This is my dad, Jon.

How owners get stuck

My name is Chris Buttenham. The guy in the photo above is my dad. Working with him, I saw a problem that eats away at independent businesses everywhere.

He poured decades of blood, sweat, and tears into that business. And in all that time, he had no idea what it was actually worth. Or what would make it worth more.

He'd train an employee, invest everything in them, and then lose them to a competitor offering just a little more money. Recruiting was hard. Retaining good people was harder. And the way compensation worked never truly aligned with the growth of the business.

Meanwhile, there was no clear plan for the future.

My dad wanted what every owner wants: the freedom to step away now and then, to play a round of golf on a Wednesday, and to focus on the business instead of being trapped in it.

But instead, the harder he worked, the more tied down he felt.

The cycle kept repeating: great people left, my dad stayed chained to the day-to-day, and the value he was building stayed a mystery.

What Silicon Valley taught me

In 2015 I stepped away from the trades and built a tech company in the AI space. We grew fast, built an incredible team, and in 2021, I sold the company.

Along the way, I always knew what the company was worth. And I knew exactly what would drive that number up.

The secret weapon wasn't just the product. It was the people.

And the way we attracted and kept those people was through equity. Incentives like stock options made them think and act like owners, because they had a stake in the value they were building. That's the playbook in Silicon Valley.

But here's the problem: the analysts, the valuations, the equity plans are all expensive, complicated, and built for private equity, venture-backed startups or corporations.

They don't make sense for businesses in the trades.

Which meant my dad, and millions of owners like him, were left out. All he had was a filing cabinet and the hope that it would all work out in the end.

Giving independent owners the edge

Contractors, roofers, plumbers, electricians, HVAC pros: the people in the trades who literally build this country. They deserve access to financial tools that make sense for them. But there were none. There was no simple way to know what your business is worth. And no simple way to get employees to act like owners.

That's why I built Reins. We put a CFO, an appraiser, and a comp consultant in every owner's back pocket.

With Reins Valuation, you connect your books and field software and get a defensible valuation built on your own data. It's not a free calculator or an arbitrary multiple.

You'll see how you stack up against your peers, and exactly what will make your business worth more.

From there, Reins Incentives makes it simple to roll out programs like phantom stock or profit sharing that drive the behaviors that grow that value. All without lawyers, headaches, or restructuring.

Owners stay in control. Employees get a real stake in the value they help build. Everyone wins.

And it’s already working:

• Wirenut kept their top techs by rolling out phantom equity.
• Wes Carver Electric gave employees a real stake in growth, without losing control of the business.
• Cooper’s Plumbing and Air is using phantom stock, profit-sharing and performance bonuses to align their team with KPIs.

The future belongs to independent owners

Reins is here to help contractors and independent business owners:

• Know what their business is worth.
• Keep their best people and align them with growth.
• Build a more valuable business and exit on their terms.

We're building Reins for owners like my dad. Because if you're in the trades, you should know what your business is worth. And you should know what makes it worth more.

So, if you don’t want to lose your best people to the highest bidder and want to align them with the future of your business. This is the moment.

The trades don't run without great people. And, if they earn it, those people deserve a stake in the value they're building.

So, if you want to know what your business is worth, keep your best people, and build something worth more. This is the moment.

Pass the reins.