A $10m Acquisition for Freedom and Family

Am I comfortably going to be able to make that and have funds to reinvest and grow this company? And the answer was a resounding yes. For the seller, he was really stuck on a multiple, which at least I did not provide given the state of the business.

However, Cash at close was important to him. So when we were able to get close to a cash at close number that he was okay with, then he got comfortable with a larger seller's note, lower enterprise value, et cetera. So that's really my takeaway to people who are considering this is don't focus on one metric.

But, you know, we got it to a point where I no longer needed to have investors. So it was really what's best for me and where can I be comfortable that I can make this a successful company long term?

Yeah, that was great, Anika. It's a holistic way to look at it. Not only your own long-term view, but also, of course, considering really what the seller wants and teasing out what the seller is optimizing for is part of the art of negotiation and something that first-time buyers often overlook.

They think it's all about... multiple are all about the purchase price which probably podcasts like this um plant in their heads we we and i can certainly over over index on that or over emphasize that um that said um you know i've i've i've gone back and forth on this and and um i've

I've had my wrists slapped when I've said things like, you know, a couple more, you know, going from 3.4 to 3.7x is, you know, just a couple more months really of value here. So what's the big deal? And of course... The monthly payments that you are optimizing for in your own case do directly correlate to the purchase price of the business, the multiple you pay for the business.

So in some sense, we're talking about the same thing when we're talking about monthly payments and multiples. So anyway, on that back and forth with him in the deal dying... You had said that the deal died in dramatic fashion when it died.

Is there any more to that story? You hadn't actually given me more color in our pre-call, but I'm curious.

I think it was just, it wasn't... dramatic in the sense that no one was yelling at each other i mean the seller is a very nice person he's like he's just a wonderful person he's his team loves him he's on the school board here at to come see which is something i would never do it's just it's it's it's it's a terrible plight in my opinion um It's just too political and it's not productive, at…

It doesn't seem very productive. And nobody was yelling into that. I have a very calm temperament.

I think... It was the suddenness, right? So we were doing this over email, which in some cases, I think it is a great idea because there's a record of everything everybody said. In some cases, you want to be in a room and look at cues.