Key Points From the Interview
eturn on assets.
It's a basic financial metric, very familiar to those who analyze public equities for a living.
But perhaps not so familiar to those buying a business for the first time.
And yet it is the metric that today's guest Dan Tagliatela used to assess which business he would buy.
Which ended up being a 50-year-old asphalt sealing business.
No recurring revenue.
Consumer facing.
Discretionary spend.
And yet, using the lens of return on assets, Dan saw a valuable business. A one-in-a-hundred opportunity.
One that today enjoys almost 40% margins on $1.8m in revenue, and requires only 3 hours of his time a week.
Not that it was easy...
In the pre-call, Dan described his transition to me as "drinking from a firehose, while another firehose sprayed me in the face."
He doesn't regret that brutal learning curve though, and believes that it's what enabled him to make so many improvements to the business.
Which, in turn, enabled him to step out and buy another business, this one residential window washing. We spend a few minutes at the end on that acquisition.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dan Tagliatela, owner of Stutz Driveway Sealing and A&A Window Cleaning.
