Trade Secrets: From the Ground Up | Stories of Operators Who've Seen it All

Roy Banwell started Catalina Cleaning with his wife for about $1,000. Today it runs 95% on its own, with automations that he has put into place.

In this episode we cover:

• Why Roy audited every task in the business before touching an AI tool

• Having Claude write his website, then turn it into a free estimate tool
• Paying cleaners 2x what the current market rate is
• Why AI is great at taking orders and terrible at making decisions
• Opening four Texas cities from a laptop, losing $4,000 a month, and shutting them down
• The honeymoon phone call about snakes in a client's house

CONNECT:

Roy Banwell (Founder, Catalina Cleaning): https://www.linkedin.com/in/roybanwell/

Tyson Chen (Co-founder, Avoca AI): https://www.linkedin.com/in/tysonchen17/

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A rude technician once showed up at Matt Pozda's house, told him to replace his entire AC system, and refused to explain why. That single bad service call is the reason Call Dad exists.

Matt spent about a decade in investment banking before he bought a sub $1M HVAC company in 2017 for roughly $400K. This year it is on track for $60M. He joins Tyson Chen to walk through the whole climb: the company he bought that kept every customer record on whiteboards, the apprenticeship program he built from nothing, and the salmon colored shirts that became both a brand and a filter for who belongs on the team.

It is a story about branding, culture, and betting on people long before it makes financial sense, from a founder who learned the trade from the ground up.

What we get into:

- The rude technician who accidentally created a $60M competitor

- The "paperless" company that was really just a wall of whiteboards

- How the salmon shirts turned into a hiring filter

- "Dad U," and why Matt pays technicians to sit in a classroom- The marketing funnel behind the growth, from radio to door knocking

- Betting on plumbing and the $250M goal in the Carolinas

⭐Connect with Us! ⭐

Tyson Chen on LinkedIn

Matt Pozda on LinkedIn

Check Avoca out here!

Luke Weiden, President of Town & Country Services, has staked out McDonald's parking lots and gas stations, all in the name of his number one rule: always be recruiting. He's also the guy who secretly ran two rival HVAC companies in Chicago just two miles apart, side by side.

From growing a small Illinois shop to scaling past $20 million and partnering with private equity, Luke shares what he's learned about sales, hiring, and building home service businesses that win.

Tyson Chen sits down with Mark Paup, President of Golden Rule Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical to trace one of the most compelling origin stories in the trades. Mark bought a struggling Iowa plumbing company for $120K at 24 years old with no real plan and nearly lost everything in the first six months. He shares how early financial discipline, a timely pivot away from new construction before 2008, and a commitment to building systems over just building revenue helped him weather every downturn since. Now running a $40M operation with locations in Des Moines, Salt Lake City, and Omaha, Mark opens up about expanding into new markets, why he sees AI as the biggest opportunity in the trades right now, and how he is getting his entire team on board.

What if you could take HVAC off your customers' minds forever? Alex Black, Chairman and CEO of Granite Comfort, did exactly that, by replacing one-time installs with a simple monthly subscription covering equipment, service, and maintenance.

In this episode, Alex breaks down how he built the world's first unregulated 'utility,' why most PE firms couldn't see the vision, and what it takes to flip the traditional contractor model on its head.

Jon Ryan of Genz-Ryan, took over his family's HVAC, plumbing, and electrical business fresh out of college. He would spend the next two decades rebuilding it from scratch. Twice. In this episode, he shares what it really takes to survive a housing crash, ditch your dad's business model, and come out the other side stronger.

Very few companies ever cross $10M in revenue.

In this episode, Rescue Air founders, Michael Hirsh and Josh Campbell, sit down with Tyson Chen to break down how they built one of Texas' premier HVAC and plumbing businesses. They talk glass ceilings, equity deals, and technology.

First episode launches Thursday, May 7.

Avoca AI's Tyson Chen sits down with Rescue Air TX's Josh Campbell and Michael Hirsh on the discipline that separates the 1 in 1000 service businesses that actually scale and the tech bets that keep them ahead.