Taylor Wallace welcome back to acquiring minds thanks for having me Taylor our first interview together was back in September 2022 so almost two years ago you were a refugee from Tech who went into the Doggy Daycare business with a partner you had two locations when we spoke since then you have been acquired and today we're going to hear that update all that has transpired in these last two years start us off please Taylor refreshing the audience's memory on your background and how you came to buy to First buy a business yeah so uh quick quick summary I one of my best friends was a manager at a franchise Doggy Daycare and I was a tech guy and Co forced us to look at our lives steeply like like it did with many people and um uh I got laid off from a startup and he was really ready to do his own thing so we started exploring how to get into the the Pet Services space together um stumbled upon a small uh Doggy Daycare and Tampa that was for sale that we ended up buying and went on to eventually open or buy four more locations before partnering with private Equity last fall okay great uh one feature of the of our first interview was the fact that you were exiting Tech and we spent some time on on why that was so I often point to your episode for anybody considering uh who's in Tech considering this bu a business thing this small business thing um Point them to your interview because you were um articulate in in the emotions that drove you to do that and passionate um all right Taylor great so and I and I believe that when we talked so so we as I said I think you had the two locations in September 2022 you might not remember so precisely do you happen to yeah we had two in September and I think probably at that time we had started building our first inovo um which we opened uh early 2024 um so we had kind of the third underway and then we acquired uh a fourth location in the summer of 23 sorry the denovo number three would have been launching in early 23 I think you said launched in 24 oh so it was took way longer than expected and was part of part of the driver for the the the PE partnership okay okay um great of the two Acquisitions that you had when we spoke the first acquisition was a high six figures acquisition so the purchase price was shy of a million bucks um so a small acquisition you D you had doubled Revenue in the first six months yep so very promising there and then your second acquisition was nearly twice as big at least in terms of purchase price so low seven figures yep uh and then you nearly doubl the revenue there in six months yep um maybe maybe say a little bit more than those bullet points about your early success with those first two Acquisitions what you were doing why you're seeing such success how what it was doing to for the for thesis formation if you will yeah I mean our our kind of very high level thesis was that we could buy um smaller facilities that were kind of underutilized in terms of occupancy um and my partner could look at a space and say Hey you know they have 50 to 75 dogs a day at this location and I can very safely double that um and with my kind of marketing and Tech background I was like I can double the number of leads they're going to get in this facility um so that was kind of our strategy is we would go in and we we'd buy a location that had um you know call it half the number of dogs we thought we could get in there both from a an operation standpoint and a marketing standpoint um and he would focus on how do we do that safely and I would focus on how do we actually get the dogs to show up um and that's kind of still what we're doing right and in some respects is is uh um we're now working with a much bigger platform and and uh trying to figure out how do we operationally fit more dogs safely into these locations and and grow revenue and how do we drive more leads to them great and and so just to maybe make an analogy with the I mean I think it's self-explanatory but doubling the number of dogs I mean in the Doggy Daycare business you're basically limited by the number of dogs you can house at any given time so if you can increase that that increases the ceiling on the revenue the business can do of course it um crowding is the is the the thing that you got to be careful of there so doing it safely is the name of the game so threading the needle of increasing capacity while still having it be a you know Pleasant and safe experience for the dogs um was your kind of Special Sauce absolutely y okay so um so talk to us quickly about uh acquisition 3 and denovo 1 so locations three and four yeah so we we had done these two Acquisitions uh and we started to to after the second one the F when we did the first one I was still Consulting in Tech halftime um and when we did the second one it was like hey there's something here we you know we think we really have have something we can kind of Build and Grow um so I kind of put my head down and said let's try to do more Acquisitions um and at the same time we should probably do a denovo um so that we can understand the financials of of doing a denovo against these Acquisitions um and what we found was the denovo my hard kind of built everything you could build inside of a Doggy Daycare from the floors to the kennels to the AC like every system he's he's been involved in but he had never put one together kind of from scratch um and I'm I've built a lot of stuff but none of it involves concrete or permits or um architectural drawings and um so we kind of took on that denovo I think we signed a lease probably in 22 and it opened in 24 so it took us two years and we thought we were going to do it in six months um and still under construction to some degree we we have um uh it's open and and and operating but we're still kind of working on a few finishing touches there even six months after opening it um so that was kind of a a a a new and and very challenging piece for us um and then we went heads down on trying to do more Acquisitions mostly in um in and around our existing locations in Tampa so we started looking at kind of Sarasota Orlando um eventually the entire State of Florida and a little bit in kind of the southeast um and we felt like we really could do a lot more like we had personal capacity after we got that second location humming um but we were really struggling to kind of figure out the growth strategy um and uh we had kind of appetite for risk that the investors we had at the time didn't necessarily share um and they were super supportive but it was like hey we would go see this facility in Georgia and we'd be like hey there's something interesting here um but you kind of become victim of your own success where you're you're like hey we we did so well on these first two um we want to make sure we do as well on the next one so we were going to be very very picky and and we almost got too picky um so that combination of sort of this real estate Challenge and and also um capacity but but uh I don't want to say risk aversion but sort of being um more cautious about the Acquisitions we were doing we were trying to understand like how do we how do we really grow this thing and kind of what's the next step for us and and that kind of leads to to the eventual you know private Equity partnership and acquisition interesting so when you say you the risk aversion and the being a victim of your own success Acquisitions one and two had performed so well it was kind of like your investors using those as benchmarks so if you can't hit those are the new benchmarks of performance so if that Georgia location ain't going to do what acquisition one and two did then maybe let's not do it yeah I think that was a piece of it I mean I think the other thing we saw is we would we would have conversations sometimes with businesses where we clearly couldn't twox the revenue because they were bigger more more um uh established brands or they were multi-unit and uh they wouldn't take us as seriously because we weren't you know this this big well capitalized kind of company and we would sort of talk to them and be like listen like we're really good operators we could definitely handle your business and um you know they're getting calls from private Equity firms too and and um so that was kind of another added layer um we just felt like we we weren't we weren't trying to scale so quickly to where it didn't where it made sense to do Acquisitions that weren't going to be home runs um so I think that was kind of hamstringing us a little bit um so what we were finding was a lot of really small potential Acquisitions where it' be like hey we can add you know we can buy this business for $150,000 of Eva and we can buy it for you know under a million dollars but like how much upside really is there um so yeah I mean we kind of became a victim of our own success and we couldn't find a way to to replicate kind of what we had done on the first two um as easily as we thought when we kind of put our heads down and said let's do a you know a mini Doggy Daycare rollup and the denovo the construction that took so long do you feel like that did you conclude that that's how long it would take for subsequent ones or um was it or was it not just like the first one was painful because you went through learnings but the second one in fact maybe you could get close to that six-month building out yeah I think it was kind of like a comedy of errors in terms of like how many things went wrong and it was uh you know not not knowing enough about the process of real estate development um not picking the right Partners from the get-go to kind of help with that um so we uh now I mean we have a head of real estate that um and we're very aggressively looking at denovos um and uh some of them we think we can get open in six months and you know the the head of real estate has worked on a thousand Burger Kings and you know a bunch of other kind of multi-unit um brick and mortar businesses so he he um you know and he's very much helped us kind of push the the noo we do have forward um so it's it's that level of kind of expertise now that we we didn't have before that you know gives us a lot more confidence in in that denovo strategy yeah very interesting yeah I mean when you say real estate development essentially that's what you were doing you were basically becoming real estate developers a whole whole another skill set in Industry if you will to learn yeah all right Taylor and were you going to answer to that well it's we joke now that my partner and I the next business we work on is going to have no real estate and no humans I don't know what that looks like but back to Tech back to tech Taylor oh it's all full circle uh all right so tell us about how the conversation Started With Private Equity yeah so I think we were kind of in this place you know we spent 23 uh um really trying to kind of pursue this this uh denovo strategy you know we got our two existing facilities like really humming um and I've talked to a lot of kind of other operators that that run into this sort of growth challenge um in various different businesses smbs and and you sort of get to this place where like your business is doing really well you have a good team around you and like almost a lot of your work just feels like tinkering at that point where you're basically like oh like if I pull these levers I might squeeze a little bit more revenue or I might squeeze a little bit more Eva it's almost like am I really improving the business by doing all this stuff or or do I just need kind of a new big hairy challenge so we looked at a bunch of stuff we we thought about building Doggy Daycare software um and uh at that time we were starting to get a lot more calls from private Equity groups that were looking at um at Doggy Daycare and and kind of what's happened in the pet space is you've had a lot of private Equity firms for the last 10 years that have been uh acquiring rolling up Veterinary Services um um and it's gotten to the point where like a vast majority of the animal hospitals and vet clinics in the United States are owned by private Equity um so that th those firms are now looking at like hey what's the next kind of Frontier of pet um and Doggy Daycare was kind of popping up so we had a group reach out to us at the beginning of 2024 um and we spent some time with them and uh we we really liked the idea of of a private Equity partnership and and um our investors had worked with with private Equity before and had good experiences and they were like hey you know if if you find a great group this could be really awesome um you guys are young and you'll learn a lot and and uh that first group we we loved them as operators but when it came time to kind of started exploring a deal it just really didn't make sense um so we said you know what wasn't wasn't a good offer yeah it just wasn't the the offer didn't make sense for us so we were like you know what like let's put our heads back down let's let's get this denovo open um you know let's continue on our our acquisition strategy see if we can do a couple more before we kind of come up for air and and maybe we go out and kind of raise um raise private capital and and and kind of build out our te more aggressively and and and continue to um to just do what we were doing and and but like almost immediately after that that series of conversations we got a call from a guy we had met at our first ever pet industry conference and he was the uh head of m&a for NVA which is the largest consolidator of vets and doggy daycares in the US um and we had just bought our first Doggy Daycare so I went up to their big NBAA booth and I said we just bought a Doggy Daycare and I'm coming for you and uh he thought it was great and kind of he called us a few times at NBA and he had um subsequently left there um and he ended up at NBA because he had done a um a vet rollup that had a Doggy Daycare component to it um with a partner and they um you know sort of parted ways he stayed at NVA and led their their pet services m&a team and um he felt like there was an opportunity to kind of do it differently and um he got back together with his partner and said hey let's let's do a a a dog daycare rollup and and let's do it differently where we really focus on not just kind of multiple Arbitrage and what PE bad PE is kind of known for of just buying as many of these as we can cobbling them together and flipping them to the next and let's really try to build a business where we acquire doggy daycares and integrate them um so he called us up and said hey I started this new thing and we're looking for younger operators that really want to keep doing what they're doing um and you know we don't have a a platform team yet and uh we love what you guys are doing and and we'd be interested in chatting so um that led us on like a six-month journey of of conversations with them and trying to decide if if we wanted to to partner with private equity and now we're 6 months into working with pet pet resort Hospitality Group so they were eyeing you guys as the platform as their sort of I mean they they what ended up happening was um we they did they had done one acquisition um and it was uh five units in the Northeast um but they they really didn't have a management team at the time it was um AAR and a all or the two Founders um and uh they had kind of come together and and AAR is uh private Equity kind of independent sponsor Wall Street guy um and AOL who was the guy we met at NBA is um you know he's a corporate development guy um and uh they were kind of exploring a bunch of paths to bring together a an operating team um and what subsequently happened is they did um they did five Acquisitions in the fall of 2020 3 um us being one of them and they brought together these six now six companies with varying degrees of of talent and Leadership and some of the owners have stayed on like us and some have left and um over the last six months we've we've essentially built a a platform team um with uh that group as well as a couple outside folks interesting so so just for the audience I think most people understand what a platform is but when there's a roll up platform is the for is the is is usually the first acquisition that represents kind of the base uh the foundation and usually it's larger because subsequent Acquisitions will be the boltons not always as as as the entire rollup grows then so so too can subsequent Acquisitions and so subsequent Acquisitions can be bigger than the original uh platform but usually in the first handful of Acquisitions that platform's the biggest so in your case there wasn't a an exact platform it was basically smaller companies assembled into a platform of which you were a part yeah it's it's definitely unique um and so trivest is our our Capital Partner um and uh yeah I mean I I don't know um I believe I'm not going to speak for them but I believe they they've kind of done this before where they'll buy several smaller businesses and then kind of build the platform team um from the leadership group that that kind of emerges out of that um so yeah I mean what ended up happening it's we had with as those those Acquisitions all came together in the fall of 2023 um we had you know a finance lead that was internal but now our finance team is from another acquisition that had a big Finance group we we've brought a few of those folks in um we brought on an external head of HR um and she actually had owned a Doggy Daycare um uh that she had sold years ago and had like a corporate HR experience before that so she was very familiar with space um and then brought on a uh a head of integration um who just had done a lot of kind of private Equity integration to really kind of help help us build that out um but uh the bulk of the rest of the team is is is is people that have been working um at the brands that that that joined the platform um and then we in the beginning of 24 we did bring on a CEO um uh to kind of help us pull all of this together um which has been awesome I I think it really kind of needed somebody externally to come in and say Hey you know here's here's where we're going because you have six different brands that all do stuff a little bit differently and we're trying to figure out how do we how do we coales um that but at the same time leave some of the Special Sauce that that makes us all unique yeah yeah so that special sauce is you're trying to retain the Special Sauce but there is a unification of brand everybody's becoming a pet resort other way around so we're we're kind of we're leaving the brands um in the specific markets where they operate and um especially when the brands have kind of some Market prominence so like for us pus Andre is a well-known brand in Tampa um another one of our partners is uh Oldtown Pet Resort in uh kind of the DC Metro Area um so we're leaving those independent Brands and we're trying to kind of figure out behind the scenes um what are you know the overly used word synergies we have um so like an easy example is we all buy chemicals right grooming supplies shampoo conditioner cleaning supplies um and as a you know smaller business in Florida like we're not getting discounts on um any cleaning supplies now as 20 units we get massive discounts on cleaning supplies and shampoo and conditioner um but that applies across the operations it applies across the marketing um you know we're getting better rates on any kind of marketing Services we need um and we're also trying to figure out like we we do really really well with daycare we have a membership model um we're in an urban setting um we've kind of leaned very heavily into daycare but traditionally Pet Services is a much more boarding heavy business um so we're looking at some of these businesses we've partnered with and they do a lot more boarding Revenue than we do we do a lot more daycare Revenue than they do so how can we sort of look at those separate models and figure out you know can we help boost the daycare Revenue at some of these other locations can they help us with our boarding Revenue um uh and and yeah can we sort of streamline a lot more of what's happening in the background yeah so just on the brand so pause and wreck continues on so the Pet Resort shirt that you're wearing now is is what is that one of the other it's the holding company the umbrella okay the holding code the hold code gotta okay but it's actually not a consumer facing brand and it's not any of the consumer facing BRS correct okay well Taylor can you share with us any of the particulars of the deal or returns to investors maybe or give us some picture of what this looks like to exit to private Equity obviously the the reputation of that phrase is dollar signs so what what did it mean for you yeah so um we uh what can I say um 5x multiple uninvested capital in four years um internally so um that's that's about all I can say um I think what we what I can share is we we really looked at um based off of kind of all the levers we were going to pull ourselves and what we thought we could achieve from a multiple perspective on our own and then comp that against um what a payout today um and then Ro Equity plus you know longer term upside um would look like with them and it it it came out to basically be like we would assume all of the risk ourselves um and probably have to continue to grow at the rate we'd grown for about seven years to have a similar outcome that we would have uh today plus a couple years working with them um and and for us the big thing became kind of drisking the investment like as an entrepreneur you get to a place after you've had some level of success where you're like okay I have all of my equity and and net worth is in this one asset um and a friend I was kind of talking to that's that's done a lot of deals uh framed it really well is like you've kind of earned the money at that point um but it's in this El liquid asset so do you want to keep it in that El liquid asset or do you want to trade that for cash and and equity in another asset um so that was kind of some of the games we were playing with ourselves was just trying to understand um you know do we want to kind of let it ride and and and keep pushing this forward and or do we want to you know get some cat under our belts today and and um uh continue to have a a pretty material upside um and and work in a different capacity with kind of a bigger partner um because for us it was never about leaving like we had no interest in exiting and that was like the very first conversation we had with with his RNA all is is um you know we want to keep doing what we're doing um so if you guys want to acquire us and kick us out like that's not of any interest to us um we really just want to figure out how do we do it in a bigger capacity than we've been doing it on our own um and uh that's definitely definitely been the case over the last six months Taylor I really like that how you put the kind of casing out the possibilities here so you looked at the private Equity case uh and kind of ran that model and looked at your outcome and then staying independent ran that case and looked at your outcomes but the way you put it where it was kind of like what has to be true if we remain independent to compare with what feels like a drisk and more likely outcome going with private equity and then when you put it that way it's like wow we have to we have to get a lot of things right for the next number of years for and staying IL liquid still with a lot of risk for a comparable outcome to what we could get here is that is that right yeah yeah yeah um great well that's it that's a really that's a really uh good framework that's I you know I've had subsequent conversations with people and that's kind of what I tell them is is really look at like and a lot of that depends on sort of what the what the multiple you're getting paid today could could look like um you know how much debt you have that's another big component of it right is is you know you can have this fantastic SMB um and you know if youve if you've acquired it with a lot of debt like you might not be making that much money off of it and you're sort of looking forward being like how long is it going to take me to pay off this debt to where I can really start cash flowing this thing um and we kind of we talked about it in the last episode but um we kind of did this interesting blend of financing where um we put ourselves in a position to where we could eventually pay down the debt cash flow the business um but we were also leveraging debt to grow quickly um and uh it ended up working out but we weren't in a position where we were like making tons of money um prior to to uh uh the partnership so it was it was kind of like you know we had this great asset and and we kind of wanted to realize some of that uh today um but still also feel like we were working towards building something that was going to have long-term value as well and that's that's kind of what we ended up with sure and can you talk about how much Equity you rolled I can't sorry okay and can you give us a sense of is there is there kind of a typical range there in private Equity or is it just totally across the board I mean I I I assume it's got to be well under 50% generally yeah I mean it really depends like you can go look at triest and they have different funds and some of them are most of them are majority funds some of them are minority funds um where they'll take a minority position a lot of it depends on um kind of that platform question we talked about um of how involved does the private Equity Firm want you to be in the business going forward um and generally if they want you to be very involved um they're they're going to either let you or ask you to roll a lot more Equity because they want to make sure that you're incentivized to stick around and and keep building with them um in other instances and you see this with a lot of the kind of true rollups is it's it's a very nominal piece of equity it's you know maybe 5 10% um because they they they want to give you that second bite of the Apple but if you leave they're they're not feeling like they have this massive chunk of equity that's sitting on the cap table that um is not contributing to the growth of the business um so if if you ever end up in kind of a situation with private Equity where you're trying to figure out how much Equity do I roll how much can I roll how much should I roll um that's a big piece of it for both sides is understanding like do you want to keep working on the business um and uh if so you know how how how much of your upside do you want kind of still in in the company so obviously then in your case you're on the you're on the working still very much in the business so you're on the end of the spectrum that would be rolling more rather than less Equity yeah it's it's we're we're we're excited about kind of where we're at and where the business is going cool and the 5x return on invested Capital so that is to say the cash that you and your partner brought in you quintupled and invest for cash as well is that what sort of again we had kind of a weird financing structure but it it uh it was akin to that yeah well congratulations by the way T great yeah yeah much more gratifying than all those years in Tech yeah yeah I mean uh at least at least in terms of at least in terms of sort of the actualization of a dream you know always I've I've I've heard uh we talked about this in the last episode but I think Tech is you're trying to hit these like billion dooll Grand Slams um and uh the outcomes become very binary right it's like I'm either going to be you know the next Mark Zuckerberg or I'm gonna you know eat ramen um and uh I think what's came true for us SB and what really excites me about it is is you can hit a lot of really solid doubles um and you know build a great life build a great businesses employ a lot of people um you know build wealth for yourself and and others um and that's that's you know essentially what we were able to accomplish which has been great is um you know just putting kind of one foot in front of the other and trying to build something that that had tangible value um instead of trying to just continue raising VC money until eventually you IPO or somebody buys you for a billion dollars yeah yeah exactly Taylor you put um a minute ago you put bad PE is known for differentiate for the audience between you know negative the negative reputation that private Equity can have and then when you see I guess in your partner kind of a the good guy private Equity so people have a sense of kind of what to be looking for yeah I mean I think you know breaking it down like private Equity is is at a high level it's just private investing right so it's it's uh it's it's Financial firms funds that that buy and invest in private businesses so that can mean a bunch of stuff but I think that the PE moniker especially as it relates to PE kind of buying smaller Middle Market companies is this idea that um you know they come in they buy your business they kick you out or they kick out your people they cut cost um and they try to you know in the in the case of rollups they're just going to go buy a ton of businesses smash them all together not do any integration and then flip it to the next buyer to kind of figure it out and it becomes all about this like Financial engineering and and and multiple Arbitrage um and that does happen right there's there's countless examples of of that occurring um but I think there are a lot and there's sort of an emerging amount of funds and and and private Equity firms that that don't operate that way um and they are going to be very smart about how they leverage cash to to grow businesses through m&a in our case and in the case of rollups um but they also understand that um the best companies are are good companies um so that was our big kind of discussion and why it took us six months to get here is we really wanted to understand that um these guys shared our vision they shared our values and they felt like that you know we we're not just going to go out and buy as many doggy daycares as we can smash them together and and and hope it works like we're going to actually build a real business here um that has a lot of underlying value and and and the way that we're going to grow that is is partially through m&a um and think like an easy example that points that it's like we're not just doing m&a it's like we also have a denovo strategy um that we're leaning into because we we we feel that that needs to be a big part of the business um and yeah so I mean I think that um the way that we kind of talk about it internally is like private Equity can just be another Capital Source um and it can really accelerate things and if if done right with the right Partners um it it's not as scary as I think people often make it out to be um and uh you know you can you can find a lot of people that have had private bad private Equity experiences but there's a lot of people that have had really really good ones um and that's what we kind of had in our Corners a lot of the guys we talked to had had gone through um you know some kind of private Equity journey and had had a really good good experience with it and we're like hey you guys are young and um this is going to really help take your business to the next level and um it's going to challenge you as as operators to grow in ways that you're not um experiencing now because you're going to go really really fast and um yeah that's definitely been the the case for the last six months I mean we're we're now at 20 units that my partner and I are are all working on so we went from you know at the time of close we had three units open we got that fourth denovo open and and very quickly we were part of a group that you know at the time of close was I think 17 units and we've just um just brought on three more in the last month um so and we're working across all of them um so it's uh it's been a kind of wild Journey the last couple months kind of diving into all these different businesses and and um it's been a lot of fun and so the reputation of private Equity that when you know loan or partner uh small business owner um is doing their thing they get into private equity and it's kind of a a step up it's bigger leagues it's more demanding faster moving more sophisticated you're finding this to be true 100% yeah we had you know we've talked to a lot of private Equity type groups over the years and and very early on we were talking to a group and and I became friends with the one partner there and um we were kind of floating the idea of working with them and and he was like you know if we partner like we like to go really fast and really hard and are you ready for that um and that kind of stuck in my head of like you know if we're going to do this these guys are going to go fast and they're going to go hard and and um yeah I mean that's definitely been the case right is is uh it went for me and my partner kind of making every decision and and that impacting our um you know 75 employees to now it's it's uh we have a management team that's very experienced and and um you know we have 700 plus employees and taking care of thousands of dogs every day across 20 locations and there's just a lot more stuff kind of happening um and we're constantly trying to kind of add to that group and grow it and and you know I was kind of taking notes before the call this morning and it's like you're in a bigger boat and everybody's working to row in the same direction um but there's a lot of paddles so you're kind of like you know you're smashing battles a lot more and and before it's like my partner and I would make every decision and and you know our investors were very passive and and you know um we talk to them once a month and it's it's now it's you know we have a a management team of 10 10 15 people um and uh you know you're you're you're trying to get consensus to to make decisions with a bigger group and and um you know sometimes you're uh you know as a small business owner it's like what you say goes and and now you're you're back into kind of a more corporate setting where um you know you're you're trying to get consensus and and uh work with with a lot more people who all have different but often better ideas and what is your title Taylor so I'm currently the head of marketing and strategy so I'm leading marketing for all the brands um and also just kind of working on the general strategic direction of the business and so are you part of that that management team yeah yeah okay and do you who do you report to the CEO yeah great and the sponsors uh were the names AAR and yeah na all uh hired a CEO uh this CEO that you report to so what is their role in the business curious yeah so it's it's kind of another interesting structure where um AAR is the chairman of the board um trivest is the Capital Partner um and AOL is the uh head of corporate development chief chief development officer so he's he's hyperfocused on going out and kind of finding new partners um AAR is is uh chairman so he's he's not in kind of the day-to-day operations um and uh and uh yeah the CEO is is running the company with you know a handful of of us that are are helping kind of lead at the platform level um and yeah I mean that we can we can talk about that a little bit because that was kind of an interesting process was um you know when we joined and we did all these Acquisitions there was no um there was no CEO um and it was kind of a question mark As to like who the CEO was going to be um and uh you know it became apparent to me pretty early on um in the conversations with them and with triest that I did not have the experience to kind of be the CEO of what they were building um so that was a part of the kind of six-month process of being like you know am I okay with that um and uh uh had had that initially been what you envisioned for yourself I don't know and that was like part of it right and like I think that was one of the questions when we tou on with shes is they they asked and I was like oh I don't know and they're like well if you don't know you're probably not the guy um and and yeah and it was like oh wow like that's an interesting data point um and uh uh you know so and also like working with AAR him and I have become very close and and he is very much um you know an independent monor investor and he loves kind of pulling groups together and and building businesses as as kind of an integrator um of humans but he's he's very adamantly like I'm not a CEO and I don't want to be um and that kind of struck me because I'm I'm surrounded by lots of people that either are or want to be CEOs and and um I just felt like I kind of knew that um if we were going to build a really really big business I didn't necessarily have the experience to do that right away um and uh what's subsequently happen is we brought on uh a gentleman by the name of Jason Duffy um to be the CEO and he um he spent a uh a number of decades in in uh grocery he he jokes that he went from the the Butcher Block to the boardroom um worked his way up as a butcher um and eventually uh was helping lead Walmart in China so it's spent a lot of years with Walmart um and then did a stint in Tech at Clear um and then for the last couple years was the uh head of operations at uh a large privately owned Pet Resort group so he's got this really interesting mix of like deep corporate management experience some startup experience but also the Pet Resort side of the business and my partner and I said kind of forever like the guy to lead a 20 plus unit Pet Resort rollup um has sort of his experience as a pet resort operator my experience as kind of a tech marketing business person plus like 10 years of depth um and that's what we got with with Jason which has been really awesome and and um uh so yeah just like having going from entrepreneur small business CEO to um you know W2 uh that is is you know a big Equity holder in this new business but is is reporting to someone has definitely been an interesting change but I'm I'm the learning is accelerating really rapidly which has been cool one of the things you said in the preall Taylor is that we're and we're we're glancing off this topic is just that in a uh um corporations as much as easy it is to hate on them as entrepreneurs or owners and more independent-minded folks of course there's something to be learned in any context and and corporations are they might be feel big and unwieldy but you know they're basically the picture of success they've gotten to to be big entities and that you don't you know you do that through Excellence not the other way around so um there's there's something to be learned in in in a corporate context not to say that you guys are now corporate exactly but you're getting there 700 employees so um so so talk to me a little bit about your opening of your mind to what corporate has to teach yeah I mean I think that it goes back to that sort of analysis we did on um the financial outcomes of like hey you know how long would it take us to to to get to where we want to go and um I think the math we did was like you know how long would it take us to get to 20 units our El um and you you look at that through the lens of learning as well it's like okay how how long is it going to take me to get to 20 units what are the things I need to learn to get there what are kind of the the the resources we need to bring in like a very clear one for us was was Finance like we we had a bookkeeper and you know me doing very wonky Financial models with a degree in literature um and so so we we sort of said hey like what do we want to learn right now um and I think for both my partner and I it was like we felt like we we really wanted to learn how to build a bigger business um and we wanted to do that quickly and and um the thought being that you know we're either going to do that with Pet Resort Hospitality Group and and and then that becomes the bigger business that we work on um or we have this experience that we can kind of go leverage for the next one um and I think even six months in like if if everything blew up tomorrow and we had to go do something else like we would be so much better positioned to to grow a bigger business on our own next time um and I I imagine you know fast forward 3 to five years and and um you know we're going to we're either going to be leading a really big business with with uh T Resort Hospitality Group or we're going to be in a spot where we can go out and do something even bigger than we did the first time great Taylor um and you know you you've referred now to you know being young and you've just said that you could Envision doing this again in your career how old are you I am 35 is there anything any story or theme that we didn't hit on that you want to make sure the audience here is from somebody who bought a business and then has kind of seen the full life cycle of buying growing and then selling to private Equity yeah I mean I think the other story I mentioned I was in DC last weekend um that we talk about a lot and has become really evident is as a um you know as an entrepreneur like I had a partner which I I am a big fan of partnership but even with a partner you kind of end up on this island of your SMB where it's it's just the two of you kind of figuring everything else out and um you know occasionally you'll go to a trade show and you'll have a bunch of Frenemies there and there are other businesses and different markets that you know you're kind of sharing best practices but there's you're you're still individual islands that are kind of coming together just to to chat um and last week in DC you know we had uh 30 people that came together they're all now under um One One Umbrella uh together um running different businesses but we're all rowing in the same direction and like that's been a really unique experience of of coming together with these other operators um that uh uh all want to make everybody's business better um and I think that's been a learning for me just looking backwards and if we ever do this again of of I think there's so much value to be had in trying to find ways to learn from and collaborate with others that are kind of doing something similar to you um and I was in like a bunch of CEO groups and and and stuff like that but I think just being in a group now of other operators like in our business um has been super valuable yeah you know I I've got franchises on the brain because I did a webinar last week and then I did promptly did an interview with somebody who bought um uh bunch of franchise uh existing franchise businesses and one of the big appeals appealing or one of the big strengths of of buying existing franchise businesses or into a franchise brand is exactly what you just articulated so you all the you've got all these operators across the country who are under your same brand and so you're you're not competitive uh with them and you're not you you've all got autonomy because you're individual owners and entrepreneurs but you do still feel kind of like you're rowing in the same direction you want success for them because success for them kind of bleeds up through and through you know the brand to you in some way so there's there's kind of a rowing in the same direction thing and an eagerness to collaborate and share and an openness to it and a camaraderie um so I'm just I'm just reminded of that and how that how people who buy franchise businesses say what a strong feature of going that path it is yeah and I think that's that's kind of what we're trying to build internally right is where where we can bring together operators where they still feel empowered to run their business um but they're getting a ton of support um from from a larger group and and and a platform team that's that's there to help them great Taylor well if anybody out there is considering selling to private equity and they want to talk to somebody who's done it uh how can they reach out to you hey up on Twitter Tay wall would love to talk to you Tay wall still active on Twitter I was GNA ask I myself active but neither neither is anybody it seems yeah uh great Taylor Wallace congratulations again uh to your partner as well uh and thanks for coming on and sharing with us how this journey is concluded at least that first chapter as an independent entrepreneur now chap we s it yeah right at the second bite of the Apple you'll come on for a third time good stuff thanks Taylor awesome appreciate it hope you enjoyed that conversation with Taylor now comes my update interview with Tyler ' Conor whose first appearance was episode 120 entitled using $100,000 to buy a seven figure dream business link to that in the show notes Tyler oconor welcome back to acquiring minds thank you will Tyler your interview aired in February last year February 2023 you had acquire ired bird Golf Academy a golf school it seemed like a strong business and you are a golfer so your story was a really fun one here we are now about a year and a half later and it was time to get you back on and hear how things have gone since before we hear about that Tyler why don't you remind us a bit about your backstory and the acquisition of bird Golf Academy for people who didn't hear your first appearance yeah thank you well it's it's great to be back and uh I don't think I've missed a podcast of yours yet so I really I really enjoy uh acquiring mines and I'm happy to be back on with you so um that's awesome Tyler thank you yeah my story um I'm a former military army officer did that for about six years uh got out of the military in 2016 and finished my NBA at uh George Washington University in DC and uh went into Consulting at that point for about four years about two years longer than I wanted it to be uh and I was kind of ready to move on and knew that I always wanted to to be an entrepreneur but I didn't I didn't have an idea I'm not like a Steve Jobs I wasn't going to you know start a new company at that stage in my life and when I found out what search funds were I was obviously very intrigued and interested and it didn't take long uh for me to kind of jump head first and um I think from the time we started searching to the time we closed on bird golf was um was probably six or eight months so uh yeah I'm I've been doing this for 23 months so uh we're very happy with the way things are going and I'm I'm excited to share that with you today awesome Tyler well one of my kind of favorite details of your search was the way you found bird Golf Academy was you had been on the boring businesses telling everybody you were going to buy a boring business Bor love it Embrace boring absolutely so so you know where I'm going here yeah can you tell it or I I remember it so well I'll tell it but if you want to go ahead I know I'm happy to and I I I still I still wouldn't mind getting my hands on a boring a boring business um so maybe down the road that is something I'll jump into but basically what happened was um you know we were I was for Easter and I told my mom that I was going to you know quit my quit my job um with great benefits and great pay and a great career path and I was going to go out on my own and and buy a business and buy a boring business and buy HVAC because it's so reliable and everybody wants it and and um you know she basically said you know Tyler you've always been successful at what you do I think that you should try to find something that you're actually passionate about um instead of instead of a boring business and I thought well no one no one's ever told ever told me you could do that you know if you could buy a business you actually in an industry you actually like so I went home and um I was just on Biz by cell and it was a Monday night it was about 10 o'clock at night and um I just typed in you know Golf and there were a ton of golf courses for sale uh driving ranges and I knew that wasn't going to that that wasn't what I wanted and then I just happened to kind of come across this posting for bird Golf Academy and it was it was pretty basic there wasn't a picture it was kind of um just very generic and I reached out to the broker and we engaged in some conversations and uh you know one thing led to another and um yeah we ended up closing so that's great yeah I I love it um both both your mom's point about you don't have to do boring and that how you just dropped golf into into bis by cell and there it was and believe me she she takes credit for it every chance she can so she she won't let me forget it it was it was if you ask her she'll tell her tell you it was it was her idea for me to buy bird golf well um just a little bit more detail um before we get into how it's gone give us some of the bullet points on bird Golf Academy just just strictly as from a business perspective Revenue employees what it does exactly yeah so bird Golf Academy is a 3 four five day private golf School uh and we have loc over 20 locations all around the country so it's basically a stay andplay package where you'll receive private individualized instruction um at one of these great fantastic Golf Resorts all around the country um and we've got now I think 18 instructors like I said over 20 locations around the country and soon to be hopefully our first International location as well um the business has like I said about 18 instructors and those are all 1099s we have um two us-based full-time employees and one offshore employee that's full-time as well and then myself ah I'm not sure I remembered that or that we hit that from in the in the first interview there's only three truly W2 folks all the teachers are $199 and then you have a and then an offshore person did I get that right so yeah very small footprint exactly yeah very small and it just so happens that both of the the W2 folks are are based in Phoenix which is where our Flagship location is that's where the business started so they've been with the company for you know 17 plus years uh so um yeah they they're they've been around for quite a while and these instructors these at folks some of these are former Pros right so there there's a bit of a thrill factor or a star factor for some of them for some of your there are yeah absolutely the the folks that have played on tour and um you know top five finishes um you know uh top top of the money list when at the time that they they stopped playing former LPGA rookies of the year uh one of our instructors was a she won a US Open and two LPG championships which are which are Majors I mean if you're not a golfer that's that's a pretty big deal um so yeah these are these are very accomplished instructors they've all been teaching for over 20 years uh we don't have anybody that's like straight out of school um and uh I think that that kind of adds to what bird gulp offers here you know it's like you're getting a serious professional these guys have been doing this all their lives and um and yeah that's that's kind of what we do yeah and again just to to repeat what I said at the very top that you're a golfer so this I turn very they Loosely I'm a a recreational golfer and um I I probably you know have as many um High noses on the golf course that I do is um as golf balls and play and that's a lot so uh I'm a a very recreational golfer not a pro by any means in fact when I play golf um I hesitate to even tell people what I do because um then I have this like expectation that I'm supposed to be some really great golfer you know I can tell you this story that uh um you know it always comes up it's like the the the last hole or the second to last hole somebody ask me what I do and I say oh I own a golf school and and they say oh yeah I'd love to get into something I'd like to do something like that and I say yeah you know I'll give you the the the 10% you know friends and family discount if you want and and um I I was remember on the last hole um I tell this guy to Hidden iron off the T and he hits a great shot and it's in the middle of Fairway and he's got 120 yards into the green I say you know hey Hey Joe that that lesson's free the next one's going to cost you and now it's my turn to get up and hit and I hit the ball in the woods and I hit it in the sand I'm shanking the ball and so we finish the round we're shaking hands he says you know after that last hole you're gonna have to give me a lot more 10 lot more than 10% off for uh for that golf school so let's hear now Tyler about 23 months in how it's how it's going other than the fact that you kind of have to hide the fact that you're a golfer now yeah yeah no it's um it's been going it's been going great it's really fantastic uh I have no regrets I absolutely love what I do um it's been fantastic as the transition from like a W2 employee to being an entrepreneur being your own boss so much more flexibility uh my wife and I just had a baby so being able to kind of take time to be with the baby and my wife and um and also just the the freedom to make decisions in a business and put them into action and to see the results uh is really fulfilling and really rewarding and that's probably the thing that I really love the most is being able to make a decision and um move very quickly on those on those decisions and for Better or For Worse you know so uh that's that's probably the best thing about the business in terms of um uh how successful we are you know there are aspects of the business that are up there are aspects of the business that are flat there's aspects of the business that are down um so you know it's it is what it is and um I would say that you know we're certainly not losing money um but we're not growing at like a exponential clip uh that you know some business owners would expect you know after they buy a business and and put in their own um ideas into into action like you know these things take time I guess the second thing I would say on that is you know this is not recurring Revenue I mean this is like a very Project based thing and you're selling a golf school um our average ticket will range anywhere from 4,300 bucks to 7200 bucks uh so that you know you're fighting every single lead is so valuable and you're fighting for say an average of5 to $6,000 um and you got to do that time in time and down again you cannot take any time off well in terms of how it's not you know to the Moon yet um I guess the first question or the first concern is always when you buy a business is it at least no skeletons not a lemon not a b Goods it's no totally yeah it's what you thought as as advertised you know in fact like you know I think when we when we originally spoke the the biggest risk in the business was well what happens if one of these golf courses that you partner with because I don't own any golf courses I just have an agreement with these folks that I can use their space and we bring them hotels hotel rooms so our biggest location the location that's responsible for 40% of our Revenue you know it's maybe six months in uh they called me and the um the golf management company had lost their contract and they had been working with this golf course for 23 plus years and we had then been there for 17 so after 17 years you know the partnership was over no fault of our own the golf course decided they wanted to go with a different management company which means we were out and I think probably within two days we already had like we we we came up with a verbal agreement with another location in in the Phoenix area um that we had better rates so better margins better facility more golf courses uh you know everything so the key risk that we identified actually did happen and you know we basically went into our risk mitigation plan and it all worked out for the better well that's extremely optimistic uh early stress testing of the business the very risk that you were concerned about for sure and you know being in that position um I mean it is a terrifying terrifying feeling uh to not know if you're going to lose 40% of your business or what you're going to do with that and um not only for for me but you know I have instructors who are relying on um on that location or on that business to pay their own bills so I've I'm responsible for putting food on their table and now we've got to come up with a solution so you know being a business owner U being in those shoes like solving those problems um it can be very stressful but when it works out it's also very rewarding so that was one risk that you dealt with and in fact emerged kind of stronger from MH the other maybe it's not a risk but just kind of um weakness in the business model which you already touched on is that you're kind of fighting for every dollar This is highly discretionary spend consumer spend um Big Ticket yeah the how has that been it sounds like that's been um kind of you're constantly fighting that but are have have there been any changes to that has has it gone better worse than you expected so I would say um the number of students we track you know number of students every month every year that number has declined slightly but you know we raise our prices every year um you know for you know to address you know rising cost and things like that so even though we've lost some students you know we've maybe gotten rid of some of the less performing locations or we've kind of optimized travel we've optimized schedules uh and also with the increase every year uh our Topline Revenue was above last year's at the end of May uh now we're recording this um you know the first part of July and I can tell you now um through June so we were we were up through the end of May now through June we're down about 2% uh Topline revenue and the reason for that is frankly just because you know I was traveling and I wasn't available as much as I have been in the past so when I say like you know you you you cannot drop the ball once uh and you know you could say like one of the terms that we hear a lot on this show is like you're buying a business or you're buying a job well I mean I certainly I certainly bought a job like I am the head sales guy you know so we do have some help um in that department but it's not 100% and it's still my responsibility to book schools and to make sales and when I'm doing other things or traveling to different locations or having a baby uh you know those numbers are going to are going to drop so now it's on us to kind of get back to where we are where we were and Tyler I didn't ask I meant to if you could share the revenue of the business when you bought it and and and then feeding into that what does what do the resources at the business look like for investing in a full-time salesperson so that you you can solve that problem when we bought the business um they were projecting uh around 4 to 4 A5 million in Revenue in Topline and there's just like now being in the business like there's there's frankly like there's no way that that was possible um just looking at I only have X number of instructors so say back then it was 15 instructors times 30 days a month times 12 months a year like you're not going to get to that number and that's probably something that maybe I could have diligence a little bit better we're using Trends and forecasts and things like that there was a lot of pent up demand for travel coming out of covid and I think that subsided and you know we've seen that across the travel industry really um especially like an industry like this so um so that's what they they were they were projecting you know four four and a half I'd say now we'll probably finish the year around like 3.6 uh which is kind of what what we're hoping for now to for your second uh question what does a full-time salesperson look like uh I've budgeted around 100 grand for um or yeah $100,000 for a full-time sales employee and that's a base that's a mix of a of a a base salary plus commission I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet because I one of my one of my instructors you know when he's not teaching he's fulfilling a role as a part-time salesperson so that helps kind of him um gives him more more cash in his pocket and it takes the stress off me a little bit so when he's on a stretch of he's not doing sales for 10 days okay now I can take these 10 days and I can go focus on another portion of the business so it's kind of a good mix but um you know there are some weaknesses every time we have to switch over uh from him to me you know we're losing that momentum we you know we may may be missing emails and phone calls when he's like teaching and that's an issue that we're going to have to address um but right now I I I think we're doing okay okay well you your attitude sounds like you feel pretty good about things and as you said some things are up some things are down so I'm not trying to suggest that this is negative but I will say Tyler that 3.6 million compared to four four and a half that was projected that's a that is a big decline if you were underwriting at four4 and half million does that mean that there are loan repayment squeezes or working Capital squeezes I mean we the the pro fora had the investors getting their money back a lot sooner than um than they have like we you know we could say that so um but in terms of like you know making the debt payments that's that's not an issue there's there's there's no issues with that we've still had money that we're able to kind of reinvest in the business buying new technologies and upgrading the facilities at some places so um no the capital requirements like it hasn't been like that tight and you get your leads from online I assume all yeah all inbound leads so people go to the website they fill out a brochure request and you know we'll contact them and uh so they'll they'll get the brochure and we follow up with emails and phone calls and talk to them about okay you know are you looking for an East Coast or West Coast and what time of the month or what time of the year are you looking to go and um so there's a lot of you know phone calls like that but it's it's all inbound stuff but you are driving that inbound with Google ads Facebook ads there there's all of the above digital marketing that you're doing a lot of digital marketing SEO is a big um part of our budget we've gotten into the social media um advertising and um we we get on some email lists and things like that uh one of the cool things that happened recently was one of our former students is an um he works he's an ad executive and he basically had like a use or lose situation with some TV time and he basically said you know Tyler you know I love the product I think can help you out I've got to spend this money regardless so let's have let's make an agreement I'm going to give you say you know for example $75,000 for the TV time in exchange for golf schools down the road uh and all I'm all I'm on the hook for is coming up with the with the TV commercial so we just finalized that and that's really cool and that's going to go live on um on Monday and um we're I'm excited to kind of see where that goes like you know kind of going back to being a business owner and making decisions you know this is an area that okay I made the decision to invest in this and we're going to see how it plays out you know it may be successful it may not be successful and then we won't do it again but we're learning you know and uh that's just that's that's really cool to me yeah very much so and you know Tyler the thing about the business is if you can solve the demand generation or problem or or at least figure out a scalable way to generate more leads and bring more people into the funnel and convert more of them it feels like a very scalable business because there are um teen courses to partner with and there's probably I suspect there's a lot of golfing um teacher golfing instructor Talent out there to be had so if you can just if you can just bring in the demand you can probably service it pretty pretty easily and like you like you've already found you turned on a new partnership with another Golf Course very quickly you could probably do so if if that's any indication you could do more of the same yeah good good point so um I I think that that would require actually I know this I know that that would require a change in our business model and this is definitely something that we've thought about um but for that to happen you know I would need to I could just call up every golf course in the country and say hey I'm gonna I'm I'm basically a broker right so somebody calls me and then I farm them out to some golf course number one we can't protect the Integrity of the instruction that way so I have no idea what the quality of the instruction would be at that particular golf course if I just called up um you know some golf course down the road uh so we use all of our own instructors so every every instructor works for us um and we travel them around you know in the in the winter they're down south and in the summer they're up north um yes like in the future there we could do that we could you know kind of Select different golf courses with that have instructors that are local um the reason I haven't done that is because because I really feel like I have a responsibility to the instructors that came with the business I mean they've been they've been with this company some of them for you know since the conception which is 20 plus years so um that and if I were to do that and bring on all these new instructors well now that's less that's less schools or less days a month for them um you can't just ramp up that quickly right so we've done that very like very slowly and we've just had someone retire uh so as folks retire then we kind of move into that model so it's not going to be something that's done overnight but over time then yes we will kind of look at doing that and I kind of mentioned um you know the the location international we have a verbal agreement with the location in the UK and obviously I'm not going to travel someone to to Europe for a three-day golf school so we're going to have to partner with someone over there but there will be a vetting process and make sure that there you know the standards are there um and as we kind of do that and as we kind of build into these new locations um we we will kind of ship to that model interesting okay so the model really is you have inventory of hours or or or days of instructor time and it's less tied to the locations and more to the instructor's time so you don't want to bring on more instructors or partner with more instructors when you haven't filled the inventory your existing inventory exactly right yeah okay one thing that you'd mentioned to me in our preall was that managing people had been a struggle during these last 23 months can you say more about that there's always something like you know like I said like you know if folks aren't getting booked they're going to they're going to tell me you know hey I don't have any schools in December or I need the I need at least one or two schools to pay my bills every month you know so now that's on me now I'm driving like okay I have to get this person to school I have to give them schools um another example would be you know we're integrating more technology so we're buying you know these launch monitors for all these instructors now if you're not a golfer what a launch monitor does is it measures the club head when it hits the golf ball and it tells you the speed of your Club head the speed of the golf ball the direction of the golf ball the spin a lot of these instructors like I said they've been teaching for over they've been teaching their whole lives they didn't have launch monitors back in the day so they are some of the older folks are resistant to change now it's my job to kind of talk to them and say listen this is the way the industry is going we're offering this this will be a requirement I'm I'm giving you six months and by the way I'm buying these thing things so uh let's get on board you know so um that that was that that was one struggle that some folks kind of push back on um and you need to kind of pick and choose your battles but this is one that is kind of a non-negotiable I mean every other golf school in the country uses these things you got to have it yeah Tyler one thing I'm I'm hearing um or that I'm reminded of is that kind of telling people what to do telling your folks what to do is when they're w Ted you have more leeway to do that uh but when they're $10.99 it can be a little bit grayer um you can simply make it a requirement of hey working working continuing to work with me means that you are you know you know how to manage this technology um but just broadly do you ever find that there is uh any difference in the fact that the that most of your quote employees are actually $10.99 versus if they were working directly for you or is that not really an issue in your case no it is and and one of the things that that kind of I I did this I I set this up um very deliberately when I had bought the company the former owner you know he was very involved and would call these instructors um to talk about whatever kind of issues that that the owner had or the instructors had to solve those kind of issues but we have a general manager I mean what's a general manager doing if the owner's doing all this stuff like I said uh when we started the call like I come from a military background so I wanted to kind of Main main um um a command and control or a um a hierarchy so the instructors would go to the general manager and then the instructor the general manager goes to me it really helps that they can voice their frustrations to him and kind of get get all that off their chest and then he'll kind of dilute it give it to me and then Tyler as a CEO can kind of in you know behind the scenes can come up with a solution I call them and say hey I got great news we got a solution for you instead of maybe when tempers are hot tempers are flaring um to kind of you know be arguing let them get all that out off their chest with a general manager who they've had a relationship with for like I said 15 years I mean you know it's not like you know they're friends they know these guys uh so the general manager kind of fills that rule to kind of be the the um the first stop and he'll kind of um bring any kind of tempers down and then Tyler as a CEO can go in and with hey I got great news and the same thing goes with the customers too because this is a Hospitality business not everyone has a stellar A+ time all the time so there are times when someone might call and say hey my hotel is or like the hot this is this is a legit complaint I got the hot tub wasn't hot enough okay like what the hell am I going to do about that you know like so these are just things that they want the customer like wants someone to listen to their problems so the general manager can call oh I'm so sorry about that we're going to get that taken care of or you know I hate to hear that now Tyler can call and say guys I hear you're having a a terrible time with the hotel I'm going to comp your dinner tonight and there's going to be a free bottle of wine in your room when you get back to the room so now it's like oh my God the CEO just called me and he's comping my hotel night or he's comping my dinner tonight so it it you can like I said this is very deliberate like we did the we didn't just come up with this um and I think that those that that kind of structure and hierarchy really can can solve a lot of those problems this is something that you are as you said really deliberate about and um and strategic about and it sounds really effective yeah I I think so interesting too to just hear you say that this is a Hospitality business that this is you know kind of customer service because it's not it's a school but it's a school plus plus or it's you know or or maybe it's a trip plus some school you know it's kind of you know is it one of these Hospitality businesses masquerading as a school or a school masquerading as a Hospitality business sort of thing but but I I ECT that maybe the hospitality angle of it the you know that you're in the travel business and have to show people a good time was maybe not something that jumped off the page at you when you consider it consider this Sim you thought you were buying pure instruction yeah I I probably underestimated the aspect of the hospitality nature yeah I I I would say so I was thinking more about how many damn credit card points I'm going to get from marot and hayatt uh and I wasn't necessarily thinking about that but um defitely come to learn those things well we have done a what we one of the other things that we did is we kind of upped our Communications game so before you know someone would book a school and that school maybe six months down the road or something for next year and they would not hear from us again until the night before their school when the instructor would call and say I'm going to meet you at 9:30 at the pro shop well now we send all kinds of different emails reminder emails and say Here's a packing list and here's where the hotel is and um so so getting those Communications out up front has defitely cut down on um some of those calls that we used to get and some of those emails that we used to get we don't have to worry about those anymore because we're more proactive about it Tyler you've already touched on it a little bit we talked about it in the preall the working capital you knew going into this that that is something that small businesses struggle with so you were prepared for it but it's one of these where until you really felt it uh it was just kind of an intellectual exercise and indeed you have really felt it tell us about what it feels like with the particular struggles in this business yeah I mean this is a seasonal business so like right now in the in the summer this would be like the the low season like right now and then you know November and December are always like kind of the low low times the spring would be the busiest we' make all our money in the spring so you know right now we really have to kind of be very careful about like where we're spending our money and making sure that and like I said this is a project base so if there's any kind of like Market Corrections or dips or anything like that or Trends um and people stop booking booking trips then we would be like you know really in in trouble um so I think that when I had bought the business there was a certain amount of money that included in the working capital and it was a lot it was probably more than what we really needed and as a first-time business owner I probably looked at that and was like holy I got a lot of money in the bank right now and I probably I probably as a first-time business owner went a little bit overboard on um on spending and kind of learn that lesson early on and uh now it's just like you got to be a lot more careful um to get through the low season so it's and that's tough because it's like I want to give my money back to my investors um and in the spring it's like you got all this cash in the bank like oh yeah I can I can give them a much higher return but you got to be very careful it's like okay I'm gonna need that cash come to low season it's funny because most buyers the working capital yeah uh they get into their business and find that there's not enough and you found that there was too much and yet even that can kind of bite you because it does psychologically prepare you for you know husbanding your resources for 12 months yeah you kind of take it for granted probably pretty stupid I mean um I looking back like I'd have to go back and look and see what we even spent the damn money on to be honest I'm sure there was I'm sure it was business it's all business related I mean well part of it was part of it was you know me as the head sales guy I'm going around and traveling to these 20 Plus locations all around the country you know I have to experience this place I have to go to the hotel and see the golf course so I know how to sell it and say Hey you go to the location in Florida they've got four different restaurants you're going to want to try the Italian place uh the hotel is you know maybe 5 minutes from the golf course so I I needed to experience all that so I could like accurately sell it um but you know you um it just now that I've kind of learned that lesson and we're in our second year uh you have to be much more mindful of those things well you have talked about how the ability to make decisions your own decisions for your own business and make them quickly and see the results is one of the most gratifying aspects of being an entrepreneur small business owner um you have um just talked about the responsibility and and that you feel for your people and how gratifying that is to round us out here Tyler what would you kind of what impression do you want to leave people with who listen to your first episode about your story to date and your decision to do this yeah um you know I would tell you that like I'm just a regular guy like I'm not like a Harvard Business grad um I'm just a regular old dude who you know heard about search funds and was able to to put this deal together so you know if you really have the drive and determination and the commitment like you can do this too but you need to understand that this is a very very serious thing okay when you have those like those low moments um it can be very scary and I'm going to tell you one quick story um this is a this is a story from when I was in when when I was in Afghanistan and there's just a lot of different parallels when you are feeling like you in in business ownership when things are going poorly you cannot you can't just freeze and you can't just like you know lean on uh you have to you have to be able to get through it right so when I was in Afghanistan I was an infantry officer we were clearing this road and it's a oneway out you know one way in one way out situation Cliffs on the left River on the right you can't turn these big trucks around and and um I'm out clearing clearing the road for IEDs with the military working dogs and the the Mind sweepers and whatnot and we get this call on the radio and one of my sergeants says he says hey Captain MC Conor um we just intercepted this call that they the enemy said get ready the Americans are coming and I'm on the I'm not even in a protected truck and I'm I'm sitting there I'm like okay I'm about to get blown up um and the feeling in that moment is your feet are stuck in concrete but your legs like turned to jell and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that there are days in small business ownership that will feel like that you know I'm not making this up ask around um you have to be ready for that like if you are not the type of person that can handle adversity well this may not be for you it's not for everyone okay so you need to be very careful about the type of business that you buy and make sure that if things go south you get through it and you know just keep keep going um thankfully in that story in Afghanistan um everything was fine nothing happened you know uh and we were all good and um and we got through it and I'm I'm continuing to get through through this you know like I said we're just about two years in and and uh things are great and we're we're loving life and Tyler just to be absolutely clear about what this quality of a person is forgive the cliche term but is it kind of grit or or or the ability to just not freeze it's just kind of the the push through it I mean what what what what is the what is the quality yeah um I I don't know if I don't know if I would say grit but being able to deal with adversity would probably be is kind of the first thing that comes to mind um and being a problem solver I I I do think that I'm I'm pretty good at solving problems like you know maybe as a former consultant somebody hands me a problem instead of you know complaining about it and say okay what are our options that's always the first question what are options thinking outside the box um doing things that haven't necessarily been done before just because you know it like I said or I didn't say this but uh in my previous careers as a military officer and as a consultant a lot of times you would say something and why do we do this oh well that that's just that's just the way we've always done it that's the way it's always been done no I don't want to hear that ever you have to be able to think outside the box and solve problems so dealing with adversity and problem solving would be like the two biggest qualities that um that I would say make a good entrepreneur or a good small business owner Tyler that was a really strong story and way to illustrate like what this can actually be like I always try to have my guest talk about the realities of small business ownership because the napkin math can be so appealing but that really gloss glosses over what the realities of of the LI the life the lifestyle are um so I really appreciate you giving us um your perspective Ive on it if people want to reach out uh how do you like them to do that what's the best way well you know will I was um so uh in the DAT with all the messages and support I received on the last call and um I was so H happy to help and um you know it does take a lot of time uh to to get back to those folks and um if you remember I was talking to or I kind of started my journey with Sam ratti's boot camp uh so um I I think I'm going to dedicate my my resources and support and time to the folks that go through the boot camp as an alumni so uh if you would like to reach out um go to Sam's boot camp and then I'd be happy to get in touch with you how's that you know Tyler I um have decided that I'm going to start saying I didn't say it just now because I guess I I'm not comfortable saying it every single time I'm hearing this from my guests that they get a lot of inbound with people with questions and that oftentimes the people asking for their time don't make the best use of that time haven't done the homework or haven't you know asking basic questions or kind of doing the can I pick your brain sort of thing and not coming with pointed questions educated questions that make the best use of your time and also underestimating just how many people are asking for your time so audience this is where I say despite the fact that I invite Tyler to give his contact information you should not reach out to him until you've really you can really come and have and make intelligent use of his time so he took the words out of my mouth and did me one better by saying he'll only talk to you if you go to Sam rti's boot camp which I love and that's a plug for Sam so um I better be getting some like referrals on uh on those signups too so no's he's they got they got a great program there and uh I I really endorse them great Tyler thanks for coming back on acquiring minds congratulations on 23 months despite the fact that it's not as glamorous or perfect as maybe it seemed um you seem like you're plowing forward got a lot of plans a lot of improvements still to make and um so I'll I'll be eager to follow along yeah thanks will thanks for having me I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you 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