From $500 to a $1.7M Masonry Business

0:00Ultimately I had the business soul that 1.4 1.7 million. I got in a bad accident in 2024 totally ruined that sale. We're like about three weeks from closing and the guy backed out 10 days after the accident. Oh man, so then you have to go back in there and build it back up. The ultimate goal is to leave my family better off than we started. Kenneth Moro is a resilient, driven and accomplished Masonry entrepreneur who built a thriving business through grit, hard work and an unwavering determination to succeed. From extreme poverty to building a million dollar company, Ken's story is one of perseverance and refusing to quit. You're always trying to child the truth, right? And that's a very important thing in the industry, right? In construction industry or any of that, is to be trustworthy. Everything you do in life is all about connections. Obviously if you're not the best to deal with, people ain't going to deal with you. I wanted to start my company without wrestling. Really? Yeah, seeing how hard the kids work and how hard you got to push yourself and just seeing how hard those kids push themselves

1:02and how it's kind of working in the union all again three to six months a year. And I'm like, man, if I just work half as hard as these kids, I'm going to be a millionaire. So I decided to start my own business and one thing leads to another and then. It spans the globe like a super high school. Internet Elvis. Ready? Today Apple is going to reinvent the ball. It's not over until I win the living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's extremely impossible. Oh, but it's sensational. Open. She come up with the way you say. Call is the box is not on the planet. You can live your dream. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of living your legacy podcast and I'm your host, Jace Langen. And yeah, we got the privilege to talk to some of the greatest entrepreneurs from around the country, the disruptors, the experts and today for America's best builders show brand new show that we have at Insight success.

2:09We got a special guest here from Massachusetts, kind of New England, my town of the woods. And yeah, have you introduced yourself and what's your business? Kenneth Moro. I own Moro, Macyry. We're out of Trigbee, Massachusetts. All right. And so Macyry, yeah, a lot of backyards, I'm guessing, driveways, what are you doing? That's pretty much how we started. Now we do mostly commercial like 95% 90%. Okay. And what's the commercial Macyry in tail? So a lot of retail stores, schools, hangers, anything built out of block that's bigger. But mostly retail, we do a lot of like branding, brand of buildings. Okay. So in my mind, I'm not the America's best builders, handyman guy, right? But Macyry, I'm thinking bricks, right? What else is it? Brick Block, EFIS, which is like that stucco look. Okay. Down here you guys have a lot of, in Miami you guys have a lot of concrete with stucco over it.

3:13Of course we do like an insulation like two to four inches of insulation. And then it has a thin layer of stucco over it. So we offer that, we offer brick, block, stone. Okay. Yeah, that stucco gets a lot of cracks also. So when you do it direct applied to somebody, yeah. But when you do on the insulation, it holds up pretty good. Okay, okay. And so, yeah, how long have you been in business for? I've been in business since 2014, so roughly 12 years. Okay. And so how big is the team now? So the team is roughly today. We vary. We usually go like between four and 10 people. All right. And yeah, I mean, having a business for 12 years, that's quite an accomplishment, right? Congrats on that. And yeah, how do you, how did you build your team? Was it solo at first or you had a couple crew? So pretty much a high started was just in the residential.

4:13I worked in, you know, like the union for a while, big commercial projects. But then, you know, it got slow and we weren't getting much work. So I decided to branch out on my own. And we did a lot of commercial. I pretty much just had one other person that worked with me. And we did that for about five, six years. And it kind of fell in our lap to do some commercial. And since then, it's kind of taken off. And, you know, it's kind of all word of mouth and we'll find us. And we do big jobs, but mostly it's for the same select contractors that we do business for all the time. Okay. So I guess one of your big tips would be get a good relationship with the contractors. A relationship is everything. Everything you do in life is all about connections. I wouldn't say how you interact with people, how you connect with people, how you hold yourself. And, you know, pretty much how you deal with people.

5:14Like, obviously, if you're not the best to deal with, people aren't going to deal with you. Yeah. No one wants to deal with an A hole, right? Yeah. Or with a mass hole. You're from Massachusetts. Yeah, a mass hole. They follow up. It's all about connections. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you said that you have a lot of word of mouth marketing. So that's a lot to do with those connections that you're building, right? Yeah. So a lot of them are like, I have a few connections that are from wrestling based. I coach wrestling for years. Okay. And so a lot of my connections are through wrestling and everyone knows and wrestling. The people in wrestling that work harder. Yeah. So people tend to like stay with who they know from those times. And you must have been a wrestler in high school or? I was an actually. No. Okay. So where's the wrestling connection here? So I actually had a mom shoulder for most of my life. Okay. Not most of my life, but all my childhood. So I played different sports besides wrestling.

6:14I didn't even know about wrestling. Yeah. But I mean, I'm a product of the 80s and 90s. Yeah. Growing up, I didn't wrestle, but I was down with the Hulk Hogan Ultimate Warrior. Right. It's a total different wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what happened was is we had moved back from Florida in 2006. My son started wrestling in 2007. Okay. One of the coaches that was his first coach. He actually stepped away after that year. And my son won states his first year. So I was locked in. I was a big sports fan. I played sports my whole life. And then once I, you know, once you see your kid, you know, do that good, you're like, okay, this is we're going to stay with this. So like I said, his coach left and we went to a different community wrestling program. After like a year or two, watching that and, you know, there was a couple of kids from our town that were going there like probably five or six. I reached out to the old coach and said, hey, what do I need to do to coach these kids? Yeah.

7:14I can do it. And he said, I'll help you with the paperwork and you can just do the mat work. And so I did that for a couple of years and then I was approached by somebody. The owner of Team Link, which is, you know, one of my good friends. I met him at a tournament. And then basically we started, I started coaching there for six more years. And then, you know, like I said, it's all, I wanted to start my company without wrestling. Really? And I was like, I'm just seeing how hard the kids work and how hard you got to push yourself. And just seeing how hard those kids push themselves. And like I was kind of working in the union all again three to six months a year. And I'm like, man, if I just work half as hard as these kids, I'm going to be a millionaire. So I decided to start my own business. And you know, one thing leads to another. And then I got lucky with meeting a certain contractor that I didn't have a connection with. I said, hey, I noticed you have, because I have been on a couple of their projects.

8:17But he never, I never got him. And he had called me and he's like, yeah, I noticed you haven't been on any of our stuff in over a year. I said, yeah. No, if I take me off your biblet, I don't want to bid your job. No, I'm not. Because I'm not trying to keep your Mason honest, you know, just, I was just honest. You know, like I'm always honest with everybody fair. And I just told him basically why I didn't. And he said, well, I just started here a year ago. And if you, he goes, you're right, you were low on some of these beds. So I'm going to give you an opportunity to do this job if you're low. And so I came in and we were a little bit and we did the job. And ever since then, we've had a great relationship and, you know, fair and honest is the way to go and communicate with people. Well, there's two things that you said in that. One is, you know, you got lucky meeting this guy. But you got to create your own luck. You know, of course, you had the things set up. You put yourself in the right places and the right time, you know, yes, there is a little bit of luck. Right.

9:18But you got to kind of make your own luck. Right. If you don't put yourself out there, you're not, that looks not going to come to you. True, true. Like I'm don't get me wrong in the past when I was just doing residential. I was emailing contractors and some, hey, give us an opportunity to bid that. Yeah. You know, because we're small. I mean, at that time, I probably had three to four guys working on. And it's like, you know, we're doing residential at this point. And the most error did in residential for the gross is probably 450, you know, and then as soon as you get into commercial, it's only a jumps up to, you know, triple that. Hey, there you go. Yeah. And it's, it's all about connections and just making your own luck. Yeah. And then another thing that you said in that was that you're always trustworthy. You're always trying to tell the truth, right? And that's a very important thing in, in the industry, right? In construction industry or, or any of that is to be trustworthy, right? Because you're not, you can't be on the job the full time, right? You don't know, you know, like there's so many ways.

10:20It's like the mechanic, right? You got to just trust the mechanic because you're not getting another hood. You're not getting under the car. You can't see what's going on, right? Yeah. And so yeah, you got, you got to be trustworthy. Yeah, the issue with sub-mechanics is you're not trustworthy. Correct. Then you got to call a cousin Joe, right? Come over here, right? No, exactly. And that's the thing is like, um, if you want to go. But once you got a guy, it's like, yeah, I got a guy. No, exactly. And then your friends are like, hey, I got a guy, right? Typically, yeah, once we started working for that contractor, people see our trucks and stuff on, on, you know, they're one of the biggest contractors in our area, our very elite. They do all branded buildings. Nice, nice. There you go. Big companies, you know? And so once people see you on their jobs, then they're like, hey, I'm going to call you. I'm going to call them and have them bid our job, you know? Yeah, even though it's not. But that's how it kind of worked for the last since 2019. There you go. It was pretty much worth a mile from, you know? And then since then, how much money have you put in, in marketing per month or per year?

11:20I do run a, uh, very, so I do run like, I get leads. Yeah. From a big, uh, chain, you know, that's pretty big. Um, but I never follow up on them. I pay for them. Okay. Just from the marketing point of it, because they will put you like, hey, uh, number one in this area, you know, for me, sorry. Yeah. And so like your name will pop up with all your reviews and stuff. Mm-hmm. And that's the only reason why I even am on that platform, uh, because I never do any other jobs, you know? Gotcha. So it's more of a trustworthy thing. Yeah, it's more of a, uh, yeah, credibility. Everything I get is all worth of mouth or like, people I know. So you pay for credibility right there, just to kind of put your name on that, on that, yeah. And then we have a couple like we have probably 20 sound reviews on that platform. Mm-hmm. And I mean, there's only one bad, I don't know who the guy is. Yeah. I literally responded to it, you know? Yeah. And it's like, I don't know who you are. You know, it's gotta be a competitor trying to bring down our rating. Could be very well. Could be. Yeah. Either way, uh, you know, like, that's what I do for us to get the, uh,

12:22uh, so that word of mouth is so important. And yeah, I mean, if you've been in business for that long and you're like, I'm not really putting in the marketing, right? Yeah. And you can sustain that. Uh, well, that, that's amazing, right? Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's in 2019 that companies built and grown and, uh, you know, we have a shop and everything. So, um, we just got that last year in November. There you go. You know, so tell me about the growth, right? So, uh, you're doing all the old jobs and then you grow from one truck with the branding on the side and then you get the second truck, right? And now you got the warehouse, uh, or the studio, right? Yeah. Uh, tell me about that growth. How long did it take? Um, what was the most difficult part of that jump? So the whole time I was in residential, I was going back and forth from, you know, I mean, I had a pickup truck that I was just using. That was my personal pickup truck that I drove every day. Yeah, no branding, that just just forward of a, yeah, literally nothing.

13:23Um, I bought a van, uh, let her did all up, you know, when you're, when you're trying to build up, you're buying the most economical. So, um, economical means you're going to break down a lot. Yeah. So that van broke down all the time. Oh, man. Um, yeah, the last time it ended up breaking down on, uh, I 90, which is the last bike. Oh, yeah. Cosmire ridiculous amount of get a toe off there. Oh, no. Uh, so, uh, I ended up started going to, uh, U-Ha, okay, and buy in their, use box trucks. Okay. And then just lettering them up and those trucks are the best trucks I've ever used. So, yeah, so you get a good truck, right? And then you, and then you, uh, I guess, uh, sticker up the U-Ha. Yeah. All right. Put some wrap on it, right? Yep. Uh, put some wrap on it. You know, uh, we bought, you know, Lowles, which is everything has our logo on it. The Lowle is like a 40 foot foot, 44 foot, uh, lift that brings out the block to the staging. Um, we have a boom lift that's, uh, 85 foot snorkel lift, um, tons of staging and everything.

14:27But we bought the, uh, the shop in November, last year and we put our letter, put our sign up on it and redid the outside and, I mean, um, so are you guys buying the box trucks of the trailers? Just the box trucks. The box trucks. Yeah. The box trucks, I usually, I don't go with anything over 15 foot because they go up to 11 high. Yeah. Yeah. So I only stay at the 15, um, that way we can go under most of the bridges in our area. There you go. There you go. And they're, and they're, they've been great vehicles for you. All great vehicles. You know, that's a, that's a hack right there. People, you know, getting those, those vans, right? They're, you don't know what's been happening to them. How they've been beaten up and all that stuff. 10,000, you know, 10,000, you can buy a, use box truck and, okay. Start your business like I'm going to buy another one now and do like, uh, just like a, uh, two guys in the, on residential that's going to start up soon. All right. All right. Um, and so you, your first truck buying on credit or you had the money from, from your

15:29old business, uh, the revenue that was coming in or how did that go? Uh, so pretty much I started the company with a $500 check. Yeah. Um, and just kept reinvesting, reinvesting year after year. Like we probably brought in at our best year in residential 450. I probably invested 300,000 of that back in, you know, um, and it's just, it's, I mean, maybe not, but it's always reinvesting a little more. Of course, of course. It's never taken, like all through residential, I was never doing good, you know, great. It was always just keeping your head above water and, you know, basically making an honest days living. Yeah. It was, uh, a lot easier to invest more money to look better, you know, and that's time, you know, like I started getting the box trucks and, you know, I had a dump truck. Obviously the, the dump truck I ruined and the accident, but, um, I now have my 250 pick up. So I asked everyone on the show, um, you know, what you got cooking?

16:32What's on the horizon? Uh, you talked about your new warehouse, maybe talk to about that a little bit, but, uh, yeah, what are you most excited about? Uh, so I'm most excited about, you know, like I literally, uh, just paid my house off, you know, like, hey, hey, there you go. So I paid that off. I sold my two family to my son. Um, I'm, I'm getting going to be debt free here, hopefully by the end of next year. Fantastic. Like the building and, um, then I'm going to buy some property in Florida. Okay. Um, ultimately I had the business sold at one point for 1.7 million. There you go. Um, I got in a bad accident in 2024, um, totally, uh, ruined that sale. All right. Um, I'm sure you talk about that in your, in your, in your, in your episode, uh, I didn't talk about it in the sale, uh, for the sale. No, no, in the episode that you just filmed, uh, I didn't talk about this. Oh, really? Falling through it. I, that was one thing I forgot to mention. Well, yeah, we actually had, uh, uh, we're like about three weeks from closing and, uh,

17:36the guy backed out 10 days after the accident. Oh, man. So then you had to go back in there and build it back up pretty much. Hi, couldn't walk for, uh, you know, I still have a broke leg. I'll have surgery November 4th this year. Um, but it's been almost two year, it'll be almost two years to the day. Well, minus one month, having December 6th, 2024. But, uh, yeah, pretty much I got, uh, airlifted and everything. Wow. Wow. Broke my leg, had to get, uh, draws a life out. Oh, my lord. I had, uh, co-op pastors with me. But, uh, the husband and wife and the other car didn't make it. Um, they crossed the line. Like, if you were to see NASCAR, mm-hmm. I'm out from behind the car. They had someone in front of them and then just came out and I, there was nothing you could do. Oh, man. I mean, ultimately, the, the ultimate goal is to leave my family, uh, better off them. We started. Yeah, yeah. Leave a legacy.

18:36Yeah, exactly. Leave a legacy. I always say someone has to sacrifice in order for the family, the next generation is to be good. Yeah. No one sacrificed before me, but yeah. I'm saying you go to a point I'm sacrificing now to try to keep the lineage, you know, to where they don't have to worry as much as I did when I was going up. Good man. Good man. Well, thank you for being on the show and joining us here in the studios and happy birthday, man. Thanks, man. Yeah. So his phone's been all blown up. Is his birthday today and he's in South Beach, right? You got birthday plans? Uh, I think we're going to go get some seafood at, uh, Stone Crab Joe's or something like that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's the end of Ocean Drive. Nice, nice day on the Ocean Drive and the beach. My buddy's recommended it. Yeah. He's actually filling in for me today on the job. Okay. He's like, Hey, hit Joe's. So I think we're going to hit that and then, uh, probably hit the casino a little. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Talk to Tiers. She's a big casino girl here. Yeah.

19:37We're talking earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So well, thank you for joining us here in the studios for the podcast and thank you, everyone for joining us again on another great episode. Yeah. America's best builders. We're retalked to the construction workers and all the craftsmen and yeah. I mean, these are the people that aren't going to get replaced by AI working hard and, you know, becoming millionaires. So all right. We'll see you guys next time. Cheers, everyone.