In 1999, I was working at Tom Thumb as a non-foods clerk when our son was born. When our son Chase came into this world, Christal and I decided that I should take the part of Mr. Mom, a stay at home dad. It was the most logical choice for us as Christal was climbing the corporate ladder and almost at the top of her office.
So, I left my job with Tom Thumb to begin a new life as a stay at home dad. It was great, I became domesticated very quickly at doing laundry, cleaning, cooking and taking care of Chase and Taylor, our 2 children. I would get up, take Taylor to school, then Chase and I would hang out at Dave and Busters in the mall.
One day as I was mowing my yard, one of my new neighbors stopped to see if I mowed yards? I told her “I mow mine” to which she replied, could you mow mine too? I said sure and we agreed on a price, besides, I liked to play golf and could use the extra money for green fees. So that day I started mowing her yard. Shortly after that, another neighbor, then another, then another came to me for lawn mowing help. It’s like the old Head & Shoulders commercial, then I told two friends, then they told two friends, and so on and so on. This was in the summer of 1999, by the fall I had 65 customers. Now remember, I was “helping” out my neighbors when this started.
I never would have thought that by doing this a company would start to form. I was running all over Frisco with my Nissan Altima, mowing yards. At the beginning of 2000, I purchased a used pick-up truck and started to buy commercial equipment. I had a plan to pay cash for all the equipment, this way if it didn’t work, I’d have something to sell to recoup some of my money.
Each month, it seemed as if I would gain new customers. It finally came to the point when I couldn’t take Chase with me because it was just too long of a day, so we enrolled him in a day care. Around the summer of 2000 I was working five days a week mowing at least 10 yards each day. That is when Christal and I decided we should get a company name. We decided on Clay’s Clippers and started creating door hangers to pass out in the surrounding neighborhoods to gain more customers.
By the end of 2000 we had a strong business going. The yards kept coming every week until I had to break down and hire help. That is when we say, “the rest is history.”
