Good Bones: Saving a $3m Business in Decline

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To know August and the team at Oberle. Check out oberly-risk.com that's O B E R L E- risk.com link in the notes. Okay. Himmat. So let's turn to. Let's hear about your.

It was, yeah. And I loved the company and I knew it was a great company, but I did not feel comfortable with the financials on the numbers.

Interesting. Okay, so it was you who pulled out, not the owner. And so, yeah, just tell the story of how a broken loi can still lead to a positive relationship and in fact an offer to run her business. Tell the. Yeah, tell us what the business is. Start there, please.

And one of the reasons was in the year before, I'd lost two people I was very close with, including my grandmother who had basically. So I was with them till the very end. And it was an amazingly profound experience for me.

Absolutely. Well, so Circle of Life and Soaring Eagles Home Care were two, two separate entities. And there was actually a third one too. Circle. There was a Circle of Life, Anishinaabe Circle of Life Cola.

So she basically was a hairdresser and had done all kinds of odd jobs, never made it. She built this company when she was 52, 53 years old, and she'd amassed probably a 40, $50 million fortune by the time she was in her mid-60s. And so when I circle this business, she had grown it to a certain level.

And I'm like, hey, let me talk to the founder. You know, let me just talk to her once. And Pat and I had a conversation.

And this was a business which was built by Pat yeager, who was 25% not a native American, you know, raised and you know, she grew up in Minneapolis. Fascinating lady. It ties in a little bit with your question about before, about these amazing entrepreneurs in the US who basically build these companies despite not coming from a very privileged background or any of that stuff.

And so I'm like, yeah, sure. So I jumped onto a plane, went saw her, and. And she basically she and I sort of like, you know, we shook hands and about wanting to do a deal together and somehow, somehow the other my offer got accepted.

And I remember the first call when I had with them, they said, you're too late. We're running a process and we have a lot of offers already on the table. And for whatever reason, I love the business, reading about it and like, you know, sort of, I really like the SIM that I saw.