The Technician Path to Ownership: How Two Techs Built Zerorez Companies

There’s a certain kind of ambition that doesn’t announce itself right away. It builds quietly, through years of early mornings, long drives between jobs, and the slow accumulation of knowledge that only comes from doing the work.

For Nate Lightfoot and Tyler Hamberg, that ambition eventually led them to something neither had fully planned on: owning their own businesses under the Zerorez franchise system, one of the country’s growing names in carpet and floor cleaning.

Today, Lightfoot runs his franchise out of South Carolina, and Hamberg operates his on the other side of the country in Washington. They’ve never competed, and probably never will.

A college job that became a career

Lightfoot, 38, didn’t set out to spend two decades in the cleaning industry. “This was just a college job,” he recalled. Fresh out of high school and enrolled full-time with ambitions of becoming a physical therapist, he picked up carpet cleaning work to pay the bills. Then life shifted. He met his wife, they started a family early, now with four children, and somewhere along the way, the temporary job became a permanent path. “I’ve never not liked the job,” he said. “It’s always been kind of fun.”

Hamberg, 35, and a self-described “daughter dad or girl dad” with two daughters under two, had a similar trajectory. He started as a technician around age 20 and, like Lightfoot, found that the money was good enough to keep him from looking too far ahead. “Being a business owner wasn’t necessarily on the forefront of my mind until years down the road,” he said, “when I got into other positions within the company and started to see — oh, I could do this for myself.”

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The long road to pulling the trigger

Neither man rushed the decision. Lightfoot said he knew by around his 10th year of cleaning carpet that he wanted to become an owner. But he stayed put. “I got a little complacent,” he admitted. “I made really good money as a technician and just kind of stayed within my own lane. I was always too afraid to take that jump.”

Hamberg echoed the sentiment that a good income can be a comfortable cage.

Eventually, both men reached the same conclusion. Lightfoot and his business partner opened their Zerorez franchise in late November 2023. Hamberg followed just a few months behind, launching in February 2024.

Why a franchise instead of going it alone

For Hamberg, the choice to join Zerorez rather than launch an independent company was almost natural, he’d spent his entire technician career within the Zerorez system. But it was more than familiarity. “It made more sense to me that I could rely on some other people to push me, to support me versus trying to handle everything on my own,” he said. “They’re trying to make you successful. And by doing that, they become successful.”

Lightfoot had spent years watching an older, more dated operation from the inside and decided he didn’t want to start from scratch—but he also didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. When he connected with the Zerorez franchising team, the resources impressed him. “They gave us playbooks. They gave us line items and timelines on what to expect and what we should do to try to be successful,” he said. “With all those tools given to us, it was kind of a no-brainer.”

Both men were quick to acknowledge where their knowledge had gaps. The craft of carpet cleaning? They had that covered. Running a business was another matter. “That’s probably a learning for most people that open up a new business,” Lightfoot said. “But having your foot in the door and being well-educated in what we know and what we do helps out tremendously.”

Still in the work, by choice

Two years in, Lightfoot is still on a van five days a week. He’s candid about the practical reasoning—his own production outweighs the cost of hiring someone else to do it—but it’s also something he genuinely enjoys. “There’s not one day that I wake up where I’m just like, this is horrible,” he said.

Hamberg has stepped back from field work more than Lightfoot has, but he keeps his work clothes on every day just in case. “If we have a technician that calls out or an emergency cleaning, I’m ready to go,” he said. “I have no inclination that I am better than getting on the truck and pulling a wand. We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case.” He added that he loves meeting clients—that the variety of people and stories he encounters on job sites is part of what makes the work meaningful.

Advice for technicians with bigger dreams

Both men said the biggest barrier for technicians thinking about ownership isn’t knowledge or skill. It’s fear.

“Don’t think that you can’t do it,” Hamberg said. “If that’s a goal of yours, you can absolutely achieve it. And when you go after it, it’s going to be hard. There’s going to be some really bad days and some really good days. But focusing on those really good days makes things a lot easier.”

Lightfoot was equally direct. “Don’t waste a lot of time thinking about it—just go for it,” he said. “It’s worth it in the long run.” He acknowledged the real-world concerns around funding and preparation, but emphasized that within the Zerorez system, no one figures it out alone. “You’ve got plenty of backing with all the guys at corporate and all the other owners and technicians out there,” Lightfoot added.

As for what they’re building toward, both men expressed a vision that goes beyond the bottom line. Lightfoot talked about watching his employees find the same satisfaction in the work that he has. Hamberg said he wants to give back the kind of mentorship he received, helping young technicians figure out where they’re headed, whether that’s a long career at the bench, growth within his company, or something entirely their own.

“That’s my goal for the business,” Hamberg said. “Obviously want it to grow—but ultimately want to pay it forward.”

Learn how to join the growing Zerorez family here.