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Why the Future of Landscaping is Robotic: A Pioneering Journey with Dontae Gonzales
82 Plays2 years ago
In an era where innovation is the key to advancement, the lawncare, landscaping, hardscaping, and tree care industry stands on the brink of a technological revolution. The drive to innovate, spearheaded by visionaries like Dontae Gonzales, founder of Robotic Scapes, is not just about keeping pace with change but about setting new standards for excellence and sustainability in our industry. It's about leveraging technology to redefine our operational landscapes, making them more efficient, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of our communities.
In this enlightening episode, join us as we delve into Dontae Gonzales' transformative journey from his early days on the lawncare robotics team at Clean Scapes to founding Robotic Scapes. Discover how the mentorship from Ivan Giraldo played a crucial role in shaping Dontae's vision and how his collaboration with Matt Moore at the innovative robotics company Sunseeker is setting new benchmarks in the use of robotics in landscaping. From tackling the labor shortage challenge to enhancing sustainability and noise reduction with robotic mowers and electric tools, this conversation explores the vast potential of technology to revolutionize yard maintenance, tree trimming, and beyond.
Hosts Brent Oberlink and Travis May unpack the future of landscaping, highlighting breakthroughs from Roomba-style robotic mowers to drone-operated yard maintenance, and how these advancements are not only reshaping the industry landscape but also paving the way for a more sustainable, efficient, and customer-centric future. Learn how embracing these technologies early on can streamline operations, solve labor issues, and elevate customer satisfaction to new heights.
Tune in to gain invaluable insights into the next wave of landscaping and contracting innovation, and see how visionary leadership, strategic partnerships, and a passion for technology can drive the industry towards a brighter, more sustainable future. Don't miss this compelling journey into the heart of modern landscaping innovation with Dontae Gonzales and Robotic Scapes. Hit play now and embark on a journey to a better contracting future!
#TheBetterContractorPodcast #TheBetterContractor #landscapingpodcast #entrepreneur #landscaping #innovation #lawncare #robotics #hardscape #arborist #futureoflandscaping #veteran
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Transcript
Introduction to The Better Contractor Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
All right. Welcome back to The Better Contractor. Today we have Dante Gonzalesong with Robotic Scapes. Dante, how are you? Good. Good. Thank you for having me on here. Really appreciate it. Super excited to have you as you can tell. Well, and we have Travis. I can't forget about Travis. Hey Travis. So as you can tell from Dante's title of our name of his company, it's not your typical
00:00:36
Speaker
Landscape and Lawn Care Company, uh, robotic scape. So excited to have him on and just kind of learn something a little different, a little bit different aspect. Uh, for you, those of you who are joining us on YouTube, you can tell Dante is still young, unlike Travis and I, who are seasoned veterans, right Travis? Yeah. That's what that great hair's from. Mine's coming in though. Starting to. Distinguish, distinguish.
Dante's Journey from Military to Landscaping
00:01:04
Speaker
But Donte, tell us a little bit about your career path so far and kind of, you know, what got you to where you are today. Yeah, first off, thank you for having me. So I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, graduated in high school in 2017. After high school, I really had three options. It was either join college, you know, find a trade job or
00:01:29
Speaker
Uh, enlist in the military and I enlisted in the military. I was a 19 Delta calf scout. We did reconnaissance, the eyes and ears of the army. A very great experience. I always encourage, you know, everyone I talk to, you know, uh, to join, uh, to join.
00:01:48
Speaker
very good opportunity. You get a lot of characteristics and you find great leaders and the military has the best leaders in the world. So you learn from these great leaders. So I had the opportunity to travel parts of Europe, parts of the Middle East,
00:02:07
Speaker
I did a tour in Syria. And then we got back in 2020, got the opportunity to try out for the sniper section and what, you know, it was a great, great run and I was, you know, finished my career off as a sniper.
00:02:23
Speaker
Uh, then, uh, you know, I, uh, decided to leave, uh, the army, uh, did three years, 22 weeks. That was my exact contract. Um, so got out in January, um, January, 2021. And that was the start of my landscaping or entering the landscaping industry. Uh, in January, 2021, I had, uh,
00:02:48
Speaker
didn't know what I really wanted to do. You know, I was in Fort Hood, Texas at the time, and I didn't want to go back home. And so I seen Austin, it was about an hour 20 minutes. And so I, you know, ended up, you know, looking around the city and, you know, fell in love with it. And
00:03:09
Speaker
you know, ended up moving down here. And when I moved down here, I didn't know anybody, right? I moved down here solely for business and to, you know, serve the community and do something great.
Starting a Landscaping Business from Scratch
00:03:18
Speaker
So started in the landscaping industry. And, you know, this is also give a little trick out to anybody listening who wants to start a company with, you know, a couple hundred bucks. So what we had done, right, and how it made us so successful running, you know, the traditional residential landscaping company is,
00:03:38
Speaker
We gave ourselves a timeline and we gave ourselves goals, right? And I don't know if you guys ever heard the term bring the money in before you start spending all this money, right? So, you know, there's, you know, I could have bought all this equipment, you know, spent $10,000 in equipment, but what we had started off first was to bring the money in, right? So what I mean by that is I spent probably $250 on 3,000 business cards and spent
00:04:06
Speaker
$200 in gas and about 120 hours a month, right? January, February, door to door, right?
00:04:15
Speaker
We ended up getting, you know, by March, we ended up getting 20 residential clients and we hadn't spent a dime yet. So we told them that we would start in March, the end of March, and we would be ready to start servicing their property. So then that's when we started to, you know, spending money on equipment. And we, you know, started from there.
00:04:36
Speaker
You know, we've over the time we built to 40 residentials. We had an ABA clinic here in Austin and an apartment. So we had two commercial properties. We're doing really great. I had three trucks. We had two crews working about 35 hours a week. You know, so we were pretty busy.
Challenges and Lessons Learned in Business
00:04:56
Speaker
December 2021, the same year, we lost roughly 35% of our customers and I took a bigger bite than I can chew and we did a big job and we didn't do it correctly and I did the right thing and I subcontracted it out and it kind of put us in the hole.
00:05:20
Speaker
So, you know, me not knowing anybody here and not having anybody help, I was just, you know, finding people online and, you know, indeed and, you know, sources like that. And, you know, so it was very hard for me to, you know, pivot back, you know, it's kind of in the hole. So the best move that I could have made was just to sell everything, you know, kept one of the trucks, but I sold two of the trucks. They had two store units full of tools to sold everything off.
00:05:46
Speaker
and then kind of took a month off you know kind of just wanted to you know sit back and see what I wanted to do after that and it's a favorite quote by Elon Musk and he says having a company is like having a kid right and I was it was very sad to see you know the company that you had put in
00:06:08
Speaker
Everything in right in and I didn't see a huge return It was just the the thrill of it and the the innovation and you know when I got into the business I didn't know anything business-wise, right? I didn't know HR marketing Logistics operations. I didn't know any of that I honestly didn't even know that exist until you know I got into the business world and I just learned from experience, you know, and you know, there was times where you know, we talked to clients and and
00:06:38
Speaker
And, you know, people in, you know, I would learn from them through experience. So it was a great, great opportunity. Uh, so, you know, took a month off, you know, it was very sad, but, you know, we had to keep pushing, keep pushing and keep, uh, you know, finding something we wanted to
Integrating Robotics in Landscaping
00:06:53
Speaker
do. So in 2022, I had found a very great company here in Austin. Um, clean scapes, uh, one of my great mentors and a great leader, um, Yvonne Giraldo, he was, uh, very good.
00:07:07
Speaker
good man and very knowledgeable. So, you know, I was brought on to integrate robotics into Austin's operations. And when we had first started, there wasn't no schedule. We just were just looking around and searching, like, you know, what is the robotic industry looking like right now? And
00:07:24
Speaker
and how can we integrate that into our operations. So we had partnered with some very good companies in the robotic industry. When we had first started, there was no schedule. When I came in, I built a schedule.
00:07:42
Speaker
We were one of the first crews to be all electric besides our truck. So we had electric weed eater, electric blower, electric trimmer, electric mower. Everything was fully electric besides the truck. So we were fully electric.
00:07:59
Speaker
It was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of mess ups, a lot of frustration out in the field, dealing with this technology and trying to get the job done. But we powered through it with innovative ways. We figured out what type of properties are
00:08:21
Speaker
you know, very good for, you know, this type of robot, you know, different type of robotics, you know, serve, you know, different types of properties, right? That's one of the main things that I found out is that, you know, these robotics, they have their own, I like to think they have their own personalities, right? So in each company, they're built a little bit different. So you kind of see, you know, which ones, you know, you want to put in certain areas, you know. So that's one of the key things that we learn.
00:08:51
Speaker
So basically what we had done was we turned a full year work schedule, a full season schedule into a five man crew when we shrunk it down to a two man crew and three robots.
00:09:04
Speaker
And for the first time, and I still remember this, the first time where we actually, the first week of our actual schedule where we had two guys, the robotic crew leader and the robotic assistant, they were out there and they would set these robotics in autonomous and then they would go out and carry on details. So for the first time ever, you're seeing
00:09:30
Speaker
you know uh workers working aside robotics you know in and that's when you know i was like the technology is here you know the technology is ready we are you know we are doing good you know out of
00:09:42
Speaker
out of 50 plus properties, we ended up managing on average a 48 GP. So that's tremendous with the cost of robotics, the cost of electric equipment. So it was very good. So I did, I was stuck with Clean Scapes for two years, December 1st, then last year, unfortunately, we just reparted waste. And that's when I had January 1st, 2024.
The Birth of Robotic Scapes
00:10:12
Speaker
had, uh, uh, launched robotic scapes and we're here now. Okay. So you're getting ready to kick off basically for the 24, uh, season, correct? Right. Yep. Awesome. Well, kind of going back, you know, you mentioned, you know, the previous business, uh, Donnie's landscape and, you know, what I love about that story, obviously it ended, but what I love about the stories that you didn't give up. Right.
00:10:39
Speaker
You know, and that's, to me, that's one of the key elements of entrepreneurship is, you know, you look at statistics, there's a lot of businesses that don't make it past one year. There's less than make it to five and a whole heck of a lot less than make it to 10. The differentiator, I guess, between the common person and an entrepreneur is the entrepreneur doesn't give up. You know, so I love your pivot, but then you also grabbed a mentor in the process, you know, for someone who has been there, who has done that.
00:11:08
Speaker
And then you're transitioning now back into, you know, a second attempt and the robotics scapes, you know, Travis, as we all know, if you listen to podcasts at all, loves innovation and technology, but the robotics scapes is so interesting to me because it's new, you know, and there's, I look at it as if I can have this robotic mower and it can do kind of the mundane task of a job site. So a long, let's say a long site.
00:11:34
Speaker
But then I can take my human element and I can have them do the detail work. So while they get that robot mower going, robotic mower going, and then they can go do the trimming, do some landscape maintenance, actually take the time to actually beautify that property while that mower is doing its thing, they're doing that detail work. And to me, with that model,
00:11:56
Speaker
you should really be able to actually provide the customer and actually a better service than before because you have that time element back for the human to do the detail work. Is that kind of what you're envisioning with roboticscapes? Short-term vision. Yes. Long-term vision. Um, you know, 2030, 2000, 2035, you know, we're seeing, you know, Tesla coming out with these human droids and stuff. And we believe that, you know, the vision is that you'll see a community done by a hundred percent robotics, weed eating, blowing, edging, and mowing.
00:12:27
Speaker
That's, that's the long-term vision. That's so crazy to think about, but it's like you said, though, it's, it's the stuff's there. It's just implementing it. Right. Current society. Travis, I can tell by your face. Man, we could talk. I love your optimism on, on the 2030. I think, I think we have no idea what, what'll be out there in 2030. Um, you see drones potentially doing the trimming.
00:12:53
Speaker
as opposed to even robotics. There's drones that have attachments and capabilities now that are pretty impressive. Obviously, some things have to evolve, but the way that everything is evolving and going so fast, it's hard to keep up with, and it's hard to predict. You're basically predicting on what you know now, but the evolution, it's not addition, it's multiplication, it's compounding, and then convergence.
00:13:21
Speaker
One of the things I love, because I've talked to several companies that are either integrating robotics into the mowing operations and the teams, either wholly or testing it out.
Robotics Solving Labor Shortages
00:13:34
Speaker
But one of those takeaways a lot with what Brett was talking about is it ties into the talent challenge as well. And not so much that it's going to get rid of your crews, but it's actually feeling a need in that the areas where
00:13:51
Speaker
based on conversation and what we've had is the areas where those robotics are excelling at is the low skill and obviously low pay. If it's a low skill position where you're just mowing open areas, you don't really pay a lot for those types of, and so those are typically the hardest, some of the hardest positions to fill because nobody wants to live minimum wage for mowing
00:14:19
Speaker
But so your other option is you take a high skilled person that could be adding value and hardscaping or other detail work, and you go put them in this low value, low skill operation. So being able to integrate robotics into that type of thing, freeze up that time, you can go make more money other places. And then there's several different business models coming out of that, whether you leave the robotics there, and it can be kind of a continuous operation.
00:14:48
Speaker
talking to it to one company where they're taking the robots, they have larger ones, and they're deploying them to mow the yard while the detail work and the hardscaping is being done. And they're cruising, they go from, but at the end of the night, they're taking those robotic mowers and dropping them off on the next day's job. And it's going and doing that mowing work.
00:15:14
Speaker
throughout some of the nighttime hours when their crews go home. And it's getting two or three more hours worth of work done for them, which doing the impossible wasn't even possible. And then because they're electric and a lot of these too, the noise component where it's muted or mitigated too. So just tons of potential and tons of possibilities that love seeing this.
00:15:39
Speaker
Right. And that was actually one of the main reasons why I started RoboticsCapes. And we were founded off of three main reasons. Number one being a labor shortage. For the last decade, we've been struggling to find good talent and to retain good talent. And it's actually not a labor shortage. Just if you would call it a labor surplus because there's more
00:16:01
Speaker
you know there's more people that can you know there's more people out there they have options and you kind of see the triangle and you know at the end of the day landscaping is a tough industry you know and it kind of falls at the lower spectrum like you were saying and nobody wants to do that's like the last choice right and so you know labor shortage right we turn to robotics number two sustainability
00:16:24
Speaker
For the first time in history, you know, we're able to to be sustainable in and have a very positive impact on Mother Nature. Right. So that's another big, big key. And number number three is noise reduction. This is not this is not a big
00:16:42
Speaker
This should be a big issue in the landscaping industry because it's not talked about a lot. It's kind of ignored. But if you actually go and talk to these people that homeowners, residentials, Class A buildings, you go and show up at this Class A building and
00:17:00
Speaker
you know these executives are having meetings you know and if you're serving seeing that property 52 times a week or 42 times a week or you know whatever the case may be that's you know that's 90% of the year that they got to hear you every week right or even you're even homes residential there's more and more people working remote and they're on calls and stuff too said right we'll tie this into even work comp so
00:17:26
Speaker
Our, my business, you know, the safety is a huge, huge aspect. So, you know, there's a lot of, uh, hearing, you know, testing that even takes place. Uh, so I looked at that even with you guys, where you're running a weed or whatever hedge trimmer a lot. If you can reduce that noise, you're actually read, you know, it's a safety thing as well. Yeah. It means I can crank that, crank their AirPods up more. Maybe it doesn't matter.
00:17:53
Speaker
They made really great gas tools. They were phenomenal. They were great. They got the job done, but they were just too loud. And I think my opinion is that the robotic mowers and the electric tools, they are here. The people that say that the technology isn't here is the people who don't use them. I grew up using gas and electric equipment.
00:18:20
Speaker
And I'll tell you, you know, on a commercial level, you can get the job done, meaning that on a residential, you can most definitely get the job done. Right. So it is here. I just think the the number one challenge of transitioning and a lot of people do not think about it a lot is the charging infrastructure. Right. Is how do I get all these electric equipment into my facility? Right. And you look at a lot of these landscaping companies and and, you know, they're they're
00:18:47
Speaker
they're not ready yet, right? The infrastructure is not ready yet. So we want to be a big help in that as well. In the future, you know, you know, having, you know, helping other companies transitioning to, to electric and being there for them as well. Because we're founded off of that. Yeah, I think that's interesting. We had a, actually, Travis, I'll talk to you later, we need to have this guy on the podcast, but
00:19:11
Speaker
There was a company we met at the GIE Expo that had a handheld battery powered, uh, lawn care equipment. And what stuck out, so they were fairly new, but what stuck out to me about them is how fast they could charge their batteries. So that's kind of been an issue in the past with some brands is you had to have multiple batteries. You're constantly switching out. They had a fuel cell that you would purchase that would sit in the truck or your job trailer or whatever, and then you would
00:19:40
Speaker
Basically, I think it was eight minutes. Wasn't Travis. It's super quick. Crazy. Um, that's, that's a game changer where you can start charging a battery to full, full capacity within eight minutes on a job site. So that'd be an interesting one to have on, but that does change. This is another one of those innovation things, you know, for like robotic escapes or whatever. The challenges are going to be with the battery and the expense of them and the lithium and they've gotten a lot better.
00:20:05
Speaker
There's definitely could be some evolutions in that as the market is now demanding it. But one incredible new, I guess, industry rising out of out of this is just completely overturning and providing options that just were never there before. And so many and there's definitely challenges as with every evolution, but already seeing that that expand the way it is. And even at these trade shows, especially like the equip expo, there is so much
00:20:35
Speaker
robotics, AI, drones, electric power, and, and almost every major player is playing in it because it's solving, solving problems. And so, and so I love clean scapes too, being forward thinking on that. It's anytime that you're going to, a lot of people have short-term vision in that. And it's not, it's not just one specific industry, but when you're talking about innovation, you're basically planning for the future.
00:21:02
Speaker
You are looking at the timeline horizon of a year or two or three years down the road. Where are we going to be in preparing for that? And it's not easy to do. You really have to have your numbers in place. You have to have a team that can pull it off. And there's an R&D phase that needs to be done correctly. Evaluating what is this? How does it impact our industry, both for good and for bad? And how do we potentially leverage it? And then you're measuring that against three things.
00:21:32
Speaker
It's not right, it's not ready for you, so you're gonna scrap it. Or maybe it is the great technology, or it's got some really good promise, we're maybe not ready for it right now, or it's not ready, let's shelve it and we'll reevaluate it in three months, six months a year. Or 100%, it fits in, we found the pathway and we're gonna scale it. So you're gonna scrap it, shelve it or scale it. But you have to have a really good evaluation period and really understanding what is it that we're hoping to understand to get out of this,
00:22:00
Speaker
understanding innovation cycles and principles to integrate that, but it's not something that everybody's skilled at. It's not something that a lot of companies and that's where you end up getting disrupted in negative ways is you're not looking that far out. You're not adopting because change too is another challenge or a problem in that even when you do find something, the change management process is usually a big inhibitor. We as humans and a species don't like change typically unless you've been conditioned for it.
00:22:28
Speaker
So you're going to resist it naturally, but then also figuring out ways that you can integrate new changes. And it's not just technology, but it's processes or procedures too. You have to have a really good change management plan. And it's typically an overtime integration of whatever this new process or technology is, not a complete rip and replace. And there's other methods too, where you can run them in parallel. So it's you've identified a new innovation or technology or process.
00:22:57
Speaker
And you're going to create, and a lot of times this is very successful, you carry an R&D team. And it sounds like that's what you were on as far as that team. You're going to go, you're going to go run this in the environment and test out the new technology. And as things evolve, you're better off and better prepared for if when the disruption comes and you need to rely on new technology, whether it's a labor shortage or you need to find more efficient ways and you need to integrate this robotic technology, you're better off because now it's at least in your ecosystem.
How Should Companies Approach Innovation?
00:23:27
Speaker
But it's a cold start in the sense that you've now got to find ways to integrate that into the main operation, which isn't easy. The more successful ones, regardless of the industry, is they find ways it might be running in parallel for a period of time, but then they're slowly integrating these different components into the main operation so that it's a warm handover as opposed to a very blunt, we need it, now we need to find a way to integrate it, which
00:23:57
Speaker
oftentimes has significant challenges and it causes failure or additional capital and time to try and integrate that successfully. But ultimately those three buckets are where everybody falls out in the innovation. Either they're not adopting it, and those are the ones that when they come up against where they've got to find a new way to do something, innovation, technology, equipment, whatever, they've got to then integrate it, which most oftentimes they can't do it successfully.
00:24:27
Speaker
What happens is they try and compensate with expending large amounts of capital to try and get there, but again, usually fail. Or the ones that run it where they have an R&D department running it in parallel, that's better because at least they're familiar and they're working through some of the stuff, but it's still a cold handover if they're not constant. The ones that have been successful is they find ways to, once the technology is kind of shaken out or the innovation or the process, whatever is shaken out a little bit,
00:24:57
Speaker
they then slowly integrated into their organization. Those are the ones historically that have been way more successful. So I love hearing you talk about that and what a cool opportunity for you to take on something. And now you're transitioning into leveraging those skills, talents, abilities into creating a whole new realm of where essentially the industry is expecting to go.
00:25:20
Speaker
Right. And we understand that, you know, change can be difficult. And that's what really, you know, makes us different is that we're really focused on how can we make it more convenient? How can we be there for them? And how can you know, because the technology can be very daunting at times, you know, and it's like, I don't know what this is, you know,
00:25:39
Speaker
I haven't seen this work on other people's properties. Am I the first one? Am I, you know what I'm saying? So it's stuff like that. And we understand that. So our focus is on is making it more convenient for our clients, being there for them and just teaching them and being a teacher for them, even showing them how it works and getting them logged in on through the apps and stuff like that.
00:26:05
Speaker
One of the technologies that I saw at the QuickEx one that I've had conversations with people is there's kind of these Roomba robotic mowers where people can have it at their house and it'll dock itself and you set up the perimeter or it maps out whichever one. And it just goes out every day. It's just cutting a little bit. And it's just constantly going out and cutting just a little bit. And that's how it can be smaller and it's not having to do major operations and cut an inch or an
00:26:36
Speaker
So it's just constantly, every day, trimming up the yard and just keeping it nice and maintained and fresh. I see something like that with, I mean, drone technology has to evolve a little bit too with battery power and longevity. And it's always the weight distribution versus the battery power and longevity based off what you're doing. But could you do something with that regarding tree trimming? So long as that thing is just flying around and just constantly just nipping at, could you do hedges that way?
00:27:06
Speaker
Same concept, I mean, some evolutions need to happen with the technology, but just micro imprint, and you have this little fleet that goes out every morning at 3.30 a.m. I'll see them out there if I'm not employing them. And it just takes care of your yard and flies back into the shed and docks itself or whatever. I totally see a future, five, 10 years in that. I mean. By the time you wake up, you're looking at a beautiful yard.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah. The nice part about that is, is, is always, like you said, it's always perfect. You know, we're now, it gets, especially in the springtime around, you know, I'm in Illinois springtime. This looks rough, you know, by the time a week has gone by and then you mow it then looks good again, but then it looks rough. So this would keep it always looking freshly mowed, which is really cool. And you subcontract that out to your neighbor. So sun goes down, your drones are mowing the neighbor's yard and it gives you 50 bucks or whatever. And.
00:28:03
Speaker
Right before sun up, they come back, charge up right before sun up, it does your yard. And then landscaping, lawn care businesses turn into, they lease out these drone operations for three or one per two households or whatever, and they'll come do maintenance and repair. The sky's the limit, man. I'm trying to see what you do with this, because I think most industries will have these periods where
00:28:29
Speaker
They've something's been done the same way for a long period of time. Long care has been one of those. It's been done as we see it today for a long period of time. And then you'll have something like this where it's a disruptor, you know, a technology or whatever come into play. And that's what's happening here. And you'll have people like yourself who adopt it fully. And you'll have some people it's like, I'm not going to do it. So I'm very curious to see, you know, we're sitting here talking today about like a rumor style vacuum lawnmower, which is cool to us in 2024.
00:28:59
Speaker
2028, 30, we may laugh at that by the, you know, what is out at that point. But either way, the companies who adopted it early and didn't just like, foo-foo it and like, eh, that's going to be a dud, when most likely it will not be a dud, especially with our labor market. You know, cause I view this as, I'm one who likes a company to have a very much a personable human element. So a lot of people's pushback on an industry like this is you can't have that.
00:29:28
Speaker
I don't view that as true, especially in this industry. Cause I, the way I look at it is that's a task that is a little bit easier. It is a little bit difficult to find an employee to do it, not just do it, but then do it and stay with you long-term. You know, I look at like a lot of the companies is mode, you know, my, my house. It's different people, usually pretty frequently. The company we use last year, they had the same guy all year, but that's a rarity.
00:29:54
Speaker
Usually it's a different guy every few months, it seems like. So I'm not putting a connection with him anyway, because the turnover is so high. So if you can take something like this technology and do that task, pay someone a little bit more to run that crew, even though there might be one less person on it, but that person is then doing a better job, a better quality of service. They retain that employee. I then build a connection with that employee because, Hey, I like him. He's doing a good job. He's been there for a full year.
00:30:24
Speaker
it actually can improve the human element instead of taking it away. So I think it's a little bit of a different approach and mindset to it, but I'm curious to see how companies like yourself, especially just getting started, you know, and actually titling your company along the lines of what you're doing as well, or naming your company on those lines. Right. See how you do this first year. Right. And I think the key thing, and there's this saying, it goes, find the mystery of Mrs. Smith's. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but that's what we're looking for right now.
00:30:54
Speaker
you know, putting these robotics on these certain properties and kind of, you know, influencing, you know, the communities. In the springtime in March, we're working with this community here in Austin where it's an HOA and we're planning on, you know, it's 210 homes and we're planning on fully robotic that, you know, fully automating the turf on there and then doing all electric, right? We're working with the
00:31:18
Speaker
with them and we're trying to get it done. That's the big, the mountain we got to climb. We just want to start off by one by one. Is there any specific technology or robotic that you're gravitating towards? Did you go through an evaluation period and is there anything that you've settled on that you can discuss?
00:31:39
Speaker
I've partnered with a very great company called Sunseeker. I've been in the robotic industry for a couple of years now. I'm a robotic head, so I love robotics. When I seen this technology for the very first time, it blew my mind.
00:32:00
Speaker
You know because you know you look at the average cost of a robotic mower and what it takes to get that You know the real actual cost it's significant. It's significantly high right so With these new robotics that are coming out. You know the platform X You know you for the first time it's RTK system. You know with you know AI built into it and
00:32:24
Speaker
So we don't have to, you know, we don't have to install ground wire and we're able to mobilize these a lot more and, you know, put them around and, you know, it makes it logistically better. Yeah, I noticed that the Equip Expo this year, because like you just mentioned, a lot of them have the ground wire in the past.
00:32:45
Speaker
All of them still do, but I didn't notice a few brands this year where it's actually fully robotic, meaning brand wire. And it's actually seen what's out in front of it. I was going to ask you, so one key thing that you learned from like your mentor and one key thing that you learned from your running of Donnie's from there to this new company. What, what's one thing you're doing way different than you did the first time?
00:33:09
Speaker
Right. That's a great question. I think that the biggest thing that I've learned was just not giving up and just thinking of different innovative ways. Under Yvonne Giraldo, I've learned the whole side of the commercial side.
00:33:29
Speaker
There's so much to it than just going there and mowing. There's logistics. You got a fleet. And that's another thing that I wanted to bring up as well, is that with robotics, when we're shrinking down our crews, we're also shrinking down our fleet. So we're really being a real big change. Yeah, I think that's what I've learned.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, and then as far as going from so from Donnie's to this one, what's what's one thing you're doing like completely different besides the robot?
Comparing Old and New Business Ventures
00:34:01
Speaker
Okay, yeah, yeah. So so Donnie's so Donnie's landscaping was just your traditional residential landscaping company, right? Just all gas.
00:34:10
Speaker
Equipment coming from now. It's it's fully electric and 100% robotic We do have electric push mowers, but those are just for certain areas in certain Circumstances where we need a mow, you know some certain areas where the robotic can't get to you But those are very very minimal But I think that that's I think the biggest change is
00:34:38
Speaker
It's a good question. Good question. Because I've learned a lot. It's been an experience. I live out here. No friends. It's 100% business. I think Austin is one of the best cities here in America. The city is so vibrant. The energy and the people here are so amazing.
00:35:01
Speaker
And to start it here is just a very good opportunity for me and teach and help people who are in the landscaping industry. And I always like to say this is we're making landscaping cool again, right? Because we don't even know what the type of jobs we're going to create in the future. We don't know what the future looks like, but we are the future. So we're going to figure it out.
00:35:26
Speaker
We want to, you know, create thousands of jobs in the future and, you know, and be a knowledge and be a great resource to, you know, everyone in the community. Yeah, I think you're in the right city for kind of an innovative outside the norm company. So I think Austin will treat you well. I would just make sure you're marketing yourself and fully highlighting all the stuff you're talking about in this podcast. So, you know, the all electric stuff, the equipment, you know, using the robotics, you know, just
00:35:56
Speaker
Market yourself in such a way that you're telling your story that you're telling us today, just as good online, you know, and, you know, in your in-person sales efforts and all that stuff. Travis, what do you think? We're living in a time where the evolution of the technology and the tools and the things are happening so fast, so important for organizations to pay attention to what's out there and at least getting understanding of it and start becoming familiar with what does it mean?
00:36:22
Speaker
to the industry, what does it mean to my organization? How can I leverage it for better? Or how will the competition leverage it against me? How will the market leverage it against me? How could it disrupt us? Because as it goes on longer, it's going to be tougher to integrate. So I loved hearing that story about clean scapes, being innovators, and thinking outside the box and bringing that in early, and then you being able to leverage those knowledge and skills and talents and the expertise out of that.
00:36:52
Speaker
for a whole new company, just a beautiful transition. I love seeing that. Right. And, and clean scapes is a very great company and they got a very bright future. Um, you know, and I wanted to focus more on the residential side. And my whole, my whole thought process is why doesn't every home not happy robotic mower on their yard, you know, that they can have one on their yard.
00:37:18
Speaker
Well, what are the reasons why they don't have it? They don't understand the technology. They're not being sold on it. They don't even know it exists. You go to some properties, they're like, what? What are they? We ran into companies that don't even know software exists to help them manage their companies. They're still doing it all on paper. I believe the robotics thing.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah, we're sitting here talking about some of this stuff and not realizing too, like you just said, that there's a lot of homeowners that they're not in this industry. So therefore, they're not reading up on this stuff. They're not going to the expo. So they really don't have any idea. So you are right. As part of our job, really, is to educate them on what's out there in 2024. And also knowing that in 2025,
00:38:02
Speaker
We're going to have to educate them again because it's going to change. Well, yeah, they're landscaping person that they have. They're going in a John Deere and it's an easy way, right? It's easy to go on the market, buy a 2,500 John Deere and buy a couple of wheat eaters, gas wheat eaters, and it's easy. From there, you don't have to worry about a huge liability because there's decades and decades of data that backs it that, hey, this is a very
00:38:28
Speaker
a reliable machine, and it works, it gets the job done. And that's with robotics. And that's where it's like, I don't know if it will work. But long term, it will work. You know, there's, there's robotic mowers that were placed in 2017 2018 that are still going today. Right? All you got to do is just sharpen the blades or replace the blades, right? That's that's it, you know, make sure it's being charged and make sure everything is running good. Do a little bit of a different question. So a lot of times our guests on this podcast are
00:38:58
Speaker
our age, meaning in our forties for Travis and I. You're obviously younger, a young entrepreneur, getting your feet wet, getting started. Do you have any questions for us as you get started? So the question I have is, what advice would you give yourself if you can go back in time and you were in the position of in today's time?
Advice for Scaling a Business
00:39:21
Speaker
What kind of advice would you tell yourself through your experience living?
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, so I started Atlanta Corp in 2007. So a little bit different timeframe than now, but not that different. So I was hungry, super, super hungry. Uh, my wife and I started this company, but I, even though I'm detail oriented, I probably did not set systems up to scale early enough on. So.
00:39:51
Speaker
earlier when we were not recording, I'd ask you a little bit about like software and stuff like that. So the one thing I would have done a little bit differently early on. So we had kind of an exponential growth. Uh, we started with like two and we were to 20 employees really, really quick. And then the 40 also very quick. If you don't have the systems and stuff in place up front, you will scale chaos. So you can have everything else on the outside looking kind of neat, but you'll have chaos inside your company.
00:40:20
Speaker
Ours thankfully wasn't that bad, but I do realize that had I had working systems in place up front, I could have scaled even quicker and cleaner. So one thing I would say is put that stuff into place now, even though you're a one, two, three man show, knowing that your goal is not to stay there. Your goal is to be at 10, 20, 30, a hundred employees. And if you can build those scales and stuff now,
00:40:47
Speaker
gosh, you'll be light years ahead in two to three years. So just be sure you're innovative on the service line, being robotic. Make sure you're also innovative on the back end as well, is what I would advise. To go into that a little bit more, make sure you're marketing. Obviously, you've got to make sales in the next few months to make the business work. I would make sure you're marketing. I wouldn't shy away from
00:41:15
Speaker
Are you tech savvy at all? I'm assuming you are. Yeah. So make sure you do the high quality video, the high quality social media, try to garner, you know, some attention, do more podcasts like this, get your name out there in the Austin community. Because that's the kind of stuff if nobody else knows your story.
00:41:34
Speaker
you're just another company. Obviously you've got robotic at the front of it, which will garner some attention. It's going to make people stop scrolling for a second. Um, but don't skip on your marketing paid ads and stuff like that, especially in the beginning. One of the things we're passionate about is obviously improving this industry as a whole, you know, lawn care landscape tree. Um, but also just the entrepreneurship in general. So that's why I liked your story from the get go, you know, you're young first off, thank you for your service. And then second, I commend you for, you know,
00:42:04
Speaker
Having the business trying it, you know, even though it didn't work out, you went and saw the mentor, you learned from the mentor and you're picking up the pieces and starting over. So that's what entrepreneurship is all about. Essentially is taking that risk and doing it. So you've taken the risk. Um, yeah, no, I'm very excited to see what, what you do with it. Yeah. Well, Dante, we appreciate your time. Appreciate your service.
00:42:28
Speaker
Uh, look to look forward to seeing what you do with this. And, uh, Travis, thank you as always, man. If you guys like this, uh, podcast, you listeners, please, please share it. That's how we grow it. We don't run ads. We don't Travis and Travis and I ain't making any money doing this either, by the way. So we do want you to share it. If you like it, if you don't like it, then turn us off. Thank you guys.