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Tell me a little bit about yourself. I understand that you've got Pro Valley and things like that.

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I just want to understand a little more about what it is you're doing. Is this the third call that

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you've had with the first class business? Am I mistaken? Yeah, it is. It's kind of a cool group.

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I've enjoyed the conversations I've been having. Well, I appreciate that. You're going to get a

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different aspect because I'm not necessarily first class business. You can see what I have in my

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shoulder, my chest. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. But I definitely want to get your take

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on what you've been doing and maybe you'll find it being absolutely from a common ground here

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to an extent. Okay. Yeah, cool. So I mean, I am an entrepreneur. I have always had a bent to be

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working on my own. Even when I worked with a company, I was very happy being independent.

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And I liked having the tools that I didn't have to think about or worry about at my disposal,

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which made life really easy as a sales guy. I could really do a lot of good productive work,

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which was good for me, good for the company, good for my clients. And that was back when I was in

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equipment leasing. And I carried that same theme throughout my career, no matter which business I

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was in. It was always good to have the tools at my disposal to help create a smoother operation.

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Sometimes, in fact, most of the times those tools had to be built. And so that was the beginning of

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my journey with trying to figure out how to automate things because I'm one of those people

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that just don't really like to do things twice if I can help it. I mean, it's one of those gut

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issues that if I can figure out a way to do it once, do it well, and not have to worry about it,

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then that's the way we're going to do it. And if it's something that has to be done more than once,

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good gracious, can I figure out if there's a button that I can push to make that happen?

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Or even better, not even push a button, just set it and forget it. And so that was the philosophy

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behind Chrome Capital and Fuel Capital and now ProValue is what kind of systems can we put in

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place that actually automates somebody's otherwise manual tasks to help them run their business better?

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So I noticed that that's kind of the thing is work smart, not hard, right? Pretty much.

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Pretty much. Yeah, it's not easy work. You got to work hard to work smart. But yeah.

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Well, if you don't want to be repetitive, obviously, you can find some sort of automated

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process to handle that. That's great. So I guess my question would be around, so obviously, that's

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how you form ProValue. And how did that, I mean, obviously, your brainchild and something you

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worked with to kind of come out, but it was probably coming from, did you used to work in

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the services industry? Or something like that? How did that come about? Come to me?

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No, actually, it came from being a consumer of services, I thought there's got to be a better

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way. I had a very specific experience with, I live in Florida, and we're fortunate enough to

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have our own pool, which is fortunate and unfortunate. It's a double edged sword.

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And so we spent some time and energy going through, and we live in an old house in Naples,

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and we went through the process of, you know, we didn't want to tear it down. Everybody tears

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their house down here, and they rebuild these concrete colossal things. And we were, that's not

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really us. We're really more the old school. So but the building needed to be updated. So we gutted

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it and replumbed it, re-electric everything. And part of that process was looking at the pool in

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the back and redoing that, which we did. And part of that was rewiring it, replacing lights and

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things like that. So that was all a big, very expensive process. And I was walking around the

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pool, and it was like 2019, and the light had gone out. And so I thought, well, that's odd. I think

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we just replaced that. And so we, I made a phone call 10 o'clock at night, and I knew I was going

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to leave a voicemail message for my pool guy. And so I did. And then I didn't, then I lost track of

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it, got busy with something else. And I wasn't really paying attention to it again until 30 days

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later, when I walked back out there and noticed that the light was on. And I thought, you know,

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there's got to be, there's got to be an explanation here. But right now, the fact that nobody's called

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me back and the fact that it's on, I'm, I'm good with that. That's no more expense out of my pocket.

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I could not have been any more wrong. Somebody, somebody got the message and sent somebody out,

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like, Yeah, I'm not, I'm not here like I am now. I wasn't working in my office here in the house.

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Right. And so somebody had come by, they fixed the light. And the only way I found out about it was

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I went to the, actually, I went to the mailbox the next day after I saw that it was on. And I was

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like, Oh, yeah. Okay, I'm going to go get the light, right? And I saw that it was on and there

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was an invoice in there for some outrageous amount of money. So great that somebody heard me. Great

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that they got it repaired. Not good that as a consumer, I didn't know, I, I don't know that I

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was heard. Right. And I have this surprise invoice. So, so the whole experience was

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I also like to know when are they cleaning the pool?

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Because there was a period of time where it was,

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it wasn't always on Friday at some time,

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which I don't really need to know specifically,

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but it's just nice to know that it happened.

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So I actually dragged those guys into an office

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and I told them what I was thinking about,

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which candidly at the time was a bastardization

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of a different tool that I was building

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with kind of the same premise

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where there was a central command center

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and there was an app for the guy in the field

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and then there was an app for me as a customer.

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I was actually trying to design a tool

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for getting my boat put in the water, right?

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Like this is a really big problem, right?

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Just idiotic.

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So, but I went the full yard

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on the whole boat launching app concept

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and went through the process of getting proposals

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from various development companies

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and I started to look through those and curate

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what was the right solution.

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And then I was looking at the bottom number

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and I'm like, this is a really expensive build

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for doing this for myself.

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Can I sell it somewhere?

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Could I use it somewhere else?

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So I investigated marinas all across the country.

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I live in Naples, Florida.

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There's a bunch of marinas around here.

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I went down and I talked to them.

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And at the end of the day, I was like,

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I just don't see a big enough market here

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to justify this expense.

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Cause I know having built these systems,

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this is just the entry ticket.

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Like once you get inside the park,

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you're gonna have to upgrade continuously

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if you wanna get on these other rides, right?

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So it was just kind of coincidental

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that the pool thing came about

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and I talked to my wife about it.

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She says, I think the pool business is a lot bigger.

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So I looked at the pool business

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and it was three times the size

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of the motorcycle leasing business I was in.

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And I thought, well, if that's the case,

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then we could probably put a software platform together

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and run this in the pool business.

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And so we did.

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And then in the process of building the app

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and through various other conversations,

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what I was able to uncover was that

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we were in a marketplace.

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I took a step back from, okay,

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it's a pool service business.

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I get that, but what other businesses are like this?

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And I started to look at the service business as a whole,

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as sort of a big umbrella.

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And what I found out was there's actually

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two different types of businesses, right?

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Two different types of service business.

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There's an appointment-driven business,

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which is where you have an acute problem,

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your AC goes out, which happens here in Florida.

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You pick up the phone, you call the AC guy,

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they come, they fix it, they give you a bill,

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you pay them, they're gone.

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And that's it.

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You don't really see them.

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You might see them once a year for maintenance,

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but it's not like the pool guys.

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So on the pool guy side,

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it's a regular interval service business.

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And those guys are like pool service,

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lawn care, pest control, home watch, home cleaning,

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chimney sweeps, septic systems.

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I mean, it has to happen on a regular cadence.

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So I was like, okay, let's look at these businesses.

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And so we actually built the platform in a way

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that can account for any one

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of those regular service businesses.

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It doesn't matter.

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The system doesn't care.

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It's agnostic, it doesn't care.

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We just decided to focus on pool service

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because that's how you build a business.

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You get really good at one silo

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and then you take what you learn from there

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and you apply it and you accelerate growth

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into the next platform because of what you learned.

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So I'm like saying, and that's why I'm gonna ask

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a couple of questions, maybe a little more specific.

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So you probably did some RCM review,

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so which is basically reliability centered management.

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And that deals with preventive maintenance

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and obviously break fix

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and dealing with things for along the line

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saying instead of waiting for something to break.

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And this is where I'm looking more from my person

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says I have like a fleet of cars or fleet of trucks

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because I've actually dealt with,

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I actually consider developing some software

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very, very similar to what you've talked about just now

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for the mining kit industry

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because they have these huge trucks

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that they cost billions of dollars to run per day.

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And they're coming in and out.

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And if something happens to one of these trucks,

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first of all, it's stuck right in the middle of the road.

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If it breaks down right in the middle of the road,

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so it's not blocking traffic for all the other trucks.

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Plus the fact that you gotta get that guy out,

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those things weigh tons, those that are not very light.

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So how do you get those guys out of the way?

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So the maintenance is so much more important

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than having it break down the field.

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So it's very similar to what you said.

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So I actually was back in the COVID,

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I was actually looking with a couple of friends of mine

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who we were looking at doing that,

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possibly getting into making it.

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But it sounds very similar to what you're doing.

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You're just looking at it from a more,

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like I say, from a more service perspective

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and necessarily from a maintenance perspective.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I mean, you could schedule, I mean, with Provalet,

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you can schedule maintenance.

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I'm sure, yeah.

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On a time basis.

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One of the interesting things about on the road vehicles

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is typically it's a mileage driven event versus time.

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But if you have a fairly clear idea

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about the utilization of a truck,

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you can probably do it with time too.

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It's like, hey, look, and yeah, Jiffy Lube, right?

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Come back in three months or 3000 miles

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or whatever it was.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Yeah, exactly.

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You do your service.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So I mean, it would work if the company was willing

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to do time as a variable versus actual mileage.

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So, yeah.

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I mean, we've improved the platform for, excuse me,

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for the companies that use it at the technician

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and in a way that, so the way the platform works

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is you have a general dashboard

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and then you have a field tech who is given a dispatch,

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his list of jobs, his job stops for the day.

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They delivered in a route optimized way

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and he's GPS tracked.

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So that does a couple of different things.

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It allows him, number one, as a business owner,

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I can actually see where they are, right?

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On a map.

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I can see what progress they've made along the way,

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what jobs have been done.

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And when they check into a job,

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they actually have to be at the job because with our app,

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because these GPS track, every address is geofenced.

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Right.

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Oh, so they can't, you know,

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and they have to finish a job to get to the next job

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and all that kind of good stuff.

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So it becomes a very efficient way to not only guide somebody

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through their day, but also gives the credibility

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or accountability that every company wants

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their customers to have that

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because these are typically anonymous visits, you know,

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I mean, you never know when the guy's in your backyard

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until you get the bill.

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It's like, was he really here?

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You know, people are checking their cameras

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and they're checking their cameras like,

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I didn't see your guy here today.

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It's like, well, he was there.

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Here's the GPS stamp that says he was there

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and he can't check into the job unless he's at your job.

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So that works quite well.

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And I think the undergirding sort of like benefit

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for our platform is the customer

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and the communication level that we give each company.

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We give them the ability to communicate clearly

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and effectively with their customers automatically.

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You know, there are notifications.

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It's like putting Uber on a service business.

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You know, you get these notifications

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about when the guy checks in,

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comes on the homeowner app.

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We're the only guys that have the homeowner app

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and people love it because they actually know,

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yeah, the guy showed up, he left.

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I've got an invoice.

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You can pay for the invoice on the phone.

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If you have a service request, you push a button,

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type in your description,

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you can add a video or a picture and send that in

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and then that gets handled.

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And then by the way, once it gets handled at the office,

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I get a notification that tells me

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that your request is being reviewed.

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And then when they schedule it,

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I get another notification telling me when it was scheduled.

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So, you know, all this stuff is automated

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and it works pretty well.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is gonna 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

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and thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.