The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is a long-form conversational podcast that dives deep into the journeys of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers in Northern Colorado. Hosted by Curt Bear, Founder of LoCo Think Tank, the show brings real, raw, and unfiltered conversations—where guests share their successes, struggles, and lessons learned along the way.
LoCo Think Tank is Colorado’s premier business peer advisory organization, founded in Fort Collins to help business owners gain perspective, accountability, and encouragement to grow both personally and professionally. LoCo chapters bring together business owners at all stages of the journey into professionally facilitated peer advisory chapters, led by experienced business veterans. These groups provide a trusted space to share challenges, seek advice, learn togethter, and support each other’s success.
The LoCo Experience Podcast extends this mission beyond the chapter meetings— bringing the wisdom, insights, and stories of local business leaders to a wider audience.
Our triad mission with this podcast is simple:
Inspire through real stories of resilience and success.
Educate by sharing valuable business insights.
Entertain with engaging, unfiltered conversations.
If you love “How I Built This” and the free-flowing style of Joe Rogan - but with a Northern Colorado focus - you’ll enjoy The LoCo Experience! Our closing segment, "The LoCo Experience," asks guests to share their craziest stories — and we get some doozies!
It’s a passion project with purpose, and we invite you to listen, follow, and share, and maybe consider sponsoring. Know someone with a great story? Nominate your favorite business leader for an episode!
The LoCo Experience
EXPEREINCE 230 | Talking Margins, Maximization, and Adventure with Moses Horner, Founder and Owner of Horner Painting
In this episode, I was joined by Moses Horner, the Founder and Owner of Horner Painting, as he celebrates their 25 years in business! Horner Painting is a market leader in both new construction and residential repaints, and Moses is also my landlord and a longtime LoCo Facilitator for a Builders chapter.
We talked about Moses' special sauce in founding and growing the business, which for Moses has always been maximizing - continuous improvement and streamlining operations. Moses emphasized the importance of operating with profit margins from day one and advises against expanding too quickly - in team size or overhead expenditures. He shares his journey in developing his skills, acknowledging the significance of his LoCo Think Tank membership in helping him develop both business acumen and leadership skills. We also dug into his recent separation from a minority partner, and the challenge in both honoring a strong relationship - and knowing when it’s time for a change.
We dove into Moses' family life, discussing his 31-year marriage to Sara, his pride in his children and their pursuits, and their shared love of travel. Recent travels recounted included a surf trip to El Salvador and a harrowing motorcycle accident in Mongolia that turned into an opportunity to experience the region in a whole new way.
Our conversation highlights the cultural and business experiences that come from fostering strong relationships, and the power of intentionality with family, community engagement, and the pursuit of a lasting legacy. He’s a friend, a mentor, and a strong example of the power of peer advisory - so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Moses Horner.
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
In this episode, I was joined by Moses Horner, the founder and owner of Horner Painting as he celebrates their 25 years in business. Horner Painting is a market leader in both new construction and residential repaints, and Moses is also my landlord and longtime local facilitator for a builders chapter. We talked about Moses' special sauce and founding and growing his business, which for Moses has always been maximizing continuous improvement and streamlining operations. Moses emphasized the importance of operating with profit margins from day one and advises against expanding too quickly in team size or overhead expenditures. He shares his journey in developing his skills, acknowledging the significance of his local think tank membership, and helping him develop both business acumen and leadership skills. And we also dug into his recent separation from a minority partner and the challenge in both honoring a strong relationship and knowing when it's time for a change. We dove into Moses' family life discussing his 31 year marriage to Sarah. His pride in his children and their pursuits and their shared love of travel. Recent travels recounted included a surf trip to El Salvador and a herring motorcycle accident in Mongolia. That turned into an opportunity to experience the region in a whole new way. Our conversation highlights the cultural and business experience that come from fostering strong relationships and the power of intentionality with family. Community engagement and the pursuit of a lasting legacy. He's a friend, a mentor, and a strong example of the power of peer advisory. So please enjoy as I did my conversation with Moses Horner, I. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Moses Horner, uh, the founder of Horner Painting, celebrating 25 years this year. Yeah. As well as my landlord at local Think Tank and the local experience. True, true. Longtime member facilitator. Yep. Yep. Hero to many husband of Sarah. True. And I struggled to remember your kids' names. Uh, Jake and Macy. Oh yeah, sorry. Son is 29 and my daughter is 27, so That's wild. Yeah. We've known each other for Empty Nest 10 years now. Yeah. Yeah. They were just kind of, I mean, they weren't small, but they weren't like out of the nest when Yeah, no, they were definitely a lot younger and Loco was just starting and I was just starting to get my business organized and yeah. Thinking about working on the business instead of in the business and. Here we are. And that was, I guess, 15 years in almost right? Or 14 years in or something before. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. You kind of started to get more organized or how, what would you say were the biggest things that you've changed in Horner painting? I mean, it's always been a constant improvement, constant, like tweaks a little. Make it a little better, a little better, a little better every year. Um, we did, uh, strength Finder this year as a team, and ideation and maximizer were my top two. So I've got all these ideas Yep. About how to make things better. And it's not always, yeah. Some of'em aren't. Right. It's definitely a strength. Yeah. Uh, so that's, I think that's always been a natural part of Horner painting is how can we make it better? Is this the best, most efficient, um, uh, producing the best results? And a lot of that was in the field, uh, me learning how to paint, learning the best way to paint the best products, the best value, the best systems. And then at some point, uh. Honer painting was just too big. I couldn't stay in the field and continue to apply and charge for my hours, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. Um, I had to become a non-producing member. I would imagine with, especially with repaints, it's a very complex, um, thing like just even doing an estimate.'cause not every house is equal. You don't know how much you got, how much prep time, scraping, all these things. But if you don't bid efficiently, then you don't get business. Right. For sure. Um, we have a, we have a bidding system that, that works well. Um, and I think we're gonna revisit this season again, constantly tweaking and maximizing. We used to have a, a fix it list after our annual strategic planning. We now just call it an optimization list. We're not really fixing things anymore. Yeah. We're just making things more optimized or, or making them better. But yeah, it's a, there's, there's complexities to all of it. New construction. Uh, new construction side of the business, um, has its own nuances and the the repaint side of it has, uh, they're, they're very, they're very much two different animals. Yeah. Uh, but similar enough. Let's, uh, let's set the stage a little bit. What, what is Horner painting today in, in 2025? Um, you do, those are the two things. It's residential, repaints and new construction. Residential, yeah. Residential. Residential, new construction. Mostly, you know, anything from a remodel, semi-custom and, and you know, the big custom homes. Um, a lot of different builders that we have that are longstanding relationships. And in that world, you're not necessarily bidding against other people. They're plugging in your budget number. You have a trusted relationship. Yeah. Um, we have a, a great bidding system there. Most of it's off plans. You're bidding it before they've even dug the hole. Setting budget numbers. And then, uh, uh, Connor, uh, my director of new construction has pretty much owned that role. He's been there four years, maybe more, maybe. Yeah, he's four plus years. And, uh, over that time he was, you know, kind of the, the project manager for new construction. And then we started having him read the plans, look at the plans, do the takeoffs, fill in the spreadsheet, build the estimate. And then, uh, uh, last year he started doing the sales. If there were, we did start reaching out to new builders, um, and, and trying to win new accounts. And so he Right. Was doing, knowing that system Yeah. Upside down and inside out really allows him to represent, here's what we can do. Yep. He's director of new construction. He owns that role. He, uh, even, I mean, even hires and fires. Um, oh, really? Without you even, you don't, no, I mean, we would talk about it, uh, both in the hiring of a new subcontractor or bringing on, or hiring of a new, uh, in-house painting team member. Uh, but, uh, uh, yeah, he's, he's the director of new construction and, and I don't have to really worry about that. We have a weekly meeting where we, you know, go over KPIs, uh, year to date sales and, uh, gross profit, uh, material usage, uh, cost of labor, that type of thing. Um, and as well as trying to project what we have coming up based on how many estimates or how many sales we've had. Yeah. So we check in for sure, but he, he's, I'm not, I don't have to get him the day to day. He all very good. Yeah. I don't have to get in the day-to-day too much. He's got that. And how, like you said, there's sub subcontractors and there's in-house employees mm-hmm. In that division. Yeah. And so how do you break that down? Or, or, yeah. Uh, it's very common, uh, in Yeah, especially the repaint industry, but in the new construction side of things too, unless you're a. Uh, a truck and a ladder guy where you have yourself and a couple guys and you, that's your, that's your, uh, painting company. Um, almost everyone has sub subcontractor relationships. I. And these are like trusted painters Exactly. That also work for maybe another company or two. Uh, sure. They have the opportunity to work for other Yeah. Uh, people. They may do a side job. If you keep them busy enough, then they won't do much else. Right. And a little bit of a fine line there, but, uh, as far as like, are they a subcontractor or are they an employee? Right. But yeah, there's subcontractors. Uh, Carlos has been with us over 15 years. His brother has been with us for 10. Luciano's been with us for 12. He was a former six or seven year hourly employee and then went off on his own and, and wanted to, uh, do subcontractor based work. And so, um, yeah, we've got great longstanding relationships with these, uh, contractors. Uh, and then we have, uh, four in-house hourly painters that drive a company vehicle are fully outfitted with all the equipment to do just about everything. And they do two things. They, well, more than two things, but one of their primary functions is to go into the house. New construction wise. At the tail end and do all the fine touch up. Yep. Interaction with customer, interaction with homeowner. So the subcontractor gets, you know, 80, 90% of the work done on the inside and outside of the house. Yep. And then you really need someone with a, an eye to detail that's at a different pace to come back in and really fine tune the tail end of a new construction project. Well, especially when it's a. Seven figure home, you know, totally 2 million,$3 million homes around these days, right? Uh, and then those, those, uh, those team members also do small jobs for repaints. And then, uh, we also have a service manager within those four. Um, so if there is a warranty repair at, uh, we have a five year no exemptions warranty. If you say there's a problem, we'll just come fix it. We don't care. Okay? Um, if it's, the problem is that your gutter, right? Your gutter's leaking. That's why the paint's peeling. We'll let you know, but we'll still pay, we'll still paint it, we'll still repair it. Um. We just don't, there's no, no exemptions. I mean, I'm, I'm literally doing a repair this week from hail damage. Uh, he's like, well, it didn't dent the door, but it's still, I'm like, okay, great. Yeah. We're not gonna argue. We'll just take care of it because it's not, it's just to take care of things has always proved better than saying, well, but, or that's not, you saw, you didn't read the fine print. Our warranty says it excludes this and excludes that. Yep, yep. We just cover everything. So there's a service manager that will, uh, uh, go out and look at and repair and assess any warranty, which are, are rare. That's kind of the execution team. I just had elder construction on it a little while ago, and they have a small team that all they do is kind of tie up loose ends on all these different parts of the projects, you know, where things don't quite fit up or whatever. Yep, for sure, for sure. So it's great having Jonathan on board to, uh, as a service manager that you can just say, Hey, this call came in, contact them, assess the problem. Uh, if you need feedback or questions, let me know. But otherwise, just fix it. Just made it go away. Yeah. I don't need to go look at the problem and then sign a person to it. Right. Just handle that. You don't need a budget for that really. Yeah. It's a normal course of business thing. Yep. So yeah, we got the new construction side and then the repaint side. We'll do, oh, I think we'll, we'll probably hit 4 million this year in total sales and probably about 1.85 or so in new construction and 2.15 in repaint. So quite, so it's almost 50 50, almost 50 50, not quite. And has that been stable or is that one side growing more? Uh. It's been pretty stable, but maybe new construction's growing a little bit more. Um, but repaints are, repaints have always been a little bit bigger. Um, but the gap's been closing over the last five years or so. Fair. And what's that dynamic is, are those subcontractors too on the repaint or is that honer employees? Yep, subcontractor on the repaints, unless it's a smaller job, then we'll send it out. The send out an hourly guy. Yep, yep. Or there's a warranty issue or, or something after the job's done, then we'll, we'll, uh, have the, the hourly guys go out and, and take care of that. Um, but, uh, yeah, it, uh, okay. So similar size teams between two team. Occasionally we'll swap resources, but most of the new construction subcontractors just do new construction. Right. And most of the repaint subcontractors just do repaints. Uh, they, they can go back and forth a little bit, but for the most part, they, they kind of stay in their lane and, uh, you know, it's just different working over a, uh, over dirt in a new construction house versus working on somebody's landscaping. Yeah. In a, in a, uh. Residential repaint. So, so in the repaint market then, uh, who, did you have a director of that division as well? Or is that you or, yeah, so, uh, about a year ago, uh, uh, I had a partner for, um, uh, several years. Uh, he was a long term employee, kind of like Connor, that, that came on and just kept doing better and took more responsibilities. And he was kind of the director of repaints. And so, uh, uh, currently I am director of repaints. Um, but we have a project coordinator that does most of the heavy lifting. Okay. And, uh, I, I just need to kind of help, uh, coordinate the details. Uh, I'm the only person on the team that's ever painted, uh, in management. Okay. And so I'm the expert if you have a problem, like, Hey, this is what's going on. What, what do I do? Interesting. Yeah. How do we fix this? Or what might be the problem? Uh, and some of them are Connor and some of the teams becoming more and more in tune with that, but I'm currently the director of operations, but um. Yeah, there, there was about a year ago, uh, Adam exited, he was coming outta Denver. And so it was very hard to, uh, to make that drive every day. And, uh, ultimately, uh, we just decided, uh, and we were, uh, going to counseling.'cause you know, partnerships are tough. Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, it's like a marriage. And, uh, so he kind of, over time he really earned his way into becoming a partner and then it just kind of didn't Yeah. Didn't work. Like he both maybe thought it would. Yeah. If I was gonna do it again, I wouldn't have a partner. I don't necessarily mean that, but, um, it's really, really tough to have another high performing individual. Be your partner. Be a partner. Yeah. He was a minority partner. Um, he was gonna buy 1% and I was gonna gift 1%. For five years and then we hadn't kind of looked beyond the, you own 10% of the company now. Yeah. And now, now where do we go? Do you wanna buy me out completely at some point? Uh, right. Do you wanna bring, continue buying in, bring another partner for the other division potentially? Maybe that makes sense. Potentially. Yeah. There's all kinds of different ways, but uh, in hindsight, uh, I would've spent a lot more time considering whether or not to have a partner. Yeah. And not just like scrutinizing, is Adam gonna be the right fit, but also examining myself. Yeah. Does Moses want a partner? Yeah, I thought I did. I thought, well then I can even, I can disengage with the business more. I won't have to work as hard. I won't. Um, you've got a really nice boat. Uh, yeah. Vacation, you know, your motorcycles, vacation. Lots of, lots of things that keep you busy here in Colorado. So, uh, I thought I wanted a partner and through that I learned about myself. Uh. That I need a certain level of challenge. Mm. I need to be able to fix things. I need to maximize and implement my ideas or at least have my ideas considered. Yeah. And when Adam and I were first considering partnership, um, uh, we kind of said, and this is like a horrible example, but hey, let's live together before we get married. Yeah. And so we announced to the team like, Hey, Adam's a partner now. And, uh, we had. Uh, a verbal agreement. We maybe even put something in writing, but it wasn't like with lawyers and all that kind of stuff. But basically just said like, Hey, you're gonna get a percentage of the profit this year, and I, I'm not gonna sell the business if I do, you get a percentage of it. Mm-hmm. Like, so I'm not just saying you're a partner to make you work harder and increase. And so, uh, as I think it was during that here, um, we took some, some personality profile tests and, uh, it, uh, it was a, a company outta Canada, CRG, um, that was a, uh, personality indicator test. Yeah. And actually, we actually had the opportunity to, you referred me to that test years ago. Yeah, I think, and I, we took it too. And we actually had the opportunity to meet with Ken, the owner, and looked at our results. And at that time he said, I'm gonna be honest, these two are gonna be hard to be partners together. Interesting. Oh, you know, we're great friends. We get along well. Um, you know, and I, and I kind of didn't really listen to that the way I should have. Yeah. Um, so, uh, aside from like personality, uh, uh, tests and then maybe some, the strength finder tests would be a good one. More so you can understand the person. Like if a lot of my ideas, I'd come to Adam and say, Hey, I think we should do X, Y, and Z, right? And he'd be like, what are you doing? Like, it's good enough. This is the business, these are the goals, these are the KPIs, right? Quit moving the goalpost, right? And I'm like, well, no, I'm not moving. Well, but you're not maximizing though. Yeah, but you're not maximizing. So perhaps if I had understand, hi, understood some of his, uh, key needs, which, uh, we've taken a values test from CRG and like recognition, uh, uh, responsibility and, uh, acceptance or some, something like that. Basically he needs to know he's doing a really good job. And although I would say you're doing a good job, the. Hey, maybe we should tweak this, or maybe we should do this different, maybe we should maximize this over here. Yeah. Would be interpreted or received as like, oh, I'm not doing good enough. Right. But you said that was the goal. You said If I reach, uh, if the, if we do 2 million in sales at a 40%, uh, 45% gross profit, uh, and a sales rate of this, then I'm winning. Right. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. And we can always be doing better. Yeah. And so that, that was one of the main, uh, friction points was, uh, me as the majority owner. Um, and I don't think I was micromanaging, uh, by any means, but my experience and my years of business sense, uh, just actually having painted before having painted and having successfully ran the business for 20 plus years, um, I didn't feel like I was being valued or my, uh, uh, input or expertise were being valued. And that was a really negative place for me. Hmm. Like, uh. Um, there's a, a, a book called this, I think it's called The Second Half Anyways, and it talks about like this up until 40 to 50, somewhere in that range you kinda have this fluid intelligence. You're this entrepreneur, you're creating, you uh, you have this fluid intelligence, you are just crushing it. And then somewhere around 40 to 50, maybe later for some people, you get more of this crystallizing intelligence and it's this experience that you need to pass on to the next generation. Yeah. And less of a new creative. Uh, I think it was more of like a legacy thing. A legacy, yeah. I think it was Uber that brought in a experience crystallized intelligence as this young entrepreneur was. You know, just rocket shipping out of the outta nowhere. And it was the, like, the saving grace of that business was having that more senior, more experience and really voice of reason almost voice of reason. Um, and, uh, but not just reason because sometimes reason gets in the way of good ideas that actually are good ideas, right? Yeah. But, but more seasoning, right? Like that's something about living for 50 years almost, or Yeah. There's nothing like experience. Yeah. Um, and I'm, I love collaboration. It's not my way or the highway. Um, just'cause it's my idea. I just want it to be considered. Yeah. And um, it was, it was just something where, where between the, the, the coming outta Denver and having to drive all that way, uh, it just added up over time to Yeah. A point where we said, Hey, let's, let's, let's part ways, let's let let you have your, your life In Denver, it was, it was hard for him. You know, he didn't have, one of our core values is community driven. Well, you can't have community if you don't live here. It's hard to at least Yeah, for sure. You can't go out to lunch with a friend. You can't, uh, when I started the bank in, uh, Windsor, Colorado years ago, um, I lived in Fort Collins and he was like, you know, I'm not gonna tell you, you have to live in Windsor to be a banker in Windsor, but you know, it's a difference kind of town. Yeah. You know, if you wanna live, if you want bank here for a long time, you probably should live here. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So that, so I'm curious about one thing, um, sorry to cut you off, but No, no, you're great. Uh, as far as the staff, like when you first introduced Adam as his partner or becoming partner or whatever, like, was that for the headquarters team, staff and whatever, was that a positive for them or were they like Totally positive. Okay. Adam's super dynamic leader. Um, people want to follow him. Hmm. Um, he's very charismatic. Um, very sharp. Um, yeah. He's just a great guy. Right. You know, just the type of guy that you'd love to have a beer with. Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was easy to talk to every time I. And encountered him. Right. Uh, it was one of the big concerns as we were kind of starting to talk about, uh, maybe, maybe the drive and the, uh, you know, the staff knew we were going to counseling. It wasn't like it was a secret or something. Sure. Um, so between those two things, um, it was, it was really hard. And I was even concerned, like, has Adam become the cultural leader Interesting. In Horner painting. Yeah. And when he leaves any, our culture was affected for sure. Yeah. People had to step up and, um, kind of fill that role. And, um, including you probably including me, I had to be more intentional with some of that, uh, charismatic ness that, that Adam brought to, uh, the table. And, uh, Connor stepped up as well, helped lead the strategic planning this year, uh, in Adam's absence.'cause he had, he kind of ran that. Yeah. Yeah. But we had a good template as well. So, um, even it wasn't a total negative, it wasn't at all a total negative. Having a partner. Um, we took away great systems. We did collaborate in some ways, but, um, you know, the, uh, you know, a marriage, you're not gonna do it again. A marriage, uh, uh, you know, 50% in the divorce or whatever the statistic is. I would guess it's even higher for partnerships. It's just, yeah, probably. It's tricky. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and we tried, we, like I said, we went to counseling for six months and, uh, uh, had individual 90 minute sessions each month and then, you know, collaborative together 90 minute sessions each month as well as unlimited access to this person. And did that help you both kind of discover that you weren't going to stay together or was it Yeah. Ultimately. Was he in the same place as you? It did for me. Because you were the decider, right? Totally. Yeah. It did, it did, it did solidify things for me. Um, and, um. And it, it's been the right choice. Me being a little more engaged and it's not like I had to jump back in and just save the shift. Right. We were sinking. Right. We had good profits. It was fine. I could see the potential of the team and the potential of, especially the repaint division.'cause I, at that time was while he was running director of Repaints, I was focusing on, uh, getting Connor up to speed and, um, getting him to a point where he was running that and needed less of my time. Yep. Anyways, uh, I discovered that I really enjoy. Optimizing. I enjoy having ideas, implementing ideas, maximizing things, making them better, improving them. And that'll never stop. Like that's just part of who I am. Yeah. In retirement, I'm gonna have to be making something better all the time. And I have a little workshop at my house and I'll get an idea and I don't, I don't even want to go read about how to do it. I mean, I will eventually if I get too stumped, but it's just more fun to try it and to manipulate and figure out and what about this and with this glue and this, and just, you know, put it together and figure it out as you go. Uh, because it's, the ideas just keep coming. I was actually just watching a little x.com video and it was about like they heat heated up these big wooden beams and then bent'em over a. Over a round thing to Yeah. You know, have these curved beams and I was thinking skateboards Yeah. Are probably made kinda like that.'cause you, you built skateboards for a while Right. And you gotta bend that wood and use epoxies and stuff. Is that true or Yeah. Tell me, tell me about that a little bit. Yeah. So Burn Longboards was the name of Burn Burn Longboard Co was the name of the company. Uh, and it was just before the recession, or as the recession was starting to happen in, in 2008. And there's these really nice bamboo longboards. And I had one and I loved the way it rode. And then my kids wanted one and my wife wanted one. And I was like, man, this is kinda expensive. I can just build one. I bet I could do this. Um, so I ended up sourcing some bamboo outta Denver. And, uh, it's vertically laminated. So most of the time skateboards are horizontally laminated like plywood. Yeah. So this is strips of bamboo, vertically laminated. Oh, okay. And then, uh, burn longboards because I started playing with and trying to, uh, flex the board to the shape or the concave that I wanted, and then heating it with a flame. Okay. Bamboo's not a wood, it's grass. And so it would break down the carbohydrates and heat them up, and then when they, uh, cooled back down, they would retain Yeah. That new, uh, shape. Or there's like, uh, interesting bamboo fly rods that are heat tempered. Sure. So to make them stiffer. Right. They will heat temper them. Yeah. Yeah. And solidify them and make them stiffer so that the board, and we reinforced'em with fiberglass and epoxy and, uh, lost a whole bunch of money trying to, for two years, trying to, they were in probably 25 shops. Okay. Oh, so it was a real thing. I never really asked you about this too much. I just know it was something kind of in your past that totally was painful financially. Yeah, a little bit. Mostly, uh, like how much, like, would you say Lost 40 k. Okay. Too bad. Yeah. I mean, we sold, we sold a couple hundred boards. They were in Colorado, a few skate shops in Florida and a couple other places, but mostly Colorado. And what you get 50 bucks a piece? No, probably those are nice ones. Those three bucks a piece for the board or something. Yeah, they would sell for two 50 and Okay. This shop would give us 60% of whatever retail was. They keep 40 as the general split. Okay. Yep. And it's just hard. I mean, we tried to get online sales so we could pocket more of that money. And then towards the very end, uh, we even, uh, the, the, the supplier. For Bamboo brought out a manufacturer from China and we talked to him about, uh, we talked to him about like, Hey, could, can you make these for us? Mm-hmm. And then we could just sell them. And they gave, they, they made a prototype and it just wasn't the same. Yeah. It was like, this isn't what we're selling, you know, burn Longboards or Handmade in Colorado. Right. And they're awesome. I still have, uh, a couple of decks and, uh, they're, I still ride'em today. They're, they're just a great board. I love'em still. But, um, to get that scale and to get that business off the ground and around that time the economy started picking back up and I needed to focus on horn painting. Oh.'cause yeah. Horner painting didn't have much going on, I guess. Right. Yeah. Salesman. So were you financially struggling with Horner painting while you're dumping money into burn? Or that was gonna be your I just make some money on this longboards business since the economy's crappy. Otherwise, uh, I think the company was starting to get out of the red. Hmm. And my wife, you know, at the end of the first year of Burn Longboard co, she came to me, she's like, Hey, babe. So like, she did all the books at the time, Hey babe, like, we're really not making money. Like it's, here's the, here's the numbers. Right. You know, and then by year or two she's like, I hate to be the one to kill the dream, but this is not working at all. And, and like I said, Horner painting was, was picking back up. And so I needed to focus more on the, the thing that made money and, uh, and not on this, you know, fun, sexy dream of making long boards. And so, back to Horner painting for a moment, but would you consider like elevating a, a director of residential repaints, or are you totally, you're kind of got a slow look on for maybe that person's around, maybe the, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, definitely director of Repaints, maybe even a gm. Um, but more of, uh, you know, someone that is being paid really well to help me run the company. And it's not a. I mean, even though Adam was a minority partner, uh, he acted like a, an owner, he acted like a 50% partner, which is really great. And then not so great in other times or, uh, in, in areas where we had conflict or, or disagreements. Um, so yeah, I don't know that I would bring on a partner in the future. I think I would. Uh, and I think if someone wanted to buy in or, um, buy the business, then, then go ahead and do that. Sure. Get the down payment, get the loan, and let's buy me out. Yeah. And then we can make an agreement on I, you know, advise for a year, whatever the agreements can be like. But, uh, it would be a clean, like, and then it's yours. Yeah. Yeah. You can make, you can have all the ideas, you can maximize everything. And then what do you think you would do? Yeah. That's the problem, right? Uh, business broker years ago. I was getting the business evaluated and, oh, maybe I'd sell some days, so I should probably be thinking about this now. And he said, well, what are you gonna do when you sell your business? And I said, I don't know. He said, then you're not ready to sell your business. Um, and it was a really interesting, uh, uh, conversation. Uh, it was a great business broker. He had me evaluate Is the business sellable and ready to sell? And are you as a business owner? Yeah. Ready to sell? Yeah. Had some different, uh, do you wanna drop names? Uh, still there. I think he's changed companies now, so I don't know that the company, uh, Jim Dee's, uh, uh, was the, he's a local tank, was the guy. Yeah. So he's great guy, but I think he's with, he's not, uh, yeah, he's with more of a actually the larger kind of, uh, yeah. Brokerage now. But he, which can be good. That's true. But yeah, I think, uh, the business runs really easy. Now I enjoy You take more trips than I do. Yeah, for sure. Like 75 days a year is kind of our, our benchmark for did we travel enough this year? Nice. Um, and, and you know, we, uh, I get out on the boat a lot, uh, during the busy season. Uh, we stay a little bit closer to home'cause my wife's a, a realtor, uh, in Fort Collins. And so her busy time is the summer, uh, or through the, through the busy months. We don't travel quite as much, but we still get away. We, we can still get away. She has a, I'm sure she a licensed personal assistant now, and so she can get away a little easier too. Oh, neat. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty fun. So that somebody can actually show houses and basically do all the stuff. For sure. And she represents Bester Homes. Uh oh. And, uh, the Real Trends results just came out and she is number like eight in Colorado and number like 90 what in the United States for number of transactions. Oh, dang. Uh, she doesn't get a full commission. It's blah. Right, right. Blah. But but it's like still that's a, yeah. Uh, some numbers. Well, and I think what's cool is like. I've been able to witness that kind of, uh, evolution of her career.'cause she was, you know, the bookkeeper that told you the skateboard company is making Mad Red Ink. Yeah. And I don't like it. Mama don't like it. Yeah. Um, but also for, for Horner painting, she was really in that bookkeeping and totally, mostly financial management role when you first started here? Yep. Or started with Loco, I mean, yeah. Started with Loco and, uh, luckily Andrea Grant was our facilitator right. In her business. Previous, she was the accountant, right. She was the accounting side of things. So she spent a lot of time, we spent a lot of time in our one-on-ones, uh, with local think tank, uh, looking at our books, talking about books, talking about how to read them, how to organize them so they're accurate. Um, what, what, even getting your QuickBooks accounts, QuickBooks corrected and stuff above the line. Gross profit, collect inaccurate information on the front part. Yeah. Absolute game changer. And. Uh, really, because otherwise it was Sarah saying, Hey, don't spend money time. Right. We don't have that much cash right now. So, and, and learning, learning what, uh, because she wasn't necessarily financially managing either. She was just No, neither of us. Neither of us went to college. Yeah. Neither of us went to college. Oh, is that right? Um, and so we were all Not at all. Not at all. Can we go back? Uh, well, let's actually go back to Little Moses. Yeah. While, while we're here. Little Moses, we time machine it. Yeah. Because I, I know kind of the founding story of Horner painting a little bit, but yeah. I don't really know where Little Moses was when he was five. Mm-hmm. That's, you were in Nebraska, right? Going way, way Omaha. Uh, born in California. Oh, okay. Okay. And then I'm gonna say around when I was four, my parents decided we wanna, we wanna see what small town America's like. Is that right? And so they moved to Palmer, Nebraska, which is where? Uh, mid middle of Nebraska, middle of nowhere. Okay. Talking about, where were they in California and what were they doing? Sacramento. Okay. Uh, my dad's always been a, a contractor. Okay. Building, framing, trimming, trim, carpentry, all those type of things. Okay. General contracting. And, uh, they moved to Omaha first, or to Palmer, Nebraska first. Then like, small town suck actually. It's really hard. Um, uh, but I have great memories of that. Uh, and then we were in Omaha for, oh, where'd we go next? I think we went to, we were in Colorado for a while. Um, uh, during the, whenever interest rates were. At 18% super high. So you would've been like a 1998. Yeah. Uh, elementary school. I went to Shepherdson Elementary in Fort Collins twice. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. Did the first grade twice there. Oh. Uh, got held back as they called it. Um, and then the economy was horrible'cause interest rates were at 18%. We moved to Colorado, I mean, moved to California, sorry. Oh, back to California. And then, uh, would in California until my junior year in high school. And then my parents have always been, uh, so he was just kind of chasing where there was work as a contractor kind of, and church. They were, they were very involved with the music at multiple churches. The, the local, uh, megachurch Resurrection Fellowship. Okay. Yeah. My parents helped start that in Colorado. Oh, is that right? When it originally was planted or originally started. Oh, so they were part of that church in California too, kind of thing, uh, in Colorado. But they, they moved from either way. That was part of their thing. They were either, they were heavily involved in church, so we moved back to Omaha. Uh, to be involved with the church. And then, so I finished my junior and senior year in Omaha in high school. And, uh, met Sarah, uh, shortly after moving there. And we had dated for two years. She was one year ahead of me and, uh, oh, she's an older woman. I didn't know this. Yeah. An older woman or we just got held back a year. Well, you know, both, we can look, look at it either way. Um, but yeah, she, we were, you know, seriously dating and, uh, in high school and I actually, she waited a year she was gonna go to college, but mostly just'cause she wanted to meet a guy in college. She didn't have any major big aspirations. She was looking for her. MRS. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, and, uh, I graduated a semester early from high school, which I regret like just go, just go one class for the last semester and piss off and, you know, senior or your girlfriend was gonna run off on you though. Yeah. Yeah. So probably not. I think I went to my high school graduation. Uh, engaged to be married with a brick phone on my hip, so everybody knew I wasn't a loser. Like I, I'm successful, I'm in business. I was in business with my, with my dad and brother at the time. Yeah. Um, but I graduated a semester early and went and walked with my class at the end of the year. And under my cap and gown was a, those old brick folks, like the size of a brick. I didn't have, like, someone was gonna call me. So What year did you graduate? Uh, 93. 93. I was class of 92. Yeah. And I never even had a phone, uh, until I got to the bank out here in Colorado. Yeah. In 99. Yeah. So that's pretty early. Yeah. I mean, but yeah, you were an early adopter for sure. Tell me about like, like, go back to that little Moses, even though you moved around a lot and stuff. Like, were you always an idea guy and a maximizer or, I think so, yeah. Like I, if, if, uh, if, uh, if, and do you have siblings? Yeah. An older brother. Uh, two years older, and then there's a five year gap. And then I have two younger brothers that are two years apart. Okay. Um, and, uh, my older brother lives in Fort Collins. My younger brother Jonathan, lives in Mead, and my youngest brother, Zach, lives in Casper, Wyoming. Okay. Um, so the maximizer idea guy. Yeah. If, if something broke down, a TV went bad, like I'd wanna take it apart and figure out how it worked, or, um, uh, my grandfather, uh, I got to work with him, uh, when I was in Omaha outta high school, uh, for six years or so. Worked with my older brother and dad doing just general construction, and got to work with my grandfather, and he told me, let every motion, every thought. Uh, everything you do in the day be thinking, is this the best way to do it? Hmm. Is there some better way to do this that would produce better quality or would make it faster or easier or more ergonomic? Yeah. And that really stuck with me, huh? Um, I mean, if you're going outside to use the restroom, well, is there something out there you can grab while you're there that you're gonna have to grab later? Like, what can you be doing throughout the day? Yeah. To make it as efficient as awesome. It's like the one thing, have you read that book guys? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You haven't, uh, by Kel Keller, uh, the the real estate guy. Okay. Okay. But it's the one thing and the big premise is like, what's the one thing that you can do right now or today to make everything else either better or unnecessary or something like that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's kind of the whole theme about what you're talking about. Kind of interesting. And I, and I think I took that into, in the early years, how to paint, how to apply the paint, um, and then later on how to run the business, putting. Uh, I think it, maybe it was the e myth that was, that said, run your business with the intention of selling it, make it sellable. If you do that, it will run easier and be more organized and be more intentional and not just be this, you know, working in your business, not on your business. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have, uh, evolution plans? Is it kind of slow growth with, uh, new construction, slowly catching up to Yeah. Well, uh, repaints or did you go outside of this region or buy other companies or anything like that? None of those things. Okay. Uh, I, I was involved with a trade specific business training group, uh, BTA Breakthrough Academy, highly recommended. If you're in the trades, they will change your, uh, how organized you are, um, and. Uh, a lot of guys in that group, you know, it's, it's up into the Right. Bigger is better. Yeah. Top line revenue produce, and I'm more focused on, uh, you know, bottom line revenue being bigger and also, uh, headaches being less. Yeah. And things being so organized and so dialed and operating off such margin that you can have a five year no questions asked. Warranty. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. I don't have to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. You're an idiot and you're wrong, but I don't care. Yeah. That's hail this, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a hail damage. Fine. We'll just cover it. It's four garage doors. It'll take, it'll take half a day for a guy. Right. And you'll be super pumped about it. Right. I'm not gonna argue. Right. Why? And you might even leave me a gigantic Yeah. Positive review. Yeah. You're a repeat customer, so I don't care. Right. Yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna call us in in five more years or 10 years when you move, or, yeah. So just having, so it's really just, uh, focusing on kind of being profitable, efficient. Yep. Maximizing your travel time. A hundred days a year would be okay. Yep. Um, in the future. Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't have a date of like, well, when I'm 60, I'm 50 now. Right. When I'm 60, I'm gonna retire. Uh, it just doesn't seem appealing. I. Yeah, I'm, I'm, what are you gonna do? It's like the, the fishing, the, the fisherman story. Well, you could get a bunch of boats and then you could sit on the dock and play your guitar, and I'm already doing that, so I haven't siesta with your wife yet. Yeah. Why would I make it bigger? Well, that's crazy that, so when did Sarah start her real estate career? Not months back there, but that's eight years ago. Okay. Uh, about 17. The business was about 17 or 18 years old. And, uh, it, the, the books were running great. She trained someone to take her position and to, uh, administer the books. And then we started folding in some things from, uh, local think tank and from Andrea Grant on, uh, it was good accounting, but it wasn't necessarily, yeah, above the line, below the line, gross profit, net profit, more just net profit. And, uh, so that really transformed knowing that. If you maintain a gross profit, labor material, um, what's leftover, then you can predict the net profit a lot easier. Mm-hmm. And so being able to look at things daily or weekly, um, and, and know where you're headed based on the numbers. Yeah. Um, hugely helpful. I think that's probably like, probably one of the things that I've seen more businesses, more business owners than not. Like, not like they know what net profit is, right? Yeah. Because that's, I gotta pay taxes on that. Yep. But what, what does that gross profit margin tell you? Yeah. What's that? Operating revenue? Yeah. You know, in your case you've got kind of a headquarters office with all these contractors and things, right? Yeah. And what do those numbers really mean? Yeah. It tells you that the business is healthy or not, whether your checking account reflects it. We have a cycle. Sure. Um, where we go in the red in the winter. Yeah. Because repaints don't do as much. Right. Right. It's a lot less volume. Right. And so, and even new construction is probably slower too. Right. Uh, it stays more steady. Maybe it's, it's slightly less billing'cause you just can't get outside sometimes and paint. Um, but, uh, being able to read the numbers and not read your net profit or not just read what's in the checking account. Right. And understanding. No, that's cash flow. Right. I, that looks, oh wow. I've got hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. Let's go spend it. Yep. Yep. No. Don't do that. Right. You've got a winter coming where, you know, you have to weather through that. So Yeah. Yeah. Predicting accurately whether you're healthy, not based on the checking account, but based on the gross profit, net profit, year to date, comparisons. Um, hugely helpful. I financed a more than a, a couple motorcycle dealerships over the years when I was a banker. Yeah. Same kind of thing. Like you're gonna lose money. You, maybe you'll have a miracle because Christmas presents and make money in December. Yeah. But you'll lose money from October through probably February, maybe March. Yeah. You know, just same, I mean, years cycle's not quite as long probably, but depends. Yeah. Right. And it's weather dependent too, right? Or, or not really. A little bit. I mean, too much. It's not as weather dependent because in Fort Collins, most people actually could repaint their house in 300 days of sunshine February. Yeah. Right. They actually, the weather's just fine to get those paintings done. They just don't think they should do that in the winter. Yeah. I, I learned the cash flow lesson the hard way. Uh, oh. It would've been, I dunno, when it was 2007, early on in business before we, you know, before the profit thing. Before the longboard company. Before the longboard company, okay. And I was just like, babe, this, like, we have, so we have, we have like 50 grand in the bank. It's amazing. And the next month, babe, we still, we have 60 grand in the bank, babe. The next month it's still there. I think this is, I think this is real, real net. Think we're finally making some real money. Now this is net profit. Make a list. What do you, what do you want to go buy this weekend? Let's just, and we went out in a weekend and blew like 20 grand. Okay? Not on like a new car or anything. Not a new car. It's like, oh, big screen tv, entertainment here, couches. And, uh, one, the, I call it the ping pony story. Um, and I was looking over the list. I'm like, what the hell is a ping pony? What? I, I wrote it down, well, it was ping pong. I wanted a ping pong table. I didn't close the G. It looked like a Y. But I wanted that ping pong table so bad, and it was so important that I couldn't remember. What I had written down, like, so yeah, that was the, the lesson of that's not your money, that's the company's money. And why did, like, was this just happened to be the fall or bill the invoice or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Into the summer and, and then, you know, long winter and come January you're like, Ooh, yeah, this TV doesn't look as smart as it used to when I first hung on the wall. Yeah. Went in, went into the recession, went Oh, right, because you were going right into that too. I think 250,000 in the red credit cards were maxed out. Oh, damn. Sherman Williams was maxed out, uh, the other paint store. This is like through the course of those years, or one years? Yeah, through the course of those years. Wow. And, um, and then so you were hanging on kind of just barely hanging on. I mean, Sherman Owen's like, Hey, you're two months behind. You've gotta make a payment, or we can't give you any more paint. And then, uh, you're like, well, shit, I can't make any money if I don't get paint. So I, I'll find a way to give him a little money. Yeah. So that was, those were hard times, but we, we made it through. Learned a lot. Um, and uh, as the economy started getting better, we were, we're tighter and cleaner and Yeah. Um, less got rid of all debt. You cut the fat when you have a recession, you know? You do. You do. And then, uh, operating off margin now enough that when it's time to buy a new company vehicle, we just pay cash. I don't, I don't need to finance a vehicle. Yeah. Uh, we pay our, uh, credit card early and get 1.5% back. We pay our Sherman Williams bill early and get 2% back. Three and a half percent on 700,000. Right. That's, that's money in your pocket. That was, uh, just for not having, not being stretched too thin. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, like literally how some companies made it, big electric service companies and stuff like that is like, that's when you're trying to get to a one or 2% net margin. Prepay and stuff, all that, it makes such a difference. Yeah. Yeah. So what would, what would, um, well two questions. Yeah. What would your primary clients, we will talk about the corporate or the repaint, or not the repaint, but the, the new construction clients. What would they say would be kind of their main reasoning for choosing Horner painting, if you will? Yeah. Uh, we're, we're so much more organized than any other painting company or even, you know, ladder a truck guy, um, from getting the estimates turned around quickly from the billing side. Uh, Connor does a pre walk before the exterior starts, before the interior starts, before the touch up phase of the job. And, and the guys are super dialed. We hold, just'cause they're subcontractors doesn't mean we don't hold them to a high standard. Yeah. They're still applying the paint. Really, really well. And so the quality is high. And the organization, uh, we offer a professional designer to come and meet with you and help you pick colors and, uh, yeah. Just really being dialed on that organization part. We have the bandwidth. We can always meet your date, like maybe, maybe once a year, maybe throw a bunch of extra resources at it. We can, yeah. Maybe once a year we're like, Hey, our guys took a little longer, we're gonna need an extra day to finish the house, so you're gonna have to bump the electrician or whoever's coming in next. Right, right. Um, but so reliability, huge, organized, professional, just like a real business, not just, and, and in the trades, that's, I mean, it's becoming more and more business oriented. Right. Well, and it's like some, honestly, some painting companies with the subcontractor model, like that's really all they do is get business and they send it out to the subs and the subs Totally. You know, show up with whatever rigs and equipment they have and Yeah. You know, no real rules. Totally. Totally. How do you, so I guess let's stay on there. Like how do you keep those subcontractors kind of doing things the Horner way and, and what would they say about why they're subs primarily for Horner instead of choosing some other path? Or why not just go out on your own and do yourself? Right. Um, we always keep work out in front of them. Hmm. Uh, so they are going to be busy year round. Yeah. Uh, for the new construction guys year round and for, uh, Carlos and Manuel, our 10 and 15 year guys, they stay busy year round. The other subs have the understanding that, hey, we're gonna work through the exterior season for eight months, and then we might give you a job here and there. But they, they understand that that's, that's part of what they have to plan on. But, um, so reliability of work, always being there, always being ready. The colors are organized, the estimates are detailed. They know exactly what they need to do, what they don't need to do. Mm. And you're paying. They're getting paid fairly. Yeah. We're paying as much or more percent of the percent of the project than any other painting company. Our prices are not low. They're Yeah. Upper middle, upper middle. Um, and so, uh, it's just Yeah. Treating, treating them really fairly. Yeah. Uh, having, having a, uh, a service manager or a touchup crew that can come in for that customer that's being unreasonable. Yep. And if you don't have that in-house painter Yeah. To go babysit the customer that's being unreasonable. Right. But you're gonna take care of'em anyways. Right. Right. The subcontractor doesn't have time to go back four times to do touch up. Well, and they might not have always the communication skills and stuff too. Correct. Right. I would imagine most of your contractors are Hispanic. Yep. Uh, yep. Most of'em are Hispanic. And are they illegal? Uh, no. Not to get, uh, everyone provides hourly or subcontractor provides me with the, uh, documentation that says they are. Uh, like eligible to work, eligible to work. Uh, is that document real or not? That's not my job to scrutinize. I submit it to the state of Colorado. I submit it to, uh, through the proper channels, and then it's their job to come back and say, Hey, that's not Gotcha. Uh, legitimate. So does this kind of immigration crackdown concern you at all? Yeah. Like, do you think Yeah. Uh, in the first round, no. Uh, this round may be a little more Yeah. Um, but I, yeah, I think, you know, hopefully they're like, guys have been here for 5, 10, 15 years painting houses. If you're not, you know, uh, in a gang and you're not committing a crime, uh, I, I don't think they're going to just come after hardworking people in the us. Yeah. One one would hope. Yeah. Although certainly they're trying to. Say those stories are happening, but I think that's what they, I dunno, it's all such a narrative thing out there in the world today. Yeah. But, so anyway, so you're anywhere I going to go? Kind of, if you've got this million,$2 million homeowner, right? Like if a, if someone's kind of Spanish first language and not that great a communicator, they might not even quite really understand exactly what that pissed off customer is is going for, or No, there's every, every lead on the team, uh, speaks Oh, uh, English very well. Yeah. Okay. Can communicate, articulate for us. I'm thinking about the other kind of shoot shot in the dark contractors or whatever, where it's a subcontract painter and Yeah, no, no, I need this fixed and that fixed and like, I don't know, crazy lady told me something. Something. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, having really good guys and taking care of them, valuing them is the core values, right? People matter. Integrity always and community driven. That's why the, that's why we have good relationships, long standing relationships with our contractors and why they are like, yeah, I could try and do this my own on my own, but it's just easy. Right. With horn or painting. Yeah. And I'm making a great living and I might make less money, might have a lot more struggles if I did it on my own. Absolutely. Carlos, uh, bought his first house maybe eight years ago and then sold that house and bought his dream home, uh, like four or five years ago. Right. And it's just amazing. Like, he's like, this is my dream home. Yeah. It's in the school that I want my kids to go to. Yeah. Um, and uh, he grew up on a dirt floor, uh, in El Salvador and uh, now he is living the American dream. And so it's really great to have those type of partnerships. Um, yes, they're subcontractors, but they're a part of the team and, uh, uh, a part of the community. One of my, uh, first. I guess beyond like a local chapter meeting, uh, experience with you is when Horner painting hired Bears Backyard Grill to uh, serve your summer barbecue at the park. I forget which park that was. It was down south kind of somewhere, right? Yeah. Yeah. And uh, and you guys had the, had the boxing ring set up and you strapped on boxing gloves and, and boxed with, uh oh man. Some of your contractors and stuff. Yeah, I don't, that was, that was a very foolish thing to do. Uh, Indy you took, I I saw you take a couple of good shots. Oh yeah. Indy was, uh, the guy that I, he had boxed the boss a step in the ring. We had a little fake ring and boxing gloves and he was, I knew he was an MMA fighter. Like I'd gone down to Denver. Yeah. And I think maybe I went down to Denver afterwards, but I At least he way you knew he was, I knew he trouble. Yeah. And he, yeah, he came out of the ring and, you know, I was covering myself and he gave me a body shot, dropped my hands, and then smacked me right in the head. And I went, okay. He wanted to just let you know, like, Hey, we're gonna just do this friendly, but I could, I could just finish you at any time. Right. Could be over really quick if I wanted, we put on a good show and, uh, and, and didn't, I didn't get myself knocked out. So that was a way Yeah, yeah. You took it to good spirit. I remember that. And, uh, Indian. Indian and Johnny, they, they'd been with me for 10, 12 years and uh, and then they were hourly employees when I had most, mostly hourly employees back then. And then they started their own company and they're actually very successful. That sounds like friendly with them as well. Yeah. Friendly, friendly with them, wish'em all the best. We talk, you know, a couple times a year. Um, and, uh, yeah, they're, they're awesome, awesome individuals and, uh, great to see them starting their own company, even not as a subcontractor for Horner painting model. Yeah, yeah. They're doing it themselves. They're doing repaints and getting the customers and all the things. Yep. Yep. Exactly. What else would you share with me about like. You've kind of, your principles and maximizing sizing. What, what do you, what's your favorite part about kind of growing, building a team? Managing people like, yeah. Um, healthy things grow and whether it's the company, the bottom line, the top line, or the people in your company, uh, helping any of those things grow, helping the company grow, helping the profits grow, helping Connor grow. Helping Hannah grow the world's best admin ever. She like, like for the last three years, I like, I'm like, Hey, you're getting a really big raise this year, but like, that's not normal. You can't, you won't necessarily get that next year, right? And like the next year you're like, God, you keep taking on all these great responsibilities and my list so much easier are so valuable. And you're, you're every task put in front of you, you just crush. I'm like, well this is this second year in a row, but I don't want this to be a pattern. Like this is a 15% raise, but that's not normal is like it's going. But she's, uh, um, watching her grow, uh, in her role and her understanding of accounting and even marketing. We do all our own, all our own marketing in house. And, uh, she runs a lot of that. And, uh, administering a 401k administering, uh, health insurance plans, uh, doing payroll. Like, she just really Wow. Didn't have much QuickBooks or I. Office experience when she started. Yeah. And she just, you know, watching her grow and, and that's cool. And learn over time. And, and I think it's also like, it's something that I'm having to come to realize with it. Whether it's Adam who was with me a total of seven years, um, it's, it's pretty unrealistic to think that's no one's, that's, someone's never going to stop working with you. Yeah. Yeah. So why, like, don't make it too hard when, when somebody's ready to leave and you know they're ready to leave. Yeah. You know, you should, you should, you should, uh, have that conversation about parting ways. Like just go ahead and do it. Yeah. Um, and I've, I've started having that conversation during the honeymoon phase, like during the first week of hire. Like, hey, just so you know, like when this is no longer fun for you. Yeah. And it's no longer, or it's no longer fun for me. Let's, let's agree to part ways, uh, amicably. Yeah. Yeah. And not, uh, you know, pull, prolong it longer.'cause it's awkward to say, I don't wanna work here anymore, or I'm not happy, or I wanna move on. Um, but, uh, yeah, I love longevity for sure. It's the best. No longer somebody can stay. And the, the more I can keep them happy, the more, if they're growing at Horner painting, they're gonna be happy. Yeah. And so, um, but it, it's, uh, yeah, I enjoy growing, uh, things. Maximizing people, maximizing profits, ma Yeah. Um, having, uh, as, as long as they are growing at Horner painting, then that's great. When, when they stop growing, then let'em grow somewhere else. What, uh, what's been your experience? You've been like, actually this month, next week or a couple weeks, uh, is the sixth anniversary of, uh, the, uh, local think tank chapter that you've been facilitating Yeah. For that whole time. Wow. That's a, that's a six milestone. Six years. Yeah. Tell me about that experience, uh, either in the weeds or even just kind of generally. What's that provided to you or, yeah, I think some of that, uh, crystallized intelligence and it's, I'm, I mean, I'm not like stuck in my ways. I don't have anything come out new. Uh, definitely, you know, super into the AI stuff and trying to maximize things that way, but helping, uh, pass along my business experience, um, and uh, working with those businesses to improve them, to maximize them, to give them ideas on, on how they can be doing things differently or better. It's just fun to watch them grow. Yeah. And the community there. So the, the horn of painting I said about Jane's party. Yeah. Her 10 year anniversary party coming right up and, uh, she just bought her own building, you know, bought her own own building, taco space, whatever. Remember her calling me. Early on, like within the first year, she's like, I'm thinking about raising prices, but I don't know. I'm like, Jane, you offer such value, you have to raise prices or you won't be able to offer anything to them in the future. Uh, but it was a hard, it's a hard thing for all business owners, I think, to raise prices, to charge more, to charge what you're worth or to charge, uh, uh, what, what, what's, what should be charged and, uh, and now, yeah, she's thriving. Oh, yeah. Um, sorry I cut you off a little bit, but I was just reflecting on that one particular story, but, so yeah. It has been a, a, a positive experience for you. Hasn't distracted from your hor or painting responsibilities ever? Uh, I mean, I mean, I'm sure it's kind of a pain in the butt sometimes. You're like, oh, I gotta get this agenda out for next week. Yeah. And when everybody else, I got, maybe briefly when I was, after Adam left and I was doing some of the heavy lifting of getting repaints reorganized, I also released the, he left in July and then, uh, I, I fired my salesman in. October. And so then for that winter I was both rebuilding repaints and doing all the sales. And that was, I was a little busy then, but I'm now that, um, we've got a great project coordinator, we've got a great sales person, um, repaints are running themselves running really well and it's less of a, um, less of a burden. So then Loco's easy and I can do it. Yeah, yeah. Without, well'cause you were trying to be the sales person for quite a while there. Yeah. That was a full-time job through the whole, the business manager owner and C-F-O-C-E-O plus 75 days vacation is not negotiable or travel. That's right. That's right. Um, so yeah. There, there's, but no, for the most part, the, the business runs itself well enough that loco think tank is fun and not, uh, like, oh man, how am I gonna get all of this stuff done? Yeah. Um, so it, it, I enjoy the, the being a facilitator for Loco, working with all those business owners and, um, you know. I don't think there's anything more fun than armchair quarterbacking. Right. Yeah. You, you should fire that person. Even though I sometimes struggle to fire people when I need to fire'em. Right. Well, I feel like it's a good time to take a short break. Yeah. And then we'll come back in and, uh, go from there. Sounds great. And we're back. So I wanted to go back'cause we kind of went there and then jumped kind of past it. But the founding story, we're celebrating 25 years right now at Horner painting. And, uh, if I remember right, there was kind of a failed partnership kind of element of the founding story too. Do you share that publicly? Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, outta high school, went into business with my brother and, and dad. And, and this is in Omaha? Omaha, yeah. Okay. And, uh, we were doing additions and renovations for, uh, a, a company that owned a bunch of rest homes in, in Nebraska. And we had traveled a bit, uh, which wasn't fun. You know, being gone for four days and then back for three is not great. Um, you a newlywed at this time, newlywed young kids. And then we did a year long job. Local where we didn't have to travel and it was really great. And then the next job was gonna be like in South Dakota or something. Like we were gonna be gone four days for sure, maybe five every week for a while. And so we all just decided as a Horner construction as a company. Um, well if we're gonna start over, let's start over where we want to be, which is Colorado. We vacationed here. We love Colorado. And we had some connections. My dad had lived here. Right? Worked here previously. And so we, we all You did first grade twice here. Did first grade twice here. Mrs. Zebra, I believe is her name. Uh, just kidding. She's probably dead by now. Don't worry about it. Uh, this is how I remember it. And then we'll get back to the moving to, uh, Colorado. Uh, in first grade there was reading circle and each person would read a word, and then we go to the next person and they would read a word. Mm-hmm. Next person, they would read a word. And my word was a s. And I was like, if I say ass, I'm gonna get in trouble. I can't say ass. And I think that was why I got held back.'cause because I didn't wanna cuss in first grade. And the word, the word was as not ass. But that's, that's the story I tell myself as to why really It was. I'm sure that's, I'm sure that's the main thing. Yeah. Really it was.'cause that was, IM, you know, IM immature and should have been. Yeah. It's great. Um, but so yeah. Were you like, or were you, I don't know, just lack of attention would be my guess. Like, it's like, yeah. Like by the time it gets to you in the word circle, you're like, I look a butterfly my attention and I got an idea. Yeah. Um, and I think maybe they started me a little bit early and then was more age appropriate after being held back. Gotcha. Anyway, anyway, so we, uh, decided as a family business. Well if we're, if we're gonna start over in Omaha, nobody knows us in Omaha. We've been traveling for Right. The last however many years it had been. Yeah. Why start over in Omaha? Let's start over somewhere cooler. So we all moved to. Colorado and, and started, you know, framing houses for Hartford Homes and um, uh, doing some siding and different things like that. And I was 24 at the time or so, and uh, and just really wasn't pulling my weight. Um, you know, I wasn't really running a full crew and reading plans and building houses and so, but I was being paid like a partner. My dad was very generous that way. He never, never, uh, you know. And was that just like, was there like coaching meetings or anything like that? Oh no, there was no, there was no, uh, no organizational stuff. Not that, it was not that type of thing. It was, it was, uh, I tell this story and I love this, uh, like we have a very detailed spreadsheet bidding system. When you read plans, sure, there's a lot of details on plans, but my dad would just use his experience and he would sit at the dining room table and he would flip the full, you know, 36 by 48 planned big plans of the house. And he would look at the house for 30 minutes, maybe an hour, flipping back and forth looking at things, but not necessarily like taking notes or writing things down. At least that's how I remember it. And, and then he would close his eyes and he would rub his hands on the plan, on plans and then spreadsheet period. And he would it down and go$27,300. And that was his price. Oh, really? Just based off experience basically. Oh, wow. So he would look at the plans, he would digest the plans. He'd been doing it long enough, he knew how much to cost, but it wasn't based on square foot or number of two by fours or number of headers. Fascinating. Um, you know, he just, uh, bid it based off gut. Um, anyways, uh. So, uh, we've been here for about a year and I kind of wasn't pulling my weight. It's a new business. It's, it's, you know, expensive to start a new business. And my dad just came to me and I say, he fired me. Um,'cause it makes the story sound better, but he came to me and said, Hey, it's not working. Uh, you're not, you know, producing enough income right, for the business. And so like, you need to start your own thing or do something else. And so I'll give you two weeks notice, so you have two weeks to think about it and I'll pay you for two weeks after you're gone as like a severance package or whatever. And, uh, uh, I said, no, you're not gonna pay me if I'm not working here. Yeah. And, uh, painting is what I always wanted to do. And so he introduced me to Hartford Homes as a paint, as a, oh, hey, my son paints. And so we've noticed your painting quality isn't that great. Yeah. If you need, if you need a painter. And I, I painted a little bit doing the general construction stuff, but I was definitely just learning it. Okay. Uh, learning as I go. You know, 25, um, I took my, my, I had two earrings or an earring in each ear. Took'em both out, had long hair, tucked it up in my hat so nobody could see. Looked as clean cut and as old as I could. Went and bought a pair of Red Wings. Red wing shoes? Yeah. Real boots, like old school boots. Like Yeah. You look at least five years older if you're wearing red wing shoes. Right. Um, and just did everything I could to, to fake it. So I So you started in the new construction? Started in the new construction and then trans, uh, uh, diversified into repaints during kind of that recession as new construction. Is that right? Was super slow during the housing crisis, but people still needed their house painted. Right. Um, I was like, you know, repaints are stupid. You have to deal with customers and homeowners. Right. And then Interesting. I didn't realize that your roots, I thought your roots were more in the repaint side, but, uh, and that's actually, uh, it is more common to start in the repaint. Yeah. And then a lot of repaint guys will try to diversify into new construction and they're like, oh my God. Like there's no money in new construction. Mm. And I used to actually say. Uh, new construction is my wholesale and repaints are my retail. Right. But that's not actually true anymore. Like repaints and new construction, their gross profit and net profit, they're the same. Is that right? Uh, they're so, it's not this, uh, but this big difference. Big difference. There's a more seasonality. You know, we go from billing 50 to 60,000 in the, on season per week to billing 10 to 20 in the off season. Yeah. And repaints. Whereas new construction is like five or 10% less than the, the heavy season. So, um, I wanted to ask a question about, uh, this is like competing against yourself a little bit, but if I'm painting my own house Yep. Like what are the things I, I really, I mean, should I just hire somebody? Yes. Is that the obvious thing? Yes. Or, or like, is there things that you, a person's, you paid double for the paint compared to what I do? Right? Like usually like, oh, contractor discount's 10%. No, it's like 50. Right. 50% discount. So the, the material alone is gonna be way more expensive if you do it yourself. Um, and when we first moved here, uh, starting the business year or two old, and my wife wanted to repaint the interior of our house, she said, I know you don't wanna come home and paint all day. Uh, let me do it. I'll do it. And so I was like, great, well, here's the massacre. Here's the tape, here's the paper, here's all the stuff. Came home at the end of that day and she said, oh my gosh, it's so much work. Can you send over some guys just to get the masking done? And then I'll paint it. And even then it took a whole week of, you know, brush and roll. And it just takes a long time when you don't do it all day, every day. Right. So you spend a ton of time. So ultimately because of that expertise and because of the paint, like you can mm-hmm. Do it for not that much more money Yeah. Than a person would. I wouldn't save that much money. If I wanted to pay my house exterior, I would save money. Just depends, depends on how much you value your time, I'd say. Well, but you would, you would transfer some me some paint wholesale, right? Yeah. For, for I, yeah, I can, I can, I can hook you up. Alright, sweet. I can hook you up with some, some stuff. I'll take whatever color you got. Just kidding. That's right. That's what my wife wants to hear. Um, do you wanna play our, uh, random question game? Sure. It's pretty fun. Random question game in this, in this pen, in this bowl, there are, uh, bingo. Oh, and, and I didn't check with you before we started, but there's actually a, a, a gift, a tie to this. Would you be open to like a$25 gift card somewhere in honor of 25 years of horror painting? Yeah, that sounds great. So the, the person that writes in with the answer to one of your questions is gonna get a, get that gift card. Okay. Yeah. So first draw three numbers. They each correspond to a random question on my list here. All right. You can set that back over there on the couch or whatever. First one is number 27. 27. What's the strangest way you've ever injured yourself? Hmm. Uh, one was painting, uh, I, they, they started making these poles that would allow you to paint 10 and 15 feet high from the ground. Oh, okay. And so you could like a roller, kind of a sprayer. Oh, wow. Okay. A spray dips, you could spray these new construction houses up to the second story. So I'm looking up, walking along, spraying this siding, and I, I take a step and there's no ground. And I fell window. Well, and reverse taco myself. Reverse scorpion, uh, down a window. Well and hurt. Oh dang. Like my chin, like the ribs, like my chin. Oh. Down, down. And it was, um, it was quite painful. Not, uh, not a good experience. Wouldn't recommend it. Okay. Well it was, everyone was painting related too. So painting related. Yeah. Yeah. Next number, number two. We just had this one, uh, recently. Would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses? 100 duck sized horses. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. And why? Uh, I don't know. Like if you've ever like, I don't know, it's just like a regular sized duck is pretty scary. Yeah. The ducks can get, if they're being like territorial, they can be pretty aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. And that beak right? Whew. They peck it pretty fast. Yeah. So if it was the size of a horse, it would be, yeah. Nothing to reckon with, but horses like maybe would bite or kick, but that small Yeah. Like divvy a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Not gonna, plus you can make tacos outta the horses. Yeah. When I was in Mongolia, oh, uh, they eat a lot of the horses. They do have some horses for riding. Oh. But like camel horses, uh, goats, sheep, et cetera. And, and the, the local, uh, Mongolian, he said, yeah, horse is my favorite to eat. You know, one of the things I heard recently, like I've always assumed that animals were kind of obvious, like to eat'cause they taste better than vegetables all the time and whatever. Right. We get the protein and stuff, but it's in some ways the evolution of domestication of animals was. Um, food storage, long range food storage. Oh yeah. Yeah. You got a herd of cattle out there. That's a lot of food, you know? Yeah, for sure. And they're, they're gonna be there through the winter. Exactly, exactly. You know, in grain old store for a while and stuff. Yeah. The vegetables won't really, um, third question number. 21. 21. What's your death row meal? Hmm, man. Death row meal. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're gonna get killed at midnight. But you get whatever you want in the meantime. Chicken fried steak with gravy. Really? Yeah. Tell me why. And some, some eggs. I don't eat breakfast that often. Seems very, mostly it's coffee. That's so middle class, like lower middle class, even kind. Well, that's what I am. Well, yeah, but still you don't want to go get a lobster or a big fat rib eye or shrimp cocktails or caviar. No. All those sound great, but some comfort food. Yeah, I guess so. Huh? Just like, because it's death row. It's death row. Like if somebody's, if if, if your father-in-law is buying you dinner, then you're gonna get something more expensive. Sure. Yeah, exactly. For death row. I just want the comfort. Exactly. It's interesting. Exactly. Well, that's gonna be the winning answer is, uh, chicken fried steak as the death meal. Great. Um. Can we talk about your family a little bit? Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, let's talk about Sarah. So she was a year ahead of you. Mm-hmm. And, but a couple years before graduating high school, so your high school sweethearts and married for how many years now? Uh, 31. Dang. Yeah. Jill and I just celebrated 22, but yeah, 31. Yeah. So you were married before you were 20? Uh, yes. Uh, we high school sweetheart, she was a year, year, a little bit older, um, several months older. And when we were engaged to be married, uh, I wasn't old at the age of majority in Omaha is 19. So she signed the lease for me to move into our apartment. And then after we got married, then we, uh, uh, started cohabitating. We were virgins when we got married. Oh, good for you. So, yeah, it was, uh, a more traditional Oma She was from a, from a faith kind of background as well, I guess. Yep, yep. Both from a Christian background and. Uh, fairly conservative and, um, yeah, we waited, waited till marriage and, um, yeah. Great. Jill and I, it's great. Weren't, but we took a 60 day break before we got, got married as kind of a, you know, I guess an acknowledgement of the solemn of that covenant, if you'll Totally, yeah. So what was it about Sarah that really, uh, I mean, she's pretty adorable, so it was pretty easy. She's pretty adorable. Uh, little pocket size blondie. Yep, yep. Uh, she just loves to laugh. Um, okay. Uh, I'm not particularly witty or funny, but she would laugh. Yeah. Oh, really? Even your jokes, I felt, yeah. I felt like, wow, I'm really crushing it on the, uh, um, you know, humor side of things. The char side here. Yeah. The charming side. Yeah. Um, uh, but yeah, she was, uh, amazing and, um, yeah, been a. Been a great, a great 31 years. And were you her first real boyfriend too, I suppose, or, I mean, we'd both dated other people. We'd both made out with other people. Okay. We both, you know, had Yeah. Varying lengths of Yeah. Uh, high school relationships. But, you know, this was, why did she choose you next level, do you suppose? I don't know. Uh, I think I was the shiny new toy from California. Oh, really? I bleached, bleached blonde hair. Oh, dang. I dyed my hair blonde. And you knew how to ride a skateboard? Yeah. It was like the Omaha, California boy, and, uh, yeah. So I think, uh, yeah, we, we went to the same church, went to the same high school. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, the rest is history. Your, your kiddos, um, you said they're 29 and 27 now? Yep. And are either of them in a significant relationship? Are they gonna give you some grandkids here? You'd be a pretty young looking grand granddad if you Right. If one of'em comes soon. But yeah. Could happen. Uh, my son Jake, is married to Ally. We love Ally. Um, I hope, I think kids are on the horizon, but it's like one of those that you don't press too hard. Yeah. Yeah. You don't wanna be that guy. But I cannot wait to be a grand grandpa to be a grand grandparent. I don't know what they, they'll call me and Macy my dad. Macy. Oh, Macy just did something cool, right? She's living somewhere strange or something. Uh, she is involved with Young Life and she just got back from, uh, British Columbia for three weeks. She was at a camp there. Okay. And, uh, yeah, it was, uh, she sent me a video of Orcas. Uh, but she hasn't found Phil yet, or she, she, she's dated several people. She's in a relationship now. Um, but, uh, no, she's not married. Um, we did help the kids buy a house last year. Oh. Um, and like each of them. Each of them, okay. Um, uh, the, we read the book Die With Zero. It had always been our goal. Sarah's dad passed when she was, uh, in junior high. And so when we got married, we bought our first house at 19'cause she already had the down payment. Oh, wow. Um, and we've, you know, uh, fixed up and bought bigger, fixed up and bought bigger. Um, and, and real estate's been very good to us. And we used that seed money in 2008 to buy our first three rental properties. Mm-hmm. Um, because of the value that we had in the house. And then, uh, even though the painting business was doing crappy, the real real estate was cheap. I stayed. You're like, it can get much lower than this. I stayed busy during, uh, oh eight, nine, and 10. With painting. Yes. But also, uh, we bought 10 rental properties. Oh, dang. During that se, during that three to five year period. And, uh, and you'd like bottom'em before you couldn't qualify for the mortgages on, I guess anybody could qualify for a while there. Oh. Back in the gold medal. Like you, you'd tell their appraiser how much you wanted to be worth. I would, I would, it would be, it was amazing. In Greeley, we bought eight properties, uh, mostly college rentals, uh, renting to college students. That was the biggest cash flow at the time. And, uh, you would, uh, literally the house would be listed for 120,000 under foreclosure. And you would go to this local bank, a new frontier they went under. Yep. Um, and you'd say, Hey, I need you to loan me 120,000. I'm gonna offer a hundred thousand. I'm gonna fix it up with 20,000. Once that's done, it'll be worth 150. Right. 80 20 loan to value. Right. So you just get it refinanced. Yeah, yeah. After you'd fixed it up. Easy. Easy. And never use any of your own money. It was crazy. Yeah. Um, so anyways, that, uh, seed money, that, uh, flywheel effect, um, has allowed us, uh, to have the means to kind of pay it forward and help our kids, uh, buy their first house. Yeah. So we help them with their down payment as well, and that die with zero. Um, the biggest thing I took away was like, don't, don't hoard it all, uh, or, you know, have like so much in retirement that when you die, they get this big lump sum of money Right. That usually ruins somebody and they don't need it at that time. Right. They're like 50 or 60 at that time. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're, we're, uh, trying to, um, you know, we wanna do a big annual. Family vacation as long as it works for them. Yep. Um, and, and pay for that. Um, which is expensive to take Your adult, adult, their wife. We've been on like two or three of those with, with my, my wife's parents. Yeah. You know, it's crazy. It's a great blessing. Right? It's a, yeah. We took Sarah's mom to Alaska. That was kind of a lifelong dream. And uh, yeah. We're, we're planning to die with zero. Yeah. That's an interesting thing. We don't, we don't wanna have, uh, this big nest egg. We want, um, to spin that nest egg, uh, with wisdom. We don't wanna run out and have nothing. Right. Um, but we, we also don't wanna, yeah. We wanna enjoy things along the way and not such an interesting, um, I was just reflecting'cause in my own circumstance, I, you know, loco is worth some money. My house is worth some money. I got a little retirement account, but not that much. Yeah. And my dad's. Got like 20 million in farmland. Yeah. You know, and he's 70 or whatever. Yeah. Like, I don't, you know, at some point, hopefully not. Well, hopefully after I don't really care. Yeah. But, um, I stand at her a pretty decent amount of wealth. Yeah. And since Jill and I don't have kids, it's like, well, you know, part of me, sad to say, part of me, which is I could spend some of that money now traveling and having more fun. Right. Yeah. And I don't want dad to die early so I can have that money. Yeah. But it's a fascinating thought and it's not my money. Right. So whatever it is would be just a blessing and I would just waste it on travel and, you know, cool experience probably more than anything. Yeah. But what an amazing gift to Yeah. To be able to see do it during life. Your, their inheritance enjoyed now. Yeah. And not, yeah. You get to be there watching them enjoy it, kind of. Yeah. So I dig it. We're, uh, good for you. Look in that direction, for sure. Yeah. Um, what other, like, elements of business, uh, if somebody's thinking about starting a painting company or getting into business for themselves, are there kind of some main things that they should be prepared for? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. Uh, I would say operating on margin or you need to be profitable, in my opinion. Yeah. Depending on the business, I guess, or it was just my experience. You need to be profitable from day one. If you're not making money or like there's a, a window that you establish based on your business style, that it should be profitable in 60 days, 90 days, the first year. If it's not, then maybe it's not. I don't know. I guess I say that, but there's people that come to Loco that are like just barely making it, and they've been in business for five years and they, uh, maybe the, the advice would be to get involved with a peer mentoring group early. Mm. Don't wait and struggle for five or 10 years. Razor thin. Barely making it. Yeah. Figuring it out yourself. And sometimes some of those people have really great service delivery and stuff. Yeah. And they're just either not pricing it well or they're not, you know, dialing in their operations so they can scale properly, even if they do get more customers. It's really interesting, like what's broken about my business Totally. Is sometimes a mystery. Yeah, you Yeah. But I also agree. Don't be an island. Don't an island. There's so many entrepreneurs that maybe you're in A-A-B-N-I business networking international. Yep. Yep, yep. Because you want leads, but that's not the same as peer mentoring and learning from other people. You're not the smartest kid in the room. You should be able to recognize who is and learn from them. Yeah. And not, not try and do it all yourself. Well, and nobody's the smartest at everything. Exactly. That's the other thing too. Like you might have a few areas where you're the smartest one in the room, the best ideas, the best at maximizing and somebody else is better at Totally. Another, another thing. Yeah. So be humble, be reliable, and, uh, you need to start making money or Yeah. Change direction. Don't describe it out. Are you with that book Profit First? Mm-hmm. Totally. Have you read that? Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that principle is what applies more than anything. Like Yep. If your business at least has to be designed to make some money. Yep. Don't try and do everything. Yep. You know, be really great at what you do and, uh, and you need to make profit making more top line revenue is not always good. It can be really bad. Yeah. Good advice. Expanding too quick, too quick can be super negative. So, um, what else do you wanna talk about? Like, I gotta get you outta here by five, so I got 20 minutes. Is there, uh, we, we used to really, we talk about. Current events. What's going on in the world today? We just passed the July 4th weekend. Mm-hmm. Uh, embarrassingly I do not follow current events. You don't? No. Google News, news. I mean, I'm trying to more because it's, uh, uh, about two weeks into the conflict, I said to my wife like, what's going on over in Ukraine? She's like, babe, you can't say that out loud. Like, you need to know there's a war going on over there. And, uh, I just, uh, not that I don't care. Yeah. Um, I just, it's not, uh, well, you can't change it. Yeah. It's hard, really. Right. Uh, I mean, there was a time when I listened to talk radio and I was fired up about this, that and the other thing, and it just doesn't, it doesn't take much of my head space. Yeah. Um, you know, my dad said, I've made a lot of money with Democrats in the office and I've made a lot of money with Republicans in the office. It's gonna swing back and forth and it's gonna be what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't get too. Worked up about, uh, or focused on current events.'cause I, a lot of times I can't affect them. I, I mean, I care about my business, the people in my life, the community, Northern Colorado for sure. Um, but getting outside of that, I love to learn about and travel and see other cultures. Yeah. Um, and learn their perspective. Uh, during the Ukrainian conflict, when there was a coup to overthrow Putin, uh, I was in Mongolia at that time. Mm-hmm. And when that dude was taking his tank up, the kind of to go get him or something almost. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the locals a were saying a lot of Russian people were defecting to Mongolia to avoid being drafted or being caught in the war. Yeah. And they were like, yeah, that Putin thing is staged. It's not real. Right. A hundred percent. It's just to get his approval rating up and to like a show of power. Right. And that's totally bullshit. And I was like, wow. Like I don't, like if the news says there was a coup, then I believe there's a coup, I guess. Yeah. Whatever it says. Yeah. Interesting. Um, it's just always interesting to hear someone else's take on world events. That's from a totally different area. Totally different. Uh, how do you choose where to travel to? Like you've been a, you know, a number of places sounds like, but Mongolia is one that Yeah. Usually people check that off at like number 60 on the countries to visit list. Yeah, that was a wild one for sure. Um, yeah, I mean it just, it just varies. Uh, we're going, we're taking the kids this Christmas to El Salvador. Oh. Um, and really interesting country. Like Bitcoin is their Yeah, yeah. National. Is it now, uh, currency? Yeah. A couple of my guys are from El Salvador and I was talking to them a little bit and um, and I don't know the exact dates, but six, eight years ago. It was like the worst country to travel to. Oh yeah. Super dangerous, uh, cartel gangs outta control. And, uh, from what I understand, that, uh, over one weekend the gangs killed 80 people. And the, uh, president at the time was just like, you know what? Enough's enough we're not doing this. Yeah. And over an eight month period, he put 80,000 people in jail. Gang members. Yeah. And it's kind of controversial, right? Like Right. Their human rights, aren't they? I mean, you didn't due process and I mean, yes, they have the gang tattoo on their face, but that doesn't mean that they were the one. Right, right, right. And he just. And they just changed their constitution to keep that president in office.'cause the people are like, we're safe now. Right. We are free and we don't Oh. And their economy is way better. The economy's way better. Yeah. They're thriving. They're argentina's same way. Yeah. Like Argentina. Just in eight months of this, well you might not have experienced it as much, but Javier Melay is the president there now, and he's like this firebrand, basically a libertarian, like super small government quit running foreign, uh, deficits, stuff like that. Their poverty is down from like 55% to like 30%. Yeah, that's huge in eight months. Huge gains. Yeah, exactly. Or maybe it's a year and eight months. I dunno. Either way. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. So yeah, El Salvador is one of those, those two countries are really the only two in the world. Kind of like swinging it the other way, doing things a little different than we just spend more money and do stuff. So what are you gonna do there? Uh, surf. Okay. Um, so you go a nice beach. Place, kind of hang out, whatever. Yep. And, uh, you know, just talk to the locals, go to different, uh, yeah. Be there. Anywhere I travel, I try to get to know people. Yeah. And, uh, a lot of times they communicate on WhatsApp and so you're messaging them on WhatsApp. And, uh, we've gone down to Soritos. Uh, uh, near, uh, Cabo San Lucas, Las Ritos, a small developing surf town. Okay. And, uh, you know, just met the, the local guy, uh, that's renting surfboards and, and, uh, uh, putting chairs and written umbrellas. And I was like, Hey, if, if we wanted to go whale watching, like, is that possible? And he is like, oh, yeah. Like, I'll, I'll message, uh, totally ey and he'll, he'll take you out on his fisherman boat. Yep. And it was the sketchiest thing ever. There was no dock. Uh, they used this, you know, 30-year-old truck to shove the boats almost to the sand. And they had a rope tied from that boat to 300 feet out to the boat. They, that was in the water. Oh, dang. I don't know how they got the first boat out. And they would say, oh, dang. They'd wait until the tide was right. And the tide would, the big wave would come in, yeah. Hit the reverse. And four guys would, four guys would push and the guy in the boat would pull, and they, and they had 10 boats strung together. Okay. And that's how they got out every day. And at the end of the day, you rode a wave in. Onto the beach as pinned as fast you can to get up and above. Just beach it and just beach it every day. They did that, but it was the most amazing experience, I bet. To go see Whale in this little boat with this fisherman that can't speak English. Right. Yeah. And, uh, uh, a friend down there now, and I, I, I gave him his number to connect if you need anything. Yeah. If you wanna know the lay of the land, like this is who you talk to. So we try to do That's cool. Like an Airbnb experience where you talk to a human not to like a, a larger tour company group or whatever. Yeah. Um, and uh, and it's usually resulted in, um, amazing experiences off the beaten path that you don't normally see. Yeah. That you get to see because you spent time with someone who lives in that area. You're not just going off Google or TripAdvisor or some other thing. Yeah. To know where to go and what to see. Have you guys considered hosting, uh, exchange students at all? Uh, my wife seems like you might dig it. My wife would say, no, she's we're an empty nest and uhm happy. We like it that way. I'm happy to have grandkids, but I do not want to have to deal with the bullshit anymore. Yeah. Uh, I love my kids and I'm looking forward to grandkids, but I think we are, we're enjoying the Yeah. The empty nest and the freedom. Uh, well, and for Jill and I, we don't have kids of our own. Yeah. But to some extent, like we're trusting in those exchange students when, when we get a little more fancy free lifestyle and can travel overseas more. Totally. Like they can be our local guides in Brazil. Absolutely. In Japan and Germany. And you love kids all over the world. You kind of, yeah. Yeah. So, so the Loco experience is the namesake, of course. Oh, and I should acknowledge that this is your second time on the podcast kind of. But you did a podcast with me and Seth that was never made live on the small business storytellers. You were gonna be like episode three. Well, thanks for having me back or something. Yeah. Seven years ago now. But the local Experience podcast, our namesake segment is the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners. Yeah. I think it was, uh, the, the trip to Mongolia, uh, I, uh, was involved with this Breakthrough Academy group from Canada, and one of the guys that worked for that company was in the process of starting his own motorcycle club, adventure Motorcycle Club. Okay. Specifically designed not to like pay and go on a tour, but just to like. Go somewhere and figure it out as you go. Mm-hmm. Like, not set you up for failure, but like set you up in a way that you're gonna have to rely on each other Yeah. To get through this thing. And so, uh, he invited me to go, uh, with the, the crew to Mongolia. Uh, and uh, they actually, for the Fresh Line, uh, motorcycle Club is the name of the, the group. Okay. Fresh Line. I like that name. They have a, they had a documentary with that. So on YouTube there's a search, fresh Line, fresh Line, Mongolia's, a whole. Oh dang. So this was like a total original experience kind of thing? Yeah. Total, uh, documentary, 15 minute documentary done on it. Anyways, um, wild Country, huge. One of the, the least populated countries in the world. They're just spread out. You can drive anywhere. There are, there are roads. And you can go wherever you want really In like 99. Like there's no fences or anything. You just drive across the prairie. Yeah. These nomads that, uh, you know, have their yurts and their, you know, 70 to 2000 animals and they move with as needed and it's just open range and, and you can go anywhere. Is it dry? Like, uh, it's, it's very similar. Uh, like they're part like Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. Very dry. Uh, so there's grasslands that are on the dry side. There's also mountainous areas on Right. But similar to Colorado, but just huge. And, uh, on the third day, uh, we were riding and, uh, uh, and I went down and, and immediately was like, oh, my ribs, it's not good. And front tire had gone flat or, uh. Front tire went flat. So you're like cruising on a road or just cross country? No, cross country. Okay. Um, you know, probably going, you know, 40, 50 miles an hour. Okay. Uh, and, and then the flat tire went flat and hit a yucca plant. And I went over the bars. Oh dang. Cracked ribs. Uh, I, I had taken some, uh, prescription painkillers with me in case something happened. I had some leftover from surgery. So I started on those and then by the next day I was still like, yeah, my breathing is not good. Mm. I was calling a couple doctor friends in the United States trying to get their assessment of it. And uh, when you go on this trip, you pay for something called global rescue. Mm-hmm. Anywhere in the world, something happens. Yeah. We will help you get evacuated. Dang. We will send the troops, we'll send the helicopters. Kinda the thing we got in Colorado here for Yep. When you buy a fishing license or whatever, right? Yep. So we call global Rescue. Okay. And we'll be back to you in an hour with an evacuation plan. And you know, I'm in the Goby Desert. Uh. 12 hours from the main city where hospitals would be Okay. Um, and long and short. Well, we were also calling the, the company that rented us the motorcycles. Yeah. The guy that rented us the motorcycle. Right. This dude that has, and he is like, there's no helicopters. They're not, they're not coming to get you. There's no way. Right. And sure enough global rush, she's like, uh, uh, we don't really know what to do that's really remote. So he had to, he had to find some local, you know, taxi driver person to come in a, in a, uh, land Cruiser. And he drove, uh, uh, five hours to come get me the next morning. And then we drove seven hours, spent the night, and then finished the five hours to get to uar and I had. Uh, four cracked ribs and some fluid on my lungs. Oh, yep. Um, and that's why I was having, uh, trouble breathing. Yeah. Um, and, uh, but, uh, spent a couple days in ulu Minar and uh, and then rejoined the group and just rode in the SAG vehicle. Oh, okay. Which was actually really amazing to, to like the motorcycle's more fun. Right. Um, but being in the truck with the local and talking to him about, right, well what about that over there and how does this interact with that? And, you know, what do you think about? And so it was a great, um, yeah. Um, uh, you know, four, five silver lining kind of to the Yeah. Four or five days of the last part of the trip, which I would rather be on a dirt bike, but, um, to be able to, to, uh, talk with the local Yeah. A unique experience in that way, huh? Yeah, for sure. Cool. I dig it. Well, Moses, I don't have any more questions for you. You've passed. Great. Well, I, all of my tests, I'm going surfing, uh, up at horse tooth on a boat. Oh. Right now, every, every Monday we have a Monday night Surf league, and so there's a group of guys to get together and. Um, try and surf on the nights. By the nights. By the way, Jill and I just booked a trip. We're gonna go to, uh, San Jose, El Cabo, uh, awesome. This fall. So I might get some local Yeah. Uh, whale watching opportunities or whatever figured out. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you the, uh, about spot at least where Surf surfboard. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Some spots to, yeah, I definitely have some, some people down there that you should, you should. Some places you should go and some people you should see. I dig it. I dig it. Well, thanks for being here. Yep. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Harder painting 25 years in business and going strong. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you.
