Acquiring Minds: Founder Mode for ETA — $6m to $25m in 3 Years

Podcast: Acquiring Minds
Host: Will Smith
Guest: Isaac Zimmerman (Owner, Jay Blanton’s Plumbing, Chicago)
Date: September 29, 2025
Theme: Going deep in “Founder Mode” after acquiring a plumbing business — building with soul, ambition, and a long-term entrepreneurial vision.

Overview

This episode dives into the rare but potent “Founder Mode” approach to acquisition entrepreneurship, as embodied by Isaac Zimmerman. After acquiring a $6M plumbing business in Chicago, Zimmerman boldly scaled it to $25M+ in just three years. He rejects both the traditional private equity roll-up mindset and the “buy-to-sell” ETA model, focusing instead on pouring himself—creatively and energetically—into building a long-lasting, high-growth business. The conversation traverses his path to acquisition, motivations, growth strategies, views on industry trends, and profound reflections on business-building mindset.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Path to Acquisition

• Family Influence & Early Exposure

  • Isaac grew up in an “entrepreneurial small business family” in Cleveland, observing his parents practice what’s now called ETA before it was formalized. (04:54)
  • “I saw this through my family ... I can do all these things that I want to do and be creative and be an entrepreneur and I don’t have to go 0 to 1. So it just all made a lot of sense.” — Isaac (07:49)

• Education & Career Before ETA

  • Worked in banking, private equity, and operating roles at large companies.
  • Searched for a business to buy while at Booth (University of Chicago).

• Falling In Love with Home Services

  • Inspired by peers like John Wilson (Wilson Companies) (09:27).
  • Home services (especially plumbing/HVAC): “a pure business sandbox ... infinitely sized ... infinitely fragmented ... Amazon proof, Covid proof, China proof. It will always be needed.” (10:58)
  • “You are not stuck just doing one aspect of business … you get to have all the different stuff that’s contained within having a ‘real world’ business.” — Isaac (13:26)

2. Ambition & Founder Mode vs. Private Equity Approach

• Founder Mode Defined

  • “Pour yourself into the business you buy ... For completely identifying with it, rather than trying to figure out how you can extricate yourself as quickly as possible.” — Will (01:10)
  • Isaac’s ambition: “I want to build the largest home service company in the country ... a billion dollar company ... I didn’t start this to run a small business. I’m really not interested in small business. Small businesses equals big problems.” (15:45)

• Critique of Private Equity & Roll-ups

  • Calls many roll-up portfolios “zombie companies”: “They’re just … generating whatever amount of money they’re generating a year ... and slowly, effectively slowly dying ... It’s kind of silly. They over-acquired … They end up with different cultures, different ways of doing anything. It’s insane.” (22:30–25:55)
  • “When you strip a company of the people that were there and they nurtured it like a baby ... that’s not a winning company.” (25:55)
  • On the broader market: “There’s always a way. If you have ambition and a plan, paying a couple extra turns on entry does not matter.” (19:28)

• Differentiation from Traditional Owners

  • Youth, tech-savvy ambition, and willingness to scale set him apart from most boomer-aged business owners (26:44)

• Advice on Industry Selection

  • “There’s endless opportunity ... People should choose businesses based on what they’re excited about and think they can be good at—not based on what is flavor of the month or sounds sexy.” (29:41)

3. Long-Term vs. Buy-to-Sell ETA Mindset

• Critique of Conventional Searcher Mentality

  • “I don’t relate to the ETA crowd anymore ... Now what actually excites me is this industry and running my business and making improvements every day.” (32:51)
  • “I didn’t want to buy a company and set it up in such a way that I would have to sell it or would sell it in three to five years ... After three or five years, you’re just getting good at something.” (32:51–35:58)
  • Not a “forever hold,” but “definitely a very long-term thing.” (36:15)

• On Founder Mode Leadership

  • Inspired by Brian Chesky (Airbnb): “For the last three years running this business, that [delegation] didn’t resonate ... I felt like I had to be obsessed with everything ... The more I was involved, the better everything would go.” (37:33)

  • “[Founder mode] perfectly matched what I had felt and relieved me of a lot of this leadership guilt.” (37:33)

  • “If I was going to invest in somebody ... I would only invest in somebody that I thought had this founder, owner, operator type energy towards what they were doing.” (40:50)

  • On Delegation at Scale (42:57)

    • “You have to own the product of the work ... you can delegate execution ... [but] you can’t delegate those most important things.”
    • Example: Stays personally involved in marketing strategy, campaign ideas, and execution, even as company grows.

4. Acquisition Sourcing, Deal, and Structure

• How He Found the Business

  • Google Maps and cold-calling any sizable local plumbing/HVAC business (48:42).
  • “Cold calling is the number one thing to do … pick up the phone and call people. I don’t really believe in emailing. I think that it’s not that effective ...” (49:40)

• Selection Criteria

  • Residential focus, legacy/longevity, growing financials, modern technology platform (Service Titan).

• Deal Terms and Structure (51:18)

  • Business at acquisition: $6M revenue, $1M EBITDA. Purchase price: $5.5M
  • Structure: 65% equity, 35% SBA debt (rather than typical 80–90% debt-heavy SBA search deals) (54:00)
  • Large cash buffer on the balance sheet to enable creative growth, withstand mistakes, and promote “breathing room.” (54:25)
  • “I would not buy a company 90% debt. I think that’s crazy.” (57:32)
  • Rapid growth: $6M to $25M+ revenue and 3x EBITDA in 3 years. (59:16)

5. Growth Strategy: Relentless Focus on Organic, Not Inorganic

• Why Focus on Organic Growth? (61:29)

  • “The most valuable, strong, resilient business was one brand, one team, a real company and not a patchwork of brands ... you have to earn the right to do M&A.” (63:14)
  • “If you can’t organically grow between 0 and $100M top-line in a home service business, it’s just because you don’t know what you’re doing ... we are an ant, and ants can always grow.” (65:08)

• How to Grow Organically in a Crowded Digital Marketing Space

  • Unapologetically called digital marketing the king lever.
  • Founder energy applied to digital: reviews are the #1 growth driver, so Zimmerman incentivizes technicians to seek Google picture reviews (68:05).
  • “I realized that ... we just focus our time on doing that [Google reviews] ... Most people are not doing the best practices.” (68:05–71:33)
  • On agencies: Championed in-house, tech-enabled teams over overpriced, low-value marketing agencies. (70:36)

• Why Most Companies Miss the Basics

  • Even multi-hundred-million-dollar competitors miss simple things like completing Google My Business profiles. (71:33)

6. Content & Community

• LinkedIn Strategy

  • “Build connections in the industry, get to know people, and build ... an audience of people I can talk to about stuff.” (73:12–73:35)
  • Tangible benefits: Learning through conversations, vendor relationships (better pricing), and sharing ideas. (74:15)

• Open Invitation

  • “If my message to anyone in home services that happens to watch this is please reach out. I love meeting people, doing shop tours, having people at my company and I'll keep sharing more home service content.” (76:44)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I want to build the largest home service company in the country ... I didn't start this to run a small business. I'm really not interested in small business. Small business equals big problems."
  — Isaac Zimmerman (15:45)

• “They [private equity rollups] like over-acquired … They end up with different cultures, different ways of doing anything. Now you have to market five different brands in one market ... It's kind of silly ... Zombie companies ... effectively slowly dying.”
  — Isaac (22:30–25:55)

• "I didn't want to buy a company and set it up in such a way that I would have to sell it or would sell it in three to five years ... After three or five years, you're just getting good at something."
  — Isaac (35:01)

• “The more I was involved, the more I was obsessed, the better everything would go. And that was true across every single area of the business.”
  — Isaac on ‘founder mode’ (37:33)

• "You have to own the product of the work ... you can't delegate those most important things."
  — Isaac (42:57)

• “If we keep up where we are right now ... we've 4-5x the revenue, 3x the EBITDA in three years. … It’s worked out really good with a lot of micro ups and downs.”
  — Isaac (59:16–59:26)

• “If you can't organically grow ... between 0 and $100 million of top line in a home service business ... you don't know what you're doing. We're an ant. And ants can always grow.”
  — Isaac (65:08)

• "All of my stuff that I ... know I've basically stolen from other people in the industry and just stuck it together like a puzzle."
  — Isaac (75:32)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:54 — Isaac’s background & family roots in ETA
• 06:38 — Choosing to buy vs. build from scratch — a self-awareness moment
• 09:27 — Isaac’s “home services” inflection point, relationship to John Wilson
• 10:58 — Market size, industry fundamentals, infinite sandbox idea
• 15:45 — Isaac’s “big” ambitions: billion-dollar company, creative “painting”
• 22:28 — Why private equity roll-ups fail: “zombie companies”
• 25:55 — Differentiating founder-mode energy from boomers and PE
• 29:07 – 30:35 — Advice on industry selection: passion meets competence
• 32:51 — Why Isaac no longer identifies with ETA/searcher crowd
• 37:33 — How ‘founder mode’ changed his guilt about not ‘delegating’
• 42:57 — Isaac’s philosophy on delegation vs. “owning the product”
• 48:42 — Sourcing the acquisition: Google Maps, cold calls, popcorn, and letters
• 51:18 — Deal terms: $6M revenue, $1M EBITDA, $5.5M price, 65% equity/35% debt
• 54:25 — Why leveraging less debt sets up long-term growth and safety
• 59:16 — Results to date: from $6M to $25M and EBITDA 3x in 3 years
• 61:29 — Organic vs. inorganic growth, why not acquiring more businesses
• 68:05 — Digital marketing as a growth lever, practical tactics, and winning on Google

Final Takeaways

• Founder Energy is a Real Competitive Advantage: Isaac’s obsessive, hands-on “Founder Mode” is the engine behind both cultural vibrancy and exceptional growth.
• Long-Term Thinking Wins: Structuring deals for the long haul—resourceful, less debt, upfront capital—allows for creativity, patience, and risk-tolerance.
• Organic Growth (Still) Rules in Local Services: “Everyone thinks you need scale through M&A, but ants can grow huge just with relentless basics.”
• Details & Execution Over Trends: Success comes from executing fundamentals—digital presence, customer experience, continuous learning—not chasing financial engineering or flavor-of-the-month strategies.
• Community Matters: Content and networking is not just for show—it’s direct access to industry best practices and real professional opportunities.

Connect with Isaac Zimmerman: LinkedIn
More Episodes & Summaries: acquiringminds.co

This summary captures the full entrepreneurial flavor, ambition, insights, and practical advice from Isaac Zimmerman’s remarkable journey in Founder Mode. Suitable for ETA searchers, operators, and anyone interested in going the distance in business ownership.