Host: Today's interview is the story of an incredible two year run. Keith Leinbach, who was coming off decades in the corporate world, bought a business that he saw on Quiet Light. The broker of digital businesses. He acquired it for mid six figures, so a pretty small business. But it was only a couple months into his ownership that he realized in his words, I got a live one. In three short months he almost doubled the business and and two years later he sold it to private equity. A remarkable home run for an acquisition entrepreneur. There's a lot to how Keith built the business and in my opinion the biggest learning is how valuable it was for Keith to listen closely to his customers. They were giving him gold and it took him a while to realize it, but once he did, it was the key. Also, make sure you listen to the last eight minutes of the interview where Keith tells a deeply personal story about a near death experience that he had had just days before this interview. That story too is just hard to believe. Here he is. Keith Leinbach. Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs and on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. Acquiring Minds is going to be recording live on Wednesday, April 13th. The episode will be something of a debate about the merits of two models of search, self funded search on one side and traditional search funds on the other. I'll have two guests and each a proponent of one of the models. Greg Geronimus acquired, grew and exited a business with a traditional search fund model and now invests in searchers himself using the same model. Robert Graham acquired and now leads his business as a self funded searcher and also now invests in searchers himself using the same model. Both of these individuals are articulate and strong proponents of their respective approaches to search, so it is going to be a high quality debate. My goal for you, the listener, is that you come away with a stronger sense of the pros and cons of each model self funded in traditional search funds and have a much clearer sense for which would suit your own search. Again, it's Wednesday, April 13, 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern over Zoom. The link to register is right at the top of Today's show notes. April 13th see you there. Register in the show notes. Keith Leinbach thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Hey Will, I'm more grateful than you can know to be here.

Host: In August 2019 you acquired a consumer product business for six figures under a million dollars. It was a two SKU business. So it was a business built around just two products. You acquire it, you grow it quickly, and you sell it for eight figures, closing just this past December. So just, just over two years of ownership. A remarkable enviable story of acquisition entrepreneurship. Now, we're not going to be able to say what the product is due to confidentiality around your own exit and industry sensitivities, but there is a lot you're willing to share that the Acquiring Minds audience is really going to benefit from. And separately, you also built Laundromats during this time span, I believe, and you acquired Smash My Trash franchise territories, both of which we'll touch on toward the end. But suffice it to say, you've pursued lots of entrepreneurial projects in the last few years and have seen the fruits of those projects. So, Keith, start us off with your background, if you would give me a couple minutes on your bio, your corporate background, and just take me right up to your decision to go out and buy a business.

[4:05] Guest: Yeah, I'll do that, man. So I graduated college in, in the late 80s, I'm 56, in the late 80s with a degree in mechanical engineering. And sorry, my kids are stirring around in the back. Anyway, I went to work for, you know, what's now Accenture. It was Arthur Anderson at the time, then Anderson Consulting and, and followed that career. You know, when I was in college, even high school, out of junior high, man, I was always very, very interested in having my own business. I look back now, I was very entrepreneurial. I did all the usual crap. It painted houses and mowed lawns and had a little hat business back in the college days. And I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I even wrote myself a note when I graduated college that I was supposed to open on my 30th birthday. And I did. And it said, hey, you better, you better have your own business by now. And that's how kind of focused I was on being an entrepreneur. What's, what's interesting though, I did what we all do, man. We come out of, come out of school and I had a, you know, a good degree and from a good school with a decent GPA and got picked up, you know, by a big, big company and went to work there. And I, I confused being a CEO with being an entrepreneur. And so when I working for, you know, at our school, I was working for Arthur Anderson. I thought, okay, I'll be the CEO of Arthur Anderson. That's just 100% the way I was oriented. I just, that's the Only way I thought. And then I, I left that business and I went to a company called InsWeb, which was an online insurance marketplace that we, we started. I didn't start it. I was one of the early guys, but I didn't start it. We took that public in 99. And then I went to work for a company called BEA Systems out of San Francisco. We sold that to Oracle for 17 billion in 2008, I think. And then I went to a company called Service Source. And my whole mentality throughout this whole thing was I want to be the guy running the show. Like I wasn't. But that's, you got to climb the ladder. And that's what I wanted to do. But I also found that my brain, I was just always distracted around being an entrepreneur. Like I always thought, oh man, I sure would like to start that business or I should like to own that business or whatever. And in the last two positions that I had, I was a CEO and the last one is the CEO of a pretty big company. And I got fired. I got in a disagreement with the board over vendor related deal that got conflated into some other stuff and it was a pretty nasty exit. And I left the corporate world and I knew I wasn't going back. And that turned out to be just this fabulous blessing because it made me stop for a minute and think, okay, what am I really trying to do? I don't have enough money to retire. I was, I don't know, 54 or something at the time. And I thought, I, I don't have enough money to retire. What am I going to do? And I thought maybe I'll just, you know, maybe I'd start building some businesses. And that's why I built these Laundromats. And we were on a trajectory to build some car washes and some salon suites and I opened an Amazon FBA business and blah, blah, blah. And in the same process, I ended up buying this company. And it was a couple years before I got to the point where I bought that company. But I tell you that whole story, man, because I think a lot of us go through this. We go through a career that we think we're, we think we'll find fulfillment when we finally get to whatever it is that we're looking for in that career. And for me it was to be a CEO. And when I became a CEO, I was like, I don't, man. I mean, I still got a boss, it's called the board. And there are parts of it that I'm probably good at. And there's other parts that I totally suck at. And it wasn't fulfilling. I thought, well, shit, that 28 years of career. Holy crap, what now? And so building businesses really, really hard. Super hard, man. That's why I like your show, because it's about acquiring businesses. And. And there's so much to be learned about acquiring businesses. That is super cool. I mean, when you build a business, you go from zero to whatever in whatever time it is. And like, if you're going to build a retail business like Laundromats, you have to. You got to find the right space. Then you've got to get architects involved, you got to get engineers, and you got to get city planning. And in my case, that whole process took almost two years. And then you got to get them built. That might take six to nine months. And you're three years before you get the freaking doors open, man. You're burning cash the whole time. So that's starting something and then buying a business. Why in the world am I building business? I could be buying something and it comes with a revenue and earning stream, and if I could grow it, like, if it's a business that I'm passionate about. And that's what, man, that's what I'm really turned on about and why I've been really super fortunate and grateful that you've given me a chance to talk about acquiring businesses. And I know I've talked for a long time here, man, but let me. The punchline for me is if, let's say you're a corporate guy and you make. Just pick your number, man. I don't care. 300 grand a year. And that's the number that you feel like, oh, if I could make 300 grand with my own business, I'd do it. Well, go buy a business that does 300 grand a year. And that size business you're probably going to buy for, you know, maybe it's a 3x multiple of earnings. So 300 grand, you can spend 900,000, and maybe you don't have $900,000, but maybe you could, you know, put 20% down. If you got 180 grand, you're going to finance the 700 that's left, and then you got a business that makes 300 grand a year, and now you got something you can grow and you can put all these mad skills you got as a corporate warrior to work that might be worth something. And, you know, I'm kind of the case study of that happening, man. It really can. It's. Can Be life changing.

[10:08] Host: And Keith, did you discover this acquisition, the power of acquisition on your own? For many of my guests, they're exposed to it either maybe through a college class. I mean, more and more MBA programs are talking about ETA entrepreneurship through acquisition. Or somebody recommended buy them bill the book to them. Or, you know, it's not usually their own, their own discovery. And I'm like that as well. You know, I kind of didn't. Didn't figure this out on my own. But once you figure it out, it's incredibly, incredibly compelling. Like you just said, did you figure it out on your own or were you exposed to somebody who'd done it or a friend or a book or another pod or what?

Guest: Well, I'll tell you, I discovered it on my own. And I don't tell you that to make it sound like I'm smart. It took me for freaking ever. I went out and built three Laundromats and failed at building four car washes. Spent a year trying to find property and probably a couple hundred thousand bucks on, on lease negotiations for salon suites. And all this was ground up, you know, new launch. And then I had a business broker call me, like, you know, just put it in front of me. Dude, I was so lucky. I. I discovered it because he called me, Chuck called me and said, dude, I got this business. Are you interested in it? And I looked at. I'm like, yeah, that. I mean, that sounds pretty cool. It's an industry that I like and, and you know, it's a. I was kind of passionate around this industry area for some other unrelated things. And anyway, so I ended up buying it, thinking, yeah, if it doesn't work out, it's, you know, it's only a few hundred thousand bucks, and, and I don't think it's ever going to be worth less. Maybe I can grow it to be worth more, and I should. It's a little bit of a tangent, man, but I showed the business plan I put together. I was going to grow this thing 30% a year, and, and I grew it 100% in three months. But when I, before I bought it, I showed the business plan to my buddy who was the president of Sprint at the time, and he's like, come on, man. I mean, we've both looked at a billion performers and business plans. What are you going to grow this thing 30% a year? Like, doing what? What are you going to do, man? I scratched my head. I'm like, that's a really good question. What am I going to do? And the Answer is I'm going to grow product, I'm going to create awareness and I'm going to expand my geographies. Those are really the three things. I didn't know those off the tip of my tongue at that time anyway, but anyway, so I thought geez, whiz, it doesn't really make very much money. I'm going to make 30% more. That's still not interesting. Dude, I would, I was about to close. He said, dude, I just back out of it. You shouldn't be wasting your time on this dinky little thing. And I thought this is the president

[12:55] Host: of Sprint telling you to back out of it.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. So I, it's not really the way, you know, I wasn't really comfortable backing out a deal and leave someone hanging at the last second. I did like the business and I like the industry and so I, you know, I ended up completing the, the sale and taking the business over. And, and then it, the first month was about the same volume of business as what I had acquired it at. And the next month it grew pretty significantly. And within, you know, within a, you know, by the end of that year I was, I had doubled the business. And I thought, well, I think I got a, I think I got a live one here.

Host: Well, let's get it. Before we get into how you did that, let me just hear a little bit more about the acquisition and the search. So you bought there really wasn't a search. This friend of yours or this acquaintance, Chuck, business broker, brings it to your attention. Is this Chuck from Quiet Light?

Guest: Yeah, yeah. Chuck Mullins.

Host: Chuck Mullen. So, so many people in the audience may know Quiet Light, it's a well known business broker that specializes in online businesses. This business was, had an online component. You could, you could buy the products via E commerce, but it wasn't a pure play E commerce thing, it was a manual. The business also manufactured the product. Right. Tell us in abstract terms whatever you can about the nature of the business itself.

Guest: Yeah, we, we manufacture the stuff that we sell or we contract manufacture it and we, we sell it wholesale to companies that use those parts for, for different stuff they're doing and, and retail as well. And we just happen to do that online. Cause everybody's got an online distribution mechanism at the time. We didn't take any orders over the phone mostly because I was afraid I was gonna mess it up. Like someone ordering a particular configuration of something. I'm trying to write it down when I'm in the car or whatever. And so we just tell Everybody go back online, you can buy it all right there. Business got quite a bit bigger than. We added some phone support so that you could dial the main number and hit the sales extension and buy things right online. But this is a. This is a physical parts business. It's a physical product business, and we just happen to sell it. One of the primary distribution mechanism, primary sales channels is through the Internet.

[15:19] Host: And can you tell us the industry?

Guest: Yeah, it's automotive parts.

Host: And what's the average order value? What is this part of these two parts? What do they cost?

Guest: You know, if you, if you bought them together, which at the time that I took over the business, you typically didn't. Even though they kind of go together. And so retail, that, that, that part, you buy it by yourself. Our average sales, I think 1600 bucks.

Host: Okay, so. So pretty high for a consumer. You know, a significant. A significant spend, significantly priced product and probably a lot of margin.

Guest: I would take a phone call from somebody, they'd call, and I was the only one. I had a contractor that helped me with shipping and order fulfillment and stuff like that. But I took all the phone calls, and so I would talk to John Doe and then I'd see an order come through from John Doe. And so I knew for that price point, you're right, you're going to answer questions for folks to understand and get comfortable with the things that they want to know. And those typically turn out to be the same things. And it created an opportunity for us to just create much more video content and much more copy on the website so that people weren't just calling me for those same things.

Host: And why did Chuck reach out to you with this particular business? Like, had he ever sent you listings directly like that before?

Guest: Yeah, this is really great, man. Cause it sounds like Chuck called me and said, I got some secret deal for you. I didn't even know Chuck. Chuck's a friend now. Yeah, I probably portrayed that wrong. I signed up for the Quiet Light listings, and I'd also signed up for Empire Flippers and Website Closers and Trans World. And I kind of had this. I did have this idea that maybe I should buy a business. I was looking at that as well. I was just never really turned on by buying a business because I wanted to. This is what I always told myself. I wanted to monetize my own idea. And so I just turned that whole channel off of buying a business. And in retrospect, I think that was totally wrong. I was monetizing my own idea with the Laundromats. And I was like, freak. This is hard and it's long and it takes a lot of cash, and the burn rate's significant. And so then I thought, maybe I'll sign up for some of these listings. And quiet was one of them because I think I found them through a podcast or something. And this happened to be Chuck's listing. And so when I first called him, he's like, yeah, this one's really hot, man. I think we were in a signed LOI within a couple of days, and. And there were four or five offers on the business, and so it was pretty popular, and we closed two months later. But that's how I found it, man. I didn't know Chuck, anybody's going to start in the same spot I was, man. Just sign up for the listings. You're going to get all kinds of stuff sent to you and something that you think is interesting, it's worth signing the NDA and learning a little more about it.

[18:18] Host: Sure. And was that the first listing that you reached out for more information on, either from Quiet Light or any of the other broker listing emails that you'd signed up for?

Guest: I don't think it was, man. I remember. I remember calling Empire about something or I remember what. What it was. But here's the, you know, I think kind of interesting process is you're not going to find the right thing, the first listing you call on. Right. Maybe you're enthusiastic about it, and you should be, but you're going to go through these iterations, and every time you learn of something a little bit more, and then you'll be like, oh, yeah, I don't want to, you know, picture myself after closing when the honeymoon, you know, quote unquote, is over. And now you're with this business, and if it's not something that you like in an industry that's interesting to you with a product that you, you know, are kind of behind, you end up, you know, all of a sudden, now you're. You're in the freaking laundromat business. You're like, I don't want to be in the laundromat business. And, you know, quite frankly, I don't, you know, I don't. I don't get any energy from running Laundromats. And that's why I have a manager. I had to build three of them to have enough scale to go have a manager run it. But I was like, holy crap, I gotta. I gotta kind of work my way out of this problem. And so you'll go through these evolutions and those are fine, man. That's a normal part of it. And you're gonna learn things and be like, yeah, I'm that much smarter about it. And when I condense that down for myself, I realize, number one, I, I don't wanna, I don't want a retail business. Like a storefront. A retail business, fine, but I don't want a storefront. I don't wanna have to own property where I. Or lease property where I have to go through a planning process to get something built. I don't like that. I don't think I'm very good. I don't gain a lot of energy from having big teams. I ran a company with 20,000 people. I've kind of checked that box and so I've taken that off the list. And then I think then you got just the financials. Like what kind of return on capital do you want to see? What's the overall investment to get into it? Some things might sound really cool, but maybe they're $8 million to enter it or whatever the number is. Like you just can't get there and started rashing through this. I didn't know any of these when I first started listings. Getting listings, right. You gotta really take some time to think about where you get energy and where it sucks it away from you, man. And one of the stories that really, I know resonates with me and I've talked to a lot of folks about it. I went through the franchise process seven times before I ended up buying a franchise that Smash my Trash that you referenced. And in that process was a lot of this realization. I had bought into not really a trampoline park, but that kind of thing. And I actually entered that franchise and then I realized how many people were involved and the amount of lease and the capital spend on the front end for what it really does return. And I was able to get out of the lease and then back out of the whole thing. And that was a huge realization for me around, you know, really what, what gives me energy and another one of those processes. The franchisee was really, the franchisor was really adamant about the fact that I need to be there to operate the business. And, and they were really adamant that I, I manage all the financials and I'm like, I'm not. I get. I mean this sucks the life out of me. Think I'm going to go to Quickbooks and like be the, the, the bookkeeper. Like you want me out selling, so you don't want me out doing the bookkeeping. And they're like, no, we, we want you to do the bookkeeping. And so that wasn't a good fit. But it was all these kind of steps that kind of led me to this process where I landed with this company that made me realize, okay, I mean I can hire a bookkeeper, I hate social media, I can hire somebody to do all that. There are a lot of things that suck the life out of me. And if I have the freedom to go be able to port that stuff away and do the things that I like and then you gotta be comfortable with it, right? You gotta be comfortable outsourcing things and comfortable someone else, you know, doing the work, can't give it away and then go take all the work away from them. That's what was super important to me as I evaluated this thing and then in acquiring the right company.

[22:27] Host: And so the two things that turned you on about this business were the fact were the industry and the product kind of category and the fact that to the extent you would be working in the business, you'd be selling, you'd be talking to prospects on the phone. And you like selling, Do I have that right?

Guest: Yeah, you know, I like talking to customers and prospective customers to understand what they like and what else they might need. And I get lots of energy from that, man. I have phone rings and I light up, I'm like, oh man. I get to talk to somebody and maybe they're gonna buy something from it. It's crazy. Like they might buy the thing that I'm selling. That's crazy. And it's retail. It's not, it's not like I'm entering an 18 month sales cycle, right. Probably gonna make a decision in the next day or week. And so there's a lot of gratification that works well for me. And I knew that I could outsource the pieces that I would need to have in the business. Order, fulfillment, bookkeeping, marketing. I ultimately had a fractional CFO is a fantastic and super, super value added resource to help me just take the financials and on a monthly basis I'm fully capable of doing an analysis on did my costs go up or what's shipping as a percentage of the overall cost structure, blah, blah, blah. I don't get any energy from it, man. And so it sucked the life out of me. And so my fractional CFO would do all that. And it led to very material, different ways of running the business. So you're right, but you have to be comfortable because I'll tell you a really short Story, man. I talked to a guy last week. He's an entrepreneur as a really fast growing business that does, that does millions and millions of dollars of revenue. And he's like, dude, this thing sucks the life out of me. I just had to cancel our family ski trip to Utah. I'm like, what? Why? And he said, because this job owns me, man. I said, well, who does all the product design? It's me. I said, well, who does all the engineering behind it? And he said, me. I said, well, who does sales? And he said, me. I said, do I need to keep going, man? Like, who, who does the bookkeeping? And he's like, me. And I said, do you like all those, you know? And then seven expletives later he's no, are you kidding me? I freaking hate. The only one I like is the, is the product design, man. That's where I'm great. Why don't you outsource the rest of the stuff? A business makes zillions of dollars. And he's like, I don't know how, man. I don't know how. And if I can't scale anymore beyond where I am. And the reason I tell you this, man, is because even though he knew that those are sucking the life out of him, he either didn't know or more likely just didn't trust that he could put someone in that position that would do a job that he was comfortable giving away. And if that's your orientation, you're probably not going to be a very good entrepreneur, man. But if you're oriented around, I'm going to find really great people and I'm going to outsource the stuff that sucks the life out of me and I'm going to spend my time doing the things that I'm great at that can really grow the business. And you're gonna have a big impact, man. And that's, you know, when I look back at this story, we grew this thing 20x in, in two years, man. I mean, and it's not because of my mad, you know, marketing skills. I'm freaking terrible at marketing. But I hired a really, really great digital marketing dude. You know, first the firm and then, and then the guy liked the business so much he ended up joining the business, you know, and the story keeps going. Like I don't get energy out of the day to day operations of product fulfillment. So I found a guy as my first hire as a full time employee and he came and ran ops and I'm like, take that one off the list. I don't do it anymore.

[26:12] Host: Yeah. Well, Keith, two things on this point. This is great. First is the fact that you were a CEO and in corporate America, for successfully rising through the ranks and then ultimately ending with CEO, you had a lot of experience at delegating and basically managing people and kind of the resource allocation of like, you know, where putting butts in seats to get the job done. And I feel like that experience really informs your comfort with doing it now in your own businesses versus, you know, start from scratch CEOs. Like your friend that you just talked about, that person, you know, didn't have, I presume, doesn't have experience as a CEO and he's just not as inclined to delegate. So do you think that your corporate experience has made you more open to delegating than some of these other scrappy or less corporate experienced entrepreneurs?

[27:08] Guest: Well, I know for myself, I don't know about the scrappier dudes, but I know for myself for sure that's a skill I learned along with a bunch of others. The corporate experience is super valuable. And listen, I've never had a problem in my career finding if somebody wants to do work for me or with me or something that I'm responsible for, have at it, man. And if you're good at it, I'll give you more of it. And then as you build your first team, you realize, yeah, there's some people that do really great stuff and I can give them more. And then as you grow teams that have teams, it's the same thing. And you see the power of leverage, of being able to do that, and then for sure it becomes your whole orientation. As a relatively young manager, I had a guy that I worked with is like, dude, I mean, you're kind of brute force. You can get a lot of stuff done, man, but because you go run it all over and get it done and you're not going to be able to grow in your career unless you're able to effectively get other people to go do that along with you. And that's, that's going to be, you know, important for you as you grow and take on more responsibility. And he knew what my aspirations were. And so, you know, that was an important lesson for me for sure. I needed to know that.

Host: And the other thing, Keith, is like when you buy a business and you, we were talking at the top about the economics of buying a business, you buy something with profit and then, and then that profit, if there's enough profit, you know, you buy a business that you can pay, that both pay down the debt on it and compensate yourself and have money left over to reinvest in the business. That's the kind of the trifecta that you look for in a business that you acquire. Now when you start talking about hiring all these people to help you grow this business, are you shoveling more of your own money, of your own capital into the business to be able to afford that? Or is the business actually, even in its current state in which you bought it, able to afford that? And another way of just asking this more abstractly is, yeah, it's great to be able to outsource as much as you can, but that, that costs money.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: And so, you know, you got to find that balance. So talk to me about how you think about that.

Guest: Well, it's a really great topic, man, because I hear it all the time. People are on this divider line of business does okay, but it's wearing me out and I could really use some help, but I don't think I can afford it. And that's a very real thing, man. But if you really believe, and this is tough, man, I asked this question, you know, you got to ask it of yourself in this situation. Like, do you really believe that someone is going to allow you to free up, to go do things that will grow the business so that this expense becomes, you know, in a very affordable, instead of maybe just barely affordable part of the business? And that's why I say you have to trust that people are like I told this other guy, like, listen, man, why don't you go hire somebody else to do it? It seems so obvious. And his answer kind of boiled down to I just, one, I don't know how, and two, I don't trust him to do it. I mean, well, how do you know you don't trust them, man? Like, you haven't even hired him yet. You don't even know who it is. It's like, that's just my orientation. I don't trust that somebody else can do it. I'm like, well, your business is never going to grow. And so, I mean, you got to be able to take the leap on some of that stuff. And listen, you put a plan behind it and it either works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, you know, go you do something else. And if it does, then, you know, great, you can go outsource the next one as well. And in this particular case, you know, a little bit of a. I did have the same scenario, but I like when my one of the resources approached me and Wanted to join the business, and it's even happening now. Like, I've got people that are like, dude, I'd love to work in this business. So cool, because I still run it, but I think I'm not sure the business can really afford it. And I have to have the same conversation with myself. So it's super real. It's real.

[31:02] Host: And so you have to convince yourself still at times to outsource.

Guest: Yeah, I do. Like, I'm like, that has that role. If I'm going to add someone, you know, just make up a number, right. If, if someone's going to cost you 200 grand a year and you run your business at a 20% net margin, that means that resource, through the addition of that resource, has to be able to grow a million dollars to, to pay for the resource. Right. And if you don't think there's a million dollars of growth associated with adding that position to free up other people or yourself or whatever, you know, then it's tough trade. But you also have to be like, as an entrepreneur, that's. That's what it's all about, man. You're making bets all the time, and you're either going to make the right ones or you make the right, the wrong ones. And you know, you'll never make them all right, and you're probably not all going to make them all wrong. So. So in one particular instance, I said, all right, listen, I can't afford to pay you what I know you're worth and what you need, so let's put a revenue plan behind it. And in your particular role, if we grow the revenue, I'll keep ratcheting up your pay. In fact, I'll ratchet up well above market because I believe in what you can add. But you got to work with me because I'm going to start by paying you way below market. And, and that approach worked out pretty well too. And I think it's something that people can use, you know, and hiring the right, the right type of person. Right.

Host: So you, you acquire the business and you said you almost doubled the business by that. So you buy it in August and you, you almost have doubled the business three or four months later at the beginning of the new year. So, so tell me about those first few months of ownership, what you did, what you discovered, why growth was so quick.

Guest: Well, the owner kind of gave me the answer key, which now, reflecting on it, becomes part of my playbook. If I were to go acquire another company, which I don't really want to. So this Owner told me, and this was the founder told me, I hate social media. I'm a great engineer, I'm a great product designer. I literally don't even have a Facebook account. And that's meaningful to me because I still don't have a Facebook account. I've never been in it. And I don't have Instagram and I don't have Snap Jiggle and Twitter burnt and all these other things that are out there. I literally don't even know what they are. My kids make fun of me all the time, but because of that, I realized that this is awareness problem, that the product was super well engineered, so I was not going to inherit something that I needed to go fix. That's point number one. The second is I knew that when this solution, this product was put in front of somebody, their propensity to buy is pretty high. And so it's an awareness game. And so that can be solved through good digital marketing. And the effectiveness of social media really is super powerful. And so I went out and found a great digital marketing firm and started to exploit the fact that it just had not been marketed. And so that's what gave me a first launch into growth. And then as I'm talking to customers, I realize, gee whiz. And this is a slow learning process. This is funny. Funny to me. Anyway, I would have customers say, hey, I love your product. Does it fit if I use it with this other product? And I used to tell them, gee whiz, man, like, I don't have a laboratory. I'm not, you know, we're not quite that big. I don't, I don't know if it works with it. And I probably took this phone call 200 times over the course of a few months and I'm like, oh, I should make that product. And then I could have this. That does work with that. And I could just tell everybody, well, yeah, you don't have to think about that anymore. I made. These things are totally compatible. And that's what I did. And so. And I had those two things and people would say, oh, that's really cool, man, but does it work with the blah? And then I'm like, now I know this play. And I'd go out and create those products and now we have lots of SKUs. And those SKUs really weren't because, you know, first it was because I was kind of daydreaming stuff and I'm like, you know, I ought to sell blah. And I had this contractor that worked for me. It was, you know, Just me and this contractor, really fabulous lady. And I said to her, hey, I think we should add this product. And she's like, you're not in that business. Why? Why would you. That's a stupid product, Keith. Like, you're awesome, man. I'm glad you told me that instead of like, let me go do it. But then I started to understand, like, the, like, the foundation of product development has to start in what customers really want. And if you're going to go invent that yourself, you need to go vet it. But lots of times your customers are already telling you, man, if you just open up your ears and realize, ah, the reason they're asking about it is because it's not available today. And in this particular industry, there was a lot that wasn't available at the time. And so I was able to create these things or couple them up and really change the offering. So what used to be 1600 bucks, you know, the average ticket price now, you know, might be 3200 bucks. And just, I have more things that we can bundle together that genuinely solve a problem that I feel really good about providing to people. It's not like I just came up with some other widget. I'm super stoked you're buying it because it's revenue. I know that having those things together is going to solve a meaningful problem. And that became part of our brand as well. I'd be at different industry events and people go, oh, man, I love your products. It really solved this problem. And that combined with changing the way I was listening to customers and recognizing opportunity faster was the second wave of, really the second wave of growth.

[36:50] Host: So when the customers are telling you, hey, Keith, does your product fit with X? And so eventually. So this X was already. There were already products out there. And what you did is basically just introduce your own version of x that was 100% compatible with your existing product. So you didn't invent a new product. You just started competing in existing category with one with your own version that was perfectly compatible with the original core product.

Guest: Yeah. So.

Host: And then did that again and again.

Guest: And I ended up patenting that product and it allowed it to. To rem. Allows it to remain unique except for folks that are, you know, just out there blatantly violating patents, which does happen. But you're right that then there are all. There's all sorts of other solutions that people were buying, you know, these other things. Then they wanted to know, did it work with. With the core thing? And the answer was, I shoot, I don't know, man. And then I realized, oh, if I just made that, I could make it work and then I could create a whole bunch of other things that are compatible downstream from that. And so that was. Yeah, that, that I think really made. It made a huge difference, right? It was a really big deal. All of a sudden now I'm creating awareness. I'm getting more people to our website and understanding the product and more phone calls. And then I'm not just converting them to a sixteen hundred dollar sale. Now I've got something that I could add. And it became a $2,300 sale. And then we added some other stuff and all of a sudden it becomes a $2,800 sale. And then there's a few other things we, you know, we picked up and it's a, you know, it's a plus $3,000 sale. And now, you know, sometimes people will check out and they've got $12,000 worth of product that they're, that they're buying from us. And if you're solving this food chain of problems for people and they know they're compatible and your brand is about quality and your service is about, I will fix your problem, man. Like anything breaks, I tell my people, I'm sure the person that called last is the last person that's ever going to call us, man. Because I don't think anybody's ever going to buy another product from us. So treat that person, I mean, with just such gratitude. And if they call back and the thing doesn't work or it's got a blemish or whatever, fix it, solve it, whatever, man. You will never, ever, ever have a problem in this company if you tell me, oh my God, Keith, you're gonna be so mad. I spent two grand by shipping new stuff to somebody because the other thing was broken and they're super happy. Like then so am I, right? I'll make up two grand, but I can't make up. One time we had a part and we mucked up the shipping on it and it needed to get to someone. These are great big. Some of this stuff is really big and really heavy. And my person that did order fulfillment at the time said, I just, you know, I overnighted it and the bill was two grand. I mean, that's a real story. And he's probably gonna freaking kill me. And you can take it out of my check, man. I, it didn't get picked up because I goofed it up, man. It wasn't FedEx. I'm like, you don't man, you don't ever have to do that. Always do the thing for the customer. And there's no file here at all for that. And so, you know, we kind of followed that philosophy. And you connect all these dots like I've got a really high quality product that's. That's highly compatible. That's always solving a problem with exceptional customer service behind it. And, and you know, that was a. Obviously recipe worked out pretty well for us.

[40:10] Host: And Keith is also a part of the success. I mean these average order values, the 13,3000 to you say 12,000. Some people check out 12,000 worth of product from you guys. I mean that is a very rarefied for consumer products to be selling stuff like that. Do you. Would you recommend other people out there looking at buying businesses that they go for high order values? I mean, is that. Would that be kind of one of your. One of your. On your checklist if you were out there evaluating other businesses or is that not. Not necessarily. It just that happened to be what this business was.

Guest: I wouldn't lead with that as a blind strategy. Like I'm buy this thing and then introduce a really expensive product. I think increasing average order size, maybe that's 60 bucks and you want to take it to 90. Right? That's by adding compatible, interesting related products for sure. You hear lots of people talk about niching down and I think there's lots of power. You can get distracted with all kinds of stuff. You have to be really good in what you're doing as a core business and you can't lose focus of that. Right. If you have the opportunity. This is what I was telling you earlier, man. Like if you can create, if you can increase awareness, increase the product range that people can buy and then increase your geography where you're selling it. Those are three big multipliers that if you get all three working. We didn't sell very much stuff in Europe when I bought the business. So we. We sell a lot of stuff in Europe and Asia now. And so that's a big multiplier. I didn't have to add any more product to be able to do that. And we sell a lot more product domestically than that. And that's an awareness game. Right. And so that was step two and then. And then the third, by having more product to sell, as long as people are there and it's solving a problem, you know, they're going to have. Answering the question that they asked me hundreds of times, you know, I feel really confident in saying I know what you're going to run into when you start doing the thing that you're going to do with it, with our products. I can probably save you a whole bunch of time right now. And I used to tell people, I'm gonna save you a whole bunch of swearing in your driveway when you try to install all this stuff on your car or whatever. Like, if you buy this thing now, it's just gonna save you a lot of time, man. I know it seems like it's a. It's a lot more money. It is. You know, but without it, you're gonna spend all that money plus a whole bunch of time. So, you know, you're gonna need to save you the time.

[42:32] Host: Yeah. Keith, I want to get back to this awareness point in marketing. So curious. How did the seller, to the extent that there had been sales, if she was doing no marketing, how had she made sales just at all? Like word of mouth or relationships, distributorships or what?

Guest: Yeah. This founder came from the industry and so had some connections and also had a friend that understood social media and did some work on the, like, on the side. And not to the extent that it was showing so much return that the answer was like blazingly obvious. Because if it was, you know, you just go do more of it.

Host: Right.

Guest: And one of the business side of. I had looked at this kind of in parallel, man, and this deal just didn't work out. But it was an online furniture deal, online patio furniture. And they had shared the story with me about, you know, if you're going to buy patio furniture. Right. It's a potentially pretty big line you might send easily spend, you know, 6, 10, 15,000 bucks. Right. That's a big online retail purchase. And typically you want to go sit in the stuff and see it in the store and whatever. So they were able to package the whole experience that you would get like in a store, obviously not sit on it in a e commerce site. But so many great reviews. And they're like, dude, this is just awareness. If you don't have to go drive an hour to your retail store to sit with some salesman that's just going to tell you whatever you want to hear until you buy it and then pay the markup because there's someone in the middle, like, I think we can solve that. And they did. And they did it through social media and they shared the numbers of the returns on there. And I would just, I mean, I was just dumbfounded. But as I was telling you before, man, every step in the process is learning something else that is going to help, you know, make, make your ultimate outcome hopefully successful. And that just stuck with me. And so I'm like, I don't know anything about social media and I don't want to. And if it can rely on me to do it, I'm not going to buy this business. But I knew I could. I mean, there's a zillion digital media companies out there. I go find one and in fact, they used one for the laundromat. I mean, I know that it works. And anyway, so that's how I approached that social media part and the awareness piece that you're asking about because I knew if we spent the money in the quote unquote right way, which has got a lot of latitude to it, man, you can almost not spend it the wrong way. If you've got a digital firm behind you and you're tracking the metrics. It's not like how many people looked at my billboard or how many people saw my bus bench with my ad on it. You'll never freaking know, man. But you know exactly how many people saw your ad, you know how many people, you know, online and how many people clicked on it and then how many people, you know, did, did whatever action downstream to the point where you can even track when they come back and you know, if they've purchased and you know, now the technology is so sophisticated. I can see those people back on the website, I know what page they're on and we can reach out to them via chat and say, hey, you're back, good to see you. Like what can I answer for you? Or whatever we know they're hung up on, man. And, and that's the power of you take that awareness thing and, and it's not just about like a, someone needs to know about my product, but once they know about it, awareness is being aware of what they do when they're interacting with your site. Now you've got them there, man. How do you get them to actually pull the trigger and buy what you needed to buy? And all that technology is available today.

[46:07] Host: Keith, one of the things that I hear a lot is that you gotta be careful of business brokers who in their listings they say just add marketing. This business, all it needs is marketing. It's been under marketed. The founder wasn't into marketing, really just exactly like what you're describing with your business and it's become kind of like a joke or like a cliche because, you know, it's kind of like if it were that easy, you know, I mean, maybe the founder, if the original seller Founder, Even if they didn't like marketing, they would have figured it out if it was just as simple as just ad marketing. But in your case that turned out to be true and that, that turned out to be one one of the key things. It just needed some marketing and not some kind of sloppy side, you know, a friend doing a couple social media ads for you, but a real professional digital media firm coming in and looking at things and tracking them and doing it and, and it worked. And so I'm just trying to reconcile, you know, my wariness of seeing that just ad marketing phrase and so many listings and being skeptical of it and stories like yours where in fact it turned out to be true. You just added marketing and you know, in three, in three months you blew up the business by just adding marketing. Just Facebook marketing, if I recall

Guest: Facebook and I don't know these other things, it wasn't just Facebook, but we poured money into it for sure. But listen, that got us to some. It took the low hanging fruit right off the tree. Sure. Anyone that tells you that it's just ad marketing to get the business to the state where you want it to be, I think is full of, you know, that's crap, right? That's not really very likely. The marketing thing, you know, has its own limits. And then, you know, and then it's, you know, just add product development and then it's just add more geographies and then it's, you know, it's, it, it, it, there's a, there's a heck of a lot more to it. And then when you think about the operational and, and behind this, you know, we're sing. We were single threaded through a single production facility. And you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize, hey, if there's an earthquake or some geopolitical event or a fire or like something that's not overnight, man, the business is over. I don't care how many people are aware of it, I can't make it. It's not going out the door. And so we sped through efforts that took a year and a half to duplicate production. So that I was, you know, we were never single threaded on. As soon as we got through that process, right, we were no longer single threaded. But that was a huge risk to the business. And one of the reasons the sellers or the seller, that was me, the buyer was willing to pay maybe a bit of a premium is because we took some of these things out of the risk profile. So maybe they weren't going to pay what they paid if it was all single threaded and they had to go solve for production risks. Right. And, and that list is, you know, it's as long as you want to talk about. And so it's, it's never just ad marketing, man. It's ad marketing. If it doesn't and you're gonna, you know, you just should see some growth. And, and then you got a whole bunch of other things to do. Because with growth, then you got to decide, well, geez, is that the best way to spend those marketing dollars? And maybe I should bring that person in house now. Well, what if the business isn't sustainable in growth? Well, you know, welcome to entrepreneurship. But that's, you know, that's the process. It's marketing. I think someone that says, hey, I've got a great product, it's high quality, and you're going to be able to improve the awareness and therefore probably sales through marketing. I think that's probably accurate. You can, you can vet that to make sure that it's, it's accurate. You know, you're going to go look at the products and you're going to talk to people who use them. You know, in all vetting a business, and I did in this one, is it, is that accurate? And if it turns out to be accurate, then you're like, okay, well, I do have a product that, that is a good, high quality product that does what we say it's going to do and it does it reliably. And I don't have all kinds of returns and repairs and I'm not consumed with engineering. Then maybe it is just ad marketing for some short period of time until you got to go do all the other things that you need either to support your growth or to continue to drive growth.

[50:20] Host: When you bought the business, Keith, did you have an exit strategy in mind or did you think you would just buy it, grow it, hold it indefinitely?

Guest: You know, this furniture company that I was looking at, they wanted a couple million bucks for it. And I thought, you know, as a fairly young couple that owned it, and I thought, wouldn't that be freaking cool, man, if I was on the other end of this and someone wanted to pay me a couple million dollars for a business. And I knew, you know, I knew where they started that thing. I knew the growth rate and, and all the factors related to it. And I thought, yeah, eventually I don't want to run this thing until I'm 100. So I thought I would keep it longer than I did. But then this past summer I got a little spooked by potential tax changes in the current administration. I thought if those tax changes really, really come to fruition, I'm gonna have to grow the business a heck of a lot more just to be worth what it's worth today. And it started me seriously thinking about maybe I should sell it. And then, and then I ended up hiring a boutique investment bank to help me get it sold. And I told him, I said, we're going to do this. I need to be out of it by the end of the year. And I was.

[51:42] Host: And so part of the reason you thought it was saleable too is because you'd grown it so much. I mean, it was this incredible story. I mean, you didn't, this was well beyond the aggressive, your 30% growth pro forma, which you thought was really aggressive and ambitious and unrealistic. Well beyond that. So you also, like, you wouldn't probably have, even with the, you know, the tax changes that you could see coming down the pike if it, if the growth had been less spectacular. You may have, you may have held onto it, but there was just this opportunity to, you'd done, you'd been so productive in two years to really cash out in a beautiful way in a short, after a much shorter amount of time holding it than you expected.

Guest: Yeah, I mean, when, just doing the math and what I thought it might be worth, that's a big number. And listen, I've helped take two companies public and I helped sell one to Oracle for $17 billion. And I've seen on paper being worth lots of money. And then markets change and factors are different and now I don't need to learn the lesson a fourth time, man. If it's worth what I think it is and ended up being worth more, then I'm gonna take the money off the table now and just diversify. And so I did and it worked out. I actually get to be on the other side of this discussion now and a really successful exit that is very, very meaningful and life changing. And I think that people that are thinking about, how do I, here's what I tell folks, man, whatever your income stream is today, whatever that is, it's going to end. I mean, just full stop, it's going to end. You're either going to get fired or you're going to quit or you're going to go look for a different job or you're going to get acquired or you pick the long list of stuff. But at some point, not very many people end with the wristwatch ceremony and the cupcakes. Right? And so if you're not prepared for that end, what are you going to do? And that's why I think, and I'm a huge advocate of buying a business, advocate of starting a business. Find a way to diversify your income. Some people do it through stock market, lots of people do it through real estate and having fairly passive holdings. I think those are great, man, but you got to do something. And I'm not here to tell you what it is for you, but I'm just here to tell you you really need to do something. And then listen, you could also end up with, you know, an absolutely brilliant and exceptional outcome maybe. And it was for me. And so I, I just, I just encourage folks to be thinking from that perspective. And if acquiring business then lines up where their skills are and where their interests lie, they should, they should look at that long and hard. For sure, man. It costs you nothing to subscribe to all these listings and they send you stuff all the time. I still get, you know, I get emails all week long of stuff that's for sale and I look at them and if it says Amazon FBA I hit the delete button and if it says something else, I might look at it every once in a while. I, you know, I, I do, I do, I do sign the NDA and look at the detailed information. I'm just so curious about it. But anyway, that's, you know, that's where your interest lies. You should be looking at it.

[55:01] Host: We are really pressing on time here, Keith, but we still got a couple more topics to hit. So can you give me just a couple minutes on these other business interests you've talked about your laundromats, maybe give us the 62nd history on those, why you did them and how bad it's been, but in fact how probably good it will be eventually. Your smash my trash territories and this Amazon FBA business. So you have an Amazon FBA business, but it sounds like you don't want to, you don't want to touch another one with a ten foot pole. So tell us about these other, these other projects you got going on.

Guest: Yeah, quickly. So the Amazon FBA business. You know the fastest way to lose 100,000 bucks is for me to run an Amazon FBA business for you. And the connect the dots here for me is I can't, you can't talk to those customers. Amazon puts a filter between you and some people freaking love that. They're like customer service is all done for me and, and I do get energy from that and I can't Find out what else they want and what they need and what they don't like about the product. And someone wants to return something, they don't have to reply to my, you know, to my inquiry of can you tell me what you don't like? So I never learn anything and I can't make the product better. And as a result, you know, I don't like, for me, like, I just don't like that. And so I, I lost 100 grand on my Amazon FBA business. I learned some super fascinating things, man. I got to go to China. I went to the Canton fair in Guangzhou and, and I got to experience that. I sourced stuff through China, which are skills that I use today and lots of parts of life. The laundromats I was really interested in because I just remember like growing up and watching people put quarters of machines out, like who gets to collect all those quarters? That's awesome. And so, you know, I left the corporate world and I opened a Laundromat. And listen, Laundromats do great. I mean they're a super cool business. It just replaying the tape, man, I'm not sure that I would go back and do it again now that I'm on the other side of it. Those laundromats do $130,000 a month in revenue and accelerating the debt payoff because I financed the equipment. The laundromats are open, they're expensive to open. And I bought one of the buildings, so I own one of those. And once the debt is paid off, they'll do 32 to 35% net. That's a pretty good, that's a pretty good gig. That's $45,000 a month, 50 grand a month. That's pretty good. A pretty good gig. Smash My Trash is, like I said, I went through the franchise process seven times to figure this thing out. And the financials of that business are published, right? I'm not sharing anything out of school here. A truck ought to be able to do $10,000 a week. That's 500,000.

[57:43] Host: Keith, tell us what Smash My Trash does exactly.

Guest: Smash My Trash smashes the contents of open top containers, a dumpster. And you know, if you think about a dumpster sitting in, in an industrial, you know, out in front of a, out in front of a business, it's probably full of pallets and boxes and it gets hauled off. Even though it's got a capacity of maybe 10 tons, it gets hauled off with 600 pounds because it's full of cardboard and pallets just Stacked in there like tiddlywinks. And so the founder of this business, Smash My Trash, developed a machine that has a three ton rotating drum on the back of a truck that you lower down into a dumpster. And it, it just smashes the conduct. This doesn't compact it. It literally, you know, it turns pallets into pencils. It just, you know, just literally obliterates stuff. And I put a whole bunch more stuff into a container. And when something's supposed to be hauled out, you know, whenever you need it hauled out, maybe it's got six tons in there now instead of half a ton, but. And so you reduce the number of hauls, that's how you typically pay for a dumpster is when it gets hauled off. And so now you're reducing the number of hauls and it saves our customers money. And so pretty compelling value proposition. It takes a truck and a driver and a sales guy, and that business ought to do $500,000 a year. When it's fully ramped up. It should, that's what the performance says it should do. Mine's been a little slower to ramp. People are way ahead of me in that category. I don't spend any time on it and I should, but you know, I bought 10 territories, so that's ought to do. It ought to be a $5 million business and it ought to run at, you know, pick your number, like 20, 30 plus percent margin. That's a, you know, a million to a million and a half dollars net a year. And if I can get it up to where, you know, it should be running without a whole lot of brain damage or effort on my part. When I say effort, I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not belittling, I'm not discounting the amount of work that's required. Right. And one of the reasons that it's not growing as quite as fast as it probably should have is I'm just not spending the amount of time that I should have. And that's only because there's so many hours in a day. But I think it's a, you know, it's been an interesting business. It's been an interesting business. And then if anything becomes too much brain damage, you know, you can always sell it. And you know, if, let's say this thing's doing a million and a half dollars in earnings and it trades at a 10 times multiple, you know, it's a $15 million exit. So, you know, keep it for a few years and see how it works out If I don't like it, I'll sell it.

[1:00:15] Host: Keith, at the top of the call, you talked about your trajectory of, of kind of. Of. Of kind of understanding what an entrepreneur is. And for many of your corporate years, you kind of thought that being the CEO within a corporate environment was kind of, was kind of the, the fulfilling your. Your young man dream of being an entrepreneur. And. But now that you're truly out on your own doing these entrepreneurial things, your definition is kind of righted itself in the direction of what traditional pure entrepreneur is. But, you know, you're doing all of these. You've now dabbled in more than dabbled. You're a franchise operator. You've bought an existing business, taken that all the way through to exit, and you've started one from scratch. The laundromats started in the FBA business. I assume you started that one from scratch.

Guest: I did, yeah.

Host: So do you have any opinions on these different types of entrepreneurship? Either start from scratch versus buy, which, you know, clearly an advocate of that. It's worked out so well for you versus franchising. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Franchising in particular sometimes has a stigma. Obviously, it's a giant industry and there's tons of opportunities and people very active in it, but in certain circles, it's got a stigma. And one thing I just tie in here, it sounds like your own pride was something that blocked you from getting into acquisition entrepreneurship before you did, because you wanted to. You wanted to start a business around your own invention, your own product. And once you let that go, it really cleared the path for, for you. And, and so maybe the same should be. Should be said of franchising for a lot of people who maybe turn their nose up at it that they shouldn't, that's an amazing opportunity. So I'm just trying to, you know. Yeah. Do with all of that what you will.

Guest: Yeah. Listen, man, one of the primary reasons people are getting into a business is freedom. And it's financial freedom, it's personal freedom, whatever kind of freedom you want. Right. That's, I think, one of the biggest drivers. And you want to be a victim of your own decisions to the upside and the downside. And the great news is you got at least three paths to go do it, man. You can start your own thing. You can leverage what someone else has already figured out in a franchise. You still have to start it, or you can buy an existing business and you could buy an existing franchise. Right. You could buy, you know, buy an existing business. They all have Their pros and cons, man. I think building a business from scratch, like starting something. I'm not sure this is accurate, man, but for me, it's a young man's game. Like when I was 30, 35, I'd sprint to that stuff, man. And now I think about the amount of work having launched Laundromats from scratch. It's a lot of work, man. And the Runway to profitability is long. And then the Runway beyond profitability to the run rate of what you want the businesses to produce for you, that's long, man. And what you might end up out of it is your cost to get into it is probably way less than buying someone else's success, because that's why you pay a multiple of earnings, right? But what you get when you buy someone else's success is, you know that it works, man. And now this business, just pick the number that you need to be at, okay? If I had a business that I could make 100 grand a year, I would leave my corporate job. Or if I had a business that did $900,000, just pick your number, right? And one of the things that I was concerned about up front was, gosh, if I go buy a business, I'm competing with every venture capital guy that I know out there. And the reality is, no, you're not, man. They're not looking at businesses that are doing whatever, like, whatever the number, if it's sub million dollars in earnings, you're going to be able to buy it at probably pretty good multiple, two to maybe two to four times earnings. And there's not a venture capital or certainly not venture capital guy, but a private equity guy. There's no freaking guys out there looking at that. So you're just competing with some other dude that thinks it's a good idea, they can turn into something else and make it a little bit bigger and support their family from it or sell it or whatever they want to do. And so you're not competing with these private equity guys that are pros and are going to eat your lunch. That's not happening, man. You're competing with other guys like you that are thinking, hey, maybe I'd like to buy that business. And for me, that was also another factor. Like, shit, I don't want to go out and compete with all these private equity. I know lots of private equity guys and I know guys that own those firms, and they're like, listen, we hire interns to go make phone calls all day long to call hundreds of companies to see if we could buy them. That's how we start the process of filtering them. But the filter starts at above a million dollars of EBITDA or above 2 million or above 3. You get above 5 million and now you're swimming in a different pool. But you get below 5 million in EBITDA, you're not dealing with any private equity guys. Not very seriously.

[1:05:19] Host: Keith, before I let you go, I really would like for you to share with the audience your story of what happened to you the other week. This is unrelated to business, but it's an incredible story. So about your plane crash, would you share that?

Guest: Yeah, it's a little fresh. It was less than a week ago.

Host: Less than a week ago.

Guest: Less than a week ago. Yeah. It's a little bit tough to talk about, but I bought an airplane and I was flying at home from Tampa and I live in Denver, and I was on short final, final approach, was 400ft above the ground and just about to land and meet my kids at the airport and lost my engine, lost all the power. And at that altitude, you don't have many options. The sink rate on an airplane, even though they'll glide, they don't glide very far without a motor pulling them along. And so at 400 or 500ft, and a mile from the airport was where I lost the engine. I knew I really wasn't looking for a place to land, I was looking for a place to crash. And this is a busy metropolitan area, right? We're talking about south Denver. And so there's tons of, tons of development going on, tons of commercial properties around, not a lot of fields. And so I ended up crashing in the median of E470, which is the bypass around Denver. And by the absolute grace of God, I didn't die. Here I am to tell the story and just super fortunate that it happened. I think about not only the tragedy of if you're lost in a tragic accident like that, but in the context of what we're talking about, you go from building a company and selling it and now having other opportunities that are available to you, whether from an investment perspective or from a personal life or whatever, and it all being snuffed out in two months, man, that's not cool. And so, anyway, super glad to be here. Great. Great. When I said at the beginning I was grateful for being a chance to talk to you on the show, that's, you know, it's one of the reasons why, because more than, more than likely, I just shouldn't be here.

[1:07:42] Host: And this, this, you had a co pilot and you guys basically, when you're, when the engine, when you lost the, the engine, you basically had 20 seconds to figure out what to do. And you know, did your life flash before your eyes or were you mostly just scrambling, just preoccupied with dealing with the problem at hand? I mean, what, what was that like?

Guest: Yeah, so the glide slope, you know, that we were on for the particular Runway we were landing as about 500 foot per minute descent. And when we lost the motor, you know, I'm just guessing here, but I think we're probably at 1,000 foot per minute descent and we were at 4 or 500ft. So we did have about 20 seconds, and that was a busy 20 seconds. We tried to restart the motor and, and those types of things. Like you don't hit the pause button and pull out the manual. Right. Every pilot knows how to restart a motor from stuff's drilled into you. It's just the finality of it all that. That is Leo is my dog trying to eat the peanut butter off the counter. It's just, you know, it's just the finality of it all that is shocking. There's no Leo. There's nothing that's. In. You go from, hey, I'm about to land my new airplane and show my kids and meet them over at the hangar and they'll go to dinner to 20 seconds later, you're on the ground in a burning heap of airplane and you manage to get out and escape and realize, did that really just happen, man? Is that. And, and it's just the finality of, you know, very quietly and uneventfully. Well, I mean, uneventfully, but like in my perspective of being in the airplane, like it's no fanfare, right? It could just very easily have just been over. Yeah, just full on over, man, just gone and dead. And the thing that I, you know, I've talked to lots of people since then, of course, and one of the things that strikes me is there's so many things that people want to do in their life from, you know, I want to learn another language or I want to go live in Japan for a year or I want to get fit, or I really hate this job and I wish I was doing something else, or my aspiration is always to be an entrepreneur and I'm just married to this stupid corporate job. Like, this list is so long. I could come up with a thousand examples and everybody listening has their own. And if you don't go pursue those, you could very easily just end up being dead because you run out of Time or maybe some tragic event takes it all away from you. And I just encourage people, and I have since before this event, but I just write down the things that you want to do, like what's important to you, and then write down the things that are in the way and then decide whether you're going to go solve those and go do them, man. Because the cliche is life is short and it's fragile. And the reason those are cliches is because they're so freaking true, man. And it can't all just snuff out in a second. I was not planning on dying last Tuesday, and I should be dead, man. And Saturday was a. Yeah, so the accident was on Tuesday. Saturday was tough, man. Because Saturday would have been the funeral stuff.

[1:11:03] Host: Yeah, yeah.

Guest: So if you got, if you got stuff in your lineup like that you want to do, like, go do it, man. And you know what some of the you're going to fail at, and it's, that's not the destination, right? That I think that's just the journey, you know, and so you're gonna, you're gonna fail at all kinds of stuff. So what, man? The journey is the ride. And eventually you'll, you know, you'll get to where you wanted to go because you went out on the journey. And as long as it just doesn't get snuffed out for you too fast. But don't, you know, don't, don't let it get snuffed out before you go out and do it. And listen, you can die of old age and not go do the things that you want because you get married to these securities that you have or these reservations that have been built into our systems and, you know, just take them away and go do them and then get really, really public about the fact that you're going to do it, like tell, tell your 10 best friends or tell your family or whatever. So you got a little bit of accountability in there. Like, hey, you know, whatever it is, I, I, I don't want to die of a heart attack, so I'm gonna lose £25 and I'm gonna go tell my friends and help me hold accountable to it. Right. Or whatever the things are, they don't have to be. It will be life changing because you're, because you're doing it for yourself, man. But it doesn't have to be. We're not talking about audacious things. It can be as audacious as you want, but it can just be the things that, you know, are going to make your life more meaningful and more fulfilling. Just take a, you know, take a little bit of time to go develop a plan to go get it done and then, you know, go do it. I just go do it or, or die trying.

[1:12:41] Host: At least you're trying. Yeah, that's great.

Guest: Can all be over fast, Keith.

Host: Let's leave it there. That was a powerful message to end on. Coming right out of it and very powerful and I'm sure terrifying experience. So thank you for sharing that. Really wanted to make sure we, we heard from you on it and thanks for giving me so much of your time. This interview went extra long but it's been really entertaining for me and I'm sure the audience is going to love it. So thanks a lot.

Guest: Yeah, of course, man. Super great. Stay in touch, Will.

Host: All right, Keith.

Guest: Okay. Thank you, Sam.