oday's guest is building a holdco, one that started with a small SBA acquisition just seven years ago.I love stories like this because it shows how even a modest first acquisition can lead to something big.

‍Jeff Matuszak bought Carolina Metal Fabricators back in 2019.

It was doing under $300k in SDE — not a lot.

But Jeff saw it as only a first step.

‍His words:"My whole goal was not just to buy Carolina Metals. My whole goal was to create a holding company...I knew if I had just a good cash-flow business, I could buy another business, start to cash flow that with some of the fundings from Carolina Metals, and kind of work my way around. And my goal was always just to hit around $50 million in revenue, um, make a couple million bucks a year, and just have a really solid holding company."

‍Seven years later, Jeff is well on his way to that goal — in fact he speaks with certainty about reaching $100m in the not-too-distant future.

Now, in fairness, Jeff had advantages that you, listener, might not.

A bigger balance sheet (though not huge) and years of relevant operational experience.

Jeff also had a model. He'd been early at a PE firm called Atlas Holdings, which today he estimates at $15 billion in aggregate revenue.

So from his exposure to Atlas, he saw what was possible and thought, I can do that.

‍Hopefully, you have a similar reaction to Jeff's story or others that you hear here on Acquiring Minds.

Here is Jeff Mutuszak, managing partner of Directus Holdings.

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