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

And so what happened in between was, you know, you know, there's always a wild ride, right? You've got to then go, okay, we're built to, to be this size, but we have this growth mentality, we have these restraints. Where can we start growing, right and start moving.

Very blessed that there was a core group of people at that business who love that business, who were just amazing. Right. And then those folks grew with it or grew to the point where that was the right level for them. We imported some other talent that would come in, but in that situation, a lot of those folks were really had the horsepower to go grow.

Right?

And rightfully so. Like, you know, that really strong players. Brought in an operator who was new to the business, but not new to the brand. And that gentleman grew like wildfire.

And we had a sales leader who just had a magical touch and he, you know, just gained the experience of being able to work on the business. But that was the big thing, is teaching everybody how to work on it. And so it was just years of doing that.

Plus, I also found that inside of a business cycle, everybody can learn how to work, live and be on a. If you were smart enough to go run a business and work in it, you are beyond smart enough to own it. But I go back to you asking me that great question about what did Don do for you?

Don took me to the meetings. Exposure, understanding the ability to discuss it afterwards so you get less scared or not scared is not the right word. Or less intimidated by banks, lawyers, insurance, health insurance, 401k.

You just know it's just another process and we're going to get through it. And I find that after everybody getting exposed to that, after about four or five cycles, I'll call it four or five years or a debt cycle or however you want to look at that, everybody goes, oh, I got this. You're like, yeah, you got this.

I mean, it's not. It is hard. I mean, we, we had spikes and then we had slumps and we had Covid and then we had supply chain, you know, scariness, and then we had administrative changes and then. But if you've got a team that's focused and cares, you can block out the noise and focus on how to move everything forward. And I've got a few philosophies on that if you, if there's time to discuss.

But that's, that's a big part of it is just getting a team rallied. And we were blessed.

Greg, going to the decision of partnering with the operator who was at the business but didn't have any ownership, who became your partner. On the one hand, that's an incredible way to de risk this because he's already been operating the business for 10 years. So so much of the risk in these acqu is the.