180 Water is a recently-launched water well pump installation and maintenance franchise that is looking to take over the underserved water well industry.
Jack Clark, president of 180 Water Franchising, first started out in the water industry back in 2014. “I quit college and dove into the water industry with both feet,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have mentors along the way who helped me grow the business.”
Over the past decade, the Helena, Montana-based company has grown from zero to about 25 employees, Clark says, servicing both residential and commercial clients, including a significant number of agricultural customers.
“My phone was ringing a lot — I was a young guy in the water well industry, and a lot of people were asking me how to get started,” said Clark. “I helped as many as I could, but I couldn’t do it at scale. That is what pushed me into the franchise model. We want to give more people the chance to enter the water well industry, which is kind of a dying breed.”
But turning 180 Water into a franchise was no small feat. “We’ve been working on it for about three years now,” Clark said. “Turning this into a franchise was definitely a lot more work than we thought. Once you dive into the details, it opens up a lot of challenges as you dive into trademarks, operations, training, etc. But it has made us a lot stronger as a company.”
One of the most challenging complexities came with the legal procedures of launching a franchise. Luckily, they had great legal support from the Spadea Lignana team.
“They helped us file and register in the states we wanted, and also helped get all the franchise agreements nice and tidy and all straightened out,” said Wyatt Fitz, chief financial officer of 180 Water. “From state to state, it can get confusing. They handle all the registration on a monthly basis. None of us are lawyers, so that support really allowed us to focus our attention on the other areas of the business.”
Since officially launching the 180 Water franchise in March of this year, the brand has already sold five franchise agreements. Looking ahead, the team is optimistic about the company’s growth trajectory.
“For the rest of the year, we hope to get up to 10 locations, and then hopefully 20 additional next year,” said Clark. “Hopefully, we’ll get to the 50 to 100 unit mark within a few years. This is really an underserved industry that is dying out. Half the industry is going to be retired within the next 10 years. But water well service will always be needed, and we are aiming to be a full-service water company that helps in any way. Every community needs a water well person, and our franchisees have an opportunity to fill that demand.”
