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

Jesse, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

Well, yes a customer, but also a “set of customers” – my future customer Casey inspired me to take “customer success” to the next level. We provide a straightforward service.

“We maintain fitness centers, mostly apartments and hotels requiring regular quarterly maintenance.” That’s what I say when people ask me what I do.

I met with Casey and he was comparing me with his current provider. It’s pretty apples to apples price-wise, and he said “how much are your diagnostic fees if something breaks unexpectedly?” And we were down to this miniscule $20 difference in fees. Then it dawned on me. Why the hell are we even charging “emergency diagnostic service fees at all!?” Aren’t they paying us to keep there machines from breaking down, ever!

So we’ve evolved. We are 100% responsible for our customer success.

“We repair and maintain apartment fitness centers, offering a 0% downtime guarantee with quarterly maintenance. ”

How?

“In 2024 fewer than 2% of our customers experienced unexpected malfunctions – in those rare circumstances we offer no-fee diagnostics.”

Casey will be a successful customer in 2025, I know it. We’ve proven it in 2024.

Jesse, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was a jet engine mechanic in the Minnesota Air National Guard until 2011. I was competing in snowboard competitions at the time, but I also needed to learn how to surf. I moved to Oregon, I learned how to surf, and my last snowboard competition was in 2021. In hopes of growing up and making some money, I started Fitness Machine Technicians in 2019. Prior to that I was a high school counselor.

I got married in 2020 and moved from North Portland to Sherwood. We have two cats. No kids yet, hopefully soon!

In addition to Fitness Machine Technicians, I partner with hands-on service start-ups struggling to scale profitably. We build saleable $1 million businesses in under 5 years. I’m a partner in North Pole Lighting Company and Moss Boss Roof Care. I get a kick out of providing tangible services that people need while also showing other business owners how to do the same.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I’ve received a lot of cautionary advice regarding partnerships, but when it’s done right it’s a beautiful thing! My partner for North Pole Lighting Company and Moss Boss Roof Care is the same age as when I started Fitness Machine Technicians, mid-thirties, working a fun job repairing radio towers at terrifying heights and inclement weather, but he was lacking steady pay and a career path. We met each other through mutual friends over tacos at Pepino’s on 23rd. He helped me move some fitness equipment a couple years ago and told me about his Christmas light installation side hustle. I encouraged him and he went about his first season on his own. The next season a partnership was born – complete with a plan to quit his job and a complementary business involving moss removal.

The beauty of a partnership is that you get to pick who you partner with. Maarten and I get to surf and snowboard together bursting with bizdev ideas to discuss on the drive!

When approaching the partnership mentors told me. “Just start writing stuff down, contracts have been written on cocktail napkins.” Just go, and keep iterating mutual expectations along the way.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

A fellow franchisee just texted me “I want to be a millionaire and retire by the time I’m 40.” I said “I want to be a business owner when I retire, and surf.”

I like entrepreneurship because it puts all my skills to the test. Everything is important in business – psychology, public speaking, accounting, humor, empathy, assertiveness, radical acceptance, sales, customer service, marketing.

In June 2024 I was invited to compete in The Blox, it’s a startup reality competition. A couple of books from that experience have become essential – Oren Klaff’s, Pitch Anything, and The Lean Startup by Eric Reis have become staples.

I’m reading Simple Numbers with my Entrepreneurship Organization Accelerator (EOA) peers. Greg Crabtree is the most frustrating and useful read.

Leila Hormozi is trudging uncharted territory on YouTube regarding customer service and customer success, and Alex Hormozi’s “$100M Offers” will de-risk your pitch.

Lastly, I want to say. I’m a slow reader, and the best entre-celeb-advice I’ve heard this year is from Naval Ravikant – don’t feel like you need to finish a book, read what’s useful and move on. I read the first 14 pages of Topgrading and was like, “okay, for my purposes, I get it!” I don’t regret buying the book. That 14 pages will probably save me $30k lessons that I don’t have to learn through trial and error.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pdxfitnessmachine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jesse.rorvig/photos_by
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-rorvig-b8ba0660/
• Other: Would you mind linking our 3 websites. Unreciprocated backlinks are really challenging to get and really help SEO!

  https://fitnessmachinetechnicians.com/portland/

  https://northpolelightingco.com/

  https://mossbossroofcare.org/