Epic Entrepreneurs

How A Virginia HVAC Startup Scales With Fair Prices with Jesse Bergstrom, Just Chillin

• Bill Gilliland

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“Freedom” is the word everyone sells you when you start a business, but Jesse Bergstrom says the truth is heavier and better: freedom is tied to responsibility and self-discipline. Jesse runs Just Chillin, a Virginia heating and cooling company serving real homeowners with real problems, and he walks us through what it feels like to make the leap from side work to going all-in. If you’ve ever wondered whether your business will fly or blow up, you’ll recognize the fear and the focus it takes to commit. 

We dig into the unglamorous stress points that trip up small business owners, especially in the trades: HVAC licensing, certifications, accounting, business structure, and figuring out the “next right step” when the information feels scattered. Jesse also talks about the growing blue collar talent gap, why HVAC is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury, and how community and relationships can fill the knowledge gaps faster than Googling ever will. 

Then we get practical about scaling a service business: fair pricing in a high-demand market, building trust, and paying a livable wage to drive morale and performance. Jesse shares what he looks for when hiring technicians (curiosity and drive over a perfect resume), plus quick-fire insights on success, failure, burnout, competition, and quality. If you’re feeling stuck, his advice is simple and hard to do: take a breath, reconnect with your why, and delegate what you’re not great at so you can keep moving. 

If you enjoy honest small business conversations, listen now, share this with a founder who needs it, and subscribe plus leave a review so more entrepreneurs can find the show.

CONTACT INFO:
justchillinhvac523@gmail.com
https://www.justchillinva.com/

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review,  and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/


Meet Jesse And Just Chillin

SPEAKER_00

Hi everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today I'm excited to be joined by Jesse Bergstrom with just chilling. Jesse, how are you doing today? We're happy to be excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_02

Not too bad. The weather's cleared up where I'm at here in Virginia, and I'm just hanging out outside on my back porch.

SPEAKER_00

Nice, nice. Now we're really excited to have you here. So let's go ahead and jump right into things. So for those of you who may not know it yet, you know, who are you? Who is Jesse Bergstrom and what is just chilling?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so my name is Jesse Bergstrom. I am 30 years old. I started just me, my wife and I, we started just chilling back in 2023. And I've it's a heating and cooling company. We do everything from boilers to furnaces, heat pumps, many splits. We even do water heaters and and stuff like that. And we we just wanted to start our own business and see how that went, but more out of necessity, just because we wanted a better life for ourselves and our kids and and wanted that freedom as well to do some of the things that we want to do in life.

SPEAKER_00

Now you mentioned uh and that now who you who you as a person, you didn't mention a wife and kids there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so my wife and I, we've been married for almost 11 years now. We got married when we were real young. I've got we've got two daughters. My oldest is Sybil. She's eight, and then my youngest is Allegra, she's five. We got we've got some pets, and yeah, my wife's name, I don't know if I've said that already, but my wife's name's Lauren. And yeah, she's my partner and everything. Partner in business, partner in life, and and couldn't do it without her.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, yeah. And side note, she's the one who came up with the name just chillin', right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's it it's kind of deceiving because it might imply that we only do cooling, but we do heating and cooling. It's more of a relaxed, like reggae, like, hey, let's chill out. Our uh our slogan is chill out, we got this.

SPEAKER_00

So we got this. Okay, okay. I love it. I love it. So, Jesse, you know, let's get into that. So, real talk. What's something about running your business that people think is amazing, but you know, you actually think it's actually a complete BS.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know, that's kind of hard because I would have to say freedom, you know, freedom or the whole thing about owning a business is everything has its pros and cons. So freedom

The Freedom Myth And Going All In

SPEAKER_02

is great, like being able to schedule what you want to do, but it also requires a lot of responsibility and self-discipline, right? You you can't just wake up whenever you want to. You've got to you've got to be self-disciplined enough to be self-driven and uh push yourself to make adult decisions every moment of the day. And that's you know, that's kind of catch 22 there.

SPEAKER_00

Now, Jesse, what would you say was the exact moment where you realized, you know, this business can either really work or it could completely blow up in my face and I lose everything?

SPEAKER_02

Probably about two weeks ago. Oh wow, that's that recent. Yeah. We um so we started the business in 2023 while I was working for you know just a one of the HBAC companies in the area, and we've grown it since then, and we've we've doubled every year since, but it took it took up until last month for me to be out on my own 100% for the business. And you know, that that jump is kind of like that what's gonna happen moment. Like, is this gonna fail? Is this gonna succeed? And it's it's pretty terrifying, but you gotta make that jump eventually.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So, what would you say is the most stressful moment you've had as a business owner? You know, that's like a how am I going to make it through this, or how am I going to get through this type of moment?

SPEAKER_02

Information. You know, I so you have the opportunity with what I do to get HVAC certification through a local college. There's information on deplore and stuff, but how to to know where to go to get your certifications, what what what licensing you need, uh how to structure your business, how to do accounting, you know, and all that information of the how to and what do I need to do next just seems like it's not uh available. And it's not readily available. So it's very frustrating, it's very stressful to figure that part out, right? To figure out, hey, what what steps do I need to take to be successful? And to also make sure that I am doing everything the right way, the legal way, you know, and my that way I'm not cutting corners. That way my customers can have a quality product and can actually have a basis to build trust on.

SPEAKER_00

Now, Jesse, have you ever thought about quitting and going back to a nine to five? And if so, what stopped you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, I've I've thought about that before. Like, hey, you know, this is this more stress than what it's worth. Especially, you know, sometimes people don't pay you, and that's that's a struggle, you know. And it's like, you know, when you feel defeated like that, it's like, well, you know, you've gotta, you know, you you gotta remember that you're doing something that's bigger than yourself, right? If you can create a business, especially that employs other people, or that and that, or that provides a service that benefits other people's lives, you're now contributing and you're now involved in something that's bigger than yourself. And that's the reason to keep going is it's not about the money. It's not necessarily about the money, it's it's about what can I do, have a greater impact in others around me. And it's like, okay, so that's that's my goal. That's what I want to keep doing.

SPEAKER_00

Now, what would you say was a mistake you've made early on that cost you either serious time, money, or reputation?

SPEAKER_02

Just not doing it sooner, honestly. Not, you know, I've started, I started going to college. I went to a local community college to get my two-year certification breach back, and that that allows you to test for you know, journeyman's masters and stuff like that. And I just started that when I was 26. I if I would have started this like right out of high school, it would have been great, you know. I I I would have been so much farther along than what I already am now. And I think, you know, and actually that's something that we're doing here is I'm trying to get with or I'm working on getting with Boys and Girls Club here in Roanoke to try and get you know, help kids that are interested in blue-collar work to show them the ropes, to show them what the work is about, but also how to get there, what what what certifications they need to get, you know, put them in in front of uh, you know, maybe their community college and stuff

Stress Of Licensing And Information Gaps

SPEAKER_02

like that. So I think having that opportunity to get out there earlier would have been so much more beneficial to me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think that's awesome what you're doing there, getting out and you know, talking to the kids about blue-collar work. You know, I talk to entrepreneurs who work with their hands a lot, and they're they're telling me, you know, there's less and less people, you know, wanting to do this when they grow up. You know what I mean? Have you seen that as well?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so uh I will say here in this area, there's a big gap. Um and there's still I think there's still a push for that go to college and be a doctor, go to college and be a business owner, you know, be a go into business or marketing or whatever. And and those are great, those are absolutely needed, and I see the value in those, but there the the gap here at least is ever growing between supply and demand, which we can touch on later. It it's crazy, you know. I I I would love to do everything I can to get people more interested because honestly, that's gonna be job security. Yeah, and I am and honestly, I don't think AI is ever gonna get to the point. Well, it might it's at least it's gonna take a long while before they can AI program a robot to do what to do what we do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. But you guys do I think you yeah, I think blue collar fill, I think you guys are fine because I mean, man, that to program a robot to fix the AC, I don't know about that. We're probably a long ways away from that, but but to program an AI to take a phone call, you know, like you know, an office job or a customer service job, yeah, that's pretty easily. They're pretty close to that, actually.

unknown

Alright.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and they've got like emotions and mannerisms and stuff that's like, oh, it kind of feels like I'm talking to a real person. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's interesting. But uh, yeah, and on this next question is hypothetical, but let's say if someone shadowed you for a day or a full day or even a full week, let's say, what would surprise them the most about how you operate just chilling?

SPEAKER_02

Probably efficiency. I I feel like a natural talent of mine is that I'm able to look at a situation and figure out how to do it as fast as possible. Not and not at the cost of quality, but just like, hey, these are the steps we need to take, and this is how we can do it. So I'm pretty efficient, and that makes up for some of my other deficiencies as far as you know just being organized and keeping track of time and stuff like that. But I would say if they were to shadow me, that'd be something that you know they would they would notice.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay, and that was actually the next question. So you you say your biggest deficiency is uh is your organization.

SPEAKER_02

So my biggest efficiency is just yeah, I guess maybe just being able to predict the next step of what's gonna be needed, I guess, is how I accomplish that. So if you know, while I'm doing this task, uh one or let's say I'm doing task A, I'm thinking about task B, C, and D that are down the line. And okay, what can I do right now that's gonna set me up for success for those next tasks? And I guess that is organization, come to think of it. But yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay. Now, you know, let's let's say if you know, let's talk numbers without getting too specific here. But since you have started your business, you know, what year, how long have you actually been in business?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so we started the LLC in uh think about this, was it 2023? I think it was 2023. Uh or no, we started the LLC in 2024, but we I started so the way the business started was is I just was not making enough money to make ends meet 40 hours a week for for a company. And so I started reaching out and I had friends and family that needed help with stuff, and had a really great mentor that helped me along the way and started it, you know, started helping people in 2023, and then we started the LC in 2024. And since then, you know, 2024, we we almost tripled from 2024 from year 2024 to your year 2025. Nice. Um, and I I can't remember where we're at right now, but we're doing pretty solid for this time of year this year as well.

SPEAKER_00

So okay, so you know, like I like I was saying, so when did you come to a point since you've been in business for almost three years now, but when did you come to a point where it started to scale and was and you started to become profitable, would you say?

SPEAKER_02

Approximately when I mean I've been profitable as far as business profit or altogether with my personal life included.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, business profit.

SPEAKER_02

Right, business profit since day one.

SPEAKER_00

Since day one, okay, that's good. Absolutely. Yeah, not every business can say that.

SPEAKER_02

No, I already had purchased a lot of the tools that I needed from working from my nine to five, and I was doing side work with my mentor as well, and that allowed me to when by the time I went out on my own, I pretty much had all my stuff paid for. Now, along the way, you know, you're like last year I bought the company vehicle and stuff like that, but all in all, we were still profitable even after those big purchases.

unknown

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00

Now, what actually would you say moves the needle most in your business right now? Is it leads, is it word

Fair Pricing And Paying Livable Wages

SPEAKER_00

of mouth, conversions, pricing, or team performance?

SPEAKER_02

So pricing and team performance uh from what you uh listed there, pricing and team performance are a big one. So I big thing with HVAC companies in the area, so a lot of the bigger companies, they do have more overhead, so I'll give them that, but they charge an astronomical amount of money. And and part of that I do understand is supply and demand. There's so much demand and not enough supply in this area that you can get away with charging quite a bit more than what you I feel like the word would be morally should be charging, right? And that's where I want our company to be a difference, right? We we want to price things to where everyone can afford them, and yet still make a enough profit to, and here's the second part of my company's dream is to pay my employees not the standard rate, but rather a livable wage, an actual livable wage, right? You know, years ago it was, you know, you know, decades ago, minimum wage was more than enough, and now it doesn't even touch your food budget. So it's like we can't, you know, we can't do that to the workers in at least I feel like we can't do that to the workers in our field. So that provides a great team performance. You know, when I hire my guys to come help me with bigger jobs, we get stuff done that takes other companies sometimes two, three days to get done. We'll get it done in one day. And the reason why is because we've boosted that morale with the not just the pay, but the ideology that, hey, I want to take care of you. But honestly, what moves the needle for me, something that you didn't list was relationship. When you start actually connecting with the customer on a personal basis, this this whole it's business not personal just doesn't work. I feel like you have to be personal, you have to be personal with your customer, personal with your employees, you have to be personal with your referrals, and then your people referring you as well as your vendors. When I go into a place that I buy stuff, I don't always call. Sometimes I drive in and go to meet people and talk to them and say, hey, how's your kids or how's how's that baseball game and stuff like that? Because connection and relationship and business is probably the most driving thing that can make you successful.

SPEAKER_00

Totally get it. Now, and I know you said you don't have any you know direct employees. I'm sure you want to change that eventually, but let's just say, yeah, let's just say hypothetically you were going to hire somebody to work on your team, like a tech or something, right? What traits would you look for more than what's on the resume? Anybody could say anything on a resume, right? Oh, I have this much experience. Great, great. That's all great and good, right? But yeah, you know, getting to know them and it's like, okay, well, what what do I feel about you that makes you worth me bringing you on, other than what's on their on their piece of paper?

SPEAKER_02

I would say curiosity and then drive/slash work ethic. So I I don't care. I I don't really don't care how much you know. I'll I'll figure that out, you know, as as we work together. It's more are you curious to learn? And are you curious to in to learn me and how I do business, right? And how I do the work. Are you curious to even if you've worked in it for 10 years, are you still teachable? Are you still wanting to learn and move forward? And then of course, drive, you know, if if you come to work every day and you just have no incentive, you have no drive to actually work and do the job, then you know, I it's not that, hey, I'm gonna fire you, but rather, hey, let's address this and figure out why. So those are those two things. If you can, if you have those two things, you'll be successful. And then, you know, like the opposite of that is if you're dishonest and and egotistical, then yeah, no, that that's not gonna work out. And and I can't work with that, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I agree, agree. All right, so we're gonna head to a what's called the quick fire round. So how this works is I'm gonna give you one word, and then I just want you to give me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear each word in regards to running your business, and then just give me a couple of sentences, two or three sentences to kind of expand upon why you chose that.

unknown

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00

Sounds good, yeah. Yeah, okay, perfect. First word is success.

SPEAKER_01

I'd say connection.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Why'd you choose that? Why why'd you choose that that word?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you. Connection, like connection relationship. I would not be successful at all without the community that I built here. If I don't know something, I know someone who who knows what I'm trying to learn. Right? So success would not be possible without those connections in my life, those relationships in my life to

Hiring For Curiosity And Drive

SPEAKER_02

to find out how to navigate all this.

SPEAKER_00

So let's go to the opposite end of that spectrum. Failure.

SPEAKER_02

I'd say ego. I've heck I've even fired fired a subcontractor before over that. If you are showboating and you are not teachable and you're just like, I know it all, especially when you keep making mistakes, you know, that just it ruins relationship with customers, it ruins relationship with your coworkers, it ruins relationship with the vendors. I've seen vendors not sell to companies before because of ego, and I think it's just it's a poison, man, and it causes failure every time I see it.

SPEAKER_00

Burnout.

SPEAKER_02

Burnout, I would say disconnect. It would be disconnection. Even if you're doing something that you love, if you are too busy doing the day-to-day stuff, you're feeling burnout, it's because you're not connected to the original reason why you started. You are disconnected from your why, right? You're so consumed with the what and the how and what's next that you've lost your your uh why am I doing this, that bigger picture, and you get burnt out right away. I've seen it so many times.

SPEAKER_00

Scaling.

SPEAKER_02

I would say scaling is work, it's hard work, but I think it's quality. You know, if if you are scaling, but your scaling is a balloon filled with you know bad quality and it's it's just hot air, it's gonna collapse. True scaling has a aspect of quality work to it, quality customer service, quality interactions, and that is kind of the backbone of that. Hiring investment. Hiring somebody is an investment. Just plain and simple. I mean, you're you're investing in them and you are hoping. And I think a lot of programs for hiring for all these big corporations is trying to get the people that they hire to invest back into that company. And so hiring, I think investment. You know, are you investing yourself? You're investing yourself as a business owner to hire somebody, but are they investing back into you?

SPEAKER_00

True. Competition.

SPEAKER_02

Competition, I look at my competition more like coworkers. Yeah, there's there's people out there that are my competition, but again, and I think supply and demand has you know has a little bit to do with this. So I'll give that credit, right? Because there's so much out there that we have to try and work together to accomplish so it feels like coworkers, but I want to look at that we're a coworker more as like hey, we're we're a team, and you might be another company that's competing against me, but there's stuff that we can learn from each other that isn't gonna hurt our businesses at all, it's gonna benefit them, actually. And that's that's how I look at it. You know, that's how I look at competition is someone to learn from.

SPEAKER_00

The last word is freedom.

SPEAKER_02

Responsibility, self-discipline, kind of like I talked earlier. Like if you are an adult that just cannot make adult adult decisions, you're not gonna have that freedom

Quick Fire Values And Hard-Won Advice

SPEAKER_02

that you want. I mean, it that's that stands true outside of the business world. You know, if you aren't self-disciplined and you keep showing up to work late, you're not gonna have a job. Or if you don't make those responsible decisions in your life, you could end up in trouble with the law and you'll lose your freedom. So freedom to me is just tied with responsibility.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, perfect, perfect. All right, so yeah, appreciate you getting through that quick fire around here. So, you know, where do you think your industry is going?

SPEAKER_02

It's a growing gap. I kind of mentioned that earlier. It's a growing gap of supply and demand, and it's I think also, you know, heating and cooling is more of a need than most people think, you know, as far as like residential, I could understand someone saying, well, I don't necessarily need heating and cooling, it's more comfort, and that is a really good sales perspective, right? To sell someone comfort. But a lot of times, you know, I've seen elderly people, for instance, they can't endure high temperature swings, or if you look more like the commercial side of things, or if you're looking at, you know, you mentioned AI earlier, there's a lot of server buildings going being made and stuff, all of that requires cooling and heating. And some of them, like uh labs and hospitals and different, you know, research corporations, they absolutely need HVAC to stay compliant with federal law. Uh, there's some medication that gets made that has to be within and kept within a certain degree or within a certain like two-degree difference. And that's needed, you know. So I think as far as it's going, it's gonna grow and it's just gonna keep growing and it's gonna turn more from comfort to a necessity.

SPEAKER_00

Gotcha, gotcha. Now, and I want you to be, you know, as candid as you can on an answer to this next question. But let's say, you know, small business owners listening to the podcast episode with you today, Jesse. And let's say they're feeling stuck or overwhelmed and they're just not having a great 2026, not profitable at all this year. What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear from you today?

SPEAKER_02

Take a second and take a deep breath and uh, you know, reconnect with your why, reconnect with why you're doing it. Be okay with reaching out to people for help. Remember, you know, fit you definitely invest in a community, find people that will lift you up and and get you there, but just take a second, have gratitude for where you're at and appreciation for where you're at, even though that's hard. And I get that. But reconnect with your why and lean on people. Don't be afraid to delegate. Absolutely don't be afraid to delegate stuff. You know, there's stuff that I've got friends that are good with social media and and website development. I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean, it took me like two attempts to figure out how to download the app to do this podcast today, right? It's just I'm not good with technology like that. But I have friends who are, and I go out with them. My wife and I will go out with them, we'll hang out, and it's not a monetary investment, it's a time investment, and they do it, they'll do it for me if I ask. And you gotta be okay with that. You gotta be okay with letting go a little bit of stuff that maybe you need help with.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay. All right, and what's next for uh, you know, what's what's next for just chilling? What should people be excited about coming up in the near future?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, I think I'd be excited to grow. I really wanting to have an impact in my community as far as one, like I said, having affordable quality prices. We don't have a lot of that, and then also like if I could change somebody's life by paying them a little more, I want to do that. I want to, I wish we were big enough to hire everybody, but it's that's new and exciting for me is definitely the growth, just growing and seeing where this goes. Sorry. My HVAC just started. I might have to pause for a second. I'm actually gonna turn it off real quick. That's funny. There we go. Good thing I'm an HVAC pack, man. I can do that real quick. Where was I? So, yeah, so growth, definitely I'm excited to grow, but also we I want to introduce more air quality products and like like maybe some some like air sanitization through ozone, better filtration systems, stuff like that that can help deodorize, but also kill viruses and bacteria from you know, and and also control allergens within your house and just let you live a healthier life. And then also commercial heating and cooling. I'd love to get more into commercial buildings and and and get into that realm as well.

SPEAKER_00

So okay, great, great. And finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you and learn more about what you all do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, call me, text me, email me. I don't know if you I can I can hand that out if you want. I don't know if you Yeah, yeah, it's up to you. Yeah, so myself, my my number's uh I have a Michigan number. Plan on changing that soon to a more local number, but it's 231-881-7358. And my email is just chillin'c 523 at gmail.com. And look forward to people reaching out.

unknown

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Perfect, perfect. And uh, do you have any social media?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're on Facebook, Instagram, I think we're on Threads, got a website, just chillin' VA.com. My my wife does a lot of that, you know. When the website says that she's COO, that's because she helps she helps me out a lot.

SPEAKER_00

So now, does do you have a TikTok?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know, honestly. I I would have to ask because that's a good question I wasn't prepared for.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, TikTok's just like the big one these days, especially with the younger younger folks. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. All right, perfect, man. Hey, Jesse, this was been fantastic. Thank you for coming on, man. This was a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you. I'd I'd this was really awesome. I'd love to do something like this again.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thank you very much.