Where Are They Now? Part 4 of 5

Superior Home Renovations
Location: Ajax, Ont.
Employees: 5
Annual Revenue: $180,000
Appeared in: July/August 2011

Business owners usually thrive on the thrill of growing their brand and achieving new heights. “We’re just maintaining and enjoying life,” says Jeff Andrew.

As his business partner Art Lussier turns 68 this year, the duo are taking it easy on the contracting side and focus on offering quality service. They’ve simplified things: they now have a full-time staff installer, instead of relying on subcontractors for their work, which is still mainly windows and doors. They company moved from Scarborough to more affordable Ajax, which is also where Andrew lives. (And where’s there’s a lot of building and renovating going on in this rapidly developing area too.) And Lussier spends three months of the year in Florida.

But this duo, their partnership as strong as always, have no immediate plans to wind up their work together. Instead, they’ve been tinkering on a side project for the past few years that’s soon to hit the market.

They’ve created a special tip for caulking tubes that can be removed and cleaned, allowing professionals and homeowners to actually use an entire tube instead of perpetually having to throw them out, simply because the tip gets clogged. “There’s a ton of waste. Most caulking is not water-based. And it’s all going into landfill,” says Andrew.

The product is ready, as is the packaging – the name is set too, it’s The Clean Caulk Tip, all puns very much intended – and Andrew is now at work on the website.

Basically, it’s a new business and semi-retirement package all wrapped up in one. This team will be sealing windows and doors, but just in a different way, for a whole lot more years to come.

—By Diane Peters