Meet Jake Shaw | Home Inspector & Entrepreneur

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

Hi Jake, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I want to create something that allows me to help people everyday. I want to be able to spend more time with my wife.
I want to see a result.
I want to work with those that I want to.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My dad was a home builder so I was on the job site or learning something from him about homes and the way they were built from a very early age. When I was building homes, I loved knowing that every roof I installed or door I hung was all making the American dream possible for someone.

When building slowed during the recession, I was looking at my wife and was wondering what to do. She said why not go back to school and get an Accounting degree. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner and accounting had been good to her so it might be good to me. I went back to school got my degree (with the help of an expert tutor – my wife) while working and worked my way up to a position working directly below the CFO. I enjoyed accounting but I missed helping people at a personal level.

As my wife has her own business (Facts Figures Forensics PLLC), I started brainstorming what owning my own business might look like and decided that whatever I did, I was going to base it on four things.

1 – Be a better husband to my wife.
2 – Help Others
3 – See a result
4 – Be my own boss.

I looked into home inspections and new that with my building background, I could really help people make informed decisions when it came to their home. That is when I started Mountain View Home Inspections LLC.

It has not been a smooth road at all! Lol More likes any washboard road you find in Colorado. There are smooth areas, bumps, sand, rocks, holes, and times where you just can’t get traction. I would say that overall it seems like things keep moving forward, though. As with any business, it just takes time to be known and develop a customer base.

I perform all types of home inspections. I do home inspections for people looking to buy or sell a home. I perform warranty inspections for those that bought a new home less than a year ago and want an inspection done before the builder warranty expires. I help current homeowners that have lived in a home for a while but have not kept up on maintenance put together a plan of attack and prioritize what items should be addressed first. In addition to home inspections, I provide ancillary services to make it more convenient for my customers. We all love to just make one call to take care of everything and I can provide that service. I offer the big five in-home inspection ancillary services: Sewer Scopes, Radon Testing, Mold Testing, Thermal Imaging, and Water Quality Testing.

I guess what I am most proud of as a company is that at the end of the day, I can say that I am honestly helping people every day. Not everybody gets to experience that feeling.

What sets my company and myself apart is my background in construction, my attention to detail, my commitment to continuing education and my ability to be a one-call solution for anything home inspection related.

It is quite by accident that I am known for two things. Roof Selfies and “Taking Pictures and Pointing at Things”.

The roof selfie thing started one day when at inspection I was inspecting the roof, taking a roof selfie for the record, and a person driving by yelled “Roof Selfie!”. It thought it was pretty funny so I posted on social media and now people watch for them and ask me when the next one will be. Colorado Springs has no shortage of scenery so it is a good way to show off the rooftop view of any place in the Springs. #roofselfie

“Taking Pictures and Pointing at Things” is from a presentation I was doing at the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce, where I said it was my job to “Take pictures and point at things”. Now people share in the fun and send me pictures of them pointing at things. Some times you find your branding, sometimes it finds you.

I think Albert Schweitzer said it best: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing you will be successful.”

I truly love what I do, so I consider myself successful.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In no particular order, I would take them to see:

The top of Pikes Peak via the Pikes Peak Highway
Go for a walk in Garden of the Gods
Go to the top of Wilkerson Pass and look over South Park
Any one of the hundreds of parks we have for a walk.

For food we would go to:
Monica’s Taco Shop for breakfast burritos
Paravicini’s for dinner
Nano 108 for a brewery (They have awesome beer and the owner is the nicest guy!)
Arlene’s Beans for dinner (Awesome owners!)

We literally have 1000’s of things to do and see. Finding them for yourself is half the fun!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Definitely my Wife! She is my driving force and is my motivation to build this business and do my best to help others.

Website: www.mvhi4u.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MountainViewHomeInspectionsLLCColorado

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWlYpcTTSH9SIQlNZ5XLCeA