Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Amato.
Hi Michael, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Keeping aquariums goes back as far as my memory will take me. I remember going to the fish store with my dad as a child. We had all the aquatic pets – kept tadpoles until they grew into frogs, salamanders, turtles, fish etc… I worked at a fish store through college and had over a dozen aquariums at one point including 8 currently.
Aquariums are something that I’ve been passionate about my whole life and feel very confident in that aspect of business ownership. It’s the other aspects of business ownership that have pushed me to learn the most.
I started my business as a side hustle in 2021, when I was working full time at CSU as an ecologist. At this point I only had one customer, my chiropractor.
Over the course of a year, I built up enough business that I decided I was going to take it really seriously. I got a job as an executive assistant for a local entrepreneur – main source of income was from a painting business but there were other small businesses as well. This job was really vital to me learning how to run a business because I had done just about every job up til now including being a ski bum, washing dishes, waiting tables, room service, fast food, retail, fish stores, tutoring, scientific research & compliance… the list goes on.
But this was my first opportunity to learn about running a business and I learned a lot of valuable skills like running payroll, marketing, video editing, website design, CRM application development and just a general mindset shift to running a business. I can’t say how valuable this experience was to me, one job that I’ve learned so many applicable skills from.
After doing that for a year, while slowly building more clientele I decided I was ready to quit my full time job, and deliver packages for Amazon part time. As soon as I was able to give more time to my business, it really started to take off. After a few months, I was able to start working full time for myself.
It basically took me a little over two years to grow my business to a point where it could support me without having to work other jobs on the side.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a relatively smooth road in the sense that my business has seen very slow but steady growth and there haven’t been any major setbacks. I get to do what I love every day and earn an OK living, so I count my blessings for that.
But it’s not just luck that I landed into this. I wanted a big change in my life and made it happen.
The initial big struggle for me was quitting my secure career job that I had gone to college for. I put a lot of faith in myself to make a living on my own, which came with a lot of anxiety as well. I constantly stress about whether or not my business is growing enough and am always thinking about ways to improve my business. Coming from someone who used to really float through the motions at pretty much every other job I had, this has been a huge shift.
Even still, five years after starting my business I know that I should feel accomplished for the work I’ve put in so far, but I’m always a little nervous about the future and have a feeling like there’s a little voice behind me telling me I need to keep working more or harder.
The struggle for me now is figuring out how to keep growing my business without losing my life to it. Finding a way to get back to working 40 hours a week and really turning my brain off at 5. Going for 2 or 3 week vacations like I used to when I had PTO.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I specialize in nature aquariums or planted tanks, basically living pieces of art. Every aquarium features a hardscape, the backbone of an aquascape, which is made of rock and wood. Different types of stones and wood help me to achieve different moods or styles. Some tanks could resemble what you see in nature, but more often are better described as underwater gardens.
Live plants are a cornerstone of my business, and what I use in almost every aquarium I set up – some fish eat plants! Lush, lush, lush plant growth is what makes an aquarium look incredible. Watching the plants sway in the current, providing hiding spots for the fish who swim in and out of them. There are so many different types of plants too, from short grassy ones, to tall vines. Others grow in bushes of deep dark green while some have vibrant yellow and red heads. I truly love live plants.
What sets me apart from others in my industry is that I have decided to specialize in one niche area of aquarium keeping – live palnts. That has allowed me to learn an incredible amount about what I do, rather than generalizing my knowledge and experience across planted tanks, large carnivore tanks, reef tanks, biotopes, so on and so forth. I just do nature aquariums.
My greatest achievement in setting up aquariums was a setup I named Edscape, in tribute of my late dog Ed. We spent a lot of time hiking and camping together, so I built the tank to have a forest on the left side with a creekbed along the front. A field on the right side slowly transitioned up into some mountains that go off into the distance. In the industry, we call this a diorama style tank because it replicates landscape scenery in nature, rather than focusing on a closeup scene, like plants growing out of a broken tree stump.
Have a look through my portfolio, there are all sorts of nature aquariums there. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words… and I’m not that great at writing 🤣
Another thing that sets me apart from my local competition is that I focus a lot on education. I want my clients to know what I am doing and why I am doing it. So much so that I started creating YouTube videos to educate my clients on basic topics, so that rather than sending lengthy emails that didn’t do a good job helping people to visualize my points, I started making videos and sending the links. Surprisingly, my channel has grown a lot and YouTube revenue has actually grown into a large chunk of my income…. Something I never thought that I would, or could figure out how to do. But I really think that also helps to tie back to my first point answering this question, that I am extremely specialized in what I do – planted tanks are life. At least for me, it’s what I spend most of every day focusing on and it pays my bills.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory was visiting Australia and going to the Great Barrier Reef. I will never forget the entire experience of being in Australia, the tropical air, all the parrots, koalas, kangaroos and other unique animals and plants. But going out to the ocean without any land in sight and dropping into that reef felt like I was on another planet. A total visual overload.
There were so many different corals, anemones and fish. It was truly incredible. So many different colors, shapes and sizes. Even as a young child I knew that this was one of the most mind blowing places that could ever exist anywhere.
Pricing:
- Aquarium cleanings starting at $85
- Aquarium setups for any budget
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.freshflowaquatics.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshflowaquatics/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshFlowAquatic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@freshflowaquatics
