Transcript for: Success Strategies in Excavation Business
This 19-year-old brings in $5 million a year doing excavation and demolition. (glass shattering) He's tried every side hustle under the sun, but the real question is, why did this one take off? Why the excavation business and how did he achieve success so fast? - A business like this is very lucrative. - On this episode, he's gonna talk about how he went from generating $200,000 in his first year to over $5 million in year two. (item clonking) - Those are the most profitable jobs because those are the most high risk. - The one project that changed his business and life forever. - I haven't had any customers turn us down. - And how he brings in customers on autopilot without spending a dime on marketing. - We don't have any marketing team. - Man, these are huge price tags. - Yeah, it's free money, you know what I mean? - Seriously. All right, Stan, excited to get into this interview with you. Thanks for doing this with us. - I'm excited. - Let's find out what we're doing here. This looks like a fun project here. - Yeah, so we just got this machine delivered to the site and this house right behind it is, you know, a pretty old house getting demolished. As soon as we get all this thing demolished, we're gonna start digging out for these houses and there's gonna be three SFRs right here, so single family residence. - So your job is demo, cleanup, prep for new foundation, and then pour the foundation as well? - Exactly, as soon as we pour the foundations, we're gonna come back, do all the pipe work all around the sewer, the water, the footing drains. As soon as that's done, we clean everything up, backfill, top everything off with dirt, make it look nice and we're outta here. - This guy knows what he is doing. Tell us a little bit about your backstory. How did you grow up? Was your dad an entrepreneur? Like anything you wanna highlight? - You know, I'm an immigrant. We moved to America when I was two years old. So I grew up in an apartment building out in Tacoma and that's where I grew up pretty much most of my life till we moved into a house. I started woodwork and started getting my hands dirty with stuff around the house. I saw an opportunity where I can get into the fencing industry and I've always had a love for these machines. I've always had a love for big equipment. - That's fair. - And as soon as, you know, I had the opportunity, I had the money, I pulled the trigger, I bought my first little excavator. Huge influence on me was my mom. My mom is someone who's very driven towards something, towards goals and I feel like I take that characteristic from her. My dad was also very supportive, but you know, I'd say my biggest influence was my mom. - Well, before the house is gone, let's go check out what's inside, what's gonna be demoed and continue the conversation. - Let's do it. - All right, so this thing's not gonna be here probably in what, 30 minutes? - [Stan] Yeah, this thing's been here for probably more than 100 years and it's gonna be gone in under 30, imagine that. - What made you get into excavation and demolition specifically? What about it attracted you? - [Stan] I just like the idea of breaking things. You know, you're looking at this house and you can pretty much anywhere you put your foot in, it's gonna be coming down. - Stress reliever. - Exactly, call it whatever. And it's just a huge drastic change. Like you're looking this house now, you come back here in like three days and this is gonna be bare dirt and the concrete crew's gonna start working on their forms. - Fly through some of the quick machine costs, so the big dozer or excavator. - I actually just ordered another machine two times as big as this. - No way. - Yeah. - Love to see that. - That's a 245 Hitachi. That is coming up to around 300 something thousand dollars for a machine that big. This one we got used for a crazy deal. Let's say with the payments and with all the additional costs, I think it was around like 160. We also have another 60. I bought it off a friend for around 30 grand. - Man, these are huge price tags. - Yeah, these are obviously nothing was just paid off the bat. - What kind of loan structures are on these machines? Can you just break it down? I'm just curious. - Obviously every single company has different rates. For example, my Kubota is straight off the bat 0%. - What? - And 0% down as long as you have a good credit score. - Man, they tempt you to buy those, basically. - Exactly. The way I look at it, it's free money, you know what I mean? - [Paul] Seriously. - Well, the biggest thing being young and starting off, you're starting off with zero credit score. 15 years old, absolutely not a lot of credit. - What's a credit score? Exactly, yeah. Talking about the demolition part, I'm curious, how much money, just gross revenue, were you making before you got into excavation? - Before I got into the whole excavation industry, my first year in fencing I believe I made around $60,000. My second year in fencing and framing, and I was doing custom decks at this time. Like I was doing 30, $40,000 custom decks during that time. I believe I made around 120. - That's cool. Well, we don't wanna hold you up, so let's get out of this house 'cause it is about to get demoed. (upbeat music) What was the first year for you in excavation? - My first year I started, I started with little grading work, kind of like landscaping, coming out into people's yards and like bringing in top soil and grading things out, and then driveways, gravel, all that kind of stuff. And then it went to my first project, which was like a house like this that you see in the background. - [Paul] How are you getting jobs at this point, Stan? - At this point? - As a new guy, yeah, in excavation, demolition specifically. - Day one, I would use Thumbtack. That was one of my biggest ones. And then I would, you know, just whoever I would talk to, I would try to put my name out there and say, "Hey, I can do this. I can do that." - So what would be your advice to those getting started in a particular niche as far as getting new customers, door knocking? PPC on Google? - [Stan] For the first thing I would say, you know, just put yourself out there. See whatever works for you. In my industry, that stuff didn't work. It wasn't the best, you know, spending way too much money on it where there was not enough return. I had a whole bunch of people calling, "Hey, we'll get you leads, we'll get you leads." Never worked out. - There's a lot of 'em out there like that. - Exactly. - Beware. - That'd be my best advice to anybody trying to get started. Show people that, hey, you know what you're doing and have people want you to work for them. - I think it's time to go check out your supplier. I mean, we're kind of done and they're gonna wrap up taking this thing down, so let's go check it out. Let's go, let's go. What's the secret to building a network that pretty much brings you jobs on autopilot because you have no online presence, not much on Instagram, not much really anywhere. Share whatever you can with us. - Well, the best way we do it is, you know, building relationships with people. And as soon as you build that status to where, hey, like Genesis is able to get it done, Genesis does this, Genesis is on time, you build up such a good reputation, more and more people are gonna wanna spread the word. - If I were to start a excavation, demolition business somewhere else today, what would be the five categories that I definitely need to reach out and build relationships with to see major success? - So the first category would be, you know, build relationship with your vendors. So for example, like I said, core and main, I'm able to call 'em and they're able to come out here on Saturday night, 9:00 PM, and get me apart if I'm really in need of. - It's big. Yep. - And that's a huge one. Second one is your employees. Employees, you're supposed to have such a good relationship with your employees to where they're able to come out there, be there for you. You need someone on a certain note, or you need someone to be there on time or you need someone to do this or stay a little later in order to finish something. Third one would be contractors, the people you constantly have working for you, the people you sub out work to, the people that allow you to do the work that you do. Fourth one would be your builders, your GCs, the people that you work for. That's one of the biggest ones that you as a person should build relationship because those are your clients. - Yep. - The fifth one, and as you mentioned, will be the city officials. Like a lot of the times it would be the inspectors, you know what I mean? That will show you, hey, let's do this instead. And like I said, not every project is ever gonna be exactly according to plans. You gotta build those relationship with those inspectors that are in the area that you work. - It's huge. - You can produce a product that is correct, that is accurate, that is according to standards together. - Right, you're not a hard head, I know everything I'm doing, but you're sort of listening to the city. They build that relations, say, "You know what, Stan's our guy for the next project." - Exactly, exactly, then they push you out to the city offices and next time like city of Seattle might have a job, you know, you're on that bidding list because they recommended you. You care to solve a problem and that's why they would rather have you than anybody else. - Give us a quick picture of your revenue growth in the excavation and demolition business when you first started. So year one, and where do you think you'll be at the end of this year, middle of the year, and so on? - So from the very beginning of my excavation, demolition journey, I probably made around 160K that year. - Wow, okay. - Moving on to last year, you know, we had a huge spike during the summer to where it came to about I think $1.9 million a year. - Wow, almost two. - Is where we got out. Most of the revenue just all started probably in like May. And then this year, 2024, we're hoping to hit gross around 5.5 million to 6 million a year. - Oh man, dang. Can you talk about, I think somewhere you mentioned church being part of that evolution as far as helping you grow. Can you elaborate on that and how that helped. - From the very beginning, I started my relationship with God when I got into business. - Interesting. - And you know, and I was going through these phases of life, through these waters, through different trials and at that time I purchased this machine, I absolutely had no clue. I didn't know what I was going, getting into, you know, I kind of bought it blindly. I was like, man, entrepreneurial risk right there. - Exactly. - If something works out, it works out, if it doesn't, it doesn't. I didn't have a whole bunch of work lined up afterwards. I was in a huge hole, owed a whole bunch of money, and I guess my question to God was, "Hey God, what do you want me to do next?" And I was like, "Hey, if this is for me, you know, I want You lead me the right way You want me to lead me, and if this isn't for me, I want you to push it back. I'll stop, I'll close everything down, you know, try to return whatever money I can and I'm done. I'm gonna go to school route." And during that time, there was a brother at our church, Slavic Christian Center, he had saw that I purchased this new machine and he was like, "Hey, are you planning on doing this for free? What's your intentions? Are you planning to donate your time?" And in my mind I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go ahead and donate it. And as soon as like, you know, my kind of part was completed, a rush of work just kind of started. - It's kind of cool. - And then I just started literally hiring new guys and everything just kind of started to move this way. - The manna from heaven started come down on a man who said, "You know what? I'm about to lose everything, literally." - Exactly. - "But I'm gonna take a risk. I love God, I have faith," and that is a pretty cool story, man. I'm not gonna add to it, that was pretty cool. Thanks for sharing. Before we talk about your biggest projects, the revenues that come with it, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor that made this video possible. As a father, I know my days of changing stinky diapers won't last forever. One day they'll be grown and I won to ensure my kids have every opportunity for success, so what if I could plant seeds for their financial future right here, right now? That's why I'm pumped to tell you about setting up a kid's investment account through Fabric by Gerber Life. Fabric was designed by parents for parents to make it easy to plan for and manage your family's financial path. With a kid's investment account from Fabric, you can start investing in your child's future today. It's simple. Invest as little as $1 a day now and watch their funds grow. These investments can be used for anything for your child from summer camps, to college expenses, a first home, or even to help them kickstart a million dollar business or like Stan's. Setting it up online takes just five minutes. There's no contribution limits, multiple tax advantages, and no commissions, just a small monthly fee. And if your mother-in-law also insists on buying every toy imaginable, send her your child's unique gifting link so she can contribute to her grandkid's financial future instead. So join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Start investing in your child today at MeetFabric.com/UpFlip. That's MeetFabric.com/UpFlip. All right, so what are the biggest projects that you have taken on so far and what did the revenues look like? - [Stan] Just for the excavation work, maybe around $80,000. - But in total? - In total maybe around 160. 170 with the concrete work here. - Well, with this comparison, have you taken anything on that's much, much, much larger than that? - We do do a lot of community work. There's communities that range from upwards of 300, $400,000 to a million dollars in excavation work. - What's the biggest one for you so far? - We just probably maybe 3/4 of the way done, we have a big nine-house development in Burien that we are finishing up. We have sidewalks, water main, sewer main. We finished all the concrete work. That where's like upward of $900,000. - Wow. Good for you. - Yes. - For contractors watching you right now, what are your tips for securing some of the bigger, bigger jobs that are out there? - I would say, you know, just be very confident and biggest thing is also pricing things out and be able to read plans, be able to study them, especially in my industry in excavation work and concrete work. you have to be able to study your plan. - But the confidence you have today certainly took time to get here. - Exactly. - That's the bigger overall arching picture. Don't expect it to be like this four years ago. - The way I approach clients or the way I approach builders and developers and how I do things, it all grew with, you know, with my business, I feel like I as a person definitely grew over these past four years from the very beginning of where I started. You know, as a 15-year-old, I've always had a little mustache, so people saw me as a little older, but you know, now most of my contractors know my age and there's no question about it. - Cool. All right, blitz time with Stan. We've got a couple questions for you. If you weren't an entrepreneur, what would you be doing instead? - Going to school, becoming a software engineer. - What car do you drive? - Dodge Ram 3500. - What year? - 2018. - Dead or alive, who's the one person you'd love to have as a mentor? - My mother. - Do your classmates know about your success? If so, what's been their reaction? - I have some people that do, some people that don't. Those who do know, they're definitely a little astonished. Sometimes people don't think I'm at the point where I'm at today, or my business is where it's at today, but they still think I'm a young guy, but you know, it's kind of not possible, but those who do really know are astonished. - Cool. Best part of being an entrepreneur. - Having the free will to do anything. - What about the worst part about being an entrepreneur? - Waking up and not knowing if you're gonna succeed that day or not. - Okay, last one. What is the coolest project you've ever worked on? - Coolest project, probably our second big job, which was a huge pool in Lynnwood. - Nice, okay. Tell us where we are, Stan. What about this project that we need to know about? - Hey, so we're standing on a project here. It's actually a good friend of mine now, Travis Weeks project, The Best Practice. We're doing four single family homes here. - Oh wow. - So we got the footing drains done, all the foundations poured, all the downspouts done. You see the bio planners right here. - So what sets you apart from your competition? A lot of contractors out there, a lot of excavators, demolition guys. What's different about your company? - There's definitely something that does set our company apart rather than anybody else and that is I feel like a business like this is very lucrative. You know, there's a lot of trust that's supposed to be built upon and I feel like our company, you know, with just the behind the scenes of a Christian and I'm able to show that Christlike in my company and my employees can see that and my employees can reflect on that, you know, I haven't had any customers or any contractors turn us down. - At which point in the business, Stan, did you start hiring people? Was it like from the get-go, or talk to us about that time. - Honestly, I was able to straight from the get-go, I had the ability to really hire people and I knew that a business cannot function on its own. From the very beginning, I've always had a helper even when I just started out on the machine. - How many people do you have working for you right now? - So right now we have, you know, an average, let's say on books probably around 22 employees. Obviously, you know, it comes down to the point where some people leave, it's not the right fit, you know, but we do have a solid four crews, so that's, you know, 14, 15 guys that are very solid that love doing what they're doing. - Yeah, in this industry it's pretty typical for the more common turnaround. - Cycle. - Yeah. Let's talk briefly about hiring employees, balancing the flow and outflow, people come and go all the time. What's your process? Anything you wanna highlight that we can learn from? - I would say from the very beginning, like each project has its own foreman and then we have a project manager who takes care of pretty much all the projects. And our biggest thing is, once we do hire a new person, we try to stick him into a position where he's able to learn off of the foreman, learn how things go, learn how the company functions, learn how we operate, how we do things. - What are you paying your guys? Is it a Seattle controlled thing or just roughly- - No, it's not a Seattle control thing, but normally someone in the labor stage starts off with 25 to $27 an hour. - That's not bad. - Yeah. - And then you'll teach 'em all the skills. - Yes, exactly, and this is, you know, I tell all my employees this and this is pretty much our kind of policy that we go by. You know, the more you learn, the more you know and the more you're gonna get paid. - Yeah, do you personally go through the hiring process or do you have somebody handling that completely? - I try to go through the face-to-face communication process. Our office takes care of all the backend work, all the information, all the payroll stuff, everything, you know, so that I don't have the stuff- - That's a good deal for you. - Exactly. So I have the opportunity to go face to face and talk to that person. I try to do that before I hire anybody. I try to have this one-on-one meeting, at least see them face to face, look at them in the eyes, see them as a person, and we just go on from there. - Please show support to this young entrepreneur by liking the video and help us grow by subscribing to the channel so that we can continue to expand and bring incredible guests like Stan. And trust me, it isn't easy. Walk us through the whole process of buying machinery, the pros, cons of leasing, buying old, new, everything you've learned so far. - Now looking back at what I've experienced, I would never buy used, you know what I mean? - Interesting. - I would preferably- - But you don't have a credit score. You're starting out, what do you tell those folks on that category? Lease? - Lease, figure out a way to have someone co-sign. There's different programs and stuff like that. Maybe save up some money, buy brand new while you're renting or while you're leasing. Well, you're in the excavation demolition business, right? Not in the maintain my equipment business essentially, so if you buy used, you may find yourself fixing stuff more than you really want to. - But in that case, you know, it also requires, like in our company, we have our own mechanic that's on site. - Yeah, you gotta have one. - Exactly. Anything breaks down, you know, you send him over, he fixes hydraulic leaks, change the oil and all the machines, make sure everything's just up to date. - What is the most profitable project or service in your business? - I would say pretty much any utility work out in the street, you know, those people that you see going out doing freeway work or doing road work. We don't do any freeway work. We're not to that level yet, but soon. We do all the road work, you know, sewer line replacements, sewer main extensions. I would say those are the most profitable jobs just because are the most high risk. - Is it high risk? I was gonna say 'cause it sounds like you'd be working or getting paid by the government and they're all, they're paying you prevailing wage, which is way higher than private side of things. - Exactly. Exactly. Not all road jobs or street work is prevailing wage. - That's good to know. - But it does, you know, it does pay the most because it's the most, I guess, lucrative. A lot of people are scared to get into it because once you get into the road, you know, the ability to damage any gas lines or electrical lines or all these wires, and everything that's in the street, you got sewer, storm, all these different pipes that are in the street and a lot of the times it's scary for people to make that step and get into road work. - Tell us a little bit, just in a snippet, like crazy story about the road. - So we actually had a story right when I was starting up. We did this first sewer tap and to me this was like a scary thing. Like we started digging up this street out in Tacoma and we're digging it and this is all pit run, you know, the more you dig, the more it falls apart. So we started digging a 3' wide trench that turned into an 18' wide trench. - Oh my gosh. - And you can't really put any plates on there or anything to cover up the road, so man, we barely finished that thing by sunset. We were out in that road compacting by like nine o'clock and barely got it done. - So what's the lesson learned? Let's focus on that. What would you do different if you had that job today as a newbie? - The lesson learned, I would say is, you know, charge a little bit more. That was the first mistake of that job. And then the second mistake would just say, you know, now since I've experienced it, you know, have a very detailed process or a step-by-step kind of to get everything going and set everything up correctly. - How many projects, by the way, do you have? Just so we have an idea on what his day looks like? - So this year we're probably gonna roll out like 120 units worth of excavation work, but the amount of projects that we have going on right now that are in like in the process stage is probably around 25 to 30. So that's around, you know, seven to eight projects a day. I don't try to visit every one of them every day. It's like every other day I try to have a day just strictly in the office to, you know. - Yeah, you don't want the employees to be like, "Oh, there's Stan again." - Exactly. - We had seen him just yesterday. - Normally they're happy when I show up, but. - That's a good point. - Normally they're happy when I show up. - If you could change anything about your day today, what would it be, if you could? - I definitely wanna finish school, I'm still in school. - High school? - No, I'm in Pacific Lutheran University getting my bachelor's. - Gotcha, wow, good for you. You started early in both business and school? Bachelor's before 20, basically. - This year, actually, this year I'm hoping to finish. - Good for you. Bachelor's in what degree? - So I'm going into Master's in Business of Association, but I am getting my bachelor's degree right now in computer science. - Gotcha, wow. So the fact that you have no online presence is mind boggling. It's surprising, right, in today's day and age. Talk to us about why that is and what that makes your business look like, in a sense. - We don't have any marketing team. We did do a little bit on Instagram, but in my sense, I don't see that it's much worth it just because our industry is fairly based off of relationships. Someone who does not trust you, who just sees you off of Google isn't gonna trust you with something like this. And in the community that we live in here in Seattle, our industry, people know each other and everyone talks. So as long as you're doing good work, you're putting your name out there, you know, you're showing that you're a trustworthy contractor, people are gonna come out and look at your work and say, "Oh, this guy did this. Look at their neatness, look how clean they are. Look, they know what they're doing." And it is just gonna keep on, it's just gonna be, you know, a domino effect. - Don't know how to secure financing for your first machine? Well, check out episode 71 with The UpFlip Podcast for insider secrets on securing business loans from a guy who's financed over $2 billion. How has your style of leadership evolved, Stan, over the last three to five years? - I feel like, you know, the right mentors in my life definitely benefited. But the style of leadership, I became I guess a bit more lenient. I wanted things done this specific way, I wanted it done fast and a lot of the time- - My way or the highway. - Exactly. And a lot of my employees didn't like that it was so fast paced and now it's to the point where I'm on the same page with them, I'm like, "Hey, are you able to do this in this time? Are you able to do this? Are you able to do that?" - So communication and sounds like there's a lot more listening to others there, right, than just telling them what to do. - In leadership. the employees want to make it feel like they're not just the ones doing the work 'cause that's how sometimes it feels. They think, "Oh, the boss rolled up and the boss doesn't do anything." It has to come down to the point where it's a neutral relationship between, you know, they see you putting in the work and they as well put in that work. - For sure, yeah. If somebody wanted to start today the same business, what would be your roadmap to getting that done? And talk about maybe leasing machinery versus renting. - I would say from the beginning, everybody needs capital. Start with something small. If you have the urge and you get a job, I had times where I'd get prepayment and say, "Hey, like I'm new. I'm starting this off. I'll do the best of my ability to get this done for you, but you're gonna have to work with me a little bit." You know, you sign contracts, you do what you need to do. You know, you get that little capital from that job and then let's say during that time you would rent a piece of equipment to get a job down. So you would start off with something like that, and as time moved by, you get a lot more capital and you start to invest more money into your company, you start to buy your own equipment. - You would recommend them just buy the equipment if you have the money. - 100% 'cause for example, for this excavator here, my payments are $2,000 a month rather than something like this, if I was to rent, it would've been closer to around $4,000 a month. - No way. So four grand for a month though? - For a grand for a month. - To rent, okay. But this really, this thing here, massive as it is, opens up a wide range of opportunities to do jobs that generate a revenue of what, 160, 200,000 bucks, right? - Exactly. - Man, that's huge. - Here in this, like for example, for this job, you know, this is just a starting phase. You would use a machine this big, you know, afterwards you have to come back with something smaller 'cause then this thing's too big over here. The concrete's already in, so now you have to maneuver and you use something smaller so it kind of plays in the role, like you can't just do, it's not a one-and-done machine. - What would you say are the most common mistakes that people would typically make when they're first starting out? - I would say a lot of the times people get so invested. Every single piece of money that they have, they just invest all their money into these machines and into their business and then they don't have any money to really roll with as they're doing these jobs, and you know, most necessarily these projects take 30, 60 days to get payment. - Okay, so operating costs. - Exactly. - What is your biggest monthly expense today besides labor? I would say that's pretty common, right? - Probably, I don't know, trucking. We do around $200,000 a month sometimes on trucking. - When you say trucking, what do you mean? - Dump trucking, so for example, if you look at the site we have right now, we're gonna export about I think 30 trucks of dirt and these are big dump trucks that we're gonna be exporting out of here. All this stuff that's getting hauled out and cleaned up has to go somewhere, so that's another huge expense. - So it's 200,000 a month on just operating the trucks is what you mean. - This is where it's coming to. As we're growing, that's probably our peak. Sometimes it comes down to like 80,000, just depends what we're doing, but you know, the more projects we start like this where it comes down to infill, the more we have to take out. - Tell us about the role that mentors or people you learn from played a role in your business and your life. - Huge one. There was actually a few, like owner of companies, especially like excavation. I had some engineers as well. Especially during my time when I was really getting to know the industry and getting to know how things work, I had guys who gave me the time to show me how to bid, how to write up proposals for jobs, as well as walk me through plans, you know, show me how things are done. And I still, even today, you know, I'm able to look back and call people up and say, "Hey, I'm struggling with this." Or you know, with different codes 'cause everything's constantly changing. Different cities have different codes, different regulations and sometimes we talk amongst each other and say, "Hey, what's the code to bed sewer for this city or what's the code to bed sewer for this, for that city, and just little stuff. - Rocket science. - Yeah, little stuff here and there, but like stuff that really taught me to look back and really ask people in the same industry. Sometimes it came down to the point where I was like, "Hey, let me pay for your time 'cause you're so busy. Can you come up on site with me and go over a few things?" - So nothing like official, you hire a mentor and they walk you through. You just kind of found the right individuals in the industry and said, "Hey, can I buy you time? Can I buy lunch?" - Exactly. There was nobody directly in my life that was like, "Hey, like I'm your coach. I'm gonna tell you to do this and this and this and this." - So obviously besides buying somebody lunch, which is a nice gesture, how else did you convince these people to give you their time 'cause I would imagine they're busy themselves. - You know, a lot of the times, like the older community that's been there for 20, 30, 40 years, they want to see you grow. You know, they want to see you succeed. So if you show passion in what you do, you know, a lot of the times those people will want to see you succeed and want to see you grow and they will go out of their way sometimes. - So it sounds like the problem is, guys, most people are afraid to ask for that help. They think, oh, they're too busy. Oh, I shouldn't call this GM, who is a big shot. - [Stan] Exactly. You know, you gotta do what you gotta do in order to achieve something. - So I know you had a little bit of time, just a little bit to play in the UpFlip Academy. What's your two cents? What's your first opinion? - It's a great opportunity for someone starting off in any company to meet people to connect, to look back, see what they did. Oftentimes it's good to look at someone and not do the same mistakes that they do, so you're able to learn off of people, and it's also a great environment, kind of like Master Builders Association, you know, that played a role in my life and in my business to where I was able to find same entrepreneurs and connect with them and they were able to, you know, maybe give me a tip here, maybe give me a tip there, maybe walk me through something or teach me and I'm able to look back at that and see that definitely benefited me in the long run. - Well, now you can learn from amazing entrepreneurs like Stan all within the UpFlip Academy. Plus, if you click the link below, you gain access to 500 plus business ideas that are vetted and everything you need to know about them. What is the biggest risk you've taken in business so far? - My biggest risk, I would say starting off and purchasing a 135 and falling into this $200,000 worth of debt, not knowing what's gonna happen, but you took that risk and risks pay off. - Pressure. - Exactly. - That pressure put you in a spot where you have to like improvise and that's interesting, you know, because some people would break under that pressure, sell everything, be in debt a little bit and move on to something else, but I think real entrepreneurs, they stick through it, they find a way and that's exactly what you did. - Yep, through the storm, through the thin, you know, and it led off to something good. - That's awesome. What do you know today as far as business knowledge, entrepreneurship knowledge, that you first didn't know when you got started? What do you think? - I would say learning to work with people. I think that's the hardest job in the world is learning to work and understand people. Employees come to you and everyone has problems. Everyone has things they're going through and you gotta be that guys that's able to help them out, that's able to put pretty much those problems on yourself and say, "Hey, like this guy's, like I need to be paid, you know, a little bit earlier, I got this and this going through. Or Hey, I got, you know, I gotta leave out of the country because I got this, I can't stay here." You know, they put on those problems on you and you gotta be a business person. You gotta figure those things out, right? The biggest thing is probably problem-solving, learning to problem-solve in any circumstance. - Well said. Stan briefly mentioned the side hustle of fencing, but if you wanna learn more about doing fencing and making $1.5 million a year, working only three days a week, check out episode 190 with Damon. We appreciate you watching, like and subscribe. We'll see you next time.