Episode 89 - From Solar Panels to Fashion Brands: Inside Paul Krumrich’s Diverse Entrepreneurial Empire!
Episode #89 | Paul Krumrich | From Solar Panels to Fashion Brands: Inside Paul’s Diverse Entrepreneurial Empire!
In this episode of "The Curious Builder," Mark Williams chats with Paul Krumrich of Greenway Solar about everything from the emotional ups and downs of being an entrepreneur to the nitty-gritty of solar panel efficiency in snowy Minnesota. They dive into company rebranding, the value of employee alignment, and the surprising durability of Tesla solar roofs. Plus, you’ll get a feel for the entrepreneurial spirit as they share stories of business challenges, wins, and personal growth. You’ll love hearing their insights on employee growth, overcoming business challenges, and even Tesla solar roofs’ durability. Plus, Paul shares some fun tidbits about his cycling wear brand, Donkey Label, and the drive behind their quality gear.
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About Paul Krumrich
Serial entrepreneur and technology visionary, Paul Krumrich has been at the forefront of innovation for over two decades. As founder of Spye, he has led a family of companies specializing in digital signage, content management, and custom environment design. Spye's innovative solutions combine energy-saving technologies with interactive audiovisual experiences, creating truly captivating spaces.
A pioneer in sustainable energy, Paul Krumrich also founded Greenway Solar, the first authorized Tesla Solar roof installer in Minnesota. As the head of Greenway, he champions environmentally friendly energy solutions that deliver aesthetics, power and financial returns. His entrepreneurial spirit drives new business development, product marketing, and fostering lasting client relationships.
With a proven track record of successful projects and a passion for design, Paul Krumrich has established his companies as the go-to partner for architects and designers seeking cutting-edge technology solutions. Beyond his professional endeavors, Paul Krumrich is also the founder of Donkey Label, a clothing brand inspired by his love for cycling, soccer, and design. This venture allows him to support youth sports and stay connected to his passions.
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Paul Krumrich [00:00:00]:
So the cool thing about the Tesla roof is it sheds the snow immediately. That's the good and the bad. So the good is your roof's going to make power all year long.
Mark Williams [00:00:08]:
Why is that? Is it the viscosity or deficit?
Paul Krumrich [00:00:10]:
It's just that it's kind of smooth enough and it's black and it produces power. So it does get a little warm. Whereas normal solar panels have a ledge, you know, so you have your roof that's going to have, you know, potentially, you know, asphalt shingles. So that's going to hold snow and then your panels are sitting up over it. And so when it snows, that just sits there. And so you might get coverage on a residential regular roof for January and February. Interesting. But Tesla, like, the minute that snow is done, it's going to shed.
Paul Krumrich [00:00:36]:
So the good and the bad of that is the good is you get solar and you have a clean roof all winter. The bad is it sheds. And so we've had some existing homes that weren't thinking about that, you know, have avalanches right over their front door, their back patio. So we put up snow guards in those situations.
Mark Williams [00:01:00]:
Today in the podcast, we had Paul Krummich from Greenway Solar Spy and Donkey Label on, and I've known Paul for about a year and you can tell just some of the stories that we share. They get pretty deep and personal, but you've really just got two business owners going back and forth with a speed, ping pong and Red Bull. And it is a great episode. A lot about towards the end of the episode, just about really the pitfalls all entrepreneurs fall into as you hire and you have to fire people and just the learning curves that we all have to do in order to run our businesses. You're going to love this episode. Without further ado, here's Paul Krummich. Welcome to the Curious Builder podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host.
Mark Williams [00:01:34]:
Today I've got Paul Krummich in the studio. He is the owner, operator of Greenway Solar Spy and Donkey Label. Welcome, Paul.
Paul Krumrich [00:01:41]:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Mark Williams [00:01:42]:
So, clearly a serial entrepreneur or a high case of adhd. How did you come to own and operate three separate companies? Couldn't you settle just on one?
Paul Krumrich [00:01:53]:
That's a good story. And my wife would also agree that one would be better than three.
Mark Williams [00:01:57]:
Well, I think for the listeners out there, we'll, we'll talk mostly about Greenway Solar because that applies mostly to the building. I mean, frankly, they all do. But I mean, it is a legitimate crush and I'm Just very. Anytime an entrepreneur has more than one, it's always there's a story. And it's sort of just interesting how they evolve. So let's. How'd you get here? How did you get evolved to owning three companies here?
Paul Krumrich [00:02:18]:
Yeah. First, I'll give you a quick joke that I heard on the last trip we were on, which was a kid in the pool, said, hey, do you know what HD is? I went to the doctor and he said, out at 80 of them. So that made me think of myself. But, yeah, my story to get here was my dad was a shop teacher, my mom was a math teacher. Grew up building things my whole life. Didn't know what to do college, so went for engineering, graduated from the U, had a job. They moved me into sales because they're like, you're an okay engineer, but you're probably better at talking to people. And then ended up getting laid off in 2000 during the telecom, when the telecom boom happened and then died and ended up just trying to figure out what to do with my life.
Paul Krumrich [00:03:01]:
Took like eight, eight months off. Got rid of my cell phone, got rid of all expenses.
Mark Williams [00:03:04]:
Really?
Paul Krumrich [00:03:05]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:03:05]:
So you're single at this time, no family. Yep, yep.
Paul Krumrich [00:03:07]:
Remain single. Because when I'd be on blind dates, people. So what are you doing? I'm like, unemployed. Like, are you looking? I'm like, nope. You know, I just figured that, like, taking a vacation at 22 for eight months is a rare, rare thing to do. And then when I went back, I ended up getting this job where I went to Anaheim for a trade show. And we had this cool screen that was on our table for the trade show. And everyone kept up, kept coming up to me and asking what the screen was, not what the product was we were selling.
Paul Krumrich [00:03:35]:
And so I took a bunch of business cards and, you know, just because I had like 20 business cards of people that wanted that screen. Came back to Minneapolis, found out where the screen was made. It was a 3M product. No one was doing anything with it. And then just said, okay, I'm going to start doing this in my basement.
Mark Williams [00:03:51]:
That's awesome.
Paul Krumrich [00:03:52]:
And then ended up with Spy, which. So the evolution of that product became a rear projection film that you could use to make big screens. Back in, you know, 2000, when an LCD didn't exist, plasmas were a hundred thousand bucks for big ones. And so we started that way, which was more in line with, like, my background of product design or engineering. And then that evolved into Spy, which is a commercial AV integrator. And Then I guess to get back to your question, like, why did I start another one? My either superpower or stupidity is when I see a mountain that I think I can climb. Like I go climbing.
Mark Williams [00:04:28]:
Oh, 100%. Because it's there.
Paul Krumrich [00:04:29]:
Yeah. And just I know I can do it. And it's probably not maybe the smartest thing, but if I think I can do it, I'm going to go do it. And so spy's evolution was we wanted to put all this cool technology in our building to show it off, but we didn't want to do it in a building we were renting. And so we ended up buying a building. Then we tricked out the building to have all the SPY cool stuff so we could bring architects in to show them half the building was unused. And we ended up leasing that to a company that wanted to produce solar panels in Minnesota. There was a Made in Minnesota solar program.
Mark Williams [00:05:02]:
I remember that. Was that like 2009, 10 somewhere in there.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:05]:
And so what happened there, which is interesting, is it was a 10 year guaranteed program that somehow got chopped in year three. So like 10 years to incentivize companies to come to Minnesota and build solar panels. A Washington. Go ahead.
Mark Williams [00:05:17]:
Yeah. Well, that's so funny. Said there's a. I dated a girl at that time from Washington. Her dad knew a guy in Minnesota who was trying to see if I would because building was really slow for me at that time.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:27]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:05:27]:
And he called me and said, do you want to get into solar? I have a solar hookup. I'll tell you what, after this podcast, I'll reach out to it. I'd be curious to know if it's the guy you buy.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:35]:
I bet you it was. Because they, they just leased the building for me. Because my CTO at the time from SP, I lived in Washington, he used to work for 3M and he said, hey, I'm going to introduce you. This company, they want to rent space. And then after I know they couldn't find anyone to run the business. So then he called me back, said, would you just do it?
Mark Williams [00:05:52]:
So that was that. That would have been me.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:54]:
Yeah. We would have met.
Mark Williams [00:05:55]:
That's wild.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:55]:
We would have met years ago.
Mark Williams [00:05:57]:
No way.
Paul Krumrich [00:05:57]:
So the company was iTech. It was a Washington based solar company. And so we started helping them and managing that business of building panels.
Mark Williams [00:06:05]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:06:06]:
And then I had, you know, part of my job for them was going around to all the solar companies and selling them the panels.
Mark Williams [00:06:10]:
So you're doing B and D for them.
Paul Krumrich [00:06:11]:
Yes.
Mark Williams [00:06:11]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:06:12]:
And. But then we learned the manufacturing. We learned all the stuff. And then people started coming to me and saying, hey, Paul, would you help with this project? And then that's where I. So I didn't, like, actively do an mba. Should I go into solar? But I was asked to do it. My mind was like, this is the future. Why wouldn't I? And so that's how we ended up with Greenway.
Mark Williams [00:06:33]:
Oh, there you go. Yeah, you can move the arm closer to.
Paul Krumrich [00:06:35]:
Okay, sorry. And so, yeah, that's how Greenway evolved, which was like.
Mark Williams [00:06:38]:
Was it called Greenway? Did you end up buying it?
Paul Krumrich [00:06:40]:
No. So itech, which was the company we were running.
Mark Williams [00:06:42]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:06:43]:
The minute they pulled the program was out of business. Like, pulled stakes. And so he just left then left, gone. Like, we were stuck with A, some debt, B, some panels and a bunch of equipment to make solar panels.
Mark Williams [00:06:53]:
This is even better. You didn't buy the business. It basically just left there and be like, see, here's some debt. Do something with it.
Paul Krumrich [00:07:00]:
Luckily, I had tried to get involved in it and they said no. So I was just an employee. So when they got toasted, we still had to deal with the stuff, but we just moved it out.
Mark Williams [00:07:09]:
What year was that? Like 11 or 12. Yeah, yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:07:11]:
And then we leased that space up to a company track club that's now making merchandise and apparel there, but that was the foyer into solar. And so then we started doing more projects that led to becoming the Tesla solar roof vendor for Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
Mark Williams [00:07:29]:
And that was a big licensing deal. So at that time, how many other solar companies were in Minnesota?
Paul Krumrich [00:07:34]:
There were some big companies in Minnesota doing traditional solar, and they. There's some that do commercial, some that do residential. We ended up saying, hey, no one's doing this Tesla product. And we're first to market with that.
Mark Williams [00:07:46]:
And I was surprised because you hear about a lot of the stuff before it's available, and I never really looked into it, but it was always like, oh, Tesla has a shingle, but you can't get. It's not available. And like that. That's still. In some ways, that comment still persists today.
Paul Krumrich [00:08:00]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:08:00]:
And when you and I were chatting, you know, we met. We'll talk a little bit about how we met maybe later in the podcast. But, you know, I was asking you like, oh, no, yeah, we can get it. We've been doing it for a while. And it's funny how, you know, that's just marketing and publicity and bringing awareness. Because it's interesting. That false narrative very much pervades what builders do. You find that when you call on builders and architects, you're like, oh, you can actually get this.
Paul Krumrich [00:08:21]:
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the biggest kind of frustrations. And I learned that early on with the. With spy initially is 3M had this product. It was amazing. They didn't promote it. I was like, oh, there's a huge market and a huge potential. But it fell on us to promote this product, which is really expensive.
Paul Krumrich [00:08:39]:
Same thing with Tesla. I secret shopped the Tesla dealer the other day and I said, hey, just. Even though I knew the answer, I'm like, can you get the Tesla Solar if not, not in the Midwest? I was like, we do it. Yeah. And oh, we should know that. And so that's just the community that knows it the best now. Builders who have heard about it and heard it's not there. Consumers that have.
Paul Krumrich [00:08:58]:
Yeah, I thought it was coming, but it's not. So we're reeducating the market that it's even available. And so thanks for having me on here to.
Mark Williams [00:09:05]:
Absolutely, absolutely. And we'll talk. I want to dive pretty deep on. On Greenway and solar in particular. But going back to. You have a third company, which is the sexy sister company.
Paul Krumrich [00:09:15]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:09:16]:
That's a weird statement. I was going with something different in my mind. I'm not sure why that came out. A lot of people know you around the community. We met through a bunch of ultra athletes. You're a very competitive soccer player and ultra athlete. You still are. Tell us about how you created Donkey Label for those listening.
Mark Williams [00:09:31]:
It's a incredible race wear for biking. It's incredible stuff.
Paul Krumrich [00:09:35]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:09:36]:
So tell us how that originated.
Paul Krumrich [00:09:37]:
So I, like you said, was a pretty big soccer player. And at some point I got hurt to where I had double ankle surgery. So I was out of the. Out of commission. And the rehab was swimming and biking. So the gateway drug to cycling is triathlon. And a lot of people have gone that path. And so that was kind of my rehab.
Paul Krumrich [00:09:55]:
Ended up getting into that, then ended up getting into kind of road cycling.
Mark Williams [00:09:58]:
What year was this?
Paul Krumrich [00:10:00]:
20. Probably 2005.
Mark Williams [00:10:03]:
Okay, so this is before Greenway Solar comes on.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:05]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:10:06]:
But right after you. This is after you've had your walkabout for eight months and figured out what you're doing. So spy is four or five years in.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:11]:
The walkabout was pre spy. So that was 2000.
Mark Williams [00:10:14]:
Yep.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:14]:
Spy was 2001.
Mark Williams [00:10:16]:
Yep.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:16]:
And then this was probably. Yeah, 2000. Yeah. Maybe 2010.
Mark Williams [00:10:21]:
Just trying to put this all together. Okay.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:23]:
And got pretty big into like Cycling and thought it was cool. And then I remember for Christmas I asked my wife to buy me this Rafa cool cross top. I think it was like 220 bucks. And so I got it and it was tight, didn't really fit great. But I assumed, hey, it's made in England, it's really cool. And so then I started looking around. I found out it was made in China, you know, and that it was like, okay, this is not fitting me very well. Because it's for like skinny English cyclists or whoever.
Paul Krumrich [00:10:51]:
And I'm you know, this American athlete that's got shoulders from swimming and all this stuff. And so again, a hill that I probably shouldn't have climbed. I was like, I think I can do this.
Mark Williams [00:10:59]:
It makes logical sense.
Paul Krumrich [00:11:00]:
Yeah. And I could do it in the States. And so.
Mark Williams [00:11:02]:
Or you could have just gotten a bigger size. The cheap, just to be clear, the cheap thing would have only cost you 200. You know what? I will get a large instead of a medium.
Paul Krumrich [00:11:09]:
Yeah, exactly like the. Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:11:10]:
Actually right about English though. I have a. Is it a barber jacket? And there's another one from England that I have this really cool vest. And it. I'm like a triple XL in it. I'm like, who are these people? I'm like a medium in US shirt. And I'm a triple XL by English standards. What's a normal human being?
Paul Krumrich [00:11:27]:
Exactly.
Mark Williams [00:11:27]:
Crazy.
Paul Krumrich [00:11:28]:
Yeah. And I think it was one of those like confluences too. I think I just read a book, one of the Malcolm Gladwell books that talked about markets. And it was like in every market there's Coke, Pepsi and RC Cola. Coke is going to be 40 or 50%. Then Pepsi is going to be 30, RC is going to be 10 and then all the rest. But in every market, like McDonald's, Burger King, Arby, whatever. It's like a rule.
Paul Krumrich [00:11:52]:
And so at the time now anyone that's into cycling, there's 50 of them. But at the time there was like Rafa, asos, which are two really high end companies. And then like you go to rei, like there was no.
Mark Williams [00:12:05]:
Because almost in some ways it's the micro brew thing that exploded in Minnesota. Right. There's all these. Now it's like there's everyone starting a little micro jersey clothing wear, whatever.
Paul Krumrich [00:12:13]:
So yeah, yeah. And I thought to myself, here's, there's Rafa, there's rei, there's rc, there's no Pepsi. We should be Pepsi. And so then Michael, a guy I worked with who's been with me forever, his niece, I think Was just graduated fashion school. She could help you. And so we used to meet at Spy House in Uptown and be like, she'd be measuring me crouching over in the coffee shop. And we made patterns, and we tried to make them all here in the United States. Custom patterns, high panels, super cool.
Paul Krumrich [00:12:42]:
Like, it was really fun process.
Mark Williams [00:12:43]:
Where'd all the fabric come from?
Paul Krumrich [00:12:44]:
We would buy it from, like, Italy. And long story short, this eight months ago, we just donated, like, $40,000 of Italian fabric that we had in the warehouse.
Mark Williams [00:12:54]:
That you just couldn't use or what?
Paul Krumrich [00:12:55]:
Well, because the quick version of this is we tried for three or four years to make everything in the United States, and the cost was so high that we were going to go out of business if we kept doing it. So we only make a couple products here now, and then the other ones are either in Hungary, we make some China, Taiwan. And so our initial mission was trying to do it all here.
Mark Williams [00:13:16]:
What's interesting, a quick side note. I've gotten into cycling the last couple years. Turns out when all your neighbors are ultra athletes, you start getting into it, too. But I fell pretty bad about two months ago on my bike, and I was wearing your kit and the donkey label stuff, and I dislocated my shoulders or separated it, bruised up my hip. And I was telling you this the other day, rode home another 15 miles. Whatever. I'm bleeding everywhere and in a lot of pain. I look down, there's not even a scratch mark, a tear.
Mark Williams [00:13:42]:
There was nothing wrong with my jersey. I'm like, what the. What is this stuff made out of? It's like Kevlar.
Paul Krumrich [00:13:47]:
And that's what we found is our initial thought was, like, let's keep it here because it's going to be better quality, it's going to be better products. And what we found out was, like, we can actually get better quality and better products from people that are making this, like, on a regular basis. On a regular basis. So we do when we can, we make our mountain bike shorts here in town locally, and we do as much as we can where it makes sense, but.
Mark Williams [00:14:07]:
So you've had the company for 20 years.
Paul Krumrich [00:14:08]:
DL has been around 12.
Mark Williams [00:14:10]:
12 years. Wow. And we're not going to talk. I mean, it's funny because I was laughing. Like, you do a lot of business development with architects, and you're. Because the solar panel stuff, and you often bring some donkey label socks or whatever. You give it to them, and then you end up spending the whole interview talking about donkey label. So that's why I called it like.
Mark Williams [00:14:25]:
I guess it is good analogy. The sexy sister like, oh Paul, you're cool, but your sister's really cool. Let's talk about your sister. Let's talk about donkey label.
Paul Krumrich [00:14:30]:
And I actually think it all. One of our spy models a while back was like it all matters like we're designers at heart, whether it's solar or cycling or av. And so architects who are basically the people guiding the client are that as well. And so they appreciate us because we speak the same language. So on the spy side we understand, hey, the speaker should technically go there. But we get that's not going to work with the room. So we'll adjust it and move it. Same thing with solar.
Paul Krumrich [00:14:55]:
It's like your roof is your house and you don't want to look well.
Mark Williams [00:14:59]:
And I think that's where going back to the solar conversation. The Tesla shingle, for those that haven't seen it, it's worth checking out on your website and just seeing it in general. It is interesting because I still think there's the. And we'll talk maybe a little bit about the differences in terms of operation. So you've got your normal solar panels which most people know what those look like. The Tesla solar shake essentially fits in and obviously it's going to reflect differently than a different shingle, but it's much more elegant, lays into the fabric of the house. I think the big question is how are people? I have found this is only for myself because now having since met you, I basically have you run a solar analysis on every home that I designed and will moving forward. I suspect that the clientele that is below 40, it's only a matter of time before they adopt it because we've been talking about solar and energy can all that stuff for so long.
Mark Williams [00:15:49]:
It's only a matter of time. But it's ingrained in people. I found that my older clientele aren't willing to pay for it.
Paul Krumrich [00:15:54]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:15:54]:
And I don't know I'd be here curious to hear your point of view is just mine as a custom home builder. And part of it is on us to push the narrative a little bit. And I know for sure when I've done studies with you on your traditional stroller, it paces for itself in about seven years. Yeah, that's pretty good payback. Actually it's better than Geometherma's 10 or 12 with tax credits it seems like depending on the size of the field. Tesla obviously it's much more expensive. So it depends a little bit on how big the array can be, I assume, talk us a little bit about what are people saying and who are your clients and how are you. Who's saying yes to this and how are they? You have the greenback greenie that's doing it because it makes financial sense, and then you have the other person that is doing it because they feel like it's the right thing to do.
Mark Williams [00:16:37]:
And maybe there's another one I'm not aware of, but talk us a little bit about the sales approach of the client.
Paul Krumrich [00:16:41]:
Yeah, solar in general. Those are the two kind of fields that you just mentioned, but we're seeing more now. I don't want the government, the energy company, anyone in my business.
Mark Williams [00:16:50]:
So not independents.
Paul Krumrich [00:16:51]:
Yeah, independents that are like, I want to own all my stuff. I don't want to depend on anyone for anything. So we've seen that when it comes to Tesla, it's basically super tech forward. Like, I love tech. I love all the new stuff. I want to be an early adopter. I want people to see that I have the latest tech in my house because I have the car. People are doing it for the right reasons, saying, hey, I want to do what I can for the environment.
Paul Krumrich [00:17:13]:
And then the financial return. And then I guess the third one is the aesthetics. I do not. I do not want panels on my house. I don't care how good it is for the environment. I care too much about what it looks like. So then that gives them an option of something that doesn't look like solar. That is solar.
Mark Williams [00:17:37]:
This episode is brought to you by Pela Northland. For 20 years, I've been using Pella windows, and I couldn't be happier to call them as a business partner, a trade partner, and someone that really supports us in our quality builds. We use wood windows and doors on every single of our homes. And 98% of every home that I've ever built has been a Pela Window. I've gotten to know their team here locally as well as nationally, and the way that they support us as a craftsman as well as they support our homeowners with their lifelong guarantee, it's absolutely been a game changer for me. So when people ask me who I use, I recommend Pella. If you want to hear more about Pella story, you can listen to episode one, where I interview Peter and Ed from Pel Northland about their journey into the pellet ownership. This episode is brought to you by Adaptive.
Mark Williams [00:18:20]:
For over two years now, I've been using Adaptive. It's an incredible game changer. It's AI technology based. It helps you with bill pay. And as a builder, there's very few things that anger our subs more than not being paid on time. Well, those days are gone. Not only do you know exactly where you are, but you can pay people through your ach channels. Making draws extremely quick.
Mark Williams [00:18:40]:
With one click of a button, which used to take hours, my office staff is now able to generate a draw to the bank or to the client in literally seconds. The thing that I appreciate the most about Adaptive is their ability to keep changing. We've given them three or four feedbacks on things that we need as builders and within just a few months those, they're rolling those things out. This is saving us hours per week and days per month in terms of our efficiency. If you're looking to upgrade your business, I'd highly recommend Adaptive. You can reach out to them@adaptive.com or listen to the Curious Builder podcast episode 15 or episode 80 where we dive into their origin story.
Paul Krumrich [00:19:17]:
The financial piece. If it's new construction, it isn't that much. It almost could have an infinite ROI in terms of like how profitable it is. Because it's based on. When you do a regular solar project, the cost of the solar is. The cost of the solar. You divide it by when it pays itself back, there's your return. Tesla roof.
Paul Krumrich [00:19:37]:
Yes, there's solar, but it's also a roof. So you were going to put a cedar shake or a clay tile or.
Mark Williams [00:19:43]:
I hadn't actually even considered that side of it.
Paul Krumrich [00:19:45]:
So you have to subtract that from the ROI calculation. So if, yeah, if you're going to put the cheapest asphalt shingle alive on your ROI is not going to be great. It might be 30 years.
Mark Williams [00:19:54]:
But if you did like a cedar shake, which is about three to four times the cost of asphalt, or a metal roof.
Paul Krumrich [00:19:59]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:19:59]:
Which is four times the cost.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:00]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:20:01]:
Now you're starting to get not that far off of whatever solar is. Plus the fact that it'll pay for itself.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:06]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:20:06]:
A metal roof is not paying for.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:07]:
Well, there's. And then the other piece that people don't realize is, you know, if I put a cedar shake roof on and then solar, let's say my cedar shaker is 100 grand and the solar is 50 grand. I get a 30% tax credit off my 50. Right. So that's 15 grand tax credit. But I'm in for 135 total. If I do Tesla, let's say it's 200 grand total. So it's a little more.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:29]:
But you get 30% off the 200 grand.
Mark Williams [00:20:31]:
It's actually a net less.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:32]:
So it's 140 versus 135.
Mark Williams [00:20:35]:
So it's really darn close.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:36]:
It's the same now. We just did a project that was a standing seam metal roof. They had a quote, I think for 70 grand for the roof we were going to do. It was like $50,000 solar system. If they just did solar on the standing seam roof, so that puts it at 120. You get the deduction of the 15 year at 105. The Tesla roof for the same roof was 120. So you get 30% off that.
Paul Krumrich [00:20:57]:
So it's 36 grand off. That goes to 84. So they saved whatever that is, 15 grand. 15 grand and got solar and producing power. So that stuff like that is the math that people aren't doing.
Mark Williams [00:21:09]:
For the builders out there, whether you're in Minnesota or not and using Greenway Solar or whether you're listening and you're abroad, I know obviously we have a lot of listeners that are in California and in Arizona, obviously, I would assume they're further along their path in solar just because it's much more part of their mandates culture, for lack of a better description. But I think in Minnesota, I think it's. You'd be remiss of not having this priced out on every single project. That's what we're doing now. Yeah, why not? And then it's still. It's just a conversation with the client. And typically. And there's the performance of your home.
Mark Williams [00:21:37]:
There's also the aesthetics of your home home. And I'm talking about cabinetry and interior design and all those things. But I think a lot of this, at least in Minnesota, comes from the builder. Because I was just talking recently to some architects that we had on the podcast that Minnesota has the oldest parade of homes in the country. I think we're 75 years in, which is pretty robust. And so we have a strong culture of people, homeownership, touring homes. And that's very. And so the reason I bring it up is a lot of builders start the dialogue of who the team is.
Mark Williams [00:22:04]:
So a lot of times people come to us and then we. Based on their needs, their budget, their interests, what they like, we'll bring in one or two architects who might. They might interview with one or two designers, but then it's up to the builder to often push some of the narrative. And I do think that solar is one of them, energy performance is one of them. I think over the Last couple of years. The advancements and external insulation to the outside envelope of your house is huge. And if you have. So anyway, I just think all of these things we as builders need to educate ourselves on so that we can properly educate our client.
Mark Williams [00:22:33]:
And it will set you apart from your competition as well. It's a huge differentiate differentiator in terms of if you're going to choose A or B builder to say hey, this is my expertise. And I, I think again Minnesota compared to, at least in the custom realm in terms of net zero, we don't, doesn't seem like we have that many net zeros here. But I do know that Minnesota builds at scale more efficient homes than anywhere else in the country. Because we're in climate zone six and seven.
Paul Krumrich [00:23:00]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:23:00]:
Or whatever. Five and six. Six and seven, whichever one it is. But so we had someone on that was talking about the T delta on temperature. So like in Arizona, like I hate the heat, but it gets to 120 degrees and they might cool their house to 70. That's only a 50 degree Delta. Where in Minnesota, let's say you heat your house to 70 but it's zero which gets way close. That's 70, that's 20 more.
Mark Williams [00:23:21]:
It goes to negative 20. Holy smokes. It's a huge delta. So anyway, anyway, that's why I think Minnesota and their northern climate states the homes have to be more efficient.
Paul Krumrich [00:23:31]:
Yeah. And we did a lot of work with Tesla too because when we first started with them four years ago, their installation instructions didn't weren't even considering that water might go uphill.
Mark Williams [00:23:40]:
You mean like capillary where it's pulling.
Paul Krumrich [00:23:41]:
It up like in the winter here. Right. Like you can get water going backwards under shingles. And so that's why we have some different rules on how to actually even put the roof on. And they were used to Texas and Arizona and so our first couple of roofs we were fighting with them on the rules that we were supposed to install by and saying hey, we need to help you change this because there's some different things in Minnesota that to your point about -10 and water and.
Mark Williams [00:24:05]:
Wind, how does it handle getting to the nitty gritty here? So obviously it snows in our climate. And let's talk a little bit about just the efficiency in a northern climate like Minnesota. How efficient are solar panels in terms of. Obviously it's darker now here than it is in the summer solstice time angle of sun. I know probably is really important. And then coverage, obviously you've got whether Clouds or snow, I think I don't know these answers, and I'm sure a lot of people don't.
Paul Krumrich [00:24:30]:
Yeah, Minnesota is actually a pretty sunny state. You wouldn't. If you look at them all like, it's actually. We get a ton of sun. Yes. We get wind, we get snow. So clouds, everyone gets. So that's not really a thing.
Paul Krumrich [00:24:39]:
But all the models, when we even produce that ROI, that's not an assumption of like 12 years of sun. It's at every location down to the foot is done. And this is the weather predictions of that site. The angles of the roof, the efficiencies of the cells, that's all figured in. And so those ROIs are based on sun and snow patterns. So the cool thing about the Tesla roof is it sheds the snow immediately. That's the good and the bad. So the good is your roof's going to make power all year long, because why is that?
Mark Williams [00:25:09]:
Is it the viscosity or not viscosity.
Paul Krumrich [00:25:10]:
It's just that it's. It's smooth enough and it's black and it produces power. So it does get a little warm. Whereas normal solar panels have a ledge. So you have your roof that's going to have potentially asphalt shingles, so that's going to hold snow. And then your panels are sitting up over it. And so when it snows, that just sits there. And so you might get coverage on a residential regular roof for January and February.
Mark Williams [00:25:31]:
Interesting.
Paul Krumrich [00:25:31]:
But Tesla, like, the minute that snow is done, it's going to shed.
Mark Williams [00:25:35]:
Interesting.
Paul Krumrich [00:25:35]:
So the good and the bad of that is, the good is you get solar and you have a clean roof all winter. The bad is it sheds. And so we've had some existing homes that weren't thinking about that have avalanches right over their front door, their back patio. So we put up snow guards in those situations, but probably half our clients say, no snow guards, I want the shed, I don't care. And some say, hey, let's put snow guards up here.
Mark Williams [00:25:58]:
To be clear, that happens with metal roofs all the time. Right. The snow fence or whatever you decide to ask on. Yeah, it's just a climate thing.
Paul Krumrich [00:26:04]:
But in just like the sun, obviously, like you said, is lower angle, it's not out as much in the winter. So our theory on kind of solar production in Minnesota is may make hay in the summer, like dial everything in for summer production. And then January, February are always going to be a crapshoot. So don't try to like optimize for a month or two. That might be Insane.
Mark Williams [00:26:24]:
Yep.
Paul Krumrich [00:26:25]:
And but the models all kind of figure that out and most of the predictions over a five year period are like right on if not conservative.
Mark Williams [00:26:32]:
How long is the solar panels good for?
Paul Krumrich [00:26:34]:
Warranty for most panels and Tesla included is 25 years. So Tesla is a 25 year warranty on production and on the roof, the estimated life is a 70 year roof. So they're thinking, whoa, on pan it's not, it's like anything like TVs monitors, they say hey, here's the life. It's not like it turns off when that life is over. It's just that's what it's rated for. And then it like diminishes over time. So Solar will operate 40, 50 years.
Mark Williams [00:26:58]:
If you think of just put in perspective for let's say homeowners listening to this, like an asphalt roof is likely going to make it 20 years. They say 30 years. But realistically you're in the plus minus 20 years. Cedar shingle, oddly enough is if you especially if you maintain it is pretty similar metal obviously can last way longer. So it's more. So does the solar shingle lose its efficiency in terms of what it gains?
Paul Krumrich [00:27:21]:
So all solar loses about a half a percent a year just from the second it sees the sun the first time.
Mark Williams [00:27:27]:
Okay, so it's breaking down, it's degrading.
Paul Krumrich [00:27:29]:
Or it just doesn't. Like if one comes in, one goes out before it's ever seeing the sun and then one comes in and 99.5 comes out. It's just.
Mark Williams [00:27:38]:
Okay.
Paul Krumrich [00:27:38]:
It's just like the systems and the silica just degrade over time. So that just keeps happening, but it doesn't ever just break when the cool thing about solar is there's no moving parts. So it's not like there's gears or something that could break down. It kind of works.
Mark Williams [00:27:52]:
Can you replace individual?
Paul Krumrich [00:27:54]:
Yes.
Mark Williams [00:27:54]:
Pan. Okay.
Paul Krumrich [00:27:55]:
So on regular solar, of course, and then on the Tesla shingle, you can pop out a shingle and replace it.
Mark Williams [00:28:01]:
And what about like hail? Like how does it handle?
Paul Krumrich [00:28:03]:
So Tesla's got the highest hail rating, the highest wind rating, the highest fire rating of any product on the market.
Mark Williams [00:28:08]:
Really? More than metal?
Paul Krumrich [00:28:09]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:28:10]:
No way.
Paul Krumrich [00:28:10]:
Or equal to like it's the highest. Got the highest rating of all of them. Interesting. And so it's bomb proof. It's pretty slick.
Mark Williams [00:28:18]:
Do you what has been your experience when you talk about it makes me want to put solar on every single thing I've ever had. And going forward, which we are planning to do a lot more of what are the biggest barriers? Is it mainly education?
Paul Krumrich [00:28:31]:
Part of its education, part of it is. It's not a luxury in terms of what we think of a luxury, but it's a luxury purchase in terms of, like, your power company will sell you power next week, so can you do. You should do solar, but you could do it next week, next year, two years from now. There's really no, like, urgency. If your car is breaking down and it's starting to cost you more, then you just get a new one. There's some urgency there. But with solar, if you have your house, you don't need to do it. So it's nice to do, it's cool to do.
Paul Krumrich [00:28:58]:
You should do it. But you could wait a month.
Mark Williams [00:29:01]:
Because I can relate very much to the urgency factor. I feel like right now, the last six months building, I feel like it's been really difficult to get people to design new homes. I feel like the urgency is. Unless there's a. I always like young families because there's a. I have a young family, so I can relate to them. But on the business side, it's. There's usually something happening.
Mark Williams [00:29:19]:
They're having more children, they're having less children. There. There's a reason there's an urgency.
Paul Krumrich [00:29:23]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:29:23]:
To do something. It's really hard to manufacture urgency when it doesn't exist.
Paul Krumrich [00:29:27]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:29:28]:
Because people do buy based on emotion.
Paul Krumrich [00:29:31]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:29:31]:
And if there's not some emotional hook, it's pretty hard sometimes to get somebody to, to do something. And, and right now I'm building, I think between the. By the time this airs, the election will be over. Thank goodness. And you also have. We're looking at some rate drops from what they're saying. So obviously from that standpoint, we're seeing a lot of people. Again, there's no urgency because if I wait, it's likely to be better than it is today.
Paul Krumrich [00:29:51]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:29:52]:
And so I, I can totally emphasize.
Paul Krumrich [00:29:54]:
Sales funnel, I would say, is bigger than it's ever been, but that doesn't mean much because everyone's waiting. And whether it's the election or for interest rates, it's because it's a huge purchase. Whether there's an ROI or not, it's still a lot of money.
Mark Williams [00:30:06]:
And what percentage of your. Let's call it just solar business in general is residential to commercial.
Paul Krumrich [00:30:11]:
It's probably 50, 50 in terms of revenue, but probably 80, 20 in terms of number of jobs, because commercial jobs are large.
Mark Williams [00:30:20]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:30:20]:
Tesla, we've done almost by the end of this year, we'll maybe do 50 installations, which doesn't seem like a lot, but for Tesla that's a lot. Yeah, anywhere ranging from $600,000 for a roof to 60,000.
Mark Williams [00:30:31]:
Wow. Some big roofs. Talk a little bit about the Tesla power walls and the batteries and a lot of the homes that we build in the western side of Minneapolis, we're doing backup generators and a lot of our clients will say have pools and so our outdoor hot tub were maybe I put in probably three or four generators and you can either have a whole house generator that will make the house just run indefinitely however you want it. One will be just like your refrigerator and like maybe your outside water line so that in the wintertime you want freeze your pool lines or something like that. So bare essentials waiting for the power to come back on. I framed it that way just to talk a little bit about these Tesla power walls. Yeah, we, I just know enough to be dangerous. But tell us a little bit about.
Mark Williams [00:31:12]:
For those that are not educated about EV cars in general and also how these Tesla power walls, essentially they're on demand batteries that are in live in your garage that can replace a generator and are being powered by the sun. And my close to.
Paul Krumrich [00:31:28]:
Yeah, pretty close.
Mark Williams [00:31:29]:
Yeah, get us a little close.
Paul Krumrich [00:31:30]:
So Tesla is a brand that makes a battery and there's other brands that are equally as good. But essentially a battery backup is the alternative to a generator for new construction. Because I assume if we're talking about a lot of builders, there's another product called Span, which is essentially a smart breaker panel. I think it looks really cool. So every new house should have one of those like without even. That's not even an option. And then battery backup right now is like in Minnesota is a luxury. In other states it's, it's an ROI that could be almost a year payback.
Paul Krumrich [00:32:01]:
And the reason for that is other states do time of use billing for electricity, which means that they don't charge the same amount for different times of the day. So it might be 3 cents in the, at midnight and at 8 in the morning when everyone gets up and turns on their toasters, it's 30 cents. And so then you can use a battery to arbitrage that and say, okay, I'm going to charge my battery when it's $0.03 and then instead of using the grid when it's 30, I'm going to use my battery. And so then those things pay for themselves like instantly.
Mark Williams [00:32:28]:
You mean the battery?
Paul Krumrich [00:32:29]:
The battery, yeah. In Minnesota, the ones that we end up selling are the people that want protection from a power outage. They're not worried about the roi. They're just like, hey, if I lose power, I want to make sure we're good. And then we would do the calculation of how much of your house do you want to operate for, how long? That would tell you if you need one battery or three batteries or 10 batteries. But it's coming down the pike. I think Excel said in January of 2025, they're going to change to time of use billing. And so then you may see, like, batteries outpace solar in terms of.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:00]:
Any house can do it. If you have tree coverage, you have a bad roof for solar, you live in a condo.
Mark Williams [00:33:07]:
So let me get this straight, because we had. We actually looked at doing solar at my own personal house. I live in southwest Minneapolis, and we have heavy tree cover. Solar just doesn't really make a lot of sense because.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:15]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:33:16]:
It never shines on the roof. Should probably cut down some trees anyway. So you're saying I could get a power wall battery.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:22]:
Yes.
Mark Williams [00:33:22]:
And I'm charging it with Excel's energy.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:25]:
Yep. So, yeah, like, when this happens, I'll make sure. I'm calling you number two. That's when I'm going to put mine in. I don't have one in my house because we don't lose power that often. And when.
Mark Williams [00:33:33]:
No, we don't lose power hardly ever.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:35]:
Excel gets it back on in two to three hours.
Mark Williams [00:33:37]:
Agreed.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:38]:
If we lived in California where you get brownouts and you got two days of. Of PNG not giving you electricity, that's different. But once Excel changes the way they're going to do their billing, I'll have one the next day and walk us.
Mark Williams [00:33:50]:
More granularly why that is. So I'm gonna. So I'm using the power on the grid to charge my battery.
Paul Krumrich [00:33:56]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:33:56]:
And then when the usage rate goes really high, I'm using the energy I already paid for Excel.
Paul Krumrich [00:34:01]:
But you paid 2 cents.
Mark Williams [00:34:03]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:34:03]:
And now they're charging you 30. So you're gaining 28 cents a kilowatt hour during that period where anyone else that doesn't have a battery doesn't have a choice.
Mark Williams [00:34:11]:
But if you know that's coming, why don't you buy the battery now?
Paul Krumrich [00:34:15]:
Just because I think there's going to be some incentives and things that are going to tie into that, because the other piece is what the big utilities are doing now is some of them, they're saying, okay, if we can get a million batteries out there, we can set up a program where we'll say, hey, Mark, will you sell us some energy if we need it? And we'll pay you like $2 a kilowatt hour. And I'm just making this number up. And then if you say yes, and they get a million people to say yes, when there's a huge need for power, instead of them having to go to Nebraska or South Dakota and say, hey, we need to buy power from you, they can just turn on a million batteries that have stored power and take it back to the grid. So that's the benefit the utility gets, is that they can now have instantaneous power because it takes time to turn on a plant, takes time to get power from Nebraska. And so they can arbitrage their need for power through us.
Mark Williams [00:35:05]:
Obviously, we just had massive power outages through the hurricanes down in the southeast. I can see how this. Generators, power, batteries, all this stuff is going to be more and more extreme weather regardless of where you live.
Paul Krumrich [00:35:17]:
Yeah. We were helping a guy in Tennessee or somewhere down there, and he was looking at a Tesla roof. And because in the winter we're trying to look sometimes to go south and do installs because we can't do them up here. And he asked for 12 power walls. And we're like, why do you need 12 power walls? This is. Your house needs two. And he said, no, these are Airbnbs. He's like, during a hurricane, I can rent it out for 100 grand a week because the rich people from Florida or wherever, they want power, they don't want it, they want to live.
Paul Krumrich [00:35:44]:
And they'll just come and stay here.
Mark Williams [00:35:46]:
Oh, they'll stay. Oh, they'll stay at his BNB because.
Paul Krumrich [00:35:49]:
It has power, not because of any other reason other than it has full power. Beautiful house.
Mark Williams [00:35:53]:
I thought you were saying he would have. He'd have 12 of these jacked up in charge and that they would be portable and you'd be able to take a powerwall to somebody's house, plug it in.
Paul Krumrich [00:36:01]:
That would be another idea. Trademark that.
Mark Williams [00:36:04]:
Why don't you start your fourth company? That was actually my final question is, what's the next company? But I'll save that one.
Paul Krumrich [00:36:08]:
We actually, my boys have a golf ball business where they. They go to theater worth, find golf balls, clean them up and sell them. So that's the fourth one.
Mark Williams [00:36:15]:
All right. That's pretty funny how that's pretty. Kills it on the solar. It's really interesting from an operation standpoint. Let's talk a little bit about teams here for the last half hour. Tell us about. Everyone loves some good Fail stories and I suspect you've got quite a few. Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:36:29]:
Tell us a little bit about. I think one of the things we were talking about at lunch before we came here was you'd always been told that you don't use debt to do payroll. And of course that's what you did.
Paul Krumrich [00:36:38]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:36:39]:
Just stuff like that. Let's chat a little bit about stuff that you've learned. You've run, you've owned a business now for 25 years or several of them. What are some things that you've learned not to do and what are some things. You went head first into a wall and you're like, yeah, I'm not going to do that again. But because a lot of, of owning a business is just perseverance and will.
Paul Krumrich [00:36:54]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:36:55]:
And like I heard somewhere recently, I'd be curious to see if you agree with this, that it's okay to fail, but fail fast. And the concept of course is like, the faster you fail, the quicker you can get up. If you have a long fail, it's going to bleed. You drive all your cash.
Paul Krumrich [00:37:07]:
Yeah, I, yeah, I heard something the other day too. It was like, make a quick decision is better than the right one taking too long.
Mark Williams [00:37:13]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:37:13]:
Because you, if you make it and it's wrong, you can at least see it's wrong and move on. We don't have time for all the fail stories. One of the early Tesla ones was, and I knew this, but the first job we did, I think we sold for 100 grand and it cost us 160. And the guy, it was interesting. He was an accountant by trade and he came out one day and he's, hey, Paul. He's I've been doing the math on how many people you have working here and how long you've been here. He's like, I gotta believe you're spending like 150 grand doing this. I'm like, yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:37:39]:
He's ooh. I'm like, so you want to chip in? He's like, no, we signed a contract. But I also knew like we had to be first through the door. It's any new technology. We did our best. On the first quote. Convincing the first person to say yes is also tough.
Mark Williams [00:37:51]:
Yep.
Paul Krumrich [00:37:52]:
Because once you get that first yes, then you have one to show the next person a little bit that was.
Mark Williams [00:37:55]:
A little bit sales, right?
Paul Krumrich [00:37:56]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:37:56]:
Like, and now you can say, hey, we just did this. You could say, I just did this.
Paul Krumrich [00:37:59]:
For a decade and stuff like that. I think what we talked about at lunch was you're Building a business, you, you take out a loan, you think it's about growing your team. And then all of a sudden, 2,000, you know, seven, eight hits and it goes to zero. You have a team. What are you going to do? And a lot of these people, when you were trying to start this thing, came on for less money. They could have got somewhere else or came on as a favor, worked longer, didn't ask for, you know, benefits. And now it's a time where you can't afford to keep them. And the MBA book says never pay them, just cut them.
Paul Krumrich [00:38:29]:
But it's a human emotionally attacked. Yeah, we didn't in part because you know that these people dug in deep for you when you need it. Now this is where you got to dig in for them. But in the MBA is not wrong. Like I've been digging out of that debt from 2007 still, because it's not like you never get it back. So there's stuff like that. And I think one of the things for me is I had to find. And I talked about this.
Paul Krumrich [00:38:53]:
I was in the CEO roundtable for a long time, and we always talked about a couple of companies ran tractions. We started doing that, which is an eos. I mean, everyone should read it. That's doing a small business. But we implemented that, that. And I'm obviously a visionary and maybe an extreme case. So me finding that integrator, that person that's going to be like the steady hand and get the trains on time has been key and we've been through a couple of them. But we've got a guy now that's is great.
Paul Krumrich [00:39:21]:
And I don't have to stress if I'm like, I'm going to this podcast, I'm gone for the day. That's what I should be doing. And he's making sure things happen. And so structure, which is not my skill set at all, is what a business needs to scale. And so for 25 years, we've been bumping up against these ceilings of what a dysfunctional family that still gets to the reunion on time does, but maybe doesn't have the ability to say, okay, let's take that and replicate it two more times or three more times.
Mark Williams [00:39:49]:
I feel like, at least earlier on in my career, I'd never thought about scale. You're reacting. You're not proactive at all. At least I wasn't. And I. I had recently mentioned this that I don't think age of service or time of service has anything to do with the scale your business. I Know builders that have been building for 10, 11 years and they're like 100, 150 million in revenue and they're 35 employees and just absolutely killing it. And you're like, that's amazing.
Mark Williams [00:40:14]:
I'm like, I'm super excited about that. And you're like, hey, here I am with four employees. Way less than that. And it's not a comparison, it's more of just like an evaluation of wow. They got things a lot different. And the person I'm thinking of was they came from a corporate background, they saw scale at a different. So I think we're so informed by our, not only our upbringing obviously as kids, but also like our path to entrepreneurship. I sometimes think there's a huge advantage to maybe even buying a business.
Mark Williams [00:40:41]:
Yeah, I think right now, I think I heard somewhere that there's 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day. Think of how many businesses are owned by baby boomer. And so it'd be a great opportunity. You don't need cash to buy in. Obviously you could come to somebody. And I think H Vac Plumbing, there's so many great trade organizations, especially within the construction world where if you're going to own a business, I'd find it hard pressed, find a career. You could own a business faster somehow associated around construction.
Paul Krumrich [00:41:07]:
Yeah, I think the future AI is never going to take any of the construction jobs. So there's a huge opportunity there. But I also think T said earlier about an entrepreneur, like someone told me once and it made, it made sense, which is true. Like the difference between someone that starts their own business and runs one and like someone that works for a company is who can sleep with the debt. Who can go to bed at night with that hanging over your head every night and not, you know, not freak out. I think that's the actual. It's. That's the only skill that separates someone like me from someone else.
Paul Krumrich [00:41:36]:
And maybe it's stupidity or ignorance or optimism.
Mark Williams [00:41:40]:
A lot of it is temperament.
Paul Krumrich [00:41:41]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:41:42]:
Some people are bothered by certain things and I think availability of risk. I'm totally off. I know you're just out in Cyan national park and so we were chatting about that. But like Alex Honnold, famous rock climber, he has a great quote. He was being interviewed recently and he said that, that as a culture he. We don't, we don't do things that cause us real fear enough. And his concept was is if we don't really know fear, then you can't really know its opposite. Let's say joy Or.
Mark Williams [00:42:09]:
Or peace and things like that, because we've lost touch with some of those things. I think that's probably what draws us both to whether it's athletics or competition or. I asked someone the other day when we were biking, Tony, actually, I asked him, I said, why do you think humans are obsessed with speech, need? And he's the philosopher. I just asked the questions. And. And he said, I think it's that. Because we're close to the veil of death. A really cool.
Mark Williams [00:42:28]:
I was like, oh, that's a good one. And his comment was. It's like, when you're going really fast, there's a part of you that realizes, like, your own mortality. Like, I could get hurt. Right. Maybe not dying, but obviously the bus hits you, which almost happened with Charlie yesterday. That guy never let him go first across an intersection. He does not know what a car means.
Mark Williams [00:42:44]:
Being outside nature. I get so much inspiration personally, professionally. It energizes me to do what we do right. By going. And I'm speaking. Really. Why am I talking about this? It's about temperament. It's like, what informs a lot.
Mark Williams [00:42:56]:
I know so many entrepreneurs. It's like, you do this you're excited about, but we. You have to get your energy or your. You have to be empowered by something else. Your job can empower you, too. It's not that you're not. But I just feel like so many entrepreneurs that I talk to that there. There's also another thing or part of their makeup that makes their temperament different.
Paul Krumrich [00:43:14]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:43:14]:
And then as you start interviewing other Bill. Other entrepreneurs, in this case, it's builders or whatever you do. It's like you find these little commonalities, like, oh, I can identify with that. Oh, that's. I see that myself, too.
Paul Krumrich [00:43:25]:
Yeah. I think it also helped the reason. Probably we do that. And I look at myself, like, why do I. The risk is okay for me, or something. I need. It's also probably why I do sports. And some people run or bike, but they don't enter races.
Paul Krumrich [00:43:37]:
Like. And I think racing, to me, for some reason, is as close as you get. Like, I always think about this at the beginning of a race because I'm nervous. I'm like, why am I nervous? I've done. But I think it's. We don't have any situations in life anymore. Picture back in the Vikings, we're going to war tomorrow. Get your sword.
Paul Krumrich [00:43:52]:
That morning how you joke that the porta potties are always full at a race. Imagine what it's like when you're like, oh, I might not just lose or not get my time, but I might not. I might get stabbed in the gut. And so I feel like that's as close as we get to those parts that humans need to, like, establish what they are. And so to me, that's why I still race. Not because I think I'm going to win or whatever, but it's because, like, you pin that number on. You're putting yourself out there to win, lose, to be ranked against your peers. And I think that's probably my downside on business is I do it because I think it's.
Paul Krumrich [00:44:23]:
It is a competition because there is winners and losers. And if you can't look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm the greatest when the stats say you're the seventh, whatever. Getting back to Tepperman, I think that's. You never know if it's, you're an entrepreneur because of that or because of that, you're an entrepreneur.
Mark Williams [00:44:39]:
That's a good. I think it's. I would say the latter. I think it's because of that you're an entrepreneur. Right.
Paul Krumrich [00:44:44]:
But look at running. Like, how many of your ultra running buddies are not type A? Most of them, like, to me, are not type A. Are type A? No. Okay.
Mark Williams [00:44:52]:
I've been like, wait a minute, they're all type A.
Paul Krumrich [00:44:54]:
But that's my point. Are they type A because they're runners or are they runners because they're tight? Do lawyers and doctors and whoever go into running because it's this. I don't know.
Mark Williams [00:45:01]:
I don't know either.
Paul Krumrich [00:45:02]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:45:02]:
The other thing that you have to be concerned about, other than all the other things, our friends, is that when you surround yourself with a bunch of people that are similar, you end up. It's hard sometimes. You don't get a lot of perspective. Because someone sent me out a quote the other day that in a decade, a being fit will be far more rare than being a millionaire.
Paul Krumrich [00:45:20]:
Oh, yeah.
Mark Williams [00:45:20]:
And the comment that was in the quote was that you have. It takes time, dedication in a society. We continue to get more and more obese as a culture.
Paul Krumrich [00:45:29]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:45:29]:
And. But obviously if we were to look at the groups of people we hang out with, that's not normal. I realize that I'm not that far gone that I don't realize that not everyone wants to do that, but it.
Paul Krumrich [00:45:38]:
But it keeps you, like, it keeps you honest. I think athletics keep you honest because it's, to your point, the one thing you can't buy. So you can be super well off. Super loaded and drive down the road and think, oh, I'm doing well because I have this Porsche, I have this whatever. But it's the one thing that like money can't buy, which is like dedication, blue collar work, getting out there. And so I always keep athletics as like that barometer of if I ever get too high on myself, I got 10 buddies that'll kick my butt. That. And so yeah, I have some friends that think I'm crazy.
Paul Krumrich [00:46:08]:
Oh my God, I can't believe you ride your bike that much. And then I'm like, with these other people, I'm not even on the radar of how good they are. And so keeping that perspective and I think with business too, it's, you can't get too full of yourself or successes. When I think my family and people that are around me like, they, they feel like sometimes I don't get excited enough about the wins. But I tell them like in business, like literally within five minutes of a win, you're going to get a loss. And so if you get too excited about the win, the losses will crush you. So you just have to like keep it steady.
Mark Williams [00:46:38]:
My daddy used to always say, steady at the helm.
Paul Krumrich [00:46:40]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:46:40]:
I think of someone just being buffeted by wind and waves.
Paul Krumrich [00:46:42]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:46:43]:
Captain is just like study. I'm a, as a very emotional, positive person. So I, I usually don't get super low, but I get these very high highs. And of course I can't help myself. You get a win, right? You get a new contract, you get pretty excited. We used to have this thing in the office, like we haven't done it now in a while and it was Black Sabbath, Iron Man. Whenever we signed a contract, I would turn on all the speakers in the office and it would just be like, yeah. And everyone in the office was like, oh no.
Mark Williams [00:47:09]:
And then I would walk downstairs.
Paul Krumrich [00:47:11]:
Well, I feel like sometimes I gotta remember that because even though I'm the one stressed out with what's coming next, like the team needs the win because they work their butt off to get it. And so I gotta make sure I'm trying to like, like not be always like, yeah, that's great. Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow.
Mark Williams [00:47:25]:
I think having people in your life, it could be your spouse, could be people on your team that help you. I would not say I'm a super self aware person.
Paul Krumrich [00:47:34]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:47:34]:
On certain things, that we all have our blind spots, of course. But I think it's taking me a long time to realize that the thing I need and everyone needs an Integrator. I feel like everyone I talked to basically because I always talk to business owners. We all need integrators. But like because I'm all yellow and red disc assessment we're is driver visionary and. But I've looked at people the wrong way for a long time. I used to think that more people, more problems.
Paul Krumrich [00:47:55]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:47:55]:
And. And there is an element to obviously and. And we're conscientious. We care about people. So to your earlier comment. It's not actually last year was the first time in my career I've ever had to fire somebody right before there was. They left because they wanted to go somewhere else. Which is fine.
Mark Williams [00:48:09]:
A wimpy way to. To fire someone.
Paul Krumrich [00:48:11]:
That's. I'm the worst at that.
Mark Williams [00:48:13]:
Yeah. And. But in. In some ways I learned a lot through that experience. And one of is that when you have people that are really great, your life becomes easier. And every time I've hired someone that was the right fit that is extremely competent they do the job better than I can anyway.
Paul Krumrich [00:48:26]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:48:26]:
So why didn't I do that earlier? So now I'm actually really excited. I don't want to go super crazy with scale, but I definitely want to scale bigger than I am more to buy back freedom and time. And I think people can equate to. And I like the team camaraderie. I think the one thing that even having the podcast has taught me as I interview with other builders is I just really love people. I really like being around people. So I want to. Having the interview makes me feel like I'm on everybody's team.
Paul Krumrich [00:48:49]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:48:49]:
It feels I'm part of Greenway Solar at a con.
Paul Krumrich [00:48:52]:
You kind of are.
Mark Williams [00:48:52]:
I am. Yeah. I know. Are you aware that you're. I wear your stuff all the time. Plus now we've got you at Sonic Camp and boot Camp. So Calabas coming in hot.
Paul Krumrich [00:48:59]:
What.
Mark Williams [00:48:59]:
When you look around, what are some. I haven't asked this question before, but I'm just feeling it now. Like what companies inspire you? Like where do you get your inspiration from a business standpoint?
Paul Krumrich [00:49:08]:
So I. Speaking of podcasts, there's a couple I listen to Pivot and the all in which are. They're interesting. One's more tech and business and one's more just these VC bros that talk about all the inside sites of this. These bigger companies but just how they view trends and how they try to position their companies. I think my next piece is. You mentioned it but we started looking at our employees in terms of do they make our Lives easier or harder and just that simple. Instead of all these rubrics and metrics, like, there's certain people and you've had them, like, they just solve things before.
Paul Krumrich [00:49:40]:
It's a problem. When they're like, hey, this happened. I fixed it. Like, thank you. Then you have others that are like, hey, here's a problem. And like, dump it in your lap. And one of the. This lady I used to be in the CEO roundtable with, she said having kids was one of the best things that happened to her as a manager because her time got so short that she couldn't put up with all the BS she was putting up with before.
Paul Krumrich [00:50:00]:
And so she used to say to people, like, they'd come into her office and she'd be like, take that monkey. Keep it on your back and get out of here. Because she'd be like, they're going to try and dump it in my office. Their problem in my office.
Mark Williams [00:50:10]:
Good for her to recognize that. Because you don't always recognize.
Paul Krumrich [00:50:13]:
Right. And with scale, that's the one thing I've noticed is when you have two people, you can deal with it. When you have. We're at like 25 now, that's a big operation. Yeah. And so it's just a lot. And so it's a lot of personalities. It's a lot of.
Paul Krumrich [00:50:25]:
It's just a lot. And so trying to get those people in leadership positions is really what my next piece is. Because everyone's going to make mistakes, and those mistakes cost us money or the business. What I'm trying to get. Get better at is that mistake is me investing in your learning. So instead of yelling at you for it, make sure you learn from it and make sure we never do it again. And let's go and not get out of here, but stay. Because I just invested that in you.
Paul Krumrich [00:50:52]:
And then just finding people that are really good culture fits that technical ability or not, are they going to make others around them better? Because that's what you need. Or else more people means more problems.
Mark Williams [00:51:02]:
Yeah, that's true. I was just listening to. I listened a podcast a lot called Founders. And anyway, they were talking about. Or he was talking about Rockefeller and he talked a little bit about your employees when they fail or the continuity or maybe that maybe this is Charlie Munger. Actually, now I think about. He references him a lot in Warren Buffett. But the concept is once you've invested in somebody, it's like compounded.
Mark Williams [00:51:22]:
Like when you take a stock position and it's giving you a return, don't pull that stock out, right? Like it's, Let it keep compounding like a Roth ira, let it go. And your employees, treat them good, give them, make them happy. It's not just a one way street. Like, we care about our people too. And as they grow, they take your company up, they level up your company as well. What's interesting about, or what I would say is about we just went through a rebranding process a couple years ago, and It'd been about 10 years prior to that that we'd done the previous rebrand. And my wife had said, your clients have lifted you to a level that your brand no longer represents. It's time for a brand refresh.
Mark Williams [00:51:57]:
It's a little bit like a shirt.
Paul Krumrich [00:51:58]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:51:58]:
You know, I do like nice clothes, so I guess it's not the best for me. But sometimes you look back and you're like, wow, I've had that shirt for 10 years. And your wife. Yeah, that. That's a little tired. Yeah, you need a new shirt. And I, that was the company, that was my brand. Like, my brand no longer fit the homes we were producing anymore.
Mark Williams [00:52:10]:
And it's interesting, when we went through that brand exercise and that brand refresh, everyone was, whoa, love the brand. That's cool. But it's funny, the brand just represents what you've already become.
Paul Krumrich [00:52:18]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:52:18]:
Like you became this viewer, the larva, and now you're butterfly, and now it needs to represent that. And I think your company evolves and sometimes people can evolve with you.
Paul Krumrich [00:52:27]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:52:27]:
Recently we had somebody different backstory. I won't obviously go into it or share names, but it was basically they said, we feel like your company is going in a different direction than we want to go with. And I said, great, we've. Thank you for the time together. We've done great work together. The door is always open, but I don't know what that person meant. I think they had some negative baggage out there, but I can leave that at the door. We had 12 years together, so that's fine.
Mark Williams [00:52:49]:
And. But my point is some people grow with you and some don't. And I think because this business and businesses in general, we're really emotionally attached to people, it's sometimes hard for us when people don't want to grow when we're growing.
Paul Krumrich [00:53:00]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:53:00]:
I find as a business owner, because I just am a voracious reader and podcasts and audiobooks, I have a hard time when people on my team, I don't see self improvement.
Paul Krumrich [00:53:09]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:53:09]:
And because I'm just manically obsessed with it. But I realize that's also. It's a very common entrepreneurship issue.
Paul Krumrich [00:53:15]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:53:15]:
And not everyone has that drive or that type A or whatever you want to call it. Do you sometimes have a hard time with that when you. When your mind is working or are you able to say, hey? And I'm not even saying it's better because I see people that are maybe more at peace or more. I'm not saying it's always healthy. By the way, I look at sometimes people and they seem very happy. That's not that I'm not happy. It's just that you understand the question. Like your minds are.
Mark Williams [00:53:37]:
You're constantly thinking about new things. That's the visionary, not curse. But that's the downside of always coming up with new ideas.
Paul Krumrich [00:53:42]:
Yeah. I think that being an entrepreneur or running a business, I guess you don't even have to be an entrepreneur. You're trying to block and tackle 17 things at once. And you're always worried about something. So an employee is looking at their box. And so, oh, yeah, we didn't close a job this week, but we'll probably get it next week. And to you, you're hearing payroll. Right.
Paul Krumrich [00:54:04]:
And so your urgency is so different than theirs. But it's taken a while, but I finally learned. I can't expect you get so frustrated. Like, why aren't they thinking, like, about the money and about, it's your business, it's not theirs. And so you just have to understand perspectives, which is hard because it's easy to get. Not resentful. But maybe that is the right word because there's been times where I put people's payroll on my credit card. And then they'll come and say, hey, I really think that just something where you're like, you don't even understand, you know, what I did what I'm doing right now.
Paul Krumrich [00:54:33]:
And you're complaining about X. Right. Holy cow. But you can't really put that on them. Hey, I'm putting your payroll and credit card because we don't have any sales. We're probably on the verge of going out of business.
Mark Williams [00:54:43]:
You don't know what you don't know.
Paul Krumrich [00:54:44]:
And to your point about mistakes, one time I was like, hey, hey, I'm going to just be super open with everyone. Here's the situation. And literally this is, you know, 2009. I think I walked by someone's like, half the people are on Monster.com back in the day because they. They heard me say, we're done. And I was trying to say let's get together, let's work hard. Let's figure out what they heard is.
Mark Williams [00:55:04]:
The ship is sinking, Jump off the.
Paul Krumrich [00:55:05]:
Ship, and so then it's okay. That didn't work.
Mark Williams [00:55:07]:
Like, you.
Paul Krumrich [00:55:08]:
You almost, like, you have these ideas. Oh, this would be great. Because I'd want to know that now's the time to dig in. But what they hear is, I need to make my mortgage. This guy just tell me we might not be able to do it here. Oh. And so how do you.
Mark Williams [00:55:22]:
That is interesting. I've been. I have a long time. I don't like. Really. I call them partners or we. I don't like saying I'm somebody's boss. I like to say we work together.
Paul Krumrich [00:55:30]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:55:31]:
That's always. Even my mom and dad, who owned a business. I was always very inclusive. And I can't build a home without my trade partners. And I'm very passionate about that. So I try to affect my link. Twitch. And.
Mark Williams [00:55:40]:
And I just thought of something. My daughter the other day asked me or my kids said, dad, is mom your boss?
Paul Krumrich [00:55:46]:
I'm like, yep, yep, yep.
Mark Williams [00:55:48]:
That's true. There's no. There's no team there. I'm just kidding. But where I was going with this was empowering your team, but showing them enough so they can see the common goal.
Paul Krumrich [00:55:56]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:55:56]:
And I think that's part of culture and sharing it. But I've been very fortunate that two of some of my best employees and people that I work with are former business owners. And so they get it. I one in particular. He ran a framing company for 20 years.
Paul Krumrich [00:56:09]:
Wow.
Mark Williams [00:56:10]:
You know, he had his own. Him and his bro ran their own company. And then his body was like, I don't want to do this for another 20, 30 years. And says, you're coming to work with me. We got to be. We got to be my project manager and my. And he's great. And.
Mark Williams [00:56:20]:
But I. He does understand payroll. He does understand running a business. He does understand all that. And so I think that's a rare. That's a rare hire because it's not very often that someone who owns a business also can. It'd be difficult. I honestly don't know if I could work for somebody else.
Paul Krumrich [00:56:36]:
Right. You couldn't now. No, I couldn't either. I'd be the worst employee.
Mark Williams [00:56:39]:
I thought about a couple years ago, things were. There was some. I don't know. Maybe I was. I think right before the podcast, I was pretty burned out. I've spoken about a little bit on the podcast, and I needed the podcast for me to. I need. It was like, donkey label.
Mark Williams [00:56:51]:
It was the thing that really got me excited. I just needed, like, a shot of it. Now I'm ready for the back 40. I'm all re. Energized about building and where it's going and what we're doing. Software that I didn't love building. It was like I'd been doing it for 20 years. Like, I know how to do it.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:03]:
It was.
Mark Williams [00:57:04]:
I need to scratch a different itch.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:05]:
Yeah. And I think that's about the learning curve. So for me, when I think about why I do some things, like, I learned about how garments are made.
Mark Williams [00:57:13]:
Oh, garments.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:14]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:57:14]:
I thought you meant garments.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:16]:
But like, you podcast, you had to figure all this stuff out. Oh, now I'm worrying about, like, you. Your brain needs that sharp point of the learning curve. And I think that's also why you maybe go from running to bike, because, ooh, gear. And what about, like, 100? And I think that's the humans that we are, which is. Is the curious builder. You're curious, and then you take the next step. So some people are curious and stop.
Mark Williams [00:57:37]:
I would say most.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:38]:
I'm going to do it, and I know that I'm going to be really bad and to your point, fail. But it's not really failure because you're learning and you're like the. To me, it's. That's where I get the most joy in life, is the steep part of the learning curve. I think you've done triathlon, like swimming?
Mark Williams [00:57:51]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:51]:
At 36, I doubled my rate of swimming in a year.
Mark Williams [00:57:55]:
Oh, wow.
Paul Krumrich [00:57:56]:
Because I was so bad. And it's so much. And it's so much, like, technique. Like, you can't do that with running. You can't do it with, like, typing. There's nothing in your life where you can get twice as good at it anymore. And so I think that's like podcasting. You went from zero to maybe you're only at 60, but that felt good when it re.
Paul Krumrich [00:58:12]:
Energized you. And I think that's.
Mark Williams [00:58:14]:
And I think we need different things. You hear about burnout, whatever that might be. And I think sometimes, like, I've had people even about the podcast that have said it's taking away too much of your attention.
Paul Krumrich [00:58:23]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:58:23]:
But I was thinking, like, okay, so if I stayed focused on building and burned out in four years, or if I. Let's say it takes a day and a half to doing all the things I'm. And I'm doing a lot more Than unfortunately, the podcast was like the gateway drug. 20 other things that I want to do with it in which I'm really enjoying. But the point of that is, of that story is like. But if it allows me to build for 20 more years right now, even if I'm. Let's say it's a bad analogy, but as a builder, let's say I'm 70, efficient, but I'm able to do it for 20 years. So that's way more home business.
Paul Krumrich [00:58:49]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:58:50]:
Than I ever would have been able to do it. And I think as going back to that athletic comparisons, I'm 44. I'm not. I could maybe beat myself. I still am in the window where I could beat what I was before because I'm. You can be more disciplined and you can find different ways to win. But like, to your earlier point, yeah, there's seven guys who could just flat out kill me in anything I wanted that we currently are friends with.
Paul Krumrich [00:59:09]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:59:09]:
Forget all the people you don't even know. So you have to make these little games and adjust the metrics. And at the end of the day, ever since the 50 miler that I did this fall, I'd say for the last month and a half, I've been floundering.
Paul Krumrich [00:59:19]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:59:19]:
And it wasn't the 50 miler, it was the goal.
Paul Krumrich [00:59:21]:
Goal. Right.
Mark Williams [00:59:22]:
It was the object. And so now we're doing in your. Yeah, I got you roped into it, too, along with seven other people, which is the 75 hard. And it's really just, I need the sense of community. I need something that challenges me, whatever it might be. And I. That must just be something that's a gear in my brain.
Paul Krumrich [00:59:36]:
Yeah, I'm the same way. Like, I don't do well at, like, training for life fitness.
Mark Williams [00:59:40]:
I can't do that.
Paul Krumrich [00:59:41]:
I need to show up to something that I might get embarrassed at and will not want to get embarrassed. And DL Donkey label helps me because the guy that owns the clothing band better not be the worst dude that shows up. And so that's like how my mind works. My wife likes to run, and she can do it for a race or she can just do it for health. But I'm like, I need something. And so, yeah, it's like testing yourself. Yeah, it's. But I think that's business, right? Like, business is when you leave high school or college or wherever there's graded you, what's the next thing? And, like, having a job where you have security for some people is great.
Paul Krumrich [01:00:10]:
Like my dad, he couldn't sleep a night. If he knew half. He was a teacher. And he's. I just need to know a paycheck's coming.
Mark Williams [01:00:16]:
I. It's funny you say that. I have. I have a. I won't say who they are because they'll know about this, but I know somebody that is taking a pay cut from commission. They're looking to start a family, and they want a regular payment because they want the. And I get it, like.
Paul Krumrich [01:00:30]:
Right.
Mark Williams [01:00:30]:
She's a. She wants to be a mother. Like, I totally understand it. And. But she's so good at what she does from a commission standpoint because she's just very competitive.
Paul Krumrich [01:00:39]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:00:39]:
I suspect that once her kids. When she has her family, that she'll probably have to go back because she's just. She's so motivated by what could be. Right. Which is a great driving mower. But I get. I know I have another person that's. I'm just glad that I, you know, I can do what I need.
Mark Williams [01:00:55]:
We're partners on something, and they just love the continuity. And they're like, am I gonna be. Am I gonna still have this job a year from now? I'm like, I'm so sorry that you ever thought that. Yeah. Are you kidding me? Like, you will be helping me run this.
Paul Krumrich [01:01:06]:
Don't worry. Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:01:06]:
For as long as I run it. I'm sorry that I didn't make that clear.
Paul Krumrich [01:01:09]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:01:10]:
And it was really. It was actually a cool moment for me, too, because. Because it's more like they wanted to be the team. They wanted to be a part of this, and then they. But they needed the stability. Right. That it wasn't going to be a flash in the pan. I think it goes back to being a leader.
Mark Williams [01:01:23]:
I haven't always. Even though sometimes you can be a leader, but not, oh, A, act like one, but B, think like one. You're not. I'm not. I think sometimes leaders fall into this trap of, you are a leader because you're leading, but you're not really thinking about leadership. Right. And I think as you get older, certainly now, I. I do think a little bit differently now.
Mark Williams [01:01:40]:
Now. Okay. How can I train people up? And we're such a small team that I'm excited to have more people because nothing would make me happier than to see them advance either professionally, but personally, too. I get really excited when people. When they pick a goal. Right. When you see someone that does something that challenges them, I think that's really cool.
Paul Krumrich [01:01:56]:
Yeah. No. We have a variety of different employee types. What I'VE found is there's you almost my interview questions now. I'd almost like to meet their parents. Because our best employees are that way. Because they're that way.
Mark Williams [01:02:08]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [01:02:08]:
Like they don't leave a job site until it's perfect. Not because the manager's looking, because they wouldn't sleep at night knowing that thing was offset or that it just wasn't done right. Like they just have personal pride and other people are like, up, five o'clock, I'm out. And so finding the A's is tough. It's hard to. It's hard to convince a B or a C to be an A. You can't use incentives. Like, I've found you.
Paul Krumrich [01:02:31]:
I've tried it all. And so now I just feel like, like find those A's and man, freedom to work with A's. Yeah. And then also like the thing that you and I probably both have to work on is when you have a C and you don't let them go. The A's and the B's. Why am I doing all this? Because so and so is there as a C. Yep. And so that's been the one thing I've learned, which is my.
Paul Krumrich [01:02:50]:
What I thought was me being this great human and not wrecking someone's life by firing them or letting them go was actually a huge negative for the team and holding us all back. And that I needed to say, hey, celebrate the A's. The B's can get to A's and find more A's. And then I read something once that said, even if the A only stays for two years, the C would have stayed forever and that would have been worse. The two years you get with that A takes your company to the next level, then it's exciting place for the next A to come in and spend their two years. Like, hopefully they stay, but if they leave, don't look at that as a negative. Like, they got you further because they were so good. We.
Mark Williams [01:03:25]:
It's funny that we had Rob Hull on from J Mad Design. He'll air the episode episode before this one. And he was hired when he right out of grad school. He was I think he was like 22, something like that. And they chose him because he was inexperienced. He didn't have any habits they had to break, but they just recognized him. The cultural fit and the youth and the forward moving. But a lot of times people say, oh, experience.
Mark Williams [01:03:47]:
Like, I've often hired an overpaid for really good experience.
Paul Krumrich [01:03:50]:
I made that mistake.
Mark Williams [01:03:52]:
I think every entrepreneur makes that Mistake, probably repeat it.
Paul Krumrich [01:03:55]:
Oh, I shortcut my process 100%. Two months. And then you.
Mark Williams [01:03:58]:
I've done it twice. One was. Yeah, one time I did it, I was like, I left him on an island. I just need them to run all the jobs to themselves. And there's a reason they were let go from the other company that I hired them from. And then. And then it turned out. Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:04:11]:
That just. It ran into the ground unsupervised.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:13]:
We. We just hired this woman, Nelly, who's amazing. And our Donkey Label manager knew her, like, socially or something. Hey, you should meet this lady. And in the interview, I was like, tell me about your day. She's. I get up at 4:40, I take a cold shower and I figure out how I'm gonna kick ass. And I'm like, oh, you're h.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:30]:
I was like, done.
Mark Williams [01:04:31]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:31]:
Say no more. And she's been amazing.
Mark Williams [01:04:33]:
Wow. That was the first thing out of her mouth.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:35]:
Yeah. And I was like, I don't need to hear anything else, you know? But she goes across it. Then she comes to work. She didn't. She wants to get into marketing. She's. She's taking a class at night. We're helping pay for it.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:43]:
But she's like, she's just a rock star.
Mark Williams [01:04:45]:
That's the drive.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:46]:
Yeah. And it's because she wants it. And I'm not trying to. I've also made the mistake of seeing people and seeing potential and wanting something more for them than they want.
Mark Williams [01:04:54]:
Yeah.
Paul Krumrich [01:04:54]:
And not like reading the tea leaves that they're not actually trying to pull this out of desk drawer. They're just like. And so with her, it's like, the sky's the limit and it's amazing. And so if we. If you could clone five of those people, you take over the world.
Mark Williams [01:05:09]:
I've got one for you, Addison.
Paul Krumrich [01:05:10]:
All right.
Mark Williams [01:05:10]:
You're talking about him.
Paul Krumrich [01:05:11]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:05:11]:
Well, shout out to him. See, he's the secret that shall not be named. To respect your time here. We'll close out. And obviously, for those that are listening, this will air before sauna camp. So we've got. Donkey Label will be one of our sponsors there.
Paul Krumrich [01:05:22]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:05:23]:
As well as Boot Camp, if you want to meet Paul in person. Obviously, we'll have all. Everything in the show. Notes for Donkey Label as well. And thanks again for coming on the show.
Paul Krumrich [01:05:30]:
Yeah, thank you. I want to say hi to Wesley and Torben if they listen to this episode. My two kids.
Mark Williams [01:05:34]:
Oh, they certainly will. Very good. Thanks for listening to the Curious Builder Podcast, if you like what you listen to. Please give us a five star rating and write us a review. It really means a lot. It's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing. So like and review and please share with your friends and family. Family.
Mark Williams [01:05:53]:
Find out more@curiousbuilderpodcast.com.
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