Nathan Gregory welcome to acquiring minds thank you for having me Nathan you bought a B2B media business a media brand targeting Body Shop owners media businesses are something that I feel pretty close to to state the obvious so I have been looking forward to our conversation please start us off Nathan with some background on you sure um how far back do you want me to go I could go starting at you know sort of coming out of college coming out of that age up to this path it does it does it does wind its way towards there pretty interestingly or I could start a little more recent if you prefer well what where do you I'm in my late 30s for reference so there's there's there's the the uh the amount of time that that goes okay well let's not go back to the 80s where is the first uh twist in your story your personal story where entrepreneurship it becomes clear entrepreneurship might be in your future yeah so I think I started entrepreneurship in a way that no one would think of Entrepreneurship in my in my late teens I played in a touring band I was a guitar player and I toured the country for multiple years and I I really thought about this before we we did this interview and I I felt like what motivated me then was the same as what motivates me now and at the time I just hadn't didn't have great context or frame of reference so I thought was you know performing and being a rock star and really at the time I think I was chasing two things and still to this day I chased those it was Independence and freedom and it was also to be honest it was wealth and it was to build um a long-term um big you know a wealthy rich life and so um at the time I thought that was that path would be achieved through through touring and Performing um but I ended up in Los Angeles and I'm from I'm from the New York York area I ended up in Los Angeles I started working in the the talent management industry in 2007 and I worked with artists like kiss and guns and roses and Darius Rucker because we managed hooting the Blowfish and launched him in the country and so it was a small company run by a very successful uh person in the in the music industry and so I learned a lot from him about how to um be both Scrappy but also deal with very high-profile situations and people because your you know management companies are inherently really small businesses often times really high Revenue businesses but very small in terms of people and so um that was really my first exposure to entrepreneurship on my both on my own um and then also working with um working with and working for entrepreneurs um let me hop in this is fascinating history so um I knew you'd been in entertainment but I'm not sure I knew that so so when you were working kind of for as a client Guns and Roses let's say or a Darius Rucker or kiss what years were those did you say was that 20 did you say 2007 or 2007 8 n 10 that kind of range yeah okay okay great um and did you have direct exposure to those people oh absolutely I would be on the road with them I would email with them I would call with them I would you know we we were their their managers when you hear of the concept of an artist and their manager that us okay and um so we so we helped and and you know and working with an artist like kiss for example taught me a ton about branding about licensing that was when I first got my exposure to working with um you know Corporate America and in partnering with brands in in bringing a brand to partner with an artist and and um so it was really it was really trial by fire there was no playbook for these things there was no college program that it came out of I studied music recording technology which really couldn't apply less to anything that I do today other than recording this uh podcast with you will but um uh other than that um you know that that's how it got started cool and and just curious for somebody who's been with around celebrities uh are they just normal people are they padas does it depend can you is there any interesting takeaway or generalization you can make about the royalty of our modern society um well you know the the the later part of my entertainment career I worked with a lot more contemporary celebrities and they were a bit different you know one thing I noticed with working with we'll call them Heritage artists artists who have been successful for decades is um in order to do that you have to be incredibly professional so there's a lot of um stories about the experience and the craziness and that that might have occurred decades and decades ago but my experience was generally that they were incredibly professional incredibly um focused on on their brand their their their career what it meant to be an artist to the fans that that looked up to them and um but there was also their the fair share of craziness that's for sure cool yeah really really interesting well I'm sure there are many more stories uh to tell but maybe not for a podcast about I think you know I could definitely connect it back to how we end up with you know years later acquiring a a B2B media business and really it was these different experien along the way that that led us in this direction great yeah well and but just one other point on this backstory of yours the being in a band to pursue the same goals that you find yourself now as an entrepreneur being your kind of North Stars Independence and freedom and then wealth um that's interesting you know often the the person in the in a band is not pursuing kind of entrepreneurial goals but a young person in a band but um status uh uh being desirable to the to the gender that they're interested in uh and I with it being cool that's what for for me it was it wasn't all those things you know it was fun but um that wasn't the driver and so once it ended I said okay time to turn the Turn the Page New Chapter either pick us up there or fast forward as the case may be as it relates to the topic of today's discussion your entrepreneurial journe well it's happened it's happened twice in my in my life where I've gotten really disillusioned with the music industry and the craziness of it so at that early stage I you know I I was approached by a a tech startup to come join them and that was um about 2011 and so I went to that company and never really having worked in Tech at all before um but it really you know in in working in that company which was small it really taught me about professionalizing you know sales sales operation a pipeline marketing um building and willing a company into existence and it was really hard work there was a lot of things we did wrong there were some things we did right but it was um it was an incredible learning experience for me and um you know some of the that was a brief time that was only about a year well but even in that period of time there's some relationships that have come from that that persist to this day so after that I said look I don't know anybody in this world and I felt like I was I was out alone on an island in in terms of a network in all of my network was back in the music industry so I did rejoin the music industry in 2013 and and mind you will in the back of my mind I always felt like I needed to do my own thing I just didn't know what it was or how to get there um acquiring a business is is really uh a concept that that would just be very foreign to to almost anybody it's a very unusual concept for for for most people and so it's really just you start a business or you work somewhere and I never really felt like starting a business or never had the right kind of ideas um and so I joined one of the major Hollywood talent agencies creative artist agency back in 2013 and so I ended up working there for 10 years and what I focused on there was um was was doing brand partnership deals for uh for celebrity music Talent so agents like managers also represent the artist and um you know as a talent agency you specialize the touring of artists and what I did in my department we handled the brand partnership so you know these are this is for artists like you know I did deals for artists like dual Lipa Green Day or Kelsey ballerini or avra LaVine Ice Cube Keith Urban Megan Trainer you know on and on ludicrous you know last year in the Super Bowl I had a client you know in a commercial and so th those were the kinds of things that that I was doing while discovering the world of Entrepreneurship and business acquisition that I was working on building up my my skill set and and ultimately the plan to to acquire something on the side great Nathan so you're you're back in the entertainment business uh now on as an on the agency side as opposed to the management side cor I don't know if my vocabulary is correct there how does that then lead to be finally becoming the entrepreneur you are today so all while the time I was at CA I I really got to a point after a few years that um I was looking for that entrepreneurial path and I thought I thought initially that might be through real estate so in 2017 I started acquiring and flipping raw land Parcels it taught me how to directly reach out to people taught me how to then take something package it sell it online you know it was profitable I took the money and just stopped doing that after about a year and um and I started acquiring commercial multif family real estate here in Southern California and that's when I I partnered up with someone who's who's my my partner to this day uh to do this we acquired you know one property did a huge value ad sold it acquired another bigger property and this is now brings us to um you know probably 20 uh 2019 or 2018 I think with that or 2019 um but in the time that we were uh that we were doing the real estate I also started an e-commerce business in the end of 2018 and this really is what laid the groundwork for for helping me understand how to how to run a business bu um which again led to ultimately the acquisition so this is a this is such an interesting Evolution um okay and so so tell can you tell us a little bit about your diance into e-commerce then the one you just mentioned uh the world of Amazon FBA was exploding everyone it seemed like was launching Brands uh that were quickly growing um selling products on Amazon for for those who don't know FBA means fulfilled by Amazon So when you buy something Amazon Prime delivers it to you usually it's a it's a merchant who's selling their product on the platform and and ultimately paying Amazon to store and pick pack and ship the product to you and so it's it's a very great it's a great platform to launch a physical product into the world without needing a whole lot of infrastructure and um it's it's incredibly competitive and Incredibly difficult um and and it's probably gotten a lot harder over the years but at the time it was it was ult and went it was hard but I felt like this was a great path and so I developed of all things a beer koozie brand where um you know you you you have think about a t-shirt will that says a phrase that you resonate with we basically took that approach to Koozies um and um we would we would sell Koozies for 40th birthday parties and 50th birthday parties and retirements and you know bachelorette parties and things like that and um it was a real Evolution it started with sourcing product in the US figuring that out having people come to my house and put it in packages and send it in boxes to Amazon to then ultimately evolve to finding a factory in China shipping product uh overseas to to a port here in the US and then having it trucked to a warehouse stored sent to Amazon fulfilled through Amazon and other and Walmart and Etsy and things like that and so it grew it grew to be a seven fig business and I ultimately sold it in 2021 to um to one of the Amazon FBA aggregators that's awesome good for you and was it a uh C can you give us some sort of inkling of what this this exit look like for you it was you know mid mid six figures is um and but you know certainly a a nice uh a nice accomplishment um after you know the other thing that really taught me is that having a business where you sell inventory and it's a growing business is really not the kind of business you want to own if you'd like cash flow and um I never I never was able to take any money out of the business until I sold it so I never never actually made any money from it until it was sold so it was a really uh incredible you know for for someone who's not like a lot of Searchers coming out of an NBA program mine you know if if anyone's watching on video there's a wall of books behind me a combination of that experience and um great uh people that I've been able to learn from over the years has really been that uh that that in thousands of hours of podcasts like like your as well that have really helped um you know educate someone like me into a world that that um you know is is quite new for for someone with my background yeah well great call out Nathan because um I'm always a little wary of of how many NBA I have on the Pod and NBAs from some of the most prestigious schools CU I don't want people to think that it's just for that ilk uh it's definitely not they may have an advantage they may have had a lot of Finance classes that the rest of us have not um but there are so anyway I'm really glad uh that uh you you and you can be an autodidact as you have been Nathan and and demonstrate success um thank you for highlighting that so you sell you sell the Koozie business mhm where were we sell the Koozie business so yeah we were you know this this overlaps with our search so really we started the idea and when I say we so I have a partner Paul um who I mentioned a little earlier with with the real estate and you know around 2019 um I I again you know if you're an MBA student or or or alumni listening to this you're going to roll your eyes because it seems over overly simplistic but for me it was a new insight um when you own Comm commercial real estate it's really a magical way to uh to increase net worth and um I realized oh that's what private Equity people do with businesses and I see and I'm hearing about people doing that with small businesses and doing leverage buyouts um what an amazing model this is what we have to do because real estate is great but it's not making us enough cash flow to to be super meaningful um so we need to acquire a business and at that time you know I was searching I was searching for information I read all the same books that we always talk about that everyone knows um this is when that the gurus come in I did take one of the the the the Lesser helpful courses where it was the the no buny down type um business acquisition and you know in hindsight no KN what I know now and even what I kind of knew at the time you know the the way these these courses are positioned you know it's certainly is appealing to just about anyone who wouldn't want something for no money but something in value then I found a group that was used to be called King makers and change their name to Aira which you might be familiar with some listeners might be familiar with fantastic group it's really a mentorship they they do have a course but it's really more or less um you know nuts and bolts kind of education of how to acquire business and I found that the the peer aspect of the group the um the the the the education but but education was was really just a small part of it was really just the peer aspect of the group um was was a really helpful thing you know getting on weekly calls with everyone talking about your progress um so we started that I think in in really in about 20121 but really it was 2019 2020 we started thinking about it and started getting familiar with what we wanted wanted to do and what we wanted to acquire as you it's I'm sorry that it sounds like I'm going on so many tangents well but we did acquire another small business in 2020 the timeline of all this stuff overlaps but um we acquired uh a digital media publisher business in 2020 which um was really fortuitous because it gave us a lot of understanding that we're using today in a much bigger uh more established media business and so really as we went into 2021 Nathan can I stop you did you is please uh I know that experience wasn't your favorite but is there anything that you want to share about that uh little acquisition other than that you learned a lot of kind of online marketing SEO about from it going you know our our acquisition search phases really corresponded with our cash out refinances of a of a large uh apartment building um and we did that at the end of 2019 and so we had money to look for an acquisition in 2020 Co happened you know I was dealing with the the uh the e-commerce business of course we had my partners also come comes out of the music industry so we had things going on in the music industry and we we got cold feed about acquiring a business with an SBA loan in 2020 you know just no one knew what the state of the economy was going to be yep and so we said we still want to acquire something so let's acquire an online business for all cash and we um we did an off Market search and we ended up acquiring um you know like I mentioned a small digital media publisher in the pet space we still own it it's actually you know about three times the size that it was when we acquired it um through through some growth initiatives but we're going through a whole um you know sort of rebranding of it right now to turn it into a proper media business um we think it still has a lot of uh a lot of growth potential so it's still part of our portfolio and something we really want to uh to grow over time um but it really kind of that that consumed our investment Capital so then we did another refinance in 2021 and that's when we pulled out money to to make the acquisition that we ultimately made in uh in August of 2024 in 2022 we we had bought hookline and sinker into the concept that we need to acquire Home Services business for all the same reason that a lot of people want to acquire them and we also thought um you know we thought we were so smart because we you know we we owned real estate so sure we've worked with lots of plumbers and roofers and hbac people and everything that um surely surely we could operate one of those businesses um and you know we we really beat our head against the wall for for a long period of time in Aira that's really their specialty they have you know they have a rollup fund as part of what they're doing and they're you know they they have a a large HVAC portfolio with different acquis acquisition entrepreneurs they work with and other um acquires and so it's a real specialty of theirs and at the end of maybe the second half of 2022 we even you know were part of uh of looking at acquiring something where they would invest equity in it alongside us and so we were looking at a sort of a larger range where we were searching in the 1 and A5 million eida plus so most of the businesses were five or six million and we you know we had a pretty winding road we made multiple offers throughout 2022 we we um you know we they didn't work out for various reasons um and it was it was a wide variety of things and um everything from you know kind of environmental Consulting to a portfolio of automotive repair shops where I met um a guy who I think was a guest of yours at one point Brian beers in and he helped he helped me think through that um and so there was a very winding path and two we got to the end of 20122 and I said you know what we need to stop this isn't working we need to revisit and and figure out what's right for us and that's where I really did a lot of deep thinking um through that that December to think about what what are our skills what do we really bring to the table and so we thought we thought okay what can we do in media what can we do where there's a durable essential business that that has some form of media or or information just something that has that so we we went through this process in the end of 20122 coming out of 2022 into 23 um that's when we said this is our new we're going to no more Home Services that's not for us and that required a little bit of a pivot will you know we had a little website with you know like like a lot of Searchers do and so there was a little confusion with some sellers we were talking to and they're they're running a you know a wedding media business and and they said well why does your website say you want to acquire a plumbing company or something and and why you talking to me and so you know we were we were sort of um it was it was a bit bumpy but um anyway Nathan when you say B2B trade media just explain what that is because it's kind of a it's kind of a legacy style media what is it a lot of Industries um like I'll give you an example coming out of the entertainment industry you know there's a there's something called The Hollywood Reporter and it comes um I think it used to come daily to people's offices and the in the in the movie and television industry and um also in the music industry we have something called billboard people might be familiar with the Billboard Awards sure and things like that so billboard is a magazine it's a website and so people in an industry they get um news that's about their industry it could be Executives moving to different companies it could be regulations it's um companies that are being acquired it's new Evolutions changes in the business um people like to know about the business that they're in and so um there's there's hundreds of different types of trade media sometimes they involve data sometimes they involve events um you know historically people would call them trade Rags or things like that where it's a just a print publication that comes monthly weekly daily quarterly whatever is is uh every everything is a bit different and so the the reason why that was of interest to us because again you know we we wanted to do a leveraged acquisition we wanted to use debt as part of the acquisition so we were hyper sensitive to you know to something that would be really durable and stable and the entertainment side of the media industry is not is not durable or stable it's very volatile has very high highs has has low lows and we would not be comfortable putting debt on a business business like that also it's very Consolidated and so um I think we bit somewhat violated that rule with our acquisition because there's not um it's not a fragmented industry of of media businesses in the Collision Repair space but um but but regardless it's very fragmented in terms of um hundreds and hundreds of of businessto Business Media businesses out there well we're going to I want to kind of hear your thoughts too on B2B media trade publication generally uh and you know where they stand in the world and and where they're going um we'll get there when we talk about how you guys Envision growing the business but that that was a great education because they are they they they did they have been such a feature of Industries uh the the trade Pub for that industry which often then usually is the is also the the EV the annual or the semiannual event for that industry is often run by the trade Pub for that industry um so and big businesses historically have been have been built based um on this business model and they're often acquisition heavy businesses that have just kind of bought up these small trade pubs into these you know into a holdco or an umbrella company anyway so uh yeah let let's carry on in the story it's super interesting to me so what did you find what what what is the business that you found that is a trade pup so in in I want to say April of 2023 we came across a business called Autobody news which is a 42-year-old um business for the automotive collision repair industry that was run by um uh two partners in the in the San Diego California area they had uh they had acquired the business 16 years prior um and they were they were looking to retire it was very similar to um you know I'm going to take a slight tangent well you know when you're when you're looking to acquire and a year goes by in two years goes by and you're beating your head against the wall and you think do do these things really exist the motivated seller the healthy business but the seller is looking to move on and you know you know when you know and that that was what happened with us with this business and and we kept we kept seeing lots of things get checked off the list you know you had a very healthy durable business uh it had been incredibly stable through all the years of financials that we looked at um and not only not only that but it was is a brand that um that has existed in the industry for for four decades and so um we felt like the uh that kind of like the transition to us was was not about preserving the sellers Legacy but was about preserving the Brand's Legacy and we felt a bit of a stewardship in that and do feel a bit of stewardship in that in that um that that that ownership of it and so um anyways came across the business sellers looking to retire it was a broker deal we came across that I want to say on bis by cell um and you know kind of followed the typical process we had we had a conversation um the broker liked us um which led to conversations with the seller which led to a meeting which led to an offer which which then became an Loi and ultimately a deal and you know the the really um frustrating thing I think for a lot of Searchers was nothing went sideways in our process of acquiring an and it still took from April to August to get uh to get the deal closed and so um things just take time unfortunately so the business had transacted before the the the existing your sellers had themselves bought it so that kind of does reinforce this point that you feel some kind of a responsibility of stewardship of the brand um but it's also often a happy sign that the business a business can survive a trans because it's done so before um anything more to say about that point well not only were were the owners we acquired it from not only did they also acquire the business but we are actually the fifth owners of the business it was started originally by the owner of a body shop in Southern California who started a physical newsletter that was distributed locally which then became Regional magazine and that grew over time and the owners we brought it bought it from grew it to a national print publication um but but multiple regions so there's five print Publications we we uh publish every month um and then they also launch the digital aspect of the business and um so it it it continued to evolve over the years and so when you you know when you look at a business and you're concerned about the transferability seeing that this business had transferred several times before and it had always grown along the path we felt very comfortable about that um and one of the team members had you know he had come and gone throughout the years but ultimately he's been with the business for 25 years and so he he can share oh this is what we were doing way back in this period and this is what we were doing in this period And so it's um it's a it's a real uh treasure chest of of experiences to still dig up that's cool wow that's really neat yeah there's some I think there's also something too about a legacy business we we love old businesses uh the older the better for not only just um mercenary reasons that that means that they you know that they've weathered storms and that they're probably more robust businesses and have staying power but the the the romance too to them and but I think there's something even more special to a media brand being old because it's you know it's it's been um it has itself kind of tracked its own industry there's just more kind of baked into the DNA of a media business I think uh than a business business I don't know I'm having a hard time articulating it but I think that there well for those that are that are familiar with how online content works and and Google search engine optimization and things like that having what's considered a high Authority domain is really important and as you know digital now the these two things can be true print is is important in certain industries um and we find it to be desirable by the audience and Des Able by advertisers but at the same time digital and the growth of digital is is most certainly the future of of a business like this and so um the the the fact that there's this very long Legacy brand and a name like Autobody news there's nothing that's more descriptive than that um that that it really um carried a lot of weight online and so we felt like that would also be a great platform for growth as we as we continue to invest in that area um because you have that that domain Authority that brand Authority that comes with such an established brand uh in in the space absolutely you know something like Google will recognize that that that domain name must have been registered in 1994 I mean I don't know how Savvy how Savvy the owner whatever the owner was in in the 90s but uh I wouldn't be surprised if that that domain name dates back to the90s which is gold pretty cool and and can you give us a sense of the size of the business yeah so the business is is um you know when we when we were evaluating it we were looking at how it would look when we owned it and really wanted to think about it that way and our evaluation of the uh the SD was in the in the mid to to Upper six figures several million in Revenue um extremely Diversified Revenue across uh hundreds of advertisers and a team of well 10 people if you counted the seller nine people when she when we took over but we hired someone to replace uh certain things that she did so 10 10 employees plus the two of us great well Nathan that's um aside from just my own selfish and personal interest in media just looking strictly at kind of the bullet points of the business that's a very desirable business for a self-funded Searcher it's you know you said mid UPS upper six figures of SD so it's kind of right The Sweet Spot of a self-funded search seever several million of Revenue TR has transacted you guys will have been the the fifth time so it's survived four transactions it survived three before you bought it three three transitions 40 years old uh enduringly profitable really consistent I mean I mean there is so much to like about about this business now yeah we'll get into you just mentioned print and digital we'll get into whether not a business like this what its longevity is because it's going to need to evolve we assume if it's still kind of relying on print we'll get into that but just kind of those bullet points make this seem I mean I would I mean seems awesome we have a amazing relationship with the with the former owner and she she did an incredible job with her partner um growing it in the way that they did taking it from a regional business to a national business I can't imagine how hard that must have been and I think that um what they saw and us is you know that next generation of enthusiasm and energy and ideas to then take the business to the next level um and I think that was a big driver and them going with us as the ultimate purchasers of it because of our you know we had the we had enough experience you know again it seems very separate but in the entertainment world all I dealt with was was marketers at Brands and it might have been consumer brands that were that were you know spending money on Celebrity and you know sort of celebrity influencer type type marketing dollars but at the same time you're just dealing with Brands who are trying to achieve a marketing objective and that's the exact same thing that a business like this is doing with the advertisers of the business so I so so the sellers knew that we understood how you know how to appreciate the advertisers how to interact if if we needed to with them um and and that has proven to be completely seamless um and then also given our our background with the digital media business acquisition they they felt like we also you know had the right um you know even though that there's nothing significant about that it it most certainly gave us a level of education and understanding that we we apply to this business um and has helped tremendously um to there's a lot of cross learnings between the two and so I think all those things really led to them feeling really comfortable with us and also the the respect for the team the respect for the industry um and and how we will approach you know continuing to to continuing the legacy of the brand and then the growth of of where it goes from here great well we're just about to get into that but is there anything to say on the terms of the deal and the transition the immediate transition after you transacted you know it was fairly straight forward um you know like a lot of these deals combination of of SBA debt um you know some some seller debt and and Equity um so there's nothing nothing out of the ordinary creative um that came from that um and then in terms of the uh the transition um we had the seller stay with us for a month full-time and then part-time for another five months so so really she's just now kind of um you know being able to to fully move into a retirement great and and when did you close August 1st a media business even a print media business seems like one that could be run remotely because you're at least communicating with your staff um over I mean you're just able to communicate with your staff not you don't have to be in the room with them um but this did actually happen to be local to you so what what's the relationship of of physical place in geography to this business so during um during Co most of the staff started working remotely um we have a team member you know the business is in California we have a team member in New Jersey so he's always worked remotely and they got really used to that which also gave uh Paul and I a lot of comfort that everyone's used to working remotely and the business is about on a good day about a 2hour drive if anyone is ever anyone lives in Southern California or is driven in Southern California you know that the traffic can fluctuate quite significantly and so um we uh we we felt like it was close enough we're there every week for a couple days um and it's it's about a block away from the ocean so it's a wonderful location and um most of the team still works you know partially remote partially in the office we you know we've already done some things to further enhance that move move things into the cloud that were local hosted things like that um to make the the work from home experience even better um for for the staff and for us you know spending most of our time not at the office well you said moving things into the cloud so as I recall from the preall there's actually a physical server in the office so there is even though it's using no longer no longer we've gotten rid of the physical server so everything is uh everything is in the cloud now yeah so there was there was things like that that we you know had really experienced before but um it was it was in the in hindsight not really that difficult of a transition it's just you know just something new um for people but um um yeah so there there's there's a bit of those kind of technological things from the operational side that we're you know continuing to upgrade um but you know that said there there's you know there's certainly an approach to you know not changing things when you come into a business and and we were very cognizant that cognizant of that but but really saw that through two lenses there's changing things outwardly and changing things inwardly and the the part that we really wanted to be most focused on was not changing things outwardly we wanted the audience um to be you know unaware that a transaction had even really occurred and and um you know Paul and I having worked in the entertainment industry work where famous people we we have no interest in in being famous and and uh being well known in the and uh so there was talk about oh do you guys want to put a big thing on the front page of the magazine that you're they said no no we don't we want this is about the audience we want this to be about them They Don't Care About Us they don't they don't care who owns Auto Body news and and uh we carry that audience first approach to this business um that's how you run in the entertainment business you have to you have to be focused on the audience and and um that's how we approach this and um so we didn't want to be changing things outwardly and we also didn't want to be changing too much too fast inwardly but there were things that we felt had to be improved and updated um and couldn't help ourselves and had to had to do those things so we've we've made a number of those changes in the first six months but the only outward outward things that have that have occurred have really just been improvements around the the web presence so yeah great Nathan well before we get into your thoughts and vision around a trade publication being the owner and operator of a trade publication now let me just understand how you guys were thinking about the economics of this so you're partnering so that you've partnered you've referred to Paul now a few times means that you're going to be you know splitting the economics here um and so so while this sounds like a solid business call it over $500,000 of SD um divided by two that's a lot you know that that's not as big a number and uh and you also have sources you know you've you've built a real estate portfolio that you've been able to tap to make this acquisition so you have other Holdings and maybe sources of income so give us a picture of what you're um you're kind of econom how you're running things economically are you guys paying yourselves out of the business is this something where you and kind of what's your plan yeah give give us a picture of all that please sure so I mean we we through luck and good planning I guess have have built up other streams of income um mainly through real estate also through the other the other business that we acquired um and so it gave us a good foundation to not um have to have any particular salary Target that we're looking for we're we're looking at this business as a long-term hold um we we are committed to this industry we think uh you know we think there's a lot of improvement that can be done in terms of the information that's needed in this industry so we're in it for the long term um we own it through a holding company um so you know the mechanics of that you know make it a little bit different but um but ultimately we you know we do distribute money out of the business into the holding company where where Paul and I are paid out of um but we're we're the owners and operators of the business so we we do run it um and are are are planning to do that for a while um and I don't know if that directly answers your question but ultimately it wasn't it wasn't a binary switch where we have a job now we're leaving the job now I did have a job and I have left the job but um and so that income obviously has shut off and that was a a a good healthy income um it was definitely a golden handcuff situation but um you know we've always been pretty you know modest about spending so all the you know sort of extra income was just going into Investments and Acquisitions and so it's really you know it just sort of shifts things a bit um so it wasn't it wasn't a dramatic lifestyle change other than um you know the actual work that was there was a dramatic lifestyle change but um other than that that's sort of how we're how we've approached the finances and and how we pay ourselves okay great now let's get into the kind of frame of mind of buying a media business I feel like to do a media a business well you have to have more of an interest in the topic than if you buy directly a business in a particular industry so in your case I feel like if you let's say you found an actual Body Shop to own buy and own I feel like you could you don't need quite the same passion for the subject matter of of running a body shop to do that versus to to actually now own a media business covering body shop ownership because you you know part of being a media business is is just is is curiosity is enthusiasm you know I I think I I en I I do acquiring minds half decently because I love the subject matter and I think to do a media business well you gota you gotta um got to have that that kind of X Factor and um so anyway react to that what do you what do you think about that yeah there's there's a lot that I think about that so I think in a many ways were better suited um for this industry than some of the other uh Publishers in this space and I'll say that because we're entrepreneurial owners and because of that we are I mean for myself I'm relentlessly curious and I think it's just also been ground into us as I mentioned a minute ago to be audience focused and so um I Am Naturally replace the word audience with customer like I'm just naturally very curious about what a customer or an audience wants what their struggles are what they're dealing with and what do they need or what do they need to know and um traditionally media businesses have you know editors and writers and we have editors and writers and they're experts in the industry and um so so on one hand we're not writing the content I'm not writing anything um and I'm not the one designing the editorial strategy you know that's again you know as we're going through due diligence you're looking for certain things that are red flags and making sure that there was you know the seller of the business was was not involved with the editorial really much at all she was dealing with sales advertising sales and so the editor who was there before who's there now in the the team of um industry expert writers you know is all still there so the um the nuanced understanding of the industry um is is certainly something that was part of the business and and is part and it continues to be part of the business and something that we're going to continue to expand and so um for me it's more of a puzzle it's more about what does the audience want how do we better understand the the the daily life of this audience and how do we deliver them even better richer wider deeper information that makes their um their their lives better their job better their business better and so regardless of the industry that um that makes me really curious now I want to touch on something else is we had a trial by fire so um there's a there's a big Automotive um aftermarket conference called SEMA that's in Las Vegas every November and so that is like the the Pinnicle of of coverage and meetings with advertisers that occur for this business and so we were you know felt that pressure acquiring this business in August knowing that November was looming and so um so a we had to hire a a new salesperson who's who's a total rock star so we have a a new person who's in place that has handled all of the accounts that the previous owner had but B we we knew we had to have a presence there and so we met with um we probably had about 30 or 40 meetings over the course of the week um so it was an exhausting week but we met with everyone from senior leaders to all the different companies so when I say companies like companies that make paint that go on cars or make the things that lift the you know the car lifts and and the technology you know cars have tremendous amount of technology in them now all these different people we met with tons of people and what they wanted to know was are you guys committed to this industry are you you know fly by night or are you serious about this and so our job was to impress upon them that we're new to the collision repair industry we're not new to the media industry but we're going to take a better approach to this than we feel anyone is doing in the space and so um you can trust us you can rely on us and um that's worked you know we've built some great relationships already we've been in this business for six months in this industry for six months and and we're going to be at a conference so we're recording this on January 12th and we're going to be at a conference in the in the next week um with more of these people and so um um you know that they wanted to know that that we're committed to the industry and like you said passion for it um you know in an industry like Collision Repair you know people are not passionate necessarily about someone wrecking their car it's a traumatic moment in someone's life but what where there is Passion there's passion in um developing um new people in the industry so technicians technician shortage which is the same thing that's occurring in Home Services where no one can find um people to work in those industries that same thing is happening in collision repair and so there's a there's a big focus on mentorship on um customer commitment and there's there're certainly not the case across everywhere but um we felt like it's a very a very positive industry where um I hate to say it but um there's a lot of cynicism in the entertainment industry and so there's just a lot of unfortunately a lot of just negative feed negative people negative frames of mind and so that that is a big refreshing um change for us in this industry even though on the surface people might say ah music Collision Repair how how can you possibly be more interested and it's and it's really not about that well it's just about being obsessed with the audience and overd delivering for them well that I love that at the very end there Nathan that's such a good encapsulation of how to think about Med media business is is and really any business just fall in love with your audience um and and become curious about them and kind of the rest follows um and but but interesting to hear that these advertisers of of of your media brand is what's the name of the business again Autobody news was that it Autobody news yeah the advertisers the accounts that Autobody news has as advertisers that they did want to that they did press you to demon to hear you say no we're we're going to become part of this industry in a way that maybe if you had bought an auto body shop or bought an H business you wouldn't have had the same kind of you know hey but do you care about this industry kind of confront confrontational question put to you um so so there is there is an element I think of what I'm saying that passion is expected for people who are on the media side of any business I think the commitment is what was expected um not not as much the passion and and you know we we saw an industry and it wasn't it wasn't this wasn't an issue or anything with this particular business it's just something we see across a lot of Legacy B2B media businesses not the newest most Innovative ones but a lot of Legacy ones it's incredibly thin content because those businesses are entirely Advertiser driven which which we are as well but I think especially in a world of print where you know the more ads you put in the magazine the more profit you make so what would be the perfect magazine a magazine with all ads and no editorial you know and so so that that's the incentive of a publisher and so those incentives over time have in my opinion really reduce the quality of content and here comes two guys from the entertainment industry where if you put out a song and it flops you have no customers you have no audience and so you have to always be focused on you can't sell tickets you can't get a brand to want to sponsor you and so relentlessly focusing on the audience and connecting with the audience is in our DNA and so we're bringing that to this business and because of that naturally that excites the advertisers because the audience is more engaged and there's more of them and every everything that are metrics that advertisers care about um is all there and so we know that the best thing we can do is care deeply about the audience and then also overd deliver for our advertisers and so um it's really you know just can be simplified is that well perfect uh transition into hearing about what you think the opportunities are so and in Auto Body news but and but you know maybe generaliza uh generalizable across all B2B Legacy Media what's the growth plan what do you what do you see as the big opportunity you know for us um we we look at a competitive ly and we um we think um for for us to win in this industry and not always the case there's different playbooks you can run but for us the Playbook is going to go is to be to go narrow and to go deep and so we're instead of being horizontal with a lot of media brands that that service similar Industries um we want to go really deep on this industry and that might mean more Acquisitions it might you know within this to bolster what our what our offering is but ultimately um we think that that is our path for for this business and um in terms of if others are looking for for B2B media businesses there's there's a few things you want to look for so um obviously some of the things we talked about already you know the the the durability of the brand um obviously Health just healthy healthy fundamentals of a business but more than that the nuances that you want to look for is if it's a business that's Advertiser supported one thing that you really want to want to have is an industry that's has has heavy capb backs Investments and so in in the Collision Repair that means the shops that that read our content they have to um acquire big equipment and if there's big equipment that means there's companies that need to spend money to advertise that equipment and because their their uh you know sales are so large because they're selling large pieces of equipment they can you know the the the cost to acquire a customer can be very large and still be profitable for them so if you're Advertiser supported having an industry that has that component is is important the other thing that i' love to say we were smart enough to to purposely look for this but in hindsight it's a real benefit is we're in an industry that is evolving tremendously you know years ago cars didn't have cameras on them now they all have cameras on them so when you wreck your car those cameras have to be calibrated there's you know the percentage of EVS on the road is growing everything is changing and so if you're in the in the repairing cars business you have this constant need for information updated education you need to know what's going on you need to know how things are changing it's not a stagnant industry if it's a stagnant industry you know it's sort of hard to justify constantly putting out new content because it's hard to find things to talk about but in this industry it's um there's there's no shortage of things to talk about whatsoever great great points so high capex industry and an industry that is fluid so that there's something to write about there's something to cover yeah and and by the way I love I love your high cap X Point um I'll just uh steal your thunder here a count a kind of contrast example that you gave me on our pre-call was like you know a trade publication for private Equity people yeah right and you'd be like wow there's a lot of money in private Equity you know all these rich people uh but they don't spend money other than the aqual ACT actual Acquisitions that they do you know they they spend money on you know airfare and laptops and and so so there's not a lot of cap capex there so it's actually maybe not despite the fact that your audience might kind of control wealth they're not actually deploying it into what advertisers might you know be paying you yeah and the and the businesses that succeed in those Industries are data subscription yeah business models typically yeah dat data they're less they might have some advertisers but it's not their predominant um source of Revenue and so Nathan w w with Autobody news what is the can you share like the pie chart of Revenue breakdown it's a healthy balance between digital and print and it's a combination of um Automotive dealerships across the country who sell wholesale parts so those are all regional advertisers of ours so they sell so you know you need to buy you need to get Toyota parts at your shop so you get them from a local Toyota dealership so they advertise and then there's also National advertisers which are you know the paint companies and paint gun companies and Technology calibration companies and and lift companies and all the companies that that produce products that are used in the shops um and so so it's a real balance between the dealership selling parts and the the Capital Equipment required to you know have a shop and to you know s um sustain ongoing operations and so did the business as we have said one of the classic assets for a B2B business a trade Pub to have Under the Umbrella is an event um often times they have the industry event was there ever an an event that was uh part of this port part of the portfolio of this business no no events in this business but um you know given our deep background in touring in events you might see something from us in the future twinkle in your eye there Nathan yeah could it could be it could be something we do but um but no there's there's never been that in the past well you know obviously if you can pull that off that adds a lot of value to the business and kind of onef swoop not not easy to pull off events are hard but they can be incredibly lucrative if they're successful I've never understood why though that it adds because again you know when I when I was part of CA our clients performed 35,00 th000 concerts a year okay and you know a concert is not is is is an event and it's nothing like um recurring revenue and for some reason event businesses are you know valuable and I I've never quite understood why because it's a every event is an enormous push to happen it's not an inevitable thing that happens um like like some other types of service or uh or or subscription Revenue and um but for some reason they are and but people love events we love events so I think I think it's in the future and you know maybe we'll benefit from from some of that you know growth but um but yeah I've never quite understood that the reason for that well I think there are some important caveats there Nathan which might answer your question which is which are you know events can be incredibly lucrative businesses or business assets it's not to say they all are there are lots of weak and failed events but we when you have a hit event the economics are just you got a lot of people paying for tickets and you got sponsors paying big money and the Delta between your you know your income and your expenses is really wide but there and so that's you know that's why they can and if they and if it's in a growing industry Tailwinds they can become really big events as we have all heard of like giant events in Vegas for computer industry back in the day or whatever for I don't know what it would be for today obviously something Tech related um on the other hand they are fundamentally marketing exercises so they're also extremely vulnerable to economic the vagaries of the the larger economy and then of course the the industry itself so so yeah volatility comes with comes with it you were going to say yeah I think it's it's um it's more an evaluation standpoint you know the more you know when when um more sophisticated companies are looking to acquire media assets they typically apply different multiples to different types of income and event income is one of the highest multiple forms of of income which I think that's more what I was referring to is I just don't quite understand why because it's really you don't know if it's going to work until right until it happens and then it's okay because a lot of people don't buy tickets to the last minute or things like that and so it's it um but whatever that's what the market that's what the market has placed on it but um I never quite understood that no and I don't either that's a that's a fantastic Point um even though be very lucrative I would I would consider it low quality Revenue uh it's not high quality Revenue um the so for a guy who might be interested in B2B media Acquisitions um you know you find this business uh but you actually find it because you're looking locally on bis by cell right you you what didn't yeah it just so the the question is Nathan like I don't feel like even though you said there are hundreds and hundreds of titles out there which I I know to be true I mean there there's basically there's basically a title for almost almost any industry of any real size um I don't feel like they transact I don't feel like I see them after our conversation actually I think even before we talked I'd looked for media assets businesses on bis by cell just not even you know not putting a geographic filter just looking across bis by cell found very very little scant uh opportunities so so it even though it's an industry that kind of ostensibly is fragmented lots of Industries with lots of Legacy B2B media it doesn't actually feel like it's easy to come across a business like this for sale you know there's um there's some specialized brokers who deal you know in lower Market lower Middle Market um media businesses and event businesses and data businesses that just specialize in those those kind of areas also you know now that I own one my eyes are sort of open to everything around me I go um and see a local apartment industry magazine and I got looking at it and it's just full of full of advertisers and there's a list of staff on a mast head and I thought you know who would have thought you know it's just one one city in the country you know and so there's and that's a you know an industry publication probably not a great business but regardless um there's there's so many kinds of uh Niche or local media now where they transact I don't know um it could be through some of these specialty Brokers or probably it's a hard business too probably a lot of them go out of business as opposed to selling um unfortunately and it's usually the ones who just have not been able to make the shift to digital appropriately and so you you and your you and Paul have a long-term outlook here does that mean buying more um trade Publications the opportunities present themselves um I think I think for us we want to focus on in the trade media space we want to focus on this industry so if we do acquire more it'll be add-ons or supplements to this industry so it could be something whether it's data related education related whatever it might be that is complimentary to to this business um but there's we believe there's a ton of Runway um it's unlike um something that might have a geog graphic ceiling on it or something like that there's you know um frankly we could you know we could expand internationally there's a lot of there's a lot of ways that that business like this can grow and so we think there's a there's a tremendous Runway that we can take as far as we choose to push it well you you mentioned or I mentioned and and you smirked uh events you just mentioned International can you share any of the other other growth opportunities you see or uh or not I mean for us it's it's really about um especially for this year it's really investing in the growth of our editorial quality output content everything around that we're we're adding more writers we're adding more industry practitioners as contributors we're looking at other media formats you know we have a podcast we're looking at more things like that um and really focusing on the core of the media business so what are the opportunities for the advertisers and really perfecting those and before we really expanded anything else um events is definitely something we we'll consider but we'll approach it very differently than how others do it um there's there's a standard you know sort of Hotel Ballroom packaged with a hotel room you know kind of sit in a room with with people on a stage and have you know someone sponsors lunch I don't think we're going to do that kind of format if we do events I think it would be very dramatically different um so we we still have to think through what that'll look like um and again going back to what is the a audience want you know that those kind of events in this industry are more for executives at um brands or Executives at what what are called msos so like big big operators of multiple shops people who own 10 20 30 50 100 shops um they they'll go to things like that so what's the what's the opportunity for the rest of the 35,000 shops in America um what's what's that event for them um so I think we're we're still trying to understand the audience to see where there's a real you know need for something this is fascinating Nathan we're wrapping up here I I do just before we kind of take a step back and reflect on your overall journey I want to ask one more question about the this business so just the the print angle and you know we we use we've used the word legacy is the word um Legacy in print and so and I guess advertisers still like print I I know you know you hear the arguments for print and um and and you know people want it advertisers maybe still want it it's just it is hard for it's hard for me to pick up a piece of paper these days because my nose is in my phone so much so it's not that I have soured on print it's just nothing just everything dies in the in the wake of my phone the mom and pop Auto Body folks who are going to be 40 or 50 maybe they they're going to pick they're picking up they're picking up a magazine 50 or 50 6070 50 6070 okay well there's my answer I guess they are still picking up they're still looking forward to flipping through the page they're they haven't been captured by their screen like the rest of us well and and it's also I think it's to the type of Industry so if you have a shop a body shop you know you might have a break room or something like that where there is some magazines yeah just out and the technicians are taking a break so it's something to flip through versus I don't know other kind but but even most things you go into a doctor's office or a veterinarian you know they have you know veter you know they have like their trade Publications in there and so um but to But to answer your question you know some advertisers will say you know right at the beginning of conversations with our sales team do not talk to us at print don't tell us anything about print we're only interested in digital and then you'll have some that say we don't want to hear anything about digital we only want to know about print we want that big full page ad we want that false front cover um and then there's those that are on the fence and and um you know we had an Advertiser who was really you know who was open to try things but was hesitant about print and we explained some of our reasons why why we thought it was worthwhile um and they tried something big with print and um and it was a you know like one of these wraparound covers and within days of the magazine going out they they were calling our team saying this was so like we're getting our phone is ringing off the hook this is so effective and so you know I don't know it's it's a again it's definitely definitely industry specific you know I I find me personally which I try never to really think about what do I like you know as a as a rule of thumb for what you know what the what consumers like but um you know being in in a real estate investor there's something called The Real Deal which is a very large format magazine of course it's a great website but the magazine is just such a nice experience especially with big pictures of of property and you know I'm on my phone like you are too but you know the screen is is awfully small and sometimes you like that big that big picture of course you can get it on your computer but I don't know sometimes so so people do there there's definitely enough people out there that like the um the print we don't know that we we we're not necessarily planning that it grows um by any means but um we think the growth is all in digital but it's not um there's no shortage of people interested in it at this time couple last big pict picture questions for you Nathan so we we've hit on both these themes already but I'd like to kind of distill them you're you guys had that exercise where you did Aira you looked at a lot of different stuff home services and then a little bit more broad broader than home services and ultimately kind of said H hold on let's focus on what kind of business buyer fit where can our unique skill set as one puzzle piece where is where is our our matching puzzle piece um and and you had you had kind of shared some some further Thoughts with me about that um ahead of our call any anything more to say to that or have you said everything you need to I I've said a lot of what what was on my mind but I just thought it was it was important to bring up because we were um you know there's a lot of compelling content out there about why a home service business is right and it's all and all that content is true and it's right but it's also you also have to consider about what's right for you and for us there you know it was also a geographic challenge you know we're in California um the the contractor licensing regulations and laws are different in different states in California um that there has to be an owner of the business um that or or Equity holder who holds a license and so to acquire a plumbing business one of we we would have to figure that out now there's ways around it like not around it but there's ways through it where you can have general manager who holds the license but then you have to come up with some creative Equity type structure with them and that's a lot of extra stuff to do on the front and some people they want to do that and that's what they're committed to um when we were for a period of time but we kept running up against issues as it related to that and we also had a um an approach of philosophy that we've carried into this business where we we want the business to be a all the operations of the business to to truly occur without us and so if it required one of us to have a license then there was a flaw in that model for us and it was the same with this business where the seller um she did um sales with some of the the the advertisers and and I knew that from my experience I certainly could do it but for us to grow we need to be focusing on different things and so we needed to hire someone to replace that role and so philosophically for us at least we wanted to um doesn't mean we don't want to work hard we certainly work very hard but we just wanted to make sure that all the core operations were handled by the team and not by us great so that really we kept running into that as a hurdle with the uh with the Home Services businesses yeah and Brokers wouldn't take you super seriously and after going through the the process of closing an SBA loan I feel like we wouldn't have even been able to get an SBA loan closed with the home service business because of they need the the license the contractor license holder needs to be a guarantor on the loan and if you have a general manager who you just met a week ago and now he knows you're going to be the new boss and you're acquiring the company and oh by the way you need to personally guarantee your life on our loan and all this different stuff and it was um it just introduced a tremendous amount of hurdles that um sure it's it's a there there's many aspects of it's not one industry it's many Industries but it's a it's very desirable for very good reasons but um hard to transact in um for non trade license holders in California well that that was fascinating uh Nathan thank you for that because um yeah lots of lots of people lots of guests on acquiring mins of of course bought Home Services very popular category although it's not having a good year uh but um we often talk about why it's desirable uh and you just laid out a pretty compelling uh list of arguments for why it's less desirable and then and all those things are just getting into it I'm sure once you're in it you know has a different set of challenges like any business has but for us we didn't want to spend another five years trying to figure out how to get into it we we needed to do something else so um we had to Pivot Nathan last question on your personal background you have we I've been a theme throughout that you have an unconventional background coming from the entertainment business you were also homeschooled which which oh yeah I was yeah I I it's funny growing up as a you know I was homeschooled from first grade to 12th grade and um incredibly unpopular thing to do or unpopular to be homeschooled and now I kind of smirk because kind of coming out of covid um and a certain segment of people like I certainly see parent friends I see it online people talk about you know they bring up the concept of homeschooling and I think man when I grew up it was the most uncool thing you could possibly be as a homeschooler but um but you know it was a it was unique I I'm very grateful that I was because I grew up in a small town in rural Western New York and the schooling was terrible there and so I probably would still be there doing something you know you know not that not that not that useful at this point if I wasn't homeschooled and it really taught me to be proactive because I just was given a list of here's what you need to do for the day and I would just have to go do it um and so that was my schooling basically well that that that neatly explains why you're such an effective autodidact all those books behind you and you know you take an interest in something and you know you know how to learn it uh that's pretty interesting and and also perhaps you know your your willingness to kind of go go the um what is it the path less travel take the I should know this definitely a path L travel yeah yeah The Road Less travel you're comfortable taking The Road Less travel not uncomfortable with that I I I tend to seek that out yeah anything I missed Nathan no I think we covered it I I just wanted to you know thank you for it and I hope it was helpful to to everyone who maybe has an unconventional background and and is maybe not sure of where they're going or or what they but they know they need to own a business and they want to do it and um it's possible it's you know it's hard work but um you know the winding path can sometimes get you there yeah well I share your uh that that that I hope that is the takeway of your story as well um it's such an important message and you're such a shining example of it so thanks for coming on Nathan if people want to get in touch with you uh do you have a online channel of choice or LinkedIn will do or what you know LinkedIn Twitter those are both great um okay yeah okay that's perfect great you're also on search funer which is how I found you I am yeah so there too but but I sometimes don't see things on there just because of the way it works so I'd say Twitter or linkedin's probably better great Nathan thank you very much sir it's been a blast thank you will I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we are now publishing twice a week so tons of new interviews and stories to come stories that will help you along your own path to acquiring a business