We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andy Grzymala a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Andy, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

While I feel like I could write a book on just this topic, I’ll try to keep it to the highlights. While my small handyman business may sound like “just another handyman”, my core values and mission statement differ quite a bit from others you may come across. Having worked with a startup in Home Maintenance (Operations Manager) then working in Home Building (Construction Manager), I’ve always seen this NEED from home owners, handyman. While there are plenty of handymen/women out there, very few seem to have the capacity to run it as a fully functioning business. While at the previous positions I held, I saw the same patterns, and heard the same complaints. People would never arrive, not communicate, provide estimates with no context or just be unprofessional. To me, these were the easy problems to solve. I mean customer service is undervalued. There is a huge need for handy people, there are plenty out there, but finding someone who shows up on time, treats your home as their own, and does the best of their ability to solve whatever the problem is, can be daunting.
I do my best to treat each client like family. This isn’t an act though. I truly care how someone feels about me, my work and everything else. It’s a solution that is not clear cut unfortunately, but this is my vision. This all can be a lot to juggle as I am also the person performing the work, maintaining all communication, shopping for materials, and of course promoting myself on social media. How many hats can one person wear? So juggling all this can be a lot to shoulder, but at the end of the day, it’s worth it!

Andy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have traversed through many fields of work. This helped mold me into the person I am today. I served in the military right after high school, attended college and obtained my degree in computer science, worked offshore in the oil industry, then IT, finally finding my place working with homes (Home Maintenance startup and Home Building). It’s so important to find what you are good at, what you enjoy, what you can see yourself doing for the long term. Too many people just chase the money, I say chase the freedom. I love having my own show where I can open the curtains, control the spotlight, change the costumes. Freedom allows for ultimate creativity. Creativity isn’t only on a canvas, but can be within a business. Creative solutions to complex problems. This is fun, keeps the mind engaged and at the end of the day, satisfying. There was a lot of self discovery as growing up, I was always told to work for a company, be content, make more money…There is nothing wrong with that path, but it wasn’t MY path.
Discovering this Handyman business (Handy Andy RR) was a huge accomplishment in my professional and personal life. Knowing I could fulfill a need, provide a solution to many problems, help people and pay my bills (I mean we all need money to survive, right?). My goal isn’t to grow, capture VC funding or sell out, it’s doing exactly what I’m doing now.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I didn’t always have this business. I did work other jobs in the past, my entire past. Owning/running a business wasn’t in my field of view. I was working for a startup that was quite demanding and when the pandemic rolled through, many of us lost our jobs. It provided me with some time to breath and think about my next move. I wasn’t quite ready for my own business, so I ran a pilot on the weekends as I picked up another FT job in Homebuilding. Homebuilding wasn’t leading me where I thought it would, so this is when I made the decision to “do my own thing”. Was I ready, was I prepared? Absolutely not. If anyone says they are, they are only kidding themselves. Starting a business is like having a baby in a sense. You can read all the books, talk to everyone who has experience, but your baby will be different than anyone else’s. There will be the pregnancy, the birth, the joy, the stress, the time and the cost. But does anyone have a kid that they are not proud of despite all those things? Never! So this change in direction my life wasn’t a long thought out plan, but definitely a path I don’t regret taking.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My wife is my co-founder. People say not to work with friends or family, but I can’t imagine anyone else at the helm with me. She reads me well, supports me when I need it, full of creative ideas when I’m tapped out. She is a huge help with all the paperwork comes into play (Lets be real, accounting is not fun or exciting for someone like me). We truly do make an exceptional team. Trust is never questioned or doubted. This isn’t to say this is the right way for everyone, as I’ve seen solid bonds be tested and broken in similar situations. But for us, it works so well. We need to challenge one another, while coming up with solutions. Realizing we are the team is key. The “enemy” is the problem to be solved. While we may have different ideas to solve the same problem, we can always discuss and lean one way or another. I believe this to be due to our trust in one another. No strong radical alpha types here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.handyandyrr.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/handyandyrr/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/handyandyrr

Image Credits

Karla Raphail Grzymala