Boots & Ladders Academy
So if you haven’t looked lately, check out the local pros putting their own names behind their work—with upfront pricing, transparent profiles, and services ready to buy.
By Omar Kharbat · · 5 min read
Updated
True story. Six years ago, I decided to go at it again and build something bigger than my first business, Sano Steam, and my second adventure, Nebo Commercial.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t really know why I was doing it.
That was probably my chance to walk away, get off the grid, and enjoy what I had already accomplished. But I wasn’t content.
I thought, if Muhammad Ali could get back in shape and keep chasing greatness, I was going to feel like a schmuck trading my truck for a luxury car and calling it a day.
So I prayed:
God, give me a problem to solve bigger than the ones I solved before.
The bigger the problem, the bigger the solution. And maybe the bigger the reward.
The reward wasn’t money.
I wanted to pass on what I had learned from almost 30 years of doing service work—and later, from being on the other side buying services while managing commercial properties.
Looking back, there were three stages.
Maybe someone reading this can learn something from them.
First, I started collecting all my notes from years of running a service business: problems, mistakes, solutions, things we learned the hard way.
Most of those notes originally went into training new hires so we wouldn’t keep repeating the same mistakes.
Eventually, those notes became two books that never made it to publishing.
One was called *Niche Happens.*
The other was *The Grand Opening.*
Both were written for skilled service pros.
Then I started building templates, forms, systems, and guides to help pros launch and grow service businesses.
And somewhere along the way, I found myself marketing for them.
Old habits.
After three decades of running Sano Steam through constantly changing media channels, I couldn’t resist jumping into the next one.
Then one day, the dots connected.
Why market for one pro at a time?
Why not market all of them together, under one roof?
That’s when a two-sided marketplace was born.
We temporarily called the beta:
Boots & Ladders.
And yes, I knew it was a recipe for disaster.
No obvious product-market fit.
Pros hate paying for things they think they can do themselves.
Buyers want reviews, insurance, guarantees, and apparently a PhD plumber wearing a suit to show up at their front door.