Good Bones: Saving a $3m Business in Decline

If people can stick around for so long, to me that's also a testament of a good business. So all these things sort of like, you know, came together for me. Getting excited about the business too.

So I, you know, I got to study him a little bit to sort of see how he was. And I loved both the clients. The clients were fantastic.

I've had other guests who have bought such businesses and I, I kind of feel like. Let me, I'm taking the words out of your mouth again himat, but if you'll indulge me, I'll share my quick bullet points on how I see this industry. The, the future of printing is there.

So the old school, you know, printing business cards and paper, not surprisingly to anybody is, is dying. But there is a lot of future in, in large format printing and that's where the growth in this industry is. It's still very competitive.

It's highly fragmented. There isn't that much or any. I'm pro, I'm sure there's got to be some.

But there isn't that much private equity activity here actually. Of course there is because Dom talked about being able to use private equity decks to learn about the industry. But it's not, it's not, not overrun by private equity.

A lot of retiring owners, boomer owners. So there's an operational for, there's, there's an opportunity for young hungry buyers to come in and, and, and bring new energy and eyes to the business and AI enhancements and so on. But, but fundamentally like a lot of, like a lot of businesses in this world in the, in the, in the lower middle market, it's a services business and therefore quite…

Yeah, so that's my take. How do you react to all that?

I mean the awesome takes and I own all these takes that you just mentioned is stuff that I've come to know now. I did not know all that going in, going in. I like. So I, as a CEO, as an operator, I've always been marketing oriented.

So I actually invested a lot of like money towards those kind of things which would have been spent a lot better or more effectively. But today all the things that you basically pointed out is stuff that I've now learned that I since I've been operating in the space that I think this is like, it's almost quasi manufacturing without the heavy capex.

So it's, it's a really good time to be in this space. I also feel it's similar to how home care was in 2014, 2015 and not today where it's a lot more saturated by private equity funds. So you're right, it's a fragmented space.