Ep. 35October 31, 2025· 16:42
35 - Mitch Vaughn | Mighty Process Server
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Episode Highlights
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In this episode of "Process Server Daily," Mighty Mike Reid chats with Mitch Vaughn, a seasoned private investigator and owner of Tracked and Solved. They delve into Mitch's journey from his personal experiences with private investigations to the formation of his agency. Throughout the conversation, Mitch shares valuable insights for newcomers and discusses the fulfilling aspects of his work.
- 00:00 — Mike introduces Mitch Vaughn, a private investigator from Lewiston, Idaho.
- 01:22 — Mitch's journey: from cyber security to founding Tracked and Solved Investigation Agency.
- 02:35 — Discussion on the agency's role in skip tracing and finding individuals.
- 03:50 — Mitch talks about using technology and old-fashioned methods for investigations.
- 04:15 — Mike shares his own starting experience in process serving, relating to Mitch's story.
- 05:40 — Advice for newcomers: importance of due diligence and legal compliance.
- 07:00 — Mitch shares hiring criteria for private investigators, including prior law enforcement experience.
- 09:28 — Diving into Mitch's worst case experience and lessons learned about due diligence.
- 12:10 — Mitch explains how he conducts checks for restraining orders before taking cases.
- 14:20 — Mitch shares a gratifying experience of helping a man wrongly accused of crime.
- 16:30 — The personal fulfillment Mitch finds in helping others through his investigative work.
- 17:45 — Mike wraps up the episode, encouraging listeners to stay safe and "live mighty."
Full Transcript
Intro:You're listening to Process Server Daily, the show where hustle meets strategy in the high stakes world of process serving. From elite pros to the new servers taking massive action, these are the voices of a rising industry. Hosted by the founder of 123 Legal Support, Mighty Mike Reed. This is your backstage pass to building a profitable process serving empire. Let's get into it. Welcome to another episode of Process Server Daily. This is episode number 35, and I am here with the one and only Mitch Vaughn, private investigator and Lewiston, Idaho with Tracked and Solved. How you doing, sir? Welcome.
Mitch Vaughn:I'm doing good, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Mighty Mike:Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. It's good to kind of get to know you a little bit and talk about your business. I always love when people join the community and they have different, you know, different outlook on things. And, you know, you're over in the Idaho area, so you're probably freezing your tail off even though it's summertime already,
Mitch Vaughn:it's getting warmed up.
Mighty Mike:So I, you know, I always love interviewing people who are like kindred spirits. The beard, though, it's making me feel like less of a man. Like, your beard is so epic, brother.
Mitch Vaughn:I appreciate you, bro.
Mighty Mike:So. So, Mitch, tell us a little bit about your. Your company like, and how you got started.
Mitch Vaughn:Sure. So, you know, I started off in cyber security. Well, to back up a little bit, I had a. I had an ex wife that had cheated on me. And I found out that I could hire a private detective to find that out. That was new to me. Hired a private detective, found out she was in fact cheating on me, took her to court, won custody of my child. I was successful at that. I also used to be a knucklehead, so, you know, in and out of trouble. I was just a douchebag. Rejuvenated my life, haven't been in trouble in over a decade. Started a cyber security, did that for about five years and then decided to open up Tract and Saw Investigation agency.
Mighty Mike:Wow. Track and solve. So Track and Solved Investigative agency. Do you guys track and find people? Are you. Would you say you're a bounty hunter?
Mitch Vaughn:Absolutely not. No.
Mighty Mike:Okay. What's the difference?
Mitch Vaughn:Well, tracked T, R, A, C, K, E, D and then the letter N and then Solved Investigation Agency. You get some people that try to hide. That's where skip tracing comes in. And we will try to locate them individuals. So that's where that comes in.
Mighty Mike:And you serve them as well?
Mitch Vaughn:Absolutely, absolutely.
Mighty Mike:Okay. You're great. Yeah. That's so cool. So traction served. Yeah, that's a unique name that's tracked and solved and solved. Okay. My Ad and Served llc. Well, that's so cool, man. So you're out there, you're serving. Now are we talking about tlos and delve points or we talking about some like Boolean searching on Google type sub rosa? Are you catfishing people? Are you doing all the things under the sun?
Mitch Vaughn:We, we, we use some of the upper private databases and then we do good old fashioned onsen and then sometimes we'll have to put boots on the ground to determine where an individual is.
Mighty Mike:Yeah, okay. So, so I'm sorry to hear that. We have very similar stories when it comes to that. I actually got served. Divorce. That's how I got started. And then the guy told me got paid 50 bucks to deliver it. Now I saw dollar signs. I'm like, well shoot, I could deliver 10, 20 papers a day, you know, and then, and sure enough, a couple years later, that's what was happening. So. And I wasn't charging 50 bucks, I was charging a hundred, you know. Oh, wow. So it's good to have you in the community. I appreciate you joining and especially with your experience in the PI world. What do you think about the community so far?
Mitch Vaughn:I love Nez First, Idaho, that's Lewiston. Absolutely love the people in it. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be successful and have eight private detectives that work for me now.
Mighty Mike:Yeah, well, I appreciate that. I appreciate you coming in and contributing so much to the community as well. And I'm curious about your experience so far working in the field and things like that. What, what, what advice do you have for people who are out there, maybe just getting started.
Mitch Vaughn:Do your due diligence. Be sure you add here to whatever state laws that you're operating in, whether if that's process serving or running surveillance or any investigative work. Try to get some years under your belt. Don't just try to open up your own agency. Try to join a reputable agency to where you can get that training and things like that.
Mighty Mike:What, what do you say? That's a great point. What do you think? What do you look for? I should say, so if somebody wanted to get with someone and you were looking at, you know, looking at a group of applications, let's say, who are you, who are you hiring?
Mitch Vaughn:You know, I try to hire previous law enforcement, you know, military. But I also have a couple guys for me that are juniors. It's called junior private detectives. I'm looking for someone that is very fluent in their language, they know how to speak. Well, I'm looking for someone that has writing skills because when you do final written reports, that's important. I'm looking for someone that can stand well in court and give their, you, you know, their, their self on their wording when it comes to how they found their findings and the investigative work that they did. I'm looking for someone again, that's adhering to whether if it's Washington or Idaho laws, that's the states that we operate in. I'm looking for somebody that is eager to learn and don't think that they know it all.
Mighty Mike:So. And this is one of the reasons why it's good to hire brand new people because they can, you can kind of meld them a little bit. But if they come from law enforcement, then they're, then they're used to having to think of each decision. How am I going to explain this decision in court? Is this something I can explain, like why I drew my gun or why I, you know, why did I go ahead and decide to search this person and not wait for a female officer? You know, whatever it is, you have to be able to explain what it is that you do in law enforcement. And as a private investigator, I'm sure it's not much different if you're gonna testify as a special witness in any case.
Mitch Vaughn:It's not. And you know, I get people that ask me all the time, why do you hire people that were in law enforcement? You know, especially, you know, you being a knucklehead and then rejuvenated your life. And I tell them, I said it wasn't their fault, it was my fault. But I will say that I do pay attention to them at first to be sure that, that their mindset isn't the way it used to be when they were in law enforcement. You, you got to go into every case neutral, and then as the cases develop, then you can determine, you know, what's going on in that case.
Mighty Mike:Yeah, that's, that's good, that's a good point. So, so we're going to cut to a quick commercial break. After that, I want to dive into your greatest experience out in the field, or maybe the one you learned the most from. All right, don't go anywhere. Hey, quick break from the episode to tell you about something that's changing the game for process servers across the country. It's called Mighty Process Servers. And yeah, you can join absolutely free inside. You'll get full access to every course, every download, and the educational tools that we use to Help process servers build profitable companies. We meet every Tuesday at 1pm Eastern for our live Mighty Mastermind call. Come join the conversation. You can connect with other professionals, post on the discussion board, direct message members, and become part of one of the most engaged communities for professionals. Process servers don't wait. Go to mighty process server.com and join today. Those who get verified, get listed and start bidding on jobs same day. Now let's get back to the show. Okay, so let's get into a couple of stories. Okay. One of the things that I love about podcasts, particular podcast about different professions, is you get the inside look from people who have been doing this thing. You are an expert, I would say, just so far, talking to you about, you know, skip tracing and you turned your life around. So I think we're a little bit kindred, Spears. Not just the beard, of course, the Viking in us, but the, the actual, the, you know, the actual having empathy for those who maybe, you know, everybody has downtimes, Everybody kind of has issues. So we're not judging anyone or what. But let's start with your worst experience, and then we'll transition to your greatest. What is your worst experience? Doing this. Doing this. Doing this job. And what'd you learn from it?
Mitch Vaughn:You know, that's a. That's a double sort of question, Mike. First, starting out green, right out of the box, took on a child custody case and found out that there was a protection order and that they hired a third party. Once I learned all that and learned that that was a no, no, we never made that mistake again. So that was probably the worst. And what I learned from it was always do your due diligence before you take on a case. See if there's any protection orders out there and be sure they're on Uppity up.
Mighty Mike:Yeah. Because if you use a protection order to not go out and knock on the door from the husband, let's say, versus the wife, and you're in, the husband hires you and there's a protection order, you're actually violating that on behalf of the husband. Is that. That's what you mean?
Mitch Vaughn:That's. That's correct. Yes.
Mighty Mike:Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually pretty common in divorce cases that go. That go south. You know, they'll file restraining orders. And whether it's been served or not isn't necessarily. Doesn't really matter if it's a temporary order. So, yeah, that's so. And you just do a quick search and see or call or. What do you do?
Mitch Vaughn:Let's say we do Both
Mighty Mike:we're diligent. Yeah. So. So. Okay, great. Yeah, that's great. And what I learned from that is basically just especially when you're doing some of these higher profile, like. Or you get some of these. There's a lot of tension. I want to say. Or you get somebody to call you and say, oh, man, we've had everybody and their mother trying to serve this one. Like that should right away be a red flag that, like, hey, this is going to be one where I got to pull out a little extra research on. Right?
Mitch Vaughn:Yeah. You always want to do your due diligence when you're process serving. A lot of times what we'll do too is they'll give us an address, but we'll also check and be sure that that's the correct address. And then we'll be sure that everything's on openy up and then we'll get them served the right way.
Mighty Mike:Nice. So what is your. We'll transition. What is your greatest experience? You know, what makes you keep doing this? You know what I mean? Like, sometimes people do a job and they just do it because they're getting paid. But what, what keeps you doing this? I have a feeling there's something. Something else here.
Mitch Vaughn:It's a lot deeper than that, Mike, man. It's a touchy subject, but what I will say is helping others. I've bit the bullet more times than once. I'm sure you know what I mean by that. And it's not to cut the next man's throw. When it comes to an investigative work, it's because people have stories and some stories I believe we had a guy, I'm not going to talk too much on it. I can't mention his name, but he was wrongfully accused of rape and we ended up doing our due diligence and he was found not guilty in court. And his family and him and the type of praise we got from it and whatnot, it was just rewarding, you know, you can't be. I feel in my heart, you cannot be in this line of work and just expect a paycheck or you're going to get no good results from anything you do in this investigative or process serving world. Child custody, same thing. We've helped families reunite. We've gave expert testimony in court on how we found our findings and help mom or dad get custody of their child. It's sensitive. Yes. But usually when we do our investigative work in child custody as well, we find that sometimes that may not be the right person to have that Child. But ultimately it's up to the judge.
Mighty Mike:Ah, man, that's good. I appreciate that. Yeah. And that's the thing is you, when you know you're making a difference, that's what keeps you pushing forward. It's why I started the community, it's why I continue to grow it and hire more people that, you know, it all goes together, it all helps, it all kind of come melds together to keep pushing forward. So wrapping things up here, what is your parting piece of advice for that person who is out there getting ready to take their bucket of serves and go out and serve for the day?
Mitch Vaughn:Adhere to whatever state laws, do your due diligence, check on the address. Be sure that you ask the person that had hired you. It's called the venting process. I'm a firm believer that you ask them, is this person dangerous? You know, you got to know as much about this person as possible and then go, go out and serve. Try not to serve at a job. I try to have all my investigators, process servers, serve at the home at a reasonable time at the job is just insulting. So just try to go away from that and, and do your very best. Do your very best.
Mighty Mike:I appreciate that, Mitch. And how can everybody connect with you?
Mitch Vaughn:Investigations with an S at the end. Idaho, that's our website.
Mighty Mike:Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much, Mitch. I appreciate you being a guest on the show. We're, we're gonna, we're excited to release this and, and help everybody who wants to become a private investigator or a process server learn the steps that they need to. And it's so cool to meet an actual operator who's doing it, doing the real deal there in Idaho. So that's, it's great to meet you, man.
Mitch Vaughn:Hey, well, thank you, Mike. And as always, it was a pleasure, sir.
Mighty Mike:All right, you guys go out there, take care, be safe and as always, live mighty. And we'll see you guys on the next episode. See ya.
Outro:That's a wrap on another episode of Process Server Daily where the legal support industry levels up. Want to grow your process serving business with the best marketing tools, the most engaged community and the highest ranking directory online. Visit mightyprocess server.com claim your listing. Join our free community. Surround yourself with process servers who get it and build something real. From the field to the courtroom. This is Process Server Daily. Until next time. Stay safe out there and live mighty.
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