Tim Sjobeck

01 / The Beginning

I didn't just study business in a classroom.

I was raised in it, literally. My dad owned a plumbing construction business, and my brothers and I spent our summers learning the trade. I can still remember being on the job site as a young kid, not particularly productive but absorbing everything. I'd pound nails into blocks from the scrap wood pile, building things with whatever I could find.

As a young teenager I ran the pipe threader for my dad, cutting and threading pipe while standing on a scrap header piece because I was too short to reach the machine properly. That's where my love affair with punch lists began. I'd grab small wood blocks and a pencil, get measurements from the other plumbers, write them down, and go cut accordingly. Structure. Order. Actionable steps out of chaos.

That punch list mindset became the thread that ran through my entire career.

02 / The Grind

The Long Road Through the Trades

I took that blue-collar education to Alaska in the '90s, working 15-18-hour days on the North Slope oil fields. My dad taught me to work hard, but Alaska taught me what "hard" actually meant. The oil fields didn't tolerate mistakes. Every procedure mattered. Every system had to hold.

When I came back to California, I returned to plumbing, helping my dad's company and my brother's before finding a home with a Plumbing company in Santa Cruz. That's where I met my mentor, he saw something in me beyond technical skill. He taught me the business side of the business, and more importantly, how to identify what I didn't know.

In late 2006, as the economy started to crack, my Boss saw new construction softening and launched a Service & Repair division. I came in as a tech, grew into a service manager, and got trained through Nexstar, the trade association that changed my trajectory. They showed me how to turn my punch lists into documented systems, SOPs, and operational guidelines that actually moved the bottom line.

03 / The Build

Building from the Ground Up

In 2010, we started a new plumbing business in Sacramento that would eventually add HVAC to our fold. I started back in the truck, building it slowly and methodically. We became a local fan favorite, winning "Best of the Best" nine consecutive years for Best Plumber & Best HVAC company, and grew into a good-sized company during one of the toughest economies in modern history.

My wife ran the office for about five years and became a ServiceTitan expert. I loved every part of it: being part of our community, training our team, watching them grow into their potential, especially the time in our tech training room, teaching the fundamentals and showing them how the procedures that turned good techs into great ones.

Then my health forced a choice. In 2019, my cardiologist sat me down and delivered a clean ultimatum: Do you like breathing? Well then sell the business or she'd be explaining to my wife why I wasn't coming home. We sold the company in late 2021.

I was going to miss the training room. I was going to miss watching people develop skills they didn't know they had.

04 / The Turn

In 2022, ServiceTitan offered me a role as a Program Facilitator. I'll be honest, I was outgunned from a software perspective. But I had something most people in that role didn't: 30+ years in the trenches. I knew what it felt like to be the contractor trying to scale, the owner drowning in the chaos of running a business, the team leader wondering why the same problems kept repeating.

The first year was hard. But I realized I had an opportunity to help contractors at a scale I'd never imagined. As a plumber, I protected individual homes and businesses. As an owner, I built a team. Now I was helping contractors just like I used to be. It came full circle.

Most businesses are incredible at their craft and struggle with their company. Not because they lack intelligence or work ethic, because no one ever taught them the systematic process for diagnosing and fixing the problems that slowly erode everything they've built.

05 / The Why

The Mission: Advancing the Trades

After nearly five years at ServiceTitan, I knew I had more to give. That's why I founded Advancing the Trades, to advance our industry and support the contractors and business owners who make it run.

"For those of you who don't know me... "I am not a politician. I am not in the military. But as a plumber, I protect your world. Without me, your world smells a whole lot different."

Tim Sjobeck

Failing to Fail reaches any small to medium business owner carrying unprocessed failure. But my roots, my stories, and my heart are in the trades, and that's where this work is most personal for me.

Here's what frustrates me: we've conditioned young people to believe the trades are a fallback plan. That if you're smart, you go to college. If you're not, you pick up a wrench. That's garbage.

The trades are the backbone of civilization. Without plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, and builders, the world doesn't function. I grew up believing that as a plumber, I protect the world. My family taught us the trades provide an essential service to society.

I believe that. And I want the next generation to believe it too.

06 / The Legacy

Teaching the Next Generation

One of my deepest commitments is changing how young people see failure and success in this industry. We've taught them that mistakes are something to hide, that failure means you're not cut out for the work. That's exactly backward.

Failure is the apprenticeship. It's where you learn what doesn't work so you can master what does.

I want to compete with the college path by showing young people that a career in the trades isn't just viable, it's valuable, honorable, and lucrative. That means speaking at schools, engaging on social media, and building scholarship and grant programs. It means giving the next generation the tools to see setbacks not as dead ends, but as data.

When I train young techs or speak to students, I don't just teach them how to thread pipe or read a blueprint. I teach them how to think systematically. How to see a problem, break it into steps, build a procedure, and execute. That's the punch list mentality that's served me for 30+ years.

If we can teach the next generation to approach failure with curiosity instead of shame, to extract lessons instead of carrying regret, we'll raise a generation who don't just survive challenges.

They build with them.

07 / The Tool

Reading this book gives you the framework. Actually building the systems requires repetition, accountability, and a place to document your work.

That's why I built the BUILD Protocol App.

When something goes sideways, a miscommunication, a blown estimate, a procedure not followed, you don't just move on and hope it doesn't happen again. You open the app. The AI walks you through what happened, asks the hard questions, and helps you document the lesson. Then you build an IF/THEN protocol that lives in your system permanently.

Share it with your team. Track whether you're following it. Never repeat that failure again.

08 / The Takeaway

TimmyBoy Pro Tip: Your Backpack Isn't Going Anywhere

You can't delete your failures. The bricks are permanent. But you can decide whether they're dead weight or building materials.

Most contractors carry a backpack full of lessons they've never processed. The BUILD Protocol App is your way of saying: I'm done hiding from this. I'm building with it.

Every brick you process becomes a lesson you own. Every lesson makes you smarter, faster, and harder to beat than any competitor who's still winging it.

Don't let your hardest lessons go to waste.