Everyone thinks adding a trade is a growth hack. Here’s what it looked like for us: YouTubing plumbing repairs from the truck because our only plumber quit three days before the new one started. We figured it out, but I’d never do it that way again. Master the trade you’re in before you buy yourself a second set of problems.

When you're trying to figure out how to actually operate a residential business, probably one of the best things you could do is add another trade. If you don't understand the core of the business, you might as well bring on another trade and try to figure it out. So that's what we did, we brought on plumbing. We're like, we got this. We're going to the moon, so we gotta have plumbing as well. So we bring on plumbing, wow, that's a different trade and also very not similar to HVAC, 'cause what we learned very quickly. And so that was not great to do. There were times when me and my brother were running on call because we didn't have a plumber. The one quit on Friday, but the new one was starting Monday. We're like, welcome to the team. Team of one, it's you, buddy. I'm not technical. So we were running on call, we'd go in. I'd take some pictures or whatever. I'd go back out to the truck, get on YouTube, try to figure out what we were looking at and how to fix it. And he's a lot more mechanically inclined than me and I'm like, all right, here's what we gotta do. So I would draw up the estimates just like next star. Told me six options. Roll back in, present it to the customer. Oh shit, okay, she bought the first one. That includes all of this. Let's go back into the truck and see if we got all that stuff 'cause this is what the video said to do. That's how we were doing plumbing. YouTube and just figuring it out.