Owner of a residential appliance repair company. Always searching for the next! Sharing my experience along the way. DM’s welcomed.
Southeast US
Joined February 2021
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One year ago today was my first day at the appliance repair company I acquired. I don’t have a thread of “what I’ve learned” exactly.
I do have a few observations that’ll be helpful to 1st time acquirers and familiar to veterans:
Follow this account for timeline cleanses. Hilarious and informative. Love it!
John (Fund of 1) retweeted
We closed our first deal as an independent sponsor a few weeks ago. It’s a nice service business with good margins in a niche corner of the market. We’re in at a fair price with reasonable incentives for everyone involved. If we execute, we’ll do well. You might think that I’d write a thread espousing all the tips and tricks that we used to execute this acquisition.
That’s not this thread.
We’ve been at this for 3.5 years and just closed our first deal. Here are all the things I wish I’d known as a non-PE guy co-founding an IS firm. I have a small audience on X, but hopefully this is valuable to a handful of folks. If not, writing this was a good exercise for me to reflect through.
Sorry in advance. No sunshine and rainbows here.
Interviewed a person who was leaving a home services company b/c he didn’t like the changes that had been made recently.
Today they announced they were acquired by a PE company. Related?
Accurate and poignant. So true that you shouldn’t be on this app looking for absolute truths, but you can get great value (and provide it) by recognizing every experience and learning comes from unique perspective.
Don't come here looking for truth or hard answers. You are here for perspectives, hopefully different ones, and then you have to do the HARD WORK to decide for YOURSELF how to proceed.
There is no universal truth.
Usually QOEs are a must. Sometimes overkill.
Sometimes MBAs are life changing. Sometimes complete waste.
Sometimes traditional search is way better than self funded and you'll make WAY more $. Sometimes you'll get fired by an absurd BOD.
Sometimes SBA/self-funded will set you on an unbelievable path. Sometimes you'll buy a business in an industry you never should have touched and be BK and lose your house.
Sometimes HoldCos are just a farse. And she has not even bought one business. Sometimes they really are a mini-berkshire
Sometimes a famous GP will raise a $ of money and maybe (or maybe not) do poorly with it (also, folks, let's remember returns are usually about relative not absolute. Megafunds (TPG included - my old firm) had some terrible returns in 2008 funds. BUT everyone did poorly, and they outperformed peers, so lived another day)
I wish it was easy. I wish there was one exact way to do it (if there was, everyone would do it). But there is not.
Read, learn, reflect, consider, march ahead your way.
Me: Receives request thru Google LSA for a service that's not on our profile. Asks for credit.
Google LSA: Denied. Lead charged.
Also Google LSA, probably: What are u gonna do about it bro? We literally don't have human support for this! Haha ur so tiny!
Diligence mistake I made, #32:
Just b/c a home services company uses software doesn’t mean they are using it correctly or that they have literally anything in true order.
In fact, years of misusing software can be harder to unravel & fix than starting fresh.
Who's done research on the most pleasant sounding words to use for letters on the phone? I usually use the NATO ones with tech support, but looking to strike a gentler tone than Whiskey Bravo Delta with our typical customer.
The most volatile and problematic technicians to ever work at our company have also been the ones who can turn on the charm the best.
I think about that when I'm interviewing or meeting people in quick interactions in public - how consistently do they act like this?
In 2023, I listened to the entire Bible on my way home from work. God’s Word is always relevant and I am always forgetting it. Plus, it was a good way to re-set after a stressful day before I walked into my house. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
This is awesome
I have NO IDEA whether I am a good business person or not.
I have NOT been through any Great Financial Crisis.
I don’t know what it’s like.
What I DO know is that I will be road tripping through these cities over the next 2 months, throwing free SMB/ETA meetups.
Cleveland
Pittsburgh
DC
Baltimore
Philadelphia
New York
Boston
Syracuse
Buffalo
Toronto
Detroit
Chicago
We will call this trip… “The Rand Run”
The Rand Run prioritizes a fun night of conversations, deep connection, and mutual respect instead of the opposite of those things.
If you want to have drinks and meet new friends in your local town, I will help make that happen.
DM me if you’re in these cities, so I can build a list and get a headcount.
And please RT if you think this is awesome
As jr engineer, I was in a room where a boss said our branch was different and the CEO said “everybody says that, but it’s not true.” Formative for me to see how we’d use it as an excuse not to think differently or learn from others & consequently didn’t deliver great results.
Every single place we’ve bought, I’ve been told “you don’t understand, it’s different here” as an excuse for why they don’t perform like our best plant. Typically it’s some version of the workers suck. I hear a similar story from most other foundry owners.
What I’ve found? It’s the people doing the hiring, not the people hired, that are why they suck.
Lesson? Get rid of the bad leaders and put in good ones
Lesson I keep learning the hard way - having direct, tough conversations early is 1000x better than gentle nudges when a person isn’t getting it.
Putting off the direct convo only makes it seem more shocking when it inevitably happens.
John (Fund of 1) retweeted
My LSAs went through the roof with just a few tweaks...
Comment on this post or retweet and I'll send you a DM with the deets!
I led a successful company’s annual update mtg this morning.
How do I know it was a success?
More communication on the technician’s group text today than the last month combined.
Y'all, there's a pillow that's a picture of Dwight Shrute's face currently at 80 cents. Also comes with other pillows and two chairs. But the Dwight face...
We are closing our 50,000 square foot @ElementsBrands D2C fulfillment center.
Everything is on auction for the next 24 hours - computers, forklifts, racking, scales, printers.
Basically - it's a 3PL in a box. Anyone want to bid?
Link is in the next tweet.
Help! I have a problem.
I am part of leadership in literally everything me or my kids are involved in.
Just a few more weeks of basketball, then only a couple more Bible studies after that, and then I’m going to be a bit more careful for the rest of the year!
