Meet the founder
Grant Wallace built a front porch for the whole city.
What started as one Atlanta neighbor trying to keep track of the good local contractors became a 17,000-member community, and a movement to put trust back at the center of hiring a pro.
He didn't set out to build any of this.
Grant Wallace just got tired of watching good people slip through the cracks. Honest Atlanta businesses doing beautiful work and going unnoticed, while homeowners had nothing to go on but cold ads and lead sites hawking their number to five companies at once. It bugged him enough that he did something about it.
When 2020 flipped everything upside down, Grant spun up a simple Facebook group so neighbors could vouch for the contractors they'd actually hired. Humble little idea. It took off anyway.
“Let's get all these into one central location, and that was as far as my brain went.”Grant Wallace, on the beginnings of The Southern Shmooze (Atlanta News First)
An entrepreneur's heart, pointed at the whole city.
Grant knows the contractor side firsthand. He runs Grantlanta Lawn, one of the founding businesses of the Shmooze, and he's the guy behind Peace of Mind Recycling too. Years of mowing lawns and hauling recycling taught him how hard it is for good operators to go toe to toe with big ad budgets. The Shmooze is his answer: earn the work with your reputation, not your ad spend.
That neighbors-first streak got the Shmooze picked up by WABE and Atlanta News First for turning plain old word of mouth into a real local economy, and it keeps the place one where independent owners stay independent and still do well.
Family guy first, everything else second.
At home, Grant's just a dad. He lives around Atlanta with his wife and their two little ones, the crew that keeps him grounded in why any of this matters. He'll tell you he doesn't really think of the Shmooze as a company. It's something he hopes is still standing when his kids are grown: neighbors looking out for neighbors, doing honest work and building good lives on it.
These days the community powers a certified registry, a concierge that matches homeowners with the right pro, and a growth studio that helps those businesses scale. But the Facebook group is still the beating heart, a front porch where Atlanta finds the folks who take care of its homes.
“It's a very active community.”Grant Wallace, Founder (WABE)
Hear it from Grant.
Come be part of it.
Whether you're a homeowner looking for someone you can trust or a business ready to grow on your reputation, there's a seat for you on the porch.