Key Points From the Interview
o you want to be rich?
Or do you want to be king?
You may have heard this framework, which gets at your psychology as a business owner & entrepreneur.
Are you motivated by making as much money as possible? In that case, you're the want-to-be-rich type.
Or are you willing to leave money on the table in order to retain control and protect your position as captain of the ship. You're the king type.
Today's guest is a king.
Michael Kelker did consider doing a traditional search fund, but when he landed on doing a self-funded search instead, it became clear that that was the right path for him.
His vision here crystalized: he wanted to build & hold indefinitely, with an eye toward creating a legacy business for his family.
He named the entity that he used to buy his business after his three daughters, and he jokes that it's a family office, just without any money.
And what did Michael buy?
A pallet manufacturer that did $2.5m in sales with about half a million dollars in earnings.
So you're going to learn about the pallet business today.
Which is a business that depends heavily on wood, since most pallets are constructed of it. And you may recall that lumber prices spiked during Covid. Well Michael was only a few months into the ownership of his business when he found himself in the eye of that particular storm, his raw material costs quadrupling. He tells the story and how he survived.
Here is Michael Kelker, owner of Timberline Pallet.
