In this episode of the Unscripted Small Business Podcast, host Jeremy Rivera sits down with Tyler Mumford, founder of Grind Time Stump Grinding. Tyler shares his fascinating transition from corporate software sales to running a successful stump grinding business in Utah, offering valuable insights for anyone considering a similar leap into entrepreneurship through niche service businesses.
Killer Quotes
“I have a ton of these videos on my Twitter… I think the reason that I’ve gotten Twitter followers is because they’re oddly satisfying to watch.” – Tyler on how sharing stump grinding videos has built his social media following
“I come from a sales background, mainly like business to business, software sales is where I started after college. Did that for a while, like three, four years, and always wanted to get out doing something on my own.” – Tyler on his background before stump grinding
“I always felt a little bit of a discontentment with my day-to-day, just being in the office, being behind a computer all day, every day. For me personally, it just wasn’t a great fit.” – Tyler explaining why he left corporate life
“I’m coming in at a really good spot in the process. So it’s kind of a cheat code. These tree companies send me in to finish the job… So I’m there right there to ask them for a review. And I pretty consistently can get a review off of jobs that I never did the marketing for, which is like a double win.” – Tyler on how he leverages his position to get Google reviews
“I took the skills that I basically learned in big tech, big SaaS sales to a small, really niche industry, I think is kind of where I’m up leveling… still doing the same service other people do, just in a lot more professional way that I learned kind of from tech.” – Tyler on his competitive advantage
Helpful Takeaways
- Tyler built his business through cold outreach to tree companies, demonstrating that direct B2B sales approaches can be more effective than consumer marketing for niche service businesses.
- By focusing on a service that requires specialized equipment (stump grinding), Tyler created a business with higher barriers to entry than services like lawn mowing.
- Cross-promotion with related businesses (tree services, landscapers, concrete companies, and fence installers) creates additional revenue streams through referral partnerships.
- Seasonal businesses can benefit from planning complementary services (like Christmas lights installation) to maintain income during slower months.
- Before launching his business, Tyler negotiated severance from his employer by offering to help transition his accounts, providing a financial cushion during startup.
- The first month of side hustle operation generated $9,000 in revenue, giving Tyler confidence to leave his full-time job after just one month of part-time operation.
What is Stump Grinding?
Jeremy: “What is stump grinding? Is it a PG process? What led you to it? What were you doing before?”
Tyler: “Stump grinding is a very PG process. It’s loud and dirty, but it’s PG. It’s basically turning a stump in someone’s front or backyard into wood chips through a big, basically spinning blade that chips it down slowly. I have a ton of these videos on my Twitter… I think the reason that I’ve gotten Twitter followers is because they’re oddly satisfying to watch.”
From Corporate Sales to Stump Grinding
Jeremy was curious about Tyler’s background and how he got into such a niche business.
Tyler: “I had no experience grinding stumps before I started. I was on a tree crew a long time ago in high school, so I knew that stump grinding existed, but I’d never done it myself. I come from a sales background, mainly like business to business, software sales is where I started after college. Did that for a while, like three, four years, and always wanted to get out doing something on my own.”
“I heard this idea on a podcast to, you know, kind of do a business to business stump grinding model. ‘Cause landscapers, tree companies… there’s a lot of people that need the service, without wanting to do it themselves. And so that’s kind of how we started and, we’re slowly growing from there and documenting it on Twitter.”
B2B vs B2C Business Model
Jeremy: “So is it a strictly B2B play or is there a growing B2C component that you’re trying to capture as well?”
Tyler: “There’s a lagging B2C component. B2B was how I started. Probably the first four months, I did 100% B2B. The first eight months, I did like 90% B2B. And then now it’s starting… We have a lot of reviews and things like that now. So we’re starting to get some more organic traffic ourselves.”
“A lot of times, stump grinding needs to be done after they remove the tree. So that’s like the prime time to find the customer anyways. And so it’s just natural to have that done through the tree company or the landscape company.”
Building Business Relationships Through Cold Outreach
Jeremy: “Having that connection, was that a manual process or did you go to like a tree trimmers convention or did you get a handshake introduction from somebody who networked you with those other businesses?”
Tyler: “It started with cold texting, just direct cold text to tree companies, landscape companies. Hey, you know, a picture of my business card. My name’s Tyler. I do stump grinding for, you know, a ton of different tree companies in the area. Do you have a good sub or do you rent a machine currently?”
“And then start, you know, working with these companies, building relationships that started into warm introductions and other tree companies. A lot of tree guys are friends or have worked together in the past. And then I’ve been to conventions now. I’ve kind of done everything at this point, but it all started with cold text and just getting out and doing jobs well.”
Balancing Digital Work and Field Work
Jeremy: “What was the pressure, what was the impetus to go to a hands-on job and about how much time of what you’re doing now is digital work promoting the business versus actually out there in the field doing stuff?”
Tyler: “I always felt a little bit of discontentment with my day-to-day, just being in the office, being behind a computer all day, every day. For me personally, it just wasn’t a great fit. I’m a pretty active, just ADD person.”
“Today, when I first started, it was a lot more cold outreach and doing all of that behind a computer. Nowadays, it’s like a lot of that is on autopilot. All of my cold texting, my cold emailing, all of that is pretty much on autopilot in the background. And most of my time is spent out in the field, probably like four days a week, full days out in the field, either grinding stumps, bidding jobs with other guys, talking to people.”
“And then I take a day off every two weeks or so to up level the business, whether that’s like last week I onboarded on jobber, this week I took a day off to have a meeting like this and a bookkeeping meeting this morning.”
Standing Out in an “Ugly Duck” Industry
Jeremy: “So I’m curious because I have an SEO friend, Michael McDougald, and he kind of specializes in finding these ugly duck industries that people don’t think about. He had a site that sold steel doors and toilet partitions. So stump grinding isn’t a big sexy thing, but how have you worked in what would be kind of a boring industry to kind of bring things forward, or take it on for a unique spin?”
Tyler: “My unique spin… grinding a stump, there’s not a lot of ways to do that uniquely or, you know, really cutting edge if you will.” He laughed at his own pun and continued, “It’s just a big machine and it’s a violent service, and it gets it out of the ground.”
“On the side of running the business, I don’t think a lot of stump grinders are running full blown B2B sales cycles. The way I am with cold text, cold call, cold email, dropping by in person… Taking the skills that I basically learned in big tech, big SaaS sales to a small, really niche industry, I think is kind of where I’m up leveling.”
Online Presence and SEO
Jeremy: “So do you have a Google Business profile? Is that as a service area? Or have you registered an address somewhere and you have somewhere where you’ve dropped that specific pin? Which of those two routes have you gone for your Google Business profile?”
Tyler: “I’m pretty sure it’s a pin at my house, but I think the address is hidden.” Regarding his website, “I think it’s a WordPress site. A buddy runs a small SEO agency. So he handled the site, he handles the hosting, he handled any of the SEO stuff that we’ve done.”
“I am ranking like in the number one or two in the map pack in my area, which is great.”
Jeremy looked Tyler up: “Looks like you’re doing a service area. So it does show your address and it is pinned to your home. Got some good reviews, bro.”
Tyler: “Yeah, we got a lot of reviews, which is great. I come in at a really good spot in the process. So it’s kind of a cheat code… These tree companies send me in to finish the job, basically, is what I’m doing. So I’m kind of the last person to talk with the customer because I’m in their backyard with a huge stump grinder. And so I’m there right there to ask them for a review. And I pretty consistently can get a review off of jobs that I never did the marketing for, which is like a double win.”
Future Growth Plans
Jeremy: “Question about are you looking… are you going to be doing this as like a lifestyle business is this what you want to do for a long time or are you going? You know get other guys on the same crew like what’s your intention? To either like ride the wave and just keep it yourself and just figure out how to streamline it, or are you looking at growth eventually?”
Tyler: “I want to grow eventually. I don’t know if it will be in stump grinding or in something else. I started this last August and so I missed the whole spring and most of the summer of last year. And so I really have no idea what this business could possibly be.”
“Right now I’m just focused on working as hard as possible through the spring and summer to kind of see what’s the top end potential of one truck with one guy that’s very focused on doing as much revenue as possible. And then once I can feel that out, I’m going to see if there’s opportunity for a second truck.”
“What I will do is I’ll probably have someone in the seat that I’m currently in on the stump grinding side, and then start trying to move up market into something like land clearing or fire mitigation, where there’s bigger machinery, that it’s more expensive and kind of harder to get into.”
Taking the Leap from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
Jeremy: “So before you launched this as a concept, did you just have like a regular W2 position at a SaaS company as a salesperson?”
Tyler: “I was just a salesperson at a normal W2 sales job. I heard this idea on a podcast, Chris Corner and Nick Hulensky… they have a podcast that they talked about this idea, which was like a B2B stump grinding business.”
“The very first month was August of last year. And I did the whole month, I did about nine grand in revenue, which was awesome, with the W-2 job. So that was doing stump grinding in the morning, at night and on weekends. By the end of August, I left my W-2 full time and just went and did the thing.”
Jeremy: “That’s amazing. That’s a fantastic story of like leaving it reminds me of like Brazil of the movie where he just kind of goes off the deep end just does his own thing. But was there anything you did beforehand? You know, planning wise, like, did you save up like X number of months worth of savings so that you could have a cushion or did you just like, just start running off for the hills?”
Tyler: “It wasn’t like super rash decision. We did a good amount of revenue in August on the books for September before September started. I had like a lot of jobs and it was kind of one of those things where I was like, if I do all these jobs, I’ll probably be fired from my job anyways.”
“I was a good employee. So I negotiated severance, from my employer. ‘Cause I was like, ‘Hey, I can help you guys. These are really good accounts that I’m selling to. I’ll help you offload all of these if you can give me a month or two of severance.’ They did that, which was awesome from them.”
The “Royal We”
Jeremy: “So is this you and your wife or a partner or a friend? You said ‘we’ a couple of times, and I just want to see who the ‘we’ is.”
Tyler laughed: “Yeah, it’s more the royal we, it’s just me. I mean, my wife, I am married, so I talk to her about all of my decisions.”
“I always say we, because it sounds more official. It makes me sound like I actually run a company rather than just me being out there. And when I show up to a job and I say we a lot, they’re like, this guy runs a big company. Little do they know behind the scenes, it’s just me.”
Cross-Promotion and Referral Partnerships
Jeremy: “So how do we work with other entities and businesses like in cross promotion? Like have you teamed up with other landscapers or crawl space guys? I’ve got an asphalt guy that I work with here and I’ve done a revenue share partnership with him. And so I’m looking at partnering with crawl space kings and looking to do co-marketing, find people where I can send them blog content. I can do co-marketing and get links from them and send them links and kind of boost. Has there been any sort of networking aside from just the subcontracting with the tree companies where you’ve seen any success so far?”
Tyler: “I’ve started subbing now with like, not just tree, like tree, landscape, concrete, fence companies has been kind of my cross marketing play. All of those feel like there’s a need as you go down that list.”
“When I’m in someone’s backyard, and I’m pretty good with people, so I’ll talk to the customer… And they ask me, ‘Hey, do you have a quote for that tree? Or we’re thinking about doing this, a hardscape solution or whatever.’ I have a partner that I refer that work to.”
“A lot of them, they’re big, like a new driveway is a big ticket. And so the concrete company I work with kicks me back 5% off of anything I refer. I’ve already worked for them. I asked them, ‘Hey, can I just refer you on stuff in the future?’ They say, ‘Yeah, we’ll kick you 5%.’ And it’s a great win-win.”
Recommendations for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
To wrap up, Jeremy: “What would be one piece of advice if somebody wants to follow in Tyler Mumford’s footprints away from their corpo job and find a trade, find a niche, find a thing? What might be either three similar industries, opportunities that you’ve kind of seen? I know on Twitter you’re talking to a lot of other ‘trade bros.’ So what have you seen as far as unique niches like that? And then, what’s your advice to go get that, make that happen?”
Tyler recommended three niche industries:
- “Stump grinding. As long as you’re not in Utah, I think it’s a great service that you can do anywhere.”
- “Commercial hood vent cleaning. It happens at night. It’s a really dirty job, but it’s reoccurring revenue and it is like pretty relatively high ticket. And it’s required by government to have these hood vents cleaned, you know, every three months, every six months.”
- “Hydro seeding. It’s very seasonal. So you’d need to couple this with something else probably. But it’s basically if they need to grow grass in a big massive football field or on the side of a highway after construction, they spray this like green paste that’s grass seed mulch and water all mixed up.”
Tyler emphasized looking for: “Niche B2B services with ideally with a decent amount of equipment costs to boot, because I think that that eliminates just guys that can, you know, like a high school kid can’t compete with you.”
Relevant Resources
Here are some helpful resources related to the topics Tyler discussed:
- Starting a Stump Grinding Business: Stump Grinder Buyer’s Guide – This comprehensive guide from Bandit Industries covers key considerations when purchasing stump grinding equipment, including undercarriage options, machine size selection, and cutterwheel choices.
- B2B Cold Outreach Strategies: The Dealfront Guide to Painless B2B Cold Outreach – This resource provides guidance on effective B2B cold outreach methods, explaining how to define your target audience and reach potential customers through various channels.
- Contractor Referral Programs: How to Start a Contractor Referral Program – Learn how to structure a referral program for contracting businesses, including best practices for making the sharing process easy and determining appropriate rewards.
- Commercial Hood Vent Cleaning: Commercial Hood Vent Cleaning Guide – Details on the commercial kitchen hood cleaning business that Tyler mentioned as a promising niche opportunity, including information about regulatory requirements and service frequency.
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