The Frosty's Origin Story

Where did the name “Frosty” come from?

People have called me Frosty for as long as I can remember. It wasn't a marketing decision or a branding exercise. It was just my name. Growing up, nobody called me Omar. Not my friends, not my family, not the guys I worked with in construction. I was Frosty. Period.

When Mariafernanda Jacoboand I decided to start our own HVAC company in 2018, the name was obvious. “Frosty's HVAC.” It was already who I was. It felt honest because it is honest — this isn't a corporate brand we focus-grouped. It's my nickname on the side of a truck. When I show up at your door and say “Hey, I'm Frosty,” there's no gap between the person and the brand.

It also works pretty well for an air conditioning company. That part was just luck.

What did day one look like?

Day one of Frosty's HVAC was January 2018. I had one truck, a set of tools, my EPA 608 Universal Certification (#2396328), and Mariafernanda Jacobo. That's the full inventory. No office. No employees. No website. No savings to fall back on. Just us betting everything on the idea that I could fix air conditioners better than the next guy.

Mariafernanda Jacobo had just gotten her Texas HVAC Contractor License — TACLA126718E. That license is what made the business legally possible. In Texas, you need a licensed contractor to operate. I had the technical experience — 10years in HVAC, including 3 years on commercial jobs like the Amazon warehouses in DFW. But without her license, there's no company. She didn't just support the dream. She made it real.

Our first job came through Nextdoor. Someone in Irvingposted that their AC wasn't cooling. I responded within minutes. Drove out, diagnosed a bad run capacitor, replaced it. The customer was shocked at how fast I got there and how little it cost. That was the template for everything that followed: be fast, be honest, be fair.

How did Mariafernanda getting her license change everything?

Mariafernanda Jacobogetting her TACLA license was the single biggest moment in the history of our business. Without it, I'm just a skilled technician working for someone else. With it, we're a real company. She studied for that exam while managing our household and our kids. She passed on the first try.

That license (TACLA126718E) is under her name, and she takes that responsibility seriously. She handles compliance, TDLR regulations, insurance, bonding — all the things that make us a legitimate, licensed operation. People sometimes don't realize that behind every HVAC company name, there's a licensed contractor who bears the legal responsibility. For Frosty's HVAC, that person is my wife. I wrote more about our partnership in our family business story.

What were the early struggles like?

The first six months, I'm not going to lie, were terrifying. Some weeks the phone rang constantly. Other weeks, nothing. We'd sit at the kitchen table in Farmers Branch staring at the phone, willing it to ring. I remember one stretch in the spring of 2018 where we went almost two weeks without a single call. Two weeks. With bills coming due, a truck payment, and a growing family.

We survived those weeks because Mariafernanda Jacoborefused to panic. She told me: “Summer is coming. Texas has summer. They'll call.” She was right. When June hit and the Texas heat kicked in, the phone didn't stop. But those quiet weeks taught me something important — this business requires faith and patience. You have to believe in the long game when the short game is silence.

The money side was brutal too. I talk about the full financial journey in our growth from zero to $650K. But in the beginning, we were putting gas in the truck on a prayer. There were months where we made less than I would have earned working for someone else. The difference was that this was ours.

When did you know Frosty's HVAC was going to make it?

There wasn't a single lightning-bolt moment. It was more like a slow dawn. The first sign was when repeat customers started calling. Not just new customers from Google or Nextdoor, but people I'd serviced before calling back six months later for their next maintenance. That meant they trusted me enough to call again. That's when I knew we had something beyond just one-off jobs.

The second sign was referrals. A customer in Coppellwould tell their neighbor, and suddenly I'm servicing three houses on the same street. Word of mouth in the DFW suburbs is powerful. People talk to their neighbors, and when they share a good experience with a contractor, that contractor gets called.

By the end of our first full year, we had enough regular customers that the phone wasn't silent anymore. We were serving 6 cities — Farmers Branch, Coppell, Irving, Flower Mound, Lewisville, Grapevine. We had Google reviews. We had a real schedule. We had income we could count on. It was still hard. But it was working. And that feeling of building something real with my wife, for our family — nothing in my life has ever compared to it.

What does Frosty's HVAC look like now compared to day one?

Today we have 96 five-star Google reviews. We serve 6 cities. We went from zero to over $650K in revenue. I have my EPA 608, plumbing apprentice registration, and electrical apprentice registration. Mariafernanda Jacobomaintains the TACLA license and keeps the entire operation running. We're not a tiny startup anymore, but we still operate with the same principle from day one: show up, be honest, do it right.

If you want to know more about who I am beyond the business, you can read my full story — from growing up in Palo Solo, Mexico City, Mexico to finding my way to Texas and building a life here.