The UpFlip Podcast

Dr. Stacey McFarland was tired of watching well-meaning pet parents feed their dogs birthday cakes and treats packed with toxic sugars, salt, and artificial fillers. So, this practicing veterinarian decided to step into the kitchen and change the industry herself.
In this episode of the UpFlip Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Stacey to uncover how she built Doggie Bakery Miami. What started as a zero-budget passion project baking healthy treats for Caribbean shelter dogs has exploded into a luxury pet bakery generating 7-Figure a year. She shares exactly how she transitioned from a side project into a premium brand that caters to everyday dog moms and celebrity VIPs like IShowSpeed.
If you are looking for the push to start your own business or want to learn how to stand out in a saturated market, this episode proves that you don't need a massive budget to launch—you just need a great product and the grit to keep going.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The Vet-Approved Differentiator: Why refusing to cut corners with cheap fillers and focusing on organic, science-backed ingredients allowed her to command premium pricing.

Starting on a Shoestring Budget: How to launch a profitable business with just a few dollars, a smartphone camera, and an LLC.

Organic Marketing Mastery: How showing your face, connecting with the local community, and leveraging organic social media beats expensive paid ads.

Surviving the First-Year Valleys: A raw look at entrepreneurial burnout, 3:00 AM oven disasters, and why refusing to quit is the ultimate secret to success.

Scaling Without Selling Out: How to grow your revenue while staying true to your core mission and refusing to mass-produce a lower-quality product.

Stop waiting for the perfect business plan and take your first step today!
Tags: Side hustle, Entrepreneurship, Business growth, Business ideas, Pet Bakery
Resources:
The only thing worse than never starting a business… is starting the wrong one. That’s why we created the UpFlip Assessment. It’s a free tool that matches you with business ideas based on your skills, budget, experience, goals, and the kind of work you actually want to do. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool:  https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment 

Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify 

Connect with Andrea: https://www.instagram.com/andreapalacio/?hl=en

When Andrea Palacio stepped into the unfamiliar home services industry as an inexperienced founder, disaster struck almost immediately. A rogue manager quit after convincing 10 employees to leave, top clients walked away, and monthly revenue plummeted from $70,000 down to $40,000—all while Andrea was pregnant with her second child and raising an eight-month-old.
With zero technical background and no trade experience, Andrea refused to give up. Armed with YouTube tutorials and sheer grit, she taught herself how to build custom AI automations using Claude Code to save her struggling business. Today, her landscaping company generates over $1 million a year, operates seamlessly on autopilot, and runs so effectively without her daily involvement that she recently turned down an offer to sell it.
In this episode of the UpFlip Podcast, Andrea sits down with Ryan Atkinson to reveal how a first-time operator replaced tedious manual tasks with custom AI agents—from 24/7 AI voice receptionists and automated invoice follow-ups to hands-free Google Ad optimization.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The Time & Energy Audit: How to analyze your weekly schedule as a new founder to pinpoint the exact manual, repetitive tasks you should delegate to AI first.

Hands-Free Google Ads: How connecting Claude directly to your Google Ads campaign slashes your cost-per-click and replaces $4,000/month marketing agencies.

The AI Receptionist & Invoice Chaser: How Andrea built automated AI voice agents to answer missed calls, book appointments directly into calendars, and follow up on past-due invoices.

Automating 5-Star Reviews: The exact post-service automation workflow that sends instant, time-stamped photos to clients and drives a consistent stream of 5-star Google reviews.

One Tool to Rule Them All: Why you don't need to master dozens of complex AI tools, and why focusing deeply on one platform (like Claude) is all it takes to transform your operations.

Tags: Service & Consulting, Home Services, Business scaling, Home Services, AI, Landscaping, Automation
Resources:
The only thing worse than never starting a business… is starting the wrong one. That’s why we created the UpFlip Assessment. It’s a free tool that matches you with business ideas based on your skills, budget, experience, goals, and the kind of work you actually want to do. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool:  https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment 

Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify 

Connect with Andrea: https://www.instagram.com/andreapalacio/?hl=en

Brent Fletcher knew absolutely nothing about home inspections—until he bought his first house during COVID. After watching an inspector uncover thousands of dollars in hidden defects, Brent was handed an $8,000 check for closing concessions. That same day, he took that exact $8,000, deposited it, and went all-in on starting his own home inspection business.
He committed to a 100-day challenge to be laser-focused on his new venture, and landed his very first paying client on day 97. Today, Brent's company completes over 500 inspections a year at up to $900 a ticket. Not only did he scale to a team of five, but he also built a massive online presence, growing from 4,000 to over 250,000 followers in just six months by giving the internet a front-row seat to his craziest job-site discoveries.
In this episode, Brent sits down with Ryan Atkinson to reveal his ultimate side-hustle playbook. He breaks down how he survived 16-hour days as a bartender while building his company, the exact networking strategy he used to get his first leads, and his 4:00 AM video editing routine that sparked explosive viral growth.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The 100-Day Launch Plan: How Brent used extreme focus and local chamber of commerce networking to get his business off the ground with zero industry connections.

The Post-Inspection Pitch: Why an inspection doesn't end when you leave the crawlspace, and how using a laser pointer and an iPad presentation guarantees lifelong referrals from real estate agents.

The 4:00 AM Viral Routine: The daily posting schedule and simple video editing strategy Brent used to attract a quarter of a million followers in just six months.

Who to Hire First: Why hiring another inspector is the biggest mistake you can make when scaling, and why an admin should always be your very first hire.

Tags: Home Services,  Service & Consulting, Side hustle, Entrepreneurship, Home Inspection, Startup Resources:
The only thing worse than never starting a business… is starting the wrong one. That’s why we created the UpFlip Assessment. It’s a free tool that matches you with business ideas based on your skills, budget, experience, goals, and the kind of work you actually want to do. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool:  https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment 

Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify 

Connect with Brent: https://www.instagram.com/inspector_fletch/?hl=en

Tommy Mello took a college side hustle painting garage doors and turned it into A1 Garage—a home service behemoth on track to generate over $260 million in revenue this year. But he didn't do it by acting like a traditional tradesman. He did it by running his blue-collar business with the data-driven precision of a Silicon Valley tech giant.
In this episode, Tommy sits down with Ryan Atkinson to reveal the aggressive scaling playbook that took him from a broke college kid driving a salvage-title truck to leading a company marching toward a $1.4 billion valuation. Tommy breaks down his obsession with marketing and data, including the exact four KPIs he uses to buy, fix, and scale any service business on the planet.
Whether you want to dominate your local market or expand across 22 states, Tommy shares exactly how to build a bulletproof brand, why you should give equity to your technicians, and the networking secret that allowed him to walk into $100M+ shops and copy their exact blueprints for success.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The 4 Golden KPIs: The exact four metrics (Booking Rate, Door Conversion Rate, Average Ticket, and Cost Per Acquisition) Tommy uses to guarantee massive profit margins.

Creating Blue-Collar Millionaires: Why Tommy gave away over 20% of his company's equity to his top technicians before private equity ever got involved.

The Expansion Playbook: Why "spraying and praying" is a mistake, and why you must completely dominate your local market before attempting to expand across state lines.

The Billionaire Mindset: How to out-delegate your competition, avoid "shiny object syndrome," and pay for access to the smartest mentors in your industry.

Tags: Home Services, Service & Consulting, Business Scaling, Business Mindset, KPI

Resources:
The only thing worse than never starting a business… is starting the wrong one. That’s why we created the UpFlip Assessment. It’s a free tool that matches you with business ideas based on your skills, budget, experience, goals, and the kind of work you actually want to do. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool:  https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment 

Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify 

Connect with Tommy Mello: https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/?hl=en

Dominic Rubino knows a painful truth about the trades: being great at your job has almost nothing to do with whether your business makes money. Growing up in an immigrant family of welders and framers, he watched talented contractors grind for years just to barely break even.
After nearly going bankrupt running his own house-painting business, Dominic realized he needed to stop acting like a tradesman and start acting like a CEO. He mastered the systems of business, eventually building and exiting a massive $120 million mail-order pharmacy empire. Today, Dominic is a high-level business coach dedicated to helping blue-collar entrepreneurs fix their pricing, build systems, and finally get paid what they’re worth.
If you are exhausted, underpriced, and tired of working 70-hour weeks just to survive, this episode gives you the exact blueprint to step out of the daily grind and into the owner's chair.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
You Are Not Your Customer: Why pricing jobs based on what you can afford is keeping your business broke, and how to confidently sell to high-ticket clients.
The 30% Close Rate Rule: Why you should actively try to lose 7 out of 10 bids, and how closing every estimate means you are severely underpricing your work.
The 40% Profit Target: Dominic breaks down the exact math of a healthy service business and why you must aim for 40% to 50% gross profit margins on every single job.
Calendar Selling: How to create genuine urgency and close deals faster by selling forward and backward through the customer's calendar.
The E-Myth Shift: The critical mindset shift from being a "flooring guy who runs a business" to a "business person who happens to do flooring."
Tags: Business consulting,Service & Consulting, Business scaling, Home Services, Business Growth

Resources:
If you’ve been putting off starting a business… good. Because before you jump into an idea that worked for someone else, you should figure out what kind of business actually fits you. That’s why we created the best Assessment there is. It’s a free tool that asks about your skills, experience, budget, goals, location, and preferences — then matches you with business ideas that make the most sense for YOU. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool: https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify
Connect with Dominic Rubino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicrubino/