Host: Sure, there are a lot of MBAs and people with finance backgrounds who buy businesses, but regular listeners of Acquiring Minds know that buyers come from every background. Today's guest, Nathan Gregory hails from the music industry. Having worked with artists like Guns N Roses, Dua, Lipa, Green Day. We spent quite a bit of time on Nathan's path to buying a business, which was a winding one, maybe like yours. Listen for a key moment in his journey when he had been searching for a home services business to buy. As you know, home services like H vac, plumbing, pest control have been popular targets among business buyers. But this direction wasn't working for Nathan and his partner. They pivoted and found a business that made more sense for them and their basket of skills. So this is also a story about business buyer fit if at all possible, which admittedly, it often isn't. But leveraging your existing skill set can be an unlock to finding a business to buy, then having success with it as its owner operator. Please enjoy this interview with Nathan Gregory, owner of the 42 year old trade magazine Auto Body News. 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. Most business buyers acquire their target company using an asset purchase, which means that you've got a brand new legal entity that needs to be ready on day one to properly employ your new team. Payroll, HR documents, tax accounts, workers comp, benefit plans like medical and 401k. You need to make sure all of that is transferred or set up on day one. Aspen HR understands this challenge and the delicate timing that searchers have to juggle. Led by a successful former searcher, Mark Sinatra, Aspen HR can assist searchers to ensure a seamless transition for the employees. If you are structuring an asset purchase, contact Aspen HR for a free consultation. They'll walk you through their proprietary checklist for asset purchases that assesses your readiness for HR, payroll and benefits. Check out aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly@markspenhr.com Nathan Gregory welcome to Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Thank you for having me.

Host: Nathan. You bought a B2B media business, a media brand targeting body shop owners. Media businesses are something that I feel pretty close to, to state the obvious, so I have been looking forward to our conversation. Please start us off, Nathan, with some background on you.

[3:05] Guest: Sure. How far back do you want me to go? I could go starting at, you know, sort of coming out of college, coming out of that age, up to this path it does, it does, it does wind its way towards there pretty interestingly. Or I could start a little more recent if you prefer.

Host: Well, what, where do you.

Guest: I'm in my late 30s for reference, so there's, there's a, there's the, the, the amount of time that that goes.

Host: Okay, well, let's not go back to the 80s. Where is the first twist in your story, your personal story, where entrepreneurship, it becomes clear entrepreneurship might be in your future.

Guest: Yeah. So I think I started entrepreneurship in a way that no one would think of entrepreneurship in my, in my late teens, I played in a touring band, I was a guitar player, and I toured the country for multiple years. And I really thought about this before we did this interview. And I felt like what motivated me then was the same as what motivates me now. And at the time I just hadn't, didn't have great context or frame of reference. So I thought it was, you know, performing and being a rock star. And really at the time, I think I was chasing two things and still to this day I chased those. It was independence and freedom. And it was also, to be honest, it was wealth and it was to build a long term big, you know, a wealthy, rich life. And so at the time I thought that was, that path would be achieved through, through touring and performing. But I ended up in Los Angeles and I'm from, I'm from the New York area. I ended up in Los Angeles. I started working in the talent management industry in 2007 and I worked with artists like Kiss and Guns N Roses and Darius Rucker because we managed Hooting the Blowfish and launched him in the country. And so it was a small company run by a very successful person in the, in the music industry. And so I learned a lot from him about how to be both scrappy but also deal with very high profile situations and people because you're, you know, management companies are inherently really small businesses, oftentimes really high revenue businesses, but very small in terms of people. And so that was really my first exposure to entrepreneurship on my. Both on my own and then also working with, working with and working for entrepreneurs.

Host: Nathan, let me hop in. This is fascinating history. So I knew you'd been in entertainment, but I'm not sure I knew that. So, so when you were working kind of for, as a client, Guns N Roses, let's say, or a Darius Rucker or Kiss, what years were those? Did you say? Was that, did you say 2007?

Guest: 7, 8, 9, 10, that kind of range? Yeah.

Host: Okay. Okay, great. And did you have direct exposure to those people?

Guest: Oh, absolutely. I would be on the road with them, I would email with them, I would call with them, I would. You know, we were their. Their managers. When you hear of the concept of an artist and their manager. Yeah, that was us.

[6:10] Host: Okay.

Guest: And so we, so we helped and, you know, in working with an artist like Kiss, for example, taught me a ton about branding, about licensing. That was when I first got my exposure to working with, you know, corporate America and partnering with brands in. In bringing a brand to partner with an artist. And. And so it was really. It was really trial by fire. There was no playbook for these things. There was no college program that it came out of. I studied music recording technology, which really couldn't apply less to anything that I do today, other than recording this podcast with you, Will. But other than that, you know, that that's how it got started.

Host: Cool. And. And just curious, for somebody who's been with around celebrities, are they just normal people? Are they pre Madonnas? Does it depend. Can you. Is there any interesting takeaway or generalization you can make about the royalty of our modern society?

Guest: Well, you know, the.

Host: The.

Guest: The later part of my entertainment career, I worked with a lot more contemporary celebrities, and they were a bit different. You know, one thing I noticed with working with, we'll call them heritage artists, artists who have been successful for decades is in order to do that, you have to be incredibly professional. So there's a lot of stories about the experience and the craziness and that that might have occurred decades and decades ago, but my experience was generally that they were incredibly professional, incredibly focused on. On their brand, their. Their. Their career, what it meant to be an artist to the fans, that. That looked up to them. And. But there was also the fair share of craziness, that's for sure.

Host: Cool. Yeah. Really, really interesting. Well, I'm sure there are many more stories to tell, but maybe not for a podcast about acquiring expenses.

Guest: Yeah, I think, you know, I could definitely connect it back to how we end up with, you know, years later, acquiring a B2B media business. And really, it was these different experiences along the way that. That led us in this direction.

Host: Great. Yeah. Well, and. But just one other point on this backstory of yours. The being in a band to pursue the same goals that you find yourself now as an entrepreneur, being your kind of North Star is independence and freedom and then wealth. That's interesting. You know, often the. The person in the. In a band is not pursuing kind of entrepreneurial goals, but a young person in a band, but status being desirable to the, to the gender that they're interested in.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, that's why I stick with it because I.

Host: Being cool.

Guest: Yeah, that's what for. For me it was, it wasn't all those things. You know, it was fun, but that wasn't the driver. And so once it ended, I said, okay, time to turn the, Turn the page. New chapter.

Host: Either pick us up there or fast forward as the case may be. As it relates to the topic of today's discussion, your entrepreneurial.

[9:05] Guest: Well, it's happened, it's happened twice in my, in my life where I've gotten really disillusioned with the music industry industry and the craziness of it. So at that early stage, I, you know, I, I was approached by a tech startup to come join them. And that was about 2011. And so I went to that company and never really having worked in tech at all before, but it really, you know, in, in working in that company, which was small, it really taught me about professionalizing, you know, sales, sales operation, a pipeline, marketing, building and willing a company into existence. And it was really hard work. There was a lot of things we did wrong. There were some things we did right. But it was, it was an incredible learning experience for me. And you know, some of the. And that was a brief time. That was only about a year. Well, but even in that period of time, there's some relationships that have come from that that persist to this day. So after that I said, look, I don't know anybody in this world. And I felt like I was, I was out alone on an island in terms of a network, in all of my network was back in the music industry. So I did rejoin the music industry in 2013. And mind you, well, in the back of my mind, I always felt like I needed to do my own thing. I just didn't know what it was or how to get there. Acquiring a business is. Is really a concept that, that would just be very foreign to, to almost anybody. It's a very unusual concept for, for, for most people. And so it's really just you start a business or you work somewhere. And I never really felt like starting a business or never had the right kind of ideas. And so I joined one of the major Hollywood talent agencies, Creative Artists agency, back in 2013. And so I ended up working there for 10 years. And what I focused on there was, was, was doing brand partnership deals for, for celebrity music talent. So agents, like managers also represent the artists. And you know, as a talent agency, you specialize in the touring of artists. And what I did in my department, we handled the brand partnership. So, you know, these are, this is for artists like, you know, I did deals for artists like Dua Lipa or Green Day or Kelsey Ballerini or Avril Lavigne, Ice Cube, Keith Urban, Meghan Trainor, you know, on and on Ludacris, you know, last year in the Super Bowl, I had a client, you know, in a commercial. And so those were the kinds of things that, that I was doing while discovering the world of entrepreneurship and business acquisition that I was working on, building up my, my skill set and ultimately the plan to, to acquire something on the side.

Host: Great, Nathan. So you're back in the entertainment business now on, as an, on the agency side as opposed to the management side. I don't know if my vocabulary is correct there. How does that then lead to finally becoming the entrepreneur you are today?

[12:01] Guest: So all while the time I was at caa, I, I really got to a point after a few years that I was looking for that entrepreneurial path. And I thought, I thought initially that might be through real estate. So in 2017, I started acquiring and flipping raw land parcels. It taught me how to directly reach out to people, taught me how to then take something, package it, sell it online, know it was profitable. I took the money and just stopped doing that after about a year and, and I started acquiring commercial multifamily real estate here in Southern California. And that's when I, I partnered up with someone who's, who's my partner to this day to do this. We acquired, you know, one property, did a huge value add, sold it, acquired another bigger property. And this is now brings us to, you know, probably 20, 2019 or 2018, I think with that or 2019, but in the time that we were, that we were doing the real estate, I also started an e commerce business in the end of 2018. And this really is what laid the groundwork for helping me understand how to, how to run a business, which again led to ultimately the acquisition.

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Guest: The world of Amazon FBA was exploding. Everyone, it seemed like, was launching brands that were quickly growing, selling products on Amazon for, for those who don't know, FBA means fulfilled by Amazon. So when you buy something, Amazon prime delivers it to you, usually it's a, it's a merchant who's selling their product on the platform and ultimately paying Amazon to store and pick pack and ship the product to you. And so it's, it's a very great, it's a great platform to launch a physical product into the world without needing a whole lot of infrastructure. And it's, it's incredibly competitive and incredibly difficult and it's probably gotten a lot harder over the years, but at the time it was, it was difficult and when it was hard, but I felt like this was a great path. And so I developed of all things, a beer koozie brand where, you know, you have, think about a T shirt will that says a phrase that you resonate with. We basically took that approach to koozies and we would, we would sell koozies for 40th birthday parties and 50th birthday parties and retirements and you know, bachelorette parties and things like that. And it was a real evolution. It started with sourcing product in the US Figuring that out, having people come to my house and put it in packages and send it in boxes to Amazon to then ultimately evolve to finding a factory in China, shipping product overseas to, to a port here in the US and then having it trucked to a warehouse, stored, sent to Amazon fulfilled through Amazon and other and Walmart and Etsy and things like that. And so it grew, it grew to be a seven figure business and I ultimately sold it in 2021 to, to one of the Amazon FBA aggregators.

[16:20] Host: That's awesome. Good for you. And was it a, can you give us some sort of inkling of what this, this exit looked like for you?

Guest: It was, you know, mid, mid six figures. Ish. And, but, you know, certainly a nice, a nice accomplishment after. You know, the other thing it really taught me is that having a Business where you sell inventory and it's a growing business is really not the kind of business you want to own if you'd like cash flow. And I never, I never was able to take any money out of the business until I sold it. So I never, never actually made any money from it until it was sol old. So it was a really incredible, you know, for someone who's not like a lot of searchers coming out of an MBA program. Mine, you know, if anyone's watching on video, there's a wall of books behind me. A combination of that experience and great people that I've been able to learn from over the years has really been that, that, that in thousands of hours of podcasts like, like yours, well, that have really helped, you know, educate someone like me into a world that, that, you know, is quite new for, for someone with my background.

Host: Yeah, well, great call out, Nathan, because I'm always a little wary of, of how many MBAs I have on the pod and MBAs from some of the, the most prestigious schools because I don't want people to think that it's just for that ilk. It's definitely not. They may have an advantage. They may have had a lot of finance classes that the rest of us have not, but there are. So anyway, I'm really glad that you, you and you can be an autodidact as you have been, Nathan, and demonstrate success. Thank you for highlighting that. So you sell, you sell the koozie business. Where were we?

[18:16] Guest: Sell the koozie business. So we were, you know, this, this overlaps with our search. So really we started the idea and when I say we. So I have a partner, Paul, who I mentioned a little earlier with the real estate. And you know, around 2019, I. Again, you know, if you're an MBA student or alumni listening to this, you're going to roll your eyes because it seems overly simplistic. But for me, it was a new insight. Um, when you own commercial real estate, it's really a magical way to, to increase net worth. And I realized, oh, that's what private equity people do with businesses. And I see. And now I'm hearing about people doing that with small businesses and doing leverage buyouts. What an amazing model. This is what we have to do because real estate is great, but it's not making us enough cash flow to, to be super meaningful. So we need to acquire a business. And at that time, you know, I was searching, I was searching for information. I read all the same books that we always talk about that everyone knows this is when the gurus come in. I did take one of the lesser helpful courses where it was the no bunny down type business acquisition. And you know, in hindsight, knowing what I know now and even what I kind of knew at the time, you know, the way these, these courses are positioned, you know, it certainly is appealing to just about anyone who wouldn't want something for no money, something of value. Then I found a group that was used to be called Kingmakers and changed their name to Acquirer, which you might be familiar with, some listeners might be familiar with. Fantastic group. It's really a mentorship. They do have a course, but it's really more or less, you know, nuts and bolts kind of education of how to acquire a business. And I found that the, the peer aspect of the group, the, the, the, the, the education but, but the education was, was really just a small part of it. It's really just the peer aspect of the group was, was a really helpful thing. You know, getting on weekly calls with everyone talking about your progress. I think really in about 2021, but really it was 2019, 2020, we started thinking about it and started getting familiar with what we wanted to do and what we wanted to acquire. I'm sorry that it sounds like I'm going on so many tangents, Will, but we did acquire another small business in 2020. The timeline of all this stuff overlaps, but we acquired a digital media publisher business in 2020, which was really fortuitous because it gave us a lot of understanding that we're using today in a much bigger, more established media business. And so really as we went into 2021.

[21:15] Host: Nathan, can I stop you?

Guest: Did you.

Host: Please. I know that experience wasn't your favorite, but is there anything that you want to share about that little acquisition other than that you learned a lot of kind of online marketing SEO about from it going.

Guest: You know, our, our acquisition search phases really corresponded with our cash out refinances of a large apartment building. And we did that at the end of 2019 and so we had money to look for an acquisition in 2020. Covid happened. You know, I was dealing with the, the, the e commerce business. Of course we had my partners also comes out of the music industry. So we had things going on in the music industry and we, we got cold feet about acquiring a business with an SBA loan in 2020. You know, just no one knew what the state of the economy was going to be. Yeah. And so we said we still want to acquire something, so let's acquire an online Business for all cash. And we, we did an off market search and we ended up acquiring, you know, like I mentioned, a small digital media publisher in the pet space. We still own it. It's actually you know, about three times the size that it was when we acquired it through, through some growth initiatives. But we're going through a whole, you know, sort of rebranding of it right now to turn it into a proper media business. We think it still has a lot of, a lot of growth potential. So it's still part of our portfolio and something we really want to, to grow over time. But it really kind of that, that consumed our investment capital. So then we did another refinance in 2021 and that's when we pulled out money to, to make the acquisition that we ultimately made in, in August of 2024. In 2022 we, we had bought hook, line and sinker into the concept that we need to acquire home services business for all the same reasons that a lot of people want to acquire them. And we also thought, you know, we thought we were so smart because we you know we, we owned real estate. So sure we've worked with lots of plumbers and roofers and H Vac people and everything that surely, surely we could operate one of those businesses and you know, will we really beat our head against the wall for, for a long period of time in acquirer that's really their specialty. They have, you know, they have a roll up fund as part of the, what they're doing and they're you know, they have a large H Vac portfolio with different acquisition entrepreneurs they work with and other acquirers. And so it's a real specialty of theirs. And at the end of maybe the second half of 2022 we even you know, were part of, of looking at acquiring something where they would invest equity in it alongside us. And so we were looking at a sort of a larger range where we were searching in the one and a half million EBITDA plus. So most of the businesses were five or six million and we, you know, we had a pretty winding road. We made multiple offers throughout 2022. We, we, you know, we, they didn't work out for various reasons and it was, it was a wide variety of things and everything from you know, kind of environmental consulting to a portfolio of automotive repair shops. Where I met a guy who I think was a guest of yours at one point, Brian Beers. And he helped, he helped me think through that. And so there was a very winding path and two, we got to the end of 2022. And I said, you know what, we need to stop. This isn't working. We need to revisit and figure out what's right for us. And that's where I really did a lot of deep thinking through that December to think about what are our skills, what do we really bring to the table? And so we thought, we thought, okay, what can we do in media? What can we do where there's a durable, essential business that, that has some form of media or information, just something that has that. So we went through this process in the end of 2022, coming out of 2022 into 23. That's when we said, this is our new. We're going to no more home services. That's not for us. And that required a little bit of a pivot. Will. You know, we had a little website with, you know, like, like a lot of searchers do. And so there was a little confusion with some sellers we were talking to and they're, they're running a, you know, a wedding media business. And, and they said, well, why does your website say you want to acquire a plumbing company or something and why are you talking to me? And so, you know, we were, we were sort of, it was, it was a bit bumpy. But anyway, Nathan, when you say, Nathan,

[25:57] Host: when you say B2B trade media, just explain what that is. Because it's kind of a legacy style media.

Guest: Sure.

Host: What is it?

Guest: A lot of industries like, I'll give you an example. Coming out of the entertainment industry, there's something called the Hollywood Reporter. And it comes, I think it used to come daily to people's offices in the movie and television industry. And also in the music industry, we have something called Billboard. People might be familiar with the Billboard Awards and things like that. So Billboard is a magazine, it's a website. And so people in an industry, they get news that's about their industry. It could be executives moving to different companies, it could be regulations, it's companies that are being acquired. It's new evolutions, changes in the business. People like to know about the business that they're in. And so there's hundreds of different types of trade media. Sometimes they involve data, sometimes they involve events. You know, historically people would call them trade rags or things like that, where it's just a print publication that comes monthly, weekly, daily, quarterly, whatever is, is every. Everything is a bit different. And so the reason why that was of interest to us because again, you know, we, we wanted to do a leveraged acquisition. We wanted to use debt as part of the acquisition. So we were hypersensitive to, you know, to something that would be really durable and stable. And the entertainment side of the media industry is not, is not durable or stable. It's very volatile, has very high highs, has low lows and we would not be comfortable putting debt on a business like that. Also. It's very consolidated. And so I think we somewhat violated that rule with our acquisition because there's not, it's not a fragmented industry of, of media businesses in the collision repair space. But, but, but regardless it's very fragmented in terms of hundreds and hundreds of, of business to business media businesses out there.

[28:04] Host: Well, we're going to, I want to kind of hear your thoughts too on B2B media, trade publications generally and you know, where they stand in the world and where they're going. Um, we'll get there when we talk about how you guys envision growing the business. But that, that was a great education because they are, they, they, they did, they have been such a feature of industries. The, the trade pub for that industry, which often then usually is the, is also the, the event, the annual or the semiannual event for that industry is often run by the trade pub for that industry. So and big businesses historically have been, have been built based on this business model and they're often acquisition heavy businesses that have just kind of bought up these small trade pubs into these, you know, into a Holdco or an umbrella company. Anyway, so yeah, let's carry on in the story. It's super interesting to me. So what did you find? What, what, what is the business that you found that is a trade pub?

Guest: So in, in I want to say April of 2023, we came across a business called Auto Body News, which is a 42 year old business for the automotive collision repair industry that was run by two partners in the, in the San Diego, California area. They had, they had acquired the business 16 years prior and they were, they were looking to retire. It was very similar to. You know, I'm going to take a slight tangent. Well, you know, when you're, when you're looking to acquire and a year goes by and two years goes by and you're beating your head against the wall and you think do these things really exist? The motivated seller, the healthy business, but the seller is looking to move on. And you know, you know when you know and that, that was what happened with us with this business. And we kept, we kept seeing lots of things get checked off the list. You know, you had a very healthy, durable business. It had been incredibly stable through all the years of financials that we looked at. And not only that, but it was a brand that has existed in the industry for four decades. And so we felt like that kind of like the transition to us was not about preserving the seller's legacy, but was about preserving the brand's legacy. And we felt a bit of a stewardship in that and do feel a bit of stewardship in that and that, that, that, that ownership of it. And so anyways, we came across the business sellers looking to retire. It was a broker deal. We came across it, I want to say, on Biz by Sell and you know, kind of followed the typical process we had. We had a conversation, the broker liked us, which led to conversations with the seller, which led to a meeting, which led to an offer, which, which then became an loi and ultimately a deal. And you know, the, the really frustrating thing I think for a lot of searchers was nothing went sideways in our process of acquiring it. And it still took from April to August to get, to get the deal closed. And so things just take time, unfortunately.

[31:19] Host: So the business had transacted before the existing, your sellers had themselves bought it. So that kind of does reinforce this point that you feel some kind of a responsibility, a stewardship of the brand. Yeah, but it's also often a happy sign that the business, a business can survive a transition because it's done so before. Anything more to say about that point?

Guest: Well, not only were were the owners we acquired it from, not only did they also acquire the business, but we are actually the fifth owners of the business. It was started originally by the owner of a body shop in Southern California who started a physical newsletter that was distributed locally, which then became regional magazine. And that grew over time. And the owners we brought it, bought it from, grew it to a national print publication, but multiple regions. So there's five print publications we publish every month. And then they also launched the digital aspect of the business. And so it continued to evolve over the years. And so when you, you know, when you look at a business and you're concerned about the transferability, seeing that this business had transferred several times before and it had always grown along the path, we felt very comfortable about that. And one of the team members had, you know, he had come and gone throughout the years, but ultimately he's been with the business for 25 years and so he, he can share. Oh, this is what we were doing way back in this period and this is what we were doing in this period. And so it's, it's a It's a real treasure chest of, of experiences to still dig up.

[33:00] Host: That's cool. Wow, that's really neat. Yeah, there's some, I think there's also something too about a legacy business. We, we love old businesses, the older the better, for not only just mercenary reasons, that that means that they, you know, that they've weathered storms and that they're probably more robust businesses and have staying power, but the, the romance too, to them. And, but I think there's something even more special to a media brand being old because it's, you know, it's, it's been, it has itself kind of tracked its own industry. There's just more kind of baked into the DNA of a media business, I think, than a business business. I don't know, I'm having a hard time articulating it, but I think that

Guest: for those that are, that are familiar with how online content works and in Google search engine optimization and things like that, having what's considered a high authority domain is really important. And as you know, digital, now these two things can be true. Print is important in certain industries and we find it to be desirable by the audience and desirable by advertisers. But at the same time, digital, and the growth of digital is most certainly the future of a business like this. And so the fact that there's this very long legacy brand and a name like Auto Body News, there's nothing that's more descriptive than that, that it really carried a lot of weight online. And so we felt like that would also be a great platform for growth as we continue to invest in that area. Because you have that domain authority, that brand authority that comes with such an established brand in the space. Absolutely. Something like Google will recognize that that

Host: domain name must have been registered in 1994. I mean, I don't know how savvy, how savvy the owner, whatever the owner was in the 90s, but I wouldn't be surprised if that, that domain name dates back to the 90s, which is gold, pretty cool. And, and can you give us a sense of the size of the business?

Guest: Yeah. So the business is, is, you know, when we, when we were evaluating it, we were looking at how it would look when we owned it and really wanted to think about it that way. And our evaluation of the SDE was in the mid to upper six figures, several million in revenue, extremely diversified revenue across hundreds of advertisers and a team of, well, 10 people, if you counted the seller, nine people when we took over. But we hired someone to replace certain Things that she did. So ten employees plus the two of us.

Host: Great. Well Nathan, that's aside from just my own selfish and personal interest in media. Just looking strictly at kind of the bullet points of the business. That's a very desirable business for a self funded searcher. It's, you know, you said mid upper six figures of sde so it's kind of right. The sweet spot of a self funded search. Several million of revenue. 2tr has transacted. You guys will have been the, the fifth time. So it's survived four transactions. It survived three before you bought it. Three. Three transitions 40 years old. Enduringly profitable. Really consistent. I mean, I mean there is so much to like about, about this business now. Yeah, we'll, we'll get into, you just mentioned print and digital. We'll get into whether or not a business like this, what its longevity is because it's going to need to evolve. We assume if it's still kind of relying on PR into that. But just kind of those bullet points make this seem, I mean I would, I mean seems awesome.

[36:52] Guest: We have an amazing relationship with the, the former owner and she, she did an incredible job with her partner growing it in the way that they did. Taking it from a regional business to a national business. I can't imagine how hard that must have been. And I think that what they saw in us is, you know, that next generation of enthusiasm and energy and ideas to then take the business to the next level. And I think that was a big driver in them going with us as the ultimate purchasers of it because of our, you know, we had the, we had enough experience. You know, again, it seems very separate but in the entertainment world all I dealt with was, was marketers at brands and it might have been consumer brands that were, that were, you know, spending money on celebrity and you know, sort of celebrity influencer type marketing dollars. But at the same time you're just dealing with brands who are trying to achieve a marketing objective. And that's the exact same thing that a business like this is doing with the advertisers of the business. So I, so the sellers knew that we understood how, you know, how to appreciate the advertisers, how to interact if we needed to with them. And, and that has proven to be completely seamless. And then also given our, our background with the digital media business acquisition, they felt like we also, you know, had the right, you know, even though that there's nothing significant about that, it most certainly gave us a level of education and understanding that we, we apply to this Business and has helped tremendously. There's a lot of cross learnings between the two and so I think all those things really led to them feeling really comfortable with us. And also the respect for the team, the respect for the industry and how we will approach continuing the legacy of the brand and then the growth of where it goes from here.

Host: Great. Well, we're just about to get into that, but is there anything to say on the terms of the deal and the transition, the immediate transition after you transacted?

[39:08] Guest: You know, it was fairly straightforward, you know, like a lot of these deals, a combination of SBA debt, you know, some, some seller debt and equity. So there's nothing, nothing out of the ordinary creative that came from that. And then in terms of the, the transition, we had the seller stay with us for a month full time and then part time for another five months. So. So really she's just now kind of, you know, being able to, to fully move into her retirement.

Host: Great. And, and when did you close?

Guest: August 1st.

Host: A media business, even a print media business, seems like one that could be run remotely because you're at least communicating with your staff over. I mean you're just able to communicate with your staff or not. You don't have to be in the room with them. But this did actually happen to be local to you. So what's the relationship of physical place and geography to this business?

Guest: So during, during COVID most of the staff started working remotely. We have a team member, you know, the business is in California, we have a team member in New Jersey, so he's always worked remotely and they got really used to that, which also gave Paul and I a lot of comfort that everyone's used to working remotely and the business is about, on a good day, about a two hour drive. If anyone has ever, anyone lives in Southern California or has driven in Southern California, you know that the traffic can fluctuate quite significantly. And so we felt like it was close enough. We're there every week for a couple days and it's about a block away from the ocean, so it's a wonderful location. And most of the team still works partially remote, partially in the office. We've already done some things to further enhance that, move things into the cloud that were locally hosted, things like that, to make the work from home experience even better for the staff and for us, you know, spending most of our time not at the office.

Host: Well, you say moving things into the cloud. So as I recall from the pre call, there's actually a physical server in the office. So there is even though it's using

Guest: technology no longer, we've gotten rid of the physical server, so everything is in the cloud now. Yeah, so there was things like that that we, you know, hadn't really experienced before. But it was, it was, in the, in hindsight, not really that difficult of a transition. It's just, you know, just something new for people. But yeah, so there's, there's a bit of those kind of technological things from the operational side that we're, you know, continuing to upgrade. But, you know, that said, there, there's, you know, there's certainly an approach to, you know, not changing things when you come into a business. And we were very cognizant that, cognizant of that. But, but really saw that through two lenses. There's changing things outwardly and changing things inwardly. And the part that we really wanted to be most focused on was not changing things outwardly. We wanted the audience to be, you know, unaware that a transaction had even really occurred. And, you know, Paul and I, having worked in the entertainment industry, we're famous people. We have no interest in being famous and being well known. And so there was talk about, oh, do you guys want to put a big thing on the front page of the magazine that you're. They said, no, no, we don't. We want, this is about the audience. We want this to be about them. They don't care about us. They don't, they don't care who owns Auto Body News. And we carry that audience first approach to this business. That's how you run in the entertainment business. You have to, you have to be focused on the audience. And that's how we approach this. And so we didn't want to be changing things outwardly, and we also didn't want to be changing too much, too fast inwardly. But there were things that we felt had to be improved and updated and couldn't help ourselves and had to, had to do those things. So we've made a number of those changes in the first six months. But the only outward, outward things that have, that have occurred have really just been improvements around the, the web presence. So. Yeah, great.

[43:34] Host: Nathan. Well, before we get into your thoughts and vision around a trade publication, being the owner and operator of a trade publication now, let me just understand how you guys were thinking about the economics of this. So you're partnering so that you've partnered, you've referred to Paul now a few times, means that you're going to be, you know, splitting the economics here. And so, so while this sounds like a Solid business, call it over $500,000 of SDE divided by two. That's a lot. You know, that's not as big a number. And, and you also have sources, you know, you've, you've built a real estate portfolio that you've been able to tap to make this acquisition. So you have other holdings and maybe sources of income. So give us a picture of what your, your kind of economic, how you're running things economically. Are you guys paying yourselves out of the business? Is this something where you and kind of, what's your plan? Yeah, give us a picture of all that, please.

Guest: Sure. So, I mean we, we through luck and good planning, I guess have built up other streams of income mainly through real estate, also through the other, the other business that we acquired. And so it gave us a good foundation to not have to have any particular salary target that we're looking for. We're looking at this business as a long term hold. We, we are committed to this industry. We think, you know, we think there's a lot of improvement that can be done in terms of the information that's needed in this industry. So we're in it for the long term. We own it through a holding company. So you know, the mechanics of that, you know, make it a little bit different. But, but ultimately we, you know, we do distribute money out of the business into the holding company where, where Paul and I are paid out of. But we're, we're the owners and operators of the business. So we, we do run it and are, are planning to do that for a while. And I don't know if that directly answers your question, but ultimately it wasn't a binary switch where we have a job now, we're leaving the job now. I did have a job and I have left the job. But. And so that income obviously has shut off and that was a good healthy income. It was definitely a golden handcuff situation. But you know, we've always been pretty, you know, modest about spending. So all the time know, sort of extra income was just going into investments and acquisitions. And so it's really, you know, it just sort of shifts things a bit. So it wasn't, it wasn't a dramatic lifestyle change other than, you know, the actual work that was, there was a dramatic lifestyle change, but other than that, that's sort of how we're, how we've approached the finances and how we pay ourselves.

[46:29] Host: Okay, great. Now let's get into the kind of frame of mind of buying a media business. I feel like to do a media Business, well, you have to have more of an interest in the topic than if you buy directly a business in a particular industry. So in your case, I feel like if you, let's say you found an actual body shop to buy and own, I feel like you could, you don't need quite the same passion for the subject matter of, of running a body shop to do that versus to, to actually now own a media business covering body shop ownership. Because you, you know, part of being a media business is, is just, is, is curiosity, is enthusiasm. You know, I, I think I, I, I, I do acquiring minds half decently because I love the subject matter and I think to do a media business, well you gotta, you gotta got to have that, that kind of X factor. And so anyway, react to that. What do you, what do you think about that?

Guest: Yeah, there's, there's a lot that I think about that. So I think in many ways we're better suited for this industry than some of the other publishers in this space. And I'll say that because we're entrepreneurial owners and because of that we are. I mean, for myself, I'm relentlessly curious and I think it's just also been ground into us, as I mentioned a minute ago, to be audience focused. And so I am naturally replace the word audience with customer. Like I'm just naturally very curious about what a customer or an audience wants, what their struggles are, what they're dealing with and what do they need or what do they need to know. And traditionally media businesses have, you know, editors and writers and we have editors and writers and they're experts in the industry. And so, so on one hand we're not writing the content, I'm not writing anything, and I'm not the one designing the editorial strategy. You know, that's again, you know, as we're going through due diligence, you're looking for certain things that our red flags and making sure that there was, you know, the seller of the business was, was not involved with the editorial really much at all. She was dealing with sales, advertising, sales. And so the editor who was there before, who's there now in the, the team of industry expert writers, you know, is all still there. So the, the nuanced understanding of the industry is, is certainly something that was part of the business and, and is part, and it continues to be part of the business and something that we're going to continue to expand. And so for me it's more of a puzzle. It's more about what does the audience want? How do we better Understand the daily life of this audience and how do we deliver them even better, richer, wider, deeper information that makes their lives better, their job better, their business better. And so regardless of the industry, that, that makes me really curious. Now I want to touch on something else is we had a trial by fire. So there's a. There's a big automotive aftermarket conference called SEMA that's in Las Vegas every November. And so that is like the, the pinnacle of, of coverage and meetings with advertisers that occur for this business. And so we were, you know, felt that pressure, acquiring this business in August, knowing that November was looming. And so, so A, we had to hire a new salesperson who's, who's a total rock star. So we have a new person who's in place that has handled all of the accounts that the previous owner had. But B, we, we knew we had to have a presence there. And so we met with. We probably had about 30 or 40 meetings over the course of the week. So it was an exhausting week. But we met with everyone from senior leaders to all the different companies. So when I say companies like companies that make paint that go on cars or make the things that lift, you know, the car lifts and the technology, you know, cars have tremendous amount of technology in them now. All these different people, we met with tons of people, and what they wanted to know was, are you guys committed to this industry? Are you, you know, fly by night or are you serious about this? And so our job was to impress upon them that we're new to the collision repair industry, we're not new to the media industry, but we're going to take a better approach to this than we feel anyone is doing in the space. And so you can trust us, you can rely on us. And that's worked. You know, we've built some great relationships already. We've been in this business for six months, in this industry for six months. And we're going to be at a conference, so we're recording this on January 12th, and we're going to be at a conference in the next week with more of these people. And so, you know, they wanted to know that we're committed to the industry and like you said, passion for it. You know, in an industry like collision repair, you know, people are not passionate necessarily about someone wrecking their car. It's a traumatic moment in someone's life. But what. Where there is passion, there's passion in developing new people in the industry. So technicians, technician shortage, which is the same thing that's occurring in home services, where no one can find people to work in those industries. That same thing is happening in collision repair. And so there's a big focus on mentorship, on customer commitment and they're certainly not the case across everywhere. But um, we felt like it's a very, a very positive industry where, I hate to say it, but there's a lot of cynicism in the entertainment industry. And so there's just a lot of, unfortunately a lot of just negative feed, negative people, negative frames of mind. And so that, that is a big refreshing change for us in this industry. Even though on the surface people might say, ah, music collision repair. How, how can you possibly be more interested? And it's really not about that, Will. It's just about being obsessed with the audience and over delivering for them.

[52:56] Host: Well that. I love that at the very end there, Nathan. That's such a good encapsulation of how to think about a media business. Is, is, and really any business. Just fall in love with your audience and, and become curious about them and kind of the rest follows. And, but, but interesting to hear that these advertisers of, of, of your media brand. What's the name of the business again? Auto Body News. Was that it?

Guest: Auto Body News?

Host: Yeah, the advertisers, the accounts that Auto Body News has as advertisers that they did want to, that they did press you to demonstrate to hear you say, no, we're, we're going to become part of this industry in a way that maybe if you had bought an auto body shop or bought an H vac business, you wouldn't have had the same kind of, you know, hey, but do you care about this industry? Kind of confront, confrontational question put to you. So, so there is, there is an element, I think of what I'm saying that passion is expected for people who are on the media side of any business.

Guest: I think of the commitment is what was expected, not as much the passion. And, and you know, we, we saw an industry and it wasn't, it wasn't, this wasn't an issue or anything with this particular business. It's just something we see across a lot of legacy B2B media businesses. Not the newest, most innovative ones, but a lot of legacy ones. It's incredibly thin content because those businesses are entirely advertiser driven, which, which we are as well. But I think especially in a world of print where, you know, the more ads you put in the magazine, the more profit you make. So what would be the perfect magazine? A magazine with all ads and no editorial. So that's the incentive of a publisher. And so those incentives over time have in my opinion really reduced the quality of content. And here comes two guys from the entertainment industry where if you put out a song and it flops, you have no customers, you have no audience. And so you have to always be focused on. You can't sell tickets, you can't get a brand to want to sponsor you. And so relentlessly focusing on the audience and connecting with the audience is in our DNA. And so we're bringing that to this business. And because of that naturally that excites the advertisers because the audience is more engaged and there's more of them. And everything that our metrics that advertisers care about is all there. And so we know that the best thing we can do is, is care deeply about the audience and then also over deliver for our advertisers. And so it's really, you know, it just can be simplified.

[55:46] Host: Is that well, perfect transition into hearing about what you think the opportunities are so in, in auto body news. But, and, but you know, maybe generalizably generalizable across all B2B legacy media. What's the growth plan? What do you, what do you see as the big opportunity?

Guest: You know, for us, we look at it competitively and we think for us to win in this industry and not always the case, there's different playbooks you can run. But for us the playbook is going to go, is to be, to go narrow and to go deep. And so we're instead of being horizontal with a lot of media brands that service similar industries, we want to go really deep on this industry. And that might mean more acquisitions, it might, you know, within this to bolster what our, what our offering is. But ultimately we think that that is our path for, for this business. And in terms of if others are looking for, for B2B media businesses, there's, there's a few things you want to look for. So obviously some of the things we talked about already, you know, the, the, the durability of the brand, obviously health, just healthy, healthy fundamentals of a business. But more than that, the nuances that you want to look for is if it's a business that's advertiser supported, one thing that you really want to want to have is an industry that has heavy capex investments. And so in the collision repair that means the shops that read our content, they have to acquire big equipment. And if there's big equipment, that means there's companies that need to spend more money to advertise that equipment. And because their, their, you know, sales are so large, because they're selling large pieces of equipment, they can, you know, the cost to acquire a customer can be very large and still be profitable for them. So if you're advertiser supported, having an industry that has that component is, is important. The other thing that I love to say we were smart enough to, to purposely look for this, but in hindsight it's a real benefit is we're in an industry that is evolving tremendously. You know, years ago cars didn't have cameras on them. Now they all have cameras on them. So when you wreck your car, those cameras have to be calibrated. There's, you know, the percentage of EVs on the road is growing. Everything is changing. And so if you're in the, in the repairing cars business, you have this constant need for information, updated education. You need to know what's going on. You need to know how things are changing. It's not a stagnant industry. If it's a stagnant industry, you know, it's sort of hard to justify constantly putting out new content because it's hard to find things to talk about. But in this industry it's, there's, there's no shortage of things to talk about whatsoever.

[58:31] Host: Great, great points. So high capex industry and an industry that is fluid so that there's something to write about, there's something to cover.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: And, and by the way, I love, I love your high capex point. I'll just steal your thunder here account. A kind of contrast example that you gave me on our pre call was like, you know, a trade publication for private equity people.

Guest: Yeah, right.

Host: And you'd be like, wow, there's a lot of money in private equity in all these rich people, but they don't spend money other than the actual, actual acquisitions that they do. You know, they, they spend money on, you know, airfare and laptops and, and so there's not a lot of capex there. So it's actually maybe not. Despite the fact that your audience might kind of control wealth, they're not actually deploying it into what advertisers might, you know, be paying you.

Guest: Yeah. And the businesses that succeed in those industries are data subscription. Yeah, Business models, typically.

Host: Yeah, data, data.

Guest: You know, that's, they're less, they might have some advertisers, but it's not their predominant source of revenue.

Host: And so Nathan, with Auto Body News, what is the, can you share like the pie chart of revenue breakdown?

Guest: It's a healthy balance between digital and print. And it's a combination of automotive dealerships across the country who sell wholesale parts. So those are all regional advertisers of ours. So they sell. So you know, you need to buy, you need to get Toyota parts at your shop. So you get them from a local Toyota dealership, so they advertise. And then there's also national advertisers, which are the paint companies and paint gun companies and technology calibration companies and Lyft companies and all the companies that produce products that are used in the shops. And so it's a real balance between the dealership selling parts and the capital equipment required to have a shop and to sustain ongoing operations.

[1:00:37] Host: And so did the business. As we have said, one of the classic assets for a B2B business, a trade pub, to have under the umbrella is an event. Oftentimes they have the industry event. Was there ever an event that was part of this port, part of the portfolio of this business?

Guest: No, no events in this business. But, you know, given our deep background in touring and events, you might see something from us in the future twinkle

Host: in your eye there, Nathan.

Guest: Yeah, it could, it could be, it could be something we do. But, but no, there's. There's never been that in the past.

Host: Well, you know, obviously if you can pull that off, that adds a lot of value to the business and kind of one fell swoop. Not, not easy to pull off. Events are hard, but they can be incredibly lucrative if they're successful.

Guest: Never understood why, though, that it adds. Because again, you know, when I, when I was part of CAA, our clients performed 35,000 concerts a year. Okay. And, you know, a concert is not. Is an event and it's nothing like recurring revenue. And for some reason, event businesses are, you know, valuable. And I've never quite understood why, because it's a. Every event is an enormous push to happen. It's not an inevitable thing that happens like some other types of service or subscription revenue, but for some reason they are. But people love events. We love events. So I think it's in the future and maybe we'll benefit from some of that growth. But yeah, I've never quite understood the reason for that.

Host: Well, I think there are some important caveats there, Nathan, which might answer your question. Which is, which are, you know, events can be incredibly lucrative businesses or business assets. It's not to say they all are. There are lots of weak and failed events. But when you have, when you have a hit event, the economics are just, you Got a lot of people paying for tickets and you got sponsors paying big money. And the delta between your, you know, your income and your expenses is really wide but there. And so that's, you know, that's why they can. And if they, and if it's in a growing industry tailwinds, they can become really big events as we have all heard of like giant events in Vegas for computer industry back in the day or whatever for. I don't know what it would be for today. Obviously something tech related. On the other hand, they are fundamentally marketing exercises. So they're also extremely vulnerable to economic. The vagaries of the larger economy. And then of course the, the industry itself. So. So yeah, volatility comes with, comes with it, you were going to say.

[1:03:23] Guest: Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's more an evaluation standpoint. You know, the more, you know, when, when more sophisticated companies are looking to acquire media assets, they typically apply different multiples to different types of income and event income is one of the highest multiple forms of, of income. Which I think that's more what I was referring to is. I just don't quite understand why because it's really. You don't know if it's going to work until right until it happens and then it's okay because a lot of people don't buy tickets to the last minute or things like that. And so it's. It. But whatever. That's what the market. Totally what the market is placed on it. But I never quite understood that.

Host: No, and I don't either. That's a, that's a fantastic point. Even though they can be very lucrative, I would, I would consider it low quality revenue.

Guest: Right?

Host: It's not high quality revenue.

Guest: The.

Host: So for a guy who might be interested in B2B media acquisitions, you know, you find this business but you actually find it because you're looking locally on Biz by Sell. Right. You didn't.

Guest: So it just happened. Yeah, it just happened.

Host: So the, the question is, Nathan, like I don't feel like. Even though you said there are hundreds and hundreds of titles out there, which I, I know to be true, I mean there's basically, there's basically a title for almost, almost any industry of any real size. I don't feel like they transact. I don't feel like I see them after our conversation. Actually, I think even before we talked, I'd looked for media assets businesses on Biz by Sell. Just not even, you know, not putting a geographic filter, just looking across Biz by Sell found very Very little scant opportunities. Yeah, so, so even though it's an industry that kind of ostensibly is fragmented, lots of industries with lots of legacy B2B media, it doesn't actually feel like it's easy to come across a business like this for sale.

Guest: You know, there's, there's some specialized brokers who deal, you know, in lower market, lower middle market media businesses and event businesses and data businesses that just specialize in those, those kind of areas also. You know, now that I own one, my eyes are sort of open to everything around me. I go and see a local apartment industry magazine and I got looking at it and this is full of, full of advertisers and there's a list of staff on a masthead. And I thought, you know, who would have thought, you know, it's just one, one city in the country, you know, and so there's, and that's a, you know, an industry publication, probably not a great business. But regardless, there's, there's so many kinds of niche or local media now where they transact, I don't know, it could be through some of these specialty brokers or probably it's a hard business too. Probably a lot of them go out of business as opposed to selling unfortunately. And it's usually the ones who just have not been able to make the shift to digital appropriately.

[1:06:26] Host: And so you, you and your, you and Paul have a long term outlook here. Does that mean buying more trade publications? Opportunities present themselves?

Guest: I think, I think for us we want to focus on, in the trade media space. We want to focus on this industry. So if we do acquire more, it'll be add ons or supplements to this industry. So it could be something, whether it's data related, education related, whatever it might be that is complementary to this business. But we believe there's a ton of Runway unlike something that might have a geographic ceiling on it or something like that. Frankly, we could expand internationally. There's a lot of ways that business like this can grow. And so we think there's a tremendous Runway that we can take as far as we choose to push it.

Host: Well, you, you mentioned or I mentioned and, and you Smart events, you just mentioned international. Can you share any of the other other growth opportunities you see or.

Guest: I mean for us it's really about, especially for this year, it's really investing in the growth of our editorial, quality output, content, everything around that. We're, we're adding more writers, we're adding, adding more industry practitioners as contributors. We're looking at other media formats. You Know, we have a podcast. We're looking at more things like that and really focusing on the core of the media business. So what are the opportunities for the advertisers and really perfecting those and before we really expanded to anything else, Events is definitely something we'll consider, but we'll approach it very differently than how others do it. There's, there's a standard, you know, sort of hotel ballroom package with a hotel room, you know, kind of sit in a room with, with people on a stage and have, you know, someone sponsors lunch. I don't think we're going to do that kind of format. If we do events, I think it would be very dramatically different. So we, we still have to think through what that'll look like. And again, going back to what does the audience want? You know, that those kind of events in this industry are more for executives at brands or executives at what are called MSOs. So like big, big operators of multiple shops, people who own 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 shops, they'll go to things like that. So what's the opportunity for the rest of the 35,000 shops in America? What's that event for them? So I think we're still trying to understand the audience to see where there's a real, you know, need for something.

[1:09:10] Host: This is fascinating. Nathan. We're wrapping up here. I do. Just before we kind of take a step back and reflect on your overall journey, I want to ask one more question about the, this business. So just the print angle and you know, we, we use, we've used the word legacy. Is the word legacy in print? And so, and I guess advertisers still like print. I, I know, you know, you hear the arguments for print and, and, and you know, people want it, advertisers maybe still want it. It's just, it is hard for it. It's hard for me to pick up a piece of paper these days because my nose is in my phone so much. So it's not that I have soured on print. It's just nothing, just everything dies in the, in the wake of my phone. Mom and pop Auto body folks who are going to be 40 or 50 maybe they, they're going to pick, they're picking up, they're picking up our Legacy.

Guest: They're like 50 or 50. 60, 70.

Host: 50. 60, 70. Okay, well, there's my answer. I guess they are still picking up, they're still looking forward to flipping through the page. They're, they haven't been captured by their screen like the rest of us.

Guest: Well, and, and it's also, I think it's to the type of industry. So if you have a shop, a body shop, you know, you might have a break room or something like that where there is some magazines. Yeah out and the technicians are taking a break. So it's something to flip through versus I don't know, other kinds. But, but even most things, you go into a doctor's office or a veterinarian, you know, they have, you know, veteran, you know, they have like their trade publications in there. And so, but to answer your question, you know, some advertisers will say, you know, right at the beginning of conversations with our sales team, do not talk to us at print. Don't tell us anything about print. We're only interested in digital. And then you'll have some that say we don't want to hear anything about digital, we only want to know about print. We want that big full page ad, we want that false front cover. And then there's those that are on the fence. And, and you know, we had an advertiser who was really, you know, who's open to try things but was hesitant about print. And we explained some of our reasons why, why we thought it was worthwhile and they tried something big with print and, and it was, you know, like one of these wraparound covers. And within days of the magazine going out, they were calling our team saying this was so like we're getting. Our phone is ringing off the hook. This is so effective. And so, you know, I don't know, it's, it's a, again, it's definitely, definitely industry specific. You know, I find me personally, which I try never to really think about what do I like, you know, as a rule of thumb for what, you know, what the, what consumers like. But you know, being in, in real estate investor, there's something called the Real Deal, which is a very large format magazine. Of course it's a great website, but the magazine is just such a nice experience especially with big pictures of, of properties and you know, I'm on my phone like you are too, but you know, the screen is, is awfully small and sometimes you like that big, that big picture. Of course you can get it on your computer, but I don't know, sometimes it's. Some people do there, there's definitely enough people out there that like the, the print. We don't know that. We're not necessarily planning that it grows by any means, but we think the growth is all in digital. But it's not. There's no shortage of people Interested in it at this time.

[1:12:35] Host: Couple last big picture questions for you, Nathan. So we, we've hit on both these themes already, but I'd like to kind of distill them. Your. You guys had that exercise where you did acquire, you looked at a lot of different style home services and then a little bit broad, broader than home services and ultimately kind of said ho, ho, ho, hold on, let's focus on what kind of business buyer fit. Where can our unique skill set as one puzzle piece, whereas where is our, our matching puzzle piece? And you had, you had kind of shared some, some further thoughts with me about that ahead of our call. Any, anything more to say to that or have you said everything you need to?

Guest: I've said a lot of what was on my mind, but I just thought it was, it was important to bring up because we were, you know, there's a lot of compelling content out there about why a home service business is right and it's all, and all that content is true and it's right, but it's also, you also have to consider about what's right for you. And for us there, you know, it was also a geographic challenge. You know, we're in California. The, the contractor licensing regulations and laws are different in different states in California that there has to be an owner of the business that or, or equity holder who holds a license. And so to acquire a plumbing business, one of us, we, we would have to figure that out. Now there's ways around it, like not around it, but there's ways through it where you can have a general manager who holds the license, but then you have to come up with some creative equity type structure with them and that's a lot of extra stuff to do in the front. And some people, they want to do that and that's what they're committed to. When we were, for a period of time. But we kept running up against issues as it related to that. And we also had an approach, a philosophy that we've carried into this business where we, we want the business to be all the operations of the business to truly occur without us. And so if it required one of us to have a license, then there was a flaw in that model for us. And it was the same with this business where the seller, she did sales with some of the ad, the advertisers. And I knew that from my experience I certainly could do it. But for us to grow, we need to be focusing on different things. And so we needed to hire someone to replace that role. And so philosophically for us at least we wanted to. Doesn't mean we don't want to work hard. We certainly work very hard. But we just wanted to make sure that all the core operations were handled by the team and not by us.

[1:15:13] Host: Great.

Guest: So that really, we kept running into that as a hurdle with the, with the home services businesses.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: And brokers wouldn't take you super seriously. And after going through the process of closing an SBA loan, I feel like we wouldn't have even been able to get an SBA loan closed with a home service business because of they need the license, the contractor license holder needs to be a guarantor on the loan. And if you have a general manager who you just met a week ago and now he knows you're going to be the new boss and you're acquiring the company and oh by the way, you need to personally guarantee your life on our loan and all this different stuff. And it was, it just introduced a tremendous amount of hurdles that sure, it's, it's a, there's many aspects of. It's not one industry, it's many industries but it's, it's very desirable for very good reasons, but hard to transact in for non trade license holders in California.

Host: Well that, that was fascinating. Nathan, thank you for that because yeah, lots of, lots of people, lots of guests on Acquiring Minds have of course bought home services, very popular category, although it's not having a good year. But we often talk about why it's desirable and you just laid out a pretty compelling list of arguments for why it's less desirable. And then.

Guest: And all those things are just getting into it. I'm sure once you're in it, you know, has a different set of challenges like any business has. But for us, we didn't want to spend another five years trying to figure out how to get into it. We needed to do something else so we had to pivot.

Host: Nathan, last question. On your personal background, you have we. I've been a theme throughout that you have an unconventional background coming from the entertainment business. You were also homeschooled, which.

Guest: Oh yeah, I was. Yeah. It's funny growing up as a, you know, I was homeschooled from 1st grade to 12th grade and incredibly unpopular thing to do or unpopular to be homeschooled. And now I kind of smirk because kind of coming out of COVID and a certain segment of people like I certainly see parent friends, I see it online, people talk about, you know, they bring up the concept of homeschooling. And I think, man, when I grew Up. It was the most uncool thing you could possibly be as a homeschooler. But. But, you know, it was a. It was unique. I. I'm very grateful that I was, because I grew up in a small town in rural western New York, and the schooling was terrible there, and so I probably would still be there doing something, you know. You know, not that. Not that. Not that useful at this point if I wasn't homeschooled. And it really taught me to be proactive because I just was given a list of, here's what you need to do for the day, and I would just have to go do it. And so that was my schooling, basically.

[1:18:04] Host: Well, that. That. That neatly explains why you're such an effective autodidact. All those books behind you, and, you know, you take an interest in something and, you know, you know how to learn it. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. And. And also perhaps, you know, your. Your willingness to kind of go. Go the. What is it? The path less traveled. Take the. I should know this.

Guest: Definitely a pathless travel. Yeah. Yeah. The road less traveled.

Host: You're comfortable taking the road less traveled.

Guest: Not uncomfortable with that. I tend to seek that out.

Host: Yeah. Anything I missed, Nathan?

Guest: No, I think we covered it. I just wanted to, you know, thank you for it, and I hope it's helpful to. To everyone who maybe has an unconventional background and is maybe not sure of where they're going or. Or what they're. But they know they need to own a business and they want to do it, and it's possible. It's. You know, it's hard work, but, you know, the winding path can sometimes get you there.

Host: Yeah. Well, I share your. That. That. That. I hope that is the takeaway of your story as well. It's such an important message and you're such a shining example of it. So thanks for coming on. Nathan, if people want to get in touch with you, do you have a online channel of choice or LinkedIn will do or what?

Guest: Yeah, LinkedIn, Twitter. Those are both. Great.

Host: Okay.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Okay.

Guest: That's perfect.

Host: Great. You're also on Search Funder, which is how I found you.

Guest: I am, yeah. So there too. But. But I sometimes don't see things on there just because of the way it works. So I'd say Twitter or LinkedIn's probably better.

Host: Great. Nathan. Thank you very much, sir. It's been a blast.

Guest: Thank you. Will.