Jared benof welcome to acquiring minds thanks Bill thanks for having me Jared two big themes to your story today first the industry that you bought into the travel agency Niche which I think is bound to surprise people as it did me and second buying a business from your parents let's get into it Jared I think the Story begins with your parents being entrepreneurial in your as you grew up yes that's right yeah so it it started I mean I grew up in an entrepreneurial household and and my friends roasted me for a long time that I would have to submit invoices and and pnls during college to my my parents for them to you know send me some money for college each semester but that was the mindset I always thought that was normal and so I grew up around this and you know one of the things that my dad said to me when I was pursuing you know a career post postgrad said just don't get a government job and he said that you know somewhat factiously and what do I went and and did public service for a little bit and I I loved it I adored it and I learned a ton working in the the federal government and that actually propelled my career and I was able to then go from the government to working at Twitter um where I worked with many government Partners across the aisle and up and down government and help them leverage social media tools and again like that was the early days of me kind of figuring out like what is my sales pit and and how do I work with partners and um from there I moved closer to the sales side and and that's what I did for about 9 and a half years at at the company but I always had this itch and I always thought about you know what would be next and and my wife and I had these discussions you know what do we want with our lives and what do we want for our careers and I always knew that you know my upbringing had a massive influence on me and I I thought um you know I want to do this entrepreneurial thing and I I looked around I looked around I would talk to Brokers i' I'd be one of those Tire kickers honestly like I had this moment of reflection I was like what am I doing like I'm not about to go buy a pressure washer business or you know an HVAC business like that's not me I'm I'm I've grown up around computers I'm a social media guy um and and what I realized over the course of a few years was like the business that I wanted to acquire was right in front of me it it was started by my parents um and so that's when I had that like moment of okay take a step back like look in front of you and then recognize the opportunity right there great well let's unpack some of that first of all nine and a half years of Twitter yeah from what year to what year from 2015 to 2024 to the end of 2024 to the end of so three months early 2025 yeah yeah so you were there during the Elon acquisition I was yeah our team I was on the sales side uh based in New York City um selling you know working with Fortune 500 advertisers selling them advertising um and so I was there throughout the tra transition you know late night emails from Elon and his new team and trying to understand the business um and working through that was a wild wild roller coaster w wow well given you know that it's its own podcast so we're not going to spend much time there but given that you experience that front lines from within Twitter SLX and also that you have this government experience uh from before you went to Twitter you just probably have a very unique perspective on all these emails that are going out to federal employees like you you probably can understand better what that experience is like than even people experiencing it because you you've received emails like that only at Twitter yeah yeah I definitely empathize with everyone with what's going on you know the pace of Elon and his team is uh incredible and I empathize with everyone trying to Grapple with that yeah and then you as you were you know going through your tire kicking phase so it sounds like the entrepreneurial itch that you had was always going to manifest in buying a business as opposed to starting something being that you were in at Twitter exposed to Tech in Tech in New York you didn't didn't have a startup idea that was um the path instead not really I thought about this a lot and you know early days I would think about starting a business you know whether that be an agency or something more service driven or even product driven um but I realized my skill set is more in growing things and and building you know taking it from one to 100 um I realized I'm not a zero to one guy like it's just not my strengths um and so I I honestly through a lot of the smv Twitter Community saw these stories of people uh buying businesses and acquiring businesses and that seemed to resonate much more with me um in that Journey than even being around you know so many people in The Tech Community both a big companies like Twitter and Facebook and Google as well as some of the smaller startups in the ecosystem like I just found myself gravitating much more towards the um acquisition space so your exposure to Eta actually was via SMB Twitter via Twitter where you were also working as ad sales ad sales I me it's so we used to joke with our clients when I was working on Twitter that um so much of our job is is living on the platform and experiencing the content and seeing what people are saying you know what's the meme of the day and for me I it happened a lot during you know the early days of Co when SMB Twitter really blew up um I found myself just gravitating towards that community and I would reach out to people just saying hey you know I'm curious about what you're doing here and you know tell me about your story and let's chat and I I think people were very open in those days to chatting and just sort of talking to other people I just found myself going down these rabbit holes of of talking to different business owners and different people in the ecosystem and I fell in love with it like I thought it was the coolest thing and such a great way to build a life well probably some of those people are have been on this podcast yes and you talk about it SMB Twitter as that was kind of the golden age do you think that it's changed I think it's evolved I think the platform's evolved um I still think there's so much great content out there in people are so generous with their time um and so many people who I've talked to over the years and you know many who I haven't even talked to are just generous with you know education and and knowledge and experience um and I've been the lucky benefactor of that as I'm sure many others have been um you included I mean you do this podcast and and get people to share their stories and um I think the platform has changed but like I think there's still these Niche communities out there where people are uh collaborative and engaging and and doing it for all the right reasons which is great to see and it's partially why I stuck around for nine and a half years because I love the platform and I there's so much value um that people can get when they use it to the in the right way okay Jared so returning to the plot then so you um you you you say to yourself I'm not going to buy some blue collar business that's just not me I've grown up with computers I've been you know in techland um and been doing basically you know um sponsorship sales and so on so the idea of buying a power washing company just doesn't doesn't quite make sense it's interesting that I don't have more people kind of hit that wall because many most probably of my guests are coming from a white collar environment and yet they um plow forward with the with those types of businesses I digress you have a business right in front of you your parents business that seems like the best candidate of all um other than it not being a kind of bluecollar Trades business why else was it a good candidate I mean let's invert the question like why was it a bad candidate is it you know it's largely Project based which I'll speak about um there was a lot of keyman risk that was like my dad running the show for a long time and you know everyone else sort of supported him um long sales cycles and so many other things in the traditional like ETA community that you look at this business go n it's not great but for me again like i' heard so many people talk about just do your first deal and like get that experience and this seemed like the logic path forward where I love the industry travel um I like the lifestyle that it allows um I love the interaction with other people and I love you know again these things that might not be attractive to a normal acquirer I love because I grew up around it and I saw my parents do it I was like I could do this and you know I knew the things that they were doing and I saw the sort of future looking Arbitrage opportunities with the business to say okay this is what's working for them and I see how it's working and I know that you know with some fine-tuning and with some different systems with some marketing um and I know that's sort of like a cliche thing like oh just like add marketing like sprinkle it on top yeah and in this case like there is a lot of that that ring is true and so I saw that opportunity working and and supporting my parents in some ways that like okay if I take this over like I have a plan to sort of see through the next 10 20 years yeah well um I I think another part of the your appeal here is because you you were already very familiar with the business I mean meaning not just because your parents it was your parents business but you'd actually helped them a lot and worked inside the business as an unpaid consultant I guess uh so so you really knew the inner workings um this is probably why do we get the history of the business and this involves your your dad a lot because that I think is just helps paint a picture too of how you perceive the opportunity so so maybe give us his story in this in this it's interesting so again like I grew up in this entrepreneurial household and so when I was younger my dad had started a website where you could book honeymoons online um at the time you know this is like 1999 2000 it's a novel idea you nowadays were like well duh of course you can do that but at the time no one was doing that and so he started this website he sold that to the knot um which if people AR familiar it's you know one of the largest companies in the online wedding space um they were publicly traded for a bit I'm not sure if they are anymore um but so he sold to them in around 2201 and it just been tangentially um involved in the wedding and travel space ever since you know through Consulting through helping other travel agencies things like that um and about 15 years ago my parents were empty nesters me my brother and my sister were off at school and I think they were kind of like yearning for that next thing and they're like well we have you know our clients who we still help with travel on the one-off basis let's just give it another another go and and build up another travel agency um and what they did was they they just started out just sort of serving everyone and they realized like that's not going to work and that traditional travel agency model that you know you and I might think about was disappearing very quickly um and so they decided to focus on specific niches particularly around destination weddings you know this was starting to be a more popular Trend and so they went all in on destination weddings particularly in Mexico and the Caribbean and just became the the go-to experts and you know they my dad to his credit was like I'm just going to educate people because people didn't know that you could you know save a lot of money by having your wedding abroad that you know there were all these other ancillary benefits plus you know who wouldn't want to go away for 3 4 days with some of their great friends and family and enjoy a vacation together um and so they specialized in that and grew the business pretty quickly again because there weren't many people specializing that um during that time again this was really just my parents sort of side thing um just so that they could do some fun travel uh and and get paid to do it and you they'd come to me for help come to my brother for help and it was like Hey build us a website or was hey like help us you know send PDFs to people like they were doing that at the time and all these little things over time and you know I just kind of fell in love with it I never again like at this point 101 15 years ago I never thought like oh I could do this one day for myself um but I loved helping them and I loved you know the limited interaction if they were going on a twoe trip and they're like hey do you mind if people call just like sort of screen the calls and just send us an email after like yeah for sure or if you know some and so wants help with a honeymoon can you do that on the weekend so like yeah for sure um and so all these little things over time just sort of snowballed into me falling in love with the the nuances and intricacies of the business um fast far today I mean they're doing about a 100 weddings per year and some ancillary other um travel and I'm happy to like unpack what that looks like but um it's obviously a bit larger than when they just started it and it was just the two of them okay so just to just to distill some of that they kind of started this as a side thing almost as a not a side thing almost like a hobby in a way to in a way to expense going you know doing some of this travel themselves um and and and they also identified a niche because the traditional travel agency where you pick up the phone and you say book me a flight to Paris is long gone right um but but and and this is key to the opportunity here these niches within travel still consu certain consumers certain markets still seek consultants if you will to help them plan a trip and your parents identified destination weddings um as just such a niche and obviously you can imagine why that's that's much more than just booking me a flight it's all it's a huge amount of logistics it's International Etc it's also High ticket something that we'll return to again um and while we hear a lot about destination weddings today in 2009 and 10 it was it was not as common so they so they were also riding a trend that they saw growing um it is today we're going to get an update on where things are today but it's actually it's not just the two of them it's a team it's a proper business it's not just them as kind of consultants if you will um and you were helping them all along the way getting to see inside the business and indeed interacting with with clients a little bit these 15 years of growth did they intend for that to happen you said why they started it was just to kind of feed their scratch their own travel itch but did they in their fantasies imagine building a business here I don't think so my dad's always he's done a lot like I said he's he super entrepreneur like I'm so impressed with everything he's built over many many decades and like at one point he owned a few restaurants and he's like that was a nightmare like I had so many employees and so I think when he sold the restaurants and was doing some other stuff and started the travel agency it was like I just want to work with you know my mom and just do this ourselves but then it was like all right well we can't do eight weddings a month we can't do 12 weddings a month and so slowly was like all right let's go find like one person to help then two then three and ultimately like coming out of Co when things just absolutely Mayhem and travel opened up and all that pent up demand that people have heard about um you know he was sort of like well now we're capped like I don't want any more people I don't want a big business like I don't want you know 50 people working for us um and so he kind of capped he's like all right if we can just do 12 weddings a month I'll be I'll be thrilled at sort of what he so he CT it I mean during 2022 and 2023 when things are really rolling um he was turning away many couples every month um just because he didn't want this huge Enterprise um and then he was like well maybe I'll retire and sell the business to someone not knowing that that was going to be me at the time and so he's like all right like let's think about what growth and systems and things like that look like but yeah I mean when they started your your spot on like this was really just a a a lifestyle for them to travel and get paid to do that okay and so bring us back up to the present or basically when he sold it um what did the business look like at that point yeah so the business does about 100 groups a year a little bit less uh and when I say group you know that's sometimes it's it's mostly weddings but that might be a 50th birthday that might be a bachelorette trip things like that but typically like where we specialize like our zone of power is is with small Niche Group Travel um the average group has about 60 people in it so you can imagine what that looks like um we've got about 10 people on the team now um most of those folks are helping the the clients with their travel um and like I said like a few years ago when I sort of came to this realiz that I was interested in in acquiring the business and my dad was thinking I'm tired I'm like ready to be done with this um he kept joking with me I'm going to sell the business for six times multiple and yada y y private Equity I was like uh okay well what about me like I'll buy the business from you and like it started out as a joke and then eventually we both kind of came to the middle and we like all right well like maybe I will acquire this business and he was and he was saying maybe I will sell it to you and so you know over the course of a few years we became more serious and had many discussions about that and what that would look like um and and how to sort of operationalize that so that I could have a smooth transition um but yeah I mean it started as almost a joke and and obviously became more real in the last few months well let's get into the numbers of the business then let's spend some time on a travel agency business and why it's appealing uh and then we will get to how one actually buys from their parent and and and the obviously delicate negotiation there and how how can you be arms length Etc so you said 100 weddings or groups a year the average group size there is 60 people so that's so that's 6,000 trips individual trips you're planning a year or selling a year um what's the average can you give us what revenue is of the business Revenue last year was about $8 million and and that's gross booking Revenue so that's sort of all the trips added up that's all the tri and so that's great booking so if you book a hotel that's what you're basically paying to the hotel customers are paying you what is your what is your net revenue so you're cut before your own internal expenses it's about 15% so about on that 8 million it's about 1.3 million okay and the beauty of I mean to your question like the beauty of this business is it's low overhead there's no inventory it's asset light like the the real only expense is people um and so your margin's off that you know SD when I was talking to my dad and we got more specifics about the deal on the $1.3 million in commissions paid to us about 950,000 of that was SD so your the margins are pretty amazing and again this is the big difference between what you would consider a traditional travel agency that's something that is more Niche specific and has evolved to the internet era in some ways you know in some ways we still haven't completed that uh cycle but um that's what was super repealing when I started to understand these numbers it's like okay I'm it's a laptop business like I can be anywhere in the world and operate this business um the only expense are other people and you pretty much know I mean things are fairly predictable it's like okay if you have a group you know what your average ticket generally is you know how much people are typically paying you know on average about $1,200 per person for a hotel stay three or four nights um and we know generally those commissions are going to be about 15% so it's a fairly predictable business um which again was appealing to me so not so we're going to unpack these numbers a little bit but just top line is not only is a travel agency surviving in 2025 which may surprise some people it's a great business it's it's a very high it's highly profitable business so one. so I think to really Apples to Apples this with other businesses it's really a 1.3 million Revenue business because we don't yeah so the commissions that drop to your Top Line your top line is really 1.3 million and then 950,000 is the SD that goes to your father and your mom was involved as well she was she was okay so that so they're splitting 950,000 so that's what is that three 350 uh thousand in expenses which is basically just people and are the people how are they how are they compensated and are they State Side are they are they um offshore so most people our state side um we happen to have a woman in um she's well she's amazing we love her um but yeah most people are primarily hourly they'll earn commission if you know they book their own trips or let's say you have a wedding and and the bride and groom come back to you A year later and say hey we want to go away for our anniversary then you know the the person who helped them would make commission on that but most people are hourly um and right now most people are State side and and so you have about 10 people that manage all of these Logistics yeah okay yeah and typically the way it works is you know one person is assigned for each group each person will manage about 10 around 10 groups per year um because each group's going to be at a different life cycle so you know one group might be just booked and they're under deposit whereas another group might be further along and they're under final payment or submitting flights things like that um and so ideally you know you have a steady workflow um for each of the groups that you're managing and and you may you as one of your employees may be managing sort of four at any given time at various stages of their of their cycle yeah just about yeah yeah okay you don't have anybody on the ground at any any of the destinations so you're not managing any of the we'll pick you up from the airport stuff you're just you're just booking essentially yeah again this is like very much a laptop business we have calls with clients emails with clients and we work with local Partners so for you know let's take Will's wedding for example if you're getting married in Cancun you're going to land in Cancun we're goingon to have arrange the transportation for you so we'll have a local partner who will have pick you up they'll have you know a sign with Will's wedding on it and you're going to get whisked away to the to the hotel and that's all taken care of but we're not actually present at most of our events um again it's largely just behind the scenes taking care of all those Logistics and administrative things to get everything squared away for them but a destination wedding is a lot more complicated than an at home wedding I always tell couples like if you're going to get married in your hometown uh you might go to your Venue eight 10 12 times and you know it inside and out because you visited so many times but if you're getting married in Mexico or wherever like you may actually not go to that venue at all up until three days before your wedding and so they're putting a lot of trust in us and so I take that really seriously um we want to make sure we're buttoned up through the process to make sure all those little small details um are taken care of for them yeah yeah and are you the kind of single throat to choke sort of thing so if they have a problem on the ground do they call you or do they go to the hotel or the transportation provider the local wh it depends like what the issue is but um there's a few different times in which you know they might need to contact the transport if their flight CH you know flights are a mess right now if your flight changes it's sometimes easier to just call the transportation company or they're at the resort already you can just go talk to the guy in the lobby and say hey my flight changed um it's often much quicker to do that than send us an email we send them an email when the GU is right there um so it just depends fantastic and um so so given that this is a laptop business and it's logistically very complicated um but it is something that the barriers to entry are non-existent other than your lead your own you know the customers that you bring in how do you how what is the Moe of this business or how do you build a mo I assume it's brand it's it's referrals I'm not sure that qualifies as mode but please it's a good question that's something that I struggle with and when I was thinking seriously about acquiring the business for my parents I thought about that you know like I said there's keyman risk my dad was the face of the business um people generally because they talked to him um and there wasn't really Mo you know there's this the space is interesting there's like two or three large large companies who Plan Destination weddings and there's a bunch of small mom and pop companies who do this um and there's not really a mode it's hard to say you know we can get X Y and Z exclusive perks yeah we have some of that but that's not enough of a kicker for most people um and so the way that we like to think about again like this is more qualitative than quantitative is we've been been doing this a lot longer than most people we have a ton of experience um and it's all about the relationships again 80 something per of couples that we work with never go to the resort before they actually get married and so if they're trusting us with that process you probably want to make sure that I've been to that Resort or someone on my team has been to that Resort and knows the wedding team knows the venues knows all the small important details for wedding couples um and that takes a lot of time to learn because these things move quickly and they change often and so we take pride in you know I was just down in Cancun last week going back down in a few weeks like it's important for us to be there with our partners and not everyone can do that or does do that and I think that when we talk to couples and we talk about these things that goes a long way and so look like is it a a a sustainable mode I don't know um but it's worked so far and I think the more we can continue to Showcase that and educate couples about the importance of that um the better off we'll be well I I don't think I think most small businesses most categories of business that show up on acquiring minds um don't really have a mo they differentiate basically on Service uh which is which is kind of what what you just described um and so you know we we like to we like to you know stress test a business and try to figure out where there might be mode but realistically it often just comes down to delivering better better service than the next guyt it's also the the other challenge again like listening to your podcast a bunch um sometimes it's a geographic again we're not Geographic rically constrained um sometimes it's like oh we're the number one partner of this Resort and that's not the case we work with about 35 to 50 different properties um generally speaking in a given year and so to your point like it's hard to Define what that Moe looks like and the service aspect is so important again like a couple comes to us and then they're bringing 60 people and saying hey trust Jared with the decision we've made and so it's important for us to to deliver for not just our business but for the couples really well and I think that is one of the despite how compelling the numbers of this business are and the flexibility and the ability to travel all the stuff that we're talking about that does feel like one of the weaknesses of the business where a single I mean you've got to get you've got to get a thousand out of a thousand little decisions correct for every single client because if one of those little things goes wrong you get angry customers you know they're only getting married once we hope uh and you know we all we all understand this like if what there's one little hiccup in your travel plans there's a ripple effect and it can throw a lot of things off and people get really mad really quick um so being under that pressure seems rather unpleasant resp respond yes it's tough like there's no again I come from the tech world where I'm working with Fortune 500 advertisers I came from government before that where I was working with Senators members of Congress and so like I understood the pressure cooker it's like you walk into a meeting with a senator and they're upset about about their Twitter account being hacked or whatever it is you know whatever the thing is or you walk into a meeting with an ad agency and they're mad because you know their campaign was terrible whatever it is um and so I'm used to that but it's in a lot of ways it feels even more magnified when it's someone's wedding you know it could be the most important day in their their life and when they have 60 people who they're bringing and you know now their friends are upset whatever like it happens there's no way around this and it's tough it hurts like I won't sugarcoat that like every time I get a less than five star I feel like a little sting inside and often times it's things that are out of our control you know my my parents and I always joke we'll get a a fourstar review because the French shes at the resort were cold and it's like that had nothing to do with us we can't control that um and that really hurts and I think it's you know partially like educating people what we do and where we sit in the process um but also understanding that um people are people and the more we can do to just make sure that we deliver upon these like champagne experience and and sort of surprise and Delight people the good um hopefully any small hiccups along the way will be um forgotten or you know they're okay to look past them because look like I remember my wedding like things go wrong it happens right and and that is certainly one of the downsides of the business is it's a people business and it's all about relationships and it's all about delivering service and it's hard because we aren't the only piece in the supply chain and so making sure that we nail as much as we can control and work with Partners who can deliver upon that is really important yeah it's got to be very frustrating to be held accountable for things that are completely outside of your control you're you're kind of the face of this entire experience even if there's like 20 vendors involved on the other hand and so you know you get dinged because of the cold fries on the other hand your competitors suffer the same Dynamic so so so if if you're getting the occasional lost star for something out of your control so to are your competitors and so if you're held up next to your competitors there's a Level Playing Field at least to the point about reviews that is where we would hope there would be some some moat or some some builtin built-in value there what is it look like uh what did that look like a 15-year-old business in the YouTube videos yeah I I'll talk I'll touch on the YouTube videos after so something that honestly I was inspired by SMB Twitter is and a lot of the Home Service businesses was how important reviews are we weren't asking for reviews we didn't really think about that it was kind of like we thank our couples after I return return home send maybe a note to guests saying thank for traveling with us whatever um but we weren't concerned about reviews it in in some ways it was like well we don't want people to see how many weddings we're doing and we don't want people to give reviews because again we were afraid of the fourstar review because the french fries were cold or the view wasn't perfect or it rained you know all these things that aren't in our control yeah and again in inspired by SMB Twitter and and all the home service business who were sharing how important reviews are for rankings and different things like that and just trust on online um I worked with my parents I was like look we got to double down on this and so we built systems to ask people for reviews and to encourage people to leave reviews and and in doing so would explain hey please review how we were in Booking your room or in arranging your transportation so it was more concrete and it wasn't just like how was your time at the resort um and over time going back to your remote question like that has been come OTE we have hundreds of festar reviews on Google hundreds of five star reviews on the KN and wedding wire all these sites where wedding C perspective wedding couples Look to You know see what this online business that you know they've never met before might be about and so that has become emote over time and we're really proud of every review that we get because we we whether good or bad honestly like the feedback is helpful um and hearing from couples and seeing their pictures and and guests too like I love seeing guest reviews because it shows they had such an amazing time um celebrating their friends and and it means a lot and so the reviews have definitely been a big Focus for us um over the last few years I was just going to ask so have you you it's been a big Focus have you noticed the benefit of that so as you're as your reviews across the internet increased you saw more leads come in absolutely I mean I can see it on the Google business page um but I also talked to a couples who say oh I saw you and I saw you have 200 festar reviews or whatever it is and they mentioned that and how helpful that is that you know they did the research because every couple now you know they're scrolling Instagram they're scrolling Tik Tok they're looking online they're looking on YouTube like they're hitting all these different channels to make their decision um and it's a really thoughtful research process for a lot of people and I think in a lot of ways our reviews may be the thing that pushes them over the edge when they're sort of debating between us and another competitor of well these people clearly know what they're doing because they've got all these reviews and we like to think we do but it's it's helpful that you know so many of our clients over the years have also um totally uh fed into that and and sort of supported that that we do know what we're doing we do have uh the tools in place to help this all come to life um which is certainly helpful so yeah I mean we've definitely seen an increase in trust and probably has helped our our lead flow as well I'm getting the impression that the travel agency business industry might be a little bit behind on proactively asking for reviews versus Home Services where it's like it's it's table Stakes at this point you you can't really differentiate on that you have to have it to compete good reviews online and again it's one of those things that for most the average travel agency owner is probably in my parents demographic you know they're probably in their 50s or 60s they've probably been doing this for 20 or 30 years they probably get most of their leads through referrals um and they're probably not in a specific Niche they're just sort of doing a little bit of everything um and so the things that again like I I go back to Twitter um and X like so many of the lessons I learned by just observing and being a part of the community were you know the average person wouldn't say well like what is an HVAC business have to do with a travel agency all the Lessons Learned in getting reviews if I apply them and no one else does that's going to give us that edge yeah and so that's been again a huge help really cool well thank you um HVAC business owners for helping out out Jared here it's so funny it's like even to the point where I've considered doing some of the other HVAC ask or Home Service ask marketing things so whether that's mailers or um some of these more traditional U marketing tactics you know I tested recently sending handwritten thank you notes to a group when they returned home um and some other again marketing tactics that I've seen others do not in the travel space at all and just using it as inspiration to test and again I know that other people in the travel space aren't doing this yeah um and so if we can cut through and Reach people then it's it's a massive win well it it is a win Jared and and it's something that you should really run toward because as I understand the you know this from from kind of being in marketing essentially or selling marketing that marketing is so competitive and so Dynamic and the best tactics are eventually competed away we saw this in Home Services you you'll hear people talk about HVAC was essentially where travel is back in 2016 and there was a window there from like 2016 to 201819 where you could really Leap Frog your competition if you were Savvy online doing the best digital marketing best practices and that window has long since closed and it's now table stakes and it's highly competitive and Lead cost is really high and everybody has good reviews um so so any marketing tactics that you can employ you should employ quickly because they're they're they're kind of by their nature transient yep um so pretty cool opportunity for you the YouTube channel yes so it's interesting again one of these things that just happened by accident during Co um you know everything shut down as everyone remembers travel was was probably one of the worst hit Industries um and we had tons of weddings booked and my dad was getting calls left and right from couples and guests saying well what do I do what's going to happen what should I tell my friends and family and he's like I know maybe as much as you maybe a tad more but like I don't have the answers and he got frustrated and uh he was sort of just sitting around like I'm just gonna record a video and answer some of these questions for people he again this is a 60s something year old guy who's been in this industry for a long time he didn't have a YouTube channel he wasn't a YouTuber um and he's like I'm just going to do it and so he's sitting and he records these videos he starts answering people's questions and it just takes off it wasn't just the clients that he was sending the videos to these videos were taking off he was talking about you know what does this mean for my wedding in the future and what resorts are handling you know postco well and all these new things and and as travel came back his channel just took off and his organic YouTube channel become became probably top source of leads um over the course of a few years really really just a dynamic way for him to educate people and again there was no selling he actually started under not even the vacation's brand which is the name of our company he started under this DED tips brand because I don't really want it to be Affiliated I just want to help people who don't know what to do and have a bunch of questions and he would mention our company like once in each video maybe once and it wasn't even in the the bio or anything and it took off and again I think it's because no one in this space is doing stuff like this to just educate people and arm them with the information and he was serving that need and and so the YouTube channel he wound up posting in uh like once a week he'd record and edit his videos himself I it's super impressive like I'm I'm always in awe of of both my parents and it's really really cool what he's been able to do by creating a YouTube channel again like by the standards of a YouTuber having three four thousand subscribers isn't huge but when you're talking quality of subscribers um and how valuable you know one wedding is to us getting a few leads a week from the YouTube channel is massive and so it's been cool to see the growth of that channel as a as a organic marketing tool for us well the last point you made there is so it's such a good lesson in content marketing because when you say took off you know we think of a YouTube channel that takes off as something that goes viral we think we think in the millions now because Tik Tok and the stories we hear about Tik Tok um are those are the types of numbers we hear this channel I'm looking at it right now has 4 and a half thousand subscribers yeah this is a tiny Channel by totally you know mo mainstream standards but it's all about you know it's it's a cliche now on internet but in internet marketing but it's all about that long tail and if you are in a longtail where there isn't already kind of a few authoritative voices and you're crucially your average ticket price is really high it just it makes sense all day long I mean like you know he just makes a few sales off of these and it's it's can be really a GameChanger but you know and and the these I'm looking at the most recent looks like he's still doing it I mean the most recent video was seven days ago he loves these have a few hundred you know a few hundred views like nothing huge but um such a such a good example of longtail content marketing and and by the way too at least like the the intro video or the one that first comes up when you visit the channel it's not at all L produced he's not speaking in I think he has a lapel mic yeah um but it's not like it's super high quality or super well produced it's very human um and it's exactly what you said it's like your dad just kind of turned on the mic and started talking um it's really cool it's it's really and it's nice to hear and realize that like that sort of content marketing for a small business still works in 2025 because this is like what Gary ve has been talking about for 15 years still opportunities to do it it's so interesting like I again my career up until this point was working with Fortune 500 advertisers who you know do spend millions of dollars on highly produced content and will'll think for a year about what their next video will look like and here's my dad in the basement shooting footage on you know a camera he bought on Amazon and it's you know resulting in tons of revenue for him and I was at first we like this is crazy this isn't going to work and then you know I start doing calls with Pro prospective couples and they they'll say hey I just watched seven hours of videos from Jack um I know well we I laughed about it too and then they go I know exactly what resort I want I know when I want to get married and all that so he was not only taking them through the funnel through his videos but they were so much more H they were so much better informed and it was remark I mean the funniest story is he was sitting at a resort one time this a few years ago and he's sitting there and a woman's kind of looking at him and he he my mom and him notice it and they're like this weird like why is she looking at us like do we know them and she comes up and she says hey are you jack he's like yeah do I know you she said oh I watched your YouTube videos I'm actually down here checking out the resorts to potentially get married here oh wow and like she recognized and again like this is he's not an influencer by any means but it's it's remarkable to your point like the the power of these smaller channels um and the watch time again like my world I was always working with clients were like we need you know CPM of X and Y amount of video views and if you got video gets a 100 views it could be like the best video of that month because those 100 people could be prospective couples um and so people always sort of poo poo B Toc versus B2B but you know in this sense the B Toc having a high quality audience and and talking to the right people with the right message it resonates I mean it's authentic it's real it's human and that's what we want when we talk to couples again we want to build that trust and the way to do that isn't with highly produced content it's to be real and to show them the blemishes of resorts to show them you know that this won't be a perfect planning process and you know maybe this thing won't be exactly how you envision it but like we're going to help you through that and we're there with you um to make it as great and as stressfree as it can be and we really try and hit home that EOS and philosophy Jared before we turn to the theme of buying a acquiring a business from your parent uh there's a lot there anything more to say about travel agencies as a category are they are they are they enduring I mean we've already talked about how the internet killed kind of the mainstream um undifferentiated travel agency the for these Niche travel agencies like yours are they enduring is if the you know it's kind of like I guess if the internet hasn't killed it yet it's probably not going to um are they for sale are is this is this something that people should look at do you see them on bis by sell when you were going through your tire kicking phase what can you what can you share broadly about this category of business for the listener I think it's undoubtable that travel agencies as we probably knew them you know many years ago have disappeared or will potentially disappear I think the ones that do well are the ones the tra again this is sort of the traditional model the ones that still do well are Geographic constraints so they're the travel agency in town and you know as the population ages people want to go have that hand toand relationship and they want to go into a store they want to call the guy down the street who they know through the community and so I think there will be a place for those and those tend to be sort of the will help you with any type of travel business for that town so I think those Will Survive because people still want that human touch I think the online travel agencies or OTAs you know the big ones being obviously like Expedia and some of the other brand names that we all know you know if you're trying to compete against them it's just a massive uphill battle those companies have billions of dollars of marketing budgets every year and you can't compete against that if you don't have the mo you don't have the marketing budget like it's just so hard um we're seeing some success with it like there are again mom and pop or individuals who are coming out you know there's a lot of people actually in in sort of a younger demographic who are saying well I'm goingon to do it on Tik Tok and they're going to blow up on Tik Tok and then they're going to turn that into sort of a one or two person show travel I think there's some success I don't know how durable that is um but people are having some success um and then the other end of the spectrum I think would be companies like ours that sort of Niche down and become an expert on one specific type of travel um for us you know that's Niche Group Travel for some of your other guests that's been group TS to Italy um different things like that and so I think those will be good and and again another thing I learned through Twitter is like find the business that can't be amazoned away that can't be commoditized and it's really really hard to plan a destination wedding it's impossible let's be honest through chat GPT like there's just not a way right now and maybe you know in five years I come back and I go oh crap I was so wrong about this but I really don't see a way in which you can plan this through uh an AI tool right now hour through Amazon for example and so I think the industry has evolved and again like there's probably those traditional players that will try and survive as long as possible but the the industry As We Knew It 20 years ago is not the same but there is this whole new Evolution of the industry um that's super appealing and I I don't think it's the most acquisitive space I think partially because of some of the issues that we talked about earlier um but there are what what what issues are those which I think that it's largely Project based I think that it's hard to compete with the big OTAs um that there's a lot of key Man rescue known might be Will's travel agency and everyone just wants to talk to will um and those people are kind of just retiring and winding down or they're just selling it to you know the guy next door in the next town over whatever it is um so it's not you if you look on Biz by selling and I've looked over the years like there's maybe one or two for sale at a given time um and a lot of them skew again more towards the group Niche um which obviously is a theme that we're we're coming to of groups is kind of where it's because it's it's more scalable it's more predictable um and you avoid some of those uh issues of of competition so it's not something that's just filled on Biz by sell you're just going to see hundreds of these for sale it's just not how it is in this industry yeah and frankly maybe that's a good thing so for for The Listener who is finds this type of business appealing there could be if they're not all over Biz by sell it probably means that you know you could reach out you could do a lot of proprietary Outreach and these owners are not hearing from Searchers or other people who want to buy their businesses and there could be great opportunity your point about the group travel and and that's really where this Niche lives and and thrives or that's where travel agencies smaller travel agencies live and Thrive um is such a good one it's it's it's it's a benefit to you it's also it's also where the type of travel where the customer is really going to look to have a consultant is the word I keep I haven't you haven't used that word I keep using that word but that's what it feels like it's like your kind of your personal your conier experience even if chat GPT gets to the point AI gets to the point where it could do an entire plan for your destination wedding you could imagine people just not wanting that they just want to deal with a human for an experience like that and a purchase that large um so it does it does seem pretty well protected against AI um and another point about the group agencies you just um or excuse me Group Travel and how that's kind of the niche where travel agencies work you mentioned Shell Shell Zang of not as Italy so a couple months ago we we uh aired her interview shell also bought a travel agency and we had a somewhat similar conversation to the one you and I are having now Jared and her not as Italy does group travel to Italy one thing in her case that I think is also a trend that you haven't mentioned is that her demographic her Target demographic Trends older so it's kind of the the retiree folks who want to do group travel and don't want to deal with pointing and clicking and maybe maybe want the group experience because they want to meet other people um that's kind of and now in destination weddings that's going to be less the case so that's maybe not your but I think that is another Trend to call out that's kind of where she plays that that age group what one other Trend that you touched on that that I I just don't want to leave hanging so so there are other travel agencies that thrive that are like the local Town travel agency and so so what they retail like they have a retail presence and everybody in town like walks in and does their travel that way okay most of them have been around for a long time um maybe second or third generation even or they're you know a franchise and again it this probably skews towards an older demographic um and they're they're going in they're talking to a person they're saying Hey I want to go to France this summer what what can you help me with and so again I think that similar to nois of Italy like that's probably marketed towards an older demographic um who they know their person in the store and they go in they talk to them and they help arrange the travel yeah fascinating I mean I I feel like I haven't seen they're but they're still out there they're still out there okay and also we're talking about how this the business model still works and is is protected from the future but in terms of upside you've already touched on it a little bit but just flesh that out for us you you see the levers to pull you see Market more marketing to do tell us more about how you could get this business from you know 1.3 and Top Line to five yeah and assuming you do want to grow the big Enterprise your dad was resisting okay all right so tell us again like I'm not imagining a world in which we're the number one in the space like that's not you know maybe that's bad for me to say but I'm not envisioning hundreds of people on our team um I think if we can get to five million in in Topline uh that would be a great place to be so the the levers one is people again if people are bigest expense how do we look at that to to become more efficient one of the ways is by working with more Global Talent I've done this a little bit already um but again Talent isn't necessarily geographically constrained and our business isn't either so we should be thinking about that more more holistically um so that's the first second would be marketing again like the YouTube channel was fully organic we've tested some paid ads over the years but not really in a meaningful way um we just brought on a social organic social agency to help with some organic social um we don't really do a ton of partnership marketing or anything like that so all these different levers that we can pull um are just sitting there and waiting um so those are probably the two big things again if I look at the p&l the the number one expenses people so I'm going right there first um and then the the biggest Gap is marketing so that's sort of number two for me I was just gonna say exciting Jared I I love the business and I love the opportunity and um of course we all love to hear about a business that I mean we shouldn't say that your dad hasn't been marketing because he has this amazing YouTube channel and you guys got Savvy about reviews a few years ago so it's not like none of the levers have been pulled but it sounds like there's still so many more to pull and that's always just such an enticing Prospect something crazy I'll share is again we talked about the math earlier in the show but in a given year about 100 groups each group's about 60 people you're talking 6,000 people who we help plan their travel every year we have their email address they've paid we've communicated with them a few times they return home we generally don't speak to them ever again after we welcome them home we for the longest time haven't leveraged our email list and again like if I think back to what works in other other Industries we should be talking these people every month at least recommending other places that they can travel you know if a new resort just opened up down the street of where they went last time if hey we know that you know you're in a certain demographic maybe you want to go on a golf trip or maybe you want to go to Italy or maybe you want to do a river cruise you know all these other things that we are also fairly good at um and have team members who know this stuff but we don't make that request and we don't showcase that and this is law hanging fruit right these these are the things that coming from a digital marketing and a sales background I look at this I go okay so we have 6,000 people each year just organically being added to our Network that we're talking to regularly and then we just cut it off and that's it I'm not even talking a paid acquisition Channel I'm talking people that are already in our Network and so there's little things like this that um I look at this and I'm I'm sort of like all right let's let's get going um that's sort of getting the systems in place making sure we have everything ready to go and slowly testing that out and and you would want to be slow there because of all the 60 people who go on a trip only a few of them or maybe even two the principles the husband and wife let's say in the case of a wedding are the ones that interacted with with you guys right no the other 58 aren going to know or they are they all yeah so we interact with every single guest we help them with their travel um we help them with their transportation so we probably email them over the course of the life cycle probably six seven times oh great great yeah so no it's not just a couple it's it's all the guest so it's everyone so yeah we have that relationship already um and so they should be a little familiar with us they may not think of us in the vein of you know what their next trip looks like but it's our job to educate them of you know this is also what we can do for you down the road cool really yeah love love that what a list okay Jared how does one buy a business from one's parents um do we need more context here do we do we did we already get enough of the plot as to like how it zeroed in you guys kind of we we zeroing in on this possibility joke becomes reality sort of thing pick pick us up where where do we start here yeah so again as we were saying earlier it started as a joke became closer reality um I had done again I had done some research on what reasonable multiples could look like I explained to my dad what some of the risks are and uh you know him being keyman things like that um we talked about what deal and a purchase price could look like I won't sugarcoat it like I I was very lucky in the purchase price he gave me um or he wanted and again this is pro and con of of buying a business from your parents is it was due diligence because I knew the the insides of the business I'd seen I'm the one who built the the tracker um I'm the one who sort of monitors the revenues like I knew a lot of the the nuances and so there wasn't a qov there wasn't some of the other more traditional um due diligence things because I already knew a lot of that um and so yeah Pro again pro and con for sure but the what's the con that sounds nothing but good the con is maybe I had some tunnel vision right like maybe because I've already knew the business that I could be coming in blind to some things that I overlook um or that someone coming from the outside more objectively might look and they go oh my gosh that's a huge red flag granted that's where ideally like the bank that I worked with um I with Heather from viso Capital like she would have called these things out so you know there's other things along the road that hopefully would have uh come to come to like but I wanted to go in as open-minded as possible to understand the pros and cons of this business and what potential risks you know if we go from 100 groups year to 30 what does that look like if we go from 100 to 200 what does that look like and um I I really wanted to be clear-minded and open-minded about what that could look like and honestly talk to my dad about it because again he knows his business way better than me and I wanted to make sure he was where that hey I'm not just asking for a discount I'm asking for you know a reasonable valuation on what this business looks like if he steps away or when he steps away and I take over things well aside from the fact that you didn't have to spend money on a qov you could you could save some some serious outlay that most people shouldn't when they're going through an acquisition you could trust the seller and I just had an interview um which will Air a couple weeks before yours with Jed Morris who Acquisitions went sideways and lost it all terrible story um and he's since connected with a lot of other acquisition entrepreneurs who had bad outcomes and he's probably a couple dozen of them and he's tallied some data it's not statistically significant but it's enough to to to draw some conclusions the majority of these stories gone wrong more so more than 50% of them are due to a fraudulent or unethical seller um I was at mit's ETA conference last week and on a panel about this very topic and I think in three of the four cases of the panelists who's had who had had terrible experiences with their Acquisitions it was about a bad seller um so th this really is reason number one why Acquisitions fail of course there are other reasons um but and so you could and it's just very very hard to to know in advance of course if you just have a totally Shady seller usually you'd walk away anyway but sometimes uh sometimes you just you can't tell until you get inside the business and then it's too late so you didn't have that you know that was just the biggest risk of all was a nonrisk for you yeah and again that's why I feel so lucky um and grateful because I I've known I've known the seller for 30 something years and uh we have a great relationship and he loves me and I love him like it's uh it's it's again like I I I'm joking or half joking but like it's it's it's such an important thing and again that mattered when I was thinking through a few years ago like should I acquire my parents business that was one of those themes that came to light as I was doing more research that I need to trust the seller and I I felt most comfortable going down that road again like no acquisition is perfect and there's things where now that I'm in the driver seat I'm like oh my gosh I got to fix this or I got to pick this thing up or my dad did it one way and I'm like I totally want to do it a different way and that's normal um but knowing that I can trust them and and frankly he has my best interest in mind um he's carrying a seller note and he is still happy to jump on calls he's like hey if you want me to talk to that couple I will and you know if you want me to still make YouTube videos like I will um so those things go it's hard to quantify them but they're invaluable and so I feel I felt really confident going in knowing that that was the case yeah yeah well I want to continue unpacking this because because those are all the pros now that are going to be some cons about for example stepping on the toes or changing the way the seller did it you know if it's if it's dear old dad it might be even more Awkward than it can sometimes be when the seller's involved we'll get there but first the numbers you mentioned that it was a generous to you a beneficial to you purchase price can you shed more light yeah so 2024 SD was right around a million um and so the agreement was 2x sste so purchased it for $2 million and um part of that agreement was that he would carry a 10% seller note I do 10% Equity uh and the remaining like 1. sish would be an SBA Alan um so did structure it in a more traditional way um but again that multile was certainly very reasonable in my favor and why do you think your dad is it because it was his son that he gave you a good price you probably would have bought it for yeah I guess obvious the obvious answer is yes I think but but even but but Jared even 3x would have been you know a good price sort of thing totally and and again when we were going through the diligence phase and working with the bank and we stress tested it you know three three and a half still would have worked given where the the margins are in this business right right um so yeah and people always say oh you want the terms not the price and in this case I think because of how the business is he he named the price and I sort of said okay that's fine um I wasn't about to roll up my sleeves and start arguing with him um because how the business the structur and where the revenue is now it's something that I'm very comfortable with um and feel like there's a path to growth so um yeah the obvious answer is like it's largely because the familial relationship and I recognize like that is not the norm not everyone acquiring a business has that opportunity right no of course but but and you understand and it's great and this is this is we're all trying to build generational wealth and and this is you know the the discount you got on this business is kind of part of that and and that's a wonderful thing and I I I suspect and hope that your father feels a lot of gratification to be able to do that the so the way it came to that price there was no negotiation he came to you with a price and you said yes effectively ju ju just curious because in other words what I'm trying to get at is like how does one negotiate against dad and there wasn't much negotiation you know I would I would rib him it's so funny again not in normal situation um but but we'd be like standing in the kitchen of my childhood home and he's like I could just go sell this for 4X to private Equity uh and I'm like no dad like you don't understand like if you walk away from the business a doll disappears and you know there's no marketing there's no managers like all these things that you know again would be more traditionally looked upon as a massive negative um and he's like well I don't care I'll just go sell it to someone else and again like it was injust and on both of our sides but the negotiating was was largely like he named his PR and this is before he said this three years ago he said whatever the 2024 SD he didn't call it that whatever I take call him in 2024 um just 2x that and so you know when we sort of went down that road I didn't know what that would look like but um that's where we netted out on things but yeah the negotiation was was um fairly non-existent again and I think largely because I had done the research and and because of your podcast and some of the other podcasts that I've listened to and the the SMB Community like I knew that it was a multiple in which there was room to be stress test and and room for me to feel more comfortable yeah you mean the low multiple meant that you you already having a lot of room there no reason to squeeze yeah you know I'm gonna I'm going to talk out of the other side of my mouth here not sure because so on the one hand you got a great deal cuz it's Dad on the other hand there are probably some people who are like well he should have just given you the business or he should have 100% seller financed seller financed not the C not my perspective and not the culture of my family not the way but but you could imagine that there are voices out there who are like well why didn't he just give it to you you know you know inherit the business as an inheritance now you've also mentioned you have siblings so there's maybe that's a function slash he he just shouldn't do it anyway it's not my but to to those people you would say look I don't I don't know exactly what's in my parents Minds at any given point but I if if I'm thinking about it and again knowing the seller for a long time um he worked hard like he built this business over many years he took many angry a phone call from a client he had to figure these things out himself and so why would he just hand over the keys to me and like why am I deserving of just being handed you know this business that on the market would be probably a three three and a half million dollar business like he that's his money he earned that and I would feel uncomfortable frankly if he just handed me the keys I I I knowing I have and you know you you mentioned the larger sell note and like I tried that was the one point where I tried to negotiate with him a little bit saying hey can you carry a larger note and in a way I'm Greatful like obviously I'd be appreciative if it was a larger note but I have this SBA loan which is terrifying don't get me wrong but it makes me feel an additional layer of responsibility to help um Carry on their legacy and and what they've built and to make sure it is sustainable because you know the government will come after me um and so I'm in a way I'm grateful again this is maybe a little strange but like I'm grateful that it's structured in like the traditional way even though the multiple is lower and whatnot because I feel that the responsibility does weigh heavy on me um that I do want to make sure that I you know make my parents proud and and continue what they've built and I wouldn't have expected him just to hand me the keys and and that's the way I was raised and that's not the way that I would want you know in the future maybe if I if my kids want this whatever like it's just not in my um ethos really yeah mine either maybe I overestimate how many people out there are would would think that because I'm I'm with you I wouldn't think that for for a second but um we just hear about inherited businesses um uh and maybe those maybe when we hear that we shouldn't assume that there was no transaction maybe there was some some kind of transaction at a discount like yours was structured tot who knows but very interesting and to the point of the siblings there was no incling by them that they would no okay no my brother runs his own business my sister's a rabbi um so they're everyone's doing their own thing they're taking they're spoken for yeah uh okay we're we're going to start wrapping up here uh Jared fascinating the but a couple more mechanics of the deal itself you mentioned using Heather Anderson adviso who is a loan broker how did you choose to use an SBA loan broker as opposed to going directly to a bank give us a little bit of that experience it all comes back I feel like I'm just doing an advertisement for my previous employer um I had met her on Twitter I think I had I she had tweeted you know many years ago like I'm locked out of my account can anyone help and I was following her I was like hey I can I can help you out um and then we just W up talking a few times over the last few years and then when it came time to purchase this business I again I'd seen her content I heard her on podcast we had talked um and so I I reached out and she was amazing she helped through the process she helped evaluate different banks um and really helped me understand again I don't come from a financial background I've worked in like marketing and sales and social media and so she helped me understand some of these mechanics um of the process and what a deal looks like so um I really it wasn't so much like using a loan broker or not it was like I want to work with Heather and that was kind of what it came down to and and but when you reflect back if you can if you can decouple Heather from working with a loan broker that question working with a loan broker and having somebody on you know on your behalf kind of reach out to the banks and try to find the right deal Bank fit for you um I'm not trying to I'm not trying to spoon feed this to you but did did you feel there was there was uh value to that 100% proposition I wouldn't have known where to start I mean again like you hear the the popular Banks who are marketing whatever um but being handed term sheets and being explained you know this is the pro of this this is the con of this we should wait for this other bank for this reason um she's been through it before again it's the same reason why people trust us to plan their travel I trusted a loan broker because this is what they do and so it's it's I'm I'm always okay paying for and in this case you don't even pay the vone broker um I always prefer to have the expert on my side and her being able to navigate that process I've never been through this before and so why should I feel confident that I can do this myself when she's seen this you know hundreds thousands of times yeah yep so yeah great uh putting a fine bone I would certainly recommend it to anyone you don't pay any extra for it so it's it's definitely uh definitely recommended actually this was something else I wanted to touch on earlier because you bought a business from Dad and Mom is there more awkwardness in terms of doing things differently I don't think so no they're very understanding that you know they did their things their way and I'm G to do things my way um and again like I'm with any seller you trust what they have to say and and you it's their experience right so the things that they built worked for them and the things that I'm going to build are going to work for me and um I think they're very understanding that some things are going to change and even if they're they have some limited involvement like they are okay with that because again they've sold to me and and they're okay with that but yeah I mean there's there's a little bit of awkwardness of you know thinking about some things that they did like I don't really want to do that that same way or I want to tweak that um but again I try to be reasonable and thoughtful about it and um take and try to understand you again I I think back to some of the conversation on your podcast or other podcasts and online and I think about how some people say oh you just sprinkling marketing or just add AI or whatever it is or just you know add offshore Talent whatever it is um and oftentimes it's not that simple and the reason a seller had a thing was because it worked and because they've done it for 10 15 20 years and they know that thing works for that reason so it's helpful to understand why it is that way um and then figure out okay is does that actually make sense or should we you know find a different path for example you know the CRM tool we use like it's from 1999 um and for a long time my dad and I have talked about like we should switch and you know all these other things and it's like well the cost of it super low it does the job it's just an ugly UI again I come from a tech world so I'm like yeah but it could be so much more beautiful and work so much faster and it's like but it works and it's not a huge line item on the p&l and it and it does the trick and so if it's ugly it's kind of okay for right now I that's not my number one priority and so things like that um you know there's no awkwardness and and it it's helpful for me to know the background and the context of these things so that I can have better informed decisions on like the systems and things I do want to change fantastic Jared anything that you wanted to say about your story that we didn't get to no I thank you for having me on thanks for letting me share my story uh I'm super excited about the travel space I think um one of the reasons I originally reached out to you is I think there's a lot of uh misnomers about the travel industry and travel agencies and I I love talking to people who are in this space and and shedding light on you know actually travels a really cool space and there's a lot of uh Innovation that could be going on and maybe isn't yet um and I'm just excited to to share that Journey well uh just to to repeat we had shell Zang uh a couple months ago so we've got now got you and shell two recent stories of travel agency Acquisitions and then you introduced me to somebody else who may come on later who also bought uh a travel agency different actually with retail um so a different model but um similarities Group Travel so it's definitely uh there there's definitely a Changing of the Guard in this industry and um of course it's a fun industry if you can if you can deal with the pressure of uh of delivering perfect experiences or near perfect experiences to your customers um who doesn't like the idea of being able to you know go to Italy and Cancun on the company's dime or have that actually be your job good stuff Jared and so in terms of people reaching out we'll include your LinkedIn but you have also agreed to come to a live Q&A with listeners to this episode so um we will have promoted the exact date and time of that in the introduction to this episode and in the outro and in the show notes um so that'll be a lot of fun listeners if you want to come um ask Jared a question uh in over Zoom uh we'll be we'll be hosting him to do that thank you for saying yes to that Jared any other way that they should contact you LinkedIn live Q&A Twitter I guess are you still active yeah I'm still you know I'm a lurker for sure I don't post a lot um but my handle is Jay benof um so this my first initial last name and yeah I'm on there feel free to DM me it's how I made connections with a lot of people in the community so happy to chat with people from there the name of the business is vacation ease e e z that's correct all one word vacation yep got it yeah Jared benof congratulations on a really neat business great acquisition great multiple what a story thank you for sharing all the detail with us thanks for well appreciate it hope you enjoyed that interview don't forget to subscribe to the acquiring minds newsletter we send an email for every episode with an introduction to the interview a link to the video version on YouTube and soon key takeaways numbers and more essentials from the interview for those of you who don't have time to listen or watch it subscribe at acquiring mind.co you'll also find all our webinars there on the website both those we have coming up and recordings of past webinars at this point there are over 30 webinar recordings a wealth of information on all the technical nitty-gritty of buying a business acquiring mind.co