Episode 134: The Chemical Outlier with Joe Mischik of Painless Pool Care
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We’re kicking off our first episode of the year with a bang. Our guest today has been a constant innovator in the industry for over 20 years. He is always trying to improve and spends hours upon hours researching new and better ways of taking care of his current customers’ pools.
We named this episode after the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell because we think it describes Joe Mischik perfectly. He has been well ahead of the curve, many times pushing away from the pack on things such as using phosphate removers and liquidators, embracing technology and software in their early stages, mastering the LSI, removing CYA, and, most recently, testing and using Cal Hypo tabs.
Joe successfully switched all of his pools off of Trichlor a few years ago and keeps all of his pools between 20 and 40 CYA, and chlorine levels below 4 year-round, which is pretty impressive anywhere, but especially here in the Arizona desert.
Listen in as Joe reflects on how his hardworking parents, both from fields completely different from his, inspired him to become driven on his own career in the pool industry. He then shares what made entrepreneurship so alluring to him back in college, why he got into the pool industry specifically, and the origin of the name “Painless Pool Care”. Joe also recalls his first impulse to challenge norms in the pool industry at an IPSSA meeting, his early tests with phosphate removers, and how learning to use LSI “took the veil off of chemicals”. Finally, he goes through how he communicates with his clients as an outlier in the industry, and how pool service professionals can begin their journey to mastery over water chemistry today.
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Show Notes
14:01 - Lessons Joe took from his father and applied to his business
16:05 - How Joe got into the pool industry and started his business
30:27 - Joining IPSSA and challenging the industry
42:53 - How Joe tracked and documented his trials
54:25 - Pushing for LSI to become embraced
1:02:14 - The temperature factor of the LSI
1:10:26 - The impact the book Outliers had on Joe
1:17:47 - Joe’s early adoption of the slow-dissolving Cal Hypo tab
1:26:20 - The vital importance of the free available chlorine factor
1:30:24 - Joe’s process when he takes over a basic residential pool on Trichlor
1:40:14 - Advice on how pool service professionals can take the next step
1:48:35 - Joe reflects on his career as an outlier and his goals moving forward
