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This week on the Owned and Operated Legends series we talk with the unstoppable powerhouse of HVAC Ismael Valdez, founder of Nexgen. From starting in the trades at 18 years old to building an empire in just four years, Ismael shares his journey to revolutionizing the contracting industry.
Special Thanks to Avoca AI Coaching and Training
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1:10 Introducing Ishmael Valdez
1:22 The NextGen Journey Begins
3:49 Rapid Expansion and Role of Private Equity
4:27 Early Career and Industry Insights
5:38 Building a Successful HVAC Business
13:00 The Importance of Gross Profit
16:37 Creating a Winning Company Culture
20:32 Building Effective Pay Structures
24:06 Overseas Hiring Solutions
25:06 Gross Margins and Scaling Up
25:39 Building the Executive Team
26:44 Expansion and New Locations
27:27 Lead Gen Strategies
29:38 Marketing and Social Media Strategies
31:45 The Future of Lead Generation
38:11 Introducing the Nuve Thermostat
45:24 Final Thoughts
Episode Hosts: 🎤
John Wilson: @WilsonCompanies on X
Jack Carr: @TheHVACJack on X
Episode Guest:
Ismael Valdez: On LinkedIn
Owned and Operated Episode #156 Transcript
Ismael: We did 1.2 million in revenue in my garage in four months.
You can get from zero to 10 in a snap of a finger. Gross profit will tell you how much of a badass negotiator you are. if I'm having one message for a hundred million dollar mark, it's not for everybody man.
John Wilson: A few months ago, we got our call center on Avoca. And Avoca is a AI call center solution for home service companies just like me, and probably just like you. They have a couple different products, but the one we like the most is their coach product, which listens to every phone call and runs it through a rubric.
to help our call takers improve this is a big deal because we take hundreds, sometimes thousands of calls every day and it's too much for our trainers and managers to keep up with and effectively train. it lets us do ride alongs on almost every call every day.
Click on the link below to go to Avoca and make sure you use the promo code OWNED for a special discount. Welcome back! today we have Ishmael Valdez on with us. Welcome to the show. We're excited to have you here. you founded next gen, took it from nothing to something, and we're really pumped up to bring you onto our legend series and talk about what that looked like.
Do you think you could spend a minute or two and just walk us through the next gen story?
Ismael: First congratulations on the podcast, guys. I love doing these podcasts and the names too. owned and operated because 99 percent of these podcasts that I do, they have no clue of what we got to go through of the everyday grind.
So that's cool that you guys are doing this for the trades. and that you guys are still, in the grind and the trenches because 99 percent of these guys don't have a clue. what we go through every day to make sure our operations are running smoothly, to make sure we're profitable, to make sure we're employing people, to make sure we're doing the actual things we need to do to keep the operation going.
So congrats on the podcast and owning the business. it's hard to do both. I applaud you guys. my name's Ishmael Valdez, I started next gen air conditioning in late 2017 going into 2018. I got my license in January, 2018. for those who don't know me, it was a pretty fast growth. at the time. I thought it was, normal for people to do this. But when I started exposing myself to social media and I started talking people were blown away by, the short journey we had.
our first year in business, we were all hvac. for the first four years, we were all HVAC, heating, air conditioning, residential, retail, no Costco, no Home Depot, no Lowe's, just strictly marketing. first year we did 9. 8 mil, second year we did 18.
2 mil, third year we did 24, and going on our fourth year we went up to 32 million. growth, man. Like I said, really know that what we because I was so deep int hiring people, marketing, figuring o figuring out like what in to be able to push the re Obviously, you guys know what I'm talking about, right?
The everyday grind in the everyday cycle. a couple of years ago I sold to private equity. It was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made I ended up going to a ranch group. I think I sold it when I was doing 109 million revenue in one year.
It's pretty dope. different locations in Southern California when we sold, one of the best things that came out of the cell was my new bed thermostat, which we're going to talk about just who I am, how I got here.
I got into the trades when I was 18 working at a supply house, named Howard industry, which distributed American standard equipment. Most of you back east know about American standard and train. so I've worked there for about eight, nine years,
People have contractors would come up to the counter and buy equipment for me, buy parts for me. And I would talk to them. I would ask them a million questions. I have a really curious mind
And I would, ask them a million questions. that's how I got into the contracting side after I figured out you were making all the money. it took me eight years to realize were making all the money.
that's when I started to jump on the other side of the counter and started on the contracting side. a couple of years later, we started an action I started a company called RHA and then another company called Home Comfort USA, which we did pretty dope, things on
We got it from zero to 21 million in four years. Which is a pretty fast growth that was my first exposure to man, you could actually make some really good money doing, air conditioning and plumbing.
Ismael: Yeah. So RHA was first, Got into a couple of mill. just, recruiting people and then home comfort USA. when I met Ken, it was a 50, 50 partnership. this is how ignorant I was back in the day. I didn't know about corporate structure and I don't know about shares and I didn't know about none of the legalities behind the operation.
So I took a handshake deal from him and we were supposed to be 50, 50 partners. we get up to 21 and change, in a little bit over four years. he decides we needed to part ways looking back now, it was one of the best things that happened to me.
home Comfort was company that had started after that when me and hit part ways. That's when a couple weeks later, we started next
Jack: Ishmael, when I bought my business, I did a 30 hour drive.
I'm pretty sure I listened to almost every clip from you about the next gen startup. I do remember in there though, you were talking about, running outta your garage. Was that with NextGen or was that with Total Home Comfort?
Ismael: No, that was with NextGen. I did, three months in my garage and that was probably one of the dopest.
So in between me leaving Home Comfort and starting NextGen, there was about a three to four month period. So between three to four month period, I was in my garage 'cause I needed to get a license. you can't just go and get a license the next day.
So I was studying for my test. I was trying to get, my license set up and everything. Obviously it takes time for me to do that. I was grinding out of my garage, doing subcontracting work, calling friends and family, posting on social media, just doing everything I could to pay the bills because I knew I wanted to start an action and I knew I wanted to do it.
But it was about four months in the gap where I was in my garage. Dude, let me tell you something, we did 1. 2 million dollars in revenue in my garage in four months. That was probably one of the dopest shits that I ever did.
With zero overhead. You're just going. zero overhead. It was me and my sister in the garage. And we had five installers. We had Tony, which was my right hand dude. I had one project manager and then I was grinding out the phones.
Hey man, you guys need work. I got installers ready to go. these were other contractors that, Book out jobs and I would do the labor side of it. I would pick up checks. go to Home Depot and get material, drop off to the guys, run warranties.
Those four months we were grinding every day. I remember the first month in my garage. We have piles of duck in the front yard, the scrap and we want to do, This is a traditional white neighborhood.
There's trash all over my front yard. I'm like four in the morning with black trash bags, putting the ducks inside, putting registers.
John Wilson: Did that same team turn into NextGen and became the founding team?
you described your revenue journey. We're on a similar journey. we went from 13 to 17 to 25 and next year budgeting 34. we're hoping for mid 40s after
That what were the levers you pulled we're starting to feel the top and you know We're in a different marketing world now, then we were four or five years ago What were the levers at 40 million?
What were the levers you were pulling from 20 to 30? where did new markets come into that? how did you think about that gap?
Ismael: So the 20 and 30 million journey is a dope one, Because that requires a little bit more structure, more methodical thinking. The zero to 10 is just blind.
It's getting up every day, closing deals, having an aggressive sales team you can get from zero to 10 in a snap of a finger. if you have a fucking aggressive sales team,
John Wilson: Easy.
Ismael: After 10 to 20, it requires more discipline in your marketing and being consistent because you see the dips and ups and downs in revenue, the shoulder season and all that.
The 20 to 30 mark is special because you start bringing the tech turnover. Once you start managing a service department, the 20 to 30, even to up to 40 million dollars, it was perfecting the tech turnover and perfecting the tech experience.
Because there could only, you could only push so many cells in the on season. You can only push so many cells in the off season, Obviously you get handicapped in the off season when there's no demand. when I found the tech turnover process in his operation and the way he was running the customer experience through the technician going in there, either through a tune up a repair or a free inspection, that was one of the biggest game changers average ticket went up, closing percentage went up, and call volume went up,
So average ticket, closing percentage, and call volume got me from 20 to 40 million dollars. Those were the three KPIs that I was focused on once I got to 32, 40 million dollars, things started getting wobbly the operation fell loose.
That's when my accounting team came. when I started structuring my accounting team and getting a high level controller, putting somebody in APAR, paying more attention to the commission structure, that's when things started tightening up.
So if I could give you guys an example, advice from 20 to 40 million, it's, average ticket closing percentage, being consistent in your market and being disciplined to keep your marketing always keep an eye on your accountancy, Like knowing your numbers inside and out, knowing what gross profit you're running.
Gross profit is one of The key things that people miss when they're running a business because everybody's so focused on the top and the bottom the middle is where the money's at, right? The middle tells you exactly how much of a badass negotiator you are with labor,
Because that'll put you on the top or the bottom And then the middle will tell you the gross profit will tell you how much of a badass negotiator you are with distributors Can you listen to what I just told you gross profit will tell you how much of a badass negotiator you are if you're not a good negotiator, this is when you start bringing in a team to be able to start dialing it in right?
most HVAC companies are running between. 35 and 45 percent actual gross profit. that's assuming they're putting cost of goods on the top cost of goods on the top sales tax and labor. Okay. some people put fucking sales on the bottom just to hide it, to increase the gross profit,
That doesn't tell you anything. a solid operator will run about 45. 40, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47 growth, actual gross profit on it. So paying attention to your numbers, grow the closing percentage. The average ticket is what is in putting, start putting controls in the business.
It's going to get you profit at that 20 to 40 million cycle.
John Wilson: Yeah, I think we just had a conversation about this with our last, guest it was earning the right to know your gross margin every day the reason we hone in on revenue is because it's easy.
You pop open service Titan and there it is, but gross margin or daily gross profit takes a lot to get right. we've spent a lot of time on it and it didn't move the needle because we now have daily dashboards everywhere month to date, I can tell you our gross margin, gross profit dollars any day of the month, which has been a big unlock.
Ismael: look, before we get into the next one, the numbers are cool and the guys are cool and the counting is cool and all that. Don't fucking forget that the war is spot inside the home, right? Don't fucking forget that the battles are one inside the home, having a dope ass customer experience, being able to.
Turn a phone call to revenue is where the fucking magic. Yes. The numbers in the gross profit and the gross margin all that is dope And you need to pay attention to it. what makes us solid operators is that we are able to see everything, not just focus on marketing.
hopefully that fixes the operation. being a dope ass operator requires you to focus on every aspect of the operation, don't forget that the fucking war is one inside the home and making sure that we are providing customers more value than what they see on a piece of paper is the name of the game.
When you are in there providing value, making sure that the customers are trusting you, that's where the money's at. yes, the KPIs are cool and having a badass accounting team and knowing your numbers and dope. At the end of the day whoever provides the best customer experience is who's going to win the war.
Jack: And Ishmael, how did you design or cultivate that culture within next gen? Because that's one of the key pieces that I keep coming back to with your story and trying to understand how to get that. not the experience for the customer, but how do you find and attract the people that can give that experience?
Ismael: I don't think I've ever told this to anybody guys stupid. they know. We're making money. They see the contracts. the repairs. the cost of the parts.
Why we created such a dope culture at NextGen is because I am the most unselfish person in the world. If I'm making money, everybody's making money. that creates a whole culture of hey man, this guy's gonna take care of us.
You guys gotta understand, how many times have you heard your employees say, I was at this company and this guy grinded me on my commission. these were disgruntled employees that weren't treated properly, right?
Why we were so successful in action is because the key, elements in operation is the onboarding process. And this is where you fuckers missing. Okay. Onboarding people, property, saving the expectations, property, making sure that when you hire somebody, okay.
When you hire somebody, you let them know exactly what's going to happen and being confident enough that you step in there and you go Hey, look. You don't have to worry about money here. You don't have to worry about leads. You don't have to worry about getting paid, You don't have to worry about, am I going to have a job tomorrow?
That is 90 percent of the battle. Making sure that you have a hundred percent employee to work every day instead of a half ass employee.
Part of the culture that we built was being able to bring our employees in and be like, look, I'm going to take all your worries away. All I need you to do is make sure that when you get inside that house, you take care of our clients, no matter what.
I don't care if we did something wrong. whatever it is that we need to do to take care of that client has to be done. we had that message from day one. taking care of the clients and whoever took care of the most clients would make the most money making sure guys that guys you've got a fucking on board property You've got to set the expectations property You gotta make sure that you set your boundaries for employees and clients and don't violate them
This is how you're going to get paid being black and white. I'm going to give you guys a tip and write this down. when you're onboarding people, you guys got to have a pay plan right in front of them. they look at it and go okay, cool.
I know how I'm getting paid, right? You guys gotta be able to do that on every single employee. You ask anybody on action, any technician, any sales guy, any installer, any customer service rep, any accounting, any production, any department in that operation. You ask them how they're getting paid, I guarantee you they'll describe it with less than 10 words.
This is how I get picked. And that's half of the battle, guys, is making sure that they understand their pay so they can focus on the client and taking care of the client every single time.
John Wilson: you give me an example of that for HVC service
Ismael: technicians get paid Hourly backup, but then we pay them on performance pay. Performance per hourly Backup. California is the strictest state in the universe. not the country, not the world. The universe. Fucking universe. Okay. If you can pay people property in California, my pay plans work across the universe.
It works in Mexico, Japan. Mars
John Wilson: Elon's gonna use it in 60 days. It works in Mars.
Ismael: So we would pay everybody 20 an hour they would get, double time, overtime, eight hours, all that. then we would show them what their performance was based on what they were doing.
repairs, we would pay them 30 percent on a sliding scale all the way to if I went out there and did a motor for a thousand dollars and that was the full book price for the motor, a thousand bucks to install it, to take care of the client, that's what they need.
And I didn't discount anything. They would get a full 30% if they discounted 5%, we would dig them 5% on their commission. If they discounted 10%, hit them up to 10% on their repairs. Turnovers can be when a technician goes in provides the service for the client and has, three, four different options
They're ranging from 500 all the way to 2, 500, the consumer, then says, Hey, It's a 10 year old unit. I don't want to invest 2, 200 or 2, 500 into this unit. How much is a new one? When those magic words come out of that customer's house, that means we provided so much value to them.
now they want to explore permanent solutions. the 30 percent sliding scale to the two 15 and the 5 percent on turnover is because we had a high average ticket.
We had high closing percentage. We were priced out property. So I'm not saying go ahead and do this to your companies right now, because you 99 percent of these fuckers are not priced out
Jack and Ismael: properly.
Ismael: So first price yourself property in order to pay your employee's property.
Okay. So turnovers, they would get paid 5%. I've seen companies pay two and a half, three, three and a half percent. We were paying 5 percent because we wanted to recruit the top talent in the industry. The reason why everybody wanted to work on action, there's two reasons. We had competitive culture, everybody wanted to work there because the top technicians, top sales guys, top installer, top, everything was there. So competitive atmosphere and the number two, and don't forget this because you forget. We pay more than anybody.
People go to your job. People go to your contract. People go to your shops. People are driving your vans because they're getting paid. The reason why they were coming to me over anybody in Southern California is because I was paying more than anybody. I was treating them better and I was paying them better.
That's the reason why we were growing so fast. So again, super simple, 30 to 15 percent slide is gone. Anything repair or IAQ. And then anything that had to do with the labor department, which is install, installation, ducting, whatever they wanted the labor department to do, they would get paid a flat 5 percent off.
John Wilson: If you need help with your overseas hiring, let me tell you about my friends at Sagan. For years, we have been hiring overseas team members in our call center, accounting, and marketing. We've typically run this ourselves, but the more we hire, the more complicated it's gotten.
So we called my friends at Sagan and said, here's what we're looking for. they were awesome. The thing I like about their model is it is a monthly retainer instead of this giant 30 to 50 percent of the first year salary of whoever they hire.
So it's this monthly charge, they hire x amount of candidates a year, and it's been really good. We just hired our first two a couple weeks ago, and they've already been awesome. They're jumped into the accounting department. Check out Sagan Go, which is S A G A N Go dot com. for more information.
What was gross? You were describing gross margin there for a second. Were you guys at 45 or were you north of 45 percent?
Ismael: We were running at 47. 1 percent gross margin. On the HVAC side and on plumbing, we were running at 54. 2 percent.
John Wilson: right, so you guys, what was the gap from 30 to 100 million?
What happened? walk me through it.
Ismael: Went 3260 and then a hundred. From 32 to six.
John Wilson: When did the new locations come in?
Ismael: So we've always had the locations open. I think what took the jump on him was the emphasis on fine tuning the operation at that scale, I already had a CFO, I had a controller, I had a operations manager, I had a sales manager, a sales executive, a
service executive, it was a whole team of people making decisions It wasn't just me because what's going to get you stuck between 20 and 40 million is that the CEO still feels like he has to be the big man on the team.
Show everybody that he's the best one I saw myself humble myself a little bit more and I started giving people more, authority to make a decision. That's what took me from 60 to a hundred was building the executive team, a high level management team. That's what took us from 60 to a hundred.
John Wilson: when did the new locations launch?
Ismael: So for year one, we did everything for, year two, we did Palm desert year three. We opened up Riverside year four. We opened up, Los Angeles year five. We opened up Sydney Valley and year six opened up, South County.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Ismael: And then on top of that, we have micro locations too, which were used for GMB, for Yelp accounts, for LSA accounts, for Google ads, for all that.
we had five actual operations and then we had four micro locations around the operations
just to be able to lead generate more through Google one of the biggest keys is your lead generation has to be On point and it's gotta be non stop all year round otherwise you go backwards, right?
You go backwards from 100 if your lead generation is not on point because at that point your fucking cells Team is already profound. Your sales team is already fine too. Your service team is already done. your production team, your CSRs, all that is done at a hundred.
There's nothing to work on there The structure's already there. Now it's just making sure that you're feeding that beast. enough leads to be able to sustain.
John Wilson: What was the split between lead gen and branded spend in marketing along that journey? were there points where it changed or was it pretty much all lead gen?
Ismael: It was all lead generation through Google, Yelp, billboards, radio, TV. Most of our spend I would say 60 to 65 percent was always Google. Google was our machine to lead generate. at that point, imagine we're spending 10 to 12 million a year in marketing, like six, 7 million of that is getting spent on Google, no other company here and not just here, like no other company spending five, six, seven, 8 million on Google.
So we're lead generating through Google, but the key to that part is being able to feed the machine If people don't know who you are, they're not going to click on your ad. that's where the billboard game, came, into place.
30 percent of our budget was spent on billboards. 60 percent on Google and 10 to 20 percent on Yelp. the rest was direct mail, email, voice, all the little campaigns
John Wilson: So you never did mass media, like TV, radio.
Ismael: No, man, I was in it for a little bit. I was in radio TV for a little bit. I just found out what most people are missing right now is that they're not paying attention to where the consumer's at. The consumers hear baby boy. that's all they pay attention
John Wilson: to.
Ismael: They're not on tv They're not on radio let me explain to you the psychology behind marketing when you're watching a baseball game, when you're watching the news, when you're watching a TV series, what are you doing on the couch?
You're on your phone Even the older generation is stuck on their phone now. You have grandmas And grandpas on Facebook all day long posting pictures and selfies of their grandkids and kids this is it right here.
Whoever wins this wins the war. That's why I stopped doing TV. That's why I stopped doing radio. Because we were getting little to no return on it. everybody's stuck on their phone. We've got to find a way to get their attention there.
John Wilson: what are ways you think that did that?
Ismael: So I'm going to give you the journey of what work that mentioned. So year one to three, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, coupons, ballot pack, print, little TV, little radio, all that was popping back then the first three years.
And then it started depletion like that. And I started paying attention to marketing, that's when Google started popping and Yelp started rising and all the search engines started going, So that's when I hopped, I slowly turned down all my friend ads and I started going into Google, started spending into Google and Yelp
A little bit of social media like everybody does but mostly Google and Yelp. we kept a little bit of mail in there the next phase and this is where I Step back for an action and where i'm gonna direct you guys that search engine which was google yelp Angie's that worked really good until google Spiked up their rates and now everyone's paying a million dollars for a lead.
The next form of lead generation, to capitalize on clients and social media and entertainment. Listen to what I'm saying, because I always talk in the future, the next three to five years. Yes. Google is still going to work. Yes. Yelp and Angie's and all those search engines are always going to work.
The way you're going to feed that machine is through your social media. Entertaining people on social media because everybody's stuck on this phone. Not through a, before and after picture of your water heaters, or a before and after picture of your ducting.
Nobody gives a shit about your tune up process. Nobody gives a shit about your water heater flushes. Listen to me. You know what they care about? Being entertained on their phone. So entertain these people while you're branding yourself.
So when they need you, they go on Google, Yelp, and Angie's and all those search engines and then you capitalize on them. that's what the lead generation is going to be for the next three to five years.
John Wilson: I think I agree. I actually very much agree. we started, Yeah.
Google's gone through a lot of variations and LSA got crazy. It's going to be wild to see what happens with the GPT search and where that takes, 15 years of SEO investment. I think that's going to be crazy, but it does seem like social media becomes more.
of an engine than it has been. we're in full agreement.
Ismael: 10 years, this is look at three to five years of social media feeding Google and all that to cash, right? Five to 10 years from now, this is five to 10 years from now. I'm calling it right now. Social media will finally get their head out of their ass and we'll be able to lead generate true lead generation through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. YouTube. Those guys will finally get their head out of their ass and will be able to regenerate life without using Google, without using Yelp, without using all those search engines. Social media in the next 5 to 10 years, after 5, this is, 2030 and beyond, 2029 and beyond.
That's when social media is going to be a true lead generation for the trades.
John Wilson: I agree. I'm honestly excited for it because the only people that can do social media effectively are the one man show, or somebody with the resources everybody else is just not going to be able to keep up with quality. You're not going to be able to do the output. So we invested in it early, but we're excited because we think it's really going to separate the boys from the men.
Ismael: your content creation and social media is what's going to drive this machine up to.
however big you want to get. it's driving content through social media and capturing on search.
John Wilson: I Think it's more, rolling back through it in my head we've killed it in lead gen this year.
most of the industry has had a really challenging year with leads and we have not at all. I'm concerned that next year we might have a challenge. You can't be immune forever. we're trying to dial in what that looks like now.
the SEO thing really threw me off. It's not here yet, but it'll be here in six months, That's gonna be weird.
Ismael: the reason why I don't bring up SEO as much as I do On paid on social media, on other avenues The reason why is because.
AI is gonna overtake SEO, They're gonna replace every content creator. They're gonna replace all those people. What I'm interested is finding out, and this is why Google's kind of Google and search engines fade away and let social media and listen to what I'm about to tell you guys because, makes sense in my head, but I don't know if it's gonna make sense in yours.
The reason why AI is gonna change the whole game on SEO and page search ad is because. Everybody's going to start using AI to lead to degenerate through Google and through SEO and all that, right? you can't have every AI bot fighting each other to get, that best paid shirt, grab that.
eventually, you're going to see a diminishing search on that. And now it's going to come up to creativity. the one thing that AI can't do is be creative. they can lead you a certain way and give you examples, but They can't get on camera and show who you really are as a person your intentions in the business and how much you care about your client.
I believe the next phase of, social media is going to take off on lead generation, is being able to show who you are as a person, coming up to your clients and then lead generating through there. I think those people are going to win over, just pouring money on Google SEO, paid search, all these direct mail.
Instead of how about we look at the marketing operation as a whole and start figuring out what we need to do to keep pushing forward instead of just being okay with Google taking control of our business. Whether you realize it or not, Google has control of every business, no matter how big or small you are.
John Wilson: I fully agree. This became a big project of ours late last year. We wanted to un Google the business. that's why our lead generation wasn't impacted the same as most of the industry. we did un Google. most of our business, which was a big win, but that led to more lead generating activities.
I think you're right about social, but I do think there is something more to branded than we have done or said so far, I think there's another layer of branded here, that. We're considering our big move for next year.
Ismael: this is one of the reasons why I came up with a new thermostat because I'm saw in the journey, the customer journey has been fucked for the last 30 years.
Nobody has control of the customer journey. As soon as the consumer needs us nobody has control. It's Google, Yelp, all these trillion dollar companies,
Amazon, they all have control of that. So that was one of the biggest obstacles I wanted to fix in the industry. And that's why I came up with the thermostat. The second biggest, hurdle in the industry is recruitment, which, we can get into later the biggest problem, why I came up with our thermostat is because I saw that as soon as the consumer needed us, the first thing they did is went to their thermostat. They don't feel cold They don't feel hot What do they do? They pull out their phone and start looking for a contractor.
And that's where we lost them.
That's when we lost all the consumers. And that's where I came up with the thermostat. This is the first service that connects you for life, right? I saw the alarm company model and it blew me away. If you go to your panel,
I have ADT. I don't know what you guys have Bell, ADT, whatever But if you go to your alarm panel, if you cover up that ADT logo, they're fucked.
Ismael: They would be back on square one we are. if my alarm was fucked up and a sensor didn't work, it didn't want an alarm and it didn't have logo on the panel, I would search on my phone alarm company near me.
And that's what they've been doing to us on the HVAC side the plumbing electrical and roofing side for years. So now what I did is the contractor logo in front of the consumer on the wall, an easy access point, through a QR or a custom app.
The consumer gets to download an app with your local John, now with Nuve, now with Nest, now with Ecobee, now with Honeywell, with your custom app, when they need you to turn on the system, guess what they're gonna do? if it doesn't turn on, click to call. hey John, my system's not working.
You get that lead back. If you don't do that right now and they don't have a brand new thermostat they have to go through their emails, look for an invoice, try to remember you, which we know these consumers aren't, let's face it, right?
They have a lot of things on their head. So what do they do? Go on their phone, go on Google, AC repair near me and call a contractor.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Ismael: That's what we were trying to figure out.
John Wilson: How many thermostats get sold a month?
Ismael: NuVent was, NuVent, so the project started three years ago from scratch of a circuit board, molding, interface.
So now we just launched it for, I want to say about four months ago. We have 168, creeping up on 200 contractors, that have successfully onboarded onto NuVent. They're, taking advantage of the custom app and everything. we are creeping up on the 2000 mark range of thermostats installed and sold already.
in the next six months, we will have over a thousand contractors onboarded on Nuvent. These contractors are going to be selling which would put us between, eight to 10,000 thermostats a day.
how many thermostats get installed every day across the nation? Hundreds of thousands. it's insane the amount of thermostats that get installed. why I got into the thermostat industry was to solve the problem for our contractors. that was number one. If you google what nest sold to google for 3.
2 They didn't solve anything. They put a nice thermostat with google's name on it. You don't think google's smart enough to know that if they start putting contractor names on the thermostat, what happens to the leak generation on search?
It'll go skyrocket demo, because now they're just going to call that contractor back instead of going on Google and searching for a contractor they benefit on the thermostat and they benefit on the search. That's what we got.
Jack: So if our listeners want to find this product, where should they go to get more information?
How is that process working?
Ismael: com. You can fill out quick contact information. We'll reach out to you. Our demo team right here in the back of me. We'll reach out and do a whole presentation for you I have a social media group called service avengers. Service Avengers, there's about 6, 400 contractors on there. 99 percent of them are CEOs, owners, general managers, or high level managers Service Avengers on Facebook, is probably the dopest group.
It's a free group that I did for the last four years for contractors. We talk about marketing, we talk about P& Ls, we talk about recruitment, we talk about pay class. We talk about Nuvid, we talk about other tech companies that help us out.
So Service Avengers, if you want to get in contact with myself, Nuvid Home, if you want a demo on the third estate.
John Wilson: I think the move to a product is really interesting. I agree. it looks like a great product. We'll check it out, but what does it look like to, that's a totally different selling audience.
So I'm gonna go get a thousand contractors and create distribution channels. Is it all direct to the contractor?
Ismael: I would never go to Home Depot. I would never go to the supply houses. the reason why I'll never go to Lowe's or retail is because Nest did that to us
In 2015, Nests was launched as a product to retail and they sold millions of these Nests to consumers and skipped the contract. They skipped us. We should have been making money on the surface. Now, Guess what happened to Google? Three years later, they call contractors.
They're like, We got a ton of warranties. We don't know the Customers are wiring them wrong. They're burning them and we got free eats. And that's why I will promise that I will never go through a distribution like that It will always be to the contractor.
So you go on newbithome. com, get a demo. The demo is 30 to 45 minutes You make a commitment to us. You can get your thermostats the next day. It's super simple. we are booked out About a month and a half to two months with leads from referrals or social media if you go on newmanhome. com, I promise you, we'll take care of you for sure.
John Wilson: this was awesome to have you on. If you had any message for anybody that was wanting to cross that hundred million dollar mark, what would it be?
Ismael: if I've had one message for the hundred million dollar mark.
What happened at NexGen was a mixture of perfect timing grinding muscle and grabbing the perfect team to sustain that kind of growth. when you hear about the NexGen story, and what we did in the seven year span that I mentioned.
And how I sold it to private equity sounds fine and dandy But i'm telling you from the bottom of my heart. I lost a lot of relationships I lost a lot of time with my daughters. I lost a ton of time with my friends and family for almost five years. Nobody knew of me.
I wasn't on social media. They just knew what was going on But dude, it was because From, 5 a. m. to 9 p. m. I couldn't sleep. all I thought about was NexGen, my obsession was NexGen, and now I have the same obsession with Nuve,
It's not for everybody, guys. I promise you that you could make a ton of money at 10, 50 million and still be able to sustain those relationships and still have a good life. where my sweet spot is the next company that I grow, which, in a couple of years I'm going to grow a plumbing company.
I'll do, I'll get it from zero to 50 million and no more than one or two years, and then I'll flip it. But the 25 to 50 million, it's sustainable. It's chill. you can still have a life outside of work. You can still enjoy life. a hundred million 150, 200, all that sounds super dope but the amount of pressure you're under, the things you've got to be looking for in the business, people stealing from you, lead generation customers, taking advantage of you, all of that just gets bigger at that scale.
So if I could have one message, it's not meant for everybody. where you find your happy spot, once you find that happy spot, just enjoy it, man. The journey's dope enjoy it with your team, for sure.
John Wilson: Thanks for coming on today, sharing your story about NextGen and LeadGen if people want to find you, they're going to go to Service Avengers or check out the Thermostat product at nuvehome.com.
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