James Simmons, Co-Founder of Montana Excavation & Utilities, joins host Taylor White from Ken White Construction on the podcast today to share his journey from Pennsylvania to Montana and discuss the trials and triumphs of building a business in the excavation industry. From early entrepreneurial ventures as a teen mowing lawns to managing a growing excavation company, James’ story is one of resilience, determination, and smart risk-taking. Whether it’s overcoming financial challenges or navigating the competitive Bozeman construction market, his experiences provide valuable insights for listeners in the construction and business sectors.
Together, Taylor and James dive deeper into the realities of owning and running a business in construction, discussing the importance of taking calculated risks, maintaining older equipment to manage overhead, and the struggles of balancing mental health while growing a business. James emphasizes the critical role of partnerships, both in business and personal life, to share the burden and keep motivation high. He also reflects on the power of a clear vision, including the use of vision boards to stay focused on both personal and professional goals. Whether you’re interested in business growth, construction, or personal development, this episode is packed with actionable advice based upon real-world experience that will undoubtedly prove invaluable.
Episode topics:
- James’s journey from a small lawn care business to co-founding Montana Excavation & Utilities
- The challenges of managing a growing business in a competitive market
- The importance of taking risks and managing overhead with older equipment
- How partnerships in business can alleviate stress and share responsibilities
- The mental and emotional toll of entrepreneurship and the value of resilience
- The role of vision boards in setting and achieving personal and business goals
- Lessons learned from starting over and the power of persistence
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Episode transcript:
James Simmons: Our bigger excavators, we have a 135 Hitachi and then a 200 Hitachi. They're a little older and higher hours but I've run them for other companies I've worked for in the past, and I was always really impressed with how smooth they are. And those are the easiest motors they have. And the Hitachis are just outstanding. They just don't skip a beat. Yeah, they've been great machines. Eventually, though, we're looking at next year, we'd like to upgrade our 135 and get a newer one and put a tilt rotator on it.
Taylor White: Welcome back, everybody, to the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Podcast. I am your host, as always, Taylor White. You might notice today that I sound a little bit different, like a bit of an alien. That is because I am sick. I am recovering today. So I'm feeling a little bit better than I was before. But we got a good host for you today. Good host. I'm the host. We have a good guest for you today to bring on the show, Mr. James Simmons, all the way from Montana. James, thanks for coming on.
James Simmons: Yeah, Taylor. No, thank you guys so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and kind of go over some things and discuss a little bit of business.
Taylor White: Well, I appreciate it. And I also appreciate that before coming on this, we were supposed to start about 10 minutes ago when we had 10 minutes of technical difficulties on my end that I apologize for. But we were kind of talking a bit before, and I've been to Montana. I love Montana. We were talking about the projects and stuff. But more importantly, I want the people at home to know who you are and what you do. Let's get a little bit of a rundown on that.
James Simmons: Yeah. So thank you for the introduction again, I am one of the co-founders of Montana Excavation Utilities. Kind of a somewhat serial entrepreneur, mechanic, CFO, a laborer, operator, truck driver, sales, you name it. Wear a lot of hats at the moment. So just embracing that.
Taylor White: Sounds like a typical business owner when you say that, with all the roles and hats that you kind of have to wear. So, Montana Excavation, what's the story behind that? How long have you been in business? You said that you're a co-founder. So do you have a partner that you kind of teamed up with to start?
James Simmons: I do. I do have a partner. His name is Devin. And before we kind of each had our own companies, he had a dump truck. And I was always into the excavation side of things and doing concrete and we kind of linked together a couple years ago, and ever since then we've kind of been attached at the hip. So last year we finally decided to join forces and form Montana Excavation Utilities together. And it's been great so far. It's taken a little bit of a pressure off of me and him. One person running a business, it can be really tough, as I'm sure you're well aware. And it's nice to have someone to share the stress with and talk things over and make sure your numbers are good together. So, yeah, it's been really good so far having a partner.
Taylor White: Yeah, somebody that you could text at 9:30, 10:00 or 11:00 at night. That's up. Worrying about the same stuff that you're worrying about. Were you always in the trades, like always in the industry?
James Simmons: Pretty much. So I come from– My dad is more white collar. So I actually grew up in Pennsylvania for most of my younger life. Started out kind of having a lawn care business as a high school student or middle school, like 12,13 years old. All my friends had dirt bikes and that's one of my main passions now. But I always wanted a dirt bike. My parents would never get one for me, so I was like, “Well, how do I go about doing this?” And so I just started mowing lawns for every neighbor that would give me a shot and saved up money and bought my first dirt bike. And ever since then, that kind of taught me initially sending bills out and doing good work for people and word of mouth and so on and so forth. So that was kind of my first experience as an entrepreneur. Yeah, obviously done quite a few different things from then and taking a few different paths, but ultimately wound up doing this.
Taylor White: I find it really cool, like how I was the same as well. I cut grass for our local community and had a grass cutting business. I mean, I'm talking when I was like 11, 12, 13. I would drive up the road with a wagon behind with the trimmer and go knock on doors. And then I had clients I would sign up for the year. And it's crazy how those experiences actually first give you your first itch of like making money. And I have a small little story. And I was actually talking about this the other day with my lawn business. And I remember in business asking for an advance on pay before I even knew exactly what that was. I was about 12 years old and I was saving up for a Yamaha Warrior 350 trail bike. Really wanted it. And I was like $1,200 short. And I knew that if I went up to my clients house, I had about $1,300 left of grass cutting for the year. So I asked them for an advance, not knowing at the time what I was doing. And I just thought of that the other day, and I thought that was pretty cool because to your point, it gives you that kind of foundation of business. And it got me excited about how much more money can I make. I like being outside. I like doing this type of work. So it's really interesting that stuff like that can actually kind of propel you into your future. But what brought you out to Montana?
James Simmons: I've lived a few different places, and I think maybe this is one of the reasons I'm so comfortable taking big risks, is because for my dad's job, he works in shipping, and we moved around a lot as a kid, so I was kind of always uncomfortable. I was always the new kid around. So just being uncomfortable to me is kind of normal now. So I've always loved the mountains. I love riding in the mountains, and I just basically do anything related to the mountains. And before I came out here, I actually lived in California for a brief while, and I was in the union there, operators union. I worked in the city for– I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but it's a company called Malcolm Drilling. I worked for them for quite a few years, and that was an awesome company to work for. And I loved it and it was decent money, but honestly, I was just kind of miserable. I moved back in with the parents, tried to save up money, and that's when I first started buying equipment. Started out with a skid steer, saved up quite a while for that. And I think my dad loaned me some money and I got a bobcat open cab skid steer, used that, was doing side jobs basically every weekend. Every hour I could after work, I'd be going, working on my side jobs and saved up from there and bought a newer dually pickup and a mini X. And I actually in California when I was doing side jobs, I did a lot of retaining walls is kind of how I built up money then. But yeah, I was just always drawn up here and it came up here. I have a few friends that came up here for school and just wound up here, and I visited up here and loved it. And I actually have some family in Alberta, Canada, and I always loved going there as a kid. So I just figured as close as I could get to something like that was where I needed to be. So I just did whatever I had to get out here and made it out here. So something to be thankful for.
Taylor White: Yeah. It takes a lot, though, to just situate yourself like that and set up. Whereabouts in Montana are you?
James Simmons: I'm in Livingston, Montana, which is basically due east of Bozeman, about 25 minutes the other side of the hill. But we work over in Bozeman. Like we were talking earlier, we do stuff up in the Big Sky. We've done stuff in the Yellowstone Club. There's not too many spots that are too far for us. We've done jobs three, four hours away. But we try to stay within a basically hour and a half, two-hour radius off of Livingston here.
Taylor White: Yeah, that's really cool. So has the area kind of really allowed you guys to grow? When you first started your business, obviously super scary. I mean, you're taking risks, you're saving up money, you're buying some machinery and stuff. Has that area really kind of exploded and that has helped you guys be able to grow and that sort of area?
James Simmons: Absolutely. That's part of it. And I won't lie, when I first got out here, I saved up, I think, something like $30,000 to move out here. And within the first month of moving out here, I was broke. And then the first year of living out here, I think I got myself in a pretty good amount of credit card debt. And I had to get a couple jobs for other companies out here and ultimately ended up getting let go from them. And I think that was kind of because they knew I had my own equipment and probably just trying to learn a thing or two and so I could go out on my own again. But yeah, basically I came out here, fell on my face pretty hard. That was pretty humbling because I had– I think I ran my business in California like a year before I moved out here and it was doing pretty good. But like I said, it just wasn't the life I wanted, so that's why I left. But, yeah, it was nice to fall on your face and kind of start over again. And like I said, it's nothing new to me. I'm kind of used to starting over. And so, yeah, that's kind of how that all went down.
But out here, obviously, I feel like a lot of people are aware, but Bozeman is kind of exploding with people from all over moving and the housing shortage. And I'd say in the last two years there's been a lot of new companies starting up and the growth is kind of mind boggling around here. So that definitely helped. But that being said, with all these people that are starting businesses, it is very competitive over here. So you kind of have to offer a few different things besides just doing foundation digs in order to stay afloat because every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to do foundation digs and roads and easy excavation. So we kind of realized past two years that's not really the best direction to focus on because, like I said, it's pretty saturated.
Taylor White: Yeah, when we were out there, I was surprised at the amount of contractors in the area. And I mean, obviously there's a lot of the population and stuff, but that's what I found interesting, was there was a lot of construction machinery and a lot of different companies out there. But one thing you said that I really want to touch on is you've been through it, but you kind of touched on it. You were in some debt, kind of fell through your face and that is really important. I think that's what's really inspiring, honestly, because a lot of people don't get in that position or a lot of people are in that position. So what kind of skills would you say that people listening that might be in the same position you were in? What advice would you give them to get out of that?
James Simmons: It's hard, man. It's really hard. And there was a girl in my life who I thought ultimately I was going to marry and I kind of abandoned my entire life to come out here and do this one. So it was really hard. My advice, I guess, would be just never give up, have a clear vision of what you want to do. And for me, honestly, it sounds kind of silly and stuff, but I think the power of manifestation is pretty real. And I'm not the best at keeping up on it, but typically once a year I'll go through and create a vision board of where I see myself at the end of the year and say, “I want to get a machine or whatever.” I have a specific goal. I'll write it down that way. I have to look at it every day and just kind of remind myself that's what you're aiming for. Whatever you got to do to achieve that, will kind of fall into place. There's a lot of painful lessons you're going to have to take. You're going to have to sacrifice a lot, like happiness, relationships, your hobbies, your mental health, that definitely can be pretty tearing at that sometimes. I've struggled with that as well. And there's just a lot of days where it seems like nothing's going right and just everything's pretty frustrating and you want to give up. But basically if you have to, just take a breather, walk away and come back at it with a better attitude. But yeah, there's no sugar coating it. It's not for the weak of heart. I really genuinely don't think everyone can do it or has it in them. I think there's a certain type of person it takes to put yourself through that kind of torment. And, yeah, you just have to be willing to suck it up and there's not always a shoulder to lean on or people to ask advice. You just kind of have to figure it out as you go. And that's really it.
Taylor White: Yeah, dude, you are 100% right. And you speak to a lot of people when you say that because it is not for the faint of heart, this industry. Especially I can't credit myself. I did not start from zero. I'm third generation. But just taking the business from where we were to now with the team that we have and everybody. I always say last winter really sucked. Last winter was really slow for us. The spring was a really bad start. And I always tell people last winter took like 10 years off my life. I was in the hospital. Even the year prior to that, I had a fibrillation with my heart. Last winter, with my jaw because I would be sleeping at night with so much anxiety and stress that my jaw would be clenched just because we put ourselves in these positions. I'm a big risk taker.
And assuming you are as well too, by what you're saying, and this industry is a lot of risk. It’s so easy. And I know that it sounds a little too– You could go and buy a piece of machinery today and they'll finance you at 9%, 10%, 11%, whatever percent. But you can go get it. You can put yourself in a pile of debt and then it's up to you to figure out how am I going to make this work, how am I going to cash flow this? And then that's you buying machinery when things are great and then all of a sudden things don't go great and you have all these payments and payments don't stop, but the work does. And it's crazy. So you're preaching to the choir with this. So I want to know what gets you through this? For me, I used an app called BetterHelp. I was always anti therapy. I'm a toxic man. My wife says I have toxic masculinity, whatever it is, but I'm someone who– I don't even like talking about it or saying that I do therapy because I think it's great for other people. But me, internally, I was just, whatever, I just have my own issues, you know? But that, for me, really helped talking to somebody and talking about what's on my mind. But was there anything that got you through or gets you through currently of stuff that you're dealing with?
James Simmons: I wouldn't say it's specifically one thing, but one thing that does help me quite a bit that helps me take my mind off of everything, because, like you said, it is really hard to unload and just forget about all your– It's not like being an employee at a company where you go home and your problems don't come with you as a business owner. Your problems follow you around 24/7 every day, everywhere you go. They don't go away until you deal with them. But one thing that does help me is I go to the gym quite a bit, and that's really where I can find some mental clarity and kind of hone in and take out some anger, whatever it may be, from the day or frustrations. It helps me kind of unload, and I always feel a lot better after a good 40 to an hour at the gym. So that helps me. I've never tried or considered therapy. Not that I think it'd be a bad thing. It'd probably be really helpful to me, and I probably should look into doing that. I just haven't made the leap of faith into trying that out yet. But, yeah, like you said, there are times where it's completely overwhelming, where you can't sleep at night. All you do is just worry, worry, worry. But like I said, having a business partner now, and I know you have quite a few other office staff and people to help run your business, that it just helps make your life a little bit easier. But one funny thing is, I was just thinking about the other night, is it seems to me like the more you work on your business, the more work you just make for yourself. So it's kind of a never ending vicious cycle.
Taylor White: Yeah, it is, 100%. And then I always find it's like– I remember looking back and thinking about what we do now for work or the size that we are, whatever the machinery that we have. And I remember thinking I can't wait till we get to that point, things are going to be easier, things are going to be better, and it's like, no, there's just more problems or more issues or I'm not satisfied enough, and you just need to continue to keep pushing. But I think also these traits that we're talking about, that's what makes us successful. That's what makes us us. You know what I mean?
James Simmons: Exactly. No, like you said, without taking risks, there is no big reward to have. You have to take risks. I've done it. I've spent every penny in my bank account and had nothing. And in a way, it's kind of like gambling, but I'd like to think it's a little more smart, but probably realistically it isn't. Yeah, you sometimes you just have to take a big gamble. You don't know if it's going to work or not, and you just go ahead and do it, and you got to trust your gut for the most part. It's worked out for me, and I feel pretty lucky about that, but it doesn't always. I've definitely had my fair share of falling flat on my face and eating a big old plate of humble pie, you know?
Taylor White: I totally get that. And you mentioned earlier, and I want to ask, what is on your vision board currently?
James Simmons: Well it's kind of changed. I can't say I've been the best about updating it super recently. There's business and personal goals. One of my personal goals is to get my pilot's license and to acquire a plane. I don't think that's going to happen this year, but we'll keep trying.
Taylor White: Well, that's why it's a vision board.
James Simmons: Yeah, exactly. So that's one of the personal things. And then other than that, I'd love to get a newer dozer. We have an older D3 dozer from the ‘80s, and right now we've got the cylinder head off of it. It's got cracks in it, and we're trying to find someone to fix that right now. But it's a constant battle when you run older equipment, a lot of the companies around here, it seems to me like they got all the new equipment or they lease to own or whatever, and it's a tremendous amount of overhead for us. It makes more sense to run a little bit older stuff. It's not as nice as what some of the other people around us have, which means that we're constantly working on our equipment almost daily, whether it be tires on the semis or hydraulic hoses blowing, it's something every day, there's always something that breaks. So we're always dealing with that. But yeah, we'd like to obviously upgrade. Our goal is to upgrade one or two machines a year to newer stuff. So that's kind of my vision for right now with that.
Taylor White: What’s your thinking? So your ideology then? I guess right now, and maybe since you started, was parts overpayments, because if the work stops, the payments dont stop, but the parts do. To me, that's kind of how I like running, especially even when the interest rates were getting really high. We bought a couple older pieces that we can pay outright rather than financing new ones because I wasn't too sure what the market was going to do. But is that your approach? Has it been your approach, like parts overpayments? I guess like older equipment?
James Simmons: Kind of. So I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but out of high school I actually went to work for Caterpillar and I did their ThinkBIG program, which is where they train you to be a heavy equipment mechanic. So I've always been a mechanical minded person, and that's what I originally thought I kind of wanted to be was a heavy equipment mechanic. And then after doing that for a couple years out of high school, I kind of realized that wasn't necessarily the path I wanted to take. I enjoyed running the equipment more, so kind of switched over after that. But I think there's a fine line you have to toe with managing debt and buying your equipment outright. Obviously that's what I feel like the majority of us would prefer to do. But as you're well aware, when you have employees and a lot of overhead, insurance costs, you can't just spend all your capital like I could do when I first started out. I could spend all my money and live on ramen for a little bit and it would work out. But now we just can't do that because we got people who rely on us for an income. And eventually we'd like to switch over to newer equipment and not have to do so much maintenance and repairs ourselves on everything. But for now, it's kind of how we're scrapping through things.
Taylor White: Yeah, well, that's smart. I mean, you got to do what you got to do and, and then keeping your overhead low, especially when you're growing and, or you want to grow or you're just starting out or whatever, is super important. I mean, trying to grow too fast, you're just going to end yourself up in a big hole. And it doesn't end well. I've seen it many times in the city here. Even companies our size that they had a reputable company and then they wanted to blow up and expand and they lasted about two years and they needed cash injections and stuff got really bad and they had to sell off a bunch of stuff and downsize. Do you have a spreadsheet? Like hard costs for equipment? And do you have an idea of when okay, now it's time, like the utilization rate of a machine. This is when it's time for me to swap this out and do parts over payments. Like, okay, my dozer last year cost me $67,000 in repair bills. Maybe I should look at a new dozer because it'd be warrantied and that would equal payments on a new machine.
James Simmons: We don't really track our equipment that well. We were more focused as a newer business on job costing and where our profits are with all that and our profits and loss on things. So that's where our attention goes in that aspect. But in terms of when we know when it's time to upgrade a machine, it's like, yeah, either the repair bills are getting to be too much or it makes sense. We got enough work lined up for this machine to where we can make the payments on something. We can go put a good down payment down and we can make the payments on something. So that's kind of where my head's at with that. And then last year, we really kind of started getting into the trucking side of things because before that, we just mostly do our own stuff. But now we've been doing a little bit of trucking for other people as well when we're not super busy with our other work. And I'd always heard people that had trucking companies, they always tell you, “Oh, don't do it. It's a nightmare. Your first two trucks pay for the rest of your other trucks.” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah whatever.” But now that we're kind of in that world, it's like, “Oh, yeah. The trucks are just a constant.” It's just amazing how much maintenance you have to do on them and what they cost to keep on the road. It's just always something with them, from tires to kingpins and hydraulic lines and electrical. I mean, it's just always something with them.
Taylor White: Always something with the trucks on the road. And they're really expensive to keep on the road. What type of machinery are you running? What kind of iron do you have?
James Simmons: So I'm obviously a Cat fan. I worked for Cat. I love their stuff. They don't do everything the best, but for the most part, they're what we like to stick with. Our bigger excavators, we have a 135 Hitachi and then a 200 Hitachi. They're a little older and higher hours.
Taylor White: Hitachi makes a great machine, though.
James Simmons: I've run them for other companies I've worked for in the past, and I was always really impressed with how smooth they are. And those are the easiest motors they have. And the Hitachis are just outstanding. They just don't skip a beat. Yeah, they've been great machines. Eventually, though, we're looking at next year, we'd like to upgrade our 135 and get a newer one, put a tilt rotator on it, either an Engcon or for the Cats now, obviously, making them.
Taylor White: Yeah. Which is a roto, right? It's a roto tilt that they're rebranding.
James Simmons: I think so. We're not sure if we're going to go either 315 Cat or 135 John Deere Hitachi, we're not sure yet, but it's kind of whatever we'll find at the time for a decent deal is what we'll wind up doing. But that's definitely the machine we use the most is our 135. We use that thing almost on every job. And it's definitely due for an upgrade next year. But I think what you hit on a little bit earlier at the beginning of this year was, I think it was rough for a lot of us. I mean, I noticed in our area, even some of the really biggest contractors were even touching small, little stuff that they'd never even consider. And I was like, wow, that's pretty interesting. So we were a little at the beginning of this year as well, and it was a little rough, which is kind of we did a lot of trucking work, which kind of helped get us through.
Taylor White: Yeah, you have to kind of adjust with the way that things are going. But two years ago, we bought a 315 and we put a roto tilt on it. And to do that machine is a great residential beast.
James Simmons: Oh, they're weapons.
Taylor White: We call it our residential beast because it can dig basements. We have a grapple for it. It does rock walls. It's so compact, it gets in tight spots. It's got great reach, tons of power with the rototilt on it even. It's an awesome machine. It’s a great, great residential machine. Even in the city, we're doing some city service things like capping some water mains and hookups and sewer and sanding and stuff. And it's really handy for that sort of stuff as well, too. Yeah. Really love that machine.
James Simmons: Yeah. Every time we tear open a street, it's usually the 135 and the zero tail on. It's just killer for it. And you can set some septic tanks with it. We've probably set heavier stuff than we should have with it in the past, but use that blade. This thing is a weapon. Like you said, they are a very versatile machine that is definitely next up on our upgrade list.
Taylor White: So what type of trucks do you run and how many trucks do you have?
James Simmons: Oh, we have four semis.
Taylor White: Oh, wow.
James Simmons: Yeah. Not all of them are on the road. One of them is kind of a project of mine I've been restoring. It's an older Peterbilt 359 that I repainted last winter. And it's taken me forever to get it back together because I can never find the time to work on it. But we're going to get a side dump for that truck and that's going to be our side dump truck. But we have mostly Peterbilts and we have one freightliner. We have two other 379s. One's a transfer and then one's a hook lift truck, which is actually really handy .
Taylor White: Do you put machinery on it?
James Simmons: We can. We have a flat deck for it. We don't use that all the time because the stuff sits pretty high, honestly, when it's up on top of the flat deck on the back of the truck. So you don't want to really put anything too tall on there. You'll probably piss the DOT off by taking out the bridges. But we use those trucks a lot. The hook lifts are great. Like I said, we got multiple different bins we can put in there and dumpsters, like if we do demo jobs or whatever, it's nice. You can bring a couple dumpsters over, load them up and then just have one guy lapping back and forth to the landfill or whatever. I mean, it's nice for, say, if we're using the mini doing some downtown work, you can put the bin on the ground so you don't have to reach up as high to dump your spoils or whatever. Put concrete in it, whatever we're doing. So that thing's been awesome. We got a couple things we're planning on building for it. We want to make a vac truck kind of hook, lift, skid that we can put on there and do stuff with that. And we want to get a couple job boxes that we can haul around on it, but everyone can dream. We'll see when that happens.
Taylor White: Oh, that's cool. I like that sort of stuff. Yeah. What's your day to day look like? I know you said you wear lots of hats, but let's take today, for instance. Like, what did today look like for you?
James Simmons: Today, we were starting a new job. We don't like to do a lot of concrete work, but I'm pretty decent at it, so we do quite a bit of that. We're starting a new slab for one of the contractors we do a lot of work for. So I took a load of rock over, over the hill to Bozeman, where we're doing some work over there, and it bounced back here. And I got to go grab a load of topsoil when I'm done with their call here and take that to another person. But it's funny, one of our truckers, he works for us in the winter, in the spring, and he hauls cattle, so he's kind of like a three quarter timer with us, so we got to pick up the slack when he's not around and do the trucking. So that's kind of what my day is looking like today, and I'm hoping that we don't have any breakdowns today and we don't have to play mechanic, too. That would make for a good day.
Taylor White: And then the other guy that you teamed up with, is he the same? Does he kind of wear many hats as well, too?
James Simmons: Yeah, he's also very mechanically inclined, and he went to college out here at Montana State University for business. He's pretty savvy on QuickBooks and everything, and he's kind of really helped clean up our act on the profits and losses this year and making sure that we're actually being profitable because the previous two, three years that I was running my business it was kind of a disaster. Not a disaster, but it feels good to have all that in order now. But obviously, it's very expensive, so it's been kind of an adjustment. And also figuring out what to pay yourselves as owners doing owner draws, that can be a little complicated, but we've got a pretty good thing going right now. And, yeah, we're going to sit down a winner and come up with a plan of attack for next year. One of our latest things that we're trying to get into is actually doing pipe bursting because in our area particular and over in Bozeman, there's a lot of the infrastructure is pretty old, lots of clay and even orangeburg. I don't know if they ever use that stuff in Canada, but it's basically, they made sewer lines out of paper and tar, and so those fail a lot. And it's all kind of crumpling and needs to be upgraded. And a lot of people don't like when we come in and tear their yard all the way up, although we do a pretty good job, if I do say so myself, of making people's yards look not destroyed when we're done. But, yeah, we're definitely going to invest here pretty soon. We got a job lined up already for it. We're going to get into some pipe bursting stuff where you basically pull new poly through old stuff and shatter it into pieces, and you do your ties on each end. So we're pretty excited about that. I think it's going to be a pretty, pretty good avenue for us to go down, considering there's not really anyone who does it in our area. And so we're going to go up north to the place that sells the equipment and get some training on it, and we're going to hit the road with it.
Taylor White: I like that. How many people do you have working for you?
James Simmons: So there's four of us. We've had five to six in summer when we're super busy. But, yeah, we keep four of us. There's me, my partner, and then we have two employees that we managed to keep us all busy. It's good. And we don't want to grow too fast. Like you said, there's people who try to scale way too fast, and that's definitely not something I'm interested in doing. I'd like to grow as the demand requires it and as it makes sense financially. Same with the equipment. Just trying to be smart about it, not taking quite the severe risks that I used to take, obviously, because you can't. But yeah, that's kind of the plan for right now.
Taylor White: That sounds good, James, I know that you got to go and deliver a load of topsoil and stuff, too, so I don't want to keep you too long, but I really appreciate you coming on and taking the time and talking to us and sharing your story and opening up about what going on earlier and getting yourself out of the hole and creating some, some success out of that, which is really exciting. And I hope that your vision board leads out and you get your pilot license and maybe you get some new iron coming.
James Simmons: Yeah, man. No, and like I said earlier I've always enjoyed your YouTube content. I think it's awesome. Keep that up. I know that's got to be a tremendous amount of work on top of everything else you're doing to keep up on. I can't even imagine debating doing some of that stuff myself, but it's just not realistic at this point in time.
Taylor White: Hard to stop once you start.
James Simmons: Yeah. You got so many people that want to see your videos every week.
Taylor White: Yeah. And it's just been I've been uploading for– So I'm actually on a bit of a break right now. My first break. I've been uploading for five years on YouTube.
James Simmons: That's a long time, man. That’s a long time.
Taylor White: A video every two weeks for five years. I just got to the point where a month and a bit ago, and I'm like, I'm not putting my heart and soul into this. It's not fair to advertisers. It's not fair to myself. It's not fair to my videographer. He's like, “What are we doing? What are we filming?” And I just need a break to get my love for it back into it because I started with growing the family business by doing social media and Instagram and that sort of stuff. That's what I love doing. So I kind of just needed a bit of a break. So my only advice would be like, once you get started, it's hard to stop. And it's crazy because I was talking to somebody this week, and they're like, “Dude, it's just a YouTube video. J just put one out.” Man, it is so much more than that. And then do it for five years and film your life. I mean, I have a safe full of just my life for the past five years. I have filmed everything and it's good. I just honestly, it's actually, I feel really good just taking a break from YouTube and just, okay, let me find my love for it back again and then let's come back bigger, better and stronger and let's truly try to grow in that area, which is my plan. So that would be on my vision board.
James Simmons: Yeah. I was going to ask you that if you ever deal with with burnout and what you do to kind of deal with that because I know personally I've dealt with burnout quite a few times and it can be a little tough to find the motivation to get back up, at least your boots up and keep going. I was just curious if you experience that as well and what you kind of do to deal with that and come back at it with a clear head?
Taylor White: Yeah. Well, like I said I've been in the hospital, I've had a fibrillation due to stress. I've had this crazy stuff going on where insomnia, not sleeping. So that I'm taking Nyquil to try to make myself sleep and then my jaws all cranked up. Like for me, it's actually just like being able to like communicate that to the team and then taking a step back. But I don't do that enough. So for me it's like running or something. Like today at 10:00 a.m. I just texted a good buddy of mine. He's kind of like one of those buds where I could just be like he has his own business as well too. And I'm like, “I need to go for a run. I'll meet you at your shop.” And he lives on a dirt road, whatever, 20 minutes from here. And we just go and leave the phone in the shop, we go for a run, we talk about stuff that is not even sometimes related to work. And just that 40 to 45 minutes reset really helps me on a day to day to kind of stay in line. And in a larger picture of burnout, taking a step back. Like me actually like saying, because I have a YouTube manager, like saying to them being like, “I'm taking time off from YouTube.” As soon as I sent that text, I was like, “Oh.”
James Simmons: That's a big relief.
Taylor White: Yeah. And normally, dude, how my brain would work, it's Thursday, tomorrow's upload day. Holy crap. What video are we putting up? I have to edit it, publish it, and then my Friday nights with my family or not Friday nights with my family. When you do YouTube, because you're uploading, you don't just go home and, oh, there's a YouTube. You got to do your thumbnail, you got to do your captions, your description. You got to make sure you have the descriptions right for the links, for your advertisers. Then you have to make sure everything's all set up for it. And then once it's live, make sure it's all good. Then you got to go to Instagram to promote that you did put out a YouTube video. There's so much to it, and just taking a step back has really helped. So saying no really helped in this situation. And I hate saying no to people. I hate that, and I hate that I had to do that. But doing it, I learned so much that it was exactly what I needed. Because I know my personality, I will come back bigger and better and stronger whenever. Whenever that time is, it will pay off in the long run.
James Simmons: No, I'm excited for it, man. I'm here for it. Yeah, like you said, that's definitely the biggest part of it is learning when to say no to people. And I'm the same way. I love to not say no, but sometimes your mental health and all that other stuff and your personal life has to take precedent over it. So I totally get where you're coming from, man. I think you should definitely enjoy your time away from it. And when you're ready, go back after it.
Taylor White: I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I will do just that. But listen, I want to get you back to your topsoil. You're a busy guy. I know you have to do stuff. I want to appreciate you and thank you for coming on today's podcast, and I'm glad that everybody got to hear your story, James.
James Simmons: Yeah, no, thank you, Taylor. And hope to meet you out at CONEXPO when they have it next.
Taylor White: 2026, baby. Let's go. All right. Thanks, James. Thank you, everybody, for tuning into the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Podcast. See you next time.