Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Clayton. Them and their team share their story with us below:
GreenPal was started by myself, Gene Caballero, and Zach Hendrix in the summer of 2013. Since then, GreenPal has become an almost 10-year overnight success, nationwide United States with over 300,000 people using the app to hire lawnmowing services.
GreenPal started in Nashville Tennessee very humbly and under the radar for many years until our team quickly scaled out into every major city in the United States.
GreenPal works kind of like Uber for lawnmowing and is a mobile app and website that enables homeowners to hire lawn care services at the touch of a button while offering a complete platform for lawn care service professionals to run their entire business.
GreenPal is self-funded with over $30 million a year in annual revenue and growing 50% year over year.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Debt can magnify mistakes however when used wisely it can be a powerful fulcrum. When we launched our business two years ago we had no money and no outside capital to get started with.
Like most tech start-ups we went on the fundraising circuit talking to angel investors and venture capitalists begging for money to get started. However, our vision was just too broad in scope and luckily we got turned down and told no over 40 times.
I was fortunate enough to have solid personal credit and this enabled my team to secure an unsecured line of credit for $85,000 to get our business started. We dipped into the entire credit limit through three cash advances we got off of my personal credit card to get us through the first year.
We paid that off in the 2nd year and this year we’re going to surpass $30 million in annual revenue Good thing early investors told us to know because with their capital they would have owned and controlled 30% of our business and because we are self-funded my cofounders and I own it all.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
GreenPal is the nation’s largest network of lawn care services enabling homeowners to hire them at the touch of a button.
GreenPal operates the nationwide United States with over 300,000 homeowners using the platform to order lawnmowing services as simple as ordering an Uber.
What makes you happy?
I’ve been in the landscaping industry for 22 years. I started cutting grass in high school. Over the 15 years, I grew that business to over 100 people and sold that company in 2013.
What has worked for me and my best advice to leaders on building a strong team of loyalists and motivating teammates is to rally everyone around the central “Why.”
Why does our company exist?
When I was running an organization of that size proved was daunting, however, creating something bigger than myself was a fulfilling experience. Our company created prosperity for our people and that’s why we did what we did. Much of our operating core was comprised of Guatemalan immigrants and these were the finest people I have ever known.
Typically, they would come to the United States for several consecutive lawn mowing seasons, saving as much money as they could to improve the lives of their families back home by building homes, ranches, and setting up farms stocked with cattle.
This became our company’s purpose, our “Why.” In weekly meetings, we would get progress reports from our men on how projects “back home” were coming along. In the halls of our office and in the shop we displayed picture collages of all the homes, farms, and businesses that had been established by our people in Guatemala.
Celebrating these victories gave us fuel to get through the tough times, particularly when the economic recession began in 2009.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.yourgreenpal.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/bryanmclayton
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bryanmclayton
Image Credits
GreenPal Greenpal.com
