The entire team at Mr. Drain Plumbing and their significant others recently enjoyed a nine-day vacation to Cancun’s sunny and sandy beaches.
CEO Patrick Fee shut down operations and joined the group, all expenses covered by the company.
“When was the last time a mom-and-pop business could shut down for nine days?” said Fee, also co-founder of Mr. Drain. “And, I didn’t come back to putting out fires.”
ServiceTitan’s Max Program handled everything—from demand generation and customer intake to intelligent dispatching and job execution—while the team enjoyed a much-needed break.
Max is the only end-to-end AI-powered program built for the trades - giving contractors the technology and white glove support to automate their business from the first call to final invoice.
“These automations,” Fee said, “are running my business efficiently, and we’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible.”
With Max, Mr. Drain doubled profits while cutting revenue. But Fee’s happiness level with the product goes beyond the bottom line.
“I’ve been able to find a happy medium of work-life balance,” Fee said. “My customers are happier. My customer retention rate is up. My customer satisfaction rate is up. Our prices are down.”
Mr. Drain Plumbing operates 15 trucks, and its work area covers the Sacramento area. As Fee spoke, he gestured to photos of his five children on the wall.
“I'm at home with them on the weekends," he said. “Some of my older kids, it was lucky if I showed up to a baseball game. And as soon as it was over, I'm back in the van and I'm on the road again."
Fee’s belief in Max is buttressed by his past experience with ServiceTitan. Though his former employers didn’t use it, Fee was aware of the software and believed in it before he founded Mr. Drain in January 2024.
“So when I started this company, I said, ‘I’m jumping in all the way,’” he adds.
He did, and saw immediate impacts from individual Pro Products. Pricebook Pro helped set up his pricebook with “simple walkthrough configurations to set profit,” and turned a process that could have taken months into one that took days. Fleet Pro provided fleet management via GPS. And Marketing Pro generated 30% of Mr. Drain’s revenue by driving positive reviews, email campaigns, and scheduled follow-ups.
All of that led to an epic first year. He says a business he started with about $25,000 generated $7.2 million in revenue in Year 1, at 29% EBITDA. In Year 2, revenue doubled again, to $14 million.
That growth confirmed Fee’s belief in ServiceTitan, but it also led to reflection. Fee wondered if Mr. Drain should keep pushing or accept where they were. It was then that he started talking with ServiceTitan about the Max Program, and when asked to be an one of the first 50 ServiceTitan customers to onboard the program, Fee jumped in. Again.
“We were vastly underutilizing ServiceTitan, both core and Pro Products,” he said. “I've always known that. It's such a monstrous, amazing machine that can do just about anything you can imagine it can do.
The Max Program now allows Mr. Drain to do more with less, while increasing profit. Fee said revenue decreased from $14 million to $7 million with the Max Program not because business was bad, but because Max showed him a better model.
“I’m maintaining the profitability we had at $14 (million),” he said, clarifying that he doubled his profit margin, but he’s clearing the same amount on half the revenue with a leaner, more efficient team.
That’s because of the automations in the Max Program, and the holistic way all the AI automations work together. Since using Max, Fee said Mr. Drain prices dropped 13.5% while employee earnings went up 19%. A smaller office staff became 400% more efficient, and field technicians increased efficiency by 220%.
“Everything is talking,” Fee said. “When we started flipping all these things on and they started communicating, that's when we saw this beautiful synergy that we didn't have before.”
The right tools don’t just change a business. They can also change lives.
“Our customers are paying less, our employees are making more, and people are home with their families on the weekends,” he said.
Fee is a humble man, but he’s no novice to technology. He feels like he’s one of the most technology-forward people in the trades, saying (jokingly!) “It only goes downhill from me.”
The Max Program works, he says, because ServiceTitan invested significantly in customer service to help new users. The Max Program includes upgraded implementation and support. Fee now feels more like a partner with ServiceTitan as opposed to a user.
“I got great customer service before with ServiceTitan,” Fee said. “But the Max team has taken that and multiplied it by 10. They flew out to our shop and physically answered all the questions.”
While offering support, ServiceTitan is listening and taking notes, then incorporating that information to make Max better.
“Every week, I'm getting new updates that's making the system less dependent on human interaction, and now it's becoming this living system that just does things for me,” he said. “I just say, ‘I need you to do this’ and it starts doing that.
“I don't have to know how to set the settings anymore. I don't even have to turn on a prompt,” Fee added.
