[00:00:00 - 00:05:01]

Will Smith: Today's guest was not destined to become an entrepreneur. Hailing from Macau, Ken SEO was working in a well paid tech job when for the first time he got the itch to do something for himself. He started dabbling in real estate, then got more serious about it, but ultimately saw that it was going to take a long time to approach the hefty six figure earnings of his tech job. In 2024, when two local real estate investors hosted an in person seminar about how they'd rolled up cleaning businesses, Ken attended and brought along his wife. Something clicked by the following January.

This past January 2025, he'd bought lights On Digital, the subject of today's interview themes to Listen for Robs, the program that enables you to tap your 401k for the equity to buy a business. Ken considered it, then decided against it. Listen for his analysis. If you own real estate, the value of getting a HELOC before you get an SBA loan, how Kin collaborated on terms and purchase price with the sellers before even writing the loi, and how he presented three options for the sellers to choose from the pros and cons of owning a business remotely. Ken is in Seattle, Lights on is in Honolulu and my favorite theme, the overarching one of a guy who started down a conventional career path but along the way found his entrepreneurial side.

Awaken and embraced it. Here he is, Ken SEO, owner of Lightson Digital for first time business buyers, finding and acquiring the right business can be overwhelming, especially While balancing a W2 job family financing hurdles. So we're hosting a webinar to explore how buyers are outsourcing their search. Athena Simpson of aquamatch will lead the presentation which will include what buy side advising means, what different models look like, the hidden cost of a slow search and full time searching versus keeping your W2 and how the right outsourced support for your search completely changes the calculation. Here you will leave this webinar with Athena with a clearer understanding of your options and and how to speed up your path to ownership without quitting your job or going it alone.

That's going to be next Thursday, June 5th noon Eastern. The webinar is how to outsource your search understanding Buy side advisory. Register at the link in today's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiring Minds Co 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. If you ask owners in the ETA and search community which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs. One name comes up again and again. Oberle. Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two time successful searcher, August Felker, which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher.

And if you've got a business under Loi, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy no risk way to get to know August and the team at Oberle to take advantage. Check out oberly-risk.com that's O B E R L E- risk.com link in the notes Ken SEO welcome to acquiring Minds. Glad to be here. It's like living the dream.

Well can the attraction of extreme ownership, of making your own way as an entrepreneur allowed you to break the golden handcuffs that had kept you in a lucrative tech job and go out and buy a business? An unusual niche business at that and one based in Hawaii. You are on the mainland. Let's get into it. Ken, tell us more about what led you to want to buy a business.

[00:05:02 - 00:05:38]

Kin Sio: Yeah. So give it a quick long story short version of my life. I grew up in Macau, which is Las Vegas of China. Born and raised there, came to the US for college. Good grace being an Asian.

Yay.

Landed a lucrative job at Microsoft after college. So that's how I started my career in tech. Thanks for the past 10, 15 years of the tech boom. It was a cushy job, good salary, good work, life balance. Moved to Seattle for for that job, a technical job.

[00:05:38 - 00:05:46]

Will Smith: Ken, are you a engineer? Product manager. Okay. Yeah. So product management, program management, leading a team of engineers.

[00:05:47 - 00:08:36]

Kin Sio: Identify user requirements, visualize products, value a team to build a product, get it launched. So fun job. Sometimes people talk about being a product manager, almost like a mini CEO. But I actually never dreamed of owning a business or being an entrepreneur because when I thought about that, especially in the tech landscape, you thought about Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. I was just really like you either go big or go home.

Right. So I was like I don't feel like going that big. I just want, I like my cushy job. Right. So almost just growing up from a lower middle class blue collar family.

No one really taught us how to run a business or anything like that. So it never came to my mind. But thanks to the tech industry, good, stellar and all that, it kind of accelerate the Midlife crisis for us. So sometime we talk about. We had our quarter life crisis way sooner.

Right. Got everything I needed, start building a family, got married and all that. It's kind of like, is that how I'm going to be living my life for the rest of my life? Like, so that's kind of when I start getting itchy and looking for side hustle. I did not start with buying a business or anything like that.

I started with real estate investing. That was perceived as a more passive way of building your wealth, if you will. So started with that, building some. And what. What year is this, ken?

That was 2019. Before 2019, you start real estate investing on the side. Yep. Yeah. When the interest rate was pretty low, so it was relatively easier to acquire rentals.

That requires renovation and all that. So start doing some small, multifamily, duplex, triplex, fourplex, Bought them up, renovate them over time. So kind of, you know, that start giving. Giving me a taste of doing your own thing, building your own small business and like that. It's like hybrid is not entirely running a business, but you get a.

You dabble in getting a feel of that. So the more I did kind of, the more I feel like, wow, I could actually control my own destiny. I don't have to have a job where. Don't get me wrong, I think having a job, I think it's suitable for lots of people where you got the stability. You have people who tell you what to do.

You're just staying in the square and you'll be fine for life. Right. But, you know, I got to a point where I feel like, you know, just the more side hustle and stuff that you do, the more you. You feel empowered that you are capable of doing something more so to. So can.

[00:08:36 - 00:09:12]

Will Smith: You are not somebody. So now it's clear you were not somebody who was like always entrepreneurial. You were very late. You were late to this. Yep.

Entrepreneurial awakening, if you will. Yeah. You were already married, had a family, just. It was basically real estate investing. Dabbling in real estate investing on the side, that was really your first.

Even the inkling that you might want to do something other than have a job was. Was from that. Yeah. I think a good awakening moment is that the first few years in my career, I mean, as an immigrant. Right.

[00:09:12 - 00:11:31]

Kin Sio: My parents and families are all back in China. My parents were actually just going through serious illnesses, cancer and all that. So for actually two times in my career, I had to travel back to China to take care of my parents because they got really sick. So it was really hard to dabble between having a job still demanding, you know, hey, your employee, you are expected to show up and do things. It's very hard to do that when you had to attend for your family.

So I think those occasions started making me realize that owning something on your own, where you have full control of your destiny in life is more valuable for me. So I wasn't thinking about entrepreneurship as like a self actualization moment. It's more as coming off necessity that I want to have the flexibility in terms of location and my time and control so that I can care for my families and people that I care about. Right. My parents are gone now, but my, my wife still have her parents in China.

They're aging as well. So at some point a similar occasion is going to happen again where we have to be location and time flexible to do that. So starting with the USD investing, it was a one of the dream of, you know, eventually building a good in the portfolio where that supports that lifestyle. So started with that whilst at the job. But you know, just the more of the side hustle or things that you really own, the more you do that, the more you feel empowered that you want to just, you know, jump on and do that entirely.

Right. At the same time, it's a golden handcuff to break off from the tech job because I still pay me really good salary. I moved on from Microsoft at some point during the pandemic to Coinbase which is a crypto tech company, also public company. Better salary, more demanding and actually makes it harder for me to build my side hustle because Microsoft actually had a pretty good life balance in relation to Coinbase back then. So I think the more demanding setting Coinbase make me more itchy to just get out and do my own thing.

[00:11:32 - 00:11:41]

Will Smith: And did you join Coinbase pre IPO? Post IPO? Unfortunately post IPO because it IPO'd right around. What was that? 21?

[00:11:41 - 00:14:01]

Kin Sio: No, 2021. I think it's 22. I joined Coinbase. Well actually I think it's 2020 or 2021. I joined Coinbase 2021 or so.

So it's after the IPO. Okay, so a more demanding tech job is making you itchy. More itchy, Yep. Yeah, because I, yeah, it meant less flexibility on everything in life. Right.

So that. And then also yeah, I think just really that. So I've been kind of getting just less satisfied in my job and then, you know, that's when we had off a newborn at the time. So I think just juggling families, kid. And the job was really tough.

Right. So I think that just, you know, grew more and more job satisfaction and still good salary. So I would never be willing. Like it's always having that one more year syndrome. I just want to be making more money, more in the bank before we just cut it and launch my entrepreneurship life.

Right? Yeah. And then a layoff happened in 2023, January. It just when Coinbase was one of the companies starting the layout waves pretty early, I would say. So that got me off the job.

I was at the point of two options. One, I could really get back to finding another tech job because at the time there were still opportunities. Now it's tougher. But back then, if I hustle, I could really just find a comparable job versus taking that as an opportunity to launch my entrepreneur, entrepreneurial lifestyle. Still pretty relatively young, you know, just hit 30 at the time.

I felt like we had that time to try out something new. And also thanks to my wife, you know, she still got a stable W2E job that provides some stability to the family that allowed me to just try out this now new lifestyle. I was just thinking, hey, just try for a few years. Even the thing doesn't work. I can always like, the worst thing I could do is just going back to get a job.

Right. So there's nothing much to lose there. A bunch of personal questions for you, Ken. What? So obviously your wife was on board with this plan, but did it take convincing?

[00:14:01 - 00:14:23]

Will Smith: Did she have the same vision as you or how did she react to this new vision, new professional vision of yours? Yeah, we are on board on the dream of having the ultimate flexibility. I think just to reach the ultimate flexibility, it needs ownership. In our life, that means you have to own a business or something that we.

[00:14:25 - 00:15:24]

Kin Sio: Nobody can take that away from you. I think we on board on that part. She was a bit skeptical because, hey, we have two really nice, good salary job now just down to one still able to sustain the family while I have a limited time frame to build and test a new business. Right. So we kind of got to alignment on testing this stuff for two years.

Let's see if whatever that I was going to build is gonna stop bringing in a good amount of income. Right. So it's almost like a test run and see if that works. So. So I took the opportunities and I was doing real estate anyway.

So I kind of, you know, naturally lean into launching an active career in real estate. So I started. I got. Well, I can. Before we get into the real estate stuff.

[00:15:24 - 00:16:07]

Will Smith: Yeah, the Couple other questions. The golden handcuffs Although I I characterized you breaking the golden handcuffs but in fact you were part of a layoff so the, so the golden handcuffs were broken for you but it had already your your appetite had been wet to this was seemed like it was going to happen one way or the other.

Can you share specifically or a range of what you were making? What kind of, what kind of golden handcuffs we're talking here? Yeah, depending on the stock price of Coinbase, right. I'll be making anywhere from 300 to 400 grand at a time. Hard to walk away from three to 400 grand a year.

[00:16:07 - 00:16:26]

Kin Sio: Yeah. Yeah. Running payroll, paying your bills, closing your books and producing financials. These are critical tasks every business owner must do or oversee. But spending time on them distracts you from the leadership in growth work you want to do.

[00:16:27 - 00:18:50]

Will Smith: So let system 6 do it for you. Owned and led by a former Searcher, Chris Williams, System 6 is a leading outsourced finance team for hundreds of SMBs, including over 50 searcher acquired businesses. Chris, Tim and the System 6 team understand firsthand the challenges, the opportunities of jumping into a business as its new owner. So whether you own your business already or have one under LOI, talk to System 6 about how they can give you time back and improve your financial operations. Mention acquiring minds and they'll provide a free review of your books and financial ops, a $500 value.

Check out system6.com, link in the show notes or email helloystem6.com Another personal question, Ken. The theme of risk in being an immigrant is an interesting one. On the one hand, the stereotype, and I've heard this from Asian friends and another, another actually Chinese immigrant guest who sat in the seat, Shell Zhang. She said that her upbringing in China made her more conservative just because the culture is less her, her words, it just wasn't one where, you know, going out and starting a business was the safer the better for. And so she had that programming, as she would say when she came to the States.

And so she thought entrepreneurship, that, that doesn't seem like anything that I, you know, was raised to believe to do. But then she had this personal, this epiphany about her, about herself, which was wait, but I'm, I'm, I'm an immigrant. And she came to the US by way of Singapore. I've, I've uprooted my life twice taken, you know, come to a foreign country, learn the culture, established a career, a family. So, so that's an incredibly risk on endeavor and I've Been successful at it.

So maybe I, I have more of an appetite for risk than, than I thought or than I was giving myself credit for. I found this such a. I, I just found this such a poignant trajectory of hers. Do you, does any of that resonate with you? It does resonate.

[00:18:50 - 00:24:35]

Kin Sio: I, yeah, it just like growing up having no model of, you know, somebody being an entrepreneur in my circle, like no one ever told me about a possible life like that. Right. So I think when I dabble into worst investing, I think just start reading the book of, you know, rich that poor, that I think that really opens up my possibilities of what could be possible. I think we're be being a good student, you know, back in Asia. Right.

Almost like you are being put in this side cookie cutter. Right. You know, you, you were shown a path of as long as you're getting good grades and all that, like you're going to be good at life. Which I think is 80 true. Right.

You know, if you're going to be hustling, just growing up, studying and all that, like eventually you're going to get a job that pays you well. Like I think it could be a life for a good enough life for most of the people. Right. And I think nothing wrong with that. So in fact I think back in Asia or China in general, if all of a sudden being a good student, you just tell your parents that hey, I just want to start this new business, I don't want to get this really high paying job and all that.

I think the parent is going to be like, which just straight up tells you are you insane? What are you thinking? Right. So I think it's a lot of that you play. So I think, I think my control pace approach of dabbling do something from university investing to self employed university, like university projects to not owning a business.

I think that natural gradual progression helps me get there. Okay. And, and just what about the point you've reflected on kind of the.

The. Asian culture, appreciation for studying hard, getting good grades, following a promising path. But what about your history as an immigrant coming to a foreign country and doing well? Does any of that inform your sense of self confidence about being a risk taker? For certain part, yes.

I think I look at this as like everyone has a different strength and weaknesses. Right. Obviously. And I think from the corporate environment I also noticed that we're kind of Eastern, Asian, Chinese or Japanese or Korean. I think we tend to be a really good executioner.

I think we can do stuff really well with given instructions. Right. I think and this is very, very generalized speaking. Right. I think Americans and even I think Indians, some of the Indians friends that I met at work, Right.

I think they tend to be more outspoken. They're willing to actually like speaking out loud even though the ideas could be wrong. But I think just that fact of being outspoken and being willing to share the ideas is the strength that we usually don't have. But again, very generalized. It's very stereotypical.

Right. Not necessarily true for everyone. So I see that there are strengths that I can lean into and there are areas that I usually would need help hire, delegate and just, you know, be self aware of the weaknesses and what needs to be compensated. I think that would be critical and I think that also helped me as my journey of buying a business as well. I tend to be executing well on the acquisition itself.

Right. And I think actually my viewers experience helped me a lot on the sales and marketing side of things where like I'm, I became more outspoken and be willing to actually connect with people, which I think now I think that's almost like the key to success right now. In a entrepreneurial world, being purely a good executioner is not going to cut it. I think you need someone, you just need to be, throw yourself out there, be able to connect and this is where the opportunities is going to be. Right.

I think this is going to be what I think would need to break out that cookie cutter career ladder to do something on your own. Well, you're well on your way, Ken. Thank you for answering all that, all those questions. Okay, so let's, let's quickly hear the, this intermediate step or this progression as you described it, between leaving Coinbase and buying a business, which was your going in, getting into real estate. We'll go, we'll go through this quickly so that we can hear about the business you bought.

Yeah, sounds good. Just give a super quick story about that. So yeah, after the layoff I leaned on to the real estate world of things. I was being more passive back then. So after the layoff I decided to pursue an active career.

So I got all my licenses, the real estate license, agent license, the mortgage license, start dabbling into fix and flip as well. So just trying to, you know, keep the promise with my wife. You want to be, launch a career with good enough income with this new thing. Right. So I stopped buying stuff for other people.

I, I do mortgage, I find projects fix and flip. So just doing all of that and in a year or so I think I kind of ramp up to the income around like 100 to 200 grand or so. So 100 to 200 grand after of income. After a year of doing. Yep.

[00:24:35 - 00:24:46]

Will Smith: Of doing fix and flip. Being an actual real estate agent for clients. Being a mortgage broker, your own real estate investing. So just getting your hands in a lot of different pies in real estate land. Okay.

[00:24:46 - 00:26:10]

Kin Sio: Yes. Yeah. So kind of. Yeah. That you know, did that for a year and we kind of, you know, did that reassessment as a family.

Right. You know, what works and what doesn't work. We think that if you're going to continue the trajectory of being in real estate, I think we can get back to where I was making maybe in three to five years in a stable sense. Right. I think one thing about real estate is that there's no recurring cash flow.

You take a project or you make a deal. It's more like a one off. Right. Yeah. And then I was also away many, very often during weekends because I hey, you have to show houses.

You have to, you know, buy and sell. Like weekends is gonna out prime time. Right? Yeah, exactly. Didn't work.

Well, when you have a newborn, well now you start to get younger kid. Right. So I was just away from family for too often. So we just didn't think it worked for, for the family. So.

Yeah. So we kind of start looking into other ways to ramp up the income without getting a job. Right. Without getting back to the tech world. Because at that point, once I got a taste of running my own business, there's no going back.

I took the red pill. Now I don't ever want to get back to that life.

[00:26:13 - 00:26:34]

Will Smith: And so you thought to being a professional, 100% pure real estate agent, developer, mortgage broker. It would have taken three to five years to get to three to $400,000 in annual income. Even then it consistently and even then it could be lumpy from year to year because it's, it's kind of deal oriented and very cyclical. Yeah. Correct.

[00:26:34 - 00:26:38]

Kin Sio: Okay. Correct. Okay. And it was consuming your weekends. You were showing houses not good for the family.

[00:26:38 - 00:26:49]

Will Smith: Okay. Enter buying a business. Yes. So it was early 2024, January, February or so. Interest rate was high.

[00:26:50 - 00:28:50]

Kin Sio: So it hurt many investors. So I had friends from my circle who pivoted from us investing into buying businesses with some success. So shout out to Kyle Boyden, based in Seattle. He actually, he and his partner Jake Favaro back in 2022, I believe, I think so they make that pivot. Stop buying small businesses in home cleaning space.

Had some success, did a few acquisition to a point like they Actually delay kind of like a local master class to show how they did it and kind of walk through the process. So I attended that 20, 24 February and I think that just clicked in my mind. Just okay, and what had they, Ken, what had they built? What did their, their home cleaning empire look like? Do you have a, do you recall kind of size or.

Yeah, yeah, I think you can look it up. It's a Rainier cleaning company I think based in Seattle. So at the time when they did the master class, I think they already did 3 to 4 mini acquisition already. They started with a super tiny one, I think 200 grand fully solid finance and all that. That launched becoming their platform to build a bigger home cleaning business.

So now they are to a point where they are acquiring multi state home cleaning businesses. So they're you know, on a good Runway to roll it up and at some point just want to sell it. So very kind of them are actually sharing that experience. You know, kind of like a local master class. That kind of helped my mind click because I felt like my background in tech and doing all the building tech, process improvement, project management, I think those are going to be much more valuable in building a business, an existing business versus launching something from zero to one.

[00:28:51 - 00:29:06]

Will Smith: Absolutely. And had the idea of buying a business ever been on your radar before this? Had you been exposed to any of the stuff online or. This was really the moment. There was some occasions in the past, but just never clicked to me because I think it just wasn't the right time.

[00:29:06 - 00:29:32]

Kin Sio: I wasn't at the right mindset. I always think about oh, buying a business or running a business seems very hard. Like again I still kind of think about yeah, it's that people like Mark Zuckerberg or like Bill Gates would do it, but not for the small potato like me. Right. So yeah, it took me a year of being in self employment world, running my real estate business to to be prepared to take the second red pill if you will.

[00:29:34 - 00:30:03]

Will Smith: Lots of red pills going down. Yep. Okay. Okay. Red pill number two.

So buying a business, these guys, their masterclass, this local masterclass was really convincing. You run home and tell your wife this is the plan. I actually brought my wife to masterclass so I think we're very much aligned. I think like that the idea of buying a business and running a business makes sense to us. I think she also find that it's a better use of my skill set back in the tech world.

[00:30:04 - 00:30:27]

Kin Sio: She doesn't find that like you know, hey, yeah, now you're hustling Being a real estate agent, finding deals and fixing flip lots of sales and marketing skills I built from there. But it wasn't a heavy use of the skill set that I had. So she definitely find that, you know, potentially buying and running a business business, I could be putting my skill set more to use than what I was doing. Oh my God. Yeah.

[00:30:27 - 00:30:43]

Will Smith: I mean being a real estate agent is a completely different basket of skills. I take, I take her point. Okay, Y. So what are the parameters of your search? Yeah, so at that I started with, well, I started with all these self educations, right.

[00:30:43 - 00:31:40]

Kin Sio: You know, the bind and build, listening to your podcast and HBS guy and all that. I actually ended up joining Cody Sanchez's community as well. So I think all of that with all those knowledge out there, I kind of started with the path that everybody was doing, right. Blue collar trade business, you know, the 3-5x and you know, kind of the usual things that everybody will be started looking at. So I started with that path.

Look at everything on Bicepu. I started building my off market proprietary search funnel and all that, meeting lots of business owners in the trade businesses. Very soon I realized that I just wasn't built for managing a blue collar workforce. I feel like most of my query has been in white collar and I think that just the idea of managing a blue collar workflow just doesn't compute to me. I don't think I would be doing that effectively.

[00:31:42 - 00:32:19]

Will Smith: A lot of people feel that way, say that, but one exception is people who might be coming from white collar environments but grew up in a blue collar family, then, then they feel like they would be at home in a blue collar business. And I heard you say earlier that you come from a blue collar family, so did that not. You didn't have that translation of culture there, your blue collar family to owning a blue collar business? Yeah, I think they're usually two. It's a spectrum of blue collar family where I think on one side there will be blue collar families where kids are very involved into the family business.

[00:32:19 - 00:33:50]

Kin Sio: Right. My dad was a contractor, so but he's more on the other side of the spectrum where like my dad wanted his kids to have nothing to do with blue collar stuff. Right. He did his best to keep us out there. I think in his mind like, you know, his mind would be like if the kids, you know, going to like, you know, the good paying jobs, being a white collar sitting in the office, that would be like his dream.

Right. Okay. So I think he kept us, well from just touching anything on his business. So yeah. So yeah, I wasn't like exposed to the working world blue collar that much.

So yeah, I just wouldn't see again. My skills are you know, thinking about three businesses. You know, obviously I could be, you know, doing lots of the back office automation improvement processes like that. I think that could be helpful. But the actual work itself, I just didn't find myself having lots of value add for the fulfillment of the service, if you will.

Yeah. So very soon I kind of pivoted to more white collar based businesses, staffing agencies, marketing agencies and home care agency things like that. I think that I see more, more opportunities for my experience to also optimize the fulfillment part of the service. Right. So I felt like it was a better play and it's going to be suited more suitable to my skill set.

[00:33:50 - 00:34:17]

Will Smith: Sure. Well, business buyer fit is something that we, that that every, every searcher should be paying attention to. Yep. And you were the geographic constraints. You wanted to stay in Seattle.

You when you joined Coinbase. Coinbase is based in the Bay Area but you stayed in Seattle. Do I have that correct? Yeah. Fully remote.

Fully remote. And your. But th. This business was going to be. If it was blue collar, I assume it was going to have to be local.

[00:34:17 - 00:36:22]

Kin Sio: Yep. White collar it could be. Well I've already given away that you didn't buy it locally. But what were your geographic constraints if there were any. And what about financial, what were you comfortable buying up toward?

Yeah, yeah. So starting off. Yeah with the geographical constraint I wanted something in Seattle for sure. Well the greatest Seattle area. So my search has been exclusively for that as well for a few months.

Getting kind of like a 3 month search exclusively in Seattle. But to a point I think lots of searchers out there will feel the same pain where they will get to a point that we exhausted everything on BSpicell. We exhausted everything on the off market pipeline and all that. So at that point I start looking potentially out of state especially hey, if there's going to be a remote business I think there could be ways to make it work. So I haven't started pivoting entirely for that.

I think just when we're talking about this for Light Song we talk about it came in more as an out of the blue opportunity from Hawaii. So so that's that. And in terms of the size of the business at the very first I was looking at anything that is going to be sub 1 million. Right. I think it's kind of a usual selling point where oh first deal I don't go too Big because I it perceive as something is more risky.

But obviously after I went through the whole process, I can tell you now that buying a business bigger is definitely less risky than buying something that is like a sub one movement. Million. Yeah. And by one million you mean earnings. One million of earnings.

I kind of mean the purchase price right now because I think anything that is selling for sub 1 million, you, you're typically buying into a business where the owner takes on probably like 60, 70% of the operations. Right, right. With the sellers gone then I just like a big gap to be filled. It give you very limited Runway before the business will fall apart. Sure.

[00:36:22 - 00:36:52]

Will Smith: But typically when we think about size of business or of course yes, we think about how much is actually on the seller's plate, how much work they're doing, but also how much cash the business is generating. So. So those two factors and how they intersect is kind of the ultimate question. So. So you wanted a business where the owner was not involved at all or what less involved.

[00:36:52 - 00:38:43]

Kin Sio: So I think as part of the search process. So I kind of started going bigger and bigger in terms of the deal size to a point where I still looking at a owner operator model where the owner could be doing certain aspects more on the business versus in the business. So example, the one that I bought at this point, the sellers were doing lots of the business developments and thinking about expanding the company less about the service delivery for the clients. Right. So I think that was my sweet spot because I didn't buy the idea of being completely hands off.

I don't think getting into this part of buying a business there's no such thing as being completely hands off even if you buy a business with the management team in place. I think especially I'm speaking from a first time business owner, someone who is converting from the corporate world. Right. I think there's a learning curve for somebody. Even if today I were to buy a business that I could be completely hands up full management team in place.

I think they're just so much to ramp up to become that leader to effectively manage the management team to manage the business. So I think buying a business with the owner operator model still to me it give me enough opportunities to get deep into the business and not completely removed from the daily operation. Yeah, it's. I don't think I've ever heard it articulated that way but I think it's probably where a lot of people want to land as well. Buying a business with just a fully a full management team that you know.

You.

[00:38:45 - 00:39:51]

Will Smith: That can really run Itself maybe too much because you, you don't have a lot of value that you can add. And probably a business like that is going to be too expensive for many people listening anyway. And then on the other side, a totally owner operated business where the, where the business, where the owner is really in the business as opposed to on the business. Of course we know we also should avoid if possible generally too small, too fragile. So your sweet spot of not a, not a business that's going to run itself, but a business where your, your input is generally going to be at the level above the service delivery.

So it's essentially a working on the business, not in the business situation. Yeah. But one where you're working on the businesses is not at your discretion, but it's really, it's kind of required and it's something that you want to sink your teeth into. Yep. Okay.

Okay, great. So anything more to say about your parameters or can we hear about Lights On? Yeah, I think we can get to that. So. Well, good transition would be.

[00:39:52 - 00:40:55]

Kin Sio: I got to a point where I exhausted all the opportunities on market. My off market funnel was still running. It just. There wasn't anything that sticks for any folks out there who are thinking about doing your proprietary research. Right.

I think it took lots of time to get it off the ground if you were planning to do that. I feel like it shouldn't stop at just buying one business because with all the effort that you built already, it doesn't make sense to turn it off. I think you should keep it on and just continue getting leads and you could start it up, refer the leads to other business brokers or other potential buyers as well. Just, you know, you might as well capitalize that. Right.

So. But I, I did everything I could to a point. I kind of used the, the usual real estate agent tactic of like, you know, I told everybody that I was interested in buying a business. And this lead Lights on actually came from my sphere of influence just in the people in my circle who knew I was looking at buying a business. So they introduced me to the previous owners of Lights On Digital.

[00:40:57 - 00:41:08]

Will Smith: So Lights On Digital. Yep. And so it really actually came from just telling anybody and everybody that you were buying a business. And that actually worked. Lights On Digital credit.

[00:41:08 - 00:41:52]

Kin Sio: Oh yeah, it works like a charm. So I think lesson suddenly I think searching for a business is almost like an internship of being a business owner because I think with all the searching for business, it's essentially like sales and marketing. Right. And down the road as you're executing the deal, interviewing for different due diligence vendors. I think vendor management, I think there are many aspects during the search are preparing you as a person to become the future business owner.

So I think people shouldn't look likely on that process. It's just like an internship getting you ready to that role. So yeah, so I think all of the. So you think it's valuable? As painful as it is, it's great practice.

[00:41:52 - 00:42:00]

Will Smith: It's valuable. You're developing a muscle, a skill set that you can then apply into the business. Yep, yep. Yeah. So yeah.

[00:42:00 - 00:43:44]

Kin Sio: So just finding different funnels for getting new businesses or just new revenue sources. Right. So I think just, you know, this one funnel of, you know, telling everybody that you're looking for business did work in my case. So. Yeah.

But yeah, getting the lights on. So I got connected with the previous owners of Lights On Digital. At the time they were more interested in expanding their business into the mainland because it's a marketing agency focused in hospitality. So they did marketing for hotels, they did revenue management for hotel. What it means is they managed all the dynamic room pricing for hotels.

So kind of niche, which is nice. So they had a good stronghold in the Hawaii market. They were looking to expand into the mainland. So they were at the time actually more looking into a getting investors more so than selling the company. So we actually started off the conversation with the fact that I'm based in Seattle.

They wanted to find somebody in the mainland they can partner with to expand LISON into the main. Okay, so this is a. As you said, it's a marketing agency for the hospitality niche for hotels with a core function being. What did you call it? Revenue operations or revenue?

Revenue management. Revenue management where it's basically setting the rates of the hotels hotel rooms on an ongoing basis. They change daily based on supply and demand. Yep, correct. And this is something now I would have thought so we're all as consumers used to dynamic pricing now.

[00:43:44 - 00:44:15]

Will Smith: Thank you, Uber. Thank you. So many things, but the hotel prices, airline prices, even monthly rental prices at bigger property management companies will be dynamic based on supply and demand. I always assumed that there was tech behind that, that there were just SaaS platforms that do that, but. And maybe that is the case.

Maybe you're white labeling something or. No, you are. Is your team or is the lights on team kind of doing this manually, if you will. It's a mix.

[00:44:17 - 00:45:45]

Kin Sio: The software landscape in the hospitality space are very scattered and proprietary. So there are many solutions in the space where it could be charging a hotel a few grand a month just for doing something really simple changing pricing or automatically updating pricing and all that. So for really big hotel chains and big hotels, makes sense for them to use that. For smaller hotels it's very cost prohibitive to do something fully automated. So lights on was very specialized in helping lots of the independent hotels where like, you know, they, it's sizable hotels, but not to a point where they can afford paying like you know, tens of thousands of dollars just on technology every month.

And even with those technologies, they still need to hire additional folks to be able to operate those technologies or SaaS to be able to, you know, adjust pricing based on supply and demand. So yeah, very scattered space. You know that one of the most common levers to pull in a target acquisition is, is technology updating the systems of a business that may still be running off a spreadsheet or even pen and paper. But tech is complicated with tons of solutions out there. So choosing the right cloud platform, CRM, telephony, compliance and cybersecurity, not to mention implementing all that is a job in itself.

[00:45:46 - 00:47:15]

Will Smith: Acquiring minds guest Nick Akers knows this firsthand. As a former searcher who now owns Inso Technologies, Nick has seen the tech challenges searchers face when acquiring businesses. His team at Inzo regularly works with searchers and their acquisitions, offering a complimentary IT audit of the target company. Nick takes a personal interest in all their searcher clients, drawing from his own experience in the search phase. Enzo dates back to 1989.

So this is a company that has managed the tech for hundreds of small businesses over decades. And one last thing, no long term contracts with Enzo a big differentiator. Check out enzotechnologies.com I N Z O or email Nick directly@nicknzotechnologies.com and don't forget to tell them you're a searcher. And I would imagine that it's a pretty, it's a, it's a pretty sticky relationship with the customer. They every, I assume in the hotel world, most hotels feel they need dynamic pricing.

Is it kind of table stakes now for any reasonable hotel to have dynamic pricing? So they have to, they have to have, it's kind of a need to have and so that's good. But you said it's very fragmented which suggests that it's also pretty crowded and competitive. How, how Talk to us about the quality of this revenue. Yeah, the quality of revenue.

[00:47:15 - 00:48:18]

Kin Sio: So one thing that really attracted me from Lyson is that lots of the revenue are monthly recurring retainer model. Right. So I think that kind of back from compared from real estate, everything is Being like one off like that was very attractive. And the fact that we have a variety of clients who subscribe to our revenue plus marketing services versus certain clients only subscribe to our marketing services. I do realize that clients who subscribe to all our services, especially when we have a touch on their top line, things are typically much more sticky.

Because once we manage the top line and we have other avenues in marketing to help them boost the demand, managing the top line, maximize the revenue, they tend to have a better trust in the relationship with what we can do. Those clients tend to stick for years. So with the. You're managing their entire funnel at that point. Exactly.

[00:48:18 - 00:48:25]

Will Smith: Yeah. From fascinating. You were going to say. Yeah, yeah. And then there's also a really messy distribution part in the world.

[00:48:25 - 00:50:22]

Kin Sio: If you think about a hotel room as inventory. Right. It's such a very fragile inventory because if you don't sell your room tonight, that room is wasted. You're not making money for that room. Right.

So being able to distro build those rooms across different channels. I think lots of consumers today use Expedia, booking.com and all that which is almost like a wholesale model where consumer buy from there. But these channels will charge commission for the hotels. So yes, you get lots of exposure, but you're going to be a high cost of selling the room room versus like using some marketing strategies to drive some of the traffic to the hotel direct website, they will be getting a much higher profitable businesses. Right.

So just the strategy of disturbing the room effectively based on seasonality. Right. You know, during really peak season, how are we going to be driving more businesses to direct traffic so that hotels are more profitable selling those rooms versus in a slower market or what we call shorter season when there's not a peak demand from consumer. We are going to be using lots of the again Expedias because the online travel agency or OTAs, we use those to get more eyeballs to be able to fill the rooms with higher occupancy to pay the bills. So lots of those are very dynamic and require lots of strategic thoughts from my team.

So that is definitely a niche where it's still competitive. But the pool of talent are so much more specialized than a typical marketing agency where we just were hiring a new webinar manager. I think it was a much smaller talent pool than I would be hiring for like a marketing manager who runs Google or Facebook ads. Sure, sure. I would imagine, yeah, it's a pretty, pretty niche skill set.

[00:50:22 - 00:50:42]

Will Smith: The. And so the revenue mix at lights on between just marketing broadly or Demand generation, let's call it in. In revenue management was what. How much of the business is revenue management? Yeah, I would say kind of the revenue for Lyson is coming from third, third and third.

[00:50:42 - 00:51:12]

Kin Sio: So like kind of like 30 of our revenue is coming revenue management, 30 coming from the digital marketing in general and 30% coming from managing social media for some clients. So I have a pretty healthy mix across all the services that we have just you know, dollar wise. Right. If you look at the stickiness of the businesses, I do see that, you know, the, that third of the revenue management businesses tend to have clients who stick around for longer. Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:14 - 00:51:49]

Will Smith: Really neat business. Okay, what can you tell us about. So back to the story. The owners thought they might actually be looking for a growth equity or investor type partner to help them penetrate the mainland. That's where the conversation started.

How did the conversation develop? Yeah, so with that it's still similar conversation to buying a business. Right. You know, I requested all the uber usual, you know, the, the financials and all that so I could take a look deeper in the business. So as I learned more about the business model, just everything that I just told you, right.

[00:51:49 - 00:52:40]

Kin Sio: I was like, wow, it's actually like hitting lots of my check boxes except for the fact that it's based in Hawaii because I wasn't looking Hawaii at the time. So I proposed that, you know, hey, fly me to Hawaii. I want you to take a look at the team, how they work and just get a feel of the company dynamic. Right. So I flow into the office, had a conversation with some of the managers and all that.

I think from that point I just felt like, okay, like I could see the, you know, this business is, you know, being really solid in terms of like the team's quality, the talents and the fact that the, the owners at the time, they, they were at a sweet spot of like spending probably like 10 to 15 hours collectively a week just managing the business collectively between, between. Two people, 15 hours a week. Wow. Yeah. And the office.

[00:52:40 - 00:52:54]

Will Smith: So this was a, an in office business. Correct. So you would have, or you were anticipating should you buy it, operating it remotely. But it's not actually a quote unquote remote business. Not a remote business per se.

[00:52:54 - 00:53:21]

Kin Sio: Like it was actually like when we stopped pivoting to the composite of me buying them out and, and just fully acquire the company. Like we, we, we did talk about me relocating to Hawaii and in fact like this is still a active discussion that I think there's still a good chance that we're going to Be fully relocated to Hawaii. I think we can talk a lot about why that's the case. You know what, what, what the pros and cons and all that. Right.

[00:53:21 - 00:54:07]

Will Smith: So let's do. Yeah, let's get into that in a minute. Yeah, let's return to that. The. And what can you tell us about size of business?

Numbers, anything? So there are things I couldn't disclose, but I can kind of give a range for similar size of this business out there. I think you usually the purchase price will be anywhere from one and a half to four million. So we are kind of in that range and we couldn't this close 1. And a half to 4 million purchase price range.

Okay. Okay. And you can give me how many employees? Can you tell me that? Yeah, we have 15 employees at the time.

[00:54:08 - 00:54:23]

Kin Sio: Right now we actually lost a few after transition and we actively backfilling those. So we are now at 12 or so. So we are kind of, you know, going back to 15 right now. Okay. And margins roughly 30%.

[00:54:23 - 00:54:35]

Will Smith: Oh, great. And can you give me, can you give me any sort of sense of the earnings of this business? Yeah, I would say mid to high six figures. Sde. Okay.

[00:54:35 - 00:54:47]

Kin Sio: Mid to high payment and all that. So. Yeah, so it feels like it's really the sweet spot of what you were looking for, size wise, both revenue and headcount. Yep. Yeah.

[00:54:47 - 00:55:03]

Will Smith: Like it, like, like enough people that you're not going to have to be in the service delivery. But not so large but, but still small enough that you working on operational improvements, business improvements, working on the business could really, could really push it forward. Correct? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:04 - 00:58:59]

Kin Sio: And now retrospectively, you know, I would say, yeah, this is like the sweet spot. But at the time during the deal discussion, navigating through the deal, I definitely felt like, oh wow, I wasn't expecting to be buying such a size. Right. I was looking at something that are smaller. But I think through and I think what's important is having people around you in a journey who can support you.

I think like your podcast actually does that as well. I think getting lots of the knowledge and insights from people who walk the same path and actually start. Actually get. You know, I think lots of people alluded to, yeah, you want to buy a bigger business that turns out to be a, a less risky decision than buying something smaller. So I think I actually appreciate lots of the knowledge from this podcast and again, Cody's community and all that.

I think without all those help, I would still end up buying a business, but probably going to be much smaller and probably Going to be getting through the pain of like, oh, like there's just lots of things that a smaller business will doesn't have. So, yeah, I think retrospectively I felt lucky that I ended up buying something that's bigger than what I initially anticipated. Great. And so how did the conversation evolve now from being an investor to being the buyer of the business? Yeah.

So after the initial visa, so I think I got more convicted and committed to actually buying the business. So kind of by starting the conversation, I say, hey, I know that you guys were looking for outside investment and all that, but to me it didn't feel right. The fact that, okay, if I'm going to be put in equity, being a minority partner, that was kind of how the conversation was going to me. It's almost like I was still more like an employee and I would be actually chipping in my own fund to be an employee that wouldn't fulfill my infantial purpose as being like a full on business owner. Right.

So in that case, I would like to explore their interests of actually buying out the company entirely, which I think I had that conversation at the right time because for Lyson, it was difficult during the pandemic time frame, I think you could almost predict right when the hospital, when the travel market was almost dead during the pandemic, it took them a great effort to almost build the company from the ground up, you know, the second time. Right. Yeah. Lison was founded back in 2014. Getting through the pandemic, I think it took them lots of effort to, you know, they had to lay off the entire team and almost build the team from scratch again.

Right. Oh, wow. So I think it took a big toll on their just mental health and all that. So that naturally helped the discussion about, okay, now they actually did want to have a break from running the business and all that. They were entrepreneurs at heart.

So I think they got to a point where they want to try something new versus, you know, now. At that point they were kind of status quo running the business, so they're not getting the excitement of being an entrepreneur anymore. Which totally fair. And from my perspective, I would appreciate something that's already established. I'm more interested in the 1 to 10 phase, more so than 0 to 1.

So I think I just came at the right time, proposed that buy down acquisition conversation at the right time that they were interested. So that conversation quickly pivoted to a full acquisition versus a partnership type deal. Yeah. Fascinating. Well, as you said, good timing.

[00:58:59 - 00:59:59]

Will Smith: Essentially they were, they were right on the heels of a rebuild they were probably burnt out. Yep. Okay, Ken. So from the pre call I know that there, there was, it was pretty interesting how this loi process unfolded. So let's spend some time here.

Once they were communicated that yes, they were open to a full on acquisition or sale of the business, how did things progress? Yeah, so it's kind of a blessing and a curse when there's no business broker in play, right. So it's just a lot of the stuff we are just going. We invented lots of process on the fly as we are talking. So initially the sellers wanted a 4x in above multiple because I think this is kind of based on what they look at in the marketing agency space and looking a lot kind of the lower middle market deals where multiple tends to be going higher.

[01:00:00 - 01:01:49]

Kin Sio: So when they kind of started with that I was like at the time I still wasn't sure because that is going to be way outside of my league that I felt like so. But definitely a good opportunities, right. So I kind of brought that deal with my banker. So I ended up working for Live Oak Bank. Shout out to Wendy.

She actually helped me a huge ton during navigating this deal. Wendy at Live Oak? Yep. So she took a look and obviously just from a cash flow perspective, I mean she kind of, you know, homie realistic, right. You know with a.

And also I think the fact that it's based in Hawaii versus Mainland, there was some client concentration revenue as well. So I think there are a couple of things at play that the bank wouldn't be willing to like land or finance a deal at kind of that 4x multiple, right. So when you kind of told me hey, this is kind of a few options that could be realistic, right. With different multiples and combinations of seller financing versus kind of a pure SBA financing, right. So kind of from there I kind of put together a few options of what's possible with the sellers, right.

So I kind of give them a box of three options, right? One is like full on SBA financing which the lowest purchase price all the way to a. Well that's the first option. Second option is kind of like a hybrid of SBA financing plus some level of seller financing and the third option where the purchase price is the highest closest to what they will be looking at with a full on seller financing with no bank involved. So Ken, let me stop you here.

[01:01:49 - 01:03:24]

Will Smith: Just a couple things to make sure I got it. First of all, you're working with a bank or a lender at Live Oak, Wendy. And so she's helping you think through this process pre loi even look at this business. Pre loi. Okay, I want to, I just want to call that out because some of my own sponsors, Matthias and Heather Anderson, encourage people to reach out before the LOI so that they can help you.

Frankly, they can just tell you to not waste your time if the deal has is not bankable in the first place. But then also think help you think through the LOI so it can be valuable to, to eng vendors like lenders or loan brokers. Pre loi. Also hear that from attorneys Barlow and Williams. Plugging another sponsor encourage people to, to reach out actually pre loi.

And so the recommendation came back of ways that you could put a deal together. And so you presented a menu of options. I've heard a couple of my, my guests talk about doing this. You know, the option A, option B, option C. And is it one of these where.

And so option A was sba, all sba, lowest purchase price. Option C was largest purchase price closer to what they wanted. But all seller financed. Yep. And then option B, middle option was hybrid in between.

Correct. And was it one of these where you were kind of steering them to option B? Yeah. Ideally I would want a hybrid option where it kind of, you know, provide a better win win. Right.

[01:03:24 - 01:05:29]

Kin Sio: Where it's going to be more fun in the seller's pocket eventually. Right. And it's going to be a price closer to what they wanted. And from the bank's perspective, it also perceived as a lower risk if the sellers are pitching in with the seller, financing not and all that. So I think it's like a win win that I want to push them and just and kind of setting that framework helped us really reason through what's important and what's not important.

And I think. Well, a key thing I want to point out is the sellers and I, we kind of build really good report and relationship to a point where, you know, we feel like the whole process is more like a collaboration than a negotiation. So just really like, hey, I really want to buy you guys out and you guys open to selling. I put in all the possible options available to help us get there. So I think they appreciate having those options.

So the entire process, pre loi, post loi all the way to closing, it felt like we are very aligned and very collaborative to make things happen. Then like I'm going to negotiate you over this, you know, trying to win you over and things like that. I think that mentality really helped build our relationship to make the closing relatively smooth. And you actually presented these Options to them. Again, pre loi.

Correct. So before you even presented them a formal offer, you were, you don't want to use the word, but you were kind of negotiating or you were, you were taught you were talking options. Yep. And then they identified the option and they liked. And you guys worked it through.

Correct. And. And then you delivered them an loi that codified everything. But at some point in this process, kin there must have been like, I guess when you presented them the three options, there's always a moment where it's like, are we even in the same ballpark? I guess they had told you shared financials and they shared the multiple.

[01:05:29 - 01:05:54]

Will Smith: So they, they kind of, they kind of had a sale price in mind. And so if the fact that you were engaging them after that signaled that you were. That you all were in the same ballpark. Right, correct. And aside from the price, I think through the process of going through these options helped flush out other important factors that they're thinking about a buy of Lison.

[01:05:54 - 01:07:00]

Kin Sio: Right. Price, obviously is always the. Almost always the most important factor for lots of the sellers. Right. I think there's the other parts where they almost like interview to me as a potential new owner of lights on how I approach things my style and when I will be able to handle the team and the clients gracefully after the transition.

Right. I think through that process I was able to show some of that to make them feel at ease, that, hey, this is not just like a transactional thing. They sell the company, they go away. They don't cared about, you know, the team members or the clients. Right.

I think they really saw what I had in me that I was, you know, going to keep my whole team intact. I was trying my best is going to be take care of all the clients that they build over time. I think lots of the clients still have good relationship with the sellers. So I think those are also important factors that could compensate the fact that my offer wasn't up to what they were looking at the first place. Okay, great.

[01:07:00 - 01:07:09]

Will Smith: That was very. That was great. And so what did they. What were the terms that you all arrived at? Yeah, so the L that we end up drafting was a.

[01:07:11 - 01:09:21]

Kin Sio: It was roughly a 20% actually, not like 15. We started with 20, but we actually brought it down to roughly 15% of seller notes to help with the debt service, the debt service coverage ratio. So 15% are sellerfi:10, 15% or so from my own fund. And the rest are SBA financed from Livelihood Bank. 15% from them, 15% from you, 70% from the bank.

Yep. So that, that's a pretty traditional structure in self funded search land. Yep. Sometimes it can be a little, you know, the more aggressive is 10, 1080. But you did 15, 1570.

Yeah. And the one asterisk to that is because the total loan size also includes working capital and a lot of credit. So the, the total finance amount was actually everything combined will be more than the purchase price. So if you're looking at purely just the acquisition price, I will be putting at less than 10% which was a bit more, a bit less conventional. So it just, I think one tip for everybody out there when asking for bank financing, always I get additional fund for working capital and getting a line of credit.

I think all those are going to be very important to just build up that wall chest of working capital which is going to be very, very handy as you start running the business. Sure. Post acquisition liquidity, the how much working capital did you put on the, put on the balance sheet? Yeah. Right now after all the projection and due diligence, it was suggested around like 150 grand or so.

I like yeah. With more buffer. So right now yeah, I'm trying to keep it at 300 if possible. So and, and what was the. How the line of credit, how big was it?

The line of credit you sell was I think 150, 150 is 150 as well. So you have 150 to the balance sheet plus 150 that was already. Or that you've already accumulated. So you try to keep 300 a balance of 300 plus the 150 line of credit just in case. Okay.

[01:09:22 - 01:09:47]

Will Smith: And do you feel like that was, have you found in your transition that working capital is, is trickier than you thought it was going to be? And, and that it was really like. Do you feel like the, the working capital number that you chose was a good one or would you have done more looking back? Looking back, I think it's about right because I was more buffer, especially for a first time business owner. Right.

[01:09:47 - 01:16:03]

Kin Sio: I think something I had to learn to deal with and just be okay with is that until clients pay, there's always going to be seeing the working bit of dipping down to a point where you feel like, oh like you know, no money coming in. Holy crap. Like are we able to survive? Especially making sure that like you know, the paychecks goes to other team members on time. I think that's going to be super, super important.

So I think there always going to be that hard feeling as you see the working capital dipping down before new funds coming in, but afterwards, because we did audit, projection and analysis. Right. Things come back up and then more. Right. So I think that is just a mindset and kind of a level of stress that would be new to me as a business owner versus not working with somebody.

Right. So, yeah, so the analysis, the analysis did work. And I think just mentally I just have to be ready for seeing the ups and downs of the working capital. Sure. The SBA process with respect to your real estate portfolio, there was something you wanted to share there?

Yeah, yeah. So caveat for lots of the, you know, real estate investors out there who are pivoting. Right. Yeah. So SBA requires personal guarantee, as we all are aware.

So it will put a lien on everything that you have. I mean, all the USD holdings that you have. Right. As part of the personal guarantee process. So as part of that, because the bank has to do an appraisal and do kind of the lean recording and all that for all the real estate portfolio and all that.

So those will inflate the final closing fee that you will be expecting. So I'm just looking at my cheat sheet here. I ended up paying. So my total closing cost for the SBA loan is around 80 grand or so.

I pay 12 grand alone just for things related to my real estate portfolio. It's kind of a combination of running appraisals, having, recording, having the lien recorded on all the real estate holdings and all that. So those 12,000 was completely outside of my estimation. Right.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't like that much, but it was a surprise to me that I had to pay 12 grand for having the bank putting liens on my property holdings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other part is I think there are ways you could plan upfront to avoid getting liens on your property if you plan properly. Right. So usually the SBA guideline is that, like they will put a lien on your property if you have more than 20 equity in the real estate holding, if you apply for a home equity line of credit, or what we call a heloc, before you start looking into business, searching, applying for a loan, if you have a heloc, putting the.

Putting in the property that you don't use at all, but that will count towards a loan against your property. So when the bank look at your property in terms of your equity, there's a chance that it's going to be lower than 20%. Then you might be. And just be careful with my word, you might be able to get away with having no lien on that particular property. So something that I learned after the fact that, you know, that could be useful for somebody with a real estate holding out there with some equity.

But no, not a credit was on the property, if that makes sense. And to be clear, if you were able to do this, does that mean not having a lien on the property means if the business failed, they couldn't grab the property. Correct. If, if, if it came to the pg, if they tried to invoke the pg, they could not, they could not secure the property. Correct.

Obviously, because the HELOC has the. Because the HELOC is the, the primary, I guess, the primary lender now on the home. What's secondary? So allow me. So let's say, give a quick example, right?

So let's say you bought a home for $1 million. You had a conventional loan, you put on it, you pay mortgage, probably like, let's say 700 grand. So you now have 300 grand equity in this real estate property. Right, Right. So when you now, at this point, if you apply for SBA loan, they look at all your real estate properties, they look at, oh, Keen has 300 grand of equity in this business.

Sorry, in this real estate property. Let's make sure that we put a lien on this as part of the SBA personal guarantee and all that. Right. So after the purchase, you will see, like this property, you have a second lien on your property. That's from the sba.

Right. Right. Now, if you are able to apply for a heloc, let's say many times, if this is going to be your personal residence, you could put a helo up to 90% of the home value. Now, in same example, you have 700 grand of mortgage. You could potentially apply for a 200 grand of HELOC on top of that.

So now on paper, you have 900 grand debts and you have 100 grand of equity. So when SBA bank look at this property. Oh, you have only 10% of equity. So that should lead to a conversation of they potentially not putting a lien on this property and you could potentially get away with not pledging this property to the sba. Obviously, lots of things could be situational, so I just want to just provide some leads for things that person could be doing in terms of planning to get away with some of those restrictions.

[01:16:04 - 01:17:34]

Will Smith: Yeah, I can neither confirm nor deny that. Obviously, you're, you're teaching me here, although you're not. It's not the first time I've heard about this, but I hear about it so rarely I have not committed it to memory. Yeah. So audience members, do your own research.

But it is a. It certainly sounds familiar. I know I've heard something like this. Yep. And it's a very powerful tip.

It's a very powerful tip. There's also a second way that you could be doing is that if you are going to be owning a property with another individual outside of family, household. So let's say not your wife, not your spouse, if you happen to be owning a property with another family member, extended family and all that, or you might be doing a project or owning a property with a business partner when you are not the sole owner of that property, the SBA also has a chance of not having to put a lien on that property as well. That one seems like less. Less applicable.

That sounds like more of a fringe case.

Okay, thank you for that, Ken. And then another thing I wanted to ask about how you were structuring all this was robs, the tapping 401k capital to buy the business. You looked at doing it and then decided against it. Talk us through that. Yeah, so initially I was looking at just all the possible ways to fund a deal without tapping into my liquidity.

[01:17:34 - 01:20:50]

Kin Sio: Right. So had a good size of 401k from my life back at Microsoft, which is great. So I was going to be tapping into Dev 401k through the rops program. And I think you probably have talked about the rops, the business rollover as a startup. Right.

So essentially long storage or TLDL is going to be. You could use the fund from the 401k without tax penalties to fund a business acquisition. So everything sounded great. I was going to go with that so that I don't have to pull up all my liquidity. You know, I pay the provider and all that all the way to the.

Almost at the finish line when I find a catch that if you. If you think about using rops, it's almost like you are going into a business partnership with your 401k fund. So let's say you take, you know, half of the liquidity required from the 401k fund and you pull up another 50% from your liquidity, essentially you're forming like a 50, 50 partnership with your 401k that after you purchase or acquire the business with the ROP setup, whenever you want to take a distribution from the business, you have to distribute an equal amount back to the 401k. So that kind of limits how you want to do profit distribution down the road. So that's one thing to me is like a big no no.

And that wasn't clear to me at the very beginning. So that was a big no no. The other no no was that you could eventually get away with ROPS if you could buy out the ROPS's share from the business. Right? Yep.

So you could do that. That is going to be triggered. You have to do another business valuation which is going to be additional like fees and all that if you want to do that. And the other part is if you successfully grow the business where the enterprise value of the company grows, the shares from the rops also grows. That means you're going to be, you know, let's say if you take 50 grand from the, from the ROPS 401k program as like a 50 partnership right now the company grows like double right.

Eventually. Now you take 100k to just buy back the share of the rops so that you can be like completely clean, not having to think about all this profit distribution and all those logistics. So I think those restrictions wasn't very clear to me upfront and I really found out at the very end. So I already paid the provider five grand for that. Realizing that it just wasn't a good flexible setup for me.

So I just decided to ditch that and fund the deal with my, with just all my liquidity. Okay, that was, that was very helpful. So let me just distill this. The robs is tapping your 401k to use the capital in your 401k to contribute to the equity to buy a business tax without the tax penalty. That typically comes along with withdrawing cash from your 401k before you're supposed to.

[01:20:51 - 01:24:05]

Will Smith: But what happens is then that your, for whatever, whatever pro rat or share of the equity come, that comes from your 401k. The 401k owns that. Oh, the 401k owns that percentage of the business. So it's this funky thing where your 401k owns the business or provide a share of the business. If you go to make distributions, you have to pay the 401k the Pro Ratish the, the pro rata share of those distributions.

One might argue, hey, that's fine. I'm, you know, it's forcing me to do more 401k. This going, I'm paying myself. I just can't touch this capital for a long time. But, but, but many.

It's not uncommon that somebody who's used robs will then want to buy out their 401k so that they don't have to deal with all of that. And it's just nice and clean and they own their business themselves. They're not co owning it with Robs. And but if, if the business has the business value has gone up in the meantime you gotta, if you know you gotta pay, you have to. So too has the value of the equity that your 401k contributed and therefore what you need to pay your 401k back with again you're essentially paying yourself.

So this isn't lost money, but it's money that's going into your 401k and you're not going to be able to touch without a tax penalty until retirement. And I seem to recall Doug Johns doing this. Doug Johns was a guest. He's in your neck of the woods. Originally Seattle, now he's in Portland.

Bought a big plumbing business. I seem to recall him talking about this process of buying back out his, his 401k and this valuation issue happening and it being pretty complicated and even pressing the boundaries of what his robs provider could handle. It was, it was a pretty fringe case. Like not many people or at least for. With his vendor, not many people within the vendor knew really how to handle it.

Anyway, audience, if you're interested in diving even, even deeper on this, listen to the second Doug John's interview where he, where we, where we talk about it. That that's over a two year. That interview is over two years old. Which is why I don't remember the details but I think I have that right. Thank you.

Okay, Ken, good, good call outs. Definitely, definitely yellow flags on using your 401k or using the robs program to tap your 401k. Yep. I said we would return back to this feature of owning a business in Hawaii while you are in Seattle. Of course let's dispense with the, the joke that oh, how nice to have a business in Hawaii.

You know, expense trips to Waikiki from now until forever. But it is what, a five hour flight from Seattle? Six hours? Five and a half. Yeah.

So it's not nothing and it wasn't your plan and you mentioned that maybe you're considering moving there. So talk us through how you're thinking about that. How you found the pros and the cons to be. Yeah, yeah. So it's an active discussion with my wife as well.

[01:24:05 - 01:25:57]

Kin Sio: I think the pros and cons one is no, obviously Hawaii just being a really like a paradise to live in. Right. So it's great. I think the team members and the Clients also would love having the owner's presence in on the island. Because I think one thing I very soon learned after owning the business is that in Hawaii there a lot more relationship based business making going on.

Right. So just learning just, you know, you have to be there very often and making sure that like clients on the island, team members on the island, they feel, you know, they feel like you're part of the island. Right. So I think that is more so important than like, you know, what you see in the mainland. So moving there.

So I think there are lots of upside of moving there eventually. I think the flip side that could be keeping us from moving, moving entirely is going to be kind of the future growth of Lyson. Right. Kind of back to why the sellers approached me the first place was the expansion into the mainland. That's going to be the future growth.

We got to a point where we are relatively saturated because I think it's only so many hotels you can manage in one area because you soon get into managing your clients, competitors. So it's getting more crowded. So looking at the mainland is definitely there are more opportunities that are untapped. So having me in the mainland there's going to be advantage of growing that side of the business. So right now I'm actively evaluating just is there going to be bring us more good than bad moving there versus keeping my base in Seattle so that we can grow lives on more in the magnet over time.

[01:25:58 - 01:26:31]

Will Smith: Yeah. And so Ken, more about culture. So. So yes, you know, being on the island versus being on the mainland is probably a big deal for Hawaiians. But.

But also here is this business that where people go to work every day. There's an office who is. So it's almost like the. Your absence might be felt even more acutely because everybody there is going to the office but you're not there. Who is the person in charge at the office?

[01:26:32 - 01:28:03]

Kin Sio: Yeah, we have a few managers. We have three managers in place leading kind of the few services lines that we have. So we do have those managers who are going to be at the office. They are managing most of the day to dates. So it's still kind of holding the fourth down there.

And right now I'm leading my time 50 50. So each month I probably spending like two weeks, you know, on the island. So it's not like I'm completely remote. So I think for the foreseeable future I'm gonna be continuing that setting which is. It can be ironic because I we decided to depart a buying business because I know I want to be spending more time with my family.

So now I'm actually like half of my time has been gone away from the family. So that's why, you know, kind of the relocation was also like, it's part of the equation for the relocation. Right. Because I, we want to make sure that we, we get the business, we get a good family life as well. So.

Yeah, so those, all of those are coming into play into our consideration right now. You know, this is also something that you would have to consider when thinking about where you, if you one day want to exit this business, who another buyer is going to have a. Be confronted with the same thing. Now if you grow the business so much that you can sell it to a strategic or a private equity fund, then it will be less of an issue. But always buyers should think about, even if they don't intend to exit in the near term or even ever, you should always be thinking about what exit possibilities there are.

[01:28:04 - 01:29:06]

Will Smith: And in your case, it, it is, I imagine any business based in Hawaii. Hawaii is a small town. So there's, there's, there's a ceiling on the market of the business itself and there's a much lower, much lower ceiling on the market of potential business buyers. So, and so then you have to look to the mainland and then you're back to confronting, well, is this person going to move here? Are they going to be a remote owner?

Are they going to go back and forth? So it's an interesting, it's an interesting. Yeah, it's, it's a challenging one, Ken, because even if you are willing to move there and, and what that will do for your active involvement and presence in the business. Yeah, the growth is, is all going to be here. The growth is going to be on the mainland.

So it makes it. That's a tricky one. Did you want to say more? Yeah. One more thing I want to point out is for anyone out there who are thinking about buying a remote business, having everybody fully remote versus having an office, I think having an office where people actually come to work.

[01:29:06 - 01:30:52]

Kin Sio: Now are we in the hybrid model three days a week at office and all that, it helps so much on building the culture that you want. And I think people are generally like, are more acclimated to kind of like a team culture versus, you know, if everybody, everybody is going to completely remote. I find it just from talking to other agency owners who run that fully remote model. I think they are having a hard time getting the team members to the set culture that they want to build. So I think anyone who are Interested in remote business.

That should be part of the equation end of the day. I think really the people, especially for smaller businesses, the people and the quality are very important to help your business succeed. So unless you're buying a really big business where it matters less anymore, it matters so much on the quality of the team, the quality of all the employees and the culture that they built. So I think they have a good culture in terms of collaboration and high care for the customers and all that. So I intend to carry on that.

And I. I think it's going to be very hard to maintain that if this is like a completely remote setting. So. Yeah. And speaking about the culture, how are you finding yourself blending with the culture?

It takes time. I think people on the island, they always will keep in skeptical eyes on someone from the mainland. The good part is me being an Asian. I think buying a business in like running a business in Hawaii as an Asian is probably like the best state you could be doing that in America. Like because there's.

[01:30:52 - 01:31:07]

Will Smith: So there's such a big Asian population. Yeah. They have like probably like half of the population Asians. So I think that helped me tremendously because I, you know, hey, on my aloha shirts, I'm on the island, people can tell the difference. At least I robbed the bat.

[01:31:07 - 01:31:27]

Kin Sio: Right. So that would help. Okay. And what about your just personal ability as a leader, as a business owner? For the first time, you've now fully completed this hard pivot from cookie cutter employee to business owner.

[01:31:28 - 01:31:48]

Will Smith: How's that feel? It's a drinking from a fire hose. Because interesting about buying a business is after. It's a very exhausting process of closing the deal. And after the process, you are immediately off to run another long marathon of running the business.

[01:31:48 - 01:32:24]

Kin Sio: So there's no break in between. So I think for anyone out there, just pace yourself. Because once you know that closing day obviously worth celebration, but like, you know, the, the longer race happens right after. Right. So I think kind of I'm still in at this stage of.

I'm thinking about the way I'm post acquisition. Right. I'm kind of in the stable. I. I think about the three phases of how you have to stabilize, optimize and you amplify the business.

Right. So I'm kind of like getting stabilize, optimize and amplify. Correct. Is that a Cody Sanchez thing or is that you come up with it? It's a kin thing.

[01:32:24 - 01:32:33]

Will Smith: It's a kin thing. It's a good thing, Ken. Yeah. So I think kind of I'm Taking the first three. You know, I just wrapped up my month number three.

[01:32:33 - 01:33:49]

Kin Sio: Right. I think I'm kind of getting through the stabilized phase now, getting into the optimized phase of, you know, I want the team to be able to having, you know, more processes to be able to be more efficient. Right. Doing what they do. Because right now, small business, you will normally find that we have good quality people who can handle the day to day, but there's still things that could fall through the cracks.

I think that's kind of where I could come in. Using my experience to build some process improvement, making sure that there are process to help team feel more secure of doing what they do every day. Only getting to that point, then I feel more comfortable of going all in on sales and marketing to, to, to amplify the business. So I don't want to burn out the team by just, you know, doing the right of the bat. I think it just going to take some time.

I think you, your guest always talk about the J curve. Right. I think you have to embrace the J curve. Taking that investment, taking that time to stabilize, making sure that the team is ready for the bigger thing down the road and. But you are seeing improvements that you can make levers you can pull that that are relevant to your own experience, correct?

[01:33:49 - 01:34:31]

Will Smith: Yeah. Good.

Speaking of the J curve, can you share with us how much you're paying yourself? Reminding, reminding the audience that, you know, in the good tech years, you were making upwards of 400 between 3 and $400,000.

What's life look like today? Yeah, right now I'm paying my base salary of 100 grand. Almost planning lower than that. But I think part of the SBA calculation they will have to give, you know, they will kind of require like a base salary to make sure that your global cash flow works not just within the business, but also kind of your entire financial life. Right.

[01:34:31 - 01:37:33]

Kin Sio: So they're going to be mandate you with some base salary that you need to take. So we landed at 100 grand and then if everything stabilized and all that, after the seller note payment, SBA loan payments, I'll be getting close to where I was making back in the tech life. And that's not considering any sort of additional growth of the company office. So you mean, you mean what the business earns minus now the new SBA loan, minus now the new seller note. So these are expenses that you have that of course the previous owners did not.

Yeah. The remaining SD would be approaching what you were earning in Techland. Yeah, but you're not going to take. You're not going to sweep that out of the account because you're going to reinvest, correct? Yeah.

And I. And I think it's going to be critical to invest that. Not just because I want to grow the business. Right. When the sellers love the company, there are many things because of the sellers.

They could be doing things efficiently in terms of what their skill set are and they trust with the employees and all that. When they're gone, those things wouldn't be carried over to the new owner. So now I'm coming in, I have to pay extra to come and say for processes that, you know, I wouldn't want to take. For example, back then, sellers were taking all the financial operations or the bookkeeping on their own. It's the part that I didn't want to touch.

So I have to hire a bookkeeper for that. I had to hire somebody who's specialized in account receivables, collection. So lights on usually run on an invoice, net 30 and all that. Many times clients don't pay at day 45 or day 60. So we have a very long cash flow cycle until money is coming back.

So I definitely see the needs where we need somebody actively collecting AR after that net 30 mark to be able to kind of accelerate the cash flow. So those are the things that the sellers didn't have to do, but I would have to do to make sure that I maintain the health. It's almost like getting the business back to table stick. So you have additional investment for that and then now you have the team members. Right?

I think some team members, many times as part of the acquisition, they'll be expecting retention, bonus adjustment and all that. So those also needs to be taken into consideration. So that is going to be additional investment to just keep the table stake. Right. That's not the investment before I can take the company to the next level.

So those are the things that should be kept in mind for buying business. I think I did plan for some of that, but it's always going to be beyond what you would estimate. It's such a good point. It's such a good point. I love that you're saying, you know, this is.

[01:37:33 - 01:38:15]

Will Smith: This isn't exactly even J curve. This is. This is just to get the business back to zero. Where the other owners had is likely going to require new expense, people wanting raises, new, you know, a bookkeeper or collections person. And that.

So that, that's just to get things back to zero. Not even. That's. That that is even really qualify as Investing in growth. Yep.

Great point. But. But actually, Ken, I don't understand something why you don't want to deal with the collections just because somebody else is better equipped to do that. But that's not. That's not really a new expense because the sellers were paying themselves to do that.

[01:38:16 - 01:38:24]

Kin Sio: You mean for the account receivables? Yeah, yeah. And all the bookkeeping. I mean, they were doing that. You factored in their hours.

[01:38:24 - 01:38:32]

Will Smith: So part of their salary arguably went to that. Correct. So I. So when I post acquisition. Right.

[01:38:32 - 01:39:52]

Kin Sio: I was trying to do that for a month or so myself. Right. I think compared to the sellers myself. Right. Obviously there are going to be lots of like ramping up from my side of.

To. To your point, kind of, you know, just back to zero. Right. I think many things I have to catch up. So I had to pick my battle.

Right. I think I had the expectation that I could be doing the financial operations myself right off the bat. But soon after the first month I realized that like if I'm going to be spending like, hey, it could be the sellers spending probably like three hours a week just doing that versus me. Now I have to spend like 20 hours doing that. I gotcha.

I just think it's like my time is better used somewhere else.

And by hiring the. Right. I actually end up hiring System six. I think actually the sponsors for this show are super, super helpful. Just for the sponsors out there, you know, great.

System six, what they do. We've mentioned practically half of my sponsors in this episode. Let's just go for the whole group. I talked to Espen, Nick Sharo, I talked to Oberly, I talked to System six. I talked to.

So I think I tap into all the sponsors. So just, you know, for the sponsors out there, like, you know, sponsorship here does work. Oh, beautiful, Ken. Wow. Thank you.

[01:39:52 - 01:40:07]

Will Smith: Thank you so much for saying that. So, yeah, so I think having those vendors coming in are not just going to be bringing us to back to zero. I think they professionalize what they can do. Actually that is going to amplify again, improve the processes. Right.

[01:40:07 - 01:41:04]

Kin Sio: I think so. You know, the sellers were not accountant or CP or anything. So I think they are doing the bookkeeping. You know, I say normal business owner level. Right Now I'm having system 6 actually doing lots of bookkeeping.

I think what they could do and what they've been doing is already improving our financial operations. That wasn't there in the past. Account receivables. Right. There wasn't a process in place to actively like ping the phone to Ask, you know, clients to pay nicely.

Not almost like, not a collection situation, but I think by just deploying somebody doing AR specifically for collection, I'm already seeing the payment cycle being shortened from 45 to 60 now getting closer to 30. So those are the things that I think is money well spent, and I think those are going to be absolutely required if I want to get into the amplify phase of my business growth. Great point. Thank you for that, Ken. And just to say to.

[01:41:04 - 01:42:18]

Will Smith: To piggyback on the point of getting back to zero is more expensive for you, or it just requires more money in that isn't even grow isn't even investment in growth. Just getting back to zero. Another feature of that is this time component. I've taken to calling it seller hours. So if, you know, one seller hour really is three hours for a normal human, because they're so used to it, you know, it's like dog years, right?

They're so used to it, they've done it. They built the process themselves. They have muscle memory. They just get in there and knock it out. So something that takes the seller five hours is likely to take everybody else 15 or whatever.

So. So even if sellers are saying, oh, I only work 10 hours in the business, which we know is usually an exaggeration, but benefit of the doubt, let's assume that it's accurate. It's still 30 human hours. It's 10 owner hours. But 10 seller hours.

But 30 human hours. So it's so true. So just more expensive when you get in there, there's just. Just new expense just to return to zero. Correct.

Okay. Anything else, Ken? This is. This has been wonderful. You have given us a lot of great detail.

Anything that we didn't get to, I. Think we hit all the teapots.

[01:42:21 - 01:44:39]

Kin Sio: Yeah, I think I was just going to close out with this. Right. So lots of people started this path of searching for business, dreaming of that extreme ownership of life and all that. Right. And it requires extreme ownership for sure, to execute that.

Because when you're going into this world of entrepreneurship, like, no one is going to be telling you what to do, what's right, what's wrong. Like, you are your own boss. You have to propel yourself. You can come and see that with having mentors and communities and all that, but ultimately, it's going to require you doing a lot more than a job to succeed. So I think I coach and mentor a lot of people from Cody's communities and other people just around me as well.

I think lots of people had that dream. I don't think they are ready to do what it takes to reach that dream yet. So obviously I think it's a really nice future and the angle that everyone want to get but it's going to be taking I would say just 10 times harder than just working on a job to get there. So I think just expect that if you want to catch that dream, reach that dream, you're just going to be work your ass off to probably sorry for my language. But you really have to hustle to get there.

So I just don't think many people realized that. I think it's just going to be like an easy thing. I think social media influencers and all that is going to super code some of that a little bit. I think it's more. More.

Yeah. Once you get in the game I think it just take lots of patience to find the right deal. I think from your guest, I think lots of people talking about taking 12 to 18 months. I find myself lucky that I could find a deal in kind of like a six months time frame when I started doing this. Right.

This is like pure luck. So you just need that patience and keep getting beat up and come back and just keep doing more deals until you find the one. So it's 10 times harder than working my job. So I feel like out there and. So you feel like you're talking to people in the Cody community or in who are kind of orbiting or interested in ETA entrepreneurship through acquisition and you think the pattern that you see is that they underestimate what this really requires.

[01:44:39 - 01:44:50]

Will Smith: Both the search and then and the. And the ownership phase. Yes. So it's much harder than you expected or did. You were your expectations pretty much in line because you had already pretty much in line.

[01:44:51 - 01:45:59]

Kin Sio: I knew how hard it could be and now I can find how. Yeah, it's very tough. It's very challenging I think because I really want to get to where I want which is the ultimate flexibility of my life and all that be that having the full control. So I'm willing to put in all these reps to get there. So I think it's.

You just have to be ready for that. Well it's, it sounds like, pardon the business cliche but it sounds like you've identified your why very clearly which is this the flexibility for you to be with your family, for your family. And that of course is immensely valuable if you can get it especially based on you share those personal experiences being able to travel back to Asia for family when necessary. So this is a. Having this motivator crystallized in your mind is very helpful.

Yep. Yeah, Ken, if people want to reach out LinkedIn, that's where I found. That's where I found you. I saw your announcement. Yep.

[01:45:59 - 01:46:16]

Will Smith: Great. And the business is lights on digital and so you said you mentor people. I guess so is that just sort of an informal thing or what is that? It's an informal thing. So as part of Cody's community, I'm also acting as like an ambassador, which is almost like a teaching assistant for the new members.

[01:46:17 - 01:47:10]

Kin Sio: So I like giving back because I think just through this journey I got so much help from other people. Nowadays. I think what I like about doing business in America is I think lots of people are so willing to share because they have that mindset of abundance. So I think I got lots of good feedback and coaching and mentorship from people around me. So I.

I'm always more than willing to kind of give back to the community. So informal thing people, definitely. If you want to have a conversation out there, feel free to reach out to me. I don't have like official charge somebody for like program anything. I don't think I'm at that level, so.

But I'm always looking to just, you know, giving a pointers more just from a person who already works walk this process right. So I can share more from that perspective. Great. And of course, public service announcement. Everyone treat Kin's time with the respect that it deserves.

[01:47:10 - 01:47:28]

Will Smith: If in fact you ask him for a call. Yeah. Yeah. Ken Seal, thank you very much for coming on Acquiring Minds and congratulations on a really neat business, a really strong pivot in your career into extreme ownership and all that that all of that entails, the pros and cons. Thank you very much.

[01:47:28 - 01:47:38]

Kin Sio: Thank you, Will. Thank you, Will, for what you've done, what you have done. I think you are part of my success. So thank you very much for what you have been doing for the community. Appreciate that, Ken.

[01:47:39 - 01:48:26]

Will Smith: Hope you enjoyed that interview. Don't forget to subscribe to the Acquiring Minds newsletter. We send an email for every episode with an introduction to the interview, a link to the video version version on YouTube and soon key takeaways, numbers and more essentials from the interview. For those of you who don't have time to listen or watch it, subscribe at acquiringminds.co. you'll also find all our webinars there on the website.

Both those we have coming up and recordings of past webinars. At this point There are over 30 webinar recordings, a wealth of information on all the technical, nitty gritty of buying a business, acquiring minds copy.