How I Went From $300 to $25,000,000
The full story behind my business
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One day, a friend called me.
“Hey Marc. I need a fan installed. Is that something you can do?”
So I installed the fan. I made $300 for it. That night, I went home to my fiance (now wife), Chelsie.
“Honey,” I said. “I could probably actually make some money from this.”
And the wheels started to turn.
Before we start, a few facts about my businesses:
• I run both MAK Construction and MAK Capital.
• I started MAK Construction in 2014 and MAK Capital in 2020.
• My businesses are on pace to clear $25M in revenue in 2024.
• My goal for 2025 is to exceed $50M in revenue.
I’ve had quite a few people ask what the early days of my business looked like and how we were able to grow to what we are today.
So here’s the story:
With the $300 in my pocket from the fan installation, I had a new goal: Make enough money to pay for the mortgage. I had worked for my dad’s concrete business since I was 8 years old, but had recently quit.
At this point, I was 21 years old. I had a W2 job and was finishing school. Chelsie and I had bought a house with Obama money in 2009, but a couple weeks after the closing of that house, I got fired from my W2.
(Right around that time, we sold Chelsie’s car for cash. I bought her a new car, but you can imagine what her parents thought of me, ha.)
So, it wasn’t a great situation. Then, I made the $300 from the fan installation. And it seemed like as good of a route to pursue as any.
Chelsie’s dad owned a small business in town. He had an employee in a tiny town in northern Minnesota called Kennedy. Kennedy has about 200 people, and at the time, none of them were contractors. This guy needed a bunch of work done on his house, so I borrowed some tools and drove up to Kennedy.
It was this old 1900s house. I sided it, did the roofing, insulated it… Touched every inch of the place. I even ended up pouring this guy an exterior garage slab and building him a garage. He got the price of a lifetime. And I got my first real job done.
After that, I went to Chelsie’s mom:
“Will you co-sign a skid steer loan?”
Keep in mind, I’m 21 at the time. I don’t have a job and had recently sold her daughter’s car for cash.
“I’ll co-sign the loan,” she told me. “But this is the last time you ever ask me again.”
We left it at that.
My first year of business, I did about $250,000 total.
Then, winter rolled around. And in North Dakota, that means the construction projects shut down for the year. I got a job with a snow removal guy and busted my ass. It was normal for me to work 16 hours a day. If there was a snow storm, I wouldn’t sleep—I just made as much money as I could.
But when it didn’t snow, I didn’t have anything to do.
Chelsie had a background in marketing, and she suggested I do a home show. So that spring, I went and did the home show, advertising concrete and building garages.
Maybe it was timing or circumstance or luck, but I was the busiest guy at that home show. I walked out of there with 70+ leads and had work for the next year.
So I reached out to those leads, and that year, I made $1 million in revenue.
“OK,” I thought. “I guess I can really do this.”
And then I started hiring people. Then a couple more people every year. It never got crazy—I just kept growing a little more and a little more. We poured a lot of concrete. We stuck to what we knew.
So during the day, I’d be pouring concrete. At night, I’d go home and run estimates for new business in my Excel spreadsheet.
I was always thinking about how to go another step above, so I started doing stamp concrete. It’s basically just decorative concrete—nice for patios and things like that. At the time, no one else was really offering it in Grand Forks, North Dakota. So I’d spend hours on Google SketchUp trying to draw patios to show the stay-at-home wives I’d interact with during my days pouring concrete at houses.
That turned into my first “upsell.” And I learned a lesson that more or less changed the entire face of my business: Keeping one good customer happy is better than finding 40 customers and doing an OK job.
And from there, I’d just take on a few more projects every year. And when I didn’t have enough employees, I’d hire another couple. And for the least 14 years, that’s all we’ve done.
In 2020, I launched MAK Capital to expand on the development side.
Through MAK Capital, we develop and invest in luxury storage and other projects. It was a logical path to take, given how vertically integrated we’re able to be with MAK Construction humming along.
When I look back on where I started and where I am now, a few things stand out:
1. Since I started working for my dad’s concrete business when I was 8, I’ve basically been in this business for 30 years. It’s what I know best, and I knew what I was getting myself into.
2. There was no crazy business plan or innovative product we created. I got one customer, then a second, then a third, and just expanded from there.
3. I caught a couple of breaks and had great support from Chelsie’s family, despite being the 21-year-old engaged to their daughter with no job. No one truly does everything alone, and a little luck never hurts.
So, that’s the story.
I’ve poured a lot of concrete, shoveled a lot of snow, and spent a lot of hours driving to get my hands dirty in rural towns nobody has ever heard of.
But more or less, I’ve just shown up every day and tried to make clients happy, do projects the right way, and build relationships.
I don’t think it’s a whole lot more complicated than that.
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