Thread by @MikeBotkin_

Been looking at buying a lawn service company. Zeroed in on one near me in Central Florida

40yrs in operation. Owner is in 60s. Has nobody to pass it down to.

Does $800k in gross sales per yr. (just wait)

Pros
(1) Current customers are...

60% commercial
40% residential

Commercial customers are the far and away hardest clients to get/keep (great margin, but super high standards, and get bids constantly)

(2) Route is very dense (essentially 1 main highway is the entire route)

Pros cont...

(3) Area of service is expanding. Population has doubled in direct city, cities surrounding have all 2.5-3.5x population and growth is only continuing (my co. is adding 2,500 homes alone)

Pros cont....

(4) super loyal customer base (means quality of work is excellent which means good employees)

(5) Low churn on employees

BIGGEST PRO OF ALL

(6) No FB / TWTR / IG / Website

Growth potential is ENORMOUS on residential side where marketing matters

...continued

All the national home builders are here building same size lots, in communities.

First to market is HUGE advantage to this kind of service with new home buyers

...Come back to this later...

CONS

(1) No digital footprint
(2) No software tracking
(3) Regardless of season, employees stay same wage/hours (kills landscaping margins)
(4) Equipment needs replaced in next 12-18 months

What would I do?

1. Build website/social platform/digital footprint

2. Take 1/3 of staff and make them seasonal

3. Increase prices on all existing residential clients (hasn’t been done in years)

4. Leverage relationship with builders to be placed in their welcome packs

5. Implement marketing strategy to all newly developed communities (25+ in direct city alone).

5a: I know lot size, how long to mow/blow/go

Put door hanger on every door, saying basic service is $85 (if I know competitor charging $125). Say we are preferred...(cont)

(Cont) preferred lawn service in community (reference developer and builder). Scan this QR code to take advantage of $85 basic service

Any additional services extra

Takes them to new webpage, easily lists day and time available. Sign up for 12mo and get 10% off (cont)

(Cont) refer a friend extra 5% off. And then list all additional services as “estimates”

By doing this....I’ve directed my outreach, given customers great price (lower than normal co), and straight action to buy.

Current lawn companies want you to call them, schedule estimate, they call u back, etc

Nope. Scan QR and we go

By doing this to 20,000 homes (5% use it, 25% convert = 250 residential.

250 res x $115/mo (assume addon) = $345k in new sales in a defined area of communities

I think $800k sales can be 2x within the first 24 months, and margins can increase by

- Raising prices for existing(better margin)
- Implementing new route track
- Reducing labor in ‘off-season’
- Capitalizing / leveraging all the new construction in area

Terms I’ve put together for raising the $ for this are pretty strong considering history of company and current ops.

Interested in keeping investor pool small as it’s a service business.

Let me know if interested

Oh, s/o to @sweatystartup for pushing me to tweet about this.

I’m extremely reluctant to post stuff like this from personal side but Nick has been super encouraging and helpful.