t was not the first choice of today's guest to buy a business outside his home market.

But after Brett Maxam searched for a while in the competitive Denver metro where he lives, he decided he'd need to widen his target geography to actually find a business to buy.

It worked.

Brett found a concrete pouring business in Vancouver, Washington, with between $3.5 and $4 million of revenue, and high six figures of SDE — the sweet spot for a self-funded searcher.

He bought it, even though it was a 2.5-hour flight away.

It was also project based, and tied to the new home construction market.

We get into how Brett thought about these features of the business, these risks.

The structure of the deal helped mitigate them; listen for that.

Brett closed six months ago, and spoiler: it is going well.

He's actually spending less time in the business than he expected he would, the opposite of what most searchers experience, particularly in operationally-intense construction businesses like this.

Construction businesses are also notorious for working capital challenges. We get into that as well.

Here he is, Brett Maxam, owner of Morcrete Construction of Vancouver, Washington.