Epic Entrepreneurs

A layoff can wreck your confidence or rewrite your future, and Jeff Riley chose the second path. Jeff joins us from the Carolina Results Team to share how he went from an HR career and a sudden company bankruptcy to becoming a high-producing real estate agent, then building a property management operation that now serves hundreds of doors across the Columbia and Central South Carolina market. We t...

Most companies say they care about wellbeing, then act surprised when burnout shows up as turnover, low morale, and stalled productivity. I sit down with Leonora Cherry, founder of Zen and Zest Wellness Solutions in Chesapeake, Virginia, to talk about what workplace wellness looks like when it’s built for real people and real budgets, not just a poster in the break room. We get specific about the...

The fastest way to lose business in home services is painfully boring: don’t answer the phone, show up late, and make customers chase you. We talk with Joshua Pugliese, owner of Grato Property Care in the Irwin and North Huntingdon area near Pittsburgh, about how doing the basics with pride can outperform louder competitors and create real, scalable business growth. Joshua shares why he named the...

“Did it pass?” might be the most common home inspection question and it’s also the wrong one. We sit down with Matt Ruggieri, an Army veteran and owner of Pillar To Post Home Inspections in the Pittsburgh area, to explain what a home inspection is truly for: turning a stressful, emotional purchase into a clear decision backed by evidence, photos, and plain-English context. We share how great inspe...

The part of entrepreneurship nobody posts about is the part that breaks you: the scheduling, the estimates, the follow-ups, the hiring, the payroll, and the constant fear that the pipeline dries up. I’m joined by Daniel Creft from R7 Painting Service to talk about scaling a home service business when you started as the person doing the work. If you’ve ever felt like you “own a job” instead of owni...

Most people hear “chimney sweep” and picture a simple job. The reality is a high-skill, high-trust trade where one mistake can put a family at risk and where the owner is also the marketer, scheduler, bookkeeper, and technician. We’re joined by Matthew Anstine, founder of Spazzacamino, who shares what it takes to run a safety-first chimney sweep business while building a reputation from scratch in...

If you have ever thought owning a business means total freedom, this conversation will challenge that fast. We talk with Sean McNamara of Sol Terra Construction LLC, a United States Marine Corps veteran, architecture graduate, and Chattanooga general contractor, about what entrepreneurship actually feels like when the work is real, physical, and client-driven. Sean lays out the unfiltered truth: y...

Quality is easy to say and hard to scale, especially when you’re growing fast and every clean carries your name. We sit down with Raya Zompero of Zompero Pro Cleaning & Beyond to talk about what it takes to build a residential and commercial cleaning business in the Charleston, West Virginia area that clients trust even when she’s not on-site. Her story is part grit, part standards, and part l...

Contractor horror stories usually start long before the demo day. Jamie from Capstone Construction and Remodeling joins us from northern Arizona to break down what actually builds homeowner trust, what red flags should stop you in your tracks, and how the smallest “forgotten” details can turn a clean estimate into thousands in surprise costs. We talk about the mindset shift from selling a project...

People love to watch dirt move, but the real skill in excavation is everything you don’t see: the research, the permits, the materials, the measurements, and the decisions that prevent a “quick fix” from turning into a costly redo. We sit down with Luke Palmer from Palmer Excavation to unpack how drainage problems, grading, land clearing, and demolition-related site work actually get planned and d...

He signed a commercial lease with $100 to his name and called it a plan. That mindset carried Brandon Joynt through one of the harshest reality checks an owner can face: COVID shutting down his movie theaters and draining over $50K in liquidity in weeks, forcing a pivot that reshaped everything. We talk with Brandon about Joynt Industries and Nice and Clean Floor Care and Restoration, including ho...

Walking away from “good money” is easy to praise and hard to do, especially when you have a stay-at-home spouse and four kids depending on you. We sit down with Chris Cannon from Cannon Power Washing to unpack the real story behind choosing a local service business over life on the road climbing cell phone towers, and why going all in forced him to grow up fast as an owner, a provider, and a leade...

Owning a roofing business can look “easy” right up until the phone starts ringing at night, a crew needs an answer on a jobsite, and a customer wants perfection on a messy tear-off. We’re joined by Reed Brown of Roof Rangers, a residential and commercial roofing contractor serving Greenville, the Upstate of South Carolina, and beyond, for an honest look at what it takes to build a company when the...

You can tell a lot about a business by what they obsess over, and Caitlin and Daniel Burcham obsess over the basics most people mess up: showing up on time, treating customers with respect, and doing plumbing work the right way the first time. We talk with the owners of Burcham’s Plumbing about how a family-owned plumbing company grows in the real world, from residential service calls to commercia...

High-pressure home improvement sales have trained homeowners to brace for impact, and Celena Lusster is done with that. We talk with Celena, co-owner of Windows Source of Morgantown, about building a window replacement and door installation company on a simple promise: no gimmicks, no pressure, just honest service. From the first conversation, their goal is to educate customers on what actually ma...

One tiny home problem can quietly turn into a five figure repair, and most of us do not notice until it is too late. We sit down with Kaylee Holly of Home Smiles Virginia Beach to break down what preventative home maintenance actually looks like for real homeowners, not as a perfect Pinterest checklist, but as practical habits that protect your biggest investment. We talk through the core services...

You can feel it when someone didn’t start a business to “be their own boss”, they started because real life demanded it. That’s what makes this conversation with Jesse Kellogg from Grinning Possum Wood Originals so honest. We talk about the moment his promised construction hours vanished, how he began building anything he could out of a shed, and how he landed an enormous early project, a 56 foot...

Most cleaning companies say they’re “detailed” and “reliable,” but Sydney Le Pen from Red Wolf Cleaning Services takes a sharper stance: the real product is consistency. Cliff McCray and Sydney unpack what it takes to deliver luxury-level cleaning for residential and commercial clients while still running a sustainable service business in North Carolina. If you’ve ever felt like your reputation de...

You can feel it when a company is built on pride and you can also feel it when it’s built on pressure. We talk with Christian Adams, owner of Carolina Temperature Control, about what growth really looks like inside a modern trades business serving Northeast South Carolina with HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and indoor air quality. He shares how the company jumped from about 10 employees to roughly 50...

The fantasy of entrepreneurship is freedom on day one. The reality can look like 12 to 14 hour days, a phone that never stops, and a business that follows you home. We sit down with Rejoice Tracy of Crazy Irish Tree Service to talk honestly about what it took to build a local service company from scratch, what it costs in energy, and what it takes to get your time back without letting customers do...

A lot of pest control sounds the same until you meet someone who spent 10 years doing mosquito research in a lab. We’re joined by Michael Ballmer, founder of Buzzkill Pest Solutions, to talk about what happens when scientific training collides with the realities of building a local service business from scratch. Michael breaks down why the pest control industry can feel confusing to homeowners rig...

“Freedom” is the word everyone sells you when you start a business, but Jesse Bergstrom says the truth is heavier and better: freedom is tied to responsibility and self-discipline. Jesse runs Just Chillin, a Virginia heating and cooling company serving real homeowners with real problems, and he walks us through what it feels like to make the leap from side work to going all-in. If you’ve ever wond...

One slow week nearly forced Stosh Fernandez to drive Uber just to keep payroll covered and then the next wave hit with nonstop ice-storm calls for days. That swing from uncertainty to overwhelm is the hidden reality behind “being your own boss,” and it’s why this conversation with Voda Cleaning and Restoration of Greenville is so relatable for anyone in entrepreneurship or small business growth. ...

A single YouTube Shorts clip of a driveway getting cleaned sent Ruben Ramirez down a rabbit hole that changed his life and built a real, profitable pressure washing business. He went from 16 years in dental assisting to launching Triad Pressure Washing, funding his leap by selling personal gear, investing in training, and betting on a service business that rewards consistency and craftsmanship. We...

A hurricane hit 10 months after Rob Franks bought his company and suddenly “learning on the job” wasn’t an option. Rob joined us to share what it’s really like to run a 24-7 disaster restoration business in Asheville, from water damage restoration and mold remediation to post-storm reconstruction, and what Hurricane Helene taught him about scaling fast without losing quality. We start with Rob’s j...