Meet Austin Hawksworth | Owner of Hawks Mowing

We had the good fortune of connecting with Austin Hawksworth and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Austin, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
It all started when I found out I was having a kid in 2022. I was working for a concrete company approaching 10 years. I knew once I found out about having a kid my career would change! I became employed at a local water department company and after some time, I realized had larger aspirations. I remembered how much I enjoyed mowing during the summer months in high school and I wanted to further explore the idea of my own business. With the support of my wife, I started the process of recreating and revamping my old high school side job, Hawks Mowing. I got my first customer within days of starting and reality set in! I knew from doing it in the past where the rates should be set for customers but not knowing after 15 years of not doing it what the prices were today but as I stated earlier, I learned pretty quick and I learned that by some jobs that were taking longer than expected so I knew in my head on future jobs I would have to charge more, but I also did some jobs very quickly. That might’ve been charged too much and being who I am once of his time to give out the invoice I would drop the price cause I didn’t want to be that guy! I wanted to build my company off of honesty, integrity, and being who I am! I also learned in the process to get jobs you need to show up when you said you would. I learned from a bunch of future clients that they would always tell me either. They couldn’t get somebody to call them back or they would set an appointment up with somebody and they wouldn’t show up so I took that and ran. I told myself I could probably get 75% of these jobs just showing up meeting the future client and letting them know who I am. And I soon realized that the process was working so as I was working for the water department after work on Mondays and Tuesdays, I would go and mow lawns until dark. I had 10 lawns every Monday and eight lawns on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays after work I would go mow fields unless the wife needed me to watch the baby and what I couldn’t do during the weekday I would do on the weekend! So the first year I had about 20 lawn clients and I earned their trust by showing up every week never missed one Mowing even when I got food poisoning and got real sick. I still managed to show up just to show the clients who I was I think by the end of the year I had 10 to 15 Field Mowing clients so as the season ended, I started thinking about the future and thinking if I wanted to do this full-time so coming in the year of 2024 I took my next step to be coming full-time from October 2023 to around April 20 24 nights on nights I would stay up till i would fall asleep on the computer probably around three in the morning. Sending countless emails to thousands of companies just hoping I would get an email back I figured for every hundred emails I sent. I would at least get one email back and may be a future client! And it did work and I did get some clients. I then also posted all over social media, probably becoming the most annoying guy on the Internet. lol but I always had a saying “ I got forgot about in football in high school, but I won’t get forgot about in my own company!” I now have over 60 lawn clients and 40 clients I mow fields for! I also mow for some bigger name corporations and HOA’s! I have also built some amazing relationships with the clients I have! I always try to save time to talk to the clients after I’m done or in between just to let them know. I’m not just the Mowing guy! I want all my clients to be like family and some are! I am now on my third season I have learned so much from each season and try to take on when I learned from the year before to keep getting better each and every day!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Getting to this part business wise has taken lots of countless nights days and weekends to where we are at now I knew at the start I would get clients but I didn’t realize how many calls text emails. I would get the first year I was surprised just because it was my first year. It was like so heart warming That people actually wanted my services. I thought it was so cool when people would reach out and they would accept the estimate. My second year is when I went full-time and I didn’t realize how much people needed lawn services just because the first year I couldn’t do them all working in a full-time job. I’ll never forget the day of April 14 as when I took the first step of being full-time and wondering to myself have I made the right decision. I have nothing to fall back on since I don’t have a full-time job the first week I had a couple cleanups and I remember thinking to myself. Well at least I’ll make 600 bucks this week on top of my last week’s paycheck from the job before I remember my wife telling me we’ll be all right. People start reaching out. It’s the spring. It was in a week later. I can’t remember how many calls I got And then I reached out to all the lawn mowing clients from the year before and they all wanted me to come back for lawn services again. And then a month followed and I remember thinking to myself I did it. We’re gonna be all right with all the new clients coming in.! I would say even though it’s been a couple months of the 2025 season I’ve learned the most being a one-man band. I’ve had all kinds of stuff come up, but it has all worked out.! I’ve learned from the prior years being so good that not every day is like roses, but like I told my wife, I like these challenges cause without these challenges, you won’t really know who you are as a company I’ve had some things come up that I’ve never done before And I’ve had some friends say even though the situation, why are you happy that it happened and I just told them cause I’ve always wondered being the two years prior with no problems what it would be like to have problems and not that I was happy or excited of some of the situations, but I was happy that to know that not every day is gonna be perfect and how I would overcome the situations so I can keep growing as a company!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh man, if my best friend was coming to town to visit and wanted the best time I’ll show them a day of the life of Hawks Mowing! Lol!!

But in all honesty, they best becoming in the fall so we can go to the avalanche games well actually the spring so we can go to the avalanche playoff games! If you’ve never been to a hockey playoff game, it is a must see the atmosphere is unreal. I remember when my cousin took me for the first time and I’ll never forget all the white pom-poms and how loud the chant was go Avs go! So that would definitely be a must! We would definitely go to los Dos Petrillos to eat and then probably follow that up with going to a Rockies game cause it’s a cheap getaway and there’s nothing better than the sun going down in that stadium! I would ask them if they wanted to see the best mountain town in Colorado steamboat!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have many people in my life That deserve a lot of credit and recognization in my story! First, my absolutely amazing wife she has been by my side, the whole time telling me to make the jump and always supporting me with the decisions I make other than when I bought my Big commercial mower. She told me I was crazy. Ha! I told her just watch me baby. This is our future.! She said that’s all I need to hear. I know you will do great things with it! She is not only been so supportive and all my decisions in the company, but such amazing mother to our kid Harper! Without all her countless times of taking care of Harper and letting me do what I Gotta do to establish the company. I wouldn’t be here without her. I couldn’t ask for a better wife.!
I also have some others and I would like to recognize my mom (Kristen) for always supporting me what I wanted to do, helping on anyway, she can even taken off Wednesdays so she could watch Harper while we are working!
My brother Bubba who’s always by my side letting me know what is right and what’s wrong! And always being there to talk to!
My dad (David) who passed away in 2017 I wish he could see where I’m at now with the Mowing business. If it wasn’t for him back in the summer of 2008 letting me use his big mower to mow fields. I would’ve never been in this position. He taught me so much growing up, owning his own welding business. He was always teaching me and my brother everything we needed to know.
My step father Mitch that I worked with for 10 years doing highway construction with. it will always be my favorite job I ever had and it broke my heart when I had to tell him it was time for me to leave! I also remember him telling me when I told him I was having a kid that would be OK for me to leave because he wanted me to be with my kid! He taught me so much and how to be a man at a young age doing the work we did I remember being young and dumb, and always showing up one minute before work when I started with him and one morning, he looked at me and said I don’t expect you to be here Right on time cause if you get here at 6:30 you’re late and I remember looking at him thinking how am I late? I’m here at 6:29 and he told me I expect you to be working by 6:30. Just remember that.! I always took that great advice being at a young age and him being in the company for over 30 years! Working with him over the years, he taught me how to be responsible in life and what it took to be a man!
I would also like to thank my brother-in-law Chris for all the countless nights on the phone pushing me to move forward with the company when I didn’t know how to take the next steps. It worked out well in the winter time being said he’s a nurse on the night shift so when he wasn’t working, he would call to ask me what I was doing with the company and again he would tell me “what are you waiting for?”
I know there’s countless of people I could give a shout out to but these family members are the ones that truly got me here!

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