LawnStarter, a service for booking lawn care and other outdoor services, capped its 10th year with its first annual profit, finishing 2023 in the green.
“This is a massive milestone,” LawnStarter CEO Steve Corcoran says. By comparison, Southwest Airlines took seven years to record an annual profit. It took 13 years for Uber to hit that mark and DoorDash, founded the same year as LawnStarter, has not had a profitable year yet.
How did LawnStarter do it? For months, LawnStarter employees across all departments were focused on Operation $1 and ending the year in the green. It worked. LawnStarter emerged from 2023 with year-over-year revenue growth of 37% and a remarkable 103% year-over-year EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) growth.
“With 2023 marking a turning point in our operating history, looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, we remain committed to capital discipline and driving further operating leverage,” LawnStarter Chief Strategy and Financial Officer Arman Panjwani says. “The stage is set for a future where innovation, resilience, and financial acumen will propel the company to even greater heights.”
“It took 10 years to get here, but now we can accelerate,” Corcoran says. “That acceleration includes growing in sales and growing in new verticals.”
LawnStarter and Lawn Love are expanding into hundreds of new cities across the U.S. this spring. The company also is offering more lawn care services to new and existing customers. One of these new services is lawn fertilization. Partnering with large service providers will help LawnStarter to offer fertilization across the country.
Now that LawnStarter is in the green, the focus going forward is staying in the green and continuing to grow rapidly as the mowing season returns over much of the country in the Spring. Another focus is adding more LawnStarter lawn care pros to better serve homeowners, property managers, business owners, and others across the U.S.
In addition to these new lawn care services, the company has also branched out into several home service-focused websites. These platforms aim to connect customers with local professionals. In 2023 alone, LawnStarter launched eight of these sites and acquired the flagship domain HomeGnome.com.
LawnStarter is expanding its range of services as part of its strategy to achieve a significant goal: to perform at least one job annually for every household in the U.S. This expansion is key to growth and market penetration objectives.
Start To Present
Much has changed since three college friends launched LawnStarter in 2013, and moved to Austin to grow the business. The three co-founders – Corcoran, Ryan Farley, and Jonas Weigert – remain. LawnStarter milestones on the way to profitability include being part of Techstars Austin in 2014 and acquiring San Diego-based Lawn Love in 2021. Over the years, LawnStarter and Lawn Love have accrued more than $30 million in funding.
Additionally, recent key leadership moves and hires at LawnStarter include:
Co-founder Ryan Farley, CMO, Growth, now heads company strategy and partnerships, a new role. Partnerships are vital to the company’s growth, Corcoran says, “and we’ve long needed someone to focus on company strategy.” Farley previously was head of growth.
Beth McDade as VP of Customer Support. Previously, McDade was vice president of operations at Road Recyclers and before that she was director of global business operations and strategic programs at Dell Technologies.
Christian Lavender, CMO, Lead Generation. Lavender was a co-founder of CreditCards.com, chief digital marketing officer at The Savings Group, and founder and CEO of UniversityTextbooks.com, which was acquired by Barnes & Noble.
Gabriel Rosario, Head of Data. Rosario was previously head of data at Memed and product data and insights manager at OLX Brasil.
“We’ve always had great people on our team, but Beth, Christian, and Gabriel will help take us to the next level even faster,” Corcoran says. Others on LawnStarter’s leadership team include Panjwani, head of engineering Alberto Silviera, and senior director of sales Shawn Jones.
Where will the company be 10 years from now? Who knows. Co-founder Weigert, asked if he ever thought LawnStarter would be here 10 years later and profitable, replied. “Hell no.” Then he added, “It’s been a great ride from our college days till now, and that won’t change.”
For more reading, see:
2023’s Best U.S. Cities For Naked Gardening by LawnStarter
