That's the reason we're buying businesses Here we're, we're trying to buy businesses and give our friends who want to move back to, to Colorado a platform to come and build a career here. You know, we can, we'll go into this, I think next. But for small businesses, it's a very unique ecosystem in that there's basically one of everything.
Acquiring Minds
Hometown Holdco: Geography as Moat
Excerpts · 439 segments · ~1:41:45 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
There's one auto shop, there's one roofing company, there's one this and that. So there are many monopolies with wonderful buyers, you know, wealthy people who at the auto shop, they're going to get their cars fixed up because they want to be. They have the money to prioritize safety and also because it's so small.
And Sarah and I have been here for so long, we know every investor, every customer, every business owner. So when we're down there, when we're down in work in the front desk of the shop, we're hugging 75% of the people that walk in. So it's a very, it's a great place to run a business for a lot of reasons financially and just, you know, word travels fast here.
But for a long time, nobody was coming in with, with a local first mindset. Yeah. You know, I would have thought that Aspen, a lot of the dynamics that you're talking about would have long since happened in Aspen.
But I guess, I guess the linchpin was, or the pivot point in this story was Covid, where the billionaires decided to actually live year round there as opposed to before. They would just be in and out and so. Right. So changing the school systems, permanently pushing up rents.
Got. Yes. And I also assume everything that you just described afflicts to varying degrees other similar towns in the, in. In the mountain west, but probably around, probably beach towns and so on. Places that were. Yeah. So this is really a microcosm of a larger trend.
I'm sure you're seeing it in Hawaii or seeing it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And those billionaires didn't go home because of course, Covid, we heard everybody migrating out of the cities. But then there's also been the follow on story that.
Well, actually, no, I want to live in the city. I, I has that not. So there's not. Hasn't been somewhat of a retreat from the billionaires. They. They've stayed put. They've stayed put. I mean I'm sure there, there's some attrition, but they especially here.
I mean if they have kids that are going to the schools here, ours, we went to a public high school with a ski lift from the cafeteria to the mountain. Like it's pretty hard to.
To step away from that and move back to a suburb. We also do have an airport that has fl, you know, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver all the time. So it's pretty, it's pretty easy place to get it out of.
Yeah. So yeah, they've stayed. I'm. I'm sure there's some people who have moved out but the population has grown for sure. Fascinating. Okay, so you decide to do this thing.
It's now number one on your, on your PTS team list. How does the search or the thesis or the vision take more well defined shape? Yeah, it started pretty organically like we said, kind of networking with a lot of those family friends that owned businesses that we knew were already actually looking for an exit.
Want what comes before or after? Hear the full episode on the publisher's site ↗