The Late 40s Pivot Into Business Buying

2. I'm buying a business that is largely driven by expert van lifers who founded the business and lived the life and are known in the industry. So having them as continue to be owners is a positive. And then the third thing is I went and met with them after we got the second loi signed I, I flew down actually we waited until after the Q of E which to me felt really late.

But I'm in Dallas there in Sarasota. So after the Q of E I flew to meet with them and they are just outstanding, fantastic guys and I know I've heard a lot of stories where it turns out that they sound nice and they end up not being nice. So I knew there was some risk there but the agreement was that I had control of the business.

And then assuming things do go well with your relationship with them on the other side of the transaction, what will their continued role will be the same? Yeah, they would stay indefinitely in their, in their roles.

Now we agreed that they would leave day to day management of the business and that they would essentially become a board of directors. So there was a transition period and then after that they're available for advising and strategy discussions. So they are largely silent partners but we'll meet quarterly and I ask them questions all the time.

And with their departure then who was going to fill their shoes? And where I'm leading you is to tie into your stage of career. Stage of life. You had said to me in the pre call you were wanting to work on the business, not in the business. Essentially.

Yeah, we have. So we haven't talked about that very much, but that's right. I, my goal was on the business, not in the business, but. But I would need to be the managing owner of the business and I knew I would need to step in as CEO in this case.

Most of the employees are remote and so I could stay in Dallas at least until 2030 and, and manage the company. Remotely. Now it has been difficult because I'm trying to balance managing the business and, and not being all the way in the weeds of the business. And that's been a little bit of a tricky balance for me.

But that, that was my objective was to kind of focus on leading the team who would be driving the business.

And that's what the departing owners were doing. Were they doing anything operational? Were you going to have to make any hires to fill, to fill their shoes?

I hired a couple of expert van lifers for, to increase our technical support team. So I need to shore up my lack of experience. So they were, they were the preeminent experts in the business.

Although they did, they did have a couple of technical people. So I added a couple of more people to that team. I promoted a few people to be managers.