Nova Hardscapes' Nasir Acikgoz on Thriving in Uncertain Times

From episode: EP47: Experience the Journey to success with Nova Hardscapes - Pebbles, Pavers and More

Willie: People think right now, the way the economy is, the way things have slowed down, the way interest rates have risen, Politics, world governments and all this stuff that's going on. I feel it in the air, that people just want to like curl up. And they don't want to continue to push in a certain way. It's kind of like, let me hold all my money. Whatever I have left. And I'm not gonna let it go. But you have to invest to create. If you don't invest, you can't create. Don't be scared to do that. When it comes to what he's selling.. But my question for you is, all of this stuff that's going on and you are full throttle, I see you in the venture.. 36 -foot venture, with quad 500 Merc's and you're flooring the throttles... Why do you feel that way? When it comes to that, are you scared about anything that's coming up? or you just go based off of off of what? Opportunity? vision? What?

Nasir: I don't stop. I go full throttle all the time, and What drives me, is that when I wake up, I think.. like I said, I mean... God has a plan, and I believe in God.. he says it.. Work. Be honest. Work and it's going to happen. And in this country, opportunities are limitless, there's no limit. There's no product, you're gonna say they're holding off.. They're not gonna spend... I will never think that way. I still keep bringing and I'm gonna bring it. We're gonna invest. As a matter of fact, The green industry has an advantage. One of the biggest advantages that I've noticed is, if the people are stressed.. They're stressed with things, politics and all that.. How do they relax? Of course they go they do sports and stuff.. One of the things they'd do to relax is, they work in their garden. They work in the backyard. They work. They do things..

Willie: Or just looking at plants to look at plants.

Nasir: What does it do for you? It relaxes you. One of the things that I'm realizing, because we do a lot of pools. Like we sell a lot of natural stone for pools, pool decks and pool coping. like for pool products. That business is still booming. Because during the pandemic, obviously people were spending time outside and what not. But also after the pandemic, that kept going it never stopped. And the green industry picked up right during the the pandemic. It keeps going,

Willie: Crazy boom.

Nasir: It's still going. Yes. It slowed down a little bit, but it's not gonna stop. Nobody's gonna stop buying things.

Willie: Well, what we saw wasn't normal first of all.

Nasir Yeah, it was outrageous.

Willie: it wasn't normal, Normal growth. You know, normal growth, year over year, at least for me, was 20% growth

Nasir: Correct

Willie: Maybe 25%. So I was able to do 20 to 25 percent more than I did the previous year. Let's say. That's normal.

Nasir: That's normal average

Willie: But you have guys that went up a 100, 200, 300% in two years. You know. So it's just a lot like, even the the smaller landscapers ,they were used to doing, you know 3, $400,000 dollars, to say a small landscaper and a lot of them crossed a million in in two years.

Nasir: I know

Willie: A Million, 1.5, 2.5 and how did that happen? Because of this crazy boom. So now what they're seeing is the slowdown effect. A lot of people weren't prepared for this to slow down. They didn't, let's say, understand what was going on or see what was going on. And they didn't think it was going to finish. So I hope everyone put, you know, something away for this.. If not, you're gonna learn the next one.

Nasir: You need to, yeah, you need to save obviously. I'm not saying you need to spend everything but, you know, It's a cycle. And the economy is a cycle. 4 years 5 years UP and then 4 years 5 years down. So if you don't invest when it's down, Obviously within your budget and within your means, you're not gonna gain when it picks up again. So what I'm doing is, when it's up, you keep investing anyway. When it's down you keep going. Obviously, I'm investing. I'm actually reinvesting per se. Not so aggressively as I did it during the pandemic because the demand was huge.

WIllie: Yeah, you saw the need for it.

Nasir: But it's still going. I'm still going like I'm like, okay, so I was adding maybe five products back then, but now I'm adding one, two. But I keep adding because I'm trying to prepare myself for the next rush.

Willie: Yep,

Nasir: Hopefully we'll see those numbers again, but you know, it's gonna be tough.

Willie: You'll see those numbers as more people use you.