lright everyone, this one might make you feel envious.

Like you saw in the title, today's guest Luis Aguilar is presiding over a commercial cleaning business that does $5.5m in EBITDA.

And he got there in about 14 months from quitting his W-2.

Not bad for just over a year's work.

I'm reminded of one of my observations in the 200th episode: that things can move very fast in this world.

Now, the eye-popping 5.5 number is actually the result of 2 acquisitions.

His first was a $1.5m EBITDA business — by itself a huge win for a first-time self-funded searcher.

That business grew about 50%, and meanwhile Luis acquired a second business with $3.3m in EBITDA.

And how did he find that second business?

He offered the seller of his first acquisition a finder's fee for any introductions that led to another acquisition.

Now I don't know if that's common; I don't recall another guest mentioning that tactic to me.

But wow, did it work well for Luis.

In this episode we go very deep on how Luis put together his first acquisition. Where he got the money, how he talked to different groups of investors and lenders and weighed their relative benefits.

For you deal junkies, you'll love the level of detail here.

But I think for all of you, you'll just love the story as an example of the power of buying small businesses.

Here's Luis Aguilar, CEO and president of Cy's Linen.