How One Chimney Sweep Scaled to 10 Million by Fixing Seasonal Demand

In this episode, Lucas and Luna look at how a residential chimney sweep in Minneapolis grew from a one-man operation to a $10 million company by solving the classic service-business problem: you make all your money in four months and spend the other eight scrambling. The founder, a former high-school teacher named Dan Ostlund, didn't just add more services. He rebuilt his entire labor model around a 'winter core' and a 'summer swing' team, using a revenue-sharing structure that kept his best technicians on payroll year-round. Lucas walks through the numbers — 60 percent of annual revenue still comes between October and January — and explains how Ostlund used data from those eight slow months to cross-train technicians into a second business line: commercial boiler maintenance. Luna pushes back on whether that model actually scales past 10 million, and they talk about the real constraint: finding technicians who want structure, not just a seasonal check. This episode is for anyone running a seasonal business — or anyone who's ever wondered how to keep a team together when the work dries up for half the year. #ChimneySweep #SeasonalBusiness #Scaling #SmallBusinessGrowth #RevenueSharing #LaborModel #CrossTraining #BoilerMaintenance #Minneapolis #DanOstlund #ServiceBusiness #CashFlow #Retention #WinterPeak #SummerSlump #BusinessPodcast #FexingoBusiness #ScalingUpWithFexingo Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo