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Where did this vision come from to create the Uber lawn care?

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Well, so, uh, Green Pal is a 10 year overnight success.

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My two co-founders and I have been at this for a little over a decade,

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but now it's nationwide in the United States.

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So anywhere in the U S you can use it around 300,000 people use it every week.

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And, uh, the idea, the idea we had to start it 10 years ago is the same idea we're

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working on now, which is how do you make this chore as easy as pushing a button?

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And the idea came from my first business, which was a landscaping company.

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I had a lawn mowing business.

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I ran for 15 years in Nashville, Tennessee, eventually growing it from like me and a

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push mower to over a hundred employees.

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And, and then it was acquired in 2012 by a big national company out of Texas.

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And after that, I got, I thought I was just going to like stop working for a

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while, but I got bored really quick.

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And I watched the movie, the social network and they made it look super easy

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to start a tech startup.

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They built Facebook in like 30 or 40 minutes and it looked awesome.

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And so I thought I want to be a tech entrepreneur.

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And, uh, luckily I didn't know what I didn't know.

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Cause I never would have started this, but I thought somebody's going to build

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an app that works like Uber, but for lawn mowing.

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And so that's, that's where the idea came from.

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That's it, man.

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Ryan Dice of digitalmarker.com.

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I saw him speak on stage at Infusionsoft's conference years ago.

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And he said, I would rather eat my left pinky than build another CRM.

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I was the only one in the audience who laughed out loud.

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I believe it.

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I had done it.

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And you know, that's because you get how hard that is.

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Okay.

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So it's 300,000 users per week right now.

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What in the world does that feel like?

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Well, you know, it was 10 years in and, uh, and it's like, okay, you know, we

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can breathe a little easier cause we're, we're profitable and it's a little

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more fun now, but it's still really is day one.

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We, we, when we, when we started this company, we wanted to build something

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that could touch the mass market that, that millions of people could use.

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And so, so until we hit a million people using it every week, I'm not going to

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feel satisfied in a way that, that we have reached a portion of the mass market.

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There's no greed in that.

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There's wisdom in that.

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And that's why I'm excited about your answer.

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Like I can tell you, you know, you're, you know, what a blessing it is.

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Um, you know, you're grateful for, for the time you've put in, but you also

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know how real entrepreneurship is.

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And that's a big part of what our show stands for is helping people catch that.

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Yeah.

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The visions are wonderful and the journey is important, um, as well.

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Like there's, there's more to it than just the numbers.

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So I'm glad you didn't put your sunglasses on and go stand by some

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Lamborghini to talk about why, you know, you've made it and how everything

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else doesn't matter anymore.

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Um, but, you know, talk to me a little bit more about this.

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So that feeling of you're at 300,000 per week.

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Um, what if we just compared your feelings from day one and how you would

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have felt, what would you have felt like then when you thought like, man, if I

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were at 300,000 users, what would that have felt like if that had happened overnight?

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Yeah.

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So it was very surprising to me how long it did take to get this thing going.

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I really thought we would be where we're at today in year two.

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And, and so in the, in the early days, it was like a big punch in the stomach

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when there was no pull from the market.

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And it was a, if you build it, they will not come.

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And what I began to realize and learn the hard way was, man, everything we

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have poured our passion and soul into building this platform, that was the easy part.

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The hard part now is the marketing and the distribution and getting it

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in the hands of people.

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And so that was like a level of the game that I didn't, I didn't know that

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I was going to have to beat.

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And cause I thought the market was just going to pull it out of our hands.

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And so it was, it was challenging, but at the same time, I had made a decision

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that no matter what I was going to work on my best idea, I built and sold a

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small business and I was kind of, I was kind of on my own to, to, to work on

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my best idea from there on.

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And, and, and so that default of, okay, you're going to get out of bed this

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morning, you're going to go into the office and you're going to grind on your

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best idea was kind of like the default mentality that got us through the first

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three or four years, which are really tough.

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And I guess, fortunately, I'm not terribly creative.

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I've had one good idea in 10 years.

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This is it.

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You should be a push a button and a lawn mowing service come over your yard for

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you and that's it.

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And, and so, uh, that's how we got through it.

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And, and so, and so like, you know, in a way I'm glad it didn't happen.

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Super fast because even though I was a second time founder, I was very much a

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first time founder all over again.

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So I kind of needed to slow bake in the crock pot to kind of learn what it meant

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to be a tech founder, what learned, learned how to build a product and how

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to get customers to use it.

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So that just took time.

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And that was, that was really the, the universe of, of, of the market giving

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me what I needed looking back.

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And so a lot of times, you know, these things aren't happening.

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To you, they're happening for you.

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Yeah.

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And so that's, that's how it was for me looking back.

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How do leaders lean into funding the vision, you know, rather than setting

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aside and giving up or saying, I don't know, um, you know, you've got some

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experience behind this for more than 10 years.

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So our leaders hiding, why are they hiding and how do they lean in to making it happen?

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Well, I think the first reason is it's, it's just damn hard for you to be able

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to pull this off as a leader.

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You're going to have to change.

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You're going to have to evolve, you're going to have to grow.

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You're going to have to get feedback.

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It's going to be painful and it's going to suck.

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You're going to have to talk to customers and they're going to tell you

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everywhere that your business stinks.

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And so that's hard.

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Nobody wants to do that.

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I know I, I didn't when we first got started.

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And the other thing, um, I think the reason is, and I heard this the other day.

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I don't remember who said it was some smart entrepreneur, but he said, it's

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really easy to hide behind changing the world.

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And what he meant by that was you have this big grand vision of this big lofty

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goal and then, and then you kind of like put that on the shelf and then you

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just kind of hide behind that.

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Right.

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And it's, and it's not easy to hide behind.

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We're going to get a hundred new customers next week, but I don't, I can't

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be held accountable for changing the world.

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Right.

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Exactly.

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So you're absolutely right.

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Go ahead.

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Yeah, it's, it's, it's, so it's not, you can't hide behind changing the world.

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You can't hide behind.

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Um, I'm going to, I'm going to prune out one bad person in the, in the culture

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and replace them with one better fit.

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Uh, you, you can hide behind with, we're going to have the best culture in our

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industry and the best, the best team attitude, but it's easy to hide behind

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that like vague goal, but it's not easy to hide behind something that's very

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practical, tactical that has to happen in the next, you know, 30 days.

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Absolutely.

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And so I think that's one thing that holds up a lot of new founders, not a

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lot of new leaders is, is like managing back to something that actually is a

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small goal, like set small goals and then, and then rinse and repeat, um, and,

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and yeah, put the big goal on the shelf, but, but, but fall back to the habits.

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They're huge.

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Well, and that's the com that's a healthy combination between

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B hags and smart goals, right?

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The big hairy audacious goals, um, that drive us for the reason and the purpose,

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but at the same time, the accountability of are my actions in line with what I

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want to accomplish if you're, if you're refusing to address that or recognize

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that, or you're not open to feedback for it, you mentioned, you know, customers

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and in the early days, not wanting that feedback, um, you know, it sounds like

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you made a transition there.

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Um, I honestly don't know where my transition was, but I freaking love

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hard feedback, like I live for it.

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You know, that's what we are.

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Indeed.

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We know how to move everything forward, um, but it's, it's sometimes, um, it

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can be a challenge to get out of people.

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And more importantly, if I'm working with entrepreneurs, it can be hard

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to inspire them to want it.

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How did you make that shift?

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Yeah.

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Well, for us, it was a, it was like a back against the wall.

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We have 10 customers and we needed to get to a hundred to survive.

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And so not only did we need this feedback to know if we were on the right direction

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and building the right thing, but we needed this feedback so we could fix

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whatever the actual problem was to keep that person as a customer, because we

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knew we needed to get a hundred or else we were going to have to hang it up.

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Because I knew if we get to a hundred, we get to a thousand.

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I knew if we could, that's the goal though, right?

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You didn't have to do that.

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You have that mentality.

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You gave yourself the mentality that you had that you could have felt, um, right.

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And you could have gone and gotten a job and maybe family or friends could have

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built, you could have lived under a bridge.

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There's a, there's a lot of things that could have happened, but you, like, you

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have an incredible amount of tenacity.

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I can see that in that story alone.

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Um, so you made it happen.

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Yeah.

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And you know, the, quite frankly, the other thing was, was the book, uh,

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Lee started up by Eric Reese and then his, his, uh, his mentor was a guy named

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Steve blank.

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He wrote a book called the startup owner's manual and these two books.

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Basically in like a thousand pages of texts beat into your head that you, if

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you're going to make it, if you're going to survive, you have to get out from

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behind the laptop and go talk to your customers.

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So listen, and that's it.

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And if you don't do that, then you're going to waste five years building the

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wrong stuff that nobody wants to use.

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And you're going to beat your head against the wall and you're going to be upset.

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And you're going to be, you're going to be wondering why things aren't working

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because the phone number is not going to your cell phone, the email inbox is

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going to a non responder, you know, like you don't even have a hundred customers.

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Why is the email, why is the company email going to a do not respond at, you

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know, it's like, you need that feedback to, to pull this off.

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And so those two books were really instrumental for me.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned into vision pros live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes, you know,

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as these episodes continue to move forward, this is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your

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time and attention, have an excellent time building out your vision and

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becoming a vision pro yourself.