We’re out here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I’m sitting across from Justin Freighic, one of my business partners running the Tulsa branch of Pest Badger. He’s 19 years old. And he just crossed a million dollars in revenue.
I told Justin a while back that once he hit a million in revenue, he could finally be on the podcast. He’s not quite on the pod yet, but we’ve got video, audio, everything rolling. Close enough.
Justin and I have a really cool story about how we met, how it all came together, and how we ended up launching in Tulsa. I want to walk you through the whole thing.
When Justin was 14 years old, he went door to door painting house numbers on curbs. That’s how he made his first couple grand. He told me he didn’t really like school and thought he was lazy, so his plan was just to make enough money to retire as soon as possible because he didn’t want to work. I love that.
By the end of that summer, he decided door to door wasn’t for him. So he started a landscaping company. He was 15. Didn’t even have a driver’s license. So what does he do? He hires an older kid from high school who had a truck and a license. This guy would pick Justin up every morning and they’d go knock out flower bed cleanups. Customers would text Justin photos of their yards, he’d price everything out using satellite views, fill up a route, and they’d get after it.
He called the company Sweaty Shirts Landscaping. “We get sweaty so you don’t have to.”
By the time he turned 16, he bought his first truck. By the time he graduated high school at 17, he had three or four trucks and was doing around $300,000 in revenue. Let that sink in. $300K before he could even legally buy a beer.
He was running crews while sitting in class every day. He’d wake up, send his guys to their jobs, go to school, then get out of class and finish the day with them. And he still graduated.
How We Actually Connected
Here’s where it gets interesting. Justin was browsing websites over Thanksgiving break, just trying to learn about business. He was looking at Jonathan Poshnik’s City Turf website and noticed it was built by a media company. He clicked on the media company, saw a list of websites they’d built, and one of them was Pest Badger.
He clicked on our site, saw me, saw all the pink branding, and he happened to be wearing pink himself with the Sweaty Shirts brand. So he looked me up and followed me on Facebook. No profile picture. Not following a single person. I was the first person he followed.
That same day, I had posted online that I was looking to mentor one person. I’ve always felt like if there’s anything I’m good at, it’s reading people. I have a really strong intuition about character, work ethic, and who someone is as a person.
The first time Justin called me, just by the way he was talking at his age, I knew he was different. We had a great first call. I came from the lawn care world too, so I knew the challenges he was dealing with. We talked business in general, the differences between pest control and landscaping, what it takes to scale.
Then I said, “Let’s do another call. You can hear from me all day, but I’d rather you hear from someone else too.” So I connected him with James.
I can tell my own story, and I could blow smoke if I wanted to. That’s not who I am. Instead, I’d rather say, “Hey, this person has a story similar to yours. You should talk to them and see what happened.”
Justin and James had their own conversation. James is one of those guys where if you ever need anything, he’s got all the energy, all the answers. Justin actually came to that call with a list of reasons why he didn’t want to work with me. And then they worked through every single one.
From Mentorship to Momentum
A couple weeks after that first call, Justin was on a plane to come learn. He was 18 years old. You cannot teach people this. You either have it or you don’t. There was no grand plan at that point. No “we’re going to open a branch in Tulsa.” It was just, “Let’s go see. Let’s see if you even like this.”
He went up to Wisconsin and spent time with James knocking doors. In February. Snowing on the ground, freezing cold. No bugs. Tons of smoke screens to overcome. He’d never really knocked doors for pest control before and didn’t even know how to handle objections. He just got his face kicked in for four or five days straight. But he didn’t quit. That’s the best part.
He came back to Tulsa and called me up. “Hey, can I try knocking doors here?” I said go ahead. The worst that could happen is nothing.
So he’s out knocking doors in Tulsa with no truck, no licenses, no CRM set up, not even getting payment on file. He’s literally telling people, “We’ll let you know when we have a truck and our equipment, but we’d love to service you.” And honestly, I didn’t even know if he was actually going to do it.
Then he calls me and says, “Yeah, I’m doing it.”
A week or two later, he flew back up to Wisconsin. First day, didn’t sell anything. Second day, he sold 12 accounts. That’s when it clicked.
It takes a while. You can’t expect to knock your first door and sell. It took waking up every single day and knocking a hundred doors until he’d knocked a thousand.
Justin put it well. He said for him, it was all about surrendering to the inputs. Just do what has to happen, and the results will be there.
He’s also incredibly charismatic. He’s out on the doors kneeling on the ground, arms spread wide, doing his thing. Customers absolutely love him. He’s a ball of energy and he’s fun to be around.
Building the Branch from Scratch
After that second Wisconsin trip, he came back to Tulsa and it was game on. They got back Saturday night and were out on doors Sunday morning. Selling every day. Still no licenses. Still no van. Still not servicing. They were just telling people, “We’ll be out in a couple weeks, hopefully.” And it actually worked out because it was still early in the year and pest pressure hadn’t really kicked in yet.
Justin went to Stillwater, took all his tests, got certified and licensed. Then he flew up to me on a one-way ticket. I picked him up from the airport, taught him how to service, and we knocked out eight or ten jobs that day. That night, after we were done, he drove that service van all the way back to Tulsa.
That van, by the way, was the first vehicle we ever bought back in 2020. I think I paid five grand for it. I couldn’t believe it even made the drive to Tulsa.
And then, a few months later, I get these pictures and videos out of nowhere. No context. Just a vehicle on fire. Justin had FaceTimed me about a minute later. What was crazy is he felt it right away, pulled over, and was quick enough on his feet to pull all the product and equipment out of the back before the whole thing burned down. The after pictures are insane. That thing was cooked.
I wasn’t upset at all. As long as everyone was safe, that’s all that mattered. The fire department showed up, shut down the whole off-ramp, put it out. Nobody got hurt. We got some really cool pictures out of it.
Crossing the Million-Dollar Mark
That first month was rough. They weren’t getting cards on file from the start, and trying to collect payment after the fact is always harder. But we worked through the pain. There was a steep learning curve on every front.
Hiring pest control technicians for the first time. Figuring out servicing. Adding auxiliary services like gopher and mole removal, mosquito treatments, fertilization and weed control. Then on the sales side, scaling a door-to-door operation while keeping a five-star reputation and training reps to sell ethically, responsibly, and relentlessly.
The advantage Justin had is that he’s 19. He has a huge group of friends who are all hustlers, athletes, guys who want to go out and do things. That’s how he built his team.
Now, roughly 14 or 15 months in, they’ve crossed the million-dollar mark. I told Justin today that only 1% of all companies ever make it over a million dollars in revenue. Out of a thousand businesses, ten people get there.
You can’t just start a business and expect to be good. You’re going to get your face kicked in for the first two or three years. That’s how it works.
People want balance when they’re first starting out. I’m sorry, but it’s not real. Especially at the beginning. There is no balance. It’s all in. And that’s why most people don’t ever go anywhere.
I get it at the same time. People have kids, their kids get into sports, life gets complicated. But at 19 years old, you’ve got nothing but runway.
I told Justin on the way to the shoot that time goes by so fast. I’m 41 now. I was obviously 19 once. And it seems like you’ve got 20 or 40 years to figure it out. You don’t. It flies.
A lot of people underestimate the power of momentum. I preach it all the time. You push a rock down a hill, and at first it’s brutally hard. But once that thing starts rolling and picks up speed, it’s almost impossible to stop. Justin has that momentum right now. We have it as a company. You’ve got to keep rolling, keep going, keep pushing forward.
What's Next
The plan for the next three to five years? Just out of this region alone, we’ll be selling at least $10 million a year in pest control. Multiple branches. Changing a lot of lives.
The favorite part for me at this point in my career is watching how much Justin’s life has changed in a year and a half. Sitting next to a brand-new truck, running a million-dollar company at 19 years old. It’s just fun to see.
He’s got reps on his team who are going to make six figures this year. He’s not just changing his own life. He’s changing his friends’ lives, the lives of people he’s meeting, everyone around him.
We were at one of Justin’s customer’s houses while we were filming. A beautiful HOA neighborhood, couple-million-dollar homes. This homeowner was literally introducing us to all the neighbors because she loves Justin so much. She called him that morning just to talk. That’s how you grow a real company. You build real relationships.
Obviously there are highs and lows. It’s a real business. But that’s what makes it fun. That’s what gives you the roller coaster that’s actually worth riding.
Justin put in the work. He had great help from Trisha on the operations side, James on training and sales, and the whole team. It wasn’t all me. But watching someone take what we’ve built, replicate it, and do it at 19 years old with big dreams and 40 more years of runway ahead of him? That’s the most rewarding part of this whole thing.
This place is going to be a monster.
