[ STRONGER OPERATIONS · STRONGER PROFITS ]

An operating partner for HVAC owners scaling toward exit.

Most $5M-and-up HVAC shops don't need another vendor. They need a partner in the seat — running ops, filling the lead pipeline, building the team, and getting the books in shape for the next chapter. That's what ThermaForge does.

Apply for an engagement See how we work
3 of 6 client slots open · next opening Q2 2026
[ THE NAME ]

Therma · Forge.

Two halves of the same job.

THERMA

Heat. The element that defines the work.

Heat is what HVAC is. It's also what owners feel — the pressure of moving from $5M to $10M, of carrying real EBITDA for the first time, of being 24 months from a recap and out of room to be average. We know the heat because we've sat in it. We've operated the systems, repaired the units, sold the installs, and run the P&Ls behind them. The work doesn't happen at room temperature. It happens in the heat.

FORGE

What heat makes possible. Pressure-tested. Shaped. Joined.

A forge is where raw material gets pressure-tested, shaped, and joined into something stronger than what went in. You don't get a stronger blade by avoiding the fire — you get it by working the metal, repeatedly, deliberately, in the heat, until what comes out is something the original ore couldn't be on its own. The forge is also where things merge. Steel and carbon. Operator and owner. Operations, capital, and exit strategy. One company, one cohesive unit.

That's the work. We don't consult around your business — we operate inside it. We bring our systems, our hands, and a real stake in the outcome. The result isn't a slide deck. It's a stronger company, forged operationally and financially, ready for whatever comes next.

Stronger operations. Stronger profits. Forged together.

[ WHO WE ARE ]

Two operators. One seat at your table.

Founding Partner

Two Decades in HVAC

CEO · Owner, ThermaForge Partners

20+ years in HVAC operations. Acquisitions and sales spearheaded between $5M and $50M.

Your founding partner is the face in the building. Runs culture, builds the sales team architecture, owns technician training, and runs in-house talent acquisition. The operator who walks the shop floor on Tuesday and sits in the dispatch room on Friday — not the consultant in the deck. Knows what the inside of a $5M shop and a $50M shop both look like, and what it takes to move between them.

Operating Partner — Systems & AI

Carson Systems

Platform company behind Routebook, Frontline, and Plymouth.

The systems side. Carson Systems is the platform company behind Routebook (the HVAC ERP every ThermaForge client deploys), Frontline (24/7 AI call coverage), and the multi-platform content engine. Whatever infrastructure your shop is missing, it's already been built.

[ HOW WE WORK ]

Operating-partner work, not consulting.

We're in the business. Not in the deck. Not in the slide review. In the business — on the dispatch board, in the AR aging, on the recruiting calls, at the weekly P&L review. Annual engagements. Operating-partner attention is the constraint, so we take new clients when our existing ones are in steady state, not on a calendar.

01

Operations uplift

Dispatch flow, callback rate, first-time-fix, technician utilization, callback recovery, AR aging over 60 days. The operational levers that move EBITDA. We name the number and we move it month over month.

02

Lead generation that fills your PMs

Search-intent pipeline that surfaces homeowners actively looking for system replacement, not random clicks. We build it, route it, and feed it directly to your project managers' phones. Volume scales with your install capacity, not a billboard.

03

Team-building & recruiting

Tech recruiting is the #1 ceiling on growth above $5M. We help you build a real employer brand, structure pay and progression, and run the recruiting funnel like a sales funnel. The shops that scale past $10M are the ones that solve this.

04

Pre-PE positioning & recap-readiness

If you're 24–48 months from a recap or sale, every operational decision now is a valuation decision. Clean books, strong tech retention, documented systems, and real EBITDA quality. We position the company so the multiple finds you, not the other way around.

05

Service mix & job profitability

Maintenance contract attach rate, install gross margin, callback recovery, service-call mix. Most $5M shops scale revenue without scaling EBITDA because the wrong work is growing. We tune the mix — fewer low-margin one-off calls, more contract-anchored revenue, tighter install pricing discipline. EBITDA follows.

06

Weekly P&L cadence & owner discipline

Monthly P&L review is forensic — you're studying what already happened. Weekly review is operational — you're catching problems while you can still fix them. We install the cadence, sit in it with you, and turn the numbers into the operating rhythm of the company. Owners who do this scale. The ones who don't, don't.

Most $5M shops aren't a marketing problem. They're an operations problem with a marketing symptom.
[ THE NEW OPERATING STACK ]

This is the gap between $5M shops and $15M+ shops in 2026.

The shops growing past $10M aren't necessarily the ones with better techs or bigger marketing budgets. They're the ones running on infrastructure built in the last 24 months — AI call coverage that catches every after-hours homeowner, content automation that puts owner-voice in front of recruits and customers daily, ERP that surfaces real job-cost P&L instead of hoping a QuickBooks export reconciles.

Every ThermaForge engagement deploys this stack. Every client shop ends the year with infrastructure that competitors will spend the next two years catching up to.

PHONES

Frontline AI answers at 6:42pm Friday.

Books the truck. Logs the call into Routebook. Captures the lead data your dispatcher would have lost to voicemail. Every legacy competitor in your metro is still missing those calls.

CONTENT

Owner-voice on five platforms while competitors post stock.

The content engine puts your owner voice on X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube Shorts daily. Recruits scroll and recognize your shop. Customers scroll and trust you before the first call.

DATA

Routebook gives the operating partner real visibility.

Dispatch flow, callback recovery, AR aging by aging bucket, technician utilization, real job-cost P&L. Operating-partner work depends on real numbers — Routebook is the layer that makes the work possible.

EXIT

PE buyers see a modern operation, not a cleanup project.

Owners who get on this stack now don't just grow faster. They sell at higher multiples because the buyer sees documented systems, AI infrastructure, and recurring data — not a manual operation that needs $2M of post-close investment.

[ THE PLATFORM STACK WE DEPLOY ]

The infrastructure is already built. It comes with the engagement.

Every engagement bundles the Carson Systems platform stack — no separate platform invoices. Routebook ships with every engagement. Scale adds Frontline and the full content engine. The stack alone replaces multiple vendor contracts when sourced piecemeal.

Operate + Scale

Routebook Carson Systems · Field service ERP

Replaces ServiceTitan, FieldEdge, Housecall Pro. Plus three features none of them have.

What's inside →

Core ERP

Dispatch board, jobs, invoicing, AR aging, inventory and truck stock, mobile tech app, and real job-cost P&L by job, by tech, by truck. Everything ServiceTitan does, without the per-seat tax and the upsell pressure.

Reviews & Reputation

Auto-prompts the customer for a Google or Yelp review the moment the WO is closed. Tracks star rating per technician over time. Surfaces 1-star alerts to the owner immediately so a bad review gets addressed before it sits on the listing for two weeks. The highest-leverage marketing system in HVAC, built into the dispatch loop instead of bolted on.

Lead Source & Marketing ROI

Every inbound call gets tagged with source — Google Ads, organic search, repeat customer, referral, Frontline AI inbound, NextDoor. The dashboard shows CAC by source and LTV by source side-by-side. Owner stops spending on the channels that don't pay back, doubles down on the ones that do. Marketing budget gets reallocated on data, not vibes.

— THE MOAT —

Frontline AI integration on the work order

When Jennifer books a call, the WO is created with the call recording embedded. The technician listens to the customer describe the problem before they roll. They walk in already knowing what's wrong. First-time-fix rate climbs, callback rate drops, customer trust spikes because the tech "already knew."

Nobody else has this. Not ServiceTitan. Not FieldEdge. Not Housecall Pro. Not Jobber. Routebook is the only HVAC ERP that owns both Frontline AI and the dispatch system in the same stack — which means the integration is native, not a third-party API bolted on top. This is the structural advantage that doesn't get caught up to in 18 months.

Visit Routebook ↗
Operate + Scale

Search-intent lead pipeline ThermaForge proprietary

Homeowners actively researching system replacement, qualified before they hit your PMs.

What's inside →

How it works

Surfacing homeowners who are actively researching system replacement — not idly browsing, actively pricing it out. Routed through automation, qualified against your service area and target ticket size, and delivered to your project managers as warm leads with the homeowner's research context attached.

Why this is different from Google Ads

Google Ads bid on the same five keywords every other HVAC shop in your metro is bidding on. CAC has been climbing for three years and tickets aren't keeping up. Search-intent capture happens upstream of the auction — the homeowner is found while they're still in research mode, before they've Googled "HVAC near me" and triggered the bidding war. Lower CAC, higher close rate, ticket size in your target band.

Scale only

Frontline AI Carson Systems · 24/7 phone coverage

Books the truck at 6:42pm Friday while your competitor's voicemail plays.

What's inside →

What Jennifer does

24/7 AI call coverage. Answers every after-hours, weekend, and overflow call. Books appointments directly into the Routebook dispatch board. Captures lead data — name, address, system age, problem description. Transfers genuine emergencies to the on-call manager. Logs every call with full transcript and audio.

What it replaces

Voicemail (which loses the call ~70% of the time on the first miss), call-center contracts at $1.50–$3 per minute, and the after-hours stress tax on the owner's spouse. The numbers on a $5M shop usually pencil out to 8–12 missed calls per week — at $400 average ticket, that's $4K/week of missed dispatch. Frontline is bundled into Scale.

Visit Frontline ↗
Scale only

Multi-platform content engine Carson Systems · Owner-voice content

Owner voice on five platforms while competitors post stock photos.

What's inside →

What ships

Content production and scheduled deployment to X, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube Shorts. Owner-voice content — not the stock-photo SaaS posts that every HVAC marketing agency cranks out. Field photos, jobsite walkthroughs, owner-on-camera explanations of why the contactor failed and what good looks like.

What it does for the business

Two compounding outcomes. Tech recruiting: when a journeyman in your metro scrolls Instagram, your shop is recognizable, the owner has a face, the culture is visible. Application volume goes up, quality goes up. Customer trust: when a homeowner Googles your shop, the social presence backs up the Google reviews. Close rate goes up because the trust is pre-built before the first call.

Scale only

Echo Clip video production Carson Systems · Short-form video

Tech-on-truck and owner-voice clips, no videographer on payroll.

What's inside →

Production model

Short-form video for the social channels. Tech-on-the-truck content, install walkthroughs, owner-voice clips, customer reaction edits. Scales without you needing a videographer on payroll or paying $3K per polished video to an agency.

What it produces

Roughly 12–20 short-form clips per month across the engagement, mixed across formats and platforms. Output paces with whatever shows up on a typical week of jobsites — the production engine is built to take raw field footage and produce platform-native edits, not to require studio shoots.

Scale only

Community engagement Carson Systems · Reddit + X presence

Show up where homeowners actually ask HVAC questions, with owner approval on every post.

What's inside →

Where it operates

Reddit (r/HVAC, r/HomeImprovement, regional subs in your service area) and X. The threads where homeowners ask "is this contactor failing or do I need a new compressor" or "what's a fair price for a 3-ton system in [your metro]."

Why approval-gated

Every post sits in your owner-approval queue before it ships. You see the thread, the proposed reply, the technical accuracy check. One tap to approve, one tap to reject. Drives organic trust over months — not days. Slow-burn marketing channel that compounds.

See the full platform stack →

[ ENGAGEMENTS ]

Two tiers. One seat at the table either way.

Both tiers are annual engagements with a six-client cap across the firm. Investment is scoped to the engagement and equity-aligned with your recap or exit horizon — discussed on the fit call once we both confirm the match. Operate is the right entry point for most $5M–$15M shops. Scale is for owners pushing past $10M who want to compress brand and recruiting on the same timeline as ops.

Operating partner

ThermaForge Operate

Annualengagement + equity-aligned

annual engagement · platform license included

The core ThermaForge engagement — operating partner attention, search-intent lead generation, and the Routebook ERP underneath everything you do.

  • Operating partner work — HVAC operator in the building
  • Systems & AI partner — Carson Systems platform team
  • Search-intent lead pipeline → your PMs
  • Routebook field service ERP, fully included
  • Profit-improvement & team-building playbook
  • Pre-PE positioning & recap readiness
Best fit $5M–$15M shops needing operational lift and a steady book of qualified calls.
See full Operate detail →

Operating partner + demand engine

ThermaForge Scale

Annualengagement + equity-aligned

annual engagement · entire platform stack included

Everything in Operate, plus the Carson Systems demand engine — 24/7 AI call coverage, multi-platform content, short-form video, and community presence.

  • Everything in ThermaForge Operate
  • Frontline AI — 24/7 call coverage + booking
  • Multi-platform content engine — X, IG, TikTok, Reddit, YT Shorts
  • Echo Clip short-form video production
  • Community engagement — Reddit + X, approval-gated
  • Quarterly brand-asset refresh
Best fit $10M+ shops scaling brand presence and tech recruiting alongside ops, or positioning for a near-term recap or sale.
See full Scale detail →
[ FAQ ]

Honest answers.

Do you guarantee geographic exclusivity in my market?

Yes. Once we engage with a shop in a given metro, we don't take a second engagement that competes with you in the same service area. You're not signing an annual engagement and giving up equity to wake up one morning and find we just took on your crosstown competitor. Exclusivity radius gets defined in the engagement letter against your actual service map, not a zip code.

Why equity?

Equity aligns the engagement with the actual outcome. Operating-partner work that pays only on retainer optimizes for the retainer. Operating-partner work that pays on equity optimizes for the recap multiple. The owner and ThermaForge end up in the same boat. Specific terms get negotiated per engagement against the recap timeline.

What's the difference between Operate and Scale?

Operate is the operating-partner engagement: ops uplift, lead-gen pipeline, and Routebook ERP. Right for $5M–$15M shops needing their phones ringing and their books cleaned up. Scale adds the full Carson Systems demand engine — 24/7 AI call coverage, multi-platform content, short-form video, and approval-gated community engagement. Right for $10M+ shops scaling brand and tech recruiting alongside ops, or positioning for a near-term recap or sale.

How is this different from a marketing agency or fractional CMO?

A marketing agency runs your ads. A fractional CMO writes your strategy deck. We sit in your dispatch meeting on Tuesday, look at your AR aging on Wednesday, and review your tech turnover on Friday. The marketing flows out of fixing the operations, not the other way around. If your operations are broken, the best marketing in the world makes it worse — more calls into a broken intake.

Is Routebook required?

Effectively yes. Operating-partner work depends on real visibility into the business — dispatch, AR aging, job costing, P&L. Stitched-together tools and three spreadsheets don't give us what we need. Routebook is the platform layer that lets us actually do the work. It's bundled into every engagement.

Is this Carson Systems or ThermaForge?

It's ThermaForge — a separate LLC. Carson Systems is the platform company that licenses Routebook, Frontline, and the content engine to ThermaForge for inclusion in client engagements. Same operating partners, two distinct companies, clear lines on the IP and the books.

[ READY TO TALK? ]

Six-client cap. We'll know in one call if it's a fit.

If we're a fit, we'll set up a 30-minute operator-to-operator call. If we're not, we'll tell you why and recommend who is.

Start your application See Operate detail