Ryan Seekatz
Owner, Pool Construction & Renovation Company
Fairbanks-raised Alaskan who shot his first caribou at seven, ran his own guide business, and still hunts from the truck — caribou, moose, and a standing goal to fly back in.
- Business Acquisitions
- Pool Construction
- Key-Person Risk
- Alaska Guide Operations
- Owner Transitions
About Ryan Seekatz
What Ryan built
Spent roughly a decade working the North Slope oil rigs in Alaska for BP and ConocoPhillips before walking away in his late twenties to build for himself. After running several small Alaska businesses — some that crashed and burned, some that did well — and a hunting guide operation, he moved into business acquisitions and bought a pool construction company on Florida's east coast that builds about 100 pools a year in the area's more affluent communities. One year in, he has already bolted on a lower-ticket renovation branch that sold eight or nine jobs in its first month.
Ryan in the field
Born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he was "killing before he could remember" — hunting ptarmigan, grouse, and rabbits before school on Rosie Creek Road with a little .410 break-action, then heading to daycare. Shot his first caribou at seven. A self-described "lazy hunter" who works game from a truck or four-wheeler, glasses from a small ridge, and has never sat a tree stand. Ran an Alaska guide business and processed his own meat — summer sausage and jerky — and can field-dress a caribou in under an hour.
Why this conversation matters
Ryan's story is about burning the ships. The exact day he decided to leave the rigs, a 4th-of-July surf-and-turf dinner "tasted like ash" because he was so desperate to get home to his kids — and he never went back. He's candid about the key-person risk that got him a great deal on the pool company (and nearly buried him when the seller fell ill), why you can never take your foot off the gas, and why mentorship is the single multiplier that shortens every curve. The throughline: some people just aren't built for the box, and that's the whole advantage.
“I was always an entrepreneur — I just signed up for a W2 because it was easy. It was almost a cop-out for me. Inside those tight confinements, it erodes my soul.”
Ryan Seekatz on The Hunt for Success
Sam McGough's full conversation with Ryan, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Key takeaways from Ryan Seekatz
The ideas Ryan left on the table in episode 05.
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Burn the ships — decide once, and never look back.
The turning point wasn't a spreadsheet. It was a 4th-of-July surf-and-turf dinner at the end of a hitch that tasted like ash because Ryan was so desperate to get home. He decided in that moment he'd never be on the Slope again — before he'd even quit. Most people never actually make up their mind; he did, and the rest followed.
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Key-person risk is why you got the deal — and why it's hard.
Ryan underpaid relative to the pool company's revenue precisely because the business lived in the previous owner's head. When the seller got sick and dropped off around month four or five, it became "here's everything, figure it out." The discount and the difficulty are two sides of the same coin.
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You don't arrive. Take your foot off the gas and it all slides.
Ryan tells his kids the business won't ever let him coast. It's like getting fit and strong, then quitting because you "made it" — you built the discipline and the pattern, and backing off doesn't hold the line, it erodes it.
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If you stop contributing, life takes it from you.
Ryan's father let off the gas — "been there, done that, don't want to learn anything" — and died alone in a remote cabin three weeks before his first grandson was born. For disciplined people especially, purpose isn't optional. You need something that drives you day to day or it gets taken.