Some kids mow lawns for pocket money and move on. Cody Kuebler kept at it, turning the childhood gig into a multimillion-dollar business.
Now 25, Kuebler said he spent his summers growing up cutting his neighbors’ grass for around $25 a job, first with an aging push mower, and later with one his father gave him for his 11th birthday. The gift involved “a little bit of horse-trading,” he said: He’d have to cut his dad’s lawn.
Along the way, he hired friends so he could take on more customers and expand into snow removal during the winter months. Eventually, he earned enough to invest in riding lawn mowers with wagons attached.
“I got a little taste of earning money and being my own boss,” Kuebler told Business Insider. “That kind of stuck in my head.”
Getting to where he is today, though, took grit and determination. Kuebler’s parents divorced when he was 10, and a few years later, he moved from his childhood home in a small Iowa town to Des Moines after his father got a new job there. That meant having to start his fledgling business all over again.
“It was frustrating because I had built a decent amount of customers that I lost over a decision I didn’t make and couldn’t change,” Kuebler said.
He pressed ahead, though as high school graduation approached, Kuebler wasn’t sure his business could lead to a career. Since he is a car enthusiast and had already earned enough credits to graduate, he said he spent part of his senior year studying diesel mechanics at a local community college. He dropped out during the first semester, concluding he’d spent enough time in the classroom.
Kuebler also considered working in sales. He got a job at a tire shop, but said his boss wasn’t interested in pursuing ideas he had to grow the business. That experience clarified his own ambitions.
“I always knew I wanted to do more in life,” Kuebler said. “What that was, I didn’t know at the time, but what I did know was how to cut grass.”
So Kuebler quit the tire shop to focus on his lawn-mowing and snow-removal venture, starting by setting it up as a limited liability company, or LLC, called CLK Landscape Construction. It was March 2020, a time that turned out to be ideal, as the pandemic was getting underway. Over the next two years, sales ballooned nearly ninefold to around $730,000.
“What Covid actually did was keep people home, looking at their lawns,” he said. “The landscaping market just boomed.”
Leveling up
As Kuebler took on larger landscaping jobs, he needed heavier equipment. After a week of rain prevented him from using a skid loader he’d rented, he began visiting dealerships in hopes of acquiring one of his own.
The machine Kuebler wanted cost about $80,000, and he needed a loan. Just 19 at the time, he said most of the salespeople he approached didn’t take him seriously. One interrupted their conversation to answer a phone call and never returned to it.
Eventually, Kuebler found a dealer willing to back him, and today his business has nine skid loaders and two mini skid loaders, plus 18 trucks, 12 trailers, 2 tractors, and a mini excavator. He said the equipment is worth about $2.5 million, and that some of it is owned, and some is leased.
“You just got to keep pushing because a lot of people don’t see the vision,” he said of what it takes for young entrepreneurs to get ahead when others have doubts about their age or experience.
In 2022, drawn to the complexity of builder-led projects, Kuebler began shifting from servicing homeowners to residential and commercial builders. The expansion brought a new set of challenges—and some expensive lessons.
Kuebler said he underbid some jobs, missed deadlines, and lost customers. His company once had to redo a job when water failed to drain properly, while equipment breakdowns and projects that took longer than expected cut into profits.
“Don’t be scared to fail,” Kuebler said, because despite those setbacks, his business reached $1.1 million in sales in 2023, $3.2 million in 2024, and $4.5 million last year. “We fail a lot.”
Tradeoffs
To be sure, Kuebeler’s persistence has come at a steep cost to his free time. He said he typically works from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., six days a week, juggling everything from preparing quotes for prospective customers to reviewing jobs in progress and overseeing quality control.
“The amount of work we do takes time to get done,” he said.
Despite the grueling schedule, Kuebler said he enjoys being his own boss and makes a comfortable living. He pays himself a $100,000 annual salary, plus an annual bonus that can increase his total compensation by 80% to 100%, depending on the company’s net results.
What’s more, Kuebler’s business has become a family affair: The father who gave him his first new mower now works for him as operations manager.
“It was an easy hire,” said Kuebler. “Obviously, he looks out for the company’s best interest. He’s blood-tied to it, and we get along great.”
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