#220 Buy vs. Build: Start or Acquire Your First Business?

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John and Jack dive into one of the most common questions in home services: Should you buy a business or build one from scratch? Focusing on HVAC and plumbing companies, they break down the pros and cons of each path—sharing real-world insights on risk management, startup challenges, and acquisition strategy. Whether you're eyeing your first location or expanding your footprint, this episode helps frame the decision around your skills, experience, and resources.

They cover everything from interest rates and international contracting to the realities of marketing and cultural fit in small business ownership. While John and Jack don’t always agree, they align on this: success in HVAC and plumbing comes from understanding your strengths, knowing your limits, and being in the game. This is a must-listen for anyone serious about growing in the trades.

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👤 Hosted by:
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Jack Carr 

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Initial Thoughts on Buy or Build
• 0:32 Casual Banter and Podcast Dynamics
• 2:19 Deep Dive into Buy vs. Build in HVAC and Plumbing
• 19:26 The Risks and Rewards of Starting a Business
• 20:45 The Reality of Business Success Rates
• 30:06 Navigating High Interest Rates and Market Trends

Transcript

220 Transcript

Jack Carr: [00:00:00] The one that I do get a lot question is buy or build. Oh, yeah. Specifically in HVAC and, and plumbing. I, I still live by the motto of It's better to be in the game than not at all. As long as you're, yeah. As long as you're doing some risk mitigation. Yeah. That if you can just get in the game, you can change your life and win.

John Wilson: Which right now, interest rates is a. Thing on acquisitions. I'm not all geared up on deals.

Jack Carr: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm going on. John, go. Let's do it. Should we 

John Wilson: Standing podcast? 

Jack Carr: I'm b around way too much for a standing podcast. Just so much room for activities in this room too. Yeah, there is. 

John Wilson: There is all, all of 

Jack Carr: Jack acquisitions is done standing. 

John Wilson: Really? 

Jack Carr: Yeah. I have a standing desk and I stand behind and do that just because I, I can't sit this long, that long.

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm very excited for today's episode. 

John Wilson: Okay, [00:01:00] 

Jack Carr: so this is a question that I get all the time. From who? Random people. It's like random dms. Yeah, random dms. A lot of times. You got much more. I'm the people's champ, John. I actually 

John Wilson: think that's 

Jack Carr: right. 40 million means something to me. I'm gonna get a T-shirt.

John, John m t-shirts, 40 mim 40,000,008. Shit. 

John Wilson: I would wear that as a hat, actually, 

Jack Carr: honestly, I might come with, I would wear that hat. I'm gonna pay a graphic designer to come up with something cool for that. Yeah, no, I, I would wear that. I was looking for something like, do you, do you, was, did you come up with that closer tee?

No, no. Someone else did that. Yeah, because I like that too. I was like, damn, man, that's kind of, no, it's fresh. 

John Wilson: It's it's, dude, it's so good. I've got a hat. He got me socks. It was awesome. That's what I'm talking about. I, I won't say as brand new, we're, you know. Yeah. He's gotta come on the show for that to 

Jack Carr: to be thing.

Yeah. Yeah. But point being is that swag was, was legit. I was like, dude, I like. Coffees for clothes has already taken, like everybody knows that one. Oh, I have that cup. Yeah. Love it. [00:02:00] I'm just saying like some, some cool 40 million shit owned and operated swag that has some and like I'm not at 40 because they're all, these are bus.

But it ain't shit. It ain't shit. It ain't shit when you get there. Maybe it will be, but we'll see. 

John Wilson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll 

Jack Carr: let you, you let me know. I'll 

John Wilson: let you know. 

Jack Carr: Literally in about 12 months. There you go. It's no secret that my office here in Nashville is almost completely empty. So how do I support my team as well as have great growth metrics?

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Quick staffers can help you cut that overhead, boost conversions, and [00:03:00] scale your business fast. So don't waste another lead. Visit quick staffers.com and transform your business today. But, uh, the one that I do get a lot question is. Buy or build. Oh, yeah. Specifically in HVAC and, and plumbing. It's like, Hey, I'm, I'm, it's either, and I want to kind of put this category together, even though I, I definitely have some thoughts on it.

Uh, I even say like, buying really, really small, like a one man or two man shop. I'm just gonna put that with the build side. Okay. Or yeah, build side, because starting up a company from zero and buying a two man shop, same thing. Almost the same thing unless there's some really extenuating circumstances. So I bought that size of a business and the only thing I'll say that the benefit of that was that my phone was ringing day one, like, but I.

The reason I bought that business was 'cause it was the only HVAC company in a suburb. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jack Carr: So we had complete market domination. [00:04:00] The guy wasn't running the business well at all and he just happened to dumb luck. Fall into Yeah. Doing a few right things, but for most companies, I think it's built. 

John Wilson: I am going to, I'm gonna toss you a quote.

Okay. You ready? Well, LeBron in action there. Um, football catch. When assets are expensive, but build assets. Mm-hmm. So that's not my quote stole from somebody else, but if shit's expensive, which right now interest rates is a thing on acquisitions, like, I'm not all geared up on deals right now. Uh, I think that's also like, I don't want the hassle.

So, you know, I'm coming at this conversation from, yeah. A deal sounds really annoying. Like I'm gonna spend a lot of time fucking around, maybe find a deal that's still a piece of shit, probably. Yeah. And I have to fix it and make it a real business versus like I can take less [00:05:00] money and just go launch one.

So I think my perspective is not great because I would bias towards build, but I also probably have more resources and knowhow than the average human being about to launch a plumbing company. 

Jack Carr: And that's the hard part is because. I, I still live by the motto of, it's better to be in the game than not at all.

As long as you're Yeah. Kind as long as you're doing some risk mitigation because I think there's, there's enough opportunity on the whole Yeah. That if you can just get in the game, you can change your life and win. Uh, there's few instances where it's not, and then those are the terrible stories that we never hear.

Yep. Uh, but that's like the mitigation there is like, don't buy construction. Don't buy construction. Yeah. 

John Wilson: Literally stop. No, you need to stop. Those are the only dm. Those are the only dms I get. Yeah. You get all like the, Hey man, love you. You're really cool. I get Well, you're one of the people 40 millionish shit to you.

And I get the, Hey man, so I'm gonna buy a new construction. Uh, and I'm like, dude, just stop. Let's stop. [00:06:00] 

Jack Carr: Yeah. Most of mine though, you know, it's somebody who's picking up like a four man plumbing shop. And they're service only. And I'm like, yeah, let's look at the numbers and then go through the deal with them and see if it's good or it's bad or whatever.

But like that's the vast majority of what I'm getting. So I have like two calls this week for two different, one is a franchise. It might also because I be, because they don't look at my dms. Could be that John opens up his demon's like, well, there they all are. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. 

John Wilson: But like in my defense, you know, it, everyone's either trying to sell me like an AI automation or like.

Some guy keeps pinging me on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. That this one I do open. 'cause it's just like, it's happened enough that I'm like, what's this guy about? He's trying to sell me steel. Fucking I-beams. Yes. I'm like, what? 

Jack Carr: Yes. What 

John Wilson: am I gonna do with this? 

Jack Carr: My, my favorite is when I get the, the dms are, hi John, and I'm like, oh my gosh.

Oh, you're not instant block. Oh, that daggers of the heart. Wrong [00:07:00] one. You piece of shit. But point is, is like. I do believe that they're, that, you're right. I, I think that both of our ideas here are actually not mutually exclusive in the sense that when you, when you actually own a business, buying a business can be more distracting and can cause more things to break, can cause more things to be messed up.

So it's easier to take the cash flow you have and invest it in growth initiatives versus investing in. A business that's gonna break your systems, it's going to ruin your life for six months. The CEO that you hire in the business is gonna quit, and then you have to go and run it. Like all of the, the Well, are we 

John Wilson: talking 

Jack Carr: about 

John Wilson: this as a new entrepreneur or like adding more shit to your existing business?

Jack Carr: No, no, no. I'm saying, I'm saying that like you mentioned, like, Hey, I, it just sounds like a lot. Yes. But when you're new getting in, yeah. It sounds like a lot, but that's kinda the point, right? Yeah. When you're new and you have, you're full of piston vinegar from. Your W2 and you just want to own it yourself.

Like, I remember the days when that, that like, I'm, I woke up and I was like, [00:08:00] I'm ready to deal with the, the shit storming day. Like, oh, I have to run calls on the weekend. Who cares? It's, it's all building for me. And now it's a little different just because now I have systems in place that I don't run weekend work.

So if I have to run weekend work, it's like, why? Mm-hmm. So that's what I mean is, is I think there's an expectation at the beginning of dealing with the craziness that comes with buying a business. Versus your perspective now is like buying a business Sounds like a headache. 'cause it is. 

John Wilson: Yeah. I mean the biggest headache is cultural.

Yeah. Which I think you're gonna have that in my uh uh, like if I did it or you did it as a new entrepreneur. Like it is cultural. Like in the business you bought the guy quit. Yeah. Rich as business. The guy quit. So like that's cultural. That's a cultural problem. And that's what sounds like a pain in the balls to me.

Uh, so I would rather. I, I'll, I'll start this a different way. 'cause I, it's, it's almost all people, like my tolerance mm-hmm. For bullshit [00:09:00] is so fucking low at this point. Uh, like I got a, I got a, yeah. Very low tolerance for bullshit, like in basically any part of my life. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: So if I have to deal with something that's like very clearly bullshit.

Like it, it'll just stop. Yeah, right there. That is it. No time. No time. Yeah. So like if I walked into an acquisition, it was a four person and I started to like sense bullshit, we would fire the whole team immediately. Like I just don't have the patience for him. So building is attractive because you can pick the team you work with and that I emphasize a lot 'cause I wanna pick the humans, I wanna, I wanna make sure we get along.

I wanna not have a cultural issue that's annoying. Wanna like provide a good thing. 

Jack Carr: So you're a hundred percent right. 'cause that's where I was going with it, is my general advice when I, when I go through this and I said on acquisitions anonymous, is I said I would pick, build over, buy for my personality and or, or [00:10:00] buy versus build for my personality, because I'm operationally minded, I can run.

At calls if I need to, I can do operations if I need to. I can do marketing a little bit if I need to, I can run the entire business myself. That being said, there's different individuals with different characteristics, right? So a lot of times what we see, or what I see is the people who are trying to build actually don't have a background as a technician or don't have a background.

As somebody who can be technical. And so what they do is then they go, they're great at marketing. They're the amazing marketer. They're SEO geniuses, whatever the case may be, and they, they partner up with someone who's supposed to be their operational partner, and that person is just terrible. Nine times outta 10, they fail because it's just, it's a bad partnership and they feel stuck because you can't fire that person because you don't, you're not able to do the technical side.

So how do you bring in somebody fast enough who's willing to take that risk with you? Mm-hmm. On the technical build side. Um, [00:11:00] and so it's really difficult versus, uh, what we see a lot and what actually works a lot in the early stages of the build is like, Hey, I'm a technician. I'm going out on my own. Be I getting kicked in the face from a business, running a business point of view, like, oh, what's insurance?

What's, what's workers' comp? Why do I have to do this, this, and this? HR violations, what are you talking about? But, um. At least they can run the bus, like the, the labor portion of the business. Now they just have to figure out how to get those jobs. And so it's this weird like, which personality type are you?

What, what is your skillset? Yeah. Because I think this person can easily, the, uh, and for people listening, the person who's the technician can get to that 1 million mark, right? Because they can do it by themself, maybe with one other helper. Yeah. But the person who is, um, marketing oriented can't because they.

They can't run the call. Yeah. And if that person sucks that they're partnering with, they are in a bad spot. 

John Wilson: Does that make sense? [00:12:00] I think it does. I think you should zoom out a little bit. So if I launched, uh, I, I corporate 

Jack Carr: spoke, didn't I? Zoom out? Yeah, I think that's accurate. That's, that's not corporate speak.

That's corporate. It's corporate speak. Dammit. We're being told it's corporate speak. Dammit. I thought you were the fun guy. What's the, what's the criteria? Thought I 

John Wilson: was too, thought I was too. But apparently I'm a, 

Jack Carr: you know, Jack, you're too close to this situation. 

John Wilson: I, I'm, my ankles are out. How corporate could I be?

Jack Carr: Like literally both ankles. So much ankle. So little time. Yeah. 

John Wilson: Alright, so, uh, I think you get a zoom out. Okay. And I didn't hear it if I was launching and, and I think this is what people should be aiming at. Obviously I've been in this trade my whole life, so like a little bit different, but I think you can shortcut it a little bit.

If, if I was launching a new, uh, plumbing business. Mm-hmm. And like, this is what we're actively talking about. So like new location, we're kind of leaning towards build. 'cause it sounds much easier, um, [00:13:00] than buy. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that we've been big fans of service scalers.

One of the things that they just dropped that we are really excited about is a pay lead program. So what they help you do is they help you directly gain access to leads and scale up your lead partner program. Go to service scalers.com and say we sent you so, uh, I think it would succeed for a, well, it would succeed for a number of reasons.

None of them having to do with me personally. Running the water heater calls. So I think if, yes, the marketing is important, but I, the way I thought about this before, this was like 10 years ago. Mm-hmm. Uh, I was explaining to my dad, I was in the field, I was a plumber at the time, and I, I wanted to transition my role to the office, which was a big deal because there was like six total people in the company.

So like, one more person of overhead is a lot, wasn't, it's a lot, you know, and I didn't [00:14:00] appreciate that as much as I do now, but like. That was a, that was a big deal. And uh, I can understand like his hesitation, and I remember at that time, I'm sure I was reading some book, but I was like a 23-year-old fuck punk.

And, and I, I was reciting to him, you know, a man that had run a business for 40 years more than I had. I. Uh, like the different stages of a business and why they mattered. And it's fun to, it's fun to look at yourself. 10 years later, Jack and Daddy's 

Jack Carr: a 40, he's a 40 year better player. He's like, what are you, oh, my son.

What did, where did that go wrong? I 

John Wilson: know, I know. So, um, but, uh, um, like a business is like eight things. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: And only one of them is the thing that we do. Like only, so out of the eight things that a new plumbing company would need, maybe only one of those is actually plumbing. And the other [00:15:00] eight is like, what's hiring, like what's leads like, what's sales like?

Yeah. But in 

Jack Carr: the build, I, I agree with you, but like in the build phase, when you're zero to a hundred thousand. None of that. Like hiring, doesn't matter. You gotta hire your first couple techs. You do have to hire your first couple techs, but if you don't have cash flow coming in, how do you hire your first couple techs?

John Wilson: Yeah. I think we should have specified how much resources we're starting 

Jack Carr: from. Yeah. 'cause so, so I think like the average person that's starting. You're getting the dm. It's not me. If you say, I mean, if you say, I'm gonna go out and buy a million dollar business, SP is gonna say, what? 10% down. So that's a hundred thousand.

So you say a hundred thousand to buy a business that's a million dollars. Yeah. Or a hundred thousand to start a business like the startup costs on a plumbing business alone. And then you have to take into a factor. Okay. Who, who the build profile is. Right? Because the other side to it is, yes, you're right.

Like there's a decent portion that are other things, but. [00:16:00] Licensure and who's like, are you a plumber or are you not a plumber? That's, I think, the first place to start because if you are a plumber, great, you can go get the license, you can, and then I think you're a hundred percent right, like I say, if you are in that trade or you at least have enough, um, experience in a very, very similar trade, like facilities maintenance.

But even there, I'd be very wary. Um, but something of the sort then like, yeah. Go you. You're there, you go hire a marketing team. You go hire, you know, resources to go hire these couple teams. But if you are an MBA right out of Wharton, and you need to start, you have your a hundred K, you wanna go start a business, first thing you have to do is find somebody who's gonna hold that license for you.

Mm-hmm. Right? And then even if that person is holding the license but doesn't want to run plumbing calls, now you have to go find and hire your first person. Meanwhile, your cash expenditure is just dwindling. Right. So my, my thing is depend like who are you, [00:17:00] what's your skillset? And making sure that, and this actually applies to buying too, like when you're buying, if your skillset is lending you to be more operational, you can buy a smaller company like I did, like, I'm, I'm not gonna say stay away from a 1.5 million comp company, but if your skillset is marketing, stay away.

Your skillset is, finance needs to be two to 3 million. Like we talked about on another podcast, you know, CFO doesn't matter until you're 10, 15 million. It's like, what as a CFO position are you gonna do at a $3 million H HVAC company? Mm-hmm. The answer is really little, like, very little strategy. 'cause you're fighting buyers.

John Wilson: There's nothing Yeah. There's nothing to be strategic about. 

Jack Carr: You see what I'm saying? So that, that's what my wonder is, is, is I, I don't know if there's an answer to this. I think the answer is like, what's your skillset? And resources. And resources, yeah. So in your example, because I think a hundred thousand.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. You're just, let's play this out, 

John Wilson: I guess. Like [00:18:00] what, what I struggle with and have for years. Um, I don't,

I'm going to my perspective. Yeah, I did. I bought a business because I, the trade was different. 

Jack Carr: Mm-hmm. 

John Wilson: And it used to be the way that you made the most money 10 years ago was you launched a business. That's not really the way it works anymore. And I don't really understand like the, I don't understand why people in today's environment are launching businesses when as a technician.

You can go make 200 plus. Yeah. Like that's insane. Do you have any like, I know you know, but like mm-hmm. It's gonna take someone years to replicate [00:19:00] that income owning your own business. That's not like, oh yeah, I got there immediately. No, that's like five years. Yeah. So like you're gonna lose a million dollars of take home income that you would've made W2 for basically pride.

Lots of headaches and lots of headache and it's lot. It's insane. I, I, so, so your example, well, I know what the answer is. 

Jack Carr: Your example was a hundred 

John Wilson: thousand and I was like, why would anyone like in, in my scenario? Yeah. If that's the resources you're starting with, you should not start a business like I think that you can, if you're a plumber here at Wilson or electrician or hvac, like sales install.

You can make a hundred, you can make 150, you can make 200, you can make up to $300,000. Like we have guys clearing that. Why would you ever, I'll tell you, take all the risk. I'll tell you for Jack shit reward. 

Jack Carr: So I mean, as someone who did that, I'll tell you the reason 'cause it doesn't make sense because we, we were bringing home on a W2.

I'm, I'm more than forthright with this. We were bringing home [00:20:00] over 250,000. We were in California, so that means a lot less. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jack Carr: So that's minimum wage, especially in Napa. Like I, I mean, it was trouble getting gas, but um, point being is like we were making good six figures at 28 years old. 27 years old, like you're right there.

There is a path where this individual, you could go work at W2, you could go save a percentage of that into the s and p 500 every year, and you can be a millionaire by 50 55, right? That time horizon gives you enough time with proper investment to actually be really wealthy by the time you're in your fifties, right?

The reason that you take the moonshot is 'cause you're trying to speed up that time horizon. There is a real case for a lot of people. I shouldn't say a lot of people, excuse me, should rephrase this and be very careful. There is a real shot where there's a reality in somebody buying a $1 million business top line business, so 200,000 in EBITDA business, and then in five years selling that for 10 million or 15 million, 

John Wilson: [00:21:00] what, what percent chance 

Jack Carr: there's a, there's a more percent chance than it working at a W2.

So if it's 10, 15, 20% your risk appetite, 

John Wilson: 10. You think that's 10%? You think there's a 10% chance? 

Jack Carr: I mean, I think that I'm, I think there's like 

John Wilson: a 0.01. I mean, 

Jack Carr: my 

John Wilson: time horizon on just like pull up the chart of like size of businesses. It's like 0.01 isn't like we can, the date let's, we can find the data. 

Jack Carr: Let's, let's, let's 

John Wilson: redo this.

I'm like, bro, 

Jack Carr: there's no fucking chance. If you bought a $2 million business and you doubled it every year for five years, who's got the skillset to do that? I'm doing it. Yeah. I don't think I'm a amazing operator. I think that I put myself in a position where I can talk to, I. See, I don't even wanna inflate your head here, but I could talk to Mediocrely.

Good. Other operators go on podcasts with them. I know a guy in Ohio and, and [00:22:00] argue with them about why I'm right, why he's wrong, and then somehow that makes me a better human. That's great. Um, seems to work so far. Uh, but point B is like, I think I, whatever that percentage, a 1% chance, there is a moonshot chance and I think it happens and we hear about it more, right.

We don't, we get the survivor bias on this as well. So like, don't get me wrong, there's huge survivor bias of people who actually win and who actually do well. That's the, the people we hear of, we hear of the Tommy Meows, the Wilsons, the, the rapid responses. See with, 

John Wilson: I'm gonna insert myself here. 'cause with Tommy, Tommy also had an incredible team.

I. That did get rich at his time of exit. That's true. So I, I think that like, there's pathway, that's my argument here. Yeah. Is I don't think that you should ever just like, go work for, for some random fucking company. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: I think as a tech, as a, as a leader, you can be an entrepreneur within an organization with none of the risk.

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: Like when eventually [00:23:00] our business will transact 

Jack Carr: mm-hmm. 

John Wilson: When that happens, a lot of people are gonna make a lot of money. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: And like. That's a much higher chance of success with like zero risk than, so 

Jack Carr: the risk 

John Wilson: is different. Something 

Jack Carr: and start D. Right, so the risk is like, it's not personal risk in the sense that, but there is time risk, there's opportunity risk, career risk, the sense that, right.

I'm owning my own journey. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jack Carr: In this sense, all those people that have worked with you since you were a $2 million plumbing cove who are still here, like they took huge chances to work with John Wilson rather than 

John Wilson: Yes. 

Jack Carr: Joe Schmo, who's still $3 million. Right. Right. So, and out of, do we wanna talk about percentages?

Out of every business that you could work at, that you would actually go from 2 million to 40 million in eight years. Like very, very few companies do that. Agreed. That was 

John Wilson: my argument. Two minutes. 

Jack Carr: It was your argument two minutes ago. And so to tie yourself to that business and to say, put in 2, 3, 4, or five years of time to then it stall out, or to never sell, or to never get the opportunity to make money through it, but [00:24:00] as, as a 

John Wilson: technician, the ones that are likely to launch their own.

Mm-hmm. So my example was for leaders. Yeah. So, you know, for leaders, like we're working on a mechanism where our senior leaders are rewarded at the time of whatever our, yeah. We wanna go raise and go keep growing. So, and we want our, our leaders to win, like at that point and then beyond. Yeah. But for techs, you can just make 200 grand.

Like 200 grand is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's more money than most owners make for the first 10 years Yep. Of their business. And it's risk free and you can make it, it agreed almost anywhere. Yeah. So I, yeah, I really struggle. So we, we had one person leave last year, and I love him and he's awesome.

And, um, I, I still don't understand the math because he was earning a lot. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. The math, the math is, is that he's really good at it. He thinks he can go out and do it himself. Yeah. And succeed. And then in 10 years, eight years, five years, whatever your time horizon is, that's less than. The [00:25:00] W2 path that you can sell for $10 million, right?

You make 10 million. Honestly, most people, if they're making four or five, $6 million, right? I think it's much more likely it sells for one, if most way more likely. Way more likely. It's six for under one. Yeah. I 

John Wilson: think we're, yeah, I think we're, I think that's the issue I have with this. Like, yeah, we can launch it.

We'll sell for 10 million. Like probably not, I mean, you might be able to build something that could sell for 1 million bucks or like maybe two, but. Yeah. So to sell for 4 million, even to sell for 4 million, $1 million is $300,000 of net at three times. Yeah. That's a good multiple. And it's gonna take 'em a decade to get there.

Jack Carr: Yeah, well maybe, maybe. NFI listens to owned and operated podcast. Tune in every Friday, owned and operating.com. Uh. But yeah, no, I don't disagree with you. I think that it's, it's a risk profile thing and somebody who is trusting in themselves goes and takes that risk. Yeah. And buys something that they think that they can flip at a [00:26:00] hundred thousand.

John Wilson: Well, and and my argument is if a hundred thousand is the pool of funds you're working with, yeah. You need to go back to work like, ouch. Figure out a better pool of resources because you have a real risk of bankruptcy there that is just unnecessary. I don't disagree with that. And like if you went and worked with.

Again, if I, if I, John Am launching a plumbing company in Columbus tomorrow mm-hmm. Non Wilson, like, you know, Jack's plumbing, it would win. Yeah. And I, because I know how to hire techs, I know how to drive leads. Yep. We, we know how to run a plumbing company, so go figure out how to run a plumbing company, like go work with one for a couple years, make a ton of money doing it.

Then maybe figure it out with like 300 grand at your disposal. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. Save up a little bit more. 

John Wilson: Definitely. Yeah. I feel like a hundred is like literally too small of a number. 

Jack Carr: Yeah. 

John Wilson: I mean, now granted I'm not desperate, so maybe if someone's in up feeling emotionally desperate, yeah. It would be a different math.

Jack Carr: [00:27:00] Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't disagree with anything that I think either of us has said. I just think that the point, um, of why and where and when is kind of, not me justifying it, but me just explaining why that behind. The reasoning is that there's this moonshot, at least maybe I'm just speaking from my personal experiences, like that's my way for generational wealth and I can hit it by the time I'm 40.

Like I don't have to wait till 50. I don't have to wait till 55. I don't have to wait till 65 to retire. Like I will have my retirement where I can pull $250,000 a year at my 4% or whatever the fire people do. And like I don't put any money into retirement accounts. Like all my money goes back into.

Investing in the business. Mm-hmm. And so I burn the ships. I turn, I, I, John, you're gonna love this. I put 90 K into my business, so not even 190. So, uh, you can too if you follow and operated. But, um, the reason at the end, and I said this on, on acquiring mines, the reason it wasn't [00:28:00] acquisition anonymous as acquiring mines.

I wrong podcast. Sorry for, sorry, will Smith earlier mess up. Um, but. The reason that I did it and why I keep coming back to this, like who, who are you are as a person is when I came out and bought the business, I was not a marketing guy. Like I didn't know the first thing about SEO or PPC in the first five years 

John Wilson: of my career, I didn't know Yeah.

Anything. I said the same thing. And so when we can probably find podcasts where I'm like, oh, I don't know anything 

Jack Carr: about 

John Wilson: marketing, 

Jack Carr: and now I feel like I'm like pretty good. I, I feel like I'm better than the average. Yeah. Even agency at some point you have to be, and that's the thing. And it's crazy, but the reason that I.

I'm happy was because I didn't know marketing. I bought the business. Everybody quit on me. But I was like, well, I guess I'm just gonna go run calls. Ran calls, made it work. 'cause that was my background. Yeah. And marketing. Just the phone just kept ringing. The phone kept ringing. People kept calling to getting work like naturally.

That suited my skillset really well. And then after I was able to like get away from this and hire, I can then go figure out this. [00:29:00] Yeah. But if I didn't have this and I built. Then all of a sudden, everybody quit on me when I built, like phone's not ringing and I'm not really learning or running calls, so now I'm just screwed.

John Wilson: Yeah, 

Jack Carr: going to zero. 

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Jack Carr: Yeah. That, that's where my kind of thinking is. In 2025, I will say that interest rates suck. 

John Wilson: Oh yeah. Definitely mean RBA loans is like 10% right now. 

Jack Carr: 10%.

John Wilson: Yeah. Fuck. I think I'm at like 9%. And on top of that, like the market is still a, like this market is still hot. Super hot. Yeah. It will be interesting. Um, we have not been looking at all, like, I'm not even really trying to look for deals. Uh, it will be interesting to see in the next like two years. I feel like it's hitting fever pitch, right?

Like it's gotta slow down. On the one hand, we don't want it to, oh, let's just say on the one hand, I actually don't want it to value's high, but 

Jack Carr: yeah. Yeah, I think, I don't think it's going to slow down. And the reason why is that comment we made about all everybody's job was gonna be a plumber in three years.

Because as AI eats up different jobs. The ones that are safe and the safe [00:31:00] investments are hands-on. Hmm. My thinking maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Honestly, I hope not. I don't want everybody to lose their jobs and become plumbers, but makes labor market easier for us. 

John Wilson: Yeah. What I think, what I think is, uh, I think it, it reminds me a bit of like gold rush 

Jack Carr: Airbnb rush or.

Bitcoin started 2016 or, yeah, so we have meme coins. Well, 

John Wilson: it's like in what position do you want to take, 

Jack Carr: yeah. 

John Wilson: Because we're, you and I are in an interesting position, I think because we are, we are actively digging for gold. We're prospectors, but we're also like, we run the trains that get the shovels.

Yeah. To the prospectors. So people sponsor the show, they sell the shovels. Running those trains. So I feel like it's just an interesting spot to be, because we're sort of like, [00:32:00] as it as the market continues to grow and as more people are like, oh my gosh, you can get rich being a plumber and like all this other stuff, it the, yeah, it's just, it's kind of interesting.

Jack Carr: Definitely. Definitely. But in this, so in this market today, you would lean towards build, but knowing. Is that correct assumption? 

John Wilson: Yeah, I think 10% interest is too much. Yeah. I think that all the companies that are attractive enough would be overbid. Mm-hmm. Like there are dog shit companies that I've bid on that are going for like six times.

Yep. And I'm like, you should have gone for a two. Um. Like best, like I'm really grateful that I get to compete against the PE that bought them. 'cause like I know it's gonna be easy. Yeah, it is currently easy. Uh, it's great. We just got like five guys from them. Um, so yeah, so we get, I think it's easy 'cause uh, [00:33:00] or avoid it, interest rates are high, multiples are still high and you can't control the culture.

Uh, I think when I, like obviously I feel this is my perspective now. Yeah. I clearly felt different years ago when we were buying. But I just have such a low tolerance for like culture and mismatch that if we came in, it would probably be a clear house, uh, which like three years ago I would've never thought that I would say that.

'cause it was like, that's not us or me or whatever. And it's like, no, I would, I would, yeah, I would j just 'cause it's like I don't want to deal with. Why have six months of headaches when you can just have an hour of headaches? Mm-hmm. 

Jack Carr: Well, and the reason on the smaller companies too, that they, they're trading is 'cause the owners are tired 'cause of the bullshit.

And so the bullshit is caused by them mismanaging companies not running it correctly, letting the, the techs run all over them, let the techs not sell. And so someone comes in, it's like, Hey, you got quotas to meet, you gotta generate revenue. Good luck. Yeah. You're like, revenue. I have to what? I don't generate [00:34:00] revenue.

I've never heard of her. What? I don't generate revenue. I just fix things. It's like, yeah, but you gotta offer things too. No, no, no. I just go in there and fix things, not my style. To, to offer people things they don't need. It's like, no, no, no. They just don't know that about 'em. Yeah. You don't have to slam.

Yeah. It's, it's a whole sales thing. It's funny. Oh, it kills me. 

John Wilson: Um, it's funny, I, I read a, uh, I read this was on like Reddit. Maybe a year ago. Oh. Uh, and then, and someone was a cash, a cashier at a coffee shop, like a local community coffee shop. And I think she made eight bucks, 10 bucks an hour, I don't know.

And uh, and like the business did like $200 of coffee shop sales that day, and she made like $120 or something like that. She like sent a picture of the cashier. It was like $200 for the day. She's like, well, I'm gonna go ask for a raise. Like, they got two oh bucks today. I did that. And [00:35:00] it, it was like she got thankfully corrected.

Yeah. 'cause it was such a ridiculous, like, you know, what about the rent? What about the coffee? What about the benefits? What about like, literally anything? Uh, but it, it was comical and I feel like. It is tough. That is part of the problem with like, I think trade schools don't do a good job of explaining mm-hmm.

That because we get a lot of, like these young kids that just, they don't yet understand, hey, yeah, fixing stuff is important, but you do have to literally cover your wage. Yeah. Like, we have people astonished when we say that, Hey, you have to, you have to make more revenue than your wage. And they're like.

How on earth could I ever po That doesn't even make sense. I covered my wage. I'm good. And I'm like, what about the gas that got you there? Yeah. 

Jack Carr: They're 

John Wilson: like, why don't you pay for that? I'm like, how do I pay for that? They're like, from the revenue I bring up, I'm like, that just covered your wage. So yeah, it's, you sort of get there, but some, some people you just never do.

Never do. Yeah. And so, so anyways, I'd rather not [00:36:00] do with that bullshit. Can, um, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty good on it. Maybe like three years ago I would've like taken on. Proving that one plus one equals two. But today I find it easier to just say, you're right, Arcos hiring. 

Jack Carr: Yep. 

John Wilson: Let's still eat that name cut. 

Jack Carr: Um, I think I'm still in the buy category, even with the high interest rates.

If you can get a deal that makes sense. Not crazy. Yeah. I still think it's more important to get in the game. Yeah. And more important, important to have the phones ringing day one than anything else. Yeah. Just because that. Climb of trying to grow from that zero to 1 million mark is so brutal. It, excuse me, I should rephrase that.

It's extremely brutal for people who've never done it. Yeah. That zero to one, like learning, and 

John Wilson: that's why I feel like you should work alongside someone that does because the, the groups that I'm in, yeah, that's true. The friends that I have that are actively launching, like I'm coming from the [00:37:00] perspective of, hey, I have like 10 friends actively launching like locations in places that they don't have a brand.

So it's not like they're getting to make use of the brand. They do have systems. They have opera. Yep. They understand how to do it. And for all of them, three to 5 million in the first year is the expectation. Like if we launched, it'd be three to 5 million in the first year would be our target. Like our, our rough estimate so far is 200,000 in the first month.

And it's not that much resources, 

Jack Carr: it's just we know how to do it. You know how to, and, and that's the, the crazy part is, is right the, the switch for me too, to try and learn that, um, that marketing does not equal lead gen. Took me a solid minute to understand like, oh, marketing actually, like this person's a marketer doesn't mean anything.

0% if they don't understand local service lead gen. 'cause it's a, it's, it's a subsect of business that it's its own thing. Yeah. And [00:38:00] doesn't touch anywhere in the marketing. I had people who come outta marketing, uh, college and they're like, Hey, I got a marketing degree, da da da. It's like talking about them, about lead gen zero idea.

Yeah. No idea. Like they know what SEO is, but what's the strategy to get you to number one SEO The people who are the best at that are the people who've just been doing it. Doing it. Yeah. And so, um, I still say. Buy. 'cause if you can get a good brand that has some level of trust, you can retain most of the customers on your first buy.

Yep. You can spend still that 10%, even though it's a high interest rate, still pretty juicy 5% if you, you know, have the, the, um, owner do a full hold. Um, so you can get in with a lot of leverage. There's high risk though. High risk, but if you believe in yourself, you burn the boats. Good luck. 

John Wilson: Yeah, good luck.

Then I say, 

Jack Carr: listen, known and operated, go work in business and build 

John Wilson: this. Uh, yeah, good debate. If you like what you [00:39:00] heard, make sure you like it. If you like Jack's, uh mustache, make sure you sub and check out owned and operated.com for information on the workshop in August.