> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theopportunitydesk.blog/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Brett Malinowski, Starting A $1.4M Home Service in 5 Weeks - URL: https://www.theopportunitydesk.blog/brett-malinowski-starting-a-1-4m-home-service-in-5-weeks/ - Published: 2026-09-10T02:22:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-10T02:22:37.000Z - Description: Brett Malinowski says he and his partner built a pool cleaning business to $1.4M in revenue and sold it for $900K across six buyers in 19 months. He never says how much of that sale price was cash versus financed, or whether his $400K profit figure includes what they paid themselves. - Author: The Opportunity Desk - Tags: category: local-service-business, channel: Brett Malinowski Source: "Starting A $1.4M Home Service in 5 Weeks" — Brett Malinowski, published September 2023\. [Watch on YouTube →](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMp3J5DPzy8&ref=theopportunitydesk.blog) --- **THE OPPORTUNITY** Brett Malinowski and his partner Reese run home service companies - pool cleaning, pest control, mobile detailing. They say they built a pool business to $1.4 million in top-line revenue over 19 months, sold it for around $900,000 to six different buyers, and netted roughly $400,000 in profit along the way. Now they are acquiring a pest control company for $100,000 and plan to replicate the model across multiple service categories. --- **HOW IT'S EXECUTED** 1. Learn the service skill from YouTube or ride-alongs - Reese cleaned pools himself for five weeks before hiring his first technician. 2. Run ads on Google (primary channel), Facebook, Next Door, and Yelp targeting homeowners who need recurring service. 3. Drive leads to a short landing page, then into Go High Level automation that texts prospects, qualifies by zip code, and books a call. 4. Close customers over the phone on autopay monthly subscriptions using e-signature via text and immediate credit card capture. 5. Hire technicians with no experience (younger workers, $8-14 per stop), train them for two to three weeks, assign them routes managed through Skimmer software. 6. Bundle accounts into sellable route packages and exit at 8-12x monthly top-line revenue (pool-specific multiple) or 7-14x EBITDA (pest control multiple). --- **WHAT'S CREDIBLE** The mechanics check out. Pool and pest control subscription models do trade at the multiples Brett describes. Pool routes often sell through specialized brokers on monthly revenue multiples, and pest control companies attract private equity at EBITDA multiples when the business hits scale. The CAC and margin numbers he gives for pools (around $100 to acquire a customer, 20-35% margin after all costs) match what brokers and operators in the space report. The software stack (Go High Level, Skimmer, Unbounce) is standard for local service lead generation and route management. His pivot from social media marketing agency (SMMA) retainers to owning the fulfillment solves a real problem: agency churn is brutal when clients can replace you for $900 a month, but owning the business means you capture the lifetime value of every customer you acquire. --- **WHAT'S OMITTED OR OVERSTATED** Brett never states what he and Reese each contributed in capital to start the pool business. He mentions $25,000 was involved early on but does not break down who put in what or whether that covered only trucks and equipment or also initial ad spend and payroll float. Without that number, a viewer cannot know whether this model requires one founder with savings or two partners splitting costs. He says they sold the pool business for "around $900,000" but does not specify the payment structure. If most of that was financed by the buyers or paid out over time, the actual cash collected at close could be materially lower. The difference between a $900,000 wire transfer and $900,000 in installment notes changes the liquidity and risk profile of the exit. The $400,000 profit figure he gives for the 19-month run is described as net but is not reconciled with the top-line revenue he reports. He says the first ten months did roughly $550,000 in revenue and the business hit $100,000 per month in January 2023, implying another $900,000 or so over the next nine months before the sale. That adds to around $1.4 million total. A 30% margin on $1.4 million would be $420,000, which is close to his $400,000 claim. But 30% is the high end of the margin range he gives (20-35%), and he also describes months of heavy ad spend to scale. If margins were closer to 20% during the growth phase, the actual profit would be under $300,000\. He does not walk through the math or clarify whether the $400,000 includes or excludes owner salaries, which matters when evaluating what a buyer should expect. He describes selling the business in route bundles to six different people but does not explain how those buyers financed the purchases or what due diligence he provided. He mentions one buyer put down $150,000 and others bought smaller bundles, but he does not say whether those were all-cash deals or whether he carried seller financing on any of them. If he did, the $900,000 figure could include receivables he has not yet collected, which changes the valuation story. Brett says technicians can handle 60-80 pools per week and that routes of 100-110 pools exist, with some technicians doing 20-25 pools per day in winter. He does not address how service quality holds up at that pace or what the customer complaint rate looks like at the upper end of those ranges. He mentions getting "five to seven complaints or questions" per day in the pool business but does not say how many customers that was out of or whether complaints spiked when routes got denser. He claims CAC for pool customers is $80-120 and for pest control is $300-400, but he does not specify the time period over which he averaged those numbers or whether they include only media spend or also software, landing page design, and admin labor. If CAC includes only the Google Ads click cost, the real fully loaded CAC could be 50% higher. Brett says the pest control company he is buying has 245 accounts and does $150,000 per year in revenue, implying an average of around $50-60 per account per month. That lines up with his earlier claim that pest control runs $39-50 per month per customer. But he does not say whether that revenue figure is trailing twelve months, an annualized projection, or last year's total. If the business is seasonal or had a strong Q4 that is not repeating, the run rate could be lower than $150,000. He describes seller financing a "small portion" of the $100,000 pest control purchase over 24 months but does not give the split. If $20,000 is financed, that is different from $50,000\. The amount financed changes how much capital the buyer actually needs and how much risk the seller is taking that the business continues to perform. Brett says he learned the Go High Level automation system in 20-30 hours of YouTube and describes it as accessible to someone with no prior experience. That timeline assumes the viewer already understands funnel logic, lead nurturing sequences, and webhook integrations. Someone starting from zero would likely need longer, and the 20-30-hour estimate does not include the time to debug when something breaks or to write the actual messaging scripts. He mentions commercial auto insurance was a major cost (up to $4,000 per month at scale) but does not explain what drove that number. If it was high because of driver age, accident history, or vehicle value, a viewer replicating the model could face very different insurance costs depending on who they hire and what they buy. Brett confirms pest control technicians need to be licensed and pass a test, but he does not clarify whether the current owner or existing staff at the company he's acquiring currently hold that license, or how quickly Reese or a new hire could get certified during the transition. That handoff gap - not whether licensing exists at all - is the real operational dependency worth checking before closing. He describes the pool route broker market as charging a 2x multiple commission (meaning if a route sells for 12x monthly revenue, the broker takes 2x, leaving the seller with 10x). That is an enormous fee — 16-20% of the sale price depending on the math. He bypassed brokers by running his own ads to sell directly, but he does not say what that cost in time or ad spend or whether the six buyers he found would have materialized without his prior experience. Brett claims the pool business got to 600 accounts and 12 technicians in 16 months. That is an average of 37-38 new accounts per month, which implies very high ad spend or very high close rates or both. He does not give total ad spend over the life of the business or explain whether customer churn required replacing a significant percentage of those 600 accounts multiple times. He says the pest control company he is buying gets "like one call a day" from customers compared to "five to seven" for pools, implying pest control is lower-touch. But he does not say whether that call volume is per 100 accounts, per truck, or total for the business. If it is total for 245 accounts, that is one call per 245 accounts per day, which is very low. If it is one call per truck per day, it is less impressive. Brett describes margin on pest control as similar to pools (around 30%) but also says chemical costs are only 25 cents per stop compared to $6-7 per stop for pools. If the cost structure is that much lighter, margin should be higher than 30% unless labor or insurance or other costs are eating the difference. He does not reconcile those two claims. He mentions upselling pool customers on algaecide treatments for $90 each and getting a 72% acceptance rate on an email blast to 500 customers. That is $45,000 in revenue from one email. He does not explain whether that was a one-time campaign or repeatable, or whether the 72% rate was because the offer was genuinely valuable or because customers were afraid to say no to something framed as necessary maintenance. Brett says he and Reese made "a lot of money in mortgage" before starting the pool business, which implies they had capital and sales skills coming in. That prior success is a material advantage - they could float payroll, absorb slow months, and close customers over the phone because they had years of high-ticket sales training. A viewer without that background would face a steeper learning curve and more financial risk. He describes this as an "evolution of SMMA" and frames it as accessible to someone currently running a small agency, but he does not address the operational complexity of managing a dozen employees, handling customer complaints, dealing with vehicle accidents, navigating worker's comp claims, and absorbing the liability of being in customers' homes. Those are all things an agency owner does not deal with, and they materially change the risk and stress profile of the business. --- **BOTTOM LINE** This works if you can acquire customers cheaply, manage routes tightly, and avoid the operational traps that kill most service businesses - high churn, employee turnover, vehicle accidents, and insurance claims. Brett and Reese had sales experience, capital to float early losses, and a clear division of labor (one runs ads, one runs operations). If you lack any of those three, expect this to take longer and cost more. The model is sound, but the path from zero to a sellable $1 million business in under two years requires both founders executing at a high level simultaneously -most SMMA operators do not have a Reese, and most service operators do not have a Brett. The pest control acquisition is a cleaner entry point than starting from scratch, but only if the $150,000 revenue figure is a true trailing-twelve-month run rate and not an annualized projection from a strong quarter. --- **OPPORTUNITY DESK RATING** **Feasibility: 4/5** The subscription home service model is proven — pool and pest control routes trade at the multiples Brett describes, the software stack he names is standard in the industry, and the CAC and margin numbers align with what brokers report. The biggest execution risk is operational - managing a dozen employees, maintaining service quality at scale, and absorbing vehicle and liability costs are all harder than running an agency, but they are solvable problems if you have a partner who can handle fulfillment. **Transparency: 3/5** Brett walks through the mechanics in detail and names real costs (CAC, margin, insurance), but he omits key financial context. He does not specify what he and Reese each put in to start, whether the $900,000 sale figure was cash at close or financed, or how the $400,000 profit number was calculated. He also does not address how the pest control company's revenue was measured (trailing twelve months or projection) or what portion of the $100,000 purchase price is seller-financed. The model is credible, but the gaps make it hard to know whether someone else could replicate the timeline and returns he describes. ---