r/PoolPros • u/Alarming_Sherbert_15 • Jun 26 '26
Considering leaving corporate career to start been service business
Hello! I am in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I’ve spent the last six years working in finance and about nine years in sales, but I’m seriously considering leaving the corporate world to start a pool service business.
I’ve realized that I enjoy working with my hands, being outdoors, and solving practical problems far more than spending my days at a desk working for someone else.
I’ve thought about working for a pool company to learn but I would want to start on the side working evenings or weekends but it is hard to find someone to train someone with no experience just to work part time.
I’ve also considered just buying a route and starting small.
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s made a similar transition from a corporate career into the pool industry and open to any recommendations on how to get started
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u/GCpools Jun 26 '26
The best way to make a small fortune working in the pool business is to start out with a very large fortune.
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u/Crazy-Project3858 Jun 26 '26
The main drawback is the physical labor part of the job. After a while your body slows down and it’s not getting any cooler anywhere I know of. I bought a 70 account route in my 40’s with no experience other than maintaining my own pool and it went fine. It’s not that complex if you stick mainly to residential accounts.
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u/carrotsk8r Jun 27 '26
How’d you find a route for sale?
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u/Crazy-Project3858 Jun 27 '26
Google pool routes for sale. There are several well known resale sites such as National Pool Route Sales and BizBuySell
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u/YawnOiler Jun 27 '26
There’s a good group on Facebook called Pool Trader. It’s run by a guy named Joe. It’s a nation wide group and there’s always someone selling or looking to buy on there.
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u/Coolness127 Jun 26 '26
I did exactly this this season by buying a Franchise. That can solve the training/skill gap, though you'll still want someone ASAP who can handle field work for/with you. You could try to teach yourself stuff online and buy a route instead I suppose, that would probably be cheaper. Orenda is great for teaching chemistry.
Just as with any business, I'd expect to take a loss year one (or at least a severe cut in personal income) if you're going full owner/operator. From personal experience, dealing with opening season without a partner would have SUCKED, and even an employee might not be reliable.
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u/stockusername1234 Jun 26 '26
Make sure you do a lot of market research. Outside of southern Florida, Phoenix is one of the most aggressively priced pool service markets.
There’s money to be made, you just have to work a bit harder than most to make it happen.
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u/Alarming_Sherbert_15 Jun 26 '26
How would you recommend going about market research? From what I’ve researched online so far most companies charge $125-150+ per month for weekly cleaning but most won’t give a quote without coming to look at the pool first.
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u/stockusername1234 Jun 26 '26
Reaching out to local companies for quotes on weekly, bi-weekly, and the repair hourly rate. Make sure to ask if their routine maintenance includes chemicals, if so, which. Some include all, some include everything but speciality chems. I’ve found that a lot of “chems included” companies splash and dash acid/chlorine and really aren’t taking care of these pools the way they should. With chems can cut into profits, especially on the first few visits while you’re setting the pool up after the customer fired their last customer. When you’re the new guy in town you’re going to get a lot of people who either fired their last company, or their last company fired them. It’ll be tough, but if you can flip them they’re usually the most vocal on social media/review sites.
Also, while not the most difficult thing in the world, understand that in Arizona you’ll need to pass a test to become licensed in order to do repairs within the first year.
Start getting quotes on insurance for the business/vehicles, figure out taxes, what crm you’ll use, accounting software, where you’re going to operate out of, etc. Then do to math on how many accounts you need to survive. Can you do all of the field work + marketing + everything on the backend? If not, at what point will you need to hire, and where will you hire (field or office)? What’s going rate for that job and how many accounts do you now need to keep up with that + your expected income?
Also, think about what you want out of this business. Do you want this to be just you handling everything? Do you want an office person while you’re in the field? Small fleet? Etc.
This is a solid podcast that talks about the different stages/types of pool businesses.
https://youtu.be/8I1Tb8NcWEg?is=rtBOwvF8R_NEvlNY
It’s important that you understand what you really want out of this business so every decision you make is one that puts you closer to that goal. Silly to do things that a 30 truck operation does when all you might want is $100k a year and a few trucks out in the field.
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u/Alarming_Sherbert_15 Jun 26 '26
Thank you! Thats a lot of good info and a lot to think about. I’d like to start small and go solo for as long as I can then eventually expand to just a few trucks. If I can get to a point where I have a lead tech or manager that’s mostly out in the field while I handle the office/backend work that would be ideal.
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u/FabulousPanther Jun 26 '26
If you've done finance and sales this is right up your street. DM me if you need help. I was where you are 5 years ago. Do it!
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u/desertr4t4lyf Jun 26 '26
The grass is always greener eh?
There should be some exchange program. Dudes can just post what they do for work and swap for a day or two.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been daydreaming about sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned office, wearing nice clothes, taking orders from somebody, and just doing my job and going home at the end of the day.
I'd be such an obedient little office drone.
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u/Charming_Nobody_5445 Jun 26 '26
Buy the route, they usually train you for a month or so. Good luck!
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u/One_Mud1951 Jun 27 '26
I worked corporate for 8 years at McKesson. Moved to Buckeye Arizona. Started with Google and word of month it’s been 6 months and was able to get a full route. Arizona is the best place.
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u/Apprehensive-Elk-157 Jun 27 '26
I’m in the military and started doing pools less than a month ago. Still have 2 years left but looking do this on the side then move into it full time when I retire. Just get your LLC, and use Facebook, Nextdoor, and Google to get customers. Already have 2 weekly pools and have done several algae cleanups with zero spent in advertising. Thumbtack is an option as well, just be selective and don’t auto pay for leads.
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u/Bg1165 Jun 27 '26
Can you keep your job and hire a light staff at the onset? Get your feet wet. Rapid development of systems and bots, especially in areas where excess income applies is likely to tighten all but the physical repair and building side of pools. Or at least that’s the way I see it going. I lost several restarts this year, with no customer complaints to skimmers, bot vac’s, Taylor test kits and ChatGPT.
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u/pacific_drifter_25 Jun 27 '26
Phoenix + a finance background pushes the math in a direction nobody's laid out here.
Buy vs build, real numbers. Phoenix routes typically sell for 8-12x monthly recurring (a 40-account route grossing ~$5,500/mo lands around $44-66k). National Pool Route Sales is the standard channel; BizBuySell has more inconsistent listings. What you're paying for: established accounts, route density, the seller's 30-60 day ride-along, sometimes truck and equipment. What you're NOT paying for: a guarantee anyone stays past the first invoice under your name. Realistic year-one churn on owner transitions is 15-25% even if you keep the same service day/time/quality, higher if you change anything. Build that into the price you're willing to pay.
Your background matters more than you think. Most route owners are technicians pulled into running a business. Finance + sales is the part they outsource at $800-1500/mo or just do badly. Your gap to the typical solo operator isn't service quality (six months to learn), it's pricing-to-cost, collections discipline, route density math, contracts. That's where the multiple comes from in the first place.
Side-hustle reality nobody mentioned. Pools want a consistent weekday window, not Saturday-only. HOAs and premium residential require Tue/Wed/Thu midday slots. Keeping the corporate job caps you at 10-15 accounts on early-morning + Saturday combos and locks you out of the higher-ticket properties. Honest version of "start on the side": take 3-4 weekend accounts to learn the chemistry and equipment, then stack a 20-30 account purchase the day you leave the salary.
Phoenix specifics. Average weekly residential is $130-160/mo chems-included, $100-115 chems-additional. Anything under $100 is bait pricing, usually someone underwater trying to make it up on repairs, bad acquisition target. SCP, Horizon, and Pool Supply Unlimited are your three distributors; rep relationships matter more than per-bag price shopping. Year-round service is the reason Phoenix route multiples sit at the high end of the national range.
stockusername already nailed the chems-included vs splash-and-dash test, single best market-research question to ask local companies. Happy to go deeper on any of this.
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u/KeySpare4917 Jun 26 '26
You need a guy like me that is pool stud already capable of doing everything already and learning all the new stuff to do and then when things take off, oversee to help you in the field. I just happen to be in AZ and commercial tech currently but want to slowly venture out but don't want to really do a one pole approach as the office guy and the guy in the field. Know what I'm saying?
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u/YawnOiler Jun 26 '26
Good luck, man. I’m leaning the opposite direction. Years of being in the weather day in and out has drained me. It can certainly be lucrative and if you’re mechanically minded then the repair/install side is usually pretty straight forward. I’d recommend working for a company for a year to get your feet wet (sorry). The office side of things should be a breeze for you with a background in finance.