From Door Dash and Door To Door To Large Managed Security and Construction Company

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Matt, welcome to the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Hey, thanks for, uh, thanks for being here. I know you, uh, you got a couple of irons in the fire right now. So taking a few minutes here to hang out with me. I sure do appreciate it. I know you and I connected through, uh, the great Dan Martell's elite mastermind group. Uh, Absolutely. Been in it now for about five months. It's been incredible.

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Yeah, right. It's quite the eye-opening experience. Dan is a hug with a slap Yeah, I know I do. Yeah, man, absolutely. No, he's made me cry. I'm not scared to admit it. Yeah, that guy, he'll bring you to tears. Yeah, I'm like, I'm all good. That's all good. Bring it on. That's what I pay for. If you ain't gonna make me cry, I'm in the wrong room.

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Yeah. Exactly. And he's absolutely right too. If we don't pay for it, we don't care enough. And so we don't take his critique or his advice enough, right? Correct. So paying for it was one of the best things that I've ever done. And then just being a part of it, I think last week's session where he was where he was teaching, it was just like, this is such an eye opener.

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I needed this five years ago when we started the business. So, yeah.

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Definitely a blessing. That is, that is for sure. Well, I love telling people's stories on this podcast, hence the name beyond the story.

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Um, but I always like to go back for context purposes for our listeners, go back to the beginning of the story, um, where it all started for you, um, and how you got to where you're at right now. I know that, uh, quite the interesting start you had. and, you know, been able to attain a certain amount of success, you know, based on, you know, kind of just starting from literally nothing, which oftentimes that leads to great stuff. But let's back up to the beginning of the story and what Yeah, so my background is in construction. I've been in a lot of underground utility construction, worked for a lot of companies or a couple of companies that did. underground utilities. But there came a point to where I was just getting burned out.

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So I saw an ad on Craigslist that was for it just said customer service rep. So I was like, Sure, why not? Did the interview ended up that company sold at&t door to door for door to door business. And so that's what I did for the next three years found out I was pretty good at sales. I'm in the pandemic yet. And so we weren't allowed to go door to door anymore, so we had to sit at home. And as well as I do, it's hard to make money sitting at home and not talking to people. What I ended up doing was I ended up starting a company that was, in a sense, mimicked the other company that I was working for. But instead of just selling one provider, I was working through some master agents, and it was really starting to be able to sell pretty much every provider out there. I still do it door to door. So I was selling phone and internet to businesses. I found out really quickly, though, there was money to be made there, but it would take six to eight months to a year to get to start seeing payment.

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And so in order to make things start working, I went, I was doing door to door by day and DoorDash by night. And sometimes, sometimes I was doing cold calls, and knocking on doors while I was door dashing. So I'd pick up food, and I would go and I would drop it off into a shopping center. And I would knock every door in that shopping center and get back in the car and go pick up another meal, and keep going. And I did that for about a year. Then I got a call from a company that was in a master agency. And they asked, Hey, does your company install security cameras? never done this in my life, had a construction background, but had never done anything with wiring at all. And I was like, what does it pay? And they told me the amount that it was going to pay that they were trying to find somebody to do it for. And I just, I just said, Sure. Yeah, we absolutely do. And so I grabbed a friend of mine, and we watched YouTube.

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And I learned how to do learned how to do the ethernet wire, learned how to put together camera systems. And we went and did, we went did a car wash for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia. And, and that was that was the first time we'd ever done that. And it took us probably a week longer than it should have, if we would have been experienced. But from there, we've I found out, hey, we can I can make money doing this. And it comes a lot faster. And so that's when I started learning and really starting putting the effort into learning that trade. And over the last three or four years, we've converted. We don't do a ton of phone and internet anymore.

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We'd probably only do 1% of what we do in phone and internet. Everything else is in the security space. So the surveillance and security cameras, the access control, and even AI gun detection. and then the low voltage that comes behind that. But that's pretty much how we got to Oh, wait a second. So you went on YouTube and you're like, I need to learn I bought a couple of tools at Home Depot and watched it on YouTube, bought some cabling, and then I just sat in the house with a friend of mine and we just figured it out. We went through and we started making connections. Nope, this one doesn't work, this one doesn't work, this one doesn't, okay, this is how you do it. And after about three or four days of just doing that almost nonstop, we were like, OK, we're ready to go install it. And yeah, it should have taken us about three days to do the job. Took us about two weeks to do it.

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32 camera system and a car wash. We did it and found out you can make money doing that. And here we are, man. 32 cameras at a car wash. What the hell they got going on over there? I mean, that's that's nothing now. We've we're doing a car wash right now.

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That's about 52 cameras. But with the AI features, it's it's for more than just the footage nowadays. So what's it for? So they can track a vehicle going as soon as they start coming into the lot. So they pull into the lot, they can track it by the license plate and the vehicle type. They can even track if the client is a member of the car wash. by the RFID card on the windshield. So you can do all of that through the car wash and with the camera system, you can track the vehicle from the time it comes in, goes through the wash, how much time they spend at the vacuum area. And so they can really keep track, how often does this client come, but also they can come in and see how many of our clients actually come in and just do the wash and leave, how many of them spend time at the vacuum center, that way they can track what is making them successful and what is hurting them. long-term. Wow.

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And then you've mentioned AI gun detection. What the hell is that? Yeah, man. This is one of my favorite, favorite softwares we work with. It's a, depending on the system, it's a server that you can put on your, on your camera system, put on the same network. And if you have somebody pull a pistol and it's seen on camera, or if they're walking around with a rifle, as long as the pistol is not holstered and it's actually in hand, you can have it either send you an alert immediately. And I was showing somebody this yesterday at our office space, and it was within two seconds we had the alert on my phone. But you can also have it set up to send and call 911. So, there's also ways to take that and add it to access control.

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That's a great question. That's a great question. We knock on school doors a lot. It's a long process, but man, it's super important because it can also lock the doors. It could tell the access control system there's someone outside with Wow. So that's when, uh, these are, this is when AI is getting really interesting and really useful and making life a lot easier. So yeah, you said that, you know, nobody's, nobody's using landlines anymore. I mean, I guess businesses still do. So it makes sense why you would. start to phase that out and just focus on the security.

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Well, he's not in our B&I group anymore, but he used to be because he's so damn busy.

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Same thing, he would do his presentation and literally, you can control your whole house with a tablet. You know, home automation and like, I mean, they would do all, run the gamut on different type of work out there, but it's truly incredible how, I don't know that I'd want my house fully automated. It's like, what if a button goes wire, you know, haywire? I'm on vacation and then my garage door just opens and all the lights go on Yeah, I was at a hotel recently and I actually got to experience that. I couldn't get the TV to turn off because the button was stuck, so. Yeah, I ended up having to call down to the desk and they were like, oh, your iPad's messed up. Let me bring you another one. And it's like, okay, well, I can see where this is really awesome, but I can also see where this would Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, it's still mind blowing. Some hotels still, you know, they, you know, you've got to go watch, I mean, majority of them, even nice ones, you got to go watch like the TV Guide channel to find out I mean, I, I, I, uh, I kind of lean into it. It was like back in the day, it was like, Oh, I hope this is a good movie It's just a Warner brothers, you know, as long Yeah, really? I got, I was down Key Largo last weekend and woke up, got woken up cause the alarm went off like the, the clock alarm. Right.

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Wow. Alarm clock. There we go. Clock. I hadn't seen those. I hadn't seen one of those in a long time. Now I usually unplug them, but I, if I can find the unplug part, you know, um, so, and so how long ago was Uh, as far as, as far as when you, when you, when you started watching YouTube. Four years ago, four years ago. Now I got a year into the business, um, and having to do DoorDash the entire time. was really trying to figure out a way to make money faster. And so that just kind of fell in my lap. And for that was four years ago. Do you miss the door dash?

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No, no. Yeah, I've got like a bad rash. Yes, I had four kids at the time. I had four kids. I've got five now. And so I would start door dashing at 6am. And then I would start knocking on doors about 10. So I get four hours in there. And then I'd start back at 11, door dashing and knocking on doors from 11 to two while I was door dashing. And then from five o'clock to 11 o'clock, I would finish door dashing.

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That was the way I was keeping the family fed while I was trying to start the business. Good night. Are you still working those kinds of hours these days? I'm still working pretty late, but it's, uh, it's mostly because we've got, we've got install crews all that are, that are working all over the country. Um, we've got a sales team that's, that's trying to, trying to pump out new sales and new deals. And so, um, and the projects that are just being generated and making sure those are going, going right.

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So, so you guys are nationwide. How big is the team? And the team we've got about, we've got 12 of us right now. Um, and our install team, uh, for instance, right now, we've got, we've got a team in Reno, Nevada right now, uh, wrapping up an install there. And we've got another team right now. in, uh, in Tallahassee, Florida. And then on Monday, we've got a team headed to Boston. So, um, we're not, we're not, we're not real big, but we were able to make a pretty big impact.

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Yeah. Well, last year, um, November in June of last year, there was only two of us. So there was, there was me, And who is now our, our VP of construction. So there's just the two of us.

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And so we've, we've grown a lot over the last, I don't know, year. So, Well, congrats on that. What, uh, what would you say you're most Well, I haven't done DoorDash since in about three and a half years. So that's great. Most excited about this year is just kind of where we're going. So we've got a plan built out. So we're wanting to open. We've got our first office space location. We just moved in this month. Next two years, we're wanting to add a couple more locations. And our biggest focus is Florida, New York City, and Vegas.

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If we can hit those areas, we can hit anywhere in the country within about 12 hours. And so a 12-hour drive for us is pretty small. So we'll load up the trucks and head that way. But if we can have locations, Tennessee, Florida, New York City, and Vegas, that really expands what And have you had a specific type of niche market you go Uh, we, we work really heavily in the car wash industry, but we also are working in higher education, K through 12 manufacturing retail. Uh, we're working really hard to get into the casino side. So we've got, we've got some success in casinos right now, but that's, that's kind of our focus right now is to start getting into the casino space. Yeah.

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I mean, they got, they got a couple bucks. Right? And with the new AI features, the camera systems that they're using most of the time are behind the times. And with the new camera systems now, using AI, you can see how long this guy is sitting at the slots, or you can see how long this guy is at blackjack, you know? And you can keep up with where their customers are spending their money and where they're working. So with- Yeah, you would think that they would be the first adopters to want to say, we need the baddest cameras on the market because You know? Sometimes people look at that though and they're like, well, it doesn't actually work. I don't want to be the guinea pig, but there's enough success in it now. There's not much guinea pig left, especially with the camera systems that have adopted chat GPT. So now with certain systems, you can tell it what you want, and you can create what you want in it as an AI agent, and it will start doing that. For instance, we are using it here in our office to track inventory. So we've told our camera system, this is what our shelves look like when they're full, and this is what it looks like when we need to restock these certain items. And so now it starts to send us alerts when, you know, maybe we have 50 boxes of cable. If we're down to 15 boxes of cable, it sends us an alert and says, you need to start reordering your cable now. And so, does I think they have those for refrigerators now. Tell you when you're out of beer and milk. Yep, they do. They do.

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But it makes sense in places like gyms to where maybe they don't wanna have somebody work in the register. They just wanna have it like at a hotel, you know, how you have the refrigerator that you open it, you grab a drink out of it and it charges you. Maybe you want that at a gym for a fridge to like do waters or protein drinks Yeah, anything but talking to somebody. Yeah, I mean, who wants to do that?

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Well, I mean, but they even have those, I think it's Amazon, isn't it? Like those- Yeah, the drop boxes.

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No, but the, the, they're like a little convenience store with no people that, well, there's like a, there's like a, like a monitor, like a hall monitor there, but like you go in and it like, it opens a little gate and you go in and you buy whatever you want and you buy and you just leave it. There's no humans anywhere, but there's like somebody overseeing I've seen that at the airport a lot. Um, there's a ton. I was at a gas station recently here in Nashville and they had that system in place. So like they had somebody working in the back making food. But all you had to do is just walk up to the register and sit the stuff down. It scanned it I wonder how they handle loss prevention with all that stuff. That's a great question. That's probably like if you pick up an item and there's not a registered form of payment, it'll like won't let you out or it calls the police or he Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I guess with anytime something like this is adopted, those things are bound to, bound to, we're And how do you, how are you going to get, how do you get around rather, um, like you guys are buying the biggest, baddest AI cameras right now, or at least trying to sell them to your clients as solutions? Well, at the same time, the next biggest, baddest AI camera is being built. The second it arrives at your office, the other one's about So that's where we're working with systems that are different. The systems that we're working with aren't necessarily the cameras. So we're looking for, it doesn't matter what type of camera they have, as long as it's an IP camera.

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So it's not locked down. Um, so this is basically the software. So it's a, it's a computer server that adopts the cameras that they have, or they buy new cameras and put it on that way. If the software changes, they don't have to buy new cameras, software updates. So something new comes out, the software updates and you're still good Okay, cool. Looks like the zoom emojis work on this. Is that, is that what's happening? Yeah, I did. Every time you give a thumbs up, it like say iPhone does the same thing until you want it to happen. When you don't want it to happen, they pop up.

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But when you do, yeah. Well, Matt, man, it's been great to, to, to get to know more about you and, uh, love the story, man. This is a, that is true grit. That is true. Entrepreneur ship at its finest. I mean, What? Learned it on YouTube while driving door dash and beaten on doors. Whoa. My goodness. I mean, there's I do have five. Brave man. And how old are those five kids?

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So my oldest just turned 13 and my youngest was Yeah, you know, you would think so. I've got four boys, and my number three is my only girl. And my boys, they wrestle. They wrestle and run, so. Oh, she'll be tough as nails. Yeah, she is. She is. The other day, one of my kids elbowed her, and so she hit him back, and she wasn't crying, but he was. So, Hey, that's the way it's, yeah. Let's say my best friend has three boys and one girl, and she's tough as nails, and she's dainty and small in the whole nine, but she's the first one to be like, we going to war? I got the face paint. Let's go, you know. Exactly. Well, man, thanks for your time, dude. I look forward to staying in touch with you. I know we were having some conversation before we interviewed about what it looks like for content and podcasts and all that stuff for the brand. So I look forward to unpacking that as the opportunity presents itself. And man, thanks If you want something, go after it and just do the work. You're not going to, it's not going to come quickly. It's going to take time, but just do the work, do what it takes. Why not you? Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

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Thanks again, my brother. I appreciate you. Thanks, Sebastian. Appreciate you.

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Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios.