We were lucky to catch up with Riley Tinnin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Riley, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

When I started my business my capabilities were limited due to the level of equipment I had. I started off just doing concrete drive ways and putting half of the money back into the business upgrading as I went. As I began to get bigger, more capable tools I was able to expand my list of services to house soft washing, roof washing, and now to hot water cleaning services. I have always tried to run my business on a skeleton budget only buying what is truly necessary and getting creative with improvements on what I have to work with verses buying the latest overpriced equipment they’ve come out with. Through my experience and the fellow members of the forums has been a big help in filtering through what works and doesn’t. Now the focus has been more on expanding marketing and getting in touch with the right people to create more opportunities.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Evolution Power Wash LLC is still a one man show for the most part, I started the business in 2020 when my normal job closed down and nothing was for sure anymore. I originally was introduced to the industry by a friend who started during college and needed help doing jobs. I saw his success with it but had other plans of pursuing wildland firefighting. After three years of working in wildfire I decided I wanted to be home more and find something I could do locally and still have the freedom and satisfaction I got from my previous jobs. Luckily for me I knew my friend in the business in another city who was able to answer a lot of my questions and make recommendations to get me on my way. Since then I have been building a steady list of repeat commercial clients and continuing to grow.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When I started my business my bills never stopped so I started delivering for Amazon to help get things under way. I used this job as well to get to know different areas better and gain a scope of where I would like to target my work.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth, much easier to trust a business when recommending from a trusting source. Previous clients recommendations have been my greatest source.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.evolutionpowerwash.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/evolutionpowerwash/
• Facebook: Facebook.com/southaustinpowerwashing/