From Zero to $19 Million: Inside IRBIS HVAC’s Blueprint for Growth

Steve Doyle (: 00:00

Welcome back everyone to BlueCaller BS. Brad, how you doing today?

Brad Herda (: 00:04

I am fantastic. Mr. Doyle, how are you today?

Steve Doyle (: 00:07

Well, you know, it's really muggy as F here and it's gross in Michigan. is is absolutely horrendous. It might be like 90 and muggy. Yeah, yeah. It's.

Brad Herda (: 00:19

You got what we had yesterday. Yeah, you had what we had yesterday, which is ideal for our guests today. Ideal, because that's what they do. They condition air along with other things. So today our guests, have Tim and Vadim from Urbus HVAC. They started as hands-on technicians and Tim comes from a marketing background and together they've got the technical expertise with customer focus and they built the organization from the ground up.

Steve Doyle (: 00:26

It is ideal for our guest today.

You

Brad Herda (: 00:48

They're both Ironman finishers. Congratulations to both of you to have that discipline to go do those things. I have no desire to ever do that. So that's good for you. but their passion for delivering high quality products and services to their clients out in California is something that they have a passion and desire to do. And we're fortunate to have them both today. So thank you guys for showing up.

Steve Doyle (: 00:51

Nice.

Tim (: 01:11

Yeah, thanks so much for inviting us.

Vadim (: 01:12

Thanks for inviting us.

Steve Doyle (: 01:14

Yeah, so before we jump into the show real quick here, and before I forget, Tim and Vadim, which generation do you guys fit in or identify with? We'll start with Tim first.

Tim (: 01:28

We are millennials, I would say. are 30 years old, 31, 32. And we may be kind of not Generation Z, but somewhere where the millennials almost are over already and where the Generation Z starts. yeah, me personally, I'm really...

Not proud, but I'm happy what time we were born because we were playing on the street, you know, we had a real childhood where you just go out and come back when the sun is kind

Steve Doyle (: 02:14

That's a Gen X thing. That's a Gen X thing.

Tim (: 02:18

So yeah, we had those times and then we've got the computers came out, the PlayStation and we saw all this digital. Then we saw how mobile phones emerged, how social media popped up and we kind of went through all these things. You know, we had a little bit of everything in a good amount. Yeah. So I think this is something maybe a little bit unique.

Steve Doyle (: 02:38

Mm-hmm.

Tim (: 02:46

to our generation.

Steve Doyle (: 02:48

Mm-hmm. All right.

Brad Herda (: 02:49

Thanks

Tim (: 02:50

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 02:53

Vadim, any other input on that?

Vadim (: 02:56

No, think Tim answered everything for me, so I can't say any better.

Steve Doyle (: 03:00

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 03:03

So how have you guys as young younger folks in a rarely typically a more mature industry? How have you guys gone about building your team and creating success and earning that market share?

Vadim (: 03:24

So yeah, I would say sometimes it gets tricky when you have to manage people that older than you, like about 45. So that's, it's a bit challenging, but over the years, I feel like I got better in this. And, most of the, you know, our team members, they are pretty young about our age. So I think.

our management team so they are about our age and we you know they're doing really great you know in managing people.

Brad Herda (: 04:03

So what are some of the things you're doing that you've learned to support managing that older technician or that older employee? What are some of the things you've done to make that successful?

Vadim (: 04:18

so yeah, I would say, when we started, I didn't know anything about, you know, running the company or managing people. So we had to learn everything from, very beginning, starting with mistakes. And, know, we have, very good HR. So, I learned from her and I learned by making mistakes. That's, that's how I learned basically.

Steve Doyle (: 04:45

Don't we all? Don't we all?

Brad Herda (: 04:47

Okay.

Yes, that is the biggest form of learning. So do you allow your people to make mistakes or are you expecting perfection out of them?

Vadim (: 04:56

I allow them to make mistakes and learn from them. One time is a mistake, second time is a choice,

Steve Doyle (: 05:05

There is that. There is that. There is that. How have you, you know, go for it.

Brad Herda (: 05:06

That is a true statement. That is a true statement.

How about you, Tim? How have you seen that on your marketing side of things, Being able to grow and attract and leverage a young company into a mature audience.

Tim (: 05:26

I would add, know that being credible would be number one. mean Whatever we do know company me and Vadim We we try to be the best in that so we have when we talk even with older elder people then we Do have professionalism and you know, we know what we're talking about. So when you have credibility that will be

So that will be definitely your key to keep the conversation going to the direction you want. And if to talk regarding the marketing, I think that was number one reason why I joined this journey. I mean, I think I was lucky to have good experience by

creating some websites and to have experience to manage some projects where I deployed the new products using the internet. I designed some things and when I did a little research on other companies around our area, I found a lot of things that I could easily improve.

I think that approach helped us and even right now we kind of have the same approach towards our marketing.

Steve Doyle (: 07:00

So what are you seeing as trends to attract talent to your business?

Vadim (: 07:10

Yeah, I would say definitely pay. So if you if you don't pay enough money to people, you're not going to get best performers. I would say it's both first, you know, culture in a company. And second thing is, of course, pay. I mean, first, first people look at the pace. I would say they go in a company. So making making sure

Steve Doyle (: 07:26

Mm-hmm.

Vadim (: 07:39

that you have right compensation, which is performance pay and also allowing people, even though like hourly people, they still should have some kind of bonus structure to make sure that, you know, they performing really well, they have this opportunity to make extra, you know, extra income there. So.

Steve Doyle (: 07:59

Mm-hmm.

Vadim (: 08:08

That's what we're trying to do for every position in the company.

Steve Doyle (: 08:13

That's great. You mentioned culture. How are you establishing yourself as the culture that people should want to come to?

Vadim (: 08:25

So yeah, I feel like, you know, the way I'm interacting with our employees or even, you know, our managers, it's pretty friendly, but we also have expectations, you know, to perform at, you know, standard that we're doing. And now I'm still pretty involved in all the operations with installers, with service technicians, with

Steve Doyle (: 08:51

Mm-hmm.

Vadim (: 08:54

comfort advisor, sometimes you know, I feel like just people that performing well, sometimes just calling them and saying, hey man, you're doing great job, thank you. You know, or calling people that underperforming, hey man, like what's going on? What, I seen your performance down lately, what can we do? So I feel like,

Steve Doyle (: 09:08

Vadim (09:21.621)

Over the years, people just appreciate that. I mean, just like the things that we're doing here. Uh, like we're doing pretty some cool things like our installers, they go Vegas. got like Vegas street for 12 people for them. it's building the team. Yeah. got. Yeah. So they all went to.

Steve Doyle (: 09:39

What?

Brad Herda (: 09:43

The marketing guy approved that.

Steve Doyle (: 09:45

I think that was a marketing thing, maybe sales thing.

Vadim (: 09:51

a game for like 49ers and Raiders last year and this year we're doing same trip as well so everyone pretty excited you know about things like this so we also have a trip so eight people went to Costa Rica this year and next year so four people went to Hawaii this year and next year we're also doing like

same trip for top performing employees.

Steve Doyle (: 10:24

Wow. Yeah. Sign me up. I'll move.

Brad Herda (: 10:25

That is very generous of you.

So how are you, Tim, so taking that culture, how are you doing the internal communications to be able to continue to help that culture grow and develop and ensuring that the leadership team is putting out the right messaging and doing those things so that your internal messaging and external messaging are congruent?

Tim (: 10:54

Yeah, so I'm really focused on helping people to have good experience and especially our generation, I mean the newer generation, we are in social media and we see how people can live their lives, you know. When you see that you can have nice things in your life, you like, you definitely want to have them as well. And we do all the best to allow our

employees and all team members to have the best things and Very often you don't really need to spend a lot of money on that. It's not that expensive I mean, you know keeping the vents help them to keep their vents clean and organized To have the truck nice trucks, you know the our vents They're very beautiful and they kind of create, you know, very positive like wives

in our company, the way how we decorated our office. You know, we just took a trip to the shop where they sell used furniture, but we found such a great setup. It matched the colors in our office. And we, you know, we hired additional people overseas to help other employees, you know, with some reports. So the

Workflow and operation is more smoother. We have people who order parts So we do this little tweaks that helps people to have a better day overall So they don't get overwhelmed with some unnecessary things or something that other people can do for example and All this little tweaks helps to create environment where people see that that yeah, this is the place where I see People are really enjoying, you know just to work

because home service is a pretty difficult job, but if you can make it more convenient, more comfortable, with more positive energy, that will be definitely somewhere where people would want to go.

Tim (: 13:07

And regarding the communication, nothing kind of special, you know, but what we really do, we do have weekly meetings with all departments where both me and Vadim are involved directly. So Vadim works more with the technicians. I work more with all office and our marketing team, customer support. We work directly with everyone.

Brad Herda (: 13:07

Gotcha.

Tim (: 13:36

and everyone knows where the company is heading, what are the what changes are happening. But in terms of the tools, we just use basic messengers. We do have, of course, organized group chats for every team, for department. But other than that, would say having direct communications and being involved in the operations from the leadership, this is kind of what helps us as well.

Brad Herda (: 14:03

OK, so you guys started you guys started this from the ground up, right? You did not acquire another business, did you?

Vadim (: 14:11

No, we didn't.

Brad Herda (: 14:13

So you feel that was an advantage to be able to come in to the industry and do it your way versus maybe somebody today in your position that might come in and try to buy somebody else's problems. Do you think you're in a better position because you're able to start from scratch than acquiring something that was already established?

Vadim (: 14:35

I feel like because we started by ourselves, we did a lot of mistakes and we still doing them, but we were able to learn from it and establish better processes than one that we think the best. Also, we've been doing a lot of shop tours, going to a lot of events. And what I also realized that not the...

If you see some big company doing some certain stuff or they have certain process, it's not always the best. So you kind of have to figure out what's best, what works for your company, what works for your area. You know, have to be careful with that. Yes. Yeah. Not, not, not everything right exactly, you know, for your company.

Brad Herda (: 15:26

Okay, and has that allowed you think being able to start from scratch has allowed you to leverage technology more effectively as well?

Tim (: 15:38

technology you mean

Brad Herda (: 15:41

Automations, the technology within, you know, having GPS on trucks or using tools that maybe, one of your competitors has been around 60 years, isn't even thinking about, having that interface or that customer service aspect where maybe people are expecting things there may still be writing things on paper and, and wanting.

Tim (: 16:00

We actually start everything from scratch, yeah, and we didn't have any knowledge how other companies doing certain things. are pros and cons of that. I would say we could definitely get some GPS trackers or some cameras much earlier than we got them. But on the other hand, I mean...

In the very beginning, was the one who was choosing the software, so the way how we interact with customers. And I was doing it with my own kind of philosophy. I had my own values to, you know, to draw the certain journeys so customers are informed in time, they have transparency. And going from that angle helped us to create some unique

customer journeys we have at the moment without relying on what other companies are doing. So it's a mix, yes. And definitely we do have very unique things that other companies do not have exactly because we started completely from scratch. In the very beginning, it was kind of simple. You know what? I can do all the best to do the best customer support, best dispatching. And Vadim was...

Brad Herda (: 17:03

Okay.

Tim (: 17:23

the one who was going and providing the best service to fix the unit or whatever. And in the end, that all customer need, they need good customer support and they need expert to go to their home and do their job. And we just, we just try to keep the same strategy across the board and doesn't matter how many people are involved at the moment.

Brad Herda (: 17:45

Okay. Steve is experiencing technical difficulties here, as you can probably see on your screen. So as you've been able to start from scratch, build your culture, do your thing to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. How do you envision your

that next set of leaders coming through the organization. If they're the same age, if your leadership team is here today with you, how are you building out their expectations? Is there looking at multiple locations, looking at taking a unique system and trying to franchise? How are you going to help continue to stimulate the growth of your leadership team?

Vadim (: 18:35

So let's say we still not at the size to expand to different locations. So I feel like there is a lot of potential at the area we're at. There's a lot of things happening in Bay Area, such as they phase out all the natural gas water heaters and all the gas furnaces. I feel like

hase out all water heaters in: 2027

There is still this potential that we're just trying to grow our team in this location and just have, you know, there is always work to do in a company. So it doesn't matter how long, how long you work, there is always going to be a problem. So always things to improve. think at this point, we're just trying to maximize things where, so we're trying to hit 19 million this year. We are pacing there.

Brad Herda (: 19:44

Yes.

Vadim (: 20:02

And I feel like there is way more potential in this area. do way more. And we're just looking for top performing people, good managers, that are able to come in and help us to build it to bigger size. Potentially maybe more locations, but right now we're just focused on this thing, like growing more in our area.

Brad Herda (: 20:31

Okay.

Vadim (: 20:32

on our backyard first.

Brad Herda (: 20:34

That's fair. And that's some of the things, right? So we're out here in the Midwest, that whole phase out aspect, that's, that's not happening here. So that's all things that we're not necessarily familiar with. And that was going to be one of my questions is how do you find your market to be different than the rest of the country? As you may have technicians that are coming from other parts of the country to come out to California, how are you finding that, that difference of, of just

geographic cultural differences in your region to bring on tax or other employees inside the organization.

Tim (: 21:11

So we are in Silicon Valley. Most of our customers, are engineers. I think this is one of the reasons why our company is having certain success in terms of customer acquisition. So we are here younger, so we learn faster. We love technologies, we love integration, sensors, connections.

And we are kind of focused to provide customers with the best setup for their homes. And all engineers, they actually, they love it. They all, I'm an engineer, I know all of that. So they definitely take part in customizing the whole setup for their homes. And our projects are way more complicated than, for example, in what happens in Southern California, where they just swap.

We just don't know the Midwest, you know, but for example, we know Southern California where they just swap ACs. It's very easy, you know, you just go there one day job. This is their focus. In our area, some setups are so crazy. It's zoning system, it's dampers, heat pumps, you know, sometimes it's hybrid heat.

Sometimes this is completely new manufacturer with the water heating system which is integrated into the heat pump for heating and our customers they love it and at the same time it's a challenge for us, you know We have to go back for some recalls but this is our market, you know, and You know, we are adopting to it, but it's definitely way

It's definitely more technologically advanced than in other parts of the United States, I would say. But at the same time, people pay for that.

Vadim (: 23:08

Yeah, and I feel like here in this area, our comfort advisors, they need way more knowledge about, you know, some certain things. Because it's different installations, you have to offer custom solutions to homes. Sometimes it's like really big homes. And a lot of people here still don't have air conditioners, they just have gas furnaces. So we have to

figure out ways how to work with some certain HOA communities. And yeah, our comfort advisors also learn about rebates that homeowners can get and there's different municipalities like Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Peninsula, is certain rebates that they can get based on the equipment, based on the area they live and you know.

Basically, our comfort advisors, they learn how to stock all this rebates, maximize savings, also a lot of systems customers switch into heat pumps. actually, we also different compared to our competition when they trying to just install same air conditioner and furnace.

What we're trying to do, trying to switch everyone in a heat pump and give customer all the options. And, know, then they realized that heat pump the best option. 95 % of our installations are heat pumps right now. So we're just doing heat pumps and it's, we do only like, I would say 90 % of installation. It's also one certain model of heat pump.

Brad Herda (: 24:55

wow.

Vadim (: 25:05

inverter heat pump that's very low speed

Brad Herda (: 25:09

Okay, well that's that's awesome. So how do people find you guys other than you have a unique name? But how do they find you to to make that call if there's technicians looking for opportunities to be part of a great culture? A young leadership team, how do they go about finding you guys to make a connection?

Tim (: 25:29

So in the very beginning, I found out that people struggling to pronounce or remember our name. So and we got the phone number, which is 669 cooling. This is our kind of second little brand that helps to remember us. But other than that, we are like everywhere. That's that's my personal approach. You know, some people say, I like Yale or I hate home advisor or this or that.

We are everywhere absolutely. We are on TikTok, we are on Reddit, Nextdoor, Facebook, Google Ads, Google Local Services, TV, like radio, the... Yeah, so... Luckily, this year we got to the size where our goal is not just to...

Vadim (: 26:13

Billboards.

Tim (: 26:26

do some campaign, but our goal is to like go out to the street and ask 10 random people and have at least like five of them recognize our brand. So we are kind of have this kind of goals, but other than that as a customer, you just look, if you look for the company, we're gonna pop up everywhere very easily. And if you will look for service, you probably will see us everywhere as well.

Whether it's Yelp or Google Maps or Google Search. Even ChildGPT recommended us already.

Brad Herda (: 27:02

Yeah, when I was doing some research on some incognito windows, it was almost impossible not to find you. Cause cause you are everywhere. It's like, okay, great. Here's what this is. Cause I'm not going to find in my local search, finding a California, service company. But when I do my, did an incognito window and did some searching. I was like, yeah, you guys have a lot of stuff everywhere. And, even though that journey of, of starting that company from the beginning is, difficult just

Hopefully you guys are taking the time to appreciate how far you've come and how successful you have been to date to create what you've created. but yes, the journey is not over, but sometimes you just got to step back and take the win, you know, celebrate that win and congratulations for your, your contest and keeping the engagement and all the things with your people and staff. So, that is definitely a role model that many others need to look at and, listen to and maybe.

try to follow a little bit because I'm going to assume I'm going to assume you don't have a lot of problems hiring technicians. Let's put it this way. Having technicians apply, hiring them and being qualified might be a different story, but finding people to apply, I'm sure is not that not a challenge or are you having a challenge getting people to apply?

Vadim (: 28:22

I don't think so. So we're pretty recognizable and we hear from people, I heard you, you know, I heard about you from the, you know, other technicians, heard about you, you know, I saw a billboard. So, and we have a lot of what we found out over the years, the best way to find technicians through referrals. So you bring one good person.

you treat them well, they're to bring another two, three people that's really good for that. So technicians, they know other technicians, they know, you know, they in the industry, so they're going to bring and then other technicians usually bring more technician if they really like the company. So over the years that, you know, what works best, and that's how we found our, you know, top performers as well.

Brad Herda (: 29:22

That's fantastic. Vadim, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story today. And I'm going to recommend that all of our listeners go look them up, go find them, go see what they are doing because just because it's in California doesn't mean it can't work here in the Midwest, East Coast down South. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. So what you guys are doing is very powerful and very successful. And thanks for sharing your story. I appreciate it.

Tim (: 29:51

Thanks so much, Britt, for inviting us. Thank you.

Brad Herda (: 29:53

All right, no problem. Thanks.