150 employees over 11 years doesn't seem so bad.
In the 10 years that I owned the security business I ran through nearly 1,000. For real, never had more than 34 (40 hour a week) full time slots, but we ran through almost 1,000 different employees. Part of that was because 90% were part time but still the turn over was incredible. When 9/11 happened I had my exit opportunity and took it. I learned that Security guards are experts at finding secret places to sleep or have sex with girlfriends that aren't even supposed to be in the building.
I gave up on trying to "go big with carpet cleaning " years ago. There are very REAL reasons by the business is dominated by owner operators and the two guys and two financed / leased trucks operators. Even running two trucks is hard. When I had nine guys at the Pentagon every night with steamon demons and cimex machines, I was killing myself. More than once I found myself fighting back tears at 3am from shear exhaustion. Worse the net money wasn't that great. It was profitable, but NOT WORTH THE HASSLE. Employees are a pain in the ass and have to be directly supervised or they will drain you dry 16 different ways. The salons I own operate like a well oiled machine because there is a floor manager watching over everyone every second of their shift. Hard to do that with guys running service calls all over your county or even 5-6 guys spread throughout a large building. Hence: the owner operator and maybe a three truck operator here and there is the bulk of this industry. Since 1990 when I got in the business I have seen tons of "big operators" close up. Some of the large operators you hear about, haven't made money in a decade or more. Nice salary and benefits, but an operation that often doesn't even earn the cost of capital. NO THANKS.
