Everyday Empires: Meet Matt Foster of Motorboat Mechanics
How Matt built his $1M+ business and scaled to 4 cities and 3 states within two years
Hey folks,
Welcome back to Everyday Empires, your weekly interview series spotlighting everyday founders.
This week, I’m featuring Matt Foster and his business, Motorboat Mechanics.
I saw a thread from Matt about how he started his business and knew I needed to chat with him. In short, he had the idea to start a boat repair business so he set up a basic website and published Facebook ads to see if there was any interest. That night, he got his first customer booking. Now, just two years later, he’s scaled it to $1M+ revenue per year and is operating in 4 cities and 3 states.
We chatted about how he discovered the $1M opportunity with a few phone calls, how he tested the idea (clever) before going all-in, and the advice he’d give himself if he could start over.
My big takeaways:
Opportunities are everywhere. Matt spotted his opportunity minutes after a months-long project fell through. He’s clearly trained himself to spot opportunities in his everyday life.
Act now. Don’t overthink it. Matt tested his idea by making a few phone calls, then spinning up a simple landing page and Facebook ad campaign to see if anyone would book with him.
Speed wins. In his initial research Matt noticed the soonest any existing boat repair companies could get to him was within months. He realized if he could service clients sooner, he’d have an immediate differentiator.
Don’t be afraid to scale if you have a winning formula. I suspect most people who start a boat repair business don’t immediately scale it into multiple cities and states. Matt did because he has confidence in himself, his offering, and his team.
Don’t be cheap. If you try to save a few dollars early on, it could come back to bite you. Remember, time is your most precious resource. Sometimes it makes sense to spend a little more if it means saving time.
Hey Matt, thanks for being on Everyday Empires! Let’s go back to Jan 2022. You’ve just spun up a simple website and turned on a Facebook ad campaign to test an idea you have for a boat repair business. On your way home from your engineering job, you get your first customer booking. What’s going through your mind? Are you excited? Nervous? Do you even have any experience working on boats?
It was a mixture of both. Excited because I could tell that if we got a booking that quickly, this was an interesting idea. Nervous because I was certainly not an expert and I did not want to get in over my head on a project that I could not finish. The service request was a fuel leak issue. I thought it was a perfect first service - if it was simple, I could fix it right there. If it was above my comfort level, I could decline to work on it. Thankfully it was simple and I had it fixed in about 15 minutes.
Backing up even farther, before you ran this FB ad campaign, you were considering many different business ideas. But you weren’t moving forward with anything. What changed? How’d you go from inaction to action? And, how’d you decide to test the boat repair idea?
I had tons of ideas. From real estate, hardware products, service companies, you name it. But I was thinking about these ideas like an engineer. I did not ask the basic fundamental question - is this really a product or service people are currently asking for, or don’t know that they need yet? And - how will I convince them they need it?
So I called the first 5 repair shops on google and asked for the soonest I could get my boat in for a service. 1-3 months was the answer I got back. I knew then that if there was that much demand and so little supply, I could take market share pretty quickly.
Mobile Motorboat Mechanic was born out of a failed real estate deal. I had an agreement with someone who owned a large tract of semi cleared land near a lake to seller finance it to me, and I was going to turn it into a boat and RV storage lot. I worked on it for months with the owner. Toward the finish line, he decided to take an all cash offer from another buyer instead.
I was pretty bummed out and on my drive home I was looking around at all the boats in the marina and other storage lots. I wondered, who was working on all of these? So I called the first 5 repair shops on google and asked for the soonest I could get my boat in for a service. 1-3 months was the answer I got back. I knew then that if there was that much demand and so little supply, I could take market share pretty quickly.
At what point did you feel confident that you were onto something and it was time to go full-time on it?
Jan 15th 2022 I knew it was time to leave my full time job. It was January (slowest month of the year) and my phone was ringing non-stop. I had planned to quit my job in March or maybe April, but I knew then that I needed to get prepared before I got to experience the big “spring rush” I had heard about.
Just two years after starting, you’re now in 4 cities across 3 states. Why’d you decide to expand into other areas so quickly? Do you have a vision or end goal in mind?
I really believe in our core offering and philosophy. We hire the best technicians, we pay them above the industry average. We have a talented back end office who can manage locally and remotely across the country. We offer a product that people want in a form factor that does not exist.
I like to frame it this way - when you get your boat repaired you can either
Take it to a dealership, it will be there for a month, and it will cost a fortune. Trailer it there, drop it off, call to check in on it, drive back over, trailer it home.
Call a local mobile mechanic. He comes to you! Much more convenient. Maybe he shows up, maybe not. Maybe he has insurance, maybe not. Hopefully he knows what he is doing.
We combine the best of those two options. You get the speed and convenience of the mobile service, with the professional peace of mind of a dealership.
Our end goal is to be in every boating market in the US. If our customers are usually boating out of Charleston, SC and decide they want to head down the coast to fish in Ft. Lauderdale, we want them to be able to call us and get the same level of service no matter where they are.
Can you give us an idea of how your business is performing? Revenue, profit or any other indicators you’re comfortable sharing with us?
2022 Revenue: ~$500k
2023 Revenue: ~$1m
Professionally, is there anything keeping you up at night? Any big hurdles or concerns? Any aspect of your work that you really dislike?
Skilled labor is always hard to find. Especially with a niche skill set like marine repair. Many people believe that because they can work on a car they can work on a boat. The skills do not transfer well and there are many technical aspects that are different.
Currently we have an aging population of Marine mechanics and not enough young talent entering the workforce. The fight for skilled labor will only get harder as time goes on.
Having been at this for two years now, if you could go back to 2022, what’s the most important piece of advice you’d give yourself?
It is easy to say this now, but don’t be cheap.
I was cheap at the start because I was 24 years old, had no money and owned the business myself. I bought all old, used vans and equipment. They looked bad and were unreliable.
I spent $14,000 replacing transmissions on service vehicles last year. If I had purchased new (or even just more expensive used) I would have saved time, many headaches and probably money.
I’ve noticed a lot of new entrepreneurs get caught up on the admin side of their business (incorporating, accounting, taxes, banking, health insurance, etc). How do you handle that stuff? Did you have it all in place when you quit your 9-5 or did you figure it out later?
I only did what was necessary and easy. Insurance, separate bank account, quickbooks, gusto, etc.
I did all the important stuff after.
Lastly, where should readers follow you if they want to keep up with you?
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
That’s a wrap
A massive thank you to Matt for sharing his time with us!
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See y’all next week,
Ken
P.S. Follow me on X or LinkedIn for more insights from the founders I chat with