A new painting business has just hit $1 million in annual revenue, and now the alumna who started it seeks to expand into masonry, drywall, spray insulation, and housekeeping over the next few years.
“I’m just an entrepreneur at heart,” said Lauren Fink ’07, who founded Apex Painting last year. “I think about what people need and what would make their life easier, like what’s missing.”
The company started with Fink and one painter. Now it employs 16 people, and the yard signs that feature a neon-green paint brush and advertise its work are visible all over the community.
“I’ve always loved running things – having lots of irons in the fire and having to kind of keep it all going,” Fink said.
Fink said she learned an appreciation for the fundamentals of business growing up, as her father was a businessman and CEO of hospitals nationwide. She started thinking of business ideas at the age of 7, selling snacks to her brother and his friends.
“I’m just an entrepreneur at heart,” she said. “I think about what people need and what would make their life easier, like what’s missing.”
At age 15, she started a window washing business during the hot summers in her hometown of Phoenix. When she worked a journalism internship there after her junior year of college, Fink baked and delivered chocolate Bundt cakes to the magazine’s subscribers.
As a Hillsdale College student, Fink majored in English and served as the Hillsdale Collegian’s news editor her senior year. She said the skills she learned at the Collegian carry over to entrepreneurship.
“Putting out a paper every week is very complicated, a lot to think about,” Fink said. “The days are never the same anywhere, so it’s not monotonous ever.”
After graduating in 2007, Fink worked in journalism for 15 years. When she and her husband, Republican state Rep. Andrew Fink, moved back to Hillsdale in 2017, she immediately started brainstorming potential business ideas. After toying with the idea of opening a donut shop, Fink decided to start a paint business because of the demand for house painting in Hillsdale.
“I came from an artistic family and we always did all our own painting, inside and outside,” Fink said. “That’s not to say I was a professional, but I could see that being a possibility.”
To learn about the field, Fink said she studied the trade by attending conferences, watching YouTube videos, and reading books. Her business model is to enable Hillsdale’s tradesmen and women to do their work while she handles calls, billing, and insurance.
“I want to be able to put tradesmen and women into the field so they can paint or do carpentry or whatever we’re doing,” she said. “They can make good money and have a stable job.”
She interviewed her first employee, painter Heather Ryan, in May 2021. For the next six months, Fink painted three to four days per week. After about four months, she started to make a profit. As the business gained more capital and Fink hired more painters, she turned to administration, sales, estimating, marketing, and customer care, though sometimes she still pitches in with the painting.
“If I have some time to kill in beautiful weather, I’ll get out and grab a paint brush and help the team,” she said.
Apex typically serves around five clients at a time. One of them, retired Hillsdale professor Daniel York, said working with Apex Painting was like working with family.
“I trusted them completely, and they went beyond my expectations,” York said.
Steve Wismar, a long-time Hillsdale County painter who recently retired, helped Fink launch her business, she said. She discussed the paint trade with him in April 2021, and he encouraged her to meet the demand in the county with Apex Painting. Wismar let Fink shadow him to learn the ins-and-outs of professional painting, and he helped with Apex’s first few jobs.
Fink said the shortage of professional painters can lead to low standards in the field. She seeks to run a business with “real integrity.”
“We pay all of our taxes, we have insurance, I have coverage for all of my employees,” Fink said. “I have auto coverage for every time they’re driving a car on the clock. If they fall off a ladder, they’re covered. Our tools are all insured. They get paid every Friday, every week of the year.”
Fink said her favorite parts of the job are customer service and being a job provider to her seven employees and nine subcontractors. Employees range from ages 21 to 51, and six of the 16 employees are women. Most of the women have not worked alongside other female painters before, Fink said.
“In the paint trade, women make up a small percentage,” she said. “There’s a real need for women to have safe and professional workplaces where they are going to be treated in a way that is appropriate.”
Fink said she credits project manager Billy Fry for Apex’s recent spike in monthly revenue. Fry was promoted from a foreman to project manager earlier this year.
“Lauren pushes all of us to try to always get better at whatever we’re trying to do and not just settle for where we’re at,” Fry said. “She is a great person to work for. She cares about her employees. She cares about our customer service, also.”
Fink said that as a mother of five children, she seeks to run a family-friendly business. Fink said journalism prepared her for the pressure of balancing business and family life. Just as she delegated tasks as a Collegian editor, she has learned to rely on her community, she said.
“There are times where I feel inadequate to do both of these jobs well,” she said, “but with good resources and good staff and the ability to delegate and communicate, you can do things because you shouldn’t be doing all of it yourself anyway.”
Fink’s 12-year-old daughter, Evangeline, said she admires her mother’s work.
“I like how it’s not one of those huge businesses,” Evangeline said. “It’s kind of like that little small business in that little small town.”
In March, Fink rented Apex Painting’s first building at 61 N Howell St. She said the purchase was motivated by the need for a place to store tiles for the Keefer House Hotel restoration project. Tom Wilson, the builder on the Keefer project, said Fink and her team are professional and detail-oriented.
“She’s not afraid to ask questions,” Wilson said. “She wants to make sure that she gets the vision just as well as I do. And she’s a great teammate. I’m really looking forward to letting her skills shine when we have the opening and everybody can see what I see — her talent and her team’s talent.”
As for her journalistic roots, Fink said she never plans to stop writing. Soon, she will present a 20-page paper relating craftsmanship and creation at Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center of Ethics and Culture. Fink said working for the Collegian and in local journalism helped her develop an eye for color and design, and prepared her to ask clients questions to develop estimates.
“I’ve been interested in what makes something look symmetrical or makes the colors work together for a long time,” Fink said. “Bringing that into architectural coatings – paints used on the exteriors and interiors of buildings – was a very natural transition and one of my favorite parts of my job.”
Fink said she values a side of painting few recognize.
“Painting is such a part of people’s lives,” Fink said. “They often are in a place of change and they want their home to reflect that. The human element of it – it’s very emotional.”
