oday's guest thought he would buy a business with an SBA loan, pay down the debt, cashflow it, and live happily ever after.

Instead, he has rolled up dozens of businesses in commercial HVAC and adjacent services to over a billion dollars in annual revenue.

Yes, a billion.

Traditionally for searchers who develops a vision to consolidate their industries, $100 million in revenue is the big, hairy, audacious goal.

Today's interview with Steve Carroll might reframe what's possible.

In his deck to the private equity fund that backed him, Steve's plan was to acquire his way to $10 million of EBITDA over five or so years. A pretty traditional roll-up play.

But he got to $10m of EBITDA in a year and a half.

It was working so well at that point, he had to keep going.

Now Steve didn't give us EBITDA numbers of where he is today, but he has said that margins at Kelso Industries are around 10%.

Which would suggest $100 to $150 million of EBITDA.

More remarkable still, he's done that in five years, from would-be SBA buyer in late 2020, to $1.2 billion as Kelso Industries as of November, 2025. Wow.

Now, obviously the formula for this success is multifaceted, and we can't cover all of it in an hour and a half.

So Steve and I focused on key inflection points early in the journey.

Points that might help you now. (I assume you're not yet to a billion.)

One of the key points of this entire journey was Steve going from acquisition #1 to acquisition #2.

Acquisition #1 was a business he bought and operated himself — even moonlighting for a while as he maintained a W-2.

He was drowning during this time, working 100-hour weeks.

The idea that he could ever really grow seemed remote. He was too in the weeds of this business.

And then he and his partner, another Steve, considered a shift in their model for acquisition number two, and that was a big unlock.

It remains the foundation of a model that they've refined over 5 years and two dozen plus subsequent acquisitions.

So this interview could have been hours longer, but hopefully we did justice to at least the first couple of years of Steve's remarkable journey to build Kelso Industries to this unicorn of entrepreneurship through acquisition.

Please enjoy Steve Carroll, CEO and co-founder of Kelso industries.