25 Years, 5 Companies, and Why I'm Just Getting Started

Nobody handed me a playbook. I built one the hard way over 25 years and this blog is where I share it.

I have been in the trenches of the subcontracting world for 25 years. I have built companies from nothing, scaled them to multi-million dollar operations, hired and fired, won and lost, and learned more hard lessons than I can count.

This blog is where I share all of it. The wins, the failures, and everything in between. No fluff. No corporate speak. Just real talk from someone who has lived it.

Where it all started

Over the past 25 years I have built and scaled five companies in the trades:

• 1 roofing company
• 2 building envelope companies
• 2 sheet metal manufacturing companies

Before I go any further I need to introduce someone who is a big part of this story. My wife and business partner, Summer.

Summer is an integrator. I am the visionary. If you know anything about business you know that combination is powerful. I come up with the ideas, the direction, the energy. Summer makes it all actually happen. She is the backbone of every company we have built together and I have more respect for her than I can put into words. She is also, without question, smarter than me. We would never have been able to scale our last company to $10 million without her. Full stop.

Summer and I have built several of these companies together. And yes, we even tried our hand in the cafe world. That one did not go as planned. We closed the doors the same day COVID shut down the world.

But I want to be clear. I do not regret it for a second. That experience handed me some of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned as a business owner. Two that stand out above the rest: the power of an aligned culture, and the non-negotiable importance of systems. Those two lessons followed me into every business I built after that and they still shape how I operate today.

The acquisition

In 2021 Summer and I received an offer to have our building envelope company acquired by a developer. We were asked to stay on and help grow the operation.

We said yes. And we meant it.

For three years we poured everything we had into that company. Our time, our energy, our expertise, our identity. It was one of the most exciting and demanding chapters of our careers.

And then we left. Abruptly.

Vision misalignment. That is the short version. The longer version is something I will be unpacking throughout this blog journey because there is a lot to learn from it and I think a lot of you will relate.

What is next and why it matters to you

That chapter closing opened a new one.

For the past year I have been laser focused on one mission: helping subcontractors build and scale better businesses. Not just survive. Actually thrive. With real systems, real strategy, and now real AI.

Here is the truth. Most subcontractors are unbelievably good at their trade. But running a business is a completely different skill set. Sales, estimating, follow-up, operations, culture. Nobody teaches you this stuff. You figure it out the hard way, alone, while trying to keep jobs running and crews paid.

I know because I have been there.

That is why I started Mint Management. And that is why we just launched Mint AI. An AI-powered estimation engine that can bid your project in minutes. After 25 years of doing estimates manually I knew better than anyone how much time it consumes. Time that should be going toward growing your business, not buried in spreadsheets. We built Mint AI to give that time back.

Why I am writing this

I want this blog to be the resource I wish I had 25 years ago.

Every week I will be sharing what is working in the trades right now. AI tools, sales systems, leadership, culture, estimating, scaling. All of it. Real strategies you can apply to your business immediately.

If you are a subcontractor who is ready to stop guessing and start building with intention, you are in the right place.