GRANITE SUPPLIER: Discover Marble & Granite

Victor DeOliveira is the founder of Discover Marble and Granite in Millbury, Massachusetts. He started out with a passion for flying and became a commercial pilot but after the events of 9/11, he lost his job, but rather than sitting idly by waiting for something he created his own fortune and founded his company. Victor saw an opportunity in the market to be a B2B wholesaler for granite and focused on that market exclusively. Victor took what he learned as a pilot and applied it to the business to get through the various economic downturns and to also make the right investments for the future when sales were high.

"You can go full throttle when things are good and when you want to grow. But you can coast a little bit, you can reduce that power, you can adjust it, you can conserve fuel. You can do different things."
 - Victor DeOliveira, about running a business is like flying an airplane

Discover Marble & Granite is the leading importer, manufacturer, and installer of natural stone and quartz surfaces in New England and Florida. Specializing in residential and commercial interior work through our strong network of Kitchen & Bath professionals

Connect with Victor and Discover Marble:
(508) 438-6900
https://discovermarble.com/
https://www.facebook.com/discoversurfaces
https://www.instagram.com/discoversurfaces/

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Transcript

Victor  0:00  
We adjusted the business. And the great thing about business is, if you think about it is different levers you can pull, you know, you can just, just like an airplane throttle. So I use a lot of aviation analogy in the business. But it's just, it's no different. You can go full throttle when things are good and when you want to grow, but you can coast a little bit you can reduce that power. You can adjust it, you can conserve fuel. You can do different things maintain altitude, even if you have to lower the altitude get out of the turbulence a little bit. There's different things you can do. I look at the business and the way I run the business no different than when I'm flying an airplane, you adjust you adjust you constantly me adjust your direction, you hit some headwinds. Burning some fuel reduce the power change your altitude, there's things that you can do to get to that destination. And we did it.

Rick  0:58  
Welcome to the founders story podcast where we learn from entrepreneurs about their journey from their first inspiration to the first employee, and even the steps they took to become the powerhouses they are today. Welcome back to another episode, everyone. My name is Rick Porter, I am your host. And today we're joined by another founder to listen to his founder story. So today we have Victor DeOliveira from Discover Marble and Granite. Welcome to the show.

Victor  1:26  
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Rick  1:27  
So we have some mutual acquaintances here. In the office. I think Rich Dumas was the one who put us in touch originally. 

Victor  1:33  
Yes. Good Friend

Rick  1:34  
And you're you've also friends with a couple of the previous guests before so that is correct. We've traveled in the same circles for a while but this is the first time we're able to connect. I have been told that you have a very, very, very impressive story, a great story to share. So I'm excited to hear it.

Victor  1:49  
Oh boy. No pressure.

Rick  1:50  
So I'm going to tell you what, what I do know. So I'll tell you a little bit about Discover Marble and Granite. So leading importer, manufacturer and installer of natural stone and quartz surfaces in New England and Florida specializing in residential and commercial interior work through a strong network of kitchen and bath professionals. You have four locations. Millbury, Wareham, Wallingford, Connecticut and Myers, Florida. Do I am I good so far?

Victor  2:11  
Fort Myers, Yeah.

Rick  2:19  
All right, perfect. And I thought it was interesting that you actually featured on an episode of this old house in 2018.

Victor  2:28  
Yes, that is correct. Yeah, we did. Yeah. So we've done several shows over the years.

Rick  2:31  
And yeah, I love that show, for a couple of reasons. One, it's I love fixing up my own house. So I learn all the DIY tricks, but I also hate that show cuz it shows you the right way to do it. And I never follow the right way to do it. So I'm excited to hear this. So, you know, I've kind of set that for our listeners kind of set the stage give a little bit about what we do. But take us back to the beginning. How in the world did you get into this industry? How did it all start?

Victor  2:56  
That's a great question. Well, basically had nothing to do with stone, or business. My past life is commercial aviation. That's what I went to school for my passion. My dream was always to fly big jets internationally, you know, work for the airlines. Got my way through flight school, commercial pilot, flight instructor. And my first day on the job was that the Monday after Mother's Day 2001. My last day on the job was 911 that year. So this is going back to 2001 had a six month old baby. And recently well not recently married, but had been married for about three or four years. So starting a family. And I think, you know, just the need to survive that, you know, that horrible event that obviously we know, but also the airline industry took a huge huge hit, and along with that a lot of professionals a lot of pilots that I went to school with, those guys got laid off and there wasn't any work anywhere around for months, if not years after that. So sitting in my mother's dining room table one night having dinner with the family, and my brother-in-law and sister were there and he was a fabricator, a hands on guy worked with stone. And so we're having this conversation said Look, I can do anything. I just got to get through maybe six months or a year before the airline business comes back. I can go out and sell this I can bring business as long as you can make it he says yeah, I can make it just go out and get the business. So that was probably late September that year. On December 4, we incorporated a company so it'll be 20 years coming up this year. 

Rick  4:50  
Congratulations. 

Victor  4:51  
Thank you. And and it's been a long journey and a good one and very rewarding one because it's a family business. So my wife, Christina has been in the business literally from day one. So has my sister, obviously my brother in law, they now they're the lucky ones. So they live in Florida, they run the Fort Myers location. 

Rick  5:10  
Haha, you pulled the short straw.

Victor  5:12  
Somehow we ended up here in New England, but we love it here.

Rick  5:20  
So can I ask a question? So he's a fabricator? 

Victor  5:23  
Right. 

Rick  5:23  
And obviously I know at the end of the day, we're talking stone and marble and granite and stuff like that. Was that it from the very beginning as well. I mean, what was he fabricating back then?

Victor  5:32  
it was actually he worked with stone. So he was working for a company, just in the shop, just doing regular stuff. And, and I just, again, it's one of those things, I think the business part of it. I thought, at least at the time that I could run it, I could build it. Little did I know what it was going to take. But as long as I knew that we could deliver the product, the product, part of it was a piece that I was missing. 

Rick  5:57  
Yeah. 

Victor  5:58  
You know, I thought about a business, I thought about different business ideas I knew I could sell. But I didn't have a product or something that I could actually deliver. And stone actually because of him. And because of the connections we had. It was link, the missing piece that we once we had that I said, well this is it. And I'm just gonna go out and sell and, and build this thing. And, you know, 20 years later, we're close to 200 employees are short of 200 now, and four different locations. 

Rick  6:28  
Unbelievable. So, you know, he's fabricating stone, right. And in my mind, I'm thinking countertop, kitchen countertops, bathroom countertops, and that kind of thing. Am I correct? 

Victor  6:38  
That is correct. 

Rick  6:39  
Yeah. So when you when you go out and you start selling, right, you come in from commercial airlines and, and sure you have a great personality. But how did you sell? I mean, are we talking knocking on doors?

Victor  6:49  
So we're a b2b business. So we cater to the kitchen and bath industry in general, contractors, builders, remodelers, you name it. So basically what I, early early on, I recognize a need in the industry, they needed a company that could the business, they could do business with that were loyal to them, meaning we weren't going to go out and start marketing directly to customers, homeowners and getting to that conflict. So we decided to stay strictly wholesale, which in the industry at the time, which is unheard of everybody. I mean it to this day, you know, 99% of the companies out there, they are open to the public, we decided that we weren't going to do it, we're going to be loyal to the dealers. And hopefully, they will stay loyal to us. And and they did. You know, the business has obviously evolved over the years. But that was the foundation of the businesses just truly stay loyal to knb to our designers, and hopefully we gain that that business, that loyalty back in the amount of business and they've been great over the years and probably 90, if not more percent of the original customers that we started with. They're still a customer to this day. 

Rick  8:04  
No Kidding.

So when you first start going out, you're connecting with these installers, these businesses on the kitchen and bath side. Was it I mean, overnight, everybody you called they started buying from you, or...?

Victor  8:18  
One thing bought our business is there's a long, long sales cycle. 

Rick  8:22  
You mean there's no such thing as overnight success?

Victor  8:24  
No, it's hustle, man, it's getting out there and and showing up. And we've been, you know, I always tell myself, especially the new ones that are starting because it can be very, very frustrating at times, because that cycle may take six months may take a year before you'll end the customer, some of our best customers took two plus years to become a customer. We're still working on some for over five years, and we may get 10 to 20% of their business, you know, but slowly, they eventually, you know, that flips we get 80% of their business if not close to 100% but it's a process it's been a process all along and then and then even even as we grow the issue too is that we never know when those customers you know, you could have a customer who could give you a million dollars with the business you could have a $20,000 a year customer and and we treat everybody the same and we we love everybody the same. But it's you never know when that big customer turns into a powerhouse within your organization. And because we had to deliver we got to manufacturer, you know, that's when we went into problems. So gauging how fast we can grow. Initially, it was always an issue. I mean, we're in a fourth location, meaning fourth building. We kept moving over the years because we kept outgrowing our facilities. So that that was a struggle in the beginning trying to gauge the amount of business coming in to the amount of investments in equipment and people. That was always a fun thing to do, but a very difficult, stressful.

Rick  9:56  
yeah, if we can. Let's talk about that for a second. So you get started right? family owned business. You got a fabricator, you got somebody on the sales side and you're reaching out to these businesses. When you first got started, I know you're on your fourth location now. But where did where was that first location?

Victor  10:10  
So our first location was a small little building in Sutton mass right off of 146. 

Rick  10:15  
Okay, 

Victor  10:15  
So not too far from our current location two or three miles. So we've always been in that same area. So it's a small building. Very little money. By the way, I didn't mention that. 

Rick  10:26  
Oh, that was my next question. So don't worry, were getting there. HAHA!

Victor  10:31  
 You got to get very creative in the beginning. But so we only had 2500 square feet. We outgrew that location, probably in six months. 

Rick  10:38  
Yeah

Victor  10:39  
Timing is everything. So I think after 911 One of the things that happened, and we're seeing the same thing now with this pandemic, is that people just start investing in their homes, kitchens and new houses, and then that set up that whole real estate boom from the early 2000s. All the way through 2008. So timing, I think we just happened to be in the right place at that at the right time. And obviously with the right product, because stone countertops was really the thing. There was a big change in that industry going from you know, your laminates, your resin type based countertops to stone to natural stone.

Rick  11:15  
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine you got two issues with that first building, right one in my mind and tell me if I'm wrong. You need a lot of space for inventory. 

Victor  11:26  
Yes. 

Rick  11:27  
And then the second part is, it seems like very expensive equipment, in order to fabricate and cut the stone and all that kind of stuff. 

Victor  11:34  
Yes. 

Rick  11:35  
How'd you make that all work? You just...?

Victor  11:40  
I went from, you know, just being broke, trying to start a new career and starting this business, I went from just not having money to just having a lot of debt. (lboth laugh) And the worst type of debt, which was family and friends, right. So I owed I believe $10,000, to my mother in law, 15,000, to the sister-in-law, and so forth. I mean, I think it was 60 to $80,000 in debt without even cutting that first piece of granite 

Rick  12:05  
Sure 

Victor  12:06  
Just to try to get some equipment and some inventory in. So, you know, and we made it happen within probably less than 12 months. We paid everybody back. 

Rick  12:15  
Wow. 

Victor  12:15  
I mean, we were I was taking just barely enough to survive. Obviously. I just wanted to pay everyone back. They were all family and friends. I wanted to look them in a face. You know, you pretty much have nowhere to run at that point. Yeah, burning your bridges and saying this has got to work. It can't go back to my mother. 

Rick  12:30  
Awkward Thanksgiving. 

Victor  12:31  
We don't we don't. I never really thought for a second that it wasn't gonna work. Yeah, I knew I was gonna make it work. Regardless, I don't think there was ever a time that I said, Oh, boy, what did I get myself into?

So I knew I was going to work and we paid everybody within 12 months. 

Rick  12:47  
And which is unbelievable. That is so incredibly fast. So you know, you go out there, you start selling, you're bringing on customers, you're you're making money right enough that you're paying all these people back How long before you had to go and get that second location?

Victor  13:00  
Only about a year and a half to two years later, we were looking for more space. And we found another building? Right, two and a half years, in Millbury. On rt 20 and you know, and again, this is another thing about a business that worked out pretty well, because were central, meaning central mass or central New England. If you draw a radius of 50 to 60 mile radius from our location, we hit five major markets, you know, we had Boston, obviously, Providence, we go to Springfield, Hartford, Connecticut, Manchester, New Hampshire. So we, you know, we've within that one hour, one hour and a half drive, we've got some major markets that we can cover. So not by design, but I call it by luck. I think in business, there's a little bit of both right, you plan and then the design is perfect business plan, which you think is perfect, nothing is perfect. But then there's a little bit of luck. And I think the the location that we ended up in gave us a bigger market and an easier way to cover those markets.

Rick  14:02  
Yeah. And definitely a bigger market I'm interested in and when you say an easier way to cover those markets, I mean, easy because you can physically deliver to those markets. But how easy was it to, to advertise in a market and to sell in those areas?

Victor  14:21  
Very difficult. We're going through it now, I'll get into it later. But Connecticut, it was the first market really that we got in being from a different state. And it was a little bit difficult to break in because everyone's like, why am I doing business with a company from Massachusetts? You know, I got plenty of people right here in my backyard that can offer the same product. So early, early on, we made some good relationships. And I found that was very difficult to scale in that market, because people just looked at us as  just, we could have been from California for all they care. But you know, so 2010 we decided, look if we're going to do this, right We better have a location here. So initially, that location was just a warehouse and a showroom. And that evolved eventually into a full manufacturing facility. So today, we employ just over about 30 people there. All of our offices and admin happens here in mass, that's our headquarters. But for manufacturing and delivery, we have our own operations today down in Connecticut, as well. So we're going through the same adjustments right now in New Hampshire, New York, we do have a good customer base in those areas in those markets, and I think the direction that we're headed is exactly the same. So the process is the same. So eventually, we'll have a physical location in those markets. And we're going to expand it out. We did the same thing in Florida.

And we've done it a few times. So I think we can do it again. 

Rick  15:46  
No kidding. so you guys are manufacturing in Florida as well?

Victor  15:49  
Yeah, we got a full manufacturing facility. And it's interesting that when we started in our first piece of equipment we bought, it was this bridge saw, to cut the stone, it was a $48,000 average piece of equipment now, is well over $300,000. 

Rick  16:07  
Oh my goodness

Victor  16:08  
So it's not easy. And now we are fully automated. So things have evolved in the technology has evolved. And but obviously, the investment, the numbers have much bigger.

Rick  16:18  
Yeah, that's what I was just gonna ask. So you know, for our our listeners that are aspiring entrepreneurs, they always want to know money, right? They always want to know, how did you come up with that money originally, and you did the friends and family and you were fortunate there and you paid them back right away. I'm assuming we're not getting $300,000 per machine from from mom or sisters and stuff like that? 

Victor  16:37  
Not at all. (laugh)

Rick  16:40  
Now, are you guys now growing? And is your growth financed through the profits of the building? Or are you guys have good banking relationships? How does it look like today?

Victor  16:52  
So it's both right. We do have some amazing relationships. But I think it started out. One thing that I wanted to do since day one was make sure that we had we did everything right, you know, from from the accounting, the back end of it, the record keeping, I knew that eventually, you know, I obviously for one, you don't want any problems with the IRS or anybody else. But that's but you know, I think eventually, just like a credit rating in business, you got to have a name you got you got to have a reputation. So we aligned ourselves with the right people from our accountant, Keith Blanchette. You know, he's been amazing over the years. 

Rick  17:29  
Yeah we know Keith

Victor  17:29  
Keith is a great friend. So he, you know, obviously, with the relationships that he's got with different banks, when it came time to do the real first major deal where we wanted to buy a building get a $700,000 equipment line of credit. I mean, we were going all in. And this is 2007 right before, you know, the real estate bubble burst. But we approached the bank, and we actually had three banks bidding on that, on that financing, you know, with the with the real estate packaged into it, we ended up doing business with a bigger bank at the time. And it worked out well. We've been with them over the last Gosh, 14 years. Along the way, we obviously did everything we said we were going to do, we always presented the great numbers every year. You know, I look at it, and you know, we're private family owned business. But I always looked at the bank and our vendors, as shareholders, you know, that they own you know, when you you have, you know, accounts payables, you own a little piece of that business to somebody. And so we always looked at them as this responsibility, hey, look, they have a piece in this. So we got to be responsible about what we do, we got to pay our bills on time. And if you do that, you know, great things happen, you know, people actually knock on your door and offer you money. (both laugh) And you need that to grow. And there's no way to do it without it, you know. So that's, that's the thing.

Rick  19:02  
Absolutely. And I do want to talk about the 2008 timeframe with the, you know, housing, mortgage bubble and housing crash and things like that. But before I do, one of the things I want to talk about is early on, you mentioned family owned business, right? It was brother in law, you said your wife was involved and, and things like that. As the business is growing, and you're getting into some of these difficult decisions, especially ones related to money and financing and you're taking on those risks. How has it been working with the family has it has been difficult?

Victor  19:32  
So early on, I think my sister and I, all of us recognize that I think the easier road is if we had each had these two locations, and we each ran our separate divisions, not separately, we still consult with each other and there's a lot of interaction. But I think because we made that move it you know, it allowed me to take the business here to a level that That I wanted to take, which I don't think her and her husband would feel comfortable with 

Rick  20:05  
Sure, 

Victor  20:06  
Because we grew here at a very fast pace, which they, you know, they had some pretty good growth in Florida, and they're a good business and solid and a good size business now. But there's, there's different levels for everybody, there's different levels of comfort. And I think that's, I think, a problem with with a lot of partnerships, you know, you might have a partner who wants to go one way, while the other partner might want to pull back a little bit, and then there's conflict. So we never really had that. She was they were always hands off. As far as my decisions and the direction that we're going to go, I was never questioned by them, or even my wife. So I think the fact that they allowed me to do what I can do best, and I allow them to do what they do best, you know, I don't get into their business long as things are going the right in the right direction. There's no need for conflict in a week, obviously, constantly talk and adjust things. But there are minor adjustments and not major things that we need to fix in that relationship. Nowadays, we've bought, you know, we own the company here, pretty much outright. And we've kind of done did some purchase some shares along the years, where there's less involvement in the different businesses, even though I'm still a minority partner down in Florida. There's less involvement, but you know, we've, but we're still very well connected our relationship with now, by the way, we've never had an argument in those 20 years. And if you can say that you're in business with your family.

Rick  21:31  
I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, I'm calling bs, or I cant believe he's serious. (laugh)

Victor  21:37  
Not to say that we were always happy about what each one of us were doing. But I think it's one of those things, you know, because we get along so well, 

Rick  21:46  
Yeah

Victor  21:46  
There was a lot of credit that when things were bad, we respected each other. Because there were a lot of good things, not just family, but there were a lot of good things in this partnership, that we could respect each other enough not to get into these big arguments, or these big fights that we knew could potentially hurt the business. 

Rick  22:03  
Sure. 

Victor  22:04  
So it's just like a relationship with the wife or kids. You know, if they just take it and take it and drain the energy out of you. That's different, but we never had that. We always added to it. So that when things did go the wrong way. We gave each other some credit, and we try to work things out. 

Rick  22:24  
That's incredible, 20 years in business, and having no major argument. I can't say that about my marriage. (both laugh)

Victor  22:31  
Hey It's always a work in progress. And I think that it's just the approach we took, you know, and I think having the two separate locations and not being involved in day to day operations together, definitely helped. I think if we were in the same under the same roof in the same location, I don't know if it would have lasted 20 years. Quite honestly but the way we did things early on, it was a blessing.

Rick  22:53  
That makes sense. So let's talk about it. So right now in the in the story in the evolution of your company, we're around that 2007 2008 mark. And as we know, there's a major recession in 2008, 

Victor  23:08  
Oh yeah

Rick  23:08  
The housing market takes a big hit, I read a story that you actually decided to make some pretty big changes in there that led to some pretty significant growth. Tell me a little bit about that.

Victor  23:20  
Well, I wish I could take the credit or have had the vision to see what was coming, right. The decisions were made based on how good things were in 06, and 07 and 05 especially we were experiencing major growth. I mean, we were growing at least 30 to 40 50% year over year. And so the banks wanted to give us money we wanted to grow. And in 2007, we got quite a bit of money. And we invested that money in the right places we brought in we were the first company to go completely digital, you know, from the time we measure to the software to eliminating paper. Any office environment. I mean, we really went digital and automated. So we bought robots. These are the robots that make cars, you know, from Ferrari, to GM to Chrysler, the same machines that are making those cars. We bought the same thing to cut stone. 

Rick  24:23  
Holy cow

Victor  24:23  
So they weren't you know, we really went all in now 2008 happened. And we're like, oh, boy, (both laugh) that maybe this wasn't the right timing. But you know, we adjusted the business. And the great thing about business is, if you think about it is different levers you can pull you know, you can it just just like an airplane throttle. So I use a lot of aviation analogy in the business, but it's just it's no different. You can go full throttle when things are good and when you want to grow, but you can coast a little bit you can reduce that power. You can adjust it, you can conserve fuel, you can do different things. Maintain altitude, even if you have to lower the altitude get out of the turbulence a little bit. There's different things you can do. I look at the business and the way I run the business no different than when I'm flying an airplane, you adjust, you adjust, you constantly adjust your direction, you hit some headwinds, burning some fuel, reduce the power, change your altitude, there's things that you can do to get to that destination. And we did it catch up to us, they were never able to keep up. And there are half if not less our size today because of that they were afraid. They didn't make the investments we did it when we did. And we built a solid foundation for growth over the next 10 years.

Rick  25:39  
Wow. I love that analogy. By the way. I've never heard that one before. But I love that analogy it makes perfect sense. So 2010 2011, you're doubling the size of the company over the next, you know, five years or so. And now here we are. Several years later, you have four locations. Sounds like you got more coming on. And then in 2020, we hit a global pandemic, 

Victor  26:04  
Right. 

Rick  26:04  
Was it right back into that aviation seat and adjusting levers all over again?

Victor  26:09  
Yes, but now I call it with higher altitude or higher investments, right, we had just built a $4 million headquarters we had just moved in. So we moved in, in the last week of February last year 2020 (both chuckle) to basically close the office down and move everybody remote. Three weeks later.

Rick  26:31  
Now just to pause for a second their, right. You're one of those businesses that you can't move everybody remote, right, someone has to be in their cutting stone and working with the robots at that point, right?

Victor  26:41  
Yeah. And and, and so we had to convince a lot of those people to stay whenever everyone was pretty much nervous about leaving their houses, right and coming to work. And we did have a lot of people that that said, No, I'm not doing it, I'm not going anywhere. And they decided to take some time off, which actually worked out we saw a little bit of a dip in business, but we didn't shut down the plant, you know, the manufacturing part of it ran normally. We did see a month or two of that downturn. It took about until June or July, until we caught up to where we should be in sales and then growth.

Rick  27:18  
That's what I was gonna say I feel like when everybody was stuck in their home during this pandemic. They're staring at the you know, ugly kitchen countertops and stuff like this and said, while I'm home, I'm here Why don't I try to get some stuff done around the house? 

Victor  27:33  
Yeah we. So that's what's driving I think a lot of the growth, but it's hard to say I mean, I talk to people in the industry, and nobody has the right answer, like what's going on now. I mean, obviously the government's they poured a lot of money into the system. that's helping out. But I think people really got back to basics. You know, I think people looked at you know, their homes as the this sanctuary, you know, where this is where we gather this is where our friends come, this is where, you know, kitchens, probably The kitchen countertop is where the kids do homework these days, you know, where they work from home, and they sit on an island. And so the kitchen especially became this place, this sacred place in the home where everyone wants to invest money they want. And the other thing that happened over the last 10 or 20 years that's driving some of this, this this growth as well right now, I think is that, especially on a countertop side of things, it became more of a fashion statement. 

Rick  28:02  
100% 

Victor  28:32  
almost like clothing. 

Rick  28:32  
Yep. 

Victor  28:33  
So colors now. So we don't do much natural stone these days. It's mostly quartz. So it's manufactured stone. The beauty of that is that they these manufacturers can look at trends, what's trending, just like the fashion industry, and say, hey, it's whites and grays. So let's put out products that are whites and grays that people want you they don't have to go out search for the right mountain and take two to three years of bring the first block out of that mountain by the time they actually cut the first lab trends change. 

Rick  28:59  
Yeah, 

Victor  28:59  
They can literally produce that slab within a couple of months and have it out in the market. Right. So they're driving this this these trends. And I think you know, where people our customers would probably take about 10 to 20 years to replace a countertop. We're replacing countertops that we installed five years ago, six years ago, three years ago. And we're going Whoa, this is this is pretty unbelievable, but it's great. It's great for the for the industry, it's great for our business. So if you really look around your house without putting in a lot of a lot of investment, what can you replace and make it look? Yeah, refreshed with a good look.

Rick  29:35  
Yeah, you could paint the outside maybe.

Victor  29:37  
You can do that you can paint that's the easiest one. That's probably one of the easiest projects you can do because you can do it yourself. But in your kitchen, you know to the appliances last a long time. You have stainless steal appliances. They're going to look good for 10 to 15 years. cabinets will look good. You can always paint them. But countertops is an easy way. Two to three hours in and out. You got a brand new look.

Rick  29:58  
Alright, so I got to pause it for a second here. I literally wrote down at the beginning of this before we got started, I said, I got to talk to him because I got to redo my kitchen. (both laugh) And it's funny you said, I'm pretty sure that's what my wife has in mind. Yeah, the first thing I'm thinking is, if you're changing your countertops every five years, what do you do with all that old stuff? Because I know that stuff's still good.

Victor  30:15  
We throw it away.

Rick  30:16  
You throw it away! All right we gotta talk after this I need to do my (laugh)

Victor  30:20  
No, it all goes in the trash

Rick  30:23  
Wow, that's like putting on a new pair of jeans every five yeahs, uhh?

Victor  30:25  
That's exactly what's going on. You know, and, and, and we love it. And it's so interesting that they're collars right now that we couldn't get our hands on, you know, five years ago, there wasn't enough to supply the market. And we can't give it away now, wow, just because how the trends really changed. And we'd like that to continue, hopefully, that will continue well into the future. So there's a lot of things driving the growth, obviously, you know, just just the pandemic, I think accelerated a lot of that. But we like where things are going. And the other great thing right now is that even when we look further into the future, you know, in these days, technology, especially it's it, I don't know, you might have six months, a year or two before something new comes around, and your business could be obsolete. So one thing that I always, I don't like to give advice, but if I were to give advice to anybody is find something that can Outlast you, basically, you know, a lot of times it might not be sexy might not be the the thing that you're thinking of. But the great thing about our industry is that even when I look further down the future, even the latest and greatest products that are coming out, require the same process, same equipment, they got these new porcelain slabs that are coming out now. And they say that's an extra and in the next 10 years, or great, they still need us, you still need the same equipment, the same people, the same processes to deliver that product. So we're, we're guaranteed work for a very long time, we don't see anything in the near future or even in long term, distant future that could potentially threaten our business.

Rick  31:03  
Yeah, I love it. So, you know, as we do look ahead at the future, you're obviously it sounds like you're staying up on the trends with your manufacturers of what what's going to be coming down the pipeline next and stuff like that. Other future plans? Sounds like maybe some new york locations, or, what's the future look like for you guys?

Victor  32:16  
So the future really looks like the, you know, expanding the business. And I that was always so one of the biggest struggles. And I think a lot of business owners go through this, this phase, you know, think about three or four years ago, I was thinking I was trying to stay motivated, you know, and you see a lot of business sort of plateau and then start this downward trend, in sales and business, and eventually crash and burn or die might be a slow death or whatever. But how do you stay motivated, as a business owner? When you've been dealing with these issues and problems and growth and money, you know, it seems like you're always looking for ways to grow and money it never ends. It just gets bigger because the numbers gets bigger and bigger. And the moment you think, Oh, I can breathe now, you know, something new comes along, and you got to replace a piece of equipment. But so three or four years ago, when I shifted my way of thinking, and I was basically how I did it is I started talking to some vendors and some of the people that I knew that had much, much bigger business, I'm talking about 400 million billion dollar but I mean, family business third generation, like what keeps these people going like, it's hard, it's fairly difficult. And when I came out of that journey took about six months of visiting different people and talking to different business owners that did it. And they did it because it was about the people, not about them. It wasn't, oh, I want to leave this legacy. Oh, it's about my family. How big of a house can I build next? Or what kind of car can I drive tomorrow? They didn't do it for that reason. I found out and going through their plants and their businesses, you could tell just by talking to their people, is they were proud. They love to work where they worked. They talked about the ownership as almost like family. And this culture, this family culture that they developed. It's because they shifted, you know, it's no longer about what's in it for me. It's what's in it for my people. Because if you want to keep your best people long term, you better be growing, you better be offering opportunities that they grow along with you. Because eventually that young kid that you hired right out of college, eventually they're going to get married, and she's going to want to build a family and he's going to want to buy a boat or whatever it is that he's into, but they're gonna they're gonna need more income. And if you can't keep up, if your business is not growing and offering your team that opportunity to grow alongside with you, you're gonna lose some great talent. You're gonna and you're gonna make a job a lot harder. That's the other thing. Because those individuals in our company, for example, they they've been there 10 years, 15 years, 19 years from day one, their experience, you can't buy that you can't teach that anymore. And if they go anywhere else, how the heck am I gonna do this by myself? 

Rick  35:14  
How do you replace that person, yeah.

Victor  35:16  
How am I gonna do it? You know. So it's a way to keep that talent, it's a way to let them achieve their goals with you, not help you achieve your goals, but how can I help them achieve their goals, and he turned obviously, we achieve our goals. But it's a team effort, it's a family, it's a sense of community within our company. So the moment I realized that, I came back and said, Look, we're gonna grow the same, we're gonna keep going, there's no pulling back, we're not going to do it, you know, I want these people to I want to see someone upgrading, you know, to beautiful new home custom built, I don't care what their dreams and, and goals may be, we're going to help them achieve it. And I believe that's what we're doing. You know, I talked to some of the leaders within our company. And that's exactly what they're doing. They're building a new house, now. They're going on their dream vacation, you know, they're starting to build a family. And it's just great to watch that. And to be part of it. And to know that they are here for the long term.

Rick  36:15  
Yeah, I love it. And I'm gonna wrap it up with now you got yourself a co-pilot in that in that cockpit, right? 

Victor  36:21  
Yeah, 

Rick  36:22  
these employees are going for the ride with you, that co pilot with you and 

Victor  36:25  
100% 

Rick  36:26  
now you're helping pulling the right leverage for them as well, 

Victor  36:29  
we could never do it without the people and at the end of the day, and I know it's a cliche, but it is about the people. And if you're in business, and and you think it's just about the product, you know, there's always going to be a competitor who's going to deliver, probably cheaper than you, I don't think they hopefully they can't deliver better than you, but they will do it cheaper, and usually the same product. We're in the commodity type of business, you know, it's very commoditized what we do, my competition can get their hands on the raw materials that we have the same products and they can deliver sometimes even faster. You know, how do we make a difference? It's the service side of things, the quality we can put out the people that we have. So we're not really in the stone countertop business. We're really really in the people business, and just developing growing phenomenal, professional individuals that love what they do that do it with pride every day. And the rest is history.

Rick  37:28  
I love it. Well, thank you so much. And congratulations on 20 years.

Victor  37:32  
Thank you very much, appreciate it

Rick  37:33  
Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for sharing your founder story. And as always in the description of the podcast or if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll put all the links to your company down below as well both social media and websites and all that kind of stuff. So that if anyone has any questions wants to get ahold of you're like me and wants a new countertop, they know exactly who to go to.

Victor  37:52  
Thank you.

Rick  37:53  
Thank you so much for being on the show. My pleasure. I'll see the rest of you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to the founder story podcast. Be sure to rate review and subscribe to the show. And don't forget to check out some of the other great stories

Transcribed by https://otter.ai