Today we’d like to introduce you to Devin Barry.
Hi Devin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and throughout most of my formative years. My father was in construction, had been a general contractor in Oregon and Arizona, and from a very young age, he taught me and involved me in his trade. This meant that the seed of entrepreneurship and building construction and repair was planted deep.
I had a couple of failed service related businesses in my early 20s, but for the most part, I simply worked as a carpenter for various GC’s on projects that included a lot of high-end custom homes, particularly in the framing, trim work, stairs, and additions/remodels. I had developed a good reputation for having a well rounded knowledge of construction and the ability to operate machinery of just about any kind. I ended up being hired by Lifestyle Flooring, a Tampa based flooring company, to open and manage a location for them in Tallahassee. It was a good position and allowed me to learn a lot more of the administrative side of running a business, but after two years of that, I became engaged and moved to Central Florida to be closer to her family before getting married. I took a temporary contract position with an aerospace company – essentially building custom shipping containers for them, it was interesting and I got to see some cool things in my time there, but it was always temporary, and was both an early morning shift and an hour-plus drive each way.
As my contract was approaching its end, a hiring/HR consultant reached out to me about a position in Orange City Florida with Superior Sheds, the owner of which was an entrepreneur named Alex Martens. The position was closer to home, and less than a mile from where my wife worked at the time, so this allowed for us to have lunch together quite often, a blessing for a marriage where you have had to get used to not seeing each other or speaking except for the weekends and a few precious hours before bedtime, such is the life of working overlapping schedules with your spouse.
The jobs proximity to my home and my wife’s job was not the only thing made this job appealing, Alex Martens had the spirit of an entrepreneur and a mentor, he took me under his wing, and taught me so much about business, bringing out the best in people, and challenging yourself constantly – “for love of the game.”
After about four years with Superior Sheds, this dynamic entrepreneur, this mentor I looked up to, announced to the management team that he had been fighting pancreatic cancer, and it was not going as well as he had hoped. He stepped back from the day-to-day operations to focus on his health and spending time with his family, but eventually the cancer claimed his life in 2019. The previously silent partners became more involved, and amount of out-of-town travel, which was already putting a strain on my family, was expected to double for the foreseeable future.
Unwilling to commit to so much sustained absence from my wife and kids, it was time to scratch that itch that every entrepreneurial person has when they’re working for anyone but themselves. I went into business for myself as a steel building dealer that focused on complete project management for people that wanted to build, garages, workshops, and small warehouses, I sold four and worked with Central Florida, steel building and supply exclusively, and I still do to this day,
However, garages workshops soon led to repairs and maintenance to other buildings that belonged to my customers. And soon I was spending half of my time doing carpentry, repairs, paint, and tile work… and it made me happy. I can genuinely say I enjoy fixing things that have fallen into this repair or been damaged and seeing them gain new life and beauty. I know that sounds silly, but if you’ve ever worked with your hands and taken something broken and made it not just work again, but given it a beauty too, it never gets old.
The track I was on I knew I wanted my company to become a licensed contractor in Florida so I could scale up even further. I took my Florida Florida general contractor license exams, and PASSED! I applied for my license with the Florida DBPR and almost immediately after that Covid-19 shut everything down. This was so new to everyone. No one knew how the government agencies were gonna work, there was no direct line to reach someone in the application process just a general message portal, so it would take weeks sometimes months before I would hear back from a single question or get acknowledgment for submitting a single document. It was so discouraging and we had so much going on…. That it was almost a year later that I was finally denied the license. I met all of the criteria except for one, I had never been a W-2 employee of a general contractor as a project manager. I had always acted as a subcontractor/either as a tradesmen or as a project consultant. That entrepreneurial spirit and desire to work for yourself, backed on me.
So I kept on as I was without scaling up, passing on projects that would require a license to various GC‘s I was acquainted with. Until one day that opportunity presented itself, a property maintenance company based in Longwood had gotten a qualifying partner to become a general contractor in Florida, but needed someone to act as their project manager and get the construction side of the company up and running. We came to an understanding that I intended to work for them for two years to get the required knowledge and then either work with them to continue to expand and grow their business, or help them grow enough that they could operate without me and we could part ways. Two years came and went, and it looked like I would stay on with them, but the owner wanted to restructure, and it was time to part ways. Some might think this would’ve been a devastating blow, I had poured my heart and soul into that company for over two years, I liked the people I worked with… but the initial feeling wasn’t sadness or anger, but relief.
In anticipation of my original plan, I had never let my legal company become inactive or lapse and I still had all my tools, I never stopped doing repairs and handyman work on nights and weekends since it was established in 2017. I had worked on a new branding plan and a DBA name –
FixitFast professional Handyman Services was up and running by the end of the week. It has been 6 months since it has become my primary focus again, and it has exploded! The number of projects out there the property management companies and homeowners have trouble finding someone to take on in Florida is staggering. Things that you’re typical on site maintenance guy or DIY minded homeowner isn’t willing or able to take on, but is smaller than most builders and contractors are even willing to look at – owners and managers are always telling me that the projects that fall in between are the ones they’re having the hardest time getting addressed.
That’s where FixitFast Handyman Services has been able to shine! Fence repairs, door, repairs, siding, repair repairs, concrete, and masonry repair repairs, even partial home painting. Things that a lot of painting companies consider too small to take on. You only want one wall painted and all the trim? Absolutely. Concrete sidewalks have trap hazards/uneven surfaces? Done.
But far away, the biggest portion of my jobs is single-family homes that are rental turnovers. Things were the property manager. Might have to have five or six different companies come in to address different issues with the wall, floor, cabinets, trim, exterior… instead of paying multiple companies and multiple trip charges for those companies to come in to get it rentable again they’ve been sending me to address the bulk of these problems so that it’s ready to rent out again with minimal downtime.
But that entrepreneurial spirit and desire to grow and challenge myself isn’t gone, I will be taking the Florida contractors exam again this spring, so that by this summer, I’m hoping to have that license ready to go. That’ll allow me to do larger siding repairs, remodels that involve structural changes, and so much more.
I’m more excited about 2026 than you can imagine.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
A lot of this has been covered in the previous comment which was extremely long.
But I guess additionally a challenge is that over the past eight years I’ve had to have two knee surgeries, the recovery of which has set me back significantly both times.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Again, just a passion that I have for fixing things that are either broken or unused or once we’re beautiful and now we’re ugly. To be able to restore that is so satisfying.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Florida’s had such an influx of residence over the past five years. I foresee 10 to 15% market correction in single-family homes probably more than that in areas closer to the water as they seemed to inflate faster than others. But I by no means, expect a recession in the housing and construction industry here. Especially for single-family homes. If you’ve driven anywhere in Central Florida lately you’ve seen new apartment complexes popping up everywhere, that’s good. We desperately needed the housing, just the sheer volume of people versus the availability of single-family homes is not sustainable.
But when it comes to single-family homes, Florida has heat, humidity, sunshine (UV), oak trees (tannic acid), thunderstorms, highly corrosive salt environments – the need for repair work will never end, and I’m here for it!
Pricing:
- Most of my projects range from $500-$5000
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.fixitfastfl.com
- Instagram: FixitFastFL
