Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
He Sold His Roofing Business for $60M (Here’s What He Built Next) - Mike Feazel
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: How did Mike Feazel scale his roofing business to $60 million?
And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm Jon Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now.
Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, beaming live to the studio. I got a guy I love having innovators on the show, people that are doing something different or new or disrupting an industry in a way that hasn't been done before. And this is a gentleman that was introduced to me.
And I couldn't wait to get him on here and kind of tell his story, because this is literally a centuries old profession that hasn't had a lot of change in it.
Chapter 2: What is the difference between the dealership and franchise models?
in a long time. And they've kind of come up with something that is disrupting that industry. He has built a massive company nationwide before he got into this. But now is the CEO of a company called RoofMax, which is changing the roofing business forever, saving people a ton of money. And this is a really cool product. And I wanted to get on to hear his story.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program.
Chapter 3: How did Mike achieve rapid expansion to 380 locations?
This is Mike Fiesel. Mike, how are you? Hey, doing great. Thanks for having me on. Good. Yeah. Welcome.
Chapter 4: What breakthrough product did Mike discover through a Google search?
Welcome. Glad to have you. Let me switch over to this camera. There we go. Now I can kind of see it. So first off, man, tell me about you. Let's get into who you are as a human first.
Chapter 5: Why does Mike believe blue-collar jobs are the future?
Sure. Sure. So born and raised in a small farming community just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Got in the roofing business right out of high school. And then my brother and I started our own company back in 88. So almost 40 years in the industry and seeing the good, the bad and the ugly within the roofing industry. And about 13 years ago, sold our roof replacement company.
Chapter 6: How does Mike manage a remote team effectively?
We bought one of the largest roof replacement companies in the country and went down the path of trying to figure out how do we get more life out of asphalt shingle roofs, which is 85% of all steep slope, you know, homes, churches, schools, apartments, condos.
So are you still in Columbus now?
I actually live in Puerto Rico, but we are- Weather's better. Much better than Ohio, especially this time of year. And I like the ocean. But we're a virtual company.
Chapter 7: What advice does Mike give about not retiring but reloading?
We're the largest, probably, home improvement company in the world. The only brick and mortar we have is our manufacturing facility. And we have 300. Our employees are across the country and actually some overseas. And then our dealers, of course, are in all 50 states.
Now, when you were doing traditional roofing, how big did that company, how big did you scale that business to?
So we scaled it back, you know, we were at our largest, we were $20 million, which would be about $60 million in revenue in today's dollars from the time we sold it to about a $60 million company.
Well, because the reason I asked if you were still in Columbus is one of my good friends, it just occurred to me when you said that, just had a massive exit to private equity in the roofing business, and they live in Columbus.
Chapter 8: What insights does Mike share about the future of the roofing industry?
So I was like, oh. And what is his name? His name's Alex Gerhardt is his name. I don't know Alex. Wow, that's interesting. So he's probably on the insurance side. But yeah, private equity is all over the place in the roofing side of things now.
Yeah. Anything, I think that's the hedge against AI is anything that, you know, AI is not going to come roof a house and it's not going to come put an air conditioner in and it's not going to come plumb your pipes.
So that's where private equity is. It's cool again.
Yeah. It's moving. Well, it's where the jobs are going to be and it's what, you know, what you can keep. So when you exited that company, was that something you were looking for? Did somebody just come knocking on your door with a check that you couldn't say no to?
We were looking at, somebody came knocking on the door, but my brother and I were getting close. We'd been in it for 25 years. There was a lot of changes in the roofing industry, of course, over 25 years, and just decided we wanted to go down this path.
So we felt if we completely got out of that side, the roof replacement side of the business, we would have a better opportunity here, which was figuring out how do we get more lives out of asphalt shingles.
So we exited back in 13, partnered with the Soybean Association, Ohio State University, Battelle Labs, which is the largest research and development lab in the world based out of Columbus, Ohio, and went to work.
So you guys developed this product. This was a problem you took to the lab and said, well, how can we figure this out?
So I found the old patent that had sat on the shelf for 17 years. A couple of companies tried to take it to market, didn't have any success with it. But I think it took a roofer to understand the challenges in the industry and how to bring it to market. And that's what we did. And then we created a generation two product through Battelle Labs.
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