From one van to a full-service Twin Cities handyman outfit
Our founder, Aaron Mickelson, spent nine years as a general contractor before starting NorthStar in 2014. He kept running into the same problem: homeowners couldn’t find anyone to handle the small stuff. Contractors didn’t want a 90-minute job, and the “handyman” listings on Craigslist were a gamble.
NorthStar was built to fill exactly that gap. Flat-rate pricing, real scheduling, and a handyman who actually shows up in the window we promise. We started in South Minneapolis with one van and a two-week waiting list. Twelve years later, we’re running three vans, six handymen, and the same two-week book-out most weeks.
In 2019 we added heated driveways as a northern specialty. Minnesota winters are long, plowing contracts are unreliable, and radiant snow-melting systems just make sense up here. It’s now about 30% of our annual revenue and the service we get the most word-of-mouth referrals for.
