Hey Contrarians,
Today’s story is about as good as the “college dropout to successful biz owner” genre gets.
We’re talking turning “$12 in the bank” into 250 locations good.
We recently sat down with Steven Montgomery, the man behind those stats and the CEO of what’s likely one of the FASTEST-growing home service franchises in the US.
Below, we’re sharing as much of the convo as we could fit in an email. Inspiration? Check. Frameworks he uses to grow his biz? Check. Wholesome little story at the end? Check.
Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
From “$12 in the bank” to franchise BEAST
While Steven was in high school, his dad had a painting business.
Steven worked there a bit until his dad pivoted jobs, thus marking the end of Steven’s painting career… Until college came around, that is.
“My mom became a real estate agent when I was like 18. During breaks, I would just grab my dad’s old equipment and paint for her clients. And I realized I could make pretty good money.”
But not very long after starting college, Steven dropped out and got married. “Just decided it wasn’t for me,” he told us.
(Would a financial advisor recommend doing all this? Probably not. But Steven had other plans…)
At the time, he had been doing some subcontract work for a large painting company in Texas. Much like college, though, working for others just wasn’t for him.
So on a razor-thin budget and with “like $12” in his bank account, Steven set off to build That 1 Painter, starting with a slick $2,800 exterior house painting job he proudly lined up.
Badabing badaboom? Easy peasy lemon squeezy? The rest is history?
Not exactly.
That very first customer canceled on him.
So what did he do?
“I kind of made up this rule in my head that I was going to do whatever it took to be successful,” Steven says. This was his game plan:
- “I would knock on doors until I had a job… I just told people, ‘Hey, I’m starting my own business.’ I think a lot of old people loved seeing a young guy trying to hustle, so they’d just give me some small jobs.”
- On top of that, Steven would drop by real estate offices to build a network and develop a pipeline.
“My only goal at that time was freedom. I just wanted to be free of working for others. I didn’t know how big it would get or anything like that.”
It took years of grinding and consistency, but eventually, Steven had about 3 crews running consistently — a huge accomplishment in its own right…
Still, he wasn’t satisfied.
“I challenged myself a ton to grow in business and become an entrepreneur,” he explained. “Not just a guy who could pay the bills and had a couple of crews. I wanted to do something bigger.”
One day, Steven was sitting in a meeting…
It was with his Sherwin-Williams rep. “We’re talking about products and he goes, ‘So, what’s your goal for next year?’ And I just pulled it out of thin air. I was like, ‘I don’t know, I’ll be the biggest painting company in Austin.’”
The rep just laughed at him. “He saw how much paint I bought at that time. I wasn’t close to the biggest client.”
Today, though, Steven will tell you his company is “by far the biggest.”
(From a sales rep laughing at your business goals to smashing those EXACT goals some years later. Imagine the HIGH you’d get from that as an entrepreneur.)
But… What happened in between?
A friend gave Steven the book “The E-Myth.”
The book is all about building processes and, according to Steven, “ultimately concludes that franchising is one of the best business models — because business itself becomes the product.”
At the time, Steven was looking into a corporate location model. “I really liked that because it was about empowering others and helping others, coaching others, which I find a lot of joy in.”
And so June of 2021, with modest goals and following almost a year of legal preparation and system-building, That 1 Painter officially announced that it was franchising.
“Our original goal was 20 That 1 Painter units. By September of that year, we had already sold 7.”
Steven called his cousin and the duo agreed: they needed to think BIGGER.
“Let’s 10X this thing. Let’s go for 200. Let’s get to 200 That 1 Painters in 5 years.”
And guess what?
As of today, just two and a half years in, That 1 Painter has already surpassed 200 units.
“It’s probably the fastest-growing painting franchise ever. Probably one of the fastest-growing home service franchises, period,” Steven estimates.
But that wasn’t BIG enough.
“We just realized that so much of what we were doing was transferable to other home services.”
That included:
- Building an in-house marketing agency for their brand and all their franchisees.
- Developing an appointment booking center to direct all inbound leads.
“This is just how you develop any home service business. So, we thought, we might as well get into others…”
And so they did.
First, the team launched Garage Up from scratch. Then they partnered with Pink’s — a trendy, 21st-century window cleaning service with an old-school vibe.
11 months ago, “We put ALL of that under what we’re calling ResiBrands,” Steven told us. “And then started franchising Garage Up and Pink’s in the summer of this year.”
Oh, and by the way — Steven and Co. have bootstrapped everything.
E-VE-RY-THING.
“It’s really hard to do. PE firms reach out to us almost every week because they know it’s hard… If you’re growing fast, several times a year, you’ll be like, ‘Oh crap. All right. I didn’t expect that expense.’ Or, ‘I didn’t expect this to happen.’ You just have to learn how to stomach that and truly believe in what you’re building.”
3 ridiculously powerful growth frameworks
We were curious — what kind of systems did Steven use to build this home service franchise MACHINE?
Here are 3 frameworks he shared:
1. Set ridiculous goals, written in concrete
“Because I was once told my goals were ridiculous,” Steven says, “I decided that every quarter we’ll set new ridiculous goals.”
Another priority for ResiBrands’ franchisees and staff: Writing goals in concrete, NOT in sand.
“Most people write their goals in sand. Then as soon as they realize, ‘oh, that was too big of a goal,’ they can just kick the sand around a little bit and then you don’t even know that it existed.”
Instead, Steven explains, “We need to write RIDICULOUSLY BIG goals in concrete. If we don’t hit ‘em, let it be part of our history. We’re not ashamed of having big goals, and we’re not afraid of not hitting them. It’s where we’re going that matters a lot more. So just keep it ridiculous.”
2. The 5 R’s of revenue
This is a framework specifically developed for home service businesses.
Steven learned and honed it over time, and now his team teaches it to ResiBrands’ franchisees.
“This is how you build a successful home service business,” Steven told us.
The logic?
- Real estate agents — because they know all the contractors and everybody who’s anybody with a house.
- Reputation — for obvious reasons, which you build through good reviews.
- Repeat business — it’s how you stay in business.
- Referrals — low-to-free customer acquisition cost means sustainable growth.
- Relationships — real estate agents are key, but so are contractors and other centers of community.
Per Steven: “If you have those five, and you do them well, you’ll have to spend much less on marketing.”
3. Everyone needs to develop a playbook
Between ResiBrands’ 3 units, Steven says they’ve got 250 total franchise locations.
Internally, Steven’s business now boasts over 50 employees who work to support those franchisees.
If you’re like us, when you hear something like that, you think: How the hell do you manage all that and remain… SANE?
Well, we asked Steven, and here’s what he said:
- Every. Single. Department… Has a playbook.
- These playbooks have goals laid out, they have KPIs for achieving those goals, and then they document EVERY SINGLE PROCESS that takes place.
Seem kind of unnecessary? It’s absolutely not, according to Steven:
- “It shows that the person doing the process knows what they’re doing. That they’re putting forethought into what they’re doing.
- “And then it allows you to scale — because it’s one thing to train 1 person, but it’s another to train 10 people.”
Playbooks don’t have to be perfect, but they always have to be there. “I have an SOP on how to write SOPs,” Steven told us.
Franchise-onomics 101
Here’s a stat you may find surprising…
“95% of our franchisees had no prior background in painting, window washing, or garage renovation,” says Steven.
“We’ve had everything from marketing backgrounds to truck drivers to military guys to cops to experienced franchise owners from different spaces. Sometimes it’s just, ‘I need to quit my corporate 9-to-5,’ or ‘I want to do something for myself.’”
According to Steven, home service is an attractive franchise model because it’s a relatively low upfront investment compared to franchising businesses like gyms or restaurants.
Setting up a That 1 Painter franchise will cost you “around $90,000 to $110,000, with earning potential of just under $1 million in revenue per territory.” Some locations with multiple territories, he says, “are doing over $3 million.”
Who does Steven say franchising is for?
“I think many people can make for great franchisees and that some people shouldn’t be,” he says.
“If you want to have full control, that’s where you should just be a traditional entrepreneur. If you just want financial freedom and to be empowered to start a business, but you don’t have a unique idea or the experience to do it on your own — that’s where being a franchise partner can make sense.”
Now HERE is a neat little story…
Not to get too touchy-feely, but we asked Steven if he’s still close with his dad.
“Yeah, so that’s a fun fact,” he says.
It turns out, as That 1 Painter was picking up pace, Steven needed somebody to call franchise brokers and share That 1 Painter’s story.
“I literally went over to my parent’s house for dinner and said to my mom, ‘You know how you love bragging about me? How would you like to do that as a full-time job?’”
Steven couldn’t afford his dad at the time, but as the business continued growing, his dad was eventually able to quit his job and go work for Steven alongside his mom.
ResiBrands now has 6 people on the team who sell franchises, according to Steven.
“The top two producers are my parents.”
SO not boring…
🧦 A frank Reddit thread titled: ”Why shouldn’t I own a laundromat?”
📊 This report from QuickBooks is PACKED with juicy entrepreneurship data…
