I liked that you picked a service that has a relatively low barrier to entry. The real asset are local
operators and referrals. Making them more efficient without being controlled by a big company would be a boon for everyone involved.
Consider being a platform coop with regional operators as members. See https://platform.coop/
I’ve never heard of platform Co-ops. Cool! Lots of people predicted that a beloved local coffee shop was doomed to fail when the workers got a loan and bought it to run as a completely flat cooperative. It’s been a few years and they are absolutely killing it. I’d love to see the tech version of that.
Yes, the barrier here is the desire to study and pass the exam. If willing, you are up and running relatively quickly - but only as a technician under someone else's operating license. To get the operator license (eg to be a full on pest control company) requires 2+ year documented experience and another set of exams.
The operating license holder is also on the hook for legal action if (when) things go wrong.
"Control" is interesting and I have found in all trades that people value their freedom. The good companies don't monitor employees too tightly, and are rewarded with loyalty and longer tenures generally. Of course you have to run a good recruitment and referral process to find the good people!
I don't believe SaaS is a good option in this sector - the incumbent VSaaS is decent, cheap, and ubiquitous. By "tech-enabling", I mean layering tech into the ops where it adds value and helps to scale the business. Obvious wins are upselling, hands-free data entry to the CRM, smart traps/stations. My choice is to compete as a tech-enabled operator, rather than sell AI/SaaS to incumbents.
I agree a lightweight franchise would be attractive, though I don't like most franchising options due to the fees and lack of equity build up for the operator.
Some franchising platforms (window cleaning is a good example) don't offer much beyond sales and marketing support and some nicely designed uniforms. There's not much to window cleaning other than basic equipment, so a person's route can easily be disrupted by a new entrant who doesn't have the franchise rake to contend with.
There's a model between employment, ownership and franchising that will probably emerge as sales, marketing, ops gets easier technically.
You took a job as a tech in order to learn about pest control business so you could build a SaaS platform? Do I understand that correctly? In the end you decided not to build a SaaS and started your own pest control company?
I wanted to get in the field for real, see how it works. There is going to be a lot more people exploring blue-collar work as white collar jobs are eliminated. I plan to acquire the traditional operator I've identified, and tech-enable it. If that works, grow it as a platform by either acquiring other companies or attracting technicians over.
Congrats, and genius move. And great hustling, show's there's no way out of hard-work.
And it's always gonna have demand. We recently paid ~$200 for a 30 minute visit to seal off like 3 tiny holes around the perimiter of our house because of mice (actual cost of materials ~$5).
Lots of guys working at the big companies do this type of work (called exclusion) on the side. One guy where I worked charged a restaurant $8k for exclusion work that took 2-3 days out of hours and $500 in materials. I asked the company why we let this work go - they don't want the liability and relative hassle compared to steady service routes.
Assuming everyone knows your acronyms is just not a good writing style.
Since I couldn't understand how s/w was going to get opossums out of anyone's basement, I think the correct decision was made: hands on!
You deserve accolades for making this choice. Good Job!
Like any physical trade, this is by it's nature a local only endeavor. So a web presence that is primarily visible to geographically local potential customers would be most effective.
Any aggregation is really just a way to skim some of the profits from the people actually doing the job. That is to say, GTM according to my definition above.
Personally, when I can't get an in-real-life personal referral to some trade, and I'm forced to do web search, I always spend extra time to try to find a web page that is put up by a local company, not an aggregator.
Things like plumers.com (this is a totally made up example, not referring to any real website) I find to be extremely irritating. Since they have absolutely nothing to do with whoever will eventually show up and do the work.
This form of aggregation through, is extremely common today, and a very large part of why the modern internet sucks.
craigslist.com (the actual website) used to be a good example of referring local services, until it was overrun with spammers and scammers.
Will this correct? Will we proceed to the dead internet? Who knows! What next weeks exciting episode to find out...
For residential / consumer markets, referrals are the gold standard and I agree to an extent about the local focus. A lot of PE (private equity) backed roll-ups result in a worse customer and worker experience as they try to force scale too fast.
Some PE companies will open a local market by initiating acquisition conversations with all local players, low ball everyone, buy some and for a short period dramatically reduce pricing to force the hold-out cohort to sell at an even lower price. Not good for communities.
The unlock to balancing scale and customer / worker experience is creating the right incentives for people to adopt the behaviors you're after. This is why bolting on SaaS or AI to established companies is tough, as the staff often don't want to change and will leave - which is bad in a tight labor market.
Searching for home services online is totally broken and is a tax on buyers and operators. HVAC contractors pay on average $600 for a closed lead from online ads, and close about one in four / one in five leads.
If you read his post, there's significant effort not "catching opossums" but waiting or churning through admin overhead - wasted time, which maybe he can translate into $. This much inefficiency is...common in many businesses.
I liked that you picked a service that has a relatively low barrier to entry. The real asset are local operators and referrals. Making them more efficient without being controlled by a big company would be a boon for everyone involved.
Consider being a platform coop with regional operators as members. See https://platform.coop/
I’ve never heard of platform Co-ops. Cool! Lots of people predicted that a beloved local coffee shop was doomed to fail when the workers got a loan and bought it to run as a completely flat cooperative. It’s been a few years and they are absolutely killing it. I’d love to see the tech version of that.
There is still much to be worked out, but some smart people are working on it. See also https://e2c.how/
Yes, the barrier here is the desire to study and pass the exam. If willing, you are up and running relatively quickly - but only as a technician under someone else's operating license. To get the operator license (eg to be a full on pest control company) requires 2+ year documented experience and another set of exams.
The operating license holder is also on the hook for legal action if (when) things go wrong.
"Control" is interesting and I have found in all trades that people value their freedom. The good companies don't monitor employees too tightly, and are rewarded with loyalty and longer tenures generally. Of course you have to run a good recruitment and referral process to find the good people!
What ever you do, make sure to have fun along your journey.
I'd love if this ends up being he gets a 1m/y pest control empire going and quits tech startups as he prefers the sweaty kind.
This is going to be the route for a lot of white collar people as they lose their jobs to AI.
Absolutely. I am thinking what my blue collar alter ego will be.
Interesting pivot. What I don't understand is how the SaaS software fits into it or helps grow a pest control company.
I don't believe SaaS is a good option in this sector - the incumbent VSaaS is decent, cheap, and ubiquitous. By "tech-enabling", I mean layering tech into the ops where it adds value and helps to scale the business. Obvious wins are upselling, hands-free data entry to the CRM, smart traps/stations. My choice is to compete as a tech-enabled operator, rather than sell AI/SaaS to incumbents.
The software for businesses like this is tightly intertwined with operations. Hence, it's less of a SaaS and could be more like a franchise model.
I agree a lightweight franchise would be attractive, though I don't like most franchising options due to the fees and lack of equity build up for the operator.
Some franchising platforms (window cleaning is a good example) don't offer much beyond sales and marketing support and some nicely designed uniforms. There's not much to window cleaning other than basic equipment, so a person's route can easily be disrupted by a new entrant who doesn't have the franchise rake to contend with.
There's a model between employment, ownership and franchising that will probably emerge as sales, marketing, ops gets easier technically.
You took a job as a tech in order to learn about pest control business so you could build a SaaS platform? Do I understand that correctly? In the end you decided not to build a SaaS and started your own pest control company?
I wanted to get in the field for real, see how it works. There is going to be a lot more people exploring blue-collar work as white collar jobs are eliminated. I plan to acquire the traditional operator I've identified, and tech-enable it. If that works, grow it as a platform by either acquiring other companies or attracting technicians over.
Congrats, and genius move. And great hustling, show's there's no way out of hard-work.
And it's always gonna have demand. We recently paid ~$200 for a 30 minute visit to seal off like 3 tiny holes around the perimiter of our house because of mice (actual cost of materials ~$5).
Lots of guys working at the big companies do this type of work (called exclusion) on the side. One guy where I worked charged a restaurant $8k for exclusion work that took 2-3 days out of hours and $500 in materials. I asked the company why we let this work go - they don't want the liability and relative hassle compared to steady service routes.
There is definitely money in the pest control SaaS business, mine is running at $2M ARR for a few years now.
There are lots of antiquated operators not having newer technology for pest control, which makes this area lucrative for even $50K MRR.
Go for it!
Congrats - what's the company called?
So how is hiring going to be handled at this new company? Is he expecting people to just show up and start working?
We will recruit technicians who are aligned with the tech-enabled approach.
GTM? Does that mean Get The Money?
Assuming everyone knows your acronyms is just not a good writing style.
Since I couldn't understand how s/w was going to get opossums out of anyone's basement, I think the correct decision was made: hands on!
You deserve accolades for making this choice. Good Job!
Like any physical trade, this is by it's nature a local only endeavor. So a web presence that is primarily visible to geographically local potential customers would be most effective.
Any aggregation is really just a way to skim some of the profits from the people actually doing the job. That is to say, GTM according to my definition above.
Personally, when I can't get an in-real-life personal referral to some trade, and I'm forced to do web search, I always spend extra time to try to find a web page that is put up by a local company, not an aggregator.
Things like plumers.com (this is a totally made up example, not referring to any real website) I find to be extremely irritating. Since they have absolutely nothing to do with whoever will eventually show up and do the work.
This form of aggregation through, is extremely common today, and a very large part of why the modern internet sucks.
craigslist.com (the actual website) used to be a good example of referring local services, until it was overrun with spammers and scammers.
Will this correct? Will we proceed to the dead internet? Who knows! What next weeks exciting episode to find out...
Go to market - e.g. how to sell your thing.
For residential / consumer markets, referrals are the gold standard and I agree to an extent about the local focus. A lot of PE (private equity) backed roll-ups result in a worse customer and worker experience as they try to force scale too fast.
Some PE companies will open a local market by initiating acquisition conversations with all local players, low ball everyone, buy some and for a short period dramatically reduce pricing to force the hold-out cohort to sell at an even lower price. Not good for communities.
The unlock to balancing scale and customer / worker experience is creating the right incentives for people to adopt the behaviors you're after. This is why bolting on SaaS or AI to established companies is tough, as the staff often don't want to change and will leave - which is bad in a tight labor market.
Searching for home services online is totally broken and is a tax on buyers and operators. HVAC contractors pay on average $600 for a closed lead from online ads, and close about one in four / one in five leads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-to-market_strategy
GTM is ubiquitous on the business side.
If you read his post, there's significant effort not "catching opossums" but waiting or churning through admin overhead - wasted time, which maybe he can translate into $. This much inefficiency is...common in many businesses.
s/w? Does that mean sidewalk?
bizarre take and writing style. if the saas enables them to be more efficient it's overall net positive