About FIX USA
Fix USA started in 2010 as a franchise ITSELF of a still-existing handyman franchisor.
Honestly, the first few years were rough, with a lot of mistakes made, lessons learned, and solutions implemented. But it wasnʼt until 3-4 years later that it became clear why.
Thatʼs when Forbes Magazine ran an article about the 100 WORST franchisors, and there sitting at #8 was our parent franchisor! We soon learned that the failure rate of new franchisees was MUCH higher than presented, and the reason was that the franchisor itself did not know how to make a profit on smaller, handyman-type jobs.
Following a costly, but ultimately successful legal effort to break away from the franchisor, we re-launched under the name Fix St Louis in 2015. We were now free to implement our own self-taught formulas for making a profit on small jobs, and have been perfecting them ever since. We are now ready to share these proven, tested formulas with all those who seek to build their own stable, profitable, market-leading business that is the best at what it does.
About the Founder, Steve Boriss
There are many paths that lead people to become business and franchise owners. This is the story of the founder of Fix USA, Steve Boriss.
Steve did not exactly come out of “central casting” to build a leading home repair business. He never actually lived in a home, nor in suburbia, until he bought a house himself in his 20ʼs. He grew-up in a rental apartment in a 14-story high rise in a densely populated working class neighborhood in the Bronx, New York City. Even still, his interests in the trades began to emerge — he enjoyed shop class, and did his best to perform carpentry in his bedroom, as difficult as that was.
In his education, he developed an interest in business, marketing in particular, and was awarded an MBA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1979. From there he began a traditional Fortune 500-type marketing career, first at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, then Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick NJ, and finally at a large international public relations firm in St Louis called Fleishman-Hillard.
Along the way he learned that the big corporate world was not a great fit for this scrappy kid from the Bronx, and he then spent several years taking on consulting customers.
But then he had unexpected health issues, that even more unexpectedly knocked him out of the workforce for about 2 years. Fortunately, he recovered completely and his health returned to normal. But he now faced a crossroads — how does he either rebuild his previous consulting business or convince an employer to hire a middle-aged man for a management position?
On the other hand, the idea of running his own business with real employees, and not just selling his own time as a consultant, had always appealed to him. Buying into a franchise seemed like the best way to do it.
Read the section above, “About Fix USA”, to see what happened from here – how Steve’s persistence, willingness to learn from mistakes, and dedication to finding a way to make small home repairs profitable has created an opportunity for you today!