Ismael Valdez: How I Built a $108M Home Service Company & What I’m Building Next

Ismael Valdez built NexGen Air Conditioning & Plumbing from $0 to $108 million in just 6.5 years. Now he’s back on Owned and Operated to share the blueprint for his next $100M home service company.John Wilson and Ismael break down what worked at NexGen, the mistakes he would never repeat, why most HVAC and plumbing contractors stall below $2M, and why sales and marketing are the real engines behind rapid growth.Ismael also shares what he’s building next. After investing more than $22 million of his own money into Nuve, generating $15.2 million in first-year sales, and selling more than 110,000 units, he’s turning his attention back to home services.His vision: an AI-powered, hyper-efficient HVAC and plumbing company with almost no traditional back office, lower prices, higher close rates, and the potential for 40%+ EBITDA margins.In This Episode:• How Ismael Valdez built NexGen from $0 to $108M• What he learned from a nine-figure home service exit• Building Nuve to $15.2M in first-year sales• Why most contractors stall below $2M• NexGen’s biggest wins and mistakes• Why sales and marketing drive growth• Building an AI-powered home service company• Ismael’s blueprint for his next $100M companyConnectJohn Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Ismael Valdezhttps://www.instagram.com/nuveceo/Owned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/SponsorsQuick StaffersHire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers:https://www.quickstaffers.com/AvocaSee how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo:https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oaoSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

How would we turn a $5 million home service business into a $10 million company?In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down how they’d invest $1 million to double a profitable home service business.They cover where they’d invest first, finding the next high-ROI marketing channel, hiring salespeople ahead of demand, expanding the balance sheet, and building the capacity to scale.Could they reach a $10M run rate in just 12 months? This is the playbook they’d use.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• How to grow a $5M home service business to $10M• Where they’d invest $1 million for growth• Finding your next high-ROI marketing channel• Why one marketing channel could double the business• Branding, radio, LSAs, and commercial sales• Hiring salespeople ahead of demand━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjackOwned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━YelpLooking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/Comfort ConnectTurn one installation into years of repeat business with Comfort Connect. Give homeowners flexible payment options, stay connected after the job, and create new recurring revenue opportunities. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4wGXqSXFieldPulseReady to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operatedSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

If John Wilson and Jack Carr lost everything and had to start a plumbing company from scratch, what would they actually do?In this episode of Owned and Operated, John and Jack break down exactly how they’d build a plumbing business from $10,000 to $1 million in revenue using everything they’ve learned as home service operators.They compare two different paths: staying extremely lean by subcontracting work and proving demand before spending money, or hiring early and building the operation one truck at a time. They cover how they’d land their first customers, where they’d spend their first marketing dollars, when they’d hire, what jobs they’d target, and how they’d build toward four productive trucks.John also explains why he’d eventually use a small acquisition to accelerate the business, including examples of companies he’s previously acquired with very little cash down.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• How to start a plumbing company with $10,000• Getting your first customers without a big marketing budget• Subcontracting vs. hiring your first plumber• Why John would prioritize revenue before investing• Using Facebook, Nextdoor, referrals, and LSAs to generate leads• The plumbing jobs Jack would target first• When to add your first truck and technician━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Service ScalersGet more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast YelpLooking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/ Send Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Your customer database might be worth more than you think.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Faraday founder Alex Coleman to break down how home service companies can turn the data they already collect into better marketing, smarter dispatching, and more replacement opportunities.They cover how Wilson uncovered millions of dollars in opportunities hidden inside old customer records, why equipment data becomes increasingly valuable as a contractor scales, and how back-office automation can tackle permits, warranties, rebates, and other processes that often fall through the cracks.John and Alex also dig into AI in the trades, where automation is actually useful, why AI still needs a human in the loop, and why contractors should think twice before building their own software instead of focusing on the core business.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• How old customer data can uncover millions in replacement opportunities• Why equipment age matters for marketing and dispatch• Turning service calls into long-term marketing assets• Using existing customer databases to drive more revenue• Automating permits, warranties, rebates, and back-office work• Why rebates can become a major source of missed profit• How data becomes more valuable as a home service company scales• Where AI is overpromised in the trades━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Alex Coleman / Faradayhttps://www.faraday.so/https://www.linkedin.com/company/faraday-ai/Owned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Profit & GritRunning a $3M–$15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.comSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Slow season doesn’t have to wreck your home service business.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down how they prepare for shoulder season when inbound demand slows, the call board gets lighter, and every lead becomes more valuable.They cover how to fill the board with outbound calling, when to use specials and discounts, why sales KPIs can actually improve during slower months, and how tightening labor, marketing, and spending can turn shoulder season into a stronger cash-producing period. They also explain why preparing months ahead and building a customer contact list during peak season makes the slowdown much easier to manage.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Why August and September can be some of the slowest months of the year• How to use outbound calling to fill the board when inbound demand drops• Specials, BOGOs, tune-ups, and other ways to drive shoulder season leads• Why you should lean on proven marketing instead of taking new risks• How to get more revenue from the leads already on your board• Why average ticket and conversion rates can improve during slow season━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjackOwned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━FieldPulseReady to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operatedSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Home service businesses are getting more attention than ever. But are they really as good as they look?In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr talk about why HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home service businesses have become so popular; and why they’re still incredibly hard to operate.They break down what makes home services attractive, the mistakes people make when buying into the trades, and where there’s still opportunity as more buyers enter the space.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Why more people are getting into the trades• What makes home services such an attractive business model• Why fragmentation creates so much opportunity• The reality of staffing, seasonality, and competition• Why running a home service business takes more than being smart• The biggest mistake people make when buying a home service company• The difference between buying a business and buying a job━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjackCatalyst https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Quick StaffersHire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/ Profit & GritRunning a $3M–$15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.comFieldPulseReady to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operatedSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

You can be profitable and still run out of cash.In this supercut episode of Owned and Operated, featuring insights from several episodes, John Wilson breaks down the cash flow, sales, and KPI systems that helped him scale a home service business from $1M to roughly $40M in revenue.Learn why profit doesn’t equal cash, how to improve average ticket by solving higher-value problems, and the five numbers every home service owner should track to find problems faster and scale with more control.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Why profitable home service businesses still run out of cash• How to improve cash flow and get paid faster• The systems John would implement at $1M in revenue• How to increase average ticket with a value ladder• Why training and ride-alongs drive better sales performance• The 5 KPIs every home service owner should track• How to diagnose lead, booking, closing, and average ticket problems• Why “number of options” is a critical sales metric• How scorecards and daily KPIs create accountability━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjackOwned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Service ScalersGet more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcastQuick StaffersHire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/Send Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

The biggest decisions in your home service business usually don’t feel big when you make them.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down the $1 million decisions contractors make without realizing how much they can impact the business over time.They discuss hiring the right people, choosing technology that can scale, building a membership program, reinvesting profits, making smarter marketing bets, and why seemingly small decisions can shape the next decade of your business.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Why small decisions can compound into million-dollar outcomes• How hiring the right people can change the trajectory of your business• Why your CRM, payroll, phones, and technology stack matter as you scale• How membership programs create long-term customer value• Why reinvesting profits can accelerate growth• Why John and Jack prioritize executors over “strategic” hires• The two areas they would focus on first at $5M: people and leads• How training, KPIs, and better data create a long-term advantage━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjackOwned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━AvocaSee how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oaoService ScalersGet more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcastSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

The strategies that get your home service business to $3 million will not get you to $30 million.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down why contractors stall at different stages of growth and how the owner’s role has to evolve as the business gets bigger.They discuss escaping “hero mode,” building the right teams and systems, reinvesting in growth, and why the owner can ultimately become the biggest bottleneck in the business.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━In This Episode━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Why the playbook that gets you to $3M stops working as you scale• Why contractors commonly stall between $3M and $10M• Getting the owner out of "hero mode" and building a real organization• Reinvesting profits versus pulling cash out of the business• The systems and positions you need as the company gets bigger• Why adding trades and locations too early can slow down growth━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Connect━━━━━━━━━━━━━━John Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Jack Carrhttps://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operatedhttps://www.ownedandoperated.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors━━━━━━━━━━━━━━AvocaSee how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oao Service ScalersGet more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcastSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Every growing home service company eventually hits the same wall. The systems that got you to $2 million will not get you to $20 million.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Brady Jolly and Scott Sharrock of Jolly Heating, Air, Plumbing & Electric to break down what it actually takes to scale a second-generation home service business. They discuss moving from commercial to residential, building a leadership team, using acquisitions to accelerate growth, creating a culture people want to stay in, and the management systems that help businesses continue growing without relying on the owner.The conversation also dives into scorecards, leadership development, AI, private equity, and why investing in people often creates a bigger return than investing anywhere else.In This Episode• Growing a second-generation plumbing company into a multi-trade business• Why residential service changed the trajectory of the company• Lessons from acquisitions, launching roofing, and adding new trades• Building leaders before you need them• Creating a culture that people actually want to be part of• How scorecards and KPIs improve decision making• AI, private equity, and where home service businesses are headed nextConnectJohn Wilsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/Brady Jolly + Scott Sharrockhttps://justcalljolly.com/Reimagining Home Services Podcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@ReimaginingHomeServices ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━YelpLooking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/The Military Veteran (TMV)Hiring a VP, GM, or C-suite leader? The Military Veteran (TMV) specializes in executive search for home service businesses, connecting you with proven veteran leaders who know how to execute, build teams, and drive growth. Select Owned and Operated as your referral source when you schedule a consultation: https://themilvet.typeform.com/to/BDwkmCU0?typeform-source=www.themilvet.orgBig ReputationGet more from your Google Business Profile with Big Reputation. Automate reviews, improve local visibility, and turn more Google searches into inbound calls. Learn more: https://www.bigreputation.ai/oao?utm_source=oao&utm_medium=paidSend Us Mail!More Ways To Connect with O&OStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a ReviewJohn Wilson, CEO of Wilson CompaniesJack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.