Tommy Mello - $1 Billion Company Founder (A1 Garage Doors) | Why Control Keeps You Small

Success Story with Scott D. Clary

Success Story Media

Business, Education, How To, Self-improvement

4.6 • 326 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

➡️ Join 321,000 people who read my free weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.scottdclary.com ➡️ Like The Podcast? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory Tommy Mello is a billionaire entrepreneur and founder of A1 Garage Door Service, which he started in 2007 with $50,000 in debt and transformed into North America's largest independently-owned garage door company, now operating in 19 states with over 700 employees and generating over $200 million in revenue. He is also a bestselling author of books including "Elevate" and "Home Service Millionaire," host of "The Home Service Expert" podcast (ranked in the top 0.1% of podcasts), and an Inc. Magazine columnist who shares strategies for scaling home service businesses. Mello had his first major exit in 2022 with nearly $30 million in EBITDA, distributed $100 million to employees from the transaction, and continues to focus on creating millionaires among his workforce while building toward his goal of reaching multiple billions in company valuation. ➡️ Show Links https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/ https://x.com/RealTommyMello/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommymello/ ➡️ Podcast Sponsors Hubspot - https://hubspot.com/ ShipStation - https://www.shipstation.com/ (Code: SuccessStory) Square - https://square.com/go/success SurveyMonkey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/scott Monarch Money - https://www.monarchmoney.com (Code: Success) Claude - https://claude.ai/success Huel - https://huel.com/scott (Code: scott) Revenued - https://www.revenued.com/ NetSuite - https://netsuite.com/scottclary/ Indeed - https://indeed.com/clary ➡️ Talking Points 00:00 – Intro 01:25 – Tommy Mello’s Origin Story 09:49 – Scaling From $20M to $500M 12:49 – You Can’t Out-Delegate Me 14:30 – A $100M Exit Gift 20:13 – Sponsor Break 22:57 – You’re Focused on the Wrong Things 25:27 – What Drives Him Now 29:54 – Fear After Winning Big 38:16 – Sponsor Break 40:46 – Taxes Every Founder Misses 45:40 – Why SaaS Is Chasing AI 48:48 – Hire Smarter Than Yourself 52:17 – Life vs Business 58:28 – When Business Becomes Identity 1:02:38 – The Lesson He’d Teach His Kids

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I was washing dishes under the table for $4 an hour.
0:03.0	I moved to Arizona when I was 16.
0:05.0	I found a really good guy.
0:06.0	He understood a little bit about finance and just a hard worker.
0:09.0	That was when I found an integrator.
0:11.0	And the business started to fly.
0:12.0	What starts as a small service business can become a legacy if you chase mastery instead of shortcuts.
0:17.0	Tommy Mello began with a garage door company buried in $50,000
0:21.2	of debt and no roadmap. The garage door industry is one of the hardest industries. It's a low ticket average. If you look at the most billionaires, they're not happy people. I'd say 80% of them because they became obsessed and they're obsessed with the wrong things. You've got to be able to reflect and think, what are the main goals here? What do I want my life to look like? But you've got to have purpose.
0:38.0	You never want to lose purpose.
0:39.3	He worked around the clock learned every hard lesson in
0:42.1	the book and transformed that business into a 200 million dollar home service empire with hundreds
0:47.0	of employees across multiple states Tommy doesn't just teach growth he's lived it you need to love yourself
0:52.2	first and if you don't love yourself there's no point of doing anything you'll never show up love yourself first. And if you don't love yourself, there's no point of doing anything. You'll never show up for anything you care about. If you don't start to find that inner peace and think you deserve more. Time management is the best skill. Focus on time management. Focus on how to be more efficient with your time. And learning how to delegate, you've got to ask more questions. Be more curious. Be willing to do the work.
1:11.2	No matter how good your success is, be curious.
1:13.7	Go learn more.
1:24.9	Tommy, welcome to Miami.
1:26.3	Thanks for coming down.
1:27.2	It's human here.
1:28.3	It's a little bit more human than Arizona.
1:31.5	I want people to know where you came from because you have a really interesting origin story.
1:37.4	And interesting in the way that I think that when somebody looks like at you and all you've built,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Success Story Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Success Story Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.