Former anthropologist @Columbia. Now building companies and Threshold, a brotherhood of entrepreneurs asking one another the oldest question: how to live well.
Joined November 2024
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My business partner (MNA Advisor by trade) was asked to do a valuation for a landscaping business.
Two years ago itwas doing 1.5MMrevenue and 300k SDE.
This year it’s at 2.5MM revenue and 450k SDE.
To grow, he dropped all of his small maintenance contracts to work almost exclusively for a tract home builder installing shrubs and sod.
He went from 3-5% client concentration with recurring revenue, to over 95% concentration on a contract that is renegotiated yearly.
SBA raises an eyebrow at 25% concentration, he’s 3x that.
Nearly impossible for the guy to get financing. If he does, it’ll come with an Italian fella and a baseball bat.
The guy made that move because he was burned out and wanted to sell. Thought his increased revenue and earnings would mean a bigger exit.
Instead he’s stuck with a business that’s awfully hard to sell to anyone, except maybe a strategic buyer who knows they’ll have leverage.
Even if a buyer could get financing, not sure that sort of risk is something on the radar of first time acquirers these courses are marketed to.
Curious, would any of you ETA folks touch it?
This is great dude. Appreciate the measured response. Maybe he’ll reply when he’s out of the octagon.
Yea. Before debt service. And the deferred maintenance on equipment from 1997 only the seller knows how to repair.
I’m all for folks buying businesses. But saying you can do that as a side hustle for an extra 10k month keeping your w2 is gross. Esp when you want them to buy your search service.
Financial freedom is just one boring business away.
Someone is selling a landscaping business with 69% margins for 1.1x earnings because they hate money.
It’s run with fax machines and a whiteboard. The owner has never heard of ChatGPT.
Buy it, keep your day job, install some systems, and collect the checks.
Its 6:15 a.m. Your foreman has quit, two guys are in jail, and someone drove the zero-turn into a customer’s swimming pool.
The homeowner is threatening to sue. Your insurance agent isn’t answering. The guy who sank the mower wants to know if he’s still getting paid for the day.
Payroll is Friday, your best crew just walked off a job, and the foreman was apparently the only person who knew how to operate the scheduling software.
At 9 a.m., you join your W-2 team’s weekly Zoom meeting from the parking lot of a bail bondsman.
Your boss asks if you have the bandwidth to take on another project.
You’ve owned the business for eleven days.
If you work a W2 job and don't have a boring business that pays you $5k-$10k a month on top of your salary...
I got you.
Here are 9 boring businesses for sale today (& where to buy them):
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The "cash flow" figures are Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) including seller compensation for running the business; these service businesses are not passive side income atop a W2 salary and require active management or added costs that reduce net returns.
bizbuysell.com/learning-cente…
acquidex.com/blog/take-home…
bigideasdb.com/passive-busine…
duedilio.com/absentee-owner…
Franchise nightmare continued.
Nightmare. Like 90% failure rate. Over 100 closed. And most of the zees were really good, sharp folks.
A lot declared bankruptcy to keep their homes. A much more were in sort of financial purgatory. Enough savings / assets to not want a bankruptcy filing but not enough to pay off their note. So they’re running an unprofitable business 40 hours a week, crossing fingers something will change. Was sad.
I had 2 other companies and was able to just take my licks and move on. I def learned a lot, mostly about what not to do. Was expensive tuition.
In Savannah for the weekend. Just watched three pastel colored ghosts cruising through the historic district cranking Ice Ice Baby.
Evidently the ghosts here died in 1990.
Nightmare. Like 90% failure rate. Over 100 closed. And most of the zees were really good, sharp folks.
A lot declared bankruptcy to keep their homes. A much more were in sort of financial purgatory. Enough savings / assets to not want a bankruptcy filing but not enough to pay off their note. So they’re running an unprofitable business 40 hours a week, crossing fingers something will change. Was sad.
I had 2 other companies and was able to just take my licks and move on. I def learned a lot, mostly about what not to do. Was expensive tuition.
Hahaha. It’s more like: you have an issue?‘talk to corporate’ and the same dude swivels around in his chair and asks how he can be of assistance
I bought a home service franchise a few years ago. It was an absolute dumpster fire.
The same franchisor had a fencing brand. It was essentially a dashboard, SEO / PPC management, and a pricing tool that could be built in Chat GPT + a required late model pickup for a sales vehicle and bunch of other things in no way necessary to start this sort of business.
Most of them folded. And the ones that made it wished they’d done it alone.
I’m not saying all franchisors offer no value. But I think anyone ought to go into it cleared eyed about what they are being offered, and whether, given the debt you have to take on, you might be able to figure it out on your own without a PG on an SBA loan that could cost you your home.
Glad this dude figured it out. Rooting for him.
Best advice anyone’s ever given me. Wish @pinpulleddrmf had been on my dissertation committee 😂
My close friend asked me for tips on how to grow your audience on X.
This is what I told him:
“Mike, you’re very smart. PhD smart. You’re very intelligent and you’re great at critical thinking. I need you to stop doing all of that.”
@smallrites
Jack is really good at what he does. You ought to read this.
@GermanMotorsLV has been fixing cars in Las Vegas since 1982. This week they started piloting AI automation.
I spent two days on-site with @MosheSherman00 and his team. Before we touched any tech, we walked the shop, talked to customers, and watched how the work actually flows: from the phone call to the service bay to the invoice.
We came out with three buckets:
→ Quick wins they can knock out over the next week
→ Bigger projects worth investing with a timeline to implement
→ An exciting automation that takes repetitive admin work off the team’s plate, so they can spend that time on what actually brings in revenue: customers and cars
The best part was watching a 40+ year old business get excited about trying something new, without disrupting what already works.
Thanks @MosheSherman00 and the @GermanMotorsLV crew for the hospitality.
If you run a shop, a service business, or anything with a lot of repetitive back-office work, this is exactly what we do at Dual Force Partners. DM me.
