Today we’d like to introduce you to Travis Plymell.
Hi Travis, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It started with a simple idea: if we got good enough at hanging Christmas lights, maybe we could get paid to do it. So back in 2009 I set out with a few strands of lights, a ladder, and my right-hand man Gato. At first we were just doing friends’ and family’s houses for fun, but there was something about driving through a neighborhood at night and seeing it all lit up knowing we had a hand in it. We couldn’t get enough.
That first year we handed out around 500 flyers, and one local business owner took a chance on us and let us light up his home. That was the moment it started to feel real. In 2010 I made it official and Let There Be Light was born.
Over the past 16 years we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t, and we’ve learned some real lessons along the way. There truly is a difference between someone just hanging up lights and a professional Christmas lighting service, and that’s a title we take pride in. Today we’re full-service. We supply all the lights, handle in-season maintenance, and when the season’s over we take everything down and store it until next year. We work with homeowners, commercial properties, and HOA communities across North Carolina.
We’re particular about the look. We only install warm white lights because we’re in love with that traditional, classic Christmas feel. One of our favorite and most unique offerings is something we call our Blinkies. We make them in-house, and instead of the uniform string lighting you usually see wrapped around trees and bushes, our blinkies are scattered throughout and blink at random. It’s different, it’s unexpected, and it gives a property a little magic you don’t get elsewhere.
We’ve always been proud to be a locally owned and operated North Carolina business, and growing across the state has been a big goal of ours.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road definitely hasn’t been smooth, but every lesson along the way is part of what made us who we are today.
In the beginning I ran the whole thing from my truck and my phone. That works when it’s just you, but a one-man operation can only last so long. As we grew it stopped being feasible to keep everything in my head and on my phone, and that’s really how our team was born. From there it became about optimizing, finding better ways to coordinate the office and our crews in the field so we could spread as much Christmas cheer as possible in a pretty tight window.
That tight timeframe is one of our biggest challenges every year, and it pushed us to adapt in ways that might sound a little crazy. One thing we started doing is installing as early as the first of October. We put the lights up and leave them unplugged, so they’re ready and waiting, and whenever the customer wants them on they just plug them in and the timer is already set. It means we’re never scrambling to beat the season, and we can take care of more families, businesses, and HOA communities the right way instead of rushing.
One of the hardest lessons, though, came back when we still installed lights our customers owned. When something went wrong, we couldn’t always replace or repair it, and that never sat right with us. It mattered to us to stand fully behind our work. That’s a big part of why we made the switch to supplying the lights ourselves. Now when we put something up, we can guarantee it, and that peace of mind is worth everything to us.
We’ve been impressed with Let There Be Light, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We’re a full-service Christmas lighting company, and full-service really means full-service. We supply all the lights, we install them, we handle maintenance during the season, and when the holidays are over we take everything down and store it until the following year. We work with homeowners, commercial properties, and HOA communities across our service areas in North Carolina.
What sets us apart is experience. We’ve been doing this for sixteen years now, and in that time we’ve learned the ins and outs of this work the way you only can by doing it season after season. Christmas lighting is one of those things that looks simple until you’re the one up on a steep roof in cold weather making it safe and doing it right. We’re fully insured, we take the craft seriously, and we treat every home like it’s the only one we’re working on. That’s the difference between a quick seasonal gig and a company you can trust to come back year after year.
The thing I’m proudest of, though, is the way we give back. Every year we run a program called Share the Light, where we ask our clients, our followers, and anyone in the community to nominate families who could use a little extra light at Christmas. We provide a full-service installation completely free and light up their home for them, and we also provide a Thanksgiving dinner that feeds eight to ten people, which is made by our friends at Smoky Tony’s. Share the Light has become our favorite holiday tradition.
Beyond that, we try to stay involved in our communities however we can. We help run a charity walkathon called the Croc-a-thon that supports Indo Jax Surf Charities, a nonprofit that uses surfing as therapy to build confidence in disadvantaged, medically fragile, and special needs children. We sponsor local baseball teams, and we support the Buddy Walk for the Down Syndrome Network of Onslow and Carteret Counties. We do all of it because North Carolina made us who we are, and taking care of the communities that built us is the least we can do.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
In the beginning it was just me, and I had my hands on every single piece of this company. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that a business can’t grow if you hold onto it that tightly forever. At some point you have to trust good people to carry it with you.
And I’ve been lucky to find them. We’ve got an incredible crew and office team, people who show up every season and treat this work like it’s their own. Learning to step back and let them do what they do best is a big part of why we are where we are today. I may have started this company on my own, but it’s only become what it is because of our employees, our customers, and a community that has supported us every step of the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lettherebelight.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lettherebelight/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lettherebelightnc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/let-there-be-light-nc/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lettherebelight2010
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/let-there-be-light-jacksonville
- Other: https://share.google/iwWzhS5cwh8fheevl
Image Credits
Andrew Sherman Photography & Ballistic Photography
