My First Business Failed: The Story of Zusti!
What a 2010 start-up collapse taught me about launching a business, customers, and partnerships.
It’s 2010.
A truck pulls in front of your home at 8:00 AM.
Out jump two workers, in full uniform, ready to work.
They’re here for your quarterly service.
And what, exactly, are they going to do for you?
They’re going to do all those pesky home maintenance tasks that you don’t want to do.
They’ll clean your gutters, they’ll replace your air filters, they’ll flush your water heater, they’ll clean your windows, they’ll pull your refrigerator out and clean the coils, they’ll clean your fan blades, and they’ll do a dozen other annoying, nagging items that keep your home healthy, comfortable, and clean.
They’ll fill the gap between your house cleaner and a handyman.
And they’ll do it all in about 4 hours.
How? Because they’ll have the right equipment, they’ll know all the specifications of your home, and they’ve been providing this service to you quarterly for a while now.
And the best part? You’ll pay a single monthly fee for this service. It’s a subscription. And it’s called Zusti!
Sounds like a great idea?
It was. And it failed. Here’s why.
The Origin of Zusti!
When Bob Campana and I ran into each other at a bookstore in 2010, we were mildly familiar with each other. We had a brief overlap in our local Rotary club, and I was a project manager on a commercial building that he and a partner had constructed a few years prior.
By the time of our chance encounter, I had just started my own construction company, and Bob had exited a massively successful pool and landscape business and was growing a recent acquisition in the home services space.
We got to talking, and I’m not sure how it happened, but we decided we might have fun starting something together. (Someone has coined these “entrepreneurial seizures.”)
A few months of brainstorming, brand designing, and even focus groups ensued. I took the lead as the young, hungry driver of the concept, and Bob acted as an active investor, guiding me along the way with his many decades of business operating experience. It was a match made in heaven.
Until it wasn’t.
Why Zusti Failed
Zusti had a few “fatal flaws.”
First and foremost, neither Bob nor I gave it our full attention. Honestly, the concept wasn’t even number two on our respective radars.
I was trying to start a construction company from scratch (this was before kitchen & bath CRATE was even an idea), rehab a real estate portfolio with a separate business partner, and raise a then two- and four-year-old.
Bob was running a very successful wedding venue, re-engineering what became a phenomenal plumbing service company and, knowing him, dabbling in a half-dozen other interesting things, all while raising four daughters.
Needless to say, Zusti! got a lot of our leftover time, attention, and effort. And after 15 years of additional reflection and experience, I acknowledge I completely underestimated what it takes to get a business off the ground. Especially one where “no one else was doing it.” It’s like a rocket launch breaking through the atmosphere. You have to be ready to put in full effort, have plenty of cash, and endure the inevitable pain.
But if I probe a bit deeper, Bob and I were not great partners, and for one simple reason: we are both what the EOS (Traction) ecosystem calls “visionaries.” We’re both really good at ideation, conceptualizing, and starting things, but we need to surround ourselves with people who can see things through when we run out of “inspiration fuel.” And we simply didn’t have that on our team.
And the final fatal flaw of Zusti!: a failure to listen to the customer’s desires, specifically their confusion about the mismatch between the payment cycle and the service being rendered. You see, Bob and I really wanted a subscription business. The idea of recurring revenue sounded great, and we loved the inherent higher value that subscription-based companies command in the market. Business buyers love them. They create a “sticky” relationship with customers.
But the problem was, Zusti! only came out every quarter or every six months, depending on the homeowner’s needs.
So in essence, a customer was paying a bill every month and only getting a benefit every three or six months. And while the monthly cost was, of course, prorated, this created a mental hurdle for the customer.
Now, the smart thing would have been to either figure out a way to provide a monthly benefit or change our terms to quarterly or biannual payments.
We did neither. And it made it quite challenging to close initial sales. And if there is one thing you don’t want to make difficult in business, it’s sales.
If I Had to Do It Again
So, if I had to re-launch Zusti!, what would I do differently?
First, I’d acknowledge my “visionary” weakness and find a partner with incredible “operational chops.” (I would have loved to partner with Bob as a co-investor, but for this thought exercise, I assume he’d decline to partner again, although we still love each other!) This person would be detail-oriented, methodical, and persistent in their approach, and love, love, love working in “the weeds” of a business.
Second, I would quickly establish a “minimum viable product” and launch as soon as possible. We spent too much time, money, and effort on things that didn’t matter. I think this is a form of procrastination, really. It’s much more “fun” to design brands, buy trucks, build out fancy marketing materials, etc., than to knock doors and get told “no” enough to get to a “yes.” The goal would be to test the market, see who will actually pay real money for the service, and establish the actual customer acquisition cost. This data would have allowed us to launch more quickly, at much lower cost, and to determine whether the idea had legs.
Third, I’d 100% clear my plate (as much as I could) and ensure I had the time and money available to see the launch through. I’d be knocking doors. I’d be helping perform the service. I’d be getting the brand in front of as many people as possible through guerrilla marketing tactics. I’d be viewing each and every day as a ticking time bomb, with the goal of making it work or canceling the entire thing before the bomb went off.
Fourth, I’d establish a fixed investment amount and a firm deadline for “proof of concept.” If I ran out of money before proving the concept, game over. It’s done. It is much easier and better to establish such parameters before you get mired in the emotional complexity of launching a business.
Wrap Up
I think of Zusti! from time to time.
And I think that if we had done it right the first time, it would be a thriving business today. In fact, I still believe in the concept. But maybe that’s a “founders’ fantasy.”
Regardless, I appreciate the experience, and it helped form me as a business owner and operator. I learned a ton from Bob in our short time together. I also learned a lot about the homeowners’ psychology, which I then used in building kitchen & bath CRATE.
So, was it worth the pain? I think so.
But thinking about all those dusty ceiling fans still out there has me mildly perturbed...
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