Key Points From the Interview
oday's guest was drawn to construction.
He and his wife had acquired a nice portfolio of real estate on the side, so when Jan Roll saw a big & established residential construction business on BizBuySell, he jumped at it.
Now, you already know that construction businesses are tough, particularly residential ones:
Cyclical. Project based. High ticket. Discretionary.
So one of the first things we discuss in today's interview is why Jan liked this business in spite of those characteristics.
(One answer: How else are you going to acquire $1.2m of SDE for 3.5x??)
And Jan did experience that cyclicality in year 1 of his ownership, when sales dropped 25% because it was an election year. (Who knew.)
He was hit with other major challenges too:
- A lawsuit between him and his partner in the acquisition
- Waiting months for the state of Georgia to issue a necessary license
- The learning curve; general contracting requires knowledge of 30 trades
So it has been a harrowing journey. "One giant ambiguous ball of figure-it-out," as he put it.
More than half of weekends for the first year, he worked Saturdays & Sundays.
Some nights he'd wake up at 4am, 2 hours before his alarm, breathless to get to work.
But happily he is on the other side of most of that now. (He waited to do this interview until he was.)
The business is stabilized and growing again.
When he took over Victoria Renovations, its pipeline of business was $1.5m. Today the pipeline is almost double that.
So despite the turmoil of the last 21 months, you'll notice that Jan's demeanor is upbeat.
"In spite of the challenges, I do wake up every day energized in the business. All the rosiness that I kind of went into the transaction with has come true," says Jan.
"It just took a little bit longer to get there."
Please enjoy this interview with Jan Roll, owner of Victoria Renovations.
