Justin Kern on Building WeedCo and Adding Pest Control
Table of Contents
- He did everything wrong at the start
- Post where your neighbors already talk
- Win on service, then build the systems
- Pest control was not shooting fish in a barrel
- Rebrand when you change what you sell
- Hire an implementer and get out of the way
- Clean up your data before private equity calls
- Frequently Asked Questions
I get asked all the time to get more lawn care and weed control companies on the show. Years ago, I said that if I ever did work in Arizona, it would never be pest control. It would be killing weeds in all those granite yards. Then I watched Justin Kern take that idea to a whole new level.
Justin founded WeedCo in Tucson, Arizona, in 2016 with a backpack sprayer and blue dye. Tucson had a few big weed control companies, but they focused on commercial work, and Justin saw a gap on the residential side. WeedCo is still about 90% residential. When we recorded this in June 2026, it had about 6,500 subscription customers, it had sat just under $3 million for two years, and Justin was working to make pest control pull its weight. We met at a pest control conference in Arizona, and it took four or five months to get this one on the schedule.
This episode is part of the PCM Podcast. For another weed and pest company in the Southwest, read how two brothers with day jobs built Southwest Weed & Pest to $100K months.
He did everything wrong at the start
Justin always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he started having kids at 23, so it was get a job and support the family. He worked three jobs at once, then spent years at Raytheon. Along the way he tried a shoe cleaner with his best friend and a liquor distribution company. Then he quit Raytheon with no plan, with five kids in the house, and spent nine months and his savings on an online business that didn’t work. “I jumped out of a plane without a parachute, I like to say,” he said.
Then the guy who sprayed the weeds in Justin’s yard charged him $75 and said it was his last time, because he was going to be a realtor. Justin watched him spray, looked down the street at all the granite yards in his HOA and took him to lunch. The guy had about 25 customers. Justin offered to service them for free and send him the money, and even wrote it up, but the guy passed. So the next day, Justin bought a backpack sprayer and the product and started spraying.
“For anybody listening to this, I did everything wrong. Everything,” he said. He got about 50 customers that first year, then went back to Raytheon in 2017 while the business kept going. The Department of Agriculture showed up at his door. Of course they did. He took on a partner with a license to do the spraying and another for money, and within six months both were gone. So he got his own license.
Post where your neighbors already talk
Justin’s early marketing cost almost nothing. He posted pictures of yards he’d just sprayed blue and tagged every one of his friends so their friends would see it. “The Smurfs are coming to keep the weeds away,” the posts said.
Then he found the HOA groups and community groups in town and posted there too, and some posts got a hundred comments. He used Nextdoor, had his guys hang door hangers and networked. His wife, who works in real estate, was instrumental in spreading the word. In 2020 he ran a short commercial that he got for practically nothing, and it landed a contract with a reservation that still has WeedCo do a ton of work.
Win on service, then build the systems
For years, WeedCo sold per service, with no agreement and no contract. The product lasts five to six months, so Justin would tell people he’d be back if he did a good job. “If my work’s good enough, they’re going to call me,” he said. They backed it with a five-month guarantee. Depending on the monsoons, the callback rate was pretty high, but Justin didn’t want customers pulling weeds, so WeedCo went back out.
He took himself off the sprayer and put himself into customer service and training. His crews roll up the hoses, pull the trash cans up and pick up the dog toys, and he tells them to treat customers like they’d treat their grandma. In 2019 WeedCo moved out of the house into its first office with three trucks off Craigslist, and it got on FieldRoutes after running everything from an Excel spreadsheet. Justin kept contracting at Raytheon until January 1, 2021, when he went full time.
The blue dye stuck around, and customers love it. It shows them where WeedCo treated, and it shows techs where they’re overspraying or underspraying. But customers read the color as how strong the product is. If a tech poured too much, they thought the yard got a great treatment, and if he poured too little, it looked light and they thought WeedCo didn’t spray enough. So WeedCo went to a packet, and the color is the same every time.
Pest control was not shooting fish in a barrel
In 2023 Justin went to the AZPPO conference for one day. He heard Paul Giannamore speak and met Travis Bottoms, and it turned out they had a mutual friend. “You’re the weed guy,” Travis told him. Justin came home and told his wife they had something, and they had to really dial in on it.
Customers were asking for pest control, and WeedCo had about 4,500 customers, so in the year after that conference, he added it. “I was thinking this is going to be shooting fish in a barrel,” he said. It wasn’t. He had never done pest control. The operations guys he found didn’t fit the culture, and he had one tech on pest half the time next to 10 weed trucks, so he kept his foot on the gas with weeds. And customers already had someone. “They have their pest guy,” he said.
I hear this all the time, and very few companies have figured it out. What’s working for WeedCo is inspectors who sell, and who teach the weed techs to spot termite tubes and spider webs and point them out to the customer. They added inside sales and use software to retarget customers and keep going back to them about an inspection. Our guide to upselling and cross-selling covers more ways to do it. When we recorded this, revenue was still about 90% weeds, and with monsoon season about to bring a lot of pest activity, Justin expected to add two or three pest techs in the next three months.
Rebrand when you change what you sell
To show he meant it, Justin rebranded in late 2024 and early 2025, and it was expensive and tough. The old trucks were black with papaya orange and a big WeedCo with “Got weeds?” at the bottom. People loved it. WeedCo sold hoodies and hats with the logo, and strangers stopped Justin and his wife on the road in Colorado to ask where they got the hoodie. Some customers asked, “Why are you changing that? That was such a cool design.”
He kept the name and went to white trucks with Tiffany blue. “We wanted to show our team that we were serious about it. We wanted to show our customers we were serious about it and that we weren’t just weed professionals,” he said. The line now is that WeedCo is your shield for pests, termites and rodents, and of course they do weeds. Our pest control branding guide covers what makes a brand like that work.
Hire an implementer and get out of the way
Justin is the visionary. “I look everywhere. Let’s throw this at it. Let’s throw this at it,” he said. He needed someone to implement, and he found him in a friend, Greg, who worked at Truly Nolen for about 27 years and was an EVP there, then built a company with partners and exited it. When Greg stopped by and said he might start another pest control company, Justin said, “Well, there’s an opportunity right here.” Greg came on as COO in September 2025. (For the Truly Nolen story, Scarlett Nolen told it on this show.)
Now when Justin throws something at the wall, Greg might say they should hold off and look at both options. The harder part was letting go. “I was a bottleneck for so long, and I had to start pulling myself out,” Justin said. If someone called in sick or needed to buy something, it went through him, and he’d look at the schedule and ask why it looked the way it did. Justin, Greg and Justin’s wife, who now works full time in the business on HR, picked three words for themselves, patience, structure and discipline, and put them on plaques on their desks. Justin even asks Greg whether he’s doing okay at it. Hire the team and get out of the way.
They also take care of the team. In 2025 WeedCo added health insurance and 401(k)s, with profit sharing and a 100% 401(k) match that vests right away.
Clean up your data before private equity calls
Private equity had started reaching out. Justin follows Tommy Mello of A1 Garage and has heard good stories and horror stories, so he takes their number and keeps cleaning up the business. The database was the big surprise. Leads were marked as customers, so Justin thought WeedCo had 12,000, maybe 14,000 customers. The real number was about 6,500 true subscription customers.
Their theme for 2026 is reset, build and thrive. Weed service moved to a four-month plan, they’re flipping customers onto signed agreements, pest control is bimonthly, and they’re selling bundles. Justin is watching EBITDA, not just revenue, and after two years just under $3 million, he plans to blow past it. He’s replacing old trucks with new ones too. “Build it like you’re going to sell it, build it like you’re going to keep it forever,” he said. That way it works whether one of his kids comes into the company someday or he just keeps running it.
I told him to read The Private Equity Playbook, just to know how those buyers think. Our guide to selling a pest control company covers what they look at. And when I asked Justin what he’s most proud of, it was his kids first, then his team and his wife.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Justin Kern?
Justin Kern is the founder of WeedCo, a weed control company in Tucson, Arizona, that also does pest control. He started it in 2016 with a backpack sprayer and blue dye, went full time on January 1, 2021, and by June 2026 had about 6,500 subscription customers.
How did WeedCo get its first customers?
Justin posted pictures of yards sprayed blue and tagged every friend so their friends would see them. Then he posted in HOA groups, community groups and Nextdoor and had his guys hang door hangers. He got about 50 customers the first year.
Is it easy to add pest control to a weed control company?
Not in Justin’s experience. He expected cross-selling his weed customers to be like shooting fish in a barrel, but most already had a pest guy. Inspectors who sell and teach the technicians to spot termite tubes and spider webs are helping, but revenue was still about 90% weeds when we recorded.
Why do weed control companies use blue dye?
It shows customers where the yard was treated and shows technicians where they’re overspraying or underspraying. Customers read the color as how strong the treatment was, so WeedCo went to a packet that makes it the same color every time.
Why should you clean up your customer database?
Justin thought WeedCo had 12,000 to 14,000 customers because leads were marked as customers. The real number was about 6,500 subscription customers, and with private equity starting to reach out, he wanted clean data.
Full transcript
Every word of the episode, from the video captions
Building the business turns you into a different kind of human being.
Realize that failure is a part of the...
I think there's hope out there for all of us. For all of us. They say procrastination be the assassination of destinations. That's why we out here grinded with no association with haters and them other crabs trying to put us down. Pest Badger's in the house. Boy, don't clown. Just keep your eyes on the prize and no giving up. You can do whatever you dream of. Just keep your eyes on the prize.
I get asked all the time like if not on a daily basis, maybe every other day, every three days like, "Hey, you need to get more lawn care, weed control companies on here." And I was like, "I trust me, man. I've been trying for a good one." So Justin Kern owns WeedCo. I think I told you this in person. I said about six years ago, if I were to ever come to Arizona and ever do work there, it would never be for pest control. It would be for killing weeds inside granite or whatever you guys call it out there. And I said this like six, eight years ago and then all a sudden I seen it start, you know, start popping off here and there and then all a sudden you just took it to a whole new level. So really excited to get to hear your story. I know we got to meet in person, got some mutual friends that connected us, which is really cool. I got to visit you in person out in Arizona at the at the pest control conference.
That was cool. And yeah, man, just welcome to the show. Here...
Well, I truly appreciate it again. You know, meeting you and listening to your your presentation was really really great. It just kind of it helps some of our like PCOs, we sit there and we think about, oh man, we want to crush it to here and then hearing your$und00 million story is really amazing.
Yeah. And I feel like I say this all the time, that was just my goal when we first started this thing. And so again, one of those questions you get asked almost on a daily basis. It's like, when's when are you going to be done? What's your exit plan? And it's like, yeah, I kind of have one, but I don't really have one. Now I feel like we're tracking down our goal so fast that my goal wasn't big enough. And my mentor always tells me to think bigger, and as soon as I think I'm thinking bigger, it's still not big enough. So, who knows? But yeah, it's been a fun run. But let's let's circle back a little bit to if Justin Kern and I were you know sophomore high school, junior in high school. Who was Justin in high I was you know I played soccer. I was a soccer player.
You know I had really a great friend group. It was like really large. It was almost everybody in our class. Went to a school here in Tucson, Arizona, Flowing Wells. I raced BMX bikes, so rode dirt bikes and just, you know, I was a I was a, you know, a B+ but just had a good good group that I hung out with. We...
What kind of BMX bike did you have? Oh, well, I started racing when I was five. I had a JMC. I had a Red Line.
Yeah, I was going to say Red Lines were Diamondbacks were cool back then. Red.
I still have a cruiser in my garage.
That's awesome.
But I raced for a an outfit called Free Agent. I was a factory rider. I was at 7 years old, I was national number one. But I rode till I was about 17 and it was either going to go pro or keep getting you know keep just traveling and chasing points and so started down that path of oh there's a cute girl right there. So I got out of BMX after that. So...
I hear you those girls. Hey can be such a distraction. They can be.
And when you're when you're young, you just don't know any better.
You don't.
So, all the young bucks listening to this, take our advice. Trust us.
Take our advice. Take your time.
Stay focused. Girl, the red dress.
There's a lot of them. Stay focused. And to all you girls out there that are listening to this, they say behind every good man is amazing woman. So,...
Keep in the distraction. Agreed. Thousand%. So, then you're raised to be a Max. You rode dirt bikes. What kind of dirt bike do you have?
I still have a couple dirt bikes. So, I KTM 250, a KTM 125. I got out of the four strokes. And...
Do you see that they're actually just coming up with a like I seen online the other day like coming out with a brand new two-stroke?
The first one in like what is it 12 years or 20 years?
Well, mine's a what is it? 2018 KTM. So, yeah. So, I went down the four-stroke path and then I was I just missed the smell of two-stroke in the morning. I...
Okay. The two-stroke then. Yeah.
I hear you. That's cool. So, then you get through high school, you're chasing girls. What happens from there?
Chasing Oh gosh, I actually I'm dated my ex-wife, my high school sweetheart. And then we ended up getting married when I was about 21. And I worked about three jobs. I went to a community college, played soccer there for one one year. Worked three jobs. I worked at UPS. I was supervisor there in the mornings and then delivered hot tubs and sold hot tubs and delivered furniture, sold furniture. So, kind of did that route for about seven years. And then in that time frame we had we had one boy and then I was like man I'm killing myself. She graduated college and I got a job at Raytheon. That was kind of my course. Corporate America called me. Had a couple more boys. They are my joy. They're old now.
You said, "Yeah, you have one that lives in Texas, right?"
Yeah. So my oldest lives in Austin. He just got married. So him and his wife are moving to Scottsdale, which I'm really proud of. You know, when your kids are thriving, it's amazing. I have a another my middle son's in LA. They both are in the pharmaceutical world, so they sell pharmaceuticals. And then my youngest son graduated from college and he works with kids with...
Yeah. So, and now I have two stepdaughters. So, yeah.
Nice. Did you did you know early on that did you have like the instinct to be an entrepreneur? Were you like in high school or a college were you like selling things on the side?
You know, not in high school so much. I probably always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I had that struggle of not really having the support behind me to let me go do it. It was get a job, support, you know, we had a we had kids when I was 23. We started having kids. So I think once we started having kids, I tried probably everything. You know, fast forward a little bit, I had quit I had quit Raytheon a little bit before that and jumped around from a couple sales jobs. And then, my best friend came up with an idea called it was a shoe cleaner. And so we grew up in a pretty rough part of Tucson. And his mom used to say, "Keep your shoes clean." And so he called me over one day and I looked at it and we kind of, you know, chatted more about it and, I said, "Let's let's do this. I'll help you. You know, I'll still work at Raytheon, but I'll help grow this." And so, it's called Rejuvenator. We started that in 2009.
By then I was, a single man. And I was divorced. Had three little boys at the time and just trying to do anything. I started a company doing liquor distribution for a premiumbased liquor ended up that didn't work out very well and I just kept going down rats rat holes of trying to start businesses. Reuven rejuvenator kept going. I ended up going back to Raytheon. I got remarried in 2014 to an amazing woman and yeah we started you know she had two little girls and so from then on it was just like support the family, support the family. As as I was going through Raytheon, I always knew like once I had left there that I'm meant to do more than just be in a cubicle. And you know, I jumped around there. I had many employees and I was doing well, but that was that calling was always there. My wife would have to turn sideways in the bed to push me out of bed. And like now I'm up way before anybody, you know, I think it's what 6:30 there now. 6:30 and you've been up for a while. You've been texting for at least an hour and a half or two hours. So yeah. I'm the same way. I said get up early and I got in late last night. Kind of told you a story. I got a couple hours of sleep and I it just doesn't shut off and don't set alarms. Haven't set alarms in years. I just wake up.
Getting up excited about the day.
I know. My wife's like, "How do you do...
But Yeah,...
Hold up. Quick pause. If you're on a pest control company or fertilization we control company, you're not in our Facebook group. You're choosing the harder path. Every operator that's in there is skipping years of mistakes because people are actually sharing what's working right now. So, stop trying to brute force your way through growth alone. Search Pest Control Millionaires on Facebook or click the link below. And now, let's get back to...
So, then how did how did you find like where did the weed control idea come...
So, I mean you didn't like come up in high school think I want to own a weed control company someday.
No, no, not at all. You know, I look back at like what really started it. Was I quit I quit Raytheon again. I got frustrated. Some things happened and I ended up quitting. We had five kids in the house. Really didn't have a plan. I jumped out of a plane without a parachute, I like to say. I started another company, an online business, and it just didn't work out the way I needed it to work out. So, I spent nine months just building that company, and we ran out of money. And, I spent my savings like, it was it was pretty rough. And I had a guy spraying my yard. So, in Tucson, we have a bunch of, granite, just DG and granite. And so, we live in an HOA and he said, you know, I'm going to spray your yard. It's 75 bucks, but this is the last time I'm doing it because I'm going to go be a realtor. And so I said I watched him do it and I looked down the street and I was like, man, can I take you out to lunch? And so, you know, from that moment on, I was like, I can do this.
And it was to support my family. It had I had no idea. For anybody listening to this, I did everything wrong. Everything. When I say wrong, wrong.
You took him out to lunch and then the rest is kind of history. So, keep going from there.
I took him out to lunch. You know, and then he dropped me he took me through some yards and some of his customers. He only had I want to say like 25 customers here. And so I said, "Hey, if you're not going to do this, let me let me jump in and I'll do all th all your customers for free. I'll send you the money." You know, and he's like, "Let me think about it." I actually wrote it up a document and he didn't want to do that. So, but I basically put a I went and bought the backpack the next day and put it on, got got the product and started I was on social media quite a bit. Had a lot of friends on there and so I would tag all my friends. I'd send a picture of a blue yard. I was knocking on doors, but I would tag a picture and of a blue yard and say, "The Smurfs have come are coming to keep the weeds away, you know."
Yeah. So, you're just using blue dye?
Yeah, I was using blue dye and just tagging every one of my friends in a post so that their friends would see it. So, yeah, that that was kind of what got it started. And it was it was really tough. You know, I think the first year I it was, you know, I probably got like 50 customers. We I unofficially started in 2016 and then I went back to Raytheon in 2017, but the business kept going. Department of Agriculture made it to my door.
Of course they did. I mean, and I basically told him, I listen, I don't even want to do this anymore. I was h it was hot. But the customers kept calling. And so I ended up, you know, I grabbed a partner that had a license. And then we he kept he would spray. I'd get the customers, he would go spray. And then We grabbed another partner for funds for money and yeah, I would say that in the next six months after they both were gone and so...
So I you know I went and got my license and did all the things but I didn't realize like what I had. I just would keep doing it and hire people and kind of my thought was, hey, if I could duplicate myself and duplicate my we and we just add trucks and we can keep doing this, you know, that 500 a day turns into a,000 turns into 2,000, turns into 10,000. So,...
Yeah. And then, like early on, was it reoccurring? Was it just one time a year? What was this? What was it from day one?
So basically I would I would sell per service. So I would be like, "Hey, you know, this product will last about five to six months and I'll come back out if I do a good job." So I always I never wanted like an agreement or a contract. I basically said, you know, if my work's good enough, they're going to call me. And so we just kept that model for a long time. But the customers I we kept growing. I think we moved into our first office in 2019. Moved out of the house and I hired I hired a full-time technician. I actually had I had two part-times and one full-time technician by then and three trucks. I was buying trucks on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or actually it was Craigslist back then. It was just Craigslist. So, yeah, we got a little office and I thought, "Wow, here we go."
But the I had an office manager. I Oh, I hired I hired a couple folks for the office to help answer the calls and keep going. And so we started developing that and my wife was instrumental in helping and getting that going. So it was it was pretty good. She does real estate on the as her as her career and so she was really instrumental in like letting people know and helping me with...
That's really cool. And then did that did over time did you evolve it into more of like a program where you call up a couple times a year and then how do you handle callbacks? I feel like there is there a lot of callbacks and you know in weed control.
Yeah, I mean we had a we had a fivemon guarantee and so you know out here depending on the amount of monsoons or rain that you get. I mean, our call back rate was pretty high, but I was like, "Hey, if we need if you know, if you need us and there's weeds growing, we don't want you pulling weeds. We're coming out." And so, I got on to FieldRoutes pretty early. I want to say 2019, by the time we had our office, we had FieldRoutes and we were going on that. And so that really changed my business because before it was Excel spreadsheet and I was trying to keep up with people and...
And so FieldRoutes was instrumental in helping me get organized and going with that. And so we still wouldn't have them sign a contract or anything. We just hey reminders would go out. And our customers grew and grew and then and I was contracting still at Raytheon till end of 2020 2021. I January 1, 2021 I was done. I was full-time WeedCo.
Awesome. I mean that's only five years yeah, that was actually would be my next question. When did you finally leave Raytheon? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So January one of 2021 was your last day.
Yeah. And it was funny because like during Raytheon, you know, I worked with a lot of successful you know, guys that did amazing stuff and we, you know, I used to dress super nice and go in there and they were like, "What are you doing?" you know, but I took myself out of spraying and really put myself into the customer service portion, the you know, training the guys, making sure that hey, we're going out there taking care of our employees. I want you to treat them like you treat your grandma. Like I we are going to do the things. We're going to roll up the hoses. We're going to pull up the trash cans. We're going to pick up the dog toys. We're gonna do things that nobody's doing when they go out there and do that here in Tucson. I'm sure there's a lot of companies that are doing that. So,...
So how are you how were you growing early on? I know you see it, you know, when you first started you're posting on Facebook, tagging your friends, hiring people, but then how did you keep the thing growing?
You know that I mean early on it was it was posting on Facebook. We started using Nextdoor neighbor app, posting on there. You know and really just continued the same model you know I found all the groups you know the HOA groups and people that lived in HOAs and I would post post and then I started doing door hangers so I' I'd have my guys do door hangers and I would really just network and put myself out there a little bit like I said my wife was instrumental in helping me as well. And we just had a lot of love. Like I'd post on some, you know, HOA group, a community group, and I'd get a hundred comments on it. And so it was just, you know, let's keep doing this model and telling people and I ran a commercial in It was a short commercial.
I got it for practically nothing and I got a pretty good contract from that. And that contract led into other things. So, we still do this community, it's a it's a reservation and the gentleman out there we built a great relationship and he has us do a ton of work out there. So, that was nice. What is your revenue like? What is your split between residential versus like commercial?
So, we're about 90% res residential.
That's what I thought. Yeah.
Yeah. I we do like we do RV parks. We'll do we'll do like the Tucson airport. We do big properties.
Yeah. Do you do like gas plants, things like that as well? We don't do gas plants, but we do have we have one of my customers like we do like Home Depot...
We do like right away stuff too, right? So, we can do right away stuff. So, yeah, we'll we'll do H like HOAs that are actually HOAs. We'll do that kind of stuff. But residential is really where I mean I love love the customers. We love love just building that relationship with them. So yeah.
Yeah, that's really cool. So taking back to like when you first started, was we control like a big thing then or was it relatively newer? Yeah, I mean there was a there's a you know a few big companies here, but they focused a lot on commercial and so I never saw like the I saw like a little gap between the residential and commercial side. And so I thought, man, I can get in here and close this gap. Since then, I've found some smaller companies, you know, owner operator type type guys. But we, you know, we just continued to just do weeds. I wanted to keep it so simple. I went to my first, I had no idea. I got a coach in 2021 and I had no idea what, you know, we were building. We had no clue.
And so, you know, my team was out there doing their stuff. We were getting our training and starting to implement some things. And I went to the AZPPO conference. The one I met you at, but I went there in 2023 and I listened to Paul Giannamore.
Giannamore. Yep.
Yep. And Nick.
I listened to those two give a presentation and I came home. I only went for one day. I met Travis Bottoms there. He was that guy is awesome. Super nice and just how he approached me. He had a we had a mutual friend that I didn't know about and he said, "You're the weed guy." you know, and...
But I talked to Nick and I met the I met Franco and stuff there and I came home that day and I told my wife, "Babe, we got something like we just got to we got to really dial in on this." And so over the next year, I decided we need to start adding pest control. Our customers were asking us to do it. At the time we had about 4,500 customers that we were that we were doing. And so we just were like, let's just if we could add pest control, man, we that's we'll just give our customers pest control. And so that was a struggle. I never did pest control. So got my it's a whole different beast. And so we got our licenses, we did the all the proper stuff and, I started looking for like an operations, pest control guy and I found a couple guys, but they just weren't the right fit for our culture, for our team.
Whole different beast. Yeah,...
And, we just kind of struggled through there. I think, you know, I had a guy half time working pest control and I had, you know, at the time I think I had 10 trucks going out doing weed control. And so, you know, the pest control was like a $400 route and the weed control were was up, you know, routes. So, I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to stick on this weed and I just keep my gas on that." and you know we just kept kept doing that for for quite some time but we have I had to rebrand and I and so 2024 late 2024 2025 early we rebranded and that was a expensive and tough thing to do but we did that and that has been really helping. Did you guys hire a company to do that?
Yeah. So, I was working with Pest Daily.
Yep. Y...
I was working I was working with Seth and David. And they really helped me kind of start getting that going. David gave me a great contact, a graphic designer, Tina Tina May Ma Tina Ma, I'm sorry. And she helped like put our colors in and really get us where we wanted to go. So, Nope. It's still WeedCo.
Did you change the name? Did you...
It was a Papaya Orange and black black trucks. So, it stood out pretty good. But, we went to white trucks and Tiffany blue color. My wife liked it. I like that too. What was the hard part for you? Yeah, it was besides the money because it's expensive.
I think the hard part was so many people we had WeedCo like plastered on these trucks like really big and it was so simple and so it said got weeds at the bottom. That's it, right? You know, and so when truck I'd get told all the time people would see those black trucks, you know, with that and it was just changing over to the new design. I don't want to say it was difficult. It was just like some of the people were, you know, some of our customers were like, "Why are you changing that? That that was such a cool design." You know, we used to sell hoodies and hats and all the things with just the WeedCo on there. Gosh, my wife and I'd be in Colorado and people would literally stop on the road and say, "Where'd you get that hoodie?" You know?
Awesome. So, why did you change?
Because we wanted to we were serious about growing our pest control.
So, we were we were serious about it. We wanted to show our our team that we were serious about it. We wanted to show our customers we were serious about it and that we weren't just weed professionals. We could do pest control as well.
So, what did you rebrand to then?
So, we steal our WeedCo. It's your shield for pests, termites, rodents, and of course we do weeds,...
So, that's kind of our slogan now. Try to make fun of course we do this, but we are pest control. Last year in September I had the opportunity I don't know if you know I hired a COO we were at that point where I needed to bring somebody in that was a good implement. I am I'm like I look everywhere. Let's throw this at it. Let's throw this at it. So I hired a I you know, fate had it that I had a friendship with Greg Wely and he had just recently sold the company that he was working with.
Straight visionary.
He had worked he ran Truly Nolen for I think 27 years. He was a EVP for them.
Yeah. Because Truly Nolen started out there, right?
HQ is out there. Yeah.
Yeah. So he I think it started in Florida originally, but...
They had two branches. They had Well, they had So the son the dad lived in Florida and the son left there and moved to Arizona, started there. Then his dad retired and he bought his dad out. So it had both and then grew it from there. I had Scarlett on here. That's why I know the answer.
Oh yeah. Yeah. When when Truly passed and Scarlett took over you know, Greg Greg eventually left and started a company with some other guys and they built that up for I want to say four or five years and they ended up exiting. And so I he had stopped in one day and just checking in. We had built a friendship over that five years and I said, "What are you doing?" And he's like, "I might start another pest control company." And I said, "Well, there's an opportunity right here."
That's awesome. So, I mean, I know when we when we talked last, you've been in Tucson forever. You thought about maybe moving on from Tucson. Is that still the...
Yeah. You know, right now we do service a lot of we go up to Phoenix. We do Scottsdale. We do some places up in Scottsdale. Pinetop, which is the White Mountains, we go up there. Sierra Vista, Nogales. So we're kind of building our footprint out. You know and right now it's it really I started doing it because of my to be honest my boys I thought and my daughter I thought man maybe maybe one of them will want to come into the company and get going. And so that hasn't happened yet. And not because they don't want to. I think it's just a little bit scary for them. They went the traditional school route and but they're starting to see the efforts of what entrepreneurship is and when you stick at something and you continue to fight for it that life that it brings you. So...
Yeah. Have you ever read the book The Millionaire Next Door?
Like everything that you're telling me like alls I can do is think about that book. Like this whole conversation it's like all I can think about is that book. It's like the way you started like corporate America kind of corporate America then it's like your kids and like your kids went the tradition route but you're the you're the you know the entrepreneur but then we because we don't go to school that much so we focus on our kids going to school paying for them to have a really good education they go get their education they get successful in life so they're on their own then slowly bring them back into the business. It's just crazy like everything that you're telling me like all I can do is think about that book I wrote it down earlier.
Yeah, it was I mean it's been interesting, you know. And my the kids are thriving which is amazing. Like I'm so happy for them. But I am trying to interject a little like stuff, you know, like we have a our youngest daughter is going to UCSD in C in San Diego and she wants to be a lawyer and I said maybe you should go the M&A route. Maybe you should go become a corporate attorney. I need somebody at some point.
Yeah, it's funny. The book says the same thing. It's funny.
I love that. My daughter My oldest daughter wants to be a dermatologist.
Oh, that's awesome.
But then she wants to go to school for dermatology, but then open her own practice when she graduates.
That's fantastic.
Yeah. So, we'll see. So, I'm excited for her. My middle child, the one that came in first, she's a hustler. She's a go-getter. She has lemonade stands every weekend. Like she loves money, she loves to spend stuff. So, she could be the one...
That that's fantastic. It's funny you say that. My middle son is like he graduated college in three and a half years and he's I mean he's crushing it in LA, like crushing it. And I'm like I'm just, you know, and then my oldest son is now crushing it and he's he's going to be crushing it in Scottsdale.
No, it's hard. Like it's like we have to let them fail. We have to let them figure it out. We try to set them up for success, but like the only way for them to learn is to go out there and fail. And so, but our job as a parent, in my opinion, is to make sure they're ready for the real life.
It's not easy.
It's definitely not. And I actually just had this a discussion, like not a discussion, but a chat with my youngest son, and he's he's driven like with his heart. He's the sweetest sweetest kid, you know, helping kids with autism and he's going to go back and get his masters to do that. And I just I'm like, man, this kid goes to the gym every day. He works out like a madman. And but he is like so different from the other kids. So it's funny how, you know, we raise them in the same household and they how different they are, right? And how they go through.
Yeah. I was actually talking to CFO about this yesterday and he's got a couple sons and we're talking about the kids and how exactly we just said how different each one everyone is. All you they're raised exact same way. Before I get into the health thing, what is the revenue split now? Not number just like a split between like pest control and weed control.
So, I mean we are definitely we're probably again Our revenue split is just 90% weeds. I mean, it Yeah, we're we've got probably one and a half texts doing termites, we...
So, it's still been it's still been a heavy pull.
It has. You know, part of the problem was and I'm so thankful Greg came on because once we started going through this process you know we read that book Traction you know our EOS we use a form of it I would say and you know I had no sales people. I literally the team had no salespeople. It was just what we were doing for marketing. Our SEO stuff and really just we traded for radio. We do like different things and then the trucks, but we've hired some inspectors that go out and sell and that that they are so talented. All they're training our technicians. So, I never trained our technicians how to do I'm like, you're just doing weeds. All you have to do is be nice, you know, but I never in like train them like when you're around a yard, look for termite tubes. Look for spiderw webs, you know, when you talk to the customer, say, "Hey, I noticed that you had some spiderw webs here. Be careful." Or, you know, or there was some termite tubes over on that west wall.
And so we're getting the actual team that we're building right now is actually training our technicians on how to do that. And then we have an inside sales that is also working.
How is the how is how has the cross-sell been from your existing client base to when you introduce pest control?
It's getting better. It was it was a struggle. I mean, it yeah, it The very very people have figured it out.
I hear this all the time. Yeah. I was like thinking this is going to be shooting fish in a barrel like let me go out and do right. Nope.
Everyone says...
They have they have their pest guy. They have their pest technician. I don't want to say guy because we have some technicians that are are women and they are amazing.
Absolutely. We have I mean one my one office here we have four here. It's so...
Yeah. And I love seeing that coming into the industry because yeah, I'm starting to see it more and more and I'm like this is awesome, you know. But no, they I will say it has you know it has gotten better. We are using some softwares to help us. And so you know just retargeting them and we keep going back to them. Just letting them know we throw out specials and all the things to try to just let us come out and do an inspection, you know. But monsoons are getting ready to start. We have like they said in six days we should start seeing a lot of rain which brings a lot of pest activity. It brings a lot of weeds. So, we're we're anticipating probably two to three more technicians, for pest pest, rodents, control in the next, three months. So, we'll...
Cool. Do you still use blue dye?
It's awesome.
Oh, yeah. Customers love it.
Yeah. I hate...
I have a I have a Yeah. Right. I have a friend in Oklahoma. They do all pre-emergent for lawns and that's all he uses blue dye. So everything's blue down there too. It's a it's a massive selling point for sure. Great for branding, but it's a mess.
Yeah, it's a mess. And when they see it is you know the customer will think that the dye equates to how strong a product we put down, right? So if they put in if they mix it and they don't put in they overpour then they think they got their yard treated and it's so good. Right.
And then if they underpour it's really light so they don't think we sprayed enough. So we've gone to a packet and so it's the same color all the time.
Consistency. Yeah. Is it more for branding or was it more for training? More for training at one for training the customers to show them where we where we treated and then also for the technicians to say, "Hey, you're overspraying here. You got, you know, you're under spraying right here on this on this row." So,...
Yeah, that's cool. So, when did the whole health thing kick off for you?
As far as working out or Yeah.
Me getting health care for my employees? No. You working out, has it always been a thing?
Yeah. Like I want to say like when I was about third 30, probably 28, 30. I worked out all the time. I would I would do two a days. I do CrossFit at 5:30 and I'd do the gym at noon. So I was in pretty good physical condition back then. I hurt my back. I think when I was about 39, I dislocated I herniated, sorry, my L3 and L4. And so that put me down for a while. And that got me pretty I've been a little bit more easy on my body and not doing so much CrossFit type stuff. And so I've gone up and down. I really have. And you know, during COVID, I gained the COVID 20. We sat in the garage and hung out with our neighbors. Yeah. And just really got where, you know, both my wife and I were pretty you know, just having fun and not really doing the gym.
I did put a gym inside of our garage and we have a sauna in there and so I'm real big on on the sauna.
Looking right at it.
Yeah, I love it. And my wife loves it. And so we it was funny cuz my son was getting married and we were like, we need to get our butts in shape. Like we're what is going on, you know? And so we both started on a journey and yeah, it's been going pretty good. We got sick about 3 weeks ago and that put us down for a while and I hate getting out of a routine because as soon as I get out of routine I'm like ugh, you know, and we then it's starting over and so it's just good to just keep sticking with it. Sticking with it. But yeah, not trying get big or anything. Just trying to be...
Yeah, maintain at our age. It's all about maintain. Yeah. What is your plans for WeedCo?
So again, we're just we're we're going to continue to try to keep growing it. We're really diving into our our numbers, our P&Ls, and it's really nice now because I'm focusing on the business and not so much in the business. So my role has really changed as far as how we do things. And Greg is a great implementer and I can throw something at the wall and he was like, "Ah, maybe we should hold off. Let's look at both." You know, he's wonderful with that. And my wife is full-time in the business now, too.
Oh, really?
And she has she's really doing a lot of our HR type stuff. We got to bring on 401ks and health insurance and all this stuff for our employees last year. Which I was really excited about. I you know we do profit sharing and 401k match like 100%. So it's they're vested right away.
That's awesome.
Yeah. But so the plan is you know our goals are to reach new not only revenue goals but we want also like my EBITDA I'm focusing on that and kind of watching how that goes you know PE has started to reach out to us and but we're we're really kind of flipping all of our customers onto agreements we're selling bundles and doing doing things like that. Greg has some great training and great ideas on how to how to get that and going and we're looking at different how this how this business is transforming and changing. And so, you know, over the next five years, we'll see how this how we creep up and go, you know, I got I got stuck last year for two years. We were just right there at the same revenue goal, right? Just right under the 3 million mark and I'm like we are crushing that this year. Like I don't care what I have to you know what I have to do, what my team has to do, we are going out and going to get it. And just because I've heard like man that is just a you know one million's hard to get over, three million's hard to get over, then it's five and so on and so forth.
So, we put some goals out there and we had we had our our you know, our executive meeting at in November with Greg, my wife and I, and we came up with some goals and some kind of sayings that themes that we're going to do for the team. And so, at the end of the year, we had a big meeting with them. You know, it was really nice. But we talked about what that's going to be. And so, our our theme this year is re reset, build, and thrive. And we're going to reset how we do things and we're going to change our model. So, we changed all of our weed programs to a four-month program. So, we're coming out four months. Every four months we're getting agreements signed. We do bimonthly pest control.
And so and then building, you know, building upon our customers, building on our training. And then thriving and just growing. Everybody's winning. Our team's winning. WeedCo's winning. And then internally the three of us came up with you know a patience structure and discipline. So we actually got little plaques on our on our desk that say that because Jonas I was a bottleneck for so long and I had I had to start pulling myself out. I was looking at the schedule. Why is it like this? You know, why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we doing this? And really I had to pull myself out and you know, if somebody called in sick, do this, do this, you know, or if somebody needed to buy something, they had to go through me. And so I was the bottleneck for a long time. And so I made I made a commitment to do that. And so we have done that and I ask, you know, I ask Greg sometimes, am I doing okay at this? Cuz I want to make sure I'm not I'm not impeding on what we're trying to get done. So when when PE reaches out, what do you think about,...
Hire the team and get out of the way.
You know, one I've heard different stories, you know, I'm a I'm a follower of Tommy Mello from A1 Garage. He, you know, I've gone to his seminars and chatted with him about stuff. And you know, his model of how he's done things amazing. Like, that's awesome. I have other companies that I've seen do it. I've heard horror stories. I've heard good and bad things. You know, I talk to them and take their number and get an email from them and you know, if that's something down the road that we want to look at to maybe scale faster or grow faster, that would be a big conversation we'd we'd have to have. But, you know, I'm like right now my thought is, you know, let's clean up our whole what we're doing.
We cleaned up our our database. Our database was filled with everybody was a customer and not leads.
And so...
I used to clean up how many customers we had, you know, and I think we were up at like 12 to man, it might have been 14,000 customers.
They were they were not 14,000. We're down to about 6,500 true customers. You know, subscription. So, we're trying to bolster that up, make sure that's all good, clean data. Clean clean look our trucks. We're u we're redoing we're getting rid of the old trucks and getting new trucks and trying to build that out and just, you know, I always again, build it like you're going to sell it, build it like you're going to keep it forever. And so, type of type of model. I'm sure sure everybody says that, you know, but it's true. It's like if my kids want to jump in at some point or if it's just I'm out of it and it's just it's still growing and I don't and I just get to keep doing what I'm doing and networking and having fun with that.
You know, that's great.
Love it. Have you ever read the book Private Equity Playbook?
I have not.
It's a good read. Just for fun, just to know how they think. It's pretty cool book. It's a good read. Just always know, you know, a little bit about that kind of stuff.
I'll finish up here because I said we're going on an hour, but and I know you're busy and Justin, what are you most proud of?
My kids. I mean I mean bottom line, like my kids, you know, I am proud of WeedCo. I'm proud of the team, you know, and what they accomplished day in day out. I mean, that that's probably there's a lot to be proud of. You know, my wife, proud of her. So, I'm really c like I'm really focused on my family, focused on my team. But I'm just proud of them. I'm proud of what they've done. So...
That's awesome. Yeah, you can tell just sincere in your voice, too. It's...
All right, buddy. Well, I'm glad that we finally made this work. We've been working on getting this schedule for like I don't know, it's been four or five months, something like that. I'm finally glad that we got to do it and connect and chat a little bit more. And I look forward to getting to chat with you more and staying in touch. And I love what you're doing. Keep it up. You're a stud. And good chatting with...
I appreciate you. And I you've really what you're doing for the PCOs and the community is amazing and I absolutely enjoy following you on the Facebook group and following just what you're promoting and I think it's fantastic and I wish you the best of luck on attaining your goals. I think I think you're going to I mean you're inspiring so it's...
You know it's just great to see. So I truly appreciate that.
All right, buddy. We'll chat to you okay, bye-bye.
All right, have a great day. Hey guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Pest Control Millionaire. We don't charge any money for the show, but the podcast isn't free. Please like and subscribe and give us a five-star review in your favorite podcast app. This makes a huge difference for us. If you have any specific questions about your business or your personal life that you'd like answered by me or any of my podcast guests, please send an email to And if you want to get in touch with me about our marketing class, we do a live version every Thursday night. Check out our website at Thank you guys for listening. I'll see you guys in the next one.
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