Next Level Pros - #55: Jayson Waller: Founder of The BAMFAM, 10 Figure Entrepreneur, Top Podcast Host

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Get ready for a thrilling ride in this episode of the Founder Podcast, featuring the charismatic Jayson Waller, founder of Power Home Solar, known as Pink Energy. Jayson's entrepreneurial journey is a captivating tale of scaling a business to billion-dollar heights and facing sudden, steep challenges. In this candid conversation, he shares the rollercoaster of emotions and decisions involved in leading a high-stakes business. This episode is a treasure trove of raw, honest insights, delving into the complexities of entrepreneurship, the impact of public perception, and the resilience required to navigate through tough times. It's a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the real stories behind business headlines – whether you're just starting out or have been in the game for years. So, tune in as we explore Jayson's remarkable story, filled with valuable lessons, humor, and genuine reflections. His openness and hard-earned wisdom are not only inspiring but also a reminder of the relentless spirit of entrepreneurship. Let's embark on this journey of learning, inspiration, and a bit of laughter with Jayson Waller! Highlights: “I have an 80 20 rule... The bottom 20% are on a pit plan. If they can't get off the pit plan next month, they're fired.” “Somebody else's opinion of you says more about them than it does about you.” “It's okay to have your name on a business, but then you outgrow that.” Timestamps: 0:00 - Building a billion-dollar business and its downfall. 2:50 - Company closure and product liability. 5:38 - Dealing with negative publicity and death threats. 8:31 - Building a successful company and dealing with criticism. 11:35 - Business struggles and recovery after losing $400 million. 14:24 - Business regrets and net worth reset. 18:03 - Entrepreneurship, reality TV, and personal life. 25:07 - The human side of reality TV and dealing with criticism. 29:11 - Overcoming haters and finding success. 32:27 - Entrepreneurship, business, and impact. 36:16 - Business name changes and marketing strategies. 40:16 - Overcoming failure and starting a comeback story. 43:26 - Aliens, mentors, and business success. Live Links: 🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

Hey guys, I'm excited to bring you Jason Waller and his fascinating experience in building a billion dollar business and watching that thing literally go to zero almost overnight. Stay tuned in our conversation on this episode of The Founder Podcast. Yo, yo, yo, yo, welcome to another episode

of The Founder Podcast. Today, I am joined by Mr. Jason Waller. Jason was the founder of Powerhome Solar, also known as, or most recently as Pink Energy. Jason is an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, has been involved in all different types of spaces. He is actually a, what do you call it? Not a guest, but a star of a new reality TV show. What's the name of the reality TV show, Jason? Bam Fam. Bam Fam, cool. And so welcome to the show, Jason.

Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Dude, good to have you. So Jason, tell us, man. So recently, I know you've been in the news for, you know, some of the negative press. You know, me and you come from a similar industry in the solar space. And, you know, whenever the name Jason Waller comes up, occasionally there's some negative feeling associated. What do you say to those people? If they've never ran a billion-dollar business and they don't understand the back end details of product liability issues, then it's I can't change a jackass mind.

Right. You know, I go based on reputation and our business for eight years was the best of the best. Won every award, A plus with the BBB, five NFL stadiums getting solar, one major league baseball stadium. I mean, the cream of the crop. We had over 2000 online testimonials. We had over 10,000 positive reviews. We were the best. We were really making a movement. That was what BAM stand for. It stood for building a movement, one panel, one customer, one employee at a time. And when we went with Generac in 2020 and started to use their parts, there was a part called the Snap RS. 18 months after we deployed their product, we started to see issues, a couple fires. We thought they handled it. They sent a firmware update, basically shut almost 20,000 of our customers off or parts of their system off. They didn't know, we didn't

know. And it created a lot of controversy, created a lot of issues of people trusting solar, trusting us, trusting me. And things just imploded. We went from 800 phone calls in a normal month for service to 30,000. And long story short, we ended up closing, filed a lawsuit against Generac for over a billion dollars. And since then, their stock has cut in half. They've got eight class action lawsuits against them nationwide and one securities fraud lawsuit against them.

So it sucks. We had to close our company and lay off 2,400 employees and 40,000 customers left in the mess. And there's nothing we could do. I mean, personally, I lost $400 million and gave almost everything I had left to cover the final payroll when the company closed. Man, that gives me anxiety just hearing the story, bro. It's crazy.

As far as your viewpoint of the whole thing, I totally get it, right? When you're running something of this size, you have this many customers and you have that much liability out there for a product that you don't even own. You don't manufacture. I mean, that's a tough situation to be in. So I guess, you know, you've received the brunt end of this whole thing, right? Like Jason Waller. I mean, I've seen all kinds of bad stuff about you out there. Press, right? Like, you know, he's a douche. waller i mean i've seen all kinds of bad stuff about you out there press right like yeah you

know he's a douche he he only uh spends money on sports cars and pictures that you know i have a thousand photos out there in my life they take the two where there's a lamborghini and a fur coat for a for a picture for best best uh best dressed in detroit and they use that to exploit it they go oh that's who that guy is and it's like are you serious like that was 2018 that was for a cover of a magazine for best dressed like but that's that's how this works like right right it reminds me it reminds me of the book trust me i'm lying right like that that is based from a news anchor that that says like look we spin everything in the worst possible light to get eyeballs and dude i i i get it man when i did a round table with trump and i was at a price i've seen trump twice i did i went to a

private event mar largo and then i did a round table about solar with him in 18. When I did the Marlarco trip, it was private. He was speaking about the India prime minister wanting to be prime minister or president for life. He was like, this is wrong. We can't have this. He said, can you imagine if me, President Trump, want to be president for life? They took the clip. I remember like yesterday, President Trump wants to be president for life. And they ran with it. And I was there. I was like, that's not the context of what he said. So in this situation, do our customers right to be pissed? Yeah. Are they have a right to be upset that their system doesn't work?

Yeah. Do they have a right to be upset because we installed it? It doesn't work. Yeah. But we got to go back to our product liability issue where they should have done a national recall. They should have been more forthcoming they should have been proactive they should have been able to pay the service bill to us over 50 million dollars so we can continue to replace those and fix those and write refund checks they didn't and that's kind of what happened so you know and i don't want to get into he said she said because like frankly i know that any i can get into whatever you want to get into i mean and and and and jason like frankly i i believe that you're largely right like in and the and the fact is is like any side of the any story there's always two sides right there's and and usually you only ever hear one. Right. And so the fact that you're getting out there, you're telling your side of the story.

I first of all, I commend you. And but but I don't think that's really necessarily the important thing for this audience. What what I want to understand is like, how do you deal with the negativity negativity right because because each of us as founders we're going to be put in a situation similar to yours maybe not to that level of degree where we're getting you know freaking just thrown to the wolves by national media outlets or anything like that could you imagine this chris we were we were this close to going public could you imagine if we went public and this happened they'd have buried me out in the ocean. Like, wow, we were this close to being a public company. We already signed the deal. We had four years of due diligence already done with audited financials.

Everything was above par. We were supposed to close in July 2022, and that got kicked, kicked, kicked, and then we ended up going out of business. But that would have been a nightmare. Like, God works in mysterious ways. As bad as it was, I'm like, imagine if we went public and this happened. Holy, shareholders would have been like, because it's hard to explain something because, you know, I always think of the MyPillow guy, right? Like the MyPillow guy is the face of that.

And if you were buying pillows and the material in the pillows, maybe this is a good analogy. Maybe it's not started to give people cancer. Everybody wants to kill him. But he actually doesn't make the pillows. Maybe this is a good analogy. Maybe it's not started to give people cancer. Everybody wants to kill him, but he actually doesn't make the pillows. He has a company that he buys material from that makes the pillows and that manufacturer be there somewhat similar to this situation. So I understand and respect people's point of views and why they're upset, but the hatred got bad. We had death threats. The FBI showed up our house three days before Christmas banging on my door. We're like, what the fuck? He's like, FBI.

I'm like, what? And he's like, listen, we've had a biker gang call in or someone, an anonymous call came in. So there's a biker gang out there that put a hit on you. I'm like, for what? He's like this pink energy thing. It got so bad that we were going to Florida. I mean, it was crazy. And my wife was freaking out.

You know, I'm buying more guns. I'm putting things up. I'm telling the cops, like, I can't even shoot that good. But if I hear something, I'm shooting every thing. So you better be rolling down the street because I'm ready. And it was tough because people that don't know me, that don't even know the situation. There's three groups of people in these hate groups when we closed.

There were customers who really had a right to be pissed. There was a third of them. They were, and they don't understand. Like, look, asshole, I don't care. I bought it from you. You fix it. I get it. I get it.

And that's a manufacturer's warranty. It wasn't, I get it. And we were trying to do that. The second group was our competitors. And most of them are 99.9% of them were smaller than us. And the problem in today's world, and you know, this Chris is people are haters. Most people want to see people fail. Other people's success is their failure, their failures, other people's success. So they look and they go, Oh, power homes only that big because

they do this or they do that. Oh my God, I bet they're doing this wrong because they're such losers and haters. They're stuck in their own pig, nothing. And they just want to hate, hate, hate. So they're, they, they don't understand that. Oh my God, maybe this company really did get big and did great things. No, they can't accept that because of where they are. And that's sad. They should be happy for people. And so there's a third of them that were competitors that just prayed and ran their mouth on and talk. And then a third were ex employees that left on bad terms. Now, listen, I'm a, a very, very polarizing CEO, meaning like, you know, we, and I'm right there with you. There's like a, I have an 80, 20 rule and it's been that way in every company I'm dealing with AGs and like bankruptcy turned like, well, we'll tell us about this 80, 20 rule. And it's been that way in every company. I'm dealing with AGs and like bankruptcy turned like, well, tell us about this 80, 20 rule. Well, it's pretty simple. I heard 10 people.

I have a KPI of key performance indicators. I draw that line at 20%, meaning the top 80% keep their job. The bottom 20% are on a pit plan. If they can't get the off the pit plan next month, they're fired and we replace them. So we had 2,400 employees, but we probably fired 10,000 in eight years, but it's a fact. And because of that,400 employees, but we probably fired 10,000 in eight years. But it's a fact. And because of that, I did that in every department, not just sales, installations, cleaning the bathrooms, IT, customer service. I want the best of the best. The bottom 20% hold everybody down. I'm not interested. Move on and churn and burn. And so that's how I built all my companies and was very successful. So therefore, people that didn't hack it, lazy, got their hand

out, don't want to work, want an excuse. This is bull. Like they just, they just, they're holding everybody else down and getting paid the same. Those are the people that go online and write. And so it was hard. It was harder for my family with the death threats. And for the first 90 days, Chris, I hit, I hit depression. This was my third company. I had two great exits before that. And then this was my third company. And this was exploding. And the company was worth a billion dollars.

We had 54 offers for the company, anywhere from 450 million private all the way to a billion 50. We were doing, I never imagined us doing 650 million revenue. But I had a fantastic team around me. We had Elliot Davis on the finance. We had everything going for us. We were doing everything the right way. And when this happened, it was like, it was like the plane just warped speed to the ground.

It was like overnight, like 90 days, this thing just plummeted. And it was so hard. And I had an identity issue. Because when you're running a big company for eight years and you got a top five podcast and you're on TV shows like two minute journals, now all of a sudden you're this guy with this big red X on his face. It's I struggled. I went through depression. I was so angry. I

wanted to go to Wisconsin and take Aaron Yagfield and just rip his face off and be out of me as the CEO of Generac, but I didn't, I wanted to, but I didn't. And I was like, all right. And I stayed angry, but I have four kids. I have two grandkids. I have a wife. Am I going to live pissed off? Am I going to be that guy? That's like, you know, I, I used to have a billion dollar company. I'm not going to be that guy. I'm going to be the guy. You know what? I had a billion dollar company. I lost it, but now I built five other billion dollar companies. Right. And so I'm going to be the guy. You know what? I had a billion-dollar company. I lost it. But now I built five other billion-dollar companies, right? And so I'm like, f*** this.

I'm getting to work. So I focused on building a new company, which I did. And it's worth about $30 million right now. It's a year old. It's doing $2 million a month in sales. It's home services, flooring. What are you building right now? Tell me about it.

It's a flooring company. It's crushing it, right? Get ready to do a bath company to where we're going to do remodel baths. I have a marketing agency I'm building. I have clean water filtration. This is some of the water here that we're getting ready to roll out. So other home service companies that we can do digital marketing, put sales reps into homes, put installers out there, offer a great product. That's my jam, right? We were spending $150 million a year in digital marketing. I know it from A to Z on ROAS and what levers to pull and platforms and et cetera. So I stayed busy and started working.

And my kids and my wife were really the motivation to, they were so scared and confused. And, you know, what's happening? Like, why is this happening? Why are people mean? They were getting picked on at school. People are saying, did your dad file bankruptcy? No, the company's filing bankruptcy. I mean, I might as well file bankruptcy. I lost $400 million, but I didn't file bankruptcy. Still had my house, still had a little bit of money.

I just opened a new business. So tell me, tell me real quick, I'm going to time out you there, right there. So you lose $400 million. I'm assuming that's an equity in the business, right? Correct. I had, yeah. So the deal was when we went public, I was getting a hundred million upfront and 300 million equity as was my business partner. So, but yes, it costs us 400 million, 300 million equity, a hundred million cash. Up until that point, had you taken anything off the table through a private equity deal or anything like that? Great question. So I had the same salary from 2018 to 2022, which was a million two five, same thing. And in 2018, we're worth 40 million in 2022. We were worth a billion. So the company went up 25 times. I didn't get 25 times my salary

in 2018. We did a liquidity, a liquidity event for minority deal. I got 4 million. And in 2019, we did a recap. I got seven. That was it. So I pulled 11 million out on a billion dollar company. The rest was salary. So in 2021, 22, no distributions, no equity pullout. So in 21, when we made 68 million, 33 of that was to me. We left it in there to try to go public. We left that equity in there and the EBITDA in there rather than pull it out. And that's one of the biggest regrets. It's like, you know, sometimes when you're building something to go public and then it implodes and you can't control it, it's like you left a lot of chips on the table that you could have pulled off. So you brought up a great word, regret. What are some things that you regret or that you would have done different if you could rewind back to 2017, 2018, back when you first took 4 million

bucks off the table, what would you do differently in that scenario all the way to 2022? Well, I mean, I'd still take, we sold equity, the company's worth that. I'd still take the little bit of equity off the table. And look, we grew really fast and we were able to manage that growth. No problem until this big tidal wave of Generac issues. So I don't even regret as fast as we grew. I think that was okay. I regret making the decision to rush batteries and move to a Generac. I regret the decision not having a backup, not offering a different product simultaneously with Generac in half our markets. And I regret not going public about it earlier. Generac was part of our public deal. They were part of our pipe race for 50 million. So we were in negotiations with them, giving us 50 million dollars towards the public deal while we were figuring out, oh, my goodness, it's their firmware that screwed all this up and shut these systems down.

So it was getting heated, but it was like, OK, let's keep the relationships like this. We don't need to go and exploit them publicly. We'll take the heat. We'll clean this up. We'll work together. And that 90 days already already basically dictated what everybody in the consumers thought about us. So I do regret not going out front early. We ended up firing our PR team because it was bad advice. And then I regret not pulling chips off the table. Like,

you know, when you're building a company, you want to go public, you leave everything in there, which is a smart move. And I've always believed that, but I should have pulled some off. I did it. I left it all in there. Cause I was like, look, I'm comfortable with what I make. I don't have any debt, leave it in there. And it'll all be part of the big transaction. And I regret that. Okay. So you got to answer the question that a lot of listeners are probably wondering, okay, what's your, uh, what is your net worth right now? Like what, what kind of money are you sitting on? I would say somewhere between eight and $10 million. Yeah. And that's a houses, real estate, other businesses I sold rebuilding podcast. Um, yeah. So it's going from net worth

of 400 million to eight to 10 is a, is a big reset. Dude, that is, that is a big reset. And so like, how do, how do you wrap your mind around that? Like, because for me, right, I've, I've gone through some similar things from a standpoint. I've had failed businesses. I've had exits. I've taken chips off the table. There's certain times when I took chips off the table that I wish I took more chips off the table because I thought I wasn't losing control, but then I'm not I'm not even sure where I was going with that. But like, what are like, how do you deal with going from that much to this little like, how do you how do you sleep at night?

Like, so when I opened the security companies, I had nothing. I did well. I cashed out. I opened a solar company. But the first two years of the solar company, I gave everything I made from the security company in there, sold my multimillion-dollar house, put it in the solar company when it first opened, and didn't get a check for almost two years. So I didn't have anything when Powerhome Solar opened, and I was starting over. So the advantage I have now, I have a paid-for house.

I have paid-for cars. I have a little money in the bank, and I have money to open a company, which now in a year, what we're doing in one year with the flooring company took us two and a half years for solar. I mean, we're you know, we're pacing 24, 25 million in sales a year. I couldn't I mean, it took third year. We hit 40 million second year. We hit 10 million power on solar. So I can see and now we're getting ready to add baths to it. I can see the potential now we're getting ready to add baths to it. I can see the

potential of it sucks to restart, but really if I get three or four companies going that are worth a few hundred million dollars, pull some chips off, get some investors in, streamline it out, I'm doing the right thing. Plus I'm starting to do a lot of this coaching and the reality TV show is only going to help the coaching in the businesses. But you know, Amazon reached out to do that and it was, I mean, you know, it's lucrative. It's, and it's, you know, if, if we could sell season two and three, that's, that's more opportunity and money, but then it really expands. You know, we're talking to different channels. We're on prime for season one.

They may take season two, but if not, it's crackle or it's paramount or it's a Bravo. And, you know, so we're trying to. Tell us more about that. Like how, how did you get involved in actually doing a reality TV show? Is it like they approached you or you decided one day, hey, we're going to do this. And then you started getting interest. How did that go? Yeah, no, they approached me after we closed. My attorney is the attorney for the people who created the show Bar Rehab.

And so we all had lunch in L. in LA and they're like, Jason, if you're going to get into coaching, your story is crazy. We want to tell like a documentary, but we want to like have you help companies and have you resurrect these companies. And maybe you do that. I'm like, I'm a free agent. I'm open for business. Let's do something. Right. And my name was real hot and toxic at the time. And they thought that was a great thing. I was like, are you sure? Like, I feel like this is a bad thing. And we're trying to go through the process. And then they see they're filming. They're following me to Minnesota. They're following me to Utah and they're checking. I'm looking at companies, Ohio, talking to them. And then they

start filming me and my family. And they're like, hold on, we need to talk. So we start talking to like, would you be opposed to reality TV show? Like just straight reality TV show, kind of like the Osborne's like, you're this big, bad, let's go get it done. Entrepreneur. You go home and you don't get to run. Your wife's the boss, your daughters, your son, like you just check your nuts at the table, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you know what?

I dig it. So I got the family behind it and it's a bigger pond efficient. I always think of, you know, pond is like marketing when you got a reality show that's got entrepreneurship and speaking and mentoring in there with all the chaos and um that that's more appealing so they started filming it like crazy and followed us to turks went on our turks trip came back here you know filming conversations with me and my aliens i got my studio because i get this alien fascination now when you lose 400 million dollars you go a little nuts so i went from like keeping it between the buoys of everything's corporate to losing my mind in a good way though like i it's like a release for me and i have fun with it and

then that you know the the amazon picked up season one uh for the pilot and you know if it goes well they're gonna they're gonna pay out and we're gonna have season two uh if somebody else buys it they'll be competing for it so it's supposed to launch january 5th we have a launch party in fort lauderdale and i mean i'm excited it's cool two of my kids are really happy two aren't tell me tell me the reality behind reality because like in my mind i'm trying to imagine myself on a reality tv show but literally like just cameras all over i'm just trying to live my life right like i'm just trying to have a conversation with my wife or my kids or whatever else is going on at home but there's cameras like dude tell me tell me about that at the beginning it's really hard it's like everybody's quiet

like all right you know what do i talk about like's so awkward. Then you get used to it. And then you're like, move the cameras. And they just follow you. Like, dude, I said, move the cameras. And they follow you because that's what they need. And when you cool off, you'll probably be like, okay, I guess you can use that. So they ask questions like what's off limits, kind of like you did, like what's off limits. And then, you know, you're like, oh, limits and then you know you're like oh this and this like so they purposely bring it up like that or make that happen and i'll tell you a story so nothing's scripted there's no like hey we need you to do this like they're just following you around for hours and my family just happens i mean when you say following around for hours like

i'm how many hours how many days like what what does this look like so in in turks we were there seven days they were there five and it was like all day every meal every excursion it was crazy my parents were like dude what the dude we're on vacation i'm like dude the band fan what do you want me to do like um and then when we came back, they were here four days, four days and two days. So 10 more days and at my house set up, follow my kids around a little bit, a little bit of my daughter's college in Bama, followed me a lot at the gym, in the parking lot. So I got all the people working at the gym, like, look at this asshole. I'm walking in with camp.

Like it's, it's, it's, it's a problem, right? You know, dropping my kid off at school, teachers and principals, like's, it's, it's a problem. Right. You know, dropping my kid off at school, teachers and principals, like what the, like, it's a problem. And I'm coaching a football team and I'm arguing with another coach and a ref, the ref's trying to throw me out. There's cameras there, you know? And then he's like, are you only doing that? Cause the cameras, I'm like those cameras, you had a bad call. Like, and yeah, of course you're elevated a little bit. Cause the cameras are there. Right.

But the one thing that was scripted is the second, the first day we were there without them, my daughter's jet ski broke down in the middle of the ocean. And we're like, what the? And I'm like, of course, London, your ship breaks down. So we're trying to get, we can't pull it. The rope keeps breaking. So we have to get a boat to pull us back. It's like a pain in the ass. We're in the middle, beautiful Turks and caicos but it's just middle of the ocean

so we get back camera crew shows up we tell them what happened like we got to redo that tomorrow like all right well then that night my daughter's boyfriend dumps her like literally dumps her and calls her and is like i cheated on you and i'm breaking up with you she's devastated oh yeah and she's like i'm not going out there and doing that i'm with you. And she's devastated. And she's like, I'm not going out there and doing that. I'm like, you got to, she's like, I ain't doing it. Like we have this huge fight. Okay. So me and Christian have to pretend to break down. So we go out there with camera crews and we break down and I'm out there and I've got a camera, you know, and they're filming from a far distance. And I'm like, Hey, we're still out here. It's been like three hours. And I'm posting this on Instagram and Facebook.

And people are, are you okay? Are you still out there? I'm like, I'm posting. Do you think I'm still out? Like the concept of people is just crazy to me. But they're freaking out. Like, are you okay? Like, you wouldn't be getting this message if I wasn't okay.

So that was the only thing. That's the thing that I think a lot of times we don't realize is like, I always, whenever I see a post on social media or whatnot, I'm like, there was a camera that caught that or right. Like you go in a completely different perspective because you just think that somehow you're there and you're watching what's going on. And then you have to do a reality check and be like, wait, they literally scripted that or they did this or that or the other. It's so unique how literally us as watchers of social media or anything, we don't actually put ourselves into the reality of what's happening. Like to your point that like, of course, you got this message, so I'm okay.

Like, understand how you got it it's just funny how that whole thing works you know they with reality tv too i think like at least for season one for us everything was natural right they were it's more of a background check a bio my wife's story like her dad went to prison when she was nine she slept in a bathtub for two years like she is the worst ptsd the planet. She goes through major social anxiety. Like that's a huge, that's its own story. Okay. And during this time of filming right before my daughter, one of my second oldest daughter was actually had her drink spiked with fentanyl and she stopped breathing. And we had to go to the emergency room. She had to get all this

and they had to do tests. They figured out it was fentanyl. And like, we got the cops involved. I mean, it was a nightmare, dude. We're balling in. Now that wasn't on film, but we had to talk about it shortly after, because it happened literally a week before they started filming. And my daughter was like, I don't know if I want to be around people. She finally went back to Bama, but it her up. People forget real happens to real people. And people forget when they see you on social media, they see you on TV or they see you on the football field these are people with feelings and families you know a couple of my best friends are football players matt prater is one of them misses a kick they're like you piece of they don't realize like he takes he's got major anxiety i mean he goes home and he he

cries he's real problems like i remember there was a time i did like take him to the emergency room twice because his anxiety was so bad. He was passing out and seeing crazy. We're all freaking out in the lions. Like this is what happens. These guys are under pressure and people forget they're human beings. And it's like with all the hate out there with what I did, we were trying to do a good thing. We were we for eight years we did. And then this happened and it's like it was tough.

And so you get these stories where we're doing the show. and it's like it was tough and so you you get these stories where we're doing the show and this is what i was saying but you go through like duck dynasty which i feel like this is closest to duck dynasty but on steroids or the kardashians you go through all these shows their season one was like bio they start scripting later because you run out of shit that's what happens no i i get you there but yeah man i think your point is such an important thing that each one of us need to realize that at the end of the day we're all human beings we all function the same way we put on our underwear the same way we we take hatred to heart things hurt right we all have anxiety, stress, depression, happiness, joy. And we go, we go

through all these different things. And like, it's so important to remember that like when mistakes happen, like for example, your business failing, right? Like, I mean, Jason, at the end of the day is a human being. Like everybody wants to throw him his, our hate, but they, I think that's such an important like principle to, to understand is like, there are real humans. And this is actually goes to the positive side. Like when something negative is happening to you, like I actually had a guy that was wanting to file bankruptcy and I told him, I'm like, look behind these businesses are real people. Talk to the real people, negotiate your way out of this, figure out a payment plan or whatever else. Like at the end

of the day it's all people and if you can interact and realize that this human being lives breathes feels the same way that you do and magic can happen and you eliminate a lot of this crap that's true it's very true people are just mean i mean even my kids like how does my 13 year old get bullied because he has a show and we're having a conversation. I'm like, and I used to get bullied in school, right? And I was bullied because we were poor. My dad had a like 78 Cutlass Supreme with no air conditioning. So people would be like, oh my God, is that your car? And I'd be like, dad, park down the street. I'd wear fake Tommy Hill figures and people would make fun of me. I went to five high schools. I got in fights all the time. Had great grades, never looked for a fight,

but I was always picked on. I did my wife's family. I mean, we met in high school. They judged us because they lived in it. We lived in a trailer park. They used to say, oh, they can stick their feet out and move their house. I didn't even know what a trailer park was

until we moved into one when we came to North Carolina in ninth grade. My point is, is I got bullied for that. I remember it now that my son goes through it and my girls have gone through it. They got bullied because we had night. Or they're getting bullied because we have a TV show coming out and it's all over the media. Like it's just sad. It's like, and I try to tell my kids and I tell people that I mentor, I say, listen, the reason why someone is hateful and

the reason why someone bullies is because they're very insecure and they're very jealous. There's something you have that they don't, or they're so insecure with who they are that they feel like if you are one ounce better than them, there's got to be something wrong with you and you shouldn't be there. And they want to tear you down. And I said, it's sad. And they're wasting their time, putting you in their brain and renting space in their brain for you. Do not give them the satisfaction of renting space in your brain for them. Do not engage. Do not pay attention. They don't matter. They're irrelevant.

You're relevant. Therefore, you're going to have haters. Everybody has haters. Oprah has haters. Bill Cosby had haters. Jesus Christ has haters. Donald Trump. Everybody has haters.

You know, whether you're great or Tom Brady, like you're going to have people hate you just like they love you because you're relevant. When you're irrelevant, you're nothing. And some people are OK being nothing. But me and my family, we don't want to be nothing. And so they've got, my kids got to learn to overcome that. And, and I told my kids, I said, look, I used to really care this whole process of this generation. I give zero dude. I'll put on a pink tutu and a banana hammock and dance and give zero what anybody says about me, because I've gotten to that point in my life. Like, it's like these people didn't make me or create me and they don't judge. Like I have my own path. It doesn't matter, but it took all of this hate for me to just click. And now I've got to get my kids to figure that out. They're like, listen, they don't

matter. They're, they're angry because you have a path and they're not focusing on theirs. Amen. Amen. Yeah. I love, uh, I think Deon Sanders is like one of the greatest examples of this attitude, right? Like you didn't make me, so you can't break me. And like, and he doesn't care what anybody else thinks or, or feels about him. He just knows that he's here to make a difference, to create a culture, to create a vibe of winning and everything else. And like you can hate on whatever he does. But at the end of the day, he's a winner. And so I think that's definitely an attitude that all of us have to adopt at one point or another.

And sometimes it goes through you have to go through something like losing 400 million dollars worth of equity in order to find yourself, in order to realize realize that like, I don't care. I'm not here to impress anybody else. I'm here for me, my family, those that mean a lot to me. Anybody else want to say hate on me? So be it. And you know, when, like, like you said, one of the things I always tell my kids is that somebody else's opinion of you says more about them than it does about you. And so, you know, if, if they have a positive opinion about them, about you, they probably have a positive opinion about themselves. If they have a negative opinion about you. And so, you know, if, if they have a positive opinion about them, about you, they probably have a positive opinion about themselves. If they have a negative opinion about you, they probably have a negative opinion about themselves. It's true. Yeah. Amen. So man, tell me, how old are you, Jason? 43. 43, man. You've been able to accomplish a lot of craziness.

I have two grandkids too, by the way. So I'm a Gil. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. How old's your, uh, your oldest kids? 25, 19, 16, and 13, three girls. And then my son. Amazing. Amazing. I have five kids myself, family, family. So awesome. Uh, so dude, 43 years old, obviously you're pushing on this new home service thing. Like, what's next? When is the last hurrah? Do you ever see there being a last hurrah? Or is this what you're going to be doing into the sunset? Well, so me and my business partner took two different paths when we closed.

He took some money and started building small homes and doing some rental properties. And has PTSD. I'd never want to own a company again. That was so bad when we closed. I'm like, look, I didn't get to the championship game to lose and say that's okay. So I'm going to get back to that, the B, the billion, right? That's the goal. Whether I take a company public, I probably won't. I don't think I want to go through that atrocity again.

That was crazy for two years. We were going through, you know, the SEC and all of that stuff. And it was all good, but it's just tedious. But I think doing some transactions and building wealth for my kids to be able to expand and do their own things to make a difference. What I loved about solar, I still love it about solar, is that it impacts the world. It makes a difference. I love that. The flooring business doesn't do that. I love, I love that customers are happy. I love that it makes money. I love that we offer American made product. That's plastic free. I love all of that.

And it does well. And the baths, you know, it's, it does well. There's people, the older people need the ADA baths. Like we do all this. It's great. But the water filtration, like I want to get into that for drinking water. I want to do something that's impactful. It's great. But the water filtration, like I want to get into that for drinking water. I want to do something that's impactful. It's not about the money. I'll make money. Money will come. I want to do something that changes things and makes a difference.

And I have too many friends and family that have been impacted by coal ash and cancer and, you know, all kinds of things coming on because of the utility companies. That's part of my mission in solar was to destroy the utility companies by empowering people to have solar because they're killing people with their coal ash. Well, it's the same thing with drinking water. And so I'm really big into,

I got a company I'm looking at that I might, I might take over or we might just create our own, but they've got a patent where they make water out of air. It's like a dehumidifier. It makes it out of air. And it's like the oxygen, the ozone, it's like as pure as it gets.

But I just, I'm just, I'm intrigued by being able to give people drinking water like no matter where you live in the u.s it doesn't matter the water sucks and then you're spending all this money buying water that's in a plastic bottle which is not good for you so like i drink it out of a glass i do like you we've got to do better and my wife just had a melanoma scare and she's freaked out about cancer and you know jesse lee just died.

Like all these things going on that are just crazy. And we were friends, Jesse, like all this stuff. Like it's an eye opener. It's like I want to get into that business or something that's going to be impactful. And so that I see me doing. But I want to scale up, sell some companies. My son's 13. Hopefully he plays some college football.

He's really good. But I'd like to be able to hand the keys off to him and the girls and then walk away, you know, in eight, ten years and call it a day. I love it. Love it. So with that, do you ever see yourself entering back into the solar industry? Not a chance. I've been offered like the day we closed some big companies. One of them is public.

I got a phone call. You want to come join the team? No. I was advised by the attorneys. You can't at first, right? Now I can actually open up Pink Energy too. Like I've been cleared by the bankruptcy. There's nothing going on.

They've already thrown 14 lawsuits out. They're like, this guy's not responsible for this. This is a company issue and a Generac issue. But the media has already painted me. And so trying to recover from that, you just got to do good and it takes time. And then truth comes out. As Generac, the more issues come up with Generac, people are like, oh, maybe that is what happened. And so, but a couple of companies reached out and I was thinking about it.

And do I open one up? My problem with solar right now is what I'm told and talk and I've coached three different guys that run solar companies is the financing is too expensive. You have an issues in California with all the net metering stuff they're taking away. We were already selling batteries. We were 98% battery anyways. And I think that's the future. So I don't have an issue with the battery thing, but it's like, it became a horse market. So when I was in home security business, there was like a couple of companies and that was it. Then every asshole's like, well, I want to be paid multiples. So then you had a bunch of little companies and everybody's competing. And if you don't pay this guy higher multiple, he leaves and then you're stuck.

Solar became that way, in my opinion. It wasn't like that for us because we were so big. We had employees. They weren't subcontractors. We got the leads and appointments and fed them. They weren't door knocking. Therefore, we controlled it. That's not going to happen again. There's not going to be a company that's going to be able to do that again. We were one of a kind that we were able to scale like that. That's not going to happen again. There's not going to be a company that's going to be able to do that again. We were one of a kind that we were able to scale like that. That's not going to happen. So all these guys that keep door knocking and keep building dealer programs, my friend Edwin that owns Skyline just talked to him last night. He's like, we're bleeding to death because every asshole wants more red line, more red. And I'm like, I'm not into that business.

I'm into a business that has to make money and be profitable to add more jobs, to make an impact in the world. I'm not in a business that just keep playing. and be profitable to add more jobs, to make an impact in the world. I'm not in a business that just keeps playing who's going to pay me more. I just I don't like that. And I feel like it's become a horse market. I agree with you. So here's a question about your bankruptcy and like starting this new business. So when I went through bankruptcy, I had to go through personal bankruptcy back in 2011. Lost everything, cars repoed, less than a thousand

dollars in my bank account. Right. So I didn't have the luxury of being able to hold any of my assets. And so for the next two years, I built kind of in silence and I was a little ashamed of like the basically getting reamed again. I was young, I was dumb, you know, like for me, it was like putting myself back out there in the public's eye after having this failure was a little bit difficult. Walk me through like what's going on in your current business. Cause obviously with your previous business, you were the face, you were like kind of, you know, out there. Have you continued to be the same or have you gotten a little gun shy with uh because of this this public eye with

like consumers and those type of things when i talk about the hate group being a third a third a third um the customers that don't understand and the competitors and the employees for those people if i put my face on a brand they're just going to attack that brand it doesn't make sense right yep they're going to try to cancel the brand. The whole reason we switched to Pink Energy, people don't realize this, they have their own assumption. There were two reasons. One, we were in a five-year litigation with a company called Powerhome Remodeling for the name Powerhome, trademark. Five years it was going on. We marketed bigger than they were. We were a little bigger than they were. And we felt we could win the suit. And we're like, we're not changing our name. But when we were doing a reverse merger with a company called XL fleet,

MGG owned them and we were going public. They had a company on XL fleet that converts gas cars to hybrids. And so we were like, look, we're going to do so much more than solar. And I feel like power home and solar is small. Let's come up with something creative. That's bigger than that. Since we're going to have this car stuff and let's do that. Plus we don't even like the power home name because the power home remodeling we got the lawsuit so we came up in october 2021 with pink energy and we trademarked it we did all the stuff and we said let's do it on earth day in april so it was going to be a four month rollout till we secretly did it and it was right in the middle of all this it was like what and so it looked bad but we put tv commercials out for two weeks saying hey customers we're the we're the same company. We just changed our name. We're extending your warranty

from five years to 10 years. Like we did all the things necessary that you got to do the right way. And so that was a great call. But the reason that was the two reasons, the biggest reason for me personally was it's okay to have your name on a business, but then you outgrow that. Then the business has to be bigger than the name. You think of Tesla, you think of Elon Musk, but he's not the face on there. It's only because this company's popular. Had he been on the face, he'd eventually pull it off. And then the T and the Tesla and the logo have to make its own brand. So to go to Pink Energy pulled me off, which was exciting for me. And we could just go to Pink Energy because when I first got on the brand in 2019, we actually had Morgan Freeman hired.

And then we backed off it. And then our marketing team said, you do the commercials. We'll put more money in the in the in put more ads out. And I fought it. And I was like, all right, we can do it. I did OK. Not as good as Morgan Freeman would have done, but I did OK. So I look back and I go in all the new companies, I want the brand to be bigger than life. It's not about my face. So my face doesn't need to be on it. And I'm more of an investor slash chairman of the board. I've, you know, other people are the executives. Now they're getting their shot. They worked with me for a long time. I put the money behind it. They're able to run and operate it. I'm involved in the day to day, you know, 10 hours a week, max, you know, they're really doing their thing

and it's, it's exploding. I have time. So I'm like, all right, I'll do a speaking event or I'll do coaching or I'll look at opening this business. So I have time on my hands because it's not a day to day. I'm not managing 2,400 employees or six executives or 40 directors or, you know, 18 regionals, like it's different. And so it was so chaotic and so high strung that with this it's like so when you're asking is my face going to be out there no if we do the water company yes why because it's hard to hate someone who's out there saving the planet giving free water systems away so to me it's a great comeback because as much as people love to see the dragon fall they really love to

see the dragon get its but go again so i'm like you know what with the water well but for like a different home service hvac flooring that would never like nobody gives a right but with water it would and i agree with you 100 so like initially when i filed my bankruptcy in 2011 i had a lot of haters right whether it was customers or employees or family or or whatnot right like people that i had let down that i had made promises to and wasn't able to fulfill on. Like that's the hardest thing about failure and I'm sure you could agree with. And so initially those first two or three years

was really difficult for me to like, just put myself out there and do anything, right? Even to own the fact that like I had failed. And the thing I learned was like, as soon as I began to actually accept that failure, like be, become more public about that failure. Like, Hey, look, I screwed up. I did this. I did this. I did this. I took ownership of it, but it wasn't until about, yeah, three years later that I really started my, my comeback story. Like where I was putting myself out there, kind of like what you're talking about doing with this water company and at that point right your your haters from three

years ago they forget about it and then they start to cheer you on like hey look he's he's rising from the dust right like he's come coming back and making it happen and so you know and it's a time really heals all those wounds right like everybody that's feeling hatred towards Jason Waller, right? They're going to forget your name two, three years from now. And if they remember your name, they'll slowly begin cheering you on. And so I think that's the beauty of time. And I love the idea of doing it with something that people are going to be supportive of with the water product. That's phenomenal.

Yeah. And look, the reality TV show, you know, there's a lot of hate, there's a hate group out there and they're going to subscribe and they're going to watch. And so half of my listeners on my podcast,

my new podcast, so I've, I've had two top 10 or two of top five entrepreneur podcasts in, in true underdog and bam. But this new one unleashed is climbing the charts. It was like 58 last I saw. But this new one, Unleashed, is climbing the charts. It was like 58th last I saw. And this one is different. Like I'll go from talking about aliens to sex to business to EBITDA.

I argued with a buddy of mine from Pakistan about Palestine or Israel. We argued for an hour and a half. I thought I was going to have to throw him through the window, or at least the alien here was going to throw him through the window, right? I don't know if you can see the alien. I can't see the alien. Oh, my goodness. Got the alien.

All right. to throw them through the window right i don't know if you see the alien i can't see the alien oh my goodness got the alien so all right well yeah so so we let let's let's shift gears we're going to wrap this up in a quick but tell us about aliens obviously everybody's wondering like what do you believe about aliens well so dolores cannon it passed away a few years back i watched her clip a few years ago and it blew my mind and i listen, listen, I believe in God and I pray. Okay. So let me say that I pray every night with my son. I just, I'm, I'm, I don't go to church every Sunday, but I believe in God fully. But I also believe in what Dolores Cannon said, you'd have to find it on YouTube, that aliens are actually spirits, that aliens are actually angels of God, and that they went and planted the seeds here in this universe millions of years ago. And they do this in other planets around the whole entire space. We don't see it yet. And some are free will,

some aren't. And she spoke to people where it was their previous lives and they talked about coming down here. And I feel like for them to fly down here is like minutes where for us, it'd be thousands or millions of years and that they come in and they see what's going on. Maybe it's even us in the future kind of looking and steering and manage things. Not sure. But I truly believe that there's one God and it's God and that the aliens

are the angels. Because if you go back to the aztecs you go back to um the egyptians and any of the chinese everybody they all have some kind of some kind of being or special thing that came from the sky that they pray to that's magical that has all these powers they they built statues on them what the you think they are they were aliens which came and spoke about god and all these things because that's what, so, I mean, that's what I believe. Otherwise, it's the only thing that makes the most sense to me. And then even Jesus, I think, was an alien.

That's just my thoughts. Interesting. Hey, it's an interesting perspective. And the one thing I've learned about perspective is like you can't judge any of them. So I love it. I love it. Cool, Jason. So, man, I appreciate your time. perspective is like you can't judge any of them so i love it i love it yeah cool jason so man i

appreciate your time before we before we wrap this up what are top three books or things that you've done in your life that have drastically changed the course that have drastically helped you maybe mentors or whatnot um well one of my mentors is dan lock i don't know you familiar with dan lock yeah i've had dan on my i've had dan on my uh podcast yeah yeah he's one of my mentors is Dan Locke. I don't know. Are you familiar with Dan Locke? Yeah, I've had Dan on my podcast. Yeah, he's one of my favorite people. So he's a good mentor of mine. Eric Thomas is a mentor. I talk to him probably two or three times a month.

He's a good dude. And then I, you know, Barry Sanders is a friend of mine. And I've kind of talked and helped him out with business. But he's kind of let me see life in more perspective of being the moment. He's been on my podcast twice. We're friends. He came to my son's birthday party. When we closed, he flew down to North Carolina to see me and did dinner at my house. A lot of people don't know that. And, um, he was like, dude, I can't believe this. Cause he was a big part of our company. Like he was always at our events and everything. And he was sad and Barry's a quiet dude. Uh, but that's who I grew up admiring as a football player. Who's my favorite

football player of all time. And so for me to build a business where we put solar on Ford field, we do a deal with Barry Sanders. We do a deal with other lions players. That's my favorite team. I've got the Detroit lions tattoo. I'm hanging out at the parties with all the players. I'm there for, they're coming to my house to party after the game. Barry Sanders is golfing with me. He's at my kid's birthday party. He's doing dinner with my dad. My dad's in heaven. All like,

not in heaven, but like he's living in heaven. Like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. Those are all bucket list things for me. And so I, I think that when you can hit bucket list things and you can stop and breathe

for the moment and go, this is what it's about. We're going to have those times and points and moments and memories that matter. You need to really relish them and save them and save them. And that's the relationships I've built with the podcast, with the company. They're strong. And, and that was one of them. And I think he's been important because he told me something. I said, dude, how did you prepare yourself for the NFL? And he said, and he's a shy dude. And he's like, look, I played at corner at first in high school, then halfback. And I almost quit the team because they wouldn't put me in halfback. And I

thought I was better to play halfback. And they weren't sure my dad was getting involved. It was an argument. He said, but every time I played, I stayed, I stayed relevant to what was going on. The game was never too big and it was never too small. And so when we talk about, I had a billion dollar company, people like, how did you do that? It's like, well, because when we were a $900 million company, let's just, whatever, we're doing 50 million revenue, but we got to a hundred million. It's the next step. Well, the 150 million, it's the next step. When you stay in that moment, nothing's too big and too small. When you go too big, you feel like, oh, I've got to get there. You're going to fail. And you're going to get discouraged when you stay too small, you're not ready for it. So he really taught me

and worked with me to stay equal to the lights, wherever you are in your thing, you have to stay in that moment and be relevant and just continue to push. Because if you go too up, too down, you're screwed. And so I think I got that from him as well. That's awesome, man. Well, Jason, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the value that you dropped. The fun conversation.

I know you've got a lot of cool things ahead of you. Wish you tons of success. Until next time.