From Stalled Search to $750k SDE: The Power of Speed

Summary

Episode Summary: From Stalled Search to $750k SDE: The Power of Speed

Podcast: Acquiring Minds
Host: Will Smith
Guest: Nick Huber, Owner of Associated Photo and Imaging
Release Date: June 26, 2025
Transcript Duration: 80 minutes

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1. Introduction to Nick Huber’s Acquisition Journey

Will Smith opens the episode by introducing Nick Huber, highlighting his unconventional path to acquiring a business without an MBA. Nick shares his background of working in Ecuador for 12 years with family businesses and his return to the United States in 2020. Faced with the challenge of finding a new direction while raising triplets, Nick discovered bizbuysell.com on his partner's suggestion, marking the beginning of his entrepreneurial acquisition journey.

[04:44] Nick Huber: "I do not have an MBA. I suppose we could start there. I actually had spent 12 years prior to coming back in 2020 in Ecuador working for family businesses."

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2. The Initial Struggles and Mindset Shift

Nick discusses his year-and-a-half-long search for the perfect business, characterized by cautious LOI (Letter of Intent) submissions and keeping his search private to avoid skepticism. A pivotal moment occurs when a confidant challenges him with the question:

[00:00] Will Smith: "...What is it going to take for you to close? Let's say you had to close in four months. What would you do differently?"

This conversation sparks a crucial mindset shift for Nick, leading him to accelerate his search strategy.

[12:22] Nick Huber: "It was a very emotional ride and without the community that I had surrounded myself with, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that I would not be in this chair."

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3. Accelerating the Search Process

Following the mindset shift, Nick begins sending out LOIs with increased frequency—from monthly to weekly, and eventually to daily submissions. This change significantly boosts his deal flow, resulting in over 100 broker deals and establishing relationships with influential brokers.

[22:15] Nick Huber: "I just gave myself the assignment. This needs to happen. This needs to be an everyday occurrence."

Nick's approach emphasizes consistency and speed, which transforms his acquisition trajectory, leading to a successful purchase within an expedited timeframe.

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4. Selecting the Right Business: Associated Photo and Imaging

Nick successfully acquires Associated Photo and Imaging, a reputable large-format commercial printing and light manufacturing business in Miami, Florida. He highlights the company's stellar reputation, longstanding client relationships, and adaptability through technological shifts.

[26:57] Nick Huber: "I think I manifested this one. I wanted something that existed in the real world and printing and manufacturing exist in the real world."

The business aligns well with Nick's buy box criteria, featuring $3.5 million in revenue and $750k in SDE (Seller's Discretionary Earnings).

[36:13] Nick Huber: "Top line was 3.5. Earnings were 750. No add backs. Discretionary earnings."

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5. Deal Structure and Negotiations

Nick details the financing structure of the acquisition, leveraging an SBA 7 loan covering 90% of the purchase price without needing to raise investor capital. He initially negotiated a 15% seller note, which he later simplified by eliminating it in favor of increasing his debt with the bank, thereby reducing monthly payments.

[43:33] Nick Huber: "This, this needs to happen. This needs to be an everyday occurrence."

Nick emphasizes the importance of trust and simplicity in deal structuring, ensuring manageable financial commitments post-acquisition.

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6. Transitioning into Ownership

The transition day was a trial by fire as Nick had to deliver an ownership announcement in Spanish, a language that had become rusty due to his time in Miami. Despite the initial nervousness and challenges, Nick successfully communicated his new role to the team, fostering a smooth transition.

[59:09] Nick Huber: "She was sitting in this chair ... we realized that we had a connection from 20 years ago."

Nick also integrates the seller's daughter as a general manager with a 20% equity stake on a five-year vesting schedule, ensuring her continued involvement and the stability of the business.

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7. Overcoming Post-Acquisition Challenges

Post-acquisition, Nick faces several people-related challenges, including employee resignations and the termination of a controller who was with the company for only a few months. He handles these situations with professionalism and empathy, maintaining morale and operational integrity.

[71:00] Nick Huber: "I have been listening to so many people who came before me ... there's a way forward and you'll find it."

Despite these setbacks, Nick remains committed to his role, leveraging his deal team of brokers, attorneys, and HR professionals to navigate complexities.

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8. Financial Management and Reinvestment Strategy

Nick outlines his financial strategy, paying himself a modest salary of $125k to maintain personal sustainability while reinvesting the remaining funds into the business. He prioritizes working capital, recognizing the tight financial environment in the first year post-acquisition.

[73:36] Nick Huber: "I pay myself 125. I want to earn a high salary and use that to celebrate wins when they come."

Nick also plans for future growth by considering the acquisition of additional businesses, leveraging his current success as a springboard.

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9. Key Takeaways and Inspirational Closure

In closing, Nick shares his motivation for acquiring businesses—to build an empire for his three daughters and demonstrate that women can thrive in traditionally male-dominated entrepreneurial spaces. He underscores the importance of having a clear "why" to navigate the challenges of acquisition entrepreneurship.

[78:40] Nick Huber: "I want to build an empire for my three daughters to watch and earn and inherit and see that in a man's world, women are perfectly capable of playing the game and sitting at the table."

Nick expresses gratitude towards Will Smith and the Acquiring Minds community for their support and inspiration throughout his journey.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Nick Huber on Mindset Shift:

  "[12:22] 'It was a very emotional ride and without the community that I had surrounded myself with, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that I would not be in this chair.'"

• Nick Huber on Consistency:

  "[22:15] 'I just gave myself the assignment. This needs to happen. This needs to be an everyday occurrence.'"

• Nick Huber on Financial Strategy:

  "[73:36] 'I pay myself 125. I want to earn a high salary and use that to celebrate wins when they come.'"

• Nick Huber on Motivation:

  "[78:40] 'I want to build an empire for my three daughters to watch and earn and inherit...'"

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Conclusion

This episode of Acquiring Minds offers a comprehensive look into Nick Huber’s acquisition journey, highlighting the critical role of speed, mindset shifts, and community support in successfully purchasing and transitioning into a new business. Nick’s story serves as an inspiring blueprint for aspiring acquisition entrepreneurs, demonstrating that with determination and the right approach, overcoming acquisition challenges is attainable.

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For more insights and detailed strategies on acquisition entrepreneurship, subscribe to the Acquiring Minds YouTube channel or sign up for episode summaries at acquiringminds.co.

Transcript

[Will Smith]

Today's guest had been searching for a year and a half without much success. Like many searchers, Granja Michael started out looking for the perfect business. She sent out Lois cautiously only when very serious about an opportunity, and she kept to herself the fact that she was searching, not wanting to invite skepticism or discouragement from her network. Finally, a confidant who did know that GR was searching pressed her. We keep having the same conversation, he tells her. What is it going to take for you to close? Let's say you had to close in four months. What would you do differently? Well, that was the mindset shift that Granya needed. In two weeks she was under loi to buy the business she would close on. Yes, four months later. Listen for how her approach changed after that fateful conversation. And if you're feeling stuck, ask yourself the same four month question. Finally, in addition to those she mentions in the episode, Granya wanted to make a special shout out to Andrew Hoffman in Search Fund Coalition, the South Florida ETA Community, and the Women's Search Group. Without the expertise and emotional support of these folks, her acquisition would not have been possible. And here she is, Granja Michael, owner of Associated photo and Imaging Offshoring is a key lever to generate value in a small business. But maybe you think offshoring is great for just white collar office work, not in the blue collar type business that you're looking to buy or already bought well, in an upcoming webinar, Nick Huber yes, that Nick of sweaty startup fame will correct this idea and show you how offshoring can indeed be a tremendous tool that you bring to your blue collar acquisition. Nick has built an empire in self storage and offshoring roles to the Philippines, to South Africa, to Latin America has been key to his success in that industry. The webinar with Nick is How to Offshore in a Blue Collar Business. It is next Tuesday, July 1, 2:30 Eastern. Register at the link in today's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiring Minds Co or go to Acquiring Minds Co Hiring how to Offshore in a Blue Collar Business.

[Granja Michael]

See you there.

[Will Smith]

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 are.

[Granja Michael]

Who who do it.

[Will Smith]

What do the following Acquiring Minds guests all have in common? Doug Johns, Morley Desai, Tim Erickson, Chirag Shah, Shane Ursum. They all went through the Acquisition Lab, the accelerator in community for people serious about buying a business. But they represent just a sliver of the Lab's success stories. The number of deals across the lab's cohorts now stands at over 120, with over $300 million in aggregate transaction value. The Acquisition Lab was founded by Walker Deibel, author of Buy Then Build, the book that introduced so many of you to the very idea of buying a business. The Lab offers a month long, intensive, almost daily Q and A sessions with advisors, live deal reviews with Walker, Deal team introductions and in an active community of serious searchers. Check out acquisitionlab.com link in the notes or email the lab's co founder, Chelsea Wood.

[Granja Michael]

Chelsea buy then build.com Granja Michael welcome to Acquiring Minds.

[Nick Huber]

Will Smith thank you very much Granya.

[Granja Michael]

Yours was an unconventional path into buying businesses. I recall the words ask backwards from our pre call and yet here you are, owner of a three and a half million dollar light manufacturing in large.

[Will Smith]

Format commercial printing business.

[Granja Michael]

Let's get into it.

[Will Smith]

Rania, fill in the blanks there.

[Granja Michael]

Say more about this unconventional background please.

[Nick Huber]

I do not have an mba. I suppose we could start there. I actually had spent 12 years prior to coming back in 2020 in Ecuador working for family businesses. Although not my family, my former spouse's family, running commercial bakeries, running an incredible construction remodeling project of a 182 room hotel which was an absolute pleasure and also complete chaos at all times. So when I returned to the United States I had to find something new to do, if you will. I found myself with five year old triplets and no current working experience since they were born. And when I asked myself what was I going to do now, I thought maybe I would go into commercial real estate. And here in Miami, anybody who's in it knows that that is quite a difficult path to take. And when my current partner suggested that I look into this website, you may have heard of it, bizbuysell.com I thought well that's a crazy idea. I have to do that now.

[Will Smith]

Great.

[Nick Huber]

And that is how I asked backwards.

[Granja Michael]

Ended up in this chair couple things. So while that seems while that is unconventional and maybe doesn't seem like the most natural path into buying a business, in fact there was a big Spanish language component to that background which we're going to hear. We're hear that how that's relevant and.

[Will Smith]

It sounds like you are running small.

[Granja Michael]

Businesses basically yes, operationally heavy. So do you feel like that is actually that you're, you're leaning on on the years of experience that you built in Ecuador doing that now when I.

[Nick Huber]

Reflect on it, when I have my moments of self doubt. I do look back and go, wait. I have all the skills. I have all the tools in the toolbox from that experience. So absolutely. It was definitely a huge leg up in. In taking on this role, which is just figure it out.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah. Yeah. And the just figure it out thing, that. That's a reference to your in laws.

[Nick Huber]

It is. It's a massive compliment. My. My former in laws, they are an incredible family. They built. I could. I could spend all day talking about what this family has built based on a foundational attitude of what they call Garshaw it. Which effectively means figure it out and get it done.

[Granja Michael]

And what is. What are the. What are the words you're saying?

[Nick Huber]

Garsha?

[Granja Michael]

Is that another language? Does that mean something? Am I not catching a reference?

[Nick Huber]

No, no, you're not. You're not. It's actually a reference to another story and it is a mispronunciation of Garcia. So Gar Shaw Garcia became Garsha, and Garsha, it became the mantra of it doesn't matter if you know how to do it, just go get it done. Yeah, well, it's a. Yeah, it's a fantastic motto for an entire family.

[Granja Michael]

It's a. And it's. I think it's a great life motto, period. But particularly in our world. Okay. And so your now partner says, this biz, buy, sell site. Go, go. Look at that. And it inspires you. It grabs you. What? Why. Why does buying a business grab you?

[Nick Huber]

I had spent so long, I suppose, being my own head of house and captain of my teeny tiny ship that I had no inclination to return to being somebody else's first mate. And I needed to be a pirate like the woman I was named after.

[Granja Michael]

You're named after a pirate?

[Nick Huber]

I was. I was named after an Irish pirate who was not well liked by Elizabeth the first.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, wait, did you say a. A female pirate?

[Nick Huber]

A female pirate.

[Will Smith]

Wow.

[Granja Michael]

That. That. I feel like that actually. You are kind of invoking her spirit, given that you're like the third woman I've had on the podcast. Not actually, but it probably is single digits or. Or less than 15. What's that?

[Nick Huber]

I'm glad to. I'm glad to boost the numbers. No one's keeping count. Don't worry.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah. Okay. And just to be clear that we heard this correctly.

[Will Smith]

Triplets.

[Nick Huber]

That is correct.

[Granja Michael]

And so you spent ages 0 to 5 of their lives out of the professional environment, not doing the work you were doing in Ecuador. Not doing. But being a stay at home mom or captain of the Ship cap.

[Nick Huber]

Captain of the teeny tiny ship. Yes, I was fully dedicated to parenthood. When someone tells you you're about to have triplets, there's absolutely nothing in the fiber of your being that makes you want to have more kids. So that was it for me. I was like, we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. And then when they're off to school, I'll find my next path. And I found it.

[Granja Michael]

So you, you're now living in Miami. Tell us what the parameters of this search are going to be.

[Nick Huber]

I opened my search with everybody's ideal search parameters. The unicorn deal that everybody wants when they open their buy box. It's the 750 to 1.3 EBITDA with no add backs and recurring revenue and 40 years of stage stable earnings and all of those things that simply aren't for sale, at least not for self funded solo searchers on Biz by Sell. So I definitely had to make repetitive adjustments to that buy box and to those parameters. And throughout the process I found myself honing it and honing it until I realized that I wanted something that was in the real world. I had to have something that was in Miami or at least relatively close so that I could keep my kids in their school. And I knew that I was going to do this solo like a complete lunatic and use SBA 7 funding, which put me under the 5 million mark. My box was nice and tiny.

[Granja Michael]

The financial parameters though, if you were looking initially, albeit idealistically, for 750 and above, then you had, you were going to have some resources to put to the equity of whatever business you acquired or you were going to have to raise money.

[Nick Huber]

No, I was in a position that I did not have to raise investor capital. I just had to ask very, very nicely of Jared at first Internet to cover say 90% of my purchase price.

[Granja Michael]

Jumping ahead. We will get there to the structure of this. Okay. And say more about the actual evolution of your search, Granya, because I, I actually feel like this is a big part of your story because there was, there's a big emotional component to it. So yeah, in your own words, please.

[Nick Huber]

I, I have met so many incredible people through the ETA community and it is a very emotional process. And while we are of course all staring at spreadsheets and trying to run models and trying to figure out what's our dscr, how much capital do I need to bring in, who's going to be on my cap table, Every decision that you make and every adjustment you make to your buy box is very personal. At the end of the day, you're going to be the one buying and running this business. And I spent over two years between beginning my search and sitting in this chair and the number of times that I questioned my sanity is infinity. And the number of times that I had to be sort of talked out of the valley of what am I doing this? This is so difficult and who am I? And I don't have an MBA and how am I going to compete? It was a very emotional ride and without the community that I had surrounded myself with, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that I would not be in this chair. But the support that I received along the way was so important to my search. More important than any spreadsheet. And yeah, and I think that it's a very common experience that we hit this moment of self doubt and questioning and why am I doing this to myself? And I hit that a number of times and I just kept going.

[Granja Michael]

And tell me about the fact that you didn't talk much about the fact that you were searching to buy a business for, for the early, I don't know how many months.

[Nick Huber]

Most of them.

[Granja Michael]

Most of it.

[Nick Huber]

Most of them. It wasn't until recently that I opened up to everyone around me what I was up to. When I began my search. I, as I said, I don't have an mba, I don't have a background in finance, and no one in private equity would probably touch me. They'd be like, you're too disorganized, but hey, it's okay. But I had this. I drank the Kool Aid on Napoleon Hill's attitude towards if the person you're speaking to is not going to be able to contribute something that's meaningful or helpful or worse, might say something detrimental or unintentionally unsupportive, you may end up off track. So I chose to keep my cards very, very close to my chest. And I spoke to close friends who are entrepreneurs about it and they gave me really great guidance and really great support and for people who I love and I'm very close to but was not willing to open up to yet, I just said, oh, they would ask me, oh, what are you doing? Are you working? Yeah, I'm working. Oh, what are you working on? Oh, spy shit. That was my response. I was very, very secretive because I didn't want to be talked out of it.

[Granja Michael]

So Napoleon Hill, that's think and grow rich.

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

And, and so he says, I, I don't Let be careful of whose input you take or even expose yourself to, because it can be, it can put you on the wrong track, it can discourage you. You have to be protective of your own kind of headspace. And so you were worried that talking to certain people in your circle about buying a business that you would be discouraged. And following his philosophy, you said, I'm not going to let, I'm not going to put myself in the position to be discouraged.

[Will Smith]

You know that one of the most common levers to pull in a target acquisition is technology updating the systems of a business that may still be running off a spreadsheet or even pen and paper. But tech is complicated with tons of solutions out there. So choosing the right cloud platform, CRM, telephony, compliance and cybersecurity, not to mention implementing all that, is a job in itself. Acquiring Minds Guest Nick Akers knows this firsthand. As a former searcher who now owns Inzo Technologies, Nick has seen the tech challenges searchers face when acquiring businesses. His team at Inzo regularly works with searchers and their acquisitions, offering a complimentary IT audit of the target company. Nick takes a personal interest in all their searcher clients, drawing from his own experience in the search phase. Enzo dates back to 1989. So this is a company that has managed the tech for hundreds of small businesses over decades. And one last thing, no long term contracts with Enzo, a big differentiator. Check out inzotechnologies.com I N Z O or email Nick [e-mail] and don't forget to tell them you're a searcher.

[Granja Michael]

And how do you reflect back on that approach?

[Nick Huber]

Well, I hadn't yet found you. I was just early in my listening to Acquiring Minds days. I had only just finished reading the Dible Bible and was halfway through the HBR guide. So once I gained that confidence and once I'd been through the reps and I could sit on a seller, call and talk to someone who's owned and built their business for 30 years and really and truly believe I was ready to take that baton. I wasn't ready to tell everybody in my life that that was what I was doing.

[Will Smith]

Yeah, well, you know, I think that.

[Granja Michael]

That is rational and fair. Do you think, do you look back on it though, as, as like a misstep, like maybe you should have talked about it loudly because actually it's funny, my Monday interview with Brian Hartman. Brian has this philosophy where like if he says he's going to do something out loud with an audience, it might be his family. Or he made a joke about actually doing it on the podcast, then he has to follow through with it because he's now put himself in the position where otherwise he's somebody who says talks and doesn't deliver. So it's a high stakes game, but anyway. But it's the opposite kind of approach to things.

[Nick Huber]

Don't talk, deliver nothing.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Nick Huber]

Perfect.

[Granja Michael]

Exactly. Yet you still did it. So. So whatever you did, it seemed to work. But no. I'm curious, do you, do you think that there's something to having it? Like, should you have talked about it more openly earlier or. It was fine the way you approached. And the reason I'm pressing on this is just because I suspect there are people listening who are, who are searching on the, on the quiet and not letting their circles know for the.

[Nick Huber]

For the same reason, I, I will say that in the very beginning, while I was still learning, it was important to keep that close to my chest. However, I was too quiet about it for far too long about. Well, very recently, actually, last this December, I was speaking to a lifelong excellent friend of mine who held my feet to the fire and said, every time we hang out, you and I have the same conversation about just a different deal that you're trying to work on and what is it going to take for you to close a deal? And something snapped in my head and I thought, I just have to tell everybody this is what I'm doing and overturn every single possible rock. Which means I have to expose that part that I wanted to keep secret. I have to expose that to absolutely everyone. And once I kind of took on that identity and I didn't hide behind my like secret spy shit, I found an enormous shift happened and I was just like hitting the ground running, sending offers, sending. Otherwise, like, absolutely change my mindset to, I can do it. I just don't know when to. I'm going to do it and it's going to happen now.

[Granja Michael]

Wow. So. So telling everybody about it wasn't necessarily because all of a sudden your network started, you know, assisting and like bringing you deal flow or something, but what it did do is it totally shifted your own and as you said, it shifted your mindset, which is a big part of any success in life really. And, and so it just kicked into another gear and it's so interesting and, and so, so in fact, having been furtive about all this was more. It was just a, just an indication of a lack of like, commitment to getting it done. Maybe. Anyway, I don't. I Don't mean to belabor it, but so that, really. So you have this friend.

[Nick Huber]

You can't do this.

[Granja Michael]

Well, no, no, no. I, I, I just, I just love that there was a switch that was flipped because.

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

So that, so that's the other part of the search that I wanted to highlight. And here we are. So this friend says, what would it take for you to, you know, buy in four months and for us to stop talking about your latest sim, latest deal that you're interested in? And you, and you started telling everybody. And, and so what were the other things that, what was the answer to that question? What else changed?

[Nick Huber]

The answer to that question became more of the cadence of offers I was sending. That was the real lead indicator.

[Granja Michael]

That changed how many, Lois, you were.

[Nick Huber]

Sending out initially, one a month, maybe. And I would belabor these, Lois. And then, oh, no, I have to speed this up. It would go to about a week. And once I had this conversation with my friend, I just gave myself the assignment. This, this needs to happen. This needs to be an everyday occurrence. You need to find something to make an offer. They don't have to like that offer. It just has to be, this is a business I can run. This is something that I want to do, and this is the number and the structure that I can do it with.

[Granja Michael]

And you did that. You sent an LOI a day. You started sending Lois every day.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

That'S. And so, and what, what changed? Did you, did you get takers? Were they, were they realistic offers?

[Nick Huber]

It depends who you ask.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah.

[Nick Huber]

Were they realistic expectations on the seller's part?

[Granja Michael]

Right.

[Nick Huber]

They, I, I like to do the upfront thinking, run it through my little calculator that I built and say, okay, given all of this information that I have, this is what I can offer. And on some of them, it was well under asking or a structure that was not to their liking or something that I'm sure tons of the listeners have heard. We don't want to work with SBA funding because there's this perpetual misconception that somehow the lender is what's going to be, like, the lag. That's never the case. It's always something else. But it is that misconception that, oh, no, the bank is going to take forever, and, oh, we need to diligence this in two weeks. And you're like, I have no words. Two weeks diligence, goodbye.

[Granja Michael]

Great. And, yeah, and, and you had enough deal, by the way. You were getting deals from biz by sell still, I mean 100 exclusively or elsewhere. 100 broker deals, meaning biz, myself, or also. You developed relationships with Brooke.

[Nick Huber]

I mean, I didn't. I didn't spend time developing specific relationships with specific brokers. I. It just kind of naturally happened that I gravitated and got along with some of the brokers, and we would chat. One of them called me yesterday to see how I was doing. I was like, oh, I bought a business. And I. I wouldn't say that it was like a specific. Like, find the brokers in the area and, like, take them out to lunch. Because that's a strategy I've heard also works. But more. I found that the kind of deals I wanted tended to live in certain brokerage houses, if you will. And I would follow specific M and A firms and get on their CRM. And after two years of getting on people's CRMs, all of a sudden, these deals are just hitting your inbox, and you have more in your inbox than you can even quickly go through, which was a wonderful problem to have.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, wow. So you actually found that even though you were quite geographically constrained, Miami or Miami Metro or South Florida, that after months of doing this, you. There was, I guess there was enough deal flow to be sending out an alloy a day, however kind of realistic those offers actually were. But. But also enough that there was just. You just felt like every day you woke up to enough to do or enough interesting opportunities to look at.

[Nick Huber]

Absolutely. Because once you hit that deal flow and you're going and you've expanded your buy box, which I think is important to mention, these were not all deals that fit squarely into my buy box. I realized that if I was going to do this, I had to push and pull wherever I could. I explored the concept of getting, you know, five very, very small businesses, putting them all together and going, okay, you've got 200 in earnings, and, you know, the seller is one of two employees. Like, okay, if I scramble this together, I can figure it out. And. And I did have to expand my mindset in order to keep all of that deal flow going and sending the offers and everything, but. Absolutely. Once. Once you've been in this for a while, your email will do you lots of favors.

[Granja Michael]

Great. So tell us about the business that you ended up closing on. Why? What? What, what? Tell us about it. Why'd you like it?

[Nick Huber]

I. Why do I love it? You mean, why do I adore it? Why do I think it's the greatest thing in the whole world? I. I think I manifested this one. I wanted something that existed in the real world and printing and manufacturing exist in the real world. You can touch them, I promise. I've been out there. I go touch stuff all the time. And when I found this and I met the seller for the first time over zoom, she was sitting in this chair right here. We realized that we had a connection from 20 years ago. She was one of my vendors 20 years ago, which was incredible. And I knew the reputation of this company. I knew they had a reputation for absolute excellence. And if you needed something high quality done, there was no question who you were going to call. It is.

[Granja Michael]

So in a former life, in a former role. Twenty years ago, prior to living in Ecuador, back when you were in Miami, you were working somewhere and this was a vendor. That's such a coincidence. And now you're sitting in the same chair.

[Nick Huber]

And now sitting in the same chair.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, I love that.

[Will Smith]

Okay, great.

[Granja Michael]

So great reputation. Keep going. What else?

[Nick Huber]

Stellar reputation. The seller and I had a very good back and forth, forth on the initial call. It was clear that she was someone who was very decisive and very warm and cared very, very deeply about her business and her people. And my general manager and my business partner is her daughter. So it was imperative that for her that she find someone who she clicked with who was going to really, truly steward the ship. And it was clear that our, our styles really matched very well. And she was wonderful, wonderful person, which turns out still is. And we have a great relationship now to this day. We will going forward. I have no question. And this business is. It fit the buy box I had from day one. There was only a tiny bit of hair on it. Well, a tiny bit. You can't meet the hair closing as you have.

[Granja Michael]

I have in my notes here, quote unquote, all the hair on it.

[Nick Huber]

It does.

[Granja Michael]

It's.

[Nick Huber]

It was. We can't meet the employees until closing.

[Granja Michael]

Which is not unusual.

[Nick Huber]

Not unusual, but still nerve wracking when you're going through the process.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, sure.

[Nick Huber]

Customer concentration of three top clients that are phenomenal, but also have been working with this company for decades. So that kind of dialed that back down a little bit. Okay, all right. We're going to be okay.

[Granja Michael]

How much concentration are we talking, Granya?

[Nick Huber]

The top one for the year prior was 28%. The top client for 2024.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah.

[Nick Huber]

And when I went back in, it was a different client that was the top client. And then before that it was a different client. And so I started to get a feel for. Okay. This project based revenue is of course very dependent on these client contracts. Well, contracts is not correct. There are no contracts. Clients returning to, to work with us. And I kind of got over that because this business is 80 years old. It's been through Covid. It's been through the, the changes in going from offset to digital. Going from like this is an actual printed photograph. This was like not digitally printed. And the evolution and the way that this company has done such an incredible job of adapting with the times, I kind of started to wrap my head around this is how, this is how I see myself going forward.

[Granja Michael]

And Granya, what I said at the top, large format commercial printing and light manufacturing say more about exactly what it is this business does.

[Nick Huber]

We have really, really, really big printers. That's it. No, I'm kidding. I have a really small printer behind me too. And we do a lot of luxury retail travel displays. Which is a long way of saying if you've been in an airport in a duty free and you see a pop up with products that. Within the store that had to be built. And we do a lot of builds just like that. We'll build a false wall, we'll build a, A canopy, we'll build a stand, a desk, a seat, a shelving unit. And we'll decorate it with all of the company logos and, and it'll.

[Granja Michael]

I'm walking through duty free and there's a, in the kind of the path as you walk through because they usually like in for big duty freeze. It's like the store is kind of in the middle of. It can be like in the middle of where you're, where you're walking. And so the store is on either side of you and there's a stand of a rum company with like, you know, like all kinds of interesting shelving and decoration. Stand? Yeah, stand where the, where the rum is there to be bought. Okay, very cool. Very interesting.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah. And much like you know a page in a magazine, you get a one page ad in a magazine and it runs in that month's issue. This is a similar concept. You'll buy that piece of floor, rent that piece of floor for the month and you can put your display and off you go and it looks beautiful. And then next month it's got to come out and somebody else will be renting that spot.

[Granja Michael]

So your customer is not the duty free company. Your customer is that whatever the, the good is being sold there. The rum. In my hypothetical, the wrong company, our.

[Nick Huber]

Customer is whomever would like to work with us.

[Granja Michael]

But in that example, it would be.

[Nick Huber]

It's a little complicated in that it Is kind of all of them.

[Granja Michael]

Okay.

[Nick Huber]

So we have to follow guidelines and regulations for, you know, local areas and duty free and the client and the. But it's great, great.

[Granja Michael]

And then what about the large format commercial printing? That sounds like it's different than what.

[Nick Huber]

You just described, the large format. We'll do a lot of backlit signs and we'll do some. My favorite things to see come off of. There are these big, beautiful acrylic prints. So we'll print directly on a sheet of acrylic like this size. And we're on audio. It's very big. I'm pointing to something behind my head that's very, very big.

[Granja Michael]

It's a night. What is that? The skyline at night of Miami, I assume.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah, it's the Miami skyline from quite a while ago. And print directly onto the acrylic. And then we can, using a sheet of adhesive, put it onto a structural PVC or an aluminum, and you have this stunning frameless art piece that seems like it's just floating on the wall. And I love seeing them come through production. They are, because if you're going to print something that big, you know it's going to be beautiful.

[Granja Michael]

And so what would the use case of that be like? Give me an example. Where is it again? Sort of some sort of marketing campaign, temporary thing, or is that stuff more permanent signage stuff?

[Nick Huber]

Those are definitely more permanent installs. So we work with museums, we work with artists, we work with government offices who want to do, who want to represent their local area in a very, very beautiful, impactful way. And we will help them do that with our really, really big printers.

[Granja Michael]

So this really is first of all to your point of wanting something tactile. Boy, did you get it. Also very aesthetic. I mean, what you all are producing is just, is meant to delight and dazzle. That's, that's gotta be. That's gotta scratch an itch, an artistic itch.

[Nick Huber]

Oh, does it ever. I, I'll walk through production and just be amazed at what they're up to. And they're like, holy. Wow, that's so beautiful. It's almost just like. I almost feel a little sad when it goes out the door. I'm like, I'll never see it again. It was so pretty.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah, yeah. But understood. But really, what a neat. What a great feeling to just be producing something beautiful all the time. Okay, returning to the nuts and bolts of the business. The, the, the boring stuff, the spreadsheet stuff. Can you share the, the revenue, profitability, et cetera?

[Nick Huber]

I, I Will. I will share it. Because going back to what I said earlier, when I'm open about anything and everything, it seems to go really, really well. Top line was 3.5. Earnings were 750. No add backs. Discretionary earnings. I should be clear. And the multiple was fair. Very, very fair. I paid 2.

[Granja Michael]

And how profitable is a business like this? Margins?

[Nick Huber]

It's. It was about 17. 17 y.

[Granja Michael]

Okay. Oh, sorry. You just told me 750 on. On. On 3. 30 on. 3.5 is. Yeah.

[Nick Huber]

Right.

[Granja Michael]

So that's less than. Well, that's more like. What is that?

[Nick Huber]

Well, that's include.

[Granja Michael]

That's actually more than 20, but SDE. Right. Right. Thank you.

[Nick Huber]

That was one thing it took me about a month to figure out. What's the difference between STE and ebitda? It seems like they're the same thing.

[Granja Michael]

The owner's salary mostly down here.

[Nick Huber]

It took me a month to figure that out.

[Granja Michael]

Well, you're not alone, Granya. It's a. It's a confusing one and even then it's not super clean, but as you know.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

Because then you can have. So what's the difference then between SDE and adjusted ebitda? Often adjusted EIT does simply EBITDA minus, minus owner salary, imaginary land. It's. It's. Can be blurry. Okay, so back to. And then back to the strengths and weaknesses of the business. So project base. We've said that.

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

However, great reputation and revenue that come. Clients that come back again and again for I guess quite literally some decades.

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

Head count.

[Nick Huber]

20.

[Granja Michael]

And proximity to your house.

[Nick Huber]

What time is it?

[Granja Michael]

Miami traffic.

[Nick Huber]

Oh. Oh boy. Because we measure things in hours and not miles for some reason. It's about 15 minutes. No traffic, maybe less. And over an hour if I hit that beautiful sweet spot in traffic. Oh, yes. Anyone in Miami is familiar with the palmetto at 5pm.

[Granja Michael]

That's a bridge, a tunnel.

[Nick Huber]

It's a highway. It's a north, south highway. And it's. It's a lot of fun. You know, it's like a ride. A really slow, boring ride where I listen to audiobooks and podcasts.

[Granja Michael]

There we go. Great. And the terms. So, yes, we'd already touched on them earlier. Could you flesh it out for us?

[Nick Huber]

I offered the initial LOI at full asking. She was represented by a fantastic brokerage who, as they once put it, we're batting a thousand non valuation. And I believe them. Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

Really?

[Nick Huber]

Yeah. The bank apparently always agrees and they put a very fair price. I did not.

[Granja Michael]

Do you want to plug this brokerage.

[Nick Huber]

I will. I happily will. I worked with Tripp Lawson and Mike McCoy at Viking Mergers and Acquisitions. Okay, they are down here.

[Granja Michael]

I know the name Viking, but I assume what you just like your compliments are more to these two particular individuals.

[Nick Huber]

These are the two that I work with. And anyone who's in the middle of a deal or has gone through a deal knows it's going to go off the rails about 943 times. They, they kept the trains going when, when it was just everything. Very, very professional.

[Will Smith]

The team at Aspen HR recently published a short white paper targeted at searchers entitled A New CEOs GU Resources. It lays out the key items you should be thinking about as you transition into CEO and owner of the business you bought. The link to download it is in the show notes. Aspen is a professional employer organization or peo run by a searcher for searchers. Search fund veteran Mark Sinatra runs the company which provides HR compliance, flawless payroll, Fortune 500 caliber benefits and HR due diligence support for your acquisition, all for a fraction of the cost. Go to aspenhr.com or contact Mark [e-mail].

[Granja Michael]

Give us some examples of where things went off the rails.

[Nick Huber]

They didn't. They almost did.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, oh good.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah. So throughout the, throughout negotiations, it's a very emotional process and the LOIS that I always send leave room for negotiation. I'm, I'm a non specific LOI standard. My LOI is about 4 pages and as we're going through getting all kinds of things in diligence and I'm asking for a million documents and I'm like, I do really have to have this or I can't finish my QOV or I, you know, why do you need that and not this? And they were able to navigate all of these kind of very emotional questions. Like you're asking a seller in any of these circumstances, you're asking a seller to kind of bare their soul to you. Like here's what I did with my baby for five years.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah.

[Nick Huber]

And they kept everybody very, very calm. We had a wonderful cadence of meetings. We had a weekly meeting. We sat and we all kind of checked in and made sure we were on track. When we got closer to closing, they, they were absolutely like coming in and okay, this is weird. Push hard on this. Figure out what's going on over here or no, this is normal. And we need to make sure that like we just stay on track and, and they really, they did a fantastic job. I, my entire deal team were incredible.

[Granja Michael]

It sounds like they were really project managing this, which many brokers kind of, that's, that's probably should be their role. And certainly as you move up, market bankers are absolutely project managing a deal. But you don't, you don't, you, you don't see that a lot frankly down at this end of the market. And that's why searchers and buyers are often the ones to have to project manage their own deal. And ultimately, I'm sure you would have ultimate, you know, it's your deal to lose. So if, if they hadn't been so responsible, you probably would have gotten things across the finish line yourself. But all to say that they were sounds like they were doing a great job of, of just keeping it all together, which is not something that we see very often.

[Nick Huber]

Yes. So that was, that was an awesome, an awesome piece of the deal team puzzle. Those two are great.

[Granja Michael]

Great. To the terms that you offered or the. Yeah, please.

[Nick Huber]

I initially offered because of the customer concentration issue. I pushed for a 15% note from the seller and I got it.

[Granja Michael]

Now is that 15% with a forgivable seller note, which is a. It, which is a. Okay.

[Nick Huber]

No.

[Granja Michael]

Because that is a classic tool for heavily concentrated businesses. Go ahead.

[Nick Huber]

That I, I agree with you. And my own personal view of the seller note is more of this is a vote of confidence in my business that I'm willing to say any seller note of any kind. I'm very confident in my business and in your ability to run my business. And yes, I will put my money where my mouth is. And so she did agree to that initially. Throughout the course of negotiations, I actually pulled it out of the deal to simplify it.

[Granja Michael]

But say more. How does that simplify or to sweeten it, I think is what you mean.

[Nick Huber]

To sweeten it a little. It was a question of both spreadsheets, a little bit of math and a little bit of let's not overcomplicate this even more. If I have one bill to pay, I pay one bill. We're good. I don't have to go running around town like making sure that I'm on top of each and every adjustment to prime, which will be fun. I'm looking forward to that.

[Granja Michael]

So it really was to simplify for yourself going forward to have one lender to worry about rather than two.

[Nick Huber]

To have one lender. Precisely. And the terms of the seller note were such that I would be alleviated in my monthly debt if I didn't have that shorter term note on the book.

[Granja Michael]

Say that again, please.

[Nick Huber]

Absolutely. The grand total that I was going to have to be out of pocket based on the fact that the seller note was a five year term was higher for the first five years than if I pulled the seller note and decided to go 90% debt with the bank. My monthly payment comes down with that 10 year term.

[Granja Michael]

Okay. Okay. And the SBA didn't push on this at all because often the SBA wants to see seller financing for, for precisely the reason that you said a minute ago that it demonstrates confidence by the seller and a leash on the seller that, that, that, you know, that incentivizes them to make sure it all goes well.

[Nick Huber]

Certainly. And I cannot speak to other deals, but in this deal there was a different kind of tether in that my general manager is the seller's daughter. So she has every incentive to see us both thrive together and not kind of run away into the sunset and live on a beach somewhere, which she's perfectly entitled to do. But she's been nothing but helpful the entire time. She's been absolutely supportive through this whole transition. And the solution where there was no seller note, I. I took on the general manager as a partner with under 20% equity. So she owes no personal guarantee.

[Granja Michael]

Okay. Ah, so. So instead of the seller note, you offered the daughter equity in the deal in the business?

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

Less than 20%.

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

Ah, okay. And, but she didn't have to come out of pocket for any of that.

[Nick Huber]

She did not. It is on a vesting schedule, which was, I think, the best of all worlds in that she is part owner. And I, without having met her when these terms were struck, I was in a position that I felt a little more comfortable that I wasn't going to end up having to buy them both out, should that arise. Now, of course, I, I'm in the seat that I'm in and I know that everything is absolutely fine, but pre close, there are so many uncertainties that you have to just kind of trust and build in whatever levers that you possibly can. So the vesting schedule was the answer to that. So I want her to stay. I want her to stay with me.

[Granja Michael]

How long is the vesting schedule?

[Nick Huber]

It's five years.

[Granja Michael]

So 20 a year or is there like a cliff?

[Nick Huber]

Actually, it's actually 50. Halfway through, if I'm remembering. This is a pop quiz. I've already forgotten all my deal terms.

[Granja Michael]

That's okay.

[Nick Huber]

My brain is now filled with derm permitting.

[Granja Michael]

But it's not linear. There's like a cliff where after it grind you a few.

[Nick Huber]

It is not linear. Yes, that is correct. It is not linear. It's half of the equity halfway through and then a quarter at 75 and another quarter at five years.

[Granja Michael]

Gotcha. Fascinating. And so. And can you tell us how much equity?

[Nick Huber]

5%. Oh wow.

[Granja Michael]

Okay.

[Will Smith]

Very interesting.

[Granja Michael]

Now this, this daughter being the GM in the business could cut both ways. It could cut in the positive. The positive in the way that you've just described. Mom seller incentivized to have this transition work so that her daughter continues to thrive in the business. On the other hand, we've heard countless examples where family member in the business post transaction causes. There's drama, there's complications, there's ambiguity, emotions, etc. It's, it's somehow less clean. Or, or, or could be. Did you, did you. I guess you considered that and as you just said, you're some things you're just going to have to trust go well but maybe, maybe address that.

[Nick Huber]

I have been listening to so many people who came before me and all of these experiences and all of your episodes and all of the things that can go right and wrong and sideways and turn perfect without you knowing what's going on. But there is a recurring theme that nine times out of ten there's a way forward and you'll find it. The kind of personality that gravitates towards the ETA space is the kind of personality that just goes fuck it, let's Gar shot. Like let's just figure it out. And I knew that I was putting myself in that position and risking entering into a family dynamic that I had no, no idea about. But I knew the seller and I had spent a lot of time speaking to her and I got a sense of how she might interact with her family and she didn't seem like a very. And she still isn't that fiery, chaotic, none of that. So leading with that, okay. The relationships within the family are probably going to be family and they have been. There's been a very smooth move from her in this chair to me in this chair when it comes to her family members which has been wonderful.

[Granja Michael]

Fantastic. Gar shot you. Gar shot.

[Nick Huber]

Gar shot.

[Granja Michael]

You mentioned to me on the pre call the works and works in is it process or progress? I feel like I, I see it both ways.

[Nick Huber]

The whip. Ah, the whip. Because this is such a heavy project based company and I did not buy the ar. I we made the decision to divide the work in progress, the revenue for the work in progress because there are some jobs that are huge that were almost complete when I walked in the door and they won't be billed until later down the line. So we created a structure where each job was allocated a percentage of termination and then the revenue would be allocated accordingly.

[Granja Michael]

Can you walk through an example or a hypothetical?

[Nick Huber]

Absolutely. Hypothetically, you got an order for 1,000 widgets and you're the seller and you've made 500 of those widgets on closing day. And now post closing day, I'm going to come in, I'm going to finish up the order for the outstanding 500 widgets and get it to the client. The client now is only going to pay one invoice, but each of us have contributed 50% of the AP. Therefore we're going to split the AR when it comes in. And the work in progress is it's all on an Excel spreadsheet, but it ends up being in real life, not in spreadsheet life. A very large portion of my brain sometimes like, wait, where does this go? Who does this? Where do I get that right and which job that go to? And these are all combined. And how do we divide this one up and Right. And although it is definitely a fair way to divide outstanding AR with projects that are in process, if I had known how much work it would have been, I would have asked for evaluation and put it down at the closing table and said, okay, I will buy the work in progress. So anyone who's dealing with a potential work in progress piece of the deal, just buy it. Just buy it.

[Will Smith]

Interesting.

[Granja Michael]

And, but don't you feel that just buying. So when you say just buy it, you mean prior to close or as part of the transaction coming up with a lump sum that encapsulates all of this work, work in, work in progress so that you don't then have to worry about it anymore once you're in the seat.

[Nick Huber]

Precisely. I think inventory, that's, you know, inventory that is in a separate category, would you be will. You know, we are often willing to purchase the inventory at close. And I think if I thought about it as inventory rather than project and work, I might have been able to more kind of see that I don't really want to sit and split and split. I would have preferred to just buy the inventory and say, okay, now we're easy peasy. Anything from here is this. Anything from here is that.

[Granja Michael]

Yeah, to be clear, even if you had done that approach, you still would have probably there would have been work in you and seller going through project by project by project. How much is done, how much has actually been collected? That, that, that, that, that, that, that. But Your point is, it would have all just been done in one fell swoop and then it's done. And now every. Every check that you get, every payment that you get, or every project that's ongoing, you have to do all this arithmetic to figure out who gets what, who's goes back to the seller. Interesting. And in your idea here of doing it as part of the transaction, is that something that is done? I'm unaware.

[Nick Huber]

I have no idea. But every time I talk to someone in eta, they're always doing something that's never been done. Here's what I did. I started with one red paperclip, and then I bought a screw manufacturer. So I think it's certainly possible as long as the SBA would have agreed to it. And I think if it had been structured as inventory, it might have been agreed to. And the arithmetic is not impossible, it's not difficult. It's basic addition and division. The heavy lift is that it's coming after close, when you are absolutely overwhelmed with tasks. And so anytime you can pull a task to a pre close rather than a post close, that's the move. Yeah, absolutely. The move.

[Granja Michael]

That's a great. That's a great insight, Granya. And how many. Just to give us a sense of the scale of complexity or how many projects are ongoing or how many work streams are.

[Nick Huber]

Are on the sheet, there were, on the work in progress sheet, we had about 60, 75 jobs.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot. Okay, day one. Tell us that story.

[Nick Huber]

Do I have to? I. I was nervous. I was ready, not ready. I dropped the kids off at school and got in my mommy mobile and drove up and I was still practicing my day one speech that I had honed and, and honed and honed because that was something I could do pre clothes. And I'm practicing it and I'm going over it, and I'm going over it, and it was in English, as you might presume. And we get here to the warehouse, and the seller pulls together the team on the warehouse floor and proceeds to tell them very, very quickly, very directly, I'm retiring. This is the new owner. However, prior to announcing that, she noted that there's no one who only speaks English in the room and gave the speech in Spanish. So on the fly, I had to flip that switch in my brain, try to translate all of the carefully curated wording that I had in English into Spanish while remembering to make eye contact with everybody. And how use a tone that's going to make people feel comfortable and try not to freak out, look confident, feel confident. And so all of those things are going through my mind and I'm trying to get my thoughts out of my head in Spanish, which sometimes takes me a little minute to, to flip that switch, but it's flipped now and just.

[Granja Michael]

So, so, so, I mean, obviously you, you gave the speech so you speak Spanish, but give us a sense of. I mean, you had been in Ecuador for 12 years, you'd run operations for businesses in Spanish. But where was your confidence? Where is your confidence level today in Spanish? It's not what it once was.

[Nick Huber]

It sounds like I spent quite a while in Miami speaking very, very little Spanish, which it causes it to get rusty.

[Granja Michael]

Right?

[Nick Huber]

And so I was, I was like the Tin man up there with my, my rusty little, like stumbling over a couple of words. But I think I did communicate what I needed to. And now, of course, I'm back in the, back in the swing of speaking Spanish every single day again. But it was.

[Granja Michael]

Man, that's, that's brutal, Granya. That's really brutal. I have to say, it sounds like your sellers. Lovely, sorry, daughter, if you're hearing this, but it does not sound, it does not seem very gracious of her to have sprung that on you. Did she not foresee what this was going to the position it was going to put you in, or did she know your background and just assume you could.

[Nick Huber]

She knew Spanish. She, she thought it would just be fine. It would just be like, oh, I'll switch over. And to be fair, it was on me to have written it in both languages, but it just ended up being one of those things that I stressed myself out about. Much like sending the first loi. You're going to overstress it, you're going to freak out, you're going to overthink it, and by the time you finally send it, they're already at the closing table. But yeah, I had spent so much time and energy trying to find the perfect words for the speech, and then I was just like, well, there went that and proceeded with my, my first day of one on ones with all of our employees and. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a total stranger. What can I do to convince you.

[Granja Michael]

That I want to have these interviews in English or in Spanish?

[Nick Huber]

Mostly Spanish. Mostly in Spanish.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, mostly in Spanish. So are you running this business in Spanish? What, what's the story there?

[Nick Huber]

In production, it's Spanish. With graphics, it's both. With the office, it's English. With the clients, it's 8020 English. With some of the.

[Granja Michael]

That's like the most Miami thing I've ever heard. It's basically Spanglish.

[Nick Huber]

Yes. I, I had to send a wire transfer today at the bank and that was the language that we chose. Language.

[Granja Michael]

Great. Anything else to say about the transition other than that trial by fire. How'd you go when you met the daughter for the first time?

[Nick Huber]

I'm going to be very honest, I haven't even told her this yet. So I. It doesn't matter if this is the first time she hears it. I met her and her mother, the seller, who I had then spent all afternoon at the closing table signing a 4 inch thick stack of documents with in front of a notary, laughing. And I finally, I go to dinner and she's sitting there with her daughter and I make eye contact with her daughter and the first, the first words that pop into my head, oh my God, I love her. Referring to the mom, referring to the gm. Oh, yes. The first time I saw Jess, I was like, oh my God, I love her. Oh, and we work really, really well together. Yeah. I was like, she's awesome.

[Granja Michael]

Oh, good. That was probably a big relief. You, I imagine you had a lot of anxiety going into that dinner or meeting the.

[Nick Huber]

I did. I did. I had a lot of anxiety through the whole, the whole thing. And I, I think my deal team kept me sane. I had.

[Granja Michael]

You had, you had said you had a great deal team. You've mentioned a couple. Plug everybody that you're happy with.

[Nick Huber]

And what if. And what if I'm not happy with them? I'm just kidding.

[Granja Michael]

Actually, let's not do that.

[Nick Huber]

Don't say anything. Well, I mean absent. I would love to send a plug in no particular order just because I was thinking about the contract. I worked with Joe Spina and Taylor Gorman at Colin and Dyckman and attorneys. I. Their attorneys. They are amazing. I brag about them all the time. I told Taylor that on the next deal I do, I'm going to delegate her as my business advisor as well and just ask her to come to me with a finished contract like go girl, you got this. And fantastic. I worked with, with Apple Tree for my qov. They weren't my first qov, but they were my favorite qov. I, I really enjoyed that I worked with Newco Risk who knew that insurance would be so much fun.

[Granja Michael]

That's Josh Richmond.

[Nick Huber]

That is Josh Richmond.

[Granja Michael]

And Apple Tree is Patrick Dichter. A.

[Nick Huber]

How did you.

[Will Smith]

Hey.

[Granja Michael]

Two time guest.

[Nick Huber]

Yes, absolutely. And. And of course the incredible Aspen HR Mark Sinatra.

[Granja Michael]

Mark Sinatra.

[Nick Huber]

Gotta toss them in there. They're great. I daily, daily bother someone in that organization. Hi, I screwed something up. Can you please help me?

[Granja Michael]

And so what is because. So full disclosure, of course. Mark and Aspen hr, our sponsors. They're what an HR outsourced or PEO or outsourced HR firm does is the probably the least clear of of all.

[Will Smith]

Of the various service providers and vendors in this space.

[Granja Michael]

What exactly? When you say you call them every day, what are they doing? What are you. What kind of questions are you calling with? Just anything related to people in the organization sort of thing.

[Nick Huber]

I. It started with just complete deer in the headlights for everything. Okay, here we have to set everybody up with their insurance plan. And these are the insurance plans that we're going to offer them. Okay, cool. What do I need to know about these? Oh, someone has a question. Okay, so they set up back end for you, all of your insurance plans based on whatever handbook instructions you have. For example, here we have a very large employer contribution to those health plans. They take care of all of that. They take care of payroll. They gave me software for punching in and out. They directed me to a 401k provider. They have held my hand in everything HR. And almost every day I'm like, I can't figure this out. Can you please help me? What is going on? And somebody missed their punch. Somebody can't click in for vacation. Why is this not working? Somebody needs their. Their health card and they're on it. So they are my whole HR department. And I just have to click a few things and boom, they take money out of my account once every two weeks and send it where it needs to go.

[Granja Michael]

Great. That was really helpful, Granja. Thank you. And so they have some sort of. They're also the provider of a. Some sort of SaaS tool or cloud tool.

[Nick Huber]

I don't know if they provide it or if they're affiliated with it. They use isolved. They use. I solved.

[Granja Michael]

I see. Okay.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah. The HR software that I log into on a daily basis.

[Granja Michael]

Gotcha.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah. And of course, First Internet bank, who most of the listeners have heard of.

[Granja Michael]

Who's that? Who's the name?

[Nick Huber]

First Internet bank is the silliest name for a bank, I think, in the whole wide world. First Internet, like, no, the Internet was first. But Jared Johnson is amazing and has been super supportive and directed me and been like, we're going to get this done for you. And his whole team at the bank are. Are absolutely amazing. Amazing.

[Granja Michael]

Great.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

Jared, for those who don't recognize the Name May. May. Recognize the face. He wears a cowboy hat. So if you've seen. If you've seen a guy in a cowboy hat, an SBA lender, that would be Jared.

[Nick Huber]

Jared. Great.

[Granja Michael]

Gr. Speaking of people problems, you've had a few.

[Nick Huber]

I have.

[Granja Michael]

What. What have they been and how you navigate them?

[Nick Huber]

Well, these are the classics. And I will say thank you to you, Will, for all of your wonderful interviews covering these exact points and how to manage them. I had.

[Granja Michael]

You're welcome.

[Nick Huber]

Wonderful. Yes. My. You're my secret guru. I had a key employee come to me two days after the acquisition and ask for a significant raise. I had to say yes, let me think about how much and not now. Which was something I learned listening to everybody who came before me don't hand out raises. Then a couple of weeks later, we had another key employee decide he wanted to quit. He wanted to start his own business. We wish him absolutely all the best. Boom. Key employee out the door, two weeks in. Honestly, trying not to cry in my office. There's too many windows. Like, there's a few things I'm not supposed to do, and losing key employees is one of them. I did that. I also didn't cry. Pretty proud of that.

[Granja Michael]

Good. Do you blame yourself for losing this person? It sounds like they were just using the opportunity of a turnover to pursue something they had had cooking for a while or had been contemplating for a while.

[Nick Huber]

When. When I spoke to. To Jess rgm, she. She let me know that she felt this was coming for quite a while. He had started his own business and was doing it on weekends and was now ready to go full time into it and entrepreneur to entrepreneur. I hope he crushes it. I hope he doesn't really, really like a really great job. And I know he will. He's a wonderful human.

[Granja Michael]

Nice, very gracious.

[Nick Huber]

Later, we had, hey, he's a person. He's great. We had another employee was served a letter informing him that he was. His right to work in the United States had been revoked and he needed to come months down the line to another meeting and boom, another employee out of here. And an hour before you and I had our pre call two days ago, I let our control controller go. So when you asked me how many. What was our head count? It was 20 when I bought it and now 70.

[Granja Michael]

Letting the controller go. Now, that one seems like it was probably the most difficult of all of these. I mean, well, I guess it depends on the biggest. The. The size of the hole that's left is really. Is how you gauge that. But you had to fire somebody. Yeah, that's always extremely unpleasant. Had you ever fired somebody before?

[Nick Huber]

Yes.

[Granja Michael]

And. Okay, how do you want. Is there anything to say about this for the audience or. Other than it sucks? Anything more than that, really?

[Nick Huber]

Firing people in general sucks. It sucks to get fired. It sucks a little less to fire people. This was the most amicable termination, I think, in the history of job exits. I walked into his office, sat down in a chair in front of him, said, I have some bad news. I've made the decision to terminate your employment here. And he looked at me almost with a smile like, oh, I knew, I knew we were. We're not a good fit. It's not personal. I understand. I could tell, I could tell that we didn't have the same working style and that it wasn't, it just wasn't going to be a good fit. He's like, it's fine, let me just finish doing what I'm doing and I'll head out. And he did just that, I think.

[Granja Michael]

How long had he been at the company?

[Nick Huber]

This was another one that goes back to a recurring ETA theme. He had been with the company only a few months because when the seller announced to her previous controller that she was going to sell the company, he left and this was his replacement. And I do, you know, obviously, as the buyers, we, we want to meet people, we want to know who, what we're getting, what are we buying. We want to look under the hood. And then there's that the, the other side of it. One of her very long term close employees, upon hearing of the sale, decided to leave. And so it's a real concern. It really does happen. He had been here only a few months to replace the previous controller and I think, I think he's going to find a great fit somewhere else. Lovely human being.

[Granja Michael]

Well. But no, it's a good call out, Granya, that the previous controller left when he heard about the sale of the business. This is why, this is why as much as buyers, we want to meet with the team before the transaction and to de risk as much as we can vis a vis the employees. We are sensitive to the risks that the seller is putting themselves in by. By allowing that. Which is why they rarely do.

[Nick Huber]

Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

You had said that this business was doing 750 in SDE. The now your SBA loan is going to take half ish of that. That leaves 375. How much are you paying yourself? Will you share that?

[Nick Huber]

Wow. Will, you're just asking me all the questions. We're talking about spreadsheets and numbers. I pay myself 125.

[Granja Michael]

And how did you arrive at that number?

[Nick Huber]

I did a little bit of math on how much my lifestyle was costing me and how much the salaries around me are, and came up with a number that was going to keep me happily living the lifestyle that I have, which is not terribly extravagant, and making just about what the GM makes.

[Granja Michael]

And why did you anchor your salary to everybody else's or to the GMs, since you are the one who's put her neck out?

[Nick Huber]

After all, I am also the weakest player on the bench right now. I have not got the industry expertise that everybody else does, and I'm making myself earn it.

[Granja Michael]

Interesting. And, and is that because for like an internal reason or does everybody know what you make? No, they don't know what you make.

[Nick Huber]

They don't know what I make, so.

[Granja Michael]

And I. Obviously, they don't know what you make.

[Nick Huber]

But I guess if they listen to this.

[Granja Michael]

Thank you. Acquiring minds. No, but I get.

[Nick Huber]

Sneak into the accounting office, like, if you want to know.

[Granja Michael]

I, I get. I. I guess the reason I asked that is just because, because you were. It sounded like you wanted to be. Not too. Paying yourself too much more than everybody else for perception reasons, but if they don't know what you're earning, then that, that in fact is not the motivation. So it's really more of an internal kind of, you want to earn it?

[Nick Huber]

I want to earn.

[Granja Michael]

You want to earn a high salary?

[Nick Huber]

Yes, I want to earn a high salary and use that to celebrate wins when they come.

[Granja Michael]

Nice. Well, it also has the benefit of giving you that much more working capital. So back to the napkin math. 750 minus, call it half of that to the SBA. That leaves 375 minus your 125 leaves about a quarter million dollars. Very. This is very approximate to reinvest in the business or pay yourself a dividend, but am I doing the math right? And how do you think about how you're investing, how you're, what you're going to do with that money? Are you, are you pouring it all.

[Will Smith]

Back into the business?

[Granja Michael]

Are there big reinvestment initiatives? Or is it just going to sit there to be, you know, a pile of working capital just in case, or what?

[Nick Huber]

At the moment it's tight. Working capital is tight. It's going to be tight the first year. This is not news. It's not. I'm not special. And at the moment, I'm focusing very much on putting money where it's going to have the most value. I do intend, once we really start growing, to buy more businesses to add on. I'm already psychotically on Biz by sell, looking at our competitors. And yes, if Jared's listening to this, he's going to be like, I told you not to do that. I'm doing it anyway.

[Granja Michael]

When did you close? We didn't get the date.

[Nick Huber]

I closed on the day that I put as my projected closing date in my loi, which never happens.

[Granja Michael]

Ever.

[Nick Huber]

First time ever happens? Yes. Actually, our brokers commented, like, if this close, this will be the first time in the history of the firm.

[Granja Michael]

Wow. Really?

[Nick Huber]

Yeah.

[Granja Michael]

And so what was it?

[Nick Huber]

It was April 11th.

[Granja Michael]

So you are now five and a half weeks in.

[Nick Huber]

I'm basically like done this forever now. Like, I've got it all figured out.

[Granja Michael]

And how is, by the way, the fire hose drinking going? How do you feel just in terms of, you know, overwhelm or not the first two weeks?

[Nick Huber]

Overwhelm is not an option. It just is the amount of information that has to be absorbed the first two weeks. Passwords, people, clients, vendors, information system, software. I went home absolutely dead. Now five weeks in, any overwhelm is overwhelmed that I choose. I have a mountain of permits to fill out. I have a mountain of tasks that need to get done. And now without a controller, that got even bigger. But just, just like the deal, just like finding the deal, one step at a time, one little thing at a time. And being overwhelmed never helped anyone accomplish anything.

[Granja Michael]

Granya, anything that we didn't get to that you wanted to make sure to share.

[Nick Huber]

I would like to share that. A big inspiration for starting in this journey and everybody's journey is very, very personal. I want to build an empire for my three daughters to watch and earn and inherit and see that in a man's world, women are perfectly capable of playing the game and sitting at the table.

[Granja Michael]

That's a beautiful why. Really is.

[Nick Huber]

You gotta have a why. Because this. This shit is hard. Yeah, it's hard.

[Granja Michael]

I will put your LinkedIn in the show notes.

[Nick Huber]

Perfect.

[Granja Michael]

Is that fine for people to reach out that way?

[Nick Huber]

Honestly, I have a very unusual name, so I can't hide. Just give them the link. It makes it easier.

[Granja Michael]

Great.

[Nick Huber]

Perfect.

[Granja Michael]

And what's the name of the firm that you bought?

[Nick Huber]

We didn't even say. Associated photo and imaging.

[Granja Michael]

Associated photo and Imaging of Miami, Florida.

[Nick Huber]

That is correct. Here we are.

[Granja Michael]

Ronya, Michael, congratulations for garshawing it.

[Nick Huber]

Thank you.

[Granja Michael]

For the first steps of building an empire for your three girls and thank.

[Nick Huber]

You, Will, for being such an incredible part of my journey. Before we even met, you had provided me with so much excitement, experience and learning and knowledge and encouragement. And I bring it to work every day. Something I learned from your show.

[Granja Michael]

Wow.

[Nick Huber]

You're amazing.

[Granja Michael]

Wow.

[Nick Huber]

You are an inspiration in this community. It is greatly appreciated.

[Granja Michael]

Well, thank you so much. That is extremely generous. And I'm blushing. So we'll. We'll cut it here.

[Nick Huber]

You earned it, Brian.

[Granja Michael]

You, Michael. Thank you very well.

[Will Smith]

Hope you enjoyed that interview. Don't forget to subscribe to the Acquiring Minds newsletter. We send an email for every episode with an introduction to the interview, a link to the video version on YouTube, and soon, key takeaways, numbers and more essentials from the interview. For those of you who don't have time to listen or watch it, subscribe at acquiringminds.co. you'll also find all our webinars there on the website, both those we have coming up and recordings of past webinars. At this point, There are over 30 webinar recordings, a wealth of information on all the technical nitty gritty of buying a business. Acquiringminds Co.