Started Mid-Career, Grew to $38m in 3 Years

Yeah, of a skew that you would distribute. So just a better picture because it still feels kind of abstract when I think industrial distribution.

Sure. So 50%. If you combine the three companies that we own, 50% of our sales are fluid connectors.

Fluid connectors. So fluid connectors is a fancy term for rubber hoses or hydraulic hoses. And so if you think of like a, like a John Deere tractor, there's a lot of rubber hoses on that John Deere tractor. And so in the, the retail component that we operate, we'll get a lot of farmers walking through our door with a busted hose.

And so our job is to, you know, get them up and running as, as fast as possible. And so, so we'll find the right hose, we'll find the fittings that go on either side of the hose, will fabricate those onto the hose and, and then get them on their way. And so, so again, 50% of, of the businesses are those rubber hoses, which, you know, you'd be surprised at how many, how many things out there have…

Yeah.

In the type of businesses that we're touching each and every day.

But Shaun, I, I heard you say that they're outside of the South. Most of these industrial distributors don't play in a single industry, that they're, that they span industries. But I would imagine that the way you'd add value as an industrial distributor is you'd be deeply concentrated in a single industry and you'd be the one stop solution.

Anything you need for that industry and you, and you just go deep on an industry. I don't, I'm speaking out of turn here or beyond my pay grade, but I, I think of like, aren't in the, in the kind of hospital medical space. Isn't there like Cardinal?

Aren't there a few big names where it's like they just provide all of the medical supplies to all the hospitals? And, and it's a totally consolidated and there's just like two or three big. One sort of, sort of dynamic.

I would say at the manufacturing level there are certainly a couple of dominant players. And we, we represent one of the most dominant, at least what we feel is the number one manufacturer in the rubber hose space and the number one manufacturer in the hydraulic space. We represent Parker Hannifin, who is, is one of the 800 pound gorillas.

But you know, from a distribution perspective, it pays at least in my eyes, to be, you know, diversified. We're, I would say product experts when it comes to the products that we're selling in the applications that they're, they're being used for. But those applications can span a lot of different industries.