Boring Money
Boring Money is for the people quietly getting rich the unglamorous way. Hosted by David Heacock, founder and CEO of Filterbuy, this podcast covers boring businesses, acquisitions, cash flow, EBITDA, tax strategy, fixed income, and the real mechanics of compounding capital. Built for operators, investors, and business owners who care more about long-term wealth than hype, headlines, or status.
Boring Money
From Bankruptcy to $2.4M: Building a Cleaning Business From Scratch
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John Torres went from professional baseball dreams, two layoffs in nine months, failed real estate deals, food stamps, and bankruptcy… to building Club Clean into a $2.4 million commercial cleaning business producing roughly $600,000 a year in profit.
This episode is a real look at what entrepreneurship actually feels like when there is no safety net.
John walks through the real estate mistakes that nearly wiped him out, the Chicago triplex that turned into a nightmare, the contractor who disappeared with $55,000, and the moment he realized the “passive income” dream was anything but passive.
Then we get into the turnaround: cold calling banks, selling a floor-cleaning job he didn’t yet know how to do, learning from YouTube and a janitorial supply shop, landing his first $5,000/month contract, and building the systems that let him scale beyond himself.
We also talk about what cleaning companies really sell, why staffing and consistency are the actual product, how John replaced himself as the rainmaker, and what it would take to grow from $2.4 million to something much bigger.
But the deeper conversation is about ambition after survival. Once you’ve built the life you originally wanted, what comes next? Do you chase a bigger number, or do you figure out what you’re actually emotionally driven to build?
This is a great episode for anyone building a local service business, recovering from failure, or trying to turn a job into a real company.
So you went from bankrupt to $2.4 million in revenue and and roughly what do you take home of that $2.4 million? $110. John went from bankruptcy to building a business doing $2.4 million a year and $600,000 a year in profit.
SPEAKER_00His story will shock you. I'm in the throes of severe financial strain. I mean, towards the end of this time, I'm on unemployment. I'm on food stamps. I went from six figures to food stamps in the course of like a year. With two kids? Four kids at this time. Four kids.
SPEAKER_01The best part about John's story is his first lesson. If you pay attention, it's practically idiot.
SPEAKER_00He kind of leans over or looks over at me and says, Hey, I notice you're into business and stuff. I used to own a business. I look over at him and I'm like, yeah, sure. I'm thinking to myself, did he just say what I think he just said? This light bulb went in my head. If this guy can make 30 grand a month in cleaning, I for sure can do it.
SPEAKER_01John from Club Clean, thank you for joining me on Boring Money. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. So you put played professional baseball before you became an entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_00Why don't you tell me a bit about that? Sure. So as you said, I'm John Torres. Uh and I started Club Clean, but long before that, I was a failed professional athlete. And um and then I went on to the professional world, and after years of climbing a ladder, uh I ended up losing um or getting laid off from two middle management jobs in nine months. And so it kind of forced me into entrepreneurship and um a couple of failed ventures there, including bankruptcy. I finally like out of the ashes, um I I Club Clean was born, so to speak. Um and now, you know, we'll like you you mentioned, we'll probably get into this, but now that's a multi-million dollar a year company.
SPEAKER_01Yes, let's actually talk about the bankruptcy. Yeah. Because I think that's an interesting story. So you went from you you went from working, went into real estate. So why don't you tell me about the real estate venture?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh, you know, my my initial dream was to become a major league baseball player one day. And when my wife was pregnant with our second kid, I got released for my second pro team, and I realized uh the writing wasn't on the wall for that because I was making six, seven hundred bucks a month before taxes, and and so getting a second kid during with that kind of a salary um isn't exactly sustainable. And and it was just such a hard fought road to even compete uh at that level. Um so I saw the writing on the wall and I went into the professional world. Um and and once, you know, once I got laid off for my second job and and despite on paper performing really well, I and what was the industry you were in? I was in f facility services, um, specifically related to parking management. So I I was in um hotels and and commercial buildings throughout DC and Chicago and overseeing uh a bunch of buildings for a really large, like the largest um parking company in the in the world. And it was interesting is is I realized how how little control I had over my future, even if I performed well. And and so when I when I saw that that was coming to a close, I I started to um really grow in my hunger and and desire to to have something that I could call my own and and to tap into that 13-year-old version of me that was was selling candy out of my backpack from Costco uh for a profit. And and when I was in high school, I was you know running running lawns and I had a handful of of monthly accounts. Uh I'd throw my dad's lawnmower in the in the pickup truck. And and you kind of forget about those things you're doing when you're you know pursuing something like baseball. But uh once I saw that um in the professional world, you your your success can at times really be tied to somebody else's perception of you, yeah. Um then I started to remember that that middle school or high schooler version of me that was quite entrepreneurial. And so I started reading books and listening to podcasts and going to meetup groups about real estate and finance and and entrepreneurship. And so about 2015, I bought my first property. Um, and that at that time I was in the DC metropolitan area, and so I started buying houses in Baltimore just because they were cheaper than DC. So, what type of properties were you targeting? What was your strategy? It was all residential. So my my initial goal was to um was to flip houses so that I can build up capital to then buy uh rental properties, and and the goal was to build uh a large rental portfolio. What made you decide to lock in on that?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think it's I think a lot of entrepreneurs, um especially that watch YouTube get sucked into real estate. Yeah. It's actually not something I'm a huge fan of, but it's something I've I've gotten sucked into before. So like what what was it about real estate that attracted you to it in 2015?
SPEAKER_00I I think you kind of named it. It's a big topic of conversation um in podcast at that time. I mean, YouTube wasn't quite quite as big. Um, but yeah, it's it's just a it was part of the the entrepreneurial, easy cash passive cash flow conversation. I quickly realized how not passive real estate is. Um in the case.
SPEAKER_01What makes it not passive?
SPEAKER_00Because there will always be tenant issues. There's always gonna be a contractor issue, there's always gonna be something that draws you into actively having to work in that business.
SPEAKER_01So can you actually walk me through a like a uh investment you made in real estate and what what you're um forecasting the business model, aka the cash flow from that to look like, and then what you were having to do for that cash flow. I think that would be useful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's interesting. So um probably the best example I could give that really put the nail in the coffin for me in that I'm probably close to 10 properties in at this point. Um it's 2018, 2017, and and I had bought a uh three-unit property in Chicago. And um, I had a friend who was a real estate agent and he was buying houses and fixing them up in that same neighborhood. And so I kind of trusted his judgment because he had been an agent for a while. He was personally investing in that that neighborhood, and it was close enough to the city that I felt like there was a future there. Um, and that I but I was early enough that I could get the property for a good price. But I didn't do um, despite having done a bunch of projects already, I didn't do the proper due diligence on that and and I trusted more his judgment than what the numbers actually said. And so I I bought this property for about $300,000. And the idea was um, because the one of the units was vacant, I was gonna renovate the vacant unit. It had two other tenants in there, and I was gonna sell it to an owner occupant who who wanted a property flip. You were gonna do a flip.
SPEAKER_01It wasn't a cash flow, you know, was that always your model?
SPEAKER_00Was you were you always intending to flip? I was intending to flip for the first couple of years because I wanted to build a large uh chest, war chest that I could just use to start buying rental properties. Um and that was kind of phase two was build up a rental property portfolio. And so I was still very much in the throes of of trying to um to get enough cash in the bank so that I could have that freedom and flexibility on the rental side. And so we get the the place renovated, um, and then it's sitting on the market for about a month, and we get an offer that was about 50 grand less than what I was hoping to get for it, and was recommended by the by the agent. Um, and again, I I should have known better because it's this wasn't my first property, but I was kind of trusting his judgment. So it sat on the market for another eight months. I didn't get another offer as big as that first one during that whole time. And unfortunately, I didn't have great tenants, and so um during those nine months, both of them stopped paying the rent. And the property management company that was overseeing it wasn't helping me collect the rents on time or do much about it. And so back back again to passive versus active, I had to literally take over that because the the property management company just wasn't doing it, and I needed the cash from from those tenants to help shoulder the load of the carrying cost. And um, and then towards the end of that nine months, the second tenant I have to evict uh from the top floor. So now I have a second unit I now need to renovate that I wasn't uh considering in my my budget to have to renovate. So I renovate that one. Then the um the bottom floor tenant steals all of the appliances from the second and third floor unit. And so now I have to replace all the the units there and evict that tenant now. And so now I had to pass not passive at all. Um and so then I had to evict them and then I had to renovate a third unit. And so just imagine you you have on paper a $300,000 house that you think you can sell for four, and you're counting $30,000 to renovate one unit, there's a there's a decent spread there if you can sell it in a reasonable amount of time. Well, I just tripled the cost of my renovation because of all of the activity happening in the building, and I had to redo a bunch of work because of the the theft happening. Um and to boot, even this if that wasn't enough, um, during the time I owned it, someone was literally shot in front on the steps of that, um, on the steps of that building. And so it was one thing after another um in this property. And eventually I ended up selling it for 20,000 less than my a year later for 20,000 less than the offer I got in the first month of the house. And did you end up making any money on it or no? Um, I ended up paying um out of pocket probably about 50 grand to sell that property. Um, and then all the headaches I had for closing.
SPEAKER_01So you did all that all that work for negative 50 grand.
SPEAKER_00For negative 50 grand. Um and so that that was um I wish I wish I could say that was the the you know the last or first or you know the worst thing I experienced, but but it wasn't. What actually ultimately led to your bankruptcy? Yeah, it was a combination of um of situations like that. And um and when I left the Baltimore, so you had multiple situations like that happen to you. Yeah, where I did take a loss on a couple other properties. Some I I I made some money on. Um, a couple I ended up just holding because the I could tell I wasn't gonna get what I needed, and so so we ended up getting a couple rentals there. But um what really was the straw that that broke the camel's back was uh I relocated to the Chicago market after buying a couple properties there and after the layoff from the job. And and the goal at that time was to open a franchise with my wife, and and we were gonna do like a fudge and ice cream shop that we were working in with some friends in in Maryland, and and there was an opportunity right across from Wrigley Fields. So, what made you think?
SPEAKER_01Because I think this is a mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make or some a lot of you know people make. So you're in real estate, you're focusing on real estate, it's not working so well, so you decide you're going to you're you're you decide you're going to diversify and try to do both. Walk me through that mindset.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh at when we decided to do that, real estate was still going okay.
SPEAKER_01So that was pre- So things are going well, and you decide rather than doing more of something that's going well, you're going to you're going to split your energy and do something else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which is, you know, which as you know works extremely well all the time without fail. Um yeah, that that was um that was probably more a distraction than anything else. And I think my assumption was um my wife loved working at the shop. So I I I kind of figured she would be the main presence managerially within within the franchise, and I would be more the back-end support. Um, and I would focus more of my energy on continuing the real estate uh portfolio I was trying to build. And we relocated to Chicago during this time because we were going to open that franchise within the Chicago market, and I started buying some multifamilies in Chicago. Um so we were making that transition. And while I did that, uh, I found a contractor to take over. There was probably four projects that were still being renovated in Baltimore at the time. And so I found an experienced contractor. I walked his current properties just to see what his work was like. I put him under contract. I got a copy of his license and insurance, and um, and I put him, you know, we we ended up signing a draw order and um and we had a very well-defined scope. I felt pretty good about it. And like two months after leaving, I noticed while I'm starting to have issues with this property that I just described was a nightmare property, in the midst of that, I stopped getting updates from him like I had been, and I knew something was off. And so I fly back to Baltimore to check on the projects and just see what's going on. And sure enough, the I mean, this is months later, and all the houses look exactly as they did after I left. But the problem is I had given him over 55 grand in draws across these properties to get work going. And so while I'm getting hit on this side with the Chicago property, I'm also getting hit with with um all of the the loss of this these draws. I had to fire him because he told me he was filing for bankruptcy and then start all over without the 55 grand I had given him in initial draws with new contractors. Um, and being, you know, at the time, like when I first got these properties, I still had a six-figure job and uh management job. So that was helping me shoulder the load of a lot of the carrying cost, and it was just too much uh at that point. So I no longer had that salary. I'm taking these huge losses on and there's pure flipping. These are these are houses I'm still renovating. I haven't even gotten to the point to decide how I'm gonna divest it, although the initial um initial plan was to flip them. And so before I could even get to that point, um the the losses became pretty insurmountable at that time. And so um I quickly, and this is 2018, um towards towards the summertime, and I quickly realized I I need to completely get out of real estate because I'm I'm starting to drown with um with just the losses and on both ends.
SPEAKER_01So just for a bit of context here, you had a six-figure management job and you started flipping real estate on the side. Um and that did not work out well because you were effectively doing fix and flips, but getting, you know, not managing them maybe in the way that they need to be managed, probably taking on a little bit more trying to do too many projects at once and kind of finding that you know you were not managing the contractors in the way that maybe they need to be managed. For sure. And and at the same time, you're setting up a franchise, you have a franchise that you're that you're also trying to run in Chicago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we were we were working part-time to get experience in the store.
SPEAKER_01My wife and I were so you're working, so you never actually bought the franchise, you were just training for the franchise.
SPEAKER_00We were getting set up for that. Yeah, we never um and so we we relocated for for that plus the real estate I was buying. Um, and before that could we could even break ground on that, negotiations with the landlord broke down. And so we were we were already approved by the franchise, or um, we we had the the money portion set up already. Uh we were ready to break ground, but about three months before we were supposed to, um, we just couldn't see eye to eye with the landlord. And all the other options for the store just didn't make sense given what we were selling. So you never ended up doing the stuff. We never ended up doing it. Yeah. We were on the road, we were on the path. Um that ended up um stalling. But what's what's interesting is is I and you're kind of highlighting it a little bit, um, but the idea and the way it's talked about in real estate is how passive it is. And I found out first hand how not passive it is. And so it gives you this this perception you can do it on weekends, you can do it in your in the in your free time during the week because it's passive, but it's not. It really is not.
SPEAKER_01It's not passive, and then the other thing, like we didn't, I want I was curious about how did you finance all of this? Like what was the what was the mechanism you were using to to pay for all these transactions?
SPEAKER_00Well, I had great credit. I mean, like at that time I started it, my credit was in the 800s, and um and I had some cash because I uh we were living below our means, but um I I leveraged those two things to get hard money loans for flips.
SPEAKER_01So non-bank loans, you were just going to to law and lenders and like what kind of interest rates were you paying?
SPEAKER_00It was it wasn't terrible, it was but it was it wasn't good. It was between like 10 and 14 percent, depending on the property. But this is when this is at the you know when it was three percent for bank loan. When three percent bank bank loan.
SPEAKER_01So today it's probably be fifteen percent for the equivalent. At least for the equivalent. You know, what I say about real estate is not only is it not passive, um, it's also very levered, and the the the kind of net income, I like as I like to think about it, or the cash flow at the end of the day, is very small relative to the amount of leverage risk that you're taking. For sure. And I unfortunately learned that firsthand. Yeah, so walk me through the bankruptcy. I think that's that's where we need to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that was tough. I mean, um we moved to Chicago with all these hopes and dreams of this real estate empire and franchise empire. Um, and I want to say four months into the movie realized neither are happening. And and so as I'm literally talking to bankruptcy lawyers to get from under the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that I acquired and and wasn't able to pay back, um and and stopping the journey and the road to uh the franchise, I'm all we've also relocated to a new city. And it's like, what do we do now? Like we came here for these things, and now these things are not happening. Um, and so interestingly enough, like as I'm in the throes of of like severe financial strain. I mean, towards the end of this time, I'm on unemployment, I'm on food stamps, like we're we're we're barely. I went from six figures to food stamps in the course of like a year. But two kids? Four kids at this time. Four kids. Four kids at this time. We're living in a temporary apartment, or not apartment, it was a house, but tiny house. Um, we had moved from a a really a really nice prop property for our family to this tiny house that was meant to be temporary um as we were set getting settled in the Chicago market. And and so my wife is is really just needing to get out of that house right as uh right as things are starting to close in on me. And so I had like some serious uh moments of like reflection and prayer, and I'm I'm trying to figure out what move to make next because we've we almost felt called to the area. So for everything to then not work out was very a very confusing thing also. When you feel like you know you made the right move um directionally, but then all the things you're trying aren't landing. Um, and so I kind of went back to the drawing board and and I looked in my life for what actually did work over the last year. And and funny enough, it goes back to that first house I bought in 2015. The contractor who who renovated that for me, his his uh construction company was his second business. The first one he had started years prior was a janitorial business. And I knew that while I was still working in facility management, and I had some in um and relationships and pool with about 10 or so buildings in uh in the DC market, and so I I started an LLC and I subbed him to do all these all this work, and so he was doing all the work, but I was still getting like a thousand twelve hundred dollar check a month, like completely passively, because of that relationship. And so even after relocating to Chicago, he was still doing the work. And I remember right when we were needing it too, we got a check for probably $6,500, something like that. And at the time that felt like a fortune because of how everything was going in the opposite direction. And and fast forward a couple months as I'm dealing with the fact that that multifamily is going south, the contractor's stealing my money, the franchise is it's coming to a dead end. Um, that opportunity. Um, I'm I'm like, well, what did work? And I th I thought of that check I got from a couple months prior. And I said, Well, that actually worked. Uh, maybe there's something there. And and so I pick up the phone, and mind you, I don't even have an LLC yet. I've never bid on a job in cleaning in my life, um, but I have some cold calling experience. Um, and it was funny is I'm at work and I'm I'm trying to teach myself on YouTube how to bid cleaning.
SPEAKER_01So you're at work. Where are you actually working at this point?
SPEAKER_00So I had to get a temporary job because of all this, another management job, um, working nights and weekends to kind of keep my days free for the other things I was trying to make make work. And so um, I'm you know, I forget if it was a weekend or night, but there was a lot of free time. So I'm I'm YouTubing how to bid cleaning jobs. And there's a guy in the office with me who's sitting over there, and and he was one of my employees who um union worker, very I don't know how to describe him other than to say you could tell he was doing just enough not to get fired or get in trouble. Yep. Um, but generally speaking, he didn't have a ton of respect in the office as a whole. And he looks, and I'm kind of wondering why he's in the office.
SPEAKER_01For my from my um knowledge, like what type Of job, what type of management job? Like what type of company was it?
SPEAKER_00It was a parking industry again. So you're back in the parking industry. Back in the parking industry, which definitely felt like another step backwards because I just left that. But he he kind of leans over or looks over at me and says, Hey, I notice you're into business and stuff. I used to own a business. I look over at him and I'm like, Yeah, sure. Of course you did, buddy. Um and I get back to like learning and trying to figure out how to bid cleaning jobs. And he goes, and he knows nothing about what I'm doing. He just sees that I I happen to be in business related things. And he says, Yeah, me and my uh me and my fiance owned a cleaning company. And I said, What? Did you say? He goes, Yeah, we had like 30 banks, we were making like $30 something thousand dollars a month. Um we I almost quit this job to do that full time, and then I got hurt on the job and could no longer clean. And I'm thinking to myself, did he just say what I think he just said? And and so this light bulb went in my head. If this guy can make 30 grand a month in cleaning, I for sure can do it. Um, and so that gave me like this this conviction that I'm on the right road and I can certainly make this work. And so I learn what I need to learn, and then that week I pick up the phone and start cold calling companies, um, banks, because he said he did banks, and and seeing if they needed cleaning. And I get to the last name on the list. Everyone else was no, no, no, or not yet, or whatever. The last bank, she said, I actually was just thinking we need to hire a cleaning company. I was about to call some, and so I go to her property that day. Um, she allowed me to come that afternoon, and I bit on this strip and wax job with their floors, and I win it. And so I'm kind of excited, like, wow, one day of cold calling. So, did you have any tools at this point? Had you bought any of the equipment?
SPEAKER_01You bought nothing.
SPEAKER_00And I had no idea how to even strip and wax a floor.
SPEAKER_01So you sold, so so you sold something and you didn't even know how to, you didn't even know how you were going to actually do it yet.
SPEAKER_00No, I I didn't know the tools I would need, I didn't know the process, I knew nothing. So I literally leave there and I hop on YouTube. How do you strip and wax floors? And so I I find out like the process and the equipment, and then I go to the janitorial supply house in town. Um, and I booked the job a week out knowing I was gonna need some buffer to figure out how to do this. What was your strategy for how you priced it and then walk me through how much it actually cost you to deliver it? Honestly, that was kind of a a lucky shot in the dark. I I I sort of assumed based on the floor, it can't take longer than this, is kind of my thinking. And so then I bid a number per hour based on that, which was probably around 40 bucks an hour or something like that. And so I think it was like $1,000 or $900 or something. I knew it would be a one-day job for sure because of the size of the building. And so I thought $900 could certainly be worth doing this. And so I go to the supply house that I now now that I know the equipment I need to get, and I rent this machine, the guy sells me the chemicals. I don't know how to use this machine. And how much did it cost you? Um, for all of that, it was about $100 for the the machine, and then it was about a hundred dollars for the chemicals and pads and things like that. And so it was roughly 200 bucks. Um, and the problem is I don't I don't know how to use this stuff. And so the GM of the janitorial supply house literally taught me to use this machine in the warehouse in the back and then help me load it in my car. And so um, I end up going on Craigslist because I'm like, maybe I can get some help and get this done faster. And so I I look for um somebody who has floor care experience. Two people, I'm like, let me just get two people in case one doesn't show up. Told them where to meet me, I'm there. If you've ever tried to hire someone off our Craigslist, you probably know what happened. Nobody showed up. And so I go in and I was like, I guess I'm doing this myself. And about seven hours, I got it done. It looked pretty good, and and I made about 900 bucks, a thousand bucks for one day's work. And I leave that job, and I thought to myself, I think there's something here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I love this for a few reasons.
SPEAKER_01First of all, um, you know, you have just gone bankrupt. You got four kids at home, you went, you were on, you know, you know, food stamps, as you as you said, in unemployment. You find a job, um, start doing your day job, but you still know that you want to do something more. And so you're spending your extra time to figure out a new business and to test it, you decide to sell something that you don't even know how to do yet, but you know that you're gonna find you, but you commit to finding a way to uh to making it work um if you get a customer. And you call you know 10 people, they all say no, and the 11th person, whatever, says says, sure, um, I'm looking for this, and then you go and you figure out how to how to deliver.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much. It was actually 30 people on the list. So I had 29 no's before I got to the first yes. 29 before you go to yes.
SPEAKER_01So um now, and then you you see this bark, you know you're on to something because you've proven it that somebody's willing to pay you money for this. Um so now walk me through the next 12 months. What does the next 12 months look like? Man, that that was tough.
SPEAKER_00Like I got that immediate fruit from some effort. The next three months was crickets. I mean, I went on multiple walkthroughs, I I submitted bids, I joined a mastermind to like learn more about the business and help keep me accountable with money I didn't have to spend. Um, and it is probably a solid three months of just hitting my head against the wall. And and I'm still working this temporary job that turned into a what was looking like it was going to be a long-term job, which only made me hate the job more because it's one thing when you go into it thinking it's temporary, I can just hold my breath till we're done. But when it turns into no, you can't leave, it it's it becomes almost impossible to feel settled and stay. And that's kind of where where I was starting to feel, what I was starting to feel. And um, and and I'm like three months into really getting no traction beyond that first job. And I'm about to quit, honestly, because it it felt like I was wasting my time going down a road that had nothing, um, all the while, like I need to find a new place for my family to live, and and we need to figure something out. And so I remember like driving down this road um and and just like throwing up this prayer, like, God, I'm gonna throw in this towel. I don't think this is for me. I'm just gonna go find another management job that that I can stomach more than this, and I I'm gonna think I'm gonna quit. And it was a one of those passing, just frustrated, frustrated prayers, you know. And then and the next day I get a call from this 90,000 square foot facility that I had talked to two weeks prior, and they said no thanks. And so I'm like, uh, I see what's happening here. And they basically said, we want you to come and give us a quote. And so I don't know why they decided to change their mind, but um that's the prayers of Monday, the calls of Tuesday. I get laid off from this job on Wednesday, like out of the blue. No, no reason even given to me. I just I now lose the job that I hate, but was helping bridge the gap. So now I feel pressure like I have never felt before. Thursday, I go on the walkthrough. Friday, I bid on the job. I'm still going to work. I didn't tell my wife I was laid off because this would have been number two in nine months. And it was funny, I spent seven years succeeding in the corporate world, never having been fired from a job in my life. And in nine months, I got laid off of two jobs. And so it was a new experience, even just for that. But um, you know, my night and weekend job, I would leave home the nor normal time I'd I'd go to work and I would go find a cafe to just like work on this business that I was trying to launch, you know, building a website, you know, creating copy for marketing, um, sharpening my proposals and just trying to prepare in every way I could for you know the next proposal or the next opportunity. And so I do that all weekend, and and I'm thinking to myself, if I don't hear back from this account Monday, like I gotta tell my wife and I gotta figure something else out. Well, it's it's about lunchtime on that Monday, and I get a call from this facility, and the guy says, John, um, we've decided to award you the account. You'll see the the email in your inbox shortly. And I hang up the phone and I'm like, Yes, I did it. And what's crazy is that one job, it was seven days a week, 90,000 square foot facility. It paid more per month than that part-time temporary or that temporary job I hated, and I was driving over an hour to get to. And this this facility, I could walk to it. And so it was a complete 180 in my personal situation, and it was big enough that I was able to hire a team right away to do the cleaning so that I could find the next one.
SPEAKER_01So, what were the actual economics of that first contract?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was uh um, yeah, you'll never forget that one. It was $5,000 a month uh for seven days a week of cleaning. And and we were doing all kinds of stuff. I mean, we were pressure washing, auto scrubbing, doing daily, um, you know, daily janitorial maintenance. And um, and so I ended up hiring uh three people that alternated shifts throughout the seven days. And then, of course, early on, you're still doing a lot of the stuff yourself. And so I would I would train people, I would stock the closets, I'd I'd check on things and just create more efficient ways to do the stuff we were doing. And one thing I will say that that I I cultivated and I honed when I was still working in middle management was the approach of how can I take repeatable tasks and and turn it into a process that I can then train somebody else to do. So I'm not left with this laundry list of things to do every day. Yep. And I was able to do that really well in my job. And so I kind of used that skill that I honed of step one, two, three, four, let me train you on this. And now you're doing that task. And I took that into this business. Um, and shortly, you know, kind of back to real estate, I used that same approach in uh finding, analyzing, and then putting offers on properties. And the problem was that it worked way too well. I I before I had fully built out the structure for supervising contractors and the moving parts of buying materials, supervising work and then um checking on the work done. I I've created this process in in Excel formulas, uh, video trainings, and I gave it to virtual assistants and said, use my access to the MLS, plug these numbers in here, and then it would spit out my maximum allowable offers. And then here's the email to send to all these agents.
SPEAKER_01So you're basically too good at I um closing sales, but not good enough at delivering the product. Way too good. You were selling you were selling selling too quickly. I was um yeah, but you went from zero to seven figures in about two and a half years, walk me quickly through that process.
SPEAKER_00Like what what does that um well how how did that sure sure like a part of that part of why that was possible was because I took this very systemized, process-oriented approach to the cleaning. And so because I did that, it made it so that I didn't have to be there physically cleaning from literally the first account. And so I created a Google Forum checklist and and walked them through the building with pictures and everything so that I could train someone else. And they have this, like I called it a supervisor in the pocket. And if they had a question, they would refer back to the thing I had created for them to know where things were, how to work through the space. And then I put a couple other things in there to just help um me know that they had completed the work properly, like um how to upload and create pictures of before and after and things like that. And and so because I did that though, and that was one example of many, it allowed me to not only train people that could do the cleaning, but then train people on how to train other people. And so I I would say within the first four or five months, um, I started backing off from even training cleaners. And it was and and I was able to spend the bulk of my time finding new opportunities to bid, um, you know, to put bids in for. And so a month later, um, I got another commercial account. And then a month later, another commercial account. And I would say though those that first hundred thousand dollars of annual revenue is probably the hardest because you're fighting not just other people in the market and timing and you know, all those things, but you're fighting your own um your own demons that that are trying to tell you that you're on the wrong path, you can't do this. And it's uh and once you pass like six figures in revenue that you generated by yourself, there's something that happens, I think, psychologically that's like I could do this. Yep. And so once that happened, though, and I would say that probably took somewhere around eight to nine months to pass that number. How many contracts did you have at that point? That was about 10. That was about 10 contracts, and they they're the amount per contract ranged from $500 a month to anywhere around $5,000 a month. Once that happened, it was like I I got a real business here. And and so the velocity, you mentioned escape velocity, from that point, it's almost like it compounded. And within a year, we went from about $100,000 a year to about $400,000 a year. And then really what changed things forever, uh COVID was interesting because it was both a blessing and a curse for my industry because cleaning, cleanliness, just you know, disinfecting things, the awareness and the importance of it, it rose dramatically as a result of COVID. But also a lot of buildings were closed. And so especially being in a Chicago market where they they were much more strict with that. Um, Indiana was wasn't quite as much. We still got hit by some of that. And um once everything opened back up, though, I noticed that a lot more calls were coming in than they used to. And so we really stayed about the same because we lost some that didn't come back after COVID for their own reasons, and then we got a bunch, so we we stayed about the same, between four or five hundred thousand throughout that time. And um, and then the next year, I decided I was going to intentionally start going for business again. And I used the method I used to get that first account, and and we started cold calling. And and what's interesting is I um I realized that it wasn't gonna be sustainable if I was having to call hundreds of accounts a week. So I hired um I hired a contractor to do that. And within two months, um, we were we were getting walkthroughs every single week from that. And one of those walkthroughs ended up leading to a group account. So we won that single account. They liked the work we did and they said, Hey, we have 12 other buildings, can you bid on those? And of course, we said yes. So while we're bidding on that, I get a request from another, and that was a medical provider um in the area that had a bunch of buildings. While we're bidding on that, another large medical provider with about 10 buildings reached out to us and said, Can you bid on ours? And so within six weeks, we went from about a four or five hundred thousand dollar company to a million-dollar company. And and so the it forced growth in us very similar to how those initial contracts did, but now we had some systems in place. We had we had some team members in place, and our our staff went from about 10 to 12 cleaners to um, I want to say 35 during that time. Um, and so that there was some new processes I had to create to staff up that that quickly and then train people and then onboard them quickly. But what I've noticed is like when you have these these quantum leaps percentage-wise in your in your business, it forces a new kind of growth out of you that wasn't required in the last phase of your journey. Um, and so while it it might feel um stressful at the time, it's actually really healthy for you because I wouldn't have learned how to strip and wax a floor had I not needed to learn to strip and wax a floor. Yeah, I wouldn't have learned how to create a repeatable, trainable, delegatable process for finding, training, and onboarding people had we not needed to uh it was almost quadruple the size, but at a at a minimum, um 3x the size of our team in a matter of six weeks. Um and so af after I did that though, it allowed me to hire someone else to now follow the process that I was forced to create for myself just uh for my own sanity. Um and still to this day, we still use that same exact process. Um, and then over the course of a couple of years, we we doubled our business again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that being so process-oriented from the beginning is a real lesson for a lot of people because I think that um, you know, the the reason why you were able to scale in this this business, where I think a lot of other people aren't, is is that process. And I think a lot of people in cleaning probably get stuck doing too much of the work themselves and never level up by building a process that allows them to spend the time on running the business rather than working in it.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And and I and there's lots of reasons why you can stay stuck doing what you're talking about. And and the excuse I hear a lot from other cleaning company owners, even people on my own team, and I have to I have to correct them, is that there's not enough good cleaners out there. Like you'll hear or or labor such an issue, you'll hear very variations of that so often. And and I realized what we what we actually solve isn't cleaning because anybody can can mop, anybody can sweep or take out trash. What what we actually solve is a staffing problem. If you can find, train, and supervise people, that is actually what you're hired to do. Yeah, it's so that they don't have to do that because they're not in the business of cleaning buildings, they're in the business of giving medical uh provision to people, they're in the business of manufacturing some product or or selling cars. And and so you're taking something that is not their core business off of their plate. And so when when I created that process for finding training and onboarding people, I I essentially solved the business because that then there was no resistance or hesitation to grow, which you always kind of feel that you're about to put the pedal to the metal, but you're not sure if you're gonna be able to get the cleaners you need to handle that. So you let up.
SPEAKER_01This is another lesson that in business is it's important to understand the problem that you're solving, yeah. Um, or you know, the reason that you're creating value. And it's like, how would you answer that in the cleaning business? I I think you just did, but I want you, but how would you answer that for the cleaning? For sure.
SPEAKER_00Um, it it is the first problem you're you're fine, you're you're solving is is how do I find, train, and onboard people quickly and efficiently and well. And then the I say the other side of that coin is how do I now lead them well so that the what the promises we are we're making to our clients we can actually fulfill on. And I would say that is where our business is at right now. Um, I there's always issues at times in various ways uh of um of like the people you need and and the quality of the people and all of that. The process largely solves that. I'd say it gets us 80% of the way. There's other things, there's always the 80-20 rule, there's always other things you have to do to complement the core thing, but the core thing solved. The the other side of that though is how do we lead people well so that they they deliver a consistent service now? Because we've trained them on this, but are they doing what we train them to do consistently? And and do we find out in time that they didn't so that we can make adjustments before the client knows? And so we're very much in the throes of that now. And and I think we're forced into that because of some losses we've taken these last few years that I think were avoidable.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk about the state of your business today. You started the business in 2018, so you've been in it for seven or eight years. How much revenue did you do in 2025? 2.4.4 million. So um, so you went from from you know bankrupt to um 2.4 million of revenue in seven years, and roughly what do you take home of that 2.4 million?
SPEAKER_00The net um when you put adbacks back in is uh 610. So you're operating at about 20 percent.
SPEAKER_0126 percent 26 percent net margins, which is very healthy. So that that's a good um that's about what I would expect, I would imagine, in a in a business of that of that size. And so how many employees do you have?
SPEAKER_00Um it fluctuates, but it's uh between fifty and sixty when you consider support staff and then all the cleaning stuff.
SPEAKER_01And on the cleaning side, you're mostly 1099ing on these companies, or they're all duty two?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's one 1099 person that we uh employ for some. Periodic jobs or like project work, but all of our recurring business is W-2.
SPEAKER_01And so you mentioned a couple of losses in the last couple of years. Like what is like if you did 2.4 million in 2025, what did 23, 24 look like? Yeah. How has it shifted?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah. So it's interesting. The if we hadn't taken the losses we took in 23 through 25, we'd probably be closer to a $5 million company, to be honest. And and I I realized the second time that we we took on some losses. And the reasons are you've got to be able to do that. When you say a loss, let's define what that means for you.
SPEAKER_01For sure. And and like the retention, retention is a big thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a big part of it. And there's accounts we've had for years and years, and then there's some that don't last more than a year. And and you look at what why did this happen? Was this avoidable? Um, what could we do differently moving forward? And and honestly, some of the losses, uh, and there's been more, you know, more times than I'd like to I care to admit where we've we've we've lost a significant percentage of our revenue because of uh cancellation. And sometimes it had nothing to do with the service we gave. It had to do with their circumstances. Um, other times it was 100% our fault, and and we just failed them. And so you you have to try to determine which is which, and was there anything you could have done? And if the answer is yes, and and looking back, I would say we had healthy margins last year. I think they were too healthy, to be honest. I don't think we had enough support staff to supervise the flow of information, the quality of the work, um, things along those lines. And and we we're very low on the overhead, the fixed asset overhead side of things. Like we don't have a physical office, we have storage units for things, we do all of our meetings virtually, we have a very small fleet of cars. We try not to take on that kind of expense because we know labor is going to be our highest expense. And then we need to support that labor. And this year, the pivot we made kind of in response to some of the losses that we had last year, which was roughly 10%, um, is that we're reinvesting a lot of those profits into support staff that we haven't had in the past.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you did 2.4 million in in 2025. Like if I'm looking out 10 years from now, what the success look like for John and for your business?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Uh in 10 years, I I I'd honestly would love to be knocking on the door of 50 million a year. Wow. And I know I'm gonna have to think differently to get there because you're not gonna do it one account at a time. You're gonna have to find effort that has um higher leverage and ability to fold um effort over, which I'm I'm hoping that you can provide some insight on on approaches to that. I and one of the things that I I looked at in late 23, and I spend most of 24 trying to find um success here, but I realized if all of my effort is to just get another account, I will grow and I have. It's how we've gotten to where we are, but it's gonna be very slow growth, and I was looking for something that that more was was not adding but multiplying our efforts, and so I thought of maybe I can buy smaller cleaning companies, and that could help me enter a new market, or that could just help me compound my efforts into greater growth.
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess before you even think about that, like what is keeping you from growing today? Like, you know, I'm guessing like two 2.4 to 50 over um you know 10 years is probably something like 40 percent. If I just had to number, I'd I'd have been just doing you know, 40% a year year type type growth. I mean, it would be a healthy, a healthy growth rate. So um, you know, what's keeping you from doing that today?
SPEAKER_00I think the strategy we've been employing to grow won't get us there. Like we'll we'll need a new growth strategy. Um, because we I don't think we'll get to 50 million in 10 years, one account at a time. I think it it'll have to probably be done a little differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's think about the system to get you there, though, right? I mean, like you're you're a guy who likes to think in systems. I think that's that's the healthy way to think about it. Um, you know, you know, what is your strategy for acquiring customers today?
SPEAKER_00What does that look like? Sure. Um, I would say the first lever I needed to pull, which I did last year, and we've seen some some good success from it, is I I had to replace myself as the rainmaker. I couldn't be the only person working leads, selling accounts, um, and and bringing in new business. And unlike the residential cleaning space, there aren't leads every day in uh in a single market for janitorial that are worth working. Um, because typically that that's done in cycles. They're reviewing their budget, they're looking at options, they're making decisions around then, or there's like a huge service failure and they have to part ways with their and and so it's a long sales cycle, is what you're saying. Yeah, and and so um I hesitated to hire salespeople early on, which I think was a smart move, because they wouldn't even have a full week of submitting bids in most cases. Um whereas in in residential, and I I have uh more than a few uh friends who who own residential cleaning companies, they're getting dozens of leads a day because there's thousands of homes in their market.
SPEAKER_01But their average order value is much lower, much lower, and their probably retention rate is much lower.
SPEAKER_00Yep, it is. Um and I and I realized too, like even from my first uh recurring account, one decent commercial cleaning account can represent 20 houses uh very easily. So I I saw that was the route for me. But um last year I ended up similar um to the staffing side of things, I created and refined a process for for working leads and and submitting bids and presenting. And so I was able to transition someone to a role that I call cleaning consultant, and they basically do all of the boots boots on the ground now of meeting with with clients who are ready for walkthroughs and presenting proposals. Um and I'm more in just the review and and checking phase uh of things now. And so she started with us last year, late last year, and and has already brought in six figures of of annual revenue doing that.
SPEAKER_01But you say, so okay, you think think through that, like how many, like let's say you wanted to grow 50% a year. Um you know, do you have do you know how many contracts on average that is, and you know, how many you need to be closing a week and like what the sales infrastructure it would take for you to actually do that?
SPEAKER_00Uh sales infrastructure, no. Um I I do know that um part of you know, part of making something like that happen, you we'd have to we'd have to be selling because the the average uh commercial cleaning account is about $2,500 a month. Um and so you're you're looking at roughly $25,000 to $30,000 a year for I would I would say an average commercial cleaning account. And that's if you're not being too picky. Um I know some uh commercial cleaning companies that they won't take anything less than fifty to seventy-five thousand a year on an account. Some some are even more. I'm not quite as picky as that.
SPEAKER_01Um I I am okay with something that's five figures, but that means you need to be closing um you know 50 to 60 accounts this year to basically have that kind of growth.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Which which is no small task, uh especially not in a single market. And so so what would it take? I think it would it would take uh opening another um another area so that right now we're in northwest Indiana. Um it I think it would be near impossible to have that many accounts in just that area. So I think growing geographically is the uh new geographical area um where where we can multiply the efforts that way geographically. Um and and so right now what I what I'm doing is is I'm testing and proving that the model I have here works on the sales side. And and once I'm once I'm convinced that it works through someone else who isn't me, then I can replicate that elsewhere. Um and so I've kind of come off of trying to acquire companies because I did realize too in that process that um as I'm analyzing these other deals, and there are hundreds of companies I looked at over the course of 18 months, and and I spent a lot of money on consultants and education, uh learning how to evaluate um deals, how to close them, um, all of that. It highlighted something about my own business and and how unsellable I was in my own business. And so it was almost like what makes your business unsellable? Well, I think the fact like initially like it was it was the fact that I was the the only person who was truly closing sales. Um and nobody wants to buy a job. And so I realized I need to things out.
SPEAKER_01Most cleaning companies are just jobs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think because I was ahead of a lot of other cleaning company owners, I felt like I was further than I actually was. Um, but when I when I had to look at it from the vantage point of someone from the outside looking at my business and evaluating it as an asset, um, there were some things I needed to improve before I got to that place. And so in a weird way, me trying to buy and evaluating all these other businesses caused me to indirectly evaluate my own business. And then it led me over the past year specifically to start making some real changes on how we were doing certain things and how we were structured.
SPEAKER_01So not only changes that you made.
SPEAKER_00Well, one was replacing myself, that was the biggest one. So sales are now happening, and I'm I'm not really involved in the process. Um, nowhere, I mean, very little about amount of involvement. Um, and then the other piece was on the support side, reinvesting some of the profits and re really restructured our our management and support team this year in 2026 to help us avoid some of the inconsistencies on fulfillment that that I think we have had a hard time avoiding, especially as you grow. Um, the all it does is it it puts more stress on things that are not reinforced. And so I think we experienced some of that last year. Well, we grew a ton. I mean, we in in 24-25, we had a lot of growth. And even though we were bigger than we had ever been, um, when we experienced that amount of growth that that quickly, it it's gonna expose you, expose where you're weak, and it did, and that was what it highlighted. And so those are the two biggest things. And and one thing I had I've had to learn the hard way is you don't want to hire um somebody like an operations manager as like this bucket of I'm just gonna throw everything I don't want to do in that bucket and you gotta do that. And I I have taken that approach. Um, I've I have found it's not sustainable. So, what's the correct approach? The correct approach is to take that role um that that very that varied role with many different hats, identify the specific hats they're wearing, and then each of those hats are our role in and of themselves, even if it's a part-time role, then just hire a part-time person for that for that thing. And so that's basically what we did. And at the at the end of the day, what what most companies, I think, in my industry are trying to have an operations manager do is manage the schedule, make sure all of the supplies and equipment that need to be on site for the company to do their job are there, um, audit the the work being done and report on the audits and train the people. And if and if all of those things are done, in theory, you're gonna have a really well-run machine. The problem is if you have dozens and dozens of accounts over the over you know multiple counties, how you know, one person is gonna have a very hard time doing something like that.
SPEAKER_01The way I think about it, and where I I think that a lot of entrepreneurs fail, is that it's your job as the entrepreneur to create a system that does each of those things, that then you can hire an operations manager to manage those systems. But it's but you're the one that has to put in place the system that makes each of those pieces happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I I definitely agree with that. Um and and I I kind of took it just a step further and was like, what if what if these individual systems were were owned by an individual? And so even if we lost a a person, it was one of the functions, not all of them, that are now need needing to be replaced with somebody. And I think that was the risk I felt when one person was over so many things, was what I was, I think, trying to address with this. And so now we we actually have that. There's someone who their job is just to train people, and we put every single new hire to them, and they have to train them for multiple days before they get put on the schedule. We actually just have a scheduler now. We we actually have a QA team, and all they do is check locations all night long and fix things here and there. And so I I essentially replaced a one operations manager who was managing various systems that were some underbuilt, some not built, some built out. Um, with and what was interesting is when you have uh a specific hat that you're having somebody wear, and that's the only hat, it at least for me, it forced me to refine that system because I wasn't just expecting them to figure it out. This is exactly what I need from you in this area, and this is what success looks like, this is what failure looks like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to define it. Um, so I want to get I want to get back to okay, you're at 2.4 million, you got a big goal, 50 million in 10 years, um, which you know, let's say that would put you at making $10 million a year, um, which is a lot of money, big ambitious goal. Um, how are we actually gonna get there? What are we actually gonna do? I've heard a lot of ideas, a lot of plans, but like what's what what's the actual playbook?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I think the the playbook right now is to take what we've done here and we're gonna replicate it within two hours of our current operations. And there's a few cities that I have in mind, a few areas I have in mind to replicate that. And then once that happens So, what does it require you to replicate it?
SPEAKER_01Like what act what steps are you gonna have to take to actually do that?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. Um, I I don't think that I've fully thought through that part of it, to be honest. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's let's talk through it. So like what um you know, I'm guessing this is this is aspirational right now. We haven't we don't have we haven't actually started, we haven't actually started expanding it. No. Um so you know, what um a year from now if we're having this discussion, um, you know, what have you done? What have you done this year to be closer to that goal? What are the what are the actual steps you're gonna take?
SPEAKER_00Well, um I would say I need to identify the first area I'm going to replicate what we've done here. Like I need to decide.
SPEAKER_01You haven't decided where yet.
SPEAKER_00There's three cities I have in mind, but I haven't uh So what's the what's the algorithm in your head you're that that's that that that that's gonna make you choose um I want I want to say um besides the three like decide between the three areas that I have in mind what what what's the the what what is it that's gonna make me decide one over the other? Is that that what you're asking?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean let's even take a little bit of a step back. You know, um seven years ago you started this. Um how did you start it? You sold something that you had no idea even how you were going to deliver the product, yeah, and yet we're sitting here today and you don't know how to take the first step on trying a market to enter into. Um you know, would it not be perhaps as simple as having your salesperson and their excess time, which it sounds like they have, start trying to sell in a neighboring area and then um you know, once you actually get a contract figuring out how you're gonna deliver it, would that not work?
SPEAKER_00You know, as as you were highlighting that um when I was initially telling that story, the thought that came in my mind, even when I talked about when we got those two huge medical accounts, I didn't know how I was gonna fulfill on that. Um I I've seen a common thread that when I just make a decision and commit to something, then I end up figuring it out. Do you think maybe it's part of the equation?
SPEAKER_01I think. Do you think maybe that now you're making 600 grand a year and you're um you know, fat and happy and also a little bit scared of screwing it up?
SPEAKER_00Of course. Of course. So how much of a driver do you think that is? Well, I think it's part of like um realizing like when you've reached a d a new level you haven't been to before, it's what is the want-to to keep going?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so what is the want to have you navigated that? So what what what is the want-to? I mean, it it's like um so you put out a a number of fifty million dollars in 10 years. Where does that come from? Like why like you know, why is that important to you?
SPEAKER_00It's kind of shallow, but um there's actually a guy I met who's also named John Torres and also started in the cleaning industry. He lives in Florida. Um, he does a different business now, but his his company is at 50 million a year. And I was part of a we'll call it a mastermind of people who introduced me to him. And there were people in that mastermind who said you could totally be like him when they saw me. Yeah, you know, interact with him.
SPEAKER_01One of the worst mistakes people make, in my opinion, is what is it? Trying to chase somebody else's dream. You're never gonna get out of bed for somebody else's dream. You gotta figure out what your what this John Torres's dream is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And rarely, rarely is it going to be attached to money or a number. Sure. It's gotta be it's gotta mean it's gotta mean something deeper for you. Like like what is it that you're really working for?
SPEAKER_00I think that's probably where I need to start then. Is is defining and and to be honest, like when I started the company that I'm that I have now, it's it was out of survival because things were were going back. Back over to the wall, you had no choice. And so it kind of forced me into a certain kind of action that led somewhere. And and so the initial goal, I mean, I I could probably recite it, it was it was essentially to have enough time and financial freedom to do the things that were life-giving to me with my family, like coaching my son in baseball or taking my kids somewhere. And I have that now, I've had it for a couple of years, and so it's which is wonderful.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it which is which is which is a huge, huge win and a huge blessing. I mean, um, and and it's not easy.
SPEAKER_00I have found though, like even I'm I remember being on walks in the last couple years aro around you know my my neighborhood and and just thinking to myself, I've actually surpassed all the goals that I had when I first started this company. Like what now? Because it I don't I can't say that I feel a lot different than I did when I was starting this, other than just some of the financial and time relief that I have now.
SPEAKER_01But people people always um underestimate what they can achieve. And and then and when when you get those when you when you aim too low and you get there, it can be very dangerous. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well what motivated you when you know when you left um high finance and then you started this company? Um what what was the motivating factor for you? Because obviously finances weren't uh an issue for you compared to the average, you know, person, uh, based on what I've heard you you made at the time. Um so why start a manufacturing business when when you were in that situation? What was your motivation?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think I look at the world quite differently maybe than than than you or perhaps some others, but um, you know, my biggest fear in life is um being on my deathbed and um you know thinking, wow, I think I could have done so much more if I if I had only tried or have only put my energy into it. Um and for me it's like the the fear of omission or the fear of things that I um you know didn't try because I was scared um or you know the impact I could have had, but um I was maybe too comfortable or too lazy. Um, you know, I know that those are the things that will haunt me. Um and so you know, I wake up every day doing my best to avoid that feeling in that moment. Yeah. And um, you know, I think that you know, when you when you realize you realize that um you know this is a game that never ends, like there is no endpoint. That's why getting to some number um is a um is a bad Goal, in my opinion, because what happens when you get there? Is your life over? Like you're just gonna um, you know, like no, it's gonna it keeps going. And so for me, it's about um, you know, always chasing the hill endless horizon and and always improving and and challenging myself and and seeing what I'm capable of and how big of an impact I can have. Um, and you know, so that that's what drives me. But I think ultimately, um, you know, you need to figure out what that looks like for you. Um, and it's not it is not going to be wrapped like the um money in and of itself is just a tool um that you know allows you know certain leverage, certain impact. Um, and it's important, it's like oxygen, yeah. But um, like you know it if you don't have it, um, as as you've as you've learned. Um, but you know, to to really achieve anything meaningful, um, you're gonna have to have an emotional connection. It's it can't be a kind of a rational money connection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I guess uh that number, it felt like something that would stretch and challenge me.
SPEAKER_01Um and so I can tell it doesn't excite you because you haven't even like um when you had to take action, you go out and take action. Now you don't have to. Um and if you're really emotionally attached to something, then you have to do it. You don't have a choice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so you need something that you're excited enough about that you don't have a choice but to go out and take that action. Yeah. That's what you're lacking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I can see that. So I need to just put myself in a situation where I'm forced to well, you don't need to do anything.
SPEAKER_01You don't need to do anything, and that's the beauty. I mean, like you're in a place where you don't need to do anything, but um, you know, I think having an empty an empty goal is only going to set yourself up for failure because you're never going to get there because you're not you're not emotionally attached to it. Yeah, that makes sense. And and and and there's no you're much better off being honest with yourself rather than chasing an empty goal. Yeah, that's good feedback. We can still end it there, but I guess the question I my question for you is, you know, what what what would you like like is there anything that you would like to address or that you would like to talk about or talk through or relating to your business? Because you're you're absolutely in a place where you can you you you can scale, um, but you know you also don't have to, and you know, feeling like you have to is I think also a trap.
SPEAKER_00And so I do I don't want you to feel like like part of how you described um you don't you don't want uh be at the end of your life and know you could have given more. Um there is some of that in me, and although I haven't articulated it for myself fully, I do feel like I have potential to build something um more even more meaningful. You have the petition, and I want to tap into it. I I don't want I don't want to leave an example for my kids or be at the end of my life and be like, man, I I I I let up before I saw what like what I was fully capable of doing. Um and so I I do wrestle with that a bit because uh I I find that that I am I am pretty ambitious in in general and and I wrestle with this idea of I don't I don't I don't have to anymore, but I I know I have more to give. And so I mean right now, like what I've done with that energy and that tension, um, besides some of the the business things where where I'm just fine-tuning things and and making sure that it's a stronger business. Um, you know, I I started uh a YouTube channel this year, and and part of why I did that was to keep me accountable to not be complacent. It's because if um like two things. One, when you're having to teach something or share lessons you're learning on a journey, um, you learn them deeper. Yeah. And so you you you get away from the surface. If I have to actually explain this to somebody else, I need to understand this a little bit more, um, which has been healthy for me over the years being in that environment. The other thing is um to keep me accountable to just keep growing. And I've I've heard the you know, I've heard the sentiment in various ways that you know if you stop growing, you start dying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I just think that the problem that I think you need that that you need just ultimately to answer is that um you need to to to really want whatever it is that you're chasing, like be emotionally in in invested, invested in it. And you know, I think that you also need to accept that you know the clinging can be your vessel for that. It absolutely can be. Um, but it's it's okay if you choose that it's really something else. I mean, and that can look like it it can have nothing to do with business, it can be completely something unrelated, it can be anything, but yeah, but it's got to be something that you're really excited about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and you know, I think I just think that's where you need to be honest with yourself about you know what it is that you really enjoy. Yeah. Um and because that's where that's where you're gonna find the most success and happiness ultimately. For sure. Yeah, that's fair. And I think that that's the you know, that's the trick. I like it. Thank you. So, John, thank you so much. Yeah, really appreciate it.
