Venture Step

Welcome to Venture Step podcast where we learn from successful entrepreneurs and c level individuals. Today, on Venture Step, we have an entrepreneur named James Carpenter. His business is wrap removal, which specializes in interior and exterior demolition. We're really excited today to have James on our first episode of Venturestep. Hey, James.

It's it's great to have you on the show on Venturestep first first episode. Really excited. Your business is wrapper removal. You've been in business for 14 years. You've done some notable projects with Lynn University, the Marriott, Ibis, and Old Palm.

And your services, to my understanding, is interior and exterior demolition. Is that correct, James?

Yeah, Dalton. First of all, thanks for having me on the initial podcast. I I appreciate the opportunity. And, yes, that is correct. We have been in business for 14 years.

We started out, hauling construction debris for contractors. And as we were building that business, the opportunity presented itself to do demolition for our contractors in addition to hauling. And we started off doing interior demolition and have expanded now to exterior demolition, and, there really is no aspect of the demolition services, that we do not do now. So, it's it's been a it's been a fun ride.

And how many employees do you have at at Rapid?

Currently, we fluctuate throughout the year between, 4550 employees.

So is the business seasonal or all year round?

It started off seasonal. A lot of the work that we do is in, high end luxury, communities that have restrictions on when you can perform demolition services. And, typically, that is in South Florida. Off season is the summer when all the residents go back to the northeast. So that's really the ability, the the contractors have to get in, to these homes and and perform construction activity.

So when we started our business, it was more seasonal. Now that we've grown into more, commercial and industrial projects, we've seen more, consistent business throughout the year and and less fluctuations.

So I'm on your website right now, and I see for one of your services, it's called Beyond Demolition. Can can you give a little, like, explanation on on what that is? Because it's not as clear as interior and exterior demolition.

Yeah. Sure. We just have the, the the skilled labor that, has the knowledge. If if you know how to to take something down, you know how to put it back up. So a lot of our contractors on-site, we don't wanna limit ourselves just to doing demolition services.

We are a licensed general contractor, so we're able to perform any of the, construction needs that our contractors may have on a job site. So we just like to let them know that, in addition to doing demolition services, our guys have the tools, the capabilities, and the skills to perform other sir services on the job site if needed.

Nice. Nice. Nice. So one thing that I have a different perspective as a worker, because I worked a couple summers. You you let me gratefully, like, let me work and make some money before college and during my summers in college.

Definitely describe it as a, a character enabling class where if if you don't have character, it it definitely gets built out of, hard work. And when my my first summer, you guys only did to on on the jobs I did, you guys did interior. And, I mostly picked up trash and debris from construction. And then my second summer, I took one summer off. So I guess 2 years later, you worked your way into exterior and you bought a machine.

I think it was an excavator or what was the machine, James?

That's correct. Yes. Yes. To do our exterior demolition services, we use medium sized to large excavators. And so, yeah, around that time, your second, summer that you came on board, we did.

We purchased our first excavator. Now, since then, we've we've purchased 2 more. And and then we, you know, really try to keep those busy, that type of exterior demolition segment of our business has really grown.

Yeah. So that that's a great that's a great leeway into the segment of the growth of the company. So I saw firsthand you're both, taking care of your employees differently when I first worked there. I don't know. Maybe because I'm I was just part time, but the sec like, my second time working, you had paid off holidays, other things, and you you got moved into exterior.

And now, we are, I don't know, grow you're growing at a certain rate. Which segment of your business are are you most, optimistic about?

I think, overall, just construction in general. I mean, I think we have, benefited maybe not so much from what rapid removal per se is doing, but the economy in South Florida and construction in general. Construction in South Florida is very cyclical, and I feel like we're riding the the high wave right now. And we've benefited from that. But with the natural growth of the company, you you are right.

I mean, we we started off in, you know, very few employees with few benefits. And as we've grown to attract good qualified, employees, you you have to offer benefits, and you you you need to be competitive in the market. So as we've grown and the revenues have grown, we've now have the ability to offer, you know, paid vacation and health care benefits. We might soon be, offering 4 zero one k plans. So that that's been, a a benefit for for everyone, as we've grown.

And looking forward to answer your question on areas where, you know, we're looking for growth, I think that, you know, as Florida continues to be a place where, businesses want to relocate, there will be opportunities for us. And there's a lot of, on on the single family side, the single family home side, a lot of older homes in South Florida and a lot of people wanting to knock those homes down and and build new homes. And, and the same thing goes for commercial buildings, and there's always development going on in Florida. So we're very optimistic that things can continue, you know, with the, typical pullback that I'm sure will happen, but, you know, we're we're overall optimistic long term that, you know, we can, be competitive and and offer services that will be in demand in South Florida.

Have you pondered, an acquisition or a merger of any sorts? Have you thought about that? Is it on your mind?

No. No. I mean, I I think we, we prefer the the organic growth of the company, at a slow and steady pace, and, that's kinda where we're focused right now, just building from within.

Interesting. So in terms of growth, how do you maintain or attract new relationships?

Most of the business that we get is word-of-mouth, that that really we don't do a lot of advertising and, you know, that, once again, is consistent with our our growth plan. It's it's done with purpose, and we've been able to grow at the rates that we'd like to be growing and, with with the the word-of-mouth. So the way you do that is just what we found, you know, the the way that we have achieved the the word-of-mouth and and getting that, the the reputation is, you know, performance builds reputation. So we've been you know, our focus is to perform well in the jobs that we have in hand, and that will lead to more jobs, coming in and and new contractors. And that's kind of been our philosophy and has worked so far.

That's awesome because construction, to my understanding, is kind of a tight knit community, and you have to earn your respect over years. And you've earned your respect over 14 years. So for management to work a relationship or worker workplace culture, how do you how do you maintain that? Is it like a work, get the job done, go home, or is there anything the workers can do after hours?

Yeah. You know, I I I'm sure they do. I don't know, you know, how much the guys, like, you know, with 50 employees. I'm I'm not sure how much the guys, I'm I'm not as connected to them outside of work, so I don't know if they are, you know, getting together, outside of, rapid removal. But what, you know, what we try to do at least in the day to day and in our motto or or our motto being, you know, everybody has to work.

You have to, you know, do something for a living. So we try to make an environment to where, we're happy to come to work that, you know, this is a place that you wanna come to that you're not dreading showing up at rapid removal. So, you know, having said that, it's an environment where, it's fast paced. It's, can be stressful at times, but it's set up and, the workload is distributed to where we're we're all a team and we're all pulling the same direction. And, from that standpoint, I think we have a very good, you know, work culture.

I think we all get along, and we have a lot of opportunities. I try to set up opportunities throughout the week so that we can meet and we can get together, and everybody's really connected and knows what's going on, and we're all lending a hand in different ways. You know, being a small company, everyone kinda operates like a a Swiss army knife, meaning that everybody has to chip in in different ways and be able to wear many hats. So, I think with that, there's a lot of connectivity between the employees. So, you know, that's the the type of environment we're trying to create at least.

That's an awesome analogy, the Swiss army knife. So now to the the nitty gritty, what is your biggest mistake and how how did you implement and not repeat the same mistake, or what did you learn from it?

That's a good question. There are many mistakes over 14 years. I mean, it's one of the the ways really that you learn, is by making mistakes. And I think, if one of the I I wish we would have jumped into the demolition services sooner. I I think we, you know, we were offering the hauling services for, a long time.

And, I think from the beginning, we were requested the opportunity to perform demolition services, and and we didn't jump in as as soon as maybe we should have. And then, you know, as we've grown, I think, the the biggest, mistakes or the ones that are most apparent are, learning the the the estimating process and, you know, what it really takes to get a job done and, you know, how, to use limited resources to get jobs done. And and and so, you know, just constant work in progress on those things. But, you know, those those are a couple of the areas that I think, you know, we've made mistakes and and we've learned from those mistakes and have tried to move forward and improve on them.

On a side note, I thought that was cool that you were cautious when first moving into demolition. There's a story where when Bill Gates at Microsoft, when he first started his business, he knew that he had families working for him. So he had enough funding for a year and a half of salary of everyone who worked there. And then when he brought in somebody with business experience, the person was like, why are you doing this? Like, this is this is way too far out for capital.

Like, we could be doing r and d. We could be getting better talent, etcetera. But he never regretted the fact that he was cautious when he had other people's lives and their well-being at stake. So I don't know. It's a character aspect, I think, for sure.

It's always good to have a balance between being, you know, too aggressive and and conservative and, you know, it's it's, I think that is a tight line to walk, and, I think we lean towards being conservative. So, you know, it's it's worked well for us so far.

Did you ever doubt that you could make a successful company, or or did you have an all in moment where you're like, if this doesn't work, then we're gonna call it?

Oh, always doubt doubt from day 1, doubt today, you know, whether we can continue, the growth. So I think that's part of the fuel. Right? You know, that's kind of the drive is, at least for me, to to never get complacent. And, I think in the beginning, you know, we never really thought we'd be where we are today, and so we just keep our head down and and and focus job by job, you know, and and and try to, you know, work those to the best of our capabilities, and and, hopefully, it'll lead to something better.

But as far as, you know, knowing or, you know, we had no idea. And, there's there's always doubt. You know? And whenever you're doing new things, you know, there's gonna be successes and failures, and you just hope that you you have more successes than you do failures. So successes than you do failures.

So your future outlook of the company, do you plan on buying more

machines or moving to a new office? Or or what are your plans? Yeah. As the work, what are your plans?

Yeah. As the work, you know, dictates, I think, you know, if if we can continue, and, you know, continue on on the path that we're on, then I think, for sure, we're always evaluating, newer technologies and newer ways of doing demolition and, you know, newer types of equipment. And, you know, I'm sure at one point, we you know, the hope is and the thought is that we would expand out of our current facilities to a larger one. And, you know, that's a a a year over year evaluation to see where things are and, you know, but always lucky. We're we're we're definitely of the mentality that we'd like to grow from where we're at today.

Where do you put your excavators? Because you said earlier in the show that you have 3. So are they always on the job? Or

They are typically yeah. Typically, when things are going well, they go from job to job. We do have a yard that, that we take the the excavators when there's any downtime.

Is that just rented or is

Yeah. It's rented. It's an off-site. It's not on, where where our offices are. It's at a a an off-site location that we rent.

It's a it's an amazing time nowadays with when the economy maybe have a downturn, do you plan on,

how

do you plan on being cautious of of the outlook of the economy?

I think we just, you know, take our conservative approach and and work with what we have in in our hands and and not overextend ourselves is what we're, you know, most focused on right now. I think that's the, you know, the best course of action, at least what we've determined as a team. You know, take advantage of opportunities where there's value and, you know, not try to press too hard. You know, I think I mentioned in the beginning that we, you know, we take a very, the the mentality of, like, the grow from within, a a slow growth approach is, you know, one that has suited us well in the past. And I think if we stick with that plan, you know, we can, be in a better position to weather any downturn.

James, I'd like to thank you for being on today's show. It's our first episode, and I I think that it's awesome that you're willing to take time out of your day to educate other people and give them an idea or critical think while what direction are they going in and what direction would they they wanna go in? And, so I would just like to give you opportunity to tell the listeners the best way to reach you and, give a give a little reminder slash elevator speech of what the company is about just to give a leeway to your favorite entrepreneur, your most impactful book you've ever read, and your favorite show or movie.

Yeah. I think, you know, for anyone, that's listening out there, www.rapidremoval.net. That's our website. That's the best place to get more information about who we are and what we do. And, yeah, so the the final few questions there were my favorite, I think you said entrepreneur or most impactful book.

Yeah.

That's a That's cool. Yeah. I I, you know, I don't know. I think that, you know, favorite entrepreneur yeah. I'm a big fan of Benjamin Franklin.

I think, he's a great, you know, example of, of an entrepreneur that, you know, wore many hats and and did many things. So, you know, he he's probably the original Swiss army knife. So, that would be, my choice there. Books, I I I do like to read a lot. I I don't I don't know if I could really narrow down to one book.

I do follow Tim Ferris. I think, you know, a lot of the books that he's put out and his podcast is, you know, very helpful as an entrepreneur and always picking you know, he's picking the brains of people, like you're doing here. So, you know, I follow him. And, yeah, other than that, I appreciate the opportunity. I think, what you're doing is great, and, I wish you the best of success going forward.

And, I feel, you know, privileged that you invited me on your your podcast, so I appreciate it.

The Tim Ferriss book, Tribe of Mentors, is is very good and insightful. And also the last question is your favorite show or movie. Do do you do you partake in in entertainment once you go home? Or

so I have 4 small children, so maybe, like, Paw Patrol or, you know, Toy Story. That's what I'm watching these days.

Alright. Once again, thanks, James. It was great having James on the show today, and I wanna talk about 2 things. The first item would be what I think was most influential for me as the host of what he said. And the second thing is I'm gonna talk about the direction of the show.

So first, when talking to James today, James spoke a couple times on being conservative. And there's a there's a lot of modules out there, you gotta take risks to get reward, no risk, no reward, But James is the opposite. He's saying that you can lean more towards conservative when going into new business sectors or making business decisions. You can lean more conservative, and if it works out, then you go all in, which I thought was interesting. And secondly, where do I see the show going?

So today I asked James a series of standardized questions. And for everyone who comes on the show, entrepreneur or somebody who's c level individual, which would be an entrepreneur, I'm going to ask some standardized questions to gain knowledge for the listeners, and then when an entrepreneur comes on again, the entrepreneur could talk about any topic that they wanted to. So today, James could have talked about how to price out his estimates for construction. So that would only be extremely useful for people that were in construction, but would be something that you wouldn't necessarily know and you might be able to pick up for your business segment. Hopefully, you got this far in the show.

I would like to take the time and reiterate that this is my first episode of Venture Step. And if you have any suggestions or ideas, please contact me at [email protected].