Photo: Lawn CapitalPlenty of teenagers still use lawn mowing as a form of extra cash growing up, but not many turn it into their full-time career and grow it to a near million-dollar company while still in their early 20s.
However, that is exactly what 23-year-old Greyson Walldorff and 24-year-old Jonathan Goldsmith have done with their landscaping company, Lawn Capital LLC, based in Decatur, Georgia.
Greyson WalldorffPhoto: Lawn Capital
Growing up together, Goldsmith and Walldorff started off mowing lawns in their respective neighborhoods at the ages of 15 and 16. They kept their businesses running through college until in 2017 they combined them to create Lawn Capital.
“It was this year that we brought in our 3rd partner, Michael Thibadeau, who was also in school during this time,” Walldorff says. “The following year, we graduated from college and decided to pursue this business full-time.”
Walldorff studied finance and accounting at Georgia State University while Goldsmith attended the University of Georgia and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a certificate in entrepreneurship.
“In my final year of school, I made a decision which I believed was right at the time and pursued a corporate job,” Goldsmith says. “During that time, Greyson worked relentlessly to grow the business. I saw this and knew that I had made a huge mistake. I remember calling Greyson and telling him that I wanted to come back on – he was a little surprised. That phone call was the best decision I’ve made.”
The two founders say they would not have been able to grow their company to this level without the help of Jobber.
“When we began Lawn Capital full time in 2017, we were doing everything manually,” Walldorff says. “From quotes for customers to monthly invoicing – we would go days chasing new customers and weeks without getting paid. Of course, our company was still doing well, but we knew we needed to turn to a business software if we wanted to grow in company size and revenue.”
Walldorff says that after researching several different field service software systems, they tried out the free trial of Jobber.
“It was the simplest for our business at the time and has been able to grow with us as our needs have changed,” Walldorff says. “Today, we have 18 employees and each of our crews have tablets with their full day laid out in front of them within Jobber’s mobile app. Our teams get directions to every job and we can track where they are at all times. In addition, we are able to provide notes and pictures, which helps our guys do a great job at their properties.”
Jonathan GoldsmithPhoto: Lawn Capital
Starting out, Walldorff and Goldsmith mowed as many lawns as they could walk to but now they’re focused more on landscaping work.
“Around 40 percent of our revenue comes from installation jobs like sod and plantings,” Goldsmith says. “It’s quite interesting to have two departments of a company that are so similar yet so unique. Lawn care maintenance is recurring, so the revenue is predictable 12 months per year. Landscaping, however, is much more one time jobs that have to be constantly quoted and sold. This keeps our sales team quite busy!”
Walldorff says Lawn Capital’s mission is simple: “To create a unique customer experience for our neighbors throughout the Atlanta area.” He says lawn care shouldn’t be one size fits all and the company focuses on providing customers the services they need for a price they can afford.
Lawn Capital boasts a 92 percent customer satisfaction and 92 percent of its customers return. Goldsmith credits part of that customer satisfaction to how Jobber makes communication seamless.
“Our third partner, Michael, runs our installation department,” Goldsmith says. “Jobber allows him to manage two crews of two to four people as they work throughout Atlanta. He points potential customers to their Client Hub, where they can approve quotes, check appointment details, view their work history, pay invoices – all in one place.”
Goldsmith says this has helped Lawn Capital appear more professional, boosting its reputation and growth. Walldorff adds that without Jobber, cashflow would still be an issue and they would not have been able to grow the business to its current size.
“In addition, implementing Jobber has allowed us to cut down the time we’ve spent on invoicing from three days to a half day,” Walldorff says. “This doesn’t even account for the other time-saving tools that Jobber has equipped us with, such as the ability to assign and schedule service quickly from the tip of our fingers. Without Jobber, we’d be required to hire someone full time – so this software is effectively saving us 40+ hours a week.”
Photo: Lawn CapitalGoldsmith says that Jobber is ideal for small lawn care businesses as it helps with organization of scheduling, dispatching, invoicing and more.
“The invoicing and payments feature has been a huge bonus for us,” Goldsmith says. “Before Jobber, cashflow used to be a bit of a struggle. It would take several days of following up on payments in order to collect owed money. The auto-pay feature is also a life-saver. We now require for every new client to enroll to opt into automatic payments. No more chasing outstanding invoices. We’ve tripled the speed of collection and with autopay are collecting money while we sleep.”
Goldsmith says that by having a better understanding of their numbers, they can scale their business appropriately. Lawn Capital’s goal is to grow to $5 million in revenue.
“We don’t want to grow slow,” Goldsmith says. “Last year was the first year that we’ve worked full time and we successfully tripled our business. That’s not without serious growing pains, however. We had some serious failures along the way, but each of them has been the beginning of a new opportunity.”
