Including everything from background checks, a company phone, drug tests, exams and a (broken) truck.
How it started
I’ve been GTM consulting for companies selling into traditional industries, and noticed prospects have become less likely to offer their time for ride alongs and research calls.
They get too many requests and vibe coding is drawing their attention to self-build at the moment.
I’m used to being out on site as I used to help out with our family plumbing business back home as a kid, so I decided to go all-in and do the job for real next time I’m researching an industry.
Why pest control?
I was helping a renovation company with GTM. One of their projects was a beautiful home for a guy who sold his pest control company a few years back.
He built the company over 20 years and adopted the vertical SaaS of the day from the very beginning, while competitors didn't. He knew the software had played a big part in the success.
The more he told me, the more I liked the sound of it: recurring revenue, specialization, fragmented, regulated, $30B TAM in the US.
That night, I applied to every pest control company in the area for an entry level technician job.
Getting the job
Three days in, barely anyone had replied, so I started showing up in person instead.
This worked great with three ride-along offers in the first day. I sat two and they both converted to job offers.
I accepted a role at a subsidiary of one of the biggest groups in the country, doing $B’s in revenue through a nationwide portfolio of local brands.
Over the next couple of months I only heard back from half of the companies I reached out to, so even in a tight labor market companies drop the ball on recruitment.
Training and getting licensed
Getting licensed isn't a formality. It involves book study, seminars, a proctored exam, and enough supervised truck time to handle controlled products independently.
Most companies take two to three months to ramp a new tech, paying them through the whole process, which is a real sunk cost if they don't work out.
I built my own training GPT and passed the exam in 13 days, which was a company record (could have been faster, but for scheduling at the exam center)
The training manager knew I'd built the revision app but never showed an interest, which makes sense as it could replace about 1/4 of his role.
Pic: My hard earned license cert:
My field rep pest control license
Getting in the truck (it broke)
Fleet ops took three weeks to source my truck, and it wouldn’t start on the first day (flat battery).
My fuel card took 5+ weeks and didn’t work initially, forcing me to pay out of pocket and use the difficult expenses app to claim back which repaid 2-3 weeks later (not ideal for techs working paycheck to paycheck)
Onboarding involved registering for 10+ apps on the company phone, 80% of which I never used. The core system was built on Salesforce and has been modified so much that ripping it out felt unthinkable, even though it was clunky and techs complained.
The company monitored everything from truck idling, GPS, time per visit, to mobile phone activity. The techs have work arounds for all of it, but everyone pulls their own weight and the group wouldn’t tolerate someone completely slacking.
Undercover boss stories brewing in the tech group chat
While shadowing a senior tech, I got speaking to the client and made a small upsell.
There was no training for techs to do this, but it’s a big opportunity while boots are on the ground on site.
They offered me a sales role shortly after, which I accepted.
The same evening, I built a workflow to hit all the prospects in my territory. I asked my boss for an existing customer list, which took two weeks to get approved and involved viewing each record individually.
Someone mentioned the techs had started calling me “undercover boss” in the group chat, thinking I was a plant from corporate.
Selling $30k ARR of pest control in the first 21 days
I closed a $24k annual contract with a shopping center sourced from my outbound campaign, and picked up a few smaller upsells to existing clients, taking me to $30k ARR, which was the best start they’d had from anyone in a while.
The internal quoting process nearly lost me the $24k deal as it required multiple signatures and yet another account to be created by corporate.
Sales training was just a Zoominfo webinar. I didn’t see the sales team using it much, most would drive around their territory in their company vehicle (free fuel) and visit in-person.
The top sales guys had 10+ years experience and were selling $800k to $1.2m ARR with very low churn (but no one had a figure)
Their business is doing great, but it could be so much better.
Now I’ve seen the pest control industry from the inside, I don’t think building agents or vSaaS is the right route for me, but I do have a playbook on how to grow a tech-enabled version.
Exit interview: “Why don’t you start your own company?”
When I told my manager I was leaving, he said I should start my own company, and give him a call when I do - so I am.
I have the first acquisition lined up (a local operator in a specific niche) which we’ll build the tooling around, then grow geographically as a tech-enabled operator, or turn into a digital franchise.
If you've built, invested in, or rolled up a home services business, I’d love to chat, and please feel free to follow along if you’re interested in this kind of thing.