Small Town Beginner Made $50K in His First 2 Months (No Experience)⏐Ep. #254

Hunter Schenewark (0:00)

In November, I had seven jobs and my revenue was $46,825. Whoa, I'm showing up to these quotes in my minivan, and it's a beat up minivan too.

Chris Koerner (0:13)

You knew nothing about this industry going into it. You heard my podcast, you joined some Facebook groups, and your first two months, you've done just under $50,000 in sales.

Hunter Schenewark (0:23)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Chris Koerner (0:25)

That's incredible.

Hunter Schenewark (0:26)

The playbook's working.

Chris Koerner (0:31)

All right. Almost exactly a year ago, I had a guy on the pod named Cinco. Cinco started a line striping business in Waco, Texas, and he was crushing it. It was one of my best episodes ever. If you're on Spotify or listening to audio only, that's going to be episode number 99 that went live on December 2nd, 2024 And then just a week or two ago, I found a guy named Hunter in Springfield, Missouri, that started a line striping business. And what do you know? He got inspired to start this business based on that episode. So this is kind of another stump grinding situation all over again. But Hunter leveled it up a notch and his business is crushing it even more. He's done $50,000 very profitably his first two months without any knowledge or experience in the field. So of course I asked him, how are you finding customers? How do you start this business? And how can people copy you? Please enjoy. So Hunter, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do?

Hunter Schenewark (1:24)

Yeah, great. Thanks for having me on, Chris. My name is Hunter Shenork. I run 417 Striping and Sealing, and it's a small seal coating, crack filling, striping business in Springfield, Missouri.

Chris Koerner (1:39)

Okay. And how long ago did you start this?

Hunter Schenewark (1:42)

So I started this in September. My first job was September 27th. So we're...

Chris Koerner (1:49)

Of 2025?

Hunter Schenewark (1:50)

Of 2025

Chris Koerner (1:52)

Okay.

Hunter Schenewark (1:54)

I had the idea or I first started looking into it back in May. So it took me a few months to pull the trigger, but it's been active for just a couple of months now.

Chris Koerner (2:04)

So two full months you've been active. And what is your revenue to date? And what did your monthly revenue look like for your first two months?

Hunter Schenewark (2:12)

Yeah. So my first jobs, I'll go September 27th, my first job to October 31st. So just over a month.

Chris Koerner (2:20)

Just over two months?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Just over a month.

Hunter Schenewark (2:23)

For that first month, I had four jobs and my revenue was 2,874.

Chris Koerner (2:30)

Holy crap. From four jobs. Those are big jobs.

Hunter Schenewark (2:33)

Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that I liked about the industry was it is a little bit of a bigger ticket. And then in November, I had seven jobs and my revenue was 46,825.

So we had a big jump. Yeah.

Chris Koerner (2:51)

Some growing. You had almost twice as many jobs and your average job size went up as well. So, Andre, I don't know if you know this, but I'm an expert in the industry because I spoke to Cinco a year ago about his business. So clearly, I know everything. I know those are good numbers. Just kidding. I don't know anything about this industry, which is why we're talking.

Hunter Schenewark (3:11)

Well, I should say, that's what kickstarted this, though, was your podcast with Cinco. Beautiful. I just thought, man, that's a great idea. I'm sure we'll talk about it, but I thought I would be 100 percent in striping and it's turned out to be, I like the seal-coating aspect a lot more.

Chris Koerner (3:30)

Isn't that beautiful? The business never ends up where it starts, and that's how it should be. That means you're flexible enough to go with the energy and to go where the product market fit is the most.

Hunter Schenewark (3:42)

Yeah, sure.

Chris Koerner (3:43)

Okay, so I'm going to get into how you acquired those customers. That's a key part of this. I want to talk about your equipment, where you found the machine, what type of machine, et cetera. But before we go there, what made you flip from primarily line striping to primarily seal-coating? And before you even answer that, let me interrupt myself. What is seal-coating?

Hunter Schenewark (4:02)

Yeah, so seal-coating is you've got some old asphalt, think of parking lot, but also a driveway. And over time, you just have, it gets worn down. So it starts to fade, it turns a lighter shade of gray. You start to get some cracks developing. So seal-coating is where you are applying, whether it's by squeegee or by spraying, just a thin, super thin layer of asphalt to resurface it, make it look nice, and hopefully prevent more cracks forming.