An Interview with the Co-Founder & CEO of GreenPal

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and today we have with us Bryan Clayton, the co-founder and CEO of GreenPal. His company is an online marketplace that connects homeowners with local lawn care professionals. It has been called the Uber for lawn care. On today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about how Bryan turned GreenPal into a nine-figure lawn care business. If you need help growing your business, we’ve got you covered at Shane Barker Consulting. We offer content marketing, SEO, influencer marketing, and other services that can accelerate your business growth. For more information, check out our website, shanebarker.com. Now, back to the podcast.

All right, you guys, what’s going on? We have me, Shane Barker, here with the Marketing Growth Podcast, and I’ve got Bryan Clayton here from GreenPal. I tell you, Bryan, we were just talking a little bit before we started the podcast. You have an interesting story—that’s why we invited you on. We don’t want anybody who doesn’t have an awesome story. Your story with GreenPal is interesting. Once again, you’re in the landscaping, lawn industry. Who knew?

This is the thing: you just gave up all kinds of great information. I would be shocked if anybody just heard that—and if they don’t listen to all three episodes, I’d be thoroughly shocked. We usually like to hold back a little bit, but you went all in and told the world, “Some amazing things have happened in the last 10 years.” I do love the fact that you guys were an overnight success in 10 years, right? I mean, that’s unheard of. It’s hard to be an overnight success in 10 years. And once again, I think you’re being facetious when you say, “It’s hard, right? It’s not easy being an entrepreneur.” That’s one thing I love. The reason I started the podcast is because I want people to know it can be beneficial. Big things can happen, but it is not easy. We as entrepreneurs take punches, and the amount of things that happen on a daily basis—I don’t think people understand that. And those who do love hearing from people like you who say, “I’ve been punched in the face 100 times. I’ve done this, I’ve done that. We pivoted. We did this differently.” That’s where your story becomes unique. Once again, you picked an industry that, as you said, isn’t overly sexy—it’s not like somebody goes, “Man, I’m going to get into lawn care.” But on the other hand, people go, “Wait a second, he’s making how much, and what did he build over the last 10 years?” So congratulations there.

Let’s do this. I’m sure my audience—although you’ve been on some big podcasts—probably doesn’t know who you are yet. Anyway, we’re getting there. So let’s, I always like to know a little bit about the background. You’re a co-founder of GreenPal with two other partners. Give us a little backstory. I always ask some personal questions so we know who you are, where you grew up, and what your family was like. So where did you grow up? I know you’re in Nashville, right?

I’ll tell you. I haven’t been to Nashville, but Nash was literally on my top three—not only to visit, but I have people saying, “Hey, you gotta move here.” I mean, I know there are just big things. I live in California, right? So we use the C word for now. And when I talk to people from other states, they’re like, “No, you stay in California. We don’t need you here in Nashville or any other place.” We just went to Bend, Oregon, and stuff. So you never know, we might be neighbors one of these days.

Yeah. You never know, we’ll go out and have a beer or something like that. I just tested your app. And as I said, I want to go more into your background. And so, as we were joking around, I have eight people that want to mow my lawn right now. So you built something phenomenal there, but I don’t want to talk about that yet. And I’m jumping the gun because I get excited a little bit, as you did, right? I mean, we want to talk about what it took to get to where you’re at today and the awesomeness in Nashville. So how big was your family in Nashville?

It is so funny. Your background and my background are very similar. I had a TV in my house. If we watched TV, my mom would say, “Oh, you’re watching TV. Maybe you should clean the bathroom or do the dishes.” We didn’t watch TV. I could sneak in video games every once in a while, but it was the same with me. My dad would say, “Hey, it’s summertime. We gotta get up off our butt and make some money.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” And he’s like, “Go mow lawns.” I literally did the same thing. I had probably seven lawns, and I’m in Sacramento. I don’t know how hot it is in Nashville; I’m sure some summers are just brutal—we hit 100, sometimes 110. So I’m out there, and you guys can’t see this on the podcast, but I have milky white skin. Sun and Shane are not supposed to ever get together, because the sun always wins. My wife will joke that if I walk past a window, I could get burnt. I’m that Irish, milky white; there’s nothing else you can do.

So summertime was brutal for me, but I did the same thing. I’m like, “Man, this is cash. People are leaving money underneath their placemat for me. Here you go, Shane, I know you’re coming. Here’s 15 bucks.” And I’m like, “This is easy money, man.” I didn’t even realize down the road that I’m outside the statute of limitations for the IRS, just cash, right? I don’t have to worry about it—I think they can listen to this and come back to me after I’m 46 now.

So that was 30 years ago. I think I probably would—I’m pretty sure. But you never know; they might figure something out. I’m not a…

You never know. I might get that knock on the door. I’ll let you know. Actually, I won’t; I’ll probably be on the run and just go to Nashville. But you’re currently living in Nashville, so you’re still there.

Yeah, we’re going to talk about that because that’s one of the things I want to talk to you about: bootstrapping your businesses, because that’s not easy. I’ve done it myself without receiving funding, and it’s a challenge, man. There’s some upside to it—you own 100% of it—but there’s the other side. It’s like, nobody’s giving you a $5 million check and saying, “Hey, go use this money.” You got to look at every cost, and that’s it. That’s a different type of way to build the business. It’s obviously going to be a lot more; you got to look at things differently, right? So I’m excited about hearing that side of that story.

In Nashville, not only the things you brought up, but I’ve heard the food scene and the music scene are phenomenal. That’s what I’m excited about. The tech scene is too—obviously, I love tech—but food and adult beverages are staples for me. I’m Irish, so that’s kind of a staple, right? I mean, it’s…

I had a feeling. I had a feeling we’d get along. So cool. Then, where did you go to college? You were also in the Nashville area, huh?

Awesome, so I can imagine smelling like gas in a lawn mower on grass, and I’m sure you pulled all the ladies. I was at a big event, and the girls were like, “Man, this guy smells like gas.” I’m laughing because I know my mom would say, “You’re not coming inside this house.” Right now, I’d have to strip down almost naked in my garage because she’d say, “You smell like gas. You got lawn mower stuff all over you.” But I’m like, “Look at this cash though. Look what I just did. It was beautiful.”

And this, I agree with you, is so funny. I don’t think I remember when I went to college—many moons ago—but I was in an entrepreneurship class. There was only one entrepreneurship class at my university, and I’d already had my own businesses, so I was a little more seasoned than most. Most people in the class were saying, “Oh, I just want to own a restaurant so that I can have somebody manage it and I can go golfing.” And I’m like, “Good luck.” Hmm, let me think: the quickest way for people to steal money from you is when you start going to the golf course and assume that everything is great. It was interesting because that’s the mindset. It’s like now social media makes it seem as if you just get on your private jet, get your pink poodle, and take pictures of yourself at the beach, and you’ll make millions of dollars. But there’s a grind—hard work out there. Certain things need to happen for that to happen. So I think I love that you’re like, “What do you mean by girlfriend or wife or personal life? What is that? Do I have to Google that?” That was not on the priority list, right?

Well, I love that. I’ve seen this as just a picture, but what it is is they say, “Hey, being an entrepreneur, it’s where you start when you finish.” And most people think it’s a straight line, right? You just go up, and you get hockey stick growth, and you make all kinds of money, and you get your Ferrari and your pet tiger or whatever you get. But it’s really not like that, where it just shows its ups and downs and this and that. I think people on my podcast get a better idea because that’s what they want—to get some good information and figure out what people did, the hustle that they did, and how they did things differently, or maybe how it reminds people of how they need to do things right. Maybe I need to get back on track. I need to quit dating three girls and spending all my time out there being frivolous and go back to where I’m going to be able, in 10 years, to have a family and not have to focus as much on the business. So it’s funny. I ask people, “What is your first job out of college?” And if I asked you that, that would be a very quick conversation for us, because you’ve been nothing but an entrepreneur.

Yeah, you gotta figure out the angles, right? Because everybody can mow grass, right? So it’s, okay, you can make it look like the next guy, but how do I say, what I’ll do next is that next level of service or support. Then people go, “Okay, that makes sense.” That’s a selling point because our team forgets in the morning to pick up the cigarette butts. And then you get out there—gloves on or no gloves on—and you’re picking up cigarette butts. You’re making it happen.

No. And that’s the thing. Once again, I think that’s what’s important: you figure out what the differentiator is, right? How are you different? The service you provide is the same as the next guy for the most part, right? If they do it—same lawn mowers, same this, same that—maybe different work ethic—but at the end of the day, what is the differentiator? How are they going to go? Yep, oh, that’s a little added service, right? Is that going to be price? Is that going to be more service? Is that going to be whatever that is? So I love that. I want to talk more about GreenPal. Obviously, we’ve been teasing people, and I figure now we can jump in. I know that you said that. Once again, I want you to touch a little bit on your father coming in and saying, “Hey, guess what? It’s Saturday. You’re playing a lot of video games. You’re getting calluses on your thumbs, which is awesome, but that’s not going to make any money. We need to get your butt out there and make some money.” So, what? How did you turn that into being an entrepreneur, obviously? I mean, obviously the first thing was getting you out, and then you started looking at the money. So, wow, this isn’t too bad—I smell like gas and I’ve got some lawnmower clippings on me. But at the end of the day, I’m making cash and good things are happening. So tell me that story a little bit better, go a little deeper into that.

What I love is that you took your little lawn mowing business and grew it to 150 employees. Just so we’re on the same page, in your mind it was your little lawn mowing business, but everybody else sees it as 150 people. We think that because it’s your baby, your business. For me, I’m laughing because I remember my little lawn mowing business that I sold and could have retired on—it was a little bigger than “little,” but I get what you’re saying. In your mind, it’s your baby, your little baby. It is what it is.

Yeah, well, there’s always somebody on your coattails who competes around this. What I love about that is you talk about the evolution of how you guys evolved. And so, how did you come up with the idea of GreenPal? Was that a situation where you just sold your business and you’re like, “Hey, I’m going to retire.” And then your inner, whatever it is, was like, “Well, we’ll retire. Hey, Bucha, we got to do something.” I’ve picked up 1 million cigarette butts. There’s a way to evolve this business. Talk a little bit about that—how you guys came up with the idea of GreenPal.

Yeah, and you have two other co-founders. Give me a little—what do they bring to the table? Obviously, you have the personal experience of being in the industry. Did they bring anything different that helped?

Yeah, I agree. I think that’s the issue. I think people are too quick to give up the keys to the castle. If you have an idea, everybody—whether in a relationship or when getting a co-founder—in the first three or six months, puts forth a certain image. You’re not really peeling that back and knowing what somebody’s really like. The way I say it it’s like getting married—you should probably move in for a few months and see if she’s crazy or you’re crazy, or whatever that is. Who knows? The same thing goes with co-founders. I think it’s like, “Hey, I think there’s something here.” But there’s no reason to jump in and start giving out equity until you realize, “Hey, are we on the same page?” Because you know what happens when you start giving up equity and then that person is working half the time you’re working, and you’re like, “Wow, I just gave up half my company,” and now this person isn’t doing that. That’s why you have an operating agreement. There are a lot of things you put in place to say, “Who’s going to do what? What does this look like?” You might not have that figured out in the beginning, so you’ve got to iron that out.

I always tell people, if you have one other partner—no, you have two other partners—you have personalities, and things happen if they get married, have kids, or get a divorce. There are a lot of moving pieces, a lot of conversations we’re not really taught to have until, excuse my language, shit hits the fan, and you’re like, “Oh, I wish I would have talked about this before we started making money,” or when there’s no money on the table. And then you’ve got to dissolve this thing because of taxes and figuring out who’s going to pay what. These are things you need to figure out. There’s no reason to jump into that partnership until you’ve asked some of the right questions and figured some things out on both sides. They should also not be looking to jump into something overnight. It just takes a while—it’s a relationship you’re building, and you need to make sure it makes sense and the proper structures are there.

I love the analogy or the quote I love from Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.” That’s the same thing—we don’t know what’s going to happen, but we know we’re ready for the war, or to go in and do this. We’re just going to have to iron it out as we go, but at least we have a foundation of what we know everyone’s going to do. And we’re all in this. We’re going to spend three years, full time, doing this, really grinding it out and seeing what happens.

I got a question for you, and I don’t know if you can answer it because I’m not sure if you want to. It might sound super crazy when I say it out loud, but it’s really not that crazy of a question. What’s your goal with GreenPal? Are you looking to grow that thing to nine figures? Do you want to sell out, or what is it? Can you tell me what the exit strategy is?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the mindset, right? You don’t look at it as a job; you look at it as, “Hey, this is fun, and you still enjoy it.” You come to work and feel, “Hey, I’m enjoying what I’m doing.” If you don’t, then there’s somebody else who could take it on and bring it to wherever it needs to be, take it to that nine-figure mark. Thanks, listeners. I hope it helped you learn what it takes to grow a successful eight-figure business. On my next episode, we’ll talk about bootstrapping a business. Don’t forget to tune into the Marketing Growth Podcast.