What The Funk?

0:00 We're back on what the funk, and I have my guy, Nick Hageman, the CEO founder, entrepreneur of PaintJet, really, really fun story, super disruptive, innovative technology. I haven't seen any

0:16 competition to it. Super excited to see how everything goes for PaintJet, Nick and his crew and oil and gas. We'll get into all of that here, but we were just talking about this right before We're

0:28 here at the end of the short Labor Day week, and both of us are just shaking our heads like, you'd think you get a little break, you get a four day work week, somehow the four day work weeks are

0:38 the craziest, right? Yeah, yeah, no, it's, you miss your planning day, then everything from the weekend rolls over on Tuesday, so you're already behind, which means you're playing catch up on

0:50 Wednesday and your week's already over. Exactly, but you did have one bit of advice that I think I'm gonna start heating next time we have one of these three-day weekends, which is - move your

0:60 Monday meetings to Friday instead of moving them to Tuesday, because you get back and you shut your brain off. I was up in Breckenridge over the weekend with my family. My brain was completely shut

1:11 off, didn't check email. And then Tuesday hit me like a ton of bricks and I was stacked up all day. Now I'm with it. Like now I'm good getting going and it's one o'clock on a Friday and after this

1:23 I'm gonna start slowing down. So move your Monday meetings to Friday and holiday weeks That's Nick's great advice. But I wanna ask you the question, Nick, that I ask everybody that comes on this

1:34 podcast. I've wanted to have you on for a while. So this is super fun for me. Who are you, man? Who is Nick Hegeman? I think for me, I mean, at my core, big family, man, and I really just

1:46 like to build. And so that's really what we're doing at PaintJet, fortunate enough that we get to do both.

1:54 Yeah, you look at the two priorities. Number one for me, it's my family.

1:59 you get to build professionally and sometimes you don't always get those as the one and two as they should be but you do the best you can. And so what we're doing at PaintJet in terms of the building

2:10 is really allows us to use robotics in construction and really solve the true issue at the heart of construction which is the labor shortage and so being able to do that with technology and bringing

2:25 true value as to a variety of industries in the construction space is pretty exciting and you know I'm lucky that I get to do that. Yeah well we'll get into PaintJet and all that stuff but I want to

2:35 talk about you and what what makes you tick and you growing up. Are you from Indiana? I know you went to Butler which is in Indianapolis. Yeah I went to Butler so born in Pittsburgh so my my whole

2:49 family is part of Steelers Nation grew up but very quickly moved to the cornfields of Indiana

2:57 and so through that had it was really lucky with my family, you know, typical small town America growing up, then had always been engineering inclined. And so tried to get as far as ways I

3:15 possibly could from home. For college and ended up going to school 20 minutes down the road. That's amazing. Yeah, no, what it was was I wanted to do two things. Going into college, number one,

3:28 get set up for a future as a hardware entrepreneur. And then number two, I want to play division one soccer. And so what that tactically meant is I needed to get an engineering degree. And the

3:42 only division one soccer program that would let me play and also had a engineering program was baller. And so cast

3:55 a bunch of lines. And those are the only ones that bit so that's where I want. Which if I'm doing the math on this I think when you went to Butler It was around the time that Brad Stevens was the

4:06 coach and they were really emerging from like the basketball program Was like it was oh nine oh ten or not and it was like my senior year Was the year it

4:25 was Duke and Butler in downtown in Annapolis and was able to To scrounge up some tickets to go to that game. Wow. And so that that was cool Also part of it too was The funny thing so that's it. You

4:40 had like the famous Gordon Hayward shot that missed by a couple inches Yeah, but that was really interesting when you if you ever hear him talk about it And he's gone on to bigger and better things

4:52 and his perspective on it is you know, I'm actually glad it didn't go in because my whole life would have been defined by that moment and that would have been like the pinnacle of my life. Since

5:04 then he's gone on, been very successful NBA and he's grown and developed that way, that he never, like it never would have come close to that one defining moment when he was a teenager. That's,

5:19 I'd never heard that and that's super fascinating. Of course I was gonna bring it out without trying to break your heart about it. But it's sort of one of those things where I don't think you really

5:27 expected to be there anyway, and then you're playing against Duke. And like what a David versus Goliath concept. My wife went to Duke, so I watched that game with her. So I'm rooting for Duke, I

5:38 mean, I really was rooting. Yeah, yeah, let's get ours. Everyone in America was rooting for Butler, but you were rooting for Duke, it's okay. Kind of, and I saw him put that shot up and I'm

5:48 like, that's gonna go in. And it just bounced me down. So we were about mid court and it was going up And we're like, man, it's got a chance. that's got, and then it hit the backboard. And so

5:58 many times it hits the backboard like that and goes in. Right. And just don't do them. Yeah. So that's, that's cool. So I don't think Butler's that big of a school. So you probably saw these

6:08 guys on campus and it wasn't like this, you know, you're not going to go anywhere. No, it was, yeah, I think we had like 4, 000 kids. No, this was also before you had, this was right before

6:18 you had all the conference consolidation. So we were still in the Horizon League. So mid, mid-major, but that thing, you said we weren't expecting to be there. And it, dude, that's, we did.

6:29 And we, it's, it's, that was a mindset throughout the Butler Athletics department. It was gritty, not pretty. We're going to grind you. We're going to outwork you and we're going to get a

6:41 result. So I think it was surprising to a lot of people, but it wasn't, you know, it was, did we know we were going to go to the championship game? No. Did we think we had a shot and could be

6:51 anyone we faced? Yeah, and I think that's just part of growing up in. competing in that environment. Yeah, and also just sort of that, like in a humble way, though, right? Like not with the

7:03 hint of ego, which is just very, very Midwest. So you played

7:08 soccer at Butler Division I, I'm sure that was fun. You got your degree, and then you started working at like college pro painters or something like that, right? No, so that's actually really

7:20 where my career kind of took a left. Coming out of college, I knew that I needed to improve my sales skills Okay. And so I ended up taking a technical sales job with ExxonMobil, and that is, so

7:35 really you're working just really top tier professionals, really smart people, a really good company, and it's, you know, you're looking at here's how you sell total cost of ownership. If it's

7:49 this type of sale, if you're looking on the automotive side, it's, hey, here's how you make more money by selling premium brands. So a pretty well-rounded sales education. And then after five

8:01 years had my, was ready to take the step into, you know, fully becoming an entrepreneur. And this is also one of the things where it was, you know, as a first-time entrepreneur, you make a ton

8:15 of mistakes. And I just, I didn't feel comfortable making those mistakes on someone else's time. Nice. But I had to pay for those And so my wife and I are getting ready to have kids. And it's

8:30 also a piece where it's like, once you have kids, it's not really about you. It's about taking care of your family and things like salary, benefits, healthcare, pension, all that stuff matters.

8:43 And so it's like, I gotta do something. I gotta jump now or I'm not jumping for 25 years. And so looked at a bunch of different options. And the intent was always that this was gonna be Not the

8:57 last and so I ended up starting a certipro painters Just in the north suburbs of Nashville, which is where I was based out of Forex on mobile and it's The process is they take people Outside of paint

9:16 outside of construction and teach them how to run a painting business sure and so Got that and it's basically it's like you start at zero growth to 15 and then At that time it can start spinning off

9:32 cash where you can essentially hire someone to run it for you And it spits off cash and then you go to the next thing what I didn't expect Was how quickly the need an opportunity for something like

9:43 paintjet would come along

9:46 You know from day one the labor shortage hits you in the face Like there's just physically not enough people to do the work that needs to be done. Sure challenge to sell. It's a challenge to fulfill

9:54 it

9:56 And that really came, came to a head where paint 150, 000 square foot warehouse. I gotta let go of the crew in the middle of it 'cause sometimes that just happens. And it's myself, my wife, my

10:10 brother, my parents, and we're all painting this warehouse by iPhone light to meet customer deadline. And it's like, we go through that and it's like, all right, if this ever happens again, I'm

10:21 getting divorced and I don't wanna get divorced So I'm an engineer. There's gotta be something out there that can make sure we never have to do this again. And that's really where Pangi came from.

10:33 So what year are we talking about? So you had this idea, you're like, okay, the issue with painting is not demand, it's not sales. It's humans. It's literally finding enough people to do the

10:46 work and not get burned out and get the job done. And you ultimately end up having to have your family do it, you know, your wife. That was, that was not fun. We'll just put it that way. That

10:58 was not fun. Like my wife, I think was, you know, six or seven weeks pregnant at the time. And she picked up the wrong paintbrush to, we're like, no, you're done. Yeah. And we're not doing

11:11 this. No, no, I wouldn't have my wife on a ladder. That's six, whatever, six weeks pregnant, all that So you realize you're like, there has to be a better way and your engineering mindset

11:22 kicks in. So like, what year are we talking about that the idea? This was probably, so I started the franchise end of 2016. So this is probably

11:33 either mid, yeah, it was probably mid end of 2017 because you started off cutting your teeth on smaller residential jobs and then you grow into commercial work So this is one of our earlier

11:47 commercial projects. So this is probably the end of 2017.

11:54 And then at the same time, you know, I graduated college for a little bit, so they start pinging you about how can you donate and all this stuff. I'm like, well, I'm a starting entrepreneur, so

12:05 I don't have any money. But I'm

12:08 willing to help out and support any way I can. And so they said, well, would you be interested in sponsoring a senior design course?

12:17 Cool, I've got this problem. What can you come up with? And the students, they came back and it wasn't perfect, but it was something that was plausible and it cost like 500 bucks, not 500, 000.

12:33 And so it was like, okay, there's something here, like there's something that we can do. And then so we took that, that was spring of 2018. I was still getting the business really settled up and

12:46 running and going through all of those first-time entrepreneur challenges

12:51 And then so. And then it was just like every semester, we would have a new group of students and they would continue to iterate on it. So we did that through about 2020.

13:04 And then it got to a point where it's like, hey, we kind of taking this thing as far as we can

13:10 without outside capital. I was working on it with one of the, my colleagues I had worked at, at SertaPro. Previously, he was working on operations with corporate So him and I were already working

13:23 kind of together on this, then he left, when we stayed in contact, still working on this thing, 'cause at the time, it was just this thing. And then COVID happens. And I've got a furlough,

13:38 I've got a furlough of my team, 'cause it was like, hey, we couldn't go into people's houses. Like, it just, everything was shut down. Were painting jobs just not happening? During COVID,

13:50 like what was that like in this type of business? It was, it was pretty weird.

13:58 It was some people were, some people

14:05 weren't. And then depending on the area that you showed up with, like if you showed up with a mask in the wrong area, your sales ratio went down You didn't show up with a mask in the wrong area,

14:20 like you got kicked out. So it was just like a weird time for home services in general. And then it would get to the point where we were trying to protect our painters and some homeowners would say,

14:33 You're not allowed to wear masks in here.

14:36 And so

14:39 it was just a pretty challenging environment. And then everyone's scared about what's gonna happen. There's a bunch of uncertainty So everyone's expensive, like, no one's paying anything. Well,

14:50 I'm already home anyway, so I actually have time so I can do, like our whole thing was, hey, we do pain and you do life. Well, life wasn't happening, and therefore they could do their own pain.

14:59 Sure. But then you had some commercial projects where they had already budgeted everything. And so that was still moving ahead. And they're like, what better time than now? There's nobody in the

15:11 building. Yeah, it's like we don't have logistics, we don't have students, we don't have any of this time, so let's just go ahead and get this done now And so what we ended up doing, I actually

15:32 brought my team back from Furlough a little bit early, probably before he should have, but the reason why we did that is so that I could go on a road show with our paint jet robot at the time. And

15:40 so - Which the paint jet robot was what was built at Butler, by college. Yeah, it was built at Butler. And the very first one, and then we also had some worked on how to summer intern, she came

15:53 in and converted it from like physically manual triggers to electrical systems, those type of things. And then,

16:03 but it had gotten basically to the point where it's like, this is as far as we can take it with that outside funding. And so we had to go try and get checks and those type of things. And so it was

16:12 like, well, we ain't doing anything else If we're going to do it now, like, let's just do it now. And that's we did. There's a summer of 2020. It was kind of actually like the second go around

16:26 the COVID actually, if you look at the shutdowns, like you had the first initial shutdown and then everyone kind of opened up again. And then the second wave happened and and we were essentially

16:36 being chased across the country by second wave COVID shutdowns

16:42 And it was Nashville to I would. Nashville to Arkansas, to Houston, to Phoenix, we broke down coming around the bend at El Paso, because we had just gone, we had taken my wrapped GMC Acadia that

17:02 had a 3000, allegedly it had a 3000 pound towing capacity. But going up incline at 120 degree heat,

17:14 petered out pretty quick. So

17:18 broke down in El Paso, spent the weekend fixing the truck.

17:24 We're on to Phoenix, then we go to LA, San Francisco, Salt Lake, and then come back, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and then came back home to Nashville, and it was

17:36 those scenarios where it's like the technology doesn't work. All our demos are trash, But every time we walk, into an office, we walk out with the deposit check. Right. And it's like one of

17:49 these things where it's the problem that we solved was so visceral to these business owners that they were giving us money just hoping that we could solve it. And that's really when we knew we had

17:59 something real and that's when we went all in on it. So, and by going all in, you mean, all right, now I'm going to raise funds, I'm going to get a better robot to do these penny jobs. Yeah,

18:08 it wasn't just right It was also, hey, I need to stop spending time at Surtipro. Yeah. It was, you know, it's the team. My team needs to run it on their own. Like I can't be spending any time.

18:23 And then I, you know, looking, I probably need to start looking at selling. And so

18:29 we started that process. That's real fortunate. I actually had a really good team in place. And so they were able to, and that was kind of the trial run too, is that those three weeks that I was

18:39 gone, like they were running the business. And they did really well and that kind of laid the seeds for what ended up being a management buyout. So I actually ended up, after we talked, said,

18:55 hey, is this something you wanna do? Here's where I'm kind of leaning. And we think you've done a good job running the business already, so why don't you just run the business permanently? And so

19:09 we started laying the seeds for that And I think it was a little while later, after we had raised money, formally agreed, and had a structured deal, so I went through that. But yeah, so like all

19:22 in is not just raising money. I mean, it's like, I had to completely transition out of my first business, 'cause it was also a thing where it's, you know, you start looking at the value of what

19:35 you're doing, and is my time really need to be spent on this small business where the. real opportunity is is here. And it's also it's like, it's not all my money. It's this is other people's

19:48 money. And so, you know, you you do have fiduciary responsibility to make sure they get taken care of.

19:55 What was the the process of fundraising like for you? Because because you're it sounds to me like you're balancing a family and going on the road and selling a business while you're also raising

20:07 money to to improve what you've already kind of built and iterated on. How was that received and was it a big roadshow? Did you have to fly out to various investors? They come to you where they

20:19 like traditional tech investors or different types like how did that process go down? It was kind of all over the place on and this is actually one of the things we did benefit from COVID because it

20:30 had made remote pitching normal.

20:36 So I didn't have to see it. I didn't see any of them actually in person. Um, I don't think I met any of our investors in person for probably a year. Um, and then that, that actual process too

20:52 was really, it was pretty interesting. So we're in Nashville, not Silicon Valley, not New York, Boston, your, your hot spots, especially not for hardware. Um, and so there was, and I really

21:06 didn't know what I was doing either in terms of navigating that whole scene. And so it was learning, it's like, okay, you got angels, you've got institutional. There's a different difference

21:17 there. You've got different subclasses within angels. Um, being southeast East coast angels were most of the ones we were talking to. They were, it's more of a kind of a base hit type mindset,

21:31 whereas west coast, it's more of a home run. Um, and so there was this whole, um, here's what we think the business needs, but That's not exactly what. we think the investors want to hear, but

21:44 then they said no anyways. And so I ended up being like, okay, well, we're not going to check anyways. Everyone's saying no, so we might as well do what's best for the business and go in all in

21:54 on that. And so for us, that was owning the service. And that was one of the things like, especially in construction, you have a ton of reasons why selling the widget, selling the robot outright

22:07 is just like not feasible in the vast majority of cases. And so if this is going to work, it's we've got to use it to take giant chunks of market share, but if we're successful on that, that's a

22:21 really outsized outcome. And so by going through eventually we got introduced to a smaller institutional investor that totally got it, took a chance on us and wrote us our first institutional check

22:38 We actually had an institutional check before we had any angel investors.

22:43 Which is a little bit different. And then once we got that first check, then the rest of the round closed up pretty quickly. Yeah. And you already knew how to get new business from your time at

22:54 Sertopro, right? So like new approach. Yeah, I mean, it's like, and that's the other thing too, is painting in general is very niche. Most investors, like they barely know construction. They

23:06 certainly don't know painting, which is probably one of the smallest of the 34 trades out there. And so it was actually pretty difficult for a lot of them to do diligence just where we're doing,

23:16 because they, you know, the closest they may have is an LP that's a large general contractor. Sure. But even them, they're like, we don't care about painting, that's 1 of our build out. Right.

23:29 So there was always this question in terms of how big is this really is this market?

23:37 This is really interesting, because for me, right, being in. in oil and gas, I didn't realize how big of a deal painting actually is. Until you and I had the conversation and then I started

23:46 talking to some people in my network, oil and gas I think is a perfect use case for why paint jet makes sense because it's a people issue. And these are companies with assets in Appalachia in the

23:60 middle of nowhere, in California that are hard to get to, in Alberta, internationally, West Texas, Eastern New Mexico, random remote places in Colorado and Utah, North Dakota, where the issue

24:13 is finding people. It's, hey, we need a crew to paint these tanks to stay in compliance with the regulatory needs. And we can't get a crew of painters up here. So then what you end up doing is

24:27 going to a city like Houston and then flying a crew of people up there for very manual blue collar work. And then you're on a wait list. That's not gonna be the highest priority job. Yeah, and

24:38 it's also this piece too, where it's like a lot of these remote locations, you have, you know, your weather can change rapidly. Like you're up in North Dakota, weather is an issue. You probably

24:48 have two, three months of good painting weather. Yep. And not only is it a big deal from a regulatory standpoint, but it's also just a risk mitigation standpoint. I mean, you've got 80, 000

24:60 barrels of product in this container. If you get, if you start getting rust, you're contaminating that product. If the paint starts falling off, and you're contaminating millions and millions of

25:15 dollars worth of product.

25:18 It's a risky proposition. So you've decided like you're gonna pursue certain verticals. And obviously like the commercial real estate market makes a ton of sense. You go out and you paint huge

25:29 warehouses and large swaths that require paint jobs. Talk to me a little bit specifically out the use case in oil and gas, the types of companies that contract with paintjet and why you're bullish

25:43 on being in this industry. Yeah. So I think it's one of those things that the technology is good

25:51 at painting one product, large areas, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, very consistently. It's not going to be good for architectural purposes. It's not going to look pretty You

26:05 don't need to have a bunch of designs on it, but it needs to apply one product very consistently over and over again.

26:13 The other parts of that, and so we look at, hey, what are good applications for that? Big flat walls are good application. And now big cylinders are another really good application. And then you

26:26 look at some of the buy products that we get from just how we get our system to work and there's, in addition to the consistency, you have a lot of like we're always taking environmental readings.

26:39 We're taking temperature readings. We're taking wind conditions. We're taking ambient temperature. We're, I mean, we are continuously tracking all of these things. We're taking before and after

26:51 pictures, right? 'Cause the system needs to be able to see what it's gonna paint. So we've gotta take pictures and video before it can even paint. Okay, well now you have just documented what the

27:02 base condition is

27:05 And then after you paint it, well, you need to go to the next area. Well, how do you know what the next area is? Well, you look at what you just painted. So just by navigating, okay, now you

27:12 have your after pictures. And so you have this level of detail and documentation that you've never really had before. And the consistency, you know, we're able to apply six to eight mils thick.

27:28 Just, it's a math problem. If you ever watch Cruz paint, Hey, they're gonna be super consistent in that first hour. After an hour of waving your arm, like you get tired. Especially in the sun.

27:42 Yeah. And so you get tired. And every single time you have to move the lift to get to a different section, that's something else that you have to do. That takes you out of work flow. So what that

27:55 means is you were trying to minimize the amount of times that you move the lift basket. Okay So instead of painting, like what's right in front of you, now you start reaching out, and now instead

28:09 of being perfectly perpendicular to the surface, now you're off at 80 degree angles and you're losing 90 of the product to the atmosphere. Yikes. Yeah. And so that's the piece too. And then these

28:22 are not cheap products. Like multi-component, high-solids products, you're looking at 100, 200 bucks a gallon, versus traditional ATEX paints gonna be anywhere from 25 to 50 bucks a gallon.

28:34 what we've seen is we're seeing a 30 reduction. So, hey, we can apply more product to the surface while actually using less paint because we just don't have the over spray and lost the environment

28:48 that you traditionally run into. Interesting. So talk about the paint jet, the robot itself, right? So this is you, somebody says, yeah, okay, I'm having a hard time finding a crew, I like

29:02 your price I'm gonna fly you out to Midland and we're gonna take you out to one of our wells. What do you do? You deploy a couple of people to go along with it and is it a lift and the robot and the

29:15 paint with it? Like what's the human intervention? What does a job look like with this product? Yeah, so the easiest way to think of how to deal with paint jet is, you currently deal with

29:29 painting contractors. We are a licensed painting contractor. us than anyone else. And instead of a crew of four to six, you're looking at a crew two to three.

29:43 The way that we access, and this is one of the unique things about our technology, is it works with industry stand, it works in conjunction with industry standard manless. And so these are the

29:54 manless that are already going to be on site

29:58 And so you've got our system, it's like, it fits in the back of a six by 12 trailer, we pull up on site, our people, they own the process, they own setup, and then they plug it, they'll

30:12 connect it to the man lift, and then they will be able to control both the man lift and our system via remote control. If big difference is instead of being in the basket, they're actually safely

30:26 on the ground. And

30:30 then so, which improves safety overall. I don't know if you've ever been one of these lifts, but it's like if you go over a bump, these things turn into a catapult. Nice. I can picture - And

30:39 they're super jerky and all of their internal electronics have been completely retrofitted and spliced up. So because we bypass all of those systems, there's a plug-in in the back. We bypass all of

30:53 that and we just get like, it's just a way safer way to control and position these Plus, you get the employee out of what is a very toxic chemical. Right. And it's also, it's like they're just

31:09 looking up and pressing the start button and then it applies the pain.

31:16 And so now, before that, we do have to prep it. You're probably looking at, and we do that traditional methods, traditional abrasive blasting. I think you'll see that change to adding as a

31:29 service offering or part of our robotic solution in

31:36 2025. And the reason why that's the case is because painting is actually one of the more difficult things to automate. You have a fluid that's continuously trying to change to a solid,

31:51 and you have to apply it plus or minus 11000 of an inch

31:58 I hadn't thought about that, it's probably 3, 000 PSI. Yeah, major power. Yeah, so

32:06 by able to do that, all we have to do is switch out the hoses and pumps for abrasive blasting.

32:14 Right. Because we already have the control required for painting. Now in theory, and if you look on your website, this is probably what you're doing, this is not just restricting to the United

32:27 States or Canada or whatever, right? This is a challenge that could be solved worldwide. Are you seeing other markets moving more quickly toward adopting this solution? Are you seeing it happen

32:39 faster here? Are you guys an international business, domestic? What's your business plan in terms of geographical location? So we do have international engineering offices already We're focusing

32:54 right now, opening it up in our oil and gas efforts in Houston, but I'd say within 12 months after that, you just, you end up being global pretty quick and we've already know how to operate

33:08 globally from an RD perspective. So I think, no, that's not the same as operating commercially, but operating internationally is something that's already in our DNA.

33:21 And I know you were in Taiwan, not that long ago, right? I saw some of the videos with that talk. Talk about the man versus machine stuff that you guys were doing. That's pretty cool. And I

33:30 think that's one of the reasons that we're pretty excited about this is we've been hearing that robots are coming for like 20, 30 years. More than that, yeah. Yeah, okay. Well then, if they've

33:46 been coming, where are all of the documentation that robots can't beat humans? And in the construction environment, there's not that many. Maybe one or two companies. But for the most part, it's

34:00 isolated to where humans can't operate. And so our ability to actually put some proof in the pudding, so to speak, is that no, we are actually able, our teams using robots are exponentially

34:17 faster than traditional painting methods. So it's not just where you can't get people, but it's even where you can get people, you still need to be able to use robots. And I think that's the big

34:29 thing, especially in construction that gives us license and a reason to exist is, hey, we're actually showing and using the robots are effective in the field. And like we've had robots in

34:44 manufacturing settings, but to get robots to be doing actual trade work,

34:52 in the uncontrolled environment of a construction site, it's really, really hard for us to be able to showcase and document that I think is very powerful, not only to us, but I think the direction

35:04 that robotics are going as a whole. Yeah, I think humans are just skeptical in general of robots or that AI couldn't do something much better. You have to prove it, you have to show people. And

35:16 that's what some of your videos doing with the product. I'm gonna transition here in a moment to some of the entrepreneurship lessons learned, but I'm curious, like, you know, you're a strategic

35:26 guide despite having to be tactical with getting this job done on this day and this location. But like, where do you envision this company going? Are you gonna stick with paint? Are you gonna try

35:35 to master, you know, robotics for other trades? Do you just continue to refine to get better where you go? That's a really good question. It's something we talk about every day. Our focus is

35:41 really nailing painting first. That being said, and this, I think a case in point, is oil and gas, the painting contract includes things that are not painting related, specifically. So abrasive

35:42 blasting is included in the painting contract. If you want the painting contract, you gotta own abrasive blasting. So what we look is painting and painting adjacent type trades. And so everything

35:43 that's included in that painting contract, The big bulk stuff.

36:19 that we can automate 80, 90 of it, that's where you're gonna see an evolution. And also when you look at how we've structured the system itself, it's really about, essentially we make an end

36:33 effector. And there are components that you can switch out on this end effector that you can do things other than painting. And that has always been how we have been designed in how our engineering

36:46 roadmap

36:49 has been from the very beginning. It starts off with paint sprayers because that's something very clear. And that's also a core competency that we have just from an operational standpoint. But if

37:03 you're applying paint, you can apply other fluids. So you can do pressure washing.

37:09 And if you can do that, then you can do abrasive blasting, which technically is a solid and a fluid suspension of air.

37:19 and your access the exact same way. And then if you're creating a documentation and an environment and you're able to access these things, that gives you license to go through the next piece,

37:32 whether it's just an inspection in and of itself, right? We have inspection components we're already building out. And so being able to separate that. So there's a lot of, I guess, very valuable

37:47 steps that we can continue to build on

37:52 once we document and prove capability with pain. Right. And that's the other thing too, is none of that stuff happens unless we get pain-ery.

38:03 So until there's acceptance and documentation on that,

38:09 that's all we're doing. Yep, yep, yep, got to prove it. I want to pivot a little bit to entrepreneurship, right? And so you talked a little bit about how you always knew that you wanted to be

38:20 an entrepreneur and some of those early challenges that you experienced, whether it's your wife or your family members painting or leveraging a robot that maybe wasn't as great as obviously what your

38:32 product is today. But tell me what you would tell young Nick Hegeman, the 21-year-old version of yourself If you could go back and make suggestions around, all right, kid, you want to be an

38:43 entrepreneur, you want to run your own business, if you knew then what you know now, what would you tell them? I think it'd be two things.

38:53 One, just start earlier.

38:56 At the end of the day, it's like, unless you're talking with customers or you're touching the product or using the product, it's all theory and it doesn't really matter And then the other piece is

39:07 probably just trust yourself a little bit more.

39:11 I think we're all pretty smart. people. And I think, you know, there's some stuff out there that you kind of have hunches on or you see certain things, you're like, ah, this doesn't quite make

39:22 sense. But there's a bunch of smart people out here. And this is the way that it's going about. So maybe they do. No, that's that stuff that you're saying, you're probably right on it. So lean

39:33 into those things a little bit more, and probably with a little bit more conviction

39:39 Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's good. The start earlier thought is is interesting. And that definitely resonates with me. You know, my idea for funk futures really was hatched in like 2017. I

39:50 didn't act on it till 2021.

39:53 But in doing that, I think I was kind of further along when I launched it. But I also missed out on that time. I had to fail and learn lessons 21 22, right? And be a little bit behind. I would

40:04 have figured those out pre COVID. But nonetheless, we kind of all have on path. Yeah, yeah, I think the path is gonna.

40:13 Like you're going to have opportunities no matter what, you know, you're going to have challenges no matter what you have learning opportunities no matter what

40:20 the path that you take is the path that you take what you make of that. You know that that's up to you and you know for me it was I got to really hone in my sales skills for five for five good solid

40:33 years and the way that I say I'm an engineer. I don't really like people but they buy stuff for me so I guess I can sell

40:43 And so like if I'm not doing that for five years then I don't have that capability and so I'm probably not as good as I would be in that specific skill set as a CEO and on Japan.

40:58 There's there are things that owning your own business is a small business you learn a lot of stuff but there's also it's there are things that venture back versus small business or totally different

41:10 beasts So, you know, you may have. some bad habits you got to break, you may have some opportunities to grow. But then there's also some basics blocking and tackling you're going to be ahead of

41:20 the curve.

41:23 Yeah, and you have a lot of thoughts on this now because you're saying, okay, so maybe you don't love people, right? You're an engineer by trade, but you have to manage people in your business,

41:32 right? You can't be a robotic CEO, right? So how do you do that? And especially with the remote workforce, right? How do you sort of vet out getting the right people on your team and having that

41:45 implicit level of trust, or is it just a challenge? You know, I think working remote is a challenge. It represents opportunities,

41:56 right? Like we're not constricted by geography, so we can get really good people anywhere in the world. Now we do need to be more intentional about that,

42:07 about that culture that we're driving in that. And it's just like, it's almost like, hey, it needs to be a budgeted line line, and that's you're spending time together as a company, because it's

42:21 very easy to get off on your silos.

42:25 And then the other piece, too, is just leaning into your authenticity as a

42:32 person and a leader. That tends to make a difference And now I say I don't like people as I don't like small talk. Yeah, yeah. And that's totally different than just being an authentic person.

42:52 And here's what we're about, here's what we do.

42:56 And here's what we want to go build. And those are the things that really good people, you get alignment on those type of things. And it makes it a lot easier. On the painting robot, Are there

43:09 other companies doing this? Like, do you have competition? You say there are other companies out there. Yeah, yeah, there are, I mean, the opportunity in painting is pretty significant. And

43:18 there are other companies trying to do this, the challenge, and I think where we're unique is that we're vertically integrated and we own the service. Yeah. Most, and there's a thousand reasons

43:30 why people don't wanna do that. It's, you know, scaling service businesses is difficult. Yeah. Services in general have variable margins Your scaling ability isn't as efficient as

43:45 just sending additional lines of code.

43:50 There are real challenges behind it.

43:53 You also have to have experience and there's not a lot of people. Like if you don't have the operational experience in construction, you're gonna struggle.

44:04 And so that's why there really is this perfect storm us in terms of our operational experience. and our technical backgrounds and capabilities,

44:14 which give us the ability to actually deliver the service. And then after that, it's about scaling it. Right. And just gonna ask that. Which represents its own challenges, but also its own

44:29 opportunities because in construction, like those revenues can stack themselves very quickly. For sure. And when you're looking at, hey, if you look from a SaaS business, hey, we did a million

44:44 ARR. We did, we're trying to get to fight, we think we got a shot at 100 million ARR. Well, there's construction companies out there. Like, I did 15 million with my SertaPro business in like

44:59 two years. Right. Like, you look at the cost to paint these tanks. They're a quarter million a pop and they take two, three months. And so you're looking at significant revenue. I mean, the US

45:11 Navy spends3 billion of your opinion ships. I mean, they're like, you start getting into construction and the revenues stack themselves very quickly. And by using technology in a meaningful way,

45:24 you can start realizing technology business metrics with construction revenues. And the only way you can get that is by owning the service. But don't you think people are gonna figure that out

45:36 though? Right? You've figured it out and it clearly makes logical sense to me 'cause it sounds a little bit like the Holy Grail. You're talking about crazy margins, lots of revenue and a

45:47 repeatable business model with demand. Like that sounds as good as it gets. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. Like scaling, I mean, the process is hard. And that's I think one of the things is that

45:58 managing the process is just as important as the technology. And so you've got to be good at a lot of things And that is very challenging for startups in general. The other thing that you look at

46:09 larger companies is they don't have the incentives to be innovative the way that a smaller company does. For sure. And this gets back to licensing, work history, financial strength that's required

46:20 for insurance and bonding purposes, those type of things. Like, you get to a certain size and you're the only player anyways. And the customer, they really don't, on the face of it, the

46:31 customer doesn't care about technology. They just want their tank painted They want the job done, right? They have a mandate to get it done, and if they don't, they're probably going to get fined.

46:41 And historically, construction businesses are lower margins. Yeah. And there's also a slow pay period, so typically any profit that you do have on the job is actually just fronting the next job.

46:58 And if you screw up one job, that can be your entire year, or that can put you out of business And so given the risk profile. of introducing new technology before it's perfect, which you have to

47:09 do if it's ever gonna get good. It's just really, really tough to do that. Okay, maybe it's not the Holy Grail, but anyways, I respect you for going after it for sure. Yeah, no, I mean, it's

47:24 like, at the end result,

47:27 it definitely works, but it's not as easy and simple as like, oh, this just sounds too good to be true

47:34 Do the jobs occur like on weekends, you know, at night, like, or is there like a sweet spot when these happen? Is it a nine to five type of thing? When does the work get performed? Yeah,

47:46 typically it is a nine to five, but it's always weather permitting.

47:51 In future iterations, can we do something like operate at night when no one else is there? Sure, that's stuff we've thought about. But it gets back to, it's really about taking the employees and

48:04 partners that we do have

48:07 amping up their productivity rates and their capabilities. And so it's you have to operate when humans are designed to operate optimally. And so it's you're looking at normal hours, which also

48:21 turns into it just ends up being a better job too, because it's you have normal hours. You don't have to work 70 hours a week to get the job done. To do the same job. You can work normal hours and

48:34 get the job done You can be more consistent about it. I mean, your physical condition and how you feel when you're performing a manual task matters on the output and the quality. So if you're

48:45 having an off day, well shoot, you could be having to paint that thing twice 'cause you're not gonna pass inspection or you might not be profitable that day and you gotta send someone home.

48:55 Do you get any referral business where somebody like literally drives by you guys painting a tank with a robot and they're like, Hey, what is that? I want to do that on one of my tags. Is that

49:06 what we have to do? Yeah, no, that is like, it's one of those things that when you see it, it just ends up being like, yeah, this is the way we need to be doing it. Yeah. And the other way,

49:15 it's just like, it's just dumb to not do it that way. It just makes sense. And that's what we're saying. It's like, when it works, it's so obvious that it really sells itself.

49:26 Love it. And, but until you see it, it sounds to be true that will never happen. Which is why you've got these videos, especially the man versus machine stuff and painting actual like tanks and,

49:39 you know, the real work because, especially in oil and gas, everybody's from Missouri. I like to say, you got to show them. You got to show them. Nick, this was fun, man. I think you dropped

49:48 a couple nuggets. I'm looking forward to listening to this one, not only the notes on entrepreneurship, but looking back in like a year and seeing how things evolve for you guys, right, in a

49:59 competitive market. But where can people find you? If they, they want to reach out, Where can people find your company? Yeah, so, so website paintjetcom also on LinkedIn. Most of our focus is

50:11 there. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not on a ton of Instagram or Twitter. Our customers aren't there. Don't value it. I don't really either. So we LinkedIn paintjetcom.

50:23 And then, of course, if there's any, you're welcome to share my my contact information as well Not hard to find Nick at paintjet. Thank you so much and best of luck moving forward. You're on to

50:36 something. Thanks, man. Really appreciate it.