Fortnite didn’t blow up overnight. It slowed down.
That’s the part most people miss.
And if you run an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical business, this should feel very familiar.
It’s not a sudden drop. It’s a gradual build. The business is humming, cash is coming in, so you add headcount, put more trucks on the road, increase your marketing spend, and expand into new services. Every move feels right because the numbers keep trending up.
Then things level off.
Calls flatten. Close rates dip. CAC creeps up. But your cost structure? That’s still built for a business that’s growing fast.
That’s exactly what happened with Epic and Fortnite.
They built the company assuming Fortnite would keep printing more cash every year. It didn’t crash, it just stopped growing fast enough. And the second that happened, all the extra spend, big bets, and bloated costs got exposed.
Same thing happens in home services all the time.
You build for the version of your business you think is coming, not the one you actually have today. And when growth pauses, the math catches up fast.
Learn more about Epic’s story in my latest podcast episode.
