Buying a $40m Business as a 49-Year-Old First-Timer

Sure.

In the middle there, you know, that second year we weren't 90 then we're probably 50. You know, we. The discussion about, hey, what if you bought a second flatbed specialized trucking company? So that was purchased.

And then during the day I'd be building up the platform company. Ultimately we purchased 2, 3, 4 companies in the next couple of years just by going at it one on one. And the platform company had been built up.

So I came back to Dallas and focused on business development of the acquisitions full time, along with taking over some of the marketing pieces and then helping me on the team to take us public. And so we spent the next year or two identifying companies, bringing them on. Ultimately we were going to go public in 16.

That didn't work out because that was a weird year in the market for multiple reasons. And then we ultimately went public via a spac. So a special purpose acquisition company reverse merger.

Sometimes they call blank check companies. And that was its own very different journey. But we went public that way in 2017.

We brought on the eight or nine companies that we had sort of warmed up over the years, over the next couple of years. And then ultimately it was decided, hey, we're really just going to focus on getting good at being a public company and we're going to hold on the M and A for a while. And that was my opportunity to say, okay, I came here to learn how to buy and grow a company.

That's why I joined this whole thing. The fact that this thing serendipitously turned into a big public company was unique but unexpected. And I want to go back to the roots of finding a blue collar roots company in dfw because now the kids are junior high, high school.

I don't want to be on planes. I want to focus, I want to be around and I want to go live my dream of trying to do that. And now I have multiple different types of experience. How can I go apply it?

Great. Thank you for that, Greg. And one last question on that experience with Daskey. As you said, your night job was basically sourcing deals, right?

Sourcing potential targets of these other flatbed trucking business owners. So you got lots of reps in cold outreach and proprietary outreach as we call it, and talking to owners and sellers. Any learnings from so many reps at doing that?