He Built Keil Electric for 15 Years – Then Gave Up Being the Owner. Here’s Why He’d Do It Again Faster.
Introduction
Andy Keil started sweeping floors. That’s not a metaphor – he literally started at the bottom of the electrical trade and worked his way up over more than a decade, eventually founding Keil Electric and putting his own name on the door.
So when someone suggested he give up sole ownership of that company, his first thought was: I’m going to have to share this with somebody else.
In Episode 2 of Surge Ahead, Forrest sits down with Andy for the first time on camera – despite talking almost every day – to tell the Keil Electric story from Andy’s seat: the no-plan beginning, the cash grind, the pricing breakthrough that felt impossible, the terrifying switch from hourly to commission, and the restructure that changed everything. Including his income. Including his hours. Including whether he’s home for dinner.
No Plan. Winging It. 100%.
When Andy moved back to California after a death in the family pulled him out of Texas, he had a company – sort of. Solaris Electric, which he’d started and operated for maybe three months. He’d just moved to San Diego. He had no solid plan other than “open a shop.”
That’s when Jaron connected him with Forrest through church.
“We had no plan,” Andy says. “We were winging it 100%.”
Within months, they rolled Solaris into Keil Electric, split ownership in thirds, and started building. But what “building” actually looked like in Year 1 was less exciting than the word implies: commercial jobs that kept the trucks moving but barely covered costs, thin margins on time-and-materials pricing, and a marketing engine just starting to turn.
“We went from no calls to some calls to a lot of calls to – hey, maybe we need to dial it back down a little bit because we don’t have the manpower to handle them all.”
The Commercial Trap
For the first stretch, Keil Electric ran the way most electrical contractors run: residential and commercial, service and new construction, whatever came in. The big jobs looked good on paper. In practice, they were a cash flow problem.
“Taking some of the bigger jobs was kind of cool – it kept us busy,” Andy says. “But it didn’t make us money, because they were long and lengthy and there were issues.”
Months-long jobs with net-30 payment terms. Margins bid too thin. Material costs eating the gap. Meanwhile, payroll kept coming due.
The pivot to residential service and repair was the fix – but it wasn’t painless. Service jobs started small. Going from five- and six-figure commercial contracts to $150 diagnostic calls required a volume the team wasn’t used to chasing. There was a transition period, and it was uncomfortable.
What helped was finally getting their pricing right.
The Number That Felt Impossible to Charge
Keil Electric went through the Service Loop program and built out a proper service rate – moving away from the time-and-materials guessing game most contractors default to.
When the number came out, Andy’s reaction was visceral.
“It was jaw-dropping,” he says. “I don’t know how we can charge that much.”
Forrest’s response became a kind of company mantra: I don’t know how we can afford not to charge that much.
They went with the rate. And customers, by and large, didn’t flinch.
“Most people didn’t even bat an eye,” Andy says. “It was just: okay, that’s the cost. Let’s do this.”
The downstream effect was bigger than just higher revenue per job. Higher pricing changed their customer base. The price-sensitive customers who’d push back, ask for discounts, or go silent after a quote – they self-selected out. What replaced them were customers who wanted quality, wanted reliability, and didn’t want to think about it twice. The kind of customers who are worth keeping.
“Now those people – we give them the price. It’s our price. And we’re bringing in bigger, higher-level customers who don’t really care how much it costs. They just want really good service.”
The Switch Nobody Wanted to Make
If the pricing change was uncomfortable, the move from hourly to performance-based pay was terrifying.
“It was a very hard transition,” Andy says. “We lost a lot of guys. We gained some guys. It was terrifying because we were losing guys and changing our methods and our pricing all at the same time.”
The math, once explained clearly, is hard to argue with. A technician doing a panel upgrade on a $40/hour rate spends 8–10 hours on the job and walks away with around $400. That same tech on a 10% commission rate for the same job walks away with $1,000 – and can finish the job in half the time if they’re efficient.
“I tell them: you could finish that job in half the day or take three days – you’re going to make the same commission. So they optimize. They’re more efficient. They’re excited to get it done quicker.”
The result: techs work fewer hours, earn more money, and the company profits more on every job – because the pricing is built to accommodate the commission structure. High payroll stopped being a warning sign and became a green light.
“That’s been another thing – our payroll keeps going up, and it just gets better and better. There’s always funds there to cover it because it’s built into the pricing.”
Giving Up the Company With Your Name On It
At the start of this year, Keil Electric went through a restructure. The operating companies were folded into a holding company, new partners with exit experience were brought in, and ownership was redistributed.
For Andy, that hit differently than it did for the others.
“That’s my last name,” he says. “I started this over a decade ago. And now I’m not the majority owner or the sole owner. I’m a partner in it.”
He describes the beginning of the process as “a little rocky.” Numbers, contracts, legal structures – not his specialty. And the emotional weight of diluting something he’d built and put his identity into.
But then the conversations started happening. Strategic planning sessions. Projections. Multi-location expansion mapped out on a whiteboard.
“These are thoughts and processes that don’t even enter my brain. When I hear them, it’s like – wow. This is what the future actually looks like. And it’s tangible.”
Now? He’s all in.
“If I was to ever start all over again, or talk to a younger version of myself, I would say: find a handful of really amazing people that know their specialty lanes, put them together, and create something big as fast as possible. Because if we did this 15 years ago, we’d be in a different spot.”
Works Less. Makes More.
The most striking part of Andy’s story isn’t the revenue numbers or the comp plan math. It’s what his life actually looks like now.
“I start work at a decent hour and I get off early enough to hang out with my family. I’m able to be present at home – which is a huge one for me.”
He’s not managing permits. He’s not doing the bookkeeping. He’s not wearing all the hats. He shows up, meets customers, solves problems, and moves on to the next house. The part of the job he actually loves – meeting people, shaking hands, figuring out solutions – is now the majority of his day.
“I’m making more money now than I was when I was working harder.”
Forrest’s framing of why that’s possible: income is a function of value creation. When you strip away all the lower-value administrative tasks and let someone spend all their time doing the highest-value thing they do, output goes up even as hours go down.
“You were working longer, but your value creation was probably less.”
What’s Next
Andy’s focus now is on building out a sales team – recruiting and developing people who can do what he does in the field, so he can eventually manage and multiply rather than personally execute every call.
“If I can multiply myself by many and sit back and make sure they’re successful – the company is going to grow rapidly.”
And the industry itself, he argues, has never had more open runway.
Data centers are being built at scale. Everything is going electric. Electricians are retiring faster than new ones are entering the trade. The residential service vacuum that creates is real, and companies like Keil Electric are positioned to fill it.
“I don’t see AI or something ever taking over this space. There’s a lot of potential to grow here – even as a brand new person.”
He started by sweeping floors. He’d tell any young person in the trades: if you want to build something, this is the moment.
