Austin smoke welcome to acquiring minds happy to be here thanks for having me on the wall Austin you are the new owner of a roofing business in Central Florida a sizable roofing business doing about three million dollars in ebitda and this acquisition represents something of a dream come true for you going all the way back to high school you'd develop the notion that buying a business was better than starting one from scratch because you had started one a landscaping business and it was really hard so can we start back then Austin tell me about that experience and what it taught you definitely so I always thought the entrepreneurial spirit so started a multitude of companies small scale when I was younger I'm starting my teens picked up a few books in college starting out with the Harvard Business Review as well as Reginald Lewis's book they could have taught me about you know lowerman Market private equity and how to get in the gate so actually one of my first sellers meeting when I was 19 there were some juice shops that were in New York City that was the owner who had three for sale I had no idea how to structure a deal had no debtor Equity relationships just generally wanted to do this so um you know it was 19 fast forward eight years and now we're here all right uh well let's let's go through that history a little in a little bit more detail so sure and 19 years old you uh to have your first seller meeting why and you're you're in college I assume in at the moment tell give me 30 seconds on that yeah sure I'll give you a larger scope background so originally from Atlanta I went to school in New York went to St John's University um graduated with a ba in economics there um the reason I had the seller's meeting is I had picked up the Harvard Business Review Book um how to buy a small business which is fantastic for anyone looking to get into the space especially self-funded um that was one of many I would say so that year probably went on 10 seller meetings I've started to learn about the scope of you know how to raise financing from Banks and things of that nature when you're 19 with no proven track record it's really tough um so fast forward from there after graduating from undergrad I started my career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs I was here from 2018 to 2021 work again real estate investment banking I left Goldman in 21 to pursue itself on a search which I launched formerly in October of 21 ended up acquiring my first businesses at the top of 22 which were food and beverage franchises small Network here in Florida um went back out to the market looking for a larger deal to do and that's when I that's what brings us to the three million even a roofing company which I closed on roughly seven months ago okay and the you the the many deals that you looked at when you were young and inexperienced without a track record it you kind of continued with the idea that you would eventually do that but you took this you know side route at getting some some years of experience at Goldman sort of thing what was your what was your thought process um after you had all those seller meetings but nothing came to fruition yeah definitely I mean if you want to work in private Equity or lower Middle Market private Equity going through Investment Banking is the primary route um secondary you can do management consulting but you know understanding that that's why I took the investment banking route for a few years prior to going out myself and acquiring a company so the so the goal the the dream remained the North Star throughout all of that that experience you were really going you were going to Goldman to get some experience to then go out by do a search I mean it was really kind of years in the making your search I wouldn't say it was that Crystal Clear you know um but it was always in the back of my mind to do this okay and you you when you told me about your experience at Goldman on our pre-call it kind of struck me what what you said you really took away from those years can you can you share that with us now sure it was how to work in a in a fast-paced culture how to be productive you know what work ethic actually looks like when you're spending you know anywhere from 12 to 16 hours on the desk daily and you have to focus on the intricacies of everything you know if you're looking at a model for eight hours you know or a multitude of models for eight hours everything has to be right um so it just taught me how to work you know I always had a strong work ethic but you know from a culture standpoint Goldman was a fantastic resource for me just on how to be a professional and how to work so it's not just working hard which you already knew how to do but working hard for extremely long periods of time while the stakes remain high throughout and the quality of work really can't uh dip agree that's a great way to put it yeah okay all right so you get out of Goldman you start your self-funded search in Earnest but you have these these franchise opportunities come your way um to take pick up the story from there please sure they were they were really a godsend so um in front of the family was looking to close out his father's estate and they were looking to you know sell these last few franchises out of their portfolio he's looking to move quickly um I bought those at less than 1X even though it's you know a few franchises and the food I've ever space down in Florida I mean they helped fund essentially my search period okay and can you tell us any more about those businesses you said there are a few franchises how many what they are just give us a picture sure sure so they're all located in Florida underneath the focus Brands which are Auntie Anne's on a subway as well Focus brands has a lot of Brands so Cinnabon et cetera so those were required in February of 22. so these two franchises they were you got them for 1X less than 1X ebitda and together they helped fund your search were they where were you when this happened were you still up in New York because you said they're in Florida are you having to go down to where they are what is the operational management of these look like Shore shorts so I actually worked in Investment Banking in Dallas um and then moved to Chicago from Dallas so when I purchased these I was still in Chicago and I did the search full time from Chicago so a manager was in place he had been there for eight years so the franchises he handles day-to-day operations for me I I don't do anything you know pretty intensive within that business so they're pretty much passive assets for me now let's just understand that a little bit better because while you ultimately bought a three million roofing business some people will really be intrigued by just the acquisition of these these two businesses which are as you just said passive a word that I try to avoid but if that's what they are that's what they are in your case can you give me a sense of how much the sde of each of them is just so we have a sense of size we should we support you if you kind of just wanted to stop there definitely um all together the sde I would call roughly 150 000. um I actually wanted to scale well the franchise portfolio to you know 10 units but you know with working with franchisors there's a lot of red tape so you know I was able to get really good deals under contract um within you know the brands that I own but the actual franchisor was the mediating factor in between that so I was able to get them financed and get them under contract it was just the franchisor said hey we want to see you know multitude of years of experience under nature underneath your belt prior to you you know taking down 10 units in a market so oh fascinating well we did I didn't actually get that from our pre-call lesson so you you because one of the things when I've had um acquisition entrepreneurs on who have acquired into franchises is you know getting inside a big franchise can be difficult because typically franchisees are selling to each other um but here you got these two um through this kind of unusual back door if you will and that that gave you the toll hold and you you tried to take advantage of that you you went into the franchise Network trying to acquire more and you had 10 a deal to do 10 units and so the and the franchisor said no because you didn't have the experience uh that must have been that must have been frustrating I mean you you yeah it really was so I I think I had a really good deal on her contract it was eight units um roughly 700 000 or so in ebitda purchase prices I think 1.75 so it's a fantastic deal they had Management in place you know it's kind of a plug-and-play situation um but franchisor ultimately just said no you know and I won't speak negative negatively towards those Brands but you know some are better than others it's more so all about relationships and it takes time to build that relationship base well that's a really good reminder because the people that I have featured the guests that I have had on who have bought into franchise the franchise systems um you know it's it's gone their way which is why they're why they're guests on the Pod um but that we always acknowledge that there is this big risk in terms of your your you know you've got the risk of yourself you've got the risk of the business and then in a franchising situation you've got the risk of the franchisor and you're at it's whim and if that introduces a whole other element of risk that independent businesses don't have um and again my guess who have been on they haven't really that hasn't been a problem for them but so you're it what but it really was a problem for you this is a good example of how uh a franchise or you know really represents risk because they just said no um to what you wanted to do so all right but meanwhile you still got these two businesses and they're throwing off a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year which is a full salary and they're basically passive that alone is is pretty amazing and um and and I recall from the pre-call you saying like if you weren't convinced that buying a business was the way to go with your life before you you sure were then is that does that capture it that's right yeah definitely cool okay so you're up in Chicago you've got 150 000 coming in uh and you want to go and find more businesses so to tell us about your search from there sure so while I was in corporate I was actually looking passively for a year so I built out a Rolodex of Brokers lenders Equity investors you know my CPA legal team et cetera so all that was built out prior to launching the search formally um funny enough I found the business on Biz by cell you know so and it's a pretty sizable business you know so I would always say you know I know there's a lot of chatter about how you know good or bad is my cell is but it can still be a pretty good resource and you can find some gyms um but everything I did was broker you know it was on axial things of that nature and really got on the local markets that were trying to attack got on their local broker list which is pretty much the most feasible way to get good deals so you're in Chicago you've got the two franchises give us a picture of what that search looked like that's right so the larger search was already there you know the franchises came within the first four to five months of me launching my search so throughout that period I'd been bidding on deals you know on a monthly basis so um at that point when I close in the franchises we were probably five months in full time oh my God the deal that I actually closed on in late 22 um under contract in May of that year so we closed on it in November so it was a seven month process for diligence and paperwork it was very arduous so um that's the scope of it okay and you I as I recall you had been looking in particular geographies like you had geographies you liked what were those and and why was it basically just kind of their strong economies high growth what were the geographies and why it was more so where I felt comfortable moving so Georgia Florida Texas um Chicago and Southern California cool okay uh all right and and so your searches in in these geographies is you're you're open to Biz by cell uh as everybody should be and you're doing axial and you're and you're also reaching out directly to brokers in these in these geographies and cultivating broker deal flow from in all those places that's right and you're going to get the best deal flow from the local Brokers they know you know smaller business owners who's looking to sell they're serious about it they're yeah you know a lot of people focus on proprietary data deal flow or you know data um I always thought that it was it's already being done by the broker that's their job essentially they're they're doing outbound daily and they've been doing it for years so they're going to find the deal they're gonna list it you know you're you're wasting a good chunk of time you know doing proprietary yep yep uh I I hear that um okay Austin so tell us about the roofing business that you find it came from business local broker in Florida um it was marketed at you know two and a quarter in ebitda Fair purchase price and it's in Central Florida about an hour north of Orlando strictly Residential Roofing um does about 8 million on Top Line and three million in ebitda um Mom and Pop Shop you know founder-centric you know husband and wife worked within the business full-time you know 60 to 70 hours a week um I took it over in November as a reference previously so it was 2.25 X is what it was being sold for 2.25 no no that's that's what it was Market the ebitdail was marketed as which was 21 ebitda 2022 even is what reached 3 million so it grew whatever that is 750 000 over so that's like 30 percent growth uh over the course of the year that you're you know while this seven month negotiation is going on and what was the the multiple when it was first Market it was three and a half eggs all right closing it was you know almost two and a half 2.75 somewhere around there that's pretty remarkable that you're so so as the revenue as the ebitda is growing over the course of the seven months that you're negotiating this they're not trying to push you for a higher valuation so so because basically the multiple just comes down if you get more email for the same price no I think they've been burned by some other buyers previously and they were you know exhausted with the process so going back to the negotiating table wasn't what they were looking for they were looking for someone who was going to come aboard and actually care for their company which is something I've you know really done since acquisition and something I exuded throughout that you know um Deal Searching process yeah well understanding that hearing that that they were a little bit fatigued from talking to buyers and the disappointments that come from trying to transact it still strikes me as a you know a low multiple for a business doing that much ebitda at least what we often hear is that you know certainly a business doing two million dollars in ebitda or above often a million dollars in ebitda or above can attract the attention to bigger players not a self-funded Searcher but like private Equity or a smaller smaller private Equity shop or a traditional search funder so um were you do you think that those were some of the folks they had talked to previously people like that and and why why weren't you having to compete with private Equity to buy a business doing two million dollars in ebitda I mean that's that's big for a self-funded searcher um so from my understanding most of the buyers that they were looking at were more so search fund already in it so you know your mid 30s to 40s guys who were looking to purchase a company and operate it themselves for my from my understanding of what they told me is who they were dealing with mostly um they didn't speak with many you know private Equity firms that were um strategics within the Market Per Se I I don't know why it just didn't happen that way okay well you know Austin people are going to hear this and be like and and probably my headline will be something to the effect of how does a self-funded searcher buy a 2 million sorry 2.25 million and then ultimately when you closed three million dollar ebitda business which by the way was on Biz Buy sell I mean this wasn't even found uh via proprietary uh and and I get I'm starting to feel like you just it was just chance it was literally just sitting out there for anybody to find you have to get lucky you know everybody wants to play strategy behind things you know it's for me it was God and luck you know um same thing with the franchises as well you know it's you have to put the effort in you have to put the Reps in but it's a it's a numbers game at the end of the day you know finding a really good asset and finding a good um you know seller group so it's it's purely numbers and and luck as well and and I didn't ask what was your criteria I mean we're I assume you weren't I mean your bar wasn't that high that you were only looking for two million and above I assume you're probably willing to buy something much smaller no I did buy much smaller you know starting off so right um when I went back out to the market I would say the million and operated profit within those Geographic areas that I referenced previously and something I felt that I could um take over a management role in and what do you mean by that why do you emphasize I felt that I could take over someday I mean you have to fit you know the role um I think some businesses are better for certain people some aren't you know so you have to find something that's going to fit you culturally that you're going to step into the seat and be able to thrive with and and why did why did this particular business have that business buyer fit it was very lean that's one thing um there weren't there weren't a ton of dependencies and things of that nature and processes in place that we're going to be too orange with me to take over from an ownership standpoint um I would say those are the primary and key things you know it's that's funny Austin because that's a little that's a little counter-intuitive to me what I'm hearing is no management layer lots of mess just to you know just Mom and Pop mess and while that probably you know that's a great opportunity for you to go in and professionalize it's also like that much more intimidating because it's that it's that much more for you to go in and figure out um but it sounds like you you actually that was that was a plus not a not a negative yeah sure definitely what I what I meant by that it was a very simplistic business model so okay I I actually I hired a GM to handle identity operations for me I knew kind of an operating capacity was going to be tough if I wanted to do everything by myself but the business model itself was very simply so it was delegating if you ask for you know GNA that I was gonna hire so it wasn't it wasn't that hey Austin's gonna be able to do everything that you know the husband and wife do that have been running the business fantastically for a decade plus it's these processes are very simple and you can hire people to do these relatively quickly okay okay that that's a great clarification and so hiring the GM that let's let's get into that a little bit because that's also another topic that is of great interest to anybody um exploring this path what was your playbook there you wanted to hire a GM from day one or operate yourself for a while and figure it out and then hire a GM or what from from day one I always wanted to hire an operator um you know I was a banking guy I didn't want to step into the seat of roofing odor and have to do everything from day one and have to depend on my expertise to lead that company you know there's a lot of risks within that so um prior to acquisition you know I was looking at potential GM candidates for roughly three months I found this one through a family office um who was looking to be my sole Equity investor at one point they actually left the deal two and a half weeks before closing so that's another sticky story we can get into oh but they did give you your GM they they ran the search for me so they put it out on their HR platforms so the source candidates um well before we can hear about how how that fell apart uh or the their funding of your as as your loan investor sole investor fell apart but I just want to understand a little bit more about the this GM process so because I had another guest on recently who bought a towing business in North Carolina and he also as he's doing his deal is recruiting an operator to put in from day one and I was kind of staggered by this um because it's you know the the conventional wisdom at least down here maybe private Equity people would say something else but down here you know in in the really kind of acquisition entrepreneurship land self-funded land um it's don't think that you can hire an operator from day one in kind of passive you know passively that's that's very true I totally agree with that you can't be passive you can't you can't just put the guy there and expect him to do everything for you so I was in the business 17 hours a day in the first three months so developing the transition planes giving them daily tasks what needs to be done delegating what his tasks are going to be so I was present within the business daily as the owner um but when it comes to operations kind of post that transition period there are a lot more seamless it's scheduling planning having a focal point that you know your employee base can go to to ask questions and right that's that's a great also great clarification so you know as you look to scale you can't scale without infrastructure that I've always had it in my mind that hey I need to be able to do that task but I need to be able to repeat this elsewhere with other companies so that was more so the idea so when you say you want to replace repeat this Elsewhere for other companies um I'm getting a little bit ahead here but you have a vision of doing this repeatedly over the course of your career agreed agreed so with growbox capital I'm looking to scale within this Market do you roll up um generally you know anywhere between seven and ten million and Evita is what now I've kind of put the ideas and then from there more of an independent sponsor model within lower Middle Market private equity in general okay so you had said that the the husband and wife were running this business so it was basically you're going to have to replace two full-time people right okay and and did you anticipate that that would be your GM the two of you you and your GM that we're already talking about or does it map is the husband and wife map to that or is it so uh break down responsibility so the wife was CFO lead administrative Personnel um she did she wore four hats the husband wore four to five hats as well he was you know scheduling purchasing management of the crews pretty much anything outside the office and the wife handled pretty much anything inside the office so um when I was taking over the business it was there was a lot of GNA you know it was going to come into play um so I hired additional administrative staff the GM you got myself to account for as well as additional support staff within our warehouse oh and I forgot the previous owner did sales as well so yeah and hire another sales guy so what do you anticipate you just touched on it eventually going independent sponsor but just you're kind of more immediate next 12 months next 24 months uh your your plan for growing this business or potentially you know organically or inorganically what what is your what's your plan here yeah hyper focused on scaling through acquisition the theoretical the goal is for entities within the roofing space um around that seven to ten million even a threshold all within the residential roofing sector within Florida so you're looking to do three or four more Acquisitions to get you to seven to ten two to three more Acquisitions for a culmination of three to four companies okay that gets you to seven to ten in ebitda that's right okay okay and then envisioning exiting or holding on to it or you just have so much optionality at that point you'll just do whatever it makes sense we'll see it we'll see at that point I gotta get there you know it's it's an article of stash just to do one so um we'll see we'll see when I get you know when that happens okay okay well let's talk about I want to hear uh some we're a little we're a little compressed on time today but I want to hear about the roofing business um because it is an industry that a lot of Searchers look at you'll see a lot of roofing businesses on Biz by cell at least I have um but before we do that I've heard you say the word arduous more than once now so it was an arduous acquisition and it's been arduous since you got there 17-hour days um let's just quickly I know we we're we're um stepping back a little bit but the the actual um transaction is there anything you want to highlight there that as to why it took seven months why it was arduous is there anything that we can we can learn from your experience of the transaction yeah of course you know me being a first-time buyer you know everything was it you know one two three for me it was learning through the fog um you know I had a good diligence room in place for you know Financial I had a good lawyer to do legal diligence and prepare docs um licensing is another thing that you have to work through in the state so that takes time also rupture my achilles throughout that process it was Raising Capital you know actually for the first time was also a large task um I mean it's a multitude of things that go into the process of doing a deal you know and actually getting a closing date so it's really tough to get to closing area especially on your first one so it wasn't necessarily that anything went terribly wrong it's just there's so many moving pieces to this and kind of that's correct it's all online it takes time unless you're you know private Equity Firm with dry powder you know over somebody who has the cash to do um yeah and then the 17-hour days so since you've gotten into the business even though you hire you had this GM to to come and actually handle the operations to be the one in the business and you're basically working on the business sounds like from day one uh it's still you're doing so 17 hours every day so give us a picture of what your life looks like why are you working so hard somebody completely naive from the outside would say what do you mean man you hired a GM what are you doing all day disabuse everybody of that inertia what is it what does your day look like sure so in the roofing industry they start really early so 6 a.m is when The Warehouse opens everybody's coming to get the materials or our warehouse guys are structuring materials to take stuff out um days are long as well you know it's till sun down so they could be you know seven eight o'clock at night um the first you know two to three months it was transitioning of accounts I think I had like 50 new Commandments or you know meeting suppliers building those relationships um a multitude of things that you're learning just from a process standpoint and also delegating those processes like this is going to be your new responsibility um I also implemented a software you know and that took time as well so everything prior to be coming aboard was carbon copy on paper and a word doc or somewhere in Excel or you know just on a physical sheet of paper so I implemented processes around you know how we're going to order materials you know um how we bid through technology how we receive payment through technology all of those things you know I implemented the software for that which was a tough task as well like that takes time and just learning the industry you know sending them new accounts managing employee relationships it's a lot it takes takes a lot you know it's not it's not just cut and dry so um it was it was a multitude of those things and also just trying to show good faith to the employee base that hey I'm here you know just be around you know it's not I'll just gonna be here and not be here it sounds like you were confident in getting in there and making changes pretty early on because you know it's only been a few months yeah so what was your philosophy on that I felt it out you know so originally I wasn't gonna implement the software until you know after six months um but you know the employee base is very lean and you know you can rub shoulders with everybody and see like hey it's gonna be okay from dealing like some employees are like hey I already used this in about these so I know how to use it or you know you have something to shy away from it but it's it's it's more so filling out the employee base to see if they're okay with it transition that quickly I like that I often ask about the change management you know how when and and how much change that the acquisition entrepreneur feels comfortable doing and um there shouldn't be a hard and fast answer to that it's really it depends very much on the organization so the answer is feel it out which is what you did and if there's receptivity to it go for it I guess that's right Austin anything you want any more you want to say about um your particular experience uh buying the business before we just talk about the roofing biz um I would say a ball from a great ownership group they were fantastic to work throughout the transition period um you know bought in a great Market you know it isn't an exact science you know when it comes to these things it's what are you going to feel comfortable with you know day one um how are you going to manage those expectations and what's your you know buffer in between that okay um actually I I was going to circle back on this and and forgot to what happened with this the family office that was going to be your sole investor and and how did you then find Capital to to to do the deal when they backed out yeah so I use an equity Syndicate to um help raise capital I may not about 70 of the capital for me uh or make the introductions to people who had the capital um so I had two different avenues that was you know at a small LP base you were going to write 25 to 50 000 checks and I had you know the family office route you know who are gonna take a larger chunk of equity but be the sole so um with that you know I had funnier I was about to let all my smaller LPS know that okay I'm going with this family office and they're going to be you know the Sole Provider the equity and literally that day they called me and said hey we can't do it so I I was flying both sides you know the smaller LP base and the family office route um you know the smaller LPS I was able to you know get 70 of the check that was needed and then from personal relationships you know they don't say Foster I got the other 30 and is there a it sounds like you would have preferred the family office and is that just because the logistics are easier when you have a a sole investor versus multiple well to help help educate people on the pros and cons there I think there there are pros and cons the independence of the family office that you're working with some of them have you know great back office support from HR you know payroll things of that nature that can be extremely beneficial for you to lean on um it just depends on which family office and how aggressive they're going to be with you know writing checks for you as well um I think the the better route happened the smaller LP base you know um I have a myriad of LPS and they're all you know unique in their own right your CEOs operators investors they I can lean on them for a lot of expertise or help if I need it so um there's pros and cons to both sides yeah it's just kind of depends on what you can get all right to to close us out here Austin tell us about um the the roofing business you said this is a residential business your yours is residentially focused but so there's residential there's commercial um that much I know but for take it take it from there kind of give us the the 30 000 foot view of the roofing business please sure sure so I'll give you the scope of my business I I wouldn't say I'm an expert within the roofing industry by any regard but we have a small residential roofing company that does repairs and replacements for homeowners within Florida um within that you have a multitude of types of Route coming to the residential space primarily sales driven and some other work you have what I call your more organic companies that are Market driven and they have W-2 employees that actually service their clients which is more so what we are um and though that's kind of primarily what's Driven within my market for for residential roofers and you have your commercial guys who handle um commercial properties from a service standpoint so you know repairs and Replacements on those and then your new construction roofing companies as well which is a low margin business in my opinion okay so so of those kind of four within residential you have you know your own your own Cruise which is what your situation is your own W-2 cruise and then you also have within residential um kind of sales organizations that sub out the jobs um and then you have commercial roofers and then you have roofers focused on new construction um what are do you feel like where you play is of those four buckets is that is it kind of one of the more attractive would you say or what are the pros and cons of your model and where you play uh it's a higher Market business in the residential side especially on the repair business um I would say you know there's give and take on the commercial side you have a repeated customer base on the residential side it's typically you know one-offs unless it's repairs so but I mean if you're doing a repair they don't want you coming back next week to do the same repair so no there's there's really no recurring Revenue base you know it's it's all purely driven off a brand and Word of Mouth I would say within my market um so there's pros and cons to each scenario residential is definitely a lot more high margin um a commercial can be you know it may have a sticky stickier Revenue base okay okay well to the point about your where you play be in residential not being recurring um what I have also heard about the roofing business in places like Colorado where there's hail damage all the time is that it's this Cutthroat very aggressive kind of hard selling uh business and really competitive the roofing guys are really competitive amongst each other um is that but it's also it's also very seasonal in in in Colorado because of the hail I assume it's probably seasonal everywhere it's like when there's some sort of weather that causes roof damage that's when roofing companies get busy get busy but anyway go just to the point about how competitive the industry is what does that look like for for a roofing business in Central Florida yeah definitely I would say it's all weather dependent you know Florida the state for tropical storms so it makes it on a fantastic market for roofing the roofing industry in general Colorado is another one of those markets where it's there's a lot of storm related work so I would say when it comes to the competitive nature of it of course any business is competitive but um the way to distinguish yourself you know well let me backtrack actually so the market is very fragmented So within each County there are you know two to three roofers that kind of own that County within Florida there aren't any large companies that own the state when it comes to Roofing so um there's there's competition definitely but there's brand awareness within your market and that's what you want to hone in on and so how does your brand stand up in your Market oh it's fantastic I mean the previous owners they you know they built a fantastic brand and Company um something we're just trying to Steward and continue to guide for it and and do you for landing jobs so you have this this brand Equity so hopefully people just know the name and seek you out and do direct searches hopefully people are just Googling that and calling you um but I imagine just um Roofing roofing company near me is also you know you're you're kind of uh just trying to generate online leads uh who people from people who don't yet know the brand how much of your of your lead generation looks like that like to give us a little a sense of how you keep the phones ringing yeah definitely it's um so proud of me taking over there was no marketing presence there was no oh there's no SEO span no Google ad spend no none of that you're kidding so it was just the strength of the brand that was making the phone ring correct that's awesome wow so after I took over you know I implemented those marketing strategies around um SEO and Google ads Facebook ads LSA ads you know guaranteed ads those things and also more like next door things of thy nature so multitude of platforms online that I went to you know to Market um but that's not that's not what drives the My Consumer base it's it's brand it's the the authentic authenticity yeah of and workmanship of what the company has done for the last 20 years okay well but certainly I imagine adding all of these marketing channels in has has moved the needle um have you felt a uh Revenue move north significantly because because of it or is it not even really noticeable um you you do see something uptick but that's not against that's not where our customer base is it's not where the multitude of it's coming from okay okay so so you would caution somebody who's looking at a home services business to buy that has not been Savvy about online marketing you would caution that buyer just because the business you're looking at hasn't been doing digital marketing don't think that you can start doing digital marketing and all of a sudden blow up like transform the business for the better it's not necessarily gonna yeah I don't know you know I think it you know it depends on how how much you're going to spend on marketing as well you know I'm still conservative you know I still have to keep you know fine tune um approach when it comes to profitability and you know where our expenses are actually going so I mean I definitely increased our marketing budget you know drastically but it's not it's it's not a significant portion of Revenue okay Austin I want to ask a few more questions a couple more questions to close out here you've seen kind of search and buying businesses from a bunch of different angles you have these relatively small but passive franchise businesses then you buy you do a self-funded search and you buy this for self-funded Searchers uh for my audience a quite large business three million dollars in in ebitda um and now you know you're using your you've got a a roll-up Vision so you're also thinking about things from a roll-up perspective and then in the in the slightly more distant future independent sponsorship what would you tell people from all that kind of like swirl of ways to approach buying a business um to take away from how you know what you think the opportunity the best opportunity is and I think it depends on your personality and what you want to get out of the experience um you know some people really want to be operators you know some people more so want passive assets it's it's a give and take I think both are great it just depends on what you want from your experience um I think there are certain routes that are different you know traditional search versus cell phone is Surge versus you know independent sponsor model those are different Vehicles you know um but when it comes to small scale business you know things that are sub 5 million in Enterprise Value it's it should be more so how do you see yourself fitting within that organization and how involved do you want to be things of that nature you really need to dig you know inside to understand that from you know your operating capacity and and what what what is Austin optimizing for like when you consider that the range of options what what did you decide you wanted to optimize for in your own life and and professional path for me it was always passive no I I'm not as we alluded to when we first started the interview I saw how tough building you know businesses from scratch were so I have a great deal of respect for Founders and um sellers of these businesses so when it comes to the operating capacity of businesses um it's it's it's it's it's a great task um I learned a skill set around you know deal structuring things of that nature from you know my experience and help me um and I that's what I feel I'm good at so it's again it's it's I would say you can pull it from there okay but at the same time you are spending 17 hours of business a day in the business and doing a lot in the business you're not Opera you're not managing the cruise and managing the people but you are doing things to gain operational leverage so it's not like your arm's length here at all that's right that's very true um that's because I want to make sure we're successful and I I wouldn't I couldn't you know I couldn't let the company just go Abyss without me giving all my effort towards you know the The Entity how how much longer do you think you'll be working 17-hour days I mean I just really wanted that that stop after I would say the first three months oh great okay and so how much are you working now um anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week depends on oh oh well that sounds that sounds a lot better all of a sudden your life seems easy Austin bursts of energy followed by not easy but okay all right well we can we can call it there Austin I know you got a hard stop in two minutes so tell people um who want to reach out to you what the best way to do so would be sure feel free to find me on LinkedIn or you can go to My Business website and um shoot me an email there directly yeah what's your business URL grow up to capital.com groveoakscapital.com Austin smoke thank you very much for the for the time sir very interesting story um yeah that people are going to be so eager to to understand how they can buy business with three million dollars of you but uh so congratulations on that and uh we'll have to have you back and see how things are going in a year or so thank you so much for having me all right I said thanks I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we 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