April 14, 2025 • 46 mins
Bryan Clayton transforms a high school lawn mowing side hustle into an 8-figure landscaping company before creating GreenPal, the "Uber of lawn care" now serving 300,000 weekly users nationwide after a decade of determined building.
• Started mowing lawns in high school and grew it into a company with 150 employees over 15 years
• Sold first landscaping business for 8 figures in 2013 and quickly realized retirement wasn't fulfilling
• Identified opportunity to create an Uber-like service for lawn care despite having no tech background
• Spent first two years learning to code and building prototype, then struggling to find initial users
• Discovered through direct customer engagement that reliability and convenience matter more than price
• Describes growing a business like playing a video game where "every level has its own dragon to slay"
• Advises entrepreneurs not to start anything they can't commit a decade to
• Recommends not partnering with anyone you wouldn't give $10 million to start a business with
• Emphasizes closing the gap between what customers actually experience and what founders think they experience
• Views AI as a revolutionary tool that has transformed how they analyze data and solve problems
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Forget what you've heard.
Forged in Fire is where realentrepreneurs come to share the
untold truths of success thelate nights, the crushing
setbacks, the moments thatchange everything.
No fluff, just fire, ready tostep into the heat and unlock
(00:25):
what it really takes to build abusiness.
This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another
exciting episode of Forged inFire.
I'm your co-host, nate Farrin.
Again, allow me to introduce myco-host here, cole, how you
doing, brother, come on stage.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Hey, what's going on?
How was?
Your day so far.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Man, it's one of those days where I woke up this
morning and I looked at thecalendar and I've got things
from like I don't know 8 am tolike 8 pm and then somebody's
like, hey, can I also scheduleanother 8 pm meeting with you.
So you know, it's just likethat life, like the entrepreneur
, is like you know what YOLO,Somebody's got to do it, it's
got to get done.
(01:08):
But enough about me, man, howare you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I love it.
No same thing.
It's funny.
We were just recording anepisode recently and we were
talking about this theory of youknow you trajectory and that's
awesome.
Or you go entrepreneurship andyou have a very unlinear
(01:31):
projective and veryunpredictable, but you put the
work in up front and then itshould hockey stick in a perfect
world.
But there's a lot of those daysup front where you're
questioning everything you do,but it's part of the hustle.
So, all in all, things are good.
I am excited for this interview.
This is going to be one ofthose really exciting ones that
meshes that entrepreneurshipworld with the real estate stuff
.
So I have one thing to ask ofeveryone before we get started,
which is please, please, please,leave us a review.
This is what helps us grow,this is what helps us do these
(01:54):
episodes.
It helps us find more people.
So just one thing that wouldreally help us is please,
whenever you're listening on, goto comments, go to below and
just leave a review.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I love it.
Today is going to be amazing,dude.
I'm super excited.
We are going to be interviewingthe one and the only, brian
Clayton, who is the CEO ofGreenPal, and GreenPal has been
known to be called the Uber oflawn care.
I have zero idea what thatmeans, but we're going to find
out together.
So, brian, how are we doing?
Brother, come on stage, man.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Nate and Cole.
It's great to be here, guys.
Thanks for having me on yourshow.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, pleasure is all ours.
So please tell us a little bitabout yourself.
What got you here?
What brought you here?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, so, like you just said, I'm the CEO and
co-founder of GreenPow.
Greenpow is an app that workslike DoorDash or Instacart or
Uber, but for lawn mowingservices.
So if you own a home or you'rea real estate investor and you
have grass that's growingoutside, somebody's got to mow
it.
Rather than calling around onfacebook or google or something
like that, you just download ourapp, pop in your address and
(02:54):
someone comes out and mows theyard for you, and green pal's
been around about 10 years.
It's a 10-year overnightsuccess.
It's nationwide united statesnow.
So anywhere where you live in atown with over 20 or 30,000
people, you can use GreenPow toget lawn mowing done.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
That is so cool.
I have so many questions todive in there, so I want to dial
all the way to the beginningBefore we go into the nitty
gritty.
All the way at the beginningyou said a 10-year overnight
success and I love that you saidthat, because it is such a
funny thing.
So tell me about the journeyand just kind of it depends how
deep you want to go.
But what did it look like?
Why did you start this?
(03:32):
How did it start building?
Tell me more.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah.
So I think when you areinventing a new product, you're
building something from scratch,like we were doing when we
started GreenPow.
I think authenticity can be acompetitive advantage, so I was
solving my own problem.
My first business was a lawnmowing business.
I started mowing grass in highschool as a way to make extra
money and stuck with that lawnmowing business for 15 years,
(03:58):
growing it into a real company,eventually building it to about
150 people, and that businesswas acquired by a national
company in 2013.
So I guess the first act of myentrepreneurial journey was
building and scaling thatlandscaping company to eight
figures and then exiting it.
And after I did that, I wasgoing to just kind of live the
(04:23):
good life was my plan.
I did some real estateinvesting and my plan was just
to go sit on a beach and nothave to do the grind of
entrepreneurship anymore.
But that got boring reallyquick.
Things got existential.
I didn't have a purpose in mylife anymore and I didn't
realize that.
I didn't anticipate thathappening.
(04:44):
But I realized that I needed aproject.
I needed something to a mission, something to want me to get
out of bed early in the morningand continue to grow and
continue to try to achievethings.
And so I thought, well, maybe Ican start a tech company.
I just watched the movie theSocial Network.
(05:04):
That looked easy in that movie,so maybe I can do that.
And so I was very naive inthinking that I could become a
tech entrepreneur.
But I thought, well, somebody'sgoing to build the Uber of lawn
care Because at the time thiswas about 2013, uber was just
getting kind of popular and Ithought somebody's going to
build this, this for, for, forlandscaping services, so it
(05:28):
might as well be me.
And, uh, I told two friendsabout the idea and and we
started working on it, and we wedidn't, didn't know what the
hell we were doing, and and westarted learning how to code and
learning how to build softwareand teaching ourselves how to do
that.
And the first prototype took uslike two years to build, and we
slowly started getting a littlebit of customer feedback about
(05:50):
how to build this marketplacethat connected buyers and
sellers in this industry.
And so we started working onmaking the app better, making
ourselves better, making thebusiness better and, little by
little, making it easier to useand growing the user base to
where now around 300,000 peopleuse the app every week to get
lawn mowing done.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Dude, holy cow, I love this.
Hats off to you.
I mean, having the idea ofdoing like the 15 years of just
lawn care back then and thenselling it off.
That's the first hats off toyou.
Kudos to you on that.
That is a success in and ofitself.
But then realizing, afteryou're chilling on the beach,
investing in a few other things,that you're bored.
You're like you know what?
I need a new challenge, I needto do something else.
(06:32):
What can I possibly do?
Watched a movie, realized hey,you know what, somebody's going
to do this, it's going to be me.
And so you did it.
And so now fill me in, kind ofand you can take this from
whatever avenue you want.
What were some of the strugglesand trials and tribulations
from?
Rather maybe be the conceptualidea of like trying to figure
out what the heck you're doingwith tech, or maybe it's scaling
(06:52):
the business to now over300,000 users using this.
What was that journey like andwhat were some of the struggles
and headaches and pain points?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, it's a very helpful thing to not know
everything, starting blind Likeright, starting blind you don't
understand how challenging it'sgoing to be and you don't
understand the struggles thatlie in front of you.
And that's an asset, because ifyou did you would never get
(07:22):
started.
And so I didn't know what Ididn't know.
I didn't know how to build atech product, I didn't know the
first thing about how to codesoftware and I didn't know how
to design software and I didn'tknow about how to invent a new
software product, and so it waskind of all of these things we
(07:46):
kind of had to figure out as wewent.
And so when I first started, Ithought the difficult thing was
going to be the execution of thetechnology, and I thought that
that was going to be thechallenging piece of it.
And I thought, well, we don'tknow how to build software, but
if we can learn how to buildsoftware and we can just get an
MVP out there and just startimproving it, if we build it
they will come.
And it was actually if youbuild it, they will not come.
And so what I learned the hardway was is that actually the
(08:11):
building and execution of thetechnology is the easy part is
table stakes.
That is kind of your entryticket to the game.
The harder thing, and actuallylike 10 times or maybe even a
hundred times harder, is thedistribution and the, the um.
Putting the product in thehands of people when they need
(08:32):
it and making it completelyintuitive to use and and
seamless and frictionless forthem to use.
Um is is much.
It's a much harder thing and um, looking back it, it should
have been obvious, but it wasjust one of those things I had
to learn for myself and it'skind of like.
I'm from Nashville, tennessee, Igrew up in Nashville, and so
the parallels toentrepreneurship and tech
(08:55):
entrepreneurship to the musicbusiness are almost like exactly
the same.
So we get a hundred people aweek moving to Nashville and a
lot of them want to be like thenext big country music singer,
and so they think that the hardpart is like becoming a
songwriter and they think thatthe hard thing is being able to
(09:15):
play the guitar very well andsing at the same time and being
able to do that like on stageand being able to write your own
songs and being able to performwell.
Like that's the hard part.
And, and maybe, maybe the hardpart is getting a record deal or
or, aka venture capital.
And then they, they do all ofthat and then they realize
actually that was the easy part.
(09:36):
The hard thing is getting 100people to show up at your show
and and so entrepreneurship isno different.
Um, the idea, the initial, likeMVP, the initial beta product,
is table stakes.
That's the easy part of it.
The hard part of it is thedistribution, getting the
(09:57):
awareness around your product.
That's a hundred times harder.
And so you have to innovate,not only on the product, but you
have to innovate on thedistribution.
And so that was like thehardest lesson that we learned
in the first three years of thebusiness, because we were
learning how to code, we wereworking on ourselves, we were
learning how to build software,we were building the first
(10:17):
version of the platform, andthen it was crickets.
It was like pulling teeth, itwas passing out flyers, knocking
on doors, like meeting peopleat Starbucks, it was Craigslist,
cold calling.
It was all of that just to getour first like thousand users
and then like from a thousand toten thousand users.
It was no easier.
It was just grinding outcontent and just grinding out,
(10:39):
you know, just through trial anderror experiments, trying to
figure out how to get people touse this thing that we had built
.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I love this.
There's so many good things inhere and it's funny there's so
many parallels to real estate ofwhat you're saying with the
same stuff, where I think a lotof people think in our world
that it's like managing thebuilding is going to be so hard,
doing this is going to be sohard and it's not easy, but what
they find is finding a deal isactually the hard part.
Finding money to make thisthing work and going through
these crazy loops that's a wholedifferent challenge.
(11:08):
That was not expected, likeyou're saying, so I love that
you mentioned that.
And another thing that I justam so big on is the why not me.
Like you said, someone's goingto build this.
Why not me?
That positive mindset that Ican do this, I think is so
critical and it's probablyhelped.
I'm assuming that you had thatexit, that you built that
company.
You said, if I could do that, Ican do this, and I think that's
awesome.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yeah, I'll throw one thing in there.
The building and selling in myfirst business certainly gave me
the the the validation that Icould do it.
But it wasn't just that.
It was when I was running thatbusiness.
I was selling landscapingservices to high-end clients in
(11:52):
the town I grew up in, outsideof Nashville.
One thing I learned at a veryyoung age 18, 19, 20, 21, was
that the wealthiest people intown that could afford to spend
$20,000 a year on landscapingweren't any smarter than me,
weren't any smarter than smarterpeople that I knew that were
(12:13):
less successful.
They were just the people thatactually just went out and did
something and they went out andstarted a business.
They went out and started a drycleaning company or a
restaurant or an insurance salescompany or something.
They just like went all in onan idea and just grinded on that
thing.
They weren't actually any moretalented or smarter.
So this was an interestinglesson I learned at a really
(12:35):
young age was that thesuccessful people weren't
necessarily the smartest or themost talented.
The smartest or the mosttalented Then the other thing
that I saw was when I wasbuilding out my network of
like-minded small businessowners in the blue collar space
was this interesting thing ofthe blue collar millionaire
(12:55):
where it was like Johnny dumptruck with overalls it was worth
eight figures.
He was also going to real estateauctions, you know, by bidding
on, you know, single familyhomes to build out his little
rental property portfolio andpaying cash.
And you know you wouldn't thinkthis guy had two nickels to rub
(13:18):
together.
And so and he was supersuccessful because he worked
hard, he figured out one littlebusiness model, worked seven
days a week on it, wasrelentless about it and ran it
well and served his customerswell.
So these were interestinglessons that I learned, like in
the trenches running a bluecollar business.
That gave me the validation toknow that I kind of know these
(13:41):
fundamentals and I can kind offigure it out in the tech world,
if I can apply thesefundamentals to this other world
.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
So good, so good.
So let me ask you a follow upto that.
Then I've always heard that andwe're kind of a little bit
different of a business, so itdoesn't necessarily apply
exactly.
But I've heard the benchmarksthat you hit as you're scaling,
whether it's either of yourbusinesses.
It's, I believe, the onemillion, the five million, the
10, and it kind of keeps going.
Did you hit any of thosehurdles and or have any specific
(14:08):
challenges at those pieces thatkind of let you break through
or not?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, in both businesses, because my second
company, Green Pal, is doingmultiple, around $30 to $40
million a year in revenue, andso we want to be a nine-figure
business.
And so we're at kind of likemetaphorically like level six of
the video game, and what I'velearned is that this stuff is
(14:35):
like a video game that everylevel has its own dragon, its
own final boss that you have toslay, and the stuff that got you
through Waterworld won't helpyou beat Bowser, and so it's
like every level is different,and a lot of times the choke
point is you as the founder, andI've noticed this about myself.
(14:59):
It's like you're doing threethings at once.
You're working in the business,just trying to keep the damn
thing running, and then you'reworking on the business.
You're trying to build thesystems around what it is you're
doing.
And then the third thing isyou're working on yourself.
You are leveling up, you aregetting skills.
You may not have the title of,you know, AI expert, but you're
(15:24):
learning the 80 20 of how youcan implement AI and what you're
doing in your business.
And if you don't, you knowthat's a bottleneck in your
business.
And so to me it's like a lot oftimes I was the bottleneck as to
why we plateaued at 3 millionand we're trying to get to five,
or we were at five and tryingto get to 10.
It was it was I needed to kindof shore up where, where, where
(15:50):
I was lacking.
And then and then, once I gotlike 80, 20 good at whatever
that thing was, then I kind ofknew what it was I was looking
for to bring somebody in tofocus on that piece of the
business.
Anytime I try to like skip thatstep.
It's like, OK, well, I don'tknow, I don't know how to build
a sales engine, so I'm going togo hire somebody who did sales
(16:10):
for my competitor.
It's like, well, I didn't runthe sales process, so I don't
really know what the salesprocess should look like, but
I'm going to hope they do andhope it works out.
And like that never has workedout in 25 years of business for
me.
It's like I needed to like getin the trenches, roll up my
sleeves, get, get my hands dirty, do it.
Maybe do it half-assed, but atleast do it.
And then and then and then Iknow kind of what I'm looking
(16:32):
for for somebody to execute itbetter than what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I love that so much.
Cole and I, we go back andforth on this type of stuff all
the time.
It reminds me of this DanSullivan book, the who, not how,
but before you can go ahead andplace somebody in that how or
who position, right, we alwayslike to try to get our hands
dirty so we know exactly what itis that we don't want to do.
Right, we spend hours and hoursin one direction, just to kind
of like being in a maze.
(16:57):
Again, you made an amazingvideo game analogy.
I'm a huge gamer, I love it.
So, being in a maze and you goahead and end up and you stop
there, you're like damn, I can'tmove from that position.
I got to go back, rewind,figure out another path to be
able to get there.
And with that, one question Iwanted to ask you is when it
came to the marketing, you kindof talked about being boots on
the ground, going out literallyphysically handing out flyers.
(17:18):
At what point was it that yourealized what worked for
marketing, and how did that workfor you to be able to start
going from the whole 100 to athousand, from a thousand to
10,000?
Was it a certain thing that youwere missing or lacking, or was
it literally just the day inand day out?
Relentlessness of justconsistently handing out flyers.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah, so the it's really good question.
So the first thing is is Ithink the first like a hundred
sales, and whatever it is you'redoing, should be like belly to
belly, hand to hand, combat, youknow, hand closing, hand
pitching, hand concierge them on, even if you have a digital
(17:57):
product like GreenPPal, likeover the shoulder Starbucks,
here's how you sign up, becausethen you can see, you know you
close the gap on the you as thefounder, your logic and the
customer logic, because thecustomer is looking at what it
is you do from their perspectiveand you're looking at it from
the founder's perspective andlike, believe it or not, they're
(18:19):
totally different perspectives.
So you want to really get inthe trenches with them at the
kitchen table and use theproduct with them.
The first hundred, maybe eventhousand sales.
So that's important to knowwhat it is.
Your value proposition is whatproblems you're solving, what
their objections are, what theirinternal thought sequences are
(18:40):
when they're using your product,and then also what it is you're
selling, because what you thinkyou're selling is probably
different than what they'rebuying.
And so what I mean by that, whathappened with us was I thought
we were building a system thatwould deliver the cheapest way
to get a grass cutting service.
Because I was coming to theperspective from a contractor's
(19:02):
perspective.
I had ran a landscapingbusiness for 15 years, so I was
kind of jaded.
Every contractor in anyindustry thinks that every
customer just wants the cheapestprice, and so that's what I
thought.
And so I thought well, we canbuild this competitive system
where a homeowner can sign up,they can get five quotes for
lawn mowing.
They can hire the cheapest oneand they'll save five or $10 a
(19:25):
week and they'll be happy.
And so that's how we built thefirst version of the platform.
And so then we started passingout door hangers and meeting
with people and then gettingthem concierge onto the platform
.
And then, okay, I saw you hiredsomebody.
How did it go?
The thing we started noticing,looking at that and going
through those reps was actuallyno, it wasn't.
(19:47):
They didn't want the cheapest,they wanted somebody for a fair
price.
They just wanted the guy toshow up on the damn day he was
supposed to.
So it was actually reliabilityand speed, and push a button and
get it done was the valueproposition, and it didn't
matter if it was any cheaper.
Matter of fact, they might paya little more money to have the
(20:09):
convenience of.
Hey, I just I go to GreenPowcom,I pop my address in, I've got
five quotes.
I hire somebody.
I know they're going to bethere Thursday.
Versus I go to Yelp or Angie'sList or Facebook Marketplace I
still got to dial for dollars.
I still got to get quotes.
I got to call somebody and Ihope they show up and then they
ghost me, which happens likehalf the time, and so they will
(20:32):
spend $35 over here or maybe $40over here.
They're not looking for the $20solution to this problem.
They want the reliable, fastsolution to the problem.
So that saved us from wastingfive, ten years of building the
wrong thing by getting into thetrenches with our customer and
(20:52):
understanding that, ok, theyjust want, they want somebody
that's going to show up on timeand they want it done quickly.
And so that informed the copythat informed how the product
was designed.
It informed how the workflowsof what people do when they
interact with the product onboth sides, on the consumer side
and on the pro side.
So getting in the trenches andhand cranking your first hundred
(21:17):
or maybe even a thousand salesis important.
So then you know like you nailit, then you scale it, then you
know, okay, now I'm going tocreate an inbound kind of
strategy around what this corething it is that we do, cause I
know this works I've seen itwork a thousand times, cause
I've done it a thousand times,now I'm going to scale that and
(21:38):
create an inbound strategy.
So what we did is a contentmarketing strategy around every
lawn mowing service in everytown in America we started off
in Nashville, spent three yearsjust in Nashville and then
slowly began installing that inevery town in the country.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Awesome.
And there's two things thatyou're saying that I really want
to hit on One.
I like how you're emphasizingthe timelines, because I think a
lot of people listening to thisespecially people that are
thinking about doing a businessor growing they like to think it
happens overnight.
And we mentioned this a coupleof times and I love that.
You say we spent X amount ofyears in this place, then we
grew, then we spent X amount ofyears testing this out, because
(22:16):
it just takes time.
It's just the reality of growth.
So I love that we're hammeringthat.
Another thing I'm curious of isin that first kind of
bottleneck stage after, whenyou're going through this first
hundred or thousand sales andyou start to really see in
traction and then you need tojust start bringing people on.
What did you start with?
Who did you start?
(22:37):
As, like, the first couple ofhires, why did you start with
them?
And I asked this from somebodythat is in that position of like
, okay, I'm seeing traction, I'mdoing success, but how do I
grow?
I'm stuck.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, great question.
So.
So two parts to your earlierpoint.
I wish I could tell you Iapproached this from this like,
uh, like, uh, knowledgeable, uh,venerable, uh standpoint of oh,
this is just gonna take timeand we have to.
(23:09):
You know, like no dude, Ithought this was gonna take six
months.
I thought I thought, okay, Ijust sold this eight-figure
landscaping business.
I just sold this eight figurelandscaping business and and I,
and like I, conquered thatlittle mountaintop.
Now, now I want to, like, builda platform that is going to
serve thousands of people aminute and that should take six
(23:30):
months.
That's literally what I thought, and that took four years, and
so it wasn't.
It wasn't like I thought thatthat was how I should approach
it.
That was just the reality ofhow it unfolded for me, and what
kept me in the game and how Imanaged my own personal
psychology and how myco-founders did as well, is we
(23:53):
just made a decision, like apersonal decision, that, no
matter what, we were going towake up and work as hard as we
could on our best idea, and itjust so turned out like that was
my one good idea you shouldpush a button and somebody
should come mow your yard.
I don't have any other betterideas.
And so that helps with FOMO,like a lot of times, like you
know, it's like you see what'sgoing on with you, name it, you
(24:17):
know crypto or whatever, andit's like you know, well, did
you have that idea?
No, you didn't have that idea.
So you know you can't have FOMOaround that.
It's like I didn't have theseother ideas.
I had one good idea and so wejust spent a decade on that idea
and executed as hard as wecould.
Was that okay?
Well, you know what are thenumbers.
We have a hundred people usingit.
We got to get it to 500 people.
(24:45):
What are we going to do to growthat number?
Let's not worry about anythingelse.
And so that's how.
That's how it unfolded for us.
And, and and a lot of times youknow, at any business, at any
level, you're, you're wearingthe hat of capital allocator,
and so you got a little bit ofmoney coming in and you got to
(25:06):
figure out how you're going toput that money back out to work.
And you always got to figureout what is the highest and best
use of that capital, that moneythat that's going to help me
get to the next level.
And so when you start out,you're doing everything yourself
.
You're, you know you're writingthe content.
You're doing customer support,you know you're writing the code
(25:26):
and in my case, you're, you're,you're, you're doing the
outbound sales calls, you're,you're literally doing
everything yourself.
And then, as time goes on, youtry to figure out okay, I got a
little bit of money.
What is the thing that I know Ican, I can, I can package up
and put in somebody else's handsand almost like McDonald's-ize
(25:46):
it in a way that somebody elsecan execute it and follow.
My system makes $15 an hour andis going to do it much more
thoroughly and better workingyour system than you can.
But it literally took you 100hours to develop that system.
(26:20):
But that's leverage.
Ok, how do I, how do I use thelittle bit of money that I'm
making to put it out to work, toget some ROI and then package
that with with a system thatI've built with that as well?
It's not just as easy as callingup an agency and giving them
money.
That rarely, that rarely haspositive economics, and so
that's one of the fun thingsabout entrepreneurship.
You mentioned at the outset,like you know, the differences
(26:43):
in paths versus like a career incorporate America versus
entrepreneurship.
You know you don't have thesethings at your disposal and like
a linear career in corporateAmerica and entrepreneurship you
do.
You have this leverage that youcan create for your
organization, for yourself, interms of creating systems and
using, putting money behindthose systems to create more
(27:07):
revenue, and then thecompounding effect begins to
take place.
So you're always making thosebets and they really are bets
and you have to think of them asbets Like this stuff is not
chess, it's more like poker.
You don't have all theinformation on the board.
You really kind of you only havelimited information and so
(27:30):
you're making little bets tofigure out OK, is there any?
Is there any future with thislittle initiative?
Ok, that did show some signs oflife.
Let's put some more moneybehind it.
And if you can look at it likea game and you can look at it
like a video game, it can almostat times, if you squint be fun.
At least that's how I've gottenthrough some moments of it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh my gosh, everybody's listening all of our
viewers.
You know exactly what I'm goingto say now.
This is that point in the showwhere I'm like pause, stop,
rewind, play this entire thingall the way back, because Brian
has dropped so many gems, somany little trinkets of
knowledge.
It will help you immensely onyour journey in entrepreneurship
.
Now, before we dive into ournext segment, I've got another
(28:13):
question for you here.
You did the 15 years, sold thebusiness for eight figures
Awesome.
You're here in this role nowdoing GreenPail.
What does the future look like?
Because I mean, clearly, onceyou're done with something, you
get bored quickly and you'relike I'm on to the next one.
So bring us into your world.
What does it look like, ratherthan staying with GreenPel and
(28:33):
expanding that to who knowswhere?
Or maybe it's another project,but what are we thinking?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Yeah, one thing about the last business I ran was one
thing I didn't understand waswas that it was personally
fulfilling to me because I wasgrowing along with the company's
growth.
So if you're throwingeverything you have into a
project, into a business, onething you'll notice is, like
every year or two you become awhole new person and you'll
(29:01):
start noticing that like friendsyou grew up with or people you
went to high school or collegewith, that you hadn't seen in
like two or three years.
You don't even talk the same wayas they do anymore and you're
not even interested in the samemovies or or music or whatever,
like you're not interested indoing the same things that
they're interested in anymoreand you're like, you're like
leaving them behind.
It's kind of like one of thosesad things, but it's just part
(29:23):
of it, leaving them behind.
And it's kind of like one ofthose sad things, but it's just
part of it.
And and and what that means isthat you're you're evolving into
a whole new person every yearor two because you're challenged
by, by all sorts of pressurethat these other people aren't
exposed to, because they're notlike in the trenches running a
business, and so the the thingis like that's rewarding at a
like, like a human level, likelike that's rewarding at like a
(29:45):
human level, like I think that'slike rewarding and fulfilling
to you, and that was to me inthe first 15 years running my
first company.
What happened was was I kind ofplateaued on the company growth
and plateaued on the personalgrowth.
It wasn't like I conquered theworld or anything, but in my
little market of Nashville,tennessee, it was like the top
(30:07):
three biggest landscapingcompanies in the state, so it
was kind of like the next levelwas a weird place and I had
spent two or three yearsplateaued and that became
unsettling at a personal leveland that's what prompted me to
explore selling the company.
Navigating the exit of thatbusiness was challenging in and
(30:28):
of itself and so, in a weird way, when the business was acquired
I became almost like fascinatedwith it almost all over again.
So that was a strange thing.
But sold that Now.
Now all that's gone.
Then I had this yearning tostart another thing, start
(30:51):
another thing, and I think ifyou're giving it your all,
you're going to be alwaysfulfilled by that development.
And so my point is I haven'thit that plateau with GreenPow
yet, because I think technology,just the way it's oriented, is
that it's almost endless.
It's boundless in terms of thegrowth and expansion because it
can scale.
We're serving three, fourhundred thousand people.
(31:13):
That's several hundred thousandmore than I did in my last
business, but it's still a dropin the even began to.
I don't even know if I'mclimbing the right mountain.
So it's, it's like it's, it's,it's endless in terms of the
personal development and thepersonal challenges you're going
(31:33):
to face.
So so I think, so long as I'mintrigued by by that aspect of
it.
I won't grow tired of it.
Now, somebody comes alongtomorrow and offers us a billion
dollars for this business.
I'm not going.
I would take that and so and so.
It's like it's a balance of.
You know, do you enjoy runningit?
Do you enjoy, uh, getting outof bed in the morning and
(31:54):
working on the problems you'reworking on?
Versus what does the ultimate,like financial end goal look
like?
It's all?
There's always a balance there,but you know, for now I'm
decently good at it, I'm havingfun, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
intrigued by it.
I feel like I'm growingpersonally from it.
I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
So so good.
There's so many more questionsI want to ask you, but I think
it's time we hit our nextsegment.
Nate, you agree?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I agree, I think I think he's ready.
We got a surprise for you.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
All right, Brian, here's what we do.
Every episode, we ask everyguest the same six questions.
We call it our super six,whichever evolves.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
And so here we go.
What separates top performingentrepreneurs?
What separates top performingentrepreneurs from like
everybody else?
Okay, let's think about that.
I think your top performingentrepreneurs are always
paranoid about what theircustomers are thinking and what
they're thinking in terms ofwhat is it that my customers are
(32:59):
experiencing and what is myperception of what they're
experiencing is.
And so what I mean by that islike this show, undercover Boss.
It's always funny, like the CEOof whatever company, dunkin'
(33:19):
Donuts you throw them in like aDunkin' Donuts and he or she
doesn't know how to work thedonut fryer.
And it's like they don't knowthat all this weird stuff is
going on in stores becausethey've never even been in a
store, that all this weird stuffis going on in stores because
they've never even been in astore.
And so it's like you to closethat gap between what your
customers are experiencing andwhat, and what your perception
of that is, is you kind of haveto like do customer support, you
kind of need to like answer thephone at least an hour a week,
or something like that.
You kind of need to get in thetrenches, and, and so I think
(33:42):
your best entrepreneurs, even atthe outset, are always paranoid
about that and I think the waysto combat that is like in the
early days cell phone number orthe 1-800 number redirects to
your cell phone.
Support at yourbusinesscom goesto your email inbox.
It's like you're doingeverything yourself and then, as
time goes on, you manufactureyourself to be in the trenches,
(34:04):
to to be hands-on on thesethings.
That's one thing that I try todo.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So good.
What is a daily habit that'scontributed to your success?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I love that question.
I love the book Atomic Habitsand, and in the book he talks
about like we don't rise to thelevel of our goals, we fall back
to the level, talks about likewe don't rise to the level of
our goals, we fall back to thelevel, the level of our habits.
And so, and I think a lot oftimes like business success
equates to business habits, andand like what are the routines
(34:36):
of the business and what are thethings we're like grinding on
every day?
And so for us it's like goalsalmost don't matter and for us a
habit is, it's like we'realways looking at OK, one week
at a time, what is it we'retrying to do?
How many customers are we tryingto serve this week and how many
, how many pieces of content arewe trying to put out there this
(34:57):
week and how many you know howmany touch points, or how many,
or how many new cities we'retrying to launch, or whatever it
is we don't worry aboutanything else other than what
we're doing this week, and so Ithink for us a good habit is not
really worrying about the bigpicture too much, but really
what we're doing on a daily andweekly basis and then the
(35:21):
routines of coming into theoffice and getting those things
done and not just like wonderingwhat happened, is kind of like
how we hold ourselvesaccountable to do it.
I heard a good quote the otherday I think it was Tim Ferriss,
and he said and he might bequoting somebody else, but he
said in one of his podcasts wasthat it's easy to hide behind
(35:42):
changing the world.
That it's easy to hide behindchanging the world.
And so what he meant by thatwas like big, lofty goals with
no like really like minute, liketangible action plan, like it's
really easy to hide behind thatbecause months and years can go
by with no progress on it.
But it's not easy to hidebehind.
I'm going to cold call 100journalists today because this
(36:06):
week we have got to get some PRabout our launch in San Diego.
We just have to Like we'relaunching in San Diego.
We got to get to San Diegosometimes to cover the launch.
So I'm going to call a hundredjournalists every week, every
day this week, like you can'thide behind that.
Either you did that or you didnot.
And so the goal could be likewe're going to grow sales by 75%
(36:29):
this year.
Okay, what does that even mean?
It's like, okay, like what arewe doing this week?
And so that's, that's one oflike the habits, like the daily
routines, that that, I think, isgotten us from a hundred people
using it the several hundredthousand, so amazing.
(36:51):
What is a piece of advice thatyou would give to yourself if
you were starting again?
Oh, you know, I think we talkedabout it is that it just does
take a lot longer than you thinkit does, and that don't do
anything, that you're notwilling to give a decade to, and
so and and and.
On top of that, too, I gotextremely lucky with my
co-founders, and and.
(37:11):
So I think a piece of advice Iwould give cause I cause I
almost got unlucky there wasanother guy that I was going to
bring in that at the last minuteit didn't work out and he
didn't join the business.
Thank God he did it, becausethat probably would have been
detrimental to even getting thebusiness off the ground.
So so, when it comes to, like,getting started and then
co-founders, it's like don't doanything, you don't think you're
(37:33):
going to have the gas in thetank to do for 10 years.
And I don't mean to say thatlike just like ingest.
No, I mean like a decade.
To say that like just likeingest, I mean like a decade.
And then the other thing islike, as far as co-founders
don't start a business withanybody, that you wouldn't write
them a check for $10 million tostart the business with you day
one.
Oh, I don't have $10 million, sothat's not a big deal, Well
(37:55):
like let's just think, like okay, let's say you had, let's say
you had your last $10 million.
I'm going to strike you a checkfor $10 million to start this
business, because if you don'thave the confidence in that
person, or even the desire togive them that money, then don't
start a business with themBecause ultimately, that equity
is going to be worth much morethan $10 million.
(38:17):
You may raise a round offunding and dilute you by that.
Or you may want to go sell thebusiness for $30 or $40 million
and their equity is going todilute you by that.
Or you may want to go sell thebusiness for 30 or $40 million
and their equity is going to beworth more than that.
So go through that thoughtsequence of would I strike this
person a check for $10 million,start this business with me day
one.
If you wouldn't, then just goit alone.
That's not your business,soulmate.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Damn, that's good, oh my gosh.
So what is your favoritebusiness book?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Well, you know, I didn't start reading books about
business until I was like 32.
I wish I had started when I was18.
And so that was a mistake thatI made, but I still try to read
a book a month.
My favorite business book isstill I have not found a better
one is Seven Habits of HighlyEffective People, and it's not
(39:05):
necessarily a business book, butthere's a lot of lessons in
that book about leadership andjust being a more effective
person and being a moreeffective communicator and
living a more effective personallife.
So I try to read that book atleast once every couple of years
.
It's a big book, and if I don'tread it, I at least try to have
it on the background andaudible.
(39:26):
So that's my favorite book ingeneral, and I also apply it to
my business life.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Awesome.
What is your favorite part ofowning and running your business
?
Speaker 4 (39:37):
I think it's the ability to have like no, no
upside, like no unbounded upside, and what I mean by that is,
like we talked about earlierlike you work on a job, you
don't have the ability to createleverage for yourself.
You don't have the ability totake parts of your salary and
(39:58):
put them to work in your job andcreate like leverage and as a
fulcrum.
There you don't just can't dothat and and um, even if you're
self-employed, it's kind of hard.
I mean you kind of you can kindof do it, and most businesses
start off as being self-employed, but so part of being like part
of my favorite thing aboutbeing in business is is for
myself, is like this, this, thisrole of being a general, being
(40:22):
a capital allocator, seeingsomething in the world that does
not exist and bringing it tolife, and and then and then also
in a way like helping peoplethat get in the game with you,
get where they're trying to go.
So that's been a lot of fun.
You know a lot of, a lot of, alot of the fun of the last 25
years of me running businesseswas seeing like people that work
(40:46):
with me on the project likeliterally times make more money
than me, which was which wascool.
Or in my first business, like Iwould see like like people
rolling up to the to the shopwith new cars, and that was
always fun.
Or buying new houses that wasalways fun.
So there's all kinds of likepoints of fulfillment in life
(41:10):
that you're exposed to, runninga business that you would never
get.
You would never get likerunning a thing by yourself or
working a job.
So I think it's one of the mostenriching things you can do
with your life.
Now it does suck a lot of thetime, so it's like it's not
without its trade-offs.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Final question in this segment what is something
new that you've implementedthat's helped drive your success
?
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Well, you know, it just goes without saying, man.
You know, it's like thissteroid superpower that we have
with AI.
Now it's unbelievable how two,three years ago we would do so
much damn busy work trying totake massive amounts of messy
data and make sense of them orjust not do anything with it at
(41:58):
all.
Now we can take a messy pool ofdata some in spreadsheets, some
in docs, some in frickingpost-it notes you name it and
put it all together and makesense of it, and we can say, hey
, for some reason, in Portland,oregon and this zip code, our
(42:21):
sales are down.
And here's all the data.
Tell me why.
Okay, well, I've looked at itand here's 10 ideas.
Dude, that didn't exist.
Six months ago.
You would have to have a datascientist that made 500 grand a
year, pour over that for a week,and now you can literally dump
all of that into an LLM and itcan spit it back to you in a
(42:43):
couple of minutes.
And so I mean, what a what atime to be alive, what a time to
be an entrepreneur, and sothat's a lot of that's very
exciting for us, and at times itmakes me a little paranoid.
It's like, damn man, what'sfive years from now going to
look like, but for now it's likeit is pretty powerful but for
(43:05):
now it's like it is.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
it's pretty powerful, so cool.
Brian, this has been likephenomenal.
I don't say this lightly and myother guests are all gonna hate
me, but I think this was myfavorite episode of all time.
There's so many things that yousaid that I just absolutely
love, and it's so cool hearingyour story um, starting in lawn
care when you were young,putting so many years into this
building and scaling thatbusiness, and then selling it
and then realizing I need amission, I need a purpose, I
(43:27):
need a reason, like what's next?
And then you saying that whynot me?
Like, why not do this otherthing?
Let's try it?
And going through those levels.
I still keep thinking thatanalogy in my head the video
games, leveling up, defeatingthe boss, and the things we
talked about the bottlenecks,the nail it before you scale it.
So many wise words.
So thank you for coming on andI have two final questions for
(43:48):
you.
One, any final advice foranybody listening to this?
And two, where can people findyou?
Where can people get more info?
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Yeah, find me anywhere.
Find me on LinkedIn, google.
My name Brian Clayton.
Linkedin is the first thingthat pops up.
Find me on Instagramgreenpilecom, if you need
somebody to mow your yard, andthen you know final thoughts.
You know, at times I've alwaysthought like I have felt this
where it's like oh, I missedthat, it's too late.
Oh, you know, whatever it waswhen we were first getting
(44:21):
started, it was called the gigeconomy, and and and and and we
were starting in 2014 and peoplewere like, oh, you missed it,
it's too late.
And the reality is, it's likeit always gets bigger.
It always gets bigger Like thepool, the pie always gets bigger
.
And you didn't miss it.
Like it's not too late.
And, and you know, you look backon.
(44:42):
You look back on time.
Like like, google didn't didn'treally get rolling until like
2004.
And there was like a dozensearch engines until then for
like like 10 years.
And so it's like like, like it,it, it always gets bigger.
It's not too late.
Like, get in the game, getstarted now, because in five
years you'll be in a differentreality than you are now.
(45:05):
You'll be glad you did and ifyou believe software is going to
be around 100 years from now,which I think it will be, then
we're only in like year 20.
So it's not too late.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So good, so good.
Brian, this has been an honor,a pleasure, pleasure and a
privilege to have you on Forgedin Fire.
Our house is your housewhenever you want to come on
back after you create the next Idon't know five or six thousand
companies and you want to comeon back and fill us in and drop
some more knowledge, come on in,please.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
I'd love to guys let's do it, let's do it.
I'll check back in with youguys in six months or a year and
let you know what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, I can't wait.
Dude, it's going to be aphenomenal, and those that are
listening please get home safeIf you're traveling.
I hope that you guys enjoyedthis episode as much as Cole and
I did.
This has been phenomenal.
It's been a great learningexperience.
It's always great to be able tohear from such wise Everybody.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
please get home safe.
Take care.
We're looking forward to seeingyou all in the next episode of
Forged in Fire.
Leave us a review.
Your feedback helps us bringmore real world insights to
(46:23):
entrepreneurs like you.
Be sure to join us next timefor even more lessons, struggles
and breakthroughs on the roadto success.
Keep forging ahead.
Forget what you've heard.
Forged in Fire is where realentrepreneurs come to share the
untold truths of success thelate nights, the crushing
setbacks, the moments thatchange everything.
No fluff, just fire, ready tostep into the heat and unlock
(00:25):
what it really takes to build abusiness.
This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another
exciting episode of Forged inFire.
I'm your co-host, nate Farrin.
Again, allow me to introduce myco-host here, cole, how you
doing, brother, come on stage.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Hey, what's going on?
How was?
Your day so far.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Man, it's one of those days where I woke up this
morning and I looked at thecalendar and I've got things
from like I don't know 8 am tolike 8 pm and then somebody's
like, hey, can I also scheduleanother 8 pm meeting with you.
So you know, it's just likethat life, like the entrepreneur
, is like you know what YOLO,Somebody's got to do it, it's
got to get done.
(01:08):
But enough about me, man, howare you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I love it.
No same thing.
It's funny.
We were just recording anepisode recently and we were
talking about this theory of youknow you trajectory and that's
awesome.
Or you go entrepreneurship andyou have a very unlinear
(01:31):
projective and veryunpredictable, but you put the
work in up front and then itshould hockey stick in a perfect
world.
But there's a lot of those daysup front where you're
questioning everything you do,but it's part of the hustle.
So, all in all, things are good.
I am excited for this interview.
This is going to be one ofthose really exciting ones that
meshes that entrepreneurshipworld with the real estate stuff
.
So I have one thing to ask ofeveryone before we get started,
which is please, please, please,leave us a review.
This is what helps us grow,this is what helps us do these
(01:54):
episodes.
It helps us find more people.
So just one thing that wouldreally help us is please,
whenever you're listening on, goto comments, go to below and
just leave a review.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I love it.
Today is going to be amazing,dude.
I'm super excited.
We are going to be interviewingthe one and the only, brian
Clayton, who is the CEO ofGreenPal, and GreenPal has been
known to be called the Uber oflawn care.
I have zero idea what thatmeans, but we're going to find
out together.
So, brian, how are we doing?
Brother, come on stage, man.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Nate and Cole.
It's great to be here, guys.
Thanks for having me on yourshow.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, pleasure is all ours.
So please tell us a little bitabout yourself.
What got you here?
What brought you here?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, so, like you just said, I'm the CEO and
co-founder of GreenPow.
Greenpow is an app that workslike DoorDash or Instacart or
Uber, but for lawn mowingservices.
So if you own a home or you'rea real estate investor and you
have grass that's growingoutside, somebody's got to mow
it.
Rather than calling around onfacebook or google or something
like that, you just download ourapp, pop in your address and
(02:54):
someone comes out and mows theyard for you, and green pal's
been around about 10 years.
It's a 10-year overnightsuccess.
It's nationwide united statesnow.
So anywhere where you live in atown with over 20 or 30,000
people, you can use GreenPow toget lawn mowing done.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
That is so cool.
I have so many questions todive in there, so I want to dial
all the way to the beginningBefore we go into the nitty
gritty.
All the way at the beginningyou said a 10-year overnight
success and I love that you saidthat, because it is such a
funny thing.
So tell me about the journeyand just kind of it depends how
deep you want to go.
But what did it look like?
Why did you start this?
(03:32):
How did it start building?
Tell me more.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah.
So I think when you areinventing a new product, you're
building something from scratch,like we were doing when we
started GreenPow.
I think authenticity can be acompetitive advantage, so I was
solving my own problem.
My first business was a lawnmowing business.
I started mowing grass in highschool as a way to make extra
money and stuck with that lawnmowing business for 15 years,
(03:58):
growing it into a real company,eventually building it to about
150 people, and that businesswas acquired by a national
company in 2013.
So I guess the first act of myentrepreneurial journey was
building and scaling thatlandscaping company to eight
figures and then exiting it.
And after I did that, I wasgoing to just kind of live the
(04:23):
good life was my plan.
I did some real estateinvesting and my plan was just
to go sit on a beach and nothave to do the grind of
entrepreneurship anymore.
But that got boring reallyquick.
Things got existential.
I didn't have a purpose in mylife anymore and I didn't
realize that.
I didn't anticipate thathappening.
(04:44):
But I realized that I needed aproject.
I needed something to a mission, something to want me to get
out of bed early in the morningand continue to grow and
continue to try to achievethings.
And so I thought, well, maybe Ican start a tech company.
I just watched the movie theSocial Network.
(05:04):
That looked easy in that movie,so maybe I can do that.
And so I was very naive inthinking that I could become a
tech entrepreneur.
But I thought, well, somebody'sgoing to build the Uber of lawn
care Because at the time thiswas about 2013, uber was just
getting kind of popular and Ithought somebody's going to
build this, this for, for, forlandscaping services, so it
(05:28):
might as well be me.
And, uh, I told two friendsabout the idea and and we
started working on it, and we wedidn't, didn't know what the
hell we were doing, and and westarted learning how to code and
learning how to build softwareand teaching ourselves how to do
that.
And the first prototype took uslike two years to build, and we
slowly started getting a littlebit of customer feedback about
(05:50):
how to build this marketplacethat connected buyers and
sellers in this industry.
And so we started working onmaking the app better, making
ourselves better, making thebusiness better and, little by
little, making it easier to useand growing the user base to
where now around 300,000 peopleuse the app every week to get
lawn mowing done.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Dude, holy cow, I love this.
Hats off to you.
I mean, having the idea ofdoing like the 15 years of just
lawn care back then and thenselling it off.
That's the first hats off toyou.
Kudos to you on that.
That is a success in and ofitself.
But then realizing, afteryou're chilling on the beach,
investing in a few other things,that you're bored.
You're like you know what?
I need a new challenge, I needto do something else.
(06:32):
What can I possibly do?
Watched a movie, realized hey,you know what, somebody's going
to do this, it's going to be me.
And so you did it.
And so now fill me in, kind ofand you can take this from
whatever avenue you want.
What were some of the strugglesand trials and tribulations
from?
Rather maybe be the conceptualidea of like trying to figure
out what the heck you're doingwith tech, or maybe it's scaling
(06:52):
the business to now over300,000 users using this.
What was that journey like andwhat were some of the struggles
and headaches and pain points?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, it's a very helpful thing to not know
everything, starting blind Likeright, starting blind you don't
understand how challenging it'sgoing to be and you don't
understand the struggles thatlie in front of you.
And that's an asset, because ifyou did you would never get
(07:22):
started.
And so I didn't know what Ididn't know.
I didn't know how to build atech product, I didn't know the
first thing about how to codesoftware and I didn't know how
to design software and I didn'tknow about how to invent a new
software product, and so it waskind of all of these things we
(07:46):
kind of had to figure out as wewent.
And so when I first started, Ithought the difficult thing was
going to be the execution of thetechnology, and I thought that
that was going to be thechallenging piece of it.
And I thought, well, we don'tknow how to build software, but
if we can learn how to buildsoftware and we can just get an
MVP out there and just startimproving it, if we build it
they will come.
And it was actually if youbuild it, they will not come.
And so what I learned the hardway was is that actually the
(08:11):
building and execution of thetechnology is the easy part is
table stakes.
That is kind of your entryticket to the game.
The harder thing, and actuallylike 10 times or maybe even a
hundred times harder, is thedistribution and the, the um.
Putting the product in thehands of people when they need
(08:32):
it and making it completelyintuitive to use and and
seamless and frictionless forthem to use.
Um is is much.
It's a much harder thing and um, looking back it, it should
have been obvious, but it wasjust one of those things I had
to learn for myself and it'skind of like.
I'm from Nashville, tennessee, Igrew up in Nashville, and so
the parallels toentrepreneurship and tech
(08:55):
entrepreneurship to the musicbusiness are almost like exactly
the same.
So we get a hundred people aweek moving to Nashville and a
lot of them want to be like thenext big country music singer,
and so they think that the hardpart is like becoming a
songwriter and they think thatthe hard thing is being able to
(09:15):
play the guitar very well andsing at the same time and being
able to do that like on stageand being able to write your own
songs and being able to performwell.
Like that's the hard part.
And, and maybe, maybe the hardpart is getting a record deal or
or, aka venture capital.
And then they, they do all ofthat and then they realize
actually that was the easy part.
(09:36):
The hard thing is getting 100people to show up at your show
and and so entrepreneurship isno different.
Um, the idea, the initial, likeMVP, the initial beta product,
is table stakes.
That's the easy part of it.
The hard part of it is thedistribution, getting the
(09:57):
awareness around your product.
That's a hundred times harder.
And so you have to innovate,not only on the product, but you
have to innovate on thedistribution.
And so that was like thehardest lesson that we learned
in the first three years of thebusiness, because we were
learning how to code, we wereworking on ourselves, we were
learning how to build software,we were building the first
(10:17):
version of the platform, andthen it was crickets.
It was like pulling teeth, itwas passing out flyers, knocking
on doors, like meeting peopleat Starbucks, it was Craigslist,
cold calling.
It was all of that just to getour first like thousand users
and then like from a thousand toten thousand users.
It was no easier.
It was just grinding outcontent and just grinding out,
(10:39):
you know, just through trial anderror experiments, trying to
figure out how to get people touse this thing that we had built
.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I love this.
There's so many good things inhere and it's funny there's so
many parallels to real estate ofwhat you're saying with the
same stuff, where I think a lotof people think in our world
that it's like managing thebuilding is going to be so hard,
doing this is going to be sohard and it's not easy, but what
they find is finding a deal isactually the hard part.
Finding money to make thisthing work and going through
these crazy loops that's a wholedifferent challenge.
(11:08):
That was not expected, likeyou're saying, so I love that
you mentioned that.
And another thing that I justam so big on is the why not me.
Like you said, someone's goingto build this.
Why not me?
That positive mindset that Ican do this, I think is so
critical and it's probablyhelped.
I'm assuming that you had thatexit, that you built that
company.
You said, if I could do that, Ican do this, and I think that's
awesome.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yeah, I'll throw one thing in there.
The building and selling in myfirst business certainly gave me
the the the validation that Icould do it.
But it wasn't just that.
It was when I was running thatbusiness.
I was selling landscapingservices to high-end clients in
(11:52):
the town I grew up in, outsideof Nashville.
One thing I learned at a veryyoung age 18, 19, 20, 21, was
that the wealthiest people intown that could afford to spend
$20,000 a year on landscapingweren't any smarter than me,
weren't any smarter than smarterpeople that I knew that were
(12:13):
less successful.
They were just the people thatactually just went out and did
something and they went out andstarted a business.
They went out and started a drycleaning company or a
restaurant or an insurance salescompany or something.
They just like went all in onan idea and just grinded on that
thing.
They weren't actually any moretalented or smarter.
So this was an interestinglesson I learned at a really
(12:35):
young age was that thesuccessful people weren't
necessarily the smartest or themost talented.
The smartest or the mosttalented Then the other thing
that I saw was when I wasbuilding out my network of
like-minded small businessowners in the blue collar space
was this interesting thing ofthe blue collar millionaire
(12:55):
where it was like Johnny dumptruck with overalls it was worth
eight figures.
He was also going to real estateauctions, you know, by bidding
on, you know, single familyhomes to build out his little
rental property portfolio andpaying cash.
And you know you wouldn't thinkthis guy had two nickels to rub
(13:18):
together.
And so and he was supersuccessful because he worked
hard, he figured out one littlebusiness model, worked seven
days a week on it, wasrelentless about it and ran it
well and served his customerswell.
So these were interestinglessons that I learned, like in
the trenches running a bluecollar business.
That gave me the validation toknow that I kind of know these
(13:41):
fundamentals and I can kind offigure it out in the tech world,
if I can apply thesefundamentals to this other world
.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
So good, so good.
So let me ask you a follow upto that.
Then I've always heard that andwe're kind of a little bit
different of a business, so itdoesn't necessarily apply
exactly.
But I've heard the benchmarksthat you hit as you're scaling,
whether it's either of yourbusinesses.
It's, I believe, the onemillion, the five million, the
10, and it kind of keeps going.
Did you hit any of thosehurdles and or have any specific
(14:08):
challenges at those pieces thatkind of let you break through
or not?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, in both businesses, because my second
company, Green Pal, is doingmultiple, around $30 to $40
million a year in revenue, andso we want to be a nine-figure
business.
And so we're at kind of likemetaphorically like level six of
the video game, and what I'velearned is that this stuff is
(14:35):
like a video game that everylevel has its own dragon, its
own final boss that you have toslay, and the stuff that got you
through Waterworld won't helpyou beat Bowser, and so it's
like every level is different,and a lot of times the choke
point is you as the founder, andI've noticed this about myself.
(14:59):
It's like you're doing threethings at once.
You're working in the business,just trying to keep the damn
thing running, and then you'reworking on the business.
You're trying to build thesystems around what it is you're
doing.
And then the third thing isyou're working on yourself.
You are leveling up, you aregetting skills.
You may not have the title of,you know, AI expert, but you're
(15:24):
learning the 80 20 of how youcan implement AI and what you're
doing in your business.
And if you don't, you knowthat's a bottleneck in your
business.
And so to me it's like a lot oftimes I was the bottleneck as to
why we plateaued at 3 millionand we're trying to get to five,
or we were at five and tryingto get to 10.
It was it was I needed to kindof shore up where, where, where
(15:50):
I was lacking.
And then and then, once I gotlike 80, 20 good at whatever
that thing was, then I kind ofknew what it was I was looking
for to bring somebody in tofocus on that piece of the
business.
Anytime I try to like skip thatstep.
It's like, OK, well, I don'tknow, I don't know how to build
a sales engine, so I'm going togo hire somebody who did sales
(16:10):
for my competitor.
It's like, well, I didn't runthe sales process, so I don't
really know what the salesprocess should look like, but
I'm going to hope they do andhope it works out.
And like that never has workedout in 25 years of business for
me.
It's like I needed to like getin the trenches, roll up my
sleeves, get, get my hands dirty, do it.
Maybe do it half-assed, but atleast do it.
And then and then and then Iknow kind of what I'm looking
(16:32):
for for somebody to execute itbetter than what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I love that so much.
Cole and I, we go back andforth on this type of stuff all
the time.
It reminds me of this DanSullivan book, the who, not how,
but before you can go ahead andplace somebody in that how or
who position, right, we alwayslike to try to get our hands
dirty so we know exactly what itis that we don't want to do.
Right, we spend hours and hoursin one direction, just to kind
of like being in a maze.
(16:57):
Again, you made an amazingvideo game analogy.
I'm a huge gamer, I love it.
So, being in a maze and you goahead and end up and you stop
there, you're like damn, I can'tmove from that position.
I got to go back, rewind,figure out another path to be
able to get there.
And with that, one question Iwanted to ask you is when it
came to the marketing, you kindof talked about being boots on
the ground, going out literallyphysically handing out flyers.
(17:18):
At what point was it that yourealized what worked for
marketing, and how did that workfor you to be able to start
going from the whole 100 to athousand, from a thousand to
10,000?
Was it a certain thing that youwere missing or lacking, or was
it literally just the day inand day out?
Relentlessness of justconsistently handing out flyers.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah, so the it's really good question.
So the first thing is is Ithink the first like a hundred
sales, and whatever it is you'redoing, should be like belly to
belly, hand to hand, combat, youknow, hand closing, hand
pitching, hand concierge them on, even if you have a digital
(17:57):
product like GreenPPal, likeover the shoulder Starbucks,
here's how you sign up, becausethen you can see, you know you
close the gap on the you as thefounder, your logic and the
customer logic, because thecustomer is looking at what it
is you do from their perspectiveand you're looking at it from
the founder's perspective andlike, believe it or not, they're
(18:19):
totally different perspectives.
So you want to really get inthe trenches with them at the
kitchen table and use theproduct with them.
The first hundred, maybe eventhousand sales.
So that's important to knowwhat it is.
Your value proposition is whatproblems you're solving, what
their objections are, what theirinternal thought sequences are
(18:40):
when they're using your product,and then also what it is you're
selling, because what you thinkyou're selling is probably
different than what they'rebuying.
And so what I mean by that, whathappened with us was I thought
we were building a system thatwould deliver the cheapest way
to get a grass cutting service.
Because I was coming to theperspective from a contractor's
(19:02):
perspective.
I had ran a landscapingbusiness for 15 years, so I was
kind of jaded.
Every contractor in anyindustry thinks that every
customer just wants the cheapestprice, and so that's what I
thought.
And so I thought well, we canbuild this competitive system
where a homeowner can sign up,they can get five quotes for
lawn mowing.
They can hire the cheapest oneand they'll save five or $10 a
(19:25):
week and they'll be happy.
And so that's how we built thefirst version of the platform.
And so then we started passingout door hangers and meeting
with people and then gettingthem concierge onto the platform
.
And then, okay, I saw you hiredsomebody.
How did it go?
The thing we started noticing,looking at that and going
through those reps was actuallyno, it wasn't.
(19:47):
They didn't want the cheapest,they wanted somebody for a fair
price.
They just wanted the guy toshow up on the damn day he was
supposed to.
So it was actually reliabilityand speed, and push a button and
get it done was the valueproposition, and it didn't
matter if it was any cheaper.
Matter of fact, they might paya little more money to have the
(20:09):
convenience of.
Hey, I just I go to GreenPowcom,I pop my address in, I've got
five quotes.
I hire somebody.
I know they're going to bethere Thursday.
Versus I go to Yelp or Angie'sList or Facebook Marketplace I
still got to dial for dollars.
I still got to get quotes.
I got to call somebody and Ihope they show up and then they
ghost me, which happens likehalf the time, and so they will
(20:32):
spend $35 over here or maybe $40over here.
They're not looking for the $20solution to this problem.
They want the reliable, fastsolution to the problem.
So that saved us from wastingfive, ten years of building the
wrong thing by getting into thetrenches with our customer and
(20:52):
understanding that, ok, theyjust want, they want somebody
that's going to show up on timeand they want it done quickly.
And so that informed the copythat informed how the product
was designed.
It informed how the workflowsof what people do when they
interact with the product onboth sides, on the consumer side
and on the pro side.
So getting in the trenches andhand cranking your first hundred
(21:17):
or maybe even a thousand salesis important.
So then you know like you nailit, then you scale it, then you
know, okay, now I'm going tocreate an inbound kind of
strategy around what this corething it is that we do, cause I
know this works I've seen itwork a thousand times, cause
I've done it a thousand times,now I'm going to scale that and
(21:38):
create an inbound strategy.
So what we did is a contentmarketing strategy around every
lawn mowing service in everytown in America we started off
in Nashville, spent three yearsjust in Nashville and then
slowly began installing that inevery town in the country.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Awesome.
And there's two things thatyou're saying that I really want
to hit on One.
I like how you're emphasizingthe timelines, because I think a
lot of people listening to thisespecially people that are
thinking about doing a businessor growing they like to think it
happens overnight.
And we mentioned this a coupleof times and I love that.
You say we spent X amount ofyears in this place, then we
grew, then we spent X amount ofyears testing this out, because
(22:16):
it just takes time.
It's just the reality of growth.
So I love that we're hammeringthat.
Another thing I'm curious of isin that first kind of
bottleneck stage after, whenyou're going through this first
hundred or thousand sales andyou start to really see in
traction and then you need tojust start bringing people on.
What did you start with?
Who did you start?
(22:37):
As, like, the first couple ofhires, why did you start with
them?
And I asked this from somebodythat is in that position of like
, okay, I'm seeing traction, I'mdoing success, but how do I
grow?
I'm stuck.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, great question.
So.
So two parts to your earlierpoint.
I wish I could tell you Iapproached this from this like,
uh, like, uh, knowledgeable, uh,venerable, uh standpoint of oh,
this is just gonna take timeand we have to.
(23:09):
You know, like no dude, Ithought this was gonna take six
months.
I thought I thought, okay, Ijust sold this eight-figure
landscaping business.
I just sold this eight figurelandscaping business and and I,
and like I, conquered thatlittle mountaintop.
Now, now I want to, like, builda platform that is going to
serve thousands of people aminute and that should take six
(23:30):
months.
That's literally what I thought, and that took four years, and
so it wasn't.
It wasn't like I thought thatthat was how I should approach
it.
That was just the reality ofhow it unfolded for me, and what
kept me in the game and how Imanaged my own personal
psychology and how myco-founders did as well, is we
(23:53):
just made a decision, like apersonal decision, that, no
matter what, we were going towake up and work as hard as we
could on our best idea, and itjust so turned out like that was
my one good idea you shouldpush a button and somebody
should come mow your yard.
I don't have any other betterideas.
And so that helps with FOMO,like a lot of times, like you
know, it's like you see what'sgoing on with you, name it, you
(24:17):
know crypto or whatever, andit's like you know, well, did
you have that idea?
No, you didn't have that idea.
So you know you can't have FOMOaround that.
It's like I didn't have theseother ideas.
I had one good idea and so wejust spent a decade on that idea
and executed as hard as wecould.
Was that okay?
Well, you know what are thenumbers.
We have a hundred people usingit.
We got to get it to 500 people.
(24:45):
What are we going to do to growthat number?
Let's not worry about anythingelse.
And so that's how.
That's how it unfolded for us.
And, and and a lot of times youknow, at any business, at any
level, you're, you're wearingthe hat of capital allocator,
and so you got a little bit ofmoney coming in and you got to
(25:06):
figure out how you're going toput that money back out to work.
And you always got to figureout what is the highest and best
use of that capital, that moneythat that's going to help me
get to the next level.
And so when you start out,you're doing everything yourself
.
You're, you know you're writingthe content.
You're doing customer support,you know you're writing the code
(25:26):
and in my case, you're, you're,you're, you're doing the
outbound sales calls, you're,you're literally doing
everything yourself.
And then, as time goes on, youtry to figure out okay, I got a
little bit of money.
What is the thing that I know Ican, I can, I can package up
and put in somebody else's handsand almost like McDonald's-ize
(25:46):
it in a way that somebody elsecan execute it and follow.
My system makes $15 an hour andis going to do it much more
thoroughly and better workingyour system than you can.
But it literally took you 100hours to develop that system.
(26:20):
But that's leverage.
Ok, how do I, how do I use thelittle bit of money that I'm
making to put it out to work, toget some ROI and then package
that with with a system thatI've built with that as well?
It's not just as easy as callingup an agency and giving them
money.
That rarely, that rarely haspositive economics, and so
that's one of the fun thingsabout entrepreneurship.
You mentioned at the outset,like you know, the differences
(26:43):
in paths versus like a career incorporate America versus
entrepreneurship.
You know you don't have thesethings at your disposal and like
a linear career in corporateAmerica and entrepreneurship you
do.
You have this leverage that youcan create for your
organization, for yourself, interms of creating systems and
using, putting money behindthose systems to create more
(27:07):
revenue, and then thecompounding effect begins to
take place.
So you're always making thosebets and they really are bets
and you have to think of them asbets Like this stuff is not
chess, it's more like poker.
You don't have all theinformation on the board.
You really kind of you only havelimited information and so
(27:30):
you're making little bets tofigure out OK, is there any?
Is there any future with thislittle initiative?
Ok, that did show some signs oflife.
Let's put some more moneybehind it.
And if you can look at it likea game and you can look at it
like a video game, it can almostat times, if you squint be fun.
At least that's how I've gottenthrough some moments of it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh my gosh, everybody's listening all of our
viewers.
You know exactly what I'm goingto say now.
This is that point in the showwhere I'm like pause, stop,
rewind, play this entire thingall the way back, because Brian
has dropped so many gems, somany little trinkets of
knowledge.
It will help you immensely onyour journey in entrepreneurship
.
Now, before we dive into ournext segment, I've got another
(28:13):
question for you here.
You did the 15 years, sold thebusiness for eight figures
Awesome.
You're here in this role nowdoing GreenPail.
What does the future look like?
Because I mean, clearly, onceyou're done with something, you
get bored quickly and you'relike I'm on to the next one.
So bring us into your world.
What does it look like, ratherthan staying with GreenPel and
(28:33):
expanding that to who knowswhere?
Or maybe it's another project,but what are we thinking?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Yeah, one thing about the last business I ran was one
thing I didn't understand waswas that it was personally
fulfilling to me because I wasgrowing along with the company's
growth.
So if you're throwingeverything you have into a
project, into a business, onething you'll notice is, like
every year or two you become awhole new person and you'll
(29:01):
start noticing that like friendsyou grew up with or people you
went to high school or collegewith, that you hadn't seen in
like two or three years.
You don't even talk the same wayas they do anymore and you're
not even interested in the samemovies or or music or whatever,
like you're not interested indoing the same things that
they're interested in anymoreand you're like, you're like
leaving them behind.
It's kind of like one of thosesad things, but it's just part
(29:23):
of it, leaving them behind.
And it's kind of like one ofthose sad things, but it's just
part of it.
And and and what that means isthat you're you're evolving into
a whole new person every yearor two because you're challenged
by, by all sorts of pressurethat these other people aren't
exposed to, because they're notlike in the trenches running a
business, and so the the thingis like that's rewarding at a
like, like a human level, likelike that's rewarding at like a
(29:45):
human level, like I think that'slike rewarding and fulfilling
to you, and that was to me inthe first 15 years running my
first company.
What happened was was I kind ofplateaued on the company growth
and plateaued on the personalgrowth.
It wasn't like I conquered theworld or anything, but in my
little market of Nashville,tennessee, it was like the top
(30:07):
three biggest landscapingcompanies in the state, so it
was kind of like the next levelwas a weird place and I had
spent two or three yearsplateaued and that became
unsettling at a personal leveland that's what prompted me to
explore selling the company.
Navigating the exit of thatbusiness was challenging in and
(30:28):
of itself and so, in a weird way, when the business was acquired
I became almost like fascinatedwith it almost all over again.
So that was a strange thing.
But sold that Now.
Now all that's gone.
Then I had this yearning tostart another thing, start
(30:51):
another thing, and I think ifyou're giving it your all,
you're going to be alwaysfulfilled by that development.
And so my point is I haven'thit that plateau with GreenPow
yet, because I think technology,just the way it's oriented, is
that it's almost endless.
It's boundless in terms of thegrowth and expansion because it
can scale.
We're serving three, fourhundred thousand people.
(31:13):
That's several hundred thousandmore than I did in my last
business, but it's still a dropin the even began to.
I don't even know if I'mclimbing the right mountain.
So it's, it's like it's, it's,it's endless in terms of the
personal development and thepersonal challenges you're going
(31:33):
to face.
So so I think, so long as I'mintrigued by by that aspect of
it.
I won't grow tired of it.
Now, somebody comes alongtomorrow and offers us a billion
dollars for this business.
I'm not going.
I would take that and so and so.
It's like it's a balance of.
You know, do you enjoy runningit?
Do you enjoy, uh, getting outof bed in the morning and
(31:54):
working on the problems you'reworking on?
Versus what does the ultimate,like financial end goal look
like?
It's all?
There's always a balance there,but you know, for now I'm
decently good at it, I'm havingfun, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
intrigued by it.
I feel like I'm growingpersonally from it.
I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
So so good.
There's so many more questionsI want to ask you, but I think
it's time we hit our nextsegment.
Nate, you agree?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I agree, I think I think he's ready.
We got a surprise for you.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
All right, Brian, here's what we do.
Every episode, we ask everyguest the same six questions.
We call it our super six,whichever evolves.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
And so here we go.
What separates top performingentrepreneurs?
What separates top performingentrepreneurs from like
everybody else?
Okay, let's think about that.
I think your top performingentrepreneurs are always
paranoid about what theircustomers are thinking and what
they're thinking in terms ofwhat is it that my customers are
(32:59):
experiencing and what is myperception of what they're
experiencing is.
And so what I mean by that islike this show, undercover Boss.
It's always funny, like the CEOof whatever company, dunkin'
(33:19):
Donuts you throw them in like aDunkin' Donuts and he or she
doesn't know how to work thedonut fryer.
And it's like they don't knowthat all this weird stuff is
going on in stores becausethey've never even been in a
store, that all this weird stuffis going on in stores because
they've never even been in astore.
And so it's like you to closethat gap between what your
customers are experiencing andwhat, and what your perception
of that is, is you kind of haveto like do customer support, you
kind of need to like answer thephone at least an hour a week,
or something like that.
You kind of need to get in thetrenches, and, and so I think
(33:42):
your best entrepreneurs, even atthe outset, are always paranoid
about that and I think the waysto combat that is like in the
early days cell phone number orthe 1-800 number redirects to
your cell phone.
Support at yourbusinesscom goesto your email inbox.
It's like you're doingeverything yourself and then, as
time goes on, you manufactureyourself to be in the trenches,
(34:04):
to to be hands-on on thesethings.
That's one thing that I try todo.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So good.
What is a daily habit that'scontributed to your success?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I love that question.
I love the book Atomic Habitsand, and in the book he talks
about like we don't rise to thelevel of our goals, we fall back
to the level, talks about likewe don't rise to the level of
our goals, we fall back to thelevel, the level of our habits.
And so, and I think a lot oftimes like business success
equates to business habits, andand like what are the routines
(34:36):
of the business and what are thethings we're like grinding on
every day?
And so for us it's like goalsalmost don't matter and for us a
habit is, it's like we'realways looking at OK, one week
at a time, what is it we'retrying to do?
How many customers are we tryingto serve this week and how many
, how many pieces of content arewe trying to put out there this
(34:57):
week and how many you know howmany touch points, or how many,
or how many new cities we'retrying to launch, or whatever it
is we don't worry aboutanything else other than what
we're doing this week, and so Ithink for us a good habit is not
really worrying about the bigpicture too much, but really
what we're doing on a daily andweekly basis and then the
(35:21):
routines of coming into theoffice and getting those things
done and not just like wonderingwhat happened, is kind of like
how we hold ourselvesaccountable to do it.
I heard a good quote the otherday I think it was Tim Ferriss,
and he said and he might bequoting somebody else, but he
said in one of his podcasts wasthat it's easy to hide behind
(35:42):
changing the world.
That it's easy to hide behindchanging the world.
And so what he meant by thatwas like big, lofty goals with
no like really like minute, liketangible action plan, like it's
really easy to hide behind thatbecause months and years can go
by with no progress on it.
But it's not easy to hidebehind.
I'm going to cold call 100journalists today because this
(36:06):
week we have got to get some PRabout our launch in San Diego.
We just have to Like we'relaunching in San Diego.
We got to get to San Diegosometimes to cover the launch.
So I'm going to call a hundredjournalists every week, every
day this week, like you can'thide behind that.
Either you did that or you didnot.
And so the goal could be likewe're going to grow sales by 75%
(36:29):
this year.
Okay, what does that even mean?
It's like, okay, like what arewe doing this week?
And so that's, that's one oflike the habits, like the daily
routines, that that, I think, isgotten us from a hundred people
using it the several hundredthousand, so amazing.
(36:51):
What is a piece of advice thatyou would give to yourself if
you were starting again?
Oh, you know, I think we talkedabout it is that it just does
take a lot longer than you thinkit does, and that don't do
anything, that you're notwilling to give a decade to, and
so and and and.
On top of that, too, I gotextremely lucky with my
co-founders, and and.
(37:11):
So I think a piece of advice Iwould give cause I cause I
almost got unlucky there wasanother guy that I was going to
bring in that at the last minuteit didn't work out and he
didn't join the business.
Thank God he did it, becausethat probably would have been
detrimental to even getting thebusiness off the ground.
So so, when it comes to, like,getting started and then
co-founders, it's like don't doanything, you don't think you're
(37:33):
going to have the gas in thetank to do for 10 years.
And I don't mean to say thatlike just like ingest.
No, I mean like a decade.
To say that like just likeingest, I mean like a decade.
And then the other thing islike, as far as co-founders
don't start a business withanybody, that you wouldn't write
them a check for $10 million tostart the business with you day
one.
Oh, I don't have $10 million, sothat's not a big deal, Well
(37:55):
like let's just think, like okay, let's say you had, let's say
you had your last $10 million.
I'm going to strike you a checkfor $10 million to start this
business, because if you don'thave the confidence in that
person, or even the desire togive them that money, then don't
start a business with themBecause ultimately, that equity
is going to be worth much morethan $10 million.
(38:17):
You may raise a round offunding and dilute you by that.
Or you may want to go sell thebusiness for $30 or $40 million
and their equity is going todilute you by that.
Or you may want to go sell thebusiness for 30 or $40 million
and their equity is going to beworth more than that.
So go through that thoughtsequence of would I strike this
person a check for $10 million,start this business with me day
one.
If you wouldn't, then just goit alone.
That's not your business,soulmate.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Damn, that's good, oh my gosh.
So what is your favoritebusiness book?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Well, you know, I didn't start reading books about
business until I was like 32.
I wish I had started when I was18.
And so that was a mistake thatI made, but I still try to read
a book a month.
My favorite business book isstill I have not found a better
one is Seven Habits of HighlyEffective People, and it's not
(39:05):
necessarily a business book, butthere's a lot of lessons in
that book about leadership andjust being a more effective
person and being a moreeffective communicator and
living a more effective personallife.
So I try to read that book atleast once every couple of years
.
It's a big book, and if I don'tread it, I at least try to have
it on the background andaudible.
(39:26):
So that's my favorite book ingeneral, and I also apply it to
my business life.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Awesome.
What is your favorite part ofowning and running your business
?
Speaker 4 (39:37):
I think it's the ability to have like no, no
upside, like no unbounded upside, and what I mean by that is,
like we talked about earlierlike you work on a job, you
don't have the ability to createleverage for yourself.
You don't have the ability totake parts of your salary and
(39:58):
put them to work in your job andcreate like leverage and as a
fulcrum.
There you don't just can't dothat and and um, even if you're
self-employed, it's kind of hard.
I mean you kind of you can kindof do it, and most businesses
start off as being self-employed, but so part of being like part
of my favorite thing aboutbeing in business is is for
myself, is like this, this, thisrole of being a general, being
(40:22):
a capital allocator, seeingsomething in the world that does
not exist and bringing it tolife, and and then and then also
in a way like helping peoplethat get in the game with you,
get where they're trying to go.
So that's been a lot of fun.
You know a lot of, a lot of, alot of the fun of the last 25
years of me running businesseswas seeing like people that work
(40:46):
with me on the project likeliterally times make more money
than me, which was which wascool.
Or in my first business, like Iwould see like like people
rolling up to the to the shopwith new cars, and that was
always fun.
Or buying new houses that wasalways fun.
So there's all kinds of likepoints of fulfillment in life
(41:10):
that you're exposed to, runninga business that you would never
get.
You would never get likerunning a thing by yourself or
working a job.
So I think it's one of the mostenriching things you can do
with your life.
Now it does suck a lot of thetime, so it's like it's not
without its trade-offs.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Final question in this segment what is something
new that you've implementedthat's helped drive your success
?
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Well, you know, it just goes without saying, man.
You know, it's like thissteroid superpower that we have
with AI.
Now it's unbelievable how two,three years ago we would do so
much damn busy work trying totake massive amounts of messy
data and make sense of them orjust not do anything with it at
(41:58):
all.
Now we can take a messy pool ofdata some in spreadsheets, some
in docs, some in frickingpost-it notes you name it and
put it all together and makesense of it, and we can say, hey
, for some reason, in Portland,oregon and this zip code, our
(42:21):
sales are down.
And here's all the data.
Tell me why.
Okay, well, I've looked at itand here's 10 ideas.
Dude, that didn't exist.
Six months ago.
You would have to have a datascientist that made 500 grand a
year, pour over that for a week,and now you can literally dump
all of that into an LLM and itcan spit it back to you in a
(42:43):
couple of minutes.
And so I mean, what a what atime to be alive, what a time to
be an entrepreneur, and sothat's a lot of that's very
exciting for us, and at times itmakes me a little paranoid.
It's like, damn man, what'sfive years from now going to
look like, but for now it's likeit is pretty powerful but for
(43:05):
now it's like it is.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
it's pretty powerful, so cool.
Brian, this has been likephenomenal.
I don't say this lightly and myother guests are all gonna hate
me, but I think this was myfavorite episode of all time.
There's so many things that yousaid that I just absolutely
love, and it's so cool hearingyour story um, starting in lawn
care when you were young,putting so many years into this
building and scaling thatbusiness, and then selling it
and then realizing I need amission, I need a purpose, I
(43:27):
need a reason, like what's next?
And then you saying that whynot me?
Like, why not do this otherthing?
Let's try it?
And going through those levels.
I still keep thinking thatanalogy in my head the video
games, leveling up, defeatingthe boss, and the things we
talked about the bottlenecks,the nail it before you scale it.
So many wise words.
So thank you for coming on andI have two final questions for
(43:48):
you.
One, any final advice foranybody listening to this?
And two, where can people findyou?
Where can people get more info?
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Yeah, find me anywhere.
Find me on LinkedIn, google.
My name Brian Clayton.
Linkedin is the first thingthat pops up.
Find me on Instagramgreenpilecom, if you need
somebody to mow your yard, andthen you know final thoughts.
You know, at times I've alwaysthought like I have felt this
where it's like oh, I missedthat, it's too late.
Oh, you know, whatever it waswhen we were first getting
(44:21):
started, it was called the gigeconomy, and and and and and we
were starting in 2014 and peoplewere like, oh, you missed it,
it's too late.
And the reality is, it's likeit always gets bigger.
It always gets bigger Like thepool, the pie always gets bigger
.
And you didn't miss it.
Like it's not too late.
And, and you know, you look backon.
(44:42):
You look back on time.
Like like, google didn't didn'treally get rolling until like
2004.
And there was like a dozensearch engines until then for
like like 10 years.
And so it's like like, like it,it, it always gets bigger.
It's not too late.
Like, get in the game, getstarted now, because in five
years you'll be in a differentreality than you are now.
(45:05):
You'll be glad you did and ifyou believe software is going to
be around 100 years from now,which I think it will be, then
we're only in like year 20.
So it's not too late.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So good, so good.
Brian, this has been an honor,a pleasure, pleasure and a
privilege to have you on Forgedin Fire.
Our house is your housewhenever you want to come on
back after you create the next Idon't know five or six thousand
companies and you want to comeon back and fill us in and drop
some more knowledge, come on in,please.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
I'd love to guys let's do it, let's do it.
I'll check back in with youguys in six months or a year and
let you know what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Oh, I can't wait.
Dude, it's going to be aphenomenal, and those that are
listening please get home safeIf you're traveling.
I hope that you guys enjoyedthis episode as much as Cole and
I did.
This has been phenomenal.
It's been a great learningexperience.
It's always great to be able tohear from such wise Everybody.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
please get home safe.
Take care.
We're looking forward to seeingyou all in the next episode of
Forged in Fire.
Leave us a review.
Your feedback helps us bringmore real world insights to
(46:23):
entrepreneurs like you.
Be sure to join us next timefor even more lessons, struggles
and breakthroughs on the roadto success.
Keep forging ahead.
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