Transcript of From Hockey Dreams to $250K: The Home Service Hustle | Adam Chapman DSH #1181

I played semi-pro last time when I was 20. That's the only thing I did my whole life with hockey. I was not a business guy at all. It was just straight NHL or bust, and got pretty close, and then had a pretty big injury, so that's when I laid in.

Yeah, concussion, right?

Yeah. I was in a fight, and I fought a lot, too. Really? Yeah.

All right, guys. Adam Chapman here today from Canada. Welcome to America. Welcome to Vegas.

Thank you for having me.

Yes, sir. Is it your first time in Vegas?

First time in Vegas, yes.

What are you liking about it so far?

Well, you had a really good event last night. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. That's pretty much all we've done so far. I had your event. It was a lot of fun, a lot of cool people there. Yeah.

We were talking outside. You met all sorts of people, right?

Yeah. We met an F3 driver last night. Some guys in the online space. Yourself was a really cool event.

Absolutely. Anyone recognize you from your viral videos?

Yeah. Just one guy was trying to convince me that we went out in Vegas together, and he pulled up my Instagram. He's like, Oh, you're the Christmas light guy. That's what I say. Yes.

Was that your first viral video, the Christmas light stuff?

No, the first stuff started going viral was driveway sealing. It's like seal coating.

You made money off that and just filmed you performing that on in people's driveways, right?

Yeah. Well, it started with just me filming it for my actual company, PadPal, filming videos. Then a bunch of guys started reaching out to me from all over the place asking for help with their business. For me, at least, it was a lot of older guys in the industry, like 65-year-old guys. It was just cool to talk to other people that were looking at home services that weren't old and then spilled into creating more and more content.

Damn, I didn't know the industry was that old. It's ran by older people.

Yeah, it's a very old industry. It's a very, let's see, a little bit more unprofessional. Also being a young guy in it and meeting other young guys in it's a lot of opportunity for us.

Do you think it's because our generation is a little lazier?

A hundred %. Yeah. Everyone wants to be a TikTok star or do drop shipping or Amazon FBA, whereas no one wants to go and to get their hands dirty and put in the hard work.

Yeah, or a podcaster. I get asked every damn day, How can I start a podcast?

Yeah, they think it's easy. Nothing's easy, but that's a little bit more sexy to be a podcaster than a home service guy.

Yeah, but these jobs are needed, man. I mean, they're not going away. Ai is not at the point where I can replace them yet.

No. It's one of those things where I know everyone's afraid of AI for everything, but a lot of these services, I just can't see it being a priority of things that AI is taking over. Maybe it's going to help make it more efficient for business owners, but the actual physical labor is not going anywhere, no.

Yeah, hanging Christmas lights. That'd be very hard for an AI to do. I know there are robots now, though. Elon Musk dropped one.

Yeah. Did you see that one? Yeah, he did the whole release of a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I saw that. But at the end, again, you want to think of application of if they're going to have all that technology, is it going to be for something like Windows or Christmas lights? Probably not. It's going to be in a different field, I'd imagine that's going to be more lucrative than these types of things. Yeah.

I love what you teach because it's so relatable and you don't need tons of money to get started. You started with zero bucks, right?

Yeah. So I started with basically ground zero. I was sleeping in my car, and then I went door to door, collected deposit money, used that money throughout the winter to buy my equipment, and then That was almost nine years ago now.

What was the first equipment you bought?

First equipment was a Squeegee and a scrubber. I didn't have any of the fancy stuff. It was just a bucket, some rags, really the basics. I started with window cleaning and then just kept reinvesting back in my business.

Those window cleaners make decent It's a lot of money, though.

Yeah, window cleaning is an awesome gig because it's cheap to get started with and it's scalable and easily can do about $1,000, $1,500 a day by yourself.

What type of buildings were you doing that for?

Residential. We do some commercial stuff, but the biggest one we got into is residential.

There's some that do skyscrapers. I'm like, dude. Yeah, we're on to that. Yeah, I'm good on that one. They probably make more, but the risk.

Yeah. That's very, very uncompetitive. There's not enough companies that do it, but that's not a route we're going to go down. Yeah.

The liability, probably. It's just insane. If you're up that high. I remember being on the 40th floor once and I saw someone outside like, dude, that is crazy.

Or like those guys that do the free solos up the building and stuff.

That documentary was my favorite one. What was that guy's name? The Free Climber. Alex Honold? Yeah. Yeah. That was nuts.

Then I saw that one with the boyfriend and girlfriend. It's on Netflix now. I forgot what it's called, but they're going up the Dubai buildings and stuff, no harnesses. What? How That is crazy. Like, sweating watching it.

You ever do crazy stuff like that?

Crazy stuff like that? No, I love swimming and jumping off cliffs and stuff.

Cliff jumping is pretty wild. What's the highest cliff you've jumped?

Like 50 feet or something like that.

I've done 40, and that was pretty scary.

I love throwing the gainers off.

Yeah. I had a fear of heights, and I was in Jamaica. I'm like, Let me just conquer this. I was like, I'm not going to look before I jump. I'm just going to jump off.

That's what it's all about.

Tough landing, though. Shit hurt, to be honest. But there was an 80-foot cliff there, and the guy's A shout out to today's sponsor, Specialized Recruiting Group. Navigating the professional job search is hard. You know the perfect job is out there, but you're not sure how to find it. The good news is you don't have to go at it alone. You just need Specialized Recruiting Group. You can connect with them at srgpros. Com. They're here to guide you and help you find a role that fits all without costing a dime. They're offering a tailored approach to find your next role at srgpros. Com and help you get on the right course. Your local Specialized Recruiting Group team knows which businesses are hiring and can offer a path to contract and full-time roles. If you don't see the role you are looking for on their website, Specialized Recruiting Group also recruits for confidential roles, so give an office near you a call to learn more. Take the next step in your career by starting at srgpros. Com. Teaching everyone, we're jumping off that one and doing back flips. I'm like, Yeah, dude, that's wild. Cliff jumping in his phone.

You do a lot of stuff in nature?

A lot of stuff in nature? Not too much. I like getting away and going down south and taking the winters, I call it off, I guess. But working on the business while my guys are taking care of the lights and stuff, taking them down. But I love going swimming and stuff like that, getting out of Canada for sure. It's cold out there. Yeah, it's already snowing and blowing, so it's nice to be down here.

There's spots to swim out there, though?

Kind of, a little bit. Lakes and stuff is only good for July or else.

It's pretty cold. You like the US better overall? Yeah, I love the States.

You want to move here? Yeah, it's either going to be Florida or Texas. Okay. Well, Las Vegas is very nice so far.

Yeah, it's hard to be Vegas. That process is hard, I heard.

Yeah, I have a company that's down to get my visa and do that with me if I wanted to. Yeah, looking into that.

I just met someone and he said it was 8,000 bucks or something, and that's a lot for most people.

Yeah, definitely for a lot of people, but it's definitely a lot of opportunity here, too, and coming down to meet a lot of successful people. Yeah, it's definitely the move.

You think your business is replicatable in the US?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. We haven't started franchising. It's something that we've standard. But for my online stuff, everyone just copies and paste what I do in Canada, in Ottawa, Canada. We have guys in Florida, California. We have a couple of guys in Vegas as well. Yeah, copy paste the same systems, the same strategies, and they're doing really well. Wow.

I guess it's needed everywhere, right? A lot of people celebrate Christmas, so they need the Christmas lights getting hung, and there's no one really teaching that.

We teach a variety of services. That's the other thing that comes into play is where you are. People that are in California or Florida, anything on the Coast, softwashing is a big service. Softwashing? Yeah. It's like you're cleaning the roof with the chemicals. That got to be a big thing, whereas where I am, it's not really a big thing. Different places have different services that are more needed or more popular, whereas there's our services that are the same everywhere. Like, window cleaning is going to happen in Vegas. It's going to happen in everywhere. Same thing with the lights. We do the Christmas lights, permanent lights. Yeah. Yeah. So there's depending on what people want to do. I talk a lot about service stacking. So what we'll do is get a client for window cleaning, and then we'll upsell them gutter and then get them on Christmas lights. And now that one customer spending $2,000 a year, you do a good job, do what you're supposed to do, and they'll come back.

Yeah, dude, my handyman is booked all day, every day. It's nuts. $60 an hour, and he's just booked all frigging day.

Yeah. It's just people don't want to do it. People that are doing it, as long as you do a good job, people stay loyal because everyone's been burned or stood up by a contractor or by a company. It's unlike other industries, you can just do the basics and really If you take it above that, the world is yours. Facts.

Plus the marketing is all word of mouth. If you do good work, people are going to refer you business, right? I've sent a ton of referrals.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, but there is that negative stigma with contractors for sure because it's always like they give you that initial quote and it's never that.

Yeah. Well, a lot of these guys can charge, and they know that. If they're really good at doing pavers and stuff, they'll be booked out for a year. They have that take it or leave it mentality sometimes.

I remember I got my house. This one guy wanted to charge me 10K to replace the AC units, and they were all fine. Yeah. Right, dude.

Yeah. You do got to be careful. That's why I tell guys to build up a good Google reviews, build up a presence, and do the right thing. It's going to pay off in the long run.

Yeah. When did Home Service University start? Because you've been in this for nine years, you said, right?

Yeah. I've been doing my own company for almost nine years now, and I started Home Service University about two years ago now. I feel like it's as lame as it sounds. I feel like that was why I was put on planet It's really cool to see guys from all over the place. Some guys come in and they're struggling, and to see them a year later be able to go from either losing their job or maybe only making $40,000 a year to working for themselves, making $100,000 a year, being able to have their wife at home with the kids. About two years doing the Home Service University, but it's two years of 24/7 obsession. It's moving quick.

It's cool. You were saying you got some testimonials already. People in Cali are visiting.

Yeah. We're going to California on Sunday to go It was at two of my students. It's a husband and wife combo. We don't have a lot of those, so it's cool dynamic. Husband and wife, we were doing as a bit of a side hustle. The wife quit her job to do more of it. Then now this summer, her husband quit. Now, their dream was to have a business together, and they're doing about $25,000 a month. Damn. Yeah, there's plenty of money in the home services. They're making more money and they're working together and then also have control of their time.

$25 a month? Is that just off one service or did they do everything?

Yeah, so 25,000 a month. That's what you can do for one or two-person crew. That's pretty standard across the board for window cleaning or gutter cleaning. Right now, they're doing Christmas lights. They make more Christmas lights. It'll be interesting to check in on them tomorrow and see if they're.

I've never paid for that, Christmas lights. Where are people paying for that? For that? For that? Their house?

We started at a $1,000 minimum. Whoa. People pay $1,000 for Christmas lights?

Yeah.

What? Yeah. Well, it's an experience. It's not just hardware store lights. We use commercial-grade lights. We make it really nice. And, yeah, our average ticket at my company last year was $1,800. Damn. Yeah. That's nuts. And we leased the lights, too. So it's like a rental, basically. So they're just paying for the service.

Oh, wow. So they don't even own the lights? No. Holy crap. What a business model.

Yeah. It's very lucrative. My company this year will give you about $250,000 in just Christmas lights. Damn.

So October, November, December, right?

Yeah. October, November, right through December.

So it's not even a year. It's just three months you're doing that revenue, which is crazy. Yeah.

And We have some people in Home Service University that have normal jobs, and then they always take all their time off in the fall and make a bunch of money with Christmas lights.

Damn. It probably does take a long time to hang them, though, in the house.

It depends on what exactly you're doing, but When I send out two guys, my goal for them is to $5,000 a day. It's either two jobs or sometimes three jobs. We have some residential clients that that would be one full day at their house, $5,000.

That's impressive. You ever get into moving? Moving into? Yeah, moving house to house, moving company?

Oh, no. No. No. No? That would be moving sucks. Really? Well, I don't know if the business model sucks, but personally-Oh, yeah.

Personally, yeah. We can all agree on that. I just asked because I paid this moving company. It was $1,500, $2,000. $1,000 just to move. I was like, damn, I wonder what their margins are on that. Yeah, it's just labor, right? Just labor, right? Yeah. I guess the truck, but...

Yeah, and that thing is beautiful, too, is you could... I tell guys, get creative. If you want to start a moving company, you could find the lead, quote the job and then go rent a truck and get a buddy and start billing it up from there. Yeah. The margins would be good.

Absolutely. Do you have a process for finding leads using social media?

For my pad pal and stuff? Yes. I started the business I love door to door because I was broke, I had no money. It's awesome. I love door to door because you can start from zero and make a thousand. I could leave this podcast today and just because I have the skill set, I could come on with a thousand bucks easy, like window cleaning. But I tell guys to build up your brand name, do it right, get that repeat business, and then that's what we do. Then as well as you do Facebook ads, Google ads, yard signs. Yard signs, people find it surprising if they never called the yard sign before, but yard signs, people call yard signs and they work really well. What? Yeah, those signs that you'll see on the side.

People actually call those?

People actually call those all the time.

No way. That's like a billboard to me. I've never bought off a billboard.

I promise you, man. Especially when it comes to Christmas lights, in Home Service University, we give them everything at PadPal that my company does. We have these yard signs that are 12 by 18. It just says holiday lighting, phone number, and guys get phone calls before they even get home from putting the signs in. What?

Is that a Canada thing you think, though?

No, everywhere. Everywhere? All over Canada. The States, maybe some places are not as popular, but every I'm pricing one in home service, if I open up the app right now, it's like you type in sign, got the job from your sign, got the job from your sign.

No way. Wow. I guess it depends on the industry. If someone did that for something else, it probably wouldn't work.

Yeah, I'm not sure. It works for Windows and stuff, of course, other people that have those windows and gutters is more popular. But when you have the holiday lighting sign, it's a money printer, man. A sign is going to cost you a buck, and then a job is a thousand. You can't get that ROI on Facebook ads or anything. Yeah.

Gutter cleaning. I didn't know the money was that big in gutter cleaning. My parents used to get that when I lived in Jersey.

Yeah. So the standard rates, like window cleaning, you're going to be about $250 a job. Gutter cleaning, about $250, $300. Christmas lights is $1,000. Softwashing, about $750. Depending on a driveway ceiling, you're about $500 Luxure driveway ceiling. Yeah, so the money's there.

Which ones do you lean towards out of all those?

My favorite service is holiday lighting. It's high ticket, recurring. It's very sticky. Unless a customer moves, they come back. Second Half of that, maybe the seal coating. You can get pretty big in this parking lots and stuff like that. I'd say those are my favorite two. They all have their pros and cons, I guess.

Yeah, there's so many ways to make money. I saw people flipping Christmas trees last year. That was pretty viral.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, floating Christmas trees. And that's the other thing, too, is my company, PadPal. I could go tomorrow and launch PadPal Painting because we don't do painting right now. Send out an email campaign and we'd be booked out for months because even though we've never done painting, they know what to expect when they contact my company and they work with PadPal. They want us to do everything for them. Wow.

So you got a great reputation. Yeah.

It's been a lot of work, but we have a good reputation.

How do you handle angry customers?

That's a good question.

You just refund Is that a problem or what?

Try not to too much. But yeah, we do always make sure that our customers are happy because like I said, it's a lifetime customer. If they're getting their gutters clean and there's streets around, they're going to do it next year. Sometimes, if you need to waive a service or something like that, absolutely. We do pretty good, though, especially now that I've gotten my hand on it. When I first started out, of course, had more issues and stuff. People are pretty understanding for the most part as well.

I've only had two in the past few years, but I just refund them both because I don't want them badmouthing me. Reputation is super important these days.

Reputation is more important than a couple of hundred bucks.

Exactly. Some customers, I know there's that saying you should always do right by them, but at a certain point, they're taking a little too far. I'm just going to refund you so we don't have to do business together.

I think that maybe even more so when it comes to someone's house sometimes. Do that while you're here. Do this while you're here sometimes. Yeah, you got to keep an eye on it. But if you're marketing yourself to the right clients and charging a premium price for your service. I always enforce that on guys. Teach guys like, Hey, charge a premium price. You can pay your guys well. You pay your workers well. They're going to do a good job. They're going to stay. And then your customers are going to come back.

You get for what you pay for. Yeah, exactly. You should never, especially for your house, you should never go with the cheapest quote you got.

Definitely not.

Because you're going to get the worst quality work for the most part.

Exactly. Or they're uninsured, and then they get injured, and that's you and the homeowners. Yeah.

I usually pick the middle one. I'll get a I'll take at least three quotes, and I'll pick the middle one for the most part.

Yeah, it's a good way to go.

You played hockey, and you were really good.

Not decent enough, I guess. I played semi-pro last time when I was 20. That's the only thing I did my whole life was hockey. I was not a business guy at all. It was just straight NHL or bust and got pretty close and then had a pretty big injury. That's when I landed in this service.

Concussion, right?

Yeah. I was in a fight and I fought a lot, too. Really? Yeah. I was in a fight and a guy had my helmet off and I hit my head off the ice having convulsions for three days.

Holy shit. So he flipped you?

Yeah. You got a 16-game suspension because you're not allowed to do that. It's just physics. If someone's on skates and you push them and pull their pants like this, they're going to flip. Then I didn't feel anything at the time. I got up and then I was in the change room after. It was right at the end of the game, the coach was talking, and then I just started convulsing. Holy Holy crap. I was 20 years old. Thought I was this close to going to the next step of my first year of playing pro. Next thing you know, I'm being told by the team doctor, Hey, you're not playing hockey here for at least another year. Then the team, it's pro, it's a business, they said, Hey, see you. Good luck. Hope you get better.

Damn, that's insane, dude. That was probably the lowest point of your life, right?

Yeah, I've definitely had not the easiest upbringing and stuff, but when I'm in the middle of Georgia from Canada and sleeping in the back of a car, I was definitely... I didn't know anything about anything in life, just hockey. I was definitely questioning what I should do.

Because you put all your eggs in that basket.

Every single thing I knew was hockey.

There was no backup plan. Then when that got taken away, you were probably super lost. Didn't know what to talk to, right?

Yeah, it was very dark for sure. I didn't really have anywhere to go either. My mom was living with my great grandma at the time, an old age home. Yeah. Technically, I guess homeless for a month.

You were in Georgia, you said?

I was in Georgia at the time, yeah. Wow.

That is crazy. What were the steps you took from there to get out of that funk?

The way it works in Canada is, well, I guess for hockey-wise, is you play a major junior, so that's like semi-pro, I guess, that would be considered. Then after that, the universities try to get you in Canadian universities because you can't go to the States anymore to do D1 paid to play. They try to poach all the guys when they're 20 My brother and I were the same age. We went in the summer and just did a bunch of school tours just to get the money and have fun for the weekend and leave. We were both going pro anyways idea. One of the schools reached out to me during that time and said, Hey, we saw you got injured. I was like, Come here, we'll pay for your rehab. We'll give you somewhere to stay. I was like, Might as well at least have somewhere to stay. I went there, I started doing my rehab, and that's the full circle of how I ended up getting into the home services. It was a really bad concussion, was really wondering if there's any real point of life anymore to falling into the home service space to being the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Wow. That school saved you.

Yeah. Everyone at that school was awesome. The people at the hockey team were good. The doctor, the team doctor was really awesome. My physio was I didn't do anything that rest of that year. I took the rest of that year just to do rehab and stuff. Then the next year, I went back to hockey at university, did Academic All-Canadian, which is good grades, essentially, and you did a lot of points. Then did hockey for the rest of my university career, but my main focus at that point really knew that I liked business more than sports because everything is in your control. Whereas in sports, unless you are a superstar, there's so many things that are out of your control. Whereas business, if you suck, it's your own fault.

Facts. Yeah. Because sports, especially team sports, you can only contribute X amount of percentage.

You can only contribute so much. For all you know, you're on a bad line or you get bench or you get hurt or you get traded. There's so many Especially when I was playing pro, you'll see guys are on NHL two-way deals, so they need to be the one that's getting the most ice time so they can get pulled up. Right. Politics. Yeah. There's a lot of that, especially when it comes to pro. A lot of things are out of your control, too.

Yeah. I think you would like chess. I know we were talking out there about chess because if you lose chess, it's your fault. It's not like some lucky thing happened.

Yeah, I love chess.

Yeah. That's the same thing with business, too. A lot of people aren't good at business, let's be honest. It's not for everyone.

Bucks.

I mean, I think, what, 95% fail? Something crazy like that.

I have no idea, but I look at business like this, at least for what I know in the... I don't know every single industry, obviously, but for home services and stuff like that, as long as you stay consistent with it and don't give up, I think that's where most people fail. I know that stat, everyone I know a lot of businesses fail, but how many people that you know, at least, that put in a half-ass effort and that technically counted as a business.

That's true, yeah. Opening up an LLC and then not doing anything. They probably count that as a fail, but they never even tried.

Or they don't try long enough. I think people how much it takes to get as far as some people do. When you say people come to you for the podcast because they see you, they see the studio, they see who you are now, but they don't see you tripping over your words and having a hard time even knowing what to talk about and figuring out your audio for the first time and sticking with it.

Yeah, plus the seven years of personal branding and personal development before that. Even getting to that point.

When people see me now, it's weird because they don't know my whole... They assume that I came from money or I'm a super smart guy or or anything like that, whereas it's not the case. My first business vehicle is a 2003 Chevy Malibu I was sleeping in. The next one was a 1972 F150 that was just enough It was funny to get enough jobs done to get a nicer one and then kept upgrading. I love it.

I've raised by a single mother, too. Same here.

Good for you, man.

It was tough at the time, for sure. Felt pretty lost, especially in sports. Not having that father figure. I was super passive.

It's such a helpful thing if you have a father that's involved for the kids playing sports and can give some influence. I had no idea how it worked. My mom just said, work hard and basically go to the NHL and work hard. But I didn't really know how the whole process worked. I admire that you got that far and done well for yourself, man.

Yeah, no, for sure. Shout out to my mom. She did her best. But yeah, my mentality was just so timid. I was shy. I I didn't have that confidence growing up. But it sounds like you had some with the hockey stuff.

Had some confidence? Yeah. It was just the only thing that I... I looked at... I remember being young and being like, I don't want to have a life like this one day. Hockey That was the only way to get rich is what I was believed. Being really good at hockey was something to escape everything else that's going on. I just saw it as a way to be able to one day take care of my mom and when I have kids and stuff, I want to have a better life for myself.

Yeah, that was your outlet to escape.

Yeah, it was hockey.

Who initiated the fights, mainly? You said you got in a lot.

People always find this funny when I tell them this, but some of them are really, I don't want to say set up, but you know you're going to fight. It's before the game, if you're doing warmups, you'll see you guys talking at the red line, that guy's tough, I want to fight him, and then you'll go up and say, Hey, man, you want to fight? I'm like, Yeah, sounds good, bro. What? It's very chill like that sometimes. Really? Yeah. When I have the engineer, these times, Hey, man, let's fight. They'd be like, No, man. Come on, man. He's like, No, no, no. Man, your coach will love you. You haven't played in five minutes. Let's go. Okay, fine. Then you fight, then you're paying a box. Hey, man, thanks. I needed that. What? It's very like that. Sometimes they're very intense and mad and all that. But a lot of times, you know you're on away game, or let's say you're on away game, you're down to nothing. The other team's tough guy knows that someone else on their team is going to come up and say, Hey, bro, fight. It's like he owes you one because next time that build, their team will momentum, he'll ask you to fight and you fight them back.

It's like a momentum shifter. That's why people do it? Yeah. I never knew that. I always see them on TV. I'm like, what's the reason for this?

If you were watching an NHL game and someone just drops the gloves and start fighting, it's random. It's because someone that's on the team that doesn't have momentum went out and said, Hey, can you help us out fight me? And then that's how it starts.

Damn, that's crazy. You made a full recovery, though, from that brain injury? Yeah.

It was a big process. Did a lot of stuff for that, but made a full recovery. But I just didn't want to continue. I finished my university because you don't quit when you start. So I finished my university, finished with the hockey team. But then as soon as I was done, I just doubled down on the business because, like I said, I realized that I didn't love hockey. I just thought as a way to one day provide life and be able to take care of my future family. Then when I saw that and the window cleaning and these simple services, I just doubled down. As soon as I graduated, that's when I first added Christmas lights and really took my business to the next level.

Nice. You've been doing that business for nine years. How long it take to get to six figures in revenue with that business?

Two years. Oh, wow. That's quick. My first year, I did 55,000. But that was from April until mid-August because I was in university. Then we have training camp and stuff. Then my second year, we did 140, and then by university and graduating, we got 260. Damn. Yeah.

That's really impressive, dude. For real. I mean, not a lot of businesses you could start within two, three years do that type of number.

Yeah. If you're doing a Home Service business, if you're doing it full-time, a good benchmark to hit for yourself, if you're doing the right thing, should be 100,000 your first year.

First year? Yeah.

Holy crap. 100,000 revenues your first year. Good margin if you're doing yourself. You're working hard, of course, but that's a solid first year. You're going to start in January, February. Yeah.

I mean, average salary in the US is, I think, 50K.

Yeah, you can do a lot better for yourself just doing these simple jobs.

Got to get your hands dirty, though. That's the thing. That's the difference.

Yeah, that's the only thing which a lot A lot of guys now, I think, are starting to open up and see how much opportunities there. But we had a guy just before I came in here, I was looking, we have our app for Home Service U. A guy said, Hey, I've done 54,000 this year in Christmas lights. I remember that guy, when I first met him, he was like, Yeah, I work for a marketing agency. They haven't fired me yet, but I feel like it's coming, and then he ended up getting fired, but he started his business ahead of time. Smart.

It's smart to probably do this on the side at first.

It's a good, yeah. Depending on what you're doing in life, it's something that I always tell people, you want to do it right, build up your brand, do it right, do it for the long term. But yeah, you can start up on the side. We have a lot of guys that do it on the side. They're 9: 00 to 5: 00 to start. I was just in Colorado visiting a guy. He has four kids in a 9: 00 to 5: 00, but he's like, It's not going to leave anything behind for my kids. I want to build something. He started doing his Christmas life business this year. Doing a massive mega church the other day.

Damn. Yeah, those churches got money.

I've never seen that in Canada.

That was nuts.

That was in LA? Yeah, there's the Range Rover parked out front, the G-Wagon parked out front.

Oh, classic. Yeah, that's not in Canada.

It was in Colorado. Yeah, massive Yeah.

I got to bring this up because you said this outside, Canadian jobs. So 25% of Canadian jobs are for the government. That is insane. You think that's too high, right?

It makes a very slow moving society for sure.

Yeah, so people are just comfortable.

Yeah, comfortable I'm not comfortable enough. I wouldn't say I'm not happy. I'd say comfortable.

Being an entrepreneur there is probably look down on almost.

Yeah. If you stand out a lot, if you're flashy, especially I'm in Ottawa, it's not something that's celebrated. When you're here in Vegas and Miami, you see people doing big things. It's as much celebrated as people are interested and want to learn more and stuff, whereas in Canada, it's much more- Closed off. Play it a bit more low-key for sure.

There's parts of Europe like that, too. I hear all the time America is the best entrepreneurial country, and we live here, so we just don't know what else is out there.

You guys are hungry. You guys are go-getters. I'll talk to a guy from the States that's like, Yeah, man, my girl just left me. I have $5,000 for my name. I hate my job. I just need a change in life. Then they'll be like, Cool, let's start my home service business. Then a year later, they're putting up numbers and hiring workers and going after it, whereas a lot of guys from Canada are very risk-averse and want to really take their time with things.

Damn, that's wild. It's so close to here, too. It's not even that far away. It's a whole different world.

There's just a lot of different factors playing into that, of course. A lot of government workers just embedded into our society, the mentality. Then obviously a lot of red tape on things.

Our You were saying the companies have monopolized a lot of industries out there. Yeah.

Like a big one is like, phone plans, basically all the grocery stores.

Yeah. They do that here. I don't know if it's as bad, but if there's a healthy food brand coming up, they'll get acquired by an unhealthy one, and then they'll change the ingredients real quick to make more money.

It's a similar idea. It would be like five grocery stores are on your own by one company. So they just...

That is the one downside of capitalism, I guess. The big dogs are just going to eat. They'll buy out the up and comers and stay big. But I don't know if there's a better system, honestly.

I don't know. The States are doing pretty good.

We rebounded well from the COVID stuff. I don't know how you guys handled that stuff, but apparently we rebounded better than most countries in the US. Yeah, I had a hard time. I remember you couldn't even fly in at one point.

Yeah. I left a lot during COVID just because, yo, screw this. Especially, it was during January and stuff. Yeah.

You were able to get out?

Yeah. I left right before. I could tell the second time they were shutting I was like, Hey, I'm not... It was January. So at that time of the year, my guys were just taking down the Christmas lights anyways, so I don't need to be around. So I went to Anguilla in the Caribbean.

Okay.

That sounds fun. Yeah. My mentor's from there. And funny enough, he's from Canada, built an asphalt company and sold it, and then moved down there.

How did you meet him?

Social media. He reached out to me because he saw me creating content for driveway sealing, and he has a supply company now. They supply seal coating stuff. And he said, Hey, come down. I was like, Say less.

I love that. That's the power of social media right there.

Yeah, it's incredibly powerful.

That's how we met. Content posting daily. You never know who's going to see it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I got big people coming up to me. They're like, Yo, I've seen your videos. I'm like, Holy crap. It's nuts. It opened so many doors? Were you posting nine years ago on social media, or were you doing it more behind the scenes?

My first three years, the only thing I was doing was door to door. While I was in university, I didn't know. But then as I was getting more and learning more, I was posting a lot of content for my company, PadPal. And that's how people found me to help them start and grow their businesses was seeing the content that was creating for homeowners being like, Hey, Ottawa, come get your windows cleaned, or stuff like that. I love it. It's what brought me and started, I guess, my I guess, like I said, my life's purpose, Home Service University was from just creating social media content.

It's powerful. Where can people find your social media and what else you got going on?

Yeah, my social media, it's Adam R. Chapp, C-H-A-P. Tracy Chapman, I would say. And then you can go to, we have a website, joinhomeservice. Com. Joinhomeserviceuniversity.

Com. Perfect. We'll link below.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Hey, thank you very much. Check out his stuff, guys. Peace.