Host: 100% seller financing. The idea that you can buy a business with little to no money. The seller of the business finances the whole acquisition price for you. Too good to be true? Usually, yes. It's something you'll hear gurus promote and wonder if they're over promising in order to sell a mastermind. And even when 100% seller finance deals happen, it's often going to be one business buying another in the same industry where the seller doesn't have other options. It's not going to be an individual off the street, a searcher buying a sizable attractive business with 100% seller financing. But there are exceptions to the exceptions Today's guest did what I just said doesn't happen. Renan Cortez bought an $8 million restoration business in a 100% seller financed deal. We spend a lot of time on how he pulled that off, and at the risk of belaboring the point, we don't advocate this approach. Renan himself doesn't. As you'll hear, there was an alignment of the stars that happened here that is more fluke than playbook, but still a great case study to learn what we can from. Here's Renan Cortez, owner of Syndicate Building Solutions Announcements as you know, we've been doing webinars this year and they've been going great. We have brilliant people in our space with deep expertise and a lot to teach. And the webinar format is better than a podcast for an educational session, particularly when there are visuals. So we're going to do more of them to the point that we've converted the homepage of the Acquiring Minds website and into a calendar. Essentially. Now you can easily find information and registration links for all upcoming webinars right on the homepage. Acquiringminds co. Here are the two upcoming webinars scheduled for next week after this holiday week here in the States. First, the SMB Lender Roundtable. Three lenders whose names, you know will be in discussion about what they're seeing out there in the market right now. Good and bad. Hearing from a cross section of lenders is a window into the overall health of SBA search deals and how they're performing under their new owners. Searchers like you, that is. Thursday, July 11th at noon Eastern. Thursday, July 11th noon Eastern Second Due Diligence Office Hours Max Lummis and his team at LCS are going to host a live session devoted to answering your questions on all things related to the process of due diligence. You'll recognize Max's name. He's My partner in Mind's Capital and his company LCS is a forensic accounting firm that does the quality of earnings for for dozens of search acquisitions every year. So come get your due diligence questions answered by those who do it professionally week in, week out. That is Friday, July 12th at noon Eastern. Register for both of those upcoming events at the top of your show notes or just go to acquiringminds Co, where you'll see them right there on the homepage. SMB lender roundtable Thursday, July 11 due diligence office hours Friday, July 12 register at the link in the notes or at acquiringminds co. Also some amazing new opportunities on Smith List the job board for operators and leaders of small businesses that we recently launched. A landscaping roll up is seeking a VP of Finance to lead M&A. They've done seven deals already. Four more are under LOI and another 20 are in the pipeline. An amazing opportunity for someone with a finance background who is drawn to search and acquisition entrepreneurship. You will be dropped in midstream to run the M and A of a fast moving roll up. Also, a towing business is spinning out one of its functions, a profitable function, into a standalone business. They're seeking someone to take this entity to market and build a team and a business with it. There is existing revenue and proven demand. You'll have the backing of the parent business and you'll participate in ownership. Really a unique opportunity for someone in the ETA space. So if instead of buying a business right now, you want the opportunity to run one, to lead one, check out these opportunities and others@smithlist.com link in the notes. And lastly to my listeners here in the states, happy 4th okay, on to today's episode. 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. A PEO run by a Searcher for Searchers if you're running a company with less than 100 employees in providing health insurance, you could secure better benefit plans at a 15 to 30% discount through a professional employer organization or PEO. Aspen HR, run by search fund veteran Mark Sinatra understands the needs of search operators and could be a great solution for you to receive HR compliance and diligence support, a powerful HR tech platform and Fortune 500 caliber benefits, all for a fraction of the cost. Check out aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly at mark aspenhr.com Renan Cortez welcome to Acquiring Minds.

[6:41] Guest: Thank you.

Host: Great to be here Renan, you've got quite a story. You started a bit later than many of my guests, but you've been making up for lost time. How hard and fast you've gone in the direction of buying businesses. Pretty remarkable. So let's hear all about it. Start us off with some background on you, please, Renan.

Guest: Sure. So I'm born and raised in New York City, Queensland. You know, stayed there until I was 20, joined the military. I, I didn't really have, you know, a clear vision of my future living in, in, in Hollis, Queens. So I joined the military as a combat medic. That's a whole funny story in itself, but I ended up doing 12 years active duty throughout there. I, I came across some really good mentors and people that developed me as a person and professional and got my undergrad degree while I was in the military, got out and joined corporate America. I ended up within the military becoming a cardiology specialist. So that led me into doing medical device sales. Once I got out, my first job was with Medtronic. And I didn't realize how fortunate I was. It's, it was a Fortune 100 company at the time. I'm, I'm sure it's still a Fortune 500, but it was, it was like the authority on medical device companies back then, and it still is. And I did seven good years there. I grew as a clinical specialist, became a sales rep, senior sales rep, principal sales rep, went to a competing company, moved to New Jersey to get closer to family, and then I did another six years with Abbott Medical, which is the number two device company. So, you know, I had my share of blue collar, working in the military, infantry, sleeping in the, in the rain and mud. And then, you know, white collar corporate America and strategy and sales and high level stuff there. Used my GI Bill to get my mba. And then it's kind of funny, corporate actually almost killed me. I went from my military weight all the way up to £300 because I was whining and dining for the business. You know, things like that. Kind of almost selling my soul for the business. And that's something when I got out of the military, I promised I would never do. Right.

[9:02] Host: And tell us a little bit about how you were warned, you were forewarned by your, your, your military colleagues that like going into industry could do that.

Guest: Oh. So I, I got out of the military at 32 years old. So I was already, you know, well into my adult years and working at Walter Reed, you know, when you, you know, give care to a patient, you know, The. The physicians there, they take as much time as they. They need to. Cost really isn't a factor. You do the right thing for the patient. Getting out of the military and getting into the business of medicine was a shock for me. And the p. The civilians that I worked with at Walter Reed, they knew that. They knew that the civilian sector is very different than the military sector. So they said, look, you know, you care about the patients. You're really good about cardiology. You know, your stuff. When you get into the business of medicine, don't sell your soul. And I didn't understand what. At the time, I was like, okay, sure, I'm. I'm me, who I. You know, I am who I am. Like Popeye, right? But once I got into. Yeah, 15 years of that, I saw the business of medicine, and it did eat away at me.

Host: It.

Guest: It did in a big way. You know, and anybody who. Who's listening, that's a med device rep. They know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, just besides the regular corporate America jockeying for position in the politics and everything else, I mean, the business of medicine isn't as glamorous and as good as. As people think. In the beginning, people thought, oh, that's. That must be great. It's not, you know, all the business travel, all the dinners. So I went from my, like, army weight of 215, and I blew up to like, 300 pounds. Diabetes, hypertension. I was very successful. One President's Club. And that's when it really hit home for me. It was 2018. I was in Cabo with my wife for President's Club. And it was one of the most unhappiest times of my life because I had to go shopping for clothes just to fit, you know, because we were going to be in, you know, a tropical place, and I didn't have anything that fit. And it really hit home that, what was this, all this for? Everybody else was excited. President's Club. And it was a. It's a big deal. I won it when I was with Abbott, but it made me get very introspective. And that's when I kind of sat back and said, holy cow, did I sell my soul. What am I doing? You know, I made this company millions and millions of dollars. I make a good salary, but if I put all this energy into something, you know, more beneficial or more worthwhile, like. And that's when I started to figure out my why. And that was a very, very important trip for me.

Host: So it sounds like it was. I mean, Your weight, fundamentally, that was the thing that kind of woke you up, if you will.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was slowly over 15 years,

Host: then a kind of a ripple effect of other realizations that you would just, you had just found yourself way down a path that you no longer.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Approved of, sort of.

Guest: And it was right around that time also, I heard a podcast with Tyson Fury and he's heavyweight boxing champion at the time. Right. I know he just had a fight this past weekend, but he, he said a story of how when he won the heavyweight title for the first time, you know, he felt suicidal afterwards. It was like, what? What's next? What do I do next? He didn't feel like he had a sense of purpose. And he's made a story. Well, he shared a story of driving his Ferrari and then he was gonna go into a brick wall. And then a little angel showed up on his side and said, tyson, don't do it. And he kind of swerved and he got his head out of it. But I found that very powerful because, I mean, all right, President's club is cool. A lot of reps try to win that. It's a very, very prestigious award. But I felt that like, okay, I did this thing that I've been chasing for 10 years now, what, is this it? Do I win it again? Do I go for a three Pete? What do I do? And so it was around that time also. So my heritage, I'm half Filipino, half Puerto Rican. At that time, there were hurricanes and earthquakes hitting Puerto Rico. There were big celebrities putting a lot of money onto the island. And then I felt a sense of I could do something. I'm not a millionaire, I'm not a multimillionaire, but maybe I could go over and do something. And that's what started the whole how do I give back to community? What is my bigger purpose in life? So that's what started it all for me. And I'll just stop right here.

[13:20] Host: August Felker is a two time successful searcher. First with a traditional search fund. The second time around, he did a self funded search. Today August runs Oberle Risk Strategies, an insurance firm with a dedicated practice group for searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs like you. If you've got a business under Loi, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. A great no risk way to get to know August and team. They love helping searchers. They've worked with hundreds. Oberly is a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers. By a former searcher check out oberle-risk.com O B E R L E- risk.com link in the show notes. So going to the island, figuring out, trying to figure out a way that you can help that takes you down a path.

Guest: Yeah. So I fly to Puerto Rico, there's an investment conference. And I know nothing about investment. I, I'm just a guy in corporate America that's doing okay doing medical device sales. And once again I ran into somebody, it was a three day, three day program, around set day 2.2 and a half sitting next to somebody. I said, look, I understand probably 10% of what everybody here is talking about. And she said, well, you were smart enough and you knew enough that you had to be in this room. Keep getting in the room and, and something will. So that, that provided a little bit of okay. All right. And while I was there, sure enough, I ran into a buddy of mine from Maryland and he was, he's like a, a top notch cultivator for cannabis. And we sat back and can. At that time cannabis was kind of booming in Puerto Rico. And we're like, hey, would you want to do this on the up and up? I'm the business mind, you're the cultivator. Let's do this. So that's what set me off on the path to possibly leaving corporate and doing some kind of entrepreneurship thing. So I worked on that for two and a half, three years. And that's actually why I got my mba, because you know, I did really well in mature corporate, you know, negotiating and things like that. But I absolutely sucked at entrepreneurship. I did not know anything about investment. So I put together a really good business plan, spoke to a lot of investors, didn't know the basic, the basics of investing. And a friend of the family really said, hey, look, nobody's going to give you a dime because you don't know what the hell you're talking about. You need, you need to polish up, you need to understand better. So that's what led me to using my gi.

[15:54] Host: You were trying to do a cannabis startup? Essentially, Yeah. I needed 3 million or VC sort of.

Guest: Exactly. I needed $3 million to, you know, to get licensing for, for the build, to put the, the whole plan to, to use. And you know you're doing this while at business school? Yes. No, no, this is before business school. This is while I'm in just regular corporate doing my job. That's it.

Host: So, so you're doing this on the side, but you've stayed in your corporate gig.

Guest: Correct? Correct.

Host: And okay. So, so then the family friend says, dude, you're not polished enough. You don't know, investment enough.

Guest: That's right. Or entrepreneurship or anything like that. So that led me to how do I arm myself? I use my GI Bill, I go to University of Maryland, and I get my mba. And of course, day one, they're talking about simple things like IRR and time value of money. And those were the things that I failed. When I spoke to investors, they said, oh, what's the irr? I'm like, you know, what's the ro? We don't say IRR in my job as a medical device, it's not a thing. Right. So very apparent that I, I had to polish up. So I get my mba, and when I'm, you know, actually University of Maryland, they were awesome. They helped me, developed my business plan to make it even more robust so that I can. Because they were excited that this is a real live thing. This isn't a fake capstone project. I wanted to take this to market. So they put a lot of resources around me. And my entrepreneurship professor, she told me, she said, look, you need to connect with somebody named Cody Sanchez. She does a cannabis fund. You know, she's married to a Navy seal, so she likes veterans. I was like, cool. So I, on LinkedIn, I hook up with Cody, and that was on a Tuesday. And I remember this because once I'm now I see her feed on, on LinkedIn, I see that she's having a happy hour in Austin on that Thursday. So I'm like, hell, I know where she's going to be. I know what time she's going to be there. I bought a ticket to go to the happy hour. I wrote her an email and per her guidance, because, you know, she has a lot of content out there. She said, it's always harder for somebody to say no to if you include your picture on your signature line. So I included my picture, all that good stuff. You know, I have a cannabis thing I want to talk about. I'm heading down from New Jersey. I show up and, you know, she gets to the happy hour. She goes, I know you. You're the guy that wrote an email and you flew in for a happy hour from New Jersey. That is crazy as. And she's like, you're going to get some time because that's, that's taking a big move.

[18:25] Host: And Ronan, was Cody a big deal at this point?

Guest: She was. I, I honestly don't know because I, I'm very obtuse to the world like that. I knew all the CEOs of all the medical device companies. I know she was a big deal. She was definitely on the rise. A lot of people knew her already.

Host: This is 2021, you said.

Guest: So this is. Yes, yeah, we're in 24. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Host: Well, and she has. So she had, she was in cannabis. She had like a cannabis fund which people might not know if they know anything about her career. And later, I guess got out of that. You don't hear talking about that stuff. She's all about just buying businesses.

Guest: Correct.

Host: This was the kind of the first step before she went all in on buying businesses.

Guest: That's right.

Host: And so you went down to meet her to hopefully get her to invest in your cannabis startup. Yes.

Guest: Great.

Host: And so you meet her and how does that go?

Guest: So we, you know, I tell her what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. You know, she gave me some time. It was awesome. Met her husband, met the people around. You know, she said, you know, what's the exit strategy? And it's, it was just too small of a project for her to even consider having the fund invest in. You know, they, they do much bigger projects, which I, you know, totally was happy with the feedback, the candor, all that stuff. And she goes, but while you're here, network, you know, listen to what we're doing. And then she said something very poignant there. She said, look, real estate has made many, many a millionaire, but the top 10 richest people in the world come from private equity, you know, billionaires. And so this guy right here, Google's private equity. Because I kind of knew, but I didn't know exactly what private equity was. So I was like, okay, so this. And that's always been something. You know, if I identify some. A sector or something that seems to be lucrative or the place, I'll go all in and start studying it, researching and asking the questions. I have no problem asking a question that I know. I have no idea. You know, I don't mind looking silly or stupid. So that was my first entry, and that was May, March or May of 2021. So now, you know, I go to the happy hour, I get her newsletter, and I see that she's holding the very first Main street over Wall street or contrarian thinking meeting in November of that year. So I'm still not thinking about buying businesses. But in my mind I'm like, I know where there's going to be a room of people that have money. Cody's going to be there again. She's going to See me again. And all her speakers, you know, they have potential capital to invest in this. So I'm going to give it another shot. I fly there in November and there were a lot of big names on there and I got to talk to a lot of these people and what really hit me, I remember sitting at my table and there was a woman to my left and I was like, okay, so what are you doing here? She goes, I bought a pool business. And I'm, I'm silly, you know, so I'm like, what do you clean pools? What is this? You know, you know, she's, she's an older woman. I'm like, what are you cleaning pools? She goes, no, I own a pool business. And then I bought another pool business and then I bought my competitor. So now, you know, we're doing about 20 million in revs. I'm like, oh, that can happen. And then I talked to the guy to my right and he was doing some kind of vitamin roll up and I'm like, what is this room that I'm in? Because I honestly didn't know the whole thesis of what they were doing. I just knew I was going for this networking meeting. And as I sat there for two and a half days and listening to people on stage and talk about how they created their wealth and I realized and I love this, this thing from the Matrix. I'm a big fan of the Matrix. There is no spoon, there is no set way to do things. You've been told your whole life that there's a set way and this is how. But I listen to so many stories of how many people made various ways of people making just extreme wealth and that's what really got my mind going. And then I remember this one conversation with David Osborne because this was down in Austin and he's one of the early founders of GoBundance. He came off stage, pitched him the cannabis thing and he's like, look man, why are you doing this? Do you like really, really love cannabis? I said, no. He goes, what's your why? I told him I want to give back to the community. I, I, you know, there's a, I want to create a bridge between ideas and capital and I can't do that without creating tremendous wealth myself. And he said, just buy a business, buy a cash flowing business and start with a head start. Don't, you know, unless you really, really, really want to go through the whole startup thing and you really have a thing for cannabis, just buy a business. And the way it was said and just, I guess the environment I was in, being in the room, my mind just. I was like, okay, so that was November 20, 2020, 22. And I just went deep into learning how to buy businesses, learning the private equity play on it. And. And that's. That's how it started for me. Yeah. Just. Yeah.

[23:15] Host: Renan, tell people who or what GoBundance is. I actually wasn't familiar, but a few guests have mentioned it as being members.

Guest: Yeah. Oh, I'll go. Bun. It's. I didn't know what it was either at the time, but it's. It's a network. You have to have a minimum net worth. It's more than just. Well, it's not a business network at all. There. There is business that happens, but it's more about grabbing life big. That's the slogan. Having tremendous adventures with people that you could trust, be vulnerable with, rely on. And yes, there are business. There's deals that. That happen, but it's not purely for that. That was a piece that I craved once I got the nod a year later after I bought my first business. But it was funny how full. Everything came full circle with the gobundance thing for me.

[24:05] Host: Okay, so you. You go to this event, and you're basically. You come out a convert. Yeah. I mean, you literally. You go in thinking that somebody who's working in the. In a pool business must be cleaning pools. And then. But in a short amount of time, you come out realizing, oh, no, these are people who buy businesses and buy multiple businesses and our owners, not people who work it, which, of course, now you count yourself among that. That group. That was November 2022. It's now a year and a half later. We're in May 2024. So a lot has happened. In the meantime, tell us how that. What the search looks like. How did you go from kind of this epiphany to actually concrete action?

Guest: So first step, you know, I started reading books. Buy, then build. Walker Diebo. That was a great start. I joined unconventional acquisitions. That's the Cody mastermind. You know, once again, be in the room. I liked the vibe. I liked the information that was being shared. I like the community that was being built. So I joined that mastermind. Didn't know. Once again, I felt like the dumbest person in the room. I would get on the Monday night calls, and, you know, I would hear all this stuff, you know, sde, EBITDA adjusted, EBITDA Q of E. And. But I also. I'm a quick learner, and I also know that if you inundate yourself and you're in there. It'll just, you'll get it and you take a strong approach to it. So I did that, by the way, if I could.

Host: That's a great call out for the audience, for people who are maybe new to this world and listening to this and aren't familiar with all the terminology. Like anything that feels technical or is technical, when you get into it, it does feel overwhelming and it just feels like, how am I ever gonna. I'm so behind. This is so abstract. But sure enough, you listen to it for long enough. And you should not just listen passively, but proactively be educating yourself. Of course, these, these, all this language will start to settle into your brain and you'll be throwing around the terms yourself. So.

Guest: That's right.

Host: It's a good, it's just a good case study, you doing this of like feeling really intimidated but pushing through. And like now you're just as, as fluent in the language as anybody.

Guest: Well, I don't know if I'm super fluid yet. Every day I'm still learning.

Host: Yeah, you're doing something right. Go ahead.

Guest: And so, yes, I started like everybody else. You know, you go to biz by sell, you're starting to look and I, the. I get asked that question a lot also. Where do I start the journey? Right, for me, biz by sell. Because what that does a couple of things. There's information available. It gives you multiples, it gives you reports of what things were actually traded at. It gives you a good idea of the cash flow and the asking price and all the intricacies that go along with it. You know, why are they selling? Once again, you look at enough of that, you start to develop a pattern in each sector. You know? You know that. Okay, so a plumbing company would typically trade for this at this amount of ETA or sde. You know, a daycare would go for this. So you start mentally doing. And I was very agnostic. You know, I just kind of went out and started looking at everything just to. And that's kind of tough also because now you have all these different sectors. So then you know. Yeah, according to the mastermind I was in, build your deal box. You know, what are you looking for and why? So I built my deal box. It was minimum 500,000 EBITDA service based industry. Something recession resistant within my geography. I live in New Jersey, so I was like in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, as far down as Maryland. So, all right, I'm looking at these things. I looked at everything from frozen Yogurt to music and arts, to dry cleaning, to everything. I actually had a dry cleaning company that I got SBA approved for because I had about 70,000 set aside just purely to buy the business. So it was going to be a $700,000 deal. At the time the interest rates were much better. So it was six and a quarter that I got for SBA because there was real estate involved. It was a term of 25 years. So the payment was something like $4,000. Everything said and done, it, it was really good. It was a good deal. And in my mind I started already seeing how I could do a roll up, I could get another one and another one and then it's all accretive. So I was well on that path. But I was looking at all these other different companies at the same time.

[28:28] Host: Let me pause you because. And we'll get right back to it, but just want to understand a little bit, kind of the background, your headspace at this point and also like what your family is saying to this because medical device sales can be very lucrative and I think you basically made that clear and you were very successful at it. So you've hard pivoted out of this. Now that's three years ago. You've, since you tried to do a cannabis thing, which took a couple years of your life. I guess you've gone to business school. So I could imagine your partner and family being like, what's Runan up to? Is he lost? Is he flailing? Maybe not. I'm, you know, so, so what is, what's, what are the conversations at home looking like when you go down this, when you start going down this journey, which is such a departure from where you were headed.

Guest: Yeah, so I, I just a little background for me also. I have a wife, I have five kids. My oldest is.

Host: Five kids?

Guest: Yes sir. Yeah, we start early in the army.

Host: Wow.

Guest: Yeah, My oldest is going to be 26 this year. She's a third year dental student in Alabama right now.

Host: That's great.

Guest: Second oldest graduated college already. Third is a freshman in college, fourth is a freshman in high school and the fifth he is in junior high. So, so that's the gambit right there. They go from 12 to 26. But yeah, so I'm doing this and I always, always was like super busy with everything. So whether it's going to school at night or doing Mastermind meetings or, you know, one of my biggest hobbies is jiu jitsu. I would train three, four or five times a week. I was always, I always have to Be busy doing something. So this just replaced certain things, you know, me doing, looking at businesses and doing diligence on that. Replaced me going to NBA at night, you know, doing night school for. For y. For the NBA. So it wasn't a really big change of pace on what I was doing. It's just a different thing that I was doing. And I was still working corporate at the time. I. I did not give that up just yet. So I was still doing corporate as I was looking for businesses, as I was doing diligence and having all these conversations.

[30:30] Host: So th. This whole time, from cannabis to the NBA, I guess, night school, mba, to going to see Cody, to being inspired, to looking at businesses, biz by sell, all of this, you've. You've kept your day job?

Guest: Yes.

Host: Oh, okay. Okay. And how's your weight at this point?

Guest: I've dropped 60 to 70 pounds at

Host: this point in the story, because I'm looking at you now, and you look. You super fit. But I mean, did when you had that bad moment in Cabo, did you start losing weight or did that still not.

Guest: It was still there. It was still there. It wasn't until I quit my corporate in November of 2022 that. Oh, yeah, that's when. That's when the weight started to come off. And it's. It's kind of funny. I mean, I have the. The data points for it where I, you know, I do my blood sugar every morning. I do my blood pressure. Everything was elevated. I never had a problem with blood pressure, and it was just. Everything was elevated. And so you could see where I quit and how everything just started coming right back down. And now it's. I'm back to normal on everything. I've lost a ton of weight and, you know.

Host: So did you pick up the jiu jitsu after November 2022?

Guest: Oh, no, I've been doing it for 18 years. Yeah, that's always been. Even at £300, I was a lot slower, and I would, you know, out of breath a lot. But, you know, it's. It's been my. My thing. And it was always like, how does a big guy move like that? Well, I wasn't always a big guy. At one point, I was a smaller guy doing this stuff, and so I had the muscle memory, but I wasn't happy, you know, even during my performance in Jiu Jitsu, you know, because I was a bigger guy and I'm older now, and so. But, yeah, it's a whole new thing now. Now I feel like I'm in my early 30s again when I'm on the mat. Yeah.

Host: Awesome, awesome. Good for you. Okay. Your wife is on board with you quitting corporate at some point? Once you find a business? Yes.

Guest: Okay. Yeah, she, they trust me immensely with decisions like this. She knows I'm not going to do anything without thinking it through as thorough as possible.

Host: All right, back to the story. So you've got your, you're looking, you're getting pretty close on this dry cleaning business, but I guess you're continuing to search what happens.

Guest: Correct. So I hired a va. That is, that, that's all they do is they find off market deals. And one of the first ones that they found using my, my deal box was this big restoration company doing about 2 million, you know, EBITDA SDE. And I was like, what are you doing to me? This is, this is, this is not my buy box. I said, they said, well, technically it is, it is minimum 500,000. I'm like, well, yeah. And then that's when I was like, you know what curiosity got me. It's free to do due diligence at least in the beginning. You know, you always wonder, what, what does a 20 or 30 million dollars house look like? So maybe you want to go to the open house. So I said, you know what, make the introduction, I'll talk to the owner, we'll see what it, what a $2 million EBITDA company looks like. And as I was doing diligence on that, I actually fell in love with the profit margins, the strength of it, the recession resistancy of it. Just a lot of factors that, and it wasn't being run as efficient as it could. And I saw that from the Fortune 500 lens and I saw nothing but opportunity. It was like, oh, wow, now I have to figure out how the heck to buy this because all I have is 70,000 kind of squirreled away to buy a dry cleaner for 700,000. How am I going to buy this, this company? And that's when the whole seller financing thing, I don't know if you want to talk about that, but yeah, we

[33:53] Host: definitely want to talk about that. And, and just, but a sense of a little bit more about your, your getting, getting comfortable with the idea of buying a much bigger business. You just told us that, like, I guess the answer is the opportunity there kind of seduced you in that direction. But still it was going to be a much bigger lift. Not just where are you going to get the money, but like, you're going to have a bigger team. It's just A much bigger operation. So did it also require you kind of mustering more confidence to just think you could lead an organization that's much, much bigger, more complex?

Guest: That actually I, I already intrinsically have that, you know, because I, I've led big numbers before. I've dealt with large budgets and you know, my territory was 10 million plus. So the numbers didn't scare me. The fact that it, I didn't have the safety net of corporate maybe was a little like, oh man, you know, but the size of it, it actually felt more comforting. And that was one of the, how I compared and contrasted it. The dry cleaning operation had five people. If one or two get sick or they want to go on vacation or something, I'm the one that's going to be ironing and putting things on hangers and working the register. And am I willing to do that for 500,000, 600,000 a year? Yes. Do I want to do that? No. But when I saw the bigger company, we came with 35 people levels of management, I was like, okay, I like that a lot better. And I know I have good leadership skills. You know, I'm a people person. And the thing I don't have is construction experience. I have 23 years of cardiology experience, but no construction experience. So I reached back into my network of people that I know and somebody that I did my MBA program with, he was an accountant, a controller for a big construction company doing 6 to $700 million in annual revs. So he's very familiar with it. He's been in it his whole life. Called him up, said, hey, let's meet for a beer. He lives right in Pennsylvania. We, we sat and I told him the whole story, shared with him the vision and he was the first one to come on board. So him and I partnered up.

Host: As your controller, as your cfo?

Guest: Yes, sir. So that's how that started. That's how I got a little bit more comfortable with taking down a bigger company.

[36:03] Host: Great. And before we hear about the company and how you did take it down, tell us a little bit about this VA for off market deals. I'll see the occasional person like that posting on Search Funder saying, hey, I offer this service and I never know what to make of it. Tell us a little bit about your experience, the how effective or not it was. Sounds like it was effective. Tell us what you can.

Guest: So he was very effective for me. You know, all he had to do was get not more than a warm lead, but good concrete information. Because I've seen a Lot of people that do like web scraping and so you're at the mercy of the Internet. Whatever you can find on like zoom info or whatever, he actually, he'll find the asset or the, the target acquisition and, and have a pre meeting with them, ask them, you know, why are you selling? What are the revenues, how many people? So you're getting it directly from the owner. He puts it in a little matrix on an Excel or whatever platform he's using these days and he delivers it to you on a weekly basis where you look at all the targets and say, hey, I like this one and this one. Can you set up a meeting? And then you're, you're off to the races.

Host: And is this guy in the U.S. yes.

Guest: Well, no, no, no, he's in Canada. He's in Canada and he runs North America? Yes. Yeah, he runs a team in the Philippines. Yeah. Okay, so they, they.

Host: But if he has a con. But so he has a pre screening conversation with the owner.

Guest: Yes.

Host: So he's actually been able to get the owner on the phone because I mean this is all of course quality of lead and so correct. He's really qualifying the lead pretty well. And to actually do that you'd have to, you want this individual to talk to the owner, which sounds like he does, but that'd be something that, it would be hard for somebody in India or the Philippines to do that and, and pull it off because the owner is just going to be like, I don't want to talk to somebody in India who claims they want to buy

Guest: my business sort of thing. Yeah.

Host: So. So this guy is domestic or whatever. North American.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Okay, interesting. And how does he charge his services? And do you want to plug him?

Guest: If I can. I would love to plug him.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: So his name is Dave Collinson and you know, so Dave Collinson and Associates. And since then, you know, like just to give another plug, Athena Simpson, you know, she, she does something similar except she goes even further and does like a white glove concierge service where she will consult and help you take down the comp. The business itself. Dave will find the asset for you, but then it's up to you to, to close it. Right. I consider myself to be a good negotiator, good closer. So it was perfect for me. Just give me a warm lead and just let me at it. And that's how I took down this company. If you need a little bit more handholding, then Athena Simpson is perfect. You know, she does the sourcing and the handholding. If you all you Know, you just really want numbers and leads. Dave Collinson. So, you know, those are two people that I. Yeah, I highly recommend.

Host: And yeah, Athena. Athena is actually who connected us. And I had the chance to meet Athena in Salt Lake City for SN Bash, and she's great. So thank you, Athena, for connecting me here with Renan. But, yeah, people should consider both of those two folks, as if they don't want to kind of be running the mechanics of their own outreach and search. Okay. All right. So tell us more about this business that you found, and most specifically, the seller financing piece of it.

[39:19] Guest: Sure. So I had already been approved for the SBA loan for the dry cleaning, but now I'm in talks. I'm doing diligence with this restoration company, and I infinitely like it better. I'm like, I have to. I just have to figure out the barrier of. Of capital at this point. So in looking at all these deals on biz by sell to begin with, what I did is I created what I call the dumb calculator. It's a. It's a really silly little. It looks like something from Commodore 64 times, Oregon Trail type stuff. Right. But it has all the basic things in there that I need. Acquisition price, what is the. The cash flow, the profit that I would expect from this, and what are the financing terms? You plug all these things together after debt service, you see what you're really working with. Right. And then you still have to apply taxes and depreciation, amortization and all that, because everybody's situation is different. But it was a really good indicator if I like the deal or not, if there's enough meat on the bone. So I had this thing already set up.

Host: And this is an Excel spreadsheet, basically. Yes.

Guest: Yeah. And it's just a simple PMT function equals pmt. And then you put in all the, you know, the things, and. And then it'll tell you what your debt service is for whatever percentage rate and how many years you want. And the other two things you plug in are purchase price and cash flow or. Yeah, so that's something I use just a really quick tell me how to, you know, if I like the deal or not. And after some time of looking at business by sell, I could just look at numbers and say, oh, this is a good deal. But in the beginning, you know, I did that just for the. The muscle memory. So I use that same calculator. I put an amortization table in there. And I just started trying to figure out, how can I do this if I get a loan for this or if I get investment for this. And then I said, well, hell, I see on the Internet people talk about this seller financing thing and 100%, whatever, let me see if I could structure a way to do that. And I sure enough, I, I put it into the calculator. I, I put some terms, I said, this might work. This, now I have to sell it. So this is two and a half, three months into doing due diligence with this. Their two brothers, early, you know, early 50s, very young. They just have other business ventures. So, you know, was taking too much of their time. So we had already established a rapport, a trust. I didn't go in day one, so this is what a big thing that I'm going to say also, I did not go in day one talking about I want to sell or finance this company. I, it was just, I just want to see if I even want to buy this company. Let's do diligence. Let's learn each other and let's talk. So we did that. It was just a lot of question and answer. What does this mean? And you know, what mitigation.

Host: But on that point, like they are going to, for a business that of that size, they're going to want to not spend time with the tire maker. They're going to want to know that, you know, have a certain sense of certainty to close with the person they're talking to. So for the two months before, as you said, you weren't planning a 100 seller financing strategy. You were kind of going down this, these conversations, rapport building, negotiation in good faith. But so how did you bridge that gap? Because if they knew that you only had 70 grand in the bank and really didn't have a source of funding for this lined up, they were probably going to run.

[42:30] Guest: That's right. We never talked about it. Not from the very.

Host: They never asked, they never pressed you.

Guest: If they did, you know that I would, I would kind of turn it. They would say, look, how are you planning it? Oh, you know, but put percentage down is probably going to be higher than an SBA loan. So we're going to have to go conventional. I'm going to raise some capital. You know, I could talk to some capital partners. But before we even get to that point, let's just make sure we're a good fit. Okay. You know, because then. And that's. That was. And the dead truly is the mentality I went in with. If I liked it, then, yes, I was going to find a way to purchase this Thing, bring in investors, you know, because I had already been down that route for the cannabis thing on speaking to investors and knowing what drives them to a certain extent. So I felt not 100 confident, but that I had the gear that I could ask somebody, a total stranger, to invest in a project, as long as it's a strong enough project, cash flowing, and there's a good return on investment for them. So it was just about, that was a puzzle that I needed to figure out, but I was confident that we were going to be able to do this some way somehow. And they felt that confidence. They're like, okay, let's, let's take it for a spin. So now we get down to Bratz Tax. I really like this. I prefer this over the dry cleaning. And so I, I, I said, all right, I'm going to give this a shot. If I could get this for a seller financing bid, you know, then this is what I'm going to do. If not, then I'm going to default back to the dry cleaning. So that was my, my, my algorithm.

Host: If you could get them to agree to 100% seller financing, you were going to go for it. If not, you were going to buy the dry cleaning business. Why was it not? You were going to try to go raise money from investors if they wouldn't do 100% seller financing?

Guest: Okay, so yes, if, and if I could not, you know, I was unsuccessful with capital raise, you know, and okay,

Host: yeah, if I were going to try any way you could to get this business, I should have said that you had.

Guest: Correct.

Host: The dry cleaner is, the dry cleaning business is a far.

Guest: I was going to give the 100% seller financing a go. Then I was going to give raising capital a go. And then if I just hit a wall or I saw that the horizon was just too far out, then I would close on the dry cleaning. Yes.

Host: Okay, so how do you convince these guys, these brothers?

Guest: So I have this, and it's not, like I said, it's not a complex sheet at all. It has all the basics. But I have an amortization table built in. And I sat with them and, you know, I put in a bunch of different variables. You know, I don't say different variables, just different things like percentages and, and years, you know, time, time to hold the note. And I sat down with the guy, his name is Carrie, and we went to a diner. I said, hey, look, question for you. Would you ever consider holding the note if he's like, what do you mean? Look, we could do this without Needing a bank at all. I don't know if you realize that. So just to give them another little thing, this takes a lot of customer education or, you know, education to the, to the seller because I, what I, at that point I now had to tell him how I valued his company. Right? These things Normally trade between 3 and 3.5x. So that was already established. We had to talk about how typically these things are financed. You know, know, you put some money down, you raise capital, you get the rest via a loan. So he's very well aware of all that. So now I hit him with the what if you were to hold the note? He goes, first of all, I didn't know that was possible. I said, oh, it sure is. You know, as long as we have a lawyer put together a promissory note with terms that we negotiate, we could do whatever. It's, it's totally up. He goes, well, why would I want to do that? And then I said, well, would you rather I pay 8 million for your business or 11.8 million? He's like, what are you talking about? And so this was a little bit of a, hey, I could go to bank of America Chase, you know, you know, whatever, go, go to like a, a conventional bank and with some investment money, get the loan. And now I'm paying them the interest payment. You get your money, which now what are you going to do with an eight million dollar check? You know, you're going to get taxed like that. Or we could turn it into smaller increments over time where I'm not paying the interest to the bank, I'm paying the interest to you. And if we negotiate this, right, that's going to be in excess of $3 million. So to be clear, to be clear

[46:36] Host: for everybody, the Delta between the 8 million and the 11.8 million, that 3.8 million, are the interest payments correct over time? The total, the sum of the interest payments over time, which, yeah, that goes either to the lender or in this case, you're pitching that it just go to him.

Guest: That's right. And so, yeah, he, he, that, that was a big pill for him to swallow. He's like, what are you talking about? So I open up my laptop and I show him my dumb calculator and I, so we start putting things in. I'm like, hey, look, how long. Let's just play hypothetical right now. I showed him that I was approved for an SBA loan at six and a quarter already. So I said, look, what if I give you a higher percentage rate let's go 7%. So I anchored it at 7%, because now we're there, 7%. And I said, let's. Let's try to pay it off in five years. Put it in five years. The debt service was tremendous, and I netted about 100 grand for the year. I said, so what do you think about this? He goes, oh, I would never do that to you. I mean, he's. And he's a good guy.

Host: So that's.

Guest: We were already gelling. He's a very good person, you know, good friend of mine now. And he's like, there's no way I in good conscience could sell you this business and you only net 100 grand. Because I know the power of what this thing can do do. I'm like, oh, I'm glad you said that. So we kicked it out all the way to 20 years. He goes, well, I don't. I'm not going to hold the note for 20. I'm like, let's just see what happens. We kick it out to 20 years after debt service. It clears about 1.2, 1.25. But I'm like, we. We don't like that either, because that's way too far out. So we started going back because it's. That's the beauty of an Excel spreadsheet. You just plug in a number, things happen. So then we landed at 7% at 12. And at 7% at 12, it's just shy of. I mean, a little bit over $1 million that it's netting after debt service. And he was happy with that. And then I did. And then I went. Took it a step further. I said, look, in two years of profitability of me actually command and control owning this company, I could get this entire thing refinanced, and then you're totally out. Or you could keep getting the interest payments, and then we could go for this ride for as long as you want. But at any given time, if you want out, we could refinance this. And so at that point, my question to him was, one, do you think that the revenues of this company could support seller financing? He said, yeah, showing him everything that we did. He goes, yeah, absolutely. Two, do you think I could run the business? Yes. So this is. This is me paying you for your risk, the extra 3 million of interest payments. This is us going on this ride together and making as much money as we can during this deal. And. And that's. That's what did it.

[49:16] Host: Now, Renan, that. That's a spectacular story. Congratulations. Huge. Congratulations. Thank you on that. But I, I, I got to stress test this guy's logic because, because first of all, this is a, this is not only a 100% seller financing deal, this is 100% seller financing deal for a big, attractive business, or at least according to the numbers. We don't, you know, we don't know what's under the hood or whatever, but it's just looking at the numbers. So 100% seller financing deals are things that we hear people hawking courses and gurus telling us is that that's the way to do it. But anybody who's been in the space for five minutes knows that it's, it's not a good approach for a lot of reasons that the audience will already be familiar with. And yet here you pulled it off. So we need to really understand why you were able to pull it off. Because I, I would be loath to kind of encourage people to think that this is something repeatable that they should go out and do.

Guest: Oh, it is extremely difficult.

Host: Yeah. So, so before I start with my questions, why don't you maybe give us a little bit more about how you feel about this. That this is not, indeed not something that you really recommend. People either, you, in fact, people in the, in the Cody Sanchez community come to you saying, how do I do this? And you say, you don't. Don't ask me. So tell us how you feel about this and the good fortune here.

Guest: If you feel like you're really vibing with the owners or you have a good relationship good enough to have that conversation, give it a try. Why not? It's a good conversation piece anyway. You're not trying to pull one over on anybody because it truly is a win win if you structure it correctly. But it is not repeatable. There's no way, you know, to do it over and over and over again. So that's why I, anyway, we're going to talk about that in a bit as well. But I had to actually put out like a public service announcement and saying, hey, look, I, I speak a lot about, you know, the 100 seller financing. Now. I'm not selling anything. I don't sell a course. I just like sharing the story because it's a real thing that happened. But what I don't talk about enough are like the other 20 or 25 that never made it off the ground floor because people don't want to hear it. They want money in hand. They need the check because they have obligations. They, so it has to be the perfect storm of somebody who doesn't need the capital right away, has that longevity that they're not like in their 80s, ready to, you know, spend that money on their grandkids, but, you know, see it as almost an annuity. Right. Instead of a lump sum check. So there's a lot of other factors that have to be present. And I got lucky. I. It was a perfect storm of consequences or variables. And it worked in this instance.

[51:57] Host: So you had been talking to, I mean, trying to do other deals, not just the dry cleaning. In fact, you talked to 20 and 25 owners and floated in varying degrees to these other owners, 100% seller financing. And just got lots of no's as

Guest: part of refining my pitch, refining my talk track. And that's all part of sales for me. You know, the more you say it out loud, the, the better you get at saying it.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: So that was kind of like a proving ground for me. What's working, what, what gives good feedback, what doesn't. And, and that's what helped me refine it during the process. Yeah.

Host: So this, this, for example, this thing about I can either pay the bank $3.8 million in interest or I can pay you seller $3.8 million in interest. That was some, that, that wasn't just a light bulb. That was something that you had kind of iterated and figured out over 20 prior conversations.

Guest: Yes, yes.

Host: And so, so going back to I. How did you put it? The alignment of the stars with these, these gentlemen, these brothers. It was. What was the alignment of the stars, that they were younger, so that they didn't want all their cash immediately. They, so they didn't need the capital. They. But what else? Like why, why would these guys not especially if they have other business, business interests, they're probably somewhat sophisticated business owners. If they're, if, if the business that they have is generating $2 million and that's not their biggest, that's not their biggest venture, that's not the biggest thing they got going on. That's the one that they want to move to the side to go up to give their attention to bigger things. They're probably pretty sophisticated business people. Why wouldn't they first at least go to a broker and you know, say, what can I get for this? As opposed to just, just trusting the man off the street who pitches them on 100% seller financing.

Guest: So here's additional information for that. They were approached several times by private equity in the past. And the thing, the recurring theme for them that private equity wanted to do was keep them in the Business and you know, just they, they would buy them out, keep them in the business. They wanted to be assured that I would completely get them out of the business. And yeah, we did. That was one of my things. You're, you're out. I mean a good transition period of a couple of months. I mean it turned out two months into it, we had full control of the company. It's, it wasn't that hard. But he, they wanted to be assured that they were not going to be in the business at all. They were kind of done with that. Just totally out and. Oh man, there were, oh, that goes back to the education piece. Normally these things trade for three, three and a half. I told them I'll give them a higher Multiple for it. 4x Multiple.

[54:30] Host: Right.

Guest: I already showed them that I had been approved for six and a quarter. I'm giving them seven. So now they're getting more money for the asset once again because they're doing a seller financing that only comes with seller financing. Because then the alternative is, okay, I raise capital, I go to a bank. The bank is never going to approve an 8 million dollar purchase price for this. You're probably looking at 6 and a half, 7. So do you want to go that route? It's going to take longer because you have to jump. And I shared my pain point with 10 months of getting an SBA loan for the dry cleaning company. I said, I've been working on this for 10 months and this is 700,000. Imagine what it's going to look like going for whatever, you know, we're going to buy this thing for. So it was a little bit of, I don't want to say fear, but the quickest way to close is if we come to terms and we could close and be done with it and you know, with terms that everybody likes. Yeah.

Host: So it sounds like another thing that was special about these sellers was that they were just had a real sense of urgency. They wanted to move on. They didn't want to have to give.

Guest: That's right.

Host: Any more attention than they had to to this business.

Guest: We saw a clear path forward. Yes.

Host: Yeah. Because you wonder, you know, like why they couldn't just hire an operator, a business that's throwing off this much cash, just hire an operator and collect, you know, $1.7 million from now until they're 80.

Guest: Well, that's another part of the special sauce there. And one of the, the unicorn things. They, I'm not talking bad about them at all, but control, control, control. There is no way that they're delegating anything to anybody. So that's why it took so much of their time, because they spent 12, 13 hours a day on the business, but they weren't running it as efficient as it could. And so I saw that as an opportunity. And they thought I was crazy when I started putting. They had all the levels of management in there, but they weren't really truly operating in that capacity. It all was, was him.

Host: They were still kind of micromanaged.

Guest: That's right. These people all big time. So it was a total culture shift when we took over and we started delegating, implemented EOs. Right people, right seats. And it was kind of like we broke them, broke them out of jail and said, let's go. And that. So that, that's another little piece right there because. All right, so this is a perfect example. There was another company on my, my deal list, Electric company, about the same size, 2 million EBITDA. Right. That guy. I kind of shot myself in the foot because we were talking seller financing. And this has been in his family for a hundred years. 101 years at the time. Yeah, it was like third or fourth generation. Build the trust. But I said to him, I'm like, hey, look, if you're selling purely to, once again, early 50s. I said, if you're selling purely to get your life back, why don't you just get an operator, somebody? And sure enough, you did. And so I, I, I was kind of like booted out of the deal. I'm like, oh, man. But I'm okay with that because when he is ready to sell, you know, he still knows where I am and, and we'll talk. But, you know, there's no way that they're going to delegate. It wasn't in the, the cards for them to do that. So they wanted out.

[57:35] Host: And what were they going on to do?

Guest: I, I, it's just, it's so development projects. You know, they have a labor company that they, they run several different things that they, they're into. Yeah.

Host: Anything else on, on the deal, Renan? That, that I'm not asking just because it just seems incredible to be able to buy an $8 million business with 0%, with 0% down.

Guest: I didn't realize it at the time, but yeah. A year and a half later, I'm very fortunate that everything lined up that way because it did change my life forever.

Host: Yeah. And is 0% financing stuff that in the Cody Sanchez world is people try to do? I mean, is it talked about maybe it was kind of normalized for you a little bit. You were like, I could do this.

Guest: It wasn't really heavily, I, I, I, no, no. So that, that kind of, I became almost the poster child for that, you know, the guy who did it. And I mean, other people have done it smaller deals, you know, maybe they had the relationship already, but I mean, I, I truly went in with the letter of the law and, and did it, you know, and that's not what I was trying to, that's not why I was in the community. I just wanted to buy a business, and this was the path that got me a business. You know, I did not set out to try to do 100% seller financing, you know, so it just kind of happened.

Host: Yeah, well, we're not. One, one more question on their psychology just before we leave this, because this is such a, this is so powerful and that you were able to get this deal. You know, you just think from their perspective about the level of risk they're taking. So they're, you know, getting their money dripped out to them over, what did you say, 12 years?

Guest: Yes.

Host: So at any, I mean, that's a, that's an enormous amount of risk for them to take. So even though they're being compensated, you offer them, you know, a premium on the multiple that this might have otherwise traded for a more generous interest payment. You're just compensating them to just kind of make it, just make it more attractive. But if you think about this purely from kind of a risk reward perspective, you know, is that compensation enough to, to offset the additional risk they're taking, where all of this money, this basically 12 million bucks is all being dripped out to them by this renowned guy over the next, over the next. Excuse me. Yeah, no. 12 million bucks. 8 plus 11.8, 11.8 over, over 12 years. So call it a million bucks a year through this renowned guy that we've known for two months? I mean, that's a lot of risk for them. A whole lot of risk. It is.

[1:00:09] Guest: And yeah, just to take a step further, it was not decided at that diner. It was a pill for, for them to swallow to discuss. And then a couple of days later, they came back, all right, what if we do it this way? That, and we've landed on final terms after probably two weeks of going back and forth and saying, how about this? And then we had to talk about the accounts receivable included. What are we going to do about that? And so there was, those were the, well, once I knew that we were talking about ar, I was like, we're, we're there, we're going to do this, we're going to do this deal. And then that was it. You know, it was just. And it's funny, I, when we got to signing or when we got the purchase agreement done, you know, he made the comment, he goes yeah, my lawyer thinks I'm crazy. My CPA thinks I'm crazy. I'm like oh no, is this deal done? He goes no, it's not done. But I know what we're doing and he's a very smart guy, you know, and, and everything is knock on wood going well but yeah, it, I thought at that 11th hour we were going to lose the deal because of outside influence. And so one of my thing things, that's why I prefer off market deals because I mean I had, I don't really deal with brokers as much. I'm sure there's good brokers out there. I'm not sure I haven't you know, but from what I've heard in, in the communities a broker can either make you or break you. You know, if they don't want you to have seller financing, they're going to talk to and they, they're the ones that have the trust with the seller. So by, by surpassing that and me getting the, the relationship and the trust and it's just myself and the owner, then it's that will. It's a higher probability or percentage of doing a deal like that.

Host: Well, that I guess is one takeaway you, you have from your experience here of, of, of some of the value of proprietary outreach is that you kind of get to shape the thinking of the seller rather than having a broker do it. Is there any other takeaway from your story? What could other than because again neither, neither you nor I are sitting here advocating that people should try to go out and get 100 seller financing deals. But given that you got it, is there what other takeaways are there? Maybe the, I like the idea what you said about the reps of just like refining your sales pitch. Although that's you know, most, most of the audience who's actually been talking to, to sellers will have, will already appreciate that, that you get better with reps. So that's not really unique to your, your situation Any, anything else that we can learn.

Guest: Oh for me personally the thing that it, that should where set me off maybe belief. Well yeah that's the thing. The, the sense of, of belief that things can happen if you know, you put your mind to it once again and then the big, the Big takeaway for me was, hell, if I could do this with no money, imagine if I raise capital to buy additional companies, you know, because now I already have in my mind the pitch for 100% and I've done it and I have it. So now I could leverage that, start raising capital and buy additional businesses with a component of seller financing built in. But if I could put 30, 30% down, I should be able to close 60 to 70% of the deals. Right. So that's my biggest takeaway, theoretically.

[1:03:19] Host: Well, that, that teases that. Where we're going to conclude our conversation today, but not just yet. I want to hear first how the transition has gone, what you've found in this business. And then I want to hear just a little bit about the restoration business because this is one that searchers, you'll hear searchers buy A type of business that searchers buy first. How's it, how's it going? What was it like to get into this 8 million dollar 35 person business?

Guest: So year one, we did all the things, all the things that you're supposed to be they that are written in the books that you're supposed to do to a business. You know, we put in SOPs, systems, processes. You know, we did a rebranding technology and we went hard and I am, this is a, I am going on record and saying do not do all the things right away because there's something called working capital that you need to be very, very mindful of. Thank God we had a lot of meat on the bone because we did. We, I mean, we, I moved location to a bigger professional building so we all had offices, increased the fleet, so we bought additional vehicles, bought additional equipment, different, you know, rebranding, swag, marketing. We, we did everything and wow, I found myself where we're like, holy cow, how are we going to pay payroll? Because we did all the things, you know, the sec, we had it built in, we did a sensitivity analysis. What happens if revenue goes down? What happens if it goes up? And we could take that, not a problem. But that's based on all the things that were from before us. Once we implemented all these new systems and process, it cost more money. And then when we had that little bit of a dip, it wasn't as comfortable as it should have been for us. So working capital is key. Knowing exactly how much you're going to need and building a war chest that, you know, I'm scarred by that. And so it's not going to happen ever again. Hope knock on Woody. Once again, you Know you can. I could say that, but.

Host: Right.

Guest: You know, but that was a big thing for me. Yeah.

Host: And, and you say you're scarred by it. What was there a moment of panic? Was there a fetal position moment? What was at the worst moment? What did it look like and feel like?

Guest: Not in my stomach.

Host: Let's scare the audience straight about working capital.

Guest: And I'm very transparent. So that's the thing. I'll ask questions what I don't know, and I'll tell you exactly how I felt. I'm talking about deep, dark, not in your stomach, crying. Because you do not have the backup or the safety net of big fortune anything or big corporate America. It is on you. There's families at stake, there's, there's other people involved that you're responsible for. And if you can't pay payroll, I mean, what are you doing right, if you can't take on the bigger jobs? So it got a little scary for us, I would say about six months ago. And then we, we got out of that tailspin and we've been doing all right since, you know.

Host: Did you get out just because happily, revenue came back, sales came back when it had momentarily.

[1:06:01] Guest: I did get a bridge loan. Oh, yeah. Had to get a bridge loan. Yeah, I had to. And that was a panic moment as well. Like, where, where are we going to go for this? And that, that goes, that kind of leads into, you know, the, the end of this story because, you know, I am waiting on bigger capital. That's why I made all the moves that I made, because I was counting chickens before they hatched and I'm still counting them because they haven't hatched yet.

Host: Okay.

Guest: But any day now. Any day. All right.

Host: Oh, well, hold, hold on. Just before we get to it, and just to be clear on the timing here, you bought it in Jan. Of last year, January 2023.

Guest: I actually signed for it in November of 22. Took the, oh, I quit my corporate job, then took the entire month of December to just kind of recalibrate. And then January 1st, full time operate. Well, not operating, but full time into my new venture. I will say why I'm going to put out, put this out also because this is another thing that I, I'm in the communities I'm in when I speak to people looking for businesses and they say something like, oh, yeah, I really like this. It's, it's really good revenues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the previous owner does four hours a week on the job, whatever. So I, I could keep my Job. No, no, they could do that because they put 30 years into the business prior to you. If you do not know the sector unless you already are like an expert in that field. But if it's something that you're pivoting or something that you're not that familiar with, it's going to take a lot more time than you think. Yeah. You know, if you're going to do it right, you have to know the industry, you have to know the ins and outs, know the people, know your business, and then you could kind of put the brakes on maybe a little bit. But I, I don't. I don't like that mentality of, oh, I'm just going to buy it as a side hustle and that's not fair for anybody. That's just my personal take.

Host: Yeah, well, it's good, Renan, because I feel like we've now addressed the two things that can be over promised in this world. 100 seller financing, which we've covered in depth, and buy a business and have somebody else run it or have it be passive or semi passive, and you collect checks and work, continue working your W2 or go to the beach or whatever. And so. So your opinion on the latter of those two is also clear. And I share it. Oh, uh, just from there. There, again, there are exceptions to that, too. I've had them on the podcast, people who are not full time in their business. Um, but. But even those stories, I'm thinking of like a Matthew Saskin who bought a business and hired an operator to go into the business while he was closing on the business so he didn't have to be full time in the business. He's still giving his business 10 and 15 and 20 hours a week, even with an operator there. So anyway. And by the way, how did people at Abbott take it? How did. They were. They were like, did they have any notion that this was coming, that Ronan was buying a restoration business? And it's going to be.

[1:09:04] Guest: During the process of that. During the process of that, I actually left Abbott and went to a medical device startup and then another medical device startup. And I remember one of the. This key conversations I had with a gentleman down in North Carolina. I told him I was leaving. This is what I'm doing. And he thought I was crazy. He goes, that is so risky. That is. So what happens if the business goes out of business? What happens? You know, all the what ifs. I'm like, hey, buddy, me and you have the same resume. I could just dust the resume off and get a Sales job, you know, if. But I'm gonna give this a chance. Two months after I left, took over the company, did all that. The company that he still worked for let go of 75% of the. They got rid of the CEO and 75% of the field because it was no longer a commercial medical device company. They went back to research phase because it was a startup and a lot of people lost their jobs. And that's where the risk to me lies. I'd rather depend on myself than depend on a company to take care of me. Right, right.

Host: For sure. You know, and it's, it's the old thing about W2s being seen as the, the least risky of all possible options, which is such a. You've got essentially, I like how to put it that you've got 100% customer concentration when you're a W2. All of your revenue is coming from a single customer, I. E. Your employer. So. So it's hardly the risk free choice that people like to think it is. All right, Renan, where are we going to go from here? Oh, let's hear about the restoration business. So I heard you use the word construction. Is this fundamentally a construction business? Tell us what you tell us.

Guest: So the reason I like this is our, the margins are very strong. A lot of it is insurance based. So. And it's necessity. You know, gas could be 20 bucks a gallon. But if you're, you have 2ft of water in your house, you're going to call a plumber and you're going to need your house dried out and, and built back up.

Host: And to be clear, the restoration is for what? Flooding and fire. And flooding.

Guest: Fire, mold as best, asbestos. I like my company because it's not a franchise and we have a whole out reconstruction division in house. So we take it from the beginning to the end. You know, customer knows what they're getting. A lot of franchises, they go in, it's still very profitable franchises. You go in, you do the drying or the remediation and then you leave the reconstruction to somebody else or they have their subs. But you know, we go soup to nuts on everything. We do capital improvements. So we partner up with big developers, builders, you know, commercial builders and do punch lists construction. We could do a whole lot renovation if you want a new bathroom. So I like the, you know, the, the flexibility I have with this, which is why I did not want to buy a franchise. Because franchise, you're mandated to do one thing and one thing only unless up top tells you different. But for us we could add or remove a division as needed and we could pivot as the market goes. So we've actually done that because we were heavy residential restoration, like on the beck and call of a storm or pipes bursting. But now we're pivoting more to commercial contracts, multi year, multimillion dollar contracts where we're on site and we're doing stuff like replacing all the drywall, repiping, you know, all the mold for 500 units over X amount of time. So those are better, more consistent contracts. It puts us there and we're the first ones on, on site. If, if a disaster should hit, you don't need to call a franchise. We're already there with the capabilities to do restoration. So you know that and. Yeah, yeah, that, that's why I like the. And like I said, talking about gross profits. 70%. 60. 70%. It distills down to 30% net net 25 to 30%. So it's. That's why I say there's a lot of meat on the bone. There's.

[1:12:51] Host: I would have thought that construction had lower margins just because new construction does every. Every kind of general contract. Not every general, but a lot of general contractors. Just seems like there'd be a lot of competition for this.

Guest: Well, new construction, the margins are lower. And a lot of other construction companies, if you're subcontracting a lot, that's a lot of overhead and profit that goes to them. If you have everything in house like we do, then we realize more of the profit. So that's another reason why I like this particular company versus, let's say a franchise. Or because you could theoretically have a GC company that has three people and you're subcontracting everything. It could still be very lucrative. Huge top line. But once all the operating costs are figured in, you're talking about 10 to 15% profit margins because a lot of that is going to the subs.

Host: Sure. But in your case, when you have, when you're not subbing out any work and it's all. Everybody is an employee for you, the, the risk there is what? That in a soft market you're gonna not have work for your people.

Guest: That's exactly right.

Host: So you can't flex as easily.

Guest: Exactly. But. But then because we're not a franchise, we could pivot. So last last summer, you know, summer is traditionally our slower period. We did a lot of Jan San janitorial sanitation. You know, I had the guys going in stripping, waxing floors, doing cleaning, dispenser installs, those kind of punch list item work throughout the summer. And that kept us whole.

Host: So it sounds like Renan. And maybe this is what you're trying to say about having bought an independent business and not a franchise that you're, you'll do kind of almost anything that involves that's not new construction and that's not super technical, but anything kind of that is touches remodeling they'll do.

Guest: Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Host: And is that whereas say you had bought a franchise, they would like just stick to the, the, the, the restoration

Guest: and restoration for the most part. That's what I've seen Some, some of these franchises say that they could do the reconstruction and sometimes they do. They have an in house but that's not the norm. They'll, they'll sub it out or they have trade partners that will come in and do it, which eats the profits as well. And then don't get me wrong, we use subcontractors as well, but not as much, you know, because I mean we can't do the H Vac systems because we don't have anybody licensed on our team, so. Right, right.

[1:15:15] Host: And how do you think about the kind of strategy and positioning of the business where you know, being a niche player and you just do one thing and you do it really well and everybody knows you for that versus a strategy which it seems you're now pursuing where you'll. You offer a whole suite of services.

Guest: So that was actually part of our rebranding. The original name of the company was called Restore Pro. And because we are, we are offering a suite of services, we rebranded to Syndicate Building Solutions. So just a bunch of building solutions for commercial and residential needs, you know, where we could do everything. Because there's additional acquisitions at play right now as well. And some of these companies, they do stucco doors, windows, roofing. So it's a complete suite of services that we could offer soup to nuts. And so we rebranded the Syndicate Building Solutions and that, that leads to the bigger vision of what we're doing. Great.

Host: Fascinating. And what about just being in the construction business? Renown as you know, lenders don't like to, don't like to lend against construction businesses. They're seen as extremely, they are quite cyclical. So you know, construction kind of tracks the economy. Recognize you're not doing new construction which, which much more tightly tracks the economy than kind of restoration work in all the attendant things that might come off of that. But still construction has a reputation for being not kind of the opposite of recurring, whatever on the spectrum of recurring to not, it's kind of at the far end of that spectrum. So how do you, how do you think about how kind of the quality of revenue at the business.

Guest: Yeah, so, and that, that's why I'm, I'm pivoting a little bit more towards capital improvements because those are multi year contracts. And if I could show the bank we have these contracts in place, like there's a company in California we're getting ready to acquire. They have 180 million in contracts over the next five years that have been awarded. So investors look at that, they want a piece of it because they know that growth is imminent. As long the, the big, in this space, the restoration and capital improvement space. The, the biggest caveat that I've gotten from people in the field is do not grow too fast. Believe it or not, it's not that we're going to do this, it's we're going to go this too fast and you have to do it responsibly and you know, with intention. And so I'm building a good team around that. But yeah, I mean it's a very strong space. I would say the big players in the space account for about 20% of the market. Everything else is fragmented. So there's a great opportunity to do roll ups in the space. And now that I just gave the playbook away to everybody, now I'm going to be fighting everybody for restoration companies. But no, it really is. There's a ton of good companies like this in the space that are mom and pop, you know, silver tsunami, they're getting out, kids don't want to take it over. And if you professionalize it, put in system and processes, there's a great opportunity in this sector.

[1:18:09] Host: And do you think for people listening that might find a business like this that their playbook should be similar to yours in that they diversify the actual service offering or that they stay in restoration?

Guest: I would say, you know, we arrived at that because of the opportunity that was presented to us. So I'm pretty good about pivoting to where the opportunity presents. If they have an opportunity to, let's say concentrate on hospitals because you know, maybe they have an uncle or somebody that's integrated with decision making, then do that. You know, I, so I go where our relationships are the strongest and where I see the biggest opportunity, you know, for us, one of our competitive advantages, like I was a veteran, so this is all veteran owned. There's set aside capital for that. You know, each federal and state entity has a mandate for set asides. For GSA bids. So that's one of our competitive advantages as well. You know, we're building a national portfolio of, you know, a veteran owned restoration service syndicate, building solutions. So. Yeah, great.

Host: Well, I've teased it long enough. What, what, what now tell us directly, what are you, what are you building after this first acquisition? What are you working on? Kind of.

Guest: Well, yeah, so that's exactly it. You know, we, we're doing acquisitions around the country in this space that are heavily capital improvements, restoration, reconstruction, you know, that, those kinds of companies and we are putting it all under one banner and raising capital to do so. So we have some significant money that's supposed to be coming in. So raising capital is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Also it's taking three times as long as it should have. But you know, we have some very strong capital coming in. Hopefully within the next month or two. That's when it should finally be done. And then we pull the trigger on these acquisitions that we have. Pennsylvania, California, Florida, South Carolina.

Host: And tell us about these acquisitions. They're restoration companies around the country. How big are they? How big are they compared to Restore Pro or what used to be Restore Pro, your first acquisition.

Guest: So you know, comparatively speaking, Restore Pride 2 million EBITDA or Syndicate Building Solutions has 2 million EBITDA. The one in California has doubled every year for the last four years. They've been in the business for 20 plus years. They built this company to sell to private equity and so they know how to do this. So they're skyrocketing. And so I'm buying them at a very, very good value investment and that's $18 million still. But it's, I mean this is the company that has 180 and 180 million in contracts for the next five years with another 100 million pending. You know, we just have to kind of close the deal on that. And then The Pennsylvania company is 3 million in EBITDA. We're doing this for $11 million. And they have tons of contracts with HOAS and decision makers as well. They're on a really good trajectory. The owner there is staying on for biz dev and we have a general manager running it, the one in California. It's two owners. One's going off to the sunset and one is staying on for the second bite of the apple because he's, we're doing a rollover equity for him, same as Pennsylvania. They both have equity in the deals, so, so they want the second bite. And we do have a projected exit 5 to 7 years for 1.5 to 2 billion based on 100 million of EBITDA across the portfolio.

[1:21:35] Host: 100 million of EBITDA?

Guest: Yes, sir. So that means we need to have top line revenues, 5, 6, 700 million to distill down to 100 million EBITDA have everything professionalized SOPS culture across the board. And yeah, either go IPO or exit to big private equity. So where I battle tested that, I didn't want to go through the same embarrassment of, you know, when I was raising capital the very first time without having my mba. So I ended up enrolling in Columbia Business School for Private Equity and Venture Capital. Taking that, it wasn't a degree, it was a certificate program, but still I was in Columbia Business School in New York. Same professors, other fund managers in there, my cohort and I pretty much battle tested it there and they're like, yeah, those, that's how it trades. That's what it is. Well, why isn't everybody doing this?

Host: And what was their answer to that?

Guest: Well, because a lot of people, like I met a lot of VC people, they don't want the 3x4x return on their money. They want the 50x, the 100x that you get with crypto or some kind of AI platform that's going to take over the world. Right. Some people want bigger returns for their money and the projects that they do. But then there is a strong sector of people doing rollups like this, you

Host: know, so I mean, that's what private equity is.

Guest: Well, yeah, yeah.

Host: And did you get the impression that other people in your class were, were, were they attempting things like this as well? Not this, not the professors.

Guest: It was very weird. A lot of them were like data analysts or they, they worked for a private equity firm or a VC firm and they didn't have the vision of just doing this themselves. I was like the weird oddball in my cohort as well. Like everybody worked for JP Morgan or Coca Cola or something in a big way. So they were analyzing big numbers and I'm the one buying 100%, you know, seller finance, $8 million company. And they think they're like holy cow, that's crazy. So there, there's, I know we're doing something special. We're building our own private equity firm. It's Cynic Adventure Group. And yeah, okay, so a hundred million

Host: dollars of EBITDA, you said you need to get to what, 6 to 800 million in revenue?

Guest: That's that. We are estimating it there. We're going to see how everything shakes out once the portfolio really takes shape. But that's, that's our best guesstimate right now. Because if you figure 25%, you know, to net, net, you know, it should be 400 million. But there's going to be a lot of reinvestments and debt service and everything else. So we're shooting for like 5,600 million top line revenues. I mean the California company themselves, by themselves, they project they are going to do annual revenues 120 million by year five. So you put a bunch of those together and that's it.

[1:24:17] Host: Where, where are they now though?

Guest: They, they went from 3 million to 6 million to 12 million. And this year they're tracking to a little bit over 20. Mm,

Host: man. And, and so you want to get to 100 million in EBITDA over how long this project is, is the rest of your career. Five to. Oh, you said that five to seven. All right, Renan. Well, I'm not gonna, I don't want to just sit here and pick at this plan. You're, you're, you're, you know, people listening are going to be very familiar with the idea of a roll up and that the numbers can get big and interesting and make people multimillionaires in a very real way in a half decade. But these numbers are so big. I know, even for ambitious private equity people. What connect the dots between this level of ambition. You know, I'm almost, I'm almost like, I almost want to say to you, only 100 million in EBITDA. You know, why don't you make it $1 billion in EBITDA run on? Come on. No, but like, it's such a big number that you're targeting. Connect the dots between that, where you were, how you arrived at that and you know, where you started, almost buying a dry cleaning business for 700 grand.

Guest: All in the vision. I see it. And just for perspective there a little over, well, a year and a half ago when I had to Google private equity, right? My goal, and I have it written down on a gold card because I, I do the gold cards. I was sitting there with Cody in Austin and they were like, put your next three to five year go goals. My goal sitting there in November 2022 was to raise $3 million to buy additional businesses. That was my goal. And then in talking to people in the community, they were like, do at least 10 million. Okay, 10 million. And then somebody else, Eddie Carroll out of Washington D.C. he comes from the private equity world, he goes, nobody's going to Respect you unless you do $100 million raise. Guess we're doing 100 million dollar raise. And it's just in having these conversations and speaking to the professors at Columbia. It we settled on a hundred million dollars for our first raise once I, since then I wanted to be in the room so I joined family office club. I've been going to those events. You know, I'm on the radar. Richard C. Wilson, he's the CEO of that. We've actually had really good conversations and I've seen the world of the ultra wealthy and how these things trade and how money gets exchanged for projects. So I've been fortunate to get in that room where we have significant capital coming in. And so I now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it. I didn't have this vision two years ago, but as we progress, like I said, I'm pretty good about pivoting where the opportunity presents, the opportunities presenting. I see it, we're going towards that. I mean even if we don't get a 15x, if we settle at a 10x which that's going to be great because I've seen trades, you know, at 20 million for 10x but 20 million EBITDA at 10x but even if we do that, that's a billion dollar exit. I'm okay with that. I'm not greedy. I'm okay with that. You know, I split it among the cc.

[1:27:23] Host: If I have any doubt, Runan, about this, this vision, which I totally applaud you for, it won't be that the, the multiple won't be there. The multiple will be there.

Guest: From everything I understand and that's I've had.

Host: It's just hard. It's going to be harder maybe than I would think it might be harder than it seems to roll up all these together, the integration, the whatever. So it's actually just going to be able to and to do it on the time frame that you want, that's where. And then access to capital.

Guest: Are you really going to be able

Host: to raise as much money as you need? Speaking of which, you had said the chickens haven't hatched yet. So how much, how much of this capital have you raised or rephrased? Tell us what it looks like to have this plan go to the capital markets and raise the money to do it. What does that all look like?

Guest: So once again, you know, like I said, I referenced early on, there is no spoon as far as the matrix concerned. There is no hard and fast rule on how to build a project or A fund or an offering or anything like that. So going through the certificate program, I took the best components of VC and private equity and I put it to get where I actually had an, a bit of an argument with my SEC lawyer. He's like, you're giving away the farm on your first 10 million trunch. And I'm like, well that's by design. I'm an emerging manager, never done this before, no track history. So I do kind of have, once again, how do I mitigate the risk of somebody investing in somebody who's never managed a fund? You make it that much more lucrative as far as the terms. Yeah, so I did that and that's what got me into a lot of conversations. And since then I've evolved and found my way into maybe direct deals or. Right now what we are working on once we close is $203 million of private debt. And so that's one pro, one thing that we should be closing. July, I'm sorry, June 15th, we're going to hear by May 31st how that's going. And then something I'm already signed up for is I went to a JP Morgan big investment meeting and I met a gentleman that, well, a firm that specializes in emerging managers. So they subscribed for 17.5 million into the fund and they did that as a, a way to show other investors it's okay, it's safe, he has his first investor and they specialize in that market. They have a mandate for it. They love the story. They, they looked at the product, we did the due diligence. So that is supposed to hit, I mean that was supposed to hit two, three months ago. They had to do a reverse stock split on their end. The program is still viable. And then we're going to do this. They're called the beneficiary. If anybody wants to reach out and look, you know, if they're an emerging manager and you know, I could put them in contact with them as well. But so we have 17 and a half there. We have 203 in private debt. And the private debt people is a multibillion dollar family office that I met through family office club. All goes well here, I'm going back to the well to build because these guys, they usually do like 5 to $700 million for real estate development projects. That's their thing. But I'm buying cash flowing operating companies and this is like a home run for them. You know, the, the risk is really mitigated because it's not a construction development project. This is cash flowing and it's strong cash flowing. So, you know, I once again knocking on all the wood that we close on all that and then take down these acquisitions.

[1:30:50] Host: And when you say raise 203 million from this group for private debt, that's on. That's kind of like a line of credit, basically. Like you tap it as you need it for acquisitions.

Guest: They're deploying it over 12 months. There, there's. We had to sit there and, and figure out how much we're going to need for the first six months working capital. And so we, we were very, you know, we put in the working capital. We put in a lot of things that we're going to need to not only acquire, but to make these things run at a higher level. So we put it all in and it's going to be deployed over the next 12 months.

Host: You're going to deploy $200 million in 12 months? Yes.

Guest: Like right now I have $136 million in businesses ready to be acquired. I told you about the California and Pennsylvania company. But there's a couple of other companies ready to rock as well. Just. Yeah, and I had to include that. I had to have Lois purchase agreements. That's all part of the data room that I had to provide because they're not going to give capital on a, you know, on a dream. So everything's been negotiated. I've been hard at work, so that's.

Host: Yeah, no kidding. So are you mostly spending your time on acquisitions now or not right now on this?

Guest: No, I'm coasting right now to. If I could even say it like that, meaning I put all the work. And I'm still having a couple of investor meetings here and there. I'm waiting for the big money to, to finish and I spend my time going in. You know, I'll go into syndicate building solutions a little bit later, see what's going on, kind of be around and just kind of try to take my mind off of the waiting game of where is this capital? You know, when. When is it going to be here? When is it going to be here? I know it's coming. I've touched in with all the people. It's just waiting now to, to close on everything and then it's going to get very busy, you know, this year. Yeah.

Host: And just going back to your first acquisition, Syndicate, so your management layer after owning it for a year in the business and us, etc. That those managers really are running the business for you.

Guest: General manager. We have VPs. We have everything. Yeah, I Mean, just yesterday we had an EOS meeting. I pop in on those because I, I mean, I still, I'm a people person. I still like to hear what's going on, you know, to see how EOS is being implemented. So some of the ideas that are going back and forth.

[1:33:03] Host: But yeah, and, and so let's, like, if you weren't trying to roll up these types of businesses across the country to $100 million in EBITDA and you just wanted to be in the business, this first business that you acquired it, which is kind of the standard story, the standard story of a guest and acquiring minds. This would be a huge success because a year and a half into this business that you bought for 100% seller financing that does $2 million in EBITDA, you've basically, you've made a bunch of changes. You had a scare there, but it seems to have stabilized and the business doesn't really need you.

Guest: Right. And that's what I'm saying. I wish people ask me all the time, why are you doing this? But I don't know, because I could see it. And why not? I'm 48 years old. Why not give it a shot at building something national? And, you know, I'm not afraid of that big of a lift. I mean, worst case scenario, nothing else happens and I own this company.

Host: Exactly.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: That's.

Guest: That's how I'm seeing it.

Host: That's right.

Guest: So it's like, all right, I'm going to give it a go. I have a clear vision. I have an entire C suite waiting to quit their W2 to come over to work full time for Cynic Adventure Group. And so we have all the pieces in place. We have strong opportunities, connections, networks, all that. The only limiting thing right now is capital, which will be solved in the next month or two. And then we'll see where we go.

Host: Well, we'll leave it there. Renan. This is a very fascinating path.

Guest: It's crazy as hell, right?

Host: It is. And I, I feel weird sometimes, skepticism on my part, Renan, so that you don't feel like I'm beating up on you. You know, it's just so. Like I said, those are such big numbers.

Guest: I know.

Host: For a guy who's pretty recently on the path.

Guest: I know.

Host: You know, I'm just, I. I just gotta, gotta push on it a little bit. But I think at the end here, what you've just said is like, you know, you, you bought one pretty sizable business. It's stable 100 seller financing. You had 70 grand pretty much to your name or maybe you had more, but that was what you'd allocated to this path and, and you've stabilized it. It doesn't even really need you. So, so you've got, you know, your downside is very. I mean, your downside is a great, great situation. You could just stop now at 48 with a business doing $2 million at EBITDA and you've already won.

Guest: Well, you see, this is what eats me up also, because let's say the capital doesn't come. I have a strong sense of accountability to people. So that means that I, you know, we've been doing diligence on these companies for eight months, nine months. That means that they now have to find an alternative buyer. That means that the people are going to hire to be part of the big vision. They're not going to be able to do that. There's going to be a lot of letdown and, and I'm going to feel like crap, you know, about it. But I, I ration. Like, at least I have this company that I can, you know.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Kind of operate and focus on and just live my life. But I'm. I'm going to get. I'm going for it. Yeah.

[1:36:00] Host: Great, Renan. Well, we'll be eager to hear, watch your developments and hear how it all goes.

Guest: Thank you.

Host: And root. And rooting for that 200 million to

Guest: hit your bank account.

Host: They can start spending it.

Guest: All right.

Host: If people want to reach out to you, how do you, how do you like them to do that?

Guest: Oh, I mean, our website is SVGPE.com Syndicate, VentureGroup, Private Equity.com. all the social media stuff is there. I'm not a big social media person, but I do have a team for that now because I know how necessary it is. And yeah, you can contact. I actually have my real phone number on there like a dummy. So I have to probably change your website. Yeah. Website.

Host: Okay.

Guest: Yeah. Email, you can access me all through that or if you want to email, it's Renan R E N a n@svgpe.com so great.

Host: Thank you for sharing that, Renan, and thank you for sharing this incredible story. Congratulations on. Congratulations on the first acquisition. That alone deserves huge congratulations, but on this even grander path that you're setting out on now. Congratulations on the chutzpah to do it and best of luck and I'm sure we'll get updates from you.

Guest: Thank you. Appreciate it.