Hi there 👋🏼 I'm Price.

I’m building a roofing company from scratch in my mid-30s and documenting the whole messy process. Watch me succeed or fail.

When I think of starting a business it looks like whiteboards and strategy sessions and big product launches. Then there's this week's version where you spend three hours trying to print something at FedEx.

Guess which one I'm living.

This week I finally submitted my C-39 roofing contractor's license application. Big milestone, right?! I've been waiting months for this. You'd think the actual submission would be the easy part.

...It wasn't.

My printer is out of ink, so I went to my in-law's house to use theirs. Their printer is broken. I spent 40 minutes troubleshooting their printer (because of course I did), can't get it working.

Went to FedEx to print it all off.

Went home to put application package together.

Went back to FedEx to send it.

Didn't have my ID.

Drove home, got ID.

Drove back to FedEx to send.

Three hours. To print and mail something.

I know you've probably had something similar happen. Just one of those days.

This is what "building a business" actually looks like most days. Maybe not this bad, but it's not always the wins, often it's a series of small, annoying tasks that each take 3x longer than they should because something always goes sideways. Again, most of that was my own fault, I know. But the point is there are a thousand of these little things that have to happen, and nobody talks about them because they're not interesting enough to talk about.

Welcome to the muddy waters.

The FedEx thing was just an example, but overall this whole week was a combination of tedious stuff that isn't super interesting but has to get done:

I'm still figuring out insurance for my new office space. This took longer than expected, which means I've paid for two weeks of rent on an office I can't move into yet because I don't have the insurance certificate. The things you learn!

Car insurance needed to be finalized and proof sent to my credit union so they don't drop my financing.

Following up on a handful of jobs that are in various stages of "maybe."

Setting up my CRM with processes and systems, etc.

I know this isn't glamorous content. But this is honestly the stuff in the middle that needs to happen and since I'm a one man show right now...it's all on me.

I will say, my ADHD has been firing off the charts with this many tasks. I'm trying to figure out some good ways to stay organized and keep myself accountable so I don't drop the ball on things or procrastinate on others. If anyone has ideas, holler.

Not everything was a slog though!

A friend of mine who's a real estate agent referred me to two jobs this week. And a neighbor came to me with a third. Three potential jobs, and I haven't spent a dollar on marketing yet. That's not life-changing revenue, but it definitely keeps spirits high and helps keep my sanity in check -- there are people who know what I'm doing, and they're already thinking of me when roofs come up.

I'm also getting excited about the marketing channels I'm building out. The SEO plan is progressing, the website is close to done, and I've got some ideas in the works that I think will really set Rally apart. More on that in the next few weeks.

I know, I know. Your feed is probably drowning in AI and agentic tool content right now. Everyone and their mother is posting about OpenClaw, Claude Code, etc, and whatever dropped this morning. It's fully oversold at this point and I get it if you're over it.

But hear me out.

I spent some time this week playing with OpenClaw, and I'm now pretty convinced that I'll be able to automate somewhere between 80-90% of my back office tasks. Maybe not with OpenClaw, and definitely not tomorrow.... I think it will take probably 6-12 months for full implementation. But the potential is real.

And yes, ok, some of you may think I'm dumb for spending time on this stuff right now instead of just knocking on doors. Here's why I disagree:

I'm in this weird limbo where I'm waiting on my license, so I actually have time to set up the business properly. A big part of "properly" is figuring out how technology can give me an unfair advantage.

Two things I'm going after:

Cost savings. In my business plan, I had this kind of wild projection that I could save 30-40% on overhead through automation. When I wrote it, I honestly thought it sounded aggressive, and was a pie-in-the-sky type thing. After seeing what's actually possible right now with agents? I'm fully convinced I can hit that number.

A better customer experience. This is the one that really excites me. Here's what I'm building toward:

A lead comes in through the website. My AI assistant -- his name is Cody (because he's written in code...duh) -- pulls that lead, grabs the address, double-checks it's in my service area, runs it through EagleView or QuickMeasure to get all the project measurements, qualifies the lead, and using our pricing and bidding system, generates a full custom proposal, all within about 30 seconds of the lead coming in. I get pinged, skim it, confirm it looks right, and it's immediately emailed or texted to the customer.

Lead to proposal in under 30 minutes (a little longer with satellite measurements). For simpler jobs or quick quotes, we're talking minutes, not days.

Obviously there are many projects I'll want to get on the roof for, and interact with the customer. But the scheduling of those meetings can happen automatically too.

For RE agents or solar reps who need quick quotes...this is a game changer. I would be very surprised if anyone is doing this level of automation in roofing today. Now, there are some "instant quotes" on roofing websites out there, but in my opinion those are more of a lead intake tool -- they give you a rough range, not an actual proposal specific to your roof. I'm talking about a full, measurement-based, design-specific bid that shows up in your inbox.

If I can pull that off, that alone puts Rally Roofing leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. And it fits perfectly into the Rally philosophy -- the whole point is that we operate like a professional racing team. Fast. Technical. Communicative. The idea of a rapid response time and a 30-minute proposal tells that story better than any ad ever could.

It also feeds referrals, which is the whole game in roofing. My goal is to create such a mind-blowing experience that people can't help but tell their friends: "I submitted my info and had a full proposal in my inbox 30 minutes later."

The way I'm thinking about Rally Roofing is as a technology-first operating business. Which I think matters especially in the Silicon Valley market where people appreciate that kind of thing.

This isn't about replacing the craftsmanship or the relationship -- it's about everything around it. The speed, the communication, the follow-up, the back office. All the stuff that most roofing companies are terrible at, because they're (understandably) focused on the work itself.

By building this way, I think I'm setting up a business model that only gets better as AI gets better. I'm going about it in a different business category than most people using these tools, but honestly, I think that's exactly where the opportunity is right now.

Yes, you may feel like I'm getting distracted. But I feel the opposite. In my heart of hearts, I feel like this technology will give me the ability to double down on my business and outperform.

Marketing, and local newsletters...?

If you're building something and feel like you're stuck in the mud right now -- I feel you. This is the part nobody posts about. But it's the part that matters.

Reply and tell me what you're grinding through. I read everything.

Talk soon.

-- Price

P.S. -- If you're new here, Issue #1 has the full backstory. Fair warning: crypto collapse, emergency C-section, lots of figuring out life.