here we are, no BS wealth podcast with another amazing business owner with some technology around paint, paint is interesting for everything. And today with Nick on the call, it's going to blow your mind with what he does and how it operates. And yes, there is a robot involved and I'm excited to chop it up with him about that. Ask him a couple of questions about AI and get through his past. So Nick why don't you tell us a little about yourself?

Nick Hegeman:
0:26

Yeah. So, Nick Hagman, CEO and co founder of Paintjet, where we use robots to paint big buildings, ships, warehouses, those type of things. So basically, all the things that you never think about, that's what we paint, and we use technology to do that.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
0:45

See, like, how do you get started in paint? Like, how does that even begin? Because for me, one… Painting this room or any rooms, like it is what it is. But how do you start in paint and get to where you're at?

Nick Hegeman:
0:56

So for me, so that's, very similar story to basically everyone in paint, like no one set out with the ambition. Hey, I want to be a painter. It's Hey, I had the summer job. I made some money and ended up being the best option for me in 30 years later. I'm still paying. How I ended up getting in painting is. I have been so, so basically going back to college, I was like, Hey, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be a hardware tech entrepreneur and CEO. So first job out of college knew I needed sales skills, started working with ExxonMobil in a technical sales role. And then around five years after that was finally ready to take a jump into owning my own business. And so we looked at a bunch of different options, whether it was starting a business from scratch looking at buying a currently operating business. And what we ended up doing was. Starting a franchise, there's a sort of pro painters franchise that was available that the turf hadn't been touched in 5 years. So it just happened to be like, right in our neighborhood. And it really ended up being kind of the best of a bunch of bad options. And so, jumped into that, and it was like, from minute one, the labor shortage hits you in the face. Right? Every single we went out into the field, and we're selling all of these jobs, and at that time, we're selling to residential homeowners. And it's oh man, we're killing it. We've got contract after contract. And they're like, okay, let's get the schedule. And they're like, shit, we don't have any people. And so that was really my kind of introduction into painting. And then as the business grew, and we developed some internal processes, we started getting into the commercial side. And the commercial side, so for us, it was like warehouses. It really started ramping up. And the labor shortage kind of got up to a point where it was a big commercial contractor or a big commercial contract and I had to fire the crew in the middle of the job because like sometimes they do stupid stuff and that's what you have to do. So that would be myself and my wife up in this lift painting. This warehouse to meet customer deadline. Wow. And that was like, that was the moment where it like, I'm an engineer. There's gotta be a technical solution for this. And if there's not, I'm getting divorced if I ever did this again, and I don't want to get divorced. That was

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
3:40

exactly what I was going to say. How did that work in the marriage of making the wife

Nick Hegeman:
3:44

pay? Well, also first time, small business owner, like you're going to take your marriage to the brink anyways. And this was just like another thing, a

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
3:54

very small thing, right? Babe,

Nick Hegeman:
3:56

I'm in the list. Although this is also if this happened again, like I was going to be a single dad at that point. Yep. Yep. It was happened. I

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
4:06

could feel it. Don't worry.

Nick Hegeman:
4:08

So basically started and that's really where pain jet came from. So basically, reached out to my alma mater because they were there. They'll always call alumni like asking for checks. I'm like, well, I'm a small business owner I have no money, but I can I've got these things that I'm working on So I'll I can sponsor and the engineering design courses. So Sponsored an engineering design course and we ended up coming up kind of the first iteration of the technology and it was plausible Something costs like five thousand dollars not five hundred thousand dollars And then we took that iteration of the technology I've met my co founder. He was working for sort of pro on the corporate side, and we continued honing on that technology for. Probably 2 years, and then eventually got to cove it. And I had to furlough the entire company, and we're just kind of sitting around and we had taken the technology to as far as it possibly could go. Without any additional capital and so it's like, all right, well, let's see if this thing has legs or not because we're not doing anything else. And so my co founder and I jumped in a GMC Acadia, which is not really designed to tell anything and decide to tow this trailer across the country. And just showing it off to different painting contractors and painting company owners and being those things were like, the technology didn't work. There were issues at every stop, but every time we got into an office, we walked out with a deposit check and people were giving us money, just hoping that we could potentially solve. And that was really, that was when we knew, hey, there's something real here. And that's when we made the decision to kind of go all in.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
5:56

So talk us through let's back up a little bit. So you're kind of in furlough. Now you're traveling around the country in an Acadia, which I would love to see the picture of that. That would be just hilarious. Oh,

Nick Hegeman:
6:07

it was a giant wrapped Acadia too. Like my CertiPro Painters wrapped vehicle. this trailer around.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
6:14

I love it. Where were you mentally at that point when you guys are traveling around the country, just trying to sell and get deposits so you can fix the issues. Where were you mentally at that point? Oh,

Nick Hegeman:
6:28

but I think at that point, you're just living off of adrenaline, and it was, I remember the very, our 2nd stop, it was a wreck, and then it's you go through the wreck, and the meeting's actually not that bad, and you're like, okay, we survived, and then it's, you try to fix it, and you get it on to the next stop, and then our next stop we actually it was, it kind of worked and we walked out with a check and there's holy shit this is real. And then the fact that it was real, really kind of energized us for the next 3 weeks and for us, it was, I mean, for me personally, it was like. If this didn't work, there's really no place else to go and it was at that point. It was like, okay, the robotics company is probably going to die, or it may not die, but it won't be like what I wanted it to be and we just focused on the franchise. So it was more of a Hey, we're kind of at two paths and this is going to give us, it'll give us an answer one way or another. And I think that was the big thing. Once you have an answer, you can go problem solve, whichever path you go

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
7:52

down. I think it's really important for everyone to understand is you got to a crossroads, literally a crossroads, but At that point, I think a lot of people stop from taking that shot, right? Because they're comfortable and they don't want to ruin anything or go down a different path. And when you get to the point where you were at, not necessarily do or die, but more of a sense of do or die of this path. If it fails, cool. We're going to go do this. I believe as business owners, we all come to that junction at some point. And we have to realize that in order to. Whatever it is, you're going to become, but if you don't ever take that shot, you live in the, what if you live in maybe regret or whatever, and you never really come to that fruition applaud you for being able to take that and take a rap to Katie around the country selling something that is not working.

Nick Hegeman:
8:41

Yeah, no, I mean, but it was really, it's like at the end of the day, it's. What do you want as a business owner? And for me personally, what I had been working toward was a global robotics company. And I also came from ExxonMobil and which I had the sales territory they had. I had that set up actually pretty well where it's Monday and Friday are office days to see a customer or two. What's it? There's a Friday. There's a large multi million dollar pension waiting for you. When you're 60 years old, like that kind of lifestyle business, I kind of already had that and yes, I could continue and improve that lifestyle business with the. With the franchise, but that's not really what I wanted to do with my life. And so everything that I was doing was about, hey, what do I really want to do? And then if I want to do this, here's what that requires. And so it wasn't really much of a decision. It was the path that I'm going down with the small businesses one way. I've already kind of turned that down. If what I really want to do is this, and it requires me to do A, B, and C, so it already looks like I'm doing A, B, and C.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
10:08

Yeah, that's legit. That's where you want to get to. Ultimately not everyone wants to go from a lifestyle, small business to, a multinational company, right? I mean, that's okay.

Nick Hegeman:
10:18

Yeah. And that's, I think, I've been real fortunate in been a part of some really good entrepreneur forums. And I think so much of the time is not only what do you want to do with a business, but being a hundred percent comfortable with whatever that decision is. I know we spent like 6, 8 months talking about the end of the day. One of my colleagues, she just wanted to have a nice little side thing to keep her busy and occupied and that's what she needed and it took her six to eight months just to be comfortable saying this is what I want.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
10:52

And that's okay, right? I mean,

Nick Hegeman:
10:53

ultimately that was what she needed for her life and all the things outside of work that she wanted to do. She couldn't do those if she wanted to do. Go create an empire. And the things that come along with with building a company like that, like a lot of that stuff's not super fun anyways, right?

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
11:16

Like labor shortage,

Nick Hegeman:
11:17

for example,

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
11:18

Dealing with employees and all of that headaches. Yeah, exactly. Understand that. So, all right we're on this journey now. You're getting it to the phase of getting deposits and the next phase of the business is now being able to improve on that. So. What happens after that? What's what happened next? So

Nick Hegeman:
11:35

after that we came to another kind of head with the business. So we tried to raise money and it was also before we even started, we're like, okay, here's the deal. We're, we've got this robot. It's going to give us a cost of goods advantage. We can go take market share. And we can go create this massive company. And then we did kind of like a first round of pitching and got absolutely blasted by the investor community on that. They're like, no, you got to sell the widget or you got to license it or something like that. And then we had this moment where we're selling deposits, but even then it's I get this kind of back in my, they kind of just feel bad for us. These guys have money. Here's a little bit. Right. They're nice guys. Let's give them a shot. And then you look out that we're also on that path. We would pretty much handpick like the ideal target as well. And while they're, hundreds, if not thousands more, they'll be like, there's not millions more of those type of customers. And so with what we wanted to do, it's if we go this route, it's actually pretty limited. And so we went back and forth, and then we tried raising money, even with, we had all these deposit checks, and it's we were still striking out. And then at that point, it was like, all right, well, no one's giving us any money anyway, so we might as well at least do what's best for the business. And then we got some clarity around that. And then we also joined Founders Institute because they were doing a remote they were doing a remote session out of Silicon Valley and we joined that. And that was kind of like an entry to like, real professional investors, not just angels. And at that time we had just been talking really with angels and we joined that. And we're really fortunate with the two guys that were leading that basically gave us permission. They need personal permissions, but no, go for a publicly traded company. Because everything that I had been, it's hey, it's extremely unlikely you ever be a publicly traded company. And it's that's just a different path. And no one really wants to hear that because it's so unlikely. But then talking to him no, this is a publicly traded company. That's what it should be. Here's where the revenues go. And if people don't understand it, that's their problem, not yours. And that kind of change in mindset, the permission to change the mindset and really go for it, I think was probably one of the most influential times of owning the company.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
14:21

Oh, yeah. And probably the biggest investment you ever received right there was that. Oh, yeah.

Nick Hegeman:
14:26

Yeah. I mean, it's no, there's publicly traded companies. People start them. Like why there's no reason why you can't be part of that as well And the other thing is like no matter what this is all really hard and really unlikely Yeah So if you just do a little 10 percent more Like your life's still gonna be shit. Like when you're going through the process like it's gonna be shit What's like shit plus two still shit. Yeah, you're still so it's if you're gonna go through this like at least go for it, right and They it's because i'd also been in the midwest and in the southeast Little bit different mindset regionally than out in Silicon Valley and they're like, Hey, here's all these people. This is all they do. This is a real thing. Just go find the people that this is what they want. And here they are. And so when we had that, then we switch back to now we have to change our messaging, but essentially, then it's back to what we initially thought was going to happen with the business, which was. Use of technology, take market share, increase margins and just become a massive company. And at that point, we started getting a lot more interest with investors and things started picking up. And then at the end of that program, we also we found our third co founder. Really fortunate, really smart woman, PhD in robotics outta nyu. Ended up working really well. So it was had that early team and we still had those early contracts too. So early team, early contracts. And then tried to fundraise for about six months after that. Took us six months to finally get that first check. And then when we got the first seed check things just started picking up after that because it's someone took that initial chance and then all the people you're talking to are now willing to give you that next check. And then we, so our seed round, we raised a 1M dollars. And that's, it's not a lot of or precede round was a 1M dollars. And that was enough to get things started from the technology and just take the next step between after getting it out of our garage. Essentially.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
16:46

Yeah. And that's the, obviously it's the most important step because it's the only way to get to the next seed run. However, that being said is in the investor world, that's what happens. One person needs to take a chance ultimately, obviously you have to have proof of concept and revenue and all of that stuff for the other investors, but in that world, it takes one one to get on board, you to be successful, and then now you get to where you're at. So talk to us about how long of a time frame from traveling in Acadia. To today and where do you sit in terms of where your goals are? Now

Nick Hegeman:
17:21

so in So from traveling to decade it was so it was june ish. Yeah, june july because I remember we were in la 2020 4th of july And so what is it now coming up on around 3 years? Right? Yeah. Yeah. 3 years. And I think the biggest changes, whereas we 1st, we were very edgy in our language about what the business was going to be become or what we wanted the business to be. Because there is a. Like, you can't say IPO to appreciate precede investor you just can't say it. And so it's we had to, we couldn't explicitly say what we wanted to do with the business. You also can't say that you're a technology enabled service provider because you're a service business, right? So you can't really say that. And so we, it was really honing in on messaging. While not saying any kind of the nasty four letter words that you can't say with our specific. Investor said and it was just really focusing about, but 1 of the things that we were explicit about is that we're developing the commercial side of the business in parallel with the technology side. And that's also been a key differentiator with us and our competitors in the market. Is always being ahead that the commercial side will always be ahead of the. technology development, because at the end of the day, you have all these dead bodies of robotics companies. And the only way you can prevent that from happening is if you have the commercial revenue to keep the company afloat. And like from a risk mitigation standpoint, if you've got the revenue, you can always say, all right we're stopping technical development, shut down that side of the business, but we can cashflow the rest of it and can look to find another day. And so with that, we have always been able to, And the other thing, too, that was different about, because we are in the construction industry versus a lot of software companies is that our initial check sizes. Our initial contracts are 10 to 100 times bigger than your average software company. Like our first contract is 150k. And so it doesn't take too many of those and all of a sudden you're looking at 500, a million, 3 million in contracts and you're just a pre seed company. And then when you start coming to the table with A metric like that. People will at least talk to you. And so really, it's a bit about doing that and then about building the team. And I'd say that's probably the biggest shift is the composition of the team in terms of who we're bringing on board. So, early stage, it's basically, you don't have a lot of funds. You've got this thing that like you're like you hey, I believe it all like it's gonna but in the back of your mind You're like, you know the statistics Yeah, right. You know the statistics. Yeah, you're like we're special we're different, but you know the statistics And so it's like you've got everything on the line Everyone who work who's working with you is basically volunteering or taking like a 50% pay cut and not everyone wants to do that. And so you're basically taking the best person you can possibly take will work for you at a fraction of what the market will do. And that's really tough. And so you're probably taking someone a chance on someone who hasn't necessarily delivered, at an executive level, a high functioning company, because they're not probably not taking a chance on you. But as we develop our traction, as we got additional rounds of financing, as we had this track history, we started bringing on more and more people who had already been there, done that and delivered and I'd say that's the biggest change for us. It's. recently just hired a VP of ops and this all took place during the the SVB crash. Oh, fun. And yeah, so it was like, I'm talking with customers and in ops until 6 PM that night. And then I was on a Thursday night, I think the Thursday night. So you had Twitter was kind of going crazy a little bit Tuesday, a lot Wednesday, like Thursday, If you didn't have your money out by, I think it was like 10 a. m. You weren't getting your money out. And then I get calls from investors around five or six Hey, where are you at? I'm like, what are you talking about? And it's well, I didn't get the money out. So if it opens up tomorrow, great. If not, like we've got 250 K and we're done. Yeah, like nothing we can do about it this time and that was really kind of the moment in my personal growth where it was like, no, the people running the leadership in the organization, it's, you need to be able to give them the keys to it and they run it so that you can be focused or so that not your focus that you have some time to take a breath every single day. So you can kind of be on top is there's this existential threat. That could shut their business down in 24 hours. And since we made that change, it was basically, I was talking in the final interview with our VP of ops, it was like, I need to be able to give you the keys to ops and just tell you don't call me, don't call me. You figure it out. I'll support you any way you can, but do not call me cause I've got to make sure the company survives and it's when we started adding those type of people, everything just is really started to shift in terms of directions that we're going with the company and how we scale. It's like when we adopted our son, I was in the NICU for 3 weeks, not super contributing to the business. I still have my laptop and was in calls and those type of stuff, but not super engaged in the business. And we had our best month across the board and it's like, when you start getting the right people and people who can really take ownership of an entire sector of your business, then you really start making progress. And I say that's the biggest shift from three years ago to where we are right now.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
24:16

That's fantastic. And when you get to that level, not only is your own personal, emotional and mental awareness and mindset better, it really just allows your. The ownership from your employees, right? That is huge. That's how companies survive. That's how the military survives. Is the only way to really be successful is if the people below you own it. Almost as much as you do and hopefully take it over to where you don't really know it, like you can help them, but they're gonna have to teach you it because you've been out of it focusing on the greater picture. Yeah,

Nick Hegeman:
24:49

and I think that was, I got another piece of advice. Really fortunate with a coach and mentor and it's as a small business owner. It's all on you and he goes Your job is to let people take over the burden of the company from you And when you let people to start doing that all these things Start getting better and he's like CEO is to make it the most boring job as possible because you have everyone else As ownership of this specific segment is like, for the most part, day to day, it's going to be, you're not going to be involved because you've got the right people running it every 6, 12, 18 months, you're going to do a dog and pony show. You're going to raise some money outside of that. It's about hiring the right people and letting them and giving them the tools to work and really letting them take that burden. And when I accept, okay, it's okay to give them that burden. If you hire the right people, they want that period because that's just a much more interesting job for them.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
25:54

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely love that. So talk to me about this robot and what it like, what it looks like, how it operates because in my mind I've got that picture behind you and I just see him with a giant paintbrush and roller. Right now. That's what I envision. So talk to us through that.

Nick Hegeman:
26:15

Yeah. So, we use the term and we actually, when we first started the business, we explicitly did not use the term robot. With customers that exact scenario, just put that in a construction framework and everyone just gets freaked out. But so what it is, it's about a 3 by 6 attachment that just clips onto a man lift. So you've seen like a man lift with the basket. And it and it's that's how all these jobs are painted anyways, is you'll get 2 guys up in the basket and they'll go up with a brush roller or a sprayer. And so instead of that, you've got 1 guy down at the base, 1 guy filling up the paint at the end, and then using a remote control. To place the end of the basket, wherever we're going to paint, and then the robot paints in basically 50 square foot boxes. And so it ends up being basically a paint by numbers is how we paint the buildings. It works really well in warehouses, really good on tilt wall construction, which are all these giant. like millions of square foot facilities. You see popping up all over the place. And that's really where we focus on is focused on. We're not, we're where the technology is used 90% of the time, but those little odds and ends, we paint that the way we have the past 50 years.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
27:35

Yeah. I was gonna say, I don't think, I don't think you can get in the nooks and crannies yet. Well, I mean, at least yet with where technology would be. But the massive walls inability to just get mass done, I mean, how long does it take an average person or team to do a warehouse compared to what now happens with you guys robot?

Nick Hegeman:
27:56

So when you look at a person output. You can get an experienced guy. He'll be doing around 1000 to 1500 square feet per hour. Your average painter is going to be doing 300 to 500 square feet per hour. With our system, with an operator 2, we can do 7, 000 square feet per hour.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
28:17

Oh, it's slightly different. Just,

Nick Hegeman:
28:18

yeah. So it's instead of a crew of, 6 to 8, you're looking at a crew of 2 to 3. Do you have less traveling costs? You have less lodging costs, the duration of your project. Goes from three months to six weeks. You also, because it's designed to apply it perfectly within OEM spec and the optimal condition, you have less waste. So you use 25% less pain. And so also on top of that, because you have smaller crews. That are much more manageable. You also their supervision is reduced. So, a project manager, instead of being able to oversee, 3 or 4 projects at any given time, now they're able to oversee 10 to 15 projects at any given time. And then same thing too, because you're doing the same thing over and over. Your salespeople, instead of them being able to put out, 5, 10 million, now they can put out 50 million worth of bids. And then also too, because you're buying, instead of buying like 5 gallons here, 10 gallons here, because you're buying in 1, 000 gallon batches of one or two products, all of a sudden your purchasing power increases. And so you have all of these different areas that because you're addressing the single biggest problem in the industry that you end up getting the benefit from and what we're finding out is that is not, those are not things you can typically charge for if you're selling the widget, but because we own the entire process, we get to extract value at every single

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
30:01

stage. Yeah. And that was my next, where I was going with revenue side of things. It's you're bringing, I don't know if you could actually quantifiably put that value out there. Like I, like you probably have, being an engineer and running the numbers obviously, but like the average person and the average job is no way they're going to be able to extrapolate the fact of how much savings is involved. Right. So how did you come through and simply put the value to that job in comparison to going from robot to, a crew of 6

Nick Hegeman:
30:32

to do a job, right? So, okay, so if you look at in industry at the size of jobs that we're doing, you're looking industries average is going to be anywhere between 20 and. 30% gross margins and then your EBITDA is going to be with all of your overhead and you're looking around 10%, really well operating company with what we're doing. We're already above 30%. There's a clear path to over 65% and then when you look at our, there's, you're looking at maturity anywhere between 30 to 40% and so you start looking because we're using the technology and there's true value with what we're doing. You start end up being able to throw off construction revenues. Well, seeing technology and software tight business performance.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
31:33

Yeah. That, and that's, that model is really what everyone should achieve for. It's just tough because. Most of them don't have that commercial side. They don't have that everyday nugget paying their bills while the technology keeps up. And then, and we all know what tech does when tech explodes, it explodes, but you're able to hone in and have all of that. That is tremendous and something that. From an empire perspective or your children's perspective, that's a legacy that literally does not have to go anywhere. Unless one day you're like, you know what? I just want to sell this for billions and I'm out. But being young and fighting I think you still have a long fight in that,

Nick Hegeman:
32:11

Like that's, and that's the thing. It's funny on Twitter. There's a lot of Hey, it's what you really want to do is lifestyle business and it's retiring. It's if you actually look at the numbers, like retirement is. One of the things that decreases life expectancy the most and really it's about being able to do interesting things and Working on the things that you want to work on and I would say the other Biggest change from the mindset that I got is with my first business I had to work a lot because I had to work a lot There are things that just had to get done that only I could do and it was Like it was really make or break if I didn't do that the company was at risk And with the second one, while there's still definitely pieces of that, it's I work a lot because I get to work a lot. And when you start thinking about that things, all of a sudden you look over the next 5, 10 years and it's oh, no, we can definitely go here. Okay, here's the next step here. Okay, here's the next step here. Okay now. We're we've owned the market vertically. Okay, well, you look at, I mean, we already see this. It's customers Alaska. Okay, you do pain. Well, what about concrete patching? What about caulking? What about drywall installation? Can you do insides? And it's oh, okay, so can you do floors? Okay, if you do floors, can you do ceilings? And it's well, if you're working with the concrete patching, what about the main piece of the concrete and because our business model gives us so much flexibility regarding the cash that it spits off, it puts us in a unique position to bring in technology at really every stage of the construction process. And so when you start looking at it like that, it's okay, when this gets to where we want on the painting side. Then we can just create a new company on the inside of Paintjet. Now we're adjacent to paint or now it's another trade and there's 34 trades out there and you're just looking at it and you're like, this is going to be here for, I could easily be doing this for the next 50 years. And there'd still be so much I'd want to do with it.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
34:17

Do you ever think there's an end to the paint side? Like truthfully with technology obviously grows fast, but what would be the end if there is one?

Nick Hegeman:
34:25

So I don't think there's a lot of interesting things that we're doing. So we're in, so we're in inland right now. Getting ready to go into the marine side. Then you have heavy industry tanks and storage, those type of things. We're in the process of making our own paint, which gives us a unique advantage on the warranty side that the industry just doesn't touch. Also, because we're just doing entire batch sizes of paint, we have the opportunity to bring in new products. Like completely new types of coatings, whether it's self healing paints or start really getting out their energy collection and energy storage. You have pollutant capture, you have all these kind of different. New technologies that are being worked on can't ever quite get to market just because the initial batch sizes are so small and also from a business outcome standpoint. At the end of day, it's we're just going to get bought by PPG or Sherwin Williams. And so you have limited options, whereas we have significantly more. Outcomes on where we can deploy that. And because we're the applicator, we can just choose to use that paint. Right? We

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
35:41

can just say we're doing it.

Nick Hegeman:
35:43

Yeah, it's this is the paint that we're using where the experts we stand behind in a way that no 1 else does. Are you good with that? Here's all the data that shows that this is a better product in X, Y, Z areas. Are you good with that? Mr. Mr asset owner

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
35:57

is going to go. If it Fs up, are you coming to fix it? You're going to say yes, they're going to go cool. All right. Sign it like, and then you get the data behind it on top of that. Now you'll be able to track all that. That's fantastic. So that's what I mean. Like the end, there is no end for paint, right? It is just what's the next new frontier for it and what happens at what stage. And then you have to hit all of the other construction lines, which would be. Just amazing to see specifically,

Nick Hegeman:
36:22

and also the thing about paint, it's really interesting is there's over a dozen multi billion dollar publicly traded companies in paint that no one's heard of. And it's typically in tech, there's one or two big guys. This is there's a lot of players in this and there's a lot of success to be had in ping and no one's offering the type of impact to the value chain that we are. So, when you look that from just what we're currently doing right now, it's very exciting in and of itself. Yeah.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
36:53

And then the future of it is even for me, even more exciting, right? What you're doing is bad ass, let alone the applications that could come or will come is just simply phenomenal. So, Hey I appreciate all of that, but now I have a couple of questions. All right. This questions we ask every guest one, what was your first money memory of your entire

Nick Hegeman:
37:17

life? So first money memory, so it was in 4th grade and it wasn't necessarily money. It was about my 1st business memory was in 4th grade. We had a mini economy and it's every week we all had these we all had jobs within the class. And every week we would have these little random events. And then we, so we all had these little stores. And my best friend and I, we actually created an insurance company because to like to, because people would have all this money to save up for candy. And then This hurricane would come and wipe out their savings. So we had this insurance company and we priced it in a way and we were the first one in the class doing insurance company work pretty well. Then we had competitors come in, we had a competitor and one of our other classmates created a competing one and we realized they made an error in their pricing metric. Where it's basically they covered everything and didn't charge anything for the policy. And so instead of trying to fight them and convince everyone to come to us, we told everyone to go to them and they actually ended up going bankrupt because because they couldn't pay for the liabilities. Within these random events. Yeah. So my memory is in fourth grade, basically bankrupting a competitor because I knew their pricing model was wrong.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
38:53

That is above and beyond the most complex detailed in devious money memory I have ever heard in my life. And I love every part of that. That is glorious. So you bankrupt somebody. No big deal in fourth grade. You are a CEO at heart. Look at that. You were a CEO of fourth grade. Oh man, that's fantastic. The other being obviously having a newborn, roughly a newborn and a little older daughter, how important is family to you? Not only for you personally, but like when you build a culture in your business.

Nick Hegeman:
39:27

So, it's really important. So it's if the Warren Buffett, you get 2 things and for me, it's like, it's family. I get business. Those 2 things. And so, for me, it's you always have to create the intentional time with your family. And for me it's something very small. It's I am going to read. I'm going to read to my daughter when she goes to sleep. Like that's eight o'clock. She's going to bed. I'm going to be there. Whatever I'm doing, I'm stopping and I'm going there and I'm going to, I'm going to read. So making sure you do those things. And even though I may not be able to, excuse me, even though I may not be able to have a lot of time with the family, that time that I do have super engaged block everything else up. I'm with my family and then. The 1 thing we try to do as a company is always be 1st things 1st and that's taking care of your family, always being supportive and understanding of that. And I think that's also building that into the company where you can do that. You have the systems and structures and personnel in place where there's a family emergency and the business doesn't go to hell. I think is also very. Not only helpful for employees, but also very important to the health of the business, because it's not just family issues. There's going to be someone's, it could get better off or go somewhere else. You could have accident, natural disasters, those type of things and building in some type of resiliency within the organization. Is really healthy for employees, but then also healthy for the structure of the business itself.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
41:05

Absolutely. That's real and deep. And I love every part of it. So we're going to get you back on in a year. What is happening and what are you going to accomplish with paint jet in the next 12 months? We'll

Nick Hegeman:
41:15

say. So next 12 months we'll be raising our series. A we'll be entering the Marine market. This year we'll probably end up between five and six mils. So it should be on trend for 18 next year. And then. We will be in the full manufacturing side of the coatings themselves, right? So we'll be fully integrated and we'll own the entire supply chain from start to finish in the industrial painting markets. Whoo,

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
41:45

cannot wait for that follow up and not wait for that one. That one's going to be fantastic to learn that process and plans because there's a lot of businesses out there that are doing something. Similar in terms of seating and owning their supply chain. With that being said, where can we find you? How can we help you? What can we do for paycheck?

Nick Hegeman:
42:03

Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn. If you and then really I just, I. If I know how hard it is as an entrepreneur, so if you're an entrepreneur, please and are looking for help or advice, or just a venting board, please reach out to me emails, Nick at paint jet dot com and we'd love to help. I know how. Much it has almost cost me and know how hard it can be. So we'll always support entrepreneurs in any way I can.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
42:42

My man. All right. With that being said, we'll make sure to have everything on the episode for everyone to follow and get ahold of Nick, but I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing for the industry and. The world, if you will. And congratulations on the new baby. And I hope that you're getting somewhat some sleep and we will definitely follow up with you over the course of the year.

Nick Hegeman:
43:04

That's a lot. So I had some fun. The proceeding program was sponsored by black mammoth. Any awards, rankings, or recognition by unaffiliated third parties or publications are in no way indicative of the advisor's future performance or any individual client's investment success. No award, ranking, or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of Black Mammoth. Information regarding specific awards, rankings, or recognitions is available on the Black Mammoth website, www. blackmammoth. com. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. Investment strategies such as asset allocation, diversification, or rebalancing do not assure or guarantee better performance and cannot eliminate the risk of investment losses. There are no guarantees that a portfolio employing these or any other strategy will outperform a portfolio that does not engage in such strategies. This broadcast should not be construed by any client or prospective client as a solicitation to affect or attempt to affect transactions and securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice due to various factors including changing market conditions. The information discussed in this broadcast may no longer be reflective of current positions or recommendations. While information presented is believed to be factual and up to date, Black Mammoth do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. The tax and the state planning information discussed is general in nature, and is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Listeners should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding their specific legal or tax situation. Past performance is not indicative of future results.