How American Home Screens Grew From $10K to $175K a Year Fixing Window Screens

How did American Home Screens get started in Bristol, Connecticut?

American Home Screens started because a crew of house flippers lost their screen guy. About six months after high school, Jay asked a local landlord and property investor, who at his peak owned about 110 units, if he could intern for him. He spent the first few months in the office taking calls and screening tenants, then moved to the contracting crew, who handed him the worst jobs on site and taught him how to repair window screens.

The crew’s previous screen person had quit to open a coffee shop, and nobody else in the area repaired window and door screens on site. They suggested Jay turn it into a business. A little more than six years later he is still the owner-operator, and he says there is still no real competition. He calls it “a very, very blue ocean market,” and puts that down to seasonality: in Connecticut the phone rings when people can open their windows and stops when they cannot.

He started out working from a Ford Taurus sedan, then a Chevy Trailblazer. “They are not glamorous cars and the first one was only a little sedan, but it got the job done,” he said.

What does a window screen repair business sell, and what is a job worth?

American Home Screens sells two services, and its average ticket is $650.

• Rescreening. The frame is in good condition and only the mesh is torn or sun-baked, so the mesh is replaced.
• Manufacturing. The screen is missing or the frame is bent or broken, so a whole new one is built. This costs more.
• Pet screen. A thicker, scratch-resistant mesh for homes with cats and dogs. It is one of the most popular add-ons, because paying for it once beats paying for a second rescreen.

Where the work happens changes the number. Customers who bring screens to the shop average about $280. On-site customers average about $850. The biggest job so far was about $6,500 for a multifamily complex.

For about three years the company has run a pickup and drop-off model: Jay removes the screens at the home, his father repairs them in the shop, and Jay goes back to install them. It works, but it doubles the drive time. Next year he plans to return to fully on-site work from an outfitted van with heat and air conditioning, so weather stops being a problem.

How did revenue go from $10,000 to a $175,000 pace?

Jay said he changed something every year. In year one he made $10,000 while still working a paid internship at minimum wage. This year the business is on pace for $175,000. The moves he credits:

• A virtual assistant who answers the phone. She also writes most of the estimates. “Call 10. Two to three might answer,” he said of contractors. He says this alone lifted revenue over last year.
• Pricing by math. He did not raise prices this year, only changed how he charges, but he watches close rate and capacity to know when to. His model has two phases: a growth phase where lower prices bring volume, reviews and referrals, and a profit phase where you raise prices and take fewer customers.
• Google first. He pictured how he would look for a screen repair himself, so he built a website on GoDaddy and got his first lead from search within a day. His Google Business Profile is now his biggest lead source, Facebook is second, and referral partnerships with adjacent trades are the third channel he wants to focus on.

How does a seasonal business use the off season?

Mostly to build, because Jay says he has not solved winter revenue yet. Calls come every month, but the season starts in early to mid April and peaks in May and June.

So the off season goes to what he calls the boring stuff: marketing strategy, sales and systems. The busy season is when he executes and sees how well it worked. Marketing harder in winter does not fix demand, he said. A man dying of thirst in the desert does not want a discounted steak. He wants water.

New services such as holiday lights, glass, winter panels and winterization are ideas for next year, not commitments.

How did American Home Screens double its Google reviews?

By testing ways of asking until one converted. Jay went from doing nothing, to NiceJob, to a manual text after each job, to Jobber’s built-in request, and back to manual texts when the generic Jobber message converted worse. The text that worked was personal: his name, a hope that they liked their screens, and a note that a Google review would help other homeowners get theirs done. He then automated that same message with Review Harvest and went from 50 reviews to about 114 in roughly three months.

Reviews matter in his trade because people want to know who is coming into their home. Customers tell him so directly: “I looked you up really good and you passed my test, so here you are.”

What would Jay tell someone starting a home service business?

Have a high level of personal accountability and an honest reason for doing it. As an employee there is a manager to take the problem. As the owner there is nobody above you. He tells people to ask themselves why they want this, whether it is money, status, building something or proving someone wrong, because every owner hits a hard point and needs a reason to stay.

“You win by staying in the game,” he said. To him that means profit, consistent revenue and not going bankrupt.

His goal for next year is about $250,000 in revenue and his first on-site technician. He expects to need roughly double the leads to get there.