Leaving $700s/Yr to Buy an Underperforming Printing Business

And that was certainly a hard thing to, to walk away from. But what I really cared about and what I was looking for is something that I could find true passion in. I. When I was getting those big bonuses at the end of the year, I didn't really feel very much.

You know, it wasn't exactly as rewarding as what I think I was hoping for and envisioned might be. You know, a greater sense of being rewarded when it's your own business. I could see the partners in my group that really had a hand in building Aries and it was kind of their baby.

I. I want, you know, if I was. If I say that Aries and stuck it out, you're going to work very hard and be in the weeds for, you know, 30 years and, you know, you can definitely do that in entrepreneurship as well.

But I was hoping to create a path and we'll get into it a little bit more where I could potentially break up my career a little bit in sprints and you know, eventually gets to the point where I can take my foot off the pedal if I want to need to. Kids were not very, still are not very far off for me. So I felt like the timing was right.

Well, the amount of W2 income you left behind is significant and it just makes the decision to pursue this path that much, I guess, more difficult. I mean, that, that, that is weighting you in this, staying in the W2 track more heavily maybe than somebody who is earning $150,000 a year, let's say. So all the more, it's a testament all the more to you're really wanting to, to, to pursue this path.

And that's a theme that we'll probably return to over the course of our conversation. But this is great. Okay, Dom, so let's get into the search itself. Tell us geographically where you are and were and what that looked like and then your other criteria as well.

Yes. So I, I went to USC for college in la and then I was working in la, so I wanted to stick around Southern California. That was one of my criteria. And I was looking for a business with around 1 million of EBITDA or SDE because that's, you know, all of your listeners, you would kind of understand that that's kind of a sweet spot for buying a business.

The valuation multiples are less fundamental, industry driven, not necessarily where, you know, comps are trading at and more so, more so just debt service coverage driven. And oftentimes these sale processes are being run by less sophisticated brokers that might be selling a, you know, decent sized printing business one day and a restaurant business the next.

So there's opportunity, I think, to get really good deals, which I did end up able, being able to execute for this one. So, and I guess last point, I was industry agnostic when I was at Aries, just a generalist. And I came across way too many companies and even niche industries that I did not even know existed and that I was able to build a thesis around and get very excited about.

For me to necessarily pigeonhole myself or focus just on one end market. I do appreciate searchers that have an industry thesis and pursue acquisition that way. And I think it's getting really smart in the space and mapping it out, figuring out who the top players would be, maybe having an M and a strategy from there.

That's A great way of doing it. For me, I kind of just cast more of a wide net. I wanted to be in SoCal and wanted a business of a certain size.