While I was visiting Puerto Rico I met a fellow Asbury University student who had started and sold his own lawn care company. I thought that was something super cool that very few young 20-year-olds can lay claim to, so we sat down and had a short interview. Since it was an informal interview I don’t have everything word for word (so most of this post will be me recapping or paraphrasing) as I’ll be referencing bullet point notes. Enjoy! 🙂
How did you start your business?
Trey: I was originally working at a coffee shop when I started mowing a few lawns with a buddy of mine. We began the business in my freshman year of college with a really old 1979 Chevy truck that had about 500,000 miles on it and broke down a dozen times that summer. The summer after that I filed for an LLC and the business was official.
At the start, we were mowing roughly eight lawns a day and towards the end of the business right before I sold the business we were mowing around 18 yards per day. I got there by using several strategies. I paid extra attention to efficiency and upgraded to better equipment as the business grew. Of course, I also had to get some extra help so I hired some employees. One key thing I learned was to plan ahead of time which lawns I was going to mow that day as it made no sense to just drive around town mowing random lawns. I made sure to organize all the yards into sections and then assign myself and my employees a section of town to work on that day (this greatly increased our efficiency).
Hiring and finding people to help cover my weaknesses was huge as well!
Terry: Pay attention to this! Jacob is reading a book right now called “Who Not How” which is all about how to find people to help where you are weak, and likewise, you can use your strengths to help them! So much of success is working well with and finding the right people, not doing everything yourself. As the ‘ol saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work!”
Why did you start this business?
Trey: I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of starting a business, and to have the ability to say I did it at a young age. I didn’t want to look back when I was much older and to completely regret having missed a chance to start and run my own business.
That said, once I had fulfilled this goal I knew I was free to let go of it and pass the business on to someone else. I didn’t have to tie myself to it forever in order to be successful in life, and I had to remind myself that passing it off wouldn’t make me a failure.
Why did you sell your business?
Trey: There were a few big factors, but the biggest was that I was swamped with school, sports, an on-campus job, my business, and other commitments. My stress was really high and I knew I just had to let go of something. Even though my clients would have understood if I told them I had to shutter the business, I still didn’t want to leave them hanging.
So I started planning out how I would replace the income stream from my business once I sold it and made sure I would have money coming in. Then, I reached out to several friends and former employees to offer them the business but unfortunately, none of them were in a position in life to take it. Later I ended up doing a case study for one of my business classes on how to provide jobs for people in the sober living home in downtown Wilmore. I met one of the guys in the home and saw a chance to help employ him, take something off my schedule, and not “abandon” my clients so I took it and passed the business off to him.
Besides clearing up my schedule and reducing my stress it was also important to me that I enabled myself to be prepared to take advantage of any other similar opportunity when it presented itself to me. I’m not sure what kind of business I’ll be running next, but I want to have the freedom to be able to say yes without missing it or having something tying me down.
What was one of the most memorable experiences while running your business?
Trey: During my very first summer, I was out on a long drive with my buddy to mow a single lawn. On our way back, our super old Chevy truck completely stalls and breaks down in the middle of the road. So we pulled over to a nearby CVS parking lot and called my buddy’s grandpa who drove over to help us out. It turns out there was something wrong with the fluid in the radiator so once we fixed that we were able to make it home.
Once the truck started breaking down so much I sat down and considered whether I wanted to still run this business or not. I discussed it with my dad and he helped me come up with some options. I decided to reach out to friends and family for help to fund a new vehicle and successfully raised $10,000. While it was a big bet going into that much debt for a relatively new business, “I gave God the opportunity to show up in the hard times and in difficult choices and He did every time.” With the help of the new vehicle increasing my productivity I was able to pay off my largest creditor (a family friend who loaned me $5,000) in just a month and a half, and by the end of the summer I had paid the rest of the vehicle off and it was completely debt-free!
What was your favorite thing about this business?
Trey: The relationships I built with my clients! I’m still in touch with many of them even today after I sold my business.
What kind of advice do you have for other young entrepreneurs?
Trey: Just start now!! Don’t let fear stop you, or you’ll regret it. Don’t wait because of your age either, as you are a lot more knowledgeable and capable than you give yourself credit for. Be proactive and just start!
Also, always go the extra mile in your business. If you do that and be proactive you’ll have far fewer customer complaints as you’ll be solving problems before they even arise (or right as they occur, without your clients/customers having to ask you to do it). Doing that, I had virtually zero disgruntled or ticked-off clients during the years I ran my business (with the exception of one person, but that was a particularly unique situation).
Looking back, would you have changed anything about the business?
Trey: To be honest, no, not really. Every mistake was a learning opportunity and without those, I wouldn’t have the experience and knowledge I have today about how business works. The mistakes were crucial to making me into the person I am today!
Terry: This aligns perfectly with another lesson I’ve learned recently from a book. Ray Dalio shares a key lesson in his book “Life & Work Principles” that Trey pointed out here. The following feedback loop illustrates Dalio’s point (and the lesson Trey learned).
The Takeaway:
What I love about Trey’s story is how simple the lesson to learn is. Lawn care isn’t a flashy business. Trey didn’t make a million bucks in two years. He knew when it was time to move on, and he let go. Though maybe most important of all… he just started. He started. It was that simple.
Personally, I tend to overcomplicate things constantly and to analyze things to death (analysis paralysis is basically my middle name). In fact, that’s the number one reason my pressure washing business didn’t go anywhere. I got off to a decent start in the spring of 2020, but let a bunch of excuses and fear seep in and it froze me in place. “What kind of papers do I print my flyers on? Should I pay for a professional design? What should the flyers say? Do I need flyers? Should I knock on doors or just put flyers in mailboxes? What about social media marketing???” Hindsight is 20/20, so looking back the answer is pretty obvious that I should have put all of that aside and just hunted down one client. The first… that’s all I would have needed to get the momentum rolling.
Still, while I regret my inaction, I appreciate the point Trey made. I’m grateful I’ve learned this lesson (at least I hope I have, lol) as I’m sure I will run into it again as I start my next business; and next time I’ll know exactly how to handle a familiar obstacle.
I hope you’ve found Trey’s story inspiring and that you’ll take his advice to heart. Use this post as the signal you’ve been waiting for. Go start that project or business! Best of luck!