America'sBlue-collarOperator factory.
We help skilled workers, career changers, and existing owners build profitable businesses across the trades, local services, and manufacturing.
80% of service businesses fail.
Within three years.
Blue-collar employees typically make about 25% of the revenue they service. The rest goes to corporate bloat in sales, marketing, and ops: skills the employee never learns because they never see it. This makes it harder to start their own business.
Meanwhile, career changers want into the trades, especially now that AI is disrupting white-collar work. They've got the business skills but need to learn the ops side, fast.
And plenty of people already run a business. A trade, a service company, a small manufacturer. They hit a ceiling because the owner is doing four jobs at once, with none of the pricing, marketing, or hiring power that big companies take for granted.
They all struggle with the same two problems:
- 01Sales, marketing and supply chain are hard to manage.
- 02Finding and retaining great talent is tougher than ever.
Choose your path.
We'll help you build the business you want.
One truck. $200K+ TAKE-HOME PAY GOAL
For people who want a simple, steady blue-collar business without the hassle of payroll, recruitment, and franchise fees.
TALK TO US →Multiple crews. $1M EBITDA and beyond.
Build a team, run multiple crews, and reach real margin. You end up with an asset, not just a job. Keep it and take the distributions, or sell when you're ready. Your call.
TALK TO US →Already in business? Break through the ceiling.
You already run a trade, a service company, or a small manufacturer. We give you a growth operating system that brings in more customers and stays ahead on every channel and tactic, improving constantly. Grow without the corporate bloat. When you're ready, sell for the best price, or keep it and take the income.
TALK TO US →Everything corporate has. None of the bloat.
Manufacturer pricing
We negotiate with manufacturers at network scale and pass the discount through. Operators get pricing they could never access alone.
AI-native operations
Our team builds the operating system that runs the business: quotes, scheduling, customer comms, install documentation, and follow-up. Easy enough that a non-technical operator can run a high-quality business from day one.
Lead generation
We provide a consistent flow of pre-qualified jobs from our centralized marketing ops. No shared leads, no cash up front.
Recruitment
We help operators staff their crews. The Talent Factory, our owned companies where we train technicians and future operators, feeds into our network. Local, skilled people you can rely on to power your business.
Exit or income
Keep the business and take the distributions for as long as you like. When you do decide to sell, we get you the best price, so you don't waste time on brokers who don't understand the work you put in.
Build an asset you can sell when you're ready.
You could run it as an asset and take the distributions for as long as you like. If you do decide to sell, we can help get you the best possible price for the years of work you put in.
Typical broker
Not motivated by small deals: they want you to sell ASAP and move on.
- Sale price (3.0× EBITDA)
- $1,500,000
- Commission (10%)
- −$150,000
- Net
- $1,350,000
Best price
Clean books + documented processes + competitive buyer pool.
- Sale price (4.0× EBITDA)
- $2,000,000
- Commission (10%)
- −$200,000
- Net
- $1,800,000
Based on the same business at $500K EBITDA. The difference isn't the asking price, it's the multiple. Owner-dependent, undocumented shops sold to a single buyer trade at the bottom of the 3–4× range. Clean books, documented processes, and a competitive pool of active buyers move you to the top. We build the package that earns the higher number.
OUR STORY
My Dad was a plumber and I've worked in construction and real-estate for more than 15 years. My last company was a blue-collar labor services startup that went through Y Combinator. More recently I've worked at Rollins Pest Control - seeing first hand what it's like running a route and the systems that contribute to growing a blue-collar service business.
Our goal at OnHand is to help tradespeople, career changers, and existing owners get the outcome they want, whether that's a steady route and a predictable paycheck, or a larger operation they can keep or sell.
To prove it works, we're building our own contracting business from scratch - join our newsletter to follow the journey.
How this all started
I took a pest control technician job to learn the trade from the inside. Here's what happened.