East Greenwich Town Hall, a recent work site
Company: Martone Painting Company
Owner: Michael Martone
Type of business: Commercial painting
Year founded: 1993;
incorporated in 1996
Annual revenues: WND
Michael Martone started hiring himself out as a commercial painter in college – he was a one-man outfit, hustling to jobs after classes, on weekends and during his summer breaks in his Ford pickup truck with a couple of paintbrushes, some paint and a ladder.
Eleven years later, Martone Painting Company is a million-dollar, full-service painting firm that operates out of an industrial bay in West Kingston, with 10 employees and a fleet of vans. The company, which does residential, industrial and commercial projects, routinely wins contracts in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Not bad for Mike Martone, 32 years old. His story is a handbook on how to build a small business from scratch.
Painting was not Martone’s life’s calling, necessarily. But working hard and being his own boss was. He began painting homes in his hometown of East Greenwich while he was an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island, because it seemed like a “fun summer job.” There was nothing unusual in that for Martone, who had been scrambling for a buck since he was a scabby-kneed adolescent.
“It just sounded like a good idea, a fun way to make money in the summer once I graduated high school,” Martone said. “I’ve always liked the idea of working for myself, of being my own boss and controlling my own future. Even when I was, like, 13 years old, I was mowing lawns.”
He learned on the job – a trial and error process that paid off because Martone never allowed his own learning curve to show in the final product that he provided his customers. By the time he was a college senior, Martone was getting so much work that he was paying three buddies to paint with him.
“It was all word of mouth, one job well done leads to the next and the next, and all of a sudden you’ve got a reputation,” he said.
By the time Martone walked across the dais to accept a bachelor’s degree in business from URI in 1993, his schedule was already booked solid with residential projects, and bigger, non-residential suitors were knocking on the door. Martone decided to dedicate himself in earnest to growing his fledgling business; he began painting condominium complexes, schools and restaurants.
Martone Painting Company incorporated in 1996, with four employees. Bigger contracts kept coming in – hospitals, factories, and a sports stadium. For the three years that the Gravity Games occupied and operated in Providence, Martone Painting Company was the preferred painter for NBC.
“It was a little different, not your average painting – painting ramps and color coding start and finish lines on the road – different than what you normally do. And seeing our work on TV, there was a lot of gratification,” Martone recalled.
The high-profile work also brought more name recognition to his company, he said. People started recognizing the name on his vans.
But Martone realized in a very personal way how far he had come when he was awarded the contract for a restoration of Swift Gym in East Greenwich. It was the gym he had grown up in, playing CYO basketball.
A few weeks ago, Martone began work on a six-digit contract for the restoration of East Greenwich Town Hall.
Typical of the industry, Martone said that finding and keeping skilled and dependable painters is a constant concern for his company. His solution has been to make his firm the most attractive painting company around – Martone Painting pays its employees as well as any, and offers them “a good working environment and a good compensation package,” according to Martone.
“I’ve learned you pay a little more, you get a little more in return. You know, we’re a very professional company. Hopefully that keeps them longer than most,” he said.
As the owner and president of what is now an established firm, Martone’s daily work routine looks very different from what it was in the days when he was a 20-year-old kid running from class to jobs. These days, Martone’s week is dominated by other concerns: managing employees, budgeting jobs, and projecting man-hours.
“Now it’s all about overseeing your product every day and making sure you have a positive outcome on each project,” he said.
But he still likes to get out there and paint, as in the old days.
“I think it’s good for the other employees to see that I’m not afraid to get out there and work, and to see that I know how to paint, not just run a business,” he said.
Martone describes his wife, Kristen, as an indispensable partner in the business – she is the company’s office manager, marketing director and Web mistress. Martone also stresses that his company is a success because of the dedication of all of its employees.
But one gets the impression the success of the company still rests on his shoulders, now as when he was a fledgling entrepreneur. He said he works 60 to 70 hours a week – typically, he’s in the office at 5 a.m. and gets home 12 or 13 hours later.
“Piece of cake,” he said. “It’s just a challenge to keep going. From college to now, it seems that every year we accomplish more, and it’s just great to see that all the hard work you put in really materializes.”
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