AI Summary
5 min readIn the San Francisco edition of "Shoot Your Shot," three founders who built businesses generating $1.8 million, $5 million, and $12 million in annual revenue sat down to explain how they got there. The common thread was not a novel technology or a unique insight into a new market. It was a willingness to operate in industries others overlook—backup generators, trash compaction, and TMJ pain relief—and a clear-eyed focus on the mechanics of selling, hiring, and building systems.
The Search-Fund Operator: Buying Into Boring
Nick runs OnPoint, a backup generator company doing $12 million in ARR with a line of sight to $25 million. He did not start the company from scratch. He acquired it in January 2024 as his third search-and-acquisition venture, following a failed startup and a successful office plant company (which he bought with an SBA loan in 2017, grew to $10 million in revenue, and partially sold to private equity). This time he raised $6.5 million in outside capital, mostly from investors, because he saw a macro tailwind in booming electricity demand and data center construction.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:51) **Nick: $12M ARR Backup Generator Company** - Nick introduces his business providing backup generator sales and service, mostly B2B for high-end estates and critical facilities.
- 2 (03:19) **Nick's Search-Fund Journey & Prior Businesses** - Nick reveals this is his third search venture, having previously bought an office plant company and done 14 acquisitions on that platform.
- 3 (06:06) **Competing on Speed & Using AI** - Nick explains how he wins pitches against large, slow competitors by radically speeding up the quoting process.
- 4 (07:52) **The Impossible Hiring Problem & The Trade School Solution** - Nick details the extreme difficulty of finding and training field technicians for generators.
- 5 (13:39) **Nick's Motivation & The Harvard of the Trades** - Nick shares his personal mission and the hosts identify a massive adjacent opportunity.
- 6 (18:31) **Kevin: $1.8M Exit from "Smash My Trash" Franchise** - Kevin introduces his just-sold franchise business that compacts trash in industrial dumpsters to reduce pickup costs.
- 7 (23:48) **Kevin's "Red Hard Hat" Sales Playbook** - Kevin reveals his scrappy, effective sales strategy for landing clients.
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Show Notes
30+ blue-collar business ideas: https://clickhubspot.com/refn
Episode 853: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) ask 3 founders to tell them the juiciest number behind their businesses and get advice live.
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Show Notes:
(0:00) Nick Haschka, OnPoint Generators
(17:39) Kevin Moyer, Smash My Trash
(36:54) Noam Eisenberg, TMJaw
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Links:
• OnPoint Generators - https://onpointgen.com/
• Smash My Trash - https://howitworks.smashmytrash.com/
• Your TMJ Pen - https://yourtmj.com/
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Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm
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Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
• Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com
• Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.
• Mercury - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/
Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., Members FDIC
• I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out:
beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /
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