“If it’s something we haven’t done, we’re not going to lie to the homeowner or customer and say we can do it,” says Alex Munoz, who owns Colorado Flooring Solutions in Denver.
The rule shapes how he staffs a job. Munoz does not send one fixed crew to whatever comes in. He works with installers who each have a strength, and he matches the person to the floor. Some are strongest in carpet. Others are strongest in hard surface. “If I’m not doing the work myself, I just like to get the best person for the job,” he says. “They each have their own specialties, if you will.”
The company installs carpet, laminate, luxury vinyl tile, sheet vinyl, linoleum, and engineered and prefinished hardwood, for houses and for commercial spaces. Munoz has no favorite between home and business customers. “It’s all one and the same, honestly,” he says. Hardwood is not the company’s main line, but it is the material where he is most careful about who goes. “I make sure I get the right guys on hardwood project because it’s very delicate,” he says.
Carpet is where he speaks with the most authority. He takes pride in knowing the different carpets, from wool to patterned styles, and he doesn’t consider carpet a job for homeowners to try on their own. Laminate is another matter. “Homeowners can attempt to do it themselves,” he says.
The specialty system also governs his calendar. Munoz credits his scheduling for how long he has lasted, and for the most part he does not overlap projects. The exception is a hard-surface job that keeps him at one house for a week or two. Then he can send other installers out to handle the carpet work.
That kind of matching starts at the estimate. One homeowner, Don G., recalled in a review that Munoz measured the house, talked through carpet and a few other options, and explained why mixing vinyl with natural wood doesn’t work well. On install day Munoz and a helper arrived on time, moved the furniture and left seams the customer couldn’t find.
Munoz came to the business through the work. As a teenager he went along on jobs and helped, and he learned the trade before he thought about running a company. He subcontracted for local companies and registered his first business name at about 20. Colorado Flooring Solutions was founded in 2019. He went out on his own, he says, because he saw the gap from the installer’s side: he was paid less while customers were charged more, and he figured running his own company could do better by both.
What he asks of the installers he sends is mostly about the house they are standing in. He wants them fast but not rushed, and he wants them there when the job is scheduled. “You gotta know you’re in somebody else’s home. You’re moving the furniture around. We gotta respect their things,” he says. If an installer gives him their word on a time, he expects it to hold, and if something comes up he expects a call. He holds himself to the same rule. “Even if I’m late, I’m still going to be there,” he says. “I’ll let them know.”
For now Munoz also handles most of the office work himself, from emails and appointments to payments and payroll. He has put hiring in a deliberate order: installers first, office help later. “I can’t do it all,” he says. He looks for installers who are respectable as well as skilled, since they are walking into people’s homes, and he wants to bring on more crews and teach them how the company does things while keeping the personal service. He also says he wants to give people jobs.
The territory is already wide. He has driven two hours for a job, and four hours on rare occasions. “I drive pretty far,” Munoz says. “Anywhere now seems like it’s an hour drive, honestly.”