30 Best Small Companies to Watch 2020
The Silicon Review
A good paint job and restoration can completely transform the appearance of your place of residence or business. The feel is similar to getting a new home almost overnight. A good paint job will make your home look beautiful, add character and personality to it. So it is essential to take sufficient time to plan what you want to do with your house.
Like painting, a renovation project can repurpose or improvise the state of damages, despair, or outdated building. It’s a great idea to breathe new life into an old home rather than simply move, but finding a restoration and renovation expert within your budget is very difficult. In light of the foregoing, LIME Painting® is one such company that specializes in painting, coatings, surface restoration for custom homes. LIME Painting is a Colorado-based company founded in 2014.
Custom properties are made up of many surfaces that deteriorate and become outdated over time, and each surface requires its own type of coating to protect and update it. Paint is merely one of the many types of coatings that is formulated for the surfaces that make up a custom property. And of course, a coating can’t be applied to any surface as it must be restored first. Whether it is restoring a distressed exterior or transforming an interior space, LIME’s artisans do much more than just paint. From LIME’s initial Visual Reality Consultation to LIME’s final project audit, customers are empowered with LIME’s expertise and quality controls that are backed by new-age technology at the palm of their hand. It’s an experience for customers that allows for their imagination and personality to be expressed on the creative canvas that is their home or business. It isn’t just the ability that LIME has to paint ideas that set’s LIME apart, it’s the level of due diligence and expertise that LIME has for solutions on custom properties. Whether it is restoring stamped concrete, modernizing cabinets, installing epoxy floor coatings, retexturing the walls throughout an interior space, or any of the services LIME’s artisans provide, LIME has vetted solutions with an aesthetic appeal that will last the test of time.
In conversation with Nick Lopez, Founder and CEO of LIME Painting
Q. Explain your company’s successful journey till date.
LIME grew from just one location to two locations within Denver, CO, in its first four years of inception, growing from $550k in sales year one to $2.2M in year four. By the end of year six, LIME awarded franchises in Castle Rock, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Boise, and Northern Idaho. In 2019, LIME was recognized as one of the top fastest-growing franchises. Over the years, LIME has received many awards, including Best High-End Painter, Best Commercial Painter, Expertise Award, and Torch Award for Ethics. LIME has also been recognized as an Amazing franchise opportunity. Over the past two years, LIME has invested heavily in infrastructure to grow the brand nationally. After being methodical and ensuring that LIME’s support team, systems, training, technology, and marketing were capable of national expansion, LIME is poised to begin a three-year push to grow the brand across the United States.
Q. Not all architects can imagine themselves in customers’ place to design it according to their views. A builder/designer can only suggest making some changes, but they cannot completely understand the customer needs. How do you bridge the gap between customers’ imagination and final outcome?
When it comes to delivering on the customer’s vision, we partner with professional designers who help solidify the colors that will transform their space. Disconnect in the most construction services is the handoff from sales to production, leaving the client in the middle to relay the project details. At LIME, we assign every customer to a Visual Reality Consultant who is their initial point of contact all the way to the final touch up. The VRC is responsible for assessing the project, advising the client, evoking the client’s imagination, and equipping them with the trained eye to understand how they can transform their space with LIME’s services. Once that vision is solidified, LIME’s Creator role works in tandem with the customer, VRC, and crew to coordinate production and provide quality controls to ensure a job well done. From initial education to technology integration and auditing throughout the project, LIME’s service provides streamlined expertise that is hard to find in construction.
Q. There are other reputed companies in the market providing the same services. What makes you a better service provider?
Our emphasis on a team approach instead of the Super Man model lends itself to consistent service. For most of our competition, it is the owner who does the estimate, painting, HR, bookkeeping, etc. These business models can deliver a quality service, but a small team’s limitations, scheduling, and project delays become a common expectation for customers in the market. At LIME, every member of our team has a specific role in the cycle of a customer’s journey.
Q. What are your future plans for the development of your company?
Our future plans consist of awarding 30 to 50 franchises per year over the next 3 to 5 years and maximizing the number of markets where we can serve clients with our custom tailored services. Currently, high-end property owners struggle to find reliable service providers that do painting, coatings, and surface restoration. Providing our old school expertise backed by new-age technology and sophisticated systems to ensure consistency for an underserved market is our company’s mission.
Meet the leader behind the success of LIME painting
Nick Lopez is the Founder and CEO of LIME Painting. He graduated from high school in Colorado and left for Michigan State University as a first-generation college student. By the time he was 19, Nick had already founded his first painting company, Spartan College Painters, LLC. After finishing his degree, Nick and his soon-to-be wife decided to move back to Colorado to start their family. It wasn’t long after they completed their move that Nick launched LIME Painting in Denver as a way to establish the same, scalable model that he had developed in East Lansing while working on his business degree. It soon became abundantly clear that Nick needed to share this model with the rest of the country, which is why the decision was made to open the business up to franchising. Today, with LIME Painting, the United States now has a brand that understands how to deliver a consistently amazing painting experience to high-end property owners.