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I Didn’t Know This Business Existed (And It’s Exploding)

• Jesse Fitton Smith • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What does it really take to build a successful business from scratch?

In this episode of the Mobile Podcast Trailer, I sit down with Anthony Vickman, owner of Dino Turf Cleaning, to talk about entrepreneurship, risk, family, failure, and building a business that solves a problem most homeowners don’t even realize they have.

From carpet cleaning to running a growing turf cleaning company in Arizona, Anthony shares the real story behind building a service business in today’s economy — including the sacrifices, lessons, and mindset shifts that helped him scale toward a 7-figure company.

We dive into:
• The hidden truth about artificial turf maintenance
• Why “zero maintenance” turf is a myth
• How social media helped grow Dino Turf Cleaning
• The reality of starting and selling businesses
• Entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and work-life balance
• The pressure of providing for a family while building a dream
• Why most people underestimate service businesses

This conversation is for entrepreneurs, dads, business owners, side hustlers, and anyone trying to build something meaningful while balancing real life.

If you’ve ever wondered what it actually looks like behind the scenes of growing a business, this episode is for you.

🎙️ Mobile Podcast Trailer
Hosted by Jesse

Arizona Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship | Small Business | Family | Growth

#Entrepreneur #SmallBusiness #ArtificialTurf #BusinessPodcast #Entrepreneurship #ArizonaBusiness #SideHustle #DinoTurfCleaning #Podcast #BusinessOwner #StartupJourney #Fatherhood #ServiceBusiness #Marketing #ContentCreation

SPEAKER_02

Excuse me, sir. Sir? Hey, are you a small business owner? I am excellent. Hey, did you know that statistically speaking, uh small business owners own up to three to four businesses before they have one successful one? Is that the same for you?

SPEAKER_01

I'd say that's probably a a true stat. I'm on my third business. I have one successful one that I've doubled and another one that was, I guess, considered failed. Two for three.

SPEAKER_02

I have a mobile podcast trailer where I interview small business owners doing cool things. Wait, would you be open to getting a coffee and going out to the trailer and recording right now? Yeah. You got an hour? Yeah, I think so. Alright then, let's do it. Let's rock it out. It's weak. Thanks. Alright, welcome to the mobile podcast trailer. I'm Jesse. This podcast is designed for the dreamers, the doers, the risk takers, those who have started businesses, sold businesses, bought businesses. All of a sudden, they're running trucks and fleets and people. And we dive deep into the nitty-gritty of business. And if you ever found yourself in a position where you're like, How did I end up here? This podcast could be for you. And today I am joined with my buddy, new buddy, like just met, like outside. Um Anthony. I don't even know his last name. Vickman, yeah. What is it? Vickman. Vickman. Yep. The V. All right. Well, welcome, Anthony Vickman. Thank you, sir. Owner of Dino Turf Cleaning. Yes. Which, by the way, I never knew I needed. So good to meet you, dude.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's good running into you, huh?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Very funny.

SPEAKER_02

So um a little bit of a background, um, but I'm gonna ask it in a form of a question uh for you. Um how do you find customers for a service that most people don't even realize that they need?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. Um, I think when I first started, most of my what I found is most of my customers didn't know that they could even hire a turf cleaner professionally. Right. Right. Um the myth behind owning turf that the installers tell the homeowners is that it's zero maintenance. Right. You know, nothing is zero maintenance. So that that's the biggest, I would say, um, problem with the industry is that you have turf in your backyard. It's not zero maintenance, but yet um it's supposed to last a long time. So load maintenance is different than zero maintenance. Um it's a it's a knowledge gap for the customers, and it's more of a I'm out here like in my videos and all the things that I would post on social medias. I'm just trying to educate my customers on when you need service and you know what you can do yourself and and things. So finding the customers is more of just getting the word out and explaining that this is a professional service, uh, that when you have a problem, there's an answer to it. So I'm not selling my service. I'm selling, I'm I'm not selling the um problem, right? They have a problem and they're going online and searching. I'm gonna pop up because I have the solution. So, you know, I'm not going out there, someone's not waking up one day and saying, I need my turf clean, but they are going outside and smelling the nasty urine from their dog peeing on it for three years and like now wondering what the problem is. So that's more of where I come in and giving them the solution to solving their problem. And that's that's really what my strategy is is I'm not just gonna, you know, people aren't actively looking to clean their turf just because they want to. Right. Um, it's a knowledge gap. So putting the information out there for people to eventually find and understand is what draws them to us and just being that um voice out there to to allow them to understand that, you know, it's not zero maintenance. If you want your turf to last, there's there's steps that you should take and hire professional to come out there and give it the best chance of it um of your turf lasting the longest, you know. So that's um, I guess how I've found my customers. They have a problem and we are able to solve it, and that's I don't know, that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Do you um like a lot of people will um the the zero maintenance, the low maintenance, that kind of stuff. Like our neighbors at our house removed all their grass and put in um desert landscape. Yeah. And it's funny because prior to the desert landscape, they weren't watering their grass ever. Like in the six years that we lived there, they never watered their grass. And they said, Well, we're we're doing this so that we reduce our water consumption. And I was like, Oh, okay. And now they're watering all of the desert plants that they have in their yard now. Yeah and I'm like, you didn't, you didn't, you actually upped your water consumption because now you're trying to care for the plants that you just planted, which doesn't make sense. Um, so like their low maintenance, no maintenance plan is completely lost because she's out in her yard every day now, whereas before she was never in her yard. Right. Um, and same goes for the the turf stuff. Like we have turf in our backyard, and I'm like, is it just gonna look like trash always? Because now, like, we're about to start construction, we're adding a fifth bedroom, but um like where the new bedroom is, like the the sand is all oh yeah warped and you know it it like pools in certain areas, it it becomes Lake Smith when when it rains, like we just just have a massive puddle of water. Um hopefully when we add this room the that will go away. Corrected, yeah. Um but man, like a lot of people don't know, and that that's the part that like when I found you on social media, I was like, what the heck? Right like this is this is a service that I didn't even know. Right. And I think that that's what interests me the most about what you do. Um, maybe purely because I'm selfish and I have a service that nobody knows they want or need to. Um, so it is a knowledge gap. It's like educating somebody to show them that, like, oh, I don't need a home office studio to podcast in. I can just have you come. Right. Um, so that's my yeah, you know, my selfish bend on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, you know, you have to go through, you have to Google, how do I take care of this? You don't even know what to Google. Like, how do I clean my turf? What about it? I didn't even know. I didn't even know you were supposed to, right? You're just like it's it's there. Okay, then that's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we don't have cats or we, you know, we don't have dogs going out there and going to the bathroom on it. My parents' house did when we were right, you know, when they they added turf to their backyard, and it just smelled like we didn't even want to swim in the backyard when they did it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it's awful. You spend a lot of money on landscaping your backyard. Cheap. Uh a turf is not cheap. No. You know, for the whole for the whole landscaping project or just get turf in by itself is not cheap. And anything that um is on that price point should be maintained, you know. Even electric cars are lower maintenance, but not the zero maintenance. Right. You still have to service them. Right. So it's the same concept.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Exactly. Well, that leads me to question number two uh with this. Um, artificial turf exploded in Arizona over the last, I would say, 10, 15 years. Um, what made you see this as a real business opportunity before most people did it?

SPEAKER_01

Man.

SPEAKER_02

And how did how did you how did you, you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna back up a little bit. Let's do a little origin story. Yeah, I want to know what businesses, because you said you sold one. So, like, yeah, how old are you? And how you know you look, he looks way younger than me. So I'm gonna have to say he's in his 30s. I am.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my thought.

SPEAKER_02

I'm 36. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yep. Okay. I'm 36. Um, I often forget my age, so I'm proud of myself for rattling that off so quickly.

SPEAKER_02

Well, good job. I want to forget my age.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Um, yeah, I have me and my wife own a uh wedding business. Okay. And that's the one that we sold. So Origin Goes Back, uh, that ties into turf cleaning. 13 years ago, uh, I helped my dad with his carpet cleaning business.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So that's all of my background and kind of why I got into turf cleaning in the first place, is all of my carpet cleaning experience that I did for 13 or so years. Um towards the end of when I worked with my dad, it was just me and him in a van, and you know, it was his business, and we rocked and rolled for for a long time. Um, so I would say he's probably the reason that I even thought about owning my own business and excellent, you know, um, going down that route and being an entrepreneur. Uh it was towards the end of when I was working with him that me and my wife we got married in 20 uh 16. And so this will be our 10-year uh anniversary this year. Way to go. Thank you. Uh, we had done a backyard wedding. So we did a lot of DIY stuff and uh loved that whole like rusticy theme and and stuff. So I built a lot of the tables that we use for our wedding, the backdrop, and all kinds of stuff. Um, after the wedding, I had several people reach out to us, and my wife did too, and the wedding it's the wedding venue itself was just a house, but they were trying to make it into a venue. Oh, and um, he goes, Hey, can I just like buy this stuff from you? I'm like, dude, I already had people reach out wanting to rent it. I was like, I think I'll just side hustle that for however long and make some extra cash on the side. Uh so that's what we did, and um, that was my first side hustle, and that turned into a bigger business than we ever thought it would have. Um, but it was also when we were starting our family, and it was really hard to be in the event space working weekends and nights and you know, figuring out what family life looks like. Um, I would say I definitely crashed and burned in that business, too. I learned so much, is why that business I as a success, but I learned all of my failures, a lot of the failures in that, and that has propelled me to be more successful in dyno turf cleaning. Um, we did end up selling it uh three years ago. So it's been three years since we sold it. Um and during that, I had another business that we when we had the rental business, we had a bounce house business that we were trying to offset our slow season with bounce houses and stuff. Right. Um learned that I didn't really that wasn't for us. So we quickly, quickly got rid of that and thankfully made our money back on of our upfront costs on buying the bouncers. Uh, but that was not a fun business. I learned I will never ever buy bouncers again. That was very challenging.

SPEAKER_02

Um, so what made it challenging? Because it it it's it's a common thing that like people are like, it's a great side hustle.

SPEAKER_01

The margins are super low. And I had a team of 13 guys for the weddings. Like we were rocking and rolling doing 20 to 24 weddings a weekend uh during busy season. Whoa. So, you know, we were doing a lot, and I would have the guys go deliver the bounce houses and then go pick them up and clean them and stuff. And at the end of the day, I'd make maybe $50 on a maybe $30 on a rental. It was pretty clear that we would need to do a lot of rentals, like $80 to 90 to make it work. To make it to make it work, you know, and maybe the big obstacle courses, big water slides would have been, you know, better, but uh, I just wasn't willing to stick around long enough to make that work. So cut my losses and so we're not doing this anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh it was almost better than just to like cruise through summertime and uh not be as busy to try to make pennies. So not not fun not foot rolling up bounce houses and carrying them and having big dollies and it was a lot.

SPEAKER_02

And uh that sounds that sounds yeah, I I'd actually never thought about the rolling up the bounce house or heavy and dollying, like that doesn't sound funny.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I'm a researcher and I kind of knew what I was getting into before doing it. I would look at YouTube videos and stuff and see guys using winches and stuff to like roll it and get it on their mechanic um uh electric dolly. I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Like this is this is supposed to be quick. Yeah, this is supposed to be easy money. It was not no, so yeah, that led us into to Dino. Um we sold it in 2023, and it was I had started Dino in 2022, which is like June of 2022, is my first job that I ever did. And that was like the side hush hustlish part of Dino, to where I was like still working with my dad carpet cleaning. We were we were also full-time in the the wedding business and selling it, so we were doing a lot, and um Dino was the answer to our our future of what we were gonna do, and that was clear to me. So I never viewed dino as a side hustle, right? Um, because I knew like this was gonna be it, it's all or nothing, right? And that was the scariest part too, because like if it didn't work, I was either moving in back with my parents and moving my family back in with my parents, or you know, we're gonna be homeless. I don't know. Um, you know, so what what we did is we sold the wedding business and we made a chunk of money on it. Um, bought our house in Queen Creek and Cash? No, yeah, well, we weren't that fortunate. Uh it was uh we sold our house in Gilbert and um lived with my parents for for a little bit. No, let's see, back up. I got my timeline mixed up. We were living with my parents when we bought the Gilbert house. Um, anyways, we had sold the business and moved in to our new house in Queen Creek almost at the same time. So we were selling 100% of our income, sold the business, moving into a house that I didn't know how we were gonna afford because Dino was like my side hustle. Right. It was just doing a couple jobs a day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you're in the beginning phases.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, beginning phases trying to learn what I was doing. I had no idea. Um so it was uh probably the scariest part of my life for sure. You know, we had uh three kids. We had our our youngest was um three, three and five, and yeah, let's say she was 13. 12. Um so you know, it was just up to me to like rock and roll with it and see what I can do. Um so that's the origin story of how I got started, and it was just me for the first year.

SPEAKER_02

So it it kind of was birthed out of knowledge of carpet cleaning, yeah. Um, transferable uh skill set, I'm assuming. Absolutely. Um obviously a lot hotter. Uh maybe. Yeah, I guess carpet cleaning. Being outside, yeah, can be pretty much. It's a different job. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but like, so let's this is not on my list of questions, but like how many jobs can you do in a day? Um, and how big is your team? Like, what's the cap rate for them? You know, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um at full capacity, one man can do uh it depends on size of job, correct? Typically five. Okay. Typically five jobs per van, uh per day, and then you are very tired at the end of the day. Yes. Or you can do one really big job, and we have both. So yeah. What was the other part of your question?

SPEAKER_02

Um, like when you answered it. Yeah, okay. Kind of where's their max? Yeah, that's and yeah. Um, do you do you charge by the foot or by the minute? Like what's what how do you guys educate me on how how you guys bill?

SPEAKER_01

So um I'll just do a little pitch on you for your backyard. If okay. You know, if you have if you need your turf cleaned, I say, how big is your backyard? You know the square foot. So we charge by square foot.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um, if you were to say, I have dogs and it smells, you know, we have three different packages that you can choose from, depending on how deep of a clean that you want. And that's something that I've curated over time because when I was first trying to figure out turf cleaning, it was just like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm used to using a brush and a pressure washer and some spray to get rid of odors. I have no idea. Um, so now we have refined everything so crystal clear that you can choose between your three packages. And if you are like, hey, these odors won't go away. I've treated it myself. I've used Simple Green, I've used all the things, and nothing works. So we go down the line of like, okay, you need either our middle package or the highest one, and that's gonna give you a deep clean, you know. So um, it just depends on what you need done. We we can do just like if you don't have animals, we have our uh dyno tune-up uh package for that. So simple simple, it's gonna get all of the debris out, it's gonna brush up the fibers, uh, it's gonna make it look really good again, it's gonna make it look brand new. We still put our dyno juice down to clean it so it'll it's a a good like uh cleaner decreaser, just overall yeah, great product um that we've that I've actually developed uh for ourselves. So um that's our newest thing that I'm working on now is our own product. It's our dino juice, which is sweet. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Three different so could you could could that be it? I don't know, you'll probably have already thought of this, but like kind of selling it as a hey, here, here's you know, continued maintenance at home, you know, spray this on or you know, get a concentrate and sell it to the clients. Do you do um do you do like annualized packages where you you know go, hey, we we come out, you know, three, four times a year, you know, once a quarter kind of thing, and and just do a good spot clean. Is that a part of what you do?

SPEAKER_01

Not necessarily spot cleaning, um, but sorry. Um are you hearing him okay, Eli? Yeah, okay. It's um absolutely, yeah. So your dog's not just gonna pee on your turf once. Right. You know, if he's peeing on it, peeing everywhere four times a day, every single day, you need continued maintenance. So that's a huge part of the business um that is needed. So yeah, we have maintenance plans ranging from monthly, quarterly, and biannually. Yep. Nice. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Um what's the biggest misconception that homeowners have about artificial turf? I kind of slurred my words there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I think it's uh you know, it's it's that it's zero maintenance or that they don't need to do anything. That's right, that's the biggest deal. Or um they don't even know what to do in the first place, just like yourself. Right. Um, they don't know what to spray on it when it smells. You do some research, you go to Home Depot, you pick up some Sybil Green and just mist it on it and think that that's gonna solve everything. That's not curing it, that's just masking a symptom, you know. Well, it's like carpet outside for sure. It just literally is, and that's what I tell my customers. It's like it's outdoor carpet. Yeah, and it's being peed on every day. So if you were to put if you were to uh watch your dog pee in your house every day, you would get fully disgusted, you just rip it out and you know, be done with it.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

But that's the problem with turf is people think that it's outside, it shouldn't smell, it just seeps into the ground and it'll be fine. We live in Arizona, it's hot, things are very dry, yes, and they don't drain how they should. We have really hard soil, so when the dog pees on it, it dries on the turf fibers, it dries. In the infill that's in the turf and it doesn't really drain through. So it's just all sitting there and it builds up, you know. And when when homeowners go to buy their simple green or, you know, Oda Ban or something like that, right? Um, it's masking the problem. It's not taking care of the issue. So when we do our service, we are actually treating the problem because we're applying our dyno juice, we're applying the treatment, saturating the area, we're getting to the root cause, we're brushing the turf, we're breaking off urine crystals that are on the turf. It's basically just the the the urine that has dried on the turf. And in brushing it relieves a lot of that, and saturating the turf and and flooding it uh to actually get to the problem cures 99% of all the problems. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of customers think that they need to replace their infill or that the infill's the problem. They didn't the installers didn't put the pet infill in. I get that so many times. Um, which to a point, there the pet infill, it's anti-uh microbial, it does help, but the urine's still gonna be there. Yeah, you know, you still need to treat it. So whether or not you have the right infill or or you do, it's just it's it's still using the right stuff and using the right process to actually treat to treat it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so how so we know how many jobs an average worker can do. How many people do you have on staff? And what are your um like what are your daily goals for the business?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I have uh two technicians and I have an office manager. My brother-in-law is my lead technician, he's been with me for two years now. Um, and then I have a new hire that replaced another technician as well. So, and then I'm in the van uh as well. So we have three trucks on the road. Um, I went through a phase where I had three technicians full-time and I was in the office with my office manager. Um, we scaled back last fall.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um, kind of reassessed our uh expenses and uh marketing spend and things, and I had to scale back and let go of some guys so we can reach some goals that I wanted to, and realized that what I could do in two vans, they were doing in three, and my expenses were just out of control. So it's uh it's a team, and then I have a sales, um, I have a sales guy as well. He's part-time, also a firefighter. Um, so it's it's us, and our goal per van is to do between twelve and fourteen hundred dollars every day uh per van.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so you're looking at between four and five thousand a day for for the business as a whole. Yep. And what would you say your um your expenses are in in that grand scheme? You know, solution, um materials, expendables, um the people, yeah, you know, all those all those um costs, you know, even though it sounds cool to be like I make five thousand dollars a day, like everybody, yeah. There's there's so many people that say yeah that online, and nobody realizes that like yeah, you spent, you know, you may have spent four thousand dollars right in a day, and so you only end up walking away with a thousand, which is still a decent number, but like what what are your common expenses? Do you have you can answer it by monthly or daily if you know it by that?

SPEAKER_01

Um I don't know if I know daily, but our we're we're about a 30 to 40 percent um expense. So we're we're pretty healthy with our expenses now. They were like 70 and I was making zero money um because payroll was out of control. I was using another product, I didn't have dyno juice at the time, and um, so the the product was super expensive and it allowed me to it didn't allow me to scale. Um, so now that I have our own Dino Juice that you know we're using for ourselves, cost went down in product, um less payroll was the biggest, and I'm just reassessing my ad spend and uh making some changes for what are you so how are you attracting um new clients?

SPEAKER_02

Um you said ad spend, so I'm gonna assume you're doing meta ads.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Um Google is probably our highest. So Google ads, a lot come from that. Great customers come from Google. Um, and then it would be um Facebook and then Instagram, uh some organic on Instagram as well. And then I think referrals are next. Okay. So we get quite a few. I think we're like 13 to 13 to 15 percent every month in referrals.

SPEAKER_02

That's great. Yeah. Amazing. Um, we've covered a lot of the kind of odor elimination and stuff like that. So we're not gonna ask all of those questions. Um, what was the moment when you realized Dino um could become more than just like that side hustle and you got really serious about it?

SPEAKER_01

Man. Um that goes back to when um it was 2023. It was summer 2023, and this um it definitely hits me hard because of the emotion that I felt when I realized this can actually be a service. Dude, in the beginning, like I didn't even know what I was doing. Like I had no clue how to turf clean. I didn't know that people needed the service. I was doubting myself. I had my friends and and family be like, no, no, I think it's like a good service. It was like a I think, you know, because it no one was doing it. I was like one of three companies in Arizona, and there was no information out there. So I just was like, I don't know, I guess I'll figure it out. I have my background in in carpet cleaning, so I'll figure it out. I I guess this is literally all or nothing, you know. So like I said, it's if this doesn't work, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So I did everything I could just to make it happen. Um so as soon as I figured out my process, I knew I needed to use the right product. I knew I needed to do this step process and brushing and cleaning to actually do it. It was like I'm not gonna just do things to make money. I'm gonna do it to solve problems.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And I got constant feedback from my customers, like, hey, is this working? Like, do you value this? Because I was even doubting myself in I don't know what I'm doing. And it was just me, I was wearing all the hats. And it was the summer of 2023 that I made my first $20,000 in the month, and I could pay all the bills. Yeah. You know, I I had all my expenses covered and I was paying our bills at home. Like I said, we had sold the business and we were learning off of savings uh to pay all of the our bills. And that was the first month that I was like, all right, I I I think I got it. You know, I remember texting my wife, I was like, I did it. You know, we actually have it gets me emotional. But um that was I vividly remember that, and it was like off to the races from there, but it was also the feeling of like, I gotta do this again next month.

SPEAKER_02

That you know, a lot of so um last year was a real struggle. Um because we'll we'll we'll we'll make it a little bit spiritual for a moment. Okay, so like every year, um, for the last several years, we've um my wife and I have like a word of the year. Cool. And so at the beginning of 2025, um, we were going to this church that was, you know, highly prophetic. And they were saying that this is um they were calling it um our harvest year. And and Stephanie was like, you know, is that how are you feeling about that? And I was like, um, no, uh it's it's our invest year. And and she's like, what? Invest? And so automatically she started thinking like investing in homes or you know, what are we gonna start investing in? And I had this little idea in my head, which was this, um, what we're sitting in right now. Um, and it took all the way to September to finally like realize like I actually had to pull the trigger on it. Um, and because all of a sudden, like I hit those twenty thousand dollar months, um, not with the trailer, but with the other business, it's still content creation, but it's yeah, you know, I had I locked in a good set of clients. We were cooking on a lot of stuff. We were, you know, some months were 20 and 30,000, and I was like, we're rich. Yeah. And um, and then that part that you said got me like I have to do this again.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That that's the part where like everybody, you know, the the internet is such a good thing for us because it's opened up so many doors for so many people. Because imagine how hard it would be to offer the service that you do if we didn't have the internet, we just had the yellow pages. Right. Like, come on, it wouldn't be possible.

SPEAKER_01

Like it wouldn't pick up the phone and call somebody.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it would it wouldn't be possible. Yeah. Um, just the same as like, you know, when I was a kid, you know, a little camera was available, but like a camera that could do video was not. Yeah, it's different. Um, so you know, those those means have definitely changed, but like everybody online talks about how easy it is, and it's like you have to actually like consistently do this. And if you if you don't have a team that's either making phone calls for you, right, because like I ran into a situation um about halfway through the year, you know, one of my five figure a month clients was like, hey, um, so we we're gonna have to pull the plug. I'm like, that's half my yeah, that's half my income. You know, that's or I I shouldn't say income, I should say revenue. Right. Um, but I never thought of what I was doing as an entrepreneurial venture. Right. Um, I struggle with the word entrepreneur um because I don't really tend to think that I am one. Right. Um, but I have become more aware that maybe I am because I do like the game of entrepreneurship. I'm I am currently struggling with finding the like I can find people to interview all the time, but finding clients to actually utilize the space and rent it, right? That's the challenge. Right. Um not everybody wants to do a podcast. Um, everybody seems to want, you know, social media content, but they think that you're gonna design it all for them. Right. And that's just not the case. Like I can't, I can't make it's like when I was doing real estate photography and I show up to a house with boatloads of trash in it, and then I send the pictures back to the realtor, and they're like, Why doesn't the house look good? I showed up to a house that smelled like dog pee with boxes everywhere. Like I I can't fix that. Like I am just taking pictures of what's I can edit, I can edit a photo to look good, and you know, I can I can edit out a hole in a wall, but like when there's boxes all over the ground, like I can't right, I can't that number one, that that's misleading, yeah, and I believe it's illegal um to put on the MLS something that's not actually, you know, the way that it is. Right. Um, but like you're you know, so people don't really realize that like it takes a lot to do this, just the same as it totally takes a lot to you know clean turf. Right. And and it, you know, I'm sure you probably get pushback. Like, what what's your minimum? Do you have a minimum job rate? So like what's your minimum?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh depends on what package. So our basic one that doesn't include odor eliminations can be 135 bucks. Next one that does is 195. Middle package is uh 255, and our top one is 360. So that covers 300 square foot. How much? 300 square foot is what that comes. Yeah. I don't even know how much turf we have in our backyard. Which no one does. It's so funny. Yeah, that's why there's there's Google. We can uh go on Google and and measure, but you're right, you know, it's identifying your avatar to know exactly who your customer is. Right. And that goes back to your first question, too. It's just who am I looking to get as a customer? Right. It's for me, which actually blew my mind because I'm used to carpet cleaning to where it's like the stay-at-home mom. She has three kids, she takes care of the house. She calls the carpet cleaner. The male in the house is my customer. So it's flipped. They take care of the backyard, they're used to cutting the grass when they had it. They're used to doing the bushes, doing the irrigation, doing all those things. Or it's the wife saying, I don't like the smell outside, take care of it. Yeah. Get rid of it. Right. I'll pay whatever. Yeah. Your back, it's your backyard, you handle it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Which is funny.

SPEAKER_02

So um, we've already talked about this a little bit. Phoenix heat is brutal. Yeah. Um, how much does the Arizona climate actually impact artificial turf compared to other states? And do you yeah, are you connected with other turf cleaning companies in other states? Like I am. Is it a big, is it a you know a big industry or it's starting to be.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Um, you know, years ago, I uh I knew that it would be the next carpet cleaning industry. Carbon cleaning billion dollar. Um, it'll take turf cleaning a long time to get there, but it's expanding greatly, you know, that and that was that was why I decided to get into the first place, too, because I had I had the background and I saw the installation right uh a rate skyrocketing, you know. Um it's the billion-dollar industry. It's huge.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you're you're in you're in the right place for it because you have so much growth in the Gilbert, Chandler, Queen Creek area that people are putting in turf over. Oh, yeah. And are some HOAs requiring uh turf to go in?

SPEAKER_01

Maybe not turf specifically, but they are requiring a desert landscape or no grass in their front yards. Yeah. So and there's tax incentives in certain cities for putting turf in and taking uh grass out. They'll actually pay you for it. So I know they we did our that's what our neighbors do. Phoenix, yeah. I think Scott still is one of them. Uh Phoenix is definitely one of them, and it's on the rise. So Arizona, if I wasn't if I didn't live in Arizona, I probably wouldn't have turned started turf cleaning because there just wasn't enough business. But in Arizona, there is. It's a perfect state for it. Yeah, you know, Vegas is the same. I have buddies in Vegas that are turf cleaners in California, in Texas, um, in other states, you know, so we stay connected because of social media. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's it's the perfect state, but it's also the worst state too. It's what I'm finding out. Just because it's so hot and dry and it it plays a toll on the turf more than you would ever think. You know, it the UV here is so intense that it will dry the turf out. It's plastic, right? If you if you have your kids' toys that are plastic, like a slide or the play gym or something, the first summer that that play gym sees, it will fade the color on that play set. Big time. Big time. The plastic in your car, it's all the same. You know, this is outdoor plastic that's supposed to be grass, and people think it should always be nice. It's just not the case, right? You have to maintain it, you have to brush it, you have to do all these things. And um, we also have a lot of dust, right? Um, that settles and that gets on your turf and it will fade. And dust is granular, so it will start like sanding down the turf blades if you don't get it brushed or you don't hose it off or you don't maintain it, it's gonna lessen the life of your turf. So, you know, there's a there's a lot of steps that you can take to give it the longest life. Um, the biggest is definitely UV protection in Arizona. We have a Ardino Shield that puts a UV coating in it's and it's a really good one. Um it's not cheap UV coating that you just spray and you know washes away or you know, worms off in a month. This is a premium product and it creates a covalent bond on your turf. So it's a permanent bond. Um, and it will protect the turf from UV damage. It buys it more time. So instead of a seven to eight year lifespan that's normal in Arizona for surf, it can get it to like 15 years if you're keeping up.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, if you if you maintain it. It's kind of like an oil change. Totally. Yeah. Um we're gonna keep going. I'm on the last question because you've answered things along the way. Um but you know, we're gonna shift kind of into um like fatherhood that concept um of being a business owner, but also being a present father.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um so as a business owner and a dad, how do you balance building and growing a company while still being present at home?

SPEAKER_01

Dude, this is the hardest part, voting a business. And you know, it's um there's seasons that you grind. Um I I would say I would say there's a starting season when you when you're home and when you're at work. So right, when you start the business, your wife knows that you're building something. And if you're on the same team and you're on the same page with everything, which is also extremely important, without that, there's you might as well just go get a regular job. Um, she knows you're gonna be working. And I feel that once you hit a certain benchmark, once you hit like your goal, and when I felt like our bills are covered, holy crap, like I did it. Obviously, every month wasn't the same. And we dipped and got, you know, made more, we made less. Um, but the proof was there and I knew I could do it. So there's that super hard grind to like get your bills covered. And as a male, um, that's so important because you are carrying the burden of bringing home money and providing and doing all that for the family. Um, so once I hit that mark, I was like, okay, I I can do this. And she knew I was just gonna be dead tired for however long it took. And for me, it was eight months, nine months, something like that of just like pure grind. Um, so now it's obviously still hard work and I still leave every morning to go to work and I'm in the van doing the jobs. And what I have um been able to do is when I'm at work, I'm working for as hard as I possibly can. And then once I drive in the driveway, I'm home. Like I click off. My phone is it's dad time. My phone is there, and I probably should do better at like not checking it throughout the day. Um, but when you're home, your kids expect you to show up. And I just refuse to be the dad that is there but not there. And you know, because I've done it and it doesn't feel good, right? And then your wife feels like you're giving her the seconds and just like left over. And I don't want to walk in the door with just leftover. I'm feeling emotionally drained, I'm feeling physically drained when I walk in the door. But if I can separate like work and leave work in the van or at the warehouse or, you know, in the office and walk in the door and be like, my kids are running to me still when I walk in the door. It's the best feeling ever. And I don't ever want to like not have that. And I fear that if I do walk in and I'm like on the phone or I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on, and I stop them from running up to me, like uh eventually that's oh gosh, that'll wear off. They'll be like, oh, dad's home. Yeah.

unknown

Man.

SPEAKER_01

So that's that's what truly motivates me. And the business is for family, anyways. Like, if you don't have your family, why are you even building a business in the first place?

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

It'd be the most selfish thing you could possibly do.

SPEAKER_02

So um, this might be slightly controversial. Um it's I wouldn't say I guess maybe not controversial, but um you know Tommy Mello. Oh yeah. Um, I don't know him personally. Have you? I something fascinating about him is that he doesn't have kids yet. Right. Um, and to me, I'm like, like what you just said kind of made me go, that dude, uh that dude's missing so much of life. Yeah. Um that you know, maybe maybe he's setting it up well enough so that that way when he does because I I've heard him say that he does want kids. Yeah, he's engaged, yeah. He's engaged. He's engaged and wants kids, yeah. I I feel I feel like maybe he'll be able to exit, you know, kind of the day-to-day of the business and just be like, oh, I'm full dad, right? You know, full-time dad now, right? Which might be rad. I don't know. I look at that part. Um do you know um AFT construction? You know Brad Levitt? No, no, okay. Probably should. Okay. Um we'll have to we'll have to make that happen.

SPEAKER_01

I think I've heard Tommy say I would never be able to do this if I had kids or a family.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

He's admitted that, and I was like, fully agree. Yeah, there's no way he's you can't he's a machine. Oh yeah, he's the best in the business. Like, yeah, yeah, everyone looks up to him. But like I started with a family and I'm scaling slowly, in my opinion, because I I have a family and I'm home. Right. You know, I mean, on paper, like we're doing a lot on paper. Um, but if I didn't have kids and I could just grind on my own time and at my own pace, um we'd be, you know, farm of a five million dollar company instead of a one, you know. So it's just, it's just different.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think too, part of it is like identifying your your kind of benchmark of this is this is where we want to be, this is what we need. Yeah. Um and maybe pushing the envelope a little bit, but like I don't know. I don't know if I want to be a millionaire. Okay. Yeah. Like that that seems to me like a massive stress. Because once you hit that first million, which you guys, if you're if you're you know doing 5,000 a day, you're is that like one one five or a little bit lower than one five a year?

SPEAKER_00

This full year we're projected to hit a million if if I are on a good basis.

SPEAKER_02

In revenue. And what would be what are you projecting your take home? It'll be the same.

SPEAKER_01

That's what I'm making right now. We're we're gonna have money in the bank, uh, which is what I want, you know, because uh as we get uh a little bit more um per month in revenue, I'll be hiring people. So what what's your what's your revenue uh monthly revenue right now? Right now, uh it varies. So right now we'll be between 65 and 80. Um, so we'll we'll probably hit just under a million uh this year in May is our best month we've ever had. We'll do about 110. So yeah. Dang. It's pretty pretty. I want to be like you when I grow up. Well, some of the turf installs we do are more money, so that helps. Okay, so you guys do installs as well. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So some not not necessarily from like nothing, but turf swaps we do with those, and that's something that we started about six months ago. So if turf is worn out, we'll swap it out with new turf.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we might be talking about that. Yeah, because we or we'll just put regular grass in. I don't know. I don't know. Because once we add the boys' bedroom, um, because what we're doing is we're adding a fifth bedroom, which in theory sounds like, oh, cool, each kid gets their own room. Uh we don't, we're not gonna do that. Yeah, we're gonna keep the girls with the girls, boys with the boys. There you go. Um, because my oldest daughter's 15, youngest daughter's nine, uh, oldest son 13, youngest boy, six. Um, we planned it that way. Okay. We we said we're gonna have, you know, a girl and then a boy, and then a girl, right, and then a boy. Um, and if we could only choose, yeah. Yeah, that's how we planned it. That's we we wrote it out on a piece of paper and submitted it to God, and he was like okay green stamp. Um but um I did that with my boys. Three three boys. I was like, I just want boys. There we go.

SPEAKER_00

Here we go. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

I thought I was gonna end up with three girls. I also thought that I that we were only gonna have two kids. Yeah. So when we had Jocelyn and Eli um within 22 months of each other, it was like, oh, we're not done. Right. Like there there needs to be more. And now we play zone defense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's the funny thing. I of course I married in uh with with my wife having daughter.

SPEAKER_02

How old um was um your stepdaughter when you guys got married?

SPEAKER_01

Uh she was four. Four or five.

SPEAKER_02

You said twenty-five.

SPEAKER_01

She was fifteen. I met her when she was three. Okay. Uh so yeah, she was just turned five. So we got married in October, birthday of September.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Yep. So um, so you had a bonus, you have a bonus kid, and then you have three boys. Yep. Um, are you guys gonna do I I know you're uh she's still in the phase of like crazy life, and I'm sure you're probably waking up at night too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um but he's a good sleeper, actually. Is he? He's actually, yeah, he's fussy during the day. Then you're probably gonna have another one.

SPEAKER_01

That's our actually, that's our plan. Uh we were done with the three kids. Yep. Um, like actually done, had the procedure to be done. And my wife goes, uh, you know what? I think I I think Wait, you you yeah, you had a reversal done?

SPEAKER_02

Yep. Bro, I know. It was dang. I had I had my I had my um doctor, I was like, bro, please take out like a huge huge chunk because my guys are gonna figure out how to get back. Right. So that procedure's wild.

SPEAKER_01

We went to Utah to get it done, yeah. Yeah. You're that rich. No, I'm not that rich because in Arizona it was three times more. Wait, how much did you pay for for a reversal? Yeah. Uh in Utah, the place that I got it done was like 3,500 bucks. So not cheap, but Arizona's like 10 to 12.

unknown

What?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's very I think I I think I paid like 800 bucks for to get snipped.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So did I.

SPEAKER_02

The reversal is the moneymaker.

SPEAKER_01

It's a it's a two to three hour procedure and you're knocked out. Well personally. Praise Jesus. Oh my gosh. Actually, I was uh you're numb. They they okay, they they numb you, so you don't feel anything, but um I was uh fully awake to the whole thing. So I shouldn't say they knock you out. You could choose to. I chose not to because it was extra. Um yeah, it was uh quite the expect my wife was in the room. Not TMI, but maybe uh she's she the doctor called her over and was like, Hey, do you want to see what the little tubes look like? It is yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

It is crazy. Yeah, I uh here we are, it worked. It was funny, it was funny because um so Emmett came, he's six now, um, so he was born in October, and um my wife was like, Okay, it's it's time, he's healthy, because we we wanted to make sure that he was good to go, and um and so we you know she had him, she's like, he's healthy, go in and you know, schedule your appointment. And I went in and um sitting in the waiting room at Dr. Sh Shapiro's office, and and this dad comes out and he's got two like eight nine-year-old daughters, and you know, his wife is there and his daughters are there, and they you know, he walks back and he looks so sad. Oh, he looks so like he he's not excited to be expected. Um, and and I'm waiting there, and he comes out and I'm like, oh wow, that was that was quick. And he's kind of like walking gingerly. And and I'm like, oh no, what did I sign up for? And one of his daughters like, pick me up, pick me up, and he's like, I can't, I can't pick you up. And and she goes, No, pick me up, and he's like, I can't. And finally, she like one last time asks, and he goes, I can't pick you up. And I was like, Oof. And my wife and I look at each other and we're like, Are you gonna be okay? And so when I went in, I was fully expecting to come out like like I got kicked in the nuts.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but like I came bounding out, like walked out like I know, right? Dude, it was honestly. Um, you know, I had I've had a lot of weird mouth surgeries and head surgeries and stuff that like that was like one of the easiest things I'd ever done. The most interesting part is when your crotch is smoking because they're cauterizing your stuff. Um, that part, you know, is not very the smell of it is not nice, yeah, not nice. Um, but the you know, I was it was after you know the pandemic, and so um so I it was okay because I lost my sense of smell when when I got COVID. So everything was fine.

SPEAKER_01

The reversal was not fun. Dude, that that sounds that sounds way worse. Oh my gosh, it's way worse. I mean, it was the whole buildup because we went to Utah to get it done. So it's like we got on a plane, we're driving there, rented a car. It was just me and my wife, which is kind of a cool getaway. We got some time together and whatever, but uh you got no fun out of it though. Yeah, no, not really. And I thought I was gonna be just useless for a month because they say recovery is like 30 to 60 days or something, and you've got to ice on and off, and like you're gonna be in so much pain, and they prescribed pain meds. Right. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like I probably still have to work. Like, what are we what am I doing? Dude, I walked out of the surgery, loopy, right, you know, but I was walking, I was fine. My wife drove us to the hotel, and on our way back, I asked if we could go like to a restaurant and get food. Like, I felt totally fine. And I'm like, okay, maybe it's just maybe it'll wear off. Pain meds got me weird. And our flight was the next day, and we're thinking, like, how are you gonna be on this flight? You know, we got to the airport and I'm walking fine, not really much pain. And we have uh, I think we have to wait like three hours for the for the plane, and we're walking up and down the airport and in Salt Lake, and like I was okay. I was totally expecting to have to take a break and whatever, but like I was okay and on the plane, I was fine. My wife skins, she's like, Are you are you good? Like, are you sure you're good? Um, and then um I recovery was was long just so I didn't like pick stuff up. Right.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, so that was long. You don't want to mess with that. I've I followed your rules to a T.

SPEAKER_01

I did too, uh, but I didn't need any pain medicine. Um, I didn't really ice because I felt like I didn't need to. Made it hurt worse. Um you're definitely swelling for a while. Yeah, you're definitely swelling for a while, and you have like the the gauze there that needs to stay there, and that's weird. But man, it was overall a good experience because I didn't have to be out of work for two months and be in pain, so I was okay. I did I did still work uh in the field with the guys, but I was able to just kind of sit back and just spray. Quality control, yeah. But uh be the project manager for a while. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

We got a we got a baby boy out of it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, dude, got one more planned.

SPEAKER_02

You might as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we just gotta have a buddy, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you gotta because how old's your um how old are your older boys? Six and eight. Six and eight. So two there's there's uh a good there's a gap. There's a good age gap between them. Yeah, he does need a buddy. He needs a buddy. That's kind of what that's what we did. Yeah, you know, my it works out good. My, you know, we had these two, you know, the two pretty we got married and ten months later, you know, my wife was pregnant. Yeah. And then he came along 22 months after her, and and so we were like, well, we actually had some friends over for dinner, and and the wife asked a really kind of pivotal question for us, um, which uh kind of it changed it changed our lives, truly. Interesting. Um she because we were sitting there asking, you know, talking, and um she goes, Is everybody here? And we were like, what do you mean? And she goes, Well, when you think about it, like, do you feel like your family's complete?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02

And immediately it was like, no, everybody isn't here. And then that kind of spiraled into okay, well, if we're gonna have three, we have to try for four because we like even numbers. Yeah. Um, and we wanted the buddy system. Yeah, you know, we kinda what what's actually kind of funny is we did like, oh, well, when we go to Disneyland or when we go on vacation, we'll have you know the buddy systems. And we actually just went to San Diego last weekend, and it it's true, like Eli and Jocelyn, they they trekked out into the ocean together, and and they can they they rocked the waves for uh you know a ton of time, and then Sophie and Emmett hung out, you know, and they would run into the ocean and run back, and yeah, you know, all that stuff. But it's so great. 100% our buddy system, you know, idea is coming to life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we wanted to have uh a baby as soon as possible when we got married. So, you know, there's couldn't do anything about the age gap of right, of Kaylee being the oldest. Um, but we knew we wanted to have one immediately. So we did. I mean, we tried immediately after we got married. Um and the fact that we have the two youngest boys now, like they are best friends. Yeah, and they do everything together. And that's like one of the biggest things I try to instill in them is like you will always have each other's back. Like you have each other, and this is like the most special time growing up because you're you don't have really you can rely on each other. Like I'm not gonna be around for forever. Right. And because I'm not going to, like, you need each other. We wish we had that for Kaylee. Um, but you know, sometimes she has her friends around and that helps. Uh, I feel like she probably feels like she's alienated because she's so much older, but uh, she gets special attention because she's a girl and she's the oldest and she has responsibilities to help around the house and stuff. She's just great. She's she's she's fantastic. So is she with you full time? Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's now. Yeah. Yeah, it took a long time to get that. But yeah, it's been a process. And it always is. Yeah. A very fun process, but yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_00

So it's never fun. Um but um kids are great.

SPEAKER_02

What do we do without kids? You know, um I there's there's part of me that wishes that I would have uh pursued um business ownership before having kids. Right. Um because I I didn't I didn't want to subscribe to the normal, you know, get an office job or a factory job or whatever, you know, the trend was at the time. Um it just ended up being cubicles for me.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um and I didn't want that. Um and I never I never thought that um like when we were growing up, like entrepreneurship wasn't something that like you strived for. True. Um, it wasn't ever talked about in the school. It wasn't cool.

SPEAKER_01

It was once it wasn't one of those things that you were go through school and like, what career do you want to be? An entrepreneur? Like that just it was frowned on. It's like, why why would you want to be an entrepreneur? Yeah, it's a hard word to say, anyways. It is a hard word to say.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and it's really weird too, because it seems to me like um plumbers, right, contractors, all of these like you know, skilled trades, yeah. Um, that if you actually like create the system and and run the business properly, it could really scale. Oh yeah. Um are like poo-pooed on in in um a lot less now, right. But when we were growing up, it was like, no, you're a plumber, you're you're gonna grow up to be um, you know, oh, you're gonna grow up to be a plumber, right? Or an electrician. Yeah. Yeah. Like those, no, you need to get a job in a real job in in a cubicle. Uh and I and I don't know, I don't know where that, and also in the same breath, a lot of people would say, oh, well, you you homeschool? Yeah, exactly. What do you what do you do for socialization? Right. I get that question all the time. Yeah. Um and I'm always like, what did you get in trouble at school for when you went to school?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Socializing. Talking. So like sit down, shut up, and stay in your seat. Yeah. My kids, my kids know how to have a conversation with adults.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

My kids know how to have conversations with kids their own age, but also kids older than them and younger than them. Yeah. And like my my six-year-old has no qualms about having a conversation with an adult that is, you know, like he would he would have a conversation with you so easily. Right. Um, and I'm like, no, my kids actually are socialized a lot.

SPEAKER_01

Right. You know, and they're involved because we homeschool too.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Kaylee does not homeschool. Uh, we didn't get her in the homeschool world until she was already um in school. In school. Yeah. But uh we homeschool our boys, and that's a exactly our experience, is like they're around other kids, their age, not their age, older, younger. So they get to understand the whole system of like how you should act with the big kids and how big kids should act with the little kids and being around adults. And we have them in like all the stuff, you know, karate, piano, baseball, horseback riding, like all the things. And they would never be able to do that if they were in school. They wouldn't get those skills, right? Or be able to see me as often. I wouldn't be able to see them as often, you know, because I can come home whenever and know that they're there. Yep. And it's totally different. It's like, when do we have to pick kids up? Yeah. So I love homes.

SPEAKER_02

Eli, Eli and I went and worked out uh this morning before coming here. That's awesome. We worked out, did we work out yesterday too? Yeah, two days in a row. That's great. Um, we woke up and went to the gym, although I did not wake up early yesterday. I don't wake up early very often. We're opposite. I I am not I'm not a good waker-upper.

SPEAKER_01

There's two types of people.

SPEAKER_02

What so okay, so I struggle with this a lot because that's part of why I I feel like I can't call myself an entrepreneur is because of my sleep routine. Okay. Um, but I'm I'm trying to it it's mainly because of the books I've read, the people that are like, you need to wake up at 4 30 in the morning and go to the gym, and and I'm like, but like I can't make it to midnight if I wake up at 4 30. So I'm I'm just different. Right. Um, what is you know, what's your wake up time? What's your more importantly, the go to bed time? Um yeah, for you.

SPEAKER_01

See, and that's where I'm the opposite. Um, I do wake up at four most mornings.

SPEAKER_02

You're insane.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um there was a period of time where my buddy would come over, as it was just ended before our newest was born in February. He'd come over, I have a home gym. He'd come over at 4 30 in the morning and we'd work out before each of us go to work for about an hour until 5 30, because that was the only time we had. You know, really to get to get a workout in. But I've always been a early morning guy. Like I've always, it's either I'm just up with my own personal time of I need that hour 45 minutes or something to be alone. It's either when I am working on work or reading the Bible, or you know, just being in my own zone. And I feel like I need that. If I don't have that, like the whole day is off. And I zone in. If if I'm not up early before everybody else, I'm completely off uh the whole day. So that's just me personally. I don't think that there's a lot of like online people will say, you know, you gotta wake up and grind and and grind for 15 hours a day and then go do it again. Yeah. If you want to like not have a life and not have a family and burn out, yeah. You know, um, I also think that times are changing a little bit. Of you need your mental health, you need your spiritual, you need to connect with God, you need to do these things to be able to actually function and not just burn out in five years, you know, or whatever it is. So if that's not it for you and in waking up early, like don't let it be for you. Just figure out your routine and you know what your routine is. You work out with your son every morning at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. or whatever. You do your thing, and then you have your office time where you do your stuff, and then you have family time, and that's your day. You know, it's for me, it's I am in my zone from if I wake up at four, sometimes it's 4:30 or 5, depending on my day. Um, I have my my time with myself and with God and with um my thoughts and all those. Sometimes I work out in the morning. Uh, if I have a busy day, then I'll work out in the morning like this morning. I worked out. Um, and if I know I have time at in the evenings, yeah, I'll work out with my boys because they absolutely love it. It's the point of having a home gym. They love working out with me. So I do try to uh save that for them uh because they just love it and I enjoy that time. So it's just figuring out a routine, you know, and and sticking to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

What would you say um is kind of the you know, everybody has their um their thoughts on business, but what would you say is your most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to having something like a successful business?

SPEAKER_01

Hmm. Um perseverance. Uh you have to stick through hard times, and you can really go through some dark times, you know. Um not too long ago, a couple months ago. We're having great months, or we're scaling, we're doing good, but I start to get in my own, like, what am I doing everything I should be doing? Um, I feel like I'm not giving enough to the family or whatever. Or when I was first starting, um I was questioning everything. And if you don't have the ability to push those bad thoughts out, I mean, you'll call it quits before you even can get to anything good, you know. So I think it's having the perseverance to see things through and just don't stop. You just don't stop because there was months where I made negative money, you know. And if I had stopped there, you know, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be looking at um our future of or of what we could potentially do. You know, my my overall goal is to sell eventually. Um, I don't need to make $100 million, I don't need to make 30 million. I just want to be able to be able to have scaled something that I can then bring home and be like, cool, I did this. It's for my family. I don't need to, like you said, I don't need to be a millionaire, I don't need to have all of this money. That's not what is important to me. Right. What's important is to know that my family is secure and safe. Um and if that means X, that's what my goal is gonna be. And then I'll cash out and say, cool, what are we gonna do next? Yep. You know, it probably won't be another business. It's too hard.

SPEAKER_02

Dude, that's that is true. I was gonna ask, what what could be the next thing that you would want to do?

SPEAKER_01

Um I have no idea what if there is anything after uh Dino, but I know what I would like to venture into not that doesn't even have to be after Dino.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it could be for Dino specifically.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would love to franchise. So I'd love to franchise, and I would love to get Dino Juice product out there, out there even more. Um, so that that's really what would be next is to have a provable concept of Dino of how we've done a million dollars or more in Arizona with three trucks, four trucks, and say this is this is what you could have as a franchisee owner, you know, sell the whole package, go do it yourself. Because the franchise model to me uh makes sense with not having such a big corporate model and having to manage everything and keep hiring and scaling, it sounds exhausting. And I know friends that have done it and they're just like, you know, great, they're eight figures. Um, but I don't think that's for me because just because I don't want to have to have all of that stress and right stuff on my back. So I feel that franchising is probably gonna be the option, just just so I can sell the package and they can go do it for themselves and have small support for me, but like you're gonna go do it.

SPEAKER_02

You have you have brand support, maybe brand advertising, everything like that. Yeah, and that option.

SPEAKER_01

That's it, and then go do it. Yeah, the dino name keeps spreading. Um I would still own the rights to dino juice because that it goes along with the brand. Yeah, um, and it can also be sold commercially.

SPEAKER_02

You could also be like, you know, this these are the product, this is the product you have to use, right? And stuff like that. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Which which is like a Dush Bros model, right? By the stuff, but you have to buy our coffee and you pay us for it every single month. So that's that's kind of the the plan there. Uh haven't worked on that much at all. I kind of work on my SOPs and getting everything dialed in first. So I have all of the foundation laid to be able to put a bow on it and say, hey, this is what you could have. Yep. Um, as an owner, this is what you could expect to make um as an owner, and then you know, send it out that way and yeah, scale giant dino juice too. That'd be cool. Yeah, I like that. That's what I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_02

Um, are there any questions that I haven't asked that that you would like to say, hey, you should ask this, and then I'll pretend to ask it.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I we covered a lot. Do we do? I don't know. I'm more of a open book, so if there's anything else, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Well, um, you know, something that I that I forget to do often, I've done it a couple times. Um, but like part of the mission and the vision of Mobile Podcast Trailer, as far as you know, my own podcast is to remind you that you are a miracle. Yeah. You are living a miracle life. Totally. Um a lot of times I'm reminded uh like and you know this, you know this, being being a dad and and and knowing really the the miracle of of life. Yeah. Um, you know, we all grew up thinking that like having babies was like an easy thing to do. Right. Like that was kind of like always our our fear. If you grew up in the church, it was like, don't do it because you might because you'll just have you'll you'll just have a baby. Right. And that's really not the case. Um, though we were blessed um very easily with four kids, I know for a fact um that a lot of people struggle. Right. Um, and clearly you've gone backwards and said, I want to do it again. And so like he wasn't easy though. We did no, it did take a while. Yeah, and that's what they get discouraged is actually like you're saying, it's yeah, but like part of what we do here is like I want to encourage you in realizing like you live a miracle life. Every kid that you have is an absolute miracle, yeah, whether it's a bonus kid or um you know number five or number six. I think if you did the reversal, you might as well go for as many as you want. Stopping it too much. Um maybe it just makes it easier on the on the flip side to get get it done again. But snip snap snip snap. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But you know, God has placed you here on this earth to do awesome things, and yeah, um I don't think that he really cares what business you do, yeah, um, except for being a dad and a good husband. 100%. And um just we're here to I just I want this to be a place of encouragement, yeah. And yeah, and obviously business talk, but like um uh a way to to encourage and and say you're already living uh an Americal life and and um you're loved deeply um by your wife and your kids. And um when Matt was on uh with me, I told him, I was like, bro, you get you get only one set of kids. Yeah. And you get, you know, in my mind, you only get one wife.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So make it count.

SPEAKER_00

Totally.

SPEAKER_02

Um and I'll I'll say the same because it sounds like you already rock and roll on that stuff, anyways. But yeah, just keep plugging away. Yeah. And you know, we we talked about it here, but like just kind of figuring out where where your limit is. Um because really the I haven't made a million dollars, you know. I I'm really not a millionaire. I I don't claim or pretend to be one. I had a Porsche for a little bit, um, but it was it was an old Porsche. It was fun.

SPEAKER_01

Um better than the new ones, including way better, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but like just keep plugging away. Yeah. And and don't push yourself too far. Yep. Have have a ton of fun with the kids as frequently as possible. That's all we can do. Yeah. Well, thanks for hanging out. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, dude. I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. I have a new friend, everybody. This is my new friend, Anthony. I actually do want to hang out more. Um, that's not a joke. We just live a million miles away. Fair. Hey, but if you may all the way to the end, um I fully don't expect anybody to. Um, but I appreciate it. I know Anthony does too. Yes. And you guys have yourself a good day.