E126 | How OwnWell Helps Homeowners Slash Property Taxes : Colton Pace, Co-Founder & CEO at Ownwell

Welcome to another exciting episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show! Today, host Don Williams sits down with Colton Pace, the visionary founder of OwnWell, a company dedicated to democratizing access to real estate expertise and helping homeowners save on property taxes, insurance, mortgages, and utilities.

In this episode, Don and Colton dive deep into the world of property tax representation, exploring how OwnWell has revolutionized the way homeowners can dispute their property tax assessments and save money. Colton shares insights into the company’s marquee product, which has gained widespread adoption across the country, and explains the contingency fee model that makes it a no-brainer for customers to sign up.

Listeners will also get a glimpse into Colton’s entrepreneurial journey, from his early days of ranch work and mowing lawns in Texas to his college years at the University of Washington, where he studied information systems and operations. Colton recounts his first business venture, MobileFix, and how his passion for finance led him to work for a family office managing assets for one of the wealthiest individuals in the country. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of scaling OwnWell from 700 to 60,000 customers in just one year, and the importance of hiring the right people and maintaining a strong company culture.

For information on how to work with Don visit us at https://donwilliamsglobal.com
You can also reach out to Don Williams at https://provenentrepreneurshow.com

Tune in to hear Colton’s valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, including the importance of taking risks and betting on yourself. Whether you’re a homeowner looking to save on property taxes or an entrepreneur seeking inspiration, this episode is packed with insights and stories that you won’t want to miss.

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How OwnWell Helps Homeowners Slash Property Taxes : Colton Pace

Hey, Don Williams here with today’s episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show. I have a timely, great guest today. I Colton Pace with OwnWell. And Colton, tell us what OwnWell does.

Well, it’s on a mission to democratize access to real estate expertise. That means a lot, but ⁓ we try and help people reduce all the expenses associated with owning real estate. So property taxes, insurance, their mortgage, their utilities. We do what we can to help to make it easy for people to reduce the most expensive thing in most people’s lives, their house.

I

love that. And I think housing in the U S is probably expense number one and everything else is expense less than number one. um, and I didn’t know that you kind of touched everything in homeownership. property taxes is what resonated with me. So, um, tell us about own well and property tax representation.

Exactly.

Yep. Yeah. So our marquee product and what’s really gotten us widespread adoption has been our property tax product. 95 % of people in the country pay their tax bill, no questions asked, but it is based on the value of your home that the government sets. And we’ve gotten really good at arguing that on behalf of our customers. You sign up, go to the website, enter your address, authorize us to talk to your county tax assessor on your behalf. And we do all the analysis. We research the tax code and make sure we bring forth the best argument to reduce that assessment.

in turn reducing your tax bill. And so we do that for hundreds of thousands of customers across the country now. ⁓ And from there, once we’ve saved you money on your property tax bill, we think, you know, can we save you money elsewhere? That’s where the other products have come in. we, our property tax product is our most successful and most widely used.

So that’s amazing. Let me put that into my words and you correct me if I make a mistake. But, um, so I live in Texas. think you’re in, you’re in Austin. Yes. Okay. So in Texas, um, and it’s about property tax time, the time to dispute is rapidly approaching. And in Texas, you pay about 3 % of value in property taxes. Some cities a little more, some a little less, but for today, let’s just call it 3%. And so.

And the state and the county, they tell you what they think it’s worth. They tell you what you need to pay. And most people just pay that. However, you don’t absolutely have to. I mean, you can, but you can dispute that. And if you’re a do it yourself guy, if you’re a change your own oil instead of paying a hundred bucks and you’ll put your own air conditioner in instead of hiring an air conditioning contractor, you know, maybe you want to try and do that yourself.

But if you want to get an expert who does it hundreds of thousands of times a year, you could call OwnWell. And ⁓ they probably would save you some money. And then I’ll put you on the spot. So what’s that cost? Do I have to write you a big fat check, give you my credit card? What do I do to get that representation? And what if you’re unsuccessful?

Yep. Well, I think you’re going to like this answer. We operate entirely on a contingency fee. And so we wanted to make it a no brainer, no downside risk here. If we don’t save you any money, we will never recharge you a thing. If we do save you money, we charge 25 to 35 % depending on the geography. In Texas, we charge 25 % of what we’ve saved you. And so until we save you money, we won’t charge you a dime.

Okay, so let me put that in my words and you correct me if I’m wrong. So basically I give you nothing. I give you information. I give you permission. You go fight the battle. If you’re successful, I let you share in what you saved me. And if you’re unsuccessful, you say, sorry, we were unsuccessful. Let’s try again next year. ⁓

Yep, exactly right. The more you save,

the more we make. So we’re completely aligned.

What a deal. Love that. Okay. So now I’m going to take you back all the way to young Colton. So you’re like five years old. Think back that far. Okay. And so in your household and everybody lived in a different, know, some with their parents, some with their grandparents, some with the neighbor, whatever, but in your household, was there an adult who was an entrepreneur?

Mm-hmm.

No, not really. ⁓

The

pong-paws almost always gives away. Nope. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good, good. And so, tell me about still, we’re still in your childhood, but now we’re between five and 18. What was your first job? And that may have been entrepreneurial. You may have done a lemonade stand or shoveled snow or whatever, but well, whatever the first activity you did where you earned ⁓ compensation.

Yeah, it was ranch work or mowing lawns. It was yard work in some capacity, whether it building a fence or digging a trench or cleaning up cattle or mowing lawns.

Okay. I love that. And here in Texas? Okay. All right. So if you’re not from Texas, just know that ⁓ I live outside of Fort Worth, Colton lives outside of Austin, some of the prettiest country ⁓ in the U S except like when he’s doing that work, like June, July, and August, it’s hotter than this is a clean show. So I won’t use the word, but, it’s hot. It’s like, you don’t want to come visit Dallas, Fort Worth.

Yeah, I grew up in Dallas.

like July 22nd, it’s not a good place to be. All of us locals were out of here by then. So, appreciate you doing that. So, you hit 18, you traveled the rails as a hobo, you joined the merchant marine, you backpacked across Europe, you explored Alaska. What did you do? Did you go to college?

I went to college. So I, in high school, started taking some community college classes because, you know, I wanted to, for some reason, get it all over with. But yeah, I went to the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington.

Okay, awesome. Huskies. Yeah, huskies. There you go. Okay, and you studied entrepreneurship, right?

Yep, dogs. Yep, it a time.

Now I studied information systems and operations and supply chain management. Real mouthful, but basically different aspects of business. So somewhat yes.

Okay, awesome. And so graduated as a Husky and then started OWNWELL the very next day. No.

No, along

the way there were many schemes I would say. the one that was like my first real business is business called MobileFix. I actually fixed iPhone screens and batteries and cameras and way back in the day when everybody would break their phone and now you go to a kiosk in the mall or something. So I ran a little business all through the end of high school and college that was basically fixing phones and computers.

And if you’re really young, you won’t remember, but iPhones used to be notorious for, number one, they’re very slick, very, very slick before the Otter and all that stuff was out and people would drop them and the ⁓ glass would just shatter every time. And so it became a thing. Okay, so you picked a high demand market and solved a problem. And so that went pretty well.

So how in the world did you get into property tax representation?

Yeah. Yeah. So I, after college, I got to sit in a pretty cool seat and that, um, I’ve always been kind of a finance nerd and I got a job working for a family office, helping manage assets for one of the largest, largest and wealthiest individuals in the country. Um, so that was from sports teams to apartment complexes, to enlarge stock portfolio, to, you know, private growth equity investments, right? I saw investments, a small investment team.

spending billions and billions of dollars investing it. so that’s where all of this, know, how do you invest like the most sophisticated investor in the world? How do we bring these tools, tips, resources, things I saw to everyday homeowners? Because people don’t think like billionaires do. And how do we democratize that?

Yeah, okay, love that. All right, so thinking back across your career, I want to ask you about a hard moment. So something happens. You’ve started your company. There’s an event that’s like, ouch, that really hurt. But maybe today with some time, know, ⁓ and perspective and retrospect, it actually turned out to be something pretty good, but it really hurt at the time.

Do you have a hard moment you can share?

another best one. maybe this is like a cheat answer because there’s a good problem to have but a very hard problem to deal with. think it was 2022. In 2021 we had 700 customers. In 2022 we had 60,000 customers.

That’s good to everybody has a lot.

I’m breathing in a brown paper bag. I’m hyperventilating for you, brother.

And… Yeah.

See what I mean? Like great problem to have. ⁓ But when this was all happening, ⁓ like we just weren’t ready. And so there was a point in time we actually turned off the website. Right? Like great problem to have. But we were getting destroyed on Google reviews or people couldn’t get through on the phone lines. We didn’t have enough people to answer the phone. And so like amazing problem.

Clearly there’s demand for what we’re doing. We’re trying to help people to, and you probably remember this time, property taxes went through the roof in 2022. And it makes sense. Like it was a good time for us to start helping people save more money. ⁓ But we couldn’t give, we couldn’t protect the own well brand and give the level of service that people want or ultimately deserve. And so really hard time working really late hours, trying to hire great, smart people as fast as we could.

And it, sucked to see, you know, that there were people who were on hold for an hour or right. Like the hard problems wanting to help more people, but we didn’t have the infrastructure to do it. And so, ⁓ looking back on that now, like that’s a fun memory of being like, shut it down too much demand. ⁓ but it was a very hard time, right. We weren’t sleeping.

Yeah, I’m sure. Well, and here’s what the public and even a lot of entrepreneurs don’t realize is that growth probably kills more companies than not doing enough business because they’re not prepared. growth in sales doesn’t necessarily mean growth in profits. If you’re doing a million dollars and losing money, doing 10 doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make more money. You may lose 10 times as much.

You know, it just all depends. So I applaud you on the courage to shut it down. That’s like a big, bold, scary move. If we shut it down and turn it back on sometime, is it going to be okay? Or are we, are we assassinating our own company, you know, by doing that? But, um, so glad that worked out. Okay. So, uh, and 700 to 60,000. Oh my gosh. Who could be prepared? I mean, there’s just no way we.

One of my companies, got a call from somebody who got a deal on Shark Tank and I forget the lady’s name, nice lady, but she had invented this kind of utility sports bra, but you could wear it as clothing. mean, it wasn’t undergarments, but it was, was, you know, industrial, you know? And so regardless of your size, you could run, you could do whatever. And she got her deal and.

I forget which one of the sharks pointed her at us, but they couldn’t answer the phone. I mean, the next day after the episode aired, they went from getting five calls a day to getting 500 and then 1,500. And that takes professional help. That’s not something you can kind of do on your own. OK. So what about if we had access to the entire encyclopedia of your brain?

If we were looking for one golden nugget, some piece of wisdom you hold near and dear that you’ve learned on your journey.

The first thing that comes to mind is it’s all about the people. ⁓ You can build tech, can build software, we can do some fancy financial engineering. But all the business comes back to the humans we hire, the humans we serve, our counterparts of the government. ⁓ Everything is the human relationship. Both like, do I have a good day or a bad day and are we succeeding? ⁓

little nugget of wisdom is like be super diligent about who you hire, who you bring onto the team. It’s really important to maintain that culture and we defend it and ⁓ we’re slow to hire for that reason. But then also like support your people. Do everything you can to ⁓ make people enjoy coming to work, but uphold expectations for each other, keep each other accountable. The right people can do incredible things. And most of my job today is

I love that.

people related.

Yeah, love that. You one of the best lessons I ever learned in leadership, I learned from a CEO of AssetPanda, Rex Kurzius. And, you know, he said, Hey, there’s like two things, cast the vision, cast the vision, cast the vision. Every time somebody talks to you, them what the vision is, then go get the best people on the planet to make the vision reality. And we’re all in the people business. I don’t care what business we think we’re in. It’s people serving people. And, you know, my second book, Romance Your Customer talks about.

You

customer experience and how to legitimately get people to love you at LUV instead of L-O-V-E. But that’s how you’re really doing your culture right when they’ll fight and defend you, just like your family. And that’s not only true your customers, but your staff, your contractors, your vendors. And it’s OK, people. Take it home to treat your…

spouse and your kids with that same thing, it’ll pay off. I’m telling you. Okay. So now I’m going to put you in a time machine. I’m going to send you back to 20 year old Colton. You remember 20 year old Colton up in Washington, going to class, not going to class, doing whatever Colton’s doing. And you go back and you got like 60 seconds to share one piece of wisdom. Something you know now that 20 year old Colton didn’t know he wanted to know, but

totally agree.

Mm-hmm.

In retrospect, it’d be like, man, that would have been a good one to know. So into the time machine, you go back. Let me introduce you Colton. Here’s Colton. What do you say?

How many minutes do I have?

You go buddy!

If it’s like a one liner, it’s probably take more risk. Like send it, like bet on yourself and like quit the job to go do something, which is crazy, but hindsight 2020. ⁓ And then another one, when I’m thinking you’re saying going to class, ⁓ don’t graduate early. That’s another early one. So I was going to community college at the exact same time I was going to the University of Washington to get more credits.

Take more risk, love that.

And it’s just like, I went through college in two and a half years. It’s not the right thing to do. I should have enjoyed that. You can’t replicate that time.

think in the words of the wise Yoda, he would say, overachiever you are. ⁓ And so I love that. Take more risk. Go big. Quit the job. Bet on yourself. Love that. OK. How would a listener get in touch with own well to represent them on their property taxes?

or reach you if they had something to chat about.

Yeah, easiest way to get in touch with own walls the website own well calm. We make it simple. You can sign up in three minutes. ⁓ And again, we’re, trying to do our best to make sure we can get in touch with anybody who gives us a call or send us an email. ⁓ But again, like we’ve tried to make all the information and we are a tech company first try to make all the information super accessible for people to answer all their questions. And we streamline the process. So make it simple and easy and try and educate as well. If you want to get in touch with me, LinkedIn is my social media of choice. ⁓

I’m not that active on others. So that’s the place to hit.

Okay, and the website is ownizenancy.com. Okay, Colton, thank you so much for joining us today.

Yes, sir.

That’s today’s episode of the Proven Entrepreneur Show. We’ll see you next time. And if you want to dispute your property taxes, tick tock. The clock is ticking on when you can do it for this year. See you next time. Thanks. Bye.