Start a Local Service Business
With One Truck and $1,000
The 90-day launch plan behind a tree care company that went from a pickup, a trailer, and $1,000 of gear to $2.6M a year. Gear, pricing, first customers, first ad campaign, and when to reinvest. Written for founders, not marketers.
The $1,000 kit, the setup checklist, and the one rule: work for someone good before you buy the saw.
The man-hour pricing worksheet. Your real costs, your billable hours, your target rate, and what a lead is worth to you.
The four corners door-knocking script, the ten-minute referral window, and how to be the expert on your city's subreddit.
Your first Google Ads campaign at $10 a day: the signs you are ready, the settings, the tracking number, the Friday routine.
The reinvestment ladder (chipper before lift), hiring from your own network, and getting out of the tree.
Built from the UpFlip interview with Andrew Anstrom and Austin McCoy of Tree Amigos, and from what we see in the Google Ads accounts of local service companies that make it past year two.
Send me day 1
Five emails, one a day. The crew version.
Free. No course to buy at the end. Unsubscribe in one click.
You have worked on someone else's crew and want your own. The plan starts the week you buy your gear.
You would rather own the phone number and sell confirmed calls to contractors. Days 3 and 5 are written for you.
You have jobs but no pricing formula and a lumpy schedule. Days 2 and 3 fix that before you spend on ads.
What a first campaign costs by trade
Average Google Ads cost per click and what a lead is worth to the business. Day 4 covers how to turn these into calls.
| Trade | Avg cost per click | Lead value | Startup cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tree service | $10 | $400 | $1,000 + truck and trailer |
| Junk removal | $9 | $300 | Truck or trailer, dump account |
| Pressure washing | $7 | $200 | $2,000 to $4,000 in equipment |
| Landscaping | $7.50 | $350 | Mower, trimmer, trailer |
| Handyman | $8.50 | $250 | Tools you likely own |
| Painting | $13.74 | $600 | Ladders, sprayer, drop cloths |
Click costs are US averages and vary by market. Lead value is what a lead is worth to the business after close rate and job size.
The plan, as long-form posts
Frequently Asked Questions
How much money do you need to start a local service business?
If you already own a truck and a trailer, tree service, junk removal, and handyman businesses can start with roughly $1,000 in tools and safety gear plus your first insurance payment. Tree Amigos, the company this plan is built from, started at that level and now does about $2.6 million a year. Without a vehicle, budget $10,000 to $20,000 for a used pickup and a dump trailer. Do not finance a chipper, a lift, or a wrapped van until the jobs you are already doing justify the payment.
Should I work for another company before starting my own?
Yes, and it is the single most important step in the plan. Six to twelve months on an experienced crew teaches you how long jobs actually take, which jobs to refuse, and how a crew moves. Every quote you write for the rest of your career is a guess about hours, and working for someone good is how that guess gets calibrated. Keep a notebook of every job while you are there: species or job type, size, hours, crew size, and price.
How do you get your first customers without paying for ads?
Three methods that compound: knock on the four doors around every job site while your crew is still visible (the four corners method), ask for a referral and a Google review in the ten minutes after a job while the customer is standing in the clean yard, and answer questions about your trade on your city's subreddit for fifteen minutes a day without pitching. Fifty customers in the first year from these three is a realistic goal for a one-truck operation.
When should a new service business start running Google Ads?
When someone can answer the phone during the day, you have twenty or more Google reviews, and your schedule has holes that referrals are not filling. Ads generate calls, and a paid click that lands in voicemail is wasted. Start at $10 to $20 a day with call-only ads, a tight service-area radius, an ad schedule that matches when the phone is answered, negative keywords from day one, and a tracking number so you know which calls came from ads. Tree service clicks average about $10 in the US, so $300 a month is roughly thirty clicks and five or six real calls from a tight campaign.
Can you start a lead generation business without owning a service company?
Yes. Pick one trade with a job value of $300 or more and urgent intent, such as tree removal or roofing, in a metro of roughly 300,000 to 1.5 million people. Build a landing page whose only button is the phone, with a tracking number that records calls, and state plainly that you connect homeowners with local pros. Sign three contractor buyers on a pay-per-confirmed-call basis before you spend on ads, then run a campaign at $20 a day. Expect month one to lose money and month three to be the first that looks like a business, with confirmed leads in tree service selling for $50 to $120 each.