Kyle Konieczka has founded multiple startups, spent a decade working for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. and earlier this year began a new position as senior director of sales and planning at Briggs & Stratton Corp.
In his latest venture, Konieczka and his wife Lindsey recently purchased his father's plumbing business, making him the fourth-generation owner. But unlike many longtime family companies that focus on stability and steady growth, Konieczka intends to run the business as an innovative, high-growth startup.
Konieczka is forgoing the business's legacy West Allis building; hiring more plumbers and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians; and drumming up business largely through social media and other online channels.
He has ambitions for the company — which is now called Smart Plumbing and Heating — to become the largest residential plumbing, heating and air conditioning business in Milwaukee, and also to expand beyond the Milwaukee area.
"It's going to be digital-first, and 100% remote, which is not how the industry operates today," Konieczka said. "We intend to disrupt the current business model and do things differently. Because of all of that, the way I'm treating this is, this is a high-growth startup."
Instead of having a physical location, employees will park their service vans at home and swing by big-box hardware stores to pick up supplies as needed, Konieczka said.
"You don't need to carry huge overhead with massive trucks and huge warehouses where you're storing inventory," Konieczka said. "There's a Home Depot on every corner — they can hold the inventory. We don't need to tie up our capital and our cash."
Both Kyle and Lindsey come from long lines of plumbers.
The Konieczka family plumbing business dates back to Kyle's great-grandfather Stanley Konieczka, who in 1950 started Active Plumbing & Heating in New Berlin out of the back of his Ace Hardware store. Stanley's son Ronald Konieczka — Kyle's grandfather — started Plumbing Service & Sales Inc. in 1967 in West Allis. In 2000, Kyle's father Tom Konieczka took over.
Lindsey's family owns DayNight Services in New Berlin, which provides plumbing and drain cleaning services.
After recently taking ownership of Plumbing Service & Sales Inc., Kyle and Lindsey rebranded it as Smart Plumbing and Heating to reflect their expanded offerings and a new focus on streamlined service.
"The vast majority of this industry is made up of small, mom-and-pop businesses much like my dad's," Konieczka said. "That results in a really inefficient demand generation — every one of those little companies has to go out and advertise and build their brand. I think the market will shift towards more consolidation."
Konieczka, a 2022 Milwaukee Business Journal 40 Under 40 winner, works full-time as senior director of sales and planning at Briggs & Stratton and intends to remain in that role while Lindsey runs day-to-day operations for Smart Plumbing and Heating.
For Konieczka, who has a passion for skilled trades, Smart Plumbing and Heating is aligned with his long-term goal of launching a venture capital fund that invests in trades technology.
"I'm a blue-collar guy through and through," Konieczka said. "This is where I feel most at home. I think the people that make up this industry and the industry itself are in need of some heavy investments, and I'm happy to be one of the first to do just that."
