One of my favorite parts of hosting the HVAC R&D Podcast is that every once in a while, I’m reminded why it’s dangerous to form an opinion about someone you’ve never actually met.
I’ll admit something that I probably don’t admit often enough.
Listen to the full Episode 187 here – https://rhydonatzenhoffer.substack.com/p/from-top-tech-to-65-million-the-blueprint
Before Victor Rancour came on the show, I already had an idea of who I thought he was. Not because of anything Victor had ever done to me, but because of conversations I’d had with other people. More than a few told me he was cocky, arrogant, all ego, and probably wouldn’t make for a very good podcast guest.
So naturally, I was curious.
Not because I was looking to prove anyone right or wrong, but because one thing I’ve learned over the years is that people deserve the opportunity to tell their own story before someone else tells it for them.
About an hour after we hit record, I realized something. I hadn’t just learned more about Victor. I’d learned something about myself.
How easy it is to let someone else’s opinion quietly become your own without ever realizing it.
That’s one of the reasons I love long-form conversations. Social media gives us snapshots. Headlines give us highlights. Other people’s opinions often hand us conclusions before we’ve had the chance to ask our own questions.
Real conversation gives people the opportunity to be human.
By the time we wrapped up Episode 187, I wasn’t thinking about Victor’s success nearly as much as I was thinking about his willingness to talk openly about the mistakes that got him there.
Success Usually Looks Cleaner From the Outside
It’s easy to look at someone who has built a company doing tens of millions of dollars a year and assume they had a blueprint from the very beginning.
Victor was the first to tell you that wasn’t his story.
He openly admitted that when he first entered the HVAC industry, he didn’t even know what the letters H-V-A-C stood for. He wasn’t born into the trade or handed a thriving family business. He saw an opportunity, stepped into unfamiliar territory, and figured it out one lesson at a time.
What impressed me wasn’t where he started.
It was how willing he was to talk about everything that came after.
One story had both of us laughing because it perfectly captured what entrepreneurship actually looks like. Victor sold one of his first systems only to realize he had absolutely no way to process a customer’s credit card. His solution? Call a buddy who owned a pizza shop and run the payment through his merchant account. The customer later got a notification for what we joked was one very expensive pizza.
It’s funny now, but it also says something important.
Most entrepreneurial stories sound polished twenty years later.
Very few felt polished while they were happening.
The Education You Can’t Buy
One phrase kept resurfacing throughout our conversation.
Victor talked about how he had “paid for an education.” Not in a classroom. In business.
That idea stayed with me because every entrepreneur, every contractor, every distributor, and honestly every leader has paid tuition somewhere along the way. Sometimes it’s a bad hire. Sometimes it’s an acquisition that didn’t work. Sometimes it’s growing too fast or trusting the wrong person. Whatever form it takes, those lessons rarely come cheap.
That’s what kept changing my perception throughout the episode. Victor never tried to hide the messy parts of the journey. He talked openly about starting the business before everything was perfectly in place, buying companies that didn’t work out, expanding too quickly, and learning lessons the hard way.
Most people spend their lives trying to edit those chapters out of the story.
Victor leaned into them.
Ironically, I think that’s what made everything else he said more believable.
Growth Changes the Person
There was another thread running quietly through the conversation.
As businesses grow, leaders have to grow with them.
Victor talked about constantly learning, reading, finding mentors, and surrounding himself with people who challenged him. It wasn’t presented as a formula for success. It was simply the reality that the person capable of building a one-million-dollar business isn’t necessarily the same person who can lead a fifty-million-dollar one.
I’ve seen that throughout my own career as well. Whether you’re a contractor, distributor, manufacturer, or content creator, there comes a point where your greatest investment isn’t in equipment or software.
It’s in yourself.
Because eventually your business stops growing simply because the market allows it to.
It grows because you do.
Closing Reflection
One of the reasons I started HVAC R&D was to create a place where people could tell the whole story—not just the highlight reel.
Episode 187 reminded me why that still matters.
Not because Victor built an impressive business.
Because he was willing to talk honestly about the mistakes, setbacks, and expensive lessons that made it possible. Maybe that’s the biggest takeaway I carried home after our conversation.
Not that successful people don’t fail. We all know they do. It’s that the people worth listening to are usually the ones willing to tell you about it.
This episode also reminded me to be careful about borrowing opinions instead of building my own. Sometimes all it takes is one honest conversation to completely change your perspective.
And if that can happen to me, I have to believe it can happen for all of us.
Nobody scales by accident.
Most people earn it one lesson at a time.
Stay grounded. Keep grinding.
Ramblin’ Rhyno, out. Peace Y’all.
Want to hear the full conversation? Episode 187 with Victor Rancour dives much deeper into entrepreneurship, leadership, scaling a business, and the lessons that only experience can teach. If this reflection resonated with you, I think you’ll enjoy hearing how we got there together.
Listen to the full Episode 187 here – https://rhydonatzenhoffer.substack.com/p/from-top-tech-to-65-million-the-blueprint
Remember, you’re part of something bigger.
#TradeCrew
