Chris Hoffmann

Father of 3. CEO to 750+. Building companies that last. Author of The Path Less Traveled (link in bio)

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

What an honor to receive tonight.

But I’ll be honest - I feel a little strange accepting an award with “Entrepreneur” in the title when I didn’t actually start the business.

That credit goes to my dad, Robert, who founded Hoffmann Brothers with a toolbox, a vision, and - perhaps most importantly - a wife who was willing to co-sign on the risk.

My mom, Mary, supported the dream when it was nothing more than a couple of service trucks and a prayer.

She raised four kids and had a successful career while dad was raising a business, and somehow she made both look easy.

To my daughter Penny, who’s here tonight-you keep me grounded and remind me that the most important title I hold isn’t CEO, it’s Dad. Your dad.

And I hope one day you look back at this moment and believe you can build anything, too.

To my wife Teresa, who’s not here this evening wrangling our other two very small, very energetic kids - I owe you more than I could ever express.

You’ve supported this journey with unwavering grace, and without you, none of this would be possible.

And to the 600+ team members at Hoffmann Brothers and HB Solutions Group - this recognition is really yours. You show up every day with professionalism, pride, and purpose.

You build trust with our customers, support one another, and translate my crazy ideas into results.

We’re building something special - and we’re doing it the right way: with people, purpose, and long-term ownership at the heart. I’m proud to be on this team.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@LoganHaskett Paschal is privately owned.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

Not surprised to see Netic on this list.

Truly best in class tools for home service category.

[Melisa Tokmak @melisatokmak]

It's a 100°F week across many of our customers' markets. They're operating at peak demand.

95% can look good on a benchmark. It's a failing grade when the other 5% is someone's emergency.

@Netic_AI handled 4,600+ live calls for a single customer on one peak day last week. Across customers, no two situations are alike: an 87-year-old alone in a home hitting 105°F. A flooded basement. A vet clinic overwhelmed with heatstroke cases. Every one had to end in real-world action.

Most of the world's work still happens outside a browser. The hardest AI problems start there.

Netic in @forbes today. Good to see more attention going where the work actually is.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@Seth_Parker_ On paper, we look like business geniuses today 😁

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

Newest fleet vehicle.

Think I should take it to a service call?

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@OntarioSeptic 🙌

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

At 26, I was running around Afghanistan, and saved enough money to repay my wife’s student loans.

These guys just put $5.5B (each) into their bank account. #America 🇺🇸💯📈

[Short Squeez @shortsqueeznews]

BREAKING: SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of Cursor minted 4 billionaires in their mid 20s.

Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark and Aman Sanger all dropped out of MIT in 2022 and turned down Big Tech offers to build Cursor.

The co-founders are around 25-26 years old and each own about a 9% stake in Cursor worth around $5.5 billion apiece.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@AsyncCollab Why? If it can do everything you need it to do, what stops you from accepting it?

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

Every conversation about AI in the trades right now sounds the same.

The tool is going to answer your phones. Book your jobs. Score your calls. Run your outbound campaigns. Manage your capacity. The demo is impressive. The pitch deck is clean. The ROI math works on paper.

What nobody puts in the pitch deck: you have to bring the ball 50 yards yourself.

I am a genuine believer in what Netic has built. I have written about it in this newsletter. I have talked about it publicly. The results we have seen in our business over the past fourteen months are real -- abandoned call rates near zero during surge events, outbound membership booking rates that have more than doubled, AI handling 70% of eligible job bookings without a human in the loop.

But I want to tell you something that does not make it into most AI vendor conversations, because I think operators deserve the honest version before they sign a contract.

The best AI tools in this industry are not plug and play. Not even close. And the gap between a company that gets transformative results and one that gets a expensive underperforming pilot is the internal capacity to implement it.

We are fourteen months from our Netic launch date. We have a dedicated internal project manager whose primary job is managing the implementation, the ongoing configuration, the change requests, and the communication between our operations team and the Netic team.

Here is a sample of what was on her active list in a single week recently -- not at month one, not at month three, but fourteen months in:

Inbound analytics reporting enhancements across four brands. Outbound calling activation for a new entity. Capacity configuration issues requiring escalation. First-call routing logic for a new market. Speech-to-text call scoring integration with a third-party platform. Roofing lead workflow for inputting customer data and triggering outbound calls. Cancel reason hardcoding for campaign triggers. A CXR widget for membership availability. Zone mapping and skills configuration for technician assignment. Post-job inspection workflows. Customer-supplied install workflows. Duct cleaning workflow design. Past-due balance flagging. Sewer sales question routing. Zapier integration for lead sources. Outbound call and text analytics for a newer market. A dozen additional items in the change request queue.

That is not a struggling implementation. That is a healthy one. That is what it looks like when a large, multi-brand, multi-market home services company is genuinely extracting value from an AI platform -- constant configuration, constant refinement, constant expansion into new use cases.

It also means someone has to own it internally. Consistently. Every week.

Here is the analogy I keep coming back to. A great AI partner meets you at the 50-yard line and shares the lift. Netic does that. The product is real, the team is responsive, and when we surface a problem, they work to solve it.

But they cannot run the ball for you. They do not know your market's technician shift structure. They do not know that your new entity routes first calls differently than your flagship location. They do not know that your roofing division has a workflow that does not match your HVAC operation. They do not know which campaign triggers need to be hardcoded before you can launch in market four.

You have to bring that knowledge. Your team has to translate your operational reality into configuration logic, test it, identify where it breaks, escalate it clearly, and push it across the finish line. Over and over again, for as long as the platform is running inside your business.

That is not a criticism of the vendor. That is the nature of deploying sophisticated AI inside a complex operating environment. The tool is only as good as the instructions you give it, and the instructions only get better when someone inside your organization is accountable for giving them.

The honest version of the AI story is this.

The tools are ready. The question is whether your organization is ready to do its half of the work.

The 50 yards on your side of the field do not run themselves.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

If your AI tools don't work you either (1) bought the wrong third-party tools or (2) don't understand how to deploy AI.

My business has been completely transformed (and is still transforming) because of these AI tools. I am seeing and experiencing it first hand.

[Nick Huber @sweatystartup]

I would be way more bullish on AI if it actually worked and was actually replacing real humans at scale.

Nothing is changing and we’re being lied to that a revolution is underway.

The tools don’t work! They are expensive! And high maintenance.

Dot com bubble 2.0.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@JaredDHardin Great feedback. Both bad habits of mine 😁

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

I spoke to a stadium full of skilled trades graduates last week. The message I gave them applies to every one of us building something. Watch this and let me know what you think.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@TimdotHarder 💯

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@geoff_l TX

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

What a day. Nelsoni Desert Bighorn 🐏🇺🇸🙏

Had the best guide & hosts, on an absolutely amazing ranch with a long history of supporting wild sheep.

1 down… 3 to go.

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@operatingX MO

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

If your kids don’t want to brush their teeth, show them this video.

Nutella had a cavity…

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@Seth_Parker_ @theppcdude No. Only subs in roofing

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

First team meeting at our new digs 🇺🇸💯🙏

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@theppcdude 700ish W2

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@Seek_CRE_Acres But I also like that Kirkwood location and bring my kids there too 😁

[Chris Hoffmann @STLChrisH]

@Seek_CRE_Acres We don’t own Oberweis. That’s a different family.