kind of designate, you know, who's gonna do that. But you gotta kind of have that one guy. So my main guy, Daniel, he's um 10 years experience, and he also is bilingual. So that was a big management um obstacle that we struggled with. So we had to kind of I kind of I probably speak, you know, 25% Spanish every day. So you just kind of you get you can get the point across to the Mexican boys, like it's just it's just kind of how it goes. And they um he just he basically translates from translates for me. So if I'm gonna put two guys on a job and they're both Spanish speaking, most of the time Daniel's gonna go to the job first and he's gonna, you know, meet the client, or I'll send, you know, an English-speaking person, because most of the time it's gonna be English speaking customers if it's a residential job. Commercial job, sometimes it doesn't even matter. You know, I'll talk to the guy on the phone, I'm like, my guys are showing up. He's like, Yeah, they're here, they're already working. So, um, but I think a big thing is like, yeah, getting the guys to the shop in the morning, you know, if it's 6 a.m. or if it's like 7 a.m., you know, if a job can't start till a certain time because you're gonna be paying these guys hourly, um, you might have one guy on salary, but kind of going from the 8 to 10 to 15 range is probably the biggest struggle because you can't really hire somebody and supplement their salary, you know, full time until you're you know at that capacity of like 15 people total. Like 10 guys, yeah, you probably could hire somebody, but then you're taking away, you know, from yourself. So kind of that little in-between mix, like you kind of gotta wear all the hats for you know the first three years, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

I saw a LinkedIn post that you guys put out about sort of like in-shop training and how important that is, where you're not you're basically not waiting until you're on the job site to make the mistake. Um, and you guys, I it was something like you set up a little area in the shop where you guys could you could show the guys how to do that. Talk about that a little bit. I think that's a great point that I haven't seen on that much of you have this specialized skill um and putting the time and effort in to train them and how that sort of pays off on the end deliverable.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, no, it's that was it, that was actually Nick's idea. I'm more of a uh just kind of a rusher sometimes, and like let's just get to the job, like screw it, we'll figure it out when we're out there. So, you know, you're always if you keep doing that, and there's you know, probably six different installs we do um on the flooring side, from you know polished concrete to um you know a full epoxy flake system to a urethane cement. There's a bunch out there, but um no, so there's these different systems, so like an airplane hanger, that's probably one of the hardest you know floors to lay out because it's a straight glossy one-color floor, so you can't really hide you know any blemishes in the floor. So we went and did a job, it was 16,000 square feet out in Columbia, Missouri. Um, massive um, massive plant on the north side of Columbia, and we were laying the final coat, and you gotta we were checking the humidity, the humidity was fine because you can't really lay it, you know, outside of 60 to 80 degrees. Um so but the humidity kind of rose up to about 90, 100 degrees. So I was like, damn, there's lines on the floor, it must be the humidity. But we were already laying the floor, and there was about 12 guys on this job. Brought in some subs, and there was some lines on the floor, but we couldn't stop because we already had material on the floor and we just had to keep going. And so we went back and I was like, I don't think it was the humidity levels. Um, so got the humidity down to exactly what it needed to be, and we ended up having to redo the whole floor, sanded the whole 16,000 square feet down, you know, maybe cost us 10 to 15 grand of you know, a mistake that you know I didn't do a shop training back to your point that you know you're on 16,000 square feet rather than you know, you do a little 10 by 10 area in the shop to really make sure the pigments right and the you know the working times right, the temperatures, so all that all that comes into you know planning. Um, so you know, from there on out, we're like we have to uh do shop training because we don't want to you know make a mistake like that again.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

When you're not there's so much specialized skill here that you people don't really think of, right? When you walk into a garage or a shop and you see the floor, it's just it's just there. Uh talk a little bit about that. If you were to go back, or let's say you're talking to somebody who's just starting this business, it's you two, three years ago. What are, you know, maybe three to five things you would tell them of, hey, here's the things you need to get right. Here's the things that it took me a$15,000 mistake to learn. That's obviously one example, but can you give me a few more?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Um, another example, we were down doing a brewery uh pickleball concept, um, like a fun place that we're doing the bathrooms and we're doing all the kitchens. And the temperatures were, I think it was probably five degrees outside, a huge snowstorm came in. Um, and the building wasn't fully climate controlled, but there was big industrial heaters in there. But it was still pretty cold on the edge of the you know the building. So we didn't we ran like cove base, which is you know a radius cove on the you know perimeter of the floor. And we laid it on a Monday, and I remember we came back and the interior part of some of the kitchen work and the bathrooms were cured, but the perimeter wasn't, you know, that's touching the outside walls of the building. And we're like, damn, like it's still not cured, it's still like kind of tacky and sticky. So it wasn't fully like you know, cured. So I was like talking to the mixer guy. I'm like, you know, what'd you mix? Like what were your ratios exactly? Like which mix was, you know, did you do one to one? Did you do two to one? You know, here's your part B, here's your part A, here's your part C. You know, it's a it's a three to two, or is it a two to one? Blah blah blah. So we went back through and everything was right. And I was like, damn. I was like, it's gotta be the I think it's just it's getting tackier, you know, as the day went on, but I figured I was the temperatures of the, you know, the perimeter of the building was so cold, it was gonna take, you know, triple the time for it to cure. So if I would have done it again, I probably would have waited for the building to be, you know, fully heated. Um, because that's just delaying, you know, labor hours. I'm sitting there. I'm also it was an out-of-town project, so I'm paying, you know, time and a half. Um, so we ended up having to, you know, stay two more days, which is more hotels. Um, you know, you're paying also for$30 a day for per diem for you know meals and stuff like that. So, you know, little mistakes like that, it's gonna cost you, and you can't really put a change order in. I mean, you can sometimes, just depending on, you know, the the client. Um, but like little things like that, that's gonna cost you money. That I was like, damn, like you got to be very prepared, especially at a town work like that. And just the climate control is very huge. Um, that's like one of the first things I always ask, like, hey, is it gonna be climate controlled? You know, I need it to be 60 to 80 degrees in here. And then also all I'm gonna offer a moisture testing. You know, if you if there's if there's moisture in the slab, you know, you're gonna have to do a you know another moisture vapor barrier or something like that. So like little you know, preparation stuff that you know you don't even think of when it comes to this trade that you have to be exactly, you know, on point with. Um, and there's some other things that come with like joints and you know, the concrete's always gonna move, so you gotta have like flexible joint filler so the floor doesn't crack later on. Little things like that. Um it's kind of what to look out for when you're in the planning phase of like with some of the bigger projects.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

It seems like, like you said, most of it comes up to the preparation, right? And being I had um Michael Blake, which you probably know on, um, he has a roofing company and he's got experience in the Marines, and he was like, the biggest thing I learned from the Marines is sort of that mission planning stage of being able to show up on time with the right plan and the right equipment. And I think that can apply across the whole trades, but especially here. You mentioned out-of-town projects. I'm curious how like what was the first out-of-town project you did, and if you're talking to somebody who has a trades business and they've been local their whole life and they want to look at something out of town, how would you recommend going about that?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Um, I think the out-of-town work, if you're in for this specific industry, you're going for, you know, your main clientele is gonna be like food processing, manufacturing. So that's gonna be outside like of the Kansas City, you know, area sometimes. Um I think the biggest thing is you know, building those relationships out of outside of Kansas City if you're trying to, you know, grow into a you know, if you're trying to just grow as a company, you know, be on the commercial side. I saw the residential side, and yeah, it's fun, it's good, like garages are easy now, um, and they're always gonna look clean, they're always, you know, keeping up with cash flow. But you gotta go after like you know, the whales out there. At least you gotta bid them, you know, and you gotta create those relations relationships because there's gonna be more money out there, and you gotta go out of town for my specific industry. Um, because everyone, this is a higher end, you know, finish. You know, some people might just put tile in there, or they might just put you know, sealed concrete. They're not gonna do a full, you know, coating that we provide because people don't have the money for it. So you're going after a lot of um, you know, city work, government work, and then you know, our first summer we did schools, we went for all like um rural areas because we know we can be competitive, rather than the big dogs in Kansas City that can win those, you know, the Lee Summit West High School renovation or like you know, Latha School District. So we went for all like the rural areas where you know we can be competitive. So it's just kind of what you want to do if you want to travel, um, you know, and make get to the commercial side quicker. That was kind of our outlook on it. And also at the end of the day, we wanted to keep everyone busy. So I'm going after jobs everywhere, right? Small towns or in Columbia, if it's Wichita, Des Moines, Omaha. Um that's just kind of what you have to do in our specific industry.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Right. How do you find these projects? Like what is there uh a site where people are posting bids? Like, what is the actual logistics behind finding a project in Des Moines?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Um That was actually kind of kind of a big thing for us, was kind of using LinkedIn and posting on social media. Yeah. So like for example, one job in Des Moines was a grocery store. It was actually a garage floor company that bid it and they called us to come do the install. Um so they couldn't they didn't know how to install it. It was a thermal shock, you know, industrial floor that was gonna be about three eighths inch thick. So they didn't they didn't know how to install it. So we went and installed it for them. So that was just one scenario of the grocery store. Um the Omaha, we did an Omaha Tommy's Express car wash. I happen to just know the franchise owner um through connections, and he was putting another one in. And I got in front of him. He already had his main guy up there in Omaha that he's used, but he gave me a chance. Um and then now I know that general contractor that was running that job. So he's you know, put me on the bid list, right? Other, you know, if it's like a restaurant work, they do a lot of retail stuff. So um, you know, just connections that way. And you know, the Columbia work, like two hours away. That was just kind of Nick, my partner. You know, he's just well established there. His dad was in construction, so he just got really well established there, and it was also two hours away, and there's no floor guy over there. So we're like, let's just take over this market. There's a lot of uh university work, Columbia is growing. Um, it's kind of like the Des Moines Omaha, like they're both growing. There's not a ton of people up there, right? So it's kind of we didn't have a direct, you know, kind of through LinkedIn user network, um, maybe some cold calls to like the bigger, you know, food processing plants. We did um, you know, the animal rescue for the state of Iowa. That was our biggest job. Um, and that was just through connection. Kind of we ended up being the highest bid on it out of three when we we got it, but um I think it's just building relationships and like getting people to like you, and then you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

So I think that's something people don't like when you think about LinkedIn, you think about connections and your network, a lot of times that is associated with like a white collar job, like you know, if you're gonna be in finance, you need to have if you're gonna be in insurance, like me, you need to have a network, and but it really is critical to the trades businesses. Um, and would you say it's partnerships with general contractors is kind of the biggest thing. Like if you could only focus on one partnership, or it doesn't even have to be a partnership, one sort of lever that you could that you could pull, and you you can't focus on anything else for sales. What would you focus on?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I think in the customer, because that's gonna be your highest profit margin jobs. The general contractor is already working with the you know the owner, and then they're finding subs and they're gonna find, you know, some general contractors are gonna be like, Oh, I need the cheapest guy, right? You know, so I can make more money myself. But you're always gonna have to have general contractor jobs because it keeps your guys busy. But you're there's still good money depending on the GC, but I think the biggest, you know, the biggest um client I go after is in a customer. Um, so I'm going after maintenance, you know, facility maintenance managers because they're maintaining these plants like easier to clean, you know, the concrete's bad, so it's causing tripping tripping hazards, little things like that um that I kind of look out for. But yeah, in a customer for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

And I think probably a big part of that you mentioned LinkedIn. How have you guys thought how have you guys thought about social media and how you utilize that? I think one interesting thing with your industry, it's it just it's so prime to go viral where you have that sort of satisfying squeeging out of the product. Like even if somebody doesn't give a shit about epoxy flooring, they still watch the video. I'm one of those people.

unknown 25:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

How do you how do you think about marketing? How have you guys used that to your advantage?

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Um, we've been, you know, we've been hard on marketing sometimes, like on social media. We'll go on like a you know, two-month you know, posting, you know, at least three times a week. We'll try to. Um, but it's hard to keep up with it because we have no one designated to it. If you're gonna go out to a job, film, talk, right time you get to it. But I think the biggest thing for social media was putting your face on there um and doing a talking video and just showing your personality, um, and showing not just like don't even like really talk about the job, almost like one like random little thing about the job that's like random that catches like someone's attention. Like, oh, it's like kind of funny, or like it's not like educational. That comes more so on the Instagram side. I think the Snapchat side actually has worked a lot for me too. Just me using my personal name. Um people just seeing like what we're doing, like say it's like a barn dominium, like, oh, my uncle actually just built one. Would love to have you talk with him about floors or like something random like that. It's like a random like high school friend, you know, back you know, six years ago that randomly had you still on Snapchat, like posting on there. Um, then I think the LinkedIn is just kind of I think the pictures might do better on LinkedIn. Um, but you know, videos do great too. I think it's just showing your face.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I think that's a great point there. I mean, I was had uh Mulzer on the pod two, three weeks ago, and I mean he's the prime example of that, right? And what you mentioned there, you can obviously mention putting your face on it and putting a sort of a face to the brand, that's key. But I also really like what you said about finding something random about a job that people might not know or find interesting. And with trades, there's opportunities for that on pretty much every single project, right? So you can say maybe there's a piece of content about sort of the whole length of the project and it shows that start to finish, which people care about, right? When they see the start of it, they're gonna naturally be curious about how it's finished. Um, but there's also all the little spots in between where there's different stories, stories happening. It's like, for example, you could say, okay, we here's how when we do an out-of-town job, here's how we get everybody out to the hotel. So it's like every single part of that project has a story that you can tell.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Uh I'm curious about sort of residential versus commercial. You've mentioned you're focusing on commercial more, it's it's higher ticket. How do you kind of think about some of the trade-offs between which one to emphasize?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Um I think you're always gonna have to have the residential for us. Probably for the you know, for us, unless you're massive and you have national accounts and you're the preferred installer, which can be the case. I think residential for us is you wanna family friends are gonna reach out, so that's a job, you know. You don't even have to go find it. Um, and referral work. It also keeps up with our cash flow. So, you know, you're getting paid right away, not you're not getting paid 30, 60, 90 days after the job on the commercial side. Um, and then you know, residential can also be a repeat work, kind of like a general contractor can or a um like restaurant work. If someone's opening four restaurants, they're probably gonna use this on the next one. But I think residential, if you find a home builder, um, you know, they're they're gonna use you on every single home building, especially the new ones. You know, they're building four to five car garages, you know, so that's a lot of square footage. It's almost treated as a commercial job, um, which we kind of started doing our commercial systems on the residential side to separate us from the garage franchise guys. So like very high-end finish, um, has a radius cove on the edge. Like no one really does that. And actually, I learned that from my old boss because he was the only one that did that on garage floor on the garage floor side, and that's why he had so many builders keep coming back to him because no one else did it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

So explain that to me a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yeah, so you're gonna have like a you have your garage and then you have your like concrete walls on the edges, you know? Yeah, like stairs, so like the the edge where it meets at a 90 degree angle. Um, we're doing like a little radius cove in there. So like if you're cleaning out your garage, like it can just get washed out clean, you know, stuff like that. So adding in that little like a little detail, um, we just kind of kept going on that. And yeah, so residential to commercial, I I just think you gotta go commercial and be higher ticket, and you gotta to be able to build and build your brand awareness and like be recognized by the city. And you know, if you want to go after stadium work, plant work, um, you know, that's what you gotta do to really be recognized um to win some of these, some of these jobs. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

With that, obviously, comes more complicated operations. Let's talk about that. Um, how how do you manage operations? You've got a team of 10, I'm sure you have you know a couple projects going on at one time. What is your sort of operational system look like? And I guess maybe just walk me through um like one specific project of what the operations look like on that from bid to job finished.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah. Yeah, so kind of the the breakdown of it. So say you you know you go bid a job, throw your bid in, um, and the guy called it and go two different ways. The guy can call you and, like, hey, you won the bid, you don't even look at the job, you know, you just have the plans. It might be a new development. Or, you know, it's a renovation, you're gonna go walk the job. So say it's a you go walk the job and you look at the floor, you walk it with this uh project manager, you get what you need, you get pictures, ask some questions, go back to your you know, your office and you put together a bid. I might get a couple like bids from you know different manufacturers on the epoxy side, and like, hey, can you be a little more competitive on you know this pricing from my primer? Like it's 45 a gallon. Can we be a little bit lower? Um, so I might get pricing on that and see who can be more competitive. Um, and then from there, I will send in, I'll give you know the client two options unless it's spec'd for a specific, you know, floor. And they'll get back to me. Um, so say I win it and I book it out, I schedule it, I make sure you know we have enough time if it's a bigger one. And then, you know, when it comes time around, I typically like to, if it's over 5,000, if it's over 10,000 square feet, I kind of like to ship the product directly to the site. So it'll show up on a pallet, you know, at probably the second day of the guys being there. Um so say it's Monday. Usually I have everyone meet at the shop at you know six, six thirty. Um, get the get whatever truck's going out to that specific job, get it fully, you know, dialed in. I'll try and have it the week before, but you know, say it's chaotic and no one gets back until Friday or Saturday from work. Um, everyone will kind of chip in, make sure we have everything, go through, you know, the list of things we need from supplies to equipment, um to tooling and stuff like that. And then they'll head out to the job and I try and get them out of the shop by seven, get to the job at eight. They get there, my main guy. I'll probably I'll end up probably meeting them there to walk through the job with my main guy, and then he'll walk through it with you know the main superintendent on the job, get to know him, and we'll kind of walk through it, and we'll kind of get the plan together, go through the timeline, and they'll just start prepping. You know, guys will start hand grinding on the edges, and then you'll have your main guys if there's one or two big grinders, you know, set up your vacuum, hook them up to the grinders, and you just start start, you know, grinding the floors, and that's just kind of the first, you know, couple days, and then you kind of start going into the coatings of your you know, your first coat, your second coat. You might have a cove base in there. Um, but you're just kind of planning, and then I'm kind of checking in, you know, you know, probably once a day. Um, but now I'm kind of trying to be more hands-off to kind of let them do their thing. And sometimes I'll have to go jump on the job and be, you know, hands and knees, like um, which I don't mind at all. But kind of check in and then they'll end up finishing the job and I'll go check it out and talk to the client, make sure he's happy. If there's anything that we need to go over, I'll go over it with my main guy to make sure he knows for next time. And then we'll close out the job and I'll send the invoice over, and you know, I might get paid 30 days later. Um, and usually I kind of like to do a follow-up email with that client. And then I also what's been working is I like to write a handwritten letter thanks to Bob Pascuzzi, as you know, um, which goes a long way when a guy gets a handwritten letter um just saying, Hey, thanks for the opportunity. Um we're a young growing company, so appreciate it if you have any more work down the road. So that's kind of the basis of it, and then we'll go on to the next week. And kind of during that job, I'll have maybe a smaller job going on, like you know, a three-car garage or you know, a small office job that you know two guys are on or three guys. I usually have six guys on my commercial side going. Um, but that's it. You're kind of running two crews, one residential and one commercial crew. So residential crew maybe do two to three garages a week, and then you have your commercial crew, you know, just doing that main big job.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

That's great. I literally just put a thank you letter to Bob in the mailbox this this morning, about an hour ago. So that's kind of funny. Um, well, I appreciate you coming on. What is kind of the next phase? Like, where do you where do you see this going? Maybe like a short term, but what's the ultimate vision for Good Boy?

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Um, I'd say to grow Kansas City up to I want to hire the goals this year is to hire two salespeople and an operations full time, um, and kind of you know looking at the company from afar by the end of the year. Um, and then we've had a couple people reach out about franchising, but we're kind of still working through that. Um so yeah, I think getting you know Kansas City fully built, um, hopefully probably having you know three more installers, three to four, two more salespeople in operations. So probably be up to you know, 16, 17 people by the end of the year, maybe 20. Um, but build Kansas City and then you know, see if Dallas, Dallas is kind of the main one that's been getting triggered these last couple months. Um, if that's a franchise route or if they want to do more of a commercial route. But kind of that's in the planning phase, and we'll just kind of see what happens, you know. But excited for the new year.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Awesome. I think we could have a whole conversation about the the franchise route. I was curious if that was in the cards at all, but we'll save it for another time. Luke, where can people find you? Um, and then who do you want reaching out? You mentioned you're looking to hire people. Uh, you mentioned you work with some GCs, homeowners, where can they find you and who do you want to reach out?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, um reach out always on LinkedIn. I'm always on there and always comment on our post. And if you're looking to work, yeah, hit me up. If it's install side, if it's operations, if it's sales side, um, or if you just kind of want to work anywhere, um, let me know. So reach out on social media, LinkedIn, um, or if you have my number. So I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Alrighty. Thank you, Luke. Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Thank you.