Transform Your Mindset: 5 Risk-Taking Habits for Business Growth

John Harcar (00:01.814)
All right, hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Vlad Khorenko. Hope I said that right. And what we’re going to talk about besides his journey in business and what he’s currently doing, we’re going to talk about how to really avoid mistakes in real estate, whether it’s the buy process, the evaluation process. He’s going to share with us some things to make sure you look out for. Remember, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers,really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business. And we do that to provide the tools and training to grow the business they want to grow and which helps them in turn build a life that they’ve always dreamed of. So, hey Vlad, welcome to our show.

Vlad Khorenko (00:46.062)
Yes, welcome. Welcome, John. I’m really glad and happy to be here. Based to be a plumber and working a lot of with realtors with a flipper. And I see a lot of costly mistakes when people do when they buy in process because they make mistake not when they sold and find a problem. They make mistake when they buy the property and they didn’t know how much is going to be cost them.

John Harcar (00:54.478)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (00:58.818)
Yeah.

John Harcar (01:03.5)
Right. Right. And I’m excited to talk about that and I’m looking forward to know to some tips and whatnot. But before we do all that, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about your background, kind of what brought you into your business, what brought you to today?

Vlad Khorenko (01:18.222)
Yeah, I’m immigrate. I’m originally born and grow in Ukraine. I’m born in USSR in 1986. It’s Ukraine was part of USSR and I moved in America in end of 2014 and I talked with the friends. have a zero English. I cannot buy gas on gas station and it’s like, I don’t know what do mean like do what’s his award. What’s this mean? Like I don’t have idea. This is how bad it is. And I talk with friends. They do tile work.

John Harcar (01:35.149)
Alright.

John Harcar (01:40.247)
You

Vlad Khorenko (01:46.51)
and they don’t like it and hate it. Like, why you do tile? Why you don’t change that? Because we started, we’ll learn at some trade. If we start new trade, we have to start to learn again and pay like minimum wage. And I look at it around like, okay, I want to be a plumber. And the first two weeks in America and make a decision, I got to be a plumber here.

John Harcar (01:56.856)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (02:04.771)
Any specific reason why you chose plumbing?

Vlad Khorenko (02:08.022)
Yeah, because I did plumbing in Ukraine. I have some experience on this. And it’s good money because you don’t charge for square feet. You charge per job. And when people shopping around, cannot how much is going to be because I need to see. I cannot tell you the price. And you have opportunity came and sell the job. its price is better always than a tile work on a plumbing. I believe so. Yeah. And this is how I decide to be a plumber. To start plumbing, I call many, many companies a year.

John Harcar (02:10.389)
Okay, alright.

John Harcar (02:33.399)
Hmm.

Vlad Khorenko (02:37.966)
Because no English, I cannot even make my first interview. And I cannot be employed anywhere to be a plumber because I cannot hire. And I do tile and harvest floor because it’s what I can do. And I did that time. And then I find a guy. He actually owner of Almka Plumbing. And I came here in 2016 like apprentice. And 2019 become the owner.

John Harcar (02:41.441)
Right.

John Harcar (02:59.735)
Okay.

John Harcar (03:03.755)
Hmm, so you bought it out from him.

Vlad Khorenko (03:06.254)
Not really a guy where I’m working, they have a health issue, they have a cancer and he fight with the cancer in business technically almost down, only him left. And I did some work for his friend and he see how I’m hard working and I have a like hanging and plumbing business. I’m start my own. And when I started doing the plumbing, he see how hard I’m working and he offered me, hey, I’m dying, I wanna help you.

John Harcar (03:22.668)
Yeah.

Vlad Khorenko (03:31.85)
and he offered me license use his license, which is go process. I paid some his dad and he be a remote in the company and it’s how start. Yeah.

John Harcar (03:37.121)
Wow.

John Harcar (03:40.619)
Wow. That’s, that’s an awesome story. So how long did it really take you to get me? Cause your English sounds pretty good now. You know, I mean, obviously I’ll be at that was, you know, 11 years ago when you came, but you know, how long did it really take for you to get more fluent?

Vlad Khorenko (03:56.0)
when you came to the client and you have to talk and you have understood what you need to do, your brain working 150 % because you go to the school, your brain lazy, doesn’t care. You learn wrong. Like, I don’t know. But when you do the work after that, that is a challenge. And this is how brain learn quickly. I remember point when I have a question for me, I give the answer for a contractor. I cannot translate what I say him.

But I know I’m answered correctly and he understood me correctly. Like my brain, he catch like whole conversation and he build it together. And I just answered and like, what did I just say?

John Harcar (04:33.485)
And you’re right. Okay, so when you started your own plumbing business and all that, I mean, I know you did it before. Did you find out, I mean, were there any struggles maybe being an immigrant when you started this business? Maybe people not trusting you, things like that?

Vlad Khorenko (04:49.568)
Okay, when I started, is the challenge. My wife answered the phone calls when I started my own business. I don’t really feel even one person look at for me for I’m immigrant and back speak English. And my English for you understood when I came to the house to be year and a half in America. It’s all what I know, put toilet, put faucet. And when I came to the house, my wife already told me the problem. It’s a kitchen or it’s a bathroom. And I tried to push them to the bathroom or kitchen for the

John Harcar (05:05.133)
Mm-hmm.

Vlad Khorenko (05:16.802)
can

John Harcar (05:23.117)
It sounds to you like womp womp womp womp womp womp. Yeah, yeah, Charlie Brown.

Vlad Khorenko (05:25.708)
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, this is how I have to start it. And I have a funny story when client, Jan answered the phone and she want to, and client want to talk with a plumber. And I advertised that time on the cry glyph and like, Hey, I want to talk to the plumber. And she said, plumber is busy. He cannot answer. Can you text him? They texted to me. I look at translated, answer the Ukrainian language sent to my wife. She translate to English. GPT chat is not existing at that time.

She sent me back the answer and I sent the to the client.

John Harcar (05:57.752)
Wow. So speed of response at that point wasn’t really a thing for you to have the luxury to do. So I mean, that’s awesome. So I mean, you ever came from adversity. You know, what does your business look like now? I mean, are you guys expanding a lot? Like, do you work with a lot with investors and stuff? And this will maybe transition into our topic today.

Vlad Khorenko (06:21.334)
Yes, as a multimillion business right now, I have around 20 employees. I have 10 vans. Most of we specialize right now for sewer work. We probably only company in San Diego who in-house. We do not stop contracting any work. We do all in-house because we can guarantee the quality of the work. And when we do this, we do pull in place, CIPP epoxy lining, inversion.

epoxy lining, spray brush coating epoxy lining, pie bursting epoxy lining. And we do all this in-house, like all different depends of situation because if some house you have to use two to three different technology to make a less secondary damage cost effective. You know, because you came to the house and they just put $30,000 to the hardwood floor and you have to tell him I need Jack Hammer your 30,000 hardwood floor. You’re insane. No, you cannot.

John Harcar (07:16.129)
Not gonna be a happy man. Uh-uh. No. If they let you.

Vlad Khorenko (07:21.794)
Yeah, yeah, we’re working with a group of investors. They buying like eight, 10 unit properties. We’ll look at give him advice for the sewer and work. We do re-pipe like top shower valve installation, like all those renovation stuff. We just give him a good price and he working with us long term and we just all his houses, we do all plumbing inside.

John Harcar (07:42.989)
Okay, well yeah, so I was gonna say, what services do you offer to investors? Just full inspections, full, I mean, do

Vlad Khorenko (07:48.43)
No, full inspection and we do a full plumbing remodel. Like if they relocate the bathroom on the changes or they repipe the house, depends what’s needed and situation and condition of the house. I came looking and inspected, hey, you will have to do on this house, this, that, that, and this stuff. And they know what expected is they won’t buy house or not. They, okay, I’m to be replaced all water pipe, sewer pipe is okay, or I need to replace all sewer pipe. And it’s a plus if it’s a, like right now 10 unit.

John Harcar (07:51.605)
and for Remodeling.

Vlad Khorenko (08:16.953)
10 units over there, and you’d replace your, it’s like plus 100k for sewer replacement. And he already expected, he’s be spending around 100k for sewer replacement, and he just put that on the budget and planning his stuff.

John Harcar (08:28.161)
Right, got it, very cool. All right, well let’s talk a little bit about what our topic was, like avoiding mistakes. So, you know, when you’re looking at things, what are you seeing as, you know, some of the top or more common mistakes people are making?

Vlad Khorenko (08:41.07)
when they buy in the house, they have to look at if how it was built before 1970, it’s mean cast iron pipe. It’s 95 % that pipe, even plumber run the camera and it’s no roots there. It doesn’t mean pipe is good. It’s mean pipe is dead. It’s like no pipe. When you start crashing, it just start crashing and crumbling because they got, Oh, it’s running. People don’t have problem is running fine because then when new buyer buying the house, I came with the camera for the buyer.

I run the camera and say, problem, here problem, here’s the clock, stay two, three months, it’s get worse, it start backing up right away and people doesn’t want buy it. It’s deal almost done and almost close and then escrow pay me 20, 30,000 from the escrow to get sure done because he cannot close the deal. And like two years ago where no one looked at on that and it doesn’t matter because no one pay. Right now seller pay for my shoe replacement and they pay me 20, 30,000 after all work is done.

John Harcar (09:26.636)
Yeah.

Vlad Khorenko (09:37.55)
and it can cost him 10, 15,000 on process of doing the work. And they have a better margin of the end. If he knows it’s gonna be problem. I see the situation when they sold the house, but sewer already broken. And buyer who buy the house, he go and sue and it’s a flip also. And he go and take them, them because they sold them with the broken sewer pipe. And this is where is the playing for. And 1970, it’s a good point here in San Diego.

John Harcar (09:42.775)
Okay.

Vlad Khorenko (10:04.718)
If house built before 1970, then it’s a sewer pipe and probably need bring a lot of attention. What’s this done? What’s this not done? And what’s have to be done and budget that because it’s 20, 30,000 can be added to the project. What they not expected. It’s a profit. Technically, at the end, it’s take all his profit.

John Harcar (10:13.324)
Yeah.

John Harcar (10:23.917)
So that makes sense. basically, you know, before, know, be willing to spend a little bit of money to get the full look at things before you actually close the deal, because you’re going to find the money pit later.

Vlad Khorenko (10:37.974)
Yep, yep. And you cannot, you have a buyer here ready to buy, but he say, Hey, sure. It’s bad when you fix it. And like, okay, you need another two, three months to get sold, you know, and pay interest and everything or pay for, and right now he’s staying in between. But if you know that situation before and he fixed it before he start put the new floor for 20,000 or 10,000 and wall and tile, you know, it’s cost him way less. It’s a different way. He have an option. He can shopping around and find a better, better option for him to fix it.

John Harcar (10:43.403)
Yeah.

John Harcar (10:58.166)
Right.

John Harcar (11:08.107)
They’re true. What other mistakes or what other things are people overlooking or not doing?

Vlad Khorenko (11:14.097)
Most expensive, water polybutylene, but people do fix it when they live with copper pipe. It’s all more what’s located underground because this is expensive. Because floor walls, to patch the wall is not a big deal. It’s not that expensive. But rip the floor out, go under concrete and fix it the slab leg because it’s a copper pipe under slab. when house will be in a situation where house stay on a sale in two months and it’s a slab leg happen. And house is renovated, full, ready to go, but he need break.

or fix it or reroute it and they have start process over. You know, like all this utility, plumbing utility is really, really cost effective. If it’s in the wall in the ceiling, if it’s leaking, he open fix it, it’s cost him three, five, $700,000 it’s all. When it’s underground, it’s a 10, 15, 20,000 cost going. And this is the big numbers. And this is the big mistake. Look at the water pipe underground, tour pipe underground. If it’s a case, look at how was the condition and be ready to.

John Harcar (11:45.933)
Mm.

John Harcar (12:01.579)
Right. Yeah.

Vlad Khorenko (12:11.234)
to have an extra not expected expenses over there.

John Harcar (12:15.041)
Yeah, that makes sense. So what other advice would you give to guys that are looking, you know, prior to making a purchase or selling a house? What other advice would you give to someone?

Vlad Khorenko (12:25.294)
for purchase the Again, all houses built in 1970, 95 % have a problem with the sewer. If it’s not renewed, replace it and change it completely. They 95 % have a problem with the sewer. New warehouse built in 1970 and after they use all ABS pipe and it’s only 5 % have a problem. It still have some problem, incorrect install belly, like shift and offset, like crack the sewer and the roots growing in, but it’s spot repair.

It’s easy to fix. It’s possible. It’s still possible, not that difficult. Copper underground. Copper underground is bad. Polybutylene, but everybody knows for polybutylene is bad. And everybody knows it has to be replaced. If you’re buying and you see polybutylene, it’s a plastic pipe, but they have multiple leaks. It has to be replaced. You have included cost to repipe whole unit. Just be ready for that.

John Harcar (12:57.868)
Right.

John Harcar (13:19.981)
Man, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing a lot of this. If there’s any listeners that are out in San Diego area, they might need some work done or maybe, you know, this is a vertical in their business construction business that they’re looking to add to add a service to their, you know, colleagues, you know, how do they get in touch with you? What’s the best way to connect?

Vlad Khorenko (13:41.644)
best way, Google Instagram, we probably have a best Instagram. If you have to see all the school technology for pipelining, pi-bursting, epoxy lining, and as soon how it’s work, go to YouTube channel Almka Plumbing. When I detail explain what’s problem, what mistake, why happened here or there. If you want a deep dive and understood more how it’s working and what’s problem have it with a detailed picture and explanation for everything for each technology, how they work in, and when you need to be done, you can go to YouTube channel Almka Plumbing.

You can go to Instagram. have pretty cool Instagram. We have some video with a million views for pipeline and replacement, different things, what’s going on in deployment. And you can reach us over there and you can go to Google My Business Yelp and call them from that number, wherever you like.

John Harcar (14:20.672)
Awesome.

John Harcar (14:28.856)
Cool. Well, and I think you are just looking, I saw notice that you sent me some of that in the show notes. So we’ll put it the show notes on the podcast. So guys, you can always click down there and get in touch. Vlad, once again, man, I appreciate you coming on here, bro. Thank you for sharing your story. Folks, I hope you enjoyed this and we will see you on the next one. Cheers.

Vlad Khorenko (14:39.576)
Perfect.

Vlad Khorenko (14:49.422)
Have a good day, guys.