Jordan Perrin

Jordan Perrin never planned to be in the duct cleaning business. He can barely build an IKEA table.

He was finishing his last semester at university when COVID shut everything down in March 2020. A friend who installed HVAC units lost all his contracts overnight. He called Jordan, not for expertise — for survival. "I need to get out of the house. Can you help me find contracts?"

Jordan opened Facebook Marketplace. Started running ads. Within weeks, he realized there was a real business underneath the side hustle.

Before this, he had been building NightPlann — a nightlife tourism platform. COVID killed it overnight. Great industry. Wrong time.

So he went from what he calls a "fun business" to a "boring business." The goal now is to turn boring businesses into fun ones.

DuraClim was officially created in 2021 with two co-founders — friends he grew up with, each bringing something different to the table. They started with HVAC installation, then pivoted into duct cleaning when they spotted the gap. Cleaning is a volume business. Way harder than installation.

The first year nearly sank them. They were only watching revenue. Not profit. For six months, they were losing money on every job without knowing it.

"We were selling a product and service that we were losing money on every time. It took us four to six months before we realized."

His advice from that lesson is two words: know your numbers.

By year three, DuraClim had grown from 10 employees to 40. The systems that worked for 10 collapsed under 30. Onboarding was a disaster — "Here's your polo, here's your equipment, here's a YouTube video." Employees weren't trained. They weren't comfortable. Turnover spiked.

Perrin doesn't blame the people who left. "We can't even be mad at them. We didn't do our job properly."

The growth triggered a burnout. He describes crying for no reason. Not eating. Being physically at the office but mentally absent.

"I was just not there anymore."

He put the pressure on himself because he felt he owed his team. They weren't quitting on him. He couldn't quit on them.

His recovery came from the same people who made the weight feel so heavy — his partner, his family, and his team. When they told him to take a week off, he came back to find everything running without him.

That's where he knew he had something solid.

The experience taught him the hardest lesson of his career: he was the bottleneck. Jumping into meetings his managers should run. Answering questions that should go through department leads. One manager finally told him directly: "You asked me to run this, but then you took over the meeting. How do I look?"

That conversation changed everything.

Perrin runs DuraClim the way he played football. Twelve players on the field. Everyone does their job. Everyone trusts their teammate. Don't overcompensate. Don't micromanage. Run the play.

He looks for people with an ownership mentality. He trusts his gut over credentials. "I'd rather hire someone with zero experience but the right fit than someone with a resume who doesn't match our values."

DuraClim now operates in Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto. The goal is to become the leader in North America. But Perrin is deliberate about not rushing — he has seen what happens when growth outpaces systems.

When asked if he's proud of what he's built, he pauses.

"People around me are making me realize that what we're doing is great. Even employees say, 'You should be proud of yourself.' And I'm like — yeah, true. But it's you too. Without you, we wouldn't be here."