Starting (and Fastlaning) a lawn care service business

[Johnny boy]

Johnny,
I'm curious what's working best for you at the start of this season advertising wise. So far using slybroadcast and dropping voicemails or sending out mass texts to last years clients has been effective for me. I'm doing mainly one off jobs (pressure washing, gutter cleaning, gutter guard installations, leaf clean ups) till I can purchase a company vehicle and start scaling, but my advertising is rocky right now (doing a mix of EDDM, yard signs, FB ads w/ a sales video, google ads, and refining GMB) - nothing is really performing that well. Just wondering what you're seeing the most return out of so far - probably google ads pointing to a request a quote page on your website?

FB ads, then organic google rank, then adwords.

Signed up 5k/mo in additional customers in the last like 16 days.

We are pacing to get to 50k/mo if this continues from now until the end of June. But we are going to shoot past that in case there's any issues.

The nice part is once you get them, they usually stay. So if we get to 50k a month revenue and 25k profit a month, that'll be our baseline for next year too. Each year build momentum and I don't need to give the quotes for the customers we already have, just the new ones.

If we hit the goal of 25k a month profit then we will be in a great spot.

 

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[Johnny boy]

We've gotten to the size where I don't remember these people anymore.

When building systems, pretend you have 10-100x more customers than you do, what would you do then? What would you do if the names were just customer ID numbers? How would you operate then? When you can't remember who lives where and who wants what and who requested what, etc.

So we finally started implementing some systems of scale.

When I give quotes, I take better notes so it goes into their customer profile. The notes are turned into tags in their dispatching software, so I can press a button and filter and sort customers that want certain services.

I also exported the recurring payment list into an excel sheet, filtered for unique names against our dispatching software and deleted the unique names meaning that there's only current, paying customers in our dispatching software. I had let every single person we've ever had as a customer since 2018 just sit there and rot and it needed some cleaning up.

Then, I took our per crew monthly revenue goal, did some basic math to figure out how much time each property should take based on their price, given that revenue goal, and assigned a total time goal (driving plus work) for each property in a spreadsheet. For a 13k revenue goal, we figure a biweekly (every other week) customer should be getting 41 minutes of our day (includes driving) if they are paying $150 a month.

I uploaded that to mapline, which is some pretty cool mapping software.

Now, I can see all of the customers on a map, filter different things, and make a schedule for each crew that is dense, and set up to add up to an equal time goal for each day for each crew, which I can put in the dispatching software and the guys will know how long they should be spending at each place. They'll know if so and so's place is worth a 25 minute visit, or an hour.

Did all this with hundreds of customers in a very short period of time.

Our dispatching software lets us set up recurring visits and it repeats as long as we want it to. The problem before was I wasn't sure how well I would build a schedule when we have a shit ton of customers I can't remember many things about. And it would only get worse as we got bigger. So this solves that problem. I can signup a customer, they get put into the system and get recurring visits set up, we can adjust the notes for the future visits today, so they are getting the premium services they requested without me setting reminders, I can assign a time value to them so it fits into a crew's schedule without the crew getting swamped because they got too many expensive, tough customers in an unfair way compared to another crew, and each time they're there, they know about how long a normal visit should take, and we can easily click a button and filter tags for a customer to see a list of who should be getting which services.

That was all just this afternoon after a couple of problems came up with our scheduling system and I saw how it would turn into a shit show if we were much bigger, better to do it now.

It only adds a couple of small steps to our onboarding process but lowers our daily scheduling time and I imagine it's going to cut our complaints in half. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure type of thing.

We've been doing about 7 quotes a day right now. I've got the secretary working double time. We've got our 4th truck on the way. Our goal this year is 50k/mo revenue and to have VERY scalable systems that are very concrete and don't break down when you throw a ton of customers at it.

 

[eqttrdr]

We've gotten to the size where I don't remember these people anymore.

When building systems, pretend you have 10-100x more customers than you do, what would you do then? What would you do if the names were just customer ID numbers? How would you operate then? When you can't remember who lives where and who wants what and who requested what, etc.

So we finally started implementing some systems of scale.

When I give quotes, I take better notes so it goes into their customer profile. The notes are turned into tags in their dispatching software, so I can press a button and filter and sort customers that want certain services.

I also exported the recurring payment list into an excel sheet, filtered for unique names against our dispatching software and deleted the unique names meaning that there's only current, paying customers in our dispatching software. I had let every single person we've ever had as a customer since 2018 just sit there and rot and it needed some cleaning up.

Then, I took our per crew monthly revenue goal, did some basic math to figure out how much time each property should take based on their price, given that revenue goal, and assigned a total time goal (driving plus work) for each property in a spreadsheet. For a 13k revenue goal, we figure a biweekly (every other week) customer should be getting 41 minutes of our day (includes driving) if they are paying $150 a month.

I uploaded that to mapline, which is some pretty cool mapping software.

Now, I can see all of the customers on a map, filter different things, and make a schedule for each crew that is dense, and set up to add up to an equal time goal for each day for each crew, which I can put in the dispatching software and the guys will know how long they should be spending at each place. They'll know if so and so's place is worth a 25 minute visit, or an hour.

Did all this with hundreds of customers in a very short period of time.

Our dispatching software lets us set up recurring visits and it repeats as long as we want it to. The problem before was I wasn't sure how well I would build a schedule when we have a shit ton of customers I can't remember many things about. And it would only get worse as we got bigger. So this solves that problem. I can signup a customer, they get put into the system and get recurring visits set up, we can adjust the notes for the future visits today, so they are getting the premium services they requested without me setting reminders, I can assign a time value to them so it fits into a crew's schedule without the crew getting swamped because they got too many expensive, tough customers in an unfair way compared to another crew, and each time they're there, they know about how long a normal visit should take, and we can easily click a button and filter tags for a customer to see a list of who should be getting which services.

That was all just this afternoon after a couple of problems came up with our scheduling system and I saw how it would turn into a shit show if we were much bigger, better to do it now.

It only adds a couple of small steps to our onboarding process but lowers our daily scheduling time and I imagine it's going to cut our complaints in half. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure type of thing.

We've been doing about 7 quotes a day right now. I've got the secretary working double time. We've got our 4th truck on the way. Our goal this year is 50k/mo revenue and to have VERY scalable systems that are very concrete and don't break down when you throw a ton of customers at it.

Awesome... what's the current NET profit margin % ? Is there a road map to maintain it as you scale?

 

[Redwolf]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsPH_Y7VCs

Why not just get a 5x8 or 4x6 trailer? They weigh next to nothing and can be pulled by any car including your prius. 100x more useful than that hitch rack.

 

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[Redwolf]

the only benefit is getting press for virtue signaling in a liberal city

I can't stand the sound and smell of the gas equipment, especially the blowers. The smell seeps inside my house when the gardener is here. I just bought a place and they left an 80v push lawn mower behind. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works... battery life isn't ideal and a pro would need a lot of batteries.

The days for gas powered lawn care are numbered, like smoking areas in restaurants. Long ways off, but it's coming.

 

[Johnny boy]

Awesome... what's the current NET profit margin % ? Is there a road map to maintain it as you scale?

50% and yes but it takes me 5 minutes to explain and I’m texting while driving right now

 

[Johnny boy]

I can't stand the sound and smell of the gas equipment, especially the blowers. The smell seeps inside my house when the gardener is here. I just bought a place and they left an 80v push lawn mower behind. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works... battery life isn't ideal and a pro would need a lot of batteries.

The days for gas powered lawn care are numbered, like smoking areas in restaurants. Long ways off, but it's coming.

Yes electric is the future. But the future is lame and stupid and wrong.

 

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[Ing]

Hey man, your story is still amazing.
I just try to figure out to start a facility manager service. I don’t know, if only lawn mowing is working here in Germany.

Have you just tried to park your car next to Mc Donalds in the evening for advertising?

How do you get your workers? It’s impossible to get one here.

 

[Two Dog]

50% and yes but it takes me 5 minutes to explain and I’m texting while driving right now

The biz growth is impressive along with you taking the time to document the progress over four years. Great job.

I love the use of technology for automating processes for scalability. That's pretty much non-existent for local service bases businesses. It's one of the smartest things you've done. However, the biggest thing I've learned here is applying the subscription model to a seasonal business to spread income evenly throughout the year.

Yes, subscription services are everywhere nowadays. I just can't think of another example where people pay a monthly subscription without a deliverable every month. Even when you're not using the service, things like gym memberships and Audible are still available. Or you get a reminder email or text.

Your business sounds like you can pretty much close up shop for 5-6 months and the customers are still fine. I have a hard time understanding / believing that the typical customer is OK with paying a monthly fee when they don't see any services being performed. Paying a reduced rate (e.g. implied monthly discount) even when the billing is automatic shouldn't be that effective. No one is going to expect lawn mowing in January. One of my clients does seasonal pest control, so I'm going to ask whether they offer annual billing instead of only charging for actual services performed.

From the growth, it seems like renewals are pretty strong which means customers are happy with the arrangement.

Is there really that little pushback like "Why am I paying you November through April?

 

[Johnny boy]

The biz growth is impressive along with you taking the time to document the progress over four years. Great job.

I love the use of technology for automating processes for scalability. That's pretty much non-existent for local service bases businesses. It's one of the smartest things you've done. However, the biggest thing I've learned here is applying the subscription model to a seasonal business to spread income evenly throughout the year.

Yes, subscription services are everywhere nowadays. I just can't think of another example where people pay a monthly subscription without a deliverable every month. Even when you're not using the service, things like gym memberships and Audible are still available. Or you get a reminder email or text.

Your business sounds like you can pretty much close up shop for 5-6 months and the customers are still fine. I have a hard time understanding / believing that the typical customer is OK with paying a monthly fee when they don't see any services being performed. Paying a reduced rate (e.g. implied monthly discount) even when the billing is automatic shouldn't be that effective. No one is going to expect lawn mowing in January. One of my clients does seasonal pest control, so I'm going to ask whether they offer annual billing instead of only charging for actual services performed.

From the growth, it seems like renewals are pretty strong which means customers are happy with the arrangement.

Is there really that little pushback like "Why am I paying you November through April?

Yeah it shuts them up fast when I say “okay so your yearly total is 150x12=1800 so if we have you pay during the 8 months only, that’s 225 a month plus tax, or would you want one upfront payment?”

 

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[Johnny boy]

@Chris Sciora just turn the yearly price into a total sum and say we can divide it up in different ways. “We do it for billing simplicity” plus it keeps customers through the year so you don’t start at 0 every year

 

[Redwolf]

Yeah it shuts them up fast when I say “okay so your yearly total is 150x12=1800 so if we have you pay during the 8 months only, that’s 225 a month plus tax, or would you want one upfront payment?”

This is how I pay at one of my properties - they come not very often in the winter and frequently in summer... monthly fee just paid year round

 

[Two Dog]

Yeah it shuts them up fast when I say “okay so your yearly total is 150x12=1800 so if we have you pay during the 8 months only, that’s 225 a month plus tax, or would you want one upfront payment?”

My first thought was "Holy Crap, he's adding 50% additional profit with one sentence." Actually, it's even higher since you're not staffing the crews for four months. Pretty amazing. Love it.

It took a couple more minutes to realize you're also bundling the service. The deal is really "You're paying $1,800 to not worry about lawn care for an entire year." The monthly payments just make it an affordable option. That makes it unlikely someone would ask for a discount for skipping a week. Instead of hearing "I'll be out of town in July, so don't bother mowing", you'd say "The property will look great even while you're away." Renewals are probably easier.

Hmm, got to think on this more. It's pretty common to use annual service arrangements for something like house repair warrantees. I definitely haven't seen it for lawn care. It really seems like the *perfect* f**king solution for service businesses with seasonal revenue.

 

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[Johnny boy]

My first thought was "Holy Crap, he's adding 50% additional profit with one sentence." Actually, it's even higher since you're not staffing the crews for four months. Pretty amazing. Love it.

It took a couple more minutes to realize you're also bundling the service. The deal is really "You're paying $1,800 to not worry about lawn care for an entire year." The monthly payments just make it an affordable option. That makes it unlikely someone would ask for a discount for skipping a week. Instead of hearing "I'll be out of town in July, so don't bother mowing", you'd say "The property will look great even while you're away." Renewals are probably easier.

Hmm, got to think on this more. It's pretty common to use annual service arrangements for something like house repair warrantees. I definitely haven't seen it for lawn care. It really seems like the *perfect* f**king solution for service businesses with seasonal revenue.

You just want to make it stupid easy to get paid. Low friction. You can call us, text us, reply to a Facebook ad, email us, and we’re showing up at your house, giving you a quote, credit card number into a form, “it’s for 12 months” “yup, customer service told me that over the phone” “okay sounds good sign here, we’ll see you next week”

5-7 of those a day. Most signup right on the spot.

 

[Johnny boy]

Hey man, your story is still amazing.
I just try to figure out to start a facility manager service. I don’t know, if only lawn mowing is working here in Germany.

Have you just tried to park your car next to Mc Donalds in the evening for advertising?

How do you get your workers? It’s impossible to get one here.

We get tons of people applying on indeed. We pay around $20 an hour for low skilled 20 year old dudes and it works fine

No I don’t think we’ve tried that advertising strategy yet lol

Each market is different and the model needs to be tailored for that location.

 

[Simon Angel]

I love this and have been following your hustle for a while. Kind of jelly I'm not in an area (or country for that matter) with an abundance of houses and lawns. We mainly have cleaning companies here. Keep it up!

 

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[USN-Ken]

You just want to make it stupid easy to get paid. Low friction. You can call us, text us, reply to a Facebook ad, email us, and we’re showing up at your house, giving you a quote, credit card number into a form, “it’s for 12 months” “yup, customer service told me that over the phone” “okay sounds good sign here, we’ll see you next week”

5-7 of those a day. Most signup right on the spot.

Have you thought about using google earth, google street view (when available), and the county assessors page to review each yard when someone calls in?

You could do over-the -phone bids/quotes and take all their personal/payment info over the phone without stepping foot on their property.

Virtual bids.

“Call today for an instant quote over the phone.”

….Something like that?

I know real estate investors who do that when a potential house seller calls in. They call it “no lead left behind.” 100% of callers get an over the phone offer and then it’s emailed to them in writing after they Hang up. Then, of course, their contact info is entered into the email follow up system so they can send reminders to the seller until they digitally sign the contract (always refer to it as an “agreement” and never call it a “contract” until after it’s signed; the word contract scares people).

 

[Johnny boy]

Have you thought about using google earth, google street view (when available), and the county assessors page to review each yard when someone calls in?

You could do over-the -phone bids/quotes and take all their personal/payment info over the phone without stepping foot on their property.

Virtual bids.

“Call today for an instant quote over the phone.”

….Something like that?

I know real estate investors who do that when a potential house seller calls in. They call it “no lead left behind.” 100% of callers get an over the phone offer and then it’s emailed to them in writing after they Hang up. Then, of course, their contact info is entered into the email follow up system so they can send reminders to the seller until they digitally sign the contract (always refer to it as an “agreement” and never call it a “contract” until after it’s signed; the word contract scares people).

when you commoditize their property and the sales experience they commoditize your service
“Company X quoted me at $Y”

Almost all properties are edge cases other than ridiculously small uniform ones we can give a low price to and know it’s a good deal for both parties.

We are targeting those cookie cutter type properties with a 3000 door direct mail campaign in 2 weeks with a price offer they can signup online with a QR code

 

[Johnny boy]

Have you thought about using google earth, google street view (when available), and the county assessors page to review each yard when someone calls in?

You could do over-the -phone bids/quotes and take all their personal/payment info over the phone without stepping foot on their property.

Virtual bids.

“Call today for an instant quote over the phone.”

….Something like that?

I know real estate investors who do that when a potential house seller calls in. They call it “no lead left behind.” 100% of callers get an over the phone offer and then it’s emailed to them in writing after they Hang up. Then, of course, their contact info is entered into the email follow up system so they can send reminders to the seller until they digitally sign the contract (always refer to it as an “agreement” and never call it a “contract” until after it’s signed; the word contract scares people).

All this might change though. We may end up doing it that way but I think too many people are trying to scale things with 0 respect for what the customer wants and needs, and you need to take care of both. We want to serve nearly every American household if it’s possible, not just the techy ones who want to use an app and get a remote quote for their 50 square foot yard.

Maybe we SHOULD initially do it that way with a leaner approach and then once it’s larger, add in the personal touch, perhaps things would grow quicker like that. Aggressively target predicable and basic properties with remote signups, scale quicker because we can do more daily signups all from an office, and go from there.

 

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[door123]

Why not just get a 5x8 or 4x6 trailer? They weigh next to nothing and can be pulled by any car including your prius. 100x more useful than that hitch rack.

No one knows how to drive a trailer. I might be going back to a truck or a van. No much space in the prius.

 

[door123]

Have you thought about using google earth, google street view (when available), and the county assessors page to review each yard when someone calls in?

You could do over-the -phone bids/quotes and take all their personal/payment info over the phone without stepping foot on their property.

Virtual bids.

“Call today for an instant quote over the phone.”

….Something like that?

I know real estate investors who do that when a potential house seller calls in. They call it “no lead left behind.” 100% of callers get an over the phone offer and then it’s emailed to them in writing after they Hang up. Then, of course, their contact info is entered into the email follow up system so they can send reminders to the seller until they digitally sign the contract (always refer to it as an “agreement” and never call it a “contract” until after it’s signed; the word contract scares people).

I recently switched over from in person quotes to phone/satellite quotes. I got burned on multiple occasions by under charging. Since Google Maps often displays outdated info, I'm going back to in-person quoting.

 

[Johnny boy]

No one knows how to drive a trailer. I might be going back to a truck or a van. No much space in the prius.

I have multiple guys out working right now that are backing up and maneuvering full sized trucks with 14ft trailers around all day with 0 incidents *knock on wood* and it’s been that way for years.

 

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[USN-Ken]

I recently switched over from in person quotes to phone/satellite quotes. I got burned on multiple occasions by under charging. Since Google Maps often displays outdated info, I'm going back to in-person quoting.

Understood.

I knew a guy who had custom software built so all he had to do was enter an address into his software and it pulled property info from the county assessors website, google earth, google street, and from Zillow (he was an investor so you may not need info from Zillow for your purposes) — and showed all the data on one screen. So, he could quickly estimate based on what he saw when comparing those sources. Something to think about….

I wonder if, instead of an either/or approach, you could do both:

1. Do phone/satellite quotes and get ‘tentative’ agreement locked in/ electronically signed (to secure the business so they are unlikely to call anyone else), and then…

2. Do an in-person follow-up to confirm/update quote and get final agreement signed/ build relationship

Just batting around ideas….

These ideas are coming to be because I’ve been calling all the local law care companies and landscapers to get a complete lawn rehab done, but they either

1. Won’t answer, or
2. Won’t return my voicemails, or
3. Returned my voicemail, said they could do it, and then ghosted me

I’m literally trying to throw money at these companies and NOT one has tried to give me a quote, get me to sign an agreement, or even book an appointment to come look at the property.
NOT ONE.

That’s what got me thinking about giving quotes over the phone, getting agreements signed, appointments booked, etc…..because, so far, they all suck at this.

 

[Johnny boy]

These ideas are coming to be because I’ve been calling all the local law care companies and landscapers to get a complete lawn rehab done, but they either

1. Won’t answer, or
2. Won’t return my voicemails, or
3. Returned my voicemail, said they could do it, and then ghosted me

I’m literally trying to throw money at these companies and NOT one has tried to give me a quote, get me to sign an agreement, or even book an appointment to come look at the property.
NOT ONE.

LOL

You see guys? This is the competition. NON-EX-IST-ANT.

The bar is so low.

Go buy a lawn mower, get customers signed up, put them on recurring payments, hire good employees for $20 an hour, and people will be signing up left and right. I'm skipping like 42 steps but it's not hard.

 

[Johnny boy]

I wonder if, instead of an either/or approach, you could do both:

1. Do phone/satellite quotes and get ‘tentative’ agreement locked in/ electronically signed (to secure the business so they are unlikely to call anyone else), and then…

2. Do an in-person follow-up to confirm/update quote and get final agreement signed/ build relationship

Just batting around ideas….

Another idea we COULD do....

Online quotes, huge number of signups, track employee time on the job, if the jobs go above a certain time frame, you cancel the service and thin the herd.

"Okay we need each crew to make 13k revenue, that means each job + drive time should take 1 minute for every 3.6 dollars (the number we actually calulated) they pay per month if they are biweekly. This customer was quoted at $134 a month, that means we should use 37 minutes of our day at their place". Then you track drive time + visit time and see "Oh it took 8 minutes to drive there and 20 minutes at the job...let's keep them" And then the other customer you signed up for $129 a month (35 minutes total visit time) takes 55 minutes and then you just call them and say "We won't be able to do your property unless we changed the price to 198 a month, totally understand if you have to cancel, we improperly quoted your place, sorry".

 

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[USN-Ken]

LOL

You see guys? This is the competition. NON-EX-IST-ANT.

The bar is so low.

Go buy a lawn mower, get customers signed up, put them on recurring payments, hire good employees for $20 an hour, and people will be signing up left and right. I'm skipping like 42 steps but it's not hard.

I’m not kidding — I told my wife three days ago that I am considering just starting a lawn care business because local companies all suck.

That’s why I came back to this thread.

It’s so tempting…..and I’m in between businesses right now, too. I’ve been looking around to buy something that’s already up and running. Maybe I should cold call these company owners and offer to buy them out and take over. Hmmmm

I mean, my damn website headline would be:

The lawn company that actually answers the f’n phone!

Cripes!

 

[Johnny boy]

I’m not kidding — I told my wife three days ago that I am considering just starting a lawn care business because local companies all suck.

That’s why I came back to this thread.

It’s so tempting…..and I’m in between businesses right now, too. I’ve been looking around to buy something that’s already up and running. Maybe I should cold call these company owners and offer to buy them out and take over. Hmmmm

I mean, my damn website headline would be:

The lawn company that actually answers the f’n phone!

Cripes!

"Good enough lawn care - we actually answer the phone"

Hilarious, the novelty would actually pull people in.

Where do you live?

 

[USN-Ken]

"Good enough lawn care - we actually answer the phone"

Hilarious, the novelty would actually pull people in.

Where do you live?

I live in a small farm town in Eastern Iowa. It’s near Davenport, Iowa (which is part of the famed Quad Cities region — pop. 390k).

I’m not sure whether that’s a liability or an asset because the lawn companies are all in the larger nearby cities and charge mileage to get to us small towns. It’s low competition here in these smaller farm towns, but the travel to and from eats up time.

I first read this thread a while back but never seriously considered lawncare because of our winter season and the because I didn’t want a seasonal business. The fact that you overcame that by charging an annual fee in monthly installments just negated that concern. (Thanks btw. Clever AF).

On that note, have you considered putting on a coaching or mentoring group (group calls, text support, etc) here to help others get started? (Sorry if that has been discussed earlier in the convo. I haven’t read the entire thread again recently). You have cracked the code and might make an additional source of revenue with a coaching program — packaging up what you have done to cut down on time for newbies. Hell, you could even charge a premium for a 1-3 day ride-along where someone can shadow or ride along with you to learn the ins and outs of the biz. Monetize, package and sell your knowledge…

 

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[Johnny boy]

@USN-Ken selling a course on it or charging for any help with it just doesn’t feel right.

I would just make it and then give it away to whoever wants it.

So much more baller to just help people to be helpful.

Also, more than any course fee, or even franchise fee, I would rather collect data of our model working in other markets.

A ride along for me would be extraordinarily boring except for the spring when I ride around in my 77 280z and give quotes.



If anyone wants help with anything just message me I’ll exchange numbers with you and tell you every detail about what we do and answer questions. We’re out here just trying to solve problems for people, that’s all.

 

[Two Dog]

These ideas are coming to be because I’ve been calling all the local law care companies and landscapers to get a complete lawn rehab done, but they either

1. Won’t answer, or
2. Won’t return my voicemails, or
3. Returned my voicemail, said they could do it, and then ghosted me

None of these seem to issues for JB's business. Everyone gets a quote with the current system.

Similar to optimizing the bidding process with online mapping. You're solving problems that either don't exist or don't matter at this time. I realize it sounds like it would help - and it would - but not nearly as helpful as focusing solely on generating more inbound leads to pour into the existing sales machine. It's just too early in the business cycle to care much about efficiencies.

Any business under $5M in annual revenues that's profitable should focus solely on increasing revenue, not increasing margins. The math is simple. The story left off with $300K in sales and 50% net operating profits. Doubling sales to $600K means $300K in net profits. $1M means $500K in net profits. It doesn't matter whether those numbers are 10-15% lower due to crappy workflows since you're still *WAY* ahead of implementing tweaks on the $300K business.

Relentless focus on growth (revenue, leads, likes, customer acquisition, whatever the metric) is one bit of wisdom that tech funded startups get right. I have an engineering personality. I love optimizing workflows. It makes me feel good. My business has sold route optimization software for years that generates huge savings, but it's really only worthwhile for companies above a certain scale.