Ya that’s entirely too interesting not to get the CIM on 😂 Sometimes you just gotta know

I’ve been reading a bunch of architecture books lately because I want to build a really cool house one day. What I did NOT expect was to be constantly blown away by how much of it applies almost directly to building businesses/organizations. The parallels are everywhere. Vision, constraints, context, the relationship between the parts and the whole, and how you take a thousand competing needs and decisions and turn them into something coherent. I guess in hindsight, no duh. I feel like an idiot for not studying this stuff sooner. But I swear I’ve gotten more out of the last couple architecture books than the last 20 generic business books I’ve read. A few things that have really stuck with me: Parti- The central organizing idea behind a building. It gives the whole thing coherence and informs a thousand smaller decisions. Without one, you get a McMansion. Expensive materials, beautiful windows, six rooflines, maybe a turret for no apparent reason. Every decision individually defensible, but the whole thing is hideous. Businesses do this all the time. What I particularly love is that the parti can (and often should) change during the build. Unexpected site conditions, budget overruns, ideas that don’t work in reality. Stubbornly defending the original concept is a mistake. So is abandoning it every time you encounter an obstacle and ending up with a bunch of random additions. The parti can morph. It just can’t disappear. ———— Site repair- Say you’ve got a piece of property. 20% is beautiful, maybe a great hill or grove of trees. The other 80% is nothing special. Our instinct is to build right on top of the beautiful 20%. Now you’ve consumed the best part of the property and are surrounded by mediocre land. What if instead you built on the lousy 80% and designed the house to frame and accentuate the beautiful part? You’ve improved the whole property rather than just occupying its best feature. I see so many parallels here with how we build teams, allocate resources, and sometimes inadvertently destroy what’s already working. ——- The design brief- Go look at a typical six-month house flip. Now look at a Frank Lloyd Wright house. They’re not even remotely the same thing. Why would they be? The owners have entirely different objectives, time horizons, and definitions of success. Same with businesses. A company built around a five-year PE mandate is naturally going to look different from one whose owner intends to build and hold it for 30 years. Neither is inherently wrong, but the goals of the owner inevitably shape what gets built. ——— Program and circulation- Architects think about how people actually live and move through a building, not just how many rooms it needs. In business we often draw the org chart first and figure out the relationships later. You can have wonderful individual departments and terrible hallways between them. ——— Served and servant spaces- Louis Kahn’s distinction. The mechanical room is essential, but it’s not why the building exists. Seems like a useful way to think about overhead, corporate functions, and who is supposed to be serving whom. ———- Pattern language- Christopher Alexander’s idea of identifying recurring problems and the principles behind their solutions. Not a blueprint to copy, but accumulated knowledge you can adapt to different circumstances. Really interesting implications for standardization, franchising, and scaling organizations. You want to accumulate judgment, not just manuals. Patterns > exact playbooks/formulas ——— And finally, the architect as generalist. Not the best engineer, contractor, or designer of every individual element. But someone who understands enough of each to synthesize the whole. Sounds an awful lot like the job of an entrepreneur. Any other architect lovers out there that have felt the same way? I feel left out I’m only just discovering this awesome world. I’m sure the ReTwit community has known this stuff for awhile. I recommend the book below as a great first read for all entrepreneurs. You’ll get a ton out of it, I promise.

Notes section filling up quickly watching this new Saban doc! Didn’t realize how much his philosophy shaped a lot of my (and probably all) college coaches too. I heard so many familiar sayings! A few of my favorites so far: -“Do you have the discipline to execute the right thing, the right way, the right time, all the time?” - “Don’t try to win a championship. Just be a champion.” - Each play is only ~6 seconds. Every play has a life and history of its own. Don’t worry about the scorecard or winning “the game”, just win this next play. - Focus less on the goal you want to accomplish… and more about what you need to do (today) to accomplish that goal. - Always process > outcome - Compete against a standard, not the circumstances of the game or your opponent. - Difference between success and excellence.

Put together a short checklist for candidates evaluating different business/industry opportunities. Took some of my old ETA search scorecards from when I was searching, some of the buy-box criteria I use now, Helmer’s 7 Powers framework, and a few other questions I tend to run through when I look at a business. Also has a simple framework for thinking through buying an existing business vs. starting from scratch vs. buying a franchise. Happy to share it if useful.

Starting a business is eating glass. Franchising can be a more efficient form of glass eating! There’s a lot of talk on here about buying a business (ETA). But another path is to just start one. Instead of bidding against 100 other people to pay five times someone else’s cash flow, you can go build your own. Now, starting completely from scratch is mainly blunt force trauma. You’re trying everything. You go down one path, it doesn’t work, you circle back. You spend a bunch of time and money figuring out things you didn’t even know you needed to figure out. It’s highly inefficient. Starting a franchise business is still starting a business. It’s still hard. You’re still eating lots of glass. But you get the benefit of your franchisor having already eaten a whole lot of it. You have an idea, and you can go to them and say, “Hey, what about this?” And they can say, “Yeah, we ran that trap. Here’s what happened. We tried these seven things, and here’s what worked best.” You’ve got their experience, a support team, and other franchisees doing the same business in other markets. You still have to do the work, but you don’t have to figure every single thing out on your own. Again, both can work. Some people would absolutely blow up in a franchise system. Some would really struggle to build a business completely on their own. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle. A lot comes down to temperament and goals. I just think starting a business deserves more attention in today's environment with ETA multiples where they are. You get to build your own cash flow and develop the knowledge and experience of going from zero to one. And for most people (not all, but most), I think a good franchise can be a better risk-adjusted way to do that than starting from scratch.

A little two-fer this morning! Keep the wife happy with cleaning out the garage AND keep the marketing team happy with shooting new Meta ads and getting more creative. Win-win!

My favorite definition of a visionary. (Yes, I know all you Twitter operators are rolling your eyes, but we visionaries need to be heard too 😂) I am the spark that ignites the flame. The one who sees what others cannot yet see. The one willing to begin. I stretch boundaries. I break the mold. I change the rules. I imagine what could be, initiate what others will not start, and pursue what others deem impossible. But I am not meant to do it all myself. My work is to dream it, cast it, ignite the start, rally the team, and build the future together with the people God has placed around me. That means trusting integrators, operators, and builders whose gifts differ from mine. Honoring their contribution rather than trying to become them—or forcing them to become me. Vision is one of the gifts I have been given. It is not the ground of my worth; it is part of my stewardship. I will use it to serve, not to control. To build things that bless people, create opportunity, develop gifts, solve problems, and increase what can be given away. My ambition is free to be large because it no longer has to make me large.

Chad is criminally under-followed on this platform 😂. He’s putting a lot of resources into his new content push… and it’s good stuff for operators

Interesting to me that some industries seem to “want” to be franchised… vs others seem to fight the model. I don’t think “home services” is the problem. Some of the franchisees telling horror stories may be completely right. There are bad franchisors, bad systems, bad economics, and people who lose a lot of money. But I’m not sure “home services” is a useful category. Junk removal, restoration and senior care have produced huge franchise systems, and many/most(?) of the biggest operators in those industries are franchisees. Roofing and HVAC look very different. There are huge independents everywhere. Dumpsters are mostly independent/regional. Lawn care is mostly independent but mixed. Painting is mixed. Exterior cleaning feels harder to franchise. Some smaller categories could probably go either way. Why? I think a lot of it comes down to the underlying economics of the business. Gross margin matters. If the customer is mostly paying you for service, convenience, trust, labor and execution, there is more economic room for both the local operator and the franchisor to make money. If a huge percentage of revenue immediately goes into shingles, equipment, subcontractors or materials, a royalty on revenue is a much bigger tax on the actual economics of the business. An 8% royalty on a 70% gross-margin business is very different from 8% on a contractor with much lower gross margins. But complexity matters too. The best franchise categories seem to be complex enough that a good system actually matters, but not so complex that the important knowledge can’t be transferred. If the business is incredibly simple, the obvious question is: why do I need the franchise? But if success depends on 20 years of technical experience, scarce licensed people, deep local relationships or an installed customer base, then maybe the franchisor can’t actually package what makes the best operators successful. There is probably a sweet spot in the middle. Then I think you have to ask the most important question: What actually makes someone win in this industry? If it’s lead generation, the franchisor better be great at generating leads. If it’s caregiver recruiting, the senior-care system better help recruit caregivers. If it’s insurance relationships and referral sources, that better be where the restoration system creates value. If it’s phones, local search, pricing, dispatch, reviews, crews and commercial sales, then a junk-removal franchise needs to make its operators materially better at those things. A CRM and an operations manual are not enough. Customer behavior matters too. Buying a roof is a completely different purchase from calling someone to remove a couch today. Choosing care for your mother is different again. Water pouring into your house at 2 a.m. is different again. Urgency, trust, frequency, referrals, price shopping, brand recognition, repeat business — all of that changes how valuable a national system can be. And then there’s local ownership. Some businesses just perform better when the person running the market owns the outcome. They recruit harder. Sell harder. Watch labor. Build relationships. Protect the reputation. Care about the details. So maybe the best franchise categories are the ones where the things that improve with scale can be centralized, while the things that improve with ownership stay local? That seems obvious but important to remember. —- And there’s an easy sanity check: Look at who actually gets big. In junk removal, restoration and senior care, franchise systems show up over and over again among the largest operators. In roofing and HVAC, huge independents are everywhere. If the biggest players aren’t franchised, or there aren’t already really large franchised brands… I’d be worried. Someone’s gotta be first, but maybe you don’t want to add that “concept” risk to you execution risk as a franchisee. Anyways, I really don’t think its home service franchises are bad. Some industries seem structurally suited to it. Others don’t. (Don’t mean to take this away from the pain/suffering of this particular story. It just got me thinking about why some categories seem to work and others don’t in the franchise model).

As an LP, every time I get a CV notice from a sponsor, I roll my eyes about as aggressively as humanly possible. PE gunna PE. Sincerely bearish on the business model over the next 10-20 years. Incentives are not aligned. (Not a comment on Kelso or this deal in particular, just in general, not a fan of continuation vehicles and the game GP’s play)

Would you rather compete with 50 or 100 people to buy a business... or build the business those 50 or 100 people will compete to buy? That’s the question I keep coming back to with ETA (entrepreneurship through acquisition). I understand the appeal! Buy an established business, step into existing cash flow, skip the 20 years of suck, and grow from there. There are absolutely situations where that’s the right move. But when everyone wants to buy the same stream of cash flow, “winning” can mean paying more for it than everyone else was willing to pay. You can buy a great business and still make a bad investment. The entry price matters. (!!!) Personally, I’d rather spend those years building something valuable (that stream of cash flows) and potentially have that crowd competing to buy it from me. And building doesn’t have to mean inventing everything yourself. That’s what makes the right franchise model so compelling to me. You’re building your own business, but you’re not starting with a blank sheet of paper. You can start with a differentiated customer offering, an operating playbook, and infrastructure you would otherwise have to develop yourself. You still have to hire, sell, lead, and execute. You’re taking the risk of building the cash flow rather than paying a premium because someone else already built it. For many entrepreneurs (not all!! but many), I think franchising is the best risk-adjusted way to make that trade. I think it’s a better time to BUILD than buy. All those people looking for a good business to acquire? They don’t have to be your competition. They could eventually be your buyers.

One of the biggest unfair advantages we’ve had building the JunkStart franchise system so far… is our very first franchisee. He and his brother built a 600+ location, $2B+ franchisor. Having someone with that level of experience on the Zor side has been huge. Talk about great validation for our new franchisee candidates evaluating a newer brand! Not only the decades of franchise and junk removal experience on our corporate team, but one of the most successful franchise entrepreneurs as our founding franchisee.

Tommy Mello is a beast.

All for a little pro-landfill PR to start my Wednesday! 😂 Fun fact: our family owns a landfill in San Antonio. Waste industry lifer!

PSA: get more B2B!! We pivoted from 90%+ B2C to now over half our revenue from B2B and the things it does to your business is hard to overstate. Some headwinds right now in the home services space for a lot of brands/verticals. Digital marketing, customer acquisition, LTV, repeat rate, etc… B2B is much more within your control (go out and hunt), recurring revenue, and builds the stable base your business needs.

Omaha!! In Omaha visiting our first franchise partners location this week with our VP of Ops. They are absolutely killing it with their attention to detail, professionalism, and energy!! Look at these awesome facilities!

100 likes and I’ll reach out to Topo Corporate and get a license deal and do it. #BeverageWars needs one more player. (I’m going to come up with 100 new multi-unit brand concepts in 100 days. I bet more than one will have real legs).